Expectant Father

She’d seen him the other night at a briefing. He’d stood at the rear of the tent, his eyes skimming over her as if she were chopped liver while she explained what the fire would do during the next twelve hours. He didn’t seem to remember that he’d slept with her, which meant he didn’t know he’d helped create the baby she carried.

And she wasn’t about to tell him.

“THEY’RE QUIET,” Cole Hudson said, half under his breath.

“Yeah, too quiet.” Spider considered the somber team of men and women walking the wooded trail behind them. “Chainsaw, you don’t suppose they’re all meditating as we hike, do you?”

“Nope.” Cole hefted his namesake, a thirty-six-inch chain-saw, across his broad shoulders and grinned at Spider before continuing to hike down to base camp. He’d abandoned his chainsaw and day pack containing gasoline when the fire belched this morning, but had been lucky enough to pick up new equipment at the DP.

Spider followed his friend down the steep, winding mountain path. “You think they’re thinking about the fire?”

“Yep.”

The crew, including Spider, had talked excitedly about their hair-singeing escape on the hike back. Spirits still up, they’d recounted their tale to the staffers at the DP while Jackson, better known as Golden, had radioed their situation back to base camp and received instructions to return and debrief IC. And then they’d received the news that they had to hike down the mountain because of some supply snafu, and the team had gotten quiet.

Surviving a run-in with the fire had left Spider feeling like a superhero. That was what he loved about being a Hot Shot—going head-to-head with Mother Nature. Having to walk back to base camp cut him down to size. Admittedly, reality tended to suck after an adrenaline rush like he’d experienced today, leaving him shuffling his booted feet like an old man. Spider imagined the rest of the team felt the same.

He was ready to fill his belly with a hot meal and grab as much sleep as he could before their next shift. But first the group would have to be checked out by the medics, file some reports and obtain more equipment.

“We can’t exactly come down out of the woods looking whipped,” Spider observed. Other crews would give them grief. The Silver Bend Hot Shots were a proud bunch, unused to defeat.

“Nope.”

“I suppose you think we should do something about it.”

“Yep.” Chainsaw swung around to grin at Spider again, nearly taking off Spider’s head with his chainsaw.

Spider ducked and wove to the left. “Couldn’t agree more.” They were a tight-knit group that watched out for each other. Spider had a bad feeling about this fire. It was hungry, and not just for timber and grass. It looked tame, but there were signs that said otherwise.

If Spider saw Socrates he’d tell him what it was like up on the slopes. He’d tell him about the timber as dry and parched as kindling, just waiting for a spark to set it aflame. He’d point out that the seventy-degree slopes were just waiting to trap a fire team and overtake them as they tried to scramble up to safety.

He may consider himself some kind of superhero, but his grandmother hadn’t raised no fool. There were adrenaline-pounding risks, and then there were fool’s errands. Spider hoped this fire wouldn’t turn into the latter.

“It’s not going to look good, us coming into base camp with our tails between our legs.” Logan McCall, the crew’s other assistant superintendent, commented, catching up to them along with Golden.

“Agreed. Any ideas?” Golden asked, looking at each of the three men as he spun his gold wedding band around his ring finger with his thumb.

Spider tilted his head from shoulder to shoulder in an attempt to loosen up. “Yeah, let’s head back to the front line and forget all this political BS.”

Golden looked heavenward. “Sure, let’s head out without Pulaskis.” The combination ax and hoe used to dig out brush as they cleared fuel from a fire’s path was an essential firefighting tool. “Or shovels.”

“Or gas,” Chainsaw added.

“Otherwise, I’d have no problem heading back out to a hungry fire,” Golden concluded.

A hungry fire… Spider couldn’t stop the ominous thought. What was wrong with him? It must be the downside of adrenaline. He had to lighten up. He tried to smile, but only one corner of his mouth seemed to work.

“They’ll be serving dinner soon,” Chainsaw groused, swinging his chainsaw to the ground. “I can’t believe they didn’t have a transport for us down from the DP.”

“I can,” Spider mumbled. Not only had the fire teased them today, but the normally anal, almost military-like structure of NIFC hadn’t yet kicked in full force. Case in point: vehicles without gas. Maybe NIFC thought the fire would burn itself out or be contained in a day or two.

Logan slapped his hand on Spider’s shoulder. “So what are we gonna do about it?”

