7
Vern woke alone and blinked at the sunlight shining in through the window. The bright, mid-morning sunlight. That meant the smoke was clearing out of Missoula. That in turn meant either a wind shift, which could be an extremely bad thing, or they were beating the fire. And he was supposed to be aloft with Vanessa at first light.
He rolled up out of the bunk. Right before he made it upright, he remembered that he hadn’t been alone when he went to sleep. He turned to inspect the empty expanse of sheets, at the same moment his temple whacked hard against the upper bunk.
Collapsing back onto his pillow, his groan didn’t make him feel any damned better.
When the stars had cleared and the spins stopped, he tested for blood. Nope, though his breath hissed out at the contact. Leaking brain m
