Wild Fire

by Christine Feehan

  She turned away from Blythe, feeling almost as if she couldn't breathe. "I've got to get moving."

  "Promise me you'll be careful."

  Rikki nodded. It was easier than arguing. "You have fun at the wedding and say hello for me." It was so much easier being social through the others. They were all well liked and had shops or offices in Sea Haven--all a big part of the community. Rikki was always on the outside fringe, and was accepted more because she was part of the Farm than for herself. The residents of Sea Haven had accepted the women of Rikki's makeshift family when they'd moved here just a few short years earlier, all trying to recover from various losses.

  She forced a smile because Blythe had been the one to give her a place to call home. "I really am fine."

  Blythe nodded and handed her the empty coffee cup. "You'd better be, Rikki. I would be lost if something happened to you. You're important to me--to all of us."

  Rikki didn't know how to respond. She was embarrassed and uncomfortable with real emotion, and Blythe always managed to evoke real emotion, the heart-wrenching kind better left alone. Rikki felt too much when she let herself feel, and not enough when she didn't. She pushed out of her chair and watched Blythe walk away, angry with herself for not asking Blythe why she was out running so early in the morning, why she couldn't sleep. Instead, she knew she'd hack into Blythe's computer and read her personal diary and then try to find a way to help her.

  Rikki didn't mind invading privacy if she thought she had good reason. The fact that she was inept at meaningful dialogue with those she cared about gave her all the reason in the world. Blythe, of all the women, was an enigma. Rikki was an observer and she noticed how Blythe brought peace to all of them, as if she took a little bit of their burdens onto herself.

  Rikki sighed and threw the rest of her coffee out onto the ground. Sugar in coffee. What was up with that? She glanced up at the clear sky and tried to concentrate on that, to think of her sea, the great expanse of water, all blues and grays and greens. Soothing colors. Even when she was at her stormiest and unpredictable, the ocean brought her calm.

  She went back into her house, leaving the screen door closed but the back door wide open so she wouldn't feel closed in. She polished the cupboards fast where Blythe had touched them, leaving undetectable prints, washed the coffee mugs, and carefully rinsed off the sink around the coffeepot.

  She hummed slightly as she packed a lunch. She needed high-calorie foods, lots of protein and sugar. Peanut butter sandwiches, two with bananas--even though there was an old saying that bananas were bad luck--and a handful of peanut butter cups and two bags of Reese's Pieces would keep her going. Her job was aggressive and hard work, but she loved and reveled in it, especially the solitary aspects of being underneath the water in an entirely different environment--one where she thrived.

  Extra water was essential and she readied a cold gallon while she prepared and ate a large breakfast--peanut butter over toast. She might not like sugar in her coffee, but she wasn't stupid enough to dive without taking in sufficient calories to sustain her bodily functions in the cold waters.

  She ate, toast in hand--she didn't actually use her dishes. Her sisters had given her the most beautiful set with seashells and starfish surrounding each plate. She carefully washed the entire set on Thursdays and her wonderful set of pots and pans on Fridays--but she always had them displayed so she could look at them while she ate her sandwich.

  She'd washed and bleached her wet suit the night before and made certain that her gear was in repair. Rikki repaired all her own equipment religiously, waiting for that one moment when all her senses would tell her there'd be a calm and she could go diving. Her gear was always prepared and stowed at all times so the moment she knew she could make a dive, she was ready.

  Her boat and truck were always kept in pristine condition. She allowed no one else to step on her boat except the women in her family--and that was rare. No one but Rikki touched the engine. Ever. Or her baby, the Honda-driven Atlas Copco air compressor. She knew her life depended on good air. She used three filters to remove carbon monoxide, which had killed two well-known locals a few years earlier.

  She knew the tides by heart thanks to the Northern California Tidelog, her bible. Although she'd committed the book to memory, she read for fun daily, a compulsion she couldn't stop. Today she had minimum tide ebb and flood with hopefully no current--optimum working conditions where she wanted to dive.

