Where There's Smoke: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 1)

by Susan May Warren

  Kate spotted Ned easily—younger than Reuben by a few years, he bore the handsome, rangy looks of his cousin, with the dark brown eyes and dark brown curly hair. Of the other two, one wore his dark-as-night hair long, curly, pulled back in a knot and bore the look of someone who knew his way around trouble. Tucker Newman, also from Minnesota, if she remembered the list correctly.

  “The tough one—he looks like a snowboarder filling in for the off-season,” Reuben said. “The other—CJ—he’s Montana ranch boy all the way.”

  CJ ate his fries, eyes down, wearing a Stetson, his dark blond hair hinting out from the back. His black T-shirt bunched around his biceps, either a bruise or a tattoo peeking out on the upper arm. Yeah, he had rodeo written all over him.

  “His uncle Rafe used to ride bulls professionally,” Reuben added, eyeing the bull’s-eye before letting a dart fly.

  Gilly Priest came sauntering into the bar and slid on a stool. Their pilot had shed her usual aviator shades and JCWF hat in favor of a black tank and a pair of jeans. Petite and tough, Gilly considered herself part of the team—and rightly so. Enough to keep a cool distance from the guys during her off-hours. Kate noticed, however, Reuben’s eyes trail over her a moment longer than he might for, say, Pete.

  Oh, Reuben. Kate longed to warn him off. Gilly, too, had grown up in Ember and knew better than to fall for smokejumpers. Especially the brooding tough guys who had a story behind their devastating blue eyes.

  “I think ‘Bambi’ over there is going to fall asleep in her hamburger,” Gilly said.

  Kate followed Gilly’s gesture to one of the few female recruits, curvy, but with enough muscle on her to survive. Maybe. ‘Bambi’s’ head rested on her hand, eyes closed, her other hand wrapped around her half-eaten bison burger. Dressed in clean green pants and a T-shirt, her brown hair pulled back in a braid, the girl looked as if she’d just trekked in after a ten-mile hike with a full pack.

  “That’s Hannah Butcher,” Kate said.

  “Oh, right,” Gilly said. “Her sister was married to Nutter.”

  A moment of silence while everyone settled into comprehension. A local girl picking up the family mantle.

  “I remember being that exhausted after my first week in rookie training.” Kate said, taking another sip of her malt.

  “I dunno,” Pete said, leaning against the bar. “Jed’s training them like a man possessed. Two workouts every day, spot tests on the classroom lessons, and I swear they’ve run to the border and back. Today they did their first ninety-minute march, full packs. Three bailed after an hour. I don’t know how the rest did—I couldn’t watch.”

  She could. In fact, after she’d finished her own workout, showered, and taken a quick stop at Overhead to check out the conditions, she’d driven up to her father’s old Airstream camper, located on a bluff overlooking the fire camp, to watch the fun.

  “Five more dropped out by the end,” she said. “And Jed’s not giving second chances.”

  “Ouch,” Reuben said from his position by the dartboard. “At this rate, we’ll have a skeleton crew.”

  Exactly. Kate knew the brutal pain of lugging one hundred pounds for three miles and didn’t envy the trainees, especially in the extraordinary ninety-degree heat that turned their Montana base into a fry pan.

  But she might have doused them with cold water, shoved them into the truck, and given them a second chance instead of handing them their walking papers. If she remembered right, she hadn’t made that first march either.

  “I can’t believe bruiser over there didn’t make it,” Conner said, gesturing to a large dark-haired bull of a man in the corner. “He’s a sawyer for the Redding Shots, name’s Gary.” The big man sat alone at a table in the corner, silent, nursing a brew, another glass empty, his chili fries mostly uneaten. He stared vacantly out the window, as if stunned.

  Well, Jed did that to a person. Left their head spinning and their hopes decimated.

  Blazin’ Kate is the poster child for risk. She’s going to get people hurt trying to prove that she’s just as good as her father.

  His words had twisted through her brain all week, from her up-at-dawn eight-mile run through PT with the team. It poked at her through their refresher training on landing rolls, letdowns, suit-up practice, and emergency aircraft techniques. She’d mulled it through even as she hung out in the loft repairing parachutes.

