Jupiter Point Hotshots Box Set

Chapter 5-3

The drive back to the base was one nonstop interrogation. Josh started in as soon as the door closed behind him.

“Who is that chick? Old girlfriend?”

“No.”

“New girlfriend?”

“For cripes’ sake, Marsh. Give it a rest. She’s the little sister of a friend of mine, Hunter. I lived with her family before I left Jupiter Point.” Truth to tell, he barely remembered that time. His head had been shrouded in a fog of shock.

“You lived with her? Was she already a babe back then?”

“Christ, she was maybe fourteen. I had other things to think about.”

“See, that’s the difference between me and you. No matter what else is happening, I always take time to appreciate the women in my life. Note the plural.”

Sean rolled his eyes. “Do I need to lock you up at the base to keep you away from Jupiter Point? My reputation’s on the line here.”

“What are you so worried about? Were you really such a bad seed? We call you Magneto because you look like him, not because you’re a villain.”

“Depends who you ask.” Sean steered onto the two-lane road that led to the base, which sat at the edge of a wilderness area. “I didn’t have a record or anything. I fought with my father a lot. I had a lot of anger and found creative ways to let off steam.”

“Hmm. I get it, you were the town bad boy. And that girl. What’s her name?”

“Evie McGraw.” Saying her name brought up an image of her face, and all the emotions churning behind her silvery eyes during that brief conversation at the high school. She fascinated him.

“Definitely more the town sweetheart type. This should be interesting.” Josh squinted into the distance, imagining God knew what.

“Nothing to see here. Move along.”

“Uh-huh. First he marries a stripper, then he goes for the town sweetheart.”

“Are you ever going to let that go? I was twenty-two and drunk off my ass.”

“Which is why I’m never, ever going to let it go.”

The old Army base—Sean still couldn’t think of it as a “fire and rescue compound”--seemed even more quiet and empty when Sean and Josh finally got back. It was a small outpost of modest, low-lying buildings painted standard beige on the outside, standard Army white inside. Standard being the theme. After the nearest ranger station had burned down, several state and federal agencies had joined together to take over the decommissioned base. They’d relocated the rangers and fire dispatch, set aside space for the hotshots, and planned to add a search and rescue crew. During the day the ranger station got a certain amount of traffic.

But for now, the compound was still mostly empty at night.

In the room they’d designated as a common area, Josh kicked back on a pile of blankets and cued up a Netflix movie on his laptop. The cots were due to arrive tomorrow. Until then, they were making do with sleeping bags and blankets.

Sean skipped the flick and went for a night run.

Never mind that he’d jogged five miles up and down hills just that morning. Running always cleared his thoughts and gave him energy. He chose a trail that wound around the outer perimeter of the base.

As he ran, filling his lungs with the crisp early March air, he kept looking up at the wide-open, star-studded sky above. He’d forgotten what the stars were like here. Jupiter Point prided itself on its magnificent stargazing. The way the air currents swirled around the promontory kept the smog at bay. City ordinances dictated that street lights be kept low, and most residents followed the same rules. The town even had a motto—“Remember to Look Up at the Stars.”

Sean made a mental note to make sure the hotshots respected the regulations. Just another detail he should be nailing down.

Instead, he couldn’t stop thinking about Evie McGraw.

And that night.

He’d come back from basketball practice and spotted movement inside Brad’s old beater Chevy. He’d never liked Brad—why was someone his age hanging around a fourteen-year-old? So he peered in the window and saw Evie’s terrified eyes flashing silver. Yanked the door open. Socked Brad in the face. While Brad moaned in agony and grabbed for his phone, Sean helped Evie inside the house. She was shaking so hard she could barely talk, but she made him promise not to say a word.

He left the house to make sure Brad was gone—but he wasn’t. Blood dripping down his face, he was busy telling a bunch of lies to a police officer. The officer started asking Sean some bullshit questions—wanted him to take a d**g test, and asked if he was selling pot, as Brad had apparently accused. And just like that—Sean lost his head completely. Everything he’d been through over the past half year boiled over. He took a swing at the officer—landed a left hook on his jaw.

