“Like Dad?”
“He can be a force to be reckoned with when he wants to.”
“Which is most of the time.” Aubrey thought back on her relationship with her father, attempting to look at it from a different angle. “You think I’m afraid of failing?”
“And of letting your father down.”
“Sounds like classic firstborn syndrome to me.”
“It does.”
Aubrey had intended to be funny but her grandmother obviously took her seriously, which sobered Aubrey.
“Oh, I’m not saying you haven’t ever rebelled,” Grandma Rose continued. “You did that just recently by coming here when he wanted to hire someone.”
“But I haven’t exactly cut the apron strings, either,” Aubrey said glumly.
She traced a finger back and forth across the photograph of her grandparents, thinking more of her love for Gage than her somewhat dysfunctional relationship with her father.
The pink-and-turquoise Barbie phone on the small desk started ringing. Grandma Rose creaked to a standing position and went to answer it. When Aubrey first arrived two months ago, she’d been surprised and amused that the once adored possession still functioned.
“Hello. Oh, hi, Eleanor.” Grandma Rose nodded at Aubrey. “She’s still here. Do you want to talk to—” Deep creases formed in her grandmother’s brow. “What’s that?”
Several seconds passed during which her grandmother’s concern visibly increased. Aubrey set the photograph on the nightstand and went to stand near her.
“Thank you for calling, Eleanor. I appreciate it.” Grandma Rose hung up the phone and turned to Aubrey. “The fire changed direction during the night. It’s fifteen miles east of Blue Ridge and heading this way.”
“What!” Aubrey struggled to digest the unexpected news. “It was thirty miles away and headed in the opposite direction when we went to bed last night.”
“Apparently the wind changed course around midnight.”
“Oh, my God.”
Shock set in as Aubrey realized the seriousness of the situation. She ran to the window behind her bed and pushed aside the curtain. Smoke filled the distant sky, hanging low over the hilltops and shining an eerie incandescent silver in the early morning light. Fear seizing her, she stumbled away from the bed.
“I have to go tell Mom and Dad. No way are we leaving now. Did Eleanor recommend you evacuate?”
“Not yet. She said she’d keep everyone advised of the fire’s status.”
“Still, I think we should prepare for the possibility. Fifteen miles isn’t that far.”
How was Gage doing, she wondered, and what was he feeling having to fight a fire so close to his hometown? Something her grandmother said about the direction of the fire suddenly penetrated her brain and triggered a rush of alarm.
“The Raintree ranch is east of Blue Ridge. At the rate the fire’s traveling, it could reach there in a matter of hours!”
“Dear heaven.”
“I think I’ll call Susan. Ask if she needs any help.”
Before Aubrey could pick up the phone, it rang again. Grandma Rose answered it.
“Hello. Yes, just a moment.” She passed the phone to Aubrey, her eyes solemn. “It’s someone named Larry Newcombe. Says he’s a commander with the wilderness firefighters.”
A dozen questions raced through Aubrey’s mind in the three seconds it took her to place the phone to her ear, most of them centering on Gage and whether or not he was safe and unharmed.
“This is Aubrey Stuart,” she said in a tight voice.
Commander Newcombe didn’t waste time with a greeting. “I hope you don’t mind me contacting you at home, Ms. Stuart. We were in contact with the local authorities and they gave us your name and number.” He cleared his throat. “We need your help.”
“My help? How?”
“We’re short medics and injuries have been heavier than usual. The BLM and Forest Service are flying some more in, but they won’t arrive until this afternoon.”
“I see.”
“Is there any chance you can come?”
Weeks of resistance to the idea of volunteering with the Hotshots vanished in a flash. “Of course, I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”
“Thank you, ma’am. We sure appreciate it.”
She gave the commander her cell phone number, then opened the desk drawer and removed a pad of paper and pen. “I’ll need directions.”
“Fire camp is on Verde Road, about four miles south of where it junctions with the highway. Look for the markers. Once you arrive in camp, we’ll transport you to the front line.”
