“Did Candace just say ‘hotshots’? Plural?”
Randall sobered and turned to study the closed door.
Then she felt his shrug.
“Could be…”
13
The shower was fun as always.
Sheila almost felt shy sharing it with the firefighter that Randall had turned into, but shy had never been a thing between them. Still, now that she knew the hard-core firefighter that lurked beneath his easy-going demeanor, it was like she was with someone else. Someone even better than she’d thought she was with, which was astonishing as she’d been counting herself damned lucky of late.
And Randall got her to smile as they went into the Bavarian Bakery to pick up the pies for dinner; the place was such classic German kitsch. But the sample cinnamon rugelach they’d split had been splendidly authentic.
It was so different walking through town now than it had been a month ago. It didn’t matter that the snow was artificial; the town glittered with tiny ice crystals. The polka band was in full swing as were the chaotic crowds of children. She managed to dodge all collisions this time, so there would be no test of their reaction to her—something she still wasn’t ready for.
“Damn, I keep forgetting to buy twinkle lights.”
He hesitated in front of the Christmas store window, and she didn’t even cringe.
“When I told my sister that I was in love, she said I should get some twinkle lights for the bedroom,” he set off walking again.
“When you told your sister…what?” Sheila ground to a halt. In love? Some chattering tourist couple slammed into her from behind and bounced off.
Randall simply smiled at her. “I think making love to you by the light of twinkle lights would be a very good thing.”
“No. What’s that other thing you said?”
“See? I told you there weren’t any issues with your reaction time,” he kissed her on the nose and then kept walking toward the fire station with his armful of pie boxes.
Sheila wasn’t used to having to scramble to keep up with a man.
Luke came out of a side street not a dozen steps ahead. There were some things that she definitely wasn’t going to discuss in front of him.
Or at all.
And the crowd built from there.
Or was she?
By the time they reached the fire station, more firefighters and families had joined them. They all greeted her by name, made her feel welcome. Sheila realized that she knew all of their names as well. Had eaten at several of their houses. Knew most of the kids’ names too. When did that happen?
With no privacy, she could only puzzle at Randall’s statement. The problem was that the more she did, the less strange it became. She cared for Randall. She really did. Is that what love felt like? If it was, how in hell was she supposed to know.
It was halfway through the dinner before she was able to track down Candace and ask her what that “hotshots” comment had meant.
“One of the main things I look for when I’m building my hotshot team is what you showed today.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re not afraid of fire. You keep thinking even when it’s right on top of you. Damned hard to test that without a real fire.”
Sheila had driven through enough shellings and bombardment that the fire hadn’t fazed her at all. “What are the other things?”
“Saving my damned engine,” Candace grinned at her. “Work with Randall, get your red card. Tryouts are in the spring, not that you need to worry about that.” She punched Sheila on the arm like guys did and strutted back into the crowd. It was no longer a surprise that she had married a Navy SEAL and was keeping him happy.
It was only at the end of the night, as she and Randall were walking arm in arm back through the sleeping village that Sheila really connected that this was Christmas Eve…she checked the cuckoo clock in the window of Der Markt Platz…no, Christmas Day. She’d known it was close. Obligatory call with Mom about whether or not she was coming home for it, etc. etc. But the firehall dinner had just been a Christmas party. Not the official Eve of.
“I didn’t get you anything, Randall. Please tell me that you didn’t get me a present either.”
He looked aside as if seeking a subject change.
“Oh no! What did you get me? Are there any shops open past midnight?” The empty street answered that one. “Maybe McDonald’s up on the highway is open and I could get you some French fries.”
Now he seemed to be the one having trouble connecting words. After a few slowing paces, he turned and led her away from the shops to the small park where the band had been playing Christmas carols earlier. She could still hear them on the night air. That should have reminded her to get him something, would have if they hadn’t been playing them since the moment of her arrival back at Thanksgiving.
He led her to the little gazebo and sat beside her on the bench.
“I got you something,” his voice was low and rough. “Probably pretty damned stupid, but…” His shrug showed his sudden unease.
“Just, I don’t know, just give it to me and I’ll get you something equally stupid when the stores reopen. Then we’ll be even.” It came out in a mad rush. She didn’t know why she was feeling so nervous. It wasn’t like her.
“Equally stupid?” There was a tease in his voice that she’d come to like. There was never a hidden agenda behind it; it was more his way of laughing with her rather than at her. And he took her return teases in stride just as easily as he took her silences.
“I promise,” Sheila raised her right hand. “Equally stupid.”
“Okay,” he blew out a hard huff of breath that made a brief cloud in the chill air. He dug into a pocket, pulled out a small box, and opened it.
Inside was a golden ring with a small ruby the color of fire. “It’s beautiful. Simple and perfect.”
“It’s yours, if you want it.”
“Of course I do, it’s—” and with those words her brain seized up.
I do? Randall hadn’t offered her a present. Well, not a present like a present present. Her brain was babbling.
She looked up into his dark eyes and studied him carefully by the soft street lighting. He didn’t look away. Didn’t shy off.
