Force of Nature

by Kim Baldwin

  “Of course, love,” Erin whispered back. “Close your eyes.”

  Gable obeyed, and she could feel Erin’s body shift, the leg between hers replaced by a hand. Fingers toyed at the edge of her wet folds, as Erin’s lips found a nipple and began to suck, bite, lick.

  The pounding of her heart rang in her ears. She spread her legs wider and lifted her hips to meet the caressing hand. Erin knew just how to stroke her. Harder. Faster.

  Gable was poised on the edge of ecstasy when reality came crashing down and she awoke sweating in her own bed, her own hand between her legs. She was so disappointed to find it all a dream that she was unable to continue, unable to find relief.

  In the damp tangle of her sheets, it took hours for her to fall back asleep.

  *

  The dream kept resurfacing in Gable’s mind as she accompanied Erin to Cadillac the next day. She supposed it should have bothered her to spend her entire weekend off work trailing around stores—not exactly a habit of hers. But she found she didn’t mind it one bit. She couldn’t keep her eyes off Erin, stealing frequent, surreptitious glances at her, her mind’s eye dressing Erin in the lingerie of the dream.

  She felt vaguely aroused all day, and so was grateful Erin’s shopping for the more risqué items on her list was already complete. This time, they spent hours in Home Depot and Meijer, selecting innocuous items like shelving and bird feeders, clocks, a vacuum cleaner, a ladder. Two full carts of groceries to fill Erin’s empty pantry.

  Erin insisted on cooking dinner for them that night, since their meal plans the previous evening had been thwarted by Gable’s sudden loss of appetite while they were furniture shopping.

  “After we eat, would you mind helping me put up some curtains?” Erin asked as she chopped salad vegetables on her new cutting board.

  “Whatever you need.” Gable watched Erin from a seat at the dining table, Earl Grey curled in her lap, purring contentedly. “Sure I can’t help with dinner?”

  “Everything’s under control. Why don’t you just relax. I’ve worked you pretty hard the last couple of days.”

  “I enjoyed it.” Perhaps a little too much.

  “You know, when I think back on the tornado, it’s just not quite as traumatic as it probably should be. I mean…it was awful, sure. But it brought me the best friend I’ve had in a long time. I really feel like I’ve known you for ages.”

  “I know what you mean. I haven’t had a lot of women friends,” Gable admitted. “Growing up in a houseful of guys, I guess. But it’s nice. You’re easy to talk to.”

  “Same back atcha. I’d have really been a basket case that night without you.”

  “I think you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. I really admire the way you’ve come through all this.”

  “Well, I admire the fact you were there in the first place,” Erin said. “Putting yourself at risk in order to make a difference. To help a stranger in trouble.”

  “Well, you’ll be doing the same in no time.”

  Erin set the salad on the table and lit two candles she had bought that day at Meijer. Gable tried not to think about how romantic the setting seemed.

  “I’m looking forward to the training,” Erin said as she added a bowl of mashed potatoes to the table, and two New York strip steaks she had seared in a cast-iron skillet. “I’m a bit nervous about it though, I’ll admit. I’m certainly the smallest person on the squad. Okay, we’re ready to eat. Help yourself.”

  “Everything looks great! And don’t worry about the training, I know you’ll do fine.” Gable assured her. “Some of the drills do require a certain amount of brawn—pulling hoses and putting up the big ladders. But we always put a lot of people on that stuff. The hardest part for me was the classroom tests. Learning fire science and how fires spread. Building construction. Michigan fire laws. What precautions you gotta take around hazardous materials.”

  “That reminds me, I need to stop off at the station tomorrow,” Erin said. “The chief said he’d have my training schedule worked out.”

  “You’ll be able to start going out on callouts after a couple weeks of training, though you’ll have limits to what you can do,” Gable said. “No going into burning buildings right away.”

