Chasing Fire Part 20

"See you later," he murmured.

Lucas called base to get a summary of the fire.

The one the day before had only required a four-man crew, and they'd been in and out inside ten hours. This one looked trickier.

Camper fire, off Lee Ridge, load of sixteen jumping it. And his girl was in that load. Though he could bring the area into his head, he consulted his wall map.

Ponderosa and lodgepole pines, he mused, Douglas fir. Might be able to use Lee Creek as a water source or, depending on the situation, one of the pretty little streams.

He studied the map, considered jump sites, and the tricky business of jumping into those thick and quiet forests. She'd be fine, he a.s.sured himself. He'd do some paperwork, then grab some dinner. Then settle in to wait.

He stared at his computer screen for five full minutes before accepting defeat. Too much on his mind, he admitted.

He considered going over to the base, using the gym, maybe scoring a meal from Marg. But it felt too much like what it was. Hovering.

It had been nice to eat in a restaurant the other night, he remembered. Drink a little wine, have some conversation over a hot meal. He'd gotten too used to the grab-and-go when Rowan wasn't around. Not that either of them excelled at cooking, but they managed to get by.

Alone, he tended to hit the little cafe attached to his gift shop, if he remembered before business closed for the day. Or slap a sandwich together unless he wandered down to base. He could mic a packaged meal, he always stocked plenty at home. But he'd never gotten used to sitting down to one without the company of teammates.

There had been times, he knew, when he'd been jumping that he'd felt intensely lonely. Yet he'd come to know he hadn't fully understood loneliness until the nights spun out in front of him in an empty house.

He pulled out his phone. If he let himself think about it, he'd never go through with it. So he called Ella before he had a clear idea what to say, or how to say it.

"h.e.l.lo?" Her voice sounded so cheerful, so breezy. He nearly panicked. Iron Man, my a.s.s, he thought.

"Ah, Ella, it's Lucas." "h.e.l.lo, Lucas."

"Yeah, h.e.l.lo."

"How are you?" she asked after ten seconds of silence.

"Good. I'm good. I had a really good time the other night." Jesus Christ, Lucas. "So did I. I've had a lovely time thinking about it, and you, since."

"You did?"

"I did. Now that you've called, I'm hoping you're going to ask to do it again."

He felt the pleasure rise up from his toes and end in a big, stupid grin. This wasn't so hard. "I'd like to have dinner with you again." "I'd like that, too.

When?"

"Actually, I-Tonight? I know it's short notice, but-" "Let's call it spontaneous. I like spontaneity."

"That's good. That's great. I could pick you up at seven."

"You could. Or we can both be spontaneous. Come to dinner, Lucas, I'm in the mood to cook. Do you like pasta?" "Sure, but I don't want to put you out."

"Nothing fancy. It's supposed to be a pretty evening; we could eat out on the deck. I've been working on my garden, and you'd give me a chance to show it off."

"That sounds nice." A home-cooked meal, an evening on a deck by a garden- two dinners within three days with a pretty woman? It sounded flat- out amazing.

"Do you need directions?" "I'll find you."

"Then I'll see you around seven. Bye, Lucas." "Bye." He had a date, he thought, just a little stunned. An official one. G.o.d, he hoped he didn't screw it up.

HE THOUGHT ABOUT ROWAN while he drove home to change for dinner. She'd be in the thick of it now, in the smoke and heat, taking action, making decisions. Every cell in her body and mind focused on killing the fire and staying alive.

He thought of her when he walked in the house, only minutes from the base. A good-sized place, he reflected. But when Rowan was home, she needed her s.p.a.ce, and his parents came home several times a year and needed theirs. Still, during the long stretches without them, the empty seemed to grow.

He kept it neat. All the years of needing to grab whatever he needed the minute he needed it carried over to his private life. And he kept it simple. His mother liked to fuss, enjoyed having things around the place, which he packed up whenever she wasn't in residence and stored away until the next time she was. Less to dust.

He did the same with the colorful pillows she liked to toss all over the sofa, the chairs. It saved him from shoving them on the floor every time he wanted to stretch out.

In his room a plain brown spread covered his bed, a straight-backed tan chair stood in the corner. Dark wood blinds covered the windows. Even Rowan despaired at the lack of color or style, but he found it easy to keep clean.

Shirts hung tidily in his closet, sectioned off from pants by a set of open shelves he'd built himself for shoes. Nothing fancy, Ella had said, but what did that mean? Exactly?

When panic tried to tickle his throat, he grabbed his basics. Khaki trousers and a blue shirt. After he'd dressed, he checked in for another fire report.

Nothing to do but wait, he thought, and for a few hours, this time, he wouldn't wait alone.

