Several minutes into her task, she saw Ian in her peripheral vision, waving his hands wildly and trying to get her attention. For good measure, she finished felling the small tree she was working on before acknowledging him. She killed the motor on the chainsaw and glared up at him.
“What?” she asked, her expression telling him that she had no time for his games.
“I know you’re upset. And you did pick a good spot to start a fire line. But we need to finish setting up camp and make a game plan before we get going on this.”
Charlotte glared at him and marched back to the campsite without another word. She saw Zach mouth ‘I told you so’ to Ian, and it set her off even more.
“You told him what?” she spat out. “Or is that a secret, too?”
“I told him getting romantically involved with a crew member was a bad idea,” Zach retorted. “And I was right. Now you’re angry and acting like a bitch.”
“Hey!” Ian roared. “Knock it off. We’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it, so save the interpersonal conflicts for when we get back to base.”
Charlotte looked at Ian sullenly. She wanted to say something snarky to him as well, but he was right. They didn’t have time to waste right now. She gave Zach a pointed glare and marched back over to where Hunter was organizing his gear. She worked silently and furiously for several minutes. Ian and Zach also worked in silent anger, and Hunter wisely kept his mouth shut.
A few minutes later, Trevor and Luke returned to the campsite, in a jovial mood and unaware of the underlying tension.
“We found your parachute, Boss!” Trevor shouted out. “Extra Spam and Gatorade for us tonight!” He reached over and high fived Luke as they both let out whoops.
Charlotte let her curiosity get the best of her and forgot to be angry for a minute. “What was wrong with it?” she asked, walking over toward where they had set down the parachute near one of the big piles of gear.
“I dunno,” Luke said. “It looked perfectly fine to us. Although from what we all saw when Ian was up there flying the thing, it definitely was not perfectly fine.”
“Let me look,” Charlotte said, moving to inspect the fabric of the canopy as the other crew members gathered around and watched. When she came to the steering toggles, she paused for a moment and furrowed her brow.
“Ian, were your toggles like this when your parachute opened?” she asked.
“I guess,” he said with a shrug. “I never got a chance to even touch them, because everything started going crazy so quickly.”
“You had a brake fire,” Charlotte said.
“A brake fire?”
“Yes. When you pack your parachute and your toggles are stowed properly, they remain static until you grab them, acting as brakes. If you improperly stow a toggle and it comes loose on opening before you have a chance to grab it, the lines on one side of your canopy are braked and the other side are not. It makes the canopy spin hard in one direction.”
“So, if he had just grabbed the other toggle and had them both loose to steer, could he have fixed the problem?” Hunter asked.
“Well, maybe. But once a canopy is spinning quickly and you’re losing altitude as quickly as Ian was, you might not have time to fix the problem. I think Ian made the right choice in giving himself plenty of time to deploy his reserve and land that safely.”
“Why don’t they teach us this stuff at smokejumper training?” Trevor asked.
Charlotte shrugged. “The most important thing is knowing how to use your reserve parachute. They have limited time, so they teach what’s most important. It makes sense.”
“Speaking of limited time,” Ian said, we need to keep moving if we’re going to stay on track with this mission. As soon as everyone has unpacked and organized their gear, let’s get started clearing a fire line.”
Everyone went back to work, and Charlotte purposefully avoided making eye contact with Ian. She would deal with that mess later. For now, she was going to take out her frustrations with a chainsaw.
Several hours passed as the crew members worked to clear away the thick undergrowth and brush. Ian spent quite a bit of time on the radio with Boise, monitoring the progress of the wildfire. The blaze was growing much quicker than anyone had anticipated, and there was a real possibility that the smokejumper crew would have to retreat to a safe zone before they finished clearing a fire line.
Feeling a sense of urgency, the crew worked as quickly as possible. Dirty, sooty streaks of sweat trickled down all of their faces, but no one complained. Although this job was much bigger than the last one had been, they were in the zone. They had trained for this exact moment, and they were owning the challenge. As the daylight started fading, Ian checked in with Boise once more, then came around to let everyone know they wouldn’t be stopping for the evening.
