Firestorm

Chapter Twenty-five

“Good news,” Dr. Hurley said with a face-splitting grin. “You really banged up your shoulder, but you didn’t tear anything. Your MRI looks great—your rotator cuff is intact, there’s no fluid in the joint, just a little soft tissue swelling.” He waggled his hand. “Well, maybe a bit more than a little swelling, but a couple of days of rest and anti-inflammatories and you ought to be good as new.”

Jac glanced at Mallory when she edged around the curtain and into the cubicle, then back at the ER physician. “I guess I’m going to have to ask. Define ‘good as new.’ I’m a wilderness firefighter. I need to climb, I need to carry a pack, I need to work with heavy equipment.”

His expression grew solemn. “I know what you do. I know what you both did out there in the last couple of days. You’re heroes around here.” He rubbed his hands together and grinned again. “Seventy-two hours of rest, ibuprofen three times a day, and if you have full range of motion in your shoulder at that point—and, if you’re as tough as everyone says you are—”

“She is,” Mallory muttered.

“You can work without restriction,” Hurley finished.

Jac breathed out a sigh of relief and shifted on the stretcher to face Mallory, who seemed to be looking anywhere but at her. Even though it’d taken almost two hours to get the emergency MRI, to wait for a radiologist who could read it on a Sunday, and then for the ER doctor to review the findings, Mallory had somehow managed to always be busy. After talking on the phone to Sully for a while, she went outside to wait for the rental service to deliver the Jeep—even though it was thirty degrees and already lightly snowing. Jac knew when she was being avoided, and after the feel of Mallory’s hands on her, the press of Mallory’s breasts against her shoulder, and the whisper of Mallory’s breath against her ear, her absence cut deep.

Mallory had pulled away, and Jac didn’t know how to reach her. Mallory didn’t trust her, and she didn’t know how to convince her she wouldn’t hurt her. She would have waited with her hand outstretched, urging her to believe, if waiting was what it took. Somehow she did not think time alone would be enough—even though she really had nothing but time.

The firefighting season stretched ahead and hopefully, if she passed boot camp, she would have work to occupy her, but she didn’t have anyone expecting her to return at the end of the season to a life that included intimacy and affection. She hadn’t really thought ahead to what she would do in the fall. If her father received his party’s nomination, which everyone thought was going to happen, she was probably going to be more of a liability in his eyes than she already was—too visible, too controversial, and too at odds with his stance on just about everything. She wondered where he would want her to disappear to next. She was young and healthy, and wars still raged. Maybe it was time to make her reserve status permanent and go active. War she knew. Those enemies she understood. And the bombs, her singular, particular enemy, she did not fear.

“Jac?” Mallory slid into Jac’s field of vision, her expression perplexed, as if she had been speaking for a while and Jac had not been listening.

Jac jerked straighter, conscious of the flimsy cotton covering her naked torso, conscious of the tightening of her nipples at the mere sound of Mallory’s voice. “Yeah?”

“The storm’s coming on fast and we might have a chance to outrun it, but we’ll have to leave right away. Do you mind skipping the shower?”

Jac didn’t need an interpreter. Mallory didn’t want even the slightest chance of intimacy between them. As if stripping down in the hospital locker room was going to be some kind of threat. Her skin chilled, as if snow already fell on her. As if she were already out in the cold. She jumped down from the stretcher, ignoring the jolt of pain shooting through her shoulder. “That’s a good idea. We need to get back. We can catch up to Sully and the rest of them in the morning then, right?”

Jac kept her face averted as she sorted through the jumble of her clothes and picked out her T-shirt. She balled it up and tossed it back on the chair. It was stiff with sweat and she wasn’t putting it on again. She checked out her shirt. It wasn’t in much better shape.

Mallory grasped her arm. “Here. I know it’s a little funky, but it’s clean and it’s warm.” Mallory held out a navy blue sweatshirt that read Gardiner Tigers above an emblem of the high school.

“Where…?”

“Gift shop.” Mallory grimaced. “Sorry, the selection was pretty slim.”

“It looks great to me. I don’t suppose they had any underwear?”

Mallory laughed. “Not unless you want something in size one that says ‘It’s a boy!’”

“Sorry. Won’t fit the equipment.”

Mallory’s smile flickered for a second. “No, I don’t imagine it would.” She hefted a plastic bag. “I’ve got one, too. I’ll go get the Jeep. You—uh—need any help?”

“Nope. I’ve got it.”

“Great. Okay then.” Mallory backed toward the curtain. “I’ll be right outside in the emergency room parking lot. It’s a black Commander. I’ll get it warmed up and we can hit the road.”

“Be there in a minute.” Jac turned her back to give Mallory a chance to escape, which was obviously what Mallory wanted. This time though, Jac was going to let her go.

*

Mallory sat behind the wheel, clenching the steering wheel so hard her palms ached and the tips of her fingers went numb. Heat blasted from the dashboard vents, but the center of her chest was a solid block of ice. Snow slashed against the windshield, melting into trails of tears that streaked her vision. Irritated, she brushed her fingers over her face and they came away wet. She stared at the glistening moisture on her fingertips. She couldn’t possibly be crying. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. No, she could remember, she just didn’t want to. The night after Phil and Danny’s funeral. The night after four hundred firefighters and two hundred engines, sirens blaring, had formed a long, twisting procession through the mountains carrying Danny and Phil back to base where their bodies had been lifted by a full-color honor guard into a helitack while a regimental band played taps. She had stood with the rest of her team, her arm in a rigid salute, while the bird lifted off for Danny and Phil’s last flight. Her eyes had been dry, her throat closed, her heart thudding painfully to each beat of the drum. Inside she mourned to the wail of the sirens. That night she’d driven two hours away, gotten a hotel room and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and drunk herself to sleep. Sometime before she’d passed out, she must have cried—when she woke, her pillow was wet. She’d dumped the dregs of the Jack down the toilet, showered, and driven back to base.

She never talked about what happened in Idaho, except when the review board had called her in to recount the details of how she had spotted the safe zone, what factors she had considered, what possible dangers she had seen from the position of the fire front, the prevailing winds, the terrain, and what line she had chosen for her team to dig. She had talked about Phil and Danny then, but the words had sounded as if they were coming from someone else. Her words had been precise, concise, clear, and according to them, procedurally correct. Her judgment had been deemed accurate, her decisions right. They had said she was without fault, but she knew they were wrong.

Mallory tasted salt and licked her lips. She rubbed the rough sleeve of her sweatshirt over her face, erasing the signs of her pain and weakness. Enough. Somehow, wanting Jac had opened the doors to all she had buried, and freed every nightmare memory she wanted to obliterate. The only way she knew to close and chain the door again was to build a wall between her and Jac. She knew she was succeeding. She’d seen the flare of hurt and bewilderment in Jac’s eyes. But Jac was a survivor. Jac would be fine. She wasn’t sure she would be, but at least she was breathing, moving, functioning, and for so long, that was all she had wanted. Enough. She had made those things enough. And now, it had to be.

The passenger door opened and Jac dropped into the seat beside her, bringing a gust of wind and snowflakes with her.

“Sorry,” Jac said briskly. “It’s really bad out there.”

“I know. I was hoping we could get a couple hours in and then maybe grab something to eat when we got ahead of the front.”

“Whatever you want, Mal. It’s up to you.”

Mallory backed out of the parking place and pulled out into the snowy street. Up to her. If it was up to her, she never would’ve met Jac Russo with her dark, burning eyes and her gentle touch. She never would have fallen in love with her.