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

by Susan May Warren

  And suddenly he didn’t have the energy to fight with her, at least not tonight.

  “Did you drive?” she said, apparently looking for his keys.

  “They’re in the bike.”

  She took the box of curly fries. “Add it to my tab, Patrice.”

  He thought the bartender looked familiar but could barely make out the likeness behind the midnight-black dyed hair and gauged ears. And she might have lost about thirty pounds.

  Aged a few years past high school.

  “Are you Bo Renner’s sister?” he asked as Kate got him up.

  “Yes,” Kate answered for her. “C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

  He cut his words off then, seeing how Patrice looked at him, grief in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly, not sure Patrice even heard him as he let Kate lead him to the door.

  Dust settled over the town of Ember, a simmering orange just rimming the mountains to the west, and a cool, piney breeze picked up, tempering the heat of the day.

  “I can smell rain,” Kate said. She still had a steadying, bossy grip on his arm, and he let it stay.

  Just for now.

  “It hasn’t rained yet this season,” he said. In fact, the tinder was so dry the Forest Service had already outlawed campfires in the park.

  “It might be too high up, but we’re definitely in for a thunderstorm.”

  “Which means lightning,” he said as he followed her to his bike. “You always did have Jock’s weather instincts.”

  Oh, he didn’t know why he said that—maybe a peace offering.

  She didn’t look at him in reproach or assent, just picked up the helmet. Handed it to him.

  He expected her to leave him then, having prodded him out of the bar. Instead she took the key and opened the seat box. “Don’t you keep a second helmet in here?”

  Before he could answer, she found it and pried it out. She put the box of curly fries inside, then snapped on the helmet and turned to him. “You’re on the back.”

  She—huh? But she didn’t wait for him, just threw her leg over the seat and leveraged the bike off the kickstand. Then, “Getting on?”

  “I can get the bike home, Kate.”

  “I know. But you’re tired and drank half your beer, and frankly, that fight in there is my fault. Besides, you know I’ve always wanted to ride your bike.”

  And for a second, everything dropped away—their fight from a week ago, seven years of tangled emotions, even the searing regret of the mistakes that nearly took their lives. Just Kate, smiling at him as if there might be hope for a fragile friendship.

  Huh. He stood there a moment, debating, wondering just how many of his recruits might be watching.

  “C’mon, Jed. This isn’t a fire. You can trust me to get you home.” And, for a second, hurt shone in her eyes behind the soft smile.

  “I know,” he said. He sat behind her, settling his hands on her hips. “When did you learn how to ride a bike?”

  “Rudy taught me.”

  One of the rookie jumpers who’d lasted through the Alaska summer, sticking around after Jed had walked away—or rather, limped away on crutches, back to the lower forty-eight.

  She took off down the single road that cut through Ember. Stopping at the only light in town, she flicked on the radio. Ember’s KFire filled the air with a Boston tune—oldies night.

  It’s more than a feeling...

  Oh, that wasn’t fair. His heartbeat slowed with the easiness of letting her drive, moving in tune with her as she turned left, toward the fire base.

  He couldn’t help the longing to move his hands up, touch her shoulders, her arms. To draw her back against himself.

  Wow, this was a bad idea. The sense of her under his hands roused the memories, and he was powerless to fight them.

  I...dream of a girl I used to know...I closed my eyes and she slipped away...

  “This song was playing that night I showed up in Alaska. I still remember it.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him, her visor up. “I remember that. We were still putting the station together for the season—the place was a mess. There were guys sewing chutes, and I was working on inventory. I couldn’t believe it when you walked in.”

  What are you doing here?

  The surprise in her voice, the wide-eyed, masked expression—sometimes the guilt could still rise from the dead to choke him.

  “I just remember you smelled like something that lived under a Dumpster,” she said.

  “Oh, that’s real nice, Kate. I had been on the road for five days.”

  “You looked like it, too—greasy hair, unshaven. And I admit, for a minute there, I thought Dad had sent you.”

