by Mari Carr
As they took the back road that led to camp, he felt a bone-deep desperation taking root. However, before he could say anything, they came into the clearing and James knew it was over.
The camp was in full swing, jumpers carrying their chutes as they rushed toward the trucks that would take them to the airstrip.
Roscoe was standing outside the office building with a clipboard, yelling orders, when he and Ivy pulled into the parking lot.
“Thank God you’re back, Jamie. Grab your gear. Major wildfire in Idaho. Been burning five days. Covering over thirty thousand acres and they’ve only got about seven percent of it contained. This one is a beast. Heading toward a populated area and they’ve got evacuation notices out. Going to be an all-hands-on-deck detail. Probably be out a few weeks if we’re lucky. Doesn’t help that there’s not a drop of rain in the fucking forecast.”
James nodded as he listened to the details. Roscoe was texting someone else even as he spoke to them. The man was a master at multitasking.
When neither he nor Ivy replied, Roscoe glanced up, only just then appearing to notice the horror on both of their faces.
“Fuck,” Roscoe muttered. “I can give you a minute, Jamie, but no more than that. Transport is taking off in twenty.”
Roscoe walked over to one of the storage sheds to talk with another jumper.
“Ivy…”
“It’s okay, Jamie. This is your job, where you’re meant to be.”
“I wanted to talk to you before…” He was suddenly regretting the wasted time on the drive, but he hadn’t known what to say. Now, it felt pretty goddamn obvious.
“We’ve said it all.”
He shook his head. “No. We haven’t. But we will. When I get back—”
“I won’t be here,” she said, cutting him off.
His heart shattered, but he’d known. Known the second he’d seen the chaos at camp. He had to go. And she couldn’t stay.
“I love you,” he said.
“Jamie,” she whispered, and he hated the tears those words put in her eyes. But he couldn’t not say them.
Leaning forward, he kissed her. “I will always love you.”
Before she could respond, he took off at a jog toward the barracks to gather his things. It took every ounce of strength in his body not to look back.
When he returned to the office, she was gone, but Roscoe was there.
“You okay?” the older man asked.
James nodded. “Yeah.” Then he shook his head. “No. But I don’t have any other choice right now.”
Roscoe looked like he wanted to say more, but there was no time. James hopped into the last truck headed for the airstrip.
Ivy put the truck in park and stared at the camp office. Her dad wasn’t expecting her. Five days had passed since she’d said goodbye to James, but it felt like longer. She had driven away from him and straight back to her apartment, where she had given in to the soul-shattering pain that had stung her when James had told her he loved her. Funny how those three words could be the best and worst thing she’d ever heard, all at the same time.
She had allowed herself one night for self-pity, for misery. Then she’d tucked it away, placed some phone calls, fielded a few offers, then accepted a job and packed up her apartment. Her truck was loaded down with everything she needed to start the next phase of her life, the rest had been donated to charity.
This was her last stop before she headed out of West Yellowstone. Ivy climbed out of the truck and walked inside. Her dad waved at her and gestured to the seat across from his desk as he spoke on the phone.
Ivy wouldn’t let herself listen to what he was saying, too afraid of what she might hear. Despite her best efforts, she had picked up a newspaper and read an article about the wildfire James was fighting. Her dad hadn’t lied. It really was a beast, burning a nasty swath through the forest while blanketing a large part of the state of Idaho in foggy smoke.
The drought continued, so James would likely be gone for weeks yet. Not that it mattered. She would be out of town today.
She bypassed the chair her dad pointed to and walked to the back wall.
Ivy was surprised to discover Jem’s picture hanging there. A large part of her had expected to discover he’d tucked it back in his drawer after she’d left that day.
She started when Dad spoke, his voice just a few feet behind her. She hadn’t heard him end the phone call. “I’m sorry it took me so long to hang that up.”
Ivy turned around and gave him a weak smile. “I don’t think either one of us has done this right.”
“There’s a right way to grieve?”
She shook her head. “No. But if there’s a wrong way, we found it. Packing him away, erasing him from our lives was a mistake. Instead of making peace with what happened, we’ve just let it all fester in silence.”
Dad rubbed his jaw wearily. While he wasn’t out there physically fighting the fire, she knew exactly how hard he was working here, hundreds of miles away and behind the scenes to make sure his men were safe, and that they had what they needed.
“I’m sorry about that. After he…” Dad swallowed heavily. They both struggled with the words. They always had. “After he died, I was so consumed with guilt. I just didn’t think I deserved comfort or, God…anything.”
“His death wasn’t your fault, Dad. Mom was hurt when she said that. She didn’t mean it.” Ivy swiped at her tears. “I should never have said…never wished that you—”
“Shhh.” Dad pulled her into his arms. “I know you didn’t.”
“I’m so sorry. I’d take it back if I could.”
“Scout, there’s nothing to forgive. We’ve both let our guilt eat away at us. We let it destroy what we had. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
She tightened her arms around his middle, her cheek pressed hard against his chest. “Me either.”
