Rain of Fire

by Linda Jacobs

  Nobody had come for Kyle.

  But Mommy and Daddy must get here soon. That was the only thing she had to hold onto. In the morning, they’d come and bring her something, too. Then she’d talk to the other girls.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall outside the ward. There was a click and the light over the transom went out. As though someone had clapped their hand over Kyle’s mouth and nose, she tried to breath but could only manage a choking wheeze.

  Sally stirred. “You okay?”

  Kyle could not speak.

  “Miss Darla!” Sally called. “Something’s the matter with her.”

  Swift steps approached. The door opened, a switch snapped. Bright light stabbed Kyle’s eyes. Miss Darla approached like an angel in white, her cap a sail. “What’s this, little one?”

  Kyle found her breath and screamed. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.

  Sitting in the clinic waiting for news of Nick, she bit her lip to keep from sobbing. Tears stood in her eyes.

  “You all right, ma’am?” The road worker with the cut on his head asked.

  Kyle pushed to her feet and slammed though the door of the nearby ladies room. She barely made it to a stall before the tears came. Great heaving sobs that shook her so hard she had to sit down on the closed toilet seat and hug herself.

  She’d been a fool to think studying Yellowstone was something that could be controlled; an idiot to believe it was anything less than playing with fire.

  At two in the afternoon, nearly three hours after Nick had been brought in, one of the doctors came from behind a pair of swinging doors. In her thirties, she wore a white coat spattered with blood Kyle tried not to notice.

  “I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to get back to you.” She pushed back a stray tendril of her blond hair. “But as you can see, we’re swamped.” Though her voice sounded serious, she wasn’t using the hushed tones with which bad news was usually imparted. “Nick is conscious and oriented.”

  Kyle nodded, aware that her eagerness set her up for a fall. “He’s okay, then?”

  “His pupils are equal and reactive. He’s doing as well as can be, given that he was unconscious for a while. It would be best for him to get a CT scan, but since we don’t have one, I’ve ordered X-rays.” The doctor gestured around at the other patients. “It may take awhile. Since this is an urgent care clinic and not a hospital, if all goes well, I’m thinking of releasing him later … but only if someone can stay with him overnight.”

  “I won’t leave him alone,” Kyle vowed.

  The doctor sobered. “If he gets worse or loses consciousness again I’d recommend the air ambulance to Eastern Idaho Medical Center.”

  Properly warned, Kyle entered the exam room to find Nick sitting on the edge of a wheeled bed wearing a gray hospital gown. His hair and scruffy beard had turned uniform beige from the gritty landslide. Dirt streaked his arms and blood was drying to a crust where it had dripped down his neck.

  “You all right?” She struggled to sound upbeat, but his pallor frightened her.

  His trademark grin looked forced as he wiggled his bare toes and waggled his fingers. “All present and accounted for.” He looked past her shoulder. “The cowboy?”

  “Wyatt turned an ankle, but he’s fine. He’s gone over to his office to check on the stations.”

  “With no more aftershocks than I’m feeling, she’s probably priming for more.”

  “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “You okay?”

  “A few scrapes.” She turned up her palms to show the newly raw skin that had disrupted the healing cuts on her palms. “I was lucky.”

  “That was a hell of a ride,” Nick said. “Old Gray saved my life.”

  “Um, Nick …” Kyle swallowed. “I’m afraid Gray didn’t make it.” She did not elaborate on Wyatt having to shoot the injured animal. “None of the horses did.”

  “Ah, shit. The cowboy set a store by Thunder.”

  “He did.”

  Nick’s eyes went from her dirty clothing to his own stack dumped on a chair. “We look like ragamuffins.”

  “My gear was … buried,” Kyle said. “Your bag was on Gray where he fell, but I’m afraid in the excitement of getting you onto the chopper, we left it behind.”

  “That’s okay.” He looked fragile with his bandaged head and a lost expression on his face. When she took his hand, his fingers were trembling.

  “How do you really feel?” she asked.

