by Christa Wick
“Best to pace in one’s mind,” Sutton suggested, his voice a soft comfort. "It's less infectious."
“Sorry.” I walked over to the couch and sat down opposite him. Pulling a throw pillow onto my lap, I hugged it.
“Maybe you should learn to crochet,” he added with a tease. “Mama’s made some ugly but useful blankets waiting for news on one or more of us. Can’t help but drop half her stitches when she’s worried.”
“I heard that,” Lindy growled, coming through the swinging doors, carrying a tray loaded down with a coffee pot and sliced treats she had spent the morning baking. She handed me a plate with a chunk of banana bread on it.
“Here, dear. You haven’t been eating enough to worry about spoiling your dinner.”
“They were all safe this morning,” Sutton reminded us.
“Yes, they were.” Picking at the banana bread, I snuck a glance at my watch.
Without Siobhan providing twice daily reports, I was certain I would have gone out of my mind. How did Lindy survive having five sons? Barrett and Sutton had both served overseas in combat zones, both jumped out of planes into danger. At any moment, Emerson could be out somewhere knocking on a door with a loaded gun or a bomb on the other side of it. Adler and Walker weren’t much safer, especially at the height of their work seasons.
In a sad irony, the woman had lost her daughter and husband as they were coming back from a conference that was half work, half play.
Hearing a truck pull up in the drive, I was the first to put my plate down and cross over to the entry hall.
“Siobhan,” I announced then opened the door as the young woman stepped up onto the porch.
“No news is good news,” Siobhan called out as she entered the house and wrapped her arms around me. “Still a couple more hours before they check in for the night.”
“The other teams?” Lindy asked as Siobhan and I entered the great room.
“Haven’t heard anything beyond the usual. Sprains, one wasp nest encounter, heat exhaustion…”
Siobhan trailed off, her words stalling as her gaze landed on Sutton.
Sutton’s own attention was transfixed by his phone, his face no more mobile than a statue.
“What is it?” Lindy asked, standing up from the couch and walking toward him.
“Nothing, Mama.” He shoved the phone into his jacket pocket, then straightened his sleeve. “Can’t a man check sports scores every now and then?”
“Not in the middle of the day on a Thursday, he can’t,” she huffed, bypassing the couch he sat on to switch on the television tucked in the corner of the room.
“Beef futures?” he drawled.
“Nice try,” Sage said, coming through the dining room doors. “Leah’s eating in the kitchen, so let me know if I need to take her to the playroom.”
The little girl was still in the process of getting past her mother and grandfather’s death. According to Siobhan, the toddler had been an emotional wreck while Barrett was gone during the fire season after Dawn’s death.
Lindy muted the volume as soon as the television turned on. She punched in a channel number by memory. The words I had been dreading the last four days appeared at the bottom of the screen in blocky white letters.
FIREFIGHTER INJURED IN BLAZE WEST OF PIONEER JUNCTION
“I’m taking Leah to the playroom.” Sage nodded at Siobhan, “Text me what’s going on.”
I didn’t need to ask if Pioneer Junction was close to where Barrett and his team were positioned. Siobhan had named the location just that morning. They were up on a series of ridges just outside the town, trying to keep the fire that had started in Kootenai National Forest from reaching any more population centers.
Lindy brought the volume up to a whisper.
A petite, bubbly blonde provided the news update, her tone no different than if she was talking about the annual Elk Festival.
A member of a local smokejumping team was injured this afternoon…Hospital staff report he is in surgery with multiple fractures to his ribcage…Name withheld while authorities contact the man’s family…we go now to a conference with Chief Melpow, who reports that the fire has been contained. Most fire teams are being told they can go home.
I pressed my palm to the wall, the rest of my body swaying.
Next to me, Sutton was busy holding his mother up.
Surgery…fractures to his ribcage…
I didn’t need to ask if such injuries could be deadly. Images of a pierced heart or aorta clouded my vision. The better question was whether such injuries were not always fatal.