  She cut several small pieces of steak and fed them to Earl Grey, still curled contentedly in her lap. “During your training, you’ll work one-on-one with some of the guys to learn things like ropes, portable extinguishers, how to ventilate buildings. Communications and equipment on the trucks. How to use an SCBA—That’s your self-contained breathing apparatus. Some of the other stuff takes several people—rescue operations, working the hoses and ladders. And you learn a lot on the job itself.”

  “So when we get a callout, we go right to the station?”

  “Well, if you’re really close to it, yeah. We’re so spread out here that most of us keep our gear in our car, so we can go directly to the scene.”

  “How often do you get called out?”

  “Hard to say. There’s always way more in the summer because the tourists are up here. The population triples. So you get more car accidents, more brush fires from cigarettes getting tossed out windows.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re on the squad. Makes me feel less nervous about everything, knowing I can ask you for help if I need to.”

  “You bet. Any time.”

  After dinner, Gable washed dishes and Erin dried and put away. As she soaped up the last plate, she allowed herself a momentary wistfulness over how great it would feel to share such domestic chores with Erin on a regular basis. Then they retired to the living room to tackle putting up Erin’s curtains.

  “I measured and marked everything last night,” Erin said, setting the ladder in place by the large patio doors. “But it was too awkward to try to put the rod and curtains up myself. Hope you don’t mind.” She handed Gable a screwdriver and three screws.

  “Not a bit. Happy to help. I know you’ve got a lot of stuff to do yet around the place. Anytime you need a hand, just give me a holler.” Gable got a small stepstool and set it at the other end of the sliding doors.

  Erin stood on top of the ladder with one end of the curtain rod and Gable took the other end. Getting that part installed was no problem.

  Next, Gable got the heavy floor-length curtains and handed one end up to Erin before she mounted the stool to hang her end. Just as she was about to hook it, the rod slipped out of Erin’s hands. Erin leaned over to grab it, too far, and the ladder started to tip.

  Gable dropped the curtains and lunged forward, catching Erin as she fell, wrapping one arm around her waist. She should have let go of Erin right away. But for some reason her body insisted that she hang on for a few seconds longer than was necessary.

  “Hey thanks. But you can let go any time now, Gable. I’m fine,” Erin said, amusement in her voice.

  Gable could feel the rush of heat to her face.

  “You’re cute when you blush, you know.” Erin smiled up at her with a twinkle in her gray-green eyes. But then she climbed back up the ladder and reached down for the curtains without further ado.

  Was she flirting with me? crossed Gable’s mind, but she quickly discarded the notion. Nah. Wishful thinking.

  Chapter Six

  The latter half of June was Gable’s favorite time of the summer. It was still mild out, with temperatures in the sixties in the morning and never reaching eighty during the day. And it was when animals from the woods surrounding her house brought their young ones by to forage for the scattered seed that escaped her many bird feeders. There were clownish raccoon babies, as intent on play as on food, and strings of downy-feathered turkey chicks, clustered protectively around their mothers.

  Thirteen months ago, when she had driven up to the house for the first time, she had spotted a fawn, curled motionless in the tall grass not forty feet from the screened-in front porch. It had made the decision for her—she had found her perfect refuge in the woods. The two-bedroom home sat on te
n acres of rolling mixed hardwoods, with a creek running by just off the porch. And best of all, it was surrounded by hundreds of acres of state forest, so it was home to abundant wildlife: deer and black bear and bobcats. Coyotes, fox, and otter.

  She slept with the windows open, and the chorus of birdcalls at first light always woke her well before she had to get up to get ready for work. Ordinarily, Gable relished that quiet time on the porch with her coffee, seeing what animals were out and about. This particular morning, however, she failed to appreciate the snapping turtle crossing her creek, or the pileated woodpecker working on the half-dead oak tree twenty feet away. After spending the whole weekend with Erin, she could think of nothing but seeing her again.

  As she showered and got ready to leave, she replayed those moments in the dressing room over and over in her mind and wondered how she’d make it through a day at work. She wished she made definite plans with Erin on when they would get together again. That reminds me. I should stop at the firehouse on the way to work and pick up a copy of her training schedule.

