by Karen Foley
*
Callie came to a stop in front of the first man, as the other two began cutting a fire line into the earth beyond the wolf enclosure.
“What the hell are you still doing here?” he shouted when he reached her side. His eyes traveled past her to the wall of flames that threatened to consume the house. “You need to leave! Now!”
“My father!” She turned and indicated where Frank stood by the wolf pen, glaring defiantly at them. “He won’t go. He wants to stay with his wolves!”
The firefighter’s eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot from the smoke, and now they narrowed as he took in the scene. Sweat ran down his face and created pale rivulets in the soot that smudged his skin. His gaze missed nothing and, after a brief second, he took Callie’s arm and steered her toward the truck. “You need to haul ass down this mountain.” His voice was rough, like sandpaper. “In another hour, the pass will be closed, if it’s not already.”
“But my father—”
“Give me a second.”
She watched breathlessly as he jogged over to her father and bent his head to the older man. She couldn’t hear their conversation, but after a moment her father nodded, and then leaned heavily on the firefighter’s arm as they made their way to where Callie stood by the truck.
The firefighter helped her father into the cab, and then closed the door with a decisive slam. Rounding the hood of the truck, he pulled Callie slightly away from the vehicle.
“He doesn’t look good.” He had to shout to be heard about the roar of the flames. “He needs a doctor.”
Callie’s chest constricted in fear. “He had a heart attack just over a month ago,” she confided. “He’s only been home for a couple of weeks.”
He spared a brief glance at the advancing flames before fixing his gaze on her. “Go straight to the hospital. Drive fast. Don’t stop.”
Callie nodded and reached for the door handle, but he forestalled her with one gloved hand over hers. She looked up at him, and her heart faltered again. She had no business noticing, but beneath the sweat and grime, he was compellingly attractive. Not handsome, exactly, but ruggedly male in a way that matched the rough quality of his voice. His eyes bored into hers.
“I mean it,” he said, his voice low and grim. “You hit that pass, and you push that gas pedal to the floor. There’s a road block at the base of the access road. I’ll radio ahead to let them know you’re coming, maybe they can have an ambulance waiting for you. They’re keeping the road wet until you’re safe. Don’t stop until you’re through, okay?”
Swallowing hard, she nodded. “Okay. What about you? Where’s the rest of your crew?”
He grinned. The transformation to his face was so unexpected that for a moment Callie couldn’t breathe. His teeth were startling white against the sooty darkness of his face, and deep grooves appeared in either lean cheek…not dimples, exactly, but something more extreme, and more powerful in their attraction. “This is what we’re trained for. Don’t worry about us.”
Still Callie hesitated. “About the wolves…there are seven of them. Each pen has an underground bunker, and they’ll probably hide out there. I doubt you’ll even see them, but if you do, just let them be. They won’t bother you or your men; they’ll be too anxious to escape. Just…please don’t hurt them.”
The firefighter looked toward the flames, where the other two men were busy clearing brush away from the advancing firestorm. His expression was somber. “If the wire fencing comes down and those wolves run, they’ll head away from the wildfire, toward the towns. We’ll keep the pens intact for as long as we can, but let’s hope you’re right and they stay in the bunkers.”
“I’ll come back,” Callie promised. “If the pass is still open, I’ll come back for them.”
The man muttered something beneath his breath that sounded very much like a curse, and then he was hustling her into the truck. Before he closed her door, he leaned in. He was so close she could smell the ash and pine pitch that clung to him, see the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes, and the texture of his skin. A light stubble of beard growth shadowed his jaw, making his face even darker beneath the soot. His voice was a smoky rasp in her ear.
“Don’t come back. The pass will be closed, and you won’t make it through. Just get your father to a hospital. Drive fast. You’ll make it.”
He closed the door and thumped on the roof, before stepping back. With a last look at the wolf pens, Callie buckled herself in and accelerated out of the parking lot, churning up dirt and gravel. As she made her way down the long drive to the access road, she glanced in her rearview mirror. He still stood there, watching her, a lone black silhouette against the fiery backdrop. Then she rounded a bend, and he was gone.
*
Barreling down the mountain road at breakneck speed was the most terrifying thing that Callie had ever done. She tried to focus on her driving, but thick smoke and ash billowed across the road, making visibility poor. Her hands were white-knuckled as they gripped the steering wheel. The truck hit a deep rut, and her father let out a small sound of distress as the vehicle pitched violently.
Glancing at him, Callie saw he was pale. A fine sheen of perspiration covered his face. He sat rigidly, his face contorted in a rictus of pain. Alarm flared through her.
“Dad! Are you okay?”
In response, he let out a soft groan and clutched his left arm. Callie dragged her attention back to the road, but her own heart thudded hard against her ribs.
Oh, God, please don’t let him die!
They had nearly fifteen miles to go before they reached the closest town, and most of those miles were along the steep, rugged mountain pass. A towering ridge of pine trees hemmed the road in on one side, and a wall of rock and scrubby brush dominated the other side. Even if she dared to stop, she worried the dense growth would catch fire. If that happened, she and her father could very well become trapped.
