Rescued by Her Rival Page 2

  “They stuck you with the new recruits?”

  Her breathing had already leveled out, the only evidence of her prior exertion the pinkness of her cheeks. She’d run as if chased by wolves, but looked none the worse for wear. He should probably ask what had happened to last year, but that would only encourage conversation. And questions in return.

  “Looks like it,” he muttered, and turned up the volume on the single earpiece as a quick buzz announced an incoming report.

  “What are you listening to?”

  “Reports.”

  “Reports on what?”

  He narrowed his eyes at the middle distance, feigning concentration, and pressed the earpiece into his ear, glad for a reason to tune out.

  Not glad there was such a monstrous fire so early in the season, but he wanted to get at it. He was still on the team. If Treadwell went, he’d go too. His yellow badge was penance.

  She finally took his silence for the hint it was and stopped prodding him for answers. There were plenty of other people to pester, and she didn’t know the report had long since ended and now he pretended to listen to dead air.

  Treadwell began calling names again, dividing his group into three, and Beck found himself sorted to the bar, along with Autry, who was now busy introducing herself to the others in their team, making friends. Smiling. Showing her team spirit.

  “Ellison’s not new,” he heard her say, calling his attention back to the newly formed subgroup. “He made it a couple years ago. But...uh... I guess he got stuck with us because he was late.”

  Wrong.

  “This is Alvarez, Finnegan, and Wyler.”

  Still talking to him. No longer annoyed. She actually looked excited, a brightness in her eyes out of step with what was actually happening. Push-ups. Pull-ups. Sit-ups... Not exactly a party.

  Treadwell called his name, saving him from making nice, and he stepped to the bar, pausing only long enough to deposit his radio on the ground and free his hands. The chief’s gaze wordlessly followed him and Beck said two words before reaching for the bar to pull himself up. “It’s bigger.”

  A frown and a nod were his only acknowledgments, and Treadwell began to count as Beck got on with it. As soon as he’d passed the minimum number of pull-ups, he dropped down for sit-ups, then rolled to push-ups, stopping each time he’d passed the required amount, leaving himself room to “improve” as camp continued.

  Treadwell’s arched brow? Beck shrugged a touch. “Conserving energy.”

  His muscles buzzing, he pulled himself off the ground, retrieved his radio, then went for another drink so he could sit on the grass to watch the others work their way through as he listened.

  Still no new reports to free him.

  Autry had been in the middle of the five, but as he watched, she talked herself to the rear of the group.

  She’d learn soon enough how to survive these days: go early, get it over with, don’t waste energy showing off. Take all opportunities to rest.

  Or not. Maybe it was better for him if she kept doing whatever she was doing. If she finished too soon, she’d be there beside him, asking questions. Making a nuisance of herself with her newbie enthusiasm.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE INSTANT THE call for more crews came over the radio, Beck sprang to his feet.

  Finally. Time to get out of this. He headed for Treadwell, who stood with clipboard in hand, counting the reps of another rookie.

  The chatter he’d expect from Autry had never come when she’d gotten done with her turn at the bar. Treadwell had stopped her from showing off by making her finish her reps when it became clear she had no idea what a reasonable number was. She’d been sitting on the grass, sulking, ever since, her formerly animated brow becoming a little ledge above her pretty green eyes.

  Pretty?

  He mentally shook himself. They were striking, an evergreen ring around a pale center. If anything, they were unusual and therefore compelling. Him fixating on eye color meant he needed to get out of there. Had spent too much time alone in the woods, lost in his own head.

  Then again, no one lurked in the forest to constantly remind him of this nonsense about him undoing core tenets of his personality over a few short weeks. People went to years of therapy to change habits and outlooks acquired over a lifetime, and he had no interest in that either.

  “Chief.” He interrupted the rookie doing push-ups with one word and a meaningful waggle of his radio, indicating the call had come.

  Treadwell’s gaze narrowed and he nodded, but held up one hand in Beck’s direction and told the man on the ground he could stop.

  He and Treadwell might not be on the same page on everything, but over the past two years the man had learned to interpret Beck’s admittedly spartan method of communication. Beck liked him for that. Liked him in general, really.

  During his first year, back when it’d seemed he could do no wrong, he’d still had to actively work to be something like what they expected off duty. They’d accepted his tendency to go off on his own when he got a whiff of something during a fire. Let him come around to telling them whatever he’d concluded when he was certain.

  He didn’t know where that sixth sense had gone, could only hope it had come back over the winter. Knowing how far he’d fallen in the chief’s esteem chafed.

  After marking the rookie’s reps and still carrying his clipboard, Treadwell strode in Beck’s direction. The stout man was in his fifties, and probably as fit as when he’d joined. “What’s the call?”

  “Us and two other units.” Beck nodded down the field to where the other groups were breaking up. “About a forty-five-minute flight. Kolinski said he’d pack our gear and hold the plane.”

  Treadwell listened and nodded, but just when Beck thought he was going to turn around and give the grunts the afternoon off he said, “Not you.”

