by Christa Wick
“Okay, slow,” she whispered, the bear close enough that she could hear it huffing.
Hooking the radio to her belt, Quinn eased from tree to tree until she reached the one with the largest trunk, her gaze locked on the bear the entire time.
The animal stopped at the easel, sniffed at the primed canvas then the chair she had been sitting on. The chair’s legs splintered as the bear put both of its front paws on the seat.
The beast began to huff and puff, almost like it was hyperventilating, then came the second scariest sound she had ever heard.
Rising up on its hind legs, the bear roared.
The upper torso swung toward the easel, knocking it and the canvas down. It pawed at her picture while its hindquarters upended the bin with the palette, brushes, and tubes of paint.
A scream clawed at Quinn’s throat but she refused to let it out. She stood stiff, shaking, one hand around the canister of bear spray, the other holding the 9mm.
Behind her, something crashed through the trees. She spun around, arms swinging. Barrett appeared, legs pumping, the shotgun up and out, his other hand wielding an axe. An empty tool belt circled his waist, the long pockets softly slapping at his jeans.
Seeing the 9mm pointed in his direction, he dove behind a tree.
Slowly, he stuck his head around the other side of the trunk.
“I wasn’t going to shoot you,” she whisper-growled as he made his way to her side.
“Yeah, I can see that.”
Putting his axe down, he grabbed her gun hand, turned the weapon to the side and switched the safety off.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered before looking at where the bear trampled everything underfoot.
The noises the animal made were no longer frightening. If anything, Quinn thought the sounds were more like whining.
“Doesn’t like the chemicals,” Barrett said, keeping his voice low. “He’s leaving. We just sit tight until he’s a good distance away.”
“Oh-ka-kay,” she answered.
Despite the danger moving away from them, the shake running through Quinn’s body intensified.
“Can…can you put the safety b-back on.”
Barrett slung the rifle over his shoulder, eased the 9mm out of Quinn’s hand and slid the safety button. After securing the pistol in one of the pockets on the tool belt, he guided Quinn so that her back was against the tree.
Pressing his chest against hers, he stroked at Quinn’s hair, his worried gaze bouncing between her bloodless face and the back end of the retreating bear.
“Everything is okay,” he soothed. He pressed his lips to her forehead, held them there until her body stopped quaking and her breathing returned to normal.
“Looks like he’s going for a swim to get the paint off. Let’s see what we can salvage.”
Peeling herself away from the massive tree shielding her, Quinn followed a few steps behind Barrett, falling a few more steps behind him when he left the trees and stepped into the open.
The canvas she had been working on was ruined. Not only had the bear smeared the paint, but his long, sharp claws had shredded the material. The palette had cracked in half. The tubes of paint were pressed into the mud, their insides empty. The wooden legs of the chair were reduced to splinters, its padded seat sliced all the way through.
Only the canvas backrest on the chair remained in one piece, its surface bearing a massive blue paw print.
Moving slow and quiet, Barrett began putting everything into the bin. Quinn picked up the backrest and looked at it.
“Can I keep this?” she asked.
He stopped loading the bin, his big body straightening to its full height. Moving to stand in front of her, he didn’t answer, just tipped her head back so he could stare into her eyes.
“Are you okay, baby?”
Hearing “baby” leave his mouth and realizing he had called her “baby” over the radio, too, Quinn smiled.
“That’s not an answer, Quinn. Are you okay?” He cupped the sides of her face, his gaze boring into hers. “Something like this can put a person in shock.”
“I’m okay now that you’re here.” She held the backrest up. “Can I keep it?”
He cocked a brow. “See, that question is at least half of why I’m worried you might be in shock.”
“It’s a print. A blue…print. Get it?”
She didn’t add what it was a blueprint for, but knowing this giant of a man would drop everything and race through the woods with an axe and a shotgun prepared to face off with a full grown bear, Quinn was certain the mark the animal had left behind was a blueprint for happiness—for her and Barrett together.
“I get that I need to have Sutton check you for other signs of shock,” he answered, before planting a fresh kiss on her forehead.
Fixing the lid on the bin he picked it up and nodded at the trees.
“Back to base camp, beautiful.”
Chapter Twelve
Barrett took Quinn to where Sutton and two helpers worked on building a water tank with a filtration system. The idea was to keep the tank filled with rainwater, but Sutton had dredged some up from the stream to get it started. At an elevation slightly above the cabin under construction, water would flow down through pipes buried in the ground. Barrett had been at the dredge when Quinn radioed him about the bear.
“Well,” Sutton said after checking her over. “If she was in shock, I don’t think she is now. I think she just wanted a keepsake of her first encounter with a grizzly.”
“That was a grizzly?”
Hearing the awe in Quinn’s voice, Barrett chuckled. “Yeah, probably one of the biggest in the state.”
