Heart on Fire

by William Maltese

  “Besides which, what with the recent increased pressure buildups, earthquakes, and the like,” Roger added, “we’d all feel a lot safer if Chad weren’t exposed on the North Face any longer than necessary.”

  “Not that we’re willing to stick you bull’s-eye in the danger zone,” Lou was quick to assure. “You know I wouldn’t volunteer you for anything that I thought was really dangerous.”

  Chad, though, was the one who’d volunteered Janine’s services, wasn’t he?

  “We have no reason to expect any immediate violent activity,” Roger assured, “but there’s always that unknown quantity whenever dealing with a mountain like this one.”

  “Chad wouldn’t have suggested you substitute, either, if he thought there was any danger,” Lou said. “You know that.”

  It wasn’t the danger offered by Mt. St. Helens that had Janine worried at the moment. She would be on the North Face with Chad. Chad—especially after she’d so easily succumbed to his kiss the night before—was her more immediate concern.

  Granted, the two of them would be working. Granted, it was only for a couple of days. What could possibly happen in two short days—a mere forty-eight hours?

  On the other hand, look at what had happened in so little time. There’d been an earthquake, during which Janine had been less aware of the earth shaking than of Chad’s hard body against her. There’d been a peck on the cheek over sweet rolls and cold milk. There’d been a walk in the dark. There’d been that real, genuine no mistaking it for anything other than it was kiss.

  “Two days, you say?” Janine asked.

  “The readouts could wait, but it would be better for the continuity of the experiments if they were recorded in a timely manner,” Lou said, sounding every inch the concerned scientist.

  “We hope you can schedule two days of easy meals that Lou, Jenny, and Brad can manage without ruining them and our stomachs completely,” Roger said.

  “Do they make meals that uncomplicated, I wonder?” Lou joked.

  “If they don’t, we just might have to surrender experiment results for Janine and decent meals.” Roger sounded serious enough to make Janine wonder if he wasn’t. “What do we gain by timely experiment data if we perish by bad cooking?”

  Lou and Janine laughed, but not even the humor covered the admitted anticipation Janine experienced at the prospect of being even more closely thrown together with Chad.

  Roger sniffed the air. “Are those cookies I’ve been smelling?”

  Janine nodded.

  “Love cookies,” said Roger.

  “Everyone loves anything around here after two weeks of Jenny and Brad” Lou was certain.

  “Well, what do you say, Janine?” Roger accepted the chocolate-chip cookie she offered. “Think you can cover for Lou and simultaneously come up with something that won’t have us strangling the substitute head of kitchen in your absence?”

  “How complicated are these experiments I’ll be monitoring?” It wasn’t like she’d arrived up to speed.

  “Not complicated at all,” Lou assured. That, Janine was to discover, wasn’t quite the case. Had they been as uncomplicated as Lou insinuated, Chad could have easily carried them off in conjunction with his own work. However, they weren’t so complicated that Janine, with her professional background, thought she was unqualified to handle them and do a good job in the bargain.

  “So?” Lou asked when she’d completed the rundown. Roger, by then, had excused himself, saying he’d check in later for Janine’s final decision. “What do you say?”

  “It’s certainly different from anything that was ongoing at Marine World.”

  “The life forms are just smaller,” Lou encouraged. “All the big aquatic life was wiped out by the explosion. It’s surprising, though, how what was left has adapted so well and what new life—particularly algae—has taken up residence.”

  Janine had to admit that it was all pretty fascinating. It was just that….

  “Something bothering you, Janine?” Lou sat back in her chair and eyed her friend and one-time college roommate.

  Janine felt under one of Lou’s high-powered microscopes.

  “I just would hate to screw up on all the work you’ve already done.” Of course, that was no lie but, more importantly, Janine was still weighing the pros and cons of holing up with Chad for forty-eight hours.

  “Who got better grades all down the line in school?” Lou asked. “Who had to tutor her poor schmuck of a roommate through more than one college course? Huh? Don’t talk to me about screwing up, Janine. You and I both know your qualifications. So what’s really bothering you? Chad?”