  “Like somebody snuck up behind me and hit me over the head.” With a glance at their clasped hands, he seemed to realize she could feel the quaking in him. “I guess I’m a little rocky, but hey,” he brightened, “pretty soon I’ll be out of here.”

  She smiled. “The doctor said if your tests are okay, she’ll release you to my custody. She doesn’t want you left alone tonight, so I’ll get us a room at the hotel.”

  His grin broadened. “That’ll be nice.” Putting up a hand, he touched his bandaged head with care. “Course I’ll bet I look like a terrorist in this turban.”

  She forced a smile. “Can you see all right? Remember things?”

  He looked at her steadily. “I remember everything.”

  “Nick…”

  For a moment, it was all there between them, a golden summer, a new moon night, and the promise that the past might not be the key to the future.

  Kyle booked a room at the hotel with two double beds and took a hot shower. Her scraped hands stung when the soap contacted them, but the sensation of being clean was rejuvenating. That, and believing Nick would be all right.

  It was a shame to have to put her filthy clothing back on. Without a brush, she webbed her hair together into a rough braid. Scrubbing her teeth with a washcloth, she vowed to buy toothbrushes and something for her and Nick to wear … after she went over to Wyatt’s office to check the seismic stations.

  On the way to the Resource Center, there were constant reminders of the quake. Next door to the clinic at the Mammoth Post Office, one of two white marble lions had been knocked from its pedestal beside the front stairs. As she passed Park Headquarters, she saw that some of the basement windows were broken. The next big house where Chief Ranger Kuni lived had a fallen chimney.

  Farther on, the stone chapel had suffered a collapse near the altar. Kyle hoped it wasn’t a bad omen.

  The Resource Center’s front door was stuck in its frame. The large window next to it was open with a floor mat beneath the sill inside.

  Wyatt’s office door was closed.

  “Nobody can go in there,” said a young voice from behind her.

  She turned to find receptionist Iniki Kuni, dressed in black with matching fingernails.

  “Dr. Stone? I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Maybe you will after I get some clean clothes on.”

  Kyle opened Wyatt’s door. His hair looked damp, and he wore a fresh uniform. Now that he was clean, she could see where scratches marked his face and hands.

  He turned from the computer. “I told Iniki if she let anybody but you in, I’d rip out all her earrings.” His dark eyes searched her face from behind a pair of glasses with an out of date frame style. “Shut that.” He pointed to the door.

  She did.

  “Iniki says she’s leaving before the workday is over,” Wyatt said. “Says her father can stay and play Chief Ranger if he wants, but she can’t take any more earthquakes.”

  “I’ve been wondering how much more I can take,” Kyle confessed.

  Wyatt removed his glasses and set them on the desk, exposing the dark bruise of his black eye. “How’s Nick?”

  “Awake. They’re waiting on tests, but he acts like he’s going to be his old self.”

  “That’s good.” It sounded sincere, but solemn as though he meant Kyle was the one who should be happy.

  He pushed up from the desk and moved around it toward her. When he was halfway there, a wave of pain crossed his features.

  “Your ankle?” she g
asped.

  He shook his head. “I keep thinking about leaving the horses up there for the buzzards.”

  She closed the distance to him. “Oh, Wyatt, I’m sorry.”

  After last night on the cabin sofa, it seemed the most natural thing to go into his arms. Her cheek pressed the side of his clean-shaven face and she smelled soap along with the pleasant scent of his skin.

  He held her tighter; apparently heedless that she was getting his uniform dirty. “Thunder would have walked through fire for me.”

  “Strawberry was so sweet; she’d have done anything for me, too.”

  A muffled sob escaped. As Wyatt’s hands spread over her back, she let tears flow. It felt infinitely wonderful to be comforted by someone who knew her secrets.

  Her jacket parted so that they fit together. Chest to chest, they were nearly the same height. Her breasts, spare though they were, pressed against him. His hand slid up to her neck, his fingers stroking her hair. “Kyle,” he said in a thick voice.

