That had Reuben pounding his fist against the steering wheel, another layer of frustration.
He’d like to find their arsonist as much as he’d like to go back in time and fix last night’s bumble.
On the seat beside him, his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID then picked up the call, turning on the speaker phone. “Mom.”
He could picture her standing in their lodge kitchen, staring out the window to the vast pastureland that made up the Triple M Ranch, some ninety miles southeast of Ember. The herd often liked to mosey toward the house in the morning, Black Angus clumping together, grazing in the pasture closest to the house. Hondo, their Australian sheepdog, would be barking, anxious to get to work.
Knox and his other brothers would already be outside, saddling their horses. His sisters, too, probably—they worked the ranch as well as his brothers.
On a day like today, the blue sky stretched from the ends of the earth, cloudless and bright. Reuben could almost smell the piney, fresh wind through the towering lodgepole pines that bordered their house, cresting down from Black Mountain, across the Geraldine River, and through their nine thousand acres of legacy ranchland.
Mom would have been up early with his sisters, Ruby Jane and Coco fixing a mountain of eggs and sausage. He could almost hear Wyatt and Ford fighting Tate for the last helping. Knox would be outlining their projects for the day—probably haying, if he read the calendar right.
“I’m so glad I caught you, Rube. I thought you might be out fighting a fire somewhere.”
He sort of was—a fire of his own making, the kind that burned in his gut and never seemed to die.
“We’ve been home for a few days. But we might deploy to Idaho—Miles has us on standby.”
“I wanted to see if you were coming home for Labor Day. You haven’t been back to the ranch in ages, and your siblings would like to see you.”
No, probably they wouldn’t, but his mother would, he guessed. But Gerri Marshall would never admit to being needy. She’d been a rancher her entire life—grown up on the neighboring Grady G, and the word clingy was not in her vocabulary.
Even after his father died.
“I dunno, Mom.”
A pause, then, “Actually, Knox could use some help. Our new hired man, Uriah, has to have hernia surgery, and he’ll be out for a few weeks. You were always so good at hay bucking—”
“Knox is still haying the old fashioned way? Mom, seriously—”
“It’s the way your father taught him.”
Them. The way their father had taught them.
Reuben tried to ignore the omission, the way it felt like a stab in his side. He’d walked away from his birthright voluntarily—probably he should remember that.
“We’re having a few other families out for a barbeque. I think Chelsea moved back last fall. She’s joined her father’s practice—”
“Mom. Chelsea and I are old news. Besides, you should be talking to Knox, not me.”
“I never understood what happened between you two.”
“It’s done, Mom.” Because he’d never tell her how he’d found his kid brother tangled up in the barn with Chelsea only a few months after Reuben and she had started dating.
He should have gotten the hint, then, that Knox would take whatever belonged to him. But he’d stood there, dumbfounded.
Because no one should have to stand on the sidelines watching their future, everything they thought they wanted, being ripped away.
Especially by his own brother.
“I just worry about you, Reuben.”
“You don’t need to, Mom. I can take care of myself.”
“You can always come home, you know.”
No, actually, he couldn’t, but he didn’t want to break his mother’s heart. “I’ll try, Mom.”
“Your father was proud of you. And so am I.”
Oh. He had no words suddenly, his chest tight.
“Please be careful,” she said quietly. He wasn’t so dense that he couldn’t recognize her way of saying she loved him.
“I will.” I love you, too, Mom.
He hung up. He probably hadn’t needed that reminder of his bad decisions. And his inability to fix them.
He pulled up to Conner’s fifth-wheel camper at the far edge of the permanent campground. Jed’s motorcycle was parked next to Conner’s truck.
As he opened the camper door, holding the box of cupcakes, Reuben caught the tail end of Jed’s voice.
“It seems the arsonist has either stopped targeting us or vanished.”
Jed looked up at Reuben, and Reuben nodded. With no new fires in the last couple of weeks and Conner’s last drone lost somewhere in the Cabinet Mountains, maybe the arsonist had given up.