“We can’t afford to sleep. The fire’s moving too quickly. We’ll take turns eating dinner, and after midnight we’ll start taking short nap shifts. But otherwise we have to keep knocking this out as quickly as we can. That fire is big, and it’s going to take a big effort to stop it.
Charlotte forced herself to look Ian in the eye as he glanced around at each one of them. She would show him that her performance wasn’t affected by whether or not he wanted to talk to her. And she would make Zach ashamed of the way he had implied she wouldn’t do the work after sleeping with the boss.
Ian set up strong spotlights, and the crew continued to race against time as darkness fell. The orange glow of the fire loomed closer and closer, and everyone on the crew kept a wary eye on it as Ian frequently checked in with Boise for updates.
Charlotte lost herself in the hard manual labor of clearing the fire line. She poured her frustrations out into every bush and branch she cleared away. Her focus had grown so strong that she didn’t even notice when the other men stopped working and turned around with concerned looks on their faces. It wasn’t until Hunter gently touched her shoulder that she stopped chopping and looked up.
“Charlotte,” Hunter said. “You need to be still. No sudden moves.”
Of course, Charlotte whirled around rapidly without really thinking about what Hunter had just said. In response to her quick turn, a large black bear snarled and took a few steps toward the group, focusing his jet black eyes on Charlotte. The spotlights made the bear cast a long shadow, adding to the creepiness factor.
“Easy, boy,” Trevor said, trying to speak in a soothing tone.
“Where the hell did he come from?” Charlotte asked, her voice on edge. She had a chainsaw in her hand, so she wasn’t completely defenseless. But the bear was huge, and wielding a chainsaw as a weapon would be a bit awkward. There was a good possibility if the bear charged at her, he’d end up pushing the chainsaw back onto her. Which seemed like it might be just a little bit painful.
“He’s angry and disoriented because of the fire,” Luke said softly. “He probably got driven away from his normal territory, and now he’s stumbled across a loud group of humans, which I’m sure is terrifying for him.
The crew all stood perfectly still, watching and waiting to see what the bear would do next. The giant beast slowly started creeping forward, snarling and showing his teeth as he headed in Charlotte’s direction. Charlotte willed herself to remain calm and still. Every fiber of her body just wanted to run, but she took deep breaths and kept her feet planted in one place.
“Boss, we should change. He’ll probably leave if we do,” Hunter said.
“No!” Zach said, his voice low but urgent. “Ian, you promised me.”
“Zach, this is an emergency situation,” Ian said, never taking his eyes off of the bear. “No one has a gun on them at the moment, and I don’t want to unnecessarily shoot a bear, anyway.
Charlotte felt her heart racing faster as the bear kept creeping toward her with a hungry, angry look in its eyes. “Look, I don’t know what this little argument you guys have been having is about, but maybe you could save it for later. In case no one
has noticed, I’m about to get eaten by a bear.”
“Boss?” Hunter asked, his voice strained as the bear kept inching closer. Charlotte wasn’t quite sure what Hunter was asking, but Ian’s face looked very conflicted. She didn’t have much time to think about it, though. In the next moment, the bear charged. Charlotte screamed and threw her chainsaw aside, forgetting about her resolution not to run. She turned and ran through the dark, open space she had just cleared for the fire line, and didn’t stop until she reached the thick brush on the other side, which was impossible to speed through quickly. Behind her, she heard what sounded like two small explosions. When she finally dared to glance over her shoulder, she realized the bear wasn’t chasing her anymore. Confused, she stopped pushing her way through the heavy forest and turned to look. Her jaw dropped as she saw that the spotlights now illuminated three black bears which stood in the space she had just fled. She had thought the first black bear had been large, but the other two that had joined him were massive, bigger than any bear she had ever seen before.