“Ursos arctos horribilis,” Sutton chimed in. “Did you get to hear him roar?”
Quinn nodded, her face going slack for a second. Recovering, she offered a little smirk. “Not as scary as a mountain lion, though.”
A shiver ran across Sutton’s broad shoulders.
“Agreed,” he nodded.
Looking at the tank, Quinn plucked a wrench from Barrett’s previously empty tool belt, most of the pieces lost in his mad dash to the meadow retrieved on the walk back thanks to Quinn’s sharp gaze.
“Do I get to help now?”
“Definitely,” Sutton quickly answered. “I need a set of smaller hands for the filtration system. I keep losing my nuts.”
Quinn looked at Sutton, then Barrett, before busting into laughter.
“Right,” Sutton rolled his eyes. “Hah, hah and all that.”
“Sorry,” she said, a big grin detracting from the apology.
“Come on,” Sutton grumbled before winking at her. “I hope you’re not afraid of heights.”
Barrett watched as Quinn and his brother ascended the ladder. Reaching the tank’s platform, they followed its curve and disappeared from view. Barrett didn’t track their path from below. Sinking to the ground, he pulled his legs close to his chest, wrapped his arms around his knees and dropped his head.
Taking deep breaths, he finally allowed himself to process the fear that had first gripped him with Quinn’s radio call. In his time as a smokejumper, he had made a lot of desperate sprints. But he had never run so hard for so long as when he heard the terror in her voice. Even now, his heart jackhammered in his chest as her words repeated in his head.
Slowly, a new tension crept into his chest. Just like Barrett needed time to process what had happened, Quinn would, too. She seemed fine at the moment, but sometime later today, he knew reality would slam back into her. She would start to wonder what might have happened if Barrett hadn’t shown up or if the bear hadn’t been distressed enough by the paints that it returned to the lake to cleanse itself. She would look at that big blue paw print on the fabric and imagine it swatting at her.
What then?
Willow Gap was small, but it had its share of people moving in then quickly moving on. The winters weren’t for everyone, neither were the dangers to be found in the surrounding wilderness.
“Hey, Lazy Bones.”
Lifting his head, Barrett saw Quinn’s beautiful smile raining down on him.
“Sutton says there’s a gate spigot or something down there.”
Barrett nodded.
“He wants it opened. Does that make sense?”
Grinning, he nodded again and got to his feet.
“Word of advice,” he called up. “When you get back to Sutton, don’t call anything a thingamabob.”
“Doohickey?” she inquired, the crinkle around her eyes visible from where Barrett stood fifteen feet lower.
“Also prohibited.”
“Just go turn the thingamajig,” she ordered before offering a smart salute and disappearing once more around the tank’s curve.
“Damn,” he whispered, following the pipe until he came to the spigot. “I really am in love with that woman.”
* * *
Quinn stared at the two cots set up in front of the wood stove like they were snakes Barrett had tossed into the cabin.
“It was awfully nice of Sutton to fetch these,” she said, her tone changing the pitch on “awfully” to express her real opinion.
“Wasn’t it?” Barrett replied as he fed a log into the stove. “Between the stove keeping us warm and my not smooshing you into the tail of the trailer, you should finally get a good night’s sleep.”
Quinn nodded, her mouth a glum line trying to pass as a smile.
“It is amazing how much got done today,” she said, looking up at the roof covering her head then around at the enclosing walls.
There was still a lot of work to be done. Jester had lived without electricity. Dotty had ordered enough solar panels and batteries that, once everything arrived, Quinn would be able to have most modern conveniences in her new home. Wires and plumbing still had to be installed, insulation and drywall would go up after that, plus a real floor had to be installed over the sub-flooring that the cots and stove rested upon.
But the overall shell was complete and provided better cover than the little trailer. It also provided Barrett the physical distance from Quinn he needed after the day’s scare with the grizzly.
It wasn’t a good night to be snuggled up against the woman he was head over heels in love with—not when he couldn’t touch her the way he wanted.
“I’m going to have to get really good with a hammer and saw to put the slightest dent in paying everyone back for all their help—especially Dotty…and you.”
Her voice dropped at the end, Barrett’s gut clenching at the way she seemed to be yielding to him from where she sat on the cot.
Ignoring the invitation, he walked over to his cot and unrolled the sleeping bag.
“I’ll fetch the blankets from the trailer,” he said as Quinn pulled her boots off. “Shouldn’t need them, but I don’t want you getting cold.”
Her head bobbed, the flick of her gaze communicating she preferred a different type of warmth. Or maybe the gaze communicated nothing and it was his own wishful thinking, his own desires reflected back at him.
Shutting the cabin door behind him, Barrett huffed. He wanted the woman. He was pretty sure she wanted him, too. The math should be simple. So why did he keep holding back?
