Wildfire Smokejumper Trilogy

Chapter 4-4

Laura considered Akbar for a long moment. She could hear the slightly false ring of his question, but couldn’t pin down what it was. He’d made it sound gruff and macho, as if he was ready to battle a horse for her affections. It was actually one of the nicer compliments she’d ever received. “Hey babe, you’re hot,” was far more common. It was hard to believe guys actually thought that was charming.

“Mister Ed,” she answered him, “is my protector. So don’t mess with me or—”

“The horse will pull out his Jetson’s ray g*n and fry my behind. Got it.” He turned back to Mister Ed. “You must be one dangerous horse.”

She could feel her guard weakening around the man. Actually, she poked around a bit, she didn’t feel her guard was up much at all.

“What if…” Akbar trailed out the question and paid Mister Ed a bit more attention. Her horse was loving the strength of Akbar’s bare-handed rub down. It made her a little intrigued at what that might feel like. “What if I win your horse over to my side? Then you’re in trouble, right?”

Yeah, she was. If she was picturing how it would feel to have this guy’s hands on her instead of her horse, she was in deep trouble. Time for a subject change.

“Let’s run. I have a group to lead in two hours.”

As they set off, Mister Ed nickered at them; he wanted to come along. But which of them was it that he wanted to follow? She wanted to shout traitor over her shoulder.

When they reached the trail and it narrowed too much to run side by side, Akbar waved her ahead. Instead, she dropped back and gave him the lead. She wasn’t used to running with anyone else other than her mom, and didn’t like the idea of him staring at her from a pace behind. Of course now she was doing the same thing.

He might not have her height or length of leg, but she could see he was a powerful runner. A long, solid stride, very self-assured on the smooth trail. Used to running over untracked terrain among burning trees, this must be a cakewalk for him. But he wasn’t just a runner. From his trim waist up, he had a powerful build from hour upon hour of backbreaking labor.

They crossed a fast-rushing stream. He didn’t bother making the small detour up to the split-log footbridge, but trotted agilely over the protruding rocks with a quick set of almost dance-like steps and hit the far side in a clean stride.

“What’s it like?”

He didn’t ask for clarification as he slowed enough that conversation would be easier. “Fighting fire is like nothing else in the world. It has all of the intensity of an avalanche, with more safety and controls than you probably have when you guide tourists on a ride.”

Laura couldn’t believe that he was translating it into her terms. Nobody was that thoughtful, unless they were making it up. He didn’t feel false. Actually, he’d probably learned this trick so long ago that it was automatic: figure out the woman’s metaphors and use those to charm her. He was good at it. That it was planned didn’t make it any less thoughtful. She let her silence prompt him for more.

“If you get in really close to the main fire, that usually means that things aren’t going well. Small stuff we can get in close, but the bullroarers we try to anticipate rather than attack. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle.” At a “Y” in the trail, he turned upslope.

She didn’t point out that farther on, his choice became a significantly tougher route.

“No two fires are the same. Even one fire can change its behavior from one minute to the next.” He eased the pace on the steeper terrain so that he could keep talking, but didn’t flag at all as they continued to ascend.

They were at six thousand feet and the thinning air slowed most people down. She’d been up here for the last six months, so she was fully adapted. Apparently his lung capacity was sufficient. Of course, he’d just been fighting a fire at over five thousand feet.

“So, we do our best to be smarter than the fire and—”

“Smarter? Fire’s think?”

“In the most evil ways you can imagine. I can’t tell you how many times my crew has cut a line, only to have the wind go through three compass shifts so it actually goes around our line and comes at us from the other direction. Fighting a fire on two facing fronts, that’s an uncomfortable place to be.”

“Then why—” She cut herself off as they broke above the last of the tree line. She’d always enjoyed this view. Climbing out of the trees, the vista was incredible. It was as if Mount Hood simply exploded into being, dropped that very instant from the heavens. The ski slopes and chair lifts were wrapped around one flank of the mountain. It was mid-August, so Palmer was still skiable and the upper lifts were still going to reach there, but the lower slopes had turned to alpine meadow for the short summer season.

They stopped at seven thousand feet, both breathing heavily, to appreciate the view.

“Then why do I jump fire?” He was winded but not breathless.

She nodded, but felt foolish for asking. It was such a natural thing for someone as macho as Akbar the Great.

“So that I can stand where I did yesterday morning. Here, turn around.”

Without asking first, he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face south; his hands were an easy and powerful strength where he left them resting light on her shoulders. The shock of the intrusion of her personal space was wholly overwhelmed by how much she enjoyed the feel of that casual strength.

“Look.”

Hundreds of square miles of the Mount Hood National Forest stretched before them. Rolling hills cloaked beneath endless rolls of dark conifer. Occasional sharp ridges of rock sliced upward from the green shroud, crying victory as they soared forth. It was one of those perfect summer days and all she could see was the forest that lay for dozens of miles ahead of her.

“Imagine,” Akbar’s whisper was so close beside her ear that she felt both a chill and a heat. “Imagine that behind us is a couple hundred acres of unsightly black, nose-biting char and hundreds of man-hours of back-breaking mop-up.”

His description was a sharp jar to the senses.

“In front of you though, is ten thousand, a hundred thousand acres of pristine forest. My team and I did that. We kept that forest safe and alive, at least until the next fire. There’s no feeling like it in the world.”

Laura tried to imagine it. Tried to imagine that she had saved this vast area in front of them… “You make me feel small.” As if her life was—

“No!” He cut off her thoughts with a tone as sharp as a knife and whirled her back to face him, but dropping his grip on her the moment he did so.

She missed it.

“No. You show people why it’s important. You, your mom, your grandmother that you were telling me about, you show people why it’s worth preserving. Every flower or mountain stream or elk you show people attaches them that much more to the land. If it weren’t for people like you, they’d probably let it all burn and not even know what they’d lost.”

Laura studied his dark eyes. Saw the passion in them, the truth. No dissembler was present now. This was a different man than the one in the Doghouse Inn. No, it was the same man that she’d met, just not the one he did his best to project. Akbar cared about what he did and cared deeply. He even managed to make her feel more important in the process.

Any rational thought went by the wayside, she simply leaned in and kissed him.

His first reaction was neither possessive nor smug; it was surprise. He didn’t break the kiss, but did freeze for a long moment, his eyes wide. Only then did he slip his hands onto her waist. Not pulling her in, just holding her as if he needed to steady himself. When he did kiss her back, it was warm, gentle, and lush. The heat grew like a slow fire until she was lost in the whirl of the flames.

He broke the kiss causing her to stagger a half step.

“Damn, Laura Jenson! Is that how they kiss in the space age? I had no idea what I was missing. Sign me up.”

It was a line. It was just a silly line. But it was a damn good silly line.