Maybe tomorrow he’d bring lunch to check on the chief too.
Fifteen minutes later, he stepped into the small, spartan cabin to find her asleep at the dinette, sitting in a chair but sprawled from the ribs up over the small, circular tabletop, cheek pressed against the faux wood laminate. Possibly drooling.
Man, he wanted to let her just sleep, but if she was going to be able to do all this again tomorrow, she needed to refuel, give her body some protein to undo the damage they’d done today.
Wake her up, feed her, but all the ground rules he’d been planning to lay out suddenly felt like taking advantage of someone too tired to bear another ounce of pressure.
“Lauren?” He said her name gently, then waited.
No response.
He tried again, a little louder.
Still nothing. She was out.
When she failed to even flinch after a third volume increase, he gave up and barked, “Autry!”
She jerked up, eyes wild and bleary. It took her staring at him for several seconds for coherent thought to show up. Her gaze fell to the take-out containers in his hands, and she held out both hands.
“You sure you’re up to chewing?”
* * *
Lauren had to smile at the man’s tease, even when her fingers failed to close on the box he handed her, twice. He placed it on the table in front of her.
“Be prepared to Heimlich me.” She was tired enough to put her face in the grilled chicken and veggies and just start chewing, it’d free her from the arduous task of lifting plastic cutlery, but she still had enough pride to attempt civilized eating.
She could only manage to fumble the lid off her container and to fist her fork like a toddler before dropping it anyway.
It bounced once on the table and would’ve hit the floor but for Beck snatching it out of the air and handing it back to her.
Today had been hard, but worth it. She’d done fine.
Everything would be fine. There was no one here to tell her otherwise, so any fear she indulged in was of her own making. And that meant she could control it.
“Eat, shower, bed?”
“Eat. Bed.” She could barely contemplate not just lying down on the floor of the kitchenette, where she’d definitely fall asleep.
“Fresh sheets are only delivered once a week. They’re not coming to change them in the morning,” Beck said, watching her too closely as he ate.
“I know I stink, don’t beat around the bush.”
He inhaled slowly, then shook his head. “Not stink. You’re sweaty, but it’s not like the stench that was rolling off me.”
“My sweat is less stenchy? Good to know.”
He looked like he didn’t know quite what to say, then muttered, “You smell...like honey and dirt.”
The description made her grin. It could’ve been a compliment, except for the dirt part. “You should make perfumes.”
“Don’t need to. I make bath bombs.”
She paused the train of veggies and meat to her mouth, the words taking too much concentration to parse to allow any reaction but the honest one. Disbelief.
“You do not make bath bombs.”
“They’re more like bath salts. Not formed up into some kind of hygiene hand grenade.”
“Too bad. Hygiene hand grenade sounds good right now.”
“Bath sounds better. It’ll help with the soreness.”
Bath that took pain away did sound better, but there was something she knew she needed help with.
“Do you think you could help me stretch out my shoulders?”
He looked confused, but said nothing.
“This muscle.” She ran one finger along the top of her shoulder between cuff and neck. “Trapezius. It’s not much, just help me lift my arms from behind to stretch that. Only take a minute.”
He nodded, still looking confused, but continued eating.
“So, you didn’t learn to stretch in the Marines. Did they teach you to make bath bombs?”
It took him a while to answer, and when he spoke, the softness in his voice told a story of heartache. “My mom taught me.”
She didn’t even need to ask to know his mother was no longer with him. She’d grown up with that tone, heard it in her father’s voice any time he spoke of her own mother.
“I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing quite what else to say to the sad direction she’d pushed the conversation.
He looked up swiftly, brows pinching as he visibly scanned the conversation in his mind. She could see him replaying the words. “How did you know she was gone?”
“My mom died when I was five. My father never remarried, still wears his wedding ring, still carries his grief. There’s a way of speaking... It’s hard to describe.”
“Regret,” he murmured. “What you’re hearing is regret. What happened to her?”
“She developed breast cancer not long after I was born. I guess that happens sometimes with older mothers. She wasn’t really old, but she was older than the usual birth mother age twenty-four years ago. Sick most of the time I knew her. I only have a handful of memories, really. My siblings and I stayed with our grandparents for long stretches when chemo knocked her immune system down and she couldn’t afford four germ monsters around her, not and keep fighting.”
“I’m sorry, echoed.” He watched her with such compassion, she grew more certain his grief was fresher. Was that why he’d ended up back with the rookies?
She’d been looking for reasons he’d been grouped with them, and her speculations had ranged from teaching them, to some oddity of numbers, and through Treadwell’s irritation with him to some kind of punishment. Beck participating in the pack carry today fit punishment. That was something only rookies had to do. Those who returned for refreshers had already proved they could carry a body for miles.
Something was wrong, and considering the grief she still saw in his eyes...