  If anyone were trying to prove himself, it was Jed.

  “I still don’t understand why Jed got so lathered up when you saved Pete’s life,” Gilly said, turning to Kate. “Pete would have made an ugly smear all over our pretty landing zone.”

  “Hey.” But Pete grinned and glanced at Kate. “She’s my hero.”

  “You would have done the same thing,” she said. “We got lucky.”

  “Anytime you need saving, I’m your man.” Pete winked and walked over to Reuben.

  Gilly’s gaze followed him, then landed on Reuben. Oh, well then...

  In a second she returned it to Kate and cut her voice low. “So, listen. I know you and I know Jed, and I’ve been thinking about the most recent Great Fight and your assertion that you’re ‘over’ him.” Gilly added finger quotes for emphasis. “And I think you’re not coming clean with your BFF.” She leaned in close, her blue eyes shining. “What aren’t you telling me? After all those years of batting your eyes at Big Jed Ransom, something happened that you’re not telling me, didn’t it?”

  And just like that, heat rushed to Kate’s face, betraying her.

  Gilly leaned back, mouth agape. “No—”

  “Shh. It wasn’t like that. We...nothing happened. Not really.”

  “Please. I can’t remember a day when you didn’t pine for Jed Ransom, not since the day he showed up and your daddy decided to make him his protégé.”

  “Dad liked him way too much,” Kate said, her mind so easily conjuring up Jed as a lanky, broad-shouldered seventeen-year-old, dark hair combed Elvis style, wide-eyed and eager to make the Jude County hotshot team. He’d shown up on the doorstep of the Airstream, looking for Jock Burns, and when he found him, stuck to him like he wanted to be adopted.

  “He was always a little overprotective of you. Poor Jed probably thought he was your brother instead of a hot male in the company of a girl who wanted to give him her heart. Either that or Jock threatened his life if he even looked at you with anything but a protective eye.”

  Kate nodded, the memories sweet. “Remember that time he took my dad’s pickup?”

  “When Jed tracked us down fifteen miles into the Kootenai? Oh, he was steamed. He’d just come back from some big fire in Alaska, and he acted like you were supposed to be waiting for him. As if.”

  Kate offered a weak smile. As if. Miraculously, she managed to tame the memories before they surfaced. The feel of Jed’s hand on the small of her back, the other on her cheek, the look in his devastating eyes when his gaze traced her face.

  The feel of his mouth brushing her skin.

  I never blamed you.

  Oh, yes he did.

  She took a sip of her malt, let the chill into her bones.

  “Well, I think he might regret panicking and accusing you of tainting the rookies with your sense of epic heroism.” Gilly glanced around the room at the tired, despondent recruits. “I think they might need a healthy dose.”

  The music changed to the Jackson 5, “I Want You Back.” Oh baby all I need is one more chance.

  “And oh my, look who just walked in.” Gilly nodded toward the door just as Jed stepped inside.

  He hadn’t shaved, giving himself over to a smattering of dark whiskers across his chin, but looked freshly showered, his hair shiny and slicked back, wearing a crisp white T-shirt and faded jeans, flip-flops. He shoved his hands into his pockets, his jaw tight as he surveyed the room, apparently friendless.

  “Invite him over here,” Gilly said.

  “No—”

  But her heart went out to him just a smidgen when she saw him sl
ide onto a high-top chair, away from the crowd.

  Stay out of my way.

  “We nearly died together.”

  She didn’t know why—or how—the words slipped out. But seeing him sitting there, his biceps stretching the sleeves of his shirt, looking worn and not a little lonely, she could practically feel him tremble in her arms despite the courage he’d attempted in his voice. We’re going to live, Kate, I promise.

  “What—?” Gilly cut through her memory. “Did you say you nearly died together?”

  Kate played with the straw in her malt. Nodded. “It was my rookie year, up in Alaska.”

  “Oh, I remember. Jock was so angry when you joined the Midnight Sun Jumpers.”

  “Little did I know that Jed was on the team.”

  Gilly’s eyes widened. “What? Why did you never tell me?”

  Kate looked away.

  “Oh, Kate.” Gilly slid her hand to touch Kate’s arm. “What happened?”

