Chapter Three
Gabe held thirty-seven lives in his hands. The thought remained uppermost in his mind as his crew moved up the mountain, farther north than they’d been yesterday. The slope wasn’t as bad, the trees up to this altitude were saplings, but ahead of them was old growth, and the scout camp. The fire was below them, and now his crew and the campers faced the risk of being caught in the bottom of a horseshoe, with fire all around them. Fire moved fastest uphill.
He stopped just below the old-growth tree line. Smoke hung low, obscuring the sky, the tops of the eighty-foot-tall trees, and no birds, no insects around. No noise. Nature had perfected the concept of bugging out.
If the kids were still there in all that smoke, they’d be hysterical. Michaels claimed she could calm them. He was more worried he’d have to keep her calm. She stood apart from the others, hands on her hips, looking toward the forest, ponytail whipping against her neck beneath her hard hat. The fire yesterday had been a backyard barbecue compared to what they were walking into.
His crew gathered around, eager to get to work.
“We need to split up,” he announced to his unit, the place and plan clear in his mind, sight unseen. He pointed to his four most experienced crew members. “I’m taking Kim, Chris, Tony and Mike into camp with me. Howard and Laura, you start clearing trees from the camp, moving in this direction, parallel to the fire. It’ll get us out safely, and hopefully slow the fire down. Everyone else, you know what to do.”
“What about me?” Peyton asked, the only one to question her place. Big surprise.
Experience told him to put her on the line as far from the fire as she could get. Instinct told him to take her with him. He’d spent a lot of years honing those instincts. He crooked a finger at her to join his group.
“Maria, flag us in.” The young woman tied pieces of tape around several branches in a line. This was their escape route out of the camp if the smoke got too bad. Gabe turned to his crew.
“The minute you see the fire you retreat. In this smoke, once you see the fire it will be right on top of you. I don’t want any heroes here today.”
As they moved in, his crew strung out to cut line, his newer crew farthest from the fire, his most experienced closer, where they would have to work fast. He didn’t stop to consider they might fail.
This fire was different. Peyton could feel it already, the urgency of the Hot Shots, the intensity and speed of the flames. Yesterday’s blaze had lain low on the ground. This one was— aggressive.
The Hot Shots stumbled into the clearing of the camp, only visible to each other through the smoke by their yellow shirts and headlamps. Pulses of heat washed over them. They heard the fire crackling and popping on the mountain below them. If she stopped to think about what they faced, she’d run back to camp. So hot, and the waves of heat brought scents, blistering and terrifying, singeing her nostrils.
A phwump, like fireworks going off, shook her out of it.
“What’s that?” she shouted to Cooper.
“Trees exploding,” he said grimly without a glance in her direction.
She scanned the camp, the forlorn-looking picnic tables, the snug little cabins ringing it. Not a camper in sight. Had they gotten out? Where could they have gone? Across the clearing, a yellow bus sat in the smoke, so they hadn’t driven out. She pointed it out to Gabe, who nodded. Of course he saw it too.
With a gesture from Gabe, his crew dispersed to look in the cabins. He reached for Peyton to keep her with him but she shook him off and approached the sixth building.
The door was wedged shut, and she peered through a dusty window to see what could be blocking it. The light from her helmet fell on the terrified children and their counselors huddled inside. The campers screamed and scrambled back when they saw her headlamp shine through the window. What were they thinking, locking themselves in here? That the fire would blow over?
Her throat raw, her heart doing its damnedest to run down the mountain without her, Peyton gestured them toward the door and called for the Hot Shots.
One of the counselors inside came to her senses and lunged for the door. Smoke poured into the cabin through the open door and Peyton stood in the doorway and waved them out. Two women and several children ran to the center of the clearing, where the Hot Shots encircled them.
Peyton turned to join them.
“Michaels! We’re missing an adult and a kid—are they in there with you?” Gabe called.
She opened her mouth to deny it, then turned. Sure enough, in the corner, a counselor crouched near a cot. Peyton hesitated, surveying the cabin through the smoke that filled it. She couldn’t make herself step any farther in.
“Are you all right?” she shouted.
The older woman’s terror lit her eyes in the dark room. “Carrie is under here—she won’t come out!”
From her spot near the door, Peyton crouched to look. Her headlamp reflected the pale face of a small girl.