  Despite Blythe's concerns, Rikki really did consider safety paramount. Rikki stowed her wet suit and gear in the truck along with her spare gear. Divers--especially Rikki--generally kept a spare of every piece of equipment on the boat on hand just to be safe, in an airtight locked container that she checked periodically to make sure it was in working order. Moments later she was driving toward Port Albion Harbor, humming along to a Joley Drake CD. The rather famous Drake family lived in the small town of Sea Haven. The Drakes were friends with her sisters, particularly Blythe and Lexi, but Rikki had never actually talked to any of them--especially not Joley. She loved Joley's voice and didn't want to chance making social mistakes around her.

  Strangely, she'd never been bothered by others' opinions of her. Friendships were too difficult to manage. She had to work too hard to fit in, to find the right things to say, so it was easier just to be herself and not care what people thought of her. But with someone she admired--like Joley--she was taking no chances. Better to just keep her distance entirely.

  Rikki sang along as she drove down the highway, occasionally glancing at the ocean. The water shimmered like jewels, beckoning to her--offering the peace she so badly needed. She'd had a few months' reprieve from her nightmares, but now they were back with a vengeance, coming nearly every night. The pattern was familiar, an affliction she'd suffered many times over the years. The only thing she could do was weather the storm.

  Fire had destroyed her family when she was thirteen. Definitely arson, the firefighters had said. A year and six months later, a fire had destroyed the foster home she was staying in. No one had died, but the fire had been set.

  The third fire had taken her second foster home on her sixteenth birthday. She had awakened, her heart pounding, unable to breathe, already choking on smoke and fear. She'd crawled on her hands and knees to the other rooms, waking the occupants, alerting them. Everyone had escaped, but the house and everything inside had been lost.

  The authorities wouldn't believe she hadn't started any of the fires. They couldn't prove it, but no one wanted her after that. No one trusted her and, in truth, she didn't trust herself. How had the fires started? One of the many psychologists suggested she couldn't remember doing it, and maybe that was the truth. She'd lived in a state-run facility, apart from the others. Fire-starter, they'd called her; the Death Dealer. She'd endured the taunts and then she'd become violent, protecting herself with ruthless, brutal force when her tormenters escalated to physical abuse. She was labeled a troublemaker and she no longer cared.

  The moment she turned eighteen she was gone. Running. And she hadn't stopped until she'd met Daniel. He'd been a diver too.

  Rikki turned her truck down the sloping drive leading to the harbor, inhaling the fragrance of the eucalyptus trees lining the road. Tall and thick, the trees stood like a forest of sentinels, guarding the way. The road wound around and the Albion Fishing Village came into view. She drove on through to the large, empty dirt parking lot and then backed up to the wooden guard in front of the gangway connecting to the dock.

  As she unpacked her gear, the last remnant of her nightmare faded. Now, here, in the daylight beside the calming influence of the ocean, she could almost be grateful for the nightmares. They always heightened her awareness of safety on the Farm, and the recent spate reminded her it was time to check all the fire alarms, sprinklers and extinguishers. She could never risk growing complacent again.

  Even if she was not the one who somehow started the fires, someone else had. It seemed clear to her that someone wan
ted her and everyone near her dead. She'd almost run from Blythe and the others in order to protect them, but she'd been so beaten down, so close to the end of her rope, she couldn't have survived without them. And despite everything, Rikki wasn't ready to die. Thankfully her newfound sisters had realized how important fire safety was to her, and they had spent the extra money on everything she'd asked for.

  Rikki walked along the dock until she came to her baby--the Sea Gypsy. She didn't buy clothes or furniture, her home was stark, but this--this boat was her pride and joy. She loved the Radon, all twenty-four feet of her. Everything on her boat was in impeccable condition. No one touched her equipment but her. She even did her own welding, converting the design of the davit to make it easier to haul her nets on board.

  The river was calm, and the boat rocked gently against the bumpers, a soothing mixture of sounds, water lapping and birds calling back and forth. There was one lone camper trailer in the park and no one in sight. The harbor was nearly deserted. She went through all her checks and started the engine. Rikki untied the lines and cast off. A familiar eagerness raced through her veins as she pushed the Sea Gypsy from her dock.