  Awareness washed through her like a warm tide. Not the frenetic hot passion she’d felt in youth, nor the simple embrace of friendship, this complex mix of comfort and disturbing sensuality suddenly frightened her.

  It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds from the time her coat fell open until they both drew back and looked at each other. She realized her hands were shaking and put them in her coat pockets.

  “It was a 7.1,” he said awkwardly.

  “It felt bigger.” She reached for a tissue from a box on his credenza and blew her nose.

  “Less than a 6.0 here in civilization. That’s why there isn’t more damage.”

  He gestured toward the computer. The quake’s signature began with a wide excursion and gradually dampened over the several minutes of shaking. “That’s from Nez Perce Seven, the closest station to the epicenter.”

  Wyatt zoomed out from his detail of the earthquake to show the hours since. The response showed a chatter of tremors too small for human detection.

  “I suppose we can call those aftershocks,” she said. Their one hope to avert more activity was if the large earthquake had dissipated the energy and the rising magma had stabilized at depth.

  Hours later, when Kyle and Wyatt came out of the Resource Center, the sun had moved west over Sepulcher Mountain. Heavy gray-white clouds streamed over the broad cone of Bunsen Peak north into Mammoth Valley. Standing on the yellowing grass beneath the cottonwoods, Kyle concluded, “All we can do is monitor and wait. We’ve got all the equipment in the field that I intend to place.”

  Across the parking lot, Iniki Kuni hurried toward her compact car. Wyatt’s eyes followed Kyle’s gaze. “Are you planning to go back to Salt Lake?”

  It was tempting, watching Iniki patch out on the gravel and head toward the park entrance. But she glanced toward the clinic. “I suppose I’ll go. I’m not sure when.”

  A muscle in his jaw bunched. “Let me know when you figure it out.”

  As he started to limp away, something in the set of his shoulders made her say, “Wyatt.”

  He turned back, his expression shuttered.

  “Look,” she said, “I know you’re trying to protect me from getting hurt by Nick again.”

  “As of right now, I officially give up.” His hands went into his jacket pockets. “You’re buried so deep in your past you wouldn’t know your future if it was standing in front of you.”

  When he walked away again, she stood silently and watched him go. Then she went up the street beside the old Fort Yellowstone parade ground.

  Elk grazed in the gray afternoon. Snow was on the wind. And there was no longer any doubt that Wyatt was jealous, not just of Dr. Darden’s world-class credentials, but of her feelings for the man.

  God, this was too complicated. The memory of

  Wyatt’s touch sent an electric sensation through her, even as he was going home to Alicia. And she needed to buy some clothes and toilet articles for her and Nick.

  The general store was a shambles. She nodded to the lone clerk picking up fallen merchandise. Racks offered sweat pants, Tshirts, and fleece pullovers. Kyle selected clothes, shampoo, disposable razors, toothbrushes, and combs, along with liquid detergent so they could do laundry without the cheap powdered vending-machine soap. “Flashlights?” Since hers were at the bottom of the canyon, she bought three.

  The display of cigarettes was behind the checkout counter with the liquor. With an effort, she turned away from both.

  As Kyle took the glass-walled circular stair up to the hotel’s second floor, blue twilight was falling outside along with flakes of snow. When she put her key in the room lock, the door opened beneath her hand.

  Nick looked as tired as she felt. Clean-shaven but dressed like her, in his dirty clothes. Over his wound, a spot of blood had soaked through the gauze.

  A draft from the open window swirled around her ankles. The bathroom soap dish sat on the wide wooden sill with an eddy of smoke rising from a Marlboro. “Nonsmoking room,” he said.

  She’d done that on purpose.

  Before she could get past Nick into the room, he fixed her with an intent look. “What’s going on with the signals?”

  Part of her wanted to pour out every detail of what each station had been reading, to pick his brain for what she and Wyatt might have missed, but somehow she couldn’t give in to impulse. With his head injury, she dared only dissimulate. “After the big one this morning, things are just chattering along.”