  “Chad?” Janine’s response was too loud and too quick.

  “Jeez Louise!” Lou said with a sigh. “What’s the problem, there? He’s single. You’re single. It’s obvious there’s chemistry percolating between the two of you.

  “I just prefer slow and easy to run amuck.”

  “You know, when I decided I loved—I mean liked….” Janine wasn’t fooled by Lou’s last-minute substitution. “…Jack?” Lou asked. “It was the minute the two of us met. So, don’t tell me you need a six-year lead-in and equally lengthy courtship to decide you like Chad and that he likes you.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Believe me, babe, there’s no maybe about it.”

  “Columbus took a chance—and died in prison.”

  “Jesus!”

  “So, that decided, I’d better get ready for lunch.” Janine checked her watch. “You can stick around and see how it’s done, or I can give you a more leisurely run-through later. What’ll it be?”

  “The leisurely run-through, later.” Lou scooted back her chair and got up. She flashed Janine a you’re going to have fun smile. “In the meantime, don’t be too concerned about you and Chad. These things have a way of working themselves out on their own, if they’re meant to be. You know what I mean?” She gathered up her notebook and hummed a jolly little tune as she exited the room.

  “Problems?” Brad asked when Janine joined Jenny and him behind the service counter.

  “I’ve been drafted to take over some of Lou’s experiments on the North Face.”

  “Oh, why?” Jenny asked. Having overheard the news, she obviously didn’t consider it good news. Undoubtedly, she imagined herself back cooking for a group that obviously didn’t like or appreciate her cooking at all.

  “It’s really not going to interrupt our kitchen routine too much,” Janine promised. “Lou will be here, substituting for me for the couple of days I’ll be in and around the crater.”

  “Thank God!” Jenny’s relief was evident on her pretty face.

  “I’ll work up the menus before I go,” Janine said, “and make sure the recipes are pulled for easy reference. I see no reason why any of this should turn into a big deal.” She remembered an omelet Lou had once made, staying over at Janine’s parents’ house in Spokane; it was the first and last time Janine subjected herself to Lou’s cooking. Should she mention that to Roger who had obviously suffered so much under Jenny’s culinary ineptitude?

  “Hi!” Chad called from the doorway, interrupting. He came in and walked as far as the counter, leaning on over it. “Busy?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” They’d have plenty of time over the next forty-eight hours.

  “Okay, then, I’ll leave, as soon as you assure me that you’ve decided to change places with Lou for the suggested couple of days.”

  “Consider yourself so assured.” He had to be the handsomest man Janine had ever seen.

  “Fan-tas-tic!”

  “Now, we really do have a lunch to serve.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE SCRAMBLED EGGS were runny. Janine didn’t like runny eggs, scrambled or otherwise.

  Her toast was cold. She didn’t like cold toast.

  She was less aware of runny eggs and cold toast than she might have been, though, because she was so intent upon how Chad and she would soon be off, toge
ther, in a helicopter, to the crater.

  “I don’t like runny scrambled eggs,” Chad said.

  Janine glanced up from her plate and saw him shift coagulated yellow-and-white first one way and then the other with the tongs of his fork.

  “I don’t like cold toast, either,” he said. “It reminds me of the way the English do it. Certainly, I don’t like burned sausage.” He smiled widely. “Thank God, we’re getting out of here this morning before everyone grabs pitchforks and comes after Lou and her two kitchen helpers for burning. Why don’t we jettison this poor excuse for a working-man’s breakfast and head on out to the chopper to wait for Ethan? Maybe we can steal a couple of his candy bars.”

  Ethan, as it turned out, was already at the chopper.

  “I hate runny scrambled eggs,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Don’t forget cold toast and burned sausage,” Chad said.

  “All of which leaves me to wonder if we should be flying Janine anywhere. It seems cruel as hell, as far as everyone is concerned, to leave Lou and that crew in the kitchen.”