  For Rikki, no feeling on earth matched the thrill of standing on the deck of her boat, the powerful engine, a 454 MerCruiser with Bravo 3 outdrive and two stainless steel propellers, rumbling under her feet and the river stretching out in front of her like a wide blue path. The wooden bridge--with metal spanning the river, stretched above her, sandbar and rocks to the sides--was her gateway to the ocean. The channel was narrow and impassable in low tide or heavy swells. With the wind on her face, she maneuvered the boat out of its slip, kept a low throttle as she moved along the channel. The sandbar to her right could present problems, so she kept to the center as the Sea Gypsy swept around the curve to enter the actual sea.

  Double-crested cormorants vied for space on the closest sea stack, a small island made of rock where the birds nested or rested. She sent them a smile as she judged her mistress. She never fully trusted the weather reports or tide books--she had to see for herself exactly what mood the ocean was in. Sometimes, in the protection of the harbor, the sea felt and looked calm, but the waters beyond the land mass could betray her angry mood. Today, the ocean was calm, the water smooth and glistening.

  The Sea Gypsy swept out into open water and Rikki relaxed completely. This was her world, the one place she was truly comfortable. Here, she knew the rules, the dangers, and understood them, in a way she could never understand social situations and human interactions. The sky overhead was blue and clear, the surface as smooth as the California coast ever managed to be, as the boat rushed over the water. She had a great engine, built for speed--a gift from her sisters, one she could never begin to thank them for.

  She rushed past caves, sea stacks and cliffs--from here the coast appeared a different world altogether. Pelicans, cormorants and osprey shared the skies with seagulls, sometimes diving deep, their bodies sleek and streamlined as they plummeted into the depths after fish. Little heads popped up here and there as a seal surfaced close to shore, hunting for a meal. Two seals played together, somersaulting over and over in the water.

  Spray burst up the cliffs in a display of power as the sea met land. She lifted her face to the salt air, smiling at the touch of water on her face. She began to sing, one hand weaving a dancing pattern in the air as she maneuvered the boat with the other. It was almost a compulsion, each time she found herself alone where no one could see or hear her. An invitation. A language of love. The notes skipped over the surface to the side of her boat as she rushed over the water.

  Tiny columns began to form, sparkling tubes that danced over the surface like mini-cyclones. The sun gleamed through them, lending them colors as they twisted and turned gracefully. Some rose high, leaping above the boat in thin rainbows to form an archway. Laughing, she shot through it, the wind and water on her face and ruffling her hair like fingers.

  She played with the water, out there in the safest place she knew, the shore in the distance and the water leaping all around her boat, drawn to her in some mysterious way she didn't understand, coming when she beckoned, saving her life numerous times, making her feel at peace when everything and everyone she loved had been taken from her. Under her direction the water plasticized, forming shapes. The joy bursting through her there on the water where she was so alive, could never be duplicated on shore where, for her, there was only vulnerability and emptiness.

  She anchored the Sea Gypsy just off the shelf, but gave herself plenty of scope just in case a large wave did come at her out of nowhere. She checked her equipment a final time. Eagerness rose inside her, unmarred by any hint of fear. She loved to be in the water. Being alone was an added bonus. She didn't have to try to adhere to conventional social customs. She didn't have to worry about hurting someone's feelings, embarrassing her chosen family or having people make fun of her.

  Out here, in the water, she could be herself and that was enough. Out here she couldn't hear the screams of the dead, feel the scorching heat of a blazing fire, or see suspicion on the faces around her.

  After rubbing herself down with baby shampoo, she warmed her suit by pouring hot water from the engine in it before putting it on. Once again, she checked her air compressor--her lifeline. She'd spent a great deal of money on the Honda 5.5 horsepower engine and her Atlas Copco 2 stage air compressor with the three extremely expensive filters, two particulate filters with a carbon filter on top. Divers had died of carbon monoxide poisoning, and she wasn't about to go that way. She had a non-locking Hanson quick release on her end of the main hose so she could detach quickly if necessary. She carried a small bailout of 30 cubic feet--her backup scuba tank--on her back. Some divers dove without one, but since she usually dove alone, she wanted the extra protection. Rikki didn't care to be bent by an emergency ascent. She wanted to always be able to come up at the proper speed should anything happen, such as a hose getting cut by a boater who did not see her dive flag.

