Skinny Pants

by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

  “Here too?” Jack asked.

  “No,” Fiona said. “But almost everything west of us, including Santa Rosa and everything just up the road in St. Helena and Calistoga. The vineyards and farms are already being engulfed.”

  How did this happen? There’d been a few small fires reported in the hills, but nothing major.

  “Okay. I’ll call in,” Macie said.

  Jack looked very worried.

  “What?” Macie asked.

  “Ms. Luci’s ranch is east of St. Helena. She’s going to need help getting her animals out.”

  “But don’t they have staff?” Macie asked.

  “Yeah, but not enough.”

  “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  “No,” he replied. “You need to get to the hospital. If they’re evacuating, they’ll be moving patients out of those areas and sending them our way.”

  “Then they’ll need you, too,” Macie argued. She didn’t want Jack going into an evacuation zone. What if he got hurt?

  Jack looked at Macie. “I’ll see you at the hospital in an hour or so. I need to be sure Ms. Luci is okay. My sister would never forgive me if anything happened to her.”

  Jack stepped forward, threading his hands through the hair at the nape of Macie’s neck. “I’ll see you soon.” He leaned in and kissed her.

  Macie watched him run off.

  “Wow,” said Fiona. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen live porn before.”

  “How’d you even find us?” Macie asked.

  “I followed the sound of your oh-oh-ohs. Could you possibly be any louder?”

  Oh, God. She’d been moaning? How embarrassing. On the other hand, they’d been so close to getting it on—nature style. “Couldn’t have waited five more minutes, huh, Fiona?”

  “If I had, I wouldn’t have seen his ass. It’s perfection. Like the God of Man Asses sculpted it with his own two hands.”

  “Seems kind of unfair you’ve seen it, and I haven’t,” Macie grumbled.

  “Consider it payment for saving you from getting knocked up, ’cause I’m sure neither of you were carrying hookup gear, and I know you can’t take the pill.”

  She was right. Macie had taken it for a few months in her senior year, but it gave her migraines. As for diseases, she was in the clear for obvious reasons—huge lack of sex—and Jack wasn’t a manwhore, so odds were low he had anything.

  “My aunt visited and left town two days ago. I would’ve been fine.” Maybe? Macie jerked her head, indicating it was time to get moving.

  They both started back up the hillside, heading for the main trail leading back to the parking lot.

  “So, you two got everything worked out?” Fiona asked.

  Macie gave it some thought and realized they’d worked nothing out. He had just grabbed and groped her, and they went at it. His exact words were “fuck it.”

  “I have no idea where we stand,” Macie admitted. “I did all the talking, and then we started making out.” She gave Fiona a quick worried look over her shoulder. “It could mean he’s willing to forgive me.”

  Fiona raised her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t count on anything changing between you two until he says it’s changed.”

  “Yeah, but he was about to have sex with me right there, and oh God.” Macie palmed her forehead. “I’m so stupid.” His wanting to fuck her in a moment of passion did not mean things were resolved. At least, not with a man like Jack, who was stubborn and didn’t seem like the type to just change his feelings from one moment to the next. Simply put, the man was anything but wishy-washy.

  “Oh no. He just saw his ex-wife and was all upset.” He’d only needed to blow off some steam or something. “Thank you for saving me from my own stupid vagina.”

  Fiona chuckled. “You had a twatattack. Happens to the best of us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Three hours flew by before Macie realized that she hadn’t heard from Jack. But the hospital was in chaos as they were trying to move less critical patients to neighboring cities and bring in the ones from the evacuation areas. The strange part was that when she looked outside, the sky was clear. The winds had picked up considerably, carrying the smoke northwest. That was the good part—the fires would not come their way as long as the wind headed in the opposite direction. The bad part was the flames were travelling rapidly as the dry summer air fueled the out-of-control fires and carried sparks for miles. The map displayed on the television in the waiting room showed almost thirty wildfires, none of them under control, many spreading into populated areas.

