Chasing Fire

by Nora Roberts

  “Yeah, that was never her problem.”

  She met Trigger’s eyes, gave another quick shake of her head. “She’s got a kid now.” Rowan kept her voice low. “There’s no point shaking all that out.”

  “You think the kid’s Jim’s, like she says?”

  “They were banging like bunnies, so why not?” Because, neither of them said, she had a habit of hopping to lots of male bunnies. “Anyway, it’s not our business.”

  “He was one of ours, so you know that makes it our business.”

  She couldn’t deny it, but she tuned out the gossip and speculation until she had stowed the chutes. Then she hunted out Little Bear.

  He straightened from his hunch over his desk, gestured for her to close the door. “I figured you’d be stopping by.”

  “I just want to know if I need to watch my back. I’d as soon not end up with a bread knife between my shoulder blades.”

  He rubbed a spot between his eyebrows. “Do you think I’d let her on base if I thought she’d give you any trouble?”

  “No. But I wouldn’t mind hearing that right out loud.”

  “She worked here three years before Jim. The only problem we ever had was the wind from how fast she’d throw up her skirts. And nobody much had a problem with that, either.”

  “I don’t care if she gave every rookie, snookie, jumper and mechanic blow jobs in the ready room.” Rowan jammed her hands in her pockets, did a little turn around the room. “She’s a good cook.”

  “She is. And from what I heard a lot of men missed those bj’s once she hooked up with Jim. And she’s got a kid now. From the timing of it, and from what she says, it’s his.” L.B. puffed out his cheeks. “She brought her preacher with her. Her mother got her going to church. She needs the work, wants to make amends.”

  He waved a hand in the air. “I’m not going to deny I felt sorry for her, but I’d’ve turned her off if I hadn’t believed she wanted a fresh start for her and the baby. She knows if she gives you or anybody else any trouble, she’s out.”

  “I don’t want that on my head, L.B.”

  He gave Rowan a long look out of solemn brown eyes. “Then think of it on mine. If you’re not all right with this, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Hell.”

  “She’s singing in the choir on Sundays.”

  “Give me a break.” She shoved her hands in her pockets again as L.B. grinned at her. “Fine, fine.” But she dropped down in a chair.

  “Not fine?”

  “Did she tell you she and Jim were going to get married, and he was all happy about the baby?”

  “She did.”

  “The thing is, L.B., I know he was seeing somebody else. We caught that fire last year in St. Joe, and were there three days. Jim hooked up with one of the women on the cook line; he seemed to go for cooks. And I know they met at a motel between here and there a few times when he was off the jump list. Others, too.”

  “I know it. I had to talk to him about expecting me to cover for him with Dolly.”

  “And the day of his accident, I told you, he was jittery on the plane. Not excited but nervous, jumpy. If Dolly dropped the pregnancy on him before we got called out, that’s probably why. Or part of why.”

  He tapped a pencil on the desk. “I can’t see any reason Dolly has to know any of that. Do you?”

  “No. I’m saying maybe she found God, or finds some comfort in singing for Jesus, but she’s either lying or delusional about Jim. So it’s fine with me if she’s back, as long as we understand that.”

  “I asked Marg to keep an eye on her, let me know how she does.”

  Satisfied, Rowan stood up again. “That’s good enough for me.”

  “They’re getting some lightning strikes up north,” L.B. told her as she started out.

  “Yeah? Maybe we’ll get lucky and jump a fire, then everybody can stop talking about the return of Dolly. Including me.”

  She might as well clear it up altogether, Rowan decided, and made the cookhouse her next stop.

  She found dinner prep under way, as she’d anticipated.

  Marg, the queen of the cookhouse, where she’d reigned a dozen years, stood at the counter quartering red-skinned potatoes. She wore her usual bib apron over a T-shirt and jeans, and her mop of brown hair secured under a bright pink do-rag.

  Steam puffed from pots on the stove while Lady Gaga belted out “Speechless” from the playlist on the MP3 Marg had on the counter.

  Nobody but Marg determined kitchen music.

  She sang along in a strong, smoky alto while keeping the beat with her knife.

  Her Native American blood—from her mother’s grandmother—showed in her cheekbones, but the Irish dominated in the mild white skin dashed with freckles and the lively hazel eyes.

  Those eyes caught Rowan’s now, and rolled toward the woman washing greens in the sink.

  Rowan lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “Smells good in here.” She made sure her voice carried over the music.

  At the sink, Dolly froze, then slowly switched off the water and turned.