  She didn’t know where to start. Looked at Jed.

  He picked at his curly fries. Had barely touched his beer, now sweating on the counter.

  We danced. We kissed. And then he nearly died trying to save my life.

  “About my fifth jump of the season, we were called in to knock down a fire on the Porcupine River, north of the Yukon. Jed was my jump partner.”

  She saw it then, about two acres of flame crawling toward higher land. Their LZ—landing zone—surrounded by tall pines and huge boulders and, of course, the river. The tunnel of smoke to the east, the smell of smoke faint, a hint of danger.

  “I jumped before he did. About a quarter mile down, as I came into the canyon, a wind shear rushed up and practically threw me over the ridge into the fire. I stalled, then managed to refill. I somehow steered away from the fire, but I messed up—I overcorrected and came down a good three miles from the drop zone. In a small clearing surrounded by pine.”

  “I put down and rolled—a clean landing, but when I came up, I heard someone shouting. Jed—snagged in a tree.”

  “He came after you.”

  “Yeah. He thought I was in trouble, off course, and decided to follow me. But then he came down hard into the trees and his leg got caught on a limb. Not a compound, but a fracture all the same. He was able to let down, but he could barely walk. We called for a pickup, but we were short a chopper, and the jumpers couldn’t cross the ridge. We were cut off. And right in the path of the fire.”

  “No one can read a fire like Jed.” This from Pete. She hadn’t seen him sidle up next to her, his head on his hand, leaning into the story. Reuben, too, stood nearby, now holding a pool cue, chalking it over and over.

  She wasn’t sure, then, how much of this story she should tell and shot a glance at Jed. He simply stared at the mirror behind the bar, as if reliving the story with her. Except, in the crowded bar, he couldn’t exactly hear her, right?

  “We got trapped. And I...” She shook her head. “Anyway, Jed grabbed me and threw me to the ground, shook out my shelter over me. I was climbing in when I realized—with his fractured leg there was no way he could keep his shelter secure. So I climbed in with him, helped him hold his shelter down.”

  “You rode through a fire—in the same shelter?” Gilly asked, her voice betraying exactly how Kate felt about it.

  Kate nodded.

  “You saved his life.”

  She shook her head, ran her finger down the moisture on the side of the glass. “Nope. The thing was, I was pretty freaked out. And I’m not sure if I wouldn’t have simply gotten up to run if he wasn’t holding me down. He saved my life.”

  The team fell quiet, Pete glancing to Jed. Gilly played with the edge of her napkin.

  And there was no need to tell them the rest, because maybe they got it. You didn’t go through something like that with someone and not emerge bonded.

  “No wonder he freaked out when you came after me,” Pete said quietly. “The guy is in love with you.”

  Kate stared at him, her mouth open. “What—how—did you hear him? He practically took off my head.”

  “I know,” Pete said, grinning.

  “Trust me. He’s not in love with me.”

  “A girl saves my backside, I love her a little bit,” Pete said. “Or a lot.”

  “Don’t go dropping to your knees, Brooks.”

  Shouting from the front of the saloon diverted Pete’s response. She turned and spotted Gary, the buffalo, rising from the table. His chair toppled over, hit the floor with a bang. He shouted again, more clearly. “Ransom, who do you think you are?”

  Jed didn’t move.

  Gary bullied his way past a couple of rookies who stood in his path, pressing their hands to his chest. “I’m talking to you, Ransom!”

  Jed just kept staring straight ahead.

  Next to Kate, Pete put down his drink.

  Reuben pocketed the chalk, his grip curling around the pool cue.

  Two men had the sawyer by the arms, but he pushed one away, and the man landed hard on the wood floor. Chairs squealed back, voices shouted, but Gary kept going.

  Kate found her feet, her heart lodged in her ribs as the bar fell into a hush.

  Even in a crowded bar, with his recruits and veterans huddled over in private gripe sessions about their new boss, Jed knew Kate had been talking.

  About him.

  He’d noticed her sitting on a stool in the back of the bar the minute he walked in. She always possessed a sort of magnetic ability to arrest his attention, stop his heartbeat for a moment, and his gaze found her even now as she nursed—of course—a chocolate malt, her dark red hair loose around her shoulders, framing her beautiful face, those gray-green eyes, her curves outlined in a blue Jude County Wildland Firefighters T-shirt.