“Let’s get them to the couch,” Siobhan suggested, her voice taking on the same calm, professional tone she used at her dispatch job at the sheriff’s office.
She grabbed my arm and coaxed me away from the television.
“There’s more than one team out there, Mama,” Sutton reminded Lindy as he settled her onto the couch. “And more than one man on Barrett’s team.”
I clutched at Siobhan’s arm. “Where was that coverage from? Where is their ‘local’?”
“Butte,” Sutton answered. “There are teams from all the west coast states at Kootenai right now. Local could mean anywhere in Montana and just over the border in Idaho.”
I turned a pleading gaze on Siobhan.
“Let me call dispatch,” the young woman scratched out.
“No need, Monkey Butt,” a rough voice called from the entry hall. “It isn’t my team on the news.”
I stared at the hulking black form covered in sooty grime and dirt. Only the towering physique and voice were recognizable as belonging to Barrett.
“Didn’t hear a vehicle,” Sutton said, leaving his mother’s side to take his brother’s heavy duffel and help remove his fire jacket.
“Walked from the main gate. Winston felt a powerful need to get home and his driving showed it.”
I stared, my body immobile. I wanted to run over and throw my arms around him, but the fear that had paralyzed my limbs earlier wouldn’t relinquish its iron grip. I could barely breathe, just stare and blink as Barrett eyed me with a wary gaze.
“That’s a ten-minute walk,” Lindy scolded. “Longer with the state you’re in. A call up to the house…”
“Battery’s dead, Mama.” Approaching the seating area, he stopped at the edge of the carpet.
“Barrett!” Leah squealed, arms out and her torso wiggling against the bear hug Sage had her wrapped in.
“You can squeeze him and kiss him all you want once he’s had a shower,” Sage said, carefully skirting her brother-in-law so he remained out of Leah’s reach. “In the meantime, he’s ready to eat a horse, so let’s go fix him one.”
“Not a real horse,” Leah admonished as Sage carried her toward the kitchen.
Following after Sage, Siobhan stopped just long enough to clear a grimy patch of Barrett’s cheek and plant a kiss.
“I’ll message Walker and Adler, then set the table,” she volunteered. “You should have just about enough time to wash all that stink off you.”
Muscles still frozen, I watched the exchange.
I blinked, tears hitting my cheeks.
“Mama,” Barrett asked. “You’re not going to make me dirty up your rug, are you?”
My fingertips bounced against my thighs as Lindy got up from the other couch and grabbed her son by the ears. “You boys, you’ve been going at this too long.”
“We always keep the Devil behind us, Mama.”
She shook her head, but stood on tiptoe and kissed the spot Siobhan had already cleaned. Turning to Sutton, she waved him over, hooked his arm and had him walk her to the kitchen.
“Quinn?” Barrett whispered.
I managed to bring my hand to my mouth, stifling the sob that would have had everyone running back into the room.
“I told dispatch to make sure Siobhan got a message each day and Siobhan knew to relay that message.”
“I got it,” I croaked around the shaky hand still covering m
y mouth.
We stayed silent. I didn’t know how to tell Barrett that my heart had cleaved in two not knowing if he was the injured man in the news report.
“Can you give me a hand?” he asked at last. “This stuff isn’t easy to get off the walls and I need a fresh change of clothes from my old room.”
With weak knees, I stood up, walked past him and headed down the hall. Stopping by the bathroom nearest his old bedroom, I opened the door all the way, turned on the sink faucet then moved on to his bedroom.
All of Lindy’s sons kept a room at her house. Sage and Adler lived there and Walker’s was redecorated to reflect the fact that it was now shared with Ashley when they stayed overnight. But Barrett’s bedroom still looked like it was lived in by a man a decade younger. I opened the closet door, an Army Airborne poster on its front, and pulled out a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Opening the top dresser drawer, I selected a pair of briefs and socks.
