Chapter 44 #2
“Ha ha,” Buck said flatly. “Honey, this comedian is Rory, squad leader. How he managed to swing that over his far more sensible and brilliant mate Edith here, I have no idea. Things have clearly gone downhill since I retired.”
Rory grinned at his old leader. “I blame the new management.”
“Yeah, you sure we can’t persuade you to un-retire, Buck?” called Finley’s dad. “The new Superintendent is a real ball-breaker.”
“I’d have to find your balls first, Joe.” A short, curvy woman jumped down from the driver’s seat of the truck, sauntering over. “Hey, Buck.”
“Blaise,” he replied. “These motherloving shifters giving you any trouble?”
“Eh, I can keep ‘em in line.” Blaise gave him a light, affectionate punch on the shoulder. “I learned from the best, after all. I need to go find my mate, but first, you want to introduce me to yours?”
Buck put his arm around Honey’s waist, drawing her against his side.
“This is Honey. Honey, the Thunder Mountain Hotshots, A-Squad. Otherwise known as the motherloving shifters who dragged me into more crap than you would possibly believe. I held out as long as I could, but they broke me in the end.”
“Aw,” said Finley’s dad, the man Blaise had called Joe. “We love you too, chief.”
“It’s so wonderful to meet you all,” Honey said, smiling round at the squad. “Maybe we can— Conleth?! ”
“Ah, no,” said the man who’d just made her jaw drop open in shock. He gave her a wry smile, totally unlike any she was used to seeing on that face. “Though I understand the confusion. I’m Callum.”
“This is my dad,” Beth said, gazing up at Callum as though he’d hung the moon and stars. “Uncle Conleth’s... well, my uncle. They’re brothers.”
Honey shook the firefighter’s hand, still fighting a sense of unreality. He really was exactly like Conleth, apart from the uniform, and his easy, relaxed stance. “Identical twins?”
Callum’s mouth quirked. “Triplets, actually.”
“Pray you never meet the third one,” Buck muttered to Honey.
“I’m sure Connor will be delighted to hear that you remember him so fondly,” Conleth said, strolling up. “Hello, brother mine. Good God, you smell vile. I love you, but let’s skip the affectionate embraces, shall we?”
“Sorry.” Edith tugged at the neck of her soot-streaked t-shirt. “We had to come straight from the fire to get here in time.”
Conleth wrinkled his nose. “Yes, I could tell that all the way from the office.”
Rory looked Conleth up and down, his mouth crooking in that little smile. “Still wearing the suit, I see.”
“Of course I’m still wearing the suit.” Conleth glared at Joe, as though this was somehow all his fault. “Four years, Joe. Four years .”
The towering firefighter shrugged. “Sorry, bro. My visions don’t come date-stamped.”
“What’s this?” Honey asked, looking between the two men.
“My dad sees the future sometimes,” Finley said, as though this was perfectly normal. “Before the camp was even built, he saw that Conleth would meet his mate here one day.”
“In a suit,” Blaise added, grinning. “Have you seriously been wearing that thing every day, Conleth?”
“Of course not.” Conleth tweaked his immaculate cuffs. “I have twenty-eight suits. I rotate.”
Honey blinked at him. “ That’s why you work at the camp? Because of a vision?”
“Why else would I waste my summers here?” Conleth let out a put-upon sigh. “Though I’m beginning to suspect that someone is playing an extended practical joke on me.”
“Hey, sea dragon’s honor.” Joe put a hand on his heart. “Would I lie to you?”
Conleth flung him a look. “Yes.”
“I am insulted.” Joe waved an imperious hand at the pegasus shifter, adopting a haughty expression. “Seren, this man insults me. Defend my honor.”
“Defend it yourself, o treasure of my heart,” Finley’s mom said, her arm around her son. “I’m off duty.”
Joe looked wounded. “No one respects my royal authority.”
“Is he really the heir to a vast underwater empire?” Honey murmured to Buck.
“Yes, dog help us all,” Buck said. “And speaking of dogs, apparently you slept through all my safety briefings, Blaise. Lost one of your crew already?”
“He’s in the truck.” Blaise hesitated. “He… wasn’t sure you’d want to see him.”
“Hmph.” Buck raised his voice. “Fenrir! Get your furry ass out here.”
A pause.
Then a man ducked out of the back of the crew transport. He was almost as big as Ragvald, with unruly black hair and a heavy beard. His arms and shoulders were so thick with muscle, he probably could have picked up the whole truck and tossed it across the parking lot, if he’d been so inclined.
Yet there was something uncertain in the way he stood; head lowered, not meeting anyone’s eyes. His body language reminded Honey of a worried dog; wanting to approach, but fearing rebuke.
She’d never seen him before, yet she knew instantly who he was. It wasn’t from Buck’s stories, though he’d certainly told her a lot about his past. Even if she hadn’t known a single thing about the Thunder Mountain Hotshots, she still would have recognized this man.
