Chasing Fire

11

Every able hand worked in manufacturing, in the loadmaster’s room, in the loft. They spread through the buildings, making Smitty bags, ponchos, finishing chutes already in for repair, rigging, repacking. Under the hum and clatter of machines, the mutters, Rowan knew everyone’s thoughts ran toward the same destination.

Let the siren stay silent.

Until they repaired and restocked, rerigged, inspected, there was no jump list.

Nothing in the ready room could be touched until the cops cleared it. So they worked with what they had in manufacturing, running against the clock and the moods of nature.

“We could maybe send eight in.” Cards worked opposite Rowan, painstakingly rigging a chute. “We can put eight together right now.”

“I can’t think about it. And we can’t rush it. It’s a damn good thing she didn’t get in here. Bad enough as it is.”

“Do you really think Dolly did that?”

“Who else?”

“That’s just fucked up. She was sort of one of us. I even...”

“A lot of the guys even.”

“Before Vicki,” Cards added. “Before Jim. Anyway, I mean, she worked right here on base, joking and flirting around in the dining hall. Like Marg and Lynn.”

“Dolly’s never been like Marg and Lynn.”

Focusing, Rowan arranged the chute’s lines into two perfect bundles. One tangled cord could be the difference between a good jump and a nightmare. “Who else is pissed off and crazy besides Dolly?”

“Painting that crap on the wall, too,” Cards agreed. “Like she did in your room. I was up till damn near one, and didn’t hear a goddamn thing. Wrecking the place that way, she had to make some noise.”

“She snuck onto base late, after everyone was bunked down.” Rowan shrugged. “It’s just not that hard, especially if you know your way around. It happened, that’s for damn sure.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.” Gull stopped on his way to another table with a repaired chute. “If there’s a fire when we’re not squared away, they’ll send in jumpers from other bases. Nobody’s going to jump until our equipment’s cleared. Who’s she trying to hurt?”

“Crazy doesn’t have to make sense.”

“You’ve got a point. But all that mess down there accomplishes is to cost time and money—and piss everybody off. Not to mention cops knocking at your door, when you slid by that one last time.”

“Vindictive doesn’t have to make sense either.”

Gull started to speak again, but Gibbons hailed Rowan. “Cops want to talk to you, Ro. To all of us,” he added as the machines hummed into silence. “But you’re up.”

“I’m going to finish packing this chute. Five minutes,” she estimated.

“L.B.’s office. Lieutenant Quinniock.”

“Five minutes.”

“Cards, when you’re finished there, you can go on over to the cookhouse. The other one, Detective Rubio’ll talk to you there.”

Cards jerked his head in acknowledgment. “Looks like you got the short straw, Ro. At least I’ll get some breakfast.”

“Gull, Matt, Janis, when the cops give us the go-ahead, you’ll be working with me on cleanup and inventory. You want chow, Marg’s got a buffet set up. Fill your bellies because we’re going to be at it awhile. Fucking mess,” he said in disgust as he walked out.

Cards signed his name, the time and date on the repacked chute.

“I’ll walk down with you,” Gull told Cards, and brushed a hand down Rowan’s back as he walked by her.

She finished the job, choking down everything but the task at hand. When she was done, she labeled the pack. Chute by Swede.

She shelved it, then gladly left the headachy din of manufacturing. But she detoured to the ready room.

She wanted to see it again. Maybe needed to.

Two police officers worked with a pair of civilians—forensics, Rowan concluded. She knew the woman currently taking photos of the painted message. Jamie Potts, Rowan thought. They’d been stuck in Mr. Brody’s insanely boring world history class together their junior year in high school. She recognized one of the cops as well, as she’d dated him awhile about the same time as Mr. Brody.

She started to speak, then just backed out, realizing she didn’t want conversation until she had no choice.

Besides, looking at the torn and trampled, the strewn and defaced, only heated up her already simmering temper.

She shoved her hands into the pockets of the hoodie she’d pulled on over her nightclothes.

Halfway to Operations, Gull cut across her path. He handed her a Coke. “I thought you could use it.”

“Yeah, thanks. I thought you’d headed down for breakfast.”

“I’ll get it. It’s a bump, Ro.”

“What?”

“This.” He gestured behind them, toward the ready room. “It’s a bump, the kind that gives you a nasty jolt, but it doesn’t stop you from getting where you’re going. Whoever did that? They didn’t accomplish a thing but make everybody on this base more determined to get where we’re going.”

“Glass half full?”

She honestly couldn’t say why that grated on her nerves. “Right now my glass is not only mostly empty, it has a jagged, lip-tearing chip in it. I’m not ready to look at it in sunny terms. I might be once her vindictive batshit crazy ass is sitting in a cell.”

“They’ll have to call in the rangers or the feds, I guess. U.S. Forest Service property that got messed with, so it’s probably a felony. I don’t know how it works.”

That stopped her. She hadn’t thought it through. “L.B. called the locals. The feds aren’t going to waste their time with this.”

“I don’t know. But I’d think if somebody wanted to push it, that’s where it would go. Destruction of federal property, that could land her a stiff stint in a cell. What she needs is a big dose of mandatory therapy.”

The man, she concluded, was a piece of work. Good work at the core, and right now that core of good made her want to punch something.

Possibly him.

“You’re telling me this because you’re not sure if I want her to do time in Leavenworth, or wherever.”

“Do you?”

“Damn it. Right now I wouldn’t shed a tear over that, but at the bottom of it, I just want her out of our hair, once and for all.”

“Nobody can argue with that. Whoever did that to the ready room has some serious problems.”

“Look, you’ve had a few weeks’ exposure to Dolly. I’ve had a lifetime, and I’m finished having her problems become mine.”

“Nobody can argue with that, either.” He cupped a hand at the back of her neck, catching her off-guard with the kiss. “Let’s see if we can squeeze in a run later. I could use one.”

“Will you stop trying to settle me down?”

“No, because you probably don’t want to talk to a cop when you’re pissed off enough to bite out his throat if he happens to push the wrong button.”

He took her shoulders, got a good grip. And, she noted, his eyes weren’t so calm, weren’t so patient. “You’re smart. Be smart. The ready room wasn’t a personal attack on you; it was a sucker punch at all of us. Remember that.”

“She’s—”

“She’s nothing. Make her nothing, and focus on what’s important. Give the cop what he needs, go back to work on fixing the damage. After that, take a run with me.”

He kissed her again, quick and hard, then walked away.

“Take a run. I’ll give you a run,” she muttered. She veered off toward L.B.’s office, and realized Gull unsettled her nearly as much as Dolly’s sudden bent for violence.

Lieutenant Quinniock sat at L.B.’s overburdened desk with a mug of coffee and a notebook. Black-framed cheaters perched on the end of his long, bladed nose while eyes of faded-denim blue peered over them. A small scar rode high on his right cheek, a pale fishhook against the ruddiness. And like a scar, a shock of white, like a lightning bolt blurred at the edges, shot through his salt-and-pepper hair between the left temple and the crown.

She’d seen him before, Rowan realized—in a bar or a shop—somewhere. His wasn’t a face easily overlooked.

He wore a dark, subtly pin-striped suit like an executive—pressed and tailored, with a perfectly knotted tie of flashy red.

The suit didn’t go with the face, she thought, and wondered if the contrast was deliberate.

He stood when she came into the room. “Ms. Tripp?”

“Yeah. Rowan Tripp.”

“I appreciate you taking a few minutes. I know it’s a stressful day. Would you mind closing the door?”

The voice, she decided, mild, polite, engaging, fit the suit.

“Have a seat,” he told her. “I have a few questions.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve met your father. I imagine most around these parts have at some time or other. You’re following in big footprints, and I’m told you’re doing a good job of filling them.”

“Thanks.”

“So... you and a Miss Dolly Brakeman had an altercation a few days ago.”

“You could call it that.”

“What would you call it?”

She wanted to rage, to jab a finger in the middle of that flashy tie. Be smart, Gull had said—and damn it, he was right.

So she ordered herself to relax in the chair and speak coolly. “Let’s see, I call it trespassing, vandalism, defacing private property and generally being a crazy bitch. But that’s just me.”

“Apparently not just you, as others I’ve spoken with share that point of view. You discovered Miss Brakeman in your quarters here on base in the act of pouring animal blood on your bed. Is that correct?”

“It is. And that would be after she’d poured it, tossed it, splattered it over the walls, the floor, my clothes and other assorted items. After she wrote on my wall with it. ‘Burn in hell,’ to be precise.”

“Yes, I’ve got the photographs of the damage Mr. Little Bear took before the area was cleaned and repainted.”

“Oh.” That set her back a moment. She hadn’t realized L.B. had documented with photos. Should have figured he would, she thought now. That’s why he was in charge.

“And what happened when you found her in your quarters?”

“What? Oh, I tried to kick her ass, but several of my colleagues stopped me. Which, given the current situation, is even more of a damn shame.”

“You didn’t notify the police.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Partially because I was too pissed off, and partially because she got fired and kicked off the base. That seemed enough, considering.”

“Considering?”

“Considering, at that time, I figured she was just sublimely stupid, that her stupidity was aimed solely at me—and she’s got a baby. Plus, within an hour we caught a fire, so she wasn’t a top priority for me after that.”

“You and your unit had a long, hard couple of days.”

“It’s what we do.”

“What you do is appreciated.” He sipped his coffee as he scanned his notes. “The baby you mentioned is purported to have been fathered by James Brayner, a Missoula smoke jumper who died in an accident last August.”

“That’s right.”

“Miss Brakeman blames you.”

It hurt still; she supposed it always would. “I was his jump partner. She blames the whole unit, and me in particular.”

“Just for my own edification, what does ‘jump partner’ mean?”

“We jump in two-man teams. One after the other once we get the go from the spotter. The first one out, that would’ve been me in this case, checks the location and status of the second man. You might want to make adjustments in direction, trajectory, give the second man a clear stream. If one of you has any problems, the other should be able to spot it. You look out for each other, as much as you can, in the air, on landing.”

“And Brayner’s accident was ruled, after investigation, as his error.”

Her throat burned, making it impossible to keep the emotion out of her voice. “He didn’t steer away. We hit some bad air, but he just rode on it. He pulled the wrong toggle, steered toward instead of away. There was nothing I could do. His chute deployed; I gave him space, but he didn’t come around. He overshot the jump site, kept riding, and went down into the fire.”

“It’s difficult to lose a partner.”

“Yeah. Difficult.”

“At that time Miss Brakeman was employed as a cook on base.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you and she have any problems prior to the accident?”

“She cooked. I ate. That’s pretty much it.”

“I’m under the impression the two of you knew each other for quite some time. That you went to school together.”

“We didn’t run in the same circle. We knew each other. For some reason she was always jealous of me. I know a lot of people. I know Jamie and Barry, down doing their cop thing in the ready room; went to school with them, too. Neither one of them ever pulled a Carrie-at-the-prom on my quarters.”

He watched her over that long, narrow nose. “Were you aware she was pregnant at the time of Brayner’s death?”

“No. As far as I know nobody was aware except, from what she said when she came back, Jim. She took off right after the accident—I don’t know where, and don’t care. As far as I can tell she came back with the baby, got religion and came here looking for work, armed with her mother, her minister and pictures of her chubby-cheeked baby. L.B. hired her.”

To give herself a moment, she took a long drink from her Coke. “I had one conversation with her, figuring we should clear the air, and during which she made it crystal she hated every linear inch of my guts, wished me to hell. She dumped blood all over my room. L.B. fired her. And that brings us up to date.”

She shifted in her chair, tired of sitting, tired of answering questions she suspected he already had the answers to. Focus on what’s important, she remembered. “Look, I know you’ve got ground to cover, but I don’t see why my past history with Dolly applies. She broke into the ready room and damaged equipment. Essential equipment. It’s a lot more than inconvenient and messy. If we’re not ready when we’re called, people can die. Wildlife and the forests they live in are destroyed.”

“Understood. We’ll be talking to Miss Brakeman. At this time, the only possible link between her and the vandalism in your ready room is her confirmed vandalism of your quarters.”

“She said she wanted us all to die. All of us to burn. Just like she wrote on the wall. I guess she couldn’t get her hands on any more pig’s blood, so she used spray paint this time.”

“Without equipment, you can’t jump. If you can’t jump, you’re not in harm’s way.”

“Logical. But then logic isn’t Dolly’s strong suit.”

“If it turns out she’s responsible for this situation, I’d have to agree. Thanks for your time, and your frankness.”

“No problem.” She pushed to her feet, stopped on her way to the door. “I don’t see how there’s any ‘if.’ People around here understand what we do. We’re part of the fabric. Everybody on base is a thread in the fabric, and we do what we do because we want to. We depend on each other. Dolly’s the only odd man out.”

“There are three men who got their asses kicked last month outside Get a Rope who might enjoy fraying those threads.”

She turned fully back into the room. “Do you really think those assholes came back to Missoula, snuck on base, found the ready room and did that crap?”

Quinniock removed his cheaters, folded them neatly on the desk. “It’s another ‘if.’ It’s my job to consider all the ‘ifs.’”

The interview left Rowan more annoyed than satisfied. Though her appetite barely stirred, she hit the buffet, built herself a breakfast sandwich. She ate on the way back to manufacturing.

Nobody complained. Not about the extra work or the tedium of doing it. While she’d been with Quinniock, Janis set up her MP3 with speakers so R&B, country, rock, hip-hop softened the clamor of the machines. She watched Dobie do a little boot-scoot across the floor to Shania Twain with a load of Smitty bags in his arms.

Could be worse, she thought. It could always be worse, so the smart thing to do was to make the best out of the bad. When Gull hauled in chutes for repair, she figured the cops had cleared the ready room.

She left her machine to go to the counter and help him spread the silks.

“How bad is it?” she asked him.

“Probably not as bad as it looked. Everything’s tossed around, but there’s not as much actual damage as we thought. Or I thought, anyway. A lot just needs to be sorted and repacked.”

“Silver lining.” She marked tears and cuts.

“With a rainbow. Maintenance is setting up tables outside. Rumor is Marg is putting a barbecue together, and she’s got a truckload of ribs.”

Rowan marked another tear. Men who hadn’t bothered to shave or shower that morning were singing along with Taylor Swift. It was just a little surreal.

“When the going gets tough,” she decided, “the tough eat ribs. We’ve got nearly all the chutes that were in for rigging and repair done, and nearly all of those packed. Coming along on PG bags, Smitties, ponchos and packs.”

She paused, met his eyes. “If it keeps moving, maybe we’ll fit in that run.”

“Ready when you are.”

“I hate being wrong.”

“Anybody who doesn’t probably has low self-esteem. Low self-esteem can lead to a lot of problems, many of them sexual.”

She knew when she was being ribbed, so nodded solemnly. “I’m lucky I have exceptionally high self-esteem. Anyway, I hate being wrong about thinking this was a shot at me. I’d rather she’d taken a shot at me. I’d rather be pissed off about a personal vendetta than this.”

“It sucks, but there’s something to be said about listening to Southern and Trigger singing a duet of ‘Wanted Dead or Alive.’”

“They weren’t bad. No Bon Jovi, but not bad.”

“If your glass is half empty and has a chip in it, you might as well belly up to the bar and order a fresh one. I’ve gotta get back.”

Bright side, she thought. Silver lining. Maybe it took her longer to find them—or want to—but what the hell. She might as well toss away her crappy glass.

She examined every inch of the chute before turning it over to repair, then started on the next. She was so focused on what she thought of as an assembly line of life and death, she didn’t hear L.B. walk up beside her.

His hand came down on her shoulder like a spotter’s in the door. “Take a break.”

“Some of these need rigging, but most of the ones coming up just need patching.”

“I’ve been getting updates. Let’s get some air.”

“Fine.” The bending, hunching, peering left her stiff and knotted up. She wanted that run, she decided, wanted to burn off the tension and hours of standing.

Then she caught a whiff of the ribs smoking on the grills, and decided she wanted those even more.

“Holy God, that smells good. Marg knows exactly the way to get the mind off problems and on the belly.”

“Wait’ll you see the cornbread. I just got off the phone with the police.”

“Did they arrest her? No,” she said before he could speak. “I can tell by your face. Goddamn it, L.B.”

“She claims she was home all night. Her mother’s backing her up.”

“Big surprise.”

“The thing is, they can’t prove she wasn’t. Maybe when they go through everything, they’ll find some evidence. You know, fingerprints or something.”

He thumbed out a Life Savers to go with the one already in his mouth, and made her realize the stress had him jonesing for a Marlboro.

“But right now,” he continued with cherry-scented breath, “she’s denying it. They talked to the neighbors, too. Nobody can say for sure if she was home or wasn’t. And since none of us saw her, they can’t charge her with anything.”

L.B. puffed out his cheeks. “Quinniock wanted us to know she’s making noises about suing us for slander.”

“Give me a break.”

“Right there with you, Ro. She won’t, but he thought we should know she got up a pretty good head of steam when he questioned her.”

“The best defense is offense.”

“That could be it, sure.” He looked out over the grill and she imagined the dozens of things on his mind, the load of weight on his shoulders.

“Hell, all that’s for cops and lawyers anyway.”

“Yeah. The main thing is if we get called out, we’re okay. We can send out twenty at this point.”

“Twenty?”

“Some of the mechanics pitched in to help out the ready room team. They’ve been working like dogs. We’ve got gear and supplies for twenty squared away. I’ve already requisitioned replacements for what’s damaged or ruined. This isn’t going to slow us down. You’re back on the jump list.”

“I guess it wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

“Well, it looked pretty damn bad.” She watched him, very deliberately, roll off some of that weight. “We’re smoke jumpers, Swede. We can saw a line from here to Canada. We can sure as hell handle this.”

“I want her to pay.”

“I know, and by God, so do I. If they find anything to link her to that ready room, I want them to toss her in a cell. I felt sorry for her,” he said in disgust. “I gave her a second chance, then a third one when I fired her instead of calling the cops. So believe me, nobody wants her to pay more than I do.”

The phone in her pocket jingled.

“Go ahead and take it. I’m going to pass the word on lunch.” He headed back, turned around briefly to walk backward. “Keep clear of the stampede,” he warned.

Laughing, she pulled out her phone. Seeing her father’s ID reminded her of the messages she’d left him.

“Well, it’s about time.”

“Honey, I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. I got in late, and didn’t want to chance waking you up. I’ve been busy all morning.”

“Here, too.” She told him about the ready room, the police, about Dolly.

“For God’s sake, Ro, what’s wrong with that girl? Do you want more help? I can reschedule some things, or at least send over a couple men.”

“I think we’ve got it, but I’ll ask L.B.”

“Quinniock, you said. I know him a little. I met him when I did one of those charity grip and grins last year. He came out with his kids. We gave them a tour.”

“That’s where I saw him. He’s been through here, too. So... how was your meeting last night?”

“It was good. I’m going to work on this project for some of the high-school kids. And Ella—the client—she’s signing up for AFF training.”

“All that? That was some drink.”

“Ha. Well. Ah, you’ll probably meet her. She wants to connect up with the base, too. For this project. I’ve got a group coming in, but you tell L.B. to let me know if he wants extra hands. I can put in some time.”

“I will, but I think we’re good. You could come over after you close up. You can always put in some time with me.”

“I’ve got a dinner meeting with the accountant on the slate tonight. How about we plan on it tomorrow? I’ll come by after work.”

“Works for me. See you tomorrow.”

She clicked off, then started over to join the horde spilling out of manufacturing in a beeline for the tables.

Her mood improved. Progress, a full stomach, an upcoming date with her best guy. After which, she promised herself, she’d turn in early and bank some sleep.

It lifted her a little more to hear Matt laugh at something Libby said, to watch Cards dazzle one of the rookies with some sleight of hand, to listen to Trigger and Janis bitterly debate baseball.

As irritating as it was, Gull had been right. The Dolly crap? Just a bump.

She nudged him as they started back to their respective work areas. “Four o’clock, on the track.”

“I’ll be there.”

Asking for trouble, she thought, and admitted she liked it. So maybe she’d bend her rule just a little—or a whole lot—for him. Maybe think about it awhile, and stretch out the heat, that sizzle of tension. Or just jump in, go full blast, burn it up, burn it out.

They were both grown-ups. They both knew the score. When the fire between them lay down, they could just step away again. No scars, no worries.

If she opted for the jump, that’s just how she’d approach it. Two healthy, single adults who liked each other enjoying some good, tension-snapping sex.

“That’s a big, smug smile you’re wearing,” Janis said as she joined Rowan at the table.

“I’m deciding if I’m going to have sex with Gull sooner or later.”

“That would put a big, smug smile on my face. He’s just sooo purty—” She gave a shoulder wiggle that sent her ponytail, circled with bluebirds, dancing. “In a manly way. But what happened to the rule?”

“I’m thinking I’ll temporarily rescind it. But do I wait, keep getting off, so to speak, on the sexual tension, innuendo, byplay and pursuit? Or do I dive headlong into the hot, steamy, sexy goodness?”

“Both are excellent uses of time. However, I’ve found, occasionally, that building anticipation can also overbuild expectation. Then nobody can fully meet the overbuild.”

“That’s a problem, and another factor to consider. The thing is, I don’t think I’d be considering it, at least not yet, if this hadn’t happened. The Dolly Crapathon. It’s thrown me off, Janis.”

“If you let that tiny-brained, coldhearted, self-pitying skank throw you off, you’re letting her win. If you let her win, you’re going to piss me off. If you piss me off, I’m going to beat the snot out of you.”

Rowan went pfftt. “You know you can’t take me.”

“That has not yet been put to the test. I got my fourth-degree black belt this winter. When I make martial arts noises, thousands flee in terror. Don’t test me.”

“Can you hear that? It’s my knees knocking.”

“They’re wise to fear me. Go, have sex for fun and orgasms, and forget about the Dolly Crapathon.”

“You are wise as well as short.”

“I can also break bricks with my bare hands.” And examined her manicure.

“That’s a handy skill if you ever find yourself walled up in the basement of an abandoned house by a psychopath.”

“I keep it in my pocket for just that eventuality.” She glanced over as Trigger walked between tables on his hands. “A sure sign we’re going stir-crazy. Plenty to do, but we’re doing it grounded.”

“The way we’re going, especially with Super-Sewer Dobie, we’re going to be in better shape on gear and equipment than before The Nightmare on Dolly Street.”

“I hope the cops put the fear of God into her.” Janis lowered her voice. “Matt gave her five thousand.”

“What?”

“For the baby. I heard her crying to Matt after L.B. gave her the boot. How was she going to pay off the hospital bills now, and the pediatrician? He said he could spare five thousand to help her clear up the bills, tide her over until she got work. I guess I get it. His brother’s kid and all. But she’s going to keep tapping him, you know she is.”

“Why work when you can sob-story your dead lover’s brother into passing you cash? If he wants to help out with the baby, he should give money to Dolly’s mother, or pay some of those bills directly.”

“Are you going to tell him that?”

“I just might.” Rowan gathered up the chute to take to repair. “I damn well might.”

She considered offering unsolicited advice and opinion—which everybody hated—or just staying out of it. By the time she took a break for her run, she’d all but exhausted ideas for a third choice. Maybe the PT would help her think of one.

She changed into her running gear, grabbed a bottle of water. Gull joined her as she walked out of the barracks.

“Right on time,” he commented.

“If I’d had to spend another hour indoors, I’d’ve hurt someone. What’ve you got in you today?”

“We’ll have to find out. I’ll tell you this, the ready room looks like Martha Stewart stocked and organized it. And I’m well past done with anything approaching domestic work, but I am looking to get some more rigger training.”

“So you’ve been studying there, too?”

“Knowing how something works isn’t the same as making it work. You’re a certified Master Rigger. You could tutor me.”

“Maybe.” She already knew him for a quick study. “Are you looking to work toward your Senior Rigger certification, or to spend more time with me?”

“I’d call it multitasking.”

They stopped on the side of the track where Rowan shed her warm-up jacket, laid her water bottle on it. “Distance or time?”

“How about a race?”

“Easy for you to say, Fast Feet.”

“I’ll give you a head start. Quarter mile of three.”

“A quarter mile?” She did a little toe-heel to loosen her ankles. “You think you can beat me with that much of a spread?”

“If I don’t, I’ll have plenty of time to enjoy the view.”

“Okay, sport, if you want my ass in your sights, you’ve got it.”

She took the inside lane, cued her stopwatch, then took off.

Damn nice view, Gull thought as he strolled onto the track, plugged in his earbuds. He took a moment to loosen up, shaking out his arms, lifting his knees. When she hit the quarter mile, he ran.

And God, it felt good to move, to breathe, to have music banging in his head. Warm, dry air streamed over him, the sun splashed on the track, and he had Rowan’s curvy body racing ahead of him.

It didn’t get much better.

He built up his pace gradually so by the first mile had cut her lead in half. She’d changed into shorts that clung to her thighs, and a tank that molded her torso. As he closed more distance he let himself enjoy the sexy cut of her calf muscles, the way the sun played on those strong shoulders.

He wanted his hands on both.

Totally in lust with that body, he admitted. Completely fascinated with her mind. The combo left him unable to think of anyone else, and uninterested.

At two miles he advanced to a handful of paces behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder, shook her head and dug for more speed.

Still, at two and a half, he ran with her, shoulder to shoulder. He considered easing off—a sop to her labored breathing—but his competitive spirit kicked in. He hit mile three a dozen strides ahead.

“Jesus, Jesus!” Rowan bent over to catch her wind. “I ought to be pissed off. That was humiliating.”

“I thought about letting you win, but I respect you too much to patronize.”

She wheezed out a laugh. “Gee, thanks.”

“You bet.”

“Still.” She examined the stopwatch she’d clicked at the finish. “That was a personal best for me. Apparently you push me to excel.”

Her face glowed with exertion and sweat; her eyes held his, cool and clear.

He hadn’t run far enough, Gull realized. He hadn’t nearly run off the need. He hooked his fingers in the bodice of the tank, jerked her to him.

“Hold on. I haven’t got my breath back.”

“Exactly.”

He wanted her breathless, he thought as he took her mouth. Hot and breathless and as needy as he. She tasted like a melted lemon drop, tart and warm. The heat from the run, and from that dominating lust, pulsed off both of them while her heart galloped against his.

For the first time she trembled, just a little. He didn’t know whether it came from the run or the kiss. He didn’t care.

From somewhere nearby, someone let out a hoot and whistle of approval. And for the first time, like a lemon drop in the sun, she began to melt.

The siren sounded.

They tore themselves apart, their breath quick and jerky as they looked toward the barracks.

“To be continued,” Gull told her.

12

In the air the next afternoon, with a golf pro harnessed to him, Lucas watched the base scramble below. He and his daughter wouldn’t eat dinner together tonight after all.

The disappointment ran keen, reminding him how many times he’d had to cancel plans with her during his seasons. He wished her safe; he wished her strong.

“This is the best time of my life!” his client shouted.

You’re young yet, Lucas thought. Best times come and go. If you’re lucky enough, they keep coming.

Once they’d landed, once the routine of photographs, replays, thanks wound down, he read the text on his phone.

Sorry about dinner. Caught one. See you later.

“See you later,” he murmured.

Lucas called base to get a summary of the fire.

The one the day before had only required a four-man crew, and they’d been in and out inside ten hours.

This one looked trickier.

Camper fire, off Lee Ridge, load of sixteen jumping it. And his girl was in that load.

Though he could bring the area into his head, he consulted his wall map. Ponderosa and lodgepole pines, he mused, Douglas fir. Might be able to use Lee Creek as a water source or, depending on the situation, one of the pretty little streams.

