The Complete Hotshots

by M. L. Buchman

  But Patsy hadn’t taken some unintended offense. Instead, she’d remarked that if his business sense was as good as his food sense, he was set for life. It was good, but he’d signed up for an on-line business course that night to make sure of it.

  She was more reticent than he was, but once she started a tale, she told it without any attempt to evade or be embarrassed by it. She told the good with the bad as if the past was of no consequence at all.

  He worried less about the past the more time they spent together.

  What he hadn’t expected was to, once more, start looking forward to the future. That was a skill Christie had taken in the divorce that he was only now rediscovering.

  He went through disappointment that he didn’t hear from Patsy. Then anger. Surely the woman could find the damned time to text the man she’d just had sex with. Maybe that’s all she’d wanted, one good screw, and was now done with him. He knew that was wrong about her, but it didn’t stop it from swirling through his mind like folding a meringue time and again until it was totally flat and useless—an immensely frustrating twenty-four hours.

  When he still didn’t hear from her, he shifted over to fear that she’d been injured or killed and no one would know to tell him.

  After two nights in a row of lost sleep, he went down to the Leavenworth fire station for lack of any better idea.

  Captain Carl Cantrell was in his office.

  Patsy had talked a lot, for her, about Candace Cantrell—the fire chief’s daughter and head of the Cascade Hotshots. Practically worshipped the ground the woman walked on.

  “Patsy?” Cantrell had offered him an easy smile. “She’s still off on the Silver King Fire. Just heard from my girl last night on the radio. She thinks they’ll have it contained in another day, two max. Once they can hand it off to a Type 2 mop-up crew, they’ll be back, unless there’s another blow-up.”

  On the radio. Not somewhere she could call, which could explain why Patsy hadn’t called. No phone service.

  Type 2? Not a clue.

  At least he knew what “mop-up” looked like, columns of fire erupting from ground that pretended to be black and dead.

  Blow-up he definitely didn’t like the sound of.

  “You the one put that smile on her face?”

  Sam was tempted to avoid answering, but could feel the smile of relief on his own, knowing she was fine, just out doing her job.

  “I hope that’s because of me.”

  Cantrell just kept grinning, “Keep it up, son. That smile looks good on her. She takes it all far too seriously.”

  “Well, she fights fires for a living,” he felt himself getting deeply protective of her.

  The man held up his hands in a placating motion. “Do some of that myself.”

  Right, this is the Fire Chief, you dolt.

  “She’s a good one and I’ve seen enough to know. Maybe as good as my Candace, though if you say in front of my daughter I’ll deny it. Just needs someone to lighten her up a bit.”

  Deeply comforted by the news and the Captain’s words, Sam headed back into town to wait. He wanted to get her something. Something to tell her that he thought she was incredible.

  As he passed the Christmas shop, he knew just what to get.

  12

  Back in town Patsy crawled out of The Box and into the shower. Eight days on the first fire of the season. She’d slept…hmm, she was sure she’d slept at some point. They’d coyoted for much of the fire, lying down in their gear right where they finished a shift—usually twenty-four to thirty-six hours long—and slept until the fire made an aggressive move and you were on your feet again—usually way too soon.

  She plunged into her first shower in all that time and let the stink wash down the drain with the char. Clothes in the wash.

  She came to, standing upright and staring down at her bunk. Yes, she should just do a faceplant and hope nothing burned in the next twenty-four hours. But she didn’t want to.

  Instead, she was halfway to town before she knew what she wanted. Her brain was definitely moving slower than her body.

  Eight days.

  All Sam Parker had gotten from her in eight days was silence. Would he still want to see her? She thought so. She hoped so.

  It was amazing how much he’d been in her head through all that time.

  Instead of just living the moment of the fire, she wanted to tell him about it. The little victories, the staggering defeats, and the return to battle until it was won. There was no option, winning is what hotshots did, engaging the fire until it was down and done.

  She didn’t think that Sam would need a bribe in order to want her back. But she wanted to take him something to let him know she’d been thinking of him.

  13

  Sam had decided to hang out late in the bakery that day even though his assistants had it covered. Late morning he’d gotten a call from the Fire Chief.

  “They’re home. Doesn’t look like they’ve slept much, probably shower and sack time, but I thought you’d want to know.”

  He left the back door open as he worked in the kitchen. It was after lunch when a shadow cut the light pouring into the kitchen, even as he made some notes to try next time on the banana muffins.

  He turned to see her, for he had no doubt it would be Patsy. Something inside him just knew.

  She stood there, framed in the sunlit doorway. Instead of her fire gear, she wore shorts and sneakers that revealed those powerful legs that had been clamped so tight around his waist that one morning.

  Her t-shirt was bright red with a jagged yellow line like mountain peaks, but also like fire. Block letters spelled out, “Silver King Fire” and the year. It hugged her curves in ways that just begged for him to explore them.

  Her golden hair caught the sunlight like a halo of fire.

  “I got you something,” she held up a small bag that he recognized.

  Sam reached under the counter and pulled out a similar bag, “I know it’s only June, but it just seemed right.”

