by Rachel Lee
Mary started, surprised that he had joined her. She wondered if he was going to stick like a burr to her. And if so, why. “It looks like a forest fire,” she said flatly.
His face, only dimly illuminated by the lanterns behind them and the glow from the fire, looked dark, a ruddy black. His shaggy white eyebrows seemed to glow with their own light. They lifted. “You don’t believe in hell?”
“Oh, I believe in it, all right. I just don’t think we agree on what it is.”
“I see.”
She averted her face, hoping he would take the hint and leave her alone. He didn’t.
She heard what at first sounded like the rush of running water. But then, as the pitch-black treetops began to sway against the slightly lighter sky, and as the kiss of the breeze nipped at her ears, she knew what it was. The wind was coming up strongly.
Not just the earlier occasional gust, this was strong, steady. Exactly what they didn’t need.
At first it seemed content to sweep the mountain-top and ignore the valley. Mary tensed as she waited, hoping against hope it wouldn’t sweep down the slopes and spread the fire. Beside her, she heard Elijah begin a low-voiced prayer. Almost instinctively, she reached out and took his hand, silently joining him. To her surprise, she felt him squeeze her fingers.
And she wondered yet again why Elijah seemed to be haunting her.
6
Dawn seeped through the smoky haze, bringing a dim gray light to the men who had struggled all night to build a firebreak below Edgerton Pass. Even though the fire was nowhere near reaching them yet, the area still looked as if it had been bombed out. Trees had been cut down, and during the night bulldozers had arrived to shove them away from the cleared area. Now there was nothing to be seen except a wide, barren strip they hoped the fire couldn’t cross. There was still more work to be done, more land to be cleared, but the crew that had worked all night was being dismissed as replacements arrived.
Sam was among those leaving. He climbed into his truck, offering rides to some of the other men. The air reeked of wood smoke, enough to make their eyes burn. All of them wore kerchiefs over their mouths.
Climbing up the pass didn’t make it any better. It was like driving through a pea-soup fog that stank of burning pitch. It was as if he could have driven off the end of the world at any moment.
The command center at the top of the pass was a hive of activity, but this morning almost all the faces were new. George Griffin was still there, though, handing over the reins to his replacement.
Sam parked, letting the other guys out to go to their own cars. He went over to George and asked, “What’s the news?”
“Not good.” George sighed. His eyes were red from the smoke, and his face had a gray cast to it. Most of the faces did. Soot was settling everywhere. “We’ve got four different fires burning now, maybe twenty-five hundred acres each. Hard to tell how bad it is right now, though.”
It certainly was. Once again the pall of smoke concealed the fires and most of the valley.
“Go on home,” George said. “Get some sleep. We’re going to need all the rested help we can get later.”
That didn’t sound good, Sam thought as he headed back to his truck. Not good at all. He didn’t have any experience with forest fires, but he’d read some about them. Fighting them was never easy, and in a place like this, with no road access to the burning area, it was even worse. Everything out there was fuel.
The air stirred a little, and fine ash sprinkled over him. He hardly noticed it; it had been happening all night. Right now he needed his bed and about ten hours of sleep. He figured he could only allow himself six or seven, though. He would have to get back up here as soon as he could.
“Hi.” Mary stepped toward him, looking as gray as the rest of them in the dim morning light. Her eyes, too, were red-rimmed and watery looking.
“You’re still here?” he asked.
She nodded. “I promised your father I’d make sure you got back here safely.”
“My father?” Cripes. Just what he needed to think about right now. Anger stirred in him, a not-quite-sleeping beast. “What the hell does he care?”
“He seems to.” She shrugged. “Can I hitch a ride to town? No car.”
“Sure. Yeah, sure.” He opened the passenger door for her, then slammed it after she’d slid onto the seat. His father. Of all the damn things…
The man hadn’t given a single damn about him in fifteen years, at least. Why the hell was he concerned about Sam’s health now?