He studied the map, considered jump sites, and the tricky business of jumping into those thick and quiet forests.

She’d be fine, he assured himself. He’d do some paperwork, then grab some dinner. Then settle in to wait.

He stared at his computer screen for five full minutes before accepting defeat. Too much on his mind, he admitted.

He considered going over to the base, using the gym, maybe scoring a meal from Marg. But it felt too much like what it was. Hovering.

It had been nice to eat in a restaurant the other night, he remembered. Drink a little wine, have some conversation over a hot meal. He’d gotten too used to the grab-and-go when Rowan wasn’t around. Not that either of them excelled at cooking, but they managed to get by.

Alone, he tended to hit the little cafe attached to his gift shop, if he remembered before business closed for the day. Or slap a sandwich together unless he wandered down to base. He could mic a packaged meal, he always stocked plenty at home. But he’d never gotten used to sitting down to one without the company of teammates.

There had been times, he knew, when he’d been jumping that he’d felt intensely lonely. Yet he’d come to know he hadn’t fully understood loneliness until the nights spun out in front of him in an empty house.

He pulled out his phone. If he let himself think about it, he’d never go through with it. So he called Ella before he had a clear idea what to say, or how to say it.

“Hello?”

Her voice sounded so cheerful, so breezy. He nearly panicked.

Iron Man, my ass, he thought.

“Ah, Ella, it’s Lucas.”

“Hello, Lucas.”

“Yeah, hello.”

“How are you?” she asked after ten seconds of silence.

“Good. I’m good. I had a really good time the other night.” Jesus Christ, Lucas.

“So did I. I’ve had a lovely time thinking about it, and you, since.”

“You did?”

“I did. Now that you’ve called, I’m hoping you’re going to ask to do it again.”

He felt the pleasure rise up from his toes and end in a big, stupid grin. This wasn’t so hard. “I’d like to have dinner with you again.”

“I’d like that, too. When?”

“Actually, I—Tonight? I know it’s short notice, but—”

“Let’s call it spontaneous. I like spontaneity.”

“That’s good. That’s great. I could pick you up at seven.”

“You could. Or we can both be spontaneous. Come to dinner, Lucas, I’m in the mood to cook. Do you like pasta?”

“Sure, but I don’t want to put you out.”

“Nothing fancy. It’s supposed to be a pretty evening; we could eat out on the deck. I’ve been working on my garden, and you’d give me a chance to show it off.”

“That sounds nice.” A home-cooked meal, an evening on a deck by a garden—two dinners within three days with a pretty woman? It sounded flat-out amazing.

“Do you need directions?”

“I’ll find you.”

“Then I’ll see you around seven. Bye, Lucas.”

“Bye.”

He had a date, he thought, just a little stunned. An official one.

God, he hoped he didn’t screw it up.

He thought about Rowan while he drove home to change for dinner. She’d be in the thick of it now, in the smoke and heat, taking action, making decisions. Every cell in her body and mind focused on killing the fire and staying alive.

He thought of her when he walked in the house, only minutes from the base. A good-sized place, he reflected. But when Rowan was home, she needed her space, and his parents came home several times a year and needed theirs.

Still, during the long stretches without them, the empty seemed to grow.

He kept it neat. All the years of needing to grab whatever he needed the minute he needed it carried over to his private life. And he kept it simple.

His mother liked to fuss, enjoyed having things around the place, which he packed up whenever she wasn’t in residence and stored away until the next time she was.

Less to dust.

He did the same with the colorful pillows she liked to toss all over the sofa, the chairs. It saved him from shoving them on the floor every time he wanted to stretch out.

In his room a plain brown spread covered his bed, a straight-backed tan chair stood in the corner. Dark wood blinds covered the windows. Even Rowan despaired at the lack of color or style, but he found it easy to keep clean.

Shirts hung tidily in his closet, sectioned off from pants by a set of open shelves he’d built himself for shoes.

Nothing fancy, Ella had said, but what did that mean? Exactly?

When panic tried to tickle his throat, he grabbed his basics. Khaki trousers and a blue shirt. After he’d dressed, he checked in for another fire report.

Nothing to do but wait, he thought, and for a few hours, this time, he wouldn’t wait alone.

Because Ella had mentioned her garden, he stopped on the way and bought flowers. Flowers were never wrong, that much he knew.

He plugged her address into the GPS in his truck as backup. He knew the area, the street.

He wondered what they’d talk about. He wondered if he should’ve bought wine. He hadn’t thought of wine. Would wine and flowers be too much?

It was too late to buy wine anyway, plus how would he know what kind?

He pulled into the drive, parked in front of the garage of a pretty, multilevel house in a bold orange stucco he thought suited her. A lot of windows to take in the mountains, flowers in the yard, with more in an explosion of color and shape spiking and tumbling in big native pots on the stones of the covered front entrance.

Now he wondered if the yellow roses he’d bought were overkill. “Flowers are never wrong,” he mumbled to himself as he stepped out of the truck on legs gone just a little bit weak.

He probably should’ve gotten a burger and fries from the cafe, hunkered down in his office. He didn’t know how to do this. He was too old to be doing this. Women had never made any sense to him, so how could he make sense to a woman?

He felt stupid and clumsy and tongue-tied, but since retreat wasn’t an option, rang the bell.

She answered, her hair swept back and up, her face warm and welcoming.

“You found me. Oh, these are beautiful.” She took the roses, and as a woman would, buried her face in the buds. “Thank you.”

“They reminded me of your voice.”

“My voice?”

“They’re pretty and cheerful.”

“That’s a lovely thing to say. Come in,” she said, and, taking his hand, drew him inside.

Color filled the house, and the things his mother would have approved of. Bright and bold, soft and textured, a mix of patterns played throughout the living area where candles filled a river stone fireplace.

“It’s a great house.”

“I love it a lot.” She scanned the living area with him with an expression of quiet satisfaction. “It’s the first one I’ve ever bought, furnished and decorated on my own. It’s probably too big, but the kids are here a lot, so I like having plenty of room. Let’s go on back so I can put these in water.”

It was big, he noted, and all open so one space sort of spilled casually into the next. He didn’t know much—or anything, really—about decorating, but it felt like it looked. Bright, happy, relaxed.

Then the kitchen made his eyes pop. It flowed into a dining area on one side and a big gathering space—another sofa, chairs, big flat-screen—on the other. But the hub was like a magazine shot with granite counters, a central island, shiny steel appliances, dark wood cabinets, many of them glass-fronted to display glass and dishware. A few complicated small appliances, in that same shiny steel, stood on the counters.

“This is a serious kitchen.”

“That and the view sold me on the place. I wanted it the minute I saw it.” She chose a bottle of red from a glass rack, set it and a corkscrew on the counter. “Why don’t you open this while I get a vase?”

She opened a door, scanned shelves and selected a tall, cobalt vase. He opened the wine while she trimmed the stems under running water in the central island’s sink.

“I’m glad you called. This is a much nicer way to spend the evening than working on my doctorate.”

“You’re working on your doctorate?”

“Nearly there.” She held up one hand, fingers crossed. “I put it off way too long, so I’m making up time. Red-wine glasses,” she told him, “second shelf in the cupboard to the right of the sink. Mmm, I love the way these roses look against the blue. How did work go today?”

“Fine. We had a big group down from Canada, another in from Arizona, along with some students. Crowded day. Yesterday even more. I barely had time to get over to the base and check after they had the trouble.”

“Trouble?” She looked up from her arranging.

“I guess you wouldn’t have heard. Somebody got into the ready room over there yesterday—or sometime during the night—tore the place up.”

“Who’d do such a stupid thing?”

“Well, odds are it was Dolly Brakeman. She’s a local girl who had a... a relationship with the jumper who was killed last summer. She had his baby back in the spring.”

“Oh, God, I know her mother. We’re friends. Irene works at the school. She’s one of our cooks.”

He’d known that, Lucas realized, known Irene worked in the school’s kitchen. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything about Dolly.”

“Irene’s one thing, Dolly’s another—and believe me, I know that very well.” Ella stabbed a trimmed stem into the vase. “That girl’s put Irene through hell. In any case, what happened to the father of Dolly’s baby—that’s tragic for her, but why would she want to vandalize the base?”

“You know Dolly used to be a cook there, and they hired her back on?”

“I knew she’d worked there. I haven’t talked to Irene since I went by to take a baby gift. I knew she and Leo went out to... Bozeman, I think it was—to bring her and the baby home—so I’ve been hanging back a little, giving them all time to settle in. I didn’t realize Dolly had gone back to work at the base.”

“They gave her a chance. You know? She went off after Jim’s accident. Before she did, she went after Rowan.”

“Your daughter? Irene never mentioned... Well, there’s a lot she doesn’t mention about Dolly. Why?”

“Ro was Jim’s partner on that jump. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s how Dolly reacted. And she hadn’t been back at base but a handful of days when Ro walked in on her splashing pig’s blood all over Ro’s room.”

“For God’s sake.”

When she planted fisted hands on her hips, Lucas dubbed it her hardline principal look.

He liked it.

“I haven’t heard anything about this.” Those deep green eyes flashed as she poured wine. “I’ll have to call Irene tomorrow, see if she needs... anything. I know Dolly’s troublesome, to put it mildly, but Irene really believed the baby, getting Dolly to go to church, taking her back in the house, would settle her down. Obviously not.”

Full of sympathy now, and a touch of worry, her eyes met his. “How’s your daughter dealing with it?”

“Ro? She deals. They’ve been working on repairs and manufacturing since, and must’ve gotten enough done to take some calls. A four-man jump yesterday, basically an in-and-out.”

“That’s good. Maybe they’ll have time to catch their breath.”

“Not much chance of that. The siren went off about four-thirty today.”

“Rowan’s out on a fire? Now? I didn’t hear about that, either. I haven’t had the news on all day. Lucas, you must be worried.”

“No more than usual. It’s part of the deal.”

“Now I’m even more glad you called.”

“And got you upset and worried about Irene.”

“I’m glad I know what’s going on with her. I can’t help if I don’t know.” She reached out, laid a hand over his. “Why don’t you take your wine and the bottle out on the deck? I’ll be right out.”

He went out wide glass doors to the deck that offered views of the mountains, the endless sky—and her yard that struck him—again—like something out of a magazine.

A squared-off area covered by the colorful, springy mulch he’d seen in playgrounds held a play area for her grandkids. Swings, ladders, bars, seesaws, even a little playhouse with a pint-sized umbrella table and chairs.

He found it as cheerful as the house—and it told him she’d made a home here not just for herself, but for her family to enjoy.

And still, her flowers stole the show.

He recognized roses—he knew that much—but the rest, to his eyes, created fairyland rivers and pools of color and shape all linked together with narrow stone paths. Little nooks afforded space for benches, an arbor covered with a trailing vine, a small, bubbling copper fountain.

While he watched, a Western meadowlark darted to the wide bowl of a bird feeder to help himself to dinner.

Lucas turned when she came out with a tray.

“Ella, this is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it outside the movies.”

Her dimples winked in cheeks pinked up with pleasure. “My pride and joy, and maybe just a little bit of an obsession. The people who owned the house before were keen gardeners, so I had a wonderful foundation. With some changes, some additions and a whole lot of work, I’ve made it my own.”

She set the tray on a table between two bright blue deck chairs.

“I thought you said no fuss.” He looked at the fancy appetizers arranged on the tray.

“I’ll have to confess my secret vice. I love to fuss.” She picked up her wine. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“My mother didn’t raise a fool.”

She sat, angling toward him while her wind chimes picked up the tune of the summer breeze. The meadowlark sang for his supper.

“I love sitting out here, especially this time of day, or early in the morning.”

“Your grandkids must love playing out here.”

They drank wine, ate her fancy appetizers, talked of her grandchildren, which boosted him to relate anecdotes from Rowan’s childhood.

He wondered why he’d had those moments of panic. Being with her was so comfortable once he got off the starting blocks. And every time she smiled something stirred inside him. After a while it—almost—didn’t seem strange to find himself enjoying a pretty summer evening, drinking soft wine, admiring the view while talking easily with a beautiful woman.

It—almost—blocked out memories of how he’d spent so many other summer evenings. How his daughter was spending hers now.

“You’re thinking of her. Your Ro.”

“I guess it stays in the back of my mind. She’s good, and she’s with a solid unit. They’ll get the job done.”

“What would she be doing now?”

“Oh, it depends.” So many things, he thought, and all of them hard, dangerous, necessary. “She might be on a saw line. They’d plot out a position, factor in how the fire’s reacting, the wind and so on, and take down trees, cut out brush.”

“Because those are fuel.”

“Yeah. They’ve got a couple water sources, so she might be on the hose. I know they dropped mud on her earlier.”

“Why would they drop mud on Rowan?”

His laugh broke out, long, delighted. “Sorry. I meant the fire. Mud’s what we call the retardant the tanker drops. Believe me, no smoke jumper wants to be under that.”

“And you call the fire her because men always refer to dangerous or annoying things they have to deal with as female.”

“Ah...”

“I’m teasing you. More or less. Come inside while I start dinner. You can keep me company and tell me about mud.”

“You don’t want to hear about mud.”

“You’re wrong,” she told him as they gathered up the tray, the glasses, the wine. “I’m interested.”

“It’s thick pink goo, and burns if it hits your skin.”

“Why pink? It’s kind of girlie.”

He grinned as she got out a skillet. “They add ferric oxide to make it red, but it looks like pink rain when it’s coming down. The color marks the drop area.”

She drizzled oil into the skillet from a spouted container, diced up garlic, some plump oval-shaped tomatoes, all the while asking him questions, making comments.

She certainly seemed interested, he thought, but he was having a hard time concentrating. The way she moved, the way her hands looked when she chopped and diced, the way she smiled and smelled, the way his name sounded when it came from her lips.

Her lips.

He didn’t mean to do it. That’s what happened when he acted before he thought. But he was a little in her way when she turned away from the work island, and their bodies bumped and brushed. She tipped her face up, smiled, maybe she started to speak, but then...

A question in her eyes, or an invitation? He didn’t know, didn’t think. Just acted. His hands slid onto her shoulders, and he laid his lips over hers.

So soft. So sweet. Yielding under his even as her hands ran up his back, linked there to hold them together. She rose onto her toes, and the sensation of her body sliding up his simmered heat under the soft.

He wanted to burrow into her as he would a blanket at the end of a cold winter’s night.

He gave up her lips, rested his forehead to hers.

“It’s your smile,” he murmured. “It makes it hard for me to think straight.”

She framed his face, lifted his head until she could look in his eyes. Sweet man, she thought. Sweet, sweet man.

“I think dinner can wait.” She eased away, turned the heat off under the oil, then leaned back to look at him again. “Do you want to go upstairs with me, Lucas?”

“I—”

“We’re not kids. We’ve both got more years behind us than ahead. When we have a chance for something good, we ought to take it. So...” She held out a hand. “Come upstairs with me.”

He took her hand, let out a shaky breath as she led him through the house. “You don’t just feel sorry for me, do you?”

“Why would I?”

“Because I so obviously want... this.”

“Lucas, if you didn’t, I’d feel sorry for me.” Humor sparkled over her face when she tipped it up to his. “I’ve wondered since you called if we’d take each other to bed tonight, then I had to do thirty minutes of yoga to stop being nervous.”

“Nervous? You?”

“I’m not a kid,” she reminded him as she drew him into her bedroom, where the light through the windows glowed soft. “Men your age often look at thirty-somethings, not fifty-somethings. That’s twenty years of gravity against me.”

“What would I want with someone young enough to be my kid?”

When she laughed at that, he grinned. “Hell. It’d just make me feel old. I’m already worried I’ll mess this up. I’m out of practice, Ella.”

“I’m pretty rusty myself. I guess we’ll see if we tune up as we go. You could start by kissing me again. We both seemed to have that part down.”

He reached for her, and this time her arms went around his neck. He felt her rise up to her toes again as their lips met, as they parted for the slow, seductive slide of tongues.

He let himself stop thinking, stop worrying what if. Just act. His hands stroked down her back, over her hips, up her sides, then up again to pull the pins out of her hair.

It tumbled over his hands, slid through his fingers while she tipped back her head so his lips could find the line of her throat.

Nerves floated away on an indescribable mix of comfort and excitement. She shivered when he eased back to unbutton her shirt. As he did when she did the same for him.

She slipped out of her sandals; he toed off his shoes.

“So far...”

“So good,” he finished, and kissed her again.

And, oh, yes, she thought, he definitely had that part down.

She pushed his shirt aside, splayed her hands over his chest. Hard and fit from a lifetime of training, scarred from a lifetime of duty. She laid her lips on it as he drew her shirt off to join his on the floor. When he took her breasts in his hands, she forgot about gravity. How could she worry when he looked at her as though she were beautiful? When he kissed her with such quiet, such total intensity?

She unhooked his belt, thrilled to touch and be touched, to remember all the things a body felt when it desired, and was desired. The pants it had taken her twenty minutes to decide on after he’d called slid to the floor. Then her heart simply soared as he lifted her into his arms.

“Lucas.” Overcome, she dropped her head to his shoulder. “My whole life I’ve wanted someone to do that. To just sweep me up. You’re the first who has.”

He looked into her dazzled eyes, and felt like a king as he carried her to bed.

In the half-light, they touched and tasted. They remembered, and discovered. Rounded curves, hard angles, with all the points of pleasure to be savored.

When he filled her, she breathed his name—the sweetest music. Moving inside her, each long, slow stroke struck his heart, hammer to anvil. She met him, matched him, her fingers digging into his hips to urge him on.

The king became a stallion, rearing over his mate.

When she cried out, fisting around him in climax, his blood beat in triumph. And letting himself go, he rode that triumph over the edge.

“Well, God,” she said after several moments where they both lay in stunned, sated silence. “I have all these applicable clichés, like it is just like riding a bike, or it just gets better with age like wine and cheese. But it’s probably enough to simply say: Wow.”

He drew her over where she obligingly curled at his side, her head on his shoulder. “Wow covers it. Everything about you is wow to me.”

“Lucas.” She turned her face into the side of his throat. “I swear, you make my heart skip. Nobody’s ever said those kind of things to me.”

“Then a lot of men are just stupid.” He twirled her hair around his finger, delighted he could. “I’d write a poem to your hair, if I knew how to write one.”

She laughed and had to blink back tears at the same time. “You are the sweetest, sweetest man.” She pushed up to kiss him. “I’m going to make you the best pasta you’ve ever eaten.”

“You don’t have to go to all that trouble. We could just make sandwiches or something.”

“Pasta,” she said, “with fresh Roma tomatoes and basil out of my garden. You’re going to need the fuel, for later.”

As her eyes twinkled into his, he patted her bare butt. “In that case, we’d better get down there and start cooking.”

13

As her father slept the sleep of the righteously exhausted in Ella’s bed, Rowan headed into her eighth hour of the battle. They’d had the fire cornered, and nearly under control, when a chain of spot fires ignited over the line from a rocket shower of firebrands. In a heartbeat, the crew found itself caught between the main fire and the fresh, spreading spots.

Like hail from hell, embers ripped through the haze, battering helmets, searing exposed skin. With a bellowing roar, a ponderosa torched, whipping flame through clouds of eye-stinging smoke. Catapulted by the wind the fire created, burning coal flew over the disintegrating line, turning near victory into a new, desperate battle.

On the shouted orders, Rowan broke away with half the crew, hauling gear at a run toward the new active blaze.

“Escape route’s back down the ridge,” she called out, knowing they’d be trapped if the shifting flank fed into the head. “If we have to go, drop the gear and run like hell.”

“We’re going to catch her. We’re going to kill her,” Cards yelled back, his face fervent with dragon fever.

They knocked down spots as they went, beating, digging, sawing.

“There’s a stream about fifty yards over,” Gull said, jogging beside her.

“I know it.” But she was surprised he did. “We’ll get the pump in, get the hoses going and build a wet line. We’ll drown the sister.”

“Nearly had her back there.”

“Gibbons and the rest will knock the head down.” She looked at him, his face glowing in the reflection of the fire while hoarse shouts and wild laughter tangled with the animal growl of the fire.

Dragon fever, she knew, could spread like a virus—for good or ill. It pumped in her own blood now, because make or break was coming.

“If they don’t, Fast Feet, grab what gear you can, haul it as far as you can. The way you run, you ought to be able to outrace the dragon.”

“You got it.”

They worked with demonic speed, dumping gear to set up the pump, run the hose, while others cut a quick saw line.

“Let her rip!” Rowan shouted, planting her feet, bracing her body as she gripped the hose. When it filled, punched out its powerful stream, she let out a crazed whoop.

Her arms, already taxed with the effort of hours of hard, physical work, vibrated. But her lips peeled back in a fierce grin. “Drink this!”

She glanced back over at Gull, laughed like a loon. “Just another lazy, hazy summer night. Look.” She jerked her chin. “She’s going down. The head’s dying. That’s a beautiful sight.”

An hour shy of dawn, the wildfire surrendered. Rather than pack out, the weary crew coyote’d by the stream, heads pillowed on packs to catch a couple hours’ sleep before the mop-up. Rowan didn’t object when Gull plopped down beside her, especially when he offered her a swig of his beer.

“Where’d you get this?”

“I have my ways.”

She drank deep, then lay back to watch the stars break through the thinning haze of smoke.

This, she thought, was the best—the timeless moment between night and day—the hush of forest, mountain and sky. No one who hadn’t fought the war could ever feel such intense satisfaction in winning it.

“A good night’s work should always be followed by beer and starlight,” she decided.

“Now who’s the romantic?”

“That’s just because I’m dazed by the smoke, like a honeybee.”

“I dated a beekeeper once.”

“Seriously?”

“Katherine Anne Westfield.” He gave a little sigh of remembrance. “Long-legged brunette with eyes like melted chocolate. I had the hots enough to help her out with the hives for a while. But it didn’t work out.”

“You got stung.”

“Ha. The thing was, she insisted on being called Katherine Anne. Not Katherine, not Kathy or Kate or Kat, not K.A. It had to be the full shot. Got to be too much trouble.”

“You broke up with a woman because her name had too many syllables?”

“You could say. Plus, I have to admit, the bees started to creep me out, too.”

“I like to listen to them. Sleepy sound. Cassiopeia’s out,” she said as the constellation cleared. Then her eyes closed, and she went out.

She woke curled up against him with her head nested on his shoulder. She didn’t snuggle, Rowan thought. She liked her space—and she sure as hell didn’t snuggle while coyote camping with the crew.

It was just embarrassing.

She started to untangle herself, but his arm tucked her in, just a little closer.

“Give it a minute.”

“We’ve got to get started.”

“Yeah, yeah. Where’s my coffee, woman?”

“Very funny.” Actually, it did make her lips twitch. “Back off.”

“You’ll note I’m the one still in his assigned space, and you’re the one who scooted over and wrapped around me. But am I complaining?”

“I guess I got cold.”

He turned his head to kiss the top of hers. “You feel plenty warm to me.”

“You know, Gull, this isn’t some romantic camping trip in the mountains. We’ve got a full day’s mop-up ahead of us.”

“Which I’m happy to put off for another couple minutes while I fantasize we’re about to have wake-up sex on our romantic camping trip in the mountains. After which you’ll make me coffee and fry me up some bacon and eggs, while wearing Daisy Duke shorts and one of those really skinny tank jobs. After that I have to wrestle the bear that lumbers into camp. Naturally, I dispatch him after a brutal battle. And after that you tenderly nurse my wounds, and after that, we have more sex.”

She didn’t snuggle, Rowan thought, and charm cut no ice with her. So why was she snuggling, and why was she charmed? “That’s an active fantasy life you’ve got there.”

“Don’t leave home without it.”

“What kind of bear?”

“It has to be a grizzly or what’s the point?”

“And I suppose I’m wearing stilettos with my Daisy Dukes.”

“Again, what would be the point otherwise?”

“Well, all that sex and cooking and tending your wounds made me hungry.” She pushed away, sat up. “Twenty minutes in a hot, bubbling Jacuzzi, followed by a hot stone massage. That’s my morning fantasy.”

Rowan dug into her pack for an energy bar. Devoured it while she studied him. He’d scrubbed some of the dirt off his face, but there was plenty left, and his hair looked like he’d used it to mop the basement floor.

Then she looked away, to the mountains, the forest, shimmering away under the bright yellow sun. Who needed fantasies, she thought, when you could wake up here?

“Get moving, rook.” She gave him a light slap on the leg. “The morning’s wasting.”

Gull helped break out some of the paracargo so he could get to a breakfast MRE—and more importantly, the coffee. He dropped down next to Dobie.

“How’d it go for you?”

“Son, it was the hardest day of my young life.” Dobie drenched his hash browns and bacon with Tabasco before shoveling them in as if they were about to be banned. “And maybe the best. You think you know,” he added, wagging the bacon, “but you don’t. You can’t know till you do.”

“She gave you a few kisses.”

Dobie reached up to rub the burns on the back of his neck. “Yeah, she got in a couple licks. I thought when she started raining fire we might be cooked. Just for a minute. But we beat her back down. You ought to see Trigger. Piece of wood blew back off a snag he was taking down. Got him right here.” Dobie tapped a finger to the side of his throat. “When he yanked it out, the hole it left looked like he’d been stabbed with a jackknife.”

“I didn’t hear about that.”

“It happened after your team hightailed it toward the spot on the ridge. Blood all over. So he slaps some cotton on it, tapes it up and hits the next snag. It made me think, if I got cooked, I’d be cooked with the best there is.”

“And now we get to sit here and eat breakfast with this view.”

“Can’t knock it with a hammer,” Dobie said, and grabbed another MRE. “What’re you going to do about that woman?”

He didn’t have to ask what woman, and glanced over in Rowan’s direction. “All I can.”

“Better pick up the pace, son.” Dobie shook his ever-present bottle of Tabasco. “Summer don’t last forever.”

Gull thought about that as he worked, sweating through the morning and into the afternoon. He’d approached her along the lines he might have if they’d met outside—where time was abundant, as were opportunities to go to dinner, or the movies, a long drive, a day at the beach. This world and that didn’t have much crossover when you came down to it.

Maybe it was time to approach her as he did the work. Nothing wrong with champagne picnics, but there were times a situation required a less... elegant approach.

By the time they packed out, Gull figured all he wanted in the world was to feel clean again, to enjoy a real mattress under him for eight straight.

Hardly a wonder, he decided as he dropped down in the plane, women, despite their wondrous appeal, hit so low on his priority list most seasons.

He shut off his mind and was asleep before the plane nosed into the sky.

With the rest of the crew, he trudged off, dealt with his gear, hung his chute. He watched Rowan texting as she headed for the barracks. He went in behind her, fully intending to walk straight to his quarters, peel off his fire shirt and pants, get his feet out of the damn boots that currently weighed like lead. Everything in him pulsed with fatigue, tension and an irritation that stemmed from both.

If he was hungry, it wasn’t for a woman, or for Rowan Tripp in particular. If he was tired, it was because if he wasn’t knocked-out exhausted, he spent too much time thinking about her in the middle of the night. So he’d stop. He’d just stop thinking about her.

When she turned into her room, he went in right behind her.

“What do—”

He shut the door—and her mouth—by pushing her back against it. The kiss burned with temper, smoldered with the frustration he’d managed to ignore for the past weeks. Now he let them both go. The hell with it.

He jerked back an inch, his gaze snapping to hers. “I’m tired. I’m pissed off. I don’t know exactly why, but I don’t give a damn.”