“Michaels!” Cooper barked from behind her. “What’s the hold up? We’ve got to move.”
She whirled on him. What was he thinking, scaring everyone with his impatience? “There’s a scared kid here and your shouting doesn’t help!”
Gabe swore and strode into the cabin. He grabbed the end of the bed, lifted it to expose the little girl, who screamed and scrambled into the corner.
“Get her,” he ordered.
Peyton forced herself forward and picked up the child, who added kicking to her screaming. Peyton blinked against the flailing fists that knocked back her helmet, gasped against a blow to her stomach from the small feet. The flurry of movement made it hard to see where she was going as she headed for the door. She tripped, and Cooper caught her arm and dragged her with him.
In the clearing, four girls in various pieces of fire gear hunkered together. Two were wrapped in Gabe’s fire shirt; she only now realized he wasn’t wearing it. Two others held his silver fire shelter about their shoulders, one of them balancing his large helmet on her small head, the other with his bandana about her nose and mouth. The sweaty fabric couldn’t smell good, but it would keep some of the smoke from her lungs.
Gabe stopped in front of the oldest one. “Why are you still here?”
The little girl’s lip stuck out. “You told us not to move!”
He rolled his eyes as Peyton came up beside him.
“Where is everyone else?” Peyton asked.
“I sent them out already. We need to get going. Now.”
Gabe couldn’t hear the saws anymore and didn’t know if the noise was drowned out by the encroaching fire or if his team had been forced to retreat. Embers rained down on them, and his skin prickled with dread. Before the intuition had time to fully form, the wind kicked up and the flames jumped into the canopy.
God help them, it was a crown fire, fast and loud. At least the smoke rose off the ground and he could see. He lifted the smallest child into his arms.
“We’re going out under the fire!” he yelled. “It’s in the crown, but it could drop down, all right? So we’ve got to go fast. Michaels, bring up the rear to push them along. Can you run with her?”
“God, I hope so.” Her eyes were huge in her soot-dusted face as her gaze followed the leaps of fire through the treetops.
“Don’t look at it. Just move forward as fast as you can.”
The child she carried still fought her, the strain of it showed on her face. He leaned down to the girl, watching her eyes widen in terror. He must appear monstrous to a small child, with his dirty face and glowering expression, and he used that to his advantage.
“Stop it. Now,” he said in his sternest voice.
The child froze, staring at him, and he nodded his approval.
“All right, here we go. Follow me!”
He tucked the head of the child he carried under his chin, grasped the hand of the hard-hatted girl and hoped he could trust Peyton to shepherd the others after him.
The fire hit the camp’s bus then, over near the road, and ignited the gas. The concussion from the explosion hurtled them forward. Gabe lost his balance and threw himself onto his back to protect the child in his arms. Rocks gouged between his ribs; the combination of hard ground and the child’s solid body knocked the breath from him.
He couldn’t slow down. They should have been out of here five minutes ago. There was no margin for error now. He scrambled up to check on his charges, his arm banded tightly around the little girl. Screams rang in his ears. He glanced at Peyton, his most likely suspect, and saw her trudging grimly along.
The counselor was on her hands and knees, screaming. The two girls wrapped in his shirt watched her, sobbing so hard they couldn’t catch their breath. Gabe wrapped a hand around the woman’s skinny arm and dragged her to her feet, hoping the force didn’t snap her bones. He spun her around to check for flames or blood, but saw nothing. She was just terrified. Hell. The quickest way out was a slap to the face. She blinked at the rough contact, but stopped screaming before she panicked the children worse than they were.
“You’re all right.” He glanced at Peyton. “You all right?”
She actually laughed and raised a hand in front of her, palm out. “Yeah, I’m good. I promise.”
“Let’s go!”
The fire cracked and sizzled over their heads as they ran through the trees. Falling debris could rain down on them. They had to keep moving. Gabe hated being in the lead—he checked over his shoulder every few seconds to ensure his group followed him. He lost time, but couldn’t trust Peyton to lead them out.
The child he dragged stumbled, jerking his arm and throwing him off balance. He kept her upright by sheer strength of will and propelled her forward.
The fire was at their back, the heat incredible, the smoke blinding. He could smell singed hair. The slightest delay would kill them.
