Rescued by Her Rival Page 15

  Lauren started by climbing and sawing branches to bring the tree down clean, while he stayed on the ground and dug. With her up a tree, it was easier to keep track of her, but he was still aware of her every moment, despite it being complicated by the density of the smoke in the air and monitoring the comm for calls.

  Less than full capability.

  While digging, something hard bounded off his helmet. Small. Woody. Something thrown.

  He looked up and found Lauren gesturing through a clearing in the trees.

  What? he mouthed at her, the saws too loud to shout over.

  Dog, she mouthed back.

  Dog. Another damned dog.

  And she was sending him after it?

  They were close enough to the fire to see it down the western slope and, sure enough, he saw black-and-white fur directly north.

  It took only a moment to start moving. There was no way he wouldn’t try to get the dog to come to him. He had rope. He’d tie it up, make it stay with them as they moved across the land.

  He got halfway to it when the dog turned toward him and began to barrel in his direction at full speed.

  Black-and-white. Kind of fluffy...

  When it got to him, the breed became clear. Not a mutt. Purebred dog. Border collie. It barked and when he removed his glove and reached out to let it sniff, the dog snapped twice at his hand—biting, but not breaking the skin, just quick, near-frantic nips, then more barking. He ran back a short distance in the other direction.

  “Beck!” Lauren’s voice came through the din and he turned in time to see her running toward him, horror on her face. “It bit you!”

  When she reached him, she grabbed his hand, looking for wounds.

  “Not hard. He’s agitated...”

  She smoothed her fingers over the skin that was barely even pink, and looked over at the dog as he bound back.

  Which was when he saw the tags and his stomach dropped through the earth.

  Purebred with tags, alone in a national park, trying to get his attention.

  “I think there’s a family.” He said the words as they came to him. “He’s not here alone.”

  Beck knelt and the dog came running back. Before he got another bite in, Beck hooked his fingers under the collar so he could get a look at the tag.

  “What’s it say?”

  “Henderson. Phone number.”

  “Crap.”

  “We knew there could be people out here.”

  “You think that’s what this is? Lassie, Timmy’s stuck in the well?”

  He petted the dog, got nipped at again, and then let go so he could look at Lauren. “That’s what I think.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “You know what I want to do.”

  She looked west, toward the fire, then the way the dog tried to lead them—northwest.

  “There is another fire burning to the north. If the fire makes it past this break, we’ll be stuck if we go that way,” she said, and then reached for her comm to click it, and relayed the information, along with their decision to go.

  Permission came unexpectedly fast. He wouldn’t have even asked. And he didn’t want to take her into an area where he wasn’t already certain of their exit once they found the family, but he couldn’t leave them there.

  It was in him to apologize then, for what he’d almost done with Kolinski, but that would take time, and he didn’t need to possibly make tensions even worse. No one needed to become more emotional in a deadly situation.

  Later. Later he’d tell her he was sorry.

  * * *

  Lauren followed Beck and the dog at a near run up an incline steep enough she needed to use tree trunks to help haul herself up. There was no looking for a saner path up, not when they were following Lassie.

  Never in her life would she have believed something like this could happen. It was like those stories people told about dolphins fighting off a shark to save a swimmer. Something that happened so rarely it might as well be an urban legend. And yet there they were, her burning lungs and limbs convincing her it was happening. The dog might not lead anywhere good, but they followed.

  Through the trees, as they climbed higher, she began seeing disturbing amounts of orange glow cutting across the terrain in every direction, and mentally replayed updates they’d been given before heading out. Separate fires. All should be moving the same direction, but what she saw... If her heart hadn’t already been galloping, it would’ve rocketed up.

  “Are you seeing four fires or three?” she asked, continuing to climb.

  Beck couldn’t stop and keep up with the dog, but he did look between the trees when he could, and opened the comm.

  “This is Ellison. Want a fire check. Position. Size. Movement.”

  Did he usually call in? She knew from the day Treadwell had fallen and she’d spent so much time chasing Beck from one end of the field to the other that he didn’t give updates.

  Was he trying to change? She wished...

  The suddenness of the change suggested otherwise, this was the kind of thing they’d been fighting about.

  Report came in from the spotters quickly enough. Three fires, the one to the north large enough to wrap around the backside of a peak, appearing like a fourth, and the one they’d been tending had closed the gap behind them. Going back that way was no longer possible.

  She stopped asking questions, he might think she was afraid.

  She was, but letting him see that after the thing with Kolinski? Dumb. Once again, she was right back in that old pattern she’d had to operate in for years: hiding vulnerabilities from those she loved because they might use them against her.

  There was nothing he could do to stop her from being on the mountain now, and he had included her in the decision to follow the dog, but she no longer trusted him. She might have won this time, but what would happen next time? This fire season was already one for the record books, and there would be a next time.