“Then why don’t you—”

“Shut up. I have something to say.” He crushed his mouth to hers again, cuffing her wrists in his hands. “This has gotten stupid. I’m stupid, or maybe you’re stupid. I don’t care.”

“What the hell do you care about?” she demanded.

“Apparently you. Maybe it’s because you’re goddamn beautiful, and built, and manage to be smart and fearless at the same time. Maybe it’s just because I’m horny. That could be it. But something’s clicked here; we both know it.”

Since she hadn’t told him to go to hell, or kneed him in the groin—yet—he calculated he had a short window to make his case.

“So it’s time to stop playing around, Rowan. It’s time to toss that asinine rule of yours out the window. Whatever we’ve got going here, we need to hit it head-on. If it’s just a flash, fine, we’ll take it down and move on. No harm, no foul. But I’m damned if I’m going to keep slapping away at the spot fires. You’re in or you’re out. Now how do you want to play it?”

She hadn’t expected temper and force from him, which, considering she’d seen him take on three men with a ferocity she’d admired, made that her mistake. She hadn’t expected anything could stir up her juices after a thirty-six-hour jump, but here he was, looking at her as if he couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss her or strangle her, and those juices were not only stirring, but pumping strong.

“How do I want to play it?”

“That’s right.”

“Let’s drown it.” She fisted her hands in his hair, yanked his mouth back to hers. Then she reversed their positions, shoved him back against the door. “In the shower, rookie.” She made quick work unbuttoning his shirt.

“Funny, that was first on my list before I got pissed off.” He pulled her shirt off as he backed her toward the bathroom. “Then all I could think about was getting my hands on you.” He unhooked her pants.

“Boots,” she managed as they groped each other. She dropped down on the toilet, fingers flying on laces. He dropped to the floor to do the same.

“This shouldn’t be sexy. Maybe I am just horny.”

“Just hurry up!” Laughing, she yanked off her pants, then stood to peel off the tank, the bra beneath.

“Sing hallelujah,” Gull murmured.

“Get naked!” she ordered, then, wiggling out of her panties, flicked on the water in the shower.

Crazy, she thought. A crazy thing to do, but she felt crazy. Another type of dragon fever, she decided, and turned to pull him in with her under the spray.

“We’re very dirty,” she said, linking her arms around his neck, pressing her body to his.

“And about to get dirtier. Let’s turn up the heat.” Reaching behind her, he clicked the hot water up a notch, then gave himself the pleasure of those waiting, willing lips.

Good, so good, she thought, the water on her skin, his hands spreading the wet and hot over her. Why deny what she’d known the first time they’d locked eyes? They’d always been heading here, to this. She ran her hands down his back, over hard planes, tough muscle, instinctively working her fingers over the knots tied tight by hours of brutal effort.

He moaned as she worked her way to his shoulders.

He fixed his teeth at the side of her neck, pressed his own fingers in a line down her spine, then up again until he found points of pain and pleasure at the base of her neck.

“Let me take care of this.” She poured shampoo in her palm, rubbed her hands together lightly as she watched him, then slid her fingers through his hair. While she rubbed, massaged, he filled his hands with her shower gel. The shower filled with the scent of ripe peaches as he glided circles, slow circles, over her breasts, her belly.

Lather foamed and dripped, frothing fragrantly between their bodies as he trailed a hand down, his fingers teasing, just teasing when he cupped her.

Her head fell back, and a low sound of pleasure hummed in her throat. Watching her absorb sensation, he gave her a little more, a little more until her hips, her breath picked up the rhythm.

Not yet, he thought, not yet, and made her groan when he turned her to face the wet wall.

“Gull, Jesus—”

“I need to wash your back. Love your back.” At the small of it, a tattoo of a red dragon breathed gold flame. He ran his lathered hands over her, followed them with his lips. “Your skin’s like milk.”

He indulged himself with the subtle curve of the back of her neck, exposed and vulnerable to his teeth and tongue, and when her arm hooked back to press him closer, he glided his hands around, filled them with her breasts.

So firm, so full.

He spun her around, replaced his hands with his mouth.

Not what she’d expected or prepared for. Never what she expected, she thought as her body quivered. The angry man who’d shoved her against the door should have stormed her. Instead he seduced. She didn’t know if she could bear it.

With steam billowing like smoke, he trailed that mouth down her body, until every muscle trembled, until anticipation and sensation squeezed to a pulsing ache inside her.

Then he used his mouth on her until the hot flood of release swamped her.

When she was weak, in that shivering instant where body and mind surrendered, he plunged inside her.

No seduction now, no slow hands or teasing mouth. He gripped her hips and let himself take, and take, and take. Need raged through him, incited by the harsh sound of wet flesh slapping wet flesh, the pounding beat of the water, the wild thrust of her hips as she gave herself over to what they fueled in each other.

The chains of control shattered; madness broke free.

Through the haze of steam and passion he watched her eyes go blind. Still he drove her, himself, greedy for more until pleasure ripped through him and emptied him out.

She let her head drop on his shoulder until she could get her breath back. Might be a while, she realized, as she was currently panting like an old woman.

“Need a minute.”

She made some sound of agreement to the statement.

“If we try to move now, we’re both going to end up going down and drowning—after we fracture our skulls.”

“We’re lucky we didn’t do that already.”

“Probably. But we’d die clean and satisfied. I’m going to turn off the water. It’s going cold.”

She’d have to take his word for it. Her body still pumped enough heat to melt an ice floe. She managed her first full breath when he brushed his lips over her hair. She simply didn’t know how to react to sweetness—after.

“Got your legs under you?” he asked her.

“Steady as a rock.” Hopefully.

He let her go to reach out and grab towels. “It’s a sacrifice to give you anything to cover up that body with.” Before she could take it, he wrapped it around her, laid a warm, lingering kiss on her lips.

“Problem?” he asked her.

“No. Why?”

He trailed a fingertip between her eyebrows. “You’re frowning.”

“My face is reflecting the mood of my stomach, which is wondering why it’s still empty.” Which was true enough. “I’m starving.” She relaxed again, smiled again. “Between the jump and the shower bonus, I’m out.”

“Right there with you. Let’s go eat.”

She started to move past him to the bedroom, turned. “I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. You’ve got skills.”

“I also work well horizontally.”

Her laugh rolled out as she pulled out a T-shirt and jeans. “I think you’re going to have to prove it.”

“Now or after food?”

She shook her head as she pulled on clothes. “After, definitely. I’m in the mood for... Aren’t you getting dressed?”

“I’m not putting that stinking mess back on. I need to borrow your towel.”

She thought of the state of the clothes they’d both dragged off. “Just hang on a minute. I’ll get you some clothes.”

“Really?”

“I know where your quarters are.” She breezed out, strolled into his room.

He kept it tidy, she thought as she pulled open a drawer. Inside spaces, too. She grabbed what she figured he needed, took another quick look around. When she noticed the photograph, she stepped over for a closer study.

Gull, she noted, with what had to be his aunt and uncle, his cousins, all arm in arm in front of big, bright red doors.

Great-looking group, she thought, and the body language spoke of affection and happy. In front of the arcade, which, she realized by what she could see of it, was a lot bigger than she’d envisioned.

She took the clothes back, pushed them into his hands. “Hurry up and get dressed before I start gnawing on my own hand.”

“Hurry up and get undressed, hurry up and get dressed. Orders, orders.” He sent her an exaggerated smoldering look. “Dominant females make me hot.”

“I’ll see if I can find my whip and chain later.”

“Ah, a brand-new fantasy to explore.”

“Don’t forget to call me ‘Mistress.’ ”

“If you promise to be gentle. By the way, I like the tat.”

“Good-luck charm,” she told him. “If I wear the dragon, the dragon doesn’t wear me. How about yours?” She walked around to tap the letters scrolled over his left shoulder blade. “Teine,” she said.

“It’s pronounced ‘teen,’ not ‘The-ine.’ Old Irish for fire. I guess if I wear the fire, it doesn’t wear me.”

“It just gets to try us both on from time to time. How’d you get that one?” she asked, gesturing to the scar along his left ribs.

“Bar fight in New Orleans.”

“No, seriously.”

“Well, it was, technically, outside the bar. I went down for Mardi Gras one year. Have you ever been?”

“No.”

“Not to be missed.” His hair, still damp from the shower, curled at the collar of the shirt he pulled on. “I was in college, went down with some friends. After the revelry, we hit a bar. This asshole went after this girl. Sort of like the asshole who hassled you, but this one was drunker and meaner, and she didn’t have your style.”

“Few do,” she said with a grin.

“No argument. So, when I suggested he cease and desist, he objected. One thing led to another. Apparently he didn’t like the fact I was kicking his ass in front of witnesses, so he pulled a knife.”

The grin changed to openmouthed shock. “Well, sweet baby Jesus, he stabbed you?”

“Not exactly. The knife sort of skimmed along my ribs.” Gull motioned a careless finger over the spot. “He didn’t get much of me, and I had the pleasure of breaking his jaw. The girl was really grateful, so a night well spent.”

He tied his sneakers. “I have a spotted and unruly past.”

“You’re a puzzler.”

“Okay.” He held out a hand. “How about I buy you dinner and a couple of cold beers?”

“I say since meals come with the job, that makes you a cheapskate, but what the hell.”

Later, after Gull proved he did indeed work well horizontally, Rowan gave him a sleepy nudge. “Go home.”

“Nope.” He simply tucked her in against his side.

“Gull, neither of us is what you’d call petite, and this bed isn’t exactly built for two.” Besides, sleeping with a guy was different from sex.

“It worked pretty well so far. We’ll manage. Besides, you saw the jump list. We’re first and second man, first stick. If we get a call, all we have to do is put on the clothes currently strewn all over the floor, and hit it. It’s efficient.”

“So you always sleep with your jump partner for the sake of efficiency.”

“I’m trying it out with you first. Who knows, if it saves enough time, it might become regulation. If we’re clear, do you want to take a run in the morning?”

His hand, trailing lightly up and down her back, felt good—soothing. It was late anyway, she thought, she could make an exception on the sleeping rule this one time. Except she’d already made an exception on the sex, and now...

“Are we going to keep doing this?” she wondered.

“Okay, but you’re going to have to give me about twenty minutes.”

“Not tonight. I think we’ve rung the bell on that.”

“Oh, you mean as a continuing series.” He gave her ass a light, friendly pat. “Definitely.”

“If we continue the series, there’s a rule.”

“Of course there is.”

“If I sleep with a guy, I don’t sleep with other guys, or sleep with that guy if he’s banging anyone else. If either of us decide someone else looks good, that’s fine. Series over. That one’s firm. No exceptions.”

“That’s fair. One question. Why would I want anybody else when I get to take showers with you?”

“Because people tend to want what they don’t have.”

“I like what I’ve got.” He gave her an easy squeeze. “Ergo, I’m happy to abide by your rule on this matter.”

“Ergo.” She chuckled, closed her eyes. “You’re something else, Gulliver.”

Right then, tucked up with Rowan in bed, an owl hooting dourly in the night and the moon shafting through the window, Gull figured he was exactly who, and where, he wanted to be.

It took less time to burn a body than a forest. An uglier business, but quicker. Still, collateral damage couldn’t be avoided, and probably served as an advantage. She didn’t weigh much, considering, so carrying her up the trail, through the lodgepole pines, wasn’t as hard as it might have been.

The shimmer of moonlight helped light the way—like a sign—and the music of night creatures soothed.

The trail forked, steepened, but the climb wasn’t altogether unpleasant in the cool, pine-scented air.

Better not to think of the unpleasant, of the horror. Better to think of moonlight and cool air and night birds.

In the distance, a coyote called out, high and bright. A wild sound, a hungry sound. Burning her would be humane. Better than leaving her for the animals.

They’d probably come far enough.

The task didn’t take much effort or require too many tools. Just hacking away some dried brush and twigs, soaking them, her clothes. Her.

Don’t think.

Soaking it all with gas from the spare can.

Try not to look at her face, try not to think of what she’d said and done. What had happened. Stick to what had to be done now.

Light the fire. Feel the heat. See the color and shape. Hear the crackle and snap. Then the whoosh of air and flame as that fire began to breathe.

A thing of beauty. Dazzling, dangerous, destructive.

So beautiful and fierce, and personal, when started with your own hands. Never realized, never knew.

It would purge. Erase her. Send her to hell. She belonged there. The animals wouldn’t get her, tear at her as the dogs had torn at Jezebel. But she’d earned hell.

No more harm, no more threat. No more. In the fire, she would cease to be.

Watching it take her brought a horrible thrill, a bright tingle of unexpected excitement. Power tasted. No tears, no regrets—not anymore.

That thrill, and the rising voice of the fire, followed down the trail while smoke began to climb toward the shimmering moon.

14

For the second time Rowan woke curled up to Gull with her head on his shoulder. This time she wondered how the hell he could sleep with her weight pressing on him.

Then she wondered, since she was shoehorned into the narrow bed with him, why the hell she wasn’t taking advantage of it. She bit his earlobe as her hand trailed down his chest. As she’d expected, she found him already primed.

“I’d’ve put money on it,” she murmured.

“I like your hand on it better.”

“Now this...” She swung a leg over him, taking him in slowly. Slowly until she sheathed him in the warm and the wet. “This is what I call efficient.”

Thinking there was no finer way to greet the morning, he got a firm grip on her hips. “A plus.”

When she bowed back, the sun slanting light and shadow over her body, casting diamonds through her crown of hair, a snippet of Tennyson flitted through his mind.

A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, and most divinely fair.

She was that, in that moment, and in that moment took command of his romantic heart.

His grip gentled to a caress. And she began to move, undulating over him in a slow, fluid rhythm. Sensation spooled through him, unwinding a lovely, lazy delight.

Her eyes closed, her hands stroked up her own body, inciting them both.

Through the bars of light, the building beauty, he reached for her. He thought they could drift like this, leisurely awakening body, blood, heart, forever.

The siren screamed.

“Shit!” Her eyes popped open.

“Give me a fucking break.” He held on to her for one frustrating moment, then they broke apart to scramble for clothes.

“You did this,” she accused him. “You called it last night with that damn efficiency crack.”

“Ten minutes more, it would’ve been worth it.”

Instead, in ten minutes they suited up in the ready room.

“Spotted smoke at first light.” L.B. gave the outline. “Lolo National Forest, between Grave Creek and Lolo Pass. It’s fully active on the south slope above Lolo Creek. Conditions dry. Rowan, I want you in as fire boss; Gibbons, you’re on the line.”

The ground thundered as the tanker began to roll with the first load of mud.

The minute she boarded the jump ship, Rowan pulled out the egg sandwich and Coke she’d stuck in pockets. She ate and drank while she coordinated with the pilot, the spotter.

“There she is.” She pressed her face to the window. “And, damn, she’s frisky this morning.”

A hundred acres, maybe a hundred and twenty, she estimated, already fully active in some of the most primitive and pristine areas of Lolo. Lewis and Clark had traveled there, and now the fire wanted it for breakfast.

Here we come, she thought, and guarded her reserves as wind rushed in through the open door.

She felt fresh and fueled and ready—and couldn’t deny the ride down was beautiful. She checked on Gull, shot him a huge grin. “It’s not sex, but it doesn’t suck,” she shouted.

She heard his laugh, understood exactly what ran through him. It ran through her, free and strong into the sky, the smoke, and down to the soft landing on a sweet little meadow.

Once the unit and the paracargo hit the ground, she strategized with Gibbons. She decided to do a recon up the right flank while the crew headed in to start the line.

She traveled at a trot, gauging the area, the wind, and keeping twenty yards off the flank as the fire burned hot. She heard the head calling in that grumbling, greedy roar as it tossed spot fires into the unburned majesty of forest.

Not going to have it, she thought, using her Pulaski and her bladder pump to smother the spots as she went. It wants to run, wants to feed. She smelled the sharp resin as trees burned, heard their crackling cries, felt the air tremble with the power already unleashed. Smoke spiraled up where spitting embers met dry ground.

She yanked out her radio. “She wants to run, and she’s fast, L.B. She’s fast. We need another load of mud on the head, and another down the right flank. She’s throwing a lot of spots along that line.”

“Copy that. Are you clear?”

“I will be.” She kept moving, away from a spot that ate ground the size of a tennis court. “We need to contain these spots now, L.B. We’re at critical. Gibbons is on the line, southwest, and I’m doubling back.”

“Stay clear. We’ve got another load of jumpers on alert. Say the word and we’ll send them in.”

“Copy that. Let me finish this recon, check in with Gibbons.”

“Tankers on the way. Don’t get slimed, Swede.”

“I’m clear,” she repeated. “And I’m out.”

She ran, charging her way down as she checked in with Gibbons, making for the trail where Lewis and Clark had once traveled. At the roar behind her, she cursed, ran through the falling embers, the missiles of burning pinecones hurled by the blasting wind of a blowup. When the ground shook under her feet, she charged through the heart of the fire.

Safer inside it, she thought while smoke gushed through the lick of orange flames.

In the black she took a moment to pull out her compass and get her bearings, to plot the next moves. Gibbons would have sent the crew up the ridge on attack, she thought, and then—

She nearly ran over it. Instinct and atavistic horror stumbled her back three paces from the charred and blackened remains of what had been human. It lay, the crisp bones of its arms and legs curled in. Contracted by the heat, she knew that, but in that terrible moment it seemed as if the dead or dying had tried to tuck into a ball the fire might overlook.

Her fingers felt numb when she pulled out her radio. “Base.”

“Base here, come back, Swede.”

“I’ve got a body.”

“Say again?”

“I’m maybe ten yards from the Lobo Trail, near the southeast switchback, in the black. There’s a body, L.B.” She blew out a breath. “It’s crisp.”

“Ah, Christ. Copy that. Are you safe there?”

“Yeah. I’m in the black. I’m clear.”

“Hold there. I’ll contact the Forest Service, then get back to you.”

“L.B.” She rubbed her fingers between her eyebrows. “I can’t tell for sure, but the ground under and around the remains, the pattern of the burn... Hell, I think maybe somebody lit him—her—up. And there’s... I don’t know, but the angle of the head. It looks like the neck’s broken.”

“Sweet Jesus. Don’t touch anything. Do you copy, Rowan? Don’t touch anything.”

“Believe me, I won’t. I’ll radio Gibbons, give him a SITREP. Jesus, L.B., I think it’s a woman or a kid. The size...”

“Hang in, Rowan. I’ll come back.”

“Copy that. Out.”

She steeled herself. She’d seen burned bodies before. She’d seen Jim, she thought, when they’d finally recovered his remains. But she’d never stumbled over one, alone, in the middle of an operation.

So she took a breath, then radioed Gibbons.

It took her more than an hour and a half to get back to her crew, after holding her position, and guiding two rangers in. She welcomed the heat, the smoke, the battle after her vigil with the dead.

As she’d expected, Gibbons had the crew up the ridge, and the line held.

“Holy shit, Ro.” Gibbons swiped a forearm over his blackened face. “You okay?”

The time, the vigil, the hard reality of giving a statement hadn’t completely settled the raw sickness in her belly. “I’m a lot better than whoever’s back there. The rangers are down there now, and a Special Agent Somebody’s coming in. And an arson guy.”

“Arson.”

“It might be this fire was deliberately set, to cover up murder.” Because it felt as if it squeezed her skull, she shifted her helmet—but it did nothing to relieve the steady throbbing.

“They don’t know yet,” she told him as he cursed. “Maybe it was some dumb kid messing around, but it looked to me like that could’ve been the point of origin. Putting the fire down’s first priority. The feds’ll handle the other. Where do you want me?”

“You know you can pack out, Ro. Nobody’ll blame you.”

“Let’s finish this.”

She worked the saw line, while another part of the crew reinforced the scratch lines riding up toward the head. A fresher crew of jumpers attacked the other flank, down toward the tail.

Countless times during the hours on the line, she pulled off to radio the other crew for progress, updated base, consulted with Gibbons.

A few more hours to finish her off and mop up, she thought, and the crew would sleep in beds tonight.

“What’s up?” Gull stopped by her side. “There are rumors up and down the line something is, and you’re the source.”

She started to brush him off, but he looked her dead in the eye.

“You can tell me now or tell me later. You might as well get it done.”

She’d shared her body with him, she reminded herself, and her bed. “We’ve got her caged. If Gibbons can spare you, you can come with me to scout out smokes.”

Cleared, they moved away from the line. Rowan beat out a spot the size of a basketball, moved on.

And told him.

“You think the person was murdered, and whoever did it started the fire to try to cover it up?”

“I can’t know.” But her gut, roiling still, told her differently.

“Smarter to bury it.” His matter-of-fact tone slowed the churning. “A fire like this brings attention. Obviously.”

“I’ve never done it, but it seems to me killing somebody might impair logic. Or maybe the fire added to it. Plenty of people get off starting fires.”

“They spotted this one at first light. From the progress it made by the time we jumped, it must’ve started late last night, early this morning. It was burning damn hot, had at least a hundred acres involved when we jumped at, what, about eight?”

Odd, she realized, that talking it through, picking out the practical, calmed the jitters. “Yeah.”

“The campground’s not that far west, but with that burned-out area between where you found the body and the campground, the fire sniffed east. Lucky for the campers.”

The drumming inside her skull backed off, a little. Thinking was doing, she decided. Up until now she’d done too much reacting, not enough doing.

“Maybe they were from the camp,” she speculated. “And came out on the trail, got into a fight. By accident or design, he kills her.”

“Her?”

“The size of the body. I think it was a woman or a kid, and since I don’t want to think it was a kid, I’m going with woman. He’d drag or carry her off the trail. Maybe he thinks about burying her, and went back to get tools. Fire’s quicker and takes less effort. Dry conditions, some brush.”

“If you started it around two, three in the morning,” Gull calculated, “it would get a pretty good blaze up by dawn, and buy you a few hours.”

Yes, she thought. Sure. Survival had to be the first priority.

“Pack it up, and you’re way gone by dawn.” She nodded, steadied by working it as a problem to be solved. “It’ll take time to identify her, so that buys you more yet. And the fact is, if I hadn’t taken that route back to the line, maybe it’s hours more, even days, before she’s found. I wasn’t going that route, but the blowup sent me in and over.”

They continued to find and kill spots as they talked. Then she stopped. “I didn’t think I wanted to think about it. I found her, I called it in, now it’s for the USFS to deal with. But it’s been gnawing at me ever since. It... it shook me,” she confessed.

“It would shake anybody, Rowan.”

“Have you ever seen somebody after they’ve been—”

“Yeah. It sticks with you.” And he knew talking about it, thinking about the hows and whys, helped.

“Summers are usually about this.” She drowned a bucket-sized spot before it had a chance to grow. “Putting out fires, mopping them up, training and prepping to jump the next. But this summer? We’ve got crazy Dolly, my father going on a date, dead people.”

“Your father dating ranks with vandalism and possible homicide and arson?”

“It’s just different. Unusual. Like me sleeping with a rookie—which I haven’t done, by the way, since I was one.”

“Points for me.”

She shifted direction, angled south. Points for him, maybe, but to her mind change, exceptions, the different screwed up the order of things.

After nearly two hours on spots, they rejoined the crew and shifted to mop-up mode.

She pulled out her radio to take a call from the operations desk.

“We want the first load to demob,” L.B. told her. “Second load and ground crew will complete the mop-up.”

“I hear that.”

“The fed wants to talk to you when you get back.”

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow? I talked to the rangers, gave them all the details.”

“Doesn’t look like it. You can pack out. There’ll be ground transportation for you at the trailhead.”

“Copy that.” What the hell, she thought, at least this way she’d get it all over with in one day.

She’d planned on getting a shower first, but she’d no more than dumped her gear when the fed came looking for her.

“Rowan Tripp?”

“That’s right.”

“Special Agent Kimberly DiCicco. I have some questions.”

“The rangers already have my answers, but since we both work for a bureaucracy, I know how it goes.”

“Mr. Little Bear offered his office so we can speak in private.”

“I’m not stinking up L.B.’s office. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty ripe with smoke and sweat.”

She had to notice, Rowan thought. The agent’s compact body was tucked into a black suit of classic lines with a pristine white shirt. Without a hair out of place, her sleek nape-of-the-neck bun left her refinedboned, coffee-with-a-splash-of-cream face unframed.

DiCicco’s eyebrows arched over tawny eyes as she angled her head. “You’ve put in a long day. I’m aware. I’ll make it as brief as possible.”

“Then let’s walk and talk.” Rowan stripped down to her tank and trousers. “Maybe I’ll air out a little.”

“Heads up.”

She turned, caught the cold bottle of Coke Gull sent her in a smooth underhand pass. “Thanks. Save me some lasagna.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Okay, Agent DiCicco.” At Rowan’s gesture, they walked outside. “You ask, I’ll answer.”

“You could start by telling me how you came upon the body.”

Already covered, Rowan thought, but went through it again. “With the way the fire was running,” she continued, “I had to cut off the recon and make for a safe zone. I headed in, then hiked across the old burnout section and into the black. The area adjacent to where the fire had passed through. I was heading for Lolo Trail. I could take that most of the way back to my crew. And I found her.”

“Her?”

“I don’t know. The remains were on the small side for a grown man.”

“You’d be correct. The victim was female.”

“Oh. Well.” Rowan stopped, blew out a breath. “That’s better than the alternative.”

“Excuse me?”

“It could’ve been a kid. The size again.”

“You contacted your operations desk immediately on the discovery?”

“That’s right.”

“So, if I have this correct.” DiCicco read back Rowan’s movements, the times she’d radioed in her position and the situation through her recon to the report of the body. “That’s a considerable area in a short amount of time.”

“When you catch fire, you’re not out on a stroll or a nature hike. You move, and you move fast. It’s my job to assess the situation on the ground, strategize a plan and approach with Gibbons, the line boss on this one, to recon and to keep Ops apprised of the situation and any additional support we might need.”

“Understood. When you contacted Operations, you stated you believed the victim had been murdered and the fire started to cover up the crime.”

Should she have kept her mouth shut? Rowan wondered. Would this be done if she’d kept her speculations to herself?

Too late now, she reminded herself.

“I said what it looked like. I’ve been jumping fires for five years, and I worked with a hotshot crew for two before that. I’m not an arson expert, but I know when a fire looks suspicious. I’m not a doctor, but I know when a head’s twisted wrong on a neck.”

And now, damn it, damn it, that image carved in her brain again. “I acted on what I observed so the proper authorities could be contacted. Is that a problem?”

“I’m gathering facts, Ms. Tripp.” DiCicco’s tone made a mild counterpoint to Rowan’s snap. “The medical examiner’s preliminary findings indicate the victim’s neck had been broken.”

“She was murdered.” Better or worse? Rowan wondered.

“The ME will determine if this is homicide, accidental, whether the neck injury was cause of death or postmortem.”

“Have you checked with the campground? Lolo Campground isn’t far from where I found her, not for a day hike.”

“We’re working on identifying her. You had some trouble here recently?”

“What?” Rowan pulled her mind back from speculating on just how much force it took to break a neck. “The vandalism?”

“That’s plural, isn’t it?” DiCicco kept unreadable eyes on Rowan’s face. “According to my information, one Dolly Brakeman, employed at that time as a cook here, vandalized your room. You caught her in the act and had to be physically restrained from assaulting her.”

Temper burned through fatigue like a brushfire. “You walk into your quarters, DiCicco, and find somebody pouring animal blood on your bed. See how you react. If you want to call my reaction ‘attempted assault,’ you go right ahead.”

“Ms. Brakeman was also questioned by the police regarding the vandalism of the ready room here on base.”