A show, maybe? Perhaps it was uncomfortable for a minister of God to have people know he wasn’t even speaking to his son. That could well be. Make it look as if it was all Sam’s fault. As far as Elijah was concerned, everything was Sam’s fault anyway, and always had been.
But it was way too late for the prodigal son routine. Way too late.
Sam headed the truck down the winding road, taking the corners just a little too fast.
“Sam?” Mary spoke. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. What kind of crap is he shoveling, anyway?”
“I don’t know. Are you sure it’s crap?”
He glanced at her, his eyes still burning. Just the smoke, he told himself. “Yeah, I’m sure. He’s the man who called me the day after my wife’s funeral and told me her death was a punishment for my sins.”
“Oh, no!” Mary’s tone was full of distress. “Oh, Sam.”
He took the next corner practically on two wheels and forced himself to slow down. Maybe he didn’t care if he died, but he cared that Mary didn’t. “I’m sorry I missed dinner,” he said, changing the subject.
“It’s okay. Maggie told me you were up here. The fire’s more important.”
“Thanks for understanding.”
“There’s nothing to understand.”
But he couldn’t leave the subject of his father alone. It was like a scab that itched, and he couldn’t ignore it. “What did he say to you, anyway?”
“Elijah? Not a whole lot. He doesn’t seem like a very talkative man.”
“Huh. That’s a surprise. Used to be he could never shut up. Always thundering about something and never listening.”
“Maybe he’s improved with age.”
Sam wasn’t even going to toy with that idea. Elijah was Elijah. Lions didn’t turn into lambs. “That’s about as likely as a leopard changing its spots. Besides, what’s one of the first things he said to you?”
“Something about the books I use to teach literature.”
“Exactly. Give him until the school year starts, then he’ll be out to cleanse the school library.”
“I hope not.”
Sam shook his head and braked for another turn. “Waste of effort. He’ll do it. He’ll also probably try to close down the X-rated video rental room at Baker’s Video Rental. Not that I like those things, but…”
“I always thought it was good they put those tapes out of sight where the kids can’t find them.”
“Me, too. It shows some responsibility, without interfering with people’s choices. And it’s all soft-core, anyway.”
A little giggle escaped her. “You’ve checked it out?”
He sent her a sour look. “Only in my official capacity. Somebody complained that they were renting child pornography.”
“Were they?”
“Of course not. The woman who complained hadn’t even been in the store. She’d heard it from someone, who’d heard it from someone else. You know how that goes. Anyway, the stuff they’re renting is pretty much on the level of an R-rated movie, just more of it.”
“Well, I’ll be the first to admit I don’t understand the fascination for those things. But then, I’m a woman.”
“I’m a man,” he said, stating the obvious. “I don’t read girlie magazines, either.” Then, unable to resist, he added, “Why settle for pictures if you can have the real thing?”
He heard her gasp; then a deep laugh escaped her. “You are wicked, Sam Canfield. W
icked, wicked.”
“So my father always said.” But this time he said it without bitterness. Somehow Mary’s laughter had taken the sting out of her teasing words—and the sting out of remembering his father. He wished it would last.
As they approached her house, she said, “Why don’t you come in for breakfast?”
“I don’t want to trouble you.”
“It’s no trouble. I’m an old hand at fast breakfasts. I can microwave bacon and some sausage biscuits, and make coffee in a jiff. And you need to eat something.”
He couldn’t argue with that. Nor, he realized, did he want to. Exhausted as he was, he was still too wound up to hit the hay. He figured it might take him an hour or so to wind down from working all night. It always did.
“Thanks, Mary. If you’re not too tired.”
“I’m as wired as can be. I got my second wind along about 5:00 a.m. And I’m hungry, too.”
So he parked in her driveway. For an instant he wondered if his father was watching from across the street, then told himself he didn’t care. It made him uneasy, though, that Mary had intimated his father was showing interest in him. In Sam’s experience, Elijah grew interested only when he believed his son was messing up.
