by Nora Roberts
“Since we save them, I figured the mountain could spare a few. Yeah, it’s pretty damn cold,” he said as he stepped into the water. “Feels great.”
She pulled out the bottle of soap she’d shoehorned between rocks, tossed it to him. “Help yourself. It feels like we’re the only two people in the world. I wouldn’t want to be the only two people in the world for long—who’d do the cooking?—but it’s nice for right now.”
“I heard birds in the black. They’re already coming back, at least to see what the hell happened. And in the green, across the meadow where I got the flowers, I saw a herd of elk. We may be the only people here, but life rolls on.”
“I’m going to get dressed before I freeze.” She stood, water sliding down her body, sun glinting to turn it to tiny diamonds.
“Wow,” Gull said.
“For that, and the bottle of wildflowers, I guess you’ve earned a beer.” She got out, shivering now, rubbing her skin to warm and dry it. “We’ve got spaghetti and meat sauce, fruit cups, crackers and cheese spread and pound cake for dinner.”
“Right now I could eat cardboard and be happy, so that sounds amazing.”
“I’ll get the campfire going,” she told him as she dressed. “And you get the beer when you get out. I guess cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will consist of—Holy shit.”
“That I don’t want to eat, even now.”
“Don’t move. Or do—really fast.”
“Why?”
“Life rolls along, including the big-ass bear on the other bank.”
“Oh, fuck me.” Gull turned slowly, watched the big-ass bear lumber up toward the stream.
“This may be your fantasy come true, but I really think you should get out of the water.”
“Crap. Throw something at him,” Gull suggested as he stayed low, edging through the water.
“Like what, harsh words? Shit, shit, he’s looking at us.”
“Get one of the Pulaskis. I’m damned if I’m going to be eaten by a bear when I’m naked.”
“I’m sure it’s a more pleasant experience dressed. He’s not going to eat us. They eat berries and fish. Get out of the water so he doesn’t think you’re a really big fish.”
Gull pulled himself out, stood dripping, eyeing the bear and being eyed. “Retreat. Slowly. He’s probably just screwing with us, and he’ll go away, but in case.”
Even as Rowan reached down for the gear, the bear turned its back on them. It squatted, shat, then lumbered away the way it came.
“Well, I guess he showed us what he thinks of us.” Overcome, Rowan sat on the ground, roared with laughter. “A real man would go after him, make him pay for that insult—so I could then tend your wounds.”
“Too bad, you’re stuck with me.” Gull scooped both hands through his dripping hair. “Christ, I want that beer.”
AS FAR AS GULL was concerned, ready-to-eat pasta and beer by a crackling campfire in the remote mountain wilderness scored as romantic as candlelight and fine wine in crystal. And beat the traditional trappings on the fun scale by a mile.
She’d relaxed for the first time in weeks, he thought, basking in the aftermath of a job well done and the solitude of what they’d preserved.
“Does your family do the camping thing?” she asked him.
“Not so much. My aunt’s more the is-there-room-service? type. I used to go with some buddies. We’d head up the coast—road trip, you know? Pick a spot. I always figured to head east, take on the Appalachian Trail, but between this and the arcade, I haven’t pulled that one off.”
“That’d be a good one. We mostly stuck to Montana, for recreation. There’s so much here anyway. My dad would work it out so he’d have two consecutive days off every summer, and take me. We’d never know when he’d get them, so it was always spur-of-the-moment.”
“That made it cooler,” Gull commented, and she just beamed at him.
“It really did. It didn’t occur to me until after I’d joined the unit that wilderness camping on his days off probably wouldn’t have been his first choice. I imagine he could’ve used that room service.”
“Kids come first, right? The universal parental code.”
“I guess it should be. I was thinking about Dolly and her father earlier, and the way they’d tear into each other. Was it their fractured dynamic that made her the way she was, or did the way she was fracture the dynamic?”
“Things are hardly ever all one way or the other.”
