Crash & Burn

3. Remy

Chapter Three

Remy

I kicked a chair away from the table with my boot, slipping into it and nodding when Ward Taylor called over a greeting. “Hey, Remy.”

Ward turned back to finish saying something to Cade Masters, who was seated beside him. I’d come to join a mix of crewmembers at Wildlands Lodge, all of us hotshot firefighters based out of Willow Brook, Alaska. Wildlands was a world-class lodge for all things outdoors, situated on the pristine waters of Swan Lake. It was also a local favorite bar and restaurant. Swan Lake was the centerpiece of Willow Brook, a massive lake with a stunning view of the wilderness on its far shore, the mountains beyond, and encircled with a variety of hunting and fishing lodges.

A waitress paused beside me, glancing down with a friendly smile. “What can I get for you, Remy?” she asked.

“Just the house draft on tap.”

“Nothing to eat?”

“I’ll take a burger,” a voice called from behind me. Glancing back, I saw Beck Steele approaching the table. Beck flashed me a grin as he slipped into the chair beside me.

“Ditto,” I replied when the waitress glanced back to me.

She jotted down our orders and hurried away. I leaned back in my chair, scanning the bar while Beck greeted everyone else at the table. Considering a few of Rachel’s friends were here tonight, I idly wondered if I would see her here tonight.

Rachel Garrett had done the impossible—she’d damn near set up house in my brain. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since I’d seen her, nor had I thought I’d ever care enough about anyone again. Sometimes life throws curveballs you can’t anticipate, and the wreckage afterwards is strewn so thoroughly across the landscape of your life, all you can do is pick up stakes and move.

That’s what I’d done. I’d been a firefighter in western North Carolina, where I was born. Once my life skidded sideways for reasons entirely out of my control, I headed to hotshot training in California. As soon as a position opened up here in Willow Brook, I took it.

There were quite a few things I missed about home, but I didn’t view my choice to move away as running. There’d been nothing left to run from. I found a change of scenery didn’t hurt so much. Yet, I’d come here knowing no one could ever get through to my heart again.

Rachel had somehow slipped right through, knocking loose a few bricks in the walls around my heart. Those walls had simply built themselves. When you lost just about everyone who matters, sometimes that happened. Or that’s what I told myself, time and again.

Turning when someone else said my name, I found Jesse Franklin looking at me expectantly. “Yeah?”

“I was wondering if you were going to be able to be on duty over Memorial Day weekend. It’s a busy time around here, and it seems like half the station’s going on vacation.”

“I’ll be here. Just tell me where you need me to be.”

“Sweet,” Jesse replied with a grin and a wink.

“You’re from North Carolina, right? Do you get down there to visit your family much?” Charlie, Jesse’s wife, asked. They’d up and gotten married only recently, although they’d been together over a year. Or, at least, that was what I’d pieced together. Charlie was pretty, with dark glossy hair and gray eyes. She was also damn smart and a good doctor, which I know from personal experience. Firefighting had its challenges, including minor and major injuries. Over the winter, a beam had fallen when I was on my way out of a house, one of the heavy nails slicing through the side of my hand and leaving a crooked scar for my trouble. Charlie had stitched it up as neatly as possible.

I imagined she was being polite by asking about me visiting my family. It was a perfectly normal question. My chest tightened, but I breathed through the heartbeat of pain and shook my head. “Can’t say that I do. Both my parents passed away.”

Charlie’s eyes widened and then a look of clear understanding passed across her face. “I’m so sorry, Remy. I didn’t know,” she replied, her tone warm and soft.

The sharp ache in my heart was easing. I was used to it by now. “You couldn’t have known,” I said. I had to steel myself every time I thought about my parents. Life could be f*****g cruel.

A vacation on the Gulf Coast. A tornado in the darkness. A single street and three houses. My parents and four other people gone. Just like that.

All that was left of my family were me and my little sister, Shay. Shay was closer to home, and I missed her. The only reason I didn’t worry about her was because the biggest threat to her was finally locked up in jail. I shook my thoughts away, sensing Charlie’s eyes lingering on me, the concern in her gaze deepening.

Around us, conversation carried on with joking, laughter from a game of pool nearby, the sound of glasses clinking, and lives simply carrying on. All the while, I felt like there were gaping holes in my heart I didn’t know if I could ever repair.

Charlie rested her hand on my arm, her touch cool and soft. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. My father and my sister died. I know. Time helps.”

I took a breath, holding her eyes. “Time does help. Thank you,” I managed through the tightness in my throat.