A flaming branch hurtled through the air and crashed in their path. Gabe threw his body back to block the others from running into it.
Damn, this would ignite the floor fuels. He dodged to the right and kept running. He glanced back to ensure his charges were following, registering their terrified, tear-streaked faces.
They could be terrified as long as they kept up with him.
When the hard-hatted child stumbled again, he swung her into his arms. The weight of two children weighed him down, strained his muscles, exhausted him. He couldn’t go much farther like this. He shouted for the counselor to take the other girl who had been wrapped up in his fire shelter, slowed only until she took the child before he started running again.
They burst out of the trees but had no time to rejoice. The fire blazed at their heels and moved fast. If the branch ignited the floor fuels, they couldn’t outrun it. He veered east, back toward the fire camp. The plan had been to hike around the flank of the fire to the black area already destroyed by fire, presumably fuel free. The thing was, he wasn’t sure where the flank was, if the fire had moved faster around the camp than through it.
His crew had left no clue about which way they’d gone. He’d feel better if they were here where he could keep an eye on them. He just had to trust in his training of them to keep them safe.
Then he saw it, the fire racing uphill between them and the fire camp. He slowed for a moment, reasoned out the next step and turned down the hill. If the fire burned fast enough, it would leave a gap so they could escape through to the black.
“Cooper!” Peyton shouted, alarm in her voice.
He whirled and saw her framed by fire that had left the trees to pursue them. His heart slammed against his ribs and he fought the urge to go and drag her up the hill. He couldn’t lose time.
He swung back uphill and set the child in his arms down, pushing her ahead of him. “Run!” he shouted, and pointed the direction they’d been heading. “That way.”
He shoved the counselor after the kids and reached back for Peyton’s hand, then pushed her ahead of him, putting himself between them and the fire. The slope was treacherous, with granite and scrub brush jutting out, and they couldn’t gain much speed. Peyton set down the child she carried, but held her arm firmly. Ahead of him, one of the girls in the fire shirt stumbled and cut her shin on a stub of a juniper bush. The counselor knelt beside the crying child and tried to staunch the bleeding.
Gabe stopped, while every instinct screamed at him to keep moving. He wasn’t getting out of this one by running. He yanked his map out of his back pocket and spun Peyton around to spread it out on her back, dragging his finger over it as he scanned.
“What are you doing?” she asked. Her urgency to escape made her whole body quiver.
“What’d I tell you about questioning people who know more than you?” he demanded. “We can’t outrun this thing.”
He felt her shudder, but didn’t hear a trace of fear in her voice. “So what are we going to do?”
“I remember seeing something on the map. There! Caves.”
“Caves?” she echoed.
He slapped the map back in some semblance of its former shape, already moving again, pulling her sleeve to urge her along. “Ed Pulaski kept his crew alive in a mining shaft during a blowup. It won’t be comfortable, but we won’t be running.” He scanned the alien landscape. “Now if I can just get a fix where they’re at—”
“I know where they are,” the counselor said, looking up at them.
“Can we get there from here?” Gabe asked.
She nodded once and took the lead. “Follow me.”
The black ground boiled, fire pushing up through the brush and leaves it had already devoured to feed anew. The smoke was low and heavy and caught in Peyton’s throat. She couldn’t stop coughing.
The terror lodged in her chest didn’t help her catch her breath. Every step strained her thighs, shot throbbing pain up from her blistered feet. Smoke choked her with every wheeze, and the sweat rolling over her skin felt on the verge of boiling. She could think of nothing but water, yet didn’t dare stop to reach for it. Stopping meant death. So she bit back whimpers of fear, tears of pain and trudged on, dragging one child and helping the counselor shepherd the others.
Gabe moved tirelessly, though he should have been exhausted. In addition to his pack, he carried the child with the injured leg. He wasn’t wearing his helmet or fire shirt, so the embers snowing down on them burned his skin. He didn’t so much as twitch. He was either too focused or too scared, and she doubted it was the latter. Men like Gabe Cooper didn’t feel fear.
“There!” the counselor cried, and Peyton saw the outcropping of rocks through the smoke.
Peyton stalled for a moment. These weren’t caves like she expected, open mouthed and welcoming, like on Yogi Bear cartoons. These were more like crawl spaces. Crawl spaces underground.
She caught Gabe’s arm. “The kids are going to be scared going down there.”
