The Complete Hotshots

by M. L. Buchman

  That got her some good laughs. Even the old hands appreciated the dark humor of it. She knew that at least three of them besides herself had ridden out a burnover under a shelter. And several of them had friends among the Yarnell 19 who died in 2013; the manzanita-fed flames too hot for even the foil shelters’ protection.

  Luke Rawlings, however, looked at her as if she’d just committed a crime against humanity. His expression had gone dark enough that she suddenly feared for her safety.

  No. It wasn’t her he was looking at.

  He was looking at something that wasn’t in the grass clearing, but rather in his past. Well, she pitied whoever had put that look on his face, because she’d wager they hadn’t survived long after whatever they’d done to piss him off.

  She made it a policy to not pull a recruit’s application file during the ten-day trial, but she’d broken down last night. U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Luke Rawlings, retired. That explained some things, but not others. She’d fought fire beside plenty of ex-soldiers before, though none as quietly competent as Rawlings. Many hadn’t been able to face the fire itself when it came down to reality: some froze, some ran, and one got the shakes so bad they had to medevac him out.

  Luke was steady. Always helping the rawest rookies get their feet under them with a gentle word and a clear demonstration. Infinitely patient, he kept working with them until they really had it. He’d be a good man to have around.

  Erase that, Cantrell. Mr. Ex-Navy Luke Altman would be a good firefighter to have around. She just wished she could stop thinking about the man who watched her as much as she was watching him.

  Usually about half of the former soldiers would be weeded out by the fire shelter deployment exercise.

  It was something of a surprise when she realized that she really hoped Luke wasn’t one of those.

  4

  Deep breathing barely pulled Luke back from the edge.

  Pine scent.

  Not jungle.

  Dry air.

  Better.

  He’d been civilian for six months now, and no day was easier. The only easy day was yesterday! He kept repeating the SEAL motto to himself, but it wasn’t helping. “Yesterday” had totally sucked as well.

  There was no way to predict when it was going to slap him; half his team gone between one breath and the next.

  They’d been deep in the Democratic Republic of the Congo having a quiet moment in a quiet town. The woman had strolled by where they were eating lunch with a basket of melons balanced on her head. The brightly-colored flowing kanga had hidden only parts of her fine form; the part that had been five kilos of explosives. The blast had ripped her, half his team, and one whole end of a Congolese market to shreds.

  He did his best to focus on Candace Cantrell’s lecture about how to deploy a fire shelter.

  Breathe in the dry pine.

  Piece by piece he forced his brain back together.

  Only easy day was yesterday.

  U.S. soil, not the Congo.

  Training here—way easier than any single day of BUD/S.

  Essential survival techniques that didn’t include flak vests and Kevlar helmets. Weapons of the forest were a Pulaski tool and a chainsaw, not an M-249 SAW machine gun and Barrett M107 sniper rifle.

  Luke dug the toe of his boot into the thick mountain bunch grass, appreciating Candace’s steady manner and calm voice. Getting easily lost in it. She’d been growing more and more crucial to his daily control, his well being.

  Anyone who’d served and said that each day wasn’t a massive struggle was only lying to himself. But being around Candace made that struggle seem worthwhile.

  That thought finally kicked him all the way out of his downloop and left him blinking at her in surprise.

  She was important to him.

  How the hell had that happened?

  Women were…not like her. It’s like she was a different breed or species or something. A better one.

  Some part of his brain, trained by far too many officer harangues, had kept up with the lecture. She now stood close enough that he could smell her—like sweet honey and glacier-fed streams—as she had him stepping into the shelter, pulling it up over his back and his head, and lying down with his face in a hole dug into the dirt.

  “Keep your face in the hole, it’s where the air is coolest,” Candace called out loud enough to be heard easily through the shelter. “Feet to the fire. Your team leader may call out a last moment shift. If so, you keep your face in the hole and rotate your feet around. Do not, I repeat, do not lift the edge of your shelter. That is a life-and-death decision. The edges stay down even when you think you’ll go mad.”

  Great! Just what Luke needed, another reason to lose it.

  “Fire is loud. Freight train loud. It will try to rip away your shelter. Don’t let it.”

  And then all hell broke loose.

  His shelter slapped down on him!

  A thunderclap of noise!

  He was back in battle! God, no!

  He fought the urge to scream.

  Struggled for focus.

  Orders.

  His commander had said to hold fast. To stay down. Under cover. He gripped the edges of his shelter harder than he’d clutched the stock of his MP5N machine pistol as he was blown backward into a goat merchant’s stall. Gripped so hard he wondered that his fingers didn’t break.

  He heard a voice yelling out, “Stay under the shelter!” Candace’s voice.

  The blast moved away, battered another shelter nearby, returned! Then moved off again. It was…the spray of a fire hose off the wildfire engine. Water began to trickle under the edge of the shelter.

  Shit.

  Not a bomb.

  Not a war.

  He racked in a painful breath. Just a test with water. No cracked ribs this time, he could breathe. He started laughing…then crying. Mickey, Ralph, Doug; shooting the shit over Ndakala fish curry one second and scattered in pieces the next.