The ash from the wildfire was falling thick enough that she was forced to use her windshield wipers, and now she leaned forward, peering intently through the sludge and grime accumulating on the glass. She could barely see the road. They reached a section where the ground fell away steeply on one side, with no guardrail or barrier. She prayed they didn’t plunge off the mountainside, and tried to suppress the hysteria rising in her chest. Glancing at her father, she could see he was in distress, but she didn’t dare to even slow down. The firefighter’s last words kept repeating in her head.
Drive fast, don’t stop.
“We’re almost there, Dad,” she said, hoping he didn’t hear the way her voice wobbled on the lie. “Hang on.”
As they rounded a bend, she saw with dismay that the ditches on either side of the road were burning, the flames spreading through the underbrush and licking at the edge of the hard-packed dirt road. Glancing upward through the windshield, she could see the trees to her left were fully engulfed in flames. Instinctively, she pressed the gas pedal harder. If one of those trees should come down across the road…
She didn’t want to think about what might happen.
“Please, God,” she whispered fervently, “just help me get safely to Browning, and I promise I’ll never ask for anything else, ever again. I’ll be a better daughter. I won’t be such a bitch. I’ll come back to Montana more often.”
As if in answer to her prayers, the sky above them released a torrent of water, so abruptly and so heavy that it pounded the roof of the cab with a sound like thunder. Almost instantly, it was gone, and peering through the windshield, Callie saw a helicopter flying overhead, an empty water bucket swinging beneath it. Ahead of her, she could see the road was wet, and where there had been flames, now there was just steam and smoke. The helicopter had dumped the entire contents of the water bucket over both the truck and the road, at the precise moment when she needed it most.
In another ten minutes, they reached the main road that wound through the pass. The sky was ominously dark with smoke that her headlights did littl
e to penetrate. Her father leaned heavily against his door. His eyes were closed and his breathing was labored. Callie frowned as she noted he still clutched his arm. Reaching over, she laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Dad, are you okay?”
He grimaced, but opened his eyes and looked at her.
His voice was little more than a rasp. “Drive faster.”
Callie tried to control her rising panic. She didn’t think they could travel any faster, at least not safely, but she was willing to try. She and her father had grown apart after she left home twelve years earlier to attend veterinary college in California, but that didn’t mean she was willing to lose him. One of the reasons she’d come back to Montana after his heart attack was to try and salvage some kind of relationship with him before it was too late.
She refused to believe that it might be.
She pressed down on the gas pedal, trying to estimate how much farther before they were through the pass. Negotiating the narrow mountain road frightened her on a good day, never mind when she was being pursued by a wildfire, with five wolves in the back of the truck, and a passenger who was suffering a heart attack. There was no doubt in her mind that her father was experiencing a major event; he was exhibiting all the classic signs.
“Hold on, Dad,” she said, and grimly took the next curve faster than she would have dared at any other time. Over the course of the next several miles, she realized the smoke had dissipated and she could see blue skies and sunshine in the distance. Up ahead, she saw several emergency vehicles blocking the road, their red and blue strobe lights causing relief to surge through her. There, behind the fire and police vehicles, was an ambulance. Callie sent up a silent thank you to the firefighter for keeping his word.
She drew the pickup truck to the side of the road, the tires kicking up loose gravel as she braked. She jumped out as a uniformed sheriff’s deputy approached. His expression was grim.
“Lady, do you have any idea how lucky you are to have gotten through the pass? The helicopter pilot radioed in that the road to the sanctuary is now fully engulfed by the wildfire. Another five minutes, and you wouldn’t have made it.” He ducked his head and peered past her to where her father sat clutching his arm. “Okay, let’s get him into the ambulance.”
“We wouldn’t have made it if they hadn’t dropped the water across the road,” Callie confirmed. “There’s a small fire crew at the wolf sanctuary right now, but that wildfire is right on top of them. There are only three of them; they’ll be trapped or killed unless someone gets them out!”
“They’re trained, and they have backup.” The deputy nodded toward her father. “Let’s focus on the immediate need.”
Callie stepped back as two emergency medical technicians came around to her father’s side of the truck and performed a quick evaluation of him. Then they helped him onto a gurney and loaded him into the ambulance.
“Will you ride with him?” the deputy asked.
She wanted to, more than anything. Her father looked gray and drawn as the medical team inserted an intravenous drip into his arm, and radioed ahead to the hospital. Her chest constricted, because she felt certain that this time, he wouldn’t pull through. The strain of the past several hours had surely taken its toll, and this was her punishment for not insisting that they leave two days ago, before the situation became a crisis. For not being there when he needed her, not once during the past twelve years.
She felt sick.
“Are you okay?” The deputy wore an expression of concern. “Maybe you want to sit down and let someone take a look at you.” He suggested. “You don’t look too good.”
Callie waved him off. “No, I’m fine. Really. Just get my dad to the hospital.”