“So your dad is just very protective?” His question gave her an excuse not to ask, but she wanted to ask. Maybe she should even ask, since he was her partner now.
Instead, she ate and stuck to the subject, at least for now. “Because he couldn’t protect her, I guess. And my brothers take their cue from him.”
“So why are you all at the same station?”
“It’s still my birthright. And as annoying as they are, they can’t keep me from doing my job. Besides, I’d rather be there with them and at least have a shot at helping than at a different station and hear about some calamity after the fact.”
“But you’re here.”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah...”
“In the off-season, you’ll be with the park service. Not with them.”
“I know,” she said, but had truthfully done everything she could to not dwell on that—she still wasn’t too sure she’d be a great forest ranger. She liked being outside, but she wasn’t overly informed about trees and wildlife. “I guess I got tired of swimming upstream. I just haven’t reformatted my answer yet. Or thought much about it. Been trying not to think about how I’ll feel if something happens and I’m not there.”
He went quiet, but she didn’t see judgment in his espresso-black eyes. That was sympathy. And shadow.
He hadn’t offered more information about his mom, which should tell her enough about how much he wanted to talk about it, but she couldn’t not ask. Not when there was so much up in the air about this man, her partner. Whatever had gotten him in trouble, she had to know.
“When did you lose your mom?”
It was rude to ask such a question and then keep chowing down, so she waited for his answer, long enough she began to doubt whether she had the energy to continue eating and bathe.
“I was ten.”
At least fifteen years ago. A long time to not have developed some distance.
&nbs
p; Or maybe she was an anomaly.
Her eldest brother had been older than Beck when their mother had passed, but he’d also developed greater distance than Beck had seemed to.
Her family’s loving misogyny, if that was a thing, was definitely a manifestation of their loss. Fear of losing her too. Probably the only reason she’d put up with it so long.
But her mother had died a quiet, slow, terrible death. An expected death, finally.
“How did she die?”
Again, a long silence. Was it not wanting to talk about it or pain that kept his words from coming easily?
“Wildfire.” The one-word answer effectively wiped everything else from her mind.
“Oh, God, Beck...”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he cut in, as if she had anything else to say that could ever be sufficient.
He had been ten. She’d died in a wildfire. Did Lauren really need to know anything else about why the man had joined the smokejumpers? Why he’d gone into firefighting for the military?
Not when she felt the sudden truth of who he was down deep, where she stuffed all things that could hurt her. It didn’t explain what had happened to get him back here after he’d been so lauded, but pressing him felt wrong, as did abandoning the topic entirely.
“How do you make bath bombs?”
If she’d had the fortitude to be silent as long as he could, maybe she could’ve come up with something more sensitive or compassionate to say. But this was related to his mom, and something he might be able to speak about. It felt like a way in. An acknowledgment, but safe.
Beck lifted his gaze from his meal again, but shifted to the mom-adjacent subject, and began to explain the process and ingredients used.
“I’ve got a batch made. All that’s missing is the pine needles. I can get them out back if you want. They’ll help the soreness.”
“Thank you. That’s...” She swallowed nothing, tried again, bypassing the usual denials she’d make to conceal any vulnerabilities. “I could use a little help right now, I think.”
“In the future, you’ll hear about Hell Week from everyone, and how theirs was the worst,” Beck said, closing the container on his dinner. “Trust me, you’re going to win those misery competitions.”
“I did the same things you did today.”
“I’ve never been asked to carry someone so far who outweighed me by so much. Out in the field, it’s always going to be a two-person job, barring catastrophe. We have collapsible stretchers for it.”
The subject moved on, and they both eased. And what she heard in his voice now? That was admiration. She felt her smile return, along with the strength to get through the rest of her meal.
Beck not only went after the pine needles, he tied them up in a handkerchief to keep them from poking her in the bath, and ran the hot water to mix it all up.
If this was how it was to have a partner who helped instead of held her back, she was in trouble.
It wasn’t as if she’d just dated jerks, but any time she’d got involved with a firefighter—who were the men she most frequently encountered—he had invariably been tied to her station, which had left him subjected to her family’s pressure. Troy had just been the one she’d most wanted to believe was on her side, and whose preference of her father had hurt the most.
Troy could also be sweet at times, when they’d been alone and only if work wasn’t involved.
That was how this was different. That was how Beck was far more dangerous. He was helping her so she could be ready for tomorrow, not giving her reasons to bail.
And if he was doing all that, she could find the energy to get some clean clothes and get her honey-dirty self into the water.
By the time she dragged herself into her room and out, he was back at the table, sitting, staring off into space. “Water’s ready. You want to do your shoulders before or after?”
“Before.” She stopped in front of him and folded her arms back to press her fists together in the center of her back. “Just pull my elbows back until I cry uncle.”