  He couldn’t make out her words, but he read her story in the way she kept glancing at him and using her hands. And he braced himself for the moment when she’d get to the part where he’d lost it, nearly came unglued as the Porcupine River fire tried to deep-fry them. Or maybe the part afterwards, when his wounds caused him to go into shock.

  Hopefully, however, she’d pulled back from revealing that moment in the hospital when he’d turned into a coward.

  “I’m talking to you, Ransom!”

  Jed hadn’t even heard the man until the bar quieted, until the voice, slurred and bitter, saturated the room.

  He didn’t move. Just watched in the mirror as Gary approached him. Oh, he’d made a wise decision when he cut Big Gare from the squad.

  Now, he had two choices, and he contemplated them in a long, protracted second as Gary’s sweaty mitt landed on his shoulder. Turn fast and sink his fist into Gary’s face, send him sprawling and remind him exactly who was in charge. Or...Jed could do what Jock had taught him.

  Take a breath. Think. Find the contingencies, keep his feet under him.

  The first choice spoke to the restless, angry energy prowling around inside him for a week now. And especially today when he was down to twelve of his twenty-four recruits. Twelve. This season’s rookie class might be decimated before the season even began.

  Tackling Gary and letting his anger, his frustration loose on the man would only sabotage morale. With last year’s tragedy looming over the fire base, his crew needed to trust him. Which meant he needed to earn their respect.

  Jed took a breath and slid off the stool.

  Gary appeared ready to take off his head, his eyes glassy, his words sloppy, so Jed kept it simple.

  “Step back, Gary. This isn’t going to help.”

  Around the room, recruits and veterans bounced to their feet—in whose corner he didn’t want to guess. He glanced past Gary, saw the booth of rookie smokejumper recruits—CJ St. John, Tucker Newman, and Ned Marshall—spilling out. CJ adjusted his cowboy hat while Tucker assessed the situation with what seemed like practiced eyes.

  Out of his peripheral vision, Jed spotted Kate, stanchioned by Pete and Reuben, working her way down the bar.

  Stay outt
a this, Kate. But that thought was pure reflex as Gary’s mouth tipped in a drunken smile.

  It almost wasn’t fair. Because Jed had grown up with a brother five years older, bigger and faster, who thought Jed should learn how to take care of himself should their uncle ever, finally, kick them out. And Abe wasn’t one to pull his punches.

  Gary’s beefy fist came at him what felt like in slow motion, and Jed moved so fast he almost had to wait for the man to fly past him. He stepped aside and let Gary’s momentum do the work. Gary slammed hard into the bar, bounced back and, aided by his copious refills of the special on tap, stepped back, woozy.

  Jed grabbed his shirt. “Are you finished?”

  Apparently not, because Gary swung again. Jed ducked and reluctantly grabbed his shoulder, loaded a punch into his gut that had Gary doubling over.

  Jed directed him to collapse in a chair as the man turned green. “Sit there. Sober up. Go home.”

  The bar remained quiet, and even Kate stopped walking his direction. He looked up at the expressions of his audience, more than a few wide-eyed.

  CJ nodded to him, touching the brim of his hat. Tucker gave him a half grin and slid back into his booth.

  A couple of the recruits he’d cut came over, eyed him, and picked up Gary, disoriented and grousing, but the fight blown out of him.

  Only then did Jed feel the adrenaline sluice through him. It turned him edgy, his stomach clenching. As the crowd turned back to their dinners, he braced a hand on the bar. He might have worked harder this week than he thought, running alongside the recruits, leading them in PT, showing them the proper tuck and roll for a landing, then staying up late to read weather reports and check in with Conner, who was working with the veterans, helping with the refresher course.

  He sank onto the stool, closed his eyes against the spin in the room.

  “Can we get this to go?”

  Kate. He looked up to find her standing next to him, holding out his curly fries to the bartender. Up close she smelled good, her hair soft around her shoulders.

  “I’m not—”

  “Yes you are.”

  Hungry, was what he was going to say, but maybe it didn’t matter, because whatever he said, she was going to argue.