  “It’s a big fire. You need me.”

  “Not like this I don’t.”

  The urge to argue burned his throat, but he clamped his teeth together. Not that he didn’t buck orders on occasion, but only when he had some measure of certainty he was right to do so. He wanted to argue that no one in the unit read fires like he did, but he simply wasn’t sure that was the case any longer. That was last year’s argument. Before his mistakes. Before he’d been trapped by the flames.

  Treadwell handed him the clipboard. Accepting the transfer of the hard acrylic gave him a sensation somewhat like the first time he’d jumped from a plane. Plummeting. Ground that approached far too rapidly.

  He stood straighter. Even without that one selling point, he was still as capable as anyone else. “You’re sure? I’m still boots on the ground.”

  “Your boots are on whatever ground you see fit. This is the first day. Prove me wrong and we’ll talk.”

  He wanted to, if he actually knew how to follow orders he knew were wrong. As annoying as the yellow badge might be, at least probation gave him more time to sort things out.

  When Beck said nothing else, the chief turned to summon Autry with a wave.

  She’d been watching—everyone in the group had been—and at the summons she popped out of her sulk and trotted right over.

  “You two finish morning PT with the group,” Treadwell said, adding, “There’s a fire, and Ellison has already expended too much energy to give one hundred percent this morning, he doesn’t need to throw himself into the blaze at less than full capacity.”

  Yes, he did. He needed that.

  “I’m fine,” he argued finally, the prospect of minding rookies worse than simply sitting out a fight.

  Treadwell shot him a hard look, one that Beck could also interpret. Punishment or probation, it didn’t matter, he was out of the game until this was done, and Treadwell was trying to save face on his behalf.

  Beck would’ve gladly taken the ding to his pride if
it would’ve gotten him back into the fray. Sitting around with a clipboard while his team jumped into danger didn’t sit right.

  Treadwell thumped him on the shoulder once and before Autry could ask any of the questions bouncing around in those strange green eyes he finalized his orders. “Handle the rest of the baselines. Classroom was going to be protocols, but since it looks like most of us will be in the field, Ellison’s going to do a Q&A about service, lessons learned his first couple years. Then you can all amuse yourselves for the rest of the day, but be on the field at daybreak tomorrow before the siren blasts.”

  Autry still looked confused, but she nodded and had now shifted her attention to him, her expression saying things he didn’t want to hear—like she got just how little he wanted to do this. “What do you want me to do?”

  All of it.

  Eager to get rid of the clipboard, he passed the cursed thing over and gestured for her to follow. The sooner they got on with it, the sooner he could get it over with.

  “Three crews have been called to a blaze, Treadwell wants us to continue,” he announced, straight to the point, then added, because it would help them to know the course when it became mandatory, “After that, lunch, and then a five-mile run around the woodland course.”

  Autry cleared her throat, and for a second he thought it was because she was going to correct him about the run, but instead she said, “Don’t forget the classroom Q&A before the run.”

  One tiny twitch of an eyebrow challenged him to argue, but she didn’t correct Treadwell’s orders—probably because she was obsessive about exercise. Couldn’t rightly fault her for it, except that she didn’t let him get away with sidestepping the exercise in public speaking.

  “Q&A after lunch. Five questions. Then run.” He returned her look. In unison, her brows and shoulders popped up. She might as well have just said, Whatever.

  Whatever. He got back to the task at hand, gesturing to the man Treadwell had been testing, still on the ground. “Who are you?”

  “San Giovanni.”

  “He only has sit-ups left,” Autry added.

  He’d have been happy to let her continue on her own, but Treadwell’s opinion wasn’t going to be raised by his desire to maintain the ten-foot ring of emptiness around himself he preferred.

  “How many are left after him?”

  “Six.”

  He nodded once for the man to continue and silently counted while the man got on with it.

  * * *

  Lunch came and went, and Lauren found herself back on the field with the other rookies, waiting for Ellison.

  He’d said about twenty words before lunch, and most of those had been numbers, or Next. He’d been chattier two years ago.

  If saying more than one word per breath could ever be considered chatty. He only barely communicated at a level higher than grunts and too-easy-to-read judgmental faces. But he had communicated more last time. His current level of terseness seemed the type usually reserved for people who’d caused offense. Which couldn’t be her.

  Unless he thought she stank at everything and couldn’t believe she’d returned for a second try? Wouldn’t be the first time she’d encountered that. Or the thousandth.

  Women weren’t unheard of in the service, but they weren’t abundant either. Even with her firefighting pedigree, the weight of the Autry name probably just meant people would expect her to be better. Not making it two years ago had contradicted that notion, even though she’d served her family’s station since fresh from high school and her father had known better than to turn her away lest she go to a station where he couldn’t control her. Then six years of hard-fought experience, and the arguments it had taken to get it.

  She looked at her watch. Two more minutes and Ellison would be late. Probably because he didn’t want to do the Q&A.

  She could imagine now how it’d go.

  What was the rating on the largest fire you encountered this year?

  Big.