The first black bear snarled, his giant teeth bared and his ears pressed back against his head. The other bears did not snarl back. They just stood there like sentries, as if daring the first bear to move. Finally, the first bear backed away, snarling as he disappeared into the forest. It was only then that Charlotte realized that Ian and Hunter were missing. She wanted to scream again, but her voice caught in her throat, which was growing scratchy from the smoky air. Then, without warning, two more explosions rang out. Charlotte was hit in the face with a giant whoosh of wind, and she grasped at a small tree to catch her balance. Right in front of her eyes, the two black bears transformed from furry beasts into smooth human flesh. In place of where the bears had just been stood Ian and Hunter, naked as the day they were born.
Charlotte’s jaw dropped. Holy shit, she thought. It was true. Shifters actually existed, and she was part of a crew of them. She stood frozen in one spot, unsure of how to process what she had just seen. The abstract idea of a man turning into a bear had been interesting, but seeing it live and in person was somewhat shocking.
Zach looked pissed. He glanced up in Charlotte’s direction, and then grabbed his chainsaw and stormed back to the spot on the fire line where he had been working. Suddenly, everything clicked into place for Charlotte. Zach hadn’t wanted Ian to confess to her that they were all shifters. Of course, Zach had no idea that she already suspected as much, and he had feared that Ian was going to spill the beans now that Charlotte and Ian had become romantically involved.
Charlotte furrowed her brow as she watched Ian and Hunter pulling on spare sets of dark green, flame retardant clothing. Ian should have spilled the beans. She shouldn’t have had to find out that he was a bear by almost being eaten by one. Anger filled her, starting in her toes and bubbling all the way up to her face, where her cheeks turned red from the heat of rage. She followed Zach’s lead and went to grab her chainsaw, walking furiously back to the fire line to dive into the job at hand.
“Charlotte!” Ian called out. “Charlotte, wait. We need to talk.”
Charlotte paused for a moment before starting her chainsaw. She turned to Ian, her eyes blazing. “Oh, really? Now you want to talk? Why couldn’t you have said something before I was attacked by a bear? You didn’t trust me at all, Ian. That hurts. A lot. I don’t want to talk anymore after what just happened. You lost your chance, buddy.”
Charlotte ignored the pain in Ian’s eyes and the sadness in Hunter’s as she turned back to the forest. Her mood had turned murderously angry, so she would kill the only thing she could—the wildfire.
Chapter Nine
“Are you happy now?” Ian yelled at Zach, giving him a frustrated look. But Ian’s words were lost in the racket of the chain saws that echoed out across the forest. Ian kicked a large tree stump in frustration and went back to where their makeshift camp had been set up. His radio squawked with urgent voices from Boise, asking them to come in and update with where they were.
Ian let out an exasperated breath and grabbed the radio. “Boise, this is Ian. We’re fine. Had to deal with a bear attack, but it appears the threat has passed.”
“Roger that. We were worried at the long lack of communication. Did you guys terminate the bear?”
Ian rolled his eyes. Terminate? Was this a military operation or something? “No, we were able to scare it off. I think it was just confused because of the huge fire out here.”
“Alright. How’s the fire line progressing?”
“We need probably two, three more hours. How does the fire look?”
“It’s still moving steadily but it doesn’t seem like it’s speeding up. I think you guys are okay for the moment.”
“Okay. We’ll keep going as quickly as we can.”
“Sounds good. Keep us updated. And watch out for bears.”
If you only knew, Ian thought. He headed back to check on his crew, who were working harder than ever as they cleared the line. Ian grabbed an axe to help them, and tried to concentrate on the work at hand. But he found it impossible not to think about the fact that his best friend and girlfriend were both mad at him. He wasn’t even sure if Charlotte still wanted to be his girlfriend. Ian cursed himself over and over for not just telling her he was a shifter the first night they had slept together. Then she would have known from the start, and Zach would have never had the chance to convince him to hold off even longer on telling her.