  Water flowed under the edge of the shelter and he couldn’t stop it.

  Couldn’t stop it as it flowed out of his eyes as well.

  For the first time in the year since he’d lost them, he wept into his dirt hole in the ground as the cleansing water washed over and under him inside the safety of his little shelter.

  A woman’s voice kept calling to him that it would all be okay, just stay safe.

  5

  Candace sat at the edge of the grass clearing, outside the circle of firelight, and watched the final twenty sitting around the campfire. Day Ten, they’d made it. And just as importantly, so had she. The Leavenworth IHC was happening.

  Dad and the department’s mostly volunteer crew had delivered hotdogs and burgers with all the trimmings, massive bags of chips, and local craft beer. The whole team’s laughter had that easy confidence of a crew who’d formed up well.

  She really had done it.

  Another three weeks of serious training and she’d list the team as ready for call out. They’d done a carefully controlled prescribed burn on Day Eight and not a one of them had flinched, which boded well. The only test left was one she couldn’t arrange, facing an angry wildfire on the run. That final trial she’d have to leave up to the whim of Mother Nature and the needs of the U.S. Forest Service.

  “Thinking pretty hard there, Cantrell.” Luke handed her a fresh beer then waved his own at the spot beside her, asking permission before he sat on the grass.

  “I do that sometimes,” she nodded for him to join her. He did, stretching out his legs and leaning back on his elbows, but not too close. That southern gentleman. Another thing that made him such a standout from normal guys.

  Having sought her out, he remained silent.

  “Something shifted for you during the training. Something big.” When he’d gone under the shelter, she’d thought she was going to lose him for sure, but when he’d emerged…

  His shrug was noncommittal. Guy speak for maybe.

  “All your pieces fit
.”

  “Say what?” That got his attention away from the team around the campfire to studying her closely out here in the shadows.

  “When you first showed up, it’s like you were fractured. All made up of different pieces that didn’t really fit together. That’s gone now.”

  Again that long quiet study. She didn’t turn to face him. Couldn’t. A team was just that, especially when you were the leader. By season’s end, these people would be as close as brothers and sisters—to her, to each other. But Luke Rawlings made her wish for different things. Things she’d rather he didn’t see.

  “Pretty forthright there.”

  His accusation was accurate so she didn’t waste time denying it.

  He turned to watch the fire once more.

  She hoped she hadn’t scared him off. Though he didn’t look like a man who scared easily.

  “You remind me of my last commander. Lieutenant Commander Altman was about as straight ahead as they come.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “You have no idea, lady. Compliments don’t come any higher. And SEAL commanders don’t come any better than Altman.”

  “You’re a SEAL?” she finally turned to look at him and discovered his dark eyes studying her from close by.

  “Past tense.”

  “No wonder you’re so damn good at everything. Besides, is there such a thing as a past tense SEAL?”

  He grimaced, “Not really.”

  She’d never met— “I’ve never met anyone like you. You just seem so—” safe. A job didn’t get much less safe than leading an Interagency Hotshot Crew, no matter that safety was their number one priority. “—so…Shit!” Words were failing her beneath his dark gaze.

  “Never met a woman like you either ‘Not Candy’ Cantrell.” His deep voice was a little rough. “Can’t seem to stop thinking about you. Even invading my damned dreams.” He looked disgusted.

  “Wet ones, Mr. SEAL?”

  His easy laugh wrapped around them both acknowledging the pun and the way she’d learned to deal with that line head on.

  “White dress ones, lady.”

  Candace could feel herself freezing up. Yet another man who thought she belonged in some neat bride-wifely pigeonhole. So not her.

  “White dress made of Nomex,” Luke mused half to himself. “How’s that for an amazing image?”

  Nomex was the material used in making fire gear, became a second skin to a hotshot. Luke dreamed of her as a firefighter? Every man she’d ever been with had tried to talk her out of it. To him, or at least his subconscious, it was an integral part of her. Something no one else except her father had ever understood.

  She’d never been a big one on dreams, never remembered the ones at night, or made up ones during the day. But she couldn’t deny that she’d had her eye, and her thoughts, on Luke Altman since the day he’d stepped off his big Harley and joined the hotshot trials.

  She could feel him watching her by the warm shadows of firelight. Quiet like a SEAL and patient like a gentleman. Strong enough to sweep her away and safe enough that she’d never think he’d do something without permission.

  Turning to study him, she did her best to look inside herself, never one of her strengths.

  Did she want to grant that permission?

  Big time.

  Well, he’d called you forthright as a compliment, so what are you waiting on?

  Nothing.

  Candace leaned down to kiss him.

  After an initial grunt of surprise, he proved that cutting down trees and digging soil weren’t the only things he was exceptionally skilled at. She melted against his heat until they both groaned together.

  She could feel their smiles start in that instant and continue to grow. When it threatened to turn into laughter of sheer joy, she moved back until she too was resting against the soft grasses on her elbows and facing the campfire and the celebrating crews.

  So, her heart wanted to race as fast as his Harley?

  She’d let it.