Even though we had been showering in the same house for weeks, I had only seen him in his skivvies the one time when he stood outside his truck stripping down to put on the protective layer that went under the jumpsuit. I hadn’t been blind to the contours of his body that day. I just hadn’t known how much the man would come to mean to me.
Everything, I thought with a rough swallow. Barrett was my whole world.
Returning to the bathroom, I found him in front of the sink, stripped to the waist, his face and hands mostly clean from all the scrubbing he had managed while I grabbed fresh clothes.
“There are some big trash bags under the sink. Can you get me one?”
He stepped out of the way and I pulled out a large black bag and held it open while he put the clothes he had already taken off into the bag.
“Close your eyes,” he teased.
I shook my head. “I’ve already seen you in just your chonies.”
He cocked a brow.
“Underwear,” I clarified. “It’s an L.A. thing. You jumped out of my truck, completely forgot I was there, and began to strip.”
His mouth puckered. “I couldn’t possibly have forgotten you were there.”
It was my turn to cock a brow. “So you were intentionally putting on a show?”
“Not really,” he grinned, the light over the vanity reflecting in his eyes. “Just that there’s no place for modesty in a fire emergency.”
“Fine,” I huffed and closed my eyes, my ears feeding me details as I heard the rustle of the bottom half of his suit coming off then the staticky wrinkling of the bag as he shoved the pants inside.
He took the bag away, tossing it behind him if I could trust the room’s acoustics. His hands curled along my jaw and tilted my head up.
“Open your eyes,” he ordered.
Obeying, I stared into the verdant gaze, the color so deep I felt like I was looking into a never-ending forest, one I’d gotten lost in at first and now wanted to claim as my home.
“I always come back, Quinn.”
Was that a promise? It was hubris if so. Barrett was a risk taker and a brave man. One day, probably to save someone else, he was going to pay a heavy price.
When that day came, I would be dead inside.
“Always, Quinn,” he insisted, his mouth closing in on mine.
My eyes swept shut as our lips made contact. My hands landed on his bare waist, trailed lower to find more skin stripped free of its barriers to my touch. My thumbs stretched to claim the prominence of his hipbones.
He teased my lips open. I wanted to lean into him, but his grip on my head kept me pushed back just a little. I wanted to open my eyes, to soak in the contours of his lean, rugged body, but the kiss was a drug.
His tongue swept in, slow, deliberate, teasing a whimper from my throat.
“Next time,” he murmured, ending the kiss. “Don’t stay on the couch. Every time I had room to stop and think, you were all that was on my mind, Quinn.”
“You were all I thought about, too,” I confessed, meeting his gaze and praying he could see the truth, see the things I was afraid to say for fear he might not truly feel the same.
“Good,” he smiled. “Now close your eyes, turn around and go so I can hop in the shower, eat a little supper and take you home.”
I really, really didn’t want to close my eyes. He planted kisses on each until they were heavy with need all over again. Then he turned me, put a hand on each side of my bottom, and propelled me out of the bathroom.
Floating on air down the hall, I headed for the kitchen.
20
Quinn
“Oh, my,” Siobhan cackled as she turned from taking a large casserole pan out of the oven and her gaze landed on me.
“To the sink with you,” Sage whispered, cupping my elbow and guiding me away from Siobhan.
“What?” I asked.
Saying nothing, just smiling, Sage wet a paper towel then scrubbed at my jawline. Pulling the towel away, she showed me the sooty marks before tearing off another sheet and repeating the entire process on the other side of my face.
“Apparently his tongue wasn’t sooty when he kissed you,” Siobhan teased with a whisper. “Or he kept it in his mouth.”
Heat fanned across my cheeks.
Sage winked at me. “Don’t worry, someday Siobhan’s going to be head over heels for some guy and we can be merciless with her then.”
“I wish,” the young woman pouted. “The men around Willow Gap are either dull, related to me, or my boss. It’s really imperative that you get that Viking doctor out here for the clinic or Emerson brings me some hunky FBI agent instead of Madigan on his next trip.”