  He swallowed hard, her words a knife, but thankfully she looked back and gunned the bike.

  Just go up there, and make sure she quits.

  Hardly. Jock clearly didn’t know his daughter like Jed did. But he’d owed Jock so much, he couldn’t say no. Until, of course, Jed betrayed him.

  And nearly cost Kate her life.

  Jed leaned with her as they turned onto the dirt road that led past the base, the meadow where they practiced their landings, then the jump platform, and in the distance, the barracks, the mess hall, the Overhead office. To the east, Glacier National Park rose dark and foreboding.

  Kate was taking him to Jock’s place.

  She turned onto the rutted, grassy road that edged her into Jock’s acreage, and he spotted the camper, permanently parked on a bluff overlooking the fire camp. It gleamed in the moonlight. They pulled up in back onto the parking pad and she held the bike as he climbed off.

  Setting her helmet on the seat, she said, “C’mon. I need to give you something.”

  She didn’t wait for him but walked up the path, flicking on the string of Christmas lights that framed the deck, freshly built last summer on Jock’s off days. “Wait here,” she said, and he settled down at the picnic table while she went inside.

  Music drifted out from the kitchen, more oldies from KFire.

  Why do you build me up, Buttercup...

  He held his head in his hand, listening to his thundering heartbeat, not sure how he got here.

  “I found this in Dad’s stuff. I thought you’d like it.” She came out, climbed over the bench opposite him, and handed him a picture frame.

  He stared at it in the fading light, recognition closing over him, a fist in his chest. A cut-out newspaper picture. Jock, his face blackened, reverse raccoon eyes, leaning on his Pulaski, and next to him, looking identical, nearly father and son, Jed.

  “The Ember Torch took this picture of us that first year I made it on the jump team. We’d just knocked down the Camp Creek fire.”

  “I remember,” Kate said quietly. “I was a senior in high school, and it was the first summer Dad let me work a fire. You probably don’t remember, but I was on that crew with you—”

  “I remember.” He looked up at her, met her eyes.

  She blinked, then a half smile tugged up her face. “Right. Well, anyway, I thought you’d like to have that.”

  She got up then and walked over to a cooler, opened it, and pulled out two dripping bottles of lemonade.

  Handed him one.

  He took his, popped open the top, then exchanged it for hers, popped that. Held it up and she tapped it. “To Jock.”

  “And the job he loved.” She took a sip, then, to his surprise, climbed up on the picnic table and leaned back, lying along the length of it, staring at the sky.

  “Remember that night we jumped into Copper Canyon?” she said. “It was my first real jump, and it was so weird to see the aurora borealis backdropped by all that fire and smoke. Green and red mixed with silver and black. Surreal.”

  He wanted to climb up, tuck himself in beside her, and the urge felt so powerful it shook through him. But he couldn’t. Never again, and especially not sitting here, at Jock’s place—the man’s voice practically inhabiting his head.

&nbs
p; I’m trusting her to you, Jed.

  Right.

  Instead, Jed lay down on the bench below her. Overhead the stars fought to pierce the cloud cover, the Milky Way muted.

  “I wish you’d been there, with him.”

  Her words jolted him, but he knew, exactly what she meant.

  “Me too—”

  “Not that I would have wanted—” She rolled over and peered down at him, her eyes wide. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know, Kate. I wish I had been there, too. I should have stayed in the field.”

  “You had no choice—they pulled you out.” She rolled back over, vanished from his sight.

  Maybe. It didn’t stop the voices.

  He finally sat up, took a sip of the lemonade, picked at the label, trying to find the right words. “I’ve read the reports and...it was just a fluke blowup. The wind shifted, it was blowing over forty miles an hour, and the fire just turned on them. Flame lengths were over three hundred feet, and it ran a mile in three minutes—”

  “And Dad was in the safety zone. He should have stayed put. But he turned around and ran right into the fire.” She sat up now, too, and when he looked at her, her eyes glistened.