The air in town was hazy now, not as bad as up in the pass, but the effects of the fire were reaching here, too. The morning sun, heralding yet another dry day, looked pale through the smoke, and yellowed.
“It smells smokier than a frigid winter night,” Mary remarked as she unlocked her door. He knew she was referring to the number of woodstoves that burned around there when it got cold.
But the smoke hadn’t penetrated her house, at least not yet, and Sam noticed a delicate scent of lilac on the air. “Is that lilac I smell?” he asked.
“Yes. I love it. It’s in the carpet freshener.”
Almost in spite of himself, he smiled. “When I was about six, we lived for a while in Michigan. My dad was pastor of a small church up near Saginaw. And we had this huge lilac bush at the corner of the house, just covered with blossoms. I used to like to suck the nectar out of them. And I used to hide under it. Nobody could find me there. I seem to remember spending entire afternoons daydreaming, surrounded by lilacs.”
Mary led him into the kitchen, shucking her flannel shirt and hanging it over a chair back. “Did you have to hide often?”
He found himself looking into her green eyes. Sinking into her green eyes. And he saw a gentleness there that made his heart slam. Gentleness wasn’t something Sam had experienced very often in life, not even in his marriage. It had an unexpected effect on him, an effect that held him rooted to the spot even as she turned away, apparently accepting his silence as an answer.
“How many sausage biscuits do you think you can eat?” she asked, opening the refrigerator door.
“Uh…” Her question might as well have been spoken in another language. Somehow it didn’t connect with his brain.
She smiled over her shoulder. “Why don’t you wash up in the bathroom, and I’ll make coffee. The caffeine might clear the cobwebs.”
He was grateful for the easy escape. Because, for no reason he could figure out, Mary’s tidy little kitchen had suddenly seemed as threatening as a dragon’s lair. As if something awful might leap out at any moment.
A strange way to react to a gentle smile.
One look in the mirror over the bathroom sink almost caused him to laugh out loud. He looked like a raccoon, so much smoke, sweat and dirt had stained his face. He was surprised any woman would offer him breakfast, looking the way he did.
And now that he noticed, his shirt stank of smoke and sweat, too. Oh, man. He ought to slink out of here now, before she noticed.
Although how she could have failed to notice, sitting right beside him in the truck cab, he couldn’t imagine. Maybe the smoke covered the sweaty smell.
If he’d had a change of clothes, he might have hopped into her shower. Instead he had to strip off his shirt and do what he could with a washcloth and a bar of soap. And when he was done, it was kind of embarrassing to look at the black stains on the cloth. He rinsed it out as best he could, but it was going to take a heavy-duty trip through a washing machine to save it. And it was pretty, too, not just some colorless white cotton of the kind he owned.
That was when he noticed that the whole bathroom was pretty. Lavender and lilac and cream dominated in the shower curtain and rug, along with the soap dish and other stuff he never knew the names of. He bet her whole house was pretty. Feminine.
He and Beth had been kind of basic about such things, preferring instead to spend their money on skiing and a recreational vehicle. Not to mention a boat for fishing on the reservoir.
There was even a tiny old medicine bottle holding a few tiny dried purple flowers.
All of a sudden he was uneasy, feeling as if he’d stumbled into a virgin’s bower. Mary McKinney dealt in things he couldn’t begin to fathom, things like tiny little flowers and probably satin sachets in her dresser drawers. It was an alien world.
Moving swiftly, he donned his flannel shirt, thinking that he’d wasted the effort of washing himself. Once again he was enveloped in soot and stench.
When he returned to the kitchen, taking care not to peer off to the side at her living room—it was probably dripping with cute feminine things—he found her pouring two mugs of hot coffee. The microwave was humming, its digital display on a countdown. She, too, had scrubbed up a little, washing the ashen color from her face and neck, restoring her rosy color. But as she moved closer to hand him the coffee, he could smell the smoke on her, too.