  Macie slugged down an ice coffee from the vending machine and looked at the TV, noting the town just north of them. Downtown St. Helena was safe for the moment, but the outlying areas, including some of the major wineries, were engulfed.

  Dammit, Jack. She slid her phone from her pocket and called him, but it immediately went to voicemail. She went back to her nurse station and dialed Jack’s department.

  “Surgery,” a man answered.

  “Hi, this is Nurse Franklin over in Adult Medicine. Has anyone over there seen Dr. Reed?”

  “No. He hasn’t checked in yet.”

  Macie’s blood pressure dropped. “Are you sure he’s not helping out down in the ER or something?”

  “I already checked. We’ve been trying to locate him, too. We’re really shorthanded in the OR.”

  Oh no. Something was wrong. Jack should’ve been here by now since he had patients to help move out to make way for more urgent cases now pouring in. Inhalations. Burns. Broken bones. People were driving too fast, trying to escape the flames, and getting into accidents. It was a war zone.

  Macie looked at her watch. She shouldn’t leave. Not now. Not in the middle of all this, but dammit. Jack wouldn’t bail for no reason, and he certainly would’ve called in after seeing the urgent texts from the hospital.

  Macie went for her purse, having no clue where this Happy Pants Ranch was or even if she could get to it if that area had been evacuated.

  “Kirsten, sign me out,” Macie said just as Kirsten walked up.

  “Where are you going? We need you here.”

  Macie drew a breath. “I know, but I have to go check on Dr. Reed. I’ll be back in an hour.” She turned and hightailed it to the garage. Once inside her car, she Googled the address for the Happy Pants Ranch. Nothing came up.

  She looked at her purse. The card that came with the cookie had a phone number on it.

  She dialed, and it went to voicemail. “Hello, you’ve reached the Happy Pants Café. We are currently closed…” The message went on about cookie season, not accepting preorders—blah, blah, blah! Get to the end so I can leave a message! Maybe someone there would hear and get back to her. “For accounting and vendor questions, please contact 510-555-5050.” Macie quickly noted the number and dialed it.

  Dammit! Another voicemail. But this one gave a mailing address for invoices.

  Macie took it down and looked it up. This has to be the place. She shoved her key in the ignition and hit the road.

  Twenty minutes later, Macie came up on a roadblock just south of St. Helena. The flow of cars in the opposite direction was so heavy that they’d opened up both sides of the road to outbound traffic. The only way north was around the roadblock, driving on the shoulder.

  She pulled over and saw a policeman standing there, directing people through the stoplight and intersection.

  “Hey!” She jogged over. “I need to get through to Howell Mountain Road.”

  “Only fire personnel and rescue crews.”

  “I’m a nurse.” She unclipped the badge from her scrubs and held it out. “I work down at Napa General. I need to get to an in-home patient—they’re having issues moving her and her…life-support equipment.”

  Total BS. All of it.

  “Did they call the paramedics?”

  “Errr…yeah. They’re the ones who called. They don’t know what to do; the machine is from…Japan!”

  The policeman
gave her a look. “You speak Japanese?”

  “Hai!”

  He shook his head. “Stay on the main road and keep an eye out. The flames can shift at a moment’s notice.”

  “Thank you.” Macie got back in her car and drove as fast as she could on the shoulder, but in too many spots, there were ditches and trees. She had to carefully work her way counter to the flow of traffic. Off in the distance she saw the hills glowing bright orange and dark smoke spewing into the sky, blocking out the sun.

  “I’m insane. I’m going to die.” She voice dialed Jack again. No answer. She tried the hospital one more time, hoping he’d miraculously checked in. Nope.

  After forty minutes of fighting her way toward the danger, she got to Howell. She turned right to head east, but the entire area up ahead was drowning in smoke. She couldn’t see if the flames had reached the road, and if yes, at which spots. The last thing she wanted was to get through and be trapped.

  She gripped the steering wheel, grinding her teeth. What was she going to do? Turn around? She’d come this far, and Jack might be hurt. Or worse.

