Plain Jane & The Hotshot

by Meagan Mckinney

  Hazel followed the hiking trail down the slope from Bridger’s Summit, a series of switchbacks through pine and aspen. The smoke jumpers’ camp was only about five minutes from the mountaintop cabins.

  Or had been.

  The matriarch emerged from behind a huge dead-fall of brush and brambles, then stood staring at the clearing, her disappointment sudden and keen.

  The spot was deserted. Only a few flattened spots in the grass even hinted that tents had been pitched here.

  So maybe Nick had indeed pulled stakes and left for good. Taken the “geographical cure,” as her cowboys called it when a man left town suddenly after feeding a line of bull to a woman he’d seduced.

  And yet…she was reluctant to form that conclusion just yet. Nick had seemed so sincere and decent when she talked to him.

  But was it all just moonshine?

  I was so worried about Jo retreating under a shell, she told herself. Maybe, though, I stupidly forgot why she needed that shell in the first place. And just maybe I coaxed her out only to get crushed again.

  “Looks like he cut and ran, huh?”

  Jo’s voice, just behind her, startled Hazel back to the present moment. She turned to confront her younger friend, saw the dejected look on Jo’s face.

  “Now, honey, don’t go stacking your conclusions higher than your evidence.”

  “Oh, Hazel, he had you fooled even before he deceived me. Face it, we’ve both been bamboozled by a master jerk.”

  “Before you hang the no-good label on him, shouldn’t you wait a bit?”

  Jo tried to form a cynical smile, but abandoned the effort. “You know the old joke. ‘Denial’ is not a river in Egypt.”

  “Jo, honey, if all Nick wanted was to get laid, why did he spurn a hot-to-trot sure thing like Kayla and direct all his efforts to you?”

  “Challenge, Hazel. The thrill of the hunt. He was telling me the truth when he said he didn’t like sure things. I’ll give him that much credit—he doesn’t do the easy and obvious thing.”

  Despite Jo’s bitter tone, Hazel knew her angry response might well contain a nugget of truth. Looking at the young teacher now, as she gazed at the deserted clearing, came close to breaking Hazel’s heart.

  “What really hurts,” Jo confided in a rush of brokenhearted candor, “is the way I so foolishly thought the two of us had made an emotional connection. Isn’t that hilarious? That’s why the sex was so special, for me, anyway. The same stupid, stupid mistake I made with Ned and vowed never to repeat.”

  “Jo, you shouldn’t—”

  “But I, Jo Lofton, small-town music teacher and old maid in training, am not Miss Montana material,” Jo rushed on, her tone bitter as she mocked herself. “Little simps like me are only good for a quick poke before the stud muffins move on to the next love-struck sucker or go back home to the little woman.”

  Hazel put an arm around Jo’s shoulders and squeezed. Although she had not yet leaped to the same conclusions Jo obviously had, it certainly looked as if Jo’s bitterness might be justified.

  Maybe the pessimistic historians were right, Hazel thought glumly. Maybe human beings don’t learn from history. And individuals, like civilizations, were doomed by their own personalities, forced to repeat the same disastrous mistakes over and over.

  Jo’s next comment seemed to confirm Hazel’s thought.

  “It’s not that I don’t know the reality,” she lamented, close to tears. “I just keep denying it. Why?”

  “Because you’re a wonderful girl with high ideals about love,” Hazel responded firmly. “And because your basic nature is to trust others. That’s not unusual in trustworthy individuals like yourself. Personally, I hope you never change.”

  “Oh, God, Hazel, I’d better change. I can’t take any more of—of—”

  But Jo couldn’t finish her thought before a sob tore from her throat, unleashing a torrent of tears. Feeling as if a knife was twisting inside her, for her own guilt was so strong, Hazel held the miserable girl in a mother’s hug, trying to comfort her.

  I caused this, Hazel realized, not Nick. My crusade to save Mystery, to populate it with married couples of my secret choosing—I put that ambition over Jo’s emotional well-being. Even if Nick did cut and run, as the mounting evidence suggested, Hazel felt it was her job to see it coming. But she had failed.