  Donning her weight belt and then the bailout, she put on the most important instrument: her computer, which kept track of her time so there was no chance of staying down too long. She had a compass to know where she was and where she wanted to go. Grabbing her urchin equipment, she slipped into the water, taking four five-hundred-pound capacity nets with her.

  The massive plunge felt like leaving earth and going into space, a monumental experience that always awed her. The cool liquid closed around her like a welcome embrace, bringing with it a sense of peace. Everything inside of her stilled, made sense. Righted. There was no way to explain the strange sensations others obviously didn't feel when being touched. Sometimes fabrics were painful, and noises made her crazy, but here, in this silent world of beauty, she felt right, her chaotic mind calm.

  As she descended, fish circled her curiously and a lone seal zipped past her. Seals moved so fast in the water, like small rockets. Normally, they would linger, but today, apart from a few scattered fish, the sea seemed empty. For the first time, a shiver slid down her back and she looked around her at the deserted spot. Where had all the fish gone?

  The San Andreas fault line was treacherous, a good nine hundred feet deep or more, a long, black abyss stretching along the ocean floor. At around thirty feet deep, a high shelf jutted outward, the extensive jagged line of rock covered in sea urchins. The dropoff was another good thirty feet across where a shorter shelf held an abundance of sea life as well.

  Rikki touched down at the thirty-foot shelf and immediately began to work. Her rake scraped over the urchin-encrusted rocks along the shelf wall, the noise reverberating through the water for the sea creatures to hear. She worked fast, knowing that below her sharks could hunt her, where when she normally worked on the floor she wasn't in as much danger.

  The feeling of dread increased with each stroke of her rake. She found herself stopping every few minutes to look around her. She studied the abyss. Could a shark be prowling there in the shadows? Her heart rat
e increased, but she forced herself to stay calm while she went back to work, determined to get it over with. The sea urchins were plentiful and large, the harvest amazing.

  She filled her first net in a matter of twenty minutes and, as the weight increased, she filled the float with air to compensate. In another twenty minutes she had a second bag filled. Both nets floated just to one side of her while she began working to fill the third net. Because she was working at thirty feet, she knew she had plenty of bottom time to fill all four five-hundred-pound nets, but she was getting tired.

  She hooked the bags to her hose, and stayed on the bottom while she let the bags go to the surface, holding the hose to slow the urchins' ascent and so the air didn't leave the float once it reached the surface. She climbed her hose a foot a second until she hit ten feet, where she stayed for five minutes to be good and safe before completing her ascent.

  Working in the water was exhausting, with the continual flow of the waves. The wash could push forward and back against a diver, and exposed as she was, having to be careful not to fall into the abyss, harvesting the urchins had made her arms feel like lead. At the surface she hooked both bag lines to the floating ball and climbed onboard to rest and eat two more peanut butter sandwiches and a handful of peanut butter cups, needing the calories.

  The strange dread that had been building in her seemed to have settled in the pit of her stomach. She sat on the lid of the urchin hold and ate her sandwich, but it tasted like cardboard. She glanced at the sky. It was clear. Little wind. And the sea itself was calm, yet she felt threatened in some vague way she couldn't quite comprehend. As she sat on her boat, she twisted around, looking for danger. It was silly, really, the feeling of impending doom. The day was beautiful, the sea calm and the sky held no real clouds.

  She hesitated before she donned her equipment again. She could pull up another two nets filled with sea urchins, bringing her total to several thousand pounds, enabling her to pay a good amount of money toward the Farm. She was being silly. This part of the ocean had always given her a bad feeling. Resolutely, Rikki put on her weight belt and hooked her hose to her belt before reaching for her tank.