Or—and this thought had Reuben’s gut in a knot—he was regrouping.
Jed had a map spread out on Conner’s table, the locations of the arson fires marked in red, and all others—natural and man-made—fires in blue. He stood over it, drinking a cup of coffee, his face grim, his expression that of a leader. The kind who planned on keeping his team safe and out of trouble.
So far, so good. They’d all lived through a summer the arson inspector from the National Interagency Fire Center said might be the hottest in decades.
Jed put down his coffee. Looked over at Reuben, now seated at the U-table bench. “So, are we going to talk about it or pretty much forget it ever happened?”
Reuben stilled, glanced at Pete, who sat across from him and played some video game on his phone that required him to tilt it back and forth.
“Forget what?” Pete asked, looking up at them.
Conner was in the kitchen area, opening the box of cupcakes. “The fact Reuben asked Gilly to dance last night at the Hotline.”
Reuben frowned at him. He’d clearly left out the most important part of that event. Still. “I choose option B. Forget it ever happened.”
Pete looked up, grinned at him. “My idea. Good job.”
Oh for crying— “It was a disaster, okay? Let’s move on.”
Kate, who had opened the door, stepped inside. “Are we talking about Gilly?” She wore her auburn hair caught back in a ponytail tugged through a baseball cap, jeans, and a Montana Griz T-shirt. She walked over to the coffeepot and helped herself. “They were cute together. Reuben has some crazy-hot dance moves.”
Seriously? “Oh good grief. Were you there? Did anyone see—”
“I can’t believe she said yes,” Kate said, buffaloing over him. “I mean, of course she said yes to you, Rube. It’s just that she hasn’t—doesn’t date.”
Ho-kay. If they weren’t going to bring up the debacle, then he wasn’t going to chase it around. Except, “Of course she said yes to me? Am I the team pity case or something?” Reuben reached for a carrot muffin.
Kate shook her head, drank her coffee. “No. You’re trustworthy. Dependable. And not, well, whatever he is.” She gestured loosely to Pete, whose mouth fell open.
“What am I?”
Jed’s mouth drifted up one side. “I’m not sure of the word—a charmer?”
“Pete gives them just enough to stay interested but not enough for them to show up on his doorstep the next day,” Kate said.
Pete set his game down, folded his arms over his chest. “I like to keep ’em guessing.”
“Exactly my point. Reuben is a straight-up, you-get-what-you-see guy,” Kate said. “And Gilly needs a guy like that.” She took another sip of her coffee. “She’ll be okay. Your fall just sort of…well, brought up some old memories. It had nothing to do with you.”
Shoot. So they were going to talk about it. But he focused on the last part of that sentence. “What kind of memories?”
Kate ran a finger along the top of her cup. “It’s not my story. But let’s just say that Gilly used to be very girly. She was a lead ballerina in the Northwest Ballet Company.”
Lead ballerina? And now he really felt like an ox as he remembered stomping all over her feet, k
nocking her over. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Listen, Rube. It wasn’t as bad—” Kate started.
“I am not a dancer, okay? I’m a sawyer. And a bull rider. I totally embarrassed her, and I have no clue how to make it up to her.”
“You don’t have to make it up to her,” Kate said, but the grins on Jed and Conner’s faces were enough to make him want to hit something.
“Let’s just talk about the fires,” Reuben said. He pushed his way off the bench. His head nearly hit the ceiling of Conner’s trailer as he headed for the coffeepot.
Conner’s camper screamed bachelor pad with his maps of the Kootenai National Forest, the Cabinet Mountains, Glacier National Park, and the Bob Wilderness area papering the walls. Most were marked up with previous fire jumps, rescues, and x’s where his drones had crashed. He had bigger x’s where the fire service determined his drones caused fires. All except the last one, which had crashed while Conner was searching for a lost girl in the forest.