  In her pride and scheming, she had failed Jo. And pride, Hazel reminded herself, comes directly from the devil. And like a good devil, I’ve helped send this innocent girl to the hell of a broken heart, exposed her to the bitter test of betrayal.

  “C’mon, hon,” Hazel said gently, turning Jo back toward the summit. “I think both of us need to stay busy for a while.”

  Fourteen

  As soon as Nick’s team was inserted by helicopter into the thick timber surrounding Fort Liberty, they got down to the hard, backbreaking work of creating a firebreak—a swath of cleared ground completely encircling the fort.

  This involved first clearing the thick brambles and other fuel, for the larger trees would not easily ignite without natural kindling. It was intense, blistering labor that had to be done quickly because flames were closing in fast.

  So Nick split his group into two teams of six, one hour on, one hour off, one well-rested group always at work. He had learned from experience that six rested men could outwork twelve tired ones.

  Despite the intense effort, however, his mind was occupied with constant thoughts of Jo Lofton.

  Just my luck, he thought more than once. Finally he’d met someone who was the kind he’d like to settle down with, and this damned assignment had to pop up. He felt like a kid with a neat new toy, but those damned grown-ups weren’t letting him play with it.

  At least, he consoled himself, he was able to get an explanatory note to her. Even so, he felt he’d let Jo down by missing their date. He’d let himself down, too. He wanted to know more about her. It was hard to wait.

  Damn this job, anyway. It had driven a wedge between him and Karen, too.

  “This is a fine job if you’re a woman-hater,” he remarked sarcastically during one of his team’s rest periods.

  “Hey, you want some cheese to go with that whine?” Jason teased him. “Your little sugarplum will taste just as sweet when we get back to Lookout Mountain.”

  Nick, Jason and four others sat eating their bland military rations in a small base camp they had quickly established. They were grimy, their hair sweat-plastered.

  “Yeah, if she’s still there,” Nick groused. “We could be up here for days if that wind shifts.”

  They had been ordered by the fire-command center on Copper Mountain to hold their position until relieved. Nick had no idea when that would be. Flames were unpredictable.

  “Even if she’s gone,” Jason reminded him, “you know where she lives, right?”

  “Yeah,” Nick conceded, finding some comfort in the reminder. “I’ve never been to the town of Mystery, but Jo says it’s small. It won’t be hard to locate her. How many music teachers can they have?”

  “Question is, how many have you had?” a smoke jumper named Brian Aldritch said, and the others snickered.

  “One was enough,” Nick shot back.

  All the guys hooted at that one, but Nick wasn’t in the mood for the usual macho razzing. No, he thought, finding Jo would not be the real problem. What truly worried him was trying to find out what was in his own heart. Again he realized he had been searching for one good reason to give up his transient lifestyle and sink down roots someplace.

  Face it, he lectured himself, you’re not going to find what you’ve never had unless you stop running.

  And he didn’t want to run with Jo. She was the first woman he’d felt this way about. Sure, he thought he’d wanted to settle down with Karen, but all the missed dates, all the staying on the mountain to work extra shifts, that had been running from her, too. He’d liked the idea of settling down, but he now knew Karen hadn’t been the one. And that was why she
got fed up.

  But Jo was different. She was the “one good reason” he’d been searching for all his life. But could he measure up to his dream? Security, trust, commitment—these were not things included in his background. When Karen had forced him into a choice—either her or his job—it was his fear that made him choose the latter.

  With Jo, however, the feelings were strong enough to face that fear. But did she reciprocate his feelings? Sure, the sex had been intense. However, it was still too soon to know if she wanted what he wanted. He was no expert on the female psyche, but he had learned one hard fact from Karen: the woman usually held the “power”. It was she who decided if a relationship had a chance.

  “Baker One Actual, this is Baker One,” came a static-fuzzy, familiar voice over Jason’s radio transceiver. Mike Silewski…

  Nick took the handheld unit from Jason and pressed the talk switch.

  “Baker One, this is Baker One Actual,” Nick responded. “Read you loud and clear, Mike.”