“Whatever it is,” Sutton said, coming in to claim the casserole Siobhan had just taken from the oven. “Leave Madigan out of it.”
“Talk about head over heels,” Sage whispered as she softly bumped my shoulder.
“Nothing’s wrong with my hearing, dear sister.”
I smiled at the exchange. Sutton, Walker, and Barrett called Sage “sister,” and not just when they were taking her to task over teasing them. It was the same way with how the family treated Walker’s wife. She heard brotherly love every time they said it and when Lindy called the two women “daughter.”
Without fail, witnessing the affection these women had found with their husbands’ family made me want to tear up.
Siobhan waited for Sutton to leave the room before she sidled up to me. “He’s met the woman like once—”
“A little more than once,” Sage corrected. “You know perfectly well he saw her at my wedding and Ashley’s. There was the time they both helped Ashley with her poaching investigation. You were there for some of that. And he visits Emerson in Billings.”
“You mean he visits Madigan by showing up at Emerson’s office,” Siobhan snickered then seized my shoulders. “Now, let’s see if there’s any other evidence of just how much—”
Another timer went off, sparing me further inspection or embarrassment. Sage asked me to get the milk pitcher while she grabbed the fresh-baked dinner rolls from the oven and, together, we headed into the dining room.
A few seconds later, Barrett followed, freshly showered and dressed in the clothes I had retrieved from his room. Adler called from the entry hall that he was back.
With everyone gathered, Barrett pulled my chair out, Sutton doing the same for his mother and Siobhan while Adler attended Leah and then Sage, sweetly kissing his wife’s neck before he slid into his chair at the head of the table.
We held hands around the table, Lindy leading grace, thanking the Lord for the safety of her family. Barrett squeezed my hand, his grip soft and warm. The simple contact made my chest swell and I squeezed back.
“Amen!” Leah called before her grandmother could reach the end of the prayer. Sweeping her legs under her, she rose up and stretched across the table for a roll.
“Leah,” Adler corrected. “I’m not having your daddy come back from his business trip to Texas to find you’ve lost all your manners.”
>
Settling back in her booster seat, she folded her hands in her lap, her little mouth a pucker of sorry-not-sorry contrition.
With a wink at his oldest brother, Sutton picked up the tray full of rolls, dropped one on his plate then passed it to Sage, who let Leah pick one.
Pinching the bread, she pulled off a bite and popped it into her mouth. Her little face melted with a warm, doughy pleasure.
I looked from the little girl to Barrett. With his gaze locked on mine, Barrett slid his hand under the table to rest on my leg, the heat of his touch penetrating my jeans.
Siobhan clucked like an irritating hen just as the front doorbell rang.
Adler rose from the table. “I’ll get it.”
Barrett teased me with a parting squeeze then grabbed his fork.
Sneaking another roll, Leah began to hum as she plucked it apart.
“Quinn…” Adler called, just his head and part of his shoulder sticking through the doorway.
His gaze slid to Barrett. “Both of you.”
I stood and left the dining room with Barrett. Worry lines etched my forehead as I tried to figure out who would show up at the ranch needing to talk to me—and Barrett.
“Chief Finley,” Barrett said as we reached the hall to find a man somewhere in his fifties. He wore a white shirt with a black tie, a red patch over the right shirt pocket identifying him as being part of the Elkhead county fire department.
“What can I do you for?” Barrett asked.
I didn’t like the man’s gaze. It wasn’t that it was judgmental or hostile or anything like that.
It was regret, I realized as his mouth flattened into a thin line, his head offering a nod in my direction.
“Needed to make sure everyone who might be out at Jasper’s was accounted for. Adler said your brother Sutton’s here, too. I guess I need to speak with him, as well.”
“I don’t understand,” I said despite the awful certainty building in my stomach, a certainty that only grew heavier when Barrett wrapped an arm around my shoulder in an attempt to brace me against whatever the fire chief was about to say.
“We received a report of smoke up on the ridge…”
