by K. C. Crowne
I clenched my teeth, fighting off my own orgasm as she writhed against me. The trailer was now rocking heavily, drawing a few concerned neighs from the horses as the force of my thrusts pressed her against it. My knees began to buckle from the pleasure coursing through my body.
Picking her up, I carried her away from the trailer and then laid her down onto a hay bale on the ground. Hovering above her, I had more momentum, and continued burying myself inside of her. My mouth moved over her neck, kissing and sucking as I fucked her; as I claimed her. She was still wrapped around me, her legs quivering as she screamed out loud.
“I'm coming,” she shouted. “Fuck yes, Owen. I'm coming.”
“Yes, come for me, Sarah,” I groaned.
Her pussy spasmed around my cock, squeezing it tighter in its velvety vice. The sensations that course through me, pushed me over the edge, and I lost it. Streams of cum shot out of me, filling her up as I grunted, burying myself inside of her one last time.
I collapsed on top of her, our breathing ragged, before rolling over and lying beside her. Sarah moved to where she was resting her head on my chest, and I wrapped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
I could see myself falling in love with this woman, if I hadn't already. She was everything I wanted in a partner – and then some. In my eyes, Sarah was damn near living perfection.
We laid there, out in the open, for what felt like an eternity until she looked up at me and grinned.
“And you still haven't answered my question,” she said.
I laughed, unable to contain the smile on my own face any longer. “About how I knew how to deliver the foal?”
“Yes,” she said. “Tell me, please?”
I pushed a strand of hair away from her face, staring deep into her beautiful eyes.
“Okay, but it's a long story.”
“I think we have some time before they get here,” she said.
Closing my eyes, images of my childhood flashed before my eyes. Some of the memories were painful – others, like Martha and the horses, were not.
“Growing up, my parents worked a lot. They were never really home, and I'm an only child, so I had no one to play with,” I said. “I'd usually end up at our stables with the stable hand, Martha, who taught me everything I know.”
“You had stables growing up?” she asked me.
“Yeah, my mom was one of those horse girls,” I said.
“I know the type,” Sarah said, chuckling. “Go on.”
“Anyway, I spent a lot of time with the horses. I didn't have many friends, no family. The horses were all I had,” I said. “Animals seemed to understand me better than humans.”
“That's why you're vegan, huh?”
“You really thought I did it for my health? Please, no,” I laughed. “I love animals, always have. Especially horses.”
“So Martha taught you how to deliver foals?” Sarah asked.
I nodded. “Among other things, but yeah. We had a horse that was in labor once – a breech birth like with Silver. Martha made me get up in there and actually help, rather than stand back and watch. She practically made me deliver the foal myself. My parents were pissed when they found out. Fired her, but I complained until they brought her back on.”
My hands moved through Sarah's hair, stroking her face as I talked. At one time, the idea of opening myself up like this would have scared me. It's not something I would have done willingly. But she was listening, and she seemed interested. She also seemed to care. I felt safe with her.
“So why didn't you work at the stables like Martha?” she asked. “Why become a firefighter?”
“Because I wanted to do more. Saving one foal felt amazing, yes, but I knew I could do more than that. There was a fire at the stable when I was a boy. Killed a couple horses, but no people were injured at the time,” I said softly. “I remember being terrified of fire for a long time after that. I had nightmares for months, maybe even years, after that. But eventually, I decided to conquer that fear, and hopefully save lives in the process. I wanted my life to matter. Unlike my dad who sat behind a desk and only cared about the bottom line. He values money more than people. I wanted more out of my life, you know?”
“I know exactly what you mean,” she said.
I kissed her forehead.
“I figured you did,” I said.
She was one of the few people in this world I figured would know what I meant.
“We should get dressed,” she said. “I don't know how long it's going to take for them to get to us.”
“Probably a good idea,” I replied. “We probably don't want them finding us like this.”
As I sat up though, the strangeness of the situation came crashing down over me. With so much chaos and destruction going on outside, to share this beautiful, tender moment with Sarah just seemed so out of place.
Yet, there was no place else in the world I wanted to be in that moment, but right there.
With her.
6
Austin
“Tomorrow, I want you and your team up on this ridge,” he said, pointing to the map. “The fire is sweeping up from the valley, but I think if we can get ahead of it, and dig out a fire break, we might be able to keep it from spreading inward.”
I looked at the map and nodded but pulled the tablet that was sitting unused on the table and called up the footage from the drone flying overhead. Technology had made our work a little bit easier – emphasis on the little bit. We still had to deal with these monsters ourselves, and they were always unpredictable, at best. But, with drones that could give us real-time footage, it allowed us to at least plan a little bit better when deploying our resources. It made us more efficient, and better prepared for the fight.
Which was why I didn't understand how guys like Chief Quinn didn't embrace it. He was still married to old school maps and planning based on those. He made little to no use of the available technology to prepare his team – and when you were dealing with something as nasty as a wildfire, the more prepared you could be, the better.