Because Ella had mentioned her garden, he stopped on the way and bought flowers. Flowers were never wrong, that much he knew. He plugged her address into the GPS in his truck as backup. He knew the area, the street.

He wondered what they'd talk about. He wondered if he should've bought wine. He hadn't thought of wine. Would wine and flowers be too much? It was too late to buy wine anyway, plus how would he know what kind? He pulled into the drive, parked in front of the garage of a pretty, multilevel house in a bold orange stucco he thought suited her. A lot of windows to take in the mountains, flowers in the yard, with more in an explosion of color and shape spiking and tumbling in big native pots on the stones of the covered front entrance.

Now he wondered if the yellow roses he'd bought were overkill. "Flowers are never wrong," he mumbled to himself as he stepped out of the truck on legs gone just a little bit weak.

He probably should've gotten a burger and fries from the cafe, hunkered down in his office. He didn't know how to do this. He was too old to be doing this.

Women had never made any sense to him, so how could he make sense to a woman?

He felt stupid and clumsy and tongue-tied, but since retreat wasn't an option, rang the bell. She answered, her hair swept back and up, her face warm and welcoming.

"You found me. Oh, these are beautiful." She took the roses, and as a woman would, buried her face in the buds. "Thank you." "They reminded me of your voice."

"My voice?"

"They're pretty and cheerful."

"That's a lovely thing to say. Come in," she said, and, taking his hand, drew him inside.

Color filled the house, and the things his mother would have approved of. Bright and bold, soft and textured, a mix of patterns played throughout the living area where candles filled a river stone fireplace.

"It's a great house." "I love it a lot." She scanned the living area with him with an expression of quiet satisfaction. "It's the first one I've ever bought, furnished and decorated on my own. It's probably too big, but the kids are here a lot, so I like having plenty of room. Let's go on back so I can put these in water."

It was big, he noted, and all open so one s.p.a.ce sort of spilled casually into the next. He didn't know much-or anything, really-about decorating, but it felt like it looked. Bright, happy, relaxed.

Then the kitchen made his eyes pop. It flowed into a dining area on one side and a big gathering s.p.a.ce-another sofa, chairs, big flat-screen- on the other. But the hub was like a magazine shot with granite counters, a central island, shiny steel appliances, dark wood cabinets, many of them gla.s.s- fronted to display gla.s.s and dishware. A few complicated small appliances, in that same shiny steel, stood on the counters.

"This is a serious kitchen."

"That and the view sold me on the place. I wanted it the minute I saw it." She chose a bottle of red from a gla.s.s rack, set it and a corkscrew on the counter. "Why don't you open this while I get a vase?"

She opened a door, scanned shelves and selected a tall, cobalt vase. He opened the wine while she trimmed the stems under running water in the central island's sink.

"I'm glad you called. This is a much nicer way to spend the evening than working on my doctorate." "You're working on your doctorate?"

"Nearly there." She held up one hand, fingers crossed. "I put it off way too long, so I'm making up time. Red-wine gla.s.ses," she told him, "second shelf in the cupboard to the right of the sink. Mmm, I love the way these roses look against the blue. How did work go today?" "Fine. We had a big group down from Canada, another in from Arizona, along with some students. Crowded day. Yesterday even more. I barely had time to get over to the base and check after they had the trouble."

"Trouble?" She looked up from her arranging.

"I guess you wouldn't have heard. Somebody got into the ready room over there yesterday-or sometime during the night-tore the place up." "Who'd do such a stupid thing?"

"Well, odds are it was Dolly Brakeman. She's a local girl who had a ... a relationship with the jumper who was killed last summer. She had his baby back in the spring."

"Oh, G.o.d, I know her mother. We're friends. Irene works at the school. She's one of our cooks."

He'd known that, Lucas realized, known Irene worked in the school's kitchen.

"Look, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything about Dolly." "Irene's one thing, Dolly's another-and believe me, I know that very well." Ella stabbed a trimmed stem into the vase. "That girl's put Irene through h.e.l.l. In any case, what happened to the father of Dolly's baby-that's tragic for her, but why would she want to vandalize the base?" "You know Dolly used to be a cook there, and they hired her back on?"

"I knew she'd worked there. I haven't talked to Irene since I went by to take a baby gift. I knew she and Leo went out to ... Bozeman, I think it was -to bring her and the baby home-so I've been hanging back a little, giving them all time to settle in. I didn't realize Dolly had gone back to work at the base."

"They gave her a chance. You know? She went off after Jim's accident. Before she did, she went after Rowan." "Your daughter? Irene never mentioned ...