“You said to just give it to you,” he explained. “I had a speech, which I can’t remember. I’ll kneel if you’d like. But the important part is that every one of my days has been better for having you in it. I’m betting that isn’t going to change. I know it won’t.”
Sheila wanted to protest that she was a wreck, but she didn’t feel like one. Not when Randall was around. She felt capable, strong…
She looked at the ring once more. It wasn’t as simple as it had first appeared. The band was twisted, like a mobius strip. All one side, the inside becoming the outside and the outside in. It was an elegant piece of work.
And it was who she was, all twisted up, the inside and the outside blurred until they became one because of the man waiting patiently beside her.
Well, not altogether patiently. She knew him well enough to see the strain, but he’d never pushed her to be other than who she was. That’s when she knew that the ring wasn’t the gift, Randall Jones was. A life-long sized gift.
She leaned forward and kissed him lightly.
“Something equally stupid…” she whispered against his lips. “I promise. I really do.”
Last Words
Candace Cantrell and Luke Rawlings may have been the heart of the team, but I think it was in the final story of Sheila Williams that my writing changed the most.
The Firehawks Hotshots—and the companion Firehawks Lookouts series—had let me experiment with romantic suspense tales in the short form of stories. They were fun, lively, and interesting to write.
But it was Sheila’s story where I feel I first captured a glimpse of the other side of war. My friend Suzanne Brockmann says that she almost never shows her heroes in a war zone because she refuses to pretty i
t up. I have made a different choice, showing bits of the battles’ challenge and terror, without showing its moments of horror. It has helped me as a person to better understand the warriors I write about.
In Sheila I explored the huge challenges that make it so hard for our warriors when they come home. I’ve written more of those tales since (most notably NSDQ, Reaching Out at Henderson’s Ranch, and When They Just Know) and more are planned. Sheila brought a degree of realism to my writing that I feel has carried through ever since.
When I delve into a new character, I can feel Sheila watching me closely to make sure I look deeper and make a greater effort to find what lies underneath the shield that a true warrior keeps so firmly in place.
I’m trying, Sheila. I’m trying.
Wildfire at Dawn (excerpt)
If you liked this, you’ll love the smokejumper novels!
Wildfire at Dawn
(excerpt)
Mount Hood Aviation’s lead smokejumper Johnny Akbar Jepps rolled out of his lower bunk careful not to bang his head on the upper. Well, he tried to roll out, but every muscle fought him, making it more a crawl than a roll. He checked the clock on his phone. Late morning.
He’d slept twenty of the last twenty-four hours and his body felt as if he’d spent the entire time in one position. The coarse plank flooring had been worn smooth by thousands of feet hitting exactly this same spot year in and year out for decades. He managed to stand upright…then he felt it, his shoulders and legs screamed.
Oh, right.
The New Tillamook Burn. Just about the nastiest damn blaze he’d fought in a decade of jumping wildfires. Two hundred thousand acres—over three hundred square miles—of rugged Pacific Coast Range forest, poof! The worst forest fire in a decade for the Pacific Northwest, but they’d killed it off without a single fatality or losing a single town. There’d been a few bigger ones, out in the flatter eastern part of Oregon state. But that much area—mostly on terrain too steep to climb even when it wasn’t on fire—had been a horror.
Akbar opened the blackout curtain and winced against the summer brightness of blue sky and towering trees that lined the firefighter’s camp. Tim was gone from the upper bunk, without kicking Akbar on his way out. He must have been as hazed out as Akbar felt.
He did a couple of side stretches and could feel every single minute of the eight straight days on the wildfire to contain the bastard, then the excruciating nine days more to convince it that it was dead enough to hand off to a Type II incident mop-up crew. Not since his beginning days on a hotshot crew had he spent seventeen days on a single fire.
And in all that time nothing more than catnaps in the acrid safety of the “black”—the burned-over section of a fire, black with char and stark with no hint of green foliage. The mop-up crews would be out there for weeks before it was dead past restarting, but at least it was truly done in. That fire wasn’t merely contained; they’d killed it bad.
Yesterday morning, after demobilizing, his team of smokies had pitched into their bunks. No wonder he was so damned sore. His stretches worked out the worst of the kinks but he still must be looking like an old man stumbling about.
He looked down at the sheets. Damn it. They’d been fresh before he went to the fire, now he’d have to wash them again. He’d been too exhausted to shower before sleeping and they were all smeared with the dirt and soot that he could still feel caking his skin. Two-Tall Tim, his number two man and as tall as two of Akbar, kinda, wasn’t in his bunk. His towel was missing from the hook.
Shower. Shower would be good. He grabbed his own towel and headed down the dark, narrow hall to the far end of the bunk house. Every one of the dozen doors of his smoke teams were still closed, smokies still sacked out. A glance down another corridor and he could see that at least a couple of the Mount Hood Aviation helicopter crews were up, but most still had closed doors with no hint of light from open curtains sliding under them. All of MHA had gone above and beyond on this one.
“Hey, Tim.” Sure enough, the tall Eurasian was in one of the shower stalls, propped up against the back wall letting the hot water stream over him.
“Akbar the Great lives,” Two-Tall sounded half asleep.
