Wildfire Smokejumper Trilogy

Chapter 4-4

Macy did her best not to scream as she listened to Tim drive off. And she hadn’t watched from the window because she sure wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Plus, it was too lame for words.

She shoved her mug in the microwave, but didn’t bother turning it on. Instead she crossed her arms to glare at it. For one thing, the marshmallows would get all weird. And the handle too hot. Microwaves never reheated hot chocolate properly.

Couldn’t she do anything right?

“I know how to hug a man, don’t I?”

Baxter sat on the floor and looked longingly from her to the dog biscuit drawer and then back to her.

“I hugged Brett normal as could be just last night, didn’t I? He didn’t even try to cop a feel.”

Was it because he was decent or Macy was a psycho woman with…

“No! Not finishing that sentence.”

Baxter gave up and sighed as he lay on the wood of the old floor.

But how was she supposed to hug Tim Harada normally?

On one hand, he was family. She’d been in his arms a thousand times, everything from tackle football to practicing for a school dance to shoving him when he least expected if a large mud puddle presented itself as too tempting a target. He was quick and half the time she’d go in with him, but it was always worth it; sometimes it was even better that way.

So why had she gotten all weird this time?

She pulled down cereal for her breakfast, but could smell that the milk had turned the moment she uncapped the bottle. Pancakes…required milk. Eggs…she was out of. Oatmeal with soymilk wasn’t quite as awful as it sounded, but it was close. She’d shed her Pop Tart addiction two years ago and there wasn’t a one in the cupboards.

“Fine! Breakfast out, Baxter.”

He knew those words and raced to the door to wait. Carl always had a bowl of meat scraps in the fridge.

Normally they’d walk, but she had a mail flight in another hour, so she took the truck. She rolled down the driver’s window despite the chill morning air and drove off, calling for Baxter to run close behind and get a couple of the kinks out with a six-block run as she drove over.

She was climbing out of the truck, when she heard a shout of, “Heads up!”

Macy turned barely in time to see Baxter leap in front of her and grab a Frisbee just moments before it whacked her in the nose.

The dog bounded up the steps and dropped it at Tim’s feet. He was part way down the cluttered porch, but Baxter reached him and then bounded back into view, ready to race after the next throw.

Tim leaned out, off balance over the porch rail, and heaved the disk with an underhand throw that sent it soaring down the middle of the Parisian Way, skipping off the top of Herb Maxwell’s truck and floating most of the way to the hardware store.

Baxter snagged it inches from the ground at the cost of doing a full somersault. But he came up with it in his teeth and was already trotting it back to Tim.

She flashed a signal and Baxter turned at the last moment and delivered it to her. With a sharp overhand she sent it whipping at Tim’s face. Hard.

He trapped it with a solid thunk against his palms, grinned, and winged it further the other way up the street toward the church.

Baxter raced, leapt for the catch, and returned. He stopped halfway between them and eyed them both with the Frisbee still clamped in his teeth.

Tim waved for Baxter to give it to Macy, and he obeyed. He’d never obeyed anyone but her.

“It’s Stephen’s,” he called down from the porch. “Or maybe it was mine, but it’s the one we kept underneath the butter churn in case we were in town and wanted to play.”

Macy took it and could feel almost feel her brother’s hands on it. Frisbee was the big summer sport in Larch Creek. Arable land was too precious in the valley to waste any of it on a football or soccer field. There was the softball field, with the outside wall of the school’s gym filling in as a vertical outfield. Above the faded white line painted at ten feet high was a triple, above the line at twenty feet up the wall was a home run.

Frisbee, they could play it anywhere. It bounced off windows without damage and if it went into the river, there was always a dog willing to swim for it. Snowshoe Ultimate had been a serious winter workout game.

But this one had been Stephen’s. Stephen and Tim’s.

Most of the anger drained out of her. She flicked it lightly up to Tim who momentarily disappeared from view as he tucked it back under the butter churn.

“How about breakfast?” he asked when he reappeared. “My treat.”

“Firefighting must pay well.”

“Well enough,” he aimed that lethal smile down at her and then began working his way across the porch as she climbed the steps. They reached the front door at the same time.

Tim held the door for her like she was a lady, something Brett had missed at every opportunity. She scoffed at Tim which seemed the appropriate response.