“That’s right. That little number cost us hours of time and could have cost more if we’d gotten a call out before we’d repaired the damage.”

“You and Ms. Brakeman have a history.”

“Since you already know that, I’m not going over the ground again. She’s a pain in the ass, a vindictive one, and an unstable one. If the locals turned over the vandalism here to your agency, good. I hope it scares the shit out of her. Now look, I’m tired, I’m hungry and I want a goddamn shower.”

“Nearly done. When did you last see Dolly Brakeman?”

“Jesus, when she trashed my room.”

“You haven’t seen or spoken with her since?”

“No, I haven’t, and I’d be thrilled if I can keep that record. What the hell does Dolly have to do with me finding a dead woman burned to a crisp in Lolo?”

“We’ll need to wait for confirmation of identification, but as Dolly Brakeman failed to return home last night—a home she shares with her parents and her infant daughter—as the victim and Ms. Brakeman are the same height, and thus far the investigation has turned up no other female missing, it’s a strong possibility the victim is Dolly Brakeman.”

“That’s...” Rowan felt her belly drop, the blood just drain out of her head while those unreadable eyes never shifted off her face. “A lot of women are Dolly’s height.”

“But none of them has been reported missing in this area.”

“She’s probably hooked up with some guy. Take a look at that part of her history.” But she had a baby now, Rowan thought. Jim’s baby. “Dolly wouldn’t be on the trail, in the forest. She likes town.”

“Can you tell me your whereabouts last night, from eight P.M. until you reported to the ready room this morning?”

“I’m a suspect?” Anger and shock warred—a short, bloody battle before anger won. “You actually think I snapped her neck, hauled her into the forest, then started a fire? A fire men and women I work with, live with, eat with every day would have to jump. Would have to risk their lives, their lives, to beat down?”

“You tried to assault her. Threatened to kill her.”

“Fucking A right I did. I was pissed. Who wouldn’t be pissed? I wish I’d gotten a punch in, and that’s a hell of a long way from killing somebody.”

“It’d be easier if you could tell me where you were last night between—”

“I’ll make it real easy,” Rowan interrupted. “I had dinner in the cookhouse about seven, maybe seven-thirty. About thirty of the crew were in there at the same time, and the kitchen staff. We hung out, bullshitting until close to ten. Then I went to my quarters, where I stayed until the siren went off this morning. Squeezed into bed with the hottie you saw toss me this Coke.”

“And his name?” DiCicco asked without a blink of reaction.

“Gulliver Curry. He’s probably in the cookhouse by now. Go ask him. I’m getting a goddamn shower.”

She stormed off, outrage burning a storm in her belly, slammed into the barracks.

Trigger had the misfortune of getting in her way. “Hey, Ro, are you—”

“Shut up and move.” She shoved him aside, then slammed into her quarters. She kicked the door, then the dresser, causing the little dish she tossed loose change into to jump off and crash onto the floor.

Her boots stamped the shards.

“Stiff-necked, tight-assed bitch! And it wasn’t Dolly!” Fuming, she tore at the laces of her jump boots, then hurled them.

Dolly was the type who just kept rolling, she thought as she yanked off her clothes, balled them up and threw them. She made people feel sorry for her, or—if they were men—sweetened the pot with sex or the promise of it. She was the type who did whatever the hell she wanted, then blamed somebody else if it didn’t work out.

Her mother’s type, Rowan decided, and maybe that was just one more reason she’d never liked Dolly Brakeman. Selfish, scheming, whining...

Her mother’s type, she thought again. Her mother had died bleeding on the floor. Murdered.

Not the same, she told herself firmly. Absolutely not the same.

In the shower, she turned the water on full, braced her hands on the wall and let it run over her. Watched it run black, then sooty gray.

She’d had enough of this shit, enough of the sucker punches.

What right did that federal bitch have to accuse her? She was the reason the body was found so quickly, the reason the feds had been called in the first damn place.

By the time she’d all but scrubbed herself raw, the leading edge of temper had dulled into a sick fear.

Her hands shook as she dressed, but she told herself it was hunger. She hadn’t eaten in hours and had burned thousands of calories. So she was shaky. That’s all it was.

When the door opened, she whirled, felt the shaking increase as Gull closed it quietly behind him.

“Did you tell that bitch you spent the night nailing me?”

“I told her we spent the night in here, in a bed small enough if you’d managed to roll over I’d’ve known it.”

“Good. Good. She can stick that up her federal ass.” She pushed him back when he came to her. “I don’t want to be coddled. Appreciate the alibi and all that. It looks like breaking my rule just keeps paying off. Whoopee.”

She pushed at him again, but this time he got his arms around her, hard and tight, and just held on while she struggled against him.

“I said I didn’t want to be coddled. I’ve got a right to blow off some steam after being questioned as a killer, an arsonist, as somebody who’d betray everything that matters to squash some little pissant—”

She broke off, broke down. “Oh, God, oh, God, they think it’s Dolly. They think Dolly’s dead and I killed her.”

“Listen to me.” His hands firm on her shoulders, he eased her back until he could see her eyes. “They don’t know who it is at this point. Maybe it is Dolly.”

“Oh, Jesus, Gull. Oh, God.”

“There’s nothing anybody can do about that if it is. If it is, nobody thinks you had anything to do with it.”

“DiCicco—”

“Was just informed you and I were together all night. There are plenty of people in the barracks who know we came in here together, and we came out together. So, if you’re a suspect, I’m one, too. I don’t think that’s going to play for DiCicco or anyone else. She had a job to do. She did it, and now that part’s over.”

He ran his hands down her arms until he could link them with hers. “You’re beat, you’re shaky. She wouldn’t have gotten to you like this if you’d been in top form.”

“Maybe not, but boy, did she.”

“Screw her.” He kissed Rowan’s forehead, then her lips. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to go get dinner. You can listen to the rest of the unit express their pithy and colorful opinions over the fed asking you for an alibi.”

“Pithy.” That nearly got a smirk out of her. “I guess that would feel good.”

“Nothing like solidarity. Then, we’re going to come back here so I can give you an alibi for tonight.”

Now the smirk formed, quick and cocky. “Maybe I’ll be the one giving you an alibi.”

“Either way works. Let’s go before those hogs suck down all the lasagna.” He gave her ass a light pat as they started out. “And, Ro? Don’t worry. If they arrest you, I’ll make your bail.”

The laugh surprised her. And smoothed out some of the jitters in her belly.

15

After her morning PT, Rowan made a point of going to the cookhouse kitchen. If there was one person who knew something about everything, and most everything about something, it was Marg.

“Lynn’s reloading the buffet now,” Marg told her. “Or are you looking for a handout?”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

With silver hoops dancing at the sides of her do-rag—yellow smiley faces over bright blue today—Marg reached for a pitcher. “You don’t want to have breakfast with your boyfriend?”

Rowan answered Marg’s smirk with an eye roll. “I don’t have boyfriends, I have lovers. And I take them and cast them off at my will.”

“Ha.” Marg poured a glass of juice. “That one won’t cast off so easy. Drink this.”

Obliging, Rowan pursed her lips. “Your carrot base, some cranberry, and...” She sipped again. “It’s not really orange. Tangerine?”

“Blood orange. Gotcha.”

“Sounds disgusting, and yet it’s not. Any word on Dolly?”

Marg shook her head as she whisked eggs. Not a negative gesture, Rowan recognized, but a pitying one.

“They found her car, down one of the service roads in the woods off of Twelve, with a flat tire.”

“Just her car?”

“What I heard is her keys were still in it, but not her purse. Like maybe she had some car trouble, pulled off.”

“Why would she pull off the main highway if she had a flat?”

“I’m just saying what I heard.” After pouring the eggs into an omelet pan, Marg added chunks of ham, cheese, tomatoes, some spinach. “Some of the thinking is maybe she walked on back to the highway, or somebody followed her onto the service road. And they took her.”

“They still don’t know if the remains in the fire... they can’t know that for sure.”

“Then there’s no point in worrying about it.”

Marg tried for brisk, but Rowan heard the hitch in her voice that told her Marg worried plenty.

“I wanted to hurt her, and seriously regretted not getting my fist in her face at least once. Now, knowing somebody might’ve hurt her, or worse? I don’t want to feel guilty about Dolly. I hate feeling guilty about anything, but I hate feeling guilty about Dolly.”

“I’ve never known anybody better at bringing trouble and drama onto herself than Dolly Brakeman. And if L.B. hadn’t fired her, I’d have told him flat he’d have to choose between her and me. I don’t feel guilty about that. I can be sorry if something’s happened to her without feeling guilty I wanted to give her the back of my hand more than once.”

Marg set the omelet and the wheat toast with plum preserves she’d prepared in front of Rowan. “Eat. You’ve shed a few pounds, and it’s too early in the season for that.”

“It’s the first season I’ve needed an alibi for a murder investigation.”

“I wouldn’t mind having an alibi like yours.”

Rowan dug into the omelet. “Do you want him when I’m done with him? Ow.” Rowan laughed when Marg cuffed the side of her head. “And after I offer you such a studly guy.” She smiled, shooting for winsome.

“When do you think you’ll be done with him? In case I’m in the market for a stud.”

“Can’t say. So far he’s playing my tune, but I’ll let you know.”

When Marg set a Coke down by her plate, Rowan leaned into her just a little. “Thanks, Marg. Really.”

In acknowledgment, Marg gave her a hard one-armed hug. “Clean your plate,” she ordered.

After breakfast, she tracked down L.B. in the gym where he’d worked up a sweat with bench presses.

“I’m on the bottom of the jump list,” she said without preamble.

He sat up, wiped his face with his towel. His long braid trailed down his sweaty, sleeveless workout shirt. “That’s right.” He picked up a twenty-pound free weight and started smooth, two-count bicep curls.

“Why?”

“Because that’s where I put you. I’d have taken you off completely for a day or two, but they’ve caught one down in Payette, and Idaho might need some Zulies in there.”

“I’m fit and I’m fine. Move me up. Christ, L.B., you’ve got Stovic ahead of me, and he’s still limping a little.”

“You’ve been on nearly every jump we’ve had this month. You need a breather.”

“I don’t—”

“I say you do,” he interrupted, and switched the weight to his other arm while he studied her face. “It’s my job to decide that.”

“This is about what happened yesterday, and that’s not right. I need the work, I need the pay. I’m not injured, I’m not sick.”

“You need a breather,” he repeated. “Put some time in the loft. We’re still catching up there. I’ll take a look at the list tomorrow.”

“I find remains, which I dutifully report, and I get grounded.”

“You’re still on the list,” he reminded her. “And you know jumping fire’s not all we do here.”

She also knew that when Michael Little Bear used that mild, reasonable tone, she’d have better luck arguing with smoke. She could sulk, she could steam, but she wouldn’t change his mind.

“Maybe I’ll go down and see my father for a bit.”

“That’s a good idea. Let me know if you decide you want to go farther off base.”

“I know the drill,” she grumbled. She started to shove her hands in her pockets, then went stiff when Lieutenant Quinniock walked in. “Cops are here,” she said quietly.

L.B. set down his weight, got to his feet.

“Mr. Little Bear, Ms. Tripp. I’ve got a few follow-up questions.”

“I’ll get out of your way,” Rowan began.

“Actually, I’d like to speak with you, too. Why don’t we step out. You can finish your workout,” he said to L.B., “then we could talk in your office.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

“That works. Miss?” Quinniock, in his polished shoes and stone-gray suit, gestured toward the gym doors.

“Don’t ‘Miss’ me. Make it Tripp,” she said as she shoved open the door ahead of him. “Or Rowan, or Ro, but don’t ‘Miss’ me unless you’re sad I’ve gone away.”

He smiled. “Rowan. Would you mind if we sat outside? This is a busy place.”

“Do you want me to go over my—what would you call it?—altercation with Dolly?”

“Do you have anything to add to what you’ve already told me?”

“No.”

“She got the pig’s blood from a ranch, if you’re interested. From one of the people who goes to her church.”

“Onward, Christian soldiers.” She dropped down on a bench outside the barracks.

“She acquired it the day before she came here to ask for work.” He nodded when Rowan turned to stare at him. “It leads me to conclude she meant to cause you trouble, even before you and she spoke the day she was hired back on.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered what I said or did.”

“Probably not. I understand you spoke with Special Agent DiCicco.”

“She’s a snappy dresser. You too.”

“I like a good suit. It complicated things for you, finding the remains.”

“Complicated because it was during a fire, or because Dolly’s missing?”

“Both. The missing person’s end is MPD’s case, at this time. We’re cooperating with the USFS while they work to identify the body. In that spirit, I’ve shared information with Agent DiCicco.”

“My history, as she called it, with Dolly.”

“That, and the fact Dolly told several people you were to blame for what happened to James Brayner. You, and everyone here. She’s been vocal about her resentment for some time, including the period of time she was away from Missoula.”

It didn’t surprise her, could no longer anger her. “I don’t know how she could work here, be involved with jumpers, and not understand what we do, how we do it, what we deal with.”

She looked at Quinniock then, the dramatic hair, the perfectly knotted tie. “And I’m not sure I understand why you’re telling me this.”

“It’s possible she planned to continue to cause trouble—for you, for the base. It’s possible she came back here for work so she had easier access. And it’s possible she had help. Someone she convinced to help her. Did you see her with anyone in particular after she came back?”

“No.”

“She and Matthew Brayner, the brother.”

Rowan’s back went up. “She blindsided Matt, the Brayner family, with the baby. I know they all took a natural interest in the baby and, being the kind of people they are, would do whatever they could for Dolly. It took guts for Matt to come back here, to work here after what happened to Jim. Any idea you may have that he’d help Dolly destroy my quarters or equipment is wrong and insulting.”

“Were they friendly while his brother was alive?”

“I don’t think Matt gave Dolly two thoughts, but he was, and is, friendly with everyone. And I’m not talking about another jumper behind his back.”

“I’m just trying to get a feel for the dynamics. I’m also told several of the men on base had relationships with Dolly, at least until she became involved with James Brayner.”

“Sex isn’t a relationship, especially blow-off-some-steam sex with a woman who was willing to pop the cork with pretty much anybody. She popped plenty of corks in town, too.”

“Until James Brayner.”

“She zeroed in on him last season, and as far as I know that was a first for her. Look, he was a cute guy, fun, charming. Maybe she fell for him, I don’t know. Dolly and I didn’t share our secrets, hopes and dreams.”

“You’re probably aware by now that we found her car.”

“Yeah, word travels.” She squeezed her eyes shut a moment. “It’s going to be her, when they finish the ID. I know that. You just have to triangulate the town, where you found the car, where I found the remains, and it’s heavy weight on it. I didn’t like her. I didn’t like her a whole bunch of a lot, but she didn’t deserve the way she ended up. Nobody deserves the way she ended up.”

“People are always getting what they don’t deserve. One way or the other. Thanks for the time.”

“When will they know?” she asked when he stood up. “When will they know for sure?”

“Her dentist is local. They’ll verify with her dental records, and should have confirmation later today. It’s not my case, but just out of curiosity, in your opinion, how long would it take to get from the trailhead to where you found the remains, adding in carrying about a hundred and ten pounds, in the dark.”

She got to her feet so they’d be eye to eye. “It depends. It could take an hour. But if you were fit, an experienced hiker, and you knew the area, you could do it in less than half that.”

“Interesting. Thanks again.”

She sat back down when he walked toward Operations, tried to work her mind around the conversation, the information.

And decided, as much as she hated to admit it, maybe L.B. was right. Maybe she did need a breather. So she’d walk down to see her father, touch base with the rest of his crew. The walk might clear her head, and God knew having a little time with her father never hurt.

She went back in for a bottle of water and a ball cap, then crossed paths with Gull as she came back out.

“I saw you with the cop. Do I need to post that bail?”

“Not so far. They found her car, Gull.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“And... there’s other stuff. I have to get my head around it. I’m going to walk down to the school, see my father.”

“Do you want company?”

“I need some solo time.”

He ran his knuckles down her cheek in a casually affectionate gesture that threw her off. “Look me up when you get back.”

“Sure. You’re second load,” she called back as she started the walk. “Idaho might need some Zulies. If you jump, jump good.”

She watched the show as she walked. Planes nosing up; skydivers drifting down. Clouds gathered in the west, hard and white over the mountains. Smaller, she noted, and puffier overhead and north, drifting east on a slow, leisurely sail.

She heard mechanics working in the hangars, the twang of music, the clink of metal, the roll of voices, but didn’t stop as she might have another day. Conversation wasn’t what she was after.

Solo time.

The killer had a car, or truck, she decided. Nobody would’ve carried Dolly from where she’d stopped to where she ended up. Did he kill her when she pulled off 12, dump her body in the trunk of the car, bed of the truck? Or did he give her a ride, maybe park at the trailhead, then do it? Or force her up the trail, then—

Jesus, any way it had happened, she’d ended up dead, and her baby daughter an orphan.

Why had she been heading south on 12, or had she been heading back from farther away? To meet a lover? To meet this theoretical person she’d enlisted to cause trouble? Plenty of motels to choose from. Hard to meet a lover—and Dolly had been famous for using sex as barter—when you lived at home with your parents and your baby.

Why couldn’t she have loved the baby enough to just make a life? To treasure what she had, and put some goddamn effort into being a good mother instead of letting this obsession eat away at her?

All the time she’d spent planning her weird revenge, harboring all that hate, could’ve been spent on living, on nuzzling her baby.

“Oh, mother issues much?” Annoyed with herself, she quickened her pace.

Enough solo time, she decided. Solo time was overrated. She should’ve taken Gull up on his offer to come with her. He’d have distracted her out of this mood, made her laugh, or at least annoyed her so she’d stop feeling sad and angry.

When she moved around the people scattered over the lawn, the picnic tables at her father’s place, she looked up, as they were.

Coming on final, she thought, watching the plane. She crossed to the fence, tucked her hands in her back pockets and decided to enjoy the show. Her smile bloomed as the skydiver jumped—and taking a breather didn’t seem so bad after all. When the second figure leaped out, she settled in, studying their forms on the free fall.

The first, definitely a student, but not bad. Not shabby. Arms out, taking it in. Check out that view! Feel that wind!

And the second... Rowan angled her head, narrowed her eyes. She couldn’t be sure, not yet, but she’d have laid decent money down Iron Man Tripp rocketed down toward the student.

Then came the moment. The chutes deployed, one then two—to applause and cheers—the blue-and-white stripes of the student’s, and the chute she’d designed and rigged for her father’s sixtieth birthday with the boldly lettered IRON MAN in red (his favorite color) over a figure of a smoke jumper.

She loved watching him like this, and always had. Perfect form, she thought, absolute control, riding the air from sky to earth while the sun streamed through those drifting clouds.

She’d been exactly right to come here, she realized, when the world tipped crazily all around her. Here, what she loved held constant. Whatever happened, she could count on him.

She willed the stress of the morning into a corner. She couldn’t dismiss it, but she could shove it back a little and focus on what made her happy.

She’d hang out here with her father for a while, have lunch with him, talk over what was going on. He’d listen, let her spew, and somehow pull her back in, steady her again.

She always thought more clearly, felt less overwhelmed, after a session with her father.

The student handled the drop well, Rowan observed, managed a very decent landing and was up on his—no her, Rowan realized—feet quickly. Then the Iron Man touched down, soft as butter, smooth as silk.

She added her applause to the rest, sent out a high whistle of approval before waving her arms in hopes of snagging her father’s attention.

The student unhooked her harness, pulled off her helmet. Gorgeous red hair seemed to explode in the sunlight. As the woman raced toward her father, Rowan grinned. She understood the exuberance, the charge of excitement, had seen this same scene play out countless times between student and instructor. She continued to grin as the woman leaped into Lucas’s arms, something else she’d seen again and again.

What she hadn’t seen, and what had her grin shifting to a puzzled frown, was her father swinging a student in giddy circles while said student locked her arms around his neck.

And when Lucas “Iron Man” Tripp leaned down and planted a long, very enthusiastic kiss (and the crowd went wild) on the student’s mouth, Rowan’s jaw dropped to the toes of her Nikes.

She would’ve been more shocked if Lucas had pulled out a Luger and shot the redhead between the eyes, but it would’ve been a close call.

The woman had her hands on Lucas’s cheeks, a gesture somehow more intimate than the kiss itself. It spoke of knowledge, familiarity, of privilege.

Who the hell was this bimbo, and when the hell had Iron Man started kissing students? Kissing anyone?

And in public.

The woman turned, her face—which didn’t look bimbo-ish—warm from the kiss, bright with laughter, and executed a deep, exaggerated curtsy for the still cheering crowd. To Rowan’s continued shock, Lucas simply stood there grinning like the village idiot.

Was he on drugs?

Her brain told her to ease back, to find some quiet place to absorb the shock. Her gut told her to hurdle the fence, march right up and demand what the fuck?!

But her fingers had curled around the fence, and she couldn’t seem to uncurl them.

Then her father spotted her. His loopy grin aimed her way as he—Jesus—took the redhead’s hand, gave it a little swing. He waved at Rowan with his free hand before he said something to the face-caressing redhead, who actually had the nerve to smile in Rowan’s direction.

Still holding hands, they strolled toward the fence and Rowan.

“Hi, honey. I didn’t realize you were here.”

“I... I’m low on the jump list, so.”

“I’m glad you came by.” He laid his fingers over the ones she had curled on the fence, effectively linking the three of them. “Ella, this is my daughter, Rowan. Ro, Ella Frazier. She just did her first AFF.”

“It’s great to meet you. Lucas has told me so much about you.”

“Oh, yeah? Funny, he hasn’t told me a thing about you.”

“You’ve been pretty busy.” Obviously oblivious, Lucas spoke cheerfully. “We keep missing each other. Ella’s principal of Orchard Homes Academy.”

A high-school principal. Tony private school. Another strike against bimbo status. Damn it.

“Her son bought her a tandem jump as a gift,” Lucas went on, “and she got hooked. You should’ve had your family here for this, Ella,” he continued. “Your grandkids would’ve loved it.”

And a grandmother ? What kind of father-face-sucking bimbo was this?

“I wanted to make sure I handled it before they came to watch. Next time. In fact, I’m going to go in and talk to Marcie about setting it up. It was nice to meet you, Rowan. I hope we see more of each other.”

Though her voice was mild and polite, the quick clash when the two women’s gazes met made it clear they understood each other.

“I’ll see you inside, Lucas.”

Yeah, keep walking, Rowan thought. Make tracks.

“So what did you think?” Lucas asked, eagerly. “I’ve been hoping you’d get a break so you could meet Ella. It’s cool you happened to be here for her first AFF.”

“Her form’s not bad. She had a good flight. Listen, Dad, why don’t we grab some lunch in the cafe? There’s—”

“Ella and I are having a picnic lunch out here to celebrate her dive. Why don’t you join us? It’ll give the two of you a chance to get to know each other.”

Was he kidding? “I don’t think so, but thanks. Riding third wheel doesn’t suit me.”

“Don’t be silly. If I know Ella, she made plenty. She’s a hell of a cook.”

“Just—just—” She had to untangle her tongue. “How long has this been going on? What’s going on? Kissing on the jump spot, hand-holding, picnic lunches? Jesus, Dad, are you sleeping with her?”

He pokered up, a look she knew meant she’d hit a nerve.

“I think that would come under the heading of my personal business, Rowan. What’s your problem here?”

“My problem, other than the kissing, holding and so on in front of God, crew and visitors, is I came over here because I needed to talk to my father, but you’re obviously too busy with Principal Hotpants to spare any for me.”

“Watch it.” His fingers tightened on hers before she could jerk away. “Don’t you use that tone with me. I don’t give a damn how old you are. If you need to talk to me, come inside. We’ll talk.”

“No, thanks,” she said, coldly polite. “Go ahead and take care of your personal business. I’ll take care of my own. Excuse me.” She pulled her fingers free. “I have to get back to base.”

She recognized the combination of anger and disappointment on his face, something rarely seen and instantly understood. She swung away from it, strode away from him, her back stiff with resentment. And her heart aching with what she told herself was betrayal.

Her temper only built on the walk back, then took a bitter spike when she heard the siren blast. She broke into a run, covering the remaining distance to the base where she could already see jumpers on the scramble and the jump plane taxiing onto the runway.

She hit the ready room, shoving aside the bitterness as she had the stress—as something to be taken out and examined later.

She grabbed gear off the speed rack for Cards. “Payette?”

“That’s the one.” He zipped his let-down rope into the proper pocket. “Zulies to the rescue!”

She looked in his eyes. “Have a good one.”

“It’s in the cards.” He let out a chortle before waddling toward the waiting plane.

She went through the same procedure with Trigger while Gull helped Dobie.

In minutes she stood watching the plane take off without her.

“Secondary blaze blew up,” Gull told her. “Idaho’s already spread thin. One of their second load got hung up on the jump, broke his arm, and they’ve got two more injuries on the ground.”

“Aren’t you well informed?”

“I like to keep up with current events.” He re-angled his ball cap to gain more shade from the bill as he followed the plane into the sky. “Such as the dry lightning doing a smackdown up in Flathead. You didn’t spend much time at your dad’s.”

“Are you keeping track of me?”

“Just using my keen powers of observation. They also tell me you’re severely pissed.”

“I don’t like being grounded when I’m fit to jump.”

“You’re on the list,” he reminded her. “And?”

“And, what?”

“And what else has you severely pissed?”

“You and your keen powers of observation are about to, so aim them elsewhere.” She started to stalk off, then, too riled to hold it in, stalked back. “I go up to see my father, spend some time with him, talk this crap over with him because that’s what we do. When I get there he’s doing an AFF with a student. A student who happens to be a woman. A redhead. One who, the minute they’re on the ground, jumps him like my old dog Butch used to jump a Frisbee. Then he’s swinging her around, and then he’s kissing her. Kissing her, right there, a serious lip-locking, body-twining kiss no doubt involving tongues.”

“The best do. So... I’m working my way through that report, trying to pinpoint what pissed you off.”

“Did I just tell you my father kissed that redhead?”

“You did, but I’m having a tough time seeing why that flipped your switch. You’re acting like you’ve never seen your old man kiss a woman before.”

When she said nothing, only stood with her eyes like smoldering blue ice, he let out a half laugh of genuine surprise. “Seriously? You’ve seriously never seen him kiss a woman? The man has to have superhuman discretion.”

Gull stopped again, shook his head and gave her a light slap on the shoulder. “Come on, Ro. You’re not going to tell me you think he actually hasn’t bumped lips with a female in—how old are you, exactly?”

“He doesn’t date.”

“So you said when he had the date with the lady client for drinks... Aha. Now my intrepid deductive skills mesh with my keen powers of observation to conclude this would be the same woman.”

“She says she’s a high-school principal. It’s pretty damn clear they’re sleeping together.”

“I guess getting called into the principal’s office has taken on a whole new meaning for your dad.”

“Fuck you.”

“Whoa.” He caught her arm as she spun around. “You’re jealous? You’re actually jealous because your father’s interested in a woman—who’s not you?”

Heat—temper, embarrassment—slapped into her cheeks. “That’s disgusting and untrue.”

“You’re pissed and jealous, and genuinely hurt because your father may be in a romantic relationship with a woman. That’s not disgusting or untrue, Rowan, but it sure strikes me as petty and selfish.”

Something very akin to the disappointment she’d just seen on her father’s face moved over Gull’s. “When’s the last time he threw a tantrum because you were involved with someone?”