“Mostly. Doghouse?” Akbar stripped down and hit the next stall. The old plywood dividers were flimsy with age and gray with too many showers. The Mount Hood Aviation firefighters’ Hoodie One base camp had been a kids’ summer camp for decades. Long since defunct, MHA had taken it over and converted the playfields into landing areas for their helicopters, and regraded the main road into a decent airstrip for the spotter and jump planes.
“Doghouse? Hell, yeah. I’m like ten thousand calories short.” Two-Tall found some energy in his voice at the idea of a trip into town.
The Doghouse Inn was in the nearest town. Hood River lay about a half hour down the mountain and had exactly what they needed: smokejumper-sized portions and a very high ratio of awesomely fit young women come to windsurf the Columbia Gorge. The Gorge, which formed the Washington and Oregon border, provided a fantastically target-rich environment for a smokejumper too long in the woods.
“You’re too tall to be short of anything,” Akbar knew he was being a little slow to reply, but he’d only been awake for minutes.
“You’re like a hundred thousand calories short of being even a halfway decent size,” Tim was obviously recovering faster than he was.
“Just because my parents loved me instead of tying me to a rack every night ain’t my problem, buddy.”
He scrubbed and soaped and scrubbed some more until he felt mostly clean.
“I’m telling you, Two-Tall. Whoever invented the hot shower, that’s the dude we should give the Nobel prize to.”
“You say that every time.”
“You arguing?”
He heard Tim give a satisfied groan as some muscle finally let go under the steamy hot water. “Not for a second.”
Akbar stepped out and walked over to the line of sinks, smearing a hand back and forth to wipe the condensation from the sheet of stainless steel screwed to the wall. His hazy reflection still sported several smears of char.
“You so purdy, Akbar.”
“Purdier than you, Two-Tall.” He headed back into the shower to get the last of it.
“So not. You’re jealous.”
Akbar wasn’t the least bit jealous. Yes, despite his lean height, Tim was handsome enough to sweep up any ladies he wanted.
But on his own, Akbar did pretty damn well himself. What he didn’t have in height, he made up for with a proper smokejumper’s muscled build. Mixed with his tan-dark Indian complexion, he did fine.
The real fun, of course, was when the two of them went cruising together. The women never knew what to make of the two of them side by side. The contrast kept them off balance enough to open even more doors.
He smiled as he toweled down. It also didn’t hurt that their opening answer to “what do you do” was “I jump out of planes to fight forest fires.”
Worked every damn time. God he loved this job.
The small town of Hood River, a winding half-an-hour down the mountain from the MHA base camp, was hopping. Mid-June, colleges letting out. Students and the younger set of professors high-tailing it to the Gorge. They packed the bars and breweries and sidewalk cafes. Suddenly every other car on the street had a windsurfing board tied on the roof.
The snooty rich folks were up at the historic Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood itself, not far in the other direction from MHA. Down here it was a younger, thrill seeker set and you could feel the energy.
There were other restaurants in town that might have better pickings, but the Doghouse Inn was MHA tradition and it was a good luck charm—no smokie in his right mind messed with that. This was the bar where all of the MHA crew hung out. It didn’t look like much from the outside, just a worn old brick building beaten by the Gorge’s violent weather. Aged before its time, which had been long ago.
But inside was awesome. A lon
g wooden bar stretched down one side with a half-jillion microbrew taps and a small but well-stocked kitchen at the far end. The dark wood paneling, even on the ceiling, was barely visible beneath thousands of pictures of doghouses sent from patrons all over the world. Miniature dachshunds in ornately decorated shoeboxes, massive Newfoundlands in backyard mansions that could easily house hundreds of their smaller kin, and everything in between. A gigantic Snoopy atop his doghouse in full Red Baron fighting gear dominated the far wall. Rumor said Shulz himself had been here two owners before and drawn it.
Tables were grouped close together, some for standing and drinking, others for sitting and eating.
“Amy, sweetheart!” Two-Tall called out as they entered the bar. The perky redhead came out from behind the bar to receive a hug from Tim. Akbar got one in turn, so he wasn’t complaining. Cute as could be and about his height; her hugs were better than taking most women to bed. Of course, Gerald the cook and the bar’s co-owner was big enough and strong enough to squish either Tim or Akbar if they got even a tiny step out of line with his wife. Gerald was one amazingly lucky man.
Akbar grabbed a Walking Man stout and turned to assess the crowd. A couple of the air jocks were in. Carly and Steve were at a little table for two in the corner, obviously not interested in anyone’s company but each others. Damn, that had happened fast. New guy on the base swept up one of the most beautiful women on the planet. One of these days he’d have to ask Steve how he’d done that. Or maybe not. It looked like they were settling in for the long haul; the big “M” was so not his own first choice.
Carly was also one of the best FBANs in the business. Akbar was a good Fire Behavior Analyst, had to be or he wouldn’t have made it to first stick—lead smokie of the whole MHA crew. But Carly was something else again. He’d always found the Flame Witch, as she was often called, daunting and a bit scary besides; she knew the fire better than it did itself. Steve had latched on to one seriously driven lady. More power to him.
The Complete Hotshots Page 12
