Fourth Down

by Desiree Holt

  She turned and stormed down the stairs, climbed into her car, and cranked the engine. She was through letting some man treat her like shit. Damn him, anyway. She’d cut him some slack because of his past but holy shit. She’d done nothing wrong, and if he couldn’t listen to her explanation, if everything growing between them meant so little to him, then he wasn’t worth her time.

  “Fuck you,” she shouted in her car as she roared out into traffic. Maybe tonight she and Adara could get good and drunk. Yes. That’s what she’d do. A good drunk would fix everything.

  * * * *

  Chase dropped into his big armchair, his head in his hands. It had taken all his willpower not to haul Holly into his place and wrap his arms around her. He wanted her in the worst way. She’d gotten into every corner of his mind and his soul. He even loved showering at her place because he could use her shower gel and carry her scent with him all day. How fucked up was that?

  For ten long years, he’d guarded his heart, never letting anyone in. Never dating any woman long enough to form a personal attachment. He was happy, after a fact, and certainly free of emotional stress. The connection he felt with Holly was stronger and more intense than any he’d ever had with another woman, including the infamous Cheryl. He thought at last he’d found what all his friends kept telling him about, the one woman who would own his heart and treat it with respect.

  Ha!

  He was an idiot. No other word for it. Damn it to hell, anyway.

  He had no idea how long he sat in the chair, trying to center himself, to wash the memories of Holly out of his brain. Trying to erase all his feelings for her. But how did he do that with someone who’d gotten into every secret place in his body? His brain? His heart? He thought about requesting some leave and going home for a few days. He hadn’t seen his dad in a long time, although they kept in touch with calls and Skype. He was glad now he hadn’t told him about Holly. He didn’t want to admit he’d been stupid yet another time.

  Fuck. Just plain fuck.

  Finally he pulled out his phone and called his commanding officer. Not much use in taking time off when the person you were going to spend it with betrayed you. He needed to be on duty and stay occupied so he didn’t have time to think. Hell, he’d take out someone else’s boat if they needed him to. Anything was better than sitting around this apartment thinking about the woman who had just tromped on his heart.

  Chapter 16

  “I hated to call you in after you just worked a twenty-four,” Cliff told Holly as she entered the firehouse.

  “No problem. I wasn’t doing anything, anyway.” Except alternating between anger and depression and eating herself into oblivion with ice cream.

  “I thought you and Chase had big plans. You were so excited about having forty-eight straight hours with him.”

  “Yeah, well, things change.”

  Cliff frowned. “Is there some kind of problem? I mean—”

  “Will you just forget it?” she snapped. Then she blew out a breath. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay, fine. But just so you know, I’m your friend as well as your captain.”

  She gave him a tired smile. “I know. So what’s the deal. They need us up north?”

  “Affirmative. Northern California’s one big blaze. They’re calling in help from any place they can get it. The chief handpicked a squad to send and you’re on it, kid.”

  Despite how rotten she was feeling the news gave her an electric thrill. This meant she’d passed muster all the way up the ladder. She sent a mental fuck-you finger to Brad, then vowed never to think about him again.

  “When do we leave?” she asked.

  “One hour. They’re sending a chopper to a pickup point near here. Not enough time to drive. They need people to dig firebreaks and contain the blaze in areas so air tankers can fly over and dump water.” He tapped her bicep. “How’s your digging, Holly?”

  She grinned. “Just fine.”

  “Okay. Get ready to roll as soon as the chopper gets here.”

  She was glad she’d have something to occupy her mind besides Chase and their situation. As she’d sat alone in her apartment, he was all that filled her thoughts. But instead of reliving that last, awful incident, she’d kept thinking about the fun times together, the sexy times together, and that picnic where they’d bared their souls to each other. She had tried to apologize, and he hadn’t wanted any part of it. He’d condemned her without a hearing.

  Fine. If that’s the way he wanted to play it, okay, but she wasn’t giving up. He had at least owed her the opportunity to explain what he saw. It wasn’t as if she and Chuck were naked together, like Chase’s fiancée had been. She had nothing to apologize for except not inviting him to breakfast. When they got back from this raging inferno, she would hunt him down and give him a piece of her mind for not trusting her. Remind him of everything they had together. Lay the facts out and then it was up to him. She loved him—Holy shit! Loved!—but she wasn’t going to grovel for him or any other man. She’d earned her stripes as a firefighter and now she knew she could do anything. If Chase didn’t bend, they were done. Somewhere out there she’d find another man just as good. No, better. One who wouldn’t go crazy like this.

  Maybe.

  Carey Slocum, the deputy chief, had one of the other firefighters ferry them over to the pickup point. Forty-five minutes after she got the word, she was riding over the scenery below, watching it change from green to brown to green again and then to blazing red, as in a real blaze. It was probably her imagination, but she swore she could feel the heat even as high as they were. The temperature rose even higher when the chopper set them down with their equipment close to the staging area.