  He actually felt awkward as they exchanged bags; it was a surprisingly intimate moment. They began to open them together on the steel prep table.

  He pulled out a string of lights and couldn’t help smiling. It was a totally ridiculous string of tiny baked goods: cakes, éclairs, and cookies.

  Sam waited while she finished upwrapping her own set of “Fiery Twinkle Lights.” He snagged the plug and put it into the outlet under the lip of the counter, then he plugged in his string to hers. Together they all flashed on and hers began to flicker like fire.

  “They look good together,” her voice was soft, on the verge of that rare laugh he’d so come to enjoy.

  “They do,” he agreed. Then he looked up at her, “You look incredible.”

  “So do you,” she took a step closer and nodded toward the steel prep table, the reflection doubling the lights. “It looks like between us we have a good start on a Christmas tree.”

  “A very good beginning,” Sam moved in a step, could feel the warmth of Patsy Junger’s heat spreading through him as that lopsided smile of hers broke free.

  “I bet that between us, we could make an incredible tree by December.” She slid into his arms and wrapped her own arms around his back. She rested her head against his shoulder.

  “I’m sure you’re right.”

  And she was.

  There had never been a gift so perfect as this woman in his arms.

  Fire Light Cabin Bright

  Hotshot Tori Ellison loves fighting wildfire. Her passion runs so deep that her firefighter nickname “Ginger” came from her team leader’s never-say-enough ball-chasing Labrador.

  Colin James chose his mountain cabin hideaway to write his next novel and recover from his ex-wife. When Tori lands face first in his vegetable garden to warn him of an approaching wildfire, a whole new chapter opens before them.

  Now if they can just avoid getting burned in the Fire Light Cabin Bright.

  Introduction


  Being on an Interagency Hotshot Crew is brutally tough. These teams, twenty in a pack, ride in a small truck called a “Box.” It is tightly cramped with gear and firefighters, and it is also the very core of their operation. The Box delivers these teams as close as they can to a wildfire, then they load up with heavy gear and tools (often fifty to seventy pounds worth), and walk to the fire—typically miles over horrendous terrain to even reach the firefight. Once there, the battle against the fire is a hand-waged war that allows few breaks and even less sleep.

  For five to seven months every summer, they battle fire with only very rare days off. Their pay is unimpressive (off season many make the ends meet working as bartenders or ski patrol at winter resorts), but their drive is powerful and heartfelt. These are people who love the wilderness and the firefight and give it all they have—it is also far too dangerous to give it less. They are often literally toe-to-toe with the fire.

  There are some women now qualifying in these positions and proving that they have what it takes. These are strong, powerful women with a bloody-minded level of perseverance when it comes to fighting fire.

  For people who like the obscure connections that I sometimes build into my stories, Tori is inspired to fight fire by a brief fling with the smokejumper Akbar the Great in Firehawks book #1 Pure Heat.

  Tori is also an homage to a college friend. Whenever I think of someone who knew no fear of trying something new, it was her. When cancer took her only a decade later, it was like a light had gone out in the world. I wanted to give her the future she deserved but never had time to find.

  And when I was trying to think of who Tori would be running up against in this romance, I wanted someone as opposite from her as I could find. So I chose a writer…and wished him luck.

  Thankfully, it turned out that he had some ideas of his own to surprise Tori.

  1

  Just as some days are hotter than others, some fires are hotter than others. And the Checker Mill Fire was a scorcher.

  Tori Ellison checked her watch but couldn’t see it. Even shining her helmet headlamp on it didn’t really help. Her eyes were lack-of-sleep sore and they stung from smoke and salty sweat. She couldn’t taste anything but that salt and the char that it collected as it dribbled down her face; the peanut and dark chocolate flavor of her energy bar hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes before being overwhelmed.

  She’d volunteered to scout what lay over the next ridge while the rest of her Hotshot fire crew crashed out for an hour. She was supposed to go ten minutes out and ten back, but couldn’t seem to focus on the watch to tell how long she’d been gone. Three minutes? Fifteen? She no longer knew.

  It was zero-dark-thirty, like the military guys said, which was all that really mattered.

  Where was here? She wasn’t so sure of that either.

  She was always doing dumb, impulsive things like this. In college one of her nicknames had been the Energizer Bunny because she’d never had the sense to stop until she dropped. The Bunny part had been shed after she’d punched a particularly obnoxious frat boy hard enough to shatter his nose.

  When Tori hit the fire line, her new firefighter nickname was Ginger within three days.

  It wasn’t that her hair was red—she was a bob-cut blond. The crew chief, Candace Cantrell, had grown up with a Labrador named Ginger who also never knew when to stop.

  A low-hanging Douglas fir branch slapped in her face because she was too weary to step around it. At least it was green and smelled of life and fresh pine. She felt bolstered by its presence; it was standing in the cool forest night, trusting her and her team to save it from the encroaching wildfire.

  Tori trudged by it and promised to do her best—trudged because trotting was long past her abilities at the moment. They’d come off the Bell Creek Fire along Washington’s Skagit River less than forty-eight hours ago and now had been on the Checker Mill for the last thirty-six straight. The Cascade Mountains were rough and she normally liked the challenge…when she was conscious.

