Page 199 of Her Reluctant Hero
Was that the type of job this was, where near-death experiences were a matter of course? The thought made her want to understand the man—the people who did this, she corrected herself—even more.
Because they were Gabe’s crew, they were the last to leave the line, fourteen hours after they’d arrived. The fire had jumped their line, so they’d fallen back and cut another one. It jumped that one too, the bastard, and his crew was wearing down. A tired crew was a dangerous crew, so he called Jen to send replacements.
Now as they hiked back, the sag of their shoulders told him they shared his frustration at losing the ground they’d gained. More time, more resources—there was never enough of either.
Gabe made a habit of walking at the back of his crew after a shift, staying between them and the fire. The person directly in front of him on the hike down, moving in slow motion, was Peyton Michaels, her cute little butt dragging. The relief he felt knowing she’d stuck out her first fire was alien to him.
“You okay?” he asked, pulling along beside her. It seemed rude not to say anything to her; he’d ask any rookie the same question on their first fire, on his crew or not.
She smiled and wiped a dirty hand over her dirtier face. “I could sleep standing up.” “You ever work around a shift this long before?”
“I stayed up all night to cram for an exam, but it’s hardly the same.”
He grinned despite himself. “Well, let’s get you back to camp and into bed, then.”
Her head snapped up at his words, her eyes wide. But he just pulled away. Whistling.
Peyton’s saving grace was that camp was downhill. Every step was excruciating, from the soles of her feet to the base of her neck. Gravity pulled her forward because her brain and her muscles no longer communicated. No wonder so many of the firefighters were so young. Kids could blow off pain. No matter what shape she’d kept herself in back in Chicago, she was in no shape for this.
She empathized now with the firefighters who’d crashed in the middle of the campground in broad daylight yesterday. Even as the sun set, turning the smoke around them a gorgeous mauve, she wished for nothing more than flat ground and a prone position.
She envisioned her nerves shooting messages from her brain to her muscles, begging them to move, and her muscles responding with shrieks of pain. She couldn’t work up the energy to cry, and anyway, there was no moisture left in her body; she’d sweated so much.
Her arms ached from the relentless swinging of her Pulaski, her back ached from the weight of her backpack, which felt heavier, even with most of the bottles of water empty. Her eyes burned, black mucus ran from her nose. One more day of this would be the end of her.
At the first flat spot, she veered off the path and opened her pack for another bottle of water.
And saw two big rocks inside. No wonder it had been so heavy. She lifted a rock in each hand, looked up to see Kim, Howard and some of the others had stopped to watch and laugh.
“Very mature,” Peyton muttered, hefting the rocks into the grass behind her, struggling not to cry. She hadn’t come here to fit in. What did it matter if she was leaving anyway? Still, it was damn mean.
None of her other articles had been so demanding. Was this what she had to do to understand her husband’s death? There was no guarantee this story would answer all her questions. If it didn’t, she’d have to do another. She was putting her life in danger, as Dan had, but she didn’t have his emotional strength, certainly not his level of commitment. Even staying on an assignment was hard, when he could risk his life for his job. The same thing came up again and again in her stories. She just didn’t stack up to the people she wrote about.
Relief emerged in a sob as she stumbled into camp. The other firefighters looked at her with disgust, muttering things like “rookie” and “Told you she wouldn’t make it.” It didn’t matter what they thought. She wouldn’t be around much longer.
So she was a quitter, got going when it got tough. So what? One shift gave her enough information for her story. Maybe this wasn’t the place to find her answers.
“Well, Michaels, we’ve got our spot staked out by the ninth hole,” Cooper said by way of parting. “I imagine you’ll be heading back to the motel now.”
His implication that she would rent a room, for a nice shower and a soft bed raised her hackles. Oh, good. At least some part of her body could move. “I have a tent. I’m up for the whole experience.” Only moments ago she’d been ready to call it quits, had been fantasizing about a shower and a bed, the easy way out. Why did Cooper have to be the one to get her fired up again?
And what did it matter? She couldn’t just react to challenges. She had to find the commitment in herself. But for now, she’d take his challenge.
He nodded. “You know where the mess is, and the showers are in the trailers out by the road.”
As wonderful as being clean sounded, she didn’t want to stand as long as it took to get all the grime off her body. She would hardly be the only dirty person in this camp. She staggered away in search of a flat place to lose consciousness.
*****
The next morning, after just enough sleep to leave him groggy, Gabe shoved out of his sleeping bag fully dressed and crawled out of his tent. He never used to wake up so stiff. Golf courses were free of rocks, but who knew such pretty green grass could mask such hard ground?
He staggered toward the mess tent with one word on his mind—caffeine. He didn’t glance left or right until he got to the big overworked coffeepot and only then to find something larger than those pathetic Styrofoam cups for his coffee. Facing a definite lack of choices, he poured two cups and downed one in a single swallow before refilling it and heading out.
“Gabe!” Behind him, Jen’s voice was panicked. Christ, he didn’t have the energy for her now, and her tone was familiar enough for him to realize she didn’t have good news for him. Hell, she rarely sought him out period.
He kept walking.
“Gabe!”