“The last confirmed drone fire was Whiskey Creek. Are there any more that were ruled arson or at least not ruled weather related?” Reuben asked.
“No. But I did notice a pattern to the fires.” Jed traced the maps. “Conner says his drones have a one-mile radio-control radius. All the drone fires were located within ten miles of logging roads, hiking trails, or highways out of Ember but in areas the hotshots couldn’t access by vehicle. As if the arsonist hiked to the farthest place out, then sent the drone into an inaccessible area.”
“But all within our territory,” Pete said. “So we’d answer the call.”
“Right.”
“So we were being targeted,” Reuben said. “Why?”
Jed reached for a muffin. “I don’t know. Who would want to hurt smokejumpers—especially after the casualties last fall?”
“The entire community felt that loss. It’s hard to believe it would be someone connected to the Jude County Wildland Firefighters,” Kate said, her voice solemn, probably thinking of her father, Jock, their former jump boss.
Last time Reuben had seen him, Jock had told him to keep running and had turned back to the fire himself to save the other half of his crew.
Reuben met eyes with Pete, probably reliving the moment a second later when Reuben dropped his saw and turned to run after Jock.
To stop him.
The hesitation still woke Reuben with a start, a slick sweat in the middle of the night.
“I don’t think our arsonist is a hotshot,” Jed said, referring to the arson case a few years ago where a firefighter had set fires in order to find more work. “The hotshots weren’t called out to three of these fires.”
“What about someone who doesn’t want us to fight fires—wants to let them run?” Kate asked
“The suspected arson fires were in dense forests deep in the north, not near Ember. The kind the team jumps into. Looking at the map, this feels personal.” Jed took a sip of coffee. Paused, then, “What about someone who lost someone? Maybe a family member who blamed Jock or—” He looked at Pete, Reuben, then Conner. “Or the survivors.”
And there it was. The fact that they all could have died on that mountain. But three had survived—Pete, Conner, Reuben.
“You should have let me go after Jock,” Reuben said quietly to Pete. It just slipped out.
“We’re not doing this again,” Pete said, clearly tracking with him. “If you’d gone, you would have died, too.”
Instead, Reuben had just stood there, feeling the yank in his gut to run after Jock. And doing nothing—nothing about it.
Now Reuben turned to the opposite window. Sheesh, this trailer was small. “If someone is after our team, I’m going to find him,” he said.
That turned everyone quiet.
A squawk came over the scanner on Conner’s workbench in the corner, where an entertainment unit might have stood.
Conner walked over and turned up the volume. “Dispatch, receiving a call about smoke sighted.” He leaned in, listening. “It’s from a pilot—he’s calling in coordinates.”
Conner walked over to the map, studied it as dispatch confirmed, then pointed to the spot. “It’s north of Yaak about forty clicks. I don’t see a fire road, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”
Jed grabbed his handheld radio, stepped outside to call in.
Conner had served for years as a Green Beret, knew maps and terrain like the own grain of his hand. Probably knew radio communications, too, given the array of electronics amassed on his workbench. Reuben recognized a ham radio and walked over to it.
“My dad had one of these. Used it to talk to his brothers on it. They lived all over—Maine, Minnesota, California, Alaska, Colorado—even one in Hawaii. They had their own frequency. He even made me learn all the ham codes. The one thing I could get right that didn’t involve letters jumping off the page.”
Silence behind him, and he looked over at his team staring at him. “Aw, c’mon guys. It should come as no surprise to you that I’m not a great reader. Remember, I saw down trees and ride bulls. Not a rocket scientist.”
“Rube, just because you’re not a great reader doesn’t mean—” Kate started, but he held up his hand.
“It’s okay—listen, do we need to head over to HQ?”
Jed was just stepping inside to Reuben’s words. “Looks like we’re going to get deployed—at least a handful of us.” He dropped the walkie into his belt.
Kate had gotten up, drained her coffee cup in the sink.
Conner reached for his keys, but Reuben stopped him. “I’m taking your shift, remember?”
