Chapter Nineteen
“There was a fire,” Tyler told Abbi, and he marveled at how easy it was to say those words, how simple they sounded, how many stories about his life could start that way.
There was a fire and my team and I worked around the clock to put it out. There was a fire and it raged across the San Gabriels for days but in the end we got it, in the end it burned down. There was a fire and I got the call. There was a fire and I fixed it. I saved people. I saved houses. I saved land. I saved lives.
There was a fire and I lost it.
There was a fire and I let my best friend die.
“There was a fire,” he said again, and his grip around her tightened as the memory coursed through him, the heat of the flames, his shouts, hoarse and useless, lost in the smoke. How he’d called and called for Scott to answer but didn’t hear a word.
“It was one of those ordinary things. Not ordinary,” he corrected himself. “Every blaze is different. But it started off so routine.
“Aidan, that’s my supervisor, he got the call. There was a fire up above the foothills. Dry land, too much brush, you know how it is. This one was small, far enough away that it wasn’t a major priority. But there were thunderstorms, reports of high winds. We had to get over there fast.”
He felt Abbi’s breathing, in and out, such calm. He clung to it as he relived what came next.
“Scotty was finishing his shift. He should have been leaving. He shouldn’t even have still been there, but he was horsing around with me as I started my rotation and hadn’t gone home. Aidan said he needed bodies, was going to call some of the other guys who were off and tell them to suit up, but Scott—he was such a go-getter, you know? He just wanted to help out, do right by the team. He was selfless like that.
“So he said to Aidan, don’t worry about it, let them sleep. Let them be with their families, take some time off. Scott was unattached, hopelessly so, always bouncing from one to the next like he had all the time in the world to settle down.” He laughed to himself at the stories he could tell Abbi, stories he would tell someday if she still wanted to listen after what he was about to say.
“I think he wanted it, you know? He didn’t see the fire as a danger, and that’s where the real problem was. He saw it as a chance to spend more time with his buddies while he got to do the right thing.”
Abbi turned in his arms to face him. “So what happened?” she asked, touching a hand to his cheek.
“We went out,” he said. “And I thought we had it. I thought we were good. They were dropping retardant from the helicopters, there was plenty of water to go around, and Scott and I had a good crew, good people leading us. We knew what we were doing.
“But there was a lightning strike that started up a second site and we weren’t prepared for that, we didn’t have enough power. We were digging down a fire line to stop the first blaze, and Scott decided he’d run ahead. We’d dig toward each other, fill in the gap, cover more ground that way.”
Abbi nodded for him to go on.
“I don’t know what happened. Our communications went down. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear. In a fire—it’s so loud, all that roaring around you. And the smoke. The wind. There’s so much going on and I just…” He choked on the memory. “I lost him. One minute he was there and the next…I just fucking lost him.”
“You said he went on ahead,” Abbi said. “Was that protocol?”
“I shouldn’t have let him go,” Tyler said, shaking his head at the irrelevance of the question. “We should have stuck together. Or I should have been the one to go first. It wasn’t even his shift. I let him go when I should have said no.”
“Or your supervisor,” Abbi said. “Or Scott himself shouldn’t have said yes. It’s not on you, Tyler. You weren’t responsible for everyone’s actions that day.”
He pinched his eyes shut. Didn’t she understand? It was because of him that Scott was in that fire. It was because of him that Scott was dead.
“I was the one who found him,” Tyler said. “We were looking for Scott but it was hard to get too close with the fire raging all around. We had to get that under control but when there was a break I went in, I followed where I thought he’d gone. I kept looking for the glint of aluminum, a sign he’d deployed his fire shelter. I’d hoped he’d still be safe inside. But I didn’t see it. I tripped right over his body, Abbi. I thought it was a tree. Just another charred log.”
“Jesus,” she breathed, and he was so grateful for her arms around him, for the flutter of her lips to his eyelashes. For the fact that she hadn’t called him a monster for leaving his friend. She hadn’t pulled away.
“We call them widow maker trees, the ones that fall when you least expect it. Normally they come after a fire, when you’re walking through a burned area and the trees are still weak. You think the damage is over but it’s not, and that’s when it gets you.
“Aidan always pressed on us the importance of looking up. No matter where the fire is coming from, always look up. I did finally see that glint of aluminum, when I turned him over. Scott must have stopped to look down so he could get out his fire shelter. He’d been looking down so he could save his life. And that must have been when the tree fell.”
He was crying now, but he didn’t care if she knew it. This was who he was. The good and all of the bad.
“I loved him like a brother,” he said. “And then I had to carry his body out of the burning embers and explain to his mother, his sister, his nieces and nephews, and everyone in our crew that I let him die.”
“Which is why you left L.A.?” Abbi asked.
“I can’t go back,” Tyler said. “Fighting fires is the only thing I know how to do, but I can’t be out there anymore. This position opened up and it’s the only chance I’ve got. No one’s going to hire a quitter who fucked up so badly at his last position. But my mentor pulled some strings to get me this job in Gold Mountain, and I can’t let it go to waste.”
Abbi pressed her palm to either side of his face and locked her eyes squarely with his. “You’re not a fuck-up,” she said. “You were in an impossible position in a dangerous place, and you made the best decisions you could. You supported Scott, you looked out for him, and when the worst happened, you still had his back. You’re a good man, Tyler. You did not let him die.”
How could it feel so awful to talk about what happened and still feel so good in her arms? How could he want to keep lying here, feeling her fingers in his hair, the press of her lips to his?
He knew more than anyone that life was short, that it was possible to think you had all the time in the world to spend with someone and then, too soon, realize you never got to say the things you meant. He knew he might never have a chance like this again.
“Abbi,” he said.
“What?”
But even as the words pressed on him, they wouldn’t come out.
“Tell me,” she said.
But he couldn’t say it. He wasn’t even sure if it was true. Did he love her? Or did he just love this feeling, the fact of having someone here?
He didn’t deserve it—her hands in his hair, her lips on his cheek. This wasn’t supposed to be his reward.
She must have known that, too, because instead of holding him closer, she planted a soft kiss on his lips and said, “I think I should go.”
“Too much?” he asked, even as he was afraid of what she might say.
“No.” But her voice sounded small. Farther away than she’d been all morning. As far as she was that first night when she sprinted across the field, away from him.
“I shouldn’t have told you. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“It’s not that. It’s just…I’m late.”
She got out of bed and reached for her clothes. When she’d buttoned her pants and hooked on her bra, she came over to where he was sitting. He put his hands on her hips, and she bent down and kissed him.
“Let’s talk more about it later,” she said.
“Are we having a fight?” he asked.
“Of course not. I have to go to work, remember? As much as I know you need this firebreak, I still have my own job to do.”
He swatted her ass as she bent over to pick up her shirt off the floor.
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting about the spotted owl thing?” he said with a sigh, getting up to stretch. “An endangered species petition—it’s serious business. Especially when you consider the potential benefits to Gold Mountain of putting in this break. Don’t you want to protect the place you call home?”
She straightened and frowned at him. “I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. It’s a lot more important than what you’re aiming for, which is to have something to put on your resume before you bust out of here in a matter of weeks.”
“I guess I’ll call you later then,” he said dryly. Just so everyone in the office thinks we’re happy.
They’d both certainly found a way to kill the mood.