Wildfire Smokejumper Trilogy

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Macy could feel the onion rings roiling in her stomach. The date had been holding its own until halfway through the meal.

Then Brett had laid the bomb that she would never escape as long as she lived in Larch Creek—no! It would survive right past her death and go on into town legend.

“So, Macy, why the hell did you b****y Billy at the altar anyway?”

Like she was supposed to have a good answer to what was wrong with her not with Billy. The list was manifold and she wasn’t about to share even if she knew where to begin, which she didn’t.

“I mean you’re one of the prettiest girls in town. What the hell happened?”

Most of the town had been in on the public scene a mere six months ago. Macy arriving at the church thinking she’d found true love, Billy’s busted nose spilling red all over her white dress, and no wedding. That’s the part everybody knew.

The part that she’d kept to herself was Billy standing with her at the altar and asking her in a soft whisper, during the middle of the ceremony she’d written on her own because he’d been too busy to help, how she felt about “three ways” because there was this hot Russian chick who’d come across the Bering Sea in a small boat and was currently in Fairbanks fishing for a green card and—

Thankfully Mrs. Harada had taught her well in the twice weekly Kung Fu classes at the Grange Hall; Macy hadn’t just bloodied his nose on the altar, she’d broken it bad. She hoped that the Fairbanks “hot chick” didn’t like men with crooked noses and two missing front teeth for that was how Billy had left town with a dirty rag pressed to his face and a blown cleaning deposit on his rented tux.

Macy staged a wedding-dress funeral; a bonfire event held in the deep tundra for a party of one. She’d flown her Bell LongRanger helicopter out past Monkey Hot Springs, gotten good and drunk, had a major cry, and burned the dress.

She had returned to Larch Creek red-eyed, hung over, and done with men.

Word was, Billy had wisely moved on from Fairbanks to Juneau, which was more Lower Forty-eight than it was Alaska. No one expected him ever to return.

So why was she sitting here with Brett?

He was a nice enough guy. Had always been decent to her, even when she was busy being a pain-in-the-a*s teenage girl in high school. But that’s where it had always ended.

“You know what, Brett?”

“Why do I get the feeling I should take back my question about Billy?”

“No, it’s not that. You’re okay,” never burn a bridge in a small town, at least not unless it was really deserved. “But this is so not gonna happen between us. How about we just enjoy the meal together?”

Brett nodded carefully, looked disappointed for a moment. Then, thinking about it, smiled for the first time that evening.

The rest of the meal went much more smoothly.