  After she confessed, there would still probably be a lot more next times—the season was fierce and they needed the help. She might get a slap on the wrist for her application shenanigans, but if she confessed, that would help her case. If she could do the job, they’d keep her around. But Beck didn’t want her doing it. He said for now, but she wasn’t putting her life on hold to soothe him when he wouldn’t get the help he needed to deal with his own problem.

  Hell, at this point her application blunder was probably a lesser sin than her knowing Beck’s issues and not reporting him. But she was loyal. Because despite knowing how this was going to go, and that it was over with them, she still wanted to see him whole. She didn’t want anyone exposing her vulnerable spots, so how could she expose his?

  They reached a rocky outcropping and the dog disappeared over it. Beck held out his hand to stop her going forward, and a moment later swung down himself.

  “Sir?” His voice came from the other side, the one word the only confirmation Lauren needed to follow.

  An unconscious man with a bloody leg lay on the ground, left femur protruding from his skin. The dog who’d led them there began a high, frantic whimper and lay down beside his human.

  “Is he alive?” she asked, not able to see if the unconscious man’s chest moved but noticing flies swarming the terrible wound, then the drag marks in the earth down the slope where he’d obviously scooted himself to reach the meager rock shelter.

  Beck felt for a pulse, nodded to her. “Do you think he’ll wake if I lift him? That break...”

  “He’s going to be in agony if you throw him over your shoulder,” Lauren said, already pulling her pack off so she could fish out the collapsible stretcher that had been hers to carry.

  “He might have to suffer it. If that direction isn’t better...” he nodded down the other side from the one they’d traveled “...we
can’t carry him on a stretcher down the way we came up. It’s too steep.”

  “Not if we go straight down, but we can cut across. Take it at a shallower angle.”

  “Fire’s moving,” he grunted, and then gestured for the stretcher, which she handed over for him to begin assembling.

  “That bone is bad. I know it’s already been exposed to the elements, and worse, but we should at least try to cover it,” she said, getting the man’s pulse and directing, “Call in. Tell them we found Henderson.”

  “Henderson?”

  “The name on the tags,” she explained, then let go of his wrist. “His heart is going too fast. And he feels hot. Do you have an unopened water bottle?”

  She knew enough about first aid to know compound fractures became infected very easily, and he’d been there at least the night. The storm that sparked the fires hadn’t dropped as much rain as it had lightning, but it had wet the ground so his dry clothes had become caked along the sides with mud when he’d slid under the ledge.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “I don’t know. I just...feel like I should at least pour the water over the end and rinse the...” She wasn’t going to say it. She didn’t actually even want to think what bugs were in the wound.

  “Sorry I don’t have salt, seems like saline would be better for flushing any wounds.”

  “It would.”

  He laid the stretcher out, then pulled his pack off to dig out the water and first-aid supplies. “Here. Gauze and bandages. Wrap it, anything is better than nothing.”

  She took the supplies and began opening them while looking for some way to wrap the leg. He was out. They might be able to give his leg the kind of jerk that would pull the bone back into the skin, but that could make things worse. Drag infection directly into the body.

  She laid the large gauze pad over the raw end of the bone, then lifted his leg enough to wrap the elastic bandage around and around, just to cover. Keep the bugs away...

  “Should we rouse him?”

  “Pain will be unbearable,” Beck said, finally raising base on the comm.

  Treadwell responded as Beck relayed the situation and their location, got directions where to go—down to the river. Follow it out. An ambulance would be waiting. And there they’d part. It might be possible for her to work with him out here, but continuing to do so for the rest of camp would be torturing herself for no reason.

  “What about bracing his neck?”

  Beck looked at the man, then shook his head. “He scooted himself up the mountain. His head seems well attached. Besides, I don’t have a neck brace in there. And we need to move, the wind is kicking up. Everything’s going to spread faster.”

  Right. Stay focused on what was before them. Injured man. Fast-moving fire. Treacherous mountainous terrain.

  “Okay, I’ll get his head until we clear the ledge, then we swap.”

  He looked at her strangely.

  “Head’s heavier, but the ledge wants someone short. Might as well use our advantages.” They had a few of them, and even if a future together couldn’t happen, they could use their advantages today.

  Halfway down the mountain, Lauren could just make out something large and white on the riverbank. “Beck? I think there’s a boat...”

  “God, I hope so.”

  This trek was already worse than the pack carry, but at least it came with built-in reward. He might survive. And the dog...

  As they hurried, and sometimes slid, Beck checked in for updates. All smokejumpers were rigged with GPS to make them easier to find if things got hairy, but he still did it. Small victory, but she’d take it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A TWO-MILE TREK became a three-hour endurance test.

  Beck had to fight every urge in him to put the unconscious man over his shoulder and abandon the stretcher, just so they could move faster. It wasn’t that Lauren wasn’t pulling her weight, but moving over taxing terrain was hard enough without carrying a stretcher and dodging a worried dog perpetually underfoot.