“Wind shifted,” I said. “The fire looks like it's headed away from the ridge and is burning up the valley now. Looks like it's headed for some structures. We can get ahead of it up here and save those structures. I think that needs to be the priority.”
A sour look crossed Quinn's face. I'd been on a few wildfire calls with him before, and he wasn't a man who enjoyed being contradicted. He ruled his house with an iron fist. Quinn was a man used to barking order at his crew and having them do exactly what he asked without question.
It was his house, so it wasn't my place to correct him. He could run it as he saw fit. For the most part, Quinn was a good man. A good chief. Took care of his people, and he got solid results. He'd been doing the job a long time and had the most experience of any of the rest of us in that tent. Out there though, in the middle of a wildfire, his wasn't the only voice that mattered. Nor was I one of his newbies he could badger and berate. I wouldn't bend to his will, and he didn't like that. It was one reason he and I weren't on each other's Christmas card lists.
“Wind could shift again,” he said.
“Could,” I replied, calling up some of the weather information we relied on. “The latest satellite tracking predicts the wind gusts will continue in the same direction, only increasing in strength tomorrow though.”
“You can't rely on that shit, Austin,” he grumbles. “Half of fighting wildfires is listening to your gut.”
“And the other half is relying on solid intel to put you and your team in a better position to knock this thing down, while keeping everybody alive,” I said.
The other chiefs in the room remained silent, all of them just watching the tense match between Quinn and me. None of them had the balls to speak up, but I could see by the look in their eyes that they thought I was right. Unlike Quinn, these guys were younger, and they embraced the technology Quinn dismissed out of hand.
“And besides,” I cont
inued, “if the wind does shift again, we'll still have time to get back to the ridge and set up a fire break before it ever crests .”
Quinn looked at the map, then the drone footage, scowling down at the tablet. Quinn was an old school guy and good at his job, but for the first time, I started to wonder if it was time for him to step down. That he wasn't able to adjust with the times and relied more on gut than what he could see with his own two eyes, told me that he could no longer do the job as well as somebody younger and more open to the emerging technology that was helping us modernize the field of firefighting.
“If you deploy the way you're talking about, you could get the teams trapped in that valley, Austin,” he said.
“Unlikely,” I disagreed. “With the tankers dropping on the flanks, the fire is going to have no choice but to come straight up the valley. It won't have a chance to get around us. We'll be long gone if we see it breaking that way.”
Quinn grumbled under his breath. “It's too risky.”
“And you're playing it too conservative,” I said, my frustration growing. “Saving the homes in the path of that fire is the priority, Quinn. Even if the wind does happen to shift, and it goes up the ridge like you think it will, it'll do nothing but burn open land. There aren't any structures for twenty miles in that direction. The homes at the head of that valley are being threatened, and our job is to protect them.”
The air inside the command tent was thick with tension. It would have been nice if one of the other chiefs had the balls to speak up one way or the other, but they were content to let us battle it out. Quinn looked at me with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw. He wanted to argue, I could see it in his face, but I think deep down somewhere inside of that brain of his, he knew I was right.
“Fine,” was all he said. “We deploy at sunrise. I suggest you all get some sleep.”
With that, he turned and stormed out of the tent, muttering under his breath the whole way. I just shook my head. Once he left though, the mood got noticeably less tense and charged. I looked around at the other chiefs and nodded.
“Get some rest guys,” I said. “Tomorrow's going to be a long day.”
The men all nodded and headed out themselves. Hopefully, they'd all get a good night's rest. I needed them sharp and on their game in the morning. Speaking of which, I knew I should probably try to get a little sleep myself.
Stepping out of the tent, the smell of the fire was strong. The aroma of burning wood and brush was thick and cloying. Pieces of ash, some cold, some hot, drifted down from the sky like snow. The world around us was unnaturally dark – the smoke blotted out any of the natural ambient light.
Luke came out of nowhere and fell into step beside me as I headed for my tent. There was a dark, grim look on his face, and he carried tension in his shoulders. I saw it in the way he moved – he was stiffer than usual.
“What's up?” I asked.
“I was just doing some reading,” he says. “Nothing major, just some blogs from some of the locals.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded. “Seems like a few of them may have spotted the guy who's running around setting the fires.”
“Can't believe everything you read online, Luke,” I said. “You know that.”
“I know,” he said. “But three different blogs – all of them independent and unconnected to each other – all described the same guy.”
“Huh,” I said. “Couldn't it just be one parroting what they read on the others?”
He shrugged. “It's possible,” he said. “But, at this point, I don't think we should turn our noses up at any bit of information. To me, it's looking more and more like these fires are being set intentionally.”
I gave him a grim expression. I didn't disagree with him at all. The more I looked into the situation, and studied it, the more I thought he was right. Luke had more of a mechanically inclined mind. He was able to see things, take them apart and diagnose the problem, than I did. He could always see the different moving parts in any problem and come up with the most logical – and more times than not, correct – solution to it.