  She crested the low ridge in a thick stand of trees. It would take a lot of cutting to clear a fire line here if they had to. Too tired to even dodge the branches, she raised her arms in front of her face and ploughed through the heart of the stand.

  The trees gave way the moment before her feet snarled in thick vines and she face-planted on the ground.

  Her radio crackled, “Ginger, check in.”

  “Yo, Candace.” The ground was soft. Well-tilled soil cool against her cheek. She didn’t waste extra effort trying to stand up. It felt so good to lie down, for even a moment.

  “Report.”

  “Hard-ass,” Tori teased her. Since it was something the Hotshot team’s leader was proud of, it was a safe call. “Trees much thicker at the ridge. Eight to eighteen-inch diameter Doug fir. Can’t see much else.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Lying on the ground,” she looked around to try and be more specific, and was confronted by something large and green. Big enough to completely block her view. “In a zucchini patch.”

  “A residence?”

  That would be bad news. Needing to defend a residence, or worse a neighborhood, could drastically change a fire attack plan.

  “Ginger?”

  “Hang on. Hang on. Sheesh!” Tori forced her arms beneath her and levered herself upward. They shook with the effort. She’d really tapped herself out this time; right out to the limits.

  Once upright she twisted her head side to side to swing the headlamp around.

  “I’m in a vegetable garden,” she reported.

  “You’re in my vegetable garden, ‘Ginger’,” a deep male voice sounded from the dark.

  She twisted the lamp around and found a mountain man standing about ten feet down a row of tomatoes. Except he wasn’t hairy, messy, or clad in rotting animal skins. He wore gym shorts and a frown. She couldn’t see his eyes because he had his arm raised to protect them from the glare of her lamp, but from the nose down was very fine. Not a six-pack ab guy, but no extra bits either.

  “Who are you? And why were you eavesdropping on my private conversation?”

  “My name’s Colin James. And if you’re in my garden on the radio, how private can your conversation be?”

  Tori hit the transmit key, “I’m in Colin’s secret garden. And he’s just as much of a know-it-all as the one in the book.”

  “If Dickon shows up, he’s mine,” Candace replied. “I always had a crush on Dickon.”

  Tori heard a soft Hey! in the background, probably Candace’s husband Luke, a top member of the IHC crew.

  “What are you doing in my squash?” the man asked from behind his raised arm.

  “Well, that’s no way to address a lady, Colin.”

  2

  Her voice was the only thing that distinguished her as one. Colin had been lying out in the hammock watching the stars—it was too beautiful and warm a night to stay in his cabin—when he’d heard a hard grunt and rustle from his vegetable garden.

  It had sounded human rather than ursine—he didn’t worry about bears here…much. When he’d looked, there was a light shining low under his plants. Not stopping for shoes or a flashlight, he raced out to scare away the poacher. He’d put a lot of time and care into his garden and no midnight skulker was going to rob him.

  He’d been stopped in his tracks by what he found. Between the zucchini and the pumpkins lay a fully clad firefighter, and one that was making no effort to get up.

  By the reflected light off the nearby leaves, Colin had seen a hardhat that might have once been yellow under all the soot. The firefighter wore similarly colored jacket and pants, heavy boots, and a small pack. One hand clutched a nasty-looking axe and the other a handheld radio.

  And then the firefighter had spoken and turned out to be a she. Named Ginger.

  “If you’re lying in my vegetables, I’ll address you any way I choose. And get that light out of my eyes.”

  “Oh, sorry,” she turne
d the lamp toward the ground.

  He had a brief glimpse of an oval face and a hint of blond hair before she flicked it off and they were plunged into darkness. He blinked hard, but his night vision was shot and wouldn’t be back for several minutes.

  He couldn’t see, but he could hear that she hadn’t moved.

  “Are you planning to just lie there all night among my veggies?”

  She giggled. “You have a very comfortable garden.” A firefighter who giggled.

  “What are you doing here anyway?”

  “Uh,” Ginger paused. “I’m here because…” she sounded as if she was trying to figure that out for herself, “…oh, yeah. I’m here because there’s a forest fire in the next valley over. I’m the scout.”

  Suddenly a dozen things he hadn’t paid any real attention to earlier in the day made sense. He’d kept smelling wood smoke, but no one in their right mind would have their fireplace going on such a hot day. Besides, he was pretty sure that he had no neighbors for a long way in any direction.

  Also there had been clouds to the north, but he hadn’t really paid attention. The novel was finally going well and he hadn’t been outside all day. Yet another reason he’d retired to the hammock with the sunset. Now though, he remembered that the clouds had been an odd color for a lightning storm, too dark.

  There’d also been the sound of helicopters, but they were often used in logging operations. Maybe not so much today.

  “How close?” he swallowed hard.

  “A mile or so. I seem to have lost track.”

  “What kind of a firefighter are you?”

  “An exhausted one.”

  “Here,” he reached out into the dark. “Let me help you up.”

  Somehow they found each other’s hands. But when he braced a foot forward to pull her up, he stepped barefoot right on a planting stake. He tumbled forward onto her with an exclamation on his part and a curse on hers.