It was a deep, primal sense of kinship, like being reunited with a long-lost sibling. The wolf in her knew him—by scent, by sight, by some inexplicable sixth sense. He was a hellhound, and more. He was the one who had bitten Buck.
Buck didn’t hesitate, striding toward the hellhound. The big man flinched, throat working nervously—and then froze as Buck clasped his arm.
“Thanks, Fenrir,” Buck said quietly. He pulled the hellhound into a quick, hard embrace. “For everything. I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
Fenrir let out a long breath, shoulders sagging in relief. “No debts, Man-Alpha. Pack is pack.”
“Had a feeling you’d say that.” Releasing Fenrir, Buck turned back to Honey. “Fenrir, meet Honey. Honey, Fenrir, not that I expect you need the introduction. If he calls you a bitch, he means it as a compliment.”
“Oh!” Edith’s hands fluttered in an odd, excited movement. “Fenrir, you have to tell us Honey’s pack name!”
Fenrir shook his shaggy head, glancing at Honey shyly. His eyes were a deep, warm brown, with coppery flecks. “Think she has to do that. She knows who she is. Doesn’t need anyone to tell her.”
On impulse, Honey hugged the hellhound. Stretching up on tiptoe, she whispered in his ear, “Thank you for saving him.”
“Was not me who did that.” Fenrir’s big, gentle arms briefly tightened around her. “Should be thanking you. ”
“Indeed,” Estelle’s dad said, smiling. “We’re all profoundly grateful to you, Honey. Though I’m afraid proper expressions of gratitude will have to wait until later. After two weeks away on a job, I’m eager to see my own mate again.”
“Me too.” Blaise tossed a set of car keys to Rory. “You guys get your kids home. I’m going to go to find Zeph.”
“And a shower too, I hope!” Conleth called as she headed for the center of the camp. He hurried after her. “Preferably before you walk into my office!”
Rory chuckled. “Come on, squad. Time for us to stop standing around stinking the place up. You ready to go, kids?”
“We’ll see you again soon, won’t we, Honey?” Estelle asked anxiously. “I mean, before next summer.”
“Well, I have to return to Chicago for a while. I can’t just quit my job with no notice. But…” Honey cast a sidelong glance at Buck, a smile tugging at her mouth. “I think we’ll be back before too long.”
“Don’t go making promises, woman. I still have to find us a halfway decent house.” Buck glared round at the crew. “One that’s not too close to all you motherlovers.”
“Don’t head off to Chicago too fast,” Edith said earnestly. “Not until we’ve thrown a proper welcome-to-the-pack party, at least.”
“And had a chance to hear the full story of how you two got together.” Rory raised an eyebrow at Buck. “I have a feeling it’s quite a tale.”
“Yeah.” Joe winked at Honey. “You’ll have to tell us all the juicy details, Honey.”
“Don’t you dare,” Buck muttered to her.
She laughed, looping her arm through his. “Maybe not all the details.”
With a final flurry of hugs and farewells, the hotshot crew departed with their kids. Buck’s gaze followed the big transport as it bumped away, lingering even when it had disappeared from sight.
“You could un-retire, you know,” she murmured. “You have shifter strength and healing, after all, and control over your animal. You could go back to firefighting, if you wanted.”
“I have better things to do with my time.” He drew her close against his body, hands sliding down over her hips. “Besides, someone already seems to have committed me to working as a counselor again.”
She draped her arms around his neck, leaning into his solid warmth. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t want to come back next summer?”
“Hmph. Like I have any choice, between you and my motherloving animal’s idiotic pack instinct. If I said no, I’d just find myself waking up on that damn roof again.”
“Hmm. Remind me what it was you said about your firefighter crew, again?”
“What, that they’re all feral motherlovers who shouldn’t be allowed on the couch, let alone trusted with chainsaws?”
“No, the other thing.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “I seem to recall it was something along the lines of ‘when you spend that much time walking through fire together, you start to feel more like a family?’”
Buck grunted. “I must have been suffering from a concussion that day. So?”
“So…. how long did you spend working as a hotshot, again?”
“Over twenty years. You know this, woman. Why the sudden interest in my job history?”
“No reason.” She batted her eyelashes innocently. “Remind me. Before you became a wildland firefighter, what were you?”
Buck was started to look slightly hunted. “A Marine.”
“Mmmhmm. So, just to get this straight. You, of your own free will, have spent your entire adult life in dangerous, demanding jobs that most people would actively avoid. Jobs that just happen to require working as part of a small, tight-knit crew.”
Buck opened his mouth, paused, and shut it again.
“Exactly.” She poked him in the chest. “And you think it’s your animal that needs a pack?”
“All right, all right,” he growled. “God damn it, Honey. Are you ever going to let me get away with any comforting self-delusions?”
She grinned, pulling his mouth down to hers. “No.”
He kissed her, long and deep. “Good.”