He leveled a look at her. “The kids? Or you?”
She kept her gaze on the narrow opening. “I won’t lie. It does not look like a good time.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Better than out here.”
“How do you know we can get back out again?” Her voice rose in panic. They could be stuck down there. Buried. God.
“We’ll get out.” He shrugged off his pack. “I’ll go in first and you pass the girls in to me.”
“And the packs?”
He nodded to the counselor. “Get her to help you. If you run out of time, leave them here.” Not a good plan, she decided as he disappeared head first into the cave.
The fire was so close, so loud, she almost didn’t hear him call for the kids. Peyton hefted the biggest girl by her shoulders and lowered her cautiously in. A tug on the child’s legs told her Gabe had the girl, and she reached for the next child.
She couldn’t pass them in fast enough. The children whimpered at the approaching fire. The rocks on which they stood heated and when the girls went down on their bellies, they cried in pain. Peyton noticed with horror that the soles of the counselor’s cheap tennis shoes were melting and sticking to the rock beneath them.
Finally, only the counselor was left and the fire practically licked their heels. Peyton shoved Gabe’s pack at the counselor, who took it and pushed it ahead of her through the opening. Peyton dove in with her own pack the moment the counselor’s bubbling rubber-soled shoes were out of sight.
The passage was both rough and steep, so she half slid, half stutter-stopped, letting gravity do most of the work. Her helmet tumbled down before her, and then the tunnel was pitch dark.
The last little bit of the passage was almost vertical and she lost her grip and tumbled into Gabe. He caught her, but with her pack added to her weight, she knocked him on his butt. He went down with his arms around her, still in protective mode.
For a moment, Peyton let herself stay there, her cheek against his chest, listening to the thundering of his heart telling her he’d been as frightened as she. They’d made it. By working together, they’d made it. For the first time she realized how close they were to dying. He squeezed her a bit, as if to remind her she was safe, before he released her.
“I bet you wish you hadn’t begged to come,” he murmured, setting her aside to see to the campers.
“I haven’t decided yet.” She reached for her helmet, and saw the surprise on his face in the dim light from her headlamp.
The cave wasn’t tall enough for the adults to stand, and the section they were in was too narrow for them to sit. After giving everyone a drink of water, Gabe took the lead to find more comfortable quarters. Exhausted, tears streaking their soot-blackened faces, the children followed.
The floor by the entrance had been littered with stones, but as they moved deeper, the floor became smoother, washed by rainwater over the years. Peyton wondered how far in they’d have to go to satisfy Gabe, and how the hell they were going to get out.
Fortunately for his charges, Gabe didn’t need to go much farther. He found an eye-shaped “room”, narrow at each end, open in the middle, where they would all comfortably fit. He scoured the room with his flashlight, searching for dangers before declaring it safe.
The fatigued children dropped to the floor in a heap. Peyton plopped down and rummaged through her pack. To Gabe’s amazement, she pulled out about a half-dozen bags of cookies and passed them out to the girls, who came to life to devour them ravenously. She handed over a bottle of water for them to share as well, gave another to the counselor.
“Cookies, rookie?” he asked skeptically.
“Hypoglycemia,” she said without a glance.
“Glucose pills are better and don’t take as much space. Those have to be crumbs by now.”
When she realized he wouldn’t ream her for her secret, she lifted her head and studied him through the gloomy light. “But pills wouldn’t do us any good right now with hungry kids, would they?” She tossed him a pack of sugary crumbs.
He grinned and tossed them back, opening his own pack. “I prefer beef jerky.”
“Tough guy,” she muttered. “Like you couldn’t use some sweetening up.”
He laughed, then noticed the counselor leaning against a rock on the edge of the floor, slowly peeling off her ruined shoes.
Gabe hadn’t realized she’d been wearing thin-soled tennis shoes, but at her cry of pain, he carried his pack over and knelt by her. He handed her the flashlight and tugged off his gloves to inspect the damage. The rubber soles had not only melted outside, but inside around the insole, and stuck to her socks, which weren’t very thick themselves. She had to be hurting, but how the hell would she get down the mountain with no shoes?
An afterthought, he reached for the radio at his belt and yanked his hand away with a yelp. The supposedly fire-resistant tool had melted into a gray clump. Useless. He looked over at Peyton, who was pouring the last of the cookie crumbs down her throat and wadding up the cellophane bag.