Now she felt petty, and that only fueled her temper. “My feelings and my relationship with my father are none of your business. You don’t know a damn thing about it, or me. And you know what, I’m pretty goddamn sick of being dumped on, from Dolly and vindictive bullshit, to tight-assed special agents, my father’s disappointment to your crappy opinion of me. So you can just—”

The shrilling siren sliced off her words.

“Looks like me and my crappy opinion have to get going.” Gull turned his back on her and walked back to the ready room.

It was almost more than she could swallow, standing on the ground again while the plane flew north.

“If this keeps up, they’ll have to send us up.”

She glanced over at Matt. “The way my luck’s going, L.B.’ll cross me off and send Marg if we get another call. How did you rate the basement?”

“He feels like I’m too twisted up about Dolly, because of my niece. Maybe I am.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay. I keep expecting them to come back, say it’s all a mistake.” He held his cap in his hands, turning it around and around in them and leaving his floppy cornsilk hair uncovered.

“It can’t be right, you know, for a baby to lose her father before she’s even born, then her mother so soon after.” He turned to Rowan, and she thought he looked unbearably young and exposed.

“It isn’t right,” she said.

“But things, I guess things just aren’t always right. I guess... it’s like fate.”

He leaned into her a little when she hooked an arm around his waist. “It’s harder on you, maybe,” he said, “than me.”

“Me?”

“You found her. If it’s her. Even if it’s not, finding whoever it was. It’s awful you were the one who found her.”

“We’ll both get through it, Matt.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself. I keep thinking of Shiloh, and telling myself that whatever happens, we’ll make sure she’s okay. I mean, she’s just a baby.”

“The Brakemans and your family will take care of her.”

“Yeah. Well, I guess I’ll go up to the loft, try to get my mind on something else.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

She went back to her quarters first, locked herself in. Though she knew it was self-pity, that it was useless, she sat on the floor, leaned back against the bed and had a good cry.

16

The cry emptied out the temper and the self-pity. For a trade-off she accepted the splitting headache, and downed the medication before splashing cold water on her face.

One of the problems with being a true blonde with fair skin, she mused, giving herself the hard eye in the mirror, was that after a jag she resembled someone who’d gotten a brutal sunburn, through cheesecloth.

She splashed some more, then wrung out a cold cloth. She gave herself ten minutes flat on her back on the bed, the cloth over her face, to let the meds and the cool do their job.

So she’d overreacted, she thought. Beat her with a brick.

She’d apologize to her father for sticking her nose in his business since he now had business he didn’t want her to stick her nose into.

And she damn well expected the same courtesy from a certain fastfooted, hotshot rookie, so he’d better come back safe.

She checked her face again, decided she’d do. Maybe she didn’t look her best, but she didn’t look as if she’d spent the last twenty minutes curled up on the floor, blubbering like a big baby.

On her way toward Operations to check on the status of the crews, she caught sight of Special Agent DiCicco walking toward her.

“Ms. Tripp.”

“Look, I know you’ve got a job to do, but we’ve got two loads out. I’m heading to Ops, and don’t have time to go over ground I’ve already gone over.”

“I’m sorry, but I will need to speak with you, as well as members of the crew and staff. The remains you discovered yesterday have been positively identified as Dolly Brakeman.”

“Hell.” Sick, Rowan pressed her forehead, and rubbed it side to side. “Oh, hell. How? How did she die?”

“Since some of those details will make the evening news, I can tell you cause of death was a broken neck, possibly incurred in a fall.”

“A fall? You’d have to fall really hard and really wrong. Not an accidental fall, not when she left her car one place and ended up in another.”

DiCicco’s face remained impassive, her eyes level. “This is a homicide investigation, coordinated with an arson investigation. Your instincts on both counts appear to have been right on target.”

“And being right makes me a suspect.”

“I’m not prepared to eliminate anyone as a suspect, but you have an alibi for the time frame. The fact is, you and the victim had an adversarial relationship. It’s an avenue I need to explore.”

“Explore away. Be Magellan. I didn’t look for trouble with her. If I could’ve punched her on the infamous day of the blood of the pigs, I would have. And she’d have earned it. I think she should’ve been charged for what she did to our equipment, and spent some quality time in jail. I don’t think she should’ve died for either of those offenses. She was—”

Rowan broke off as a truck roared in, fishtailing as it swerved in her direction. She grabbed DiCicco’s arm to yank her back even as DiCicco grabbed hers to do the same.

The truck braked with a shriek, spewed up clouds of road dust.

“Jesus Christ! What the hell are you...” She trailed off as she recognized the man leaping out of the truck as Leo Brakeman, Dolly’s father.

“My daughter is dead.” He stood there, meaty hands balled into white-knuckled fists at his sides, his former All-State left tackle’s body quivering, his face—wide and hard—reddened.

“Mr. Brakeman, I’m sorry for—”

“You’re responsible. There’s nothing left of her but burned bones, and you’re responsible.”

“Mr. Brakeman.” DiCicco stepped between Rowan and Brakeman, but Rowan shifted to the side, refusing the shield. “I explained to you that I and the full resources of my agency will do everything possible to identify your daughter’s killer. You need to go home, be with your wife and your granddaughter.”

“You’ll just cover it up. You work for the same people. My daughter would be alive today if not for that one.” When he pointed his finger, Rowan felt the raging grief behind it stab like a blade.

“She got Dolly fired because she couldn’t stand being reminded of how she let Jim Brayner die. She got her fired so Dolly had to drive all the way down to Florence to find work. If she didn’t kill my girl with her own hands, she’s the reason for it.

“You think you’re so important?” he raged at Rowan. “You think you can ride on your father’s coattails, and because your name’s Tripp you can push people around? You were jealous of my girl, jealous because Jim tossed you over for her, and you couldn’t stand it. You let him die so she couldn’t have him.”

“Leo.” L.B., with a wall of men behind him, moved forward. “I’m sorry about Dolly. Every one of us is sorry for your loss. But I’m going to ask you once to get off this property.”

“Why don’t you fire her? Why don’t you kick her off this base like she was trash, the way you did my girl? Now my girl’s dead, and she’s standing there like it was nothing.”

“This isn’t a good time for you to be here, Leo.” L.B. kept his voice low, quiet. “You need to go home and be with Irene.”

“Don’t tell me what I need. There’s a baby needs her ma. And none of you give a damn about that. You’re going to pay for what happened to my Dolly. You’re going to pay dear, all of you.”

He spat on the ground, slammed back into his truck. Rowan saw tears spilling down his cheeks as he spun the wheel and sped away.

“Ro.”

“Not now, L.B. Please.” She shook her head.

“Now,” he corrected, and put an arm firm around her shoulders. “You come inside with me. Agent DiCicco, if you need to talk to Rowan, it’s going to be later.”

DiCicco watched the wall of men close ranks like a barricade, then move into the building behind Rowan.

Inside, L.B. steered her straight to his office, shut the door on the rest of the men. “Sit,” he ordered.

When she did, he shoved his hands through his hair, leaned back on his desk. “You know Leo Brakeman’s a hard-ass under the best of circumstances.”

“Yeah.”

“And these are beyond shitty circumstances.”

“I get it. It has to be somebody’s fault, and Dolly blamed me for everything else, so I’m the obvious choice. I get it. If she told him—people—I was doing the deed with Jim before he tossed me over, why wouldn’t her father think I had it out for his kid? And just to clarify, Jim and I were never—”

“You think I don’t know you? I’ll be talking to DiCicco and setting her straight on that front.”

Rowan shrugged. Oddly she’d felt her spine steel up again under Brakeman’s assault. “She’ll either believe it or she won’t. It doesn’t matter. I’m okay, or close to being okay. You don’t have time to babysit me, L.B., not with our crews out.

“I’m sorry for Brakeman,” she said, “but that’s the last time he’ll use me as an emotional punching bag. Dolly was a liar, and her being dead doesn’t change that.”

She got to her feet. “I told you this morning I was fit and fine. That wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t completely true, either. Now it is. Nobody’s going to treat me like Dolly and her father have and make me feel bad about it. I’m not responsible for the baggage full of shit they’ve hauled around. I’ve got plenty of my own.”

“That sounds like you’re fit and fine.”

“I can help out in Ops if you want, or head up to the loft, see what needs doing there.”

“Let’s go see how our boys and girls are doing.”

DiCicco made her way to the cookhouse kitchen, found it empty, unless she counted the aromas she dubbed as both comforting and sinful. She started to move into the dining area when a movement out the window caught her eye.

She watched the head cook, Margaret Colby, weeding a patch of an impressive garden.

Marg looked up at the sound of the back door opening, pushed at the wide brim of the straw hat she wore over her kitchen bandanna.

“That’s some very pretty oregano.”

“It’s coming along. Are you looking for me, or just out for a stroll?”

“I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes. And to the other cook, Lynn Dorchester.”

“I let Lynn go on home for the afternoon since she was upset. She’ll be back around four.” Marg tossed weeds into the plastic bucket at her feet, then brushed off her hands. “I could use some lemonade. Do you want some?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“If it was, I wouldn’t be getting it. You can have a seat there. I spend enough time in the kitchen on pretty days, so I take advantage of being out when I can.”

DiCicco sat in one of the lawn chairs, contemplated the garden, the lay of the land beyond it. The big hangars and outbuildings, the curve of the track some distance off. And the rise and sweep of the mountains dusted with clouds.

Marg came out with the lemonade, and a plate of cookies with hefty chocolate chunks.

“Oh. You hit my biggest weakness.”

“Everybody’s got one.” Marg set the tray down, sat comfortably and toed off her rubber-soled garden shoes.

“We heard it was Dolly. I let Lynn go as it hit her hard. They weren’t best of friends, Dolly didn’t have girlfriends. But they’d worked together awhile now, and got along all right for the most of it. Lynn’s got a soft core, and punched right into it.”

“You worked with Dolly for some time, too. Were her supervisor.”

“That’s right. She could cook—she had a good hand with it, and she never gave me a problem in the kitchen. Her problem was, or one of them, was she looked at sex as an accomplishment, and as something to bargain with.”

Marg picked up a cookie, took a bite. “The men around here, they’re strong. They’re brave. They’ve got bodies you’d be hard-pressed not to notice. Dolly wasn’t hard-pressed.

“A lot of them are young, too,” she continued, “and most all of them are away from home. They’re going to risk life and limb and work like dogs, sometimes for days at a time in the worst conditions going. If they get a chance to roll onto a naked woman, there’s not many who’d say no thanks. Dolly gave plenty of them a chance.”

“Was there resentment? When a woman gives one man a chance, then turns around and gives the same chance to another, resentment’s natural.”

“I don’t know a single one who ever took Dolly seriously. And that includes Jim. I know she said he was going to marry her, and I know she was lying. Or just dreaming. It’s kinder to say just dreaming.”

Though he’d used different words, L.B. had stated the same opinion.

“Was Jim serious about Rowan Tripp?”

“Ro? Well, she helped train him as a recruit, and worked with him....” Marg trailed off as the actual meaning of serious got through. Then she sat back in the chair and laughed until her sides ached. She waved a hand in the air, drank some lemonade to settle down.

“I don’t know where you got that idea, Agent DiCicco, but if Jim had tried to get serious with Ro, she’d’ve flicked him off like a fly. He flirted with everything female, myself included. It was his way, and he was so damn good-natured about it. But there was nothing between him and Ro but what’s between all of them. A kind of friendship I expect war buddies understand. Added to it, Rowan’s never gotten involved with anybody in her unit—until this season. Until Gulliver Curry. I’m enjoying watching how that one comes along.”

“Leo Brakeman claims that Rowan and Jim were involved before he broke it off to be with Dolly.”

Marg drank more lemonade and contemplated the mountains as DiCicco had. “Leo’s grieving, and my heart hurts for him and Irene, but he’s wrong. It sounds to me like something Dolly might’ve said.”

“Why would she?”

“For the drama, and to try to take some of the shine off Rowan. I told you, Dolly didn’t have girlfriends. She got on with Lynn because she didn’t see Lynn as a threat. Lynn’s married and happy, and the men tend to think of her as a sister, or a daughter. Dolly always saw Rowan as a threat, and more, she knew Rowan considered her... cheap, we’ll say.”

“It’s obvious they didn’t get along.”

“Up until Jim died they tolerated each other well enough. I’ve known both of them since they were kids. Rowan barely noticed Dolly. Dolly always noticed Ro. And if you’re still thinking Rowan had anything to do with what happened, you’re wasting a lot of time better spent finding out who did.”

Time wasn’t wasted, in DiCicco’s opinion, if you found out something.

“Did you know anything about Dolly getting work in Florence?”

“No. I don’t know why she would. Plenty of places right around here would hire her on, at least for the season.”

Marg loosed a long sigh. “I wouldn’t give her a reference. Her preacher came out, tried to get me to write her one. I didn’t like his way, that’s one thing, but I wouldn’t do it anyway. She didn’t earn it with the way she behaved.

“I guess I’m sorry for that if she felt she had to leave Missoula to work. But there are plenty of places she could’ve gotten work without a reference.”

Marg sat a moment, saying nothing. Just studying the mountains.

“Was she coming back from there when it happened? From work in Florence?”

“It’s something I’ll have to check out. I hate exaggeration, so you know I’m giving it to you straight when I say this is the best cookie I’ve ever eaten.”

“I’ll give you some to take with you.”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

The crew in Idaho had the fire caged in by sundown. But up north, the battle raged on.

She could see it. As Rowan stepped outside to take the air, she could see the fire and smoke, and the figures in yellow shirts brandishing tools like weapons.

If they called for another load, if they needed relief or reenforcement, L.B. would send her. And she’d be ready.

Her back stiffened at the glint of headlights, the silhouette of an approaching pickup. Then loosened again, a little, when she saw it wasn’t Leo Brakeman back for another shot at her.

Lucas stepped out of the truck, walked to her.

Some anger there, she noted. Still some mad on.

He proved it when he clamped his hands on her shoulders, gave her a little shake. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me what happened? Finding the remains, about Dolly, about any of it.”

“I figured you knew.”

“Well, I damn well didn’t.”

“You’ve been busy.”

“Don’t pull that crap with me, Rowan. Your landing text said A-OK.”

“I was. I wasn’t hurt.”

“Rowan.”

“I didn’t want to tell you in a text, or on the phone. Then it was one thing and another. I came down this morning to talk to you about it, but—”

He simply yanked her against him and hugged.

“I’m a suspect.”

“Stop it,” he murmured, and pressed his lips to the top of her head.

“The Forest Service agent’s questioned me twice. I had altercations with Dolly, then out of all the acres up there, I stumble right over what’s left of her. Then, Leo Brakeman came here today.”

She unburdened, stripped it out and off because he was there to cover her again.

“Leo’s half mad with grief. In his place, I don’t know what I’d do.” Couldn’t bear to think of it. “They’ll find whoever did it. Maybe it’ll help like they say it does, though I swear I don’t know how.”

“He was crying when he drove away. I think that was the moment I stopped feeling sorry for myself, because I’d been having a real good time with that.”

“You were never able to stretch that out for long.”

“I was going for the record. Dad, about before. I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” He wiped a hand through the air, a familiar gesture. “Clean slate.”

“Squeaky clean.”

“Where’s that guy you’ve been hanging around with?”

“He’s on the Flathead fire.”

“Let’s go check with Ops, see how they’re doing.”

“I want him back safe, want all of them back safe. Even though I’m pissed at him. Especially pissed because I think he had a point about a couple things.”

“I hate when that happens. Besides, who does he think he is, having a point?”

She laughed, tipped her head to his shoulder. “Thanks.”

She kept vigil in Operations, helped update the map tracking the crew’s progress and the fire’s twists and turns, and watched the lightning strikes blast on radar.

Sometime after two while a booming thunderstorm swept over the base, and up north Gull and his crewmates crawled into tents, she dropped into bed.

And almost immediately dropped into the dream.

The roar of thunder became the roar of engines, the scream of wind the air blasting through the plane’s open door. She saw the nerves in Jim’s eyes, heard them in his voice and, tossing in bed, ordered herself to stop him. To contact base, alert the spotter, talk to the fire boss.

Something.

“It is what it is,” he said to her, with eyes now filled with sorrow. “It’s, you know, my fate.”

And he jumped as he always did, taking that last leap behind her. Into the mouth of the fire, screaming as its teeth tore through him.

This time she landed alone, the flames behind her snarling, throaty growls that built until the ground shook. She ran, sprinting up the incline, heat drenching her skin while she shoved through billowing clouds of smoke.

She shouted for Jim—there was a chance, always a chance—searching blindly. Fire climbed the trees in pulsing strings of light, blew over the ground in a deadly dance. Through it, someone called her name.

She changed direction and, shouting until her throat burned, stumbled into the black. Charred branches punched out of smoldering spots and beckoned like bony fingers. Snags hunched and towered, seemed to shift and sway behind the curtain of smoke. The scorched earth crackled under her feet as she continued to run toward the sound of her name.

Silence dropped, like a breath held. She stood in that void of sound, dismayed, disoriented. For a moment it was as if she’d become trapped in a black-and-white photo. Nothing moved, even as she ran on. The ground stayed silent under her feet.

She saw him, lying on the ground the fire had stripped bare, facing west, as if positioned to watch the sunset. Her voice echoed inside her head as she called his name. Dizzy with relief, she dropped down beside him.

Jim. Thank God.

She pulled out her radio, but like the air around her, it answered with silence.

I found him! Somebody answer. Somebody help me!

“They can’t.”

She tumbled back when Jim’s voice broke the silence, when behind his mask his eyes opened, behind his mask his lips curved in a horrible smile.

“We burn here. We all burn here.”

Flames ignited behind his mask. Even as she drew breath to scream, he gripped her hand. Fire fused her flesh to his.

She screamed, and kept screaming as the flames engulfed them both.

Rowan dragged herself out of bed, stumbled to the window. She shoved it up, gulping in the air that streamed in. The storm had moved east, taking the rain and the boiling thunder with it. Sometime during the hideous dream the sky had broken clear of the clouds. She studied the stars to steady herself, taking comfort in their cool bright shine.

A bad day, that was all, she thought. She’d had a bad day that had brought on a bad night. Now it was done, out of her system. Put to rest.

But she left the window open, wanting that play of air as she got back in bed, and lay for a time, eyes open, looking at the stars.

As she started to drift something about the dream tapped at the back of her brain. She closed down to it, thought of the stars instead. She kept that cool, bright light in her mind’s eye as she slipped into quiet, dreamless sleep.

Rowan and a mop-up team jumped the Flathead mid-morning. While grateful for the work, the routine—however tedious—she couldn’t deny some disappointment that Gull and his team packed out as she came in.

While she did her job, Special Agent Kimberly DiCicco did hers. She met Quinniock at a diner off Highway 12. He slid into the booth across from her, nodded. “Agent.”

“Lieutenant. Thanks for meeting me.”

“No problem. Just coffee,” he told the waitress.

“I’ll get right down to it, if that’s okay,” DiCicco began when the waitress had turned over the cup already in place, filled it and moved off.

“Saves time.”

“You know the area better than I do, the people better than I do. You know more of the connections, the frictions, and you just recently questioned the victim over the vandalism. I could use your help.”

“The department’s always happy to cooperate, especially since your asking saves me from coming to you trying to wrangle a way in. Or working around you if you refused.”

“Saves time,” she said, echoing him, “and trouble. You have a good reputation, Lieutenant.”

“As do you. And according to Rowan Tripp, we’re both snappy dressers.”

DiCicco smiled, very faintly. “That is a nice tie.”

“Thanks. It appears we’ve taken the time and trouble to check each other out. My thinking, it’s your jurisdiction, Agent DiCicco, but the victim is one of mine. We’ll get what we both want quicker if we play to our strengths. Why don’t you tell me who you’re looking at, and I might be able to give you some insight.”

“Let’s take the victim first. I think I have a sense of her after reviewing the evidence, compiling interviews and observations. My leading conclusion is Dolly Brakeman was a liar, by nature and design, with some selfdeception thrown in.”

“I wouldn’t argue with that conclusion. She was also impulsive, while at the same time being what I call a stewer. She tended to hoard bad feelings, perceived insults, and let them stew—then act impulsively with the switch flipped.”

“Taking off when Jim Brayner died,” DiCicco said, “even though it was a time she’d have most needed and benefited from home, family, support.”

“She had a fight with her father.”

DiCicco sat back. “I wondered.”

“I got this from Mrs. Brakeman, when I talked to her after the vandalism at the base. Dolly came home out of her mind after learning of Jim’s accident, and that’s when she told her parents she was pregnant, and that she’d quit her job. Brakeman didn’t take it well. They went at each other, and he said something along the lines of her getting her ass back to base, getting her job back or finding somebody else to freeload on. Dolly packed up and lit out. A little more maneuvering got me the fact that she packed up her parents’ five-hundred-dollar cash emergency envelope for good measure.”

“Five hundred doesn’t take you far.”

“Her mother sent her money now and again. And when Dolly called from Bozeman, in labor, the Brakemans drove out, patched things up.”

“Babies are excellent glue.”

“Dolly claimed to have been saved, and joined her mother’s church when they all came home.”

“Reverend Latterly’s church. I got that, and I’ve spoken to him. He made a point of telling me Leo Brakeman didn’t attend church.” She thought of what Marg had said over lemonade and cookies. “I can’t say I liked his way. His passive-aggressive way,” she added, and Quinniock nodded agreement. “He seems to feel Little Bear, Rowan Tripp, the rest of them failed to show Christian charity to a troubled soul. As harsh as it was, I prefer Leo Brakeman’s honest grief and rage.”

“Whatever his way, Irene Brakeman claims he helped the three of them—herself, her husband and Dolly, come to terms once she was back. What Dolly left out when she called her parents for help, and I found after some poking around, was she’d made arrangements for a private adoption in Bozeman, which had paid her expenses.”

“She planned to give the baby up?”

“She’s the only one who knows what she planned, but she didn’t contact the adoptive parents when she went into labor, nor the OB they’d paid for. Instead she went to the ER of a hospital across town and gave her Missoula address. By the time the other party found out what had happened, she was on her way back here. Since birth mothers have a right to change their minds, there wasn’t much they could do.”

DiCicco flipped open her notebook. “Do you have their names?”

“Yeah. I’ll give you all of it, but I don’t think we’re going to find either of these people tracked Dolly down here and killed her, then set fire to the forest.”

“Maybe not, but it’s a strong motive.”

“Are you still looking at Rowan Tripp?”

DiCicco sat back as the waitress breezed by to top off their coffee. “Let me tell you about Rowan Tripp. She’s got a temper. She’s got considerable power—physical strength, strength of will. She disliked Dolly intensely, on a personal level and in general terms. Her alibi is a man she’s currently sleeping with. Men will lie for sex.”

DiCicco paused to tip a fraction of a teaspoon of sugar into her coffee. “Dolly claimed Rowan had it in for her because Brayner tossed Rowan over for her. She was a liar,” DiCicco added before Quinniock could respond. “Rowan Tripp isn’t. In fact, she’s almost brutally upfront. If Dolly had had her face punched in, I’d put my finger on Tripp. But the kill spot off the road, the broken neck, the arson? That doesn’t jibe with my observations. Whoever killed her and put her in the forest might have expected the fire to burn her to ash, or at least for it to take more time for the remains to be discovered. It would’ve been monumentally stupid for Tripp to call the discovery in, and she’s not stupid.”

“We agree on that.”

“Sticking with the victim, I’ve spent some time trying to verify her claim she had work in Florence. So far, I haven’t been able to verify. I’ve started checking places like this, along the highway, but I haven’t found any that hired her, or anyone who remembers her coming in looking for work. And, given her history, I’m wondering why she’d go to the trouble of looking for work down this way when she recently deposited ten thousand dollars in two hits of five—I traced it back to Matthew Brayner—in a bank in Lolo. Not her usual bank,” DiCicco added, “which leads me to believe she didn’t want anyone knowing about it. Which likely includes her parents.”

He hadn’t hit on the money—yet—and money always mattered. “She might’ve been thinking about running again.”

“She might have. There’s another pattern in her history. Men. Which is why I’m going to start checking motels along the route from Florence to Missoula. Maybe she decided to try out the other Brayner brother.”

“Sex and money and guilt.” Quinniock nodded. “The trifecta of motives. Want to get started?”

17

Gull sat on his bed with his laptop. He’d answered personal e-mail, attached a couple of pictures he’d taken that morning of the mountains, of the camp. He’d done a little business and now brought up his hometown paper to scan the sports section.

He knew the jump ship was back, and wondered how long it would take Rowan to knock on his door.

She would, he thought, even if just to pick up the fight where they’d left off. She wasn’t the avoid-and-evade type, and, even if she were, it was damn near impossible to avoid and evade him while working on the same base.

He could wait.

Out of curiosity he did a Google search for wildfire arson investigation, and while he shifted through the results, considered heading into the lounge to see what was up, or maybe see if Dobie wanted to drive into town.

Always easier to wait when you’re occupied, he thought. Then an article caught his interest. He answered the knock on the door absently.

“Yeah, it’s open.”

“Unlocked is different than open.”

He glanced over. Rowan leaned on the jamb.

“It’s open now.”

She left the door ajar as she stepped in, and angled to see the laptop screen. “You’re boning up on arson?”

“Specific to wildfire. It seemed relevant at the moment. How’d the mop-up go?”

“You left a hell of a mess.” She shifted her gaze from the screen to his face. “I heard things got hairy up there.”

“There were moments.” He smiled. “Missed you.”

“Because I’m so good or so good-looking?”

“All of the above.” He shut down the computer. “Why don’t we take a walk, catch the sunset.”

“Yeah, all right.”

When they went out, she pulled her sunglasses out of her pocket. “The fact that I’m surprised and not happy that my father’s involved with a woman I don’t know and he didn’t tell me about doesn’t make me jealous.”

“Is that what we’re calling it? Surprised and not happy. I’d’ve defined it as outraged and incensed.”

“Due to the surprise.” She clipped the words off.

“I’ll give you that,” Gull decided, “since you’ve apparently gone your entire life without witnessing a lip-lock.”

“I don’t think I overreacted. Very much.”

“Why quibble about degrees?”

“I’m not apologizing for telling you to butt the hell out.”

“Then I don’t have to be gracious and accept a nonexistent apology. I’m not apologizing for expressing my opinion over your not very much of an overreaction.”

“Then I guess we’re even.”

“Close enough. It’s a hell of a sunset.”

She stood with him, watching the sun sink toward the western peaks, watched it drown in the sea of red and gold and delicate lavender it spawned.

“I don’t have to like her, and I sure as hell don’t have to trust her.”

“You’re like a dog with a bone, Rowan.”

“Maybe. But it’s my bone.”

Silence, Gull thought, could express an opinion as succinctly as words. “So. I heard about Dolly’s father coming down on you.”

“Over and done.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you butting in again, Gull?”

“If you want to call it that. You’ve got to have sympathy for a man dealing with what he’s dealing with, so maybe he gets a pass this time. But that’s what’s over and done. Nobody lays into my girl.”

“Your girl? I’m not your girl.”

“Are we or are we not together here and watching the sunset? And isn’t it most likely you and I will end up naked in bed together tonight?”

“Regardless—”

“Regardless, my ass.” He grabbed her chin, pulled her in for a kiss. “That makes you my girl.”

“Holy hell, Gull, you’re making my back itch.”

Amused, he scratched it, then hooked an arm around her shoulders and kept walking. “So, later. Your place or mine?”

With the light softening, she pulled her sunglasses off, then swung them by the earpiece. “Some people are intimidated or put off by a certain level of confidence.”