“I’m afraid I killed your washcloth,” he said as he accepted the mug. The cream and sugar were already on the table, in blue willow containers. His mother had done that, too, he remembered with an unwelcome pang. She’d never been content to put the milk on the table in a store container.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said pleasantly. “It’s just a washcloth. Two-ninety-nine at the discount store. I’ve got bigger worries.” Then she laughed.
God, her laugh was incredible. Warm and throaty, seeming to rise from deep within her. Its touch was almost physical.
“Sorry,” she said. “I seem to be punchy from lack of sleep.”
A helpless smile came to his own mouth, like the harmonic response of a tuning fork. Irresistible. “Me, too. Tell you what. Nothing either of us says is to be taken into evidence.”
She laughed again. The microwave pinged, and she pulled out a clear plastic pouch containing bacon. “This stuff is actually pretty good.”
“I know. I depend on the microwave. Without it, I’d either starve to death or go broke from eating out all the time.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him, still smiling. “One of those, huh?”
“One of whats?”
“Testosterone-based life-form.”
He had an urge to laugh, but instead he played along. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, you know. Those poor unfortunate creatures who are incapable from birth of cooking or cleaning.”
“Ah. You mean I suffer what some folks call testosterone poisoning.”
She shrugged, still looking impish. “Same thing, I guess.”
“Hmm. Well, I’ll have you know my house is pretty clean.”
“No underwear on the bathroom floor? No giant dust bunnies under the bed?”
“Well, I can’t say for sure what’s under the bed….” He trailed off and enjoyed watching her laugh again. Damn, it had been so long since he’d shared anything approaching humor. Who cared if they were punchy from lack of sleep? It felt good.
Using only the microwave and coffeepot, she put quite a meal in front of him: bacon, sausage biscuits, orange juice and coffee, and plenty of it. And once he started eating, he realized he was famished.
She spoke as he bit into his second biscuit. “It must have been hard work, building the firebreak.”
He shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been quite so hard
if I hadn’t been spending too much time on my can in a patrol car recently.”
One of those enticing smiles flickered across her face. “I could say the same. It’s funny, when I moved up here I had all these ideas about cross-country skiing, hiking in the summertime. Instead I always seem to be too busy.”
“That’s life. There’s always something that needs doing.” But then he remembered Beth. “My late wife had a different philosophy.”
“What was that?”
“That the responsibilities won’t go away if you ignore them for a few days. They’ll always be there. In fact, she used to say that if you let them, responsibilities will expand to take all your time.”
“How did that work out?”
“Not too bad, usually. Yeah, the bills had to be paid on time whether you felt like it or not, but other things… Well, she used to get up on her day off, and the house would be a mess because we’d been too busy, and the yard would need mowing, or whatever, and she’d say, ‘Let’s go fishing, Sam. It’s a beautiful day.’” He almost smiled, remembering.
“And I’d say, ‘But, Beth, I’m supposed to work on the yard,’ or whatever it was. Once it was patching the roof because we had a small leak.” Mary’s green eyes were smiling gently at him, he noticed.
“What did she say?” she asked.
“She’d say, ‘Sam, that yard will still need mowing tomorrow.’ Or ‘Sam, that roof will still be fixable this afternoon.’ And off we’d go.”
“Sounds like a great philosophy.”
“It was.” To a point. Sometimes it drove him batty. Things needed doing when they needed doing. Like the roof. They went fishing, had a big early-afternoon thunderstorm, and he’d wound up having to patch the bedroom ceiling as well as the roof. But it would have felt disloyal to say that to Mary, so he kept it to himself.
“Still,” Mary said, almost as if she were reading his mind, “I guess you’d need to watch your balance.”
“Sure. And I’ll be the first to admit that procrastination drives me crazy.” He shrugged. “I’m one of those people who just wants to get it done. So I guess I’ve lost my sense of balance the other way lately.”