  I’m in love with him. I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t go and something’s happened. That was really what this all boiled down to. She could die if she drove any farther, but she’d rather face death than live knowing someone had needed her and she wasn’t there.

  Dammit! Why do I have to be so selfless and caring? For some strange reason, that conversation she’d had with Rodrigo a few weeks ago popped in her head. He’d asked how she always stayed calm and cool in the toughest of situations, and she’d replied that she had thick skin. Rodrigo had laughed, like she’d made a joke. She finally understood why. She didn’t have a magic force field to keep people out and her emotions in. The truth was she cared. Maybe too much. She stayed focused and did her job because it mattered what happened to the people—the strangers in her care as well as those she held dear. Because of that, she did what was needed of her. For them. That was what made her the brave, loving person she just now realized she was.

  And now, I’m going to drive into a raging fire.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Windows rolled up, Macie’s cell phone guided her to the turnoff for the ranch. She knew she had minutes to get the hell out of there. The farms, almost all vineyards, were slowly being engulfed by flames, though she could see some had their sprinklers going in an attempt to save their vines. These were likely the farms with large ponds where they collected rainwater. Because any city water was being pulled to save homes or stop the fire.

  She turned on the windshield wipers, trying to wash away the ashes making it nearly impossible to see.

  “Here! This is it.” She turned down a dirt road where the air was thick with smoke and visibility low. The little sign at the gate said “Welcome to the Happy Pants Ranch. We have no cookies, so don’t ask.”

  “How about a missing doctor? Got one of those?” she mumbled nervously.

  After a minute, Macie finally made it to the old farmhouse. She grabbed a T-shirt from her gym bag and doused it in water from a bottle she had under the passenger seat.

  She got out, covered her mouth, and ran up the front porch. “Hello!” She pounded on the door. “Jack!”

  No one answered, so she looked through the window to the side. From what she could tell, nobody was here.

  She ran around back and saw the door was locked. Okay. Maybe they got out.

  She spotted the big red barn off to the side of the house and sprinted for it, the dirty air making it harder to breathe.

  “Hello!” she yelled once inside the barn. On the other side, the big doors had been left open, and she could see a field where it looked like they were growing alfalfa.

  Oh no. Not good. The crop looked fairly dry and would light up in a heartbeat.

  She quickly looked around the barn. It was empty of animals, and the place seemed like it had been left in a hurry. Spilled feed was scattered across the dirt floor, and water was shooting in from a sprinkler just outside.

  They were trying to save the barn and some of the farm by keeping it wet.

  Okay. Good. Jack wasn’t here. But where had he gone? Why wouldn’t he have called or checked in at the hospital?

  Macie suddenly heard a horse neighing. She stepped outside, and just on the other side of the house was a large silver pickup truck in a huge ditch. A horse trailer was tilted at an angle. It looked like someone had run off the road and the trailer had gotten stuck.

  She heard the horse again.

  Oh fuck. It was still inside? Who would leave it there to die like that?

  She ran for the back of the trailer and opened the doors. The horse was lying sideways, struggling to get up, but its lead was hitched to a ring toward the front, keeping the animal’s head at a weird angle.

  “Oh, you poor baby! I’ll get you out.” But then what?

  “Hello!” Jack’s deep voice filtered into the trailer.

  “Ohmygod. Jack?” Macie bolted around the side where Jack lay in the ditch, the fallen trailer on his legs.

  “Macie?” The pain in his eyes was obvious, and he was covered in mud.

  “Crap! What happened?” She crouched beside him, attempting to get a better view of his legs.

  “The trailer got stuck in the mud. I tried to shore up the tire, and the whole thing just fell right on me.”

  Oh no. “Can you feel your toes?”

  “Sadly, yes,” he groaned. “And it fucking hurts. Feels like something’s broken.”

  She stood up, scratching her neck, gazing across the field. “The fire is coming right for us.”

  “You need to leave, Macie.”