Bundling up the blankets, he left the trailer and returned to the house no closer to an answer than when he’d left. Quinn was already in the sleeping bag, her boots, jeans and jacket under the cot. Barrett tossed the thinner blanket onto his sleeping bag then folded the other blanket in half and draped it over Quinn’s body. Getting down on one knee, he stroked his thumb from the bridge of her nose up her forehead before placing a short, soft kiss against her lips.
“I’m really glad the bear didn’t eat you,” he teased before adding a second, slightly longer kiss.
“Thank you for coming to rescue me.”
“Always,” Barrett answered, turning off the camping lantern.
He sat down on his cot, stripped off his jacket then his boots and jeans. Once inside the sleeping bag, he turned to face Quinn in the darkness. He could hear her breathing, knew by the cadence that she was still wide-awake.
He said nothing. Neither did she.
Eventually, they both fell asleep, their rest undisturbed until Barrett’s radio went off a few minutes before four in the morning.
A hundred miles to the north, a previously contained fire had jumped the river boxing it in. With a strong wind blowing from the east, the blaze marched inexorably toward a small town, toppling trees on the only road out.
Dressed before Quinn could rub the sleep from her eyes, Barrett wrapped his arms around her and squeezed.
“I’m sorry, baby. I have to go.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Gotta get some distance between us and the Devil!” Barrett roared.
Sweat poured down his face as he shot off a string of orders, dividing his team into groups of two and assigning points along the line of trees that bordered a natural fire break. Beneath the acrid smoke that hung heavy in the air, he could smell the toil of four straight days of chopping and digging, his crew sleeping on the hard ground for no more than a few hours at a time.
Awake or asleep, every minute was a constant struggle as their bodies fought fatigue and dehydration. The team had lost Harper, one of its sawyers, on the third morning. The man was alive but evacuated to a hospital after a small rock side landed him face to face with a Montana Prairie Rattler. Harper had been lucky to only twist an ankle on the fall, but the rattler’s bite had been loaded with venom. Barrett arranged a helicopter pickup while his team provided first aid and fashioned a litter to carry the man to the rendezvous point.
There had been quite a few slides in the area they fought to contain, the land a series of forested ridges. As the top of a ridge burned, the air and ground heated, rocks expanded, pushing at other rocks until the pressure or the continued build-up of heat caused some of the stones to break. When a bottom layer crumbled like that, everything above it could get swept up in a slide. Even boulders and entire trees would shoot down the hill like multi-ton sleds.
Feeling the ground vibrate, Barrett glanced up, his gaze sweeping directly above him, then to the left and right.
“Watch the rocks!” Barrett shouted, spinning to his right where Winston was felling a tree.
Winston didn’t look up, just kept hacking.
“Winston, rocks!” Barrett screamed at the top of his lungs, legs pumping, arms waving to attract the man’s attention.
With a heart-stopping familiarity, he heard the crack of a tree breaking low to its base, the periphery of his vision filled with the collapse and slide of a thick pine, its narrow tip down and directed like an arrowhead at Winston.
With a fresh surge of adrenaline, Barrett picked up speed, his mind processing two trajectories, his and the tree’s, both of them pinpointed on Winston. The man lifted his axe, fatigue deafening his senses, everyone on the team shouting.
Measuring the distance, Barrett knew he couldn’t cover the distance running. He needed a good, strong leap, a leap launched in that small microsecond of time where he would hit Winston while the axe was raised, not arcing down.
One strong leap in three, two, one...
Chapter Fourteen
Quinn paced in front of the fireplace in the great room of Lindy’s ranch house. There were no flames crackling behind the glass, but her imagination filled the space with an inferno. Four days straight, dreadful scenarios populated her thoughts. News on the third afternoon propelled her morbid speculations into overdrive.
As if bears and mountain lions weren’t danger enough in the woods, a rattlesnake had bitten one of Barrett’s team members. The man, Harper, was recovering at a hospital. Barrett and the others remained in the danger zone.
“Best to pace in one’s mind,” Sutton suggested, his voice a soft comfort.
“Sorry.” She walked over to the couch and sat down opposite him. Pulling a throw pillow onto her lap, she hugged it.
“Maybe you should learn to cro
chet,” 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 Quinn 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 them.
“Yes, they were.” Picking at the banana bread, Quinn snuck a glance at her watch.
Without Siobhan providing twice daily reports, Quinn was certain she would have gone out of her 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 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 coming back from a conference that was half work, half play.
Hearing a truck pull up in the drive, Quinn was the first to put her plate down and cross over to the entry hall.
“Siobhan,” she 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 Quinn. “Still a couple more hours before they check in for the night.”
“The other teams?” Lindy asked as Siobhan and Quinn 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.