  Her face was a bit fuller, Rowan noted, and her breasts as well. She had her blond hair in a high, jaunty ponytail, and needed a root job.

  But that was probably unkind, Rowan thought. A new mother had other priorities. The rose in her cheeks came from emotion rather than blush as she cast her gaze down and dried her hands on a cloth.

  “We got pork roasting to go with the rosemary potatoes, butter beans and carrots. Veggies get three-cheese ravioli. Gonna put a big-ass Mediterranean salad together. Pound cake and blueberry crumble for dessert.”

  “Sign me up.”

  Rowan opened the refrigerator and took out a soda as Marg went back to her potatoes.

  “How are you doing, Dolly?”

  “I’m fine, and you?” She said it primly, chin in the air now.

  “Good enough. Maybe you could take a quick break, catch a little air with me?”

  “We’re busy. Lynn—”

  “Better get her skinny ass back in here right quick,” Marg interrupted. “You go on out, and if you see her, send her in.”

  “I need to dry these greens,” Dolly began, but shrunk—as all did—under Marg’s steely stare. “Okay, fine.” She tossed aside her cloth, headed for the door.

  Rowan exchanged a look with Marg, then followed.

  “I saw a picture of your baby,” Rowan began. “She’s beautiful.”

  “Jim’s baby.”

  “She’s beautiful,” Rowan repeated.

  “She’s a gift from God.” Dolly folded her arms as she walked. “I need this job to provide for her. I hope you’re Christian enough not to do anything that gets me fired.”

  “I don’t think about it being Christian or otherwise, Dolly. I think about it as being human. I never had a problem with you, and I’m not looking to have one now.”

  “I’ll cook for you just like I cook for the rest. I hope you’ll show me the respect of staying clear of me and I’ll do the same. Reverend Latterly says I have to forgive you to get right with the Lord, but I don’t.”

  “Forgive me for what?”

  “You’re the reason my baby’s going to grow up without her daddy.”

  Rowan said nothing for a moment. “Maybe you need to believe that to get through, and I find I don’t give a shit either way.”

  “I expect that from you.”

  “Then I’m happy not to disappoint you. You can claim to have tripped over God or to’ve been born again, I don’t care about that either. But you’ve got a baby, and you need work. You’re good at the work. What you’re going to have to suck up, Dolly, is to keep the work, you have to deal with me. When I feel like coming into the kitchen, I will, whether you’re around or not. I’m not going to live my life around your stipulations or misplaced grudges.”

  She held up a hand before Dolly could speak. “One more thing. You got away with coming at me once. You won’t get away with it again. New baby or not, I�
�ll put you down. Other than that, we won’t have a problem.”

  “You’re a heartless whore, and one day you’ll pay for all you’ve done. It should’ve been you instead of Jim that day. It should’ve been you, screaming your way to the ground.”

  She ran back to the kitchen.

  “Well,” Rowan mumbled, “that went well.”

  6

  Rowan slept poorly, and put the blame squarely on Dolly. She’d checked the radar, the logs, the maps before turning in. Fires sparked near Denali in Alaska and in the Marble Mountains of Northern California. She’d considered—half hoped—she’d be called up and spend part of her night on a transport plane. But no siren sounded, no knock banged on her door.

  Instead, she’d dreamed of Jim for the second night in a row. She woke irritated and itchy, and annoyed with her own subconscious for being so easily manipulated.

  Done with it, she promised herself, and decided to start her day with a good, hard run to blow the mood away.

  As her muscles warmed toward the first quarter mile, Gull fell into step beside her.

  She flicked him a glance. “Is this going to be a habit?”

  “I was running first yesterday,” he reminded her. “I like putting in a few miles first thing. Wakes me up.”

  He’d gotten a look at her, too, and decided she looked a little pissed off, a little shadowed around the eyes. “Are you going for time or distance?”

  “I’m just going for the run.”

  “We’ll call it distance then. I like having an agenda.”

  “So I’ve noticed. I think three.”

  He snorted. “You’ve got more than that. Five.”

  “Four,” she said just to keep him from getting his way. “And don’t talk to me. I like being in my head when I run.”

  Obligingly he tapped the MP3 playing on his arm and ran to his music.

  They kept the pace steady for the first mile. She was aware of him beside her, of the sound of their feet slapping the track in unison. And found she didn’t mind it. She could speculate on what music he ran to, what agenda he’d laid out for the rest of his day. How that might tumble apart if they caught a fire.

  They were both first stick on the jump list.