  “Going to be an interesting summer, Mr. Hotshot,” Candace did her best to keep her tone casual as the heat continued to ripple deliciously through her body.

  “I’m thinking it could be a whole lot more than one of them…” he paused long enough for her to turn and see his smile, “…Sweet Candy Fire.”

  Candace turned back to the fire, but could feel her smile going goofy.

  She was thinking exactly the same thing.

  Firelights of Christmas

  Patsy Jurgen’s first season as foreman of a wildfire hotshot crew burns up her nervous energy. She fights to do her best for her crew and to create the firefighting career she always dreamed of. Falling in love? An unwanted distraction.

  Sam Parker bought the bakery in the mountain resort town of Leavenworth, Washington. He intends to bury all memory of his last relationship in an avalanche of Bavarian treats. Woman-free? Definitely the way to go.

  But neither of them counted on the heat of the Firelights of Christmas.

  Introduction

  This was my first story character who was inspired by another short story rather than a novel. I hadn’t yet realized that I was writing a short story series about hotshots rather than just a story or two about them. Actually at the time I wrote this I had written less than a dozen short stories…ever. And never before had I thought of a short story series at all.

  But merely being the boss’ assistant wasn’t enough for Patsy Jurgen and she demanded her own story, in her quiet yet very insistent way.

  And with December fast approaching, a Christmastime setting seemed eminently sensible. It wasn’t a long stretch to incorporate one of my wife’s favorite year-round Christmas stores. The one in the heart of Leavenworth, Washington is fantastic.

  Leavenworth was just another struggling mountain town when its citizens decided to reconceive itself as a Bavarian resort. The town’s architecture was restructured in a timber-and-white-stucco style. A village square was formed, complete with a gazebo for a brass quartet playing Christmas carols. The massive investment paid off hugely. Rather than dying off like so many former timber towns, this one has thrived in its remote mountain fastness.

  When we lived closer, we’d make a special trip there to purchase that year’s new ornament and wander the snow-filled streets. A dinner of bratwurst with a stein of beer was, of course, in order.

  It is also a town that attracts people ready to step back from the big city pressures of Seattle. Hence, Patty finds her baker.

  1

  “Rise and shine,” Patsy Jurgen swept down the hall of the Cascade Hotshots barracks. This was their first wildland firefighting season, the newest hotshot team in the country. And the worn-out, board-and-batten building was their new home. She thumped the side of her fist once on each wooden door, making them rattled loudly on old hinges.

  She smiled to herself. It had taken her six years to make foreman of an Interagency Hotshot Crew and this was about the nicest place she’d ever lived. She’d heard some of the new recruits griping good-naturedly about a “hardship post.” Once the fire season hit, they wouldn’t be in residence here in Leavenworth, Washington all that often. And after their first month or so walking to the wildfires, they’d bless having running water, a cot, and a roof that only leaked a little.

  After two weeks of recruit selection and three more of intense training, the twenty hotshots had really come together. The old hands and the new were blending well. They had yet to be tested by anything more strenuous than a prescribed burn to cut fuel levels in untended fields around the mountain town, but she knew the real thing would be happening all too soon.

  Not soon enough for her.

  Candace Cantrell’s phone call that she was forming up the Cascade IHC had brought Patsy running. Cantrell had been a kick-ass foreman on the San Juan IHC and Patsy wanted to lead her own crew someday. She couldn’t ask for a better slot that being Cantrell’s foreman, her Number Two. Of course she had to share that partic
ular slot, one super and two foremen to a crew.

  Jess Monroe, the other foreman, opened his barrack door before she could thump it.

  “Yeah, yeah! I’m up already, Jurgen.” He didn’t look it, but she knew from overlapping him on various crews over the years that he wasn’t a morning person and the only thing that really woke him up fast was a fire. He wore shorts, and nothing else. He was hotshot fit, muscle rippled along his legs and chest.

  “Day one, Monroe.” Candace had just informed her team last night that she’d let the Forest Service know the Cascade IHC was ready for call out. A real testament to her skill as a superintendent that they’d trained up so fast, because Patsy agreed. They were ready.

  “Day one,” he looked down at his watch. “Still early yet. Wanna come in and celebrate?” He held the door a little wider. As foreman, he had a room to himself instead of a two-bunk, just as she did.

  “I think you’re still dreaming, Jess.” The man would flirt with a burning tree. He never pushed; teasing women was just some kind of a game to him. Most flirted back and they all seemed to have fun with it. A skill she’d never had nor wanted. She reached out and pulled his door shut—with him on one side and her on the other.

  It wasn’t that early. She’d woken everyone just early enough to ease into it and eat before the day’s planned exercise.

  Candace and Luke Rawlings, one of the newest recruits, had gotten a small apartment also close by the fire station. The heat between them was amazing to watch; it was just so…right. Candace had always been deadly serious about hotshotting; fire chief’s daughter, no big surprise. But with Luke she glowed like, well, like she was happy.

  Patsy hadn’t seen that one coming at all. Candace was so dedicated to wildfire that she had become a role model for Patsy. Her suddenly finding love was like a crack in Patsy’s worldview—one she still didn’t know what to do with.