Someone else said my name, snapping through the temporary lull between Charlie and me. Her kindness almost made me hurt more. She gave my forearm a little squeeze and then her hand wrapped around her wine glass as she took a sip, looking away. I sensed she knew I needed to move on from this moment, and I wanted to thank her for that too.

I searched out the voice that had called my name, my eyes landing on Beck. He was always quick with a joke and rock solid out in the field. “Yes?” I replied, ignoring the pain in my heart.

“Oh, I was just asking if you bet any in the pool for the Ice Classic,” Beck explained.

“What the hell is that?” I countered, relieved to latch onto something.

Beck’s grin widened as Levi Phillips leaned forward beside him. Levi was just as much the jokester as Beck, and the two of them tended to take turns.

“Every year, it’s a bet on when the ice will c***k on the river,” Levi explained.

“A bet on when the damn ice cracks? What the hell, boys?”

Before I left that night, I’d been persuaded into betting fifty bucks on the silliest thing I’d ever heard of.

A bit later, I stepped out of the bar, pausing halfway across the parking lot behind Wildlands. The early spring air still had a bite of cold, but it contained a hint of earthiness to it. It smelled like mud and leaves with nothing more than a promise of the green to come. I took several deep breaths, my mind spinning back to what spring was like in the mountains of North Carolina when I was a boy.

Spring there wasn’t quite as powerful as it was here, yet that same sense of quickening in the air and the pungency of everything melting and slowly unfurling from the frost was vivid in my memory.

Fuck. I kicked that memory to the curb in my mind. It was too tangled up in the loss of my parents. I missed them, missed them like hell. I missed Shay too. Yet, she was the one who had talked me into becoming a firefighter in the first place and had encouraged me to move to take this position. Her heart was big as the sky, and she was so open in spite of everything.

She had more pain to carry than I did, more reason not to trust in life, in the world, and in the vagaries of faith. Yet, she still did. She was a living, breathing example of the concept of hope. She called me just this morning and left a silly message on my voicemail.

I made my way to my truck and climbed in. After starting the engine and pulling out onto Main Street in downtown Willow Brook, I tapped the speaker button on the screen in the dashboard, pulling up Shay’s number. It would be late there, but she would answer. She always did.

Shay picked up on the second ring. “Hey, big brother,” she said with a laugh.

“Hey, sis, how you doing?”

Joy spun around my heart. There were a few spots of joy in my life the last few years. My sister was one of them.

“I’m good.”

“You all settled in?” I asked.

“Of course I am. It’s not like I’m living alone, Remy. I just got to the farm yesterday. Ash is out of town for the month, but Jackson’s here. You know he won’t let a hair on my head get hurt.”

My heart gave a painful thud. “I know.”

Shay had been to hell and back in the last year with her asshole of an ex, who was finally f*****g in jail for what he put her through. By some miracle, she was still joyful. After she made it through to the other side, her spirit had shined its light again.

I’d all but badgered her into moving in with my old buddy from back home and his younger sister, who happened to be a good friend of Shay’s as well. I hadn’t wanted her to live alone. I worried too much.

“I don’t know why you’re so concerned. I’ve got Jackson to boss me around just as much as you do. You don’t need to worry about me anymore, Remy. I swear.”

“And you don’t need to tell me not to worry.”

Shay’s answering laugh was low. “Fine then. Tell me how you’re doing. Is it spring there yet?”

“Well, since we talked just yesterday, there’s a little bit less snow on the ground today and it’s getting muddier.”

She laughed again. “Right, but you said things melt fast there once they start.”

“That I did, sis.”

“Hang on a sec,” she said. Her voice was muffled as she said something to someone in the background. I looked ahead as I turned, and a car came into view on the side of the road. Shay’s voice came back on. “Sorry about that.”

“No problem. I gotta go. There’s a car on the side of the road. I’m gonna check and make sure they’re okay.”

“Of course you are. You take care of everybody, Remy. I love you.”

“Love you too, sis. I’ll talk to you soon.”

After I ended the call, I slowed, pulling up behind the car, its hazard lights blinking in the darkness. I turned on my own hazards before I climbed out. Walking to the driver’s side of the car, I rapped my knuckles against it, thinking the SUV looked familiar.

When the window rolled down, I found myself looking into Rachel’s bright blue eyes, the dim light inside the car reflecting off her glossy brown hair. The moment my eyes met hers, a jolt of need hit me. That was how much this girl got to me.