  When they crossed the second mile she heard the sound of an engine above, and saw one of her father’s planes glide across the wide blue canvas of sky. Flying lesson, she determined—business was good. She wondered if her father or one of his three pilots sat as instructor, then saw the right wing tip down twice, followed by a single dip on the left.

  Her dad.

  Face lifted, she shot up her arm, fingers stretched high in her signal back.

  The simple contact had the dregs of annoyance that the run and Gull’s companionship hadn’t quite washed away breaking apart.

  Then her running companion picked up the pace. She increased hers to match, knowing he pushed her, tested her. Then again, life without competition was barely living as far as she was concerned. The building burn in her quads and her hamstrings scorched away even those shattered dregs.

  Her stride lengthened at mile three. Her arms pumped, her lungs labored. The bold sun the forecasters had promised would spike the temperatures toward eighty by afternoon skinned her in a thin layer of sweat.

  She felt alive, challenged, happy.

  Then Gull glanced her way, sent her a wink. And left her in his dust.

  He had some kind of extra gear, she thought once he kicked in. That’s all there was to it. And when he hit it, he was just fucking gone.

  She dug for her own kick, found she had a little juice yet. Not enough to catch him—not unless she strapped herself to a rocket—but enough not to embarrass herself.

  The last half-mile push left her a little light-headed, had her breath whooping as she simply rolled onto the grass beside the track.

  “You’ll cramp up. Come on, Ro, you know better than that.”

  He was winded—not gasping for air as she was, but winded, and she found a little satisfaction in that.

  “Minute,” she managed, but he grabbed her hands, pulled her to her feet.

  “Walk it off, Ro.”

  She walked her heart rate down to reasonable, squeezed a stream from the water bottle she’d brought out with her into her mouth.

  Watching him, she stood on one leg, stretched her quads by lifting the other behind her. He’d worked up a sweat, and it looked damn good on him. “It’s like you’ve got an engine in those Nikes.”

  “You motor along pretty good yourself. And now you’re not pissed off or depressed anymore. Was that your father doing the flyover?”

  “Yeah. Why do you say I was pissed off and depressed?”

  “It was all over your face. I’ve been making a study of your face, and that’s how I tagged the mood.”

  “I’m going to hit the gym.”

  “Better stretch out those hamstrings first.”

  Irritation crawled up her back like a beetle. “What are you, the track coach?”

  “No point getting pissed at me because I noticed you were pissed.”

  “Maybe not, but you’re right here.” Still, she dropped down into a hamstring stretch.

  “From what I’ve heard, you’ve got cause to be.”

  She lifted her head, aimed that icy blue stare.

  “Let me sum up.” He opened the kit bag he’d tossed on the edge of the track, took out some water. “Matt’s brother and the blond cook spent a good portion of last season tangling the sheets. Historically, said cook tangled many other sheets with dexterity and aplomb.”

  “Aplomb.”

  “It’s a polite way of saying she banged often, well and without too much discrimination.”

  “That also sounded polite.”

  “I was raised well. In addition, Jim also tended to be generous with his attentions.”

  “Get you.”

  “However,” Gull continued, “during the tangling and banging, the cook decided she was in love with Jim—that I got from Lynn, who got it from the blonde—and the blonde broke the hearts of many by focusing her dexterity exclusively on Jim, and closed her ears and eyes to the fact he didn’t exactly reciprocate.”

  “You could write a book.”

  “The thought’s crossed. Toward the end of this long, hot summer, the cook gets pregnant, which, rumor has it, since she avoided this eventuality previously, may have been on purpose.”

  “Probably.” It was one of the things she’d already considered, and one of the things that depressed her.

  “Sad,” he said, and left it at that. “The cook claims she told Jim, who greeted the news with joy and exaltation. Though I didn’t know him, that strikes me as sketchy. Plans to marry were immediately launched, which strikes sketchier yet. Then more sadly yet, Jim’s killed during a jump which the ensuing investigation determines was his error—but the cook blamed his jump partner, which would be you, and tried to stab you with a kitchen knife.”

  “She didn’t exactly try to stab me.” The hell of it was, Rowan thought, she couldn’t figure out why she kept defending the lunatic Dolly on that score. “Or didn’t have time to because Marg yanked the knife away from her almost as soon as she’d picked it up.”

  “Points for Marg.” He watched her face as he spoke, cat eyes steady and patient. “Grief takes a lot of forms, and a lot of those are twisted and ugly. But blaming you, or anyone on that load, for Jim’s accident is just stupid. Continuing to is mean and stupid, and self-defeating.”