Front line? The term sounded scarily like warfare to Aubrey. “How close will I be to the fire?”
“A mile or two.”
Aubrey swallowed.
“I take it you’ve been recruited,” Grandma Rose said when Aubrey disconnected with the commander.
“Appears so.” Folding the paper with the directions and stuffing it in her pocket, Aubrey filled her grandmother in on the details as best she knew them.
“How long will you be away?”
“I don’t know.” Aubrey shrugged. “As long as they need me, I suppose.”
“You be careful.”
“You, too. And call Susan for me if you don’t mind.” Together they left the bedroom and went in search of her parents. “The folks will evacuate you if it comes to that. And speaking of the folks…”
Aubrey sighed. She didn’t figure her parents would be happy with the news or the least bit understanding. Her father especially.
To her utter and complete astonishment, she was wrong.
“Naturally, you must go,” her mother said when Aubrey finished explaining to her parents about Commander Newcombe’s phone call. “I’ll contact the hospital for you, explain your delay.”
Aubrey’s mother been doing laundry most of the morning, catching it up for Grandma Rose before they left. Clean clothing and linens were folded and stacked in neat piles on the kitchen table, filling every available space.
“Thanks, Mom.” Aubrey gathered her purse and a few personal necessities she thought she might need. Spying the clean laundry, she decided a change of clothing was in order. And sturdier shoes. Turning in a half circle, she made a beeline back to her bedroom, where she’d left her packed suitcases.
A few minutes later, her father met her on the porch and walked her to her SUV. “You say the Hotshots are understaffed?”
“That’s what I’m told.” Aubrey opened the driver’s side door and tossed her tote bag onto the passenger seat.
Admittedly, she’d been a little cool to her father since the other night, though she couldn’t blame him entirely for what had happened. He might have been the catalyst for her and Gage’s argument but not the cause of it, in spite of what Gage claimed.
She had only herself to blame for that fiasco.
“Wait a minute, Aubrey,” he said when she would have escaped into the SUV.
Expecting a lecture, she cut him short. Her father was not going to talk her out of helping the Hotshots. “Dad, I need to leave. Now.” In the short time it had taken her to get ready to leave, the columns of smoke had doubled in size.
“Do you…” Her father hesitated, something he rarely did. “Do you think the Hotshots could use a doctor, as well as a nurse?”
“What?” She was tempted to glance at the sky and see if it had fallen. Surely she’d heard wrong.
“If they’re short of medical help, they could probably—”
“Are you serious?”
“Well…yes. I’ve already spoken to your mother. She’ll drive your grandmother to a motel in Pineville if the authorities recommend evacuating Blue Ridge.”
Stupefied, Aubrey stared. Her father, the great Alexander Stuart, heart surgeon extraordinaire, had just offered to help treat firefighters under conditions that were bound to be harsh and with equipment that, compared to the ultramodern operating room he was accustomed to, could onl
y be called primitive.
“Wow.” She blinked and when he didn’t disappear, she smiled.
“Is that a yes?”
“An unequivocal yes!” Leaping into his arms, she hugged him fiercely. “Thank you, Daddy.” Abruptly, she pushed away from him and frowned. “Do you still remember basic triage?”
“Get in the car,” he said gruffly, giving her a playful shove. “And quit picking on your old man.” He went around to the passenger door. “I’ll have you know I could outsuture you with one hand tied behind my back.”
“Just checking.” Laughing, she started the engine and passed him the paper with the scribbled directions. “Here. You be navigator.”
Their camaraderie lasted for several miles. Aubrey had never worked with her father before and discovered she eagerly anticipated the opportunity. Or was it practicing emergency nursing again after a too-long absence that had her blood pumping and her nerves tingling? Except for when she and Gage were making love, she hadn’t felt this alive, this excited, since leaving Tucson. In hindsight, she’d been wrong not to accept Captain Greenough’s invitation and become a volunteer medic when he first asked her.