“More a blend,” she agreed. “A little from each column. Don’t you wonder what aimed her at Latterly? There are plenty of unmarried men she could’ve hooked up with. And he was, what, about fifteen years older and not what you’d call studly.”
“Maybe he was a maniac in bed.”
“Yeah, still waters and so on, but you’ve got to get into bed to find that out. A married guy with three kids. A God guy. If she’d really planned on reeling him in toward the ‘I do’s,’ didn’t she consider what her life would be like? A preacher’s wife, and stepmother of three? She’d have hated it.”
“It might just have been a matter of proving something. Married God guy, father of three. And she thinks, I could get him if I wanted.”
“I don’t get that kind of thinking,” she stated. “For a one-night stand, I can see it. You’ve got an itch, you scope out the talent in the bar, rope one out of the herd to scratch it. I don’t see wrecking a family for another notch on the bedpost.”
“Because you’re thinking like you.” Gull opened the last two beers. “The older-man thing. He’d probably be inclined to indulge her, and be really grateful that a woman her age, with her looks, wanted to sleep with him. It’s a pretty good recipe for infatuation on both sides.”
She angled her head. “You know, you’re right. A guy a little bored in his marriage, a needy young single mother. There’s a recipe. Of course, for all we know Latterly might’ve been a hound dog boning half the women in his congregation, and Dolly was just the latest.”
“If so, the cops’ll find out, if they haven’t already. Sex is never off the radar.”
“Maybe they’ll have this thing wrapped up when we get back.” She broke off a piece of pound cake. “Nobody talks about it much, but it’s on everybody’s mind. L.B.’s especially because he’s got to think about everybody, evaluate everybody, worry about everybody.”
“Yeah, he’s handling a lot. He has a smooth way of juggling.”
“My rookie season, we had Bootstrap. He was okay, ran things pretty smooth, but you could tell, even a rook could tell, his head was already halfway into retirement. He had this cabin up in Washington State, and that’s where he wanted to be. Everybody knew it was his last season. He kept a distance, if you know what I mean, with the rookies especially.”
Gull nodded, sampled pound cake. Ambrosia. “He didn’t want to get close. Didn’t want to make any more personal bonds.”
“I think that was a good part of it. Then L.B. took over. You know how he is. He’s the boss, but he’s one of us. Everybody knows if you need to bitch or whine or let off steam, you can go to him.”
“Here’s to L.B.”
“Bet your ass.” She tipped her head as they clinked beer cans. “I like having sex with you.”
Those cat eyes gleamed in the firelight. “That’s a nonsequitur I can get behind.”
“Seriously. It occurs to me that the season’s half over, and I’ve never had another one like it. Murder, arson, mayhem, and I’m having sex regularly.”
“Let’s hope the last element is the only one that spills over into the second half.”
“Absolutely. The thing is, Gulliver, while I really like sex with you, I also realize that if we stopped having sex—”
“Bite your tongue.”
“If we did,” she said with a laugh, “I’d still like sitting around the fire with you, and talking about whatever.”
“Same here. Only I want the sex.”
“Handy for both of us. What makes it better,
over and above the regular, is you don’t secretly wish I’d be something else. Less tied up with the job, more inclined to fancy underwear.”
He pulled out a cigar, lit it. Blew out a long stream. “I like fancy underwear. Just for the record.”
“It doesn’t bother you that I had a hand in training you, and I might be the one giving you orders on a fire.”
She took the cigar when he offered it, enjoyed the tang. “Because you know who you are, and that matters. I can’t push you around, and that matters, too. And there’s this thing I didn’t think mattered because it never did. But it does when it’s mixed in with the rest. When it’s blended, like we said before. You bring me flowers in a bottle.”
“I think of you,” he said simply.
She pulled on the cigar again, giving her emotions time to settle, then passed it back to him. “I know, and that’s another new element for the season. And here’s one more. I guess the thing is, Gull, I’m in care with you, too.”
He reached out for her hand. “I know. But it’s nice to hear you say it.”