They signaled for the ambulance to leave, and Callie watched with a sense of despair as the swirling red lights disappeared around a curve in the road. Passing a hand over her eyes, she turned back to her pickup truck. She’d follow the ambulance to the hospital, and then she’d figure out what to do with the wolves. Even now, their low keening caused the hair on her arms to rise.
“Where will you bring the animals?”
Callie shook her head. “I’m actually not sure. Randy, one of our assistants, is calling some of the other sanctuaries in the area to see if they can take them in, if only on a temporary basis.”
“I hope that works out,” the deputy said. “Nobody wants to see the wolves put down.”
Callie looked at him sharply. That thought had never crossed her mind, and she would never allow that to happen to her father’s wolves.
“Thanks for the support,” she said drily. “I should get going.”
The deputy stepped back as she climbed into the truck. He waved the blockade cars aside, before tipping his hat and signaling her through.
Callie blew out a hard breath. His words rankled. She hadn’t risked life and limb to rescue the wolves, only to have them euthanized. The knowledge that the remaining seven wolves would likely perish in the wildfire was painful enough. She would find another home for the five she had in the truck, at least until they could return to the sanctuary.
If they could return.
Recalling the ferocity of the wildfire, and how close it had been to the house and the outbuildings, Callie knew there was little hope the structures would survive. She thought again of the firefighters.
Why had there only been three? Did they really have backup, as the deputy assured her?
She pictured the rugged man who had hustled her into the truck. She owed him her life. If he hadn’t persuaded her father to get into truck when he did, they might not have made it through the pass. Hadn’t the deputy said that if she’d been five minutes later, the road would have been impassable?
As she drove, she realized she was trembling. She had done it. Against the odds, she had made it through the pass. Her father was on his way to the hospital, where he would receive the care he needed. They had rescued five wolves. All in all, it was the best possible outcome, given the extreme circumstances. She just hoped the outcome for the three firefighters was as positive. She knew the likelihood of ever seeing the man again was slim to none. She didn’t know his name, and had no idea which fire station he worked at. She made a mental note to stop by the fire marshal’s office and inquire about the men who had tried to save the sanctuary, and had certainly saved her father’s life.
She told herself she only wanted to thank him; her interest had nothing to do with a pair of shrewd eyes that missed nothing, or a grin that still made her knees go wobbly just thinking about it.
Chapter Four
Callie negotiated the long, winding descent that led to the small town of St. Mary. At this time of year, there were typically hordes of tourists in the region, eager to travel the famous Going to the Sun Road, which traversed Glacier National Park through some of the most stunning scenery in the world, and ended some fifty miles to the west, near the towns of Whitefish and Kalispell, Montana.
But the road had been partially closed for nearly two weeks as a result of the wildfires in the park, and Callie expected there were very few tourists lingering in either St. Mary or Browning, waiting for the closed portions to reopen.
As she emerged from the mountains into the flatlands, she saw dozens of emergency responders camped on a wide swath of meadow at the edge of St. Mary Lake. The entire field, which was part of larger campground, was covered with tents and trucks, and firefighting equipment. It seemed the scenic tourist spot had been turned into an incident command post.
As she drove past, she was a little taken aback by the sheer size of the operation. She’d been so occupied in caring for her father and helping with the wolves that she hadn’t traveled to town in over a week. As a result, she’d completely missed just how large this wildfire was, and how many emergency personnel had been brought in to handle the crisis. If Randy hadn’t risked his life by driving to their house that morning to alert them of the danger, they might not have escaped in time.
By the time she reached the hospital in Browning, she felt drained, both physically and emotionally. She parked the truck by the emergency entrance, and went inside to inquire about her father. An older nurse approached her, an expression of sympathy on her face.
“I’ve known your father for a long time,” she said. “His heart’s been giving him trouble for the past few years.”
Callie nodded, wracked with guilt that it had taken her so long to visit. She should have come sooner. She would come more often, she promised herself. “Is he going to be okay?”
The nurse smiled reassuringly. “They’re running tests on him now. We’ll know more in a few hours.” She clucked sympathetically and reached out to squeeze Callie’s hand. “There’s nothing you can do right now and worrying won’t help. We’ll take good care of him. What about you?”
Callie raised her eyebrows. “What about me?”
“Are you going to be okay?”
Her question gave Callie pause. She had five wolves outside in the kennel truck, and no place to safely house them. Her father’s ranch was likely nothing more than a pile of burnt cinders by now, which meant she had nowhere to go, either. Her thoughts turned to the three firefighters who were even now battling that monster blaze, and felt a renewed surge of guilt that she hadn’t brought her father down from the mountain earlier. If she had paid closer attention to the news, or had left when the fire marshal had first come by, her father might not be suffering another heart attack. She would have had more time to move all the wolves to a safe location.
“I’ll be fine.” She assured the other woman, but inwardly she wasn’t so sure. She’d never felt so overwhelmed or frightened in her entire life.
*
In the end, after hours of fruitless phone calls and visits to animal shelters, it became clear that there was no place in either St. Mary or Browning where Callie could safely leave the wolves. In fact, it seemed there wasn’t anywhere on the eastern side of Glacier National Park where she could bring them.