Ian figured Zach would eventually get over his anger. Zach could be feisty, and a pain in the ass when he thought things were being done the wrong way. But he always settled down eventually. Ian would give him space, and ride out the storm of Zach’s wrath until it passed. But Charlotte was an unknown factor. Ian had no idea whether she would forgive him, or whether he had lost her forever. He felt his bear squirming restlessly inside of him, telling him to go talk to her. But Ian couldn’t. He had to give her space. Maybe after this job was finished, she would have calmed down enough to at least listen when he tried to explain things to her. Hopefully, she would understand that he had made a promise to his second in command to keep silent, and that he’d had to honor that promise.
Ian coughed as the smoke around him thickened. The wildfire moved steadily closer to them, but Ian no longer worried that they wouldn’t finish in time. The crew had almost finished the fire line, and would be able to set the back fire before the wildfire presented any significant threat to the group’s safety. As the early morning light started spreading over the horizon, Ian inspected the fire line and told Trevor to go ahead and light the back fire. Trevor got the flame torch and listlessly began lighting up the other side of the fire line. There were no whoops and cheers like last time. Everyone on the crew had reached the point of exhaustion, and tensions were running high with the uncertainty of whether Charlotte would now cause trouble for the crew by outing them as shifters.
Charlotte began packing up her gear for the hike out without a word. Ian’s heart ached at the sight of her. He wanted to hold her, tell her he was sorry, and beg for her understanding. But he didn’t know what he could say right now that would ease the pain he had caused her. So he did nothing.
Boise radioed in to say that they wanted the crew to immediately begin hiking to the pick up site. The fire still appeared unstable, and the crew needed to get to a spot where they could be rescued easily if necessary. Despite the fatigue threatening to overtake each of the crew members, they all packed up their gear and began the trek through the forest. Ian kept his eyes and nose alert, looking around and sniffing in case any more bears were hiding in the dense trees. But he only smelled a mixture of pine needles, dry wood, and thick smoke.
None of the crew talked or joked on the hike. It wasn’t just the tension between Ian, Zach, and Charlotte causing the problem, though. Everyone had reached a point where the effort it would take to speak was too much. Every ounce of energy needed to be conserved for the long trek out. Ian felt himself fading more and more with each hour t
hat passed. Somehow he made it until dusk, when they finally reached the large utility truck waiting to transport them out of Yosemite. Everyone shed their jumpsuits, parachute rigs, and gear into the back of the truck, then climbed wearily into the front seats.
They made quite a sight—a group of large, burly men, and one very fit, toned woman—all with dark circles under their eyes and grimy, sweaty streaks covering their faces. Boise reported that the backfire was burning well. As long as the winds held steady, the two fires should be meeting within the hour. But the winds had been unpredictable, so nothing was a sure thing until the fires had actually burned each other out.
Ian leaned his head against the side of the truck and closed his eyes. He tried to fight the emotional and physical fatigue that was quickly overtaking him, but it was a losing battle. He drifted off to sleep before the truck had made it a mile down the road.
Hours later, he woke with a start as someone punched him in the arm.
“Hey, Boss, we’re back at base.”
Ian opened his eyes and squinted around. Hunter was standing next to him, looking concerned. The rest of the crew had already left the truck, and were unloading gear from the back.
“Are you okay, Boss? It took quite a bit of force to even wake you up,” Hunter said.
Ian focused on Hunter’s face, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just exhausted from the job, I guess. Any word on the fire?”
“Yeah, Boise radioed in. The two fires met and should be burned out soon. Everything is going according to plan.”
“Ok,” Ian said. “What time is it?”
“Something like 2 a.m. You should head in and get some sleep. We can finish unloading the stuff.”
Ian tried to protest, but Hunter insisted that Ian needed to take a break. So Ian stumbled into the bunkhouse, but decided to take a shower before hitting the sack. He could smell himself, so he knew the dirt and sweat was too much. He headed for the bathroom, thankful that this was one of the few bases that actually had private showers. He wanted a few minutes alone to wash away the soot, sweat, and anxiety of the last few days.
Fire Bear Shifters: The Complete Series Page 7