“Every ride’s a good ride,” Nathan answered, pulling off his helmet and shaking his sweaty hair. For a while he’d been afraid that he’d never ride again. “What’s up?”
“I’m on my way out of town and needed to borrow your GPS.” He held it up. “Mine’s on the fritz.”
“Help yourself to my stuff anytime,” Nathan said as he pushed the bike into the garage with one hand on the seat. “You know how much I like it.”
“Oh, I will,” Seth said with a laugh. “Has Garrett talked to you at all?”
“About?” Nathan hung the bike on a set of supports attached to the wall, hooked his helmet over the bar extender, then peeled off his gloves.
“He’s all ticked off about some fight he had with Dad. Don’t tell him I told you.” Seth started for his truck.
“Hey, he’s the one who wanted to live next door to Dad.” Nathan was surprised that his dad had fought with Garrett, though. Usually he saved his arguments for Nathan, the kid he didn’t understand.
“No. He’s the one who wanted to live rent free,” Seth corrected, and he had a point, since their father owned the house next door and didn’t charge Garrett rent in return for minor property upkeep. “Want anything from the city? I’m stopping in Elko on my way to Jarbidge.”
Nathan shook his head. “I’m good. What’s going on in Jarbidge?” The isolated mountain community boasted a population of less than a hundred.
“Probably a party, but we’re going up for specialized search and rescue training starting early tomorrow morning.” Seth got into the truck and was about to close the door when he said conversationally, “You aware that Callie’s still in town?”
“I am.” His brothers were the only people who knew the truth about what Callie had done to him. As far as everyone else knew, they’d parted by mutual agreement.
“Just wondering,” Seth said casually.
“No big deal.” Because it wasn’t—except that whenever he thought about her coming into his office, cool as could be, his blood pressure spiked. He was really looking forward to the day she put Wesley behind her. Then the coronary he was working on would result from deadlines alone.
As his brother swung out onto the sealed blacktop, Nathan lifted a hand, then went into the house through the side door, hitting the switch to close the garage as he went in. He’d barely peeled out of his sweaty shirt when the town fire siren blew. He grimaced and put the damp shirt back on again. He hated going to fires, but Chip was leaving town for two days, so he was the only one there to cover the story.
He really had to hire another reporter.
But it wouldn’t be Callie. He didn’t care if she stayed for a decade.
CHAPTER THREE
CALLIE WOKE to the smell of smoke. She pushed her hair back from her forehead as she sat up, disoriented until she realized that, despite the noise of the antique cooling system churning in the window beside her, she’d conked out on the sofa. That would teach her to wax floors at midnight.
She got to her feet, rubbing the crick in her neck as she went out on the front porch. The neighborhood was quiet, but the smell of smoke was strong. She walked out to the middle of the street, where she could see over the tops of the houses, and sure enough, a column of dark smoke rose into the rapidly darkening sky on the north edge of town, where housing developments encroached on the desert and Bureau of Land Management property. It was the season for wildfires, but black smoke meant a structure was burning.
Maybe she’d find something to write about.
Callie went back in the house, ran a comb through her sleep-flattened hair, then grabbed her car keys. By the time she’d followed the smoke to the outskirts of town, about a mile away from Grace’s house, several vehicles bearing volunteer firefighter license plates had sailed by her.
A crowd of onlookers gathered on the last street of the development, which had new tract houses on one side and vacant lots on the other. Maybe seventy yards away, on the undeveloped side of the street, firemen were dousing flames that had engulfed a derelict trailer parked in a weed-choked lot.
Ever conscious of not getting in the way of people who had a job to do, because that tended to get one banished from the scene, she parked her car several yards from the closest vehicle, hugging her wheels to the ditch to keep the roadway clear. She left the car and casually walked up to the knot of bystanders, wanting to blend in as she took in the scene.
“Any idea how it started?” she asked the teenager next to her, a sandy-haired kid with baggy pants. The sky was clear, so if the fire had been caused by lightning, it was a freak strike.
The teen shrugged without looking at her, but the middle-aged man standing slightly in front of her turned, frowning as if he was trying to place her. Probably not too many strangers showed up at neighborhood fires, so Callie couldn’t blame the guy for thinking she might be a firebug there to enjoy the results of her handiwork.
“I’m Callie McCarran,” she said, saving him the trouble of trying to memorize her face or get her license plate number.
“Doug Jones.” He turned back toward the action, but Callie caught him watching her out of the corner of his eye.
Callie gave the teenager another shot. “Have you had many fires this summer?” Fire seasons varied. Some years would be fire-free and during others it would seem as if the entire state was ablaze.
“We’ve had a few,” the boy said without looking at her. His focus was on the firemen—or rather, on one particular fireman who looked as if he might be a she. The only she, as far as Callie could tell.
“Do you know the name of the female firefighter?”
The kid shrugged again and ignored her.
Oh, yeah. She was going to do well substitute teaching. Couldn’t get kids to answer the door. Couldn’t get kids to answer a question. And speaking of kids…Callie saw a distinctive white head at the edge of the crowd. Her across-the-lot neighbor. This little guy got around. Callie craned her neck to see who was with him, but the crowd shifted and she lost sight of him.
The breeze was light and it didn’t take long for the firefighters to get the blaze under control and stop it from spreading to the desert, where it could have taken off in the dry grass, sage and rabbit brush, causing major damage. The crowd started to disperse as the flames died, some people going to cars, others to nearby houses, and Callie once again caught sight of the boy as he tried to resist his sister’s efforts to pull him down the street. No adult was in sight and it was nearly nine o’clock. What would two kids that age be doing so far from home?
Unless they had sneaked out to see the action without their parents knowing. Kids did do things like that, or so she’d heard. She’d been too afraid of the wrath of Grace to have tried.
The girl finally got her brother to cooperate, even though she wasn’t much bigger than he was, and he began trudging down the street beside her. Every now and then he looked over his shoulder at the firefighters.
Callie wasn’t about to offer them a ride, being a stranger and all, and no one else seemed concerned by their presence, so she decided that Wesley was indeed a very small town and the rules were different than in a more urban area. She watched until they pulled their tired-looking bicycles out of the ditch near a streetlight and started riding off along the sidewalk. Okay. They had transportation home. But it still disturbed her to see kids out that late without an adult.
Doug Jones gave Callie one last suspicious look, then headed to a nearby house. Bye, Doug. Callie stayed where she was, hoping to get a chance to talk to the female firefighter, who was still dealing with embers near what was left of the trailer.
As she waited, a big Dodge truck and a panel