  Dozens of people milled around, each apparently with some specific purpose. All of them looked tired and harassed, but not ready to quit until the beast had been tamed. A tent had been set up to dispense water, coffee, and sandwiches. A man at the chart table was making marks on a long map, indicating spots to the people clustered around him. As Holly watched, firefighters hiked in from where they’d been working, tired and blackened with soot. She knew they could all probably use a lot of sleep, but they’d make do with fresh water and coffee and head out again. A fire didn’t take a time out while people rested.

  “The fire has already consumed thousands of acres,” Mitch Alexander, the crew chief, told them when he checked them in. “We’ve evacuated homeowners as fast as we can, but we’re fighting to keep ahead of this thing.”

  All around them Holly could hear the roar of the fire as it ate its way through the heavily forested landscape.

  “The blaze keeps jumping from place to place,” Mitch continued, “despite the efforts of crews to dig firebreaks.”

  “This is one unruly motherfucker,” the man standing next to him said.

  Mitch looked at Cliff. “You and your crew ready? You’re up next.”

  “We’re good to go,” he told the man.

  “Okay.” He smoothed his hand over the map, then pointed up the hill. “This is your area of containment. You have to hike about a mile up to start digging the firebreak. Also, there are reports the wind is about to pick up again so you’d better get to this.” He looked Holly up and down. “You up for it?”

  She gave him her favorite line. “Anything you can do I can do better.”

  “I guess we’ll find out. Let’s go.”

  Holly was sure she’d never worked so hard in her life. Hike to the spot. Dig, dig, dig. Cut trees and brush with a chainsaw. Pile the debris out of the way. Clear the spot. Shift to another area with a natural boundary like a road and a place to set a controlled burn.

  She lost count of the hours. Another tent had been set up with cots where the firefighters could catch very short naps. To Holly, though, it seemed like the hours all blended together as they fought the encroachment of the flames that could destroy the entire area. It was even hard to determine
when night ended and day broke because the smoke from the fire and the soot in the air made it dark all the time.

  Crews were rotated, allowing everyone to catch short naps. Then it was back to work again in the next area of danger. It gave her no time to think about Chase. She was completely focused on following orders to put out this fire.

  She was working the saw on another patch of thick underbrush when Cliff hollered her name.

  “Move it,” he yelled. He held up the radio to show he’d just gotten a call. “We need to hike a half mile north. The fire shifted slightly, and we need a firebreak there right now.”

  The air around them was hotter than a furnace. Even with masks it was difficult to breathe. When they started on the new firebreak, Cliff set her to a spot with the chainsaw and had her cutting away again. The fire was so close now she could actually see the flames in the distance.

  “We’re chasing it,” Cliff hollered, when he came up to check on her. “We can’t seem to get ahead of it. It seems to keep turning back on itself.”

  Holly knew what that meant. They could be trapped in the middle of the inferno with no place to escape. She just nodded at Cliff and kept hacking away at the thick underbrush. She checked now and then, happy to see that they were making headway with the circular firebreak they were cutting. She had just stopped for a moment to catch her breath when Cliff raced up beside her, the others on their team right behind them.

  “We can’t contain it,” he yelled. “Helicopters are on the way with another crew of smokejumpers to drop water, but they won’t get here fast enough. This thing’s a fickle motherfucker. Get out your blankets. Now.”

  He pushed her ahead of him as he hurried them to the most recently cleared spot and shoved everyone on the ground. Holly moved by rote, her brain kicking in with all the hours of practice they’d all done to get ready for something like this. She did as the others did, and pulled out the thermal blanket she had packed there. Cliff had them all huddle together under the blankets spread out like a large collapsed tent.

  They had barely made it before the fire leaped out of the uncut brush and roared over them. Between the insulation of the blankets, the padding on her gear, and the fire itself the heat was all but unbearable. She kept her head tucked way down, her mask in place, and prayed harder than she’d ever prayed in her life. She was not going to burn up in Northern California. Not when she had found the man she wanted and life ahead was looking good. If she could just smack his stupid head.

  If I get out of this, I am going to hunt Chase DeMarco down and make him listen to me. Make him believe I love him, stupid idiot that he is.

  * * * *

  The Coast Guard had received word that three fishing boats were entering the territorial waters of the United States carrying an unknown amount of heroin and cocaine. The last three boats they had been sent to interdict had been false alarms. Their commanding officer, however, said the brass had a feeling they were deliberate red herrings, with the hope the Coast Guard would decide it was wasting its time and that any future word passed along would be dismissed as worthless.

  “They don’t know the Guard well,” his CO had said with a nasty smile. “We don’t ignore anything.” He handed Chase the packet of information, along with the names of the other two patrol boats assigned to the mission. “Good luck.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Chase saluted and went to round up his crew.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” John McFarland stood with Chase at the bow of the patrol boat as they prepared to leave the harbor.

  “Do what? Go out on this mission?”

  “Go out at all. You were supposed to be off for two days with your honey.”