His large, strong hands cupped her elbows and slowly pulled back, stopping when she made an accidental, pained noise, so she had to convince him to go a little further. Then repeated from the front, stretching out the muscles that had tightened this morning and never really relaxed.
“Thanks,” she said, breathing a little hard because stretching unruly muscles could hurt, and made for the bathroom.
She didn’t make it. He caught her by the back of the shirt, wordlessly wrapping one arm across her shoulders from the front to brace her so he could mash his palm against that same, suffering muscle and rotate. He repeated the motion through several rotations on each side of her spine, tracking halfway down her back as she let her head hang forward and used up every last ounce of strength to stay upright when her body just wanted to fold in on itself.
It wasn’t long, minutes she’d have paid money and dignity to continue, and he released her. “Don’t fall asleep in the water.”
She wobbled, then stepped into the bathroom, intent on bathing as quickly as she could before the truth of his words sank in. There was no way she’d stay awake once she sank into that water. Not alone.
“I hate to ask you for another favor when you’ve been so kind, but I’m honestly afraid of falling asleep in there.”
He’d already sat back down, but turned in his chair toward her. “Okay.”
“Keep me company?”
Her words had him on his feet like he was actually made of energy.
“Lauren, that’s not a good idea. You’re very appealing, but bathing together... Bad idea. I didn’t mean to give you that idea.”
He babbled, speaking faster than she’d heard him say anything, and with so many pauses she suddenly understood she wasn’t the only one experiencing the strange pull.
If she’d had any energy left, she’d be embarrassed he thought she was hitting on him, but she didn’t. She also wished it didn’t sound so appealing. Too tired to blush, she waved a hand. “Not asking you to have a bath with me. Just stay there, talk through the door so I don’t drown in my sleep.”
He shifted from foot to foot, the way she often did before running.
“And how about I forget anything else you might have said before that?” she added.
A slow nod and he sat back down.
Pride took energy. She had none to spare.
A few minutes later, with the bathroom door just ajar, she settled into the steaming, lavender-scented water and it became obvious how bone deep her soreness was and how nice it would’ve been to just go to sleep there.
“What do you want to talk about?” he asked outside the door.
Him. She wanted to talk about him. His mom. His life. What had happened to re-rookie him.
That was something she should ask.
“We’re partners, and tied together. You’re probably worried I’ll weigh you down after today.”
“I’m not.”
That’d be a good reason for him to be so helpful, actually. She must be tired, not having realized that before.
“Still, I won’t. I’m not going to fail this.” You. She wanted to say fail you, because his help—regardless of motivation—felt like a gift. One she wanted to return.
“If anyone fails because of it, it’s going to be me,” Beck said after a moment. “Treadwell introduced partnerships this year because I’m bad at teamwork.”
Bad at teamwork meant something had happened and it had been his fault.
“What happened?”
“Close call. A risk I shouldn’t have taken, I guess.”
Also not what he was known for. And not full of details.
“What risk?”
“Chased a dog into a fire, got trapped. Had to be rescued.”
“Oh.” That didn’t s
ound so bad to her. “Did you save the dog?”
“Had to knock him out, but they were able to drop a safety line from a chopper. It was close, though. Fire... Heat rises, makes it hard to fly in near. Put others in danger.”
“But everyone made it?”
“Not the point.”
At that moment, she wished she could see his face, figure out what he was saying. What did that negative sound mean? Was it directed at himself? Was he angry at Treadwell for busting him down, or was he angry at people coming to rescue him?
“How are you bad at teamwork?”
“Just am.”
“Don’t ask permission before doing things? Don’t ask for help? Don’t...?”
“Don’t ask for help.”
She could understand that one. “You know, friends don’t always need to be asked for help. You helped me tonight, you’re helping me now...”
“This isn’t dangerous.”
She picked up the hankie tied up with pine needles inside and shook her head. The hell this wasn’t dangerous. She was in very real danger of making a mistake with this man. This man who was clearly thinking things about her too, even if she was supposed to forget that.
Soaking in the water and talking to him? Maybe also not so good for her emotional balance around him.
New plan: wash fast, say goodnight, go to sleep.
She hurried through the rest, dried enough to get her PJs on, and stepped out of the bath to find him still sitting in the chair.
“You’ve been great tonight. Thank you.” The words failed to live up to what she was feeling, but they were the best she had right now. “You don’t like to ask for help, I get it. What about if you just order me to do something?”
“You’d hate that.”
“I would, but if it’s just code for something else? That’s different.” She hoped so, at least. “We’re partners, and even if we weren’t tied together, I’d want to help.”
“Why?”
She started dragging herself toward the bedroom. “Because you’re a good person.”
True, but a little shallow compared to the draw to him she felt.
Rescued by Her Rival Page 6