Wildfire Smokejumper Trilogy

Chapter 3-4

The pieces didn’t click in Tim’s brain until after she was out the door; he’d barely seen her silhouette just for a second, but the way she moved was so familiar.

Mace Tyler.

He almost rose to chase after her. Give her a hug, maybe dunk her in the old claw-foot bathtub that served as a horse trough in front of the Zani’s General Store. But his mom and her friends were so glad to have him among them that he stayed put. It was nice to know Mace was around, he’d missed her the last few times and was sorry for that.

It had always been a pinch that he hadn’t been there more for her in the years since Stephen’s death. Hell, he even remembered when she was born. Stephen became a big brother at the age of four and had very seriously asked Tim to help him so he didn’t mess up. They’d made a spit-and-handshake swear on it, and here was Tim letting him down.

It was hard, being in this town and expecting to bump into his best friend around every corner. It must have been worse for her. Stephen would be pretty darn ticked at Tim right about now.

Well, he’d try to make it up to her this week.

So, staying beside his mom, who had her hand clamped in his, he tuned into the latest stories about the changing world of publishing. He was always surprised at how many famous authors had gathered in this little town. Mom and her b****y murder mysteries had been one of the first. Her in-residence Mastermind Meetings for pros at Stephanie’s B&B had attracted others to make the change permanent.

Tim had always preferred reading Kim and Sam’s action and adventure books to his mother’s b****y mysteries, not realizing until he was much older that the books they were actually romances. The bare-chested men on the covers should have been a giveaway, but he’d liked all of the helicopter and airplane stuff from Kim’s days flying Air Rescue with 920th Operations Group and Sam’s with the Coast Guard. As a kid, he’d always just flipped past the “weird” stuff…until he’d hit puberty. After that he kind of switched which parts he paid attention to.

Macy’s mom, Lisa, was still writing science fiction with her husband—under his name. They’d just pulled down their third Hugo and fourth movie.

“Got a question for you,” Tim spoke up when there was a lull in the conversation after analyzing the clause changes in Mitch’s latest thriller contract. “Does Larch Creek have the highest per capita rate of famous authors on the planet?”

“Famous? Don’t know that any of us are famous other than your mom and the Tylers,” Kim had always been the humble one of the couple.

Sam winked at him, “We keep a low profile. The wonders of pen names and a small community, everyone here knows not to reveal our secret identities to strays and out-of-towners.”

Tim didn’t point out that he and his wife were wearing matching t-shirts that proclaimed, I’m a Romance Writer. What’s Your Superpower?

“There are eight of us here every Sunday dinner; that’s over one in a hundred,” Mitch observed.

“Don’t forget Dorothy,” his mom reminded them. “She may be getting on, and we don’t see her as much, but she certainly still turns out that dark urban fantasy stuff—hot, sexy, and b****y. Gives me the shivers.”

Everyone laughed that it was the murder mystery writer who was creeped out by Dorothy’s tales. The woman was old enough to be Tim’s grandmother, maybe great-grandmother.

“Maybe she’s part vampire. Does she still come to the winter meetings?” Tim asked.

They all eyed each other and then burst out laughing. Dorothy’s preference for nighttime was notorious. “Daylight hours is for writing,” she’d always say.

“This,” Mitch waved around his big hand and continued with a thick Texan accent, “is about as out and about as any of us want to be. That’s the problem with counting authors, we’re recluses by nature. Never was much a one for the social whirl of Austin. Always gave me the creeps a bit, meeting fans at signings and such,” his shiver was much like Tim’s mom’s. “Might even be a couple around we don’t know about. Carol said as how there was a package from a New York publisher she delivered to the new guy in the old Sharpton place.”

Clement sat at the far end of the table and, as usual, didn’t say much, but he nodded in agreement.

They were tight, Tim realized. They were as tight as the MHA smokie crew, but for different reasons. Rather than fire, adrenaline, and youth, this group shared a passion for stories. Some had arrived as Eva Harada’s students for whom she’d stood as mentor at some workshop she’d taught on the “outside”—typically Fairbanks. Others had wandered through and come to a halt in Larch Creek or Tena much to their own surprise.

“Come for a week and stay for a lifetime,” Tim commented drily and earned a good laugh.

“That mean you’re home for good this time, Timmy boy?”

“No way, Mitch,” Tim held up both hands to fend off the idea as Carl brought him a fresh pint of barley beer, a venison steak, and a stack of honey-gold onion rings. “It’s rainy this week in the Lower Forty-eight. They gave us some days off for bad behavior and I decided I hadn’t seen Mom’s face in too long.”

He let the pause hang while he sipped his beer.

His audience, a crowd of storytellers, knew when a story was only half finished.

“Of course if I’d known the first familiar face I’d see in town would be yours, Mitch…”

The laughter was good. Made him forgive the airlines for folding him up like a pretzel to get here. At least a little bit.