Page 44 of Burning for Alexander
I leaned in and brushed my nose against his, then got even closer and dragged it along the apple of his cheek. “You have too much of a good thing at once, and you wind up spoiled, Marian,” I murmured before kissing him on his earlobe. “Be safe.”
And then I got into my truck and learned just how hard it was to drive with a rock-hard cock down I-90. The damned thing didn’t go down until I made the turn off to Highway 212.
Thankfully, when I got back to the station house, Javier Sujo was making fart noises and being a giant fucking clown, so I quickly lost whatever interest in men I had left.
Until, of course, I got home later that night and… once again… fell asleep sated and relaxed after jacking myself off to the memory of touching Alex Marian.
Unfortunately, I was awakened only an hour later by a wildfire alert.
The shriek of the pager yanked me out of sleep like a cattle prod. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was—my rental cabin, the woods pressing in, the fan still whirring against the late-summer heat. Then the dispatcher’s voice came through, clipped and calm:
“Legacy Fire, respond to a reported wildland fire. Smoke showing, southeast ridge of Slingshot Mountain, near mile marker fourteen on Olivado Loop. Ten plus acres, heavy brush. Initial attack requested.”
Fuck.
I was on my feet before she’d finished. Pants, boots, Nomex shirt. Radio clipped to my belt, flashlight jammed in my pocket. Iwas already moving for the truck by the time the second tone went out for county mutual aid.
Wildland start. Not a structure, not a dumpster, not a bar-top flare-up from some adorable asshole playing with Bacardi. This was the real thing. A live fire chewing its way through bone-dry fuel in the middle of a high-wind watch. The kind of call that made your stomach knot before you even laid eyes on the smoke column.
My job wasn’t supposed to be crawling around in the brush anymore. Chief meant command, coordination, paperwork, politics. But in a town like Legacy, the fire chief didn’t stay behind a desk when the mountain lit up. Until DNRC or the Forest Service rolled up, the fire was mine.
I keyed my mic as I threw the truck into gear. “Legacy Incident Command en route. Show me taking command until relieved.”
Static, then the response. “Copy, Chief. Legacy IC established.”
I got on the radio to my crew and barked commands. Headlights carved the road in front of me, trees flashing by as the scent of smoke found its way through the vents. My pulse kicked harder. Even small fires here could turn into something ugly in minutes.
I thought about the crew—McMasters and Pope suiting up back at the station, Sujo dragging the brush truck out of the bay half-dressed. Good firefighters. But young and eager to prove themselves. They’d throw themselves directly into the flames if they thought it would put out the fire, and that meant I damn well better keep my head clear.
Up ahead, an orange glow pulsed against the dark ridgeline. The sight made my throat go tight.
I’d been on plenty of ugly calls in Philly—warehouse infernos, tenements with stairwells like chimneys, nights that stank of smoke for a week after. But I’d never been the one holding theline. The guy whose decisions meant the difference between contained and goddamned catastrophe.
There were already a few volunteers on scene when I rolled up, doing their damnedest with a couple of shovels, a backpack pump, and the skid unit off someone’s ranch truck. Not nearly enough equipment, but plenty of heart. They’d managed to slow the head of the fire, keep it from racing up the slope, but it was still chewing through cheatgrass hungrily.
I threw on the rest of my gear, grabbed my radio, and slid into incident command. First step was size up: quarter acre, wind pushing it north, fuel mostly grass and scrub. Manageable if we got on it hard, a disaster if we didn’t.
My crew came in fast—brush truck, lights bouncing off the pines. Relief hit as I recognized the crew was already in top form. McMasters pulling line, Pope spinning up the pump, Sujo wrangling the volunteers.
“Anchor on the black, work the flank, watch your spacing,” I called, pointing them into place. They moved without hesitation, trusting me to keep the bigger picture in mind while they kept the nozzles and Pulaskis moving.
Several SERA firefighters showed up to help, along with a Forest Service crew, and we fought it together—foot by foot, hour by hour. Dig, spray, mop, repeat. The glow shrank. The smoke thinned. Every time I thought the bastard was out, another hot spot flared, and we were back at it, stomping embers, soaking roots.
By the time dawn painted the ridge pale gray, the fire was finally boxed in. It wasn’t heroic or pretty. Just a long, bone-deep grind until the flames had nowhere left to go.
It was long and hot, relentless but manageable. And when it was done, I felt exhausted but satisfied. I could tell my crew felt the same way.
“We hit it hard, held the line, and nobody got hurt. That’s the job, and you did it damn well. Get home, get cleaned up. Legacy’s safer today because of you.”
Sujo’s smile dimmed as he gestured to his eyebrow. “Chief, you’re bleeding.”
Pope moved to the truck to grab the first aid kit, but I waved her off. “Just got in the way of a branch, it’s fine. I’ll shower and clean it up at home.”
Brody Mayes, the lead fire instructor at SERA who I’d met shortly after arriving in Legacy, shot me a wide grin. “Would never know this was one of your first ICs at a Montana wildland fire. Good job, Chief.”
I rolled my eyes at him and grinned. “I’m just happy we weren’t taking live fire at the same time.”
The former Marine laughed and fist-bumped me before heading back to the SERA truck with the two students he’d brought.