“Know-it-all.” Still holding his hand, she tipped her head back, looked at the star-swept sky. “It’d be nice to just stay here a couple of days. No worries, no wondering.”
“We’ll come back, after the season’s over.”
She couldn’t see that far. Next month, she thought, next year? As distant as the stars. As murky as smoke. Always better, to her way of thinking, to concentrate on the right now.
TOWARD DAWN, Gull slipped through a dream of swimming under a waterfall. He dove deep into the blue crystal of the pool where sunbeams washed the gilded bottom in shimmering streaks. Overhead water struck water in a steady, muted drumbeat while Rowan, skin as gold and sparkling as the sand, eyes as clear and cool as the pool, swam toward him.
Their arms entwined, their mouths met, and his pulse beat like the drumming water.
As he lay against her, his hand lazily stroking along her hip, he thought himself dreaming still. He drifted toward the surface, in the dream and out of the dream, and the water drummed on.
It echoed in the confines of the tent when he opened his eyes. Smiling in the dark, he gave Rowan a little shake.
“Hey, do you hear that?”
“What?” Her tone, sleepy and annoyed, matched the nudge back she gave him. “What?” she repeated, more lucidly. “Is it the bear? Is it back?”
“No. Listen.”
“I don’t want . . . It’s rain.” She shoved him with more force as she pushed to sit up. “It’s raining!”
She crawled to the front of the tent, opened the flap. “Oh, yeah, baby! Rain, rain, don’t go away. Do you hear that?”
“Yeah, but I’m a little distracted by the view right this minute.”
He caught the glint of her eyes as she glanced over her shoulder, grinned. Then she was out of the tent and letting out a long, wild cheer.
What the hell, he thought, and climbed out after her.
She threw her arms up, lifted her face. “This isn’t a storm, or a quick summer shower. This is what my grandfather likes to call a soaker. And about damn time.”
She pumped her fists, her hips, high stepped. “Give it up, Gulliver! Dance! Dance to honor the god of rain!”
So he danced with her, naked, in the rainy gloom of dawn, then dragged her back in the tent to honor the rain gods his way.
The steady, soaking rain watered the thirsty earth, and made for a wet pack-out. Rowan held on to the cheer with every step of every mile.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” she said as rain slid off their ponchos, dripped off the bills of their caps. “Maybe it’s one of those turning points, and means the worst of the crap’s behind us.”
Gull figured it was a lot to expect from one good rain in a dry summer—but he never argued against hope.
24
Rowan refused to let the news that Leo Brakeman remained at large discourage her, and instead opted for Gull’s glass half full of no further arson fires or connected murders in almost a month.
Maybe the cops would never find him, never solve those crimes. It didn’t, and wouldn’t, change her life.
While she and Gull packed out, a twelve-man team jumped a fire in Shoshone, putting the two of them back on the jump list as soon as they’d checked in.
That was her life, she thought as she unpacked and reorganized her gear. Training, preparing, doing, then cleaning up to go again.
Besides, when she studied the big picture, she couldn’t complain. As the season edged toward August, she’d had no injuries, had managed to maintain a good, fighting weight by losing only about ten pounds, and had justified L.B.’s faith in her by proving herself a solid fire boss on the line. Most important, she’d had a part in saving countless acres of wildland.
The fact she’d managed to accomplish that and build what she had to admit had become an actual relationship was cause to celebrate, not a reason to niggle with the downsides.
She decided to do just that with something sweet and indulgent from the cookhouse.
She found Marg out harvesting herbs in the cool, damp air.
“We brought the rain down with us,” Rowan told her. “It followed us all the way in. Didn’t stop until we flew over Missoula.”
“It’s the first time I haven’t had to water the garden in weeks. Ground soaked it right up, though. We’re going to need more. Brought out the damn gnats, too.” Marg swatted at them as she lifted her basket. She spritzed a little of her homemade bug repellant on her hands, patted her face with it and sweetened the air with eucalyptus and pennyroyal. “I guess you’re looking for some food.”