They held the embrace, finding a decade’s worth of comfort and forgiveness in each other’s grips. When they parted, Dad looked toward the parking lot.
“All packed up?”
She nodded.
“You sure you made the right choice?”
She shook her head. “Not at all.”
Dad chuckled, the sound rusty. “You’re young. If it’s wrong, you’ll fix it, find something else. Hell, I figure no one ever gets it right the first twenty times or so. The trick is to find what makes you happy, then reach out, grab it with both hands and hold on for dear life.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Dad turned toward his desk, walking away from her. “I’ve got something for you.”
“You didn’t have to get me a gift.” She followed him, watching as he reached beneath his desk and pulled out a box.
“Not sure if this counts as a gift. I went to the storage unit and dug out some stuff of Jem’s that I thought you might like.”
Ivy stepped closer to the desk to peer into the box, surprised that instead of pain, she was excited, touched.
Dad pulled out Jem’s football jersey and Ivy reached for it, pulling the slick material toward her. “I used to love to watch his games.”
Dad smiled. “He was the best goddamn quarterback West Yellowstone has ever seen. Pretty sure he could’ve gotten a scholarship if he’d wanted to go to college.”
Her father had made that bold claim for years before Jem passed away. She laughed to hear him boasting about his son’s mad skills on the gridiron once again. This was what she’d missed.
“And then there’s this.”
Ivy took a small photo album from her dad.
“I found a big box of pictures. Grabbed out the ones I thought you’d like.”
Ivy swallowed the lump growing in her throat as she flipped through the pictures. There was one of the two of them at Halloween. She was a three-year-old fairy princess, while Jem, at ten, was decked out as Luke Skywalker, belted tunic with a lightsaber in his hands. In another, he must have been about twelve, carrying her around piggyback in their b
ackyard as she squealed with laughter. Dad had even found one she didn’t realize existed—evidence of the oobie doobie party.
“Where on earth?” she mused.
“Found a pack of photos under Jem’s bed when I cleaned out his room. Didn’t have the heart to look at them at the time, so I just threw them in a box. Looks like it was one hell of a party,” Dad said, his eyes narrowed in fake anger.
Ivy laughed. “Yeah. It was. Until it wasn’t.” In the photo, she was sitting between her brother and the boy she had a crush on—funny how she couldn’t even remember his name now—as the guys chugged the spiked punch from red Solo cups. In the photo, she wasn’t looking at the boy. Instead, she was grinning from ear to ear as she stared at her brother, the adoration she felt for him almost tangible. It instantly became her favorite picture ever.
The rest of the album contained pictures of Jem at graduation, one of him in his fire helmet and boots, and the last one was of him standing in a field with his arms full of his parachute after his very first jump ever. His eyes were alight with joy and life.
“He died doing what he loved.” She’d never really considered it that way, always viewing Jem’s death as tragic, as a waste.
“He was a great jumper. Better than I ever was. Never saw anyone else with that passion and skill, until…”
Dad let his words fade, but Ivy knew who he was talking about.
“Jamie,” she finished.
“Yeah. You know, Jem was a great jumper, but that wasn’t all there was to him. He and I used to talk sometimes when we were on call, killing time over a cup of coffee. He wanted to get married, to have a family like ours. There’s not a person on the planet who doesn’t want lots of different things, Scout. I imagine humans would be damn boring if they went through life with a single-minded purpose.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Nobody ever gets it all. Best we can do is pick what really matters.”
She nodded, not sure how to reply. Ivy glanced down at the photo album.
“Thank you. For this,” she said, lifting the album. “And the jersey. And for being my dad.”
They hugged once more, and then Ivy said her goodbyes.
“Call me when you get there,” Dad said as she climbed into her truck and slammed the door. It was a cool day, so the windows were already down.
“I will.”
He stepped away from her vehicle, waving as she pulled out. He was still waving when she glanced in the rearview mirror.
She honked the horn twice, then looked over at the photo album on the seat next to her.
“Ready for the next adventure, Jem?” she asked aloud.
Then she smiled as she imagined him riding along beside her, tapping his hand on the dashboard in time with a song on the radio.
Her copilot.
She wasn’t alone anymore.
Chapter Thirteen
James climbed out of the shower and marveled at the difference twenty minutes under steaming-hot water could make in a man. He’d stepped into the shower, weary, filthy, wearing at least three layers of soot and sweat, and his muscles had ached.
All of that was gone now. And while he was still tired and looking forward to his bed, the exhaustion was less intense, now he was drowsier instead of utterly fatigued.
He’d arrived at the base a few hours earlier. However, they’d had to unpack their gear, and then he’d grabbed a sandwich from the cafeteria when his stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten since the day before.
He was looking forward to climbing beneath the clean sheets on an honest-to-God mattress and sleeping for the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Five weeks of roughing it in a tent, trying to rest on the hard ground, surrounded by the sickly-sweet smell of burning wood, hadn’t afforded him more than a few hours’ rest at a time. And even that had been restless when he thought about Ivy’s face as they’d said goodbye, despite his complete physical weariness. He wondered where she was now.