  Oh, Kate.

  He knew the nightmares, the questions in her expression. He, too, wanted to crawl inside Jock’s brain.

  The man was a forty-year veteran, had lived through countless blowups, including taking cover in a fire shelter at least three times in his career.

  And yet—

  The worst part was, if Jock Burns could screw up, make a mistake that cost people their lives, what kept Jed from doing the same?

  “I don’t understand why he did what he did,” Kate said softly. She, too, thumbed the soggy label on her bottle. “And that is, actually, why I came back. Yeah, I have to pack up all of this, but I have to get my head around what happened and why. I think that’s the only way I can say good-bye.”

  She closed her eyes, drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them. Her breath came out shaky. “I wish I had come back sooner.”

  He had nothing for her then, because he agreed with her.

  But it didn’t mean that he didn’t blame himself for the falling out that cost her and Jock so much.

  “I’m sorry, Kate,” he said finally. “I shouldn’t have gotten so angry with you this week. I just—I know it’s not fair, but it takes a little piece out of me every time you jump.”

  She looked away. Silence, except for the hum of the radio.

  I-I-I need you-oo-oo more than anyone, baby...You know that I have from the start.

  In the distance, thunder rolled.

  “I think there’ll be fire tonight,” she said softly, before pressing the lemonade bottle to her lips. Her hair curled against her shoulders, her profile outlined by the twinkling lights, and inside he felt the stirring of everything he’d attempted to douse.

  He couldn’t agree more.

  Chapter 4

  Kate couldn’t put words to why she’d decided to tug Jed’s arm, urge him out of the Hotline and onto his motorcycle. Why she didn’t just send him home, or back to the fire camp, take her own Jeep to end the night staring at the stars.

  Why she brought him up here, as if to retrace history.

  Start over, maybe.

  But sitting here with him touched a part of her that, ever since receiving the news about her dad, felt cracked and parched, as if thirsting for something that no amount of time could repair.

  “Gary would have never made it, by the way,” she said. “But you might consider going easier on your recruits. Give them more than a week to prove themselves.”

  She glanced over at Jed, at his dark profile, that strong jaw, his amazing shoulders. “You weren’t so different, if I remember, when you showed up here, a skinny and starry-eyed teenager. You were driving that old Kawasaki. I loved that bike.”

  “I remember. You begged me constantly for a ride.”

  “Which you never gave me.” She angled a look at him. “Well, until Alaska.”

  He looked down at his lemonade, and she suddenly had a glimpse of him seven years ago, waiting for her on his bike after Birch, their squad boss, had cut the rookies loose.

  Or, she’d hoped he’d been waiting for her. Seated astride the bike, looking lean and strong in a pair of off-duty jeans, a white T-shirt under a flannel shirt rolled up past the elbows. He wore a baseball cap and his hair longer, behind his ears.

  Same smoky blue eyes, however, and as she emerged from her quarters on the way to the chow hall, they dragged over her, a slow smile crawling up his face.

  “Get on,” he’d said. And without another thought, she did. Not that she hadn’t seen Jed watching her during the two weeks of training, but she’d thought him unfazed by the fact they might spend the summer together, jumping, fighting fire.

  Without her dad’s gimlet eye on them.

  Her wild fantasies had taken flight as she tucked herself behind him that night, her arms around his toned, washboard waist, softly inhaling his smell imbued sweetly with the scent of the Alaskan woods.

  “I couldn’t believe it,” she said now, trying to tame her heartbeat. “Here I thought you were going to give me some amazing ride to the top of a mountain. Instead—”

  “I bought you ice cream.”

  “Not until after you made me recite all the corrective actions for a chute failure.”

  He grinned, staring down, away from her, as if he, too, might be remembering their ride under the twilight sky, the way he’d curled his hand over her arms locked around his waist. “Drogue in tow,” he said softly.

  “Seriously?”

  He glanced at her now, something of mischief in his eyes. And a hint of dare.