“You’re not.”

“No, I’m not. Fortunately for you, I like it. Let’s—” She jerked back at the sharp crack in the air. “Jesus, was that—”

The breath whooshed out of her lungs when Gull knocked her to the ground and landed on top of her.

“Stay down,” he ordered, and saw a bullet dig into the ground six feet away. “Hold on to me. We’re going to roll.” The minute her arms clamped around him, he pushed his body over, felt her do the same, so they covered the ground in a fast, ungainly roll to shield themselves behind one of the jeeps parked outside a hangar.

A third report snapped, pinging metal overhead.

“Where’s it coming from? Can you tell?”

Gull shook his head, keeping his body over hers while he waited for the next shot. But silence held as seconds ticked by, then shattered with the shouts and rushing feet.

“For Christ’s sake, get down, get cover,” he called out. “There’s a sniper.”

Dobie bolted for the jeep, dived. “Are you hit? Are you—Goddamn, Gull, you’re bleeding.”

Rowan bucked under him. “Get off, get off. Let me see.”

“Just scraped up from the asphalt. I’m not shot. Stay down.”

“Rifle.” Dobie shifted to a crouch. “I know a rifle shot when I hear one. From over there in the trees, I think. Damn good thing he’s a shitty shot ’cause the two of you were sitting ducks. Standing ducks.”

“Hey!” Trigger called from the far side of the hangar. “Is anybody hurt?”

“We’re okay,” Rowan answered. “Don’t come out here. He may be waiting for somebody to step into the clear.”

“L.B.’s got the cops coming. Just stay where you are for now.”

“Copy that. Get off me, Gull.”

“He tackled you good,” Dobie commented when Gull pushed off. “You know he played football in high school. Quarterback.”

“Isn’t that interesting?” Rowan muttered it as she turned Gull’s arm over to examine the bloody scrapes on his elbows and forearms. “You got grit in these.”

“I liked basketball better,” Gull said conversationally. “But I didn’t have the height to compete. Had the speed, but I’d topped out at six feet until senior year when I had a spurt and added two more. Baseball, now, I like that better than either. Had a pretty good arm back in the day.”

Maybe talking kept his mind off the scrapes, she decided, because they had to sting like hell.

“I thought you were the track star.”

“My best thing, but I like sports, so I dabbled. Anyway, I liked collecting letters. I graduated a four-letter man.”

Rowan studied him in the fading light. “We’re sitting behind this jeep, hiding from some nutcase with a rifle, and you’re actually bragging about your high-school glory days?”

“It passes the time. Plus I had very impressive glory days.” He brushed dirt off her cheek. “We’re okay.”

“If you two are going to get sloppy, I’m not looking the other way.” Dobie leaned back against the tire. “Wish I had a beer.”

“Once this little interlude’s over,” Gull told him, “the first round’s on me.”

“I was thinking about going to the lounge, kicking back with some screen and a beer. Just stepped outside for a minute, and bam! bam!”

“So you ran out, in the open, instead of back in?” Rowan demanded.

“I wasn’t sure if either of you were hit or not, the way you both went down.”

Rowan leaned over Gull, kissed Dobie on the mouth. “Thanks.”

“I’m not kissing you. He’s gone,” Gull added. “He took off after the third shot.”

“I expect so,” Dobie agreed. “It’s full dusk now. He can’t see squat, unless he’s got infrared.”

“Let’s go.” Rowan pushed up to her haunches. “If he wants to shoot us, he could circle around in the dark and get us while we’re sitting here.”

“She’s got a point. Don’t run in a straight line. That’s what they say in the movies,” Gull pointed out. “Barracks?”

“Barracks,” Dobie agreed.

Before either man could react, Rowan sprang up, a runner off the blocks, and revved straight into a sprint.

“Goddamn it.”

Gull raced after her—could have caught her, passed her, they both knew. But he stayed at her back, zigging when she zigged, zagging when she zagged.

“We’re coming in!” Rowan called out, then hit the door.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Gull grabbed her, spun her around. “Taking off like that?”

“I was thinking you weren’t going to be my human shield twice in one day. I appreciate the first, I’m not stupid.”

“You don’t get to decide for me.”

“Right back at you.”

They shouted at each other while people shouted around them. Libby let out a piercing whistle. “Shut up! Shut the hell up. Everybody!” She shoved her hands through the hair dripping from the shower she’d leaped out of. “Gull, you’re bleeding on the floor. Somebody get a first-aid kit and clean him up. The cops are on their way. Okay, the cops are here,” she amended when the sirens sounded. “L.B. wants everybody inside until... until we know something.”

“Come on, Gull.” Janis gave him a light pat on the butt. “I’ll be Nurse Betty.”

“Is everybody accounted for?” Rowan asked.

“Between here, the cookhouse and Operations, we’re all good.” Yangtree stepped forward, drew her in for a hug that nearly cracked her ribs. “I was watching TV. I thought it was a backfire. Then Trig came running through, said somebody was shooting, and you were out there.” He drew her back. “What the fuck, Ro?”

“My thought exactly. Why would somebody shoot at us?”

“People are batshit.” Dobie shrugged. “Maybe one of those government’s-our-enemy types. Y’all got those militia types out here.”

“Three shots isn’t much of a statement.”

“It would’ve been,” Trigger pointed out, “if one of them had hit you or Gull.”

“Your father’s going to hear about this, Ro,” Yangtree commented. “You call him now before he does, tell him you’re okay.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She glanced down toward Gull’s quarters before she stepped into her own to make the call.

Steaming, Gull endured the sting as Janis cleaned out cuts and scrapes. “What the hell’s wrong with her?”

“Since the blood on her appeared to be mostly yours, not much. And I know you’re talking about how she thinks or acts, but you’ll have to be more specific.”

“How can somebody trained to be a team player, who is a team player in ninety percent of her life, be the damn opposite the other ten?”

“First, smoke jumpers work as a crew, but you know damn well we all have to think, act and react individually. But more to the point, with Rowan it’s defense mechanism, pride, an instinctive hesitation to trust.”

“Defense against what?”

“Against having her pride smacked and her trust betrayed. Personally, I think she’s dealt pretty well with being abandoned by her mother as an infant. But I don’t think anybody ever gets all the way over being abandoned. Okay, I’m going to need to use the tweezers to get some of this debris out. Feel free to curse me.”

He said, “Fuck,” then gritted his teeth. “You trust every time you get in the door. The spotter, the pilot, yourself. Hell, you have to trust fate isn’t going to send a speeding bus your way every time you step out of your house. If you can’t take that same leap with another human being, you end up alone.”

“I think she’s always figured she would. She’s got her father, us, a tight pack of people. But a serious, committed one-to-one? She’s not sure she believes in them in general, much less for herself.”

A bit of gravel hit the bowl with a tiny ting. “I’ve worked with Ro a long time. She’s a proactive optimist in general. In that she—or we, depending—will find a way to make this work. In her personal life, she’s a proactive pessimist who has no problem living in the moment because this isn’t going to last anyway.”

“She’s wrong.”

“Nobody’s proven that to her yet.” She glanced up. “Can you?”

“If I don’t bleed to death from this sadistic game of Operation you’re playing.”

“I haven’t hit the buzzer yet. You’re the first guy, in my opinion, who has a shot at proving her wrong. So don’t screw it up. There.” She dropped more grit into the bowl. “I think that’s it. You lost a lot of skin here, Gull,” she began as she applied antiseptic. “Banged up your elbows pretty good, but it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse.”

“Not to knock the results, but I keep wondering why it wasn’t a hell of a lot worse.”

He looked over at the rap on the door frame. As she had earlier, Rowan leaned on the jamb, but now she had two beers hooked in her fingers. “I brought the patient a beer.”

“He could probably use one.” Janis bandaged the gouges around his right elbow. “Any word?”

“The cops have the grounds lit up like Christmas. If they’ve found anything, they’re not sharing it yet.”

“Okay. You’re as done as I can do.” Janis picked up the bowl filled with grit, bloodied cloths and cotton swipes. “Take two ibuprofen and call me in the morning.”

“Thanks, Janis.”

She gave his leg a squeeze as she rose. “None but the brave,” she said, then walked out.

Rowan stepped over, offered a beer. “Do you want to fight?”

Watching her over the bottle, he took a long swallow. “Yeah.”

“Seems like a waste, considering, but fine. Pick your topic.”

“Let’s start with the latest—we can always work back—and how you ran, alone, into the open out there.”

“We’d decided to try for the barracks, so I did.”

“Of the three of us, I’m the fastest—and the one best qualified to draw and evade fire, if there’d been any.”

“I said I like overconfidence, but this idea you can dodge bullets might be taking it too far. I can and do take care of myself, Gull. I do it every day. I’m going to keep doing it.”

He considered himself a patient, reasonable man—mostly. But she’d just about flipped his last switch.

“The fact you can and do take care of yourself is one of the most appealing things about you. You idiot. Handling yourself on a jump, in a fire or in general, no problem. This was different.”

“How?”

“Have you ever been shot at before?”

“No. Have you?”

“First time for both of us, and clearly a situation where you should have trusted me to take care of you.”

“I don’t want anybody to take care of me.”

“You know, that’s just stupid. Janis just took care of me, yet somehow my pride and self-esteem remain unbattered and unbowed.”

“Bandaging somebody up isn’t the same as falling on them like they were a grenade you were going to smother with your own body to save the guys in the trenches. And look at you, Gull. I’ve barely got a scrape because you took the brunt of that roll instead of letting me take my share.”

“I protect what I care about. If you’ve got a problem with that, you’ve got a problem with me.”

“I protect what I care about,” she tossed back at him.

“Were you protecting a fellow smoke jumper, or me?”

“You are a fellow smoke jumper.”

He stepped closer. “Is it what I do, or who I am? And don’t try the ‘you are what you do’ because I’m a hell of a lot more, and less, and dozens of other things. So are you. I care about you, Rowan. The you who’s got a laugh like an Old West saloon girl, the you who picks out constellations in the night sky and smells like peaches. I care about that woman as much as I do the fearless, smart, tireless one who puts her life on the line every time the siren goes off.”

Wariness clouded her eyes. “I don’t know what to say when you talk like that.”

“Is the only thing you see when you look at me another jumper you’ll work with for the season?”

“No.” She let out an unsteady breath. “No, that’s not all, but—”

“Stop at no.” He cupped a hand at the back of her neck. “Do us both a favor and stop at no. That’s enough for now.”

She moved into him, wrapping her arms tight around his waist when their lips met. She felt her equilibrium shift, as if she’d nearly overbalanced on a high ledge. With it came a flutter, under her heart, at the base of her throat. She gripped harder, wanting to find the heat, the buzz, an affirmation that they were both alive and whole.

Nothing more than that, she told herself. It didn’t have to be more than that.

“Getting a room’s not always enough,” Trigger said from the doorway. “Sometimes you gotta close the door.”

“Go ahead,” Gull invited him, then slid back into the kiss.

“Sorry, they want you in the lounge.”

“Who are ‘they’?” Rowan demanded, and gave Gull’s bottom lip a nip.

“The lieutenant guy and the tree cop. If you’re not interested in finding out who the hell shot at you tonight, I can tell them, gee, you’re out on a date.”

Gull lifted his head. “Be right there.” He looked at Rowan, ran his hands over her shoulders, down her arms. “My place,” he said. “The decision that was so rudely interrupted earlier. My place tonight because it’s closer to the lounge.”

“Not a bad reason.” She picked up the beers, handed him his. “Let’s get this done so we can close the door.”

DiCicco sat with Quinniock and L.B. in the lounge. Generally at that time of the evening, people sprawled on sofas and chairs watching TV, or gathered around one of the tables playing cards. Somebody might’ve buzzed up some microwave pizza or popcorn. And there would always be somebody willing to talk fire.

But now the TV screen remained blank and silent, the sofas empty.

L.B. got up from the table, walked quickly over to wrap an arm around Gull and Rowan in turn. “You’re okay. That matters most. Next is finding the bastard.”

“Did they find anything?” Rowan asked.

“If we could get your statements first.” DiCicco gestured to the table. “It should help us get a clearer picture.”

“The picture’s clear,” Rowan countered. “Somebody shot at us. He missed.”

“And when you file a fire report, does it just say: ‘Fire started. We put it out’?”

“If we could just take it from the beginning.” Quinniock held up his hands for peace. “The witness, Dobie Karstain, says he stepped outside the barracks around nine thirty. A few minutes later, he noticed the two of you walking together between the training field and the hangar area, approximately thirty yards from the trees. Does that sound accurate?”

“That’s about right.” Gull took the lead as it seemed obvious to him DiCicco put Rowan’s back up. “We went for a walk, took a couple of beers, watched the sunset. You’d narrow down where we were if you find the bottles. We dropped them when the shooting started.”

He took them through it, step by step.

“Dobie said it sounded like rifle fire,” he continued, “and it was coming from the trees. He grew up hunting in rural Kentucky, so I’m inclined to believe he’s right. We couldn’t see anyone. The first shot fired right around sunset. The whole thing probably only lasted about ten minutes. It seemed longer.”

“Have either of you had trouble with anyone, been threatened?” When Rowan merely arched her eyebrows, DiCicco inclined her head. “Other than Leo Brakeman.”

“We’re a little too busy around here to get into arguments with the locals or tourists.”

“Actually, there was an incident with you, Mr. Curry, Ms. Tripp and Mr. Karstain in the spring.”

“That would be when Rowan objected to one of those three yahoos’ behavior toward her, and them sopping their pride by ganging up on Dobie when he came out of the bar.”

“And you kicking their asses,” Rowan concluded. “Good times.”

“The same holds true on them as it did when we had the vandalism,” Gull continued. “It’s pretty hard to see them coming back here. And harder still to see any one of them staking us out from the woods and taking shots at us when we went for a walk. We’re in and out all the damn time anyway. Together, separately. It’s stretching it even more to figure those bozos from Illinois came all the way back, then got lucky when Ro and I walked out to give them some target practice.”

“How do you know they’re from Illinois?” DiCicco asked.

“Because that’s what the plate on the pickup said—and I did some checking on it after the ready room business.”

“You never told me that.”

Gull shrugged at Rowan. “It didn’t amount to anything to tell you. The big guy—and he was the alpha—owns a garage out in Rockford. He’s an asshole, and he’s had a few bumps for assaults—bar fights his specialty—but nothing major.” He shrugged again when DiCicco studied him. “The Internet. You can find out anything if you keep looking.”

“All right. You two have recently become involved,” DiCicco said. “Is there anyone who might resent that? Any former relationship?”

“I don’t date the kind of woman who’d take a shot at me.” He gave Rowan the eye. “Until maybe now.”

“I shoot all my former lovers, so your fate’s already set.”

“Only if we get to the former part.” He covered her hand with his. “It was either a local with a grudge against one or both of us specially, or the base in general. Or a wacko who wanted to shoot up a federal facility.”

“A terrorist?”

“I think a terrorist would’ve used more ammo,” Gull said to DiCicco. “But any way you slice it, he was a crap shot. Unless he’s a really good shot and was just trying to scare and intimidate.”

Rowan’s gaze sharpened. “I didn’t think of that.”

“I think a lot. I can’t swear to it, but I think the closest one hit about six or seven feet away from where we hit the ground. That’s not a comfortable distance when bullets are involved, but it’s a distance. Another sounded like it hit metal, the hangar. Way above our heads. Maybe it’ll turn out to be a couple of kids on a dare. Smoke jumpers think they’re so cool, let’s go make them piss their pants.

“It’s a theory,” he claimed when Rowan rolled her eyes.

“Lieutenant.” A uniformed cop stepped in.

“Hi, Barry.”

“Ro. Glad you’re okay. Sir, we found the weapon, or what we believe to be the weapon.”

“Where?”

“About twenty yards into the trees. A Remington 700 model—bolt action. The special edition. It was covered up with leaves.”

“Stupid,” Rowan mumbled. “Stupid to leave it there.”

“More stupid if it’s got a brass name plaque on the stock,” L.B. said. “I went hunting with Leo Brakeman last fall, and he carried a special edition 700. He was real proud of it.”

Rowan’s hand balled into a fist under Gull’s. “So much for theories.”

When DiCicco and Quinniock went out to examine the weapon, L.B. walked over to the coffeemaker.

“You know,” Ro said, “she told those lies to her father. All those lies, and they drove him to come out here with a gun and try to kill me.”

“I’d say you’re half right.” L.B. sat with his coffee, sighed. “The lies drove him to come out here with a gun, but, like I said, I’ve been hunting with Leo. I saw him take down a buck with that rifle, at thirty yards with the buck on the run. If he’d wanted to put a bullet in you, you’d have a bullet in you.”

“I guess it was my lucky day then.”

“Something snapped in him. I’m not excusing him, Ro. There’s no excuse for this. But something’s snapped in him. What the hell’s Irene going to do now? Her daughter murdered, and her husband likely locked up, an infant to care for. She hasn’t even buried Dolly yet, and now this.”

“I’m sorry for them. For all of them.”

“Yeah, it’s a damn sorry situation. I’m going to go see if the cops will tell me what happens next.” He went out, leaving his untouched coffee behind.

18

Too wound up to sit, Rowan pushed up, wandered the room, peeked out the window, circled back. Gull propped his feet on the chair she’d vacated and decided to drink L.B.’s abandoned coffee.

“I want to do something,” Rowan complained. “Just sitting here doesn’t feel right. How can you just sit here?”

“I’m doing something.”

“Drinking coffee doesn’t count as something.”

“I’m sitting here, I’m drinking coffee. And I’m thinking. I’m thinking if it’s Brakeman’s rifle, and if Brakeman was the one shooting it, did he just go stand in the trees and assume you’d eventually wander out into range?”

“I don’t know if it had to be me. He’s pissed at all of us, just mostly at me.”

“Okay, possible.” He found the coffee bitter, wished for a little sugar to cut the edge. But just didn’t feel like getting up for it. “So Brakeman stands in the woods with his rifle, staking out the base. He gets lucky and we come along. If he’s as good a shot as advertised, why did he miss?”

“Because it has to be a hell of a lot different to shoot a human being than a buck. Nerves. Or he couldn’t bring himself to kill me—us—and decided to scare us to death instead.”

“Also possible. Why leave the weapon? Why leave a special edition, which had to cost, which he cared enough about to put his name on, under a pile of leaves? Why leave it behind at all when he had to know the cops would do a search?”

“Panic. Impulse. He wasn’t thinking clearly—obviously. Hide it, get out, come back for it another time. And maybe take a few more shots.” She stopped, rubbed at the tension in the back of her neck as she studied Gull. “And you don’t think Leo Brakeman shot at us.”

“I think it might be interesting to know who had access to his gun. Who might’ve liked causing him trouble, and wouldn’t feel too bad about scaring you doing it.” He sipped at the coffee. “But it could’ve been Brakeman following impulse, getting lucky, being nervous and panicking.”

“When you say it like that, it’s a lot to swallow.”

She plopped down in L.B.’s chair as Gull had opened her mind to alternatives. And thinking was doing, she reminded herself.

“I guess his wife would have access, but I have a hard time seeing her doing this. Plus, I’ve never heard of her going hunting or target shooting. She’s more the church-bake-sale type. And it’s easier to believe she might panic because she’s more the quiet, even a little timid, type. If you get past the first step, her actually coming out here with a rifle, the rest goes down.”

“Maybe a double bluff,” she considered aloud. “He left the rifle so he could say, hey, would anybody be that stupid? But I don’t know if he’d be that cagey. I just don’t know these people very well. We’ve never had much interaction, even when Dolly worked here. Which means I don’t know if anybody’s got a grudge against Brakeman, or would know enough to use him as a fall guy. It’s easier if it’s Brakeman. Then it would be done, and there wouldn’t be anything to worry about.”

“It’s up to the cops anyway. We can let it go.”

“That’s passive, and that’s what’s driving me crazy. Who killed Dolly? That’s the first question. Jesus, Gull, what if her father did?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” She hooked her feet around the legs of the chair, leaned forward. “Say they had a fight. Say she’s coming back from Florence—if she got work there like she claimed—gets the flat. Calls her father to come fix it. I can’t picture Dolly with a lug wrench and jack. He comes out, and they get into it over something. Her dumping the baby on her mother so much, maybe having the kid in the first place, or just dragging him out that time of night. Things get out of hand. She takes a fall, lands wrong, breaks her neck. He freaks, puts her body in the truck. He’s got to figure out what to do, decides to destroy the evidence—and the rest follows. He knows the area, the trails, and he’s strong enough to have carried her in.”

“Plausible,” Gull decided. “Maybe he confesses to his wife, and you get part two. There’s another hypothesis.”

“Share.”

“You said you didn’t know Dolly that well, but you had definite opinions about her. Jim died last August. We’re moving toward July. Is she the type to be without a man for a year?”

Rowan opened her mouth, shut it again, then sat back. “No. And why didn’t I think of that? No, she’d never go this long without a man. There’s a stronger case for that knowing that her whole I-found-Jesus deal was bogus.”

“Maybe the current guy’s in Florence. Maybe that’s why she got work there, or said she did. Or maybe they just met up in a motel on Twelve or thereabouts.”

“Lovers’ quarrel, and he kills her. If there’s a he. There had to be—it’s Dolly. Or her father found out, and so on. But if she had one on the line in Florence, why come back here anyway? Why not just go there, be with him? Because he’s married,” Rowan said before Gull could comment. “She fooled around with married men all the time.”

“If so, it’s more likely he’s in Missoula. She came back here, got work here at the base. She’d want to be close to whoever she was sleeping with. Say, he’s married, or there’s some other reason why they can’t be open about a relationship. Then you have the meet-up somewhere away from where people know you, would recognize you.”

“You’re good at this.”

“It’s like playing a game. You work the levels.” He took her hand again. “Except it’s not characters, it’s real people.”

“It still feels better to play it through. And here’s another thing. Dolly wasn’t nearly as smart or clever as she liked to think. If she was sleeping with somebody, she’d have dropped hints. Maybe to Marg. More likely to Lynn. She was going to church, so maybe to somebody she made friends with there.”

“It would be interesting to find out.”

“It would.” She needed to move again, do more than think. “Why don’t we go outside, see what’s going on?”

“Good idea.”

“Quinniock likes me, I think. Maybe he’ll give us a couple of nibbles.”

When they went out, she spotted Barry heading toward his patrol car. “Hey, Barry. Is Lieutenant Quinniock around?”

“He and Agent DiCicco just left. Do you need something, Ro?”

She gave Gull a quick glance. “I could sure use a little reassurance. I’d sleep better tonight.”

“I can tell you the weapon we found is Leo Brakeman’s. The lieutenant and DiCicco are on their way to his place to talk to him.”

“Talk.”

“That’s the first step. I had to back up Little Bear when he told them Leo’s a damn good shot. I don’t know if it makes you feel better or not, but I don’t think he was aiming for you.”

“It doesn’t make me feel worse.”

“He was wrong blaming you for what happened to Dolly. Some people just can’t get their lives together.”

“I meant to ask Lieutenant Quinniock if they found out where she’d gotten work. Maybe somebody she knew or met there killed her.”

Barry hesitated, then shrugged. “It doesn’t look like she was working. It’s nothing for you to worry about, Ro.”

“Barry.” She put a hand on his arm. “Come on. I’m in the middle of this whether I want to be or not. What was she doing coming back from down that way if she didn’t have a job?”

“I can’t say for sure, and I shouldn’t say at all.” He puffed out his cheeks as she kept looking into his eyes. “All I know is the police artist is scheduled to work with somebody tomorrow. The word is it’s a maid from some motel down off Twelve. Whoever he is, if we can ID him, the lieutenant’s going to want to talk to him.”

“Thanks, Barry.” She moved in to hug him. “Erin got lucky with you. Tell her I said so.”

“I’ll do that. And you don’t worry. We’re looking out for you.”

Gull slipped his hands in his pockets as Barry got in the car. “You didn’t come down on him for saying he was looking out for you.”

“Cops are supposed to look out for everybody. Besides, Barry gets a pass. He was my first. Actually we were each other’s firsts, a scenario I don’t necessarily recommend unless both participants have a solid sense of humor. That was several years before he met Erin, his wife, and the mother of his two kids.”

“My first was Becca Rhodes. She was a year older and experienced. It went quite smoothly.”

“Are you still friends with Becca Rhodes?”

“I haven’t seen her since high school.”

“See? Humor wins out. Dolly never worked in Florence,” Rowan added. “Our little what-if session hit a mark. A man, a motel—possibly a murderer.” She tipped her head back, found the sky. “I feel less useless and victimized. That counts for a lot. I’m going to talk to Lynn first chance I get, just to see if Dolly dropped any crumbs.”

Time to put it away for the night, Gull decided, and draped an arm over her shoulder. “Pick one out for me. A constellation. Not the Dippers. Even I can find them. Usually.”

“Okay. Then you’ll spot Ursa Minor there.” She took his hand, used it to outline the connection of stars. “Now, the stars in this one aren’t very bright, but if you follow that west, connect the dots, going south and over—it winds around the Little Dipper, see? There. You’ve got Draco. The dragon. It seems apt for a couple of smoke jumpers.”

“Yeah, I get it. Pretty cool. Now that we’ve got our constellation, we just need to decide on our song.”

He lightened her load, she thought. No doubt about it. “You’re so full of it, Gulliver.”

“Only because I have so much depth.”

“Hell.” She turned into him, indulged them both with a deep, dreamy kiss. “Let’s go to bed.”

“You read my mind.”

“Did you find who killed my girl?” Leo demanded the minute he opened the door.

“Let’s go inside and sit down,” Quinniock suggested.

He and DiCicco had discussed their approach on the drive, and, as agreed, Quinniock took the lead. “Mrs. Brakeman, we’d like to talk with both of you.”

Irene Brakeman linked her hands together at her heart. “It’s about Dolly. You know who hurt Dolly.”

“We’re pursuing several avenues of investigation.” DiCicco kept her voice clipped. It wasn’t quite good cop/bad cop, but more cold cop/warm cop. “There are some matters we need to clear up with you. To start with, Mr. Brakeman—”

Quinniock touched a hand to her arm. “Why don’t we all sit down? I know it’s late, but we’d appreciate if you gave us some time.”

“We answered questions. We let you go through Dolly’s room, through her things.” Leo continued to bar the door with his knuckles white on the knob. “We were going up to bed. If you don’t have anything new to tell us, just leave us in peace.”

“There is no peace until we know who did this to Dolly.” Irene’s voice pitched, broke. “Go up to bed if you want to,” Irene told her husband with a tinge of disgust. “I’ll talk to the police. Go on upstairs and shake your fists at God, see if that helps. Please, come in.”

She moved forward, a small woman who pushed her burly husband aside so that he stepped back, his head hung down like a scolded child’s.

“I’m just tired, Reenie. I’m so damn tired. And you’re wearing yourself to the bone, tending the baby and worrying.”

“We’re not asked to lift more than we can carry. So we’ll lift this. Do you want some coffee, or tea, or anything?”

“Don’t you worry about that, Mrs. Brakeman.” Quinniock took a seat in the living room on a chair covered with blue and red flowers. “I know this is hard.”

“We can’t even bury her yet. They said you need to keep her awhile more, so we can’t give our daughter a Christian burial.”

“We’ll release her to you as soon as we can. Mrs. Brakeman, the last time we spoke, you said Dolly got a job in Florence, as a cook.”