  Nick raised a doubtful brow, but moved aside to let her in. “Things have felt pretty quiet.”

  “And they are,” she declared, setting her bags on the antique dresser next to an open bottle of Crown Royal and a full ice bucket.

  “Drink?” Nick picked up a half-empty glass and took a swig. “I talked them out of a bottle over at the bar.”

  “Should you be drinking?”

  “I’d rather this than the pain meds they gave me.” He went to the bathroom for another glass, dropped in ice cubes and poured.

  She took it from him. Her first sip burned, the second made her realize she needed to take it slow.

  Nick ambled to the window and took a drag from his cigarette. Exhaling a cloud, he extended the pack. She looked at the filters, lined up like bullets. “No, thanks.”

  “Giving it up again?”

  “Someone told me I needed to break the habits of my past.” The image of Wyatt walking away produced a hollow feeling in her chest.

  Nick ground out his smoke in the soap dish and came toward her with his catlike walk. “Don’t give up all your old sins.”

  “Nick…”

  “The night of the new moon, it all came back, your smell, the feel of you. Remember the first time we were together at field camp, driving down the canyon? That rock nearly smashed the car.”

  He picked up his drink and knocked it against hers. “Tonight we celebrate cheating death again.”

  As if she’d been doused with cold water, she stared at him. “I sat in that waiting room for hours thinking you might die, and you joke about it?”

  His face changed, and he leaned against the dresser. “Come on, you know how it works. If I let myself get too serious about the danger, I’d end up stuck in a desk job.”

  “Would that be so terrible?”

  He frowned. “Kyle …”

  Her cheeks flamed. “I should have known better than to think you’d finally start taking things seriously.”

  She went into the bathroom and shut the door.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  SEPTEMBER 28

  Before he went home, Wyatt drove to the upper parking lot at Mammoth Hot Springs and sat in his Bronco for a while. He stared at the pale travertine terraces deposited by spring flow without really seeing them.

  He was still reeling from his reaction to Kyle this afternoon. Sure, he’d suspected how it would be between them, but when he’d finally felt her body against his, it had opened a window he’d merely peeked through before. If
they hadn’t pulled apart when they had, he felt certain he’d have made an idiot of himself by letting her know how he felt.

  Hell, he had let her know. On the mountain when he’d let testosterone and jealousy lead him into a fistfight, when he’d challenged her to figure out why he didn’t care for Nick, and again today. But she was so caught up in Nick, she was oblivious.

  Twilight snow began to fall as he parked the Bronco and limped across his yard. When he’d been there earlier to shower, he’d checked the front of his house for quake damage. Except for a pot of earth lying on its side, a leftover from summer geraniums, all had looked intact. But had he really left a light on in the kitchen?

  Wyatt pushed through into his hall and smelled the comforting aroma of baked potatoes. Before he could reach the light switch, he heard, “Surprise!”

  He stopped. “Alicia.”

  Stunned, he took a second to remember he’d given her a house key. And another to realize that in the day’s events he’d forgotten to call and tell her he was back.

  She launched at him, her face a pale oval against the darkened hall. On impact, her soft weight was all womanly curves. Kisses rained on his cheeks and tickled his moustache while she murmured, “I called around three and checked with Iniki that you were back, but I made her promise not to tell. I hid my Navigator around back.”

  “This is a surprise.” The scent of roses wafted from her.

  She pressed close. “I was afraid something might have happened on the mountain.”

  “It did,” Wyatt said over her shoulder as he gave her a hard hug.

  He flipped the light switch. Her black hair made a smooth fall over her shoulders. The cushy material under his hands was some kind of dark velvet that suggested silkier skin beneath.

  He stepped back.

  Her dark eyes widened when she saw his wrapped ankle.

  “The quake set off a slide in the canyon. I turned my foot on a stone, but nothing serious.” He wasn’t ready to tell her about Thunder. “Let me get out of uniform.”

  “I can draw a hot bath … for two?”

  “I had a shower earlier.” He moved toward his bedroom. She didn’t follow.