  The detour to the station only took a few minutes. A copy of Erin’s schedule was waiting for her in her mail slot. The chief had some kind of training or drills scheduled for Erin nearly every day for the next three weeks, taking maximum advantage of her summer off from school. Gable saw her own name among those assigned to a trio of evening first aid classes this week, beginning in a couple of days. She was also among two large groups that would participate in Erin’s search and rescue training drills later in the month.

  Tim Scott, she saw, was in the same groups, and he also had several one-on-one sessions with Erin. That was no surprise. Tim was one of the most senior firefighters on the squad, and he’d been instrumental in some of Gable's training. But though she expected this, she felt a twinge inside her gut when she saw his name linked with Erin’s on the page that way.

  She couldn’t begrudge them getting together. Tim was a great guy and would probably be good for Erin. She just wasn’t ready to see Erin with someone.

  “Hey, Gable, you’re playing tonight, right?” Carl’s voice surprised her.

  She looked up to find him watching her.

  “You all right? You look like a stunned mullet.”

  She forced herself to smile. Carl was sometimes just a bit too in tune with her, kind of like her brothers were. “You sure do have a way with words, Carl. I’m fine. And yes, I’m planning on it. It’s at Jerry’s house tonight, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look so good.”

  “Gee, thanks. You sure can turn a girl’s head with those compliments,” Gable deadpanned.

  “Gable…”

  “I’m fine. I just didn’t sleep very well last night. Look, I gotta run or I’ll be late for work. See ya.”

  She escaped further questions and headed to Meriwether, her drive filled with reminiscences of why she’d not slept yet again. Last night’s dream was only a slight variation of the previous evening’s. Erin was wearing a teddy this time, but the end result was the same. Gable awoke aroused and unsatisfied, and unable to get back to sleep for a long while.

  *

  Tired or not, Gable fully expected to come out ahead, as she normally did, in the weekly firefighter poker game. Her brother Kelly had taught her all the ins and outs of poker and blackjack and half a dozen other games. He’d taught her how to read other players’ facial tics and body language when they looked at their cards, and how to keep her own expression from telegraphing what she had in her hand.

  So in short order, she had gotten to know all the regular players well enough to beat them regularly. Carl bit his lip when he got a good hand and drummed two nervous fingers on the table when his cards were exceptionally bad. Don Baum’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly when the deal went his way and Jerry DeYoung played with his chips when he got a sure winner and was anxious to bet.

  Oscar Knapp, a thin, reedy farmer, always had a toothpick between his lips when he played, and that ol’ toothpick would start to dance at the corner of his mouth whenever he got a pair or better. The more the toothpick moved, the better the hand. All the other players had picked up on his tic, it was so obvious, and they bet or folded accordingly. Oscar always came up short and never figured out why.

  The other firefighters who played joined in just now and again, and it was harder to read them. Gable had played with Tim Scott only twice, but that had been enough to discover he was about as good as she was. The last time they’d played, he’d cleaned the table.

  She liked a challenge, especially when it came in the form of a payback, so she was initially pleased to see Tim’s truck parked among those outside the cabin that was their venue for that night. But her mood deflated when she realized the pickup pulling in behind her belonged to Erin. Much as she wanted to see her again, Erin would be a big distraction during a poker game, and Gable wasn’t particularly anxious to share her friend with the guys.

  “Hey, Gable! I tried to call you today to ask if you were playing,” Erin greeted her as they got out of their vehicles and headed up the walk together.

  “I haven’t been home. I came straight from work.”

  “Carl called me and said you needed another hand. So tell me, am I going to lose my shirt?”

  Gable cringed inwardly at Erin’s choice of expressions. “Depends on what kind of player you are,” she said noncommittally.

  They knocked and were admitted by a barrel-chested man with dark, bushy eyebrows and wild, unkempt hair.

  “Hi Jerry,” Gable greeted. “Have you met Erin Richards, our new rookie?”