Could this be the happy medium she and Gage were searching for the other night?
The question and its possibly significant answer were instantly forgotten as Aubrey and her father rounded a bend and reached a large clearing.
The entire mountainside glowed a fiery orange. Smoke rose from the tops of the flames in giant, fluffy white columns that seemed to tower as high as the clouds themselves. In the wake of the flames lay acres upon acres of scorched landscape.
Aubrey hit the brakes and parked the SUV. For several moments, she and her father stared in stunned silence.
“Good Lord,” she said, her voice scratchy from having been temporarily silent.
Her father grunted and cleared his throat. “If there really is a hell on Earth, I do believe we’re looking at it.”
His sentiment matched her feelings exactly. She pressed the accelerator and resumed driving, thinking not of herself and her father, but of the perils Gage and all the Hotshots faced while fighting this unholy monster.
Chapter 14
“Ready?”
“Almost.” In response to her father’s cue, Aubrey lowered herself to the ground in front of the injured firefighter.
The man, a burly ten-year veteran who looked strong enough to bench-press a tree trunk, lay in one of two cots set up in the medical tent. He’d been brought in about an hour earlier with a dislocated pinky. The affected finger stuck out from his hand at a ninety-degree angle and probably hurt like the dickens—or had hurt until the Novocain her father administered took effect a few minutes ago.
“You hanging in there?” Aubrey asked. Draping an arm over the upper half of his body, she leaned close.
“I think so.” The man grinned and the dirt caking his face cracked in several places. “Could be worse. You’re a lot prettier than the last medic who patched me up.”
He smelled of smoke and sweat, though it was hardly noticeable over the acrid odor of burning wilderness. The smoke was inescapable, even at a distance of two miles from the fire. It permeated the air, causing Aubrey’s eyes to sting and her lungs to burn.
Blinking back tears, she unbuttoned the man’s yellow fire-retardant shirt in order to ease his breathing. Earlier she’d removed his hard hat, setting it on the ground next to his equipment pack.
“Should I bite down on a stick or something?” the man asked.
Aubrey returned his grin. “Only if you want to.”
“You think I’m kidding, don’t you?” His laugh deteriorated into a hacking cough.
Since their arrival sometime around nine, she and her father had worked nonstop. When Aubrey last checked her watch, it was almost four. Lunch, consisting of a protein drink, was gulped down between two bee-sting victims and a severe case of friction blisters.
Some of the firefighters, like the one suffering dehydration, had received rudimentary first aid from a medic on the line before being transported to their medical tent, a short fifteen-minute drive from the blaze. The more seriously afflicted firefighters, and Aubrey understood from snatches of various conversations she overheard there’d been a few, were flown directly to the hospital in Pineville or, if need be, as far as Phoenix.
The noise was relentless. People shouting, trucks roaring, the wind whistling and aircraft buzzing.
She’d witnessed the helicopters, zipping back and forth like giant insects, pouring water on the fire, airlifting firefighters to and from the fire, and transporting cargo. Planes—tankers she’d been told—also flew overhead, dropping brightly colored fire retardant from compartments in their bellies and missing the helicopters by mere inches.
The fire had started three days ago, the result of a lightning strike. While it had claimed nearly a thousand acres of land, lives and property were thus far spared. Talk among the firefighters was that could change—and possibly soon would—if the Smokejumpers, Hotshots, Helitack and Engine crews weren’t able to stop the blaze from heading into Blue Ridge. The Hotshots and other ground crews were on a race against the clock, attempting to cut a line around the perimeter of the fire that, God willing, would hold and save the town.
Wind, the same one that had caused the fire to change course during the night, presented the greatest danger. It had picked up speed, with gusts reaching forty-five miles per hour. Sparks and flying debris were starting new fires so fast, the firefighters weren’t able keep pace. Aubrey didn’t understand all the terms and jargon being bantered about, but she picked up enough to ascertain the people in charge were worried.