He was ready to make up for the lack of sleep. Dropping down on his bed, he saw a small stack of mail sitting on his nightstand. One of the other guys must have picked it up for him. He reached for it, absentmindedly flipping through the bills and junk mail.
He stopped when he recognized familiar handwriting on a postcard. His heart started to race.
It couldn’t be.
A quick glance at the postmark confirmed it had been posted the day before Jake died. James hadn’t been at camp for more than a few hours since then.
The only good thing about the wildfire was that it had kept James too busy to think about how much he missed Jake. Now, all those feelings crashed back in on him. Losing the man who’d been his mentor his entire life and Ivy all in the same week was going to take him some time to recover from. Time he hadn’t even started the clock on, because he’d emptied it all out, turned himself into a vacant shell as he’d fought the wildfire.
Looked like it was time to pay the piper.
He took a deep breath and read the postcard. It wasn’t the first one he’d gotten from the man. It had actually been James who’d started exchanging them. When he had first arrived in Yellowstone, he’d stopped at a gas station and there had been touristy postcards on the counter. They were three for a dollar, so he had grabbed them, sending one to his parents, another to Sienna and her husband, Daniel, and the last to Jake.
He’d done it as a joke really, using the corny Wish you were here line on all of them. Everyone had gotten a kick out of them, but only Jake had responded, sending him an old Calgary Stampede postcard he admitted to having bought years earlier at the rodeo for someone else, but had never sent. On it, Jake had written a very touching missive that simply said, I’m proud of you.
After that, he’d gotten one postcard each season he was away. James still had all of them. There were only a handful tucked away in his duffel, and none of them packed a punch the way this one did.
I thought about our phone call, and I know what I would have chosen if the choice had been mine. There are a million jobs in the world, son. There was only one Haiwee.
James thought back to the last time he’d spoken to Jake. He had asked for advice about Ivy, about what he should do.
As always, Jake had known the right answer, found a way to put him on the path.
He was going home.
Dad was standing on the front porch when James pulled up in front of the house on his motorcycle. He stood there watching as James tugged off his helmet and approached him.
“Not September yet.”
The smokejumping season typically lasted from March until September. James was home a month early.
Once he’d made his decision to leave Yellowstone, he’d given in to a good fourteen hours of sleep. Then he’d walked to Roscoe’s office and resigned. He had stayed on until Roscoe was able to secure and train his replacement, something that had taken longer than he’d anticipated. Two months later and James had packed his duffel and climbed on his bike.
He hadn’t called his parents to tell them about his decision, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. Part of him was worried his dad would try to talk him out of it, would tell him he’d made a commitment and he needed to stick it out. God knew that was how James had felt until he’d gone to talk to Roscoe about leaving.
His boss had told him to go, convinced him that staying would offer less help than leaving would. Roscoe could see his mind was made up, and that his heart now resided somewhere else.
Then, Roscoe had blown his mind and told him exactly where Ivy was, and assured him that sticking it out for one more month or even one more jump was like spitting in fate’s face. He’d helped train his replacement, but he hadn’t gone on another call. Fortunately, there hadn’t been any major wildfires during that time.
James had texted Ivy just once, right after he returned from the fire to tell her he was okay, but he hadn’t contacted her since. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to. His finger had hovered over her name in his contacts at least twen
ty times a day, but he’d never dialed. She’d forbid him to quit his job for her, insisting he would resent her for it somewhere down the road.
She was wrong.
The only thing he would ever regret was letting her go.
“I quit,” James said.
Dad nodded. “Yeah. Figured that much from the full duffel strapped to the back of your bike. Why?”
“Ivy.”
Dad smiled. “Glad to hear it.”
“I’m glad you are, because I’m not sure she will be. She said even if I gave up the job, she wouldn’t go out with me again because I’d come to hate her for that decision.”
“Will you?”
“Hell no. I’m in love with her, but I don’t know how to convince her of that. I’m not sure I’ll be able to persuade her to stick around long enough to listen to me, to know that I’m sincere. I’m afraid she’ll hear what I’ve done and still reject me.”
His father gestured toward the stable. “Walk with me for a minute.”
James fell into step with his dad.
“You’re a lot like me, James. I guess you’ve figured that out by now.”
James grinned. He used to hate it when his mom said that, took it as an insult, though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why now. His father might have been a strict man, but the rebukes for bad behavior never outweighed the compliments for a job well done. It wasn’t even close.
Jake used to say it was because James was as headstrong as Seth, determined to be his own man, rather than live in his father’s shadow.
“Jake pointed that out to me a time or two. Said I’d shove my head up my own ass just to avoid noticing.”
Dad chuckled. “Sounds like something he’d say. I did the same. My dad was pretty damn close to the greatest man to ever walk on this earth. And I couldn’t wait to get away from him when I was teenager. Wanted to prove that I could make it on my own, and I did. For quite a few years, I worked my ass off in Texas, on your grandpa Tom’s ranch.”