Page 271 of Her Reluctant Hero
“Where did they go?” Gabe demanded through a tight throat, not expecting a response.
“The point of origin, I told you,” Jen said.
His patience had reached its snapping point and he whipped his head around. “Which is where?”
“I can give you the general area on the map, but I haven’t been up there so I’m not exactly sure.” She frowned up at him. “What is going on?”
He braced his hands on the scarred table, holding her gaze. In the back of his mind, he realized he didn’t love her anymore. The thought was...liberating, but he pushed the sensation aside when she huffed at him.
“Kevin O’Doul told me he was on a fire in California two weeks ago, and he’d gotten a burn there bad enough to put him on medical leave. Kim had a burn on her palm when we met up here, not a line from the drip torch, but the whole palm was blistered.”
“Surely you questioned her.”
“I didn’t have to. She said she was baking with her mom, joking she couldn’t last an hour in the kitchen.” After hearing Doug was arrested on the same evidence, he hadn’t made the connection. Hadn’t wanted to, even now. “But for her and Kevin to both have lied about where they were—who’s to say they didn’t lie about how they got the burns?”
“Are you listening to what you’re saying?” Jen demanded, stepping in front of him. “You’re accusing Kim of being the arsonist. The woman who’s worked beside you for at least three fire seasons, the woman who worships the ground you walk on. She could no more set this fire than Doug could. She’s a firefighter, not a firebug.”
“Jesus.” He passed a hand over his hair. “Look what this is doing to me. Causing me to doubt everyone.” The person he’d trusted the most on the job. “Sorry.”
Jen put a hand on his arm. “It’s understandable. But put it out of your mind. The president of the United States is waiting for us.”
“Yeah.” But as Gabe followed Jen out of the tent, his instincts were screaming that he was forgetting something.
Gabe and Jen arrived at the airfield in the second jeep, and the president was already whittling down his following. They boarded the plane with two Secret Service men, leaving disgruntled aides on the tarmac.
Gabe would have happily traded places with them, but how did one say no to the president of the United States?
He wondered what the president, who sat facing him, would think if the hero who saved little girls used one of the barf bags in the back of the seat in front of him.
To think Jen had wanted him to go back to smokejumping.
The pilot, Tony, knew Gabe and his aversion to flying since his last accident, and still took great glee in the sharp turn the minute the plane cleared the trees. Gabe hoped everyone attributed his groan of dismay to the roar of the engines.
“I hope there’s not so much smoke we won’t be able to see.” The president pressed his forehead against the window like a little kid.
“You may not see much of the actual fire because of the smoke, but you’ll see a great deal of the devastation, like the ridge where the four Hot Shots died, and perhaps where Gabe and the campers were trapped,” Jen said from beside Gabe.
Jen kicked his boot to get him to say something. Why was she still pushing him? She had nothing to gain by his success anymore.
He opened his eyes to see the president watching him expectantly.
“I said, I understand you saved them by taking them into a cave,” Hutchinson repeated.
“Yes, sir.”
“How did you find out there were caves there?”
“Gabe always makes a point of studying the terrain on his way to a fire to make sure his crew has an escape route.” Then, as if it explained everything, she added, “He was on Angel Ridge.”
Gabe swallowed bile and looked back out the window. That didn’t help, so he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Angel Ridge?” Hutchinson asked.
A moment of silence hung in the air before Jen took it upon herself to tell the story. Just as well. Gabe didn’t think he could relive it again this week.
“We lost fourteen firefighters when a fire blew up, using a gully as a chimney and racing in a firestorm that overcame some helitack pilots, Hot Shots and smokejumpers, including one of our good friends,” Jen concluded.
“I was one of the firefighters who retrieved the bodies then too,” Gabe said at last. “I’d never seen anything like it. They hadn’t had time to deploy their shelters, and if they had...” He shook his head. “I always plan a way out when I go in.”