  She gave him a look like he was mad. Totally mad. “Yeah, I risked my ass getting here so I could leave you, Jack. That was my big plan.”

  “Macie, this isn’t a joke. The trailer is too heavy. You have to go.”

  No. She wasn’t going to do that. She scrambled to the back of the trailer and got inside. “Good horsy. Good horsy. Don’t squish the nice nurse, okay?” She had to climb on top of the animal to unhook the lead.

  “Macie! What are you doing!” Jack yelled, hacking from the smoke.

  “Quiet,” she sang in a sweet calm voice, “or you’ll frighten Mister Ed, and I need to get him out of the pretty, pretty trailer.” She crawled up the animal’s back, patting him.

  “Her name is Miss Happy Pants,” Jack yelled.

  “Of course that’s your name,” Macie sang. “Because your owner is crazy and bakes weird cookies.”

  The horse neighed while Macie lay over part of its neck to unhook the lead attached to the harness on its head.

  “Got it.” But now the trick was getting out of the animal’s way before it tried to stand up in this tilted trailer. Plus, any sharp movements were not good for Jack. His legs were pinned beneath them.

  “Macie! You have to go.”

  Macie glanced out the dirty little window. Shit, shit, shit. The flames were almost to the house. The garden, just between it and the field, was lighting up like a box of matches.

  “Oh, that’s a good, good horsy.” Macie slowly started moving back. “You keep your furry pants right where they are.” Macie reached the horse’s rear right as it jerked up. She fell backward into the muddy ditch, landing with an oomph! Something sharp smacked her hard right on the back of the head. She groaned.

  “Macie! Macie, talk to me. Are you okay?”

  “Oh, so good,” she groaned, cupping her hand to the wound. She’d gashed it and could feel the blood trickling down. “I’ll be fine.” She got to her feet just as Miss Happy Pants backed herself out of the trailer. Oh no. The damned thing was likely going to run off. But what could Macie do? She had nothing to tie the animal with and nothing to tie it to. She had to save Jack and herself first.

  Still, she looked at the thing and pointed. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay right where you are, woman!”

  Macie scrambled around to the side where Jac
k lay, groaning in agony. “You have to go, Macie. Please.”

  “Nope.” She crouched and pressed her back against the tilted trailer.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to lift, and you are going to drag yourself out. Ready?” She panted hard, preparing to lift.

  “It’s too heavy.”

  “Quiet. You’ve never seen me at the gym. Ready? One, two, three.” Macie gripped the edge of the trailer and pushed up and back with her legs. The mud beneath her feet made it difficult to get leverage. Still, she managed to raise the trailer an inch or two. “Go, Jack! Go.” She grunted as he managed to claw his way back. Once he was clear, she dropped the trailer and ran over to him. His right ankle looked busted, but the leg looked okay.

  He rolled onto his ass and smiled at her. “This is the second time you’ve rescued me. I’m feeling very emasculated.”

  “Jokes. We’re about to die and you’re making jokes.”

  Meanwhile, the white horse just stood there with its big brown eyes, as if begging her to take it with them.

  She shook her head and looked at the trailer. “Does the truck have gas?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” All she needed to do was drive forward, making a U-turn. Without the weight of the horse inside, she should be able to pull the trailer out of the ditch and back onto the road. “Come on.” She helped Jack onto his good leg and got him into the truck. The air was thick with smoke now.

  She slid into the driver’s seat and pulled forward slowly. The truck’s back tires spun in the mud.

  “Try four-wheel drive.” Jack pointed to a button on the console.

  Yes! She pushed it, and the lights on the dash lit up, showing all four tires had power. She gave it some gas and slowly turned the truck so that the trailer would go upright as she pulled it at a right angle.

  They suddenly popped up on the road, and the trailer came with them. “Yay!” Engine running, she got out. The horse still stood there. “Come on, horsy, horsy! Get into the nice trailer, trailer!” The horse started trotting away. “No! There’s a fire that way!”