  Where do you see yourself in five years?

  Here.

  What’s your biggest weakness?

  Talking.

  When the hour struck one, and not a second before, Ellison jogged up from the food hall and onto the field. If someone’s posture could shout belligerence, his did. He held himself so erect she’d have expected his collarbone to snap with an accidental shoulder twitch. Everyone else seemed to pick up on it too. Absorbed it so well even that when he asked for questions, no one said a word for a long time, until Lauren shot her hand up. To help him out, of course. Not just to torture him. To get the ball rolling. And because she wasn’t scared of a grumpy off-season forest ranger.

  “You’ve been at it two seasons. Have you had any close calls? Or, you know, back when you were a combat firefighter? That could be cool to hear about.”

  He shouldn’t look so surprised, she’d only had forever to dwell on what had gone wrong last time. Marine combat firefighter? More impressive than the daughter of a local chief who only let her into the fires when she was able to outmaneuver him.

  She wasn’t outmaneuvering Ellison. He held his tongue long enough that it seemed like he was translating words in his head, and then produced a miserly portion to answer only the first part, ignoring her question about his surly marine firefighting days. Another hand went up and the conversation moved on.

  Where was the biggest blaze?

  Did he enjoy the off-season? What did he do?

  Forest ranger. Clearing brush. Controlled burns.

  Nailed it!

  Biggest mistake people made in the field?

  Most useful advice to someone starting out?

  That last one was the one that tripped him up. His mouth opened and closed no fewer than three times, and she could all but see him sorting through his options of advice to dole out. It meant nothing to her if he had so much advice to give he couldn’t decide on what was best, but when he spoke, he sounded like someone parroting words given to him at some point. Like he didn’t believe a word of what came out.

  “Your team is your biggest asset. Be a team player. Watch out for your team. Follow orders.”

  One look around confirmed that everyone thought this advice was basic, but he cut the questions off, having just scraped five, and sent everyone for their woodland run.

  Everyone but her, the one who’d actually heard the chief’s orders. She went to fetch her things from the boot of her car, and on her way back through, stopped beside where he sat on the grass, hands behind him, propping himself up.

  “Go Team, eh?”

  He ignored her question again, his gaze fixed across the field to the wooden steps that led up to the rough, woodland running track where he’d sent them. “Not running?”

  “You forget, I actually heard what the chief said.” She grinned down at him, not that he was looking, and put down her duffel. “I don’t see you running either.”

  “I will. When the crowd thins.”

  “So will I.”

  “They need to do it.”

  She hadn’t questioned that. Of course, they needed to do it. It was called Hell Week for a reason. Every one of them was supposed to come out in better shape than they’d gone in, and no one got better by sitting on their butt, enjoying the blistering afternoon sunshine, as he was doing. “No argument from me. I’m just getting my gear moved into a cabin first.”

  “Cabin assignments haven’t been made yet.”

  Contrary creature. Looking for things to pick apart? Lent more weight to the notion that he just didn’t want her there.

  She could really tick him off by sitting down beside him, where he looked far too comfortable, his muscled legs sprawled out in the grass. The man wasn’t bulky, but he was dense and lean in a way that made the shape of every muscle down his arms and legs show under hair-dusted skin.

  He’d had a cer
tain soldierly hunkiness before, but now he looked like he’d dulled all his sharp, military corners except for those of his physique. Longer hair. Loose cotton clothes. White and gray, no khaki or green anywhere. And he spent enough time in the woods that he wasn’t as bronzed as he’d been either.

  All softening touches. And somehow he was more churlish. Strange that years after leaving combat he’d become less friendly. By the look of him, and the way he’d stood apart from everyone, this man was the one who most needed a friend. What had he even been saying?

  Oh, right. She was picking her own cabin, not waiting on orders. Blah-blah cabin shenanigans. They would’ve made cabin assignments today if everyone hadn’t been called to the field for an emergency.

  “Do you really think the chief wouldn’t want everyone having a bed?”

  “They do things a particular way.”

  “And they can do things that way tomorrow.” She shrugged, shifting topic. “What’s your plan?”

  “Truck.” He looked up at her finally.

  Back to one-word answers.

  “Did you have a stutter as a child?”

  “What? No.”

  “Propensity for mispronouncing words?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have some kind of a Samson situation going on in reverse? The longer your hair gets, the weaker your vocabulary?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You were more talkative last time we met,” she answered, “even if you weren’t exactly Mr. Conversation. Did something bad happen that you find painful to revisit?”

  He actually paled then and she immediately felt bad for asking. Suddenly it was something she couldn’t joke about. Something bad had happened. And now he was a rookie.

  No smokejumpers had died, she would’ve heard if there had been any deaths. They were so well trained and prepared they could go decades without a fatality.

  “Nothing happened.”

  The man was not a good liar, at least not when directly questioned.

  Lauren’s friends were mostly men, due to the nature of her profession. She wasn’t a native speaker of Dude Language, but she had fair fluency. In this kind of triggering situation, she had a few options on how to respond.