  “Howzit goin’ up there, stout lads? Governor Collins is calling us every hour for a report. He’s worried sick.”

  “Tell him to calm down, the pros from Dover have the situation well in hand. Hey, did you deliver that note?”

  “Relax, studly, I delivered it. Say, you boys are missing all the fun. Bridger’s Summit is crawling with hot little numbers. Man, that Texas blonde gave me a look I could feel in my hip pocket. Think I’ll head back up there while you schmucks are busting your humps.”

  Jason swore and grabbed the radio.

  “Hey, Mike? You can’t see this, but we’re all flipping you the bird, pal.”

  “Right back atcha, Hotshots. Over and out.”

  “Time to hit it, boys,” Nick said, consulting his watch. He stretched the stiffness from his back, then shouldered his modified ax, one side cutting blade, the other a pick.

  The last thing a fireslayer needed was a woman on his mind, but Nick knew he was going into the mouth of hell with one terrible Achilles’ heel. Jo would not be banished from his thoughts.

  Nor, he hoped, from his life.

  After verifying that Nick and his team had apparently struck their camp and departed, Jo and Hazel returned together to their own camp.

  “We’ll get out on the river, keep you busy,” Hazel consoled her. “I know it won’t be much fun, sweet love, but it’ll be better than moping around thinking about things.”

  The rest of the afternoon was reserved for practicing emergency rescues before the younger women braved the Chute day after tomorrow, the most turbulent stretch of the river during the almost three-hour rafting trip to the floor of Crying Horse Canyon.

  Jo really did try to get into the spirit. But all of it seemed unreal, somehow, as if she was just an actress pretending to have fun.

  Bonnie leaned over and said low in her ear, “She must be over her PMS!”

  Bonnie shifted her eyes enough to remind Jo how close the thwart behind them, where Kayla sat, was. Even Jo, distracted though she was, had noticed what Bonnie was alluding to. Everyone had by now. Kayla, usually overflowing with gripes, complaints and criticism, seemed to have withdrawn into herself. And shock of all shocks, she was being cooperative and civil.

  Now Jo shrugged and said, “Who knows? She’s stopped riding me, so I hope whatever it is keeps up.”

  But Bonnie’s allusion to PMS made Jo suddenly nervous. She was still on the pill, yes, but had she taken them all lately? Since the end of her affair with Ned, she had been careless at times because she was only using up the last of her supply.

  The question hadn’t nagged her when she and Nick were close; now, with him evidently riding off into the sunset like a cowboy at the end of a Western, fear clutched at her.

  Please, she prayed fervently, don’t let me be pregnant—especially not now.

  Hazel and the others were conferring quietly in their raft nearby, Hazel pointing off to the north. Jo glanced in that direction and saw a thick, gray-black cylinder of smoke rising.

  “That’s a new fire,” Hazel said. “I’m sure it’s still safe down in the canyon, but we better monitor this closely.”

  Right then Jo couldn’t have cared less about the fires. She was too busy accusing herself of gross stupidity.

  She should have listened to that voice that warned her not to succumb to Nick’s charm, good looks and flattering campaign to win her over. For in fact, those who had constantly measured her against her mother and found Jo lacking, were absolutely right. She saw that clearly now. As clear as bedbugs on a clean sheet, as Hazel often phrased it.

  So clear it hurt all over again as if it had just now happened.

  Her eyes filmed, and only with great effort did she hold back the tears.

  Men might be sexually attracted to her, but obviously she had nothing to hold them after their lust was spent. Call it charisma, feminine mystique, whatever—she didn’t have it nor a clue how to get it.

  Well, all right, then. If she had been man-wary before, now she was washing her hands of them completely. A future spent in singles’ bars and casual one-night stands was not her idea of romance.

  No more being kissed in corners by married men, no more “convenience sex” for horny con men like Nick, either. Sure, she enjoyed the sex just as he did. But for whatever reasons, men didn’t suffer the blows to their self-esteem that she did.

  Suddenly Bonnie’s voice, more impatient now, again jolted her back to reality.

  “Hey, Jo! When are you gonna come to the party? This isn’t a bathtub, you know!”