The officer’s partner, who had been questioning the neighbor who called them, came charging down the street. So Sean let loose on him too. He was so enraged it took both of them to get him in the police car and into the town lockup.

Not his best moment. Even now, he winced just thinking about it.

The next day, Evie’s father bailed him out and said the charges would be dropped if he attended counseling sessions. But Sean couldn’t take the disappointed, concerned look on his face. His whole world had fallen apart. He was teetering on the edge of an emotional cliff; he didn’t want to take anyone down with him.

So he left Jupiter Point that night. He didn’t see Evie again before he took off. But he did track down Brad at Barstow’s, where he was boasting about his brush with the law--like the tool he was. He warned him to stay the f**k away from Evie from now on.

Then he left, and it was a relief to put Jupiter Point behind him. After the crash, everyone kept giving him those horrible, sympathetic “you poor baby” looks. He couldn’t stand that. Even worse were the suspicious looks. The ones that said, we know how much you fought with your pothead hippie father. We know the police think Jesse Marcus bought the flightseeing business to smuggle m*******a. We know the cause of the crash was never determined. We know something wasn’t right. Where there’s smoke there’s fire.

When he’d almost finished his starlight run, his phone rang in the pocket of his running shorts. The crazy thought that it might be Evie flitted through his mind. “Sean Marcus.”

“It’s Rollo.”

“Holy crap, Rollo Wareham the Third, it’s good to hear your voice. How’s the leg?” Rollo’s leg had been broken by a falling log during the burnover. He had screws in his knee and a metal plate in his femur.

“Perfect. I’m like Iron Man. And I want on your crew.”

“What?” He’d figured Rollo was done with firefighting after such a serious injury. He slowed to a jog to let his heart rate decrease slowly. “Why would you want that?”

“I’m getting a metric ton of pressure to join the family biz.”

“CPA, right? Like you said during the burnover?”

“Uh, not exactly. It’s a hedge fund kind of thing, office job. Suit and tie. I can’t do it, Magneto.”

Rollo didn’t talk much about his family, but Sean knew they came from big money. Old money. Rollo was a big-hearted, generous, live-life-to-the-fullest kind of guy who hated social bullshit. Sean would love to have him on the crew. The brotherhood of the burnover reunited.

He dropped his pace to a walk. The night air cooled the sweat on the back of his neck. “Are you sure this would be the right move for you? Maybe you should find yourself a nice debutante back east and settle down.”

“Did my family pay you to say that?”

Sean laughed. “I wish. Give them my number.”

“Look, Sean. I don’t feel like myself, you know? I’ve been working my a*s off in PT. I want to get back into action. You can put me on probation, trial basis, whatever you want. You’ll see. I’m completely ready to go. Better than before.”

Sean wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and glanced up at the thick, glowing carpet of stars overhead. “If I say yes, will you promise not to make me call you Iron Man?”

“No. It’s a helluva good nickname, and I want it.”

Sean laughed. God, it felt good to banter with Rollo again. For a while, after the burnover, he’d feared for his crewmate’s mental state.

“Fine. Come for an interview. Give it a few weeks though. I have a list of candidates I can choose from, but they’re giving me some discretion. Anyway, it’s barebones here. We don’t even have cots here yet. I’m sleeping on the hard floor in a sleeping bag.”

“No friendly Jupiter Point girls willing to give the famous Magneto a place to sleep? You’re losing your touch, man.”

“You have no idea,” Sean mumbled before hanging up. Less than one full day in town and he’d already sent one woman running the opposite direction.

And that wasn’t right. First opportunity, he was going to find Evie and fix things. He’d upset her by reappearing out of the blue. Maybe he should have warned her. The decent thing to do would be to apologize, right? In person, if possible.

He tilted his head back to look up at the stars. His gaze went right to the planet Jupiter.

“It’s community outreach,” he told the distant planet—as if it cared. “That’s all.”