  “Fine. Cut away and deploy reserve.”

  “Horseshoe.”

  “Try and free it from your body. If not, then cut away and deploy reserve. Your turn. You’re spinning.”

  “I’ll say. What’s in this lemonade?”

  She wanted to reach out and give him a shove, the memory of sitting across from him slurping up a cone so powerful it could pull her under.

  “Fine. Try and correct the spin. If no luck, cut away and deploy reserve.”

  She looked away, stared at the horizon where the mountains rose, humpbacked and black against the deep indigo of the evening. The wind stirred the string of lights she’d put up shortly after arriving.

  “So why did it take you until Alaska to give me that ride?”

  “One word, your guess.”

  She frowned, and he gave her a look like she should know this one.

  “Dad?”

  “First time you asked me for a ride, he cornered me in the loft and said that if I ever gave in, he’d send me packing.”

  Her mouth opened and she set down her lemonade. “And you let him bully you?”

  His expression turned incredulous. “Of course I did. He was Jock Burns, and I was a punk seventeen-year-old kid with nowhere to go.”

  Oh. She didn’t know that part. She scooted next to him, put her feet over the edge, propped her elbows on her knees. “I never did figure out—why my dad? You could have gone to the Missoula Base. Why did you track him down?”

  “He never told you the story?”

  She shook her head. “Maybe he thought it was only yours to tell.”

  Jed’s mouth lifted. “I was fourteen, living with my uncle on a ranch just south of the park. The summer turned into a scorcher early in June, and by July the grass was brittle and some idiot in the park left his campfire smoldering. I’ll never forget waking up to the smoke settling low in the valley. I couldn’t see a thing except the flames in the distance. The thing was, my uncle had taken the truck into town the night before and didn’t come home. I was trapped there—until suddenly, right out of the smoke, like some kind of superhero, here comes your dad. He’s sooty and tired and carrying a chainsaw over his shoulder, packing out with his team of jumpers who had just cut line across the edge of the
pasture. He takes one look at me and realizes I’m alone and takes me along to their pickup spot. And all along the way, I’m peppering him with questions and he’s answering them, one at a time in that calm, cool voice of his, not a hint that I might be annoying him.” Jed took a breath then, and Kate knew he was comparing her dad to his uncle and his old man, to her knowledge still sitting in jail for armed burglary.

  “By the time we found the hotshots, I knew I wanted to fight fire.” He looked up at her. “Be the kind of man who keeps people calm, who knows how to soothe fears.”

  You are that kind of man. The words simmered inside her. Or at least he had been.

  “I can’t believe Dad had that kind of pull over your life.”

  “I owed him my entire career. He taught me everything. I would have done anything for him. And he would have done anything for you.” He paused then, and the hesitation made her glance over, frown at the texture of guilt on his face.

  “What?”

  He took a breath, then, “He’s the one who sent me to Alaska that summer. I didn’t just show up there randomly.”

  She stilled. Put down her lemonade. “What?”

  He gave her what looked like chagrin. “He wasn’t thrilled—especially after keeping you off the team in Ember. So he asked me to keep an eye on you and...”

  The realization came to her as his words trailed off, the expression of guilt cresting over his face.

  No. But it suddenly made perfect, crystal-clear sense. “I always wondered why you got transferred to the team in Alaska. It was Dad—he pulled strings and sent you there. Because he wanted you to protect me, didn’t he?”

  “Something like that.” His mouth lifted up on one side.

  Oh. Wait. “No. He didn’t want me to jump fire. He wanted—” She swallowed. “Did he send you up there to make sure I failed?”

  “Kate, don’t get upset—”

  “Don’t get upset? My father wanted you to sabotage me, and you went along with it?”

  Jed looked stricken. “No—he thought you’d quit. He loved you and didn’t want to see you hurt.”

  “Yeah, well, I showed him.” She took a long drink of her lemonade, feeling it puddle in her roiling stomach. She ran a thumb under her lip, wiping the moisture there. “I passed.”