“Right.”
Reuben followed Pete out, and they climbed in Reuben’s truck. They followed Kate and Jed out of the RV park, toward Ember HQ.
“What if Gilly’s there?” Pete asked.
Reuben threw him a look. “What if you get out and walk?”
Pete looked out the window. “You know I’m going to have to start calling you Twinkle Toes.”
Reuben tapped the brakes.
Pete held up his hands. “Chill, bro. I’m just saying, I’m trustworthy. I’m not sure what that was all about. Charmer? Really?”
Reuben grinned as he pulled in, but his smile faded as he spotted Gilly through the big windows inside the main area of HQ, toeing up to Miles, all five-foot-two of her, gesticulating her fury.
“Still grounded, I think,” Pete said as he got out.
“Which is totally unfair since she saved our lives and Jared would have let us fry down there.” Reuben slammed the door, pocketed his keys, and headed for the office.
“Dude! What are you—” Pete started but Reuben stiff-armed his words and yanked open the door.
“You know I wouldn’t put anyone in real danger—” Gilly was saying.
“You nearly crashed an eighty-thousand-dollar airplane—” Miles talked over her.
Reuben didn’t know why he suddenly had a singularity of purpose. Or what, exactly, possessed him to march right up to Miles, to interject himself in between them.
“But she didn’t,” Reuben said into the fray. “And she didn’t get anyone killed—on the contrary, she saved at least five lives.”
Reuben knew he had a low, even dangerous rumble to his voice. His father’s voice, the kind that could command attention in a room. But he’d never seen it shut down a room—even for a split second. But suddenly everyone stopped—the dispatcher, the weather guys, the air traffic controllers, the air tactical group supervisor—the one Jared had probably complained to—and even Hero, the agency chocolate lab.
Only the blip of the radar and the static of the radio to confirm that yep, he’d stomped all over Gilly again. At least her business.
And how exactly did he find himself here?
The question loomed as Gilly turned, stared at him.
With the stunning power of her blue eyes. Deep-indigo blue, the kind a guy could get lost in. Which, of course, was exactly what happened.
Miles
turned to him. “This isn’t your business, Rube. I know she saved your team but—”
“No buts,” Reuben said, coming back to himself, although he cut his voice lower. “Sure, she might have taken a risk, but Miles, don’t get me started on how many times you—”
Miles held up his hand. Narrowed his eyes. It paid to hang around the boss during the off season. A fellow bull rider, Miles had a few vices he didn’t want the rest of the team knowing about.
And then there was Gilly, who actually deserved to fly, no extortion needed.
But in case Miles needed a push— “I’m not flying if Gilly’s not the pilot.”
The words came out on their own, but as he stood there, watching Miles size him up, yep, he parked himself in his ultimatum and didn’t move.
Met Miles’s gaze with his own.
Miles clenched his jaw. Looked at Gilly, who was still staring at Reuben, eyes big.
“Fine. It’s probably the last drop of the season, anyway.” He turned to Gilly. “Get out of here.”
Reuben took the hint and headed down the hall to the locker room, where his team was suiting up.
A tug on his arm, halfway down the hall, however, stopped him.
He expected a smile. Or a thank you.
Not the dark-eyed glare of an angry woman. “What was that?”
“Um—”
“I can take care of myself. I don’t need you coming to my rescue.”
“I didn’t—I mean—”
“You don’t have to protect me, Reuben. Really. Okay?”
He didn’t know why, but standing in front of her, he felt a little stripped. Raw.
And simmering with the primal urge to do just that—protect her.
Shoot. Just when he thought he’d done something right.
“Okay.”
Her posture softened. “Good. See you onboard.”
Then she walked past him.
So much for escaping awkward, for fixing things. Thank the heavens he had a fire to jump into.
So maybe she didn’t need to be quite so defensive.
It was simply in Reuben’s genes to protect his team.
Burnin' For You: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 3) Page 6