  With a stab of guilt, she realized they had reached the frothing rapids and the raft was bouncing around like a cork, in part because she wasn’t doing her job with the paddle.

  “Sorry,” she muttered, putting her back and shoulders into it.

  Bonnie softened. “It’s okay, but keep your head up from here. Day after tomorrow it won’t be for practice. We’ll all have to depend on each other, and no space cadets need apply.”

  Bonnie seldom lectured, and it only made Jo feel even more ashamed that her distraction had pushed her into it. She forced herself to pay attention for the next hour and a half.

  “Good work,” Hazel praised them as they hiked back upriver toward camp so the girls could change into dry clothing. “Only, remember that today there were no big rocks to contend with. Tomorrow, when you get about halfway down the Chute, you’ll encounter a stretch of huge boulders. Just remember what Dottie told you before. If you fall into the river around rocks, don’t fight the current. Go with the flow, and it’ll most likely take you around the rocks.”

  Believe me, Jo thought in grim silence, I’ll follow your advice. I already know how it feels when I crash into a rock.

  The wind gusted against her wet skin, making her shiver.

  But she wasn’t worried about the dangers ahead for her in the rapids. Surviving the fear-inspiring Chute was kids’ play compared to surviving her own wayward heart.

  Fifteen

  “Here comes the cavalry, boys!” Nick called out to his team, pointing toward the sky. “Saved by the Canadians!”

  Just south of the firebreak Nick’s team had finally finished, a royal-blue transport helicopter hovered above the treeline. Orange-clad members of an elite smoke-jumper team from Alberta fast-roped down, sent in to relieve the Hotshots.

  “So what?” complained Tom Albers. “HQ is sending us right back to Sector One without a day off.”

  Sector One, on their working maps, included Lookout Mountain and Crying Horse Canyon. Normally, after working day and night on special assignments like this rescue of Fort Liberty, a team got at least one day off.

  Now, however, a potential new danger loomed. The weather station at Eagle Pass was predicting a potential “inversion” situation over the Bitterroot country—a unique set of atmospheric events that, in mountainous terrain, could act almost like a giant bellows on forest fires. In the worst-case scenario, even the smallest smoldering hot spots could be whipped into r
aging fires in a matter of hours.

  “You think our fearless leader cares about time off?” Jason Baumgarter answered Tom, aiming a sly glance at Nick. “The man is in love, dude. He’s champing at the bit to make more melodies with his hot little music teacher.”

  Assuming she’s still here, Nick fretted, not even bothering to toss insults back to his second-in-command and his radioman. Based on what Jo had told him, the women should be here through tomorrow, when the younger women were supposed to raft the river.

  They might have left early, perhaps discouraged by the fire news. Nick had no idea if evacuation plans had been issued yet to the general public. Or maybe something had changed with Jo. Of all the times to suffer a forced separation, it had to be right after they’d made love.

  Even before the Canadian team members had hiked up to their positions, Nick instructed Jason to radio for their own transport.

  In no time at all the Hotshots were once again setting up camp on the slope just beneath Bridger’s Summit.

  “We’ve still got six hours of good light left,” Nick announced to his team. “The command center is worried about all that old growth at the north end of Crying Horse Canyon. Because of local topography, if we get an inversion situation, that part of the canyon will turn into a wind tunnel. We’ll start thinning it out. Time is critical, so we’ll fast-rope in. Be ready to stage out in—” Nick checked his watch “—in twenty minutes.”

  That would give him just enough time, if he hurried, to see if Jo was up at her cabin.

  She wasn’t.

  In fact, both cabins were deserted. But at least the three cars were still parked in the lot, so they hadn’t pulled up stakes and left yet.

  Fighting back his disappointment, Nick took the stub of pencil from his pocket and dug an old cash-register receipt from his billfold, using the back of it to write a little note:

  “Jo—stopped by to see you. Will try again later. Nick”

  He glanced quickly around the clearing and decided to leave it on the redwood picnic table, weighing it down with a stone. He hated leaving such an impersonal note. “Love, Nick” was really how he wanted to sign it, but he found he longed to say the word more than write it.