Well, there's a lot she doesn't mention about Dolly. Why?" "Ro was Jim's partner on that jump. It doesn't make any sense, but that's how Dolly reacted. And she hadn't been back at base but a handful of days when Ro walked in on her splashing pig's blood all over Ro's room."

"For G.o.d's sake."

When she planted fisted hands on her hips, Lucas dubbed it her hardline princ.i.p.al look. He liked it.

"I haven't heard anything about this." Those deep green eyes flashed as she poured wine. "I'll have to call Irene tomorrow, see if she needs ... anything. I know Dolly's troublesome, to put it mildly, but Irene really believed the baby, getting Dolly to go to church, taking her back in the house, would settle her down. Obviously not."

Full of sympathy now, and a touch of worry, her eyes met his. "How's your daughter dealing with it?"

"Ro? She deals. They've been working on repairs and manufacturing since, and must've gotten enough done to take some calls. A four-man jump yesterday, basically an in-and-out."

"That's good. Maybe they'll have time to catch their breath."

"Not much chance of that. The siren went off about four-thirty today."

"Rowan's out on a fire? Now? I didn't hear about that, either. I haven't had the news on all day. Lucas, you must be worried." "No more than usual. It's part of the deal."

"Now I'm even more glad you called."

"And got you upset and worried about Irene."

"I'm glad I know what's going on with her. I can't help if I don't know." She reached out, laid a hand over his. "Why don't you take your wine and the bottle out on the deck? I'll be right out." He went out wide gla.s.s doors to the deck that offered views of the mountains, the endless sky-and her yard that struck him-again-like something out of a magazine.

A squared-off area covered by the colorful, springy mulch he'd seen in playgrounds held a play area for her grandkids. Swings, ladders, bars, seesaws, even a little playhouse with a pint-sized umbrella table and chairs.

He found it as cheerful as the house-and it told him she'd made a home here not just for herself, but for her family to enjoy. And still, her flowers stole the show.

He recognized roses-he knew that much-but the rest, to his eyes, created fairyland rivers and pools of color and shape all linked together with narrow stone paths. Little nooks afforded s.p.a.ce for benches, an arbor covered with a trailing vine, a small, bubbling copper fountain.

While he watched, a Western meadowlark darted to the wide bowl of a bird feeder to help himself to dinner. Lucas turned when she came out with a tray.

"Ella, this is amazing. I've never seen anything like it outside the movies."

Her dimples winked in cheeks pinked up with pleasure. "My pride and joy, and maybe just a little bit of an obsession. The people who owned the house before were keen gardeners, so I had a wonderful foundation. With some changes, some additions and a whole lot of work, I've made it my own."

She set the tray on a table between two bright blue deck chairs.

"I thought you said no fuss." He looked at the fancy appetizers arranged on the tray.

"I'll have to confess my secret vice. I love to fuss." She picked up her wine. "I hope you don't mind." "My mother didn't raise a fool." She sat, angling toward him while her wind chimes picked up the tune of the summer breeze. The meadowlark sang for his supper. "I love sitting out here, especially this time of day, or early in the morning."

"Your grandkids must love playing out here."

They drank wine, ate her fancy appetizers, talked of her grandchildren, which boosted him to relate anecdotes from Rowan's childhood.

He wondered why he'd had those moments of panic. Being with her was so comfortable once he got off the starting blocks. And every time she smiled something stirred inside him. After a while it-almost-didn't seem strange to find himself enjoying a pretty summer evening, drinking soft wine, admiring the view while talking easily with a beautiful woman.

It-almost-blocked out memories of how he'd spent so many other summer evenings. How his daughter was spending hers now. "You're thinking of her.

Your Ro."

"I guess it stays in the back of my mind. She's good, and she's with a solid unit. They'll get the job done." "What would she be doing now?"

"Oh, it depends." So many things, he thought, and all of them hard, dangerous, necessary. "She might be on a saw line. They'd plot out a position, factor in how the fire's reacting, the wind and so on, and take down trees, cut out brush."

"Because those are fuel."

"Yeah. They've got a couple water sources, so she might be on the hose. I know they dropped mud on her earlier." "Why would they drop mud on Rowan?"

His laugh broke out, long, delighted. "Sorry. I meant the fire. Mud's what we call the r.e.t.a.r.dant the tanker drops. Believe me, no smoke jumper wants to be under that." "And you call the fire her because men always refer to dangerous or annoying things they have to deal with as female." "Ah ..."

"I'm teasing you. More or less. Come inside while I start dinner. You can keep me company and tell me about mud." "You don't want to hear about mud."

"You're wrong," she told him as they gathered up the tray, the gla.s.ses, the wine. "I'm interested." "It's thick pink goo, and burns if it hits your skin."