  “Not officially.” Jerry offered a hand and introduced himself. “Go on in and make yourself at home.” He gestured toward the living room. “Everyone else is here and we’re about ready to start. Can I get you both a drink?”

  “A beer would be good,” Gable said, which prompted a raised eyebrow from her host. She rarely drank when she played cards, and was the exception to the group in that regard. But she had spotted Tim through the archway staring right at Erin, and a drink suddenly sounded mighty good.

  “Beer for me too. Thanks!” Erin echoed her, and they went in to take their seats around a large round dining table.

  Carl greeted them with a wave and Gable said, “Have you all met Erin?”

  “Fresh meat!” Don Baum said. “Hope you brought lots of cash!” He stood and extended a hand toward Erin. “Hi, Erin. Don Baum.” The town barber was by far the oldest of the group at seventy, a confirmed bachelor with a stubble of beard and food stains on his clothes.

  “Hi, Don.” Erin shook his hand.

  “Oscar Knapp.” The gangly farmer stood and offered his hand. “Don’t know if you remember me…”

  “Hi, Oscar,” Erin took his hand in hers and shook it. “Of course I remember you. You were one of the guys who helped get me out of my basement that day. Thanks again.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Nice that you could make it,” Tim said.

  He and Erin exchanged broad smiles and Gable felt that same queasy sensation in her stomach again. Battling butterflies.

  Jerry came in with two bottles of Budweiser and handed one to each woman.

  “Why don’t you sit here?” Tim invited, motioning to the empty chair beside him.

  “Well, all right,” Erin replied, which left Gable sitting between Don and Carl, directly across from Tim.

  “So, Erin, what’s your deal?” Don asked. “You married?”

  She shook her head. “Divorced.”

  Gable glanced at Tim to see his reaction to this news, and cringed at the big grin on his face.

  “So, are you seeing anyone?” Jerry asked, as he started to deal the cards.

  Oh great. Both of them? Jerry was single too, but he was in his mid-fifties, at least fifteen years older than Erin, so Gable hadn’t really considered he might also be interested in Erin. And she didn’t like the way he was looking at her, either, the old coot. I’m gon
na hate this. I’m just gonna hate having to sit here and listen to them hit on her all night.

  “Well, I hope to be seeing several guys before the evening is over…” Erin responded, and Gable nearly choked on her beer. “All jacks and kings, please, dealer.”

  The guys laughed, and Gable gradually relaxed as they got down to the business of poker.

  *

  It was clear from the outset that they had three ringers, all of them out for blood.

  Tim and Gable went head to head in almost every hand, betting big and raising bigger, and Erin stayed with them most of the time but the others just weren’t in their league.

  It was impossible to tell when Tim or Erin was bluffing, and Gable figured they were having the same problem with her. All three played with reckless abandon, the pots growing much larger than what was typical for the group.

  The conversation was friendly and the mood at the table seemed outwardly relaxed despite the intense competition. Only Carl had a hint there was more going on tonight than was apparent.

  “You’re on fire tonight, Gable,” Tim said as she began transforming her latest win—a huge pile of chips—into neat little stacks.

  “I’d say we’re about even, wouldn’t you, Tim?” she replied good-naturedly.

  “And the rookie there ain’t half bad.” He gestured toward Erin.

  “Nope. She’s got the touch,” Gable agreed.

  “She’s got ears too,” Erin added, but you could tell she was pleased with the compliment. It was her turn to deal, so she gathered up the cards and began to shuffle like she’d done a turn or two at the tables in Vegas.

  “Come on, deal the cards,” Oscar grumbled. He had only enough chips left to bet a couple more hands at the rate he was losing. He said he'd promised his wife he wouldn’t lose more than the forty dollars he had in his pocket.

  “How about we take a break?” Jerry suggested. “The pizzas should be here any minute.”

  “Sounds good to me. Maybe it’ll cool off these three and give the rest of us a chance,” Don said. He stood and stretched, his pants loose on him, held up by suspenders. “Pit stop,” he declared, ambling off.