  “Off bright and early, are you?” Roger asked, coming to join them.

  “Have you eaten yet?” Chad wanted to know.

  “Headed there, now.”

  Chad looked to Janine who looked to Ethan who looked to Chad. They smiled in unison, having decided it was time to fly out before Roger came running to put Janine back in the kitchen—experiments be damned!

  “What?” Roger asked. After all, he hadn’t been born yesterday.

  “Nothing,” Chad assured. “We’ll see you in forty-eight.”

  Although Janine had ridden in a helicopter a few times, it hadn’t been enough so that she wasn’t all butterfingers when it came to figuring out the shoulder harness and seat belt of this one.

  Chad didn’t miss out on the opportunity to give her a helping hand, although he made sure not to take advantage.

  The chopper was soon airborne, and it swerved toward the southeast.

  Janine’s stomach gave little lurch. At the same time, she reminded herself that Ethan had flown in the war when other, less experienced pilots, hadn’t lived to return and tell the tale.

  In a surprisingly few short minutes, Chad pointed below them to an orderly arrangement of buildings along a paved, two-lane highway. He said something, but Janine missed it in the roar of the rotors.

  “Troutdale,” he repeated, up close; although it was more a case of her successfully reading his lips than actually hearing, even this time.

  He tapped on Ethan’s shoulder to signal them down.

  Janine thought for sure they were going to crash as the copter immediately slid downward and to the left. It seemed to be but inches from the ground when it finally leveled off and set down. She still couldn’t hear well until the motor was turned off and the rotors were slowing toward their eventual stop.

  “Troutdale, as I was saying,” Chad said with a silly grin. “I thought, since the phone lines are still down, since the quake, that you’d probably like to advantage the opportunity to check in, right off, on your Great-Grandma’s friend. See if she’s all right and all.”

  In truth, Janine still thought that her use of the team helicopter for a social visit was something Roger would disapprove.

  “Looks like we’re drawing a crowd,” Ethan said, turning back over his shoulder. Three boys and two old men seemed hardly a crowd, but—“Somebody better hop on out and tell them that we’re not here to evacuate because of what’s happening to and on the mountain.”

  Chad reached across Janine and opened the door on her side. He brushed her while doing so, and—right on schedule—she experienced the same thrilling chill usually got every time he physically touched her.

  “Isn’t this detour going to cut down on our time on the North Face of the crater?” Janine asked, momentarily not budging. If Sarah Zent found out Janine could arrive by helicopter, once, she’d want to know why the young woman couldn’t fly in later. At Sarah’s ripe old age, she might not understand the nuances of what was and wasn’t proper usage of team equipment.

  “If you have trouble monitoring Lou’s experiments, I’ll lend you some of my expertise, on-site,” Chad promised. “Now, I think we should let the crowd—” The crowd now consisted of several more kids, another old man, and a few middle-aged women. “—know we’re here merely to say hello to one of the residents. Living permanently on the side of a mountain whose other side has recently blown away, has these folks more used to helicopters arriving to bring bad news.”

  Janine slid out, automatically ducking her head despite the deteriorated movement of the overhead rotors. She would try to explain to Sarah why it was impossible to do this more often.

  “Trouble?” one of the old men asked. “I knew there’d be trouble when the mountain moved again this morning.”

  “No trouble,” Chad assured. The poor old boy was assuredly senile, since Chad knew of nothing that insinuated ground movement since the large one experienced when Chad had been en route to the camp.

  “And the ground movement means just what?” the old guy wanted to know.

  “Actually, no such ground shift turned up registered by any of our equipment,” Chad tried to be reassuring.

  “Your fancy equipment doesn’t know squat, then” decided the old gentleman with obvious disgust. “What else is new?”

  “We’re here to visit Sarah Zent,” Janine changed the subject. “She’s a friend of my great-grandmother.”

  “Sarah lives over there!” one of the attending women obliged. She pointed toward a copse of evergreens farther down the road. The leading edge of a beige trailer house poked from among the trees.