“Hey, rookie, you wouldn’t happen to have a cell phone in your magic pack, would you?”
She gave him a withering stare and reached into a pocket in the front of her pack. Damn, if she had one, it’d be melted to hell too.
The shiny silver job she held out to him was intact. “It won’t do us any good in here.”
“No, but once we go up, we’ll call a medevac chopper.” He took the phone and placed it by his pack, then turned back to the counselor. “This is going to hurt, but probably less now than later when the rubber cools and hardens again.”
The woman nodded and braced herself against the wall. Without being asked, Peyton slid over and put her arm around the woman’s shoulders. Observant was good. He sent Peyton a glance of appreciation, which she acknowledged with a small smile.
“What’s your name?” she asked, and when the woman focused on Gabe, Peyton tilted her face toward her and repeated the question.
Stubborn could be good too.
“Josie.”
“Josie, you were so brave out there.” Peyton’s soothing voice, already low and now roughened by smoke, reached out to calm his nerves as well. He hadn’t realized how tense he was until he started to relax. “You never even slowed down. And you found these caves— probably saved all our lives.”
Josie cried out and jerked as Gabe peeled one sock off. He saw Peyton take her white- knuckled hands in hers, tuck her head against her shoulder as skin came with the sock. He also noticed Peyton didn’t look at the injury illuminated by his headlamp.
“Have you been a counselor here for long?”
The counselor squeezed her eyes shut and tensed her muscles beneath his hands as the pain constricted her body. “Uh! Yeah. Twenty-seven years. Used to come here when I was a girl. I can’t believe—oh! I can’t believe it’s gone.”
Gabe quit listening to the conversation, only grateful Peyton had distracted her. How had the woman walked on these feet? The soles were literally one big blister. Fear must have driven her. Fear and bravery.
He treated her the best he could with the supplies on hand, wrapped her feet in gauze and a clean pair of his own socks and ordered Peyton to pass around the water again. He sat back against the cave wall and toyed with the switch of the flashlight.
While he watched her move, he waited for resentment to come. He was stuck here with a rookie, a reporter, no less. But he couldn’t blame the situation on her. No, she’d held up just fine on the run up the mountain. Hell, it was almost like having a partner.
He did not work well in pairs.
“Come here,” he said when she moved back to the corner she’d claimed for herself.
She considered him warily. “Why?”
So she didn’t trust him anymore than he trusted her. He wondered why. She’d trusted him well enough to save her life.
“You’re limping. I want to look at your feet.”
“They aren’t burned.”
And she had some defensive issues of her own. Was it him she wasn’t willing to admit weakness to, or herself?
“Blistered, though, aren’t they?”
She stammered, glanced away. “A—yeah.”
“First fire, new boots?”
“I have on two pair of socks,” she said.
Yeah, definitely some defensive issues there. He leaned forward and crooked his finger. “Let’s look at those feet.”
“They just…I...”
Her discomfort amused him. He wasn’t asking her to strip, for crying out loud. Why was she so skittish? “Sit and take ’em off.”
She did, grumbling more now than on the trail. Delayed reactions were fine with him. She’d done what she’d been told, and had done a fair job of it. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t dredge up any resentment.
She thrust her feet toward him and immediately he saw the outer sock, blackened on the top from soot, had been worn through.
“Peel.”
“I can take care of my own feet.”
He couldn’t tell if she was blushing under all the soot, but her jerky movements told him she was embarrassed as she stripped off the socks. He motioned for her to place them in his lap for inspection, which she did with more force than necessary, near a place a man wanted as little force as possible.
He picked up one foot, was amused by the hot-pink toenail polish, amazed by the softness of the skin. Calluses hardened a few places, the rest was city-girl soft. He allowed himself a brief picture of what she might be like on her own turf. Would she wear girly dresses? High heels? Fix up her hair? Hard to tell what she’d be like dressed up, the way she looked now, in her baggy fire gear and covered with ash. But he’d imagine she wouldn’t be too bad.
Of course, sandals wouldn’t be very flattering. He could see some blisters forming, traced a testing finger over the high arch of her foot. She jerked and shouted, the sound startling the girls as it echoed off the cave walls. He grinned.