  By the time they reached the water, it should’ve become easier, and would’ve been except for a stretch of narrow ledge they had to pass to reach the boat without climbing over another steep rise.

  “What do you want to do?” She stopped and looked back at him, then pointedly over his shoulder to the burning hillside acres away behind them. She carried the handles of the stretcher at each hip so she could move forward instead of miles of dangerous backing. They didn’t have time for anything that slowed them down.

  “We don’t have a choice.” He nodded to the handles. “We might need to change the way we’re carrying if you can’t walk with your arms at the sides.”

  The sound of rushing water made the decision even more treacherous. It looked deep, and violent. Even if it were only deep enough to come to her ribs, it still moved with the kind of strength that would make it impossible to walk and carry the man—who’d yet to awaken.

  “Cross that bridge when we come to it,” she muttered, and then started walking. The warnings in his belly hit earsplitting decibels, but there was nothing else. Nothing but the fire behind them and the water beside him. Nothing but remembering his mother’s terrible decision. As they walked, it was right there at the front of his mind, taking the attention he should’ve been paying to his feet and the path. He’d slid twice and nearly dropped the man or knocked Lauren into the water by the time they reached the end.

  “Give me a second, I have to wipe my hands...palms...sweating...” she panted, moving to a spot where she could bend to put her end down. Which was when she looked past him to the narrow strip of precarious land they’d just traveled. “Where’s the dog?”

  The dog?

  He turned as well. The border collie that had led them to his injured owner was nowhere in sight.

  “Damn,” he muttered, and then held up one hand. “I’ll go grab him, if I can.”

  A quick look back at the water offered no comfort to him. If the dog had fallen in, it would’ve probably been swept past before he’d known to look.

  And the fire.

  Running back toward the fire... He swallowed the bitter plug in his throat. It wasn’t that far, not even half a football field. It was the bend in the ledge that made it impossible to see the other end.

  “Be careful. Yell if you have trouble.”

  “If I have trouble, you grab the handles of that stretcher and drag it to the water,” he said, pointing to another outcropping with a far wider ledge. “The boat is just past that bend, if I remember right. You can make that with him if I don’t come back.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she folded her arms. Staying there to argue wouldn’t serve any purpose. She’d move when the fire came, if he didn’t come back. She wasn’t suicidal.

  Moving faster than the first time across, he’d reached the other end in minutes and found the dog pacing back and forth, whining as he looked at the ground then at the water.

  “Come on, buddy. It’s okay.” He didn’t feel like talking sweet, but flies and honey... If the dog ran now, he’d have to leave it behind. The very idea of that made his stomach lurch. He might have vomited on the spot if there had been anything inside him after a long day.

  A little whistle, crouching, hand outstretched... When the fluffy black-and-white dog came to him, Beck snatched him up from the ground and turned to head back down the path.

  Immediately, he knew he’d screwed up, holding the dog to face the water that scared him.

  It took all his balance and strength to keep hold of the suddenly thrashing animal. About halfway there, the dog whipped his upper body hard to one side, knocking his head against Beck’s temple. His head ringing, he became aware of gravity shifting below him. Tilting. Falling...

  No hands to grab with. No land behind to step on. He heaved the loudly yelping dog toward the ground as he f
ell back.

  There was cold, then pain, then nothing.

  * * *

  A terrible yelp sounded from up the path, and by the time Lauren straightened from the crouch where she’d been checking the unconscious man’s pulse the dog came rocketing toward her, tail and hind end tucked down in fear.

  Where was Beck?

  “Beck!” She shouted his name, but caught sight of something orange bobbing in the water, and her heart slammed into overdrive.

  Due to the nature of the water, he didn’t rush in one direction but bounced like a pinball in the rocky, whirlpool-laden waters. As quickly as she could, Lauren scrambled onto the biggest, deepest rocky bend and held on with one hand while stretching as hard as she could over the water.

  Two more hits, she couldn’t even tell what part of him was hitting the rocks, just that he wasn’t moving on his own. His head wasn’t coming up but stayed in the water.

  Any second, come on... He’d be there. She could grab him. Get him out somehow.

  A sudden rush of the water nearly shot him right past her. Her fingers slid over the heavy heat-resistant material of his pants and jacket, only finding purchase at his collar.

  “Beck!” She shouted his name again, jerking with all her might to try and get him out of the water, but the suit had filled, making him heavier.

  She managed to lift his head out of the water and tugged him a little closer. “Come on, wake up. Wake up!”

  He coughed, the first sign of life she’d heard, and she almost choked on tears springing to her eyes.

  Alive. But not awake.

  Bracing her foot on a closer, slippery boulder, she got enough leverage to drag his shoulders up the rock and did the only thing she could think of—let go with her other handhold long enough to slap him before the water jerked them both in.

  On the second slap, he coughed again and began to flail. It took her screaming his name more times than she could count before he roused enough to find purchase on the rocks and help her pull him out.