  “I say this damned mountain moved again, this morning,” the old man insisted, prepared to take up where he’d left off. “What do you say, Sammy?” He’d turned to the white-bearded gentleman on his right.

  “Nah!” Sammy contradicted, shaking his head. “I didn’t feel a damned thing.”

  Janine touched Chad’s arm and turned him from the developing confrontation. She began walking toward the trailer, and Chad followed obediently along.

  “Typical paranoia,” Chad diagnosed. “I’ll bet you’ll find people up here who’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that the mountain hasn’t stopped moving since the big blow in ’80.”

  They continued on their way and entered the trees originally seen from a distance.

  On closer examination, the trailer looked as if it had seen better times. Its wheels were gone, and it was sitting on crumbling cement blocks whose disintegration had already caused the trailer to tip noticeably. Large sections of beige paint were blistered and peeling, revealing pale gray underneath.

  The door opened before Janine could knock. The young woman on the other side of the screen was obviously not Sarah Zent, unless Sarah had found the legendary Fountain of Youth.

  “Are you here because we have to evacuate?” the young woman asked and brushed a stray lock of red-brown hair off her forehead.

  “We’re here to see Sarah Zent,” Janine said. “I’m Janine Woof, and Mrs. Zent is a long-time friend of my great-grandmother. I’ve just been assigned to the scientific team up on the mountain.”

  “I’m her great-granddaughter, Marianne. At the moment, she’s off for her morning constitutional.” She checked her watch. “She’s been gone for a little over an hour.”

  “She’s out walking?” Janine wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly. Sarah Zent was Great-Grandma Woof’s cotemporary—the two had been girls together—and while Great-Grandma Woof could get around on her own, the idea of her taking off on an early-morning walk, alone, for over an hour, in some dim-lit, possibly bear-infested, woods, boggled the mind.

  “She should be back any time now,” Marianne promised. “Would you like to wait? She’d never forgive me if I let you go without her seeing you.” She stepped back and opened the screen.

  “Maybe you could just tell her I stopped by,” Janine suggested. “As soon a
s the phones are back on line, I’ll be sure to….”

  “Nonsense!” Chad interrupted. “We can certainly spare a couple more minutes.”

  He was already inside the trailer, and Janine—albeit reluctantly—followed.

  Although Janine didn’t consider herself old, there was an undeniable freshness about the younger Marianne that had Janine wishing not to be held up in comparison. The young woman had deep blue eyes, a complexion unmarred by even a single zit. Janine could only be thankful Marianne wasn’t dressed in something more flattering to her figure than the plain housedress, nondescript apron, and sandals.

  “I’m sorry I can’t offer you anything but orange juice,” Marianne said.

  “Orange juice would be nice,” Chad said; Janine envisioned him asking Marianne if she’d mind whipping him up some scrambled eggs, non-runny, while she was at it. Maybe some hot toast and some nicely done sausages as well.

  “It must have been dark when Mrs. Zent started out this morning,” Janine said to Chad and watched him watch Marianne.

  Chad must have felt Janine’s eyes on him, because he turned toward her and smiled all-innocence.

  “Great-Grandma goes out at dawn every day.” Marianne obviously had overheard Janine’s question and now provided a response as well as a glass of ice-cold juice. “She says neither old age nor the mountain is about to stop her, especially since she’s quite convinced by her visitation that she’s not yet due to die.”

  “Visitation?” Chad asked over the rim of his glass.

  Marianne looked embarrassed. Janine would have liked saving her from an answer but was frankly curious herself.

  “She was on the North Face the morning the mountain blew,” Marianne said and fiddled with her apron string. “She had several cabins over there and was staying in one, all the tourists having pulled out because of the preliminary earthquakes. She was going to do her very own Harry Truman number—” Harry was the colorful owner of the Spirit Lake Lodge who had sworn he wasn’t going to leave the mountain, no matter what happened, and was now buried beneath literally tons of ash and debris. “—but early that morning, she woke up and found an angel at the foot of her bed.”