“That’s right.” She twisted her fingers together in her lap, a working woman’s hands wearing a plain gold band. “She felt like she didn’t want to take a job in Missoula after what went on at the base. I think she was embarrassed. She was embarrassed, Leo,” Irene snapped as he started to object. “Or she should have been.”

“They never treated her decent there.”

“You know that’s not true.” She spoke more quietly now, briefly touched a hand to his. “You can’t take her word as gospel now that she’s gone when you know Dolly didn’t tell the real truth half the time or more. They gave her a chance there,” she said to Quinniock when Leo lapsed into brooding silence. “And Reverend Latterly and I vouched for her. She shamed herself, and us. She got work down there in Florence,” Irene continued after she’d firmed quivering lips. “She was a good cook, our girl. It was something she liked, even when she was just a little thing. She could be a good worker when she put her mind to it. The hours were hard, especially with the baby, but the pay was good, and she said she could go places.”

“You didn’t remember the name of the restaurant when we spoke before,” DiCicco prompted.

“I guess she never mentioned it.” Irene pressed her lips together again. “I was angry with her about what she did to Rowan Tripp, and embarrassed my own self. It’s hard knowing Dolly and I were at odds when she died. It’s hard knowing that.”

“I have to tell you, both of you, that Agent DiCicco and I have contacted or gone to every restaurant, diner, coffee shop between here and Florence, and Dolly didn’t work in any of them.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She wasn’t working in a restaurant,” DiCicco said briskly. “She didn’t get a job, didn’t leave here the night she died to go to work.”

“Hell she didn’t,” Leo protested.

“On the night she died, and on the afternoon prior, the evening prior to that, Dolly spent several hours in a room at the Big Sky Motel, off Highway Twelve.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Leo, hush.” Irene gripped her hands together tighter.

“Several witnesses identified her photograph,” Quinniock continued. “I’m sorry. She didn’t spend those hours alone. She met a man there, the same man each time. We have a witness who’ll be working with our police artist to reconstruct his face.”

With tears trickling down her face, Irene nodded. “I was afraid of it. I knew in my heart she was lying, but I was so upset with her. I didn’t care. Just go on then, I thought. Go on and do what you want, and I’ll have this baby to tend. Then, after... after it happened, I took that out of my mind. I told myself I’d been harsh and judgmental, a cold mother.

“I knew she was lying,” she said, turning to her husband. “I knew all the signs. But I couldn’t let myself believe it when she was dead. I just couldn’t have that inside me.”

“Do you have any idea who she was involved with?”

“I swear to you I don’t. But I think maybe it’d been going on awhile now. I know the signs. The way she’d whisper on the phone, or how she’d say she just needed to go out for a drive and clear her head, or had to run some errands so could I watch Shiloh? And she’d come home again with that look in her eye.”

She let out a shuddering breath. “She never meant to change.” Dissolving, Irene turned to press her face to Leo’s shoulder. “Maybe she just couldn’t.”

“Why do we have to know this?” Leo demanded. “Why do you have to tell us this? You don’t leave us anything.”

“I’m sorry, but Dolly was with this man the night she died. We need to identify him and question him.”

“He killed her. This man she gave herself to, this man she lied to us about.”

“We need to question him,” Quinniock repeated. “If you have any idea who she was meeting, we need to know.”

“She lied to us. We don’t know anything. We don’t have anything. Just leave us alone.”

“There’s something else, Mr. Brakeman, we need to discuss.” DiCicco took the ball. “At approximately nine thirty tonight, Rowan Tripp and Gulliver Curry were fired on while walking on the base.”

“That’s nothing to do with us.”

“On the contrary, a Remington 700 special edition rifle was found hidden in the woods flanking the base. It has your name engraved in a plaque on the stock.”

“You’re accusing me of trying to kill that woman? You come into my home, tell me my daughter was a liar and a whore and say I’m a killer?”

“It’s your gun, Mr. Brakeman, and you recently threatened Ms. Tripp.”

“My daughter was murdered, and she... My rifle’s in the gun safe. I haven’t had it out in weeks.”

“If that’s the case, we’d like you to show us.” DiCicco got to her feet.

“I’ll show you, then I want you out of my house.”

He lunged up, stomped his way back to the kitchen to yank open a door that led to a basement.

Or a man cave, DiCicco thought as she followed. Dead animal heads hung on the paneled wall in a wildlife menagerie that loomed over the oversized recliner and lumpy sofa. The table that fronted the sofa showed scars from years of boot heels and faced an enormous flat-screen television.

The room boasted an ancient refrigerator she imagined held manly drinks, a worktable for loading shot into shells, a utility shelf that held boxes of clay pigeons, shooting vests, hunting caps—and, oddly, she thought, several framed family photos, including a large one of a pretty baby girl with one of those elasticized pink bows circling her bald head.

A football lamp, a computer and piles of paperwork sat on a gray metal desk shoved in a corner. Above it hung a picture of Leo and several other men beside what she thought was a 747 aircraft, reminding her he worked at the airport as a mechanic.

And against the side wall stood a big, orange-doored gun safe.

Pumping off waves of heat and resentment, Leo marched to the safe, spun the dial for the combination, wrenched it open.

DiCicco had no problems with guns; in fact she believed in them. But the small arsenal inside the safe had her eyes widening. Rifles, shotguns, handguns—bolt action, semiauto, revolvers, under and overs, scopes. All showing the gloss of the well-cleaned, well-oiled, well-tended weapon.

But her scan didn’t turn up the weapon in question, and her hand edged toward her own as Leo Brakeman’s breathing went short and quick.

“You have an excellent collection of firearms, Mr. Brakeman, but you seem to be missing a Remington 700.”

“Somebody stole it.”

Her hand closed over the butt of her weapon when he whirled around, his face red, his fists clenched.

“Somebody broke in here and stole it.”

“There’s no record of you reporting a break-in.” Quinniock stepped up.

“Because I didn’t know. Somebody’s doing this to us. You have to find out who’s doing this to us.”

“Mr. Brakeman, you’re going to have to come with us now.” She didn’t want to draw on the man, hoped she wouldn’t have to, but DiCicco readied to do so.

“You’re not taking me out of my home.”

“Leo.” Quinniock spoke calmly. “Don’t make it worse now. You come quietly, and we’ll go in and talk about this. Or I’m going to have to cuff you and take you in forcibly.”

“Leo.” Irene simply collapsed onto a step. “My God, Leo.”

“I didn’t do anything. Irene, as God is my witness. I’ve never lied to you in my life, Reenie. I didn’t do anything.”

“Then let’s go in and talk this out.” Quinniock moved a step closer, laid a hand on Leo’s quivering shoulder. “Let’s try to get to the bottom of it.”

“Somebody’s doing this to us. I never shot at anybody out at the base, or anywhere else.” He jerked away from Quinniock’s hand. “I’ll walk out on my own.”

“All right, Leo. That would be best.”

Stiff-legged, he walked toward the steps. He stopped, reached for his wife’s hands. “Irene, on my life, I didn’t shoot at anybody. I need you to believe me.”

“I believe you.” But she dropped her gaze when she said it.

“You need to lock up now. You be sure to lock up the house. I’ll be home as soon as we straighten this out.”

Rowan got the word when she slipped into the cookhouse kitchen the next morning.

Lynn set down the hot bin of pancakes she carried, then wrapped Rowan in a hug. “I’m glad you’re all right. I’m glad everybody’s all right.”

“Me too.”

“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to say.” Shaking her head, she picked up the bin again. “I have to get these on the buffet.”

At the stove, Marg scooped bacon from the grill, set it aside to drain before shifting over to pour a glass of juice. She held it out to Rowan. “Drink what’s good for you,” she ordered, then turned back to pull a batch of fresh biscuits from the oven. “They picked up Leo Brakeman last night.”

Rowan drank the juice. “Do you know what he’s saying?”

“I don’t know a lot, but I know they talked to him for a long time last night, and they’re holding him. I know he’s saying he didn’t do it. I’m feeling like Lynn. I don’t know what to think.”

“I think it was stupid to leave the rifle. Then again, the cops would do their CSI thing since they found at least one of the bullets. Then again, with his skill, at that range, he could’ve put all three of them into me.”

“Don’t say that.”

At the crack of Marg’s voice, Rowan walked over, rubbed a hand down Marg’s back. “He didn’t, so I can come in here and drink a juice combo of carrots, apples, pears and parsnips.”

“You missed the beets.”

“So that’s what that was. They’re better in juice than on a plate.”

Marg moved aside to take a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator. “Go on in and eat your breakfast. I’ve got hungry mouths to feed.”

“I wanted to ask you. I wanted to ask both of you,” she said when Lynn came back with another empty tub. “Was Dolly seeing someone? Did she say anything about being involved?”

“She knew better than to start that business up around me,” Marg began, “when she kept saying how she was next thing to a grieving widow, and finding her comfort in God and her baby. But I doubt she stepped outside on a break to giggle on her cell phone because she’d called Dial-A-Joke.”

“She didn’t tell me anything, not directly,” Lynn put in. “But she said, a couple of times, how lucky I was to have a daddy for my kids, and how she knew her baby needed one, too. She said she spent a lot of time praying on it, and had faith God would provide.”

Lynn shifted, obviously uncomfortable. “I don’t like talking about her this way, but the thing is, she was a little sly when she said it, you know? And I thought, well, she’s already got her eye on a candidate. It wasn’t very nice of me, but it’s what I thought.”

“Did you tell the cops?”

“They just asked if she had a boyfriend, and like that. I told them I didn’t know of anybody. I wouldn’t have felt right telling them I thought she was looking for one. Do you think I should have?”

“You told them what you knew. I think I’m going to go get in my run, work up an appetite.” She saw Lynn bite her lip. “The cops have the rifle, and they have Brakeman. I can’t spend my life indoors. I’ll be back with an appetite.”

She walked outside. The shudder that went through her as she glanced toward the trees only stiffened her spine. She couldn’t live her life worried she had a target on her back. She put on the sunglasses—the ones Cards found where Gull had tackled her—and started the walk toward the track.

She could run on the road, she considered, but she was on the jump list, first load. The clouds over the mountains confirmed the forecast from the morning briefing. Cumulus overtimus, she thought, knowing the buildup could hurl lightning. She’d likely jump fire today, and get plenty of that overtime.

Better to stay on base in case.

“Hey.” Gull caught up with her at a light jog. “We running?”

“I thought you had things to do.”

“I said I wanted coffee, maybe some calories. And that was mostly to give you time to talk to Marg and Lynn. A straight three miles?”

“I...” Behind him, she saw Matt, Cards and Trigger come out of the cookhouse and head in her direction. Her eyes narrowed. “Did Lynn go in and tell the dining hall I was heading to the track?”

“What do you think?”

Now Dobie, Stovic and Gibbons herded out.

“Did she call up the Marines while she was at it? I don’t need a bunch of bodyguards.”

“What you’ve got is people who care about you. Are you really going to carp about that?”

“No, but I don’t see why...” Yangtree, Libby and Janis headed out from the direction of the gym. “For Christ’s sake, in another minute the whole unit’s going to be out here.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Half of you aren’t even in running gear,” she called out.

Trigger, in jeans and boots, reached her first. “We don’t wear running gear on a fire.”

She considered him. “Nice save.”

“When you run, we all run,” Cards told her. “At least everybody who’s not on duty with something else. We voted on it.”

“I didn’t get a vote.” She jabbed a finger at Gull. “Did you get a vote?”

“I got to add mine to the unanimous results this morning, so your vote is moot.”

“Fine. Dandy. We run.”

She took off for the track, then geared up to a sprint the minute she hit its surface. Just to see who’d keep up, besides Gull, who matched her stride for stride. She heard the scramble and pounding of feet behind her, then the hoots and catcalls as Libby zipped up to pass.

“Have a heart, Ro,” she shouted. “We’ve got old men like Yangtree out here.”

“Who’re you calling old!” He kicked it up a notch, edged out of the pack on the turn.

“Gimps like Cards hobbling back there in his boots.”

Amused, Ro glanced over her shoulder to see Cards shoot up his middle finger. And Dobie begin to run backward to taunt him.

She cut her pace back a bit because he was hobbling just a little, then laughed herself nearly breathless when Gibbons jogged by with Janis riding on his shoulders pumping her arms in the air.

“Bunch of lunatics,” Rowan decided.

“Yeah. The best bunch of lunatics I know.” Gull’s grin widened as Southern puffed by with Dobie on board. “Want a ride?”

“I’ll spare you the buck and a half on your back. Show them how it’s done, Fast Feet. You know you wanna.”

He gave her a pat on the ass and took off like a bullet to a chorus of cheers, insults and whistles.

By the time she made her three, Gull was sprawled on the grass, braced on his elbows to watch the show. Highly entertained, she stood, hands on hips, doing the same. Until she saw her father drive up.

“It’s a good thing he didn’t get here sooner,” she commented, “or he’d have been out on the track, too.”

“I’m betting he can hold his own.”

“Yeah, he can.” She started toward him, trying for an easy smile. But the expression on his face told her easy wouldn’t work.

He grabbed her, pulled her hard against him.

“I’m okay. I told you I was A-OK.”

“I didn’t come to see for myself last night because you asked me not to, because you said you had to talk to the cops, and needed to get some sleep afterward.” He drew her back, took a long study of her face. “But I needed to see for myself.”

“Then you can stop worrying. The cops have Brakeman. I texted you they found his gun and were going to get him. And they got him.”

“I want to see him. I want to look him in the eye when I ask him if he thinks hurting my daughter will bring his back. I want to ask him that before I bloody him.”

“I appreciate the sentiment. I really do. But he didn’t hurt me, and he’s not going to hurt me. Look at that bunch.” She gestured toward the track. “I came out here for my run, and every one of them came out of their various holes.”

“All for one,” he murmured. “I need to talk to your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my... Dad, I’m not sixteen.”

“Boyfriend’s the easiest term for me. Have you had breakfast?”

“Not yet.”

“Go on in, and I’ll sweet-talk Marg into feeding me with you—when I’m done talking to your boyfriend.”

“Just use his name. That should be easy.”

Lucas merely smiled, kissed her forehead. “I’ll be in in a minute.”

He crossed over to Gull, slapped hands with Gibbons, gave Yangtree a pat on the back as the man bent over to catch his breath.

“I want to talk to you a minute,” he said to Gull.

“Sure.” Gull pushed to his feet. His eyebrows lifted when Lucas walked away from the group, but he followed.

“I heard what you did for Rowan. You took care of her.”

“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say that to her.”

“I know better, but I’m saying it to you. I’m saying I’m grateful. She’s the world to me. She’s the goddamn universe to me. If you ever need anything—”

“Mr. Tripp—”

“Lucas.”

“Lucas, first, I figure mostly anyone would’ve done what I did, which wasn’t that big a deal. If Rowan’s instincts had kicked in first, she’d have knocked me down, and I’d’ve been under her. And second, I didn’t do it so you’d owe me a favor.”

“You scraped a lot of bark off those arms.”

“They’ll heal up, and they’re not keeping me off the jump list. So. No big.”

Lucas nodded, looked off toward the trees. “Am I supposed to ask what your intentions are regarding my daughter?”

“God, I hope not.”

“Because to my way of thinking, if you were just in it for the fun, me saying I owed you wouldn’t put your back up. So I’m going to give you that favor whether you want it or not. And here it is.” He looked back into Gull’s eyes. “If you’re serious about her, don’t let her push you back. You’ll have to hold on until she believes you. She’s a hard sell, but once she believes, she sticks.

“So.” Lucas held out a hand, shook Gull’s. “I’m going to go have breakfast with my girl. Are you coming?”

“Yeah. Shortly,” Gull decided.

He stood alone a moment, absorbing the fact that Iron Man Tripp had just given his blessing. And thinking over just what he wanted to do with it.

He mulled it over, taking his time walking toward the cookhouse. The siren sounded just before he reached it. Cursing the missed chance of breakfast, Gull turned on his heel and ran for the ready room.

19

After forty-eight hours battling a two-hundred-acre wildfire in the Beaverhead National Forest, getting shot at a few times added up to small change. Once she’d bolted down the last of a sandwich she’d ratted away, Rowan worked with her team, lighting fusees in a bitter attempt to kick the angry fire back before it rode west toward the national battlefield.

The head changed direction three times in two days, snarling at the rain of retardant and spitting it out.

The initial attack, a miserable failure, moved into a protracted, vicious extended one.

“Gull, Matt, Libby, you’re on spots. Cards, Dobie, we’re going to move west, take down any snags. Dig and cut and smother. We stop her here.”

Nobody spoke as they pushed, shoved, lashed the backfire east. The world was smoke and heat and noise with every inch forward a victory. About time, Rowan thought, about damn time their luck changed.

The snag she cut fell with a crack. She positioned to slice it into smaller, less appetizing logs. They’d shovel and drag limbs and coals away from the green, into the black, into a bone pile.

Starve her, Rowan thought. Just keep starving her.

She straightened a moment to stretch her back.

She saw it happen, so fast she couldn’t shout out much less leap forward. A knife-point of wood blew out of the cut Cards was carving and shot straight into his face.

She dropped her saw, rushing toward him even as he yelped in shock and pain and lost his footing.

“How bad? How bad?” she shouted, grabbing him as he staggered. She saw for herself the point embedded in his cheek, half an inch below his right eye. Blood spilled down to his jaw.

“For fuck’s sake,” he managed. “Get it out.”

“Hold on. Just hold on.”

Dobie trotted up. “What’re you two... Jesus, Cards, how the hell did you do that?”

“Hold his hands,” Rowan ordered as she dug into her pack.

“What?”

“Get behind him and hold his hands down. I think it’s going to hurt when I pull it out.” She set a boot on either side of Cards’s legs, pulled off her right glove. She clamped her fingers on the inch of jagged wood protruding from his cheek. “On three now. Get ready. One. Two—”

She yanked on two, watched the blood slop out, watched his eyes go a little glassy. Quickly, she pressed the pad of gauze she’d taken out of her pack to the wound.

“You’ve got a hell of a hole in your face,” she told him.

“You said on three.”

“Yeah, well, I lost count. Dobie, hold the pad, keep the pressure on. I have to clean that out.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Cards objected. “Just tape it over. We’ll worry about it later.”

“Two minutes. Lean back against Dobie.”

She tossed the bloody pad aside, poured water over the wound, hoping to flush out tiny splinters. “And try not to scream like a girl,” she added, following up the water with a hefty dose of peroxide.

“Goddamn it, Ro! Goddamn, fucking shit!”

Ruthless, she waited while the peroxide bubbled out dirt and wood, then doused it with more water. She coated another pad with antibiotic cream, added another, then taped it over what she noted was a hole in his cheek the size of a marble.

“We can get you out to the west.”

“Screw that. I’m not packing out. It was just a damn splinter.”

“Yeah.” Dobie held up the three-inch spear of wood. “If you’re fifty feet tall. I saved it for you.”

“Holy shit, that’s a fucking missile. I got hit with a wood missile. In the face. My luck,” he said in disgust, “has been for shit all season.” He waved off Rowan’s extended hand. “I can stand on my own.”

He wobbled a moment, then steadied.

“Take some of the ibuprofen in your PG bag. If you’re sure you’re fit, I want you to go switch off to scout spots. You’re not running a saw, Cards. You know better. Switch off, or I’ll have to report the injury to Ops.”

“I’m not leaving this here until she’s dead.”

“Then switch off. If that hole in your ugly face bleeds through those pads, have one of your team change it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He touched his fingers to the pad. “You’d think I cut off a leg,” he muttered, but headed down the line. When he’d gone far enough, she pulled out her radio, contacted Gull. “Cards is headed to you. He had a minor injury. I want one of you to head up to me, and he’ll take your place down there.”

“Copy that.”

“Okay, Dobie, get that saw working. And watch out for flying wood missiles. I don’t want any more drama.”

The backfire held. It took another ten hours, but reports from head to tail called the fire contained.

The sunset ignited the sky as she hiked back to camp. It reminded her of watching the sun set with Gull. Of bullets and blind hate. She dropped down to eat, wishing she could find that euphoria that always rose in her once a fire surrendered.

Yangtree sat down beside her. “We’re going to get some food in our bellies before we start mop-up. Ops has eight on tap for that. It’s up to you since he was on your team, but I think Cards should demob, get that wound looked at proper.”

“Agreed. I’m going to pack out with him. If they can send eight, let’s spring eight from camp.”

“My thinking, too. I tell you, Ro, I say I’m too old for this, but I’m starting to mean it. I might just ask your daddy for a job come the end of the season.”

“Hell. Cards is the one with the hole in his face.”

He looked toward the west, the setting sun, the black mountain. “I’m thinking I may want to see what it’s like to sit on my own porch on a summer night, drink a beer, with some female company if I can get it, and not have to think about fire.”

“You’ll always think about fire, and sitting on a porch, you’d wish you were here.”

He gave her a pat on the knee as he rose. “It might be time to find out.”

She had to browbeat Cards into packing out. Smoke jumpers, she thought, treated injuries like points of pride, or challenges.

He sulked on the flight home.

“I get why he’s in a mood.” Gull settled down beside her. “Why are you?”

“Sixty hours on fire might have something to do with it.”

“No. That’s why you’re whipped and more vulnerable to the mood, but not the reason for the mood.”

“Here’s what I don’t get, hotshot: why, after a handful of months, you think you know me so damn well. And another is why you spend so much time psychoanalyzing people.”

“Those are both pretty easy to get. The first is it may be a handful of months, but people who live and work together, particularly under intense conditions, tend to know and understand each other quicker than those who don’t. Add sleeping together, and it increases the learning curve. Second.”

He pulled out a bag of shelled peanuts, offered her some, then shrugged and dug in himself when she just glowered at him.

“Second,” he repeated. “People interest me, so I like figuring them out.”

He munched nuts. Whatever her mood or the reasons for it, he wasn’t inclined to lower his to match it. A hot shower and hot food, followed by a bed with a warm woman in it, ranged in his immediate future.

Who could ask for better?

“You’re starting to think about what’s waiting back at base. All the crap we’ve been too busy to worry about. What’s happened while we were catching fire, if the cops charged Brakeman, found Dolly’s killer. If not, what next?”

He glanced over toward Cards, who snored with his head on his pack, a fresh bandage snowy white against his soot-smeared face. “And you’re mixing in worrying how bad Cards messed his face up. Whatever Yangtree and you talked about before we demobbed topped it off.”

She said nothing for a moment. “Know-it-alls are irritating.” Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes. “I’m getting some sleep.”

“Funny, I think having somebody understand you is comforting.”

She opened one eye, cool, crystal blue. “I didn’t say you were an understand-it-all.”

“You’ve got me there.” Gull shut his eyes as well, and dropped off.

Rowan headed straight to the barracks after unloading her gear. To settle down, Gull decided, as much as clean up. Maybe she’d label it as “taking care of her,” and that was too damn bad, but he postponed his own agenda to hunt down L.B.

He waited in Operations while L.B. coordinated with the mop-up crew boss.

“Got a minute?”

“For the first time in three days, I’ve got a few. I’m stepping out,” L.B. announced, then jerked his head toward the door. “What’s on your mind?”

“You telling me the status of things around here so I can pass it on to Rowan.”

“I don’t know how much they’re keeping me in the loop, but let’s find a place to sit down.”

When Rowan stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, a still filthy Gull was sitting on the floor.

“Is something wrong with your shower?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been in it yet.”

“I’ve got a lot to do before I’m done, so we’ll have to reschedule the hot sex portion of the evening.”

“You’ve got a one-track mind, Swede. I like the track, but there are more than one.”

She opened a drawer, selected yoga pants and a top.

“I’ll give you the rundown,” Gull began. “Trigger dragged Cards to the infirmary. The wound’s clean. No infection, but it’s pretty damn deep. Plastic surgeon recommended, and after some bullshit, he’s going into town to see one in the morning. He wants to keep his pretty face.”

“That’s good.” She pulled on the pants and top without bothering with underwear—something Gull appreciated whatever the circumstances. “And it’ll be fun to rag him about plastic surgery,” she added, stepping back into the bath to hang the towel. “We ought to get some fun out of it.”

“Trigger already suggested they suck the lard out of his ass while they’re at it.”

“That’s a start.”

“They’ve charged Leo Brakeman.”

He watched her jerk, just a little, then cross over to sit on the side of the bed. “Okay. All right.”

“His rifle, prior threats and the fact he can’t verify his whereabouts for the time of the shooting. He admitted he and his wife had a fight, and he went out to drive around for a couple hours. He’d only just gotten back when the cops showed up at the door.”

“His wife could’ve lied for him.”

“He never asked her to. Some of this came from the cops, some of it’s via Marg. I could separate it out, but being a know-it-all, I figure Marg’s intel is as solid as the cops’.”

“You’d be right.”

“They fought about him coming out here, going off on you. About Dolly in general. I think losing a child either sticks the parents together like cement, or rips them up.”

“My father had a brother. A younger one. You probably know that, too, since you studied Iron Man.”

Gull said nothing, gave her room. “He died when he was three of some weird infection. He’d never been what you’d call robust, and, well, they couldn’t fix it. I guess it cemented my grandparents. Has he admitted it? Brakeman?”

“No. He’s claiming he was driving around, just tooling the backroads, that somebody broke in, took his rifle. Somebody’s framing him. His wife finally convinced him to get a lawyer. They held the bail hearing this morning. She put up their house to post his bond.”

“Jesus.”

“He’s not coming back around here, Ro.”

“That’s not what I mean. She’s dealing with more than anybody should have to deal with, and it just doesn’t feel like any of it’s her doing. I don’t know how she’s standing up to it.”

“She’s dealing with more yet. They identified a man Dolly met at a motel off Twelve the night she died. One she met there a number of times in the past few months. Reverend Latterly.”

“Their pastor? For the love of—” She broke off, slumped back. “Dolly was putting out for her mother’s padre, all the while claiming she’d been washed in the light of the Lord or whatever. It makes sense,” she said immediately. “Now it makes sense. God will provide. That’s what she said to Lynn. Her baby would need a father, and God would provide.”

“I don’t think God had the notion to provide Dolly with a married man who’s already got three kids. He’s denying it, all righteously outraged, and so far, anyway, his wife’s sticking with him. The cops are working on picking that apart.”

“He met her the night she was killed. She wanted a father for her baby, and Dolly always pushed when she wanted something. She pushed, maybe threatened to tell his wife, ruin him with his congregation. And he kills her.”

“Logical,” Gull agreed.

“It still doesn’t explain why he didn’t just leave her, why he took her into the forest, started the fire. But odds are it’s the first time he killed anyone. It’s probably hard to be rational after doing something like that.

“Gull... If he and Dolly were heating the sheets, all this time—and he’s been preaching to Mrs. Brakeman for years—he could’ve gotten into their house.”

She tilted her head. “And you’ve already thought about that.”

“Speculated. I expect he’s had Sunday dinner there a time or two, he and his wife probably brought a covered dish to summer cookouts and so on. Yeah, I think he knew how to get in, and he might’ve known or been able to access the combination to the safe.”

“It would be a way to have the cops looking at Brakeman, and that worked. Maybe have them speculating. This violent man, this man with a violent temper, one who’d already pushed his daughter out of the house once, has been known to have heated arguments with her. It could be.”

“It’s not out of the realm. You lost your mood.”

She smirked, just a little. “Know-it-all. Maybe I was feeling useless again, a comedown from three days when I know everything I did mattered, made a difference, was needed. Then I’m coming back here where I can’t do a damn thing. I can’t be in charge, so I guess it helps some to think it all through, and to figure out what I’d do if I could be in charge. Maybe it helps to talk it through with somebody who understands me.” She smirked again. “At least understands parts of me.”