“Anything with a lot of sugar.”
“I can fix you up.” Marg cocked her head. “You look pretty damn good for a woman who hiked a few hours in the rain.”
“I feel pretty damn good, and I think that’s why.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain good-looking, green-eyed jumper?”
“Well, he was hiking with me. It didn’t hurt.”
“It’s a little bright spot for me.” Inside, Marg set her herb basket on the counter. “Watching the romances. Yours, your father’s.”
“I don’t know if it’s . . . My father’s?”
“I ran into Lucas and his lady friend at the fireworks, and again a couple days ago at the nursery. She was helping him pick out some plants.”
“Plants? You’re talking about my father? Lucas black-thumb Tripp?”
“One and the same.” As she spoke, Marg cut a huge slice of Black Forest cake. “Ella’s helping him put in a flower bed. A little one to start. He was looking at arbors.”
“Arbors? You mean the . . .” Rowan drew an arch with her forefingers. “Come on. Dad’s gardening skills start and stop with mowing the lawn.”
“Things change.” She set the cake and a tall glass of milk in front of Rowan. “As they should or we all just stand in the same place. It’s good to see him lit up about something that doesn’t involve a parachute or an engine. You ought to be happy about that, Rowan, especially since there’s a lot of lights dimming around here right now.”
“I just don’t know, that’s all. What’s wrong with standing in the same place if it’s a good place?”
“Even a good place gets to be a rut, especially if you’re standing in it alone. Honey, alone and lonely share the same root. Eat your cake.”
“I don’t see how Dad could be lonely. He’s always got so much going on. He has so many friends.”
“And nobody there when he turns off the lights—until recently. If you can’t see how much happier he is since Ella, then you’re not paying attention.”
Rowan searched around for a response, then noticed Marg’s face when the cook turned away to wash her herbs in the sink. Obviously she hadn’t been paying attention here, Rowan realized, or she’d have seen the sadness.
“What’s wrong, Marg?”
“Oh, just tough times. Tougher for some. I know you’d probably be
fine if Leo Brakeman wasn’t seen or heard from again. And I don’t blame you a bit for it. But it’s beating down on Irene.”
“If he comes back, or they find him, he’ll probably go to prison. I don’t know if that’s better for her.”
“Knowing’s always better. In the meanwhile, she had to take on another job as her pay from the school isn’t enough to cover the bills. Especially since she leveraged the house for his bail. And taking on the work, she can’t see to the baby.”
“Can’t her family help her through it?”
“Not enough, I guess. It’s the money, but it’s also the time, the energy, the wherewithal. The last time I saw her, she looked worn to the nub. She’s ready to give up, and I don’t know how much longer she can hold out.”
“I’m sorry, Marg. Really. We could take up a collection. I guess it wouldn’t be more than a finger in the dike for a bit, but the baby’s Jim’s. Everybody’d do what they could.”
“Honestly, Ro, I don’t think she’d accept it. On top of it all, that woman’s shamed down to the root of her soul. What her husband and her daughter did here, that weighs on her. I don’t think she could take money from us. I’ve known Irene since we were girls, and she could hardly look at me. That breaks my heart.”
Rowan rose, cut another, smaller slice of cake, poured another glass of milk. “You sit down. Eat some cake. We’ll fix it,” she added. “There’s always a way to fix something if you keep at it long enough.”
“I like to think so, but I don’t know how much long enough Irene’s got left.”
WHEN ELLA CAME BACK DOWNSTAIRS, Irene continued to sit on the couch, shoulders slumped, eyes downcast. Deliberately Ella fixed an easy smile on her face.
“She’s down. I swear that’s the sweetest baby, Irene. Just so sunny and bright.” She didn’t mention the time she’d spent folding and putting away the laundry in the basket by the crib, or the disarray she’d noticed in Irene’s usually tidy home.
“She makes me want more grandbabies,” Ella went on, determinedly cheerful. “I’m going to go make us some tea.”