Knowing how his mind worked, if he was convinced this was a serial arsonist running around, then I was as well. He saw a situation for what it was, free of any outside noise.
“According to these blogs,” he went on, “a tall guy with dark hair walking with a slight limp, was spotted near the scene of not just a couple of wildfires, but a few structure fires as well.”
“Huh,” I said. “Kind of vague. Walking with a limp though – was he in a cast or anything?”
He shook his head. “They didn't say for sure, but nobody mentioned a cast or anything,” he said. “Could be an old injury.”
We got to our little section of the base camp, and I heard Wes snoring away in his tent. Other than that, everything else was perfectly silent. The calm before the storm.
“Could be,” I said. “Either way, I think we need to get you in with the arson investigators. They still won't say for sure that it's a serial firebug running around, but I don't know that they're connecting all the dots either. I think you might be able to help them do that.”
He nodded. “Once we get this beast knocked down, I'll get with them and give them what I have.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “You better get some rest. Big day tomorrow.”
I turned to crawl into my tent, and then paused. Something was missing, and it didn't hit me until just that moment.
“What is it?” Luke asked.
“You hear that?”
Luke cocked his head. “All I hear is Wes snoring his ass off.”
“Exactly,” I replied. “Why aren't we hearing Owen?”
Owen was a loud sleeper. He'd crashed in the house more than a few times between calls, so I knew that he not only snored, but he tended to talk in his sleep as well. He should have been sawing logs, and I should have been able to hear him.
A wave of anger passed through me, thinking that he'd disobeyed my orders – again – and was out somewhere fucking off, instead of getting some rest. I needed him to bring his A-game tomorrow, and he wasn't going to be able to do that if he was dragging ass because he hadn't gotten any sleep.
I walked over to Owen's tent and pulled back the flap – empty.
“Son of a bitch,” I growled. “I am so fucking done with this kid. When we get back to the house –”
“Hey, boss?”
Something in Luke's tone made me pause and turn to him. He was standing beside Sarah's tent, and had the flap pulled back. Like Owen's, her bunk was also empty.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No idea,” he said. “This can't be coincidental though.”
A dark look flashed across his face, but I couldn't decipher it. I couldn't get a handle what was going on in that head of his before the expression was gone. Luke had always been a pretty self-contained guy and was very firmly in control of his feelings. He preferred logic to emotion any day of the week and could always be counted on for a firm, cold assessment of any situation.
I pulled the phone out of my pocket and hit the button for Sarah's number. Holding the phone to my ear, I paced our little campsite, my gut churning and roiling. Where in the hell could she be? Was she with Owen? If she was with Owen – why? It's not like they were best friends or anything. At most, she seemed to tolerate him.
Yet, they were both gone. No, it didn't seem like a coincidence at all to me.
“Shit,” I growled when the call went to voicemail.
“I can't reach Owen either,” Luke said, holding up his own cell phone.
“Son of a bitch,” I seethed. “They've got to be here somewhere.”
We spent the next hour searching the entire base camp, looking for any sign of them and finding nothing. All the while, a million nightmare scenarios played through my mind, each one worse than the last. Somehow, in my mind, I'd convinced myself that Owen had dragged her out into that hellscape of f
ire and smoke and had killed her or something. Maybe not fair, but I'd never felt like the kid was exactly balanced. If he'd tried to come on to her, and she'd rebuffed him, there was a small part of me that thought him doing something like that wasn't outside the realm of possibility.
We finished searching the base camp and were standing back in our section of it and had come up totally empty. It was like they disappeared. Gone. Like a puff of smoke on the wind. They'd somehow, just vanished. The churning in my gut was ratcheting up into a full-blown boil, and I tasted the bile in the back of my throat. I was well beyond worried about Sarah at that point.
My cellphone buzzed in my pocket, and I took it out quickly. When I looked at the caller ID, a wave of relief as powerful as it was profound swept over me. Sarah. Luke looked at me hopefully. I nodded and saw the same wave of relief wash over him. I stabbed the button to take the call with my finger and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Sarah, where the hell –”
I was met with a blast of static. I heard Sarah's voice, but it was only in snippets. I snuck a look at my screen and saw that I had full reception. The smoke and debris in the air must have been interfering with the signal.
“Sarah, you're breaking up,” I said. “Say again.”
“... trouble,” I heard her say. “We're in big trouble... winds shifted... surrounded.”
Hearing her say that, along with the fear in her voice, sent a flood of ice water racing through me. Luke looked at me, his eyes wide, an expression of stark terror on his face I was sure matched my own.
“Where are you, Sarah?” I asked. “Is Owen with you?”
There was another burst of static, and a high-pitched whine in my ear. The smoke and other crap in the air was playing hell with my reception, and I had to really strain my ears to listen. I pressed the phone against my head so hard, I was afraid it would snap. Her voice was faint, but I could finally hear her.