That worry was contagious.
Every second Aubrey’s mind wasn’t focused on a patient, she was thinking of Gage and praying for his well-being. She would have liked to check in with her mother, but her cell phone didn’t work, not that she’d found a spare second to place a call.
Her father rose to a half-standing position, braced their patient’s hand in his lap and, using his weight, popped the pinky back into its socket.
“Is it over?” The man looked questioningly at Aubrey, who’d positioned herself to block his view of the procedure. Sweat beaded his upper lip, more likely the result of nervousness than pain.
“Not quite.” She patted his shoulder and stood. “But the hard part’s over. You just take it easy while I get you some ibuprofen.”
No sooner did she turn than the wind blew so hard, the nylon tent rattled and shook, the entry flaps snapping like flags mounted to a parade vehicle. The gust didn’t let up and continued to pummel the tent with blasts of hot, stale air.
Icy chills danced up Aubrey’s spine. An overwhelming sense of dread accompanied the chill, and Aubrey shivered.
Gage!
She couldn’t explain how she knew, but something was wrong. Terribly, frighteningly, wrong. Her feet cemented to the ground, she went from shivering to shaking. The background noise grew in volume, becoming unbearable. She covered her ears, remembering the night her Uncle Jesse and Aunt Maureen were brought into the E.R.
“Aubrey, sweetheart. Are you okay?” Her father came up behind her.
“Dad…” She let him hold her, but it didn’t quell her shaking.
“Hey,” the injured man called from the cot. “What’s going on?”
At that moment, the tent flaps were shoved aside and a grim-faced firefighter entered. “Wanted to give you folks a heads-up. We just received an alert from command post. There’s a dry cold front moving in. Could mean trouble of the big variety. Prepare for incoming, just in case.” As quickly as he arrived, he left.
“Incoming?” Aubrey asked. “Like in injuries and casualties?”
“Yeah,” her father answered, as serious as the firefighter had been. “We’d better hop to it.”
Aubrey’s last thoughts before sprinting into action were of Gage and how she wished their last words hadn’t been angry ones.
*
&n
bsp; “This isn’t the place I would’ve picked to make a stand.” Gage straightened, ignored the arrows of pain shooting up both sides of his back, and stabbed the axe end of his Pulaski into the ground.
“Yeah, well, sometimes we don’t get to pick.” Marty reattached his radio to the front of his jacket. “The fire does it for us.”
The Hotshots had been hard at it, cutting a fire line since sunup. On the hill opposite them, across a narrow ravine, flames devoured everything in their path, impervious to the war being waged against them. Starved for water after a dry summer, the brittle vegetation supplied the perfect fuel.
Low-flying tankers dropped retardant, covering the untouched landscape with a blanket of red chemical powder. While bulldozers toppled trees and brush, lumberjacks wielded chainsaws, providing a solid second line of defense. Ground crews, Gage’s among them, provided the first—a backfire they’d set hours earlier in the hopes of halting the fire by forcing a convection column.
If their cumulative efforts failed, the results could prove to be the most disastrous wild land fire in the state’s history.
Command post had just called, warning them of the approaching cold front and accompanying high winds. Of all the news they could have received, it was without a doubt the worst. Gage’s bones, already weary well past the point of exhaustion, tingled with a sense of foreboding.
For ten straight hours, he and his crew had been pounding the ground, with only periodic ten-minute breaks—and that was just today. Yesterday, they were at it for fourteen straight hours. The day before was a blur, beginning around 11:00 p.m. when he left Aubrey standing on the porch of her grandmother’s house and ending some twenty-four hours later when he and his crew lay down to sleep in the dirt of the fire line they’d just dug.
Six hours later, they were up and at it again, cutting trees, scraping earth and burning safety zones. Somewhere or other, there’d been a second short snooze, Gage couldn’t remember when.
Just Kate: His Only Wife (Bestselling Author Collection) Page 33