“You know, I could sit here and look at you all night. All gold and cream and smelling like a summer orchard. It’s a nice way to transition back after an extended attack. But, how about I clean up, and we go get ourselves a late supper?”

“That’s a solid affirmative.”

“Great.” He pushed to his feet. “Can I use your shower?”

She laughed, waved toward the bathroom. Since she had some time she decided to call the other man who understood her.

“Hi, Dad.”

Ella turned when Lucas opened the door to the deck. She’d slipped out when his cell phone rang to give him some privacy for the call, and to admire the fairy lights she’d strung on the slender branches of her weeping plum.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Rowan just wanted to check in, and to update me on what’s going on.”

“Is there anything new?”

“Not really.” As he sipped a glass of the wine they’d enjoyed with dinner, he brushed his fingertips up and down her arm.

She loved the way he touched her—often, like a reassurance she was with him.

“She sounded steady, so I feel better about that. With Ro, when bad things happen, or wrong things, she tends to take it in. What could she have done to prevent it, or what should she do to fix it?”

“I can’t imagine where she gets that from. Who’s been fiddling around here every chance he gets? Fixing the dripping faucet in the laundry room sink, the drawer that kept sticking in that old table I bought at the flea market?”

“I have to pay for all those dinners you cook me. And breakfasts,” he added, gliding his hand down to her waist.

“It’s nice to have a handy man around the house.”

“It’s nice to be around the house, with you.” He hooked his arm around her waist so they looked out at the garden together, at the pretty lights, the soft shadows. “It’s nice to be with you.”

“I’m happy,” she told him. “I tend to be a happy person, and I learned how to be happy on my own. It was good for me, to have that time, to find out a little bit more about myself. What I could do, what I could do without. I’m happier with you.”

She hooked an arm around his waist in turn. “I was standing here before you came out thinking how lucky I am. I’ve got a family I love and who loves me, a career I’m proud of, this place, good friends. Now the bonus round. You.”

Lights sparkling, she thought, in her garden, and in her heart. And all the while her friend lived in the terrible dark.

“I talked with Irene earlier.”

“She’s got a terrible load to carry now.”

“I went to see her, hoping to help, but... I can’t even begin to conceive what she’s lost. The most devastating loss a mother can know. What she may lose yet. Nothing in her life is certain now, or steady or happy. She’s burying her daughter, Lucas. She’s facing the very real possibility her husband will go to prison. The man she trusted with her spiritual guidance, her faith, betrayed her in a horrible way. The only thing she has to hold on to now is her grandchild, and caring for that sweet little girl must bring Irene incredible pain and joy.

“I’m lucky. And I guess I’m enough like you and Rowan to wish there were some way I could fix things. I wish I knew what I could do or say or be to help Irene.”

“You’re helping her plan the service, and you’ll be there for her. That’ll matter. Do you want me to go with you?”

“Selfishly yes. But I think it would embarrass her if you did.”

He nodded, having thought the same. “If you think it’s right, you could tell her I’m sorry for her loss, sorry for what she’s going through.”

“I’ve made us both sad, and here I was thinking about being happy.”

“People who are together get to share both. I want to... share both with you.”

Almost, she thought as butterflies on the wing filled her belly. They were both almost ready to say it. Had she said she felt lucky? She’d been blessed.

“Let’s take a walk in the moonlight,” she decided. “In the garden. We can finish drinking this wine, and make out.”

“You always have the best ideas.”

Using a dead woman’s phone to lure a man to his death felt... just. A man of God should understand that, should approve of the sentiment of an eye for an eye. Though Latterly was no man of God, but a fraud, a liar, an adulterer, a fornicator.

In a very real sense Latterly had killed Dolly. He’d tempted her, led her onto the path—or if the temptation and leading had been hers, he had certainly followed.

He should have counseled her, advised her, helped her be the decent person, the honorable woman, the good mother. Instead he’d betrayed his wife, his family, his God, his church, for sex with the daughter of one of his faithful.

His death would be justice, and retribution and holy vengeance.

The text had done its job, so simple really.

it wasnt me u have 2 come bring money dont tell not yet talk first need to know what 2 do meet me 1 am Lolo Pass Vistor Center fs rd 373 2 gate URGENT Can help u Dolly

Of course, the soon-to-be-dead man called the dead woman. The return text when the call went unanswered had been full of shock, panic, demands. Easy enough to deflect.

must c u face 2 face explain then will do what u say when you know what i know cant txt more they might find out

He’d come. If he didn’t, there would be another way.

Planning murder wasn’t the same as an accident. How would it feel?

The car rolled in ten minutes early, going slow. A creep along the service road.

Easy after all. So easy. Should there be talk first? Should the dead man know why he was dead? Why he would burn in fiery hell?

He called for Dolly, his voice a harsh whisper in the utter peace of the night. At the gate, he sat in his car, silhouetted in the moonlight.

Death waited patiently.

He got out, his head turning right, left, as he continued to call Dolly’s name. As he continued up the road.

Yes, it was easy after all.

“An eye for an eye.”

Latterly looked over, his face struck with terror as shadow moved to moonlight.

The first bullet struck him in the center of the forehead, a small black hole that turned terror to blank shock. The second pierced his heart, releasing a slow trickle of blood that gleamed black in the shimmer of light.

Easy. A steady hand, a just heart.

No shock, no grief, no trembling, not this time.

A long way to drag a body, but it had to be done right, didn’t it? Anything worth doing was worth doing well. And the forest at night held such beauty, such mystery. Peace. Yes, for a little while, peace.

All the effort came to nothing in that moment when the body rested at the burn site, on the pyre, already prepared.

Reverend Latterly didn’t look so good, didn’t look so pious now with his clothes and flesh torn and dirty from the trail.

A click of the lighter, that’s all it took to send him to hell.

Flames kindled with a whoosh as they gulped fuel and oxygen. Burning the body as the soul would burn. Peace settled while the fire climbed and spread.

How did it feel to murder and burn?

It felt right.

20

The fire chewed its way east, consuming forest and meadow, its head a rage of hunger and greedy glee leading the body across two states.

Gull dug his spikes into a lodgepole pine, climbing up, up into a sky of sooty red. Sweat dripped down his face to soak the bandanna he’d tied on like a latter-day outlaw as he ground the teeth of his saw through bark and wood. Logs tumbled, crashed below as he worked his way down.

The blaze they sought to cage danced, leaped nimbly up trees to string their branches with light as it roared its song.

He hit the ground, unhooked his harness, then moved down the saw line.

He knew Rowan worked the head. Word traveled down the crew, and the jumpers from Idaho had twice had to retreat due to unstable winds.

He heard the roll of thunder, watched the tanker pitch through the smoke. So far the dragon seemed to swallow the retardant like candy.

He’d lost track of the hours spent in the belly of the beast since the siren had sounded that morning. Only that morning, looking into Rowan’s eyes as she moved under him, feeling her body rise and fall beneath him. Only that morning he’d had the taste of her skin, warm from sleep, on his tongue.

Now he tasted smoke. Now he felt the ground move as another sacrificial tree fell to earth. He looked into the eyes of the enemy, and knew her lust.

What he didn’t know, as he set down his saw to gulp down water, was if it was day or night. And what did it matter? The only world that mattered lived in this perpetual red twilight.

“We’re moving east.” Dobie jogged out of the smoke, his eyes red-rimmed over his bandanna. “Gibbons is taking us east, digging line as we go. The hoses are holding her back on the right flank at Pack Creek, and the mud knocked her back some.”

“Okay.” Gull grabbed his gear.

“I volunteered you and me to go on south through the burnout and scout spots and snags along the rim, circle on up toward the head.”

“That was real considerate of you to include me in your mission.”

“Somebody’s got to do it, son.” Those red-rimmed eyes laughed. “It’s a longer trip, but I bet we beat the rest of the crew to the head, get back into the real action sooner.”

“Maybe. The head’s where I want to be.”

“Fighting ass-to-ass with your woman. Let’s get humping.”

Spots bloomed like flowers, burst like grenades, simmered like shallow pools. The wind colluded, thickened the smoke, giving loft to sailing firebrands.

Gull smothered, dug, doused, beat, then laughed his way through the nasty work as Dobie started naming the spots.

“Fucking Assistant Principal Brewster!” Dobie stomped out the licking flames. “Suspended me for smoking in the bathroom.”

“High school sucks.”

“Middle school. I got an early start.”

“Priming your lungs for your life’s work,” Gull decided as he moved on to another.

“That’s fucking Gigi Japper. Let me at her. She dumped me for a ball player.”

“Middle school?”

“Last year. Bastard plays slow-pitch softball. Can you beat that? Slow-pitch softball. How does that count for anything?”

“You’re better off without her.”

“Damn straight. Well, Captain, I believe we’ve secured this line, and recommend we cut across from here and start scouting north. I’m still looking for crazy old Mr. Cotter, used to shoot at my dog just because the pup liked to shit in his petunias.”

“We’ll beat the hell out of old Mr. Cotter together.”

“That’s a true friend.”

They ate lunch, dinner, breakfast—who the hell knew?—on the quickstep hike, chowing down on Hooah! bars, peanut-butter crackers, and the single apple from Gull’s pack they passed back and forth.

“I love this job,” Dobie told him. “I didn’t know as I would. I knew I could do it, knew I would. Figured I’d like it okay. But I didn’t know it’s what I was after. Didn’t know I was after anything.”

“If it gets its hooks in you, you know it’s what you were after.” That, Gull thought, covered smoke jumping and women.

Murdered trees stood, black skeletons in the thinning smoke. Wind trickled through, sending them to moan, scooping up ash that swirled like dirty fairy dust.

“It’s like one of those end-of-the-world movies,” Dobie decided. “Where some meteor destroys most every goddamn thing, and what’s left are mutant scavengers and a handful of brave warriors trying to protect the innocent. We can be the warriors.”

“I was counting on being a mutant, but all right. Look at that.” Gull pointed east where the sky glowed red above towers of flame. “Half the time I can’t understand how I can hate it and still think it’s beautiful.”

“I felt that way about fucking Gigi Japper.”

Laughing, somehow completely happy to be hot and filthy alongside his strangely endearing friend, Gull studied the fire as they hiked—the breadth of it, the colors and tones, the shapes.

On impulse, he pulled his camera out of his PG bag. A photo couldn’t translate its terrifying magnificence, but it would remind him, over the winter. It would remind him.

Dobie stepped into the frame, set his Pulaski on his shoulder, spread his legs, fixed a fierce expression on his face. “Now, take a picture. ‘Dragon-slayer.’ ”

Actually, Gull thought when he framed it in, the title seemed both apt and accurate. He took two. “Eat your heart out, Gigi.”

“Fucking A! Come on, son, time’s a’wasting.”

He took off with a swagger as Gull secured his camera.

“Gull.”

“Yeah.” He glanced up from zipping his PG bag to see Dobie in nearly the same pose, reversed with his back to him. “Camera’s secured, handsome.”

“You better come on over here. Take a look at this.”

Alerted by the tone, Gull moved fast, stared when Dobie pointed. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Aw, shit.”

The remains lay, a grim signpost on the charred trail.

“Jesus, Gull, looks like the mutants have been through here.” Dobie staggered a few feet away, braced his hands on his knees, and puked up his energy bars.

“Like Dolly,” Gull murmured. “Except...”

“Christ, I feel like a pussy. Losing my lunch.” Bone-white beneath the layer of soot, Dobie took a pull of water, spat it out. “He started the fire, the cocksucker, right here. Like with Dolly.” He rinsed again, spat again, then drank. “He did all this.”

“Yeah, except I don’t think he did this to try to hide the body, or destroy it. Maybe it’s so we’d find it, or for attention, or because the son of a bitch likes fire. And it’s not like Dolly because this one’s got what’s got to be a bullet hole dead in the forehead.”

Bracing himself, Dobie stepped over again, looked. “Christ, I think you’re right about that.”

“I guess I should’ve taken that bet.” Gull pulled out his radio. “Because I don’t think we’re going to get back to action before the rest of the crew.”

While they waited, Dobie took two mini bottles of Kentucky bourbon from his bag, took a swig. “Who do you think it is?” he asked, and passed the second bottle to Gull.

“Maybe we’ve just got some homicidal firebug picking people at random. More likely it’s somebody connected to Dolly.”

“Jesus please us, I hope it’s not her ma. I really hope it’s not her ma. Somebody’s got to take care of that baby.”

“I saw her mother that day she and the preacher came to thank L.B. for hiring Dolly again. She’s short, little like Dolly was. I think what’s there’s too tall. Pretty tall, I think.”

“Her daddy, maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“If I hadn’t volunteered us, somebody else would’ve found it. It’s right on the damn trail. Ro said Dolly was off it. Right on the trail. The rangers would’ve found it if we hadn’t. It really makes you think about what the fire’ll do to you, it gets the chance.”

Gull looked out at the red, the black, the stubborn lashing gold. And downed the bourbon.

The rangers let them go to rejoin the war. The fury built up in Gull all the way up to that snarling, snapping head. He channeled that fury into the attack so every strike of his ax fed his anger. This war wasn’t fought against God or nature or fate, but against the human being who’d given birth to the fire for his own pleasure or purpose or weakness.

For those hours the battle burned, he didn’t care about the reasons why. He only cared about stopping it.

“Take a breath,” Rowan told him. “We’ve got her now. You can feel it. Take a breath, Gull. This isn’t a one-man show.”

“I’ll take a breath when she’s down.”

“Look, I know how you feel. I know exactly how—”

“I’m not in the mood to be reasonable.” He pushed her hand off his arm, eyes hot and vivid. “I’m in the mood to kill this bitch. We can discuss our mutual traumas later. Now let me do my job.”

“Okay, fine. We need men up on that ridge digging line before she rides this wind and shifts this way for fresh eats and builds again.”

“All right.”

“Take Dobie, Matt, Libby and Stovic.”

Night, he thought—or morning, probably—when he dragged himself to the creek. The fire trembled in its death throes, coughing and sputtering. Overhead, stars winked hopefully through thinning smoke.

He pulled off his boots, his socks, and stuck his abused feet in the gorgeously cool water. The postfire chatter ran behind him in voices raw with smoke and adrenaline. Jokes, insults, rewinds of the long fight. And the expected what-the-fuck? question about what he and Dobie had found.

More work waited, but would keep until daybreak. The fire hadn’t lain down to rest. She’d lain down to die.

Rowan sat down beside him, dropped an MRE in his lap, pushed a drink into his hand. “They dropped a nice load down for camp, so I made you dinner.”

“A woman’s work is never done.”

“More in the mood to be reasonable, I see.”

“I needed to burn it off.”

“I know.” She touched a hand to his briefly, then picked up the fork to shovel in beef stew. “I put some of Dobie’s famous Tabasco in this. Nice kick.”

“I was taking his picture. Him standing there in the black, and behind him the fire, and the sky. Surreal. I’d just taken his picture when we found it. It didn’t get to me, really, until we started up to meet you, and it just got bigger and bigger in me. Christ, I wasn’t even thinking about some guy burned to bone after taking a shot in the head.”

“Shot?”

Gull nodded. “Yeah, but I wasn’t thinking about him. All I could think about was this, and us. All the loss and waste, the risks, the sweat and blood. And for what, Ro? Since I couldn’t beat the hell out of whoever caused it, I had to beat the hell out of the fire.”

“Matt got hung up on the jump. He let down okay, but it could’ve gone bad. A widowmaker as thick as my arm nearly hit Elf when we had to retreat, and Yangtree’s got a Pulaski gash on his calf to go with his swollen knee. One of the Idaho crew took a bad fall, broke his leg. You were right to be mad.”

For a while, they ate in silence. “They want you back in the morning, you and Dobie, so DiCicco and Quinniock can talk to you. I can pack out with you.”

He glanced over, grateful—grateful enough not to mention she was taking care of him. “That’d be good.”

“I figured you’re pretty tired, so I can save you the time popping your tent. You can share mine.”

“That’d be even better. I love this job,” he said after a moment, thinking of Dobie. “I don’t know why exactly but what this bastard’s done makes me love it even more. The cops have to find him, catch him, stop him. But we’re the ones cleaning up his goddamn mess. We’re the ones doing whatever it takes to keep it from being worse. The wild doesn’t mean anything to him, what lives in it, lives off it. It means something to us.”

He looked at her then, slowly leaned in to take her lips in a kiss of surprising gentleness. “I found you in the wild, Rowan. That’s a hell of a thing.”

She smiled, a little uncertainly. “I wasn’t lost.”

“Neither was I. But I’m found, too, just the same.”

When they walked the short distance to the tents, they crossed paths with Libby.

“How you doing, Gull?”

“Okay. Better since I hear I get to skate out of mop-up. Have you seen Dobie?”

“Yeah, he just turned in. He was feeling... I guess you know. Matt and I sat up with him awhile after the rest bunked down. He’s doing okay.”

“You did good work today, Barbie,” Rowan told her.

“Never plan to do any other kind. Good night.”

Rowan yawned her way into the tent and, with her mind and body already shutting down, worked off her boots. “Don’t wake me unless there’s a bear attack. In fact, even then.”

She stripped down to her tank and panties. As she rolled toward the sleeping bag, Gull considered.

“You know, thirty seconds ago I figure I was too tired to scratch my own ass. And now, strangely, I’m filled with this renewed energy.”

She opened one eye, shut it again. “Do what you gotta do. Just don’t wake me up doing it.”

He climbed in beside her, smiling, drew her already limp-with-sleep body to his. When he closed his eyes he thought of her, of nothing but her, and slid quietly into the dark.

It was her knee pressing firmly into his crotch that woke him. His eyes crossed before they opened. Easing back relieved the worst of the pressure on his now throbbing balls.

Had she aimed, he wondered, or had it just been blind luck? Either way, perfect shot.

She didn’t budge when he rolled out to pull on his pants, fresh socks, boots. He left the pants and boots unfastened and crawled out into soft morning light.

Nothing and no one stirred. Then again, as far as he knew the other tents held occupants of one—with no one to jab a knee into their balls. Should they have them.

He stood, adjusted himself—carefully—then chose a direction out of camp to empty his bladder. Coffee, and filling his belly, would be next on the list, he decided. Being the first awake meant he had first dibs on the breakfast MREs. He’d sit outside, maybe down by the creek, give Rowan the tent for more sleep and enjoy a quiet, solitary if crappy meal until...

He stopped and looked. Looked over a meadow brilliant with wild lupines, regally purple. The faintest ground mist shimmered through them, giving them the illusion of floating on a thin, white river while dozens of deep blue butterflies danced over those bold lances.

Untouched, he thought. The fire hadn’t touched this. They’d stopped it, and now the wildflowers bloomed, the butterflies danced in the misty morning light.

It was, he thought, as beautiful, as vivid as the finest work of art. Maybe more. And he’d had a part in saving it, and the trees beyond it, and whatever lay beyond the beyond.

He’d fought in the smoke and the blistering red air, walked through the black that stank with death. And to here, where life lived, where it thrived in quiet and simple grace.

To here, which held all the answers to why.

He brought her there, dragging her away from camp before they packed out.

“We’ve got to get going,” she protested. “If we haul our asses down to the visitors’ center, they can van us back to base. Clean bodies, clean clothes. And, God, I want a Coke.”

“This is better than a Coke.”

“Nothing’s better than a Coke first thing in the morning. You coffee hounds have it all wrong.”

“Just look.” He gestured. “That’s better than anything.”

She’d seen meadows before, seen the wild lupine and the butterflies it seduced. She started to say so, grumpy with caffeine withdrawal, but he looked so... struck.

And she got it. Of course she got it. Who better?

Still, she had to give him a dig, one with the elbow in the side, the other verbal. “There’s that mushy romantic streak again.”

“Stand right there. I’m going to get a picture.”

“Hell you are. Jesus, Gull, look at me.”

“One of my favorite occupations.”

“If you want a shot of a woman in front of a meadow of flowers, get one with clean, shiny hair and a flowy white dress.”

“Don’t be stupid, you look exactly right. Because you’re part of why it’s here. This is like a bookend to the one I took of Dobie in the black. It shows how and why and who go into everything between those two points.”

“Romantic slob,” she repeated. But it moved her, the truth of it, the knowing they shared.

So she hooked her thumbs in her front pockets, cocked her hip and sent him and his camera a big, bold grin.

He took the shot, lowered the camera slowly and just stared at her as he had at the meadow. Struck.

“Here, switch off. I’ll take one of you.”

“No. It’s you. It’s Dobie in the black, the fire raging behind him, telling me how much he loves this job, what he’s found in it. And it’s you, Rowan, in the sunlight with preserved beauty at your back. You’re the end of the goddamn rainbow.”

“Come on.” Mildly embarrassed, she shrugged it off, started toward him. “You must be punchy.”

“You’re the answer before I even asked the question.”

“Gull, it weirds me out when you start talking like that.”

“I think you’re going to have to get used to it. I’ve fallen pretty deep in... care with you. We’ll go with that for now, because I think it’s more, and that’s a lot to figure out.”

A touch of panic speared through embarrassment. “Gull, getting wound up in... care for people like us—for people like me—it’s a sucker bet.”

“I don’t think so. I like the odds.”

“Because you’re crazy.”

“You have to be crazy to do this job.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “We’ve got to get going.”

“Just one more thing.”

He took her shoulders, drawing her in. His fingers glided up to her face as he guided them into a kiss made for meadows and summer shine, the flutter of butterflies and music of birdsong.

Unable to find a foothold, she tumbled into it, lost herself in the sweetness, the promise she told herself she didn’t want. Her heart trembled in her chest, ached there.

And, for the first time in her life, yearned there.

Unsteady, she stepped away. “That’s just heat.”

“Keep telling yourself that.” He hooked an arm around her shoulders in a lightning switch to friendly. The man, she thought, could make her dizzy.

DiCicco and Quinniock stepped out of Operations even as the vans pulled up to base.

“It’d be nice if they let us clean up first,” Gull commented, then he got off the van, nodded to the cop and the fed. “Where do you want to do this?”

“L.B.’s office is available for us,” Quinniock told him.

“Look, there are tables outside the cookhouse. I wouldn’t mind airing out some and getting some food while we’re at it. I expect Dobie feels the same.”

“You got that right, son. Did you figure out who’s dead?”

“We’ll talk about it,” DiCicco told him.

“We’ll take care of your gear.” Rowan gestured to Matt, Janis. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Appreciate it.” Gull gave her a quick look.

“Are we suspects?” Dobie wanted to know as they walked toward the cookhouse.

“We haven’t made any determinations, Mr. Karstain.”

“Loosen up, Kim,” Quinniock suggested. “We have no reason to suspect you in this matter. You can tell us where you were the night before you jumped the fire, between eleven P.M. and three A.M., if you’d like.”

“Me? I was playing cards with Libby and Yangtree and Trigger till about midnight. Trig and me had a last beer after. I guess we bunked down about one.”

“I was with Rowan,” Gull said, and left it at that.

“We’d like to go over the statements you gave the rangers on scene.” DiCicco sat at the picnic table, pulled out her notebook, her mini recorder. “I’d like to record this.”

“Dobie, why don’t you go ahead? I’ll go see what Marg can put together for us. Do you two want anything?” Gull asked.

“I wouldn’t mind a cold drink,” Quinniock told him, and, remembering the lemonade, DiCicco nodded.

“That’d be good. Now, Mr. Karstain—”

“Can you leave off calling me mister? Just Dobie.”

“Dobie.”

He went over what happened. What he’d seen, done, what he’d already told the rangers.

“You know, the black looks like a horror show anyhow, then you add that. Gull said it must be connected to Dolly.”

“Did he?” DiCicco said.

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” Dobie looked from one to the other. “Is it?”

“Dobie, how was it only you and Mr. Curry were in that area?”

Dobie shrugged at DiCicco just as Gull came out, two steps in front of Lynn. Both carried trays.

“We needed most everybody up at the head, digging line toward it, but somebody still needed to scout spots along the flank. So I volunteered me and Gull.”

“You suggested that you and Mr. Curry take that route?”

“She’s big on the misters,” he said to Gull. “Yeah. It’s a longer hike, but I like killing spots. Me and Gull, we work good together. Thanks.” He gave Lynn a smile when she set a loaded plate in front of him. “It sure looks good.”

“Marg said to save room for cherry pie. You just let me know if you need anything else.”

“Let’s save some time.” Gull took his seat. “We took that route because we were scouting spots. You see a spot, you put it out, and you move on. We had that duty while making our way east to join the rest of the crew. The fire’d been moving east, but the winds kept changing, so the flanks shifted. We found the remains because we cut across the burnout, heading to the far flank in case any spots broke out and took hold. If they did, and we didn’t, it could’ve put the visitor center in the line. Nobody wanted that. Clear?”

“That’s the way it is.” Dobie took his bottle of Tabasco out of his pocket, lifted the top of his Kaiser roll and dumped some on the horseradish Marg had piled on his roast beef.

Gull shook his head when Dobie offered the bottle. “Mine’s fine as it is. And, yeah, I speculated this body was related to Dolly. It could be we’ve got a serial killer–arsonist picking victims at random, but I like the odds on connection a lot better.”

“Shot this one,” Dobie said with his mouth full. “Couldn’t miss the bullet hole.”

“Jumpers got hurt on that fire. I heard on the way in a couple of hotshots I know were injured. I watched acres of wilderness go up. I want the person responsible to pay for it, and I want to know why killing wasn’t enough. Because I can speculate again that the fire was just as important as the kill. Otherwise, there wasn’t a reason for it. The fire itself had to matter.”

“That’s an interesting speculation,” DiCicco commented.

“Since we’ve already told you what we know, speculation’s all that’s left. And since neither of you look particularly stupid, I have to assume you’ve already entertained those same speculations.”

“He’s feeling a little pissed off ’cause he’s out here talking to cops instead of taking a shower with the Swede.”

“Jesus, Dobie.” Then Gull laughed. “Yeah, I am. So, since you cost me, maybe you could tell us if you’ve identified the remains.”

“That information...” DiCicco caught Quinniock’s look, huffed out a breath. “While we’re waiting for verification, we found Reverend Latterly’s car parked on the service road alongside the visitors’ center. His wife can’t tell us his whereabouts, only that he wasn’t home or at his church when she got up this morning.”

“Somebody shot a preacher?” Dobie demanded. “That’s hell for sure.”

“The Brakemans’ preacher,” Gull added. “And the one rumor has it Dolly was screwing around with. I heard Leo Brakeman made bail.”

“Sumbitch better not come back around here.”

DiCicco gave Dobie a glance, but kept her focus primarily on Gull. “We’ll be speaking to Mr. Brakeman after his daughter’s funeral this afternoon.”

“I’ve got a couple of men on him,” Quinniock added. “We’ve got a list of his registered weapons, and we’ll take another look at his gun safe.”

“It’d be pretty stupid to use one of his own guns, at least a registered weapon, to kill the man who was screwing his daughter and preaching to his wife.”

“Regardless, we’ll pursue every avenue of the investigation. We can speculate, too, Mr. Curry,” DiCicco added. “But we have to work with facts, with data, with evidence. Two people are dead, and that’s priority. But those wildfires matter. I work for the Forest Service, too. Believe me, it all matters.”

She got to her feet. “Thanks for your time.” She offered Gull the ghost of a smile. “Sorry about the shower.”

“Why, Agent DiCicco,” Quinniock said as they walked away, “I believe you just made an amusing, smart-ass comment. I feel warm inside.”

“Well, hold on to it. Funerals tend to cool things off.”