  Chase glared at him. “We’re not discussing her. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  He had an approximate timeline on the boats, when two of them were supposed to leave Mexico according to their information, and what their nautical speed would be. The word was they were rendezvousing with a third boat heading out of San Diego harbor and meeting them in what the government called the Transit Zone. Chase and his crew were prepared to be out patrolling the waters for as long as five days, depending on exactly when the disguised fishing boats actually left port. Helicopters were monitoring the waters, and they would receive regular updates once they were out on the water.

  For this operation two of his men, who would normally be off, had been tapped to flesh out the crew. The men in his command operated like a well-oiled machine, so after two days out at sea he found he didn’t have all that much to do. That left him too much time to think. He kept reliving the scene at Breakwaters over and over, until he was sure it was burned into his brain. How could he have been so wrong? How could he have been so mistaken about her? He’d finally unlocked himself enough to let her into his heart, to tell her about his past and why he had such trust issues. Apparently none of that had made any impression on her.

  God! The image of her in that guy’s arms made him sick to his stomach. Oh, she’d tried to explain, but he knew what he saw. He wasn’t interested in any of her lies. He was—

  “My mother used to tell me if I kept an expression like that on my face it would freeze that way.”

  Chase glanced over his shoulder at John, who had walked up next to him.

  “There’s nothing wrong with my expression,” he protested. “Any sightings on those boats yet?”

  “No, and nothing from the other two patrols out there. But the CO said it could be two or three days. They don’t exactly keep to a schedule.”

  “We just need to be prepared.”

  “And we are,” John told him. “No sweat. So what’s up with you and Holly?”

  “Will you just leave it alone?” he barked. Then drew in a slow breath. “Sorry, but I really don’t want to discuss it.”

  “Okay, fine.” John held up his hands, palms out. “I’ll just say this one thing. She’s nothing like Cheryl in any way, shape, or from. Whatever happened, you’d better make damn sure you’ve got all your facts straight before you do something you’ll regret.”

  “And you know this because?”

  “Because I was the one who told you Cheryl was a loser to begin with. And because Holly is a whole different breed. So just make sure you know what you’re doing and not running off half-cocked.”

  He was about to tell John again to mind his own business when the radio on his belt crackled.

  “Commander DeMarco? This is Dan in radio. We’ve got a report from one of the helicopters.”

  “I’ll be right there.” He turned to John. “They’ve been sighted. Let’s go find out where they are.”

  In the radio room, Dan connected him with the chopper reporting in.

  “This is Commander DeMarco,” he said into the mic.

  “This it Lieutenant Fielding, sir. We’ve spotted the boats you’re looking for.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll give you the coordinates where it looks like they plan to converge. Do you want us to continue to monitor from the air?”

  “That’s affirmative,” Chase told him. “Let’s have those coordinates.”

  It did not take much time to plot the course to intercept. Chase gave the order to start in that direction but watch their speed. They didn’t want to get there before their target did.

  “I always wonder,” John said, “why these guys think they can pull this off under the eyes of the Coast Guard. It’s not unusual for us to be patrolling out here all over the place.”

  “Either they think they’re smarter than we are,” Chase told him, “or they’re too stupid to figure it out. I vote for the latter in this case. Let’s go topside again and keep watch.”

  Another two hours passed before the helo radioed the new position of the boats.

  “The third one’s heading there, too, Commander,” Lt. Fielding said. “Can you spot them yet?”

  Chase held his binoculars to his eyes. Yup, ther
e they were. Three stupid idiots trying to offload drugs in the middle of the ocean.

  “Got ’em,” he answered.

  “We’ll continue to fly over in case you need us,” Fielding said.

  “Thanks.”

  Chase and John both had their binoculars fixed on the spot as the patrol boat drew steadily closer. They could see the boats close together, lines reaching from one to another to keep them from separating. The men were all dressed in jeans and muscle shirts or T-shirts, nothing fancy. Just what you’d expect men on a fishing boat to wear. He could see crates piled on the deck and other gear stacked haphazardly.

  “Take us in,” he ordered the helmsman.

  The patrol boat moved at a steady clip toward the other three boats. The Coast Guard had the authority to board boats out at sea, and that would be Chase’s first step. As they’d done dozens of times before, five of his crew had stepped up behind him, armed and ready for whatever happened. Oren Grace, who had been a part of Chase’s crew since he made commander, was on the upper deck manning the big gun.

  “Be alert,” Chase told John and the men behind him. “I don’t think they’ll take lightly to being boarded.”

  After that he had no time to be angry with John or pissed off at Holly. As soon as they were close enough the helmsman throttled back on the speed and Chase lifted his big megaphone.

  “Ahoy the ships. This is Commander Chase DeMarco, United States Coast Guard. Stop whatever you are doing and prepare to be boarded.”

  When they all just stared at him, he repeated his warning.

  “We are investigating illegal fishing in these waters.” That was the cover he’d decided on. “Please stand back and prepare to be boarded.”