Page 28 of Smokin' Situation

He pulled out a flashlight I hadn’t known was in his pocket and clicked it on, shining it inside the first doorway before he moved to the other. I followed behind, seeing a tiny bathroom with a single vanity, toilet and a small combination bathtub/shower.

“Is there soap?” I asked, the thought of taking a warm shower taking precedence over the gnawing hunger that was trying to get my attention since I hadn’t eaten much today.

“Soap is the least of our worries. I don’t think they’ve brought any guests up here to stay the night this season, so I’m more concerned about the state of the water.” Tripp turned the shower dial, and the pipes made some suspicious noises, but only a trickle of water flowed out of the faucet. He frowned, reaching around me to try the sink, but nothing happened.

“Stay in here. I’m gonna go see if I can find the shut off for the inside water. They must not have turned the supply to the cabins back on after they were winterized last year.”

He’d only been gone a few minutes, but I was glad that he was here with me. I would have hated to be stranded in one of these creepy little cabins by myself. Although if I was by myself, I’d still be trapped in that pickup truck waiting for someone to save me from my reckless decisions.

The pipes made a suspicious rattling noise, followed by a rush of water spewing out of the tub fixture and the faucet. The dim light made it hard to tell, but it did not look like water I wanted to be bathing in.

Tripp joined me a few moments later, resting one hand on the side of my waist as he peered over my shoulder, aiming his flashlight at the stream of water.

“Okay, so maybe the lake looks like a better prospect for getting clean,” I mused, staring at the stream of brownish cloudy water that flowed out of the tap.

“Yeah, these cabins haven’t been used regularly in about five years with tourism down in the area, so I’m not surprised the plumbing needs flushed. If I had a compressor here, I could flush the lines, but…”

“I thought you hadn’t been back home in years,” I asked, looking up at him over my shoulder.

“But I paid attention when the Wests showed me the property a few weeks ago.”

“I thought you were a firefighter.”

“I am. But that’s just when I’m needed. There’s a reason they call me a volunteer firefighter. The ranch is my day job.”

No wonder he was close by when I’d contacted 911. And it explained the horseback rescue.

“Is that what you did when you were living somewhere else? Were you a rancher? I gotta admit, the hot cowboy look is doing it for me.”

If you asked me yesterday, I would have laughed at the idea of ultra serious firefighter Tripp being a secret cowboy, but today he looked the part. The tight jeans, the red button-up shirt, the cowboy hat, the scruffy facial hair accenting the mustache I’d noticed yesterday, and don’t even get me started on the bandana he’d been wearing when he found me. If my panties weren’t in my pocket, they would’ve been wet.

“Good to know,” he chuckled, tickling my side. “No, I used to work as a specialist firefighter for the National Forest Service near a national park a few states north.”

“Fancy.”

Although it had me wondering why he went to another state, there were jobs for firefighters like that in Colorado, too. Baker had wanted to be a smoke jumper when he first started out, but after he finished his training, he came back home. Reese had returned from nursing school not long after, mostly because she wanted to be here to help me take care of our grandma, but there had been some small-town speculation about whether those two would finally end up together.

Instead, my sister had doubled down on a grudge—no one seemed to have any details on—and glared at him while he gave her a respectable distance. Which was especially awkward for two people who saw each other regularly because of their jobs.

“Not really. Once I completed my training to become a smoke jumper, I pretty much lived out of a duffel bag for about ten years. Hard to set down roots when they’re sending you all over the country.”

“Is that why you left?”

The warmth of his hand on my side suddenly disappeared, and he stepped back, heading toward the windows at the front of thecabin that overlooked the lake with his hands balled into tight fists. I watched him take a deep breath and then flex his fingers, looking suddenly anxious about my question. It appeared there was more to him coming home after seventeen years than he was ready to talk about.

“If we can’t use the shower, I might know a place where we can get clean. Then after, we should probably get settled for the night.”

Clearly, he was ready to move on from the topic of his past, not that I’d been all that forthcoming with mine either.

“The sun is just starting to set now. It can’t be that late.” The sun had mostly moved behind the mountains, but it wasn’t quite dark yet.

“But I’ll be putting you back in the saddle early tomorrow. I don’t want to stick around here longer than we have to. My extra batteries probably won’t last more than another day, and if that fire line moves this way, we need to be prepared. I might be sidelined for this one, but I won’t leave the ranch vulnerable if I can do something.”

He moved toward the closed door down the short hallway, nodding for me to go look in the bathroom for supplies. “Can you look under the sink to see if you can find any bars of soap? I’ll see if I can find any towels or clean clothes left behind.”

“You gonna tell me the real reason you’re not out with the fire department right now?” It was clear with how he talked he wanted to be helping, but he wasn’t out with the regular crew for a reason. I just wasn’t sure if he made that decision, or his superiors.

“Maybe,” he said, moving into the bedroom before he finished replying. “But we need to hurry if we want to get to the hot springs before the sun sets.”

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