“I’m schlepping my tired, filthy butt down the mountain, aren’t I?” Spider made a halfhearted protest. He was sweaty from the oppressive heat beneath the fire resistant Nomex pants and long-sleeved shirt that had protected his skin mere hours ago. What he wouldn’t give for a mountain lake or stream to swim in.

“Look at all the gloomy faces.” Chainsaw gestured toward the rest of the group, who started to cluster around them, looking just as hot, tired and beaten as Spider felt.

Normally, he loved being where the action was, making wisecracks to lighten the tension. His Hot Shot lifestyle provided lots of fodder for excitement and amusement, which he gladly spread to keep up team morale.

So why couldn’t he shake the grim feeling that clung to him? Because, he suddenly realized, the crew wasn’t hanging together well. A few were underperforming. Didn’t anyone else see it?

Spider knew a weakened crew could be dangerous—even deadly. He’d been on fires where others had lost their lives, been on fires where the dragon’s breath had singed him, all because the crew members had been distracted, tired or simply fed up with fighting.

Something was going to have to change. First off, the one woman on the team, Victoria, was going to have to either shape up or realize she had no place on his, or any other, Hot Shot crew. He’d have to tell Golden. Thank heavens she was in his unit.

Earlier today, she’d rolled down the cuffs of her protective gloves because it was too hot. And then she’d gotten burned when a smoldering stump she’d been trying to yank out of the ground had flared into flame. It was a rookie mistake, unexpected in a second-year Hot Shot. Spider didn’t know where her mind was, but it wasn’t on her safety or that of the crew’s. Golden liked to nurture and protect his firefighters, but Spider had no patience for underachievers.

Then there was the fact that his father was working on this fire on another crew. Even though his dad had more than twenty years experience, the guy had no legs. You could see the pain on his face with each deliberate step he took. If things got ugly and his crew had to race to safety as Spider’s had, his dad wouldn’t make it. He didn’t know who had let the old man pass his physical last spring, but someone should make him retire.

“This situation isn’t hopeless, just pretty damn depressing,” Golden said with a shake of his head. “Let’s move.”

Hopeless? It didn’t matter that Spider couldn’t find a happy thought at the moment. Nothing was supposed to be that bad.

Spider forced a grin on his face. “Wait. I’ve got an idea.”

“COME ON, BABY,” Becca spoke under her breath. “Move your butt so I can feel my leg.” The baby had shifted and was resting on something that cut off the circulation in her right leg, which now felt as if it were sandbagged as she forced her way uphill.

Sometimes being pregnant was sucky, but it would all be worth it in the end.

Becca didn’t usually let anything slow her down or get in the way of her goals. A planner by nature, she was working toward a fire behavior management position at NIFC’s headquarters in Boise. She’d do just about anything NIFC wanted her to do to be given the job, because there was no way she could chase fires from one forest to another all summer long and raise this baby.

The Boise position meant giving up being in the trenches, crafting attack strategies to make firefighters’ lives safer, but it was a trade-off Becca was willing to make in order to have a child of her own. She’d focused too long on her career, letting the chance for romance, marriage and babies pass her by. To get the job, she had to appear tough and in control for just a few more weeks, in spite of her pregnancy, which slowed her down in ways she hadn’t expected.

The baby sure hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to slow down. It considered her bladder a trampoline and her rib cage a punching bag. Her baby was go-go-go, just like Aiden Rodas.

Becca groaned.

She did not want to think about Aiden—not his smile, not his enthusiasm, not his unique observations on life. He’d actually told her that nothing in life should be harder than checkers. He didn’t realize life required complicated planning.

“Do you want some dried fruit?” Julia asked, dangling a plastic bag filled with the snack toward her.

Becca took an apricot.

“Shouldn’t we have seen them by now?” Julia asked with a crinkle of plastic. She hadn’t wanted to leave base camp and hike out to meet the Silver Bend crew. Julia was a sweet thing until she left her comfort zone.

Ironically, the great out-of-doors seemed beyond Julia’s comfort zone. It was an aspect of Julia’s character that frustrated Becca, yet she felt her assistant would overcome it. After all, there was no way Julia could have assumed a Fire Behavior Analyst would work in a nice air-conditioned office, was there?

“Why don’t we rest here and take a reading?” Becca suggested, ignoring Julia’s question. She slung her lightweight backpack to the ground and dug around until she found her handheld weather meter, grateful to be distracted from thoughts of Aiden.