“Ticklish?”
She scowled and tried to pull her foot away, but he tightened his grip on her heel. “I have some cream in my pack.”
“So do I,” she said through her teeth.
Stubborn wasn’t as bad as most people made it out to be. It would keep her alive till he could get her back to safety. He wanted to smile again, but her other foot was still free and dangerously close to where it could do damage.
He released her and she scrambled to her side of the cave.
“Fine. Then put your clean socks on and put the dirty ones still in one piece over them.”
He watched to make sure she followed directions, then shut off the flashlight and closed his burning eyes.
Gabe dozed, his head against the wall. How could he relax when Peyton’s heart still drummed a mile a minute? The terror of the past few hours only now hit her. She’d understood it was serious at the time, but the pure audacity of their victory kept her mind churning.
Woman against nature. Considering the huge force she was up against, she felt damned lucky to come out even.
In the dim light of her headlamp, she saw the children were asleep, piled together like puppies. Josie curled against the wall, her back to them. So Peyton watched Gabe.
His strength was apparent in every aspect of his body, his broad shoulders and muscled arms accented in the black T-shirt, his wide callused hands, his stubborn jaw, black with both stubble and soot.
He was handsome, rescued women and children, true hero material.
God help her.
They’d be out of here in a few hours, back at camp, and Peyton would leave. She had her story, if not her answers. But she couldn’t afford to look for them in Gabe Cooper.
In all the stories she’d written in this series, no one had come as close to being the man Dan had been as Gabe did. She’d thought she was ready to deal with the feelings the comparison dredged up, both the familiarity and the resentment, but now everything was all tumbled up with a longing, a loneliness.
“A guy could get a complex,” he said, his voice a low rumble, his eyes still closed.
She hid her leap of surprise well, she hoped. She was sure he’d been asleep. Sneaky bastard. “Pardon?”
“You’re staring.”
“Sorry.” She took off her helmet, switched off the headlamp, leaving them in the dark. Something she should have done before, to conserve the light bulb. No telling how long they’d be down here. “You remind me of someone.”
“Who?”
His voice sounded closer, softer in the darkness, but she hadn’t heard him move. Just her imagination.
“I’m figuring it out,” she hedged.
She was not going to discuss Dan with him. The further she kept him at a distance, the safer she would be.
“A mix between Cary Grant and John Wayne.”
“What?” She went cold.
“That’s who people say I remind them of.”
“John Wayne?” Dan’s team had called him John Wayne. She’d hated the nickname, no matter how apt. What grown man wanted to remind people of a dead movie cowboy?
“It’s the macho thing, I guess,” Cooper said, as if answering her thoughts.
“Is that why you came out here? Became a Hot Shot? Because you’re some kind of cowboy?”
“I didn’t think about it at the time and I’ve never done anything else. Does that make me a loser?”
“No. You’re exactly what you need to be to do the job you do.”
A moment of silence. “What does that mean?” he asked, his voice tight.
She sighed, exhausted. She had no desire to explain a man to himself. “I mean, I’ve been watching, wondering what kind of people do this job. Most are kids, and they probably think this is very exciting. But you, you’re—”
“Not a kid,” he finished for her and she heard him shift forward. She saw, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light from above, that he rested his elbows on his knees. She resisted the urge to shift herself.
“No, you’re not just a kid, which makes you harder to pin down.”
“And yet you think you have.”
“As far as being a firefighter goes. I mean, how many people have a job with a name like ‘Hot Shot’? There’s an inherent arrogance there.”
“So I’m arrogant.”
She didn’t dignify that with an answer. “I think you like the danger associated with the job. You’d rather be on the line than in charge because there you can see results right in front of you.”
A slight hesitation. She’d hit the nail on the head. “Ah, but there’s the arrogance, right? Needing to see the results of my work?”
“Very probably. And I get the feeling you are the job. You are the Hot Shot. That’s why people talk about you, tell stories about you.”
He sat back with a groan. “Nothing I like better than being psychoanalyzed by a reporter, but I’m going to see if I can find another way out.”
She bolted upright. “So soon? Do you think the fire’s passed? That it’s safe?”
“No telling till I look.”
Next to Gabe came a small voice from the darkness. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
Cooper flicked on the flashlight and winked at Peyton. “See? I knew there was a reason I brought you.”