“I’ve seen him around fire camps this year,” Victoria whispered, barely moving now, as if keeping still might make her invisible. “He seems to stare at our crew a lot. It creeps me out.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Becca saw Aiden turn and lock his gaze on her. She was suddenly able to relate to Victoria as a target of unwanted attention. She rubbed the baby in her tummy with one hand, trying to reassure herself that he didn’t recognize her, although it was disappointing that he didn’t. She’d thought they’d been spectacular together.
It was hard to believe that her impression had been wrong.
Maybe…she sucked in bed.
Becca shied away from the embarrassing notion. It didn’t matter that she was nothing to Aiden or any other man, for that matter. She’d gotten what she wanted.
Becca patted her belly again.
“I KNOW HER,” SPIDER SAID as he trudged back up the hill with Golden to the supper line. The afternoon breeze had died down and the oppressive heat was making one last run before the sun sank low on the horizon. “She knew my name.” Few people in the fire community knew his given name.
“The Fire Behavior Analyst?” Golden asked. “You might. She’s been around for years and years. I hear her brother was a Hot Shot a long time ago.”
“She’s not that old,” Spider grumbled, not knowing why he felt the need to stick up for her. “Have we been on other fires with her?”
“Probably not. She’s California Overhead.” Meaning the California division of Incident Command. “Socrates picked her up as an end-of-the season replacement. I’ve heard she’s one of the best FBANS around, though.”
Spider wasn’t impressed. He’d heard too many times before about “the best” and found them sorely lacking in the field. He looked at Becca again. Where had he seen her? And why was the memory bugging him?
“This fire’s going to be a tough one. I’ll need your help keeping the team’s spirits up, including tonight,” Golden clarified, with a glance back at the Fire Behavior Analyst. “Don’t get distracted.”
“She’s hardly my type,” Spider said too quickly, unable to resist looking back, too. Pregnant and bossy. Not his style at all.
With long fingers, Becca twisted and tucked stray golden strands of hair behind her ears, and blinked heavily at Victoria as if she were fighting off fatigue.
“Oh, man,” Spider said under his breath as the images flooded his brain. He’d met her in Vegas—a tall, blond goddess who’d seduced him while he was at a firefighting convention the day after New Year’s. He’d been nursing one in a string of too many beers, trying unsuccessfully to forget what his father had just told him—about a half brother and a half sister he hadn’t known existed, two children Randy Rodas had fathered while married to Spider’s mom.
Becca Thomas had worn this amazing, flimsy white dress that had clung to her curves and exposed most of her creamy skin and long legs. She’d walked over to him, sizing him up, taking his measure and finding him wanting…her.
Spider wasn’t normally picky about a woman’s intellect, as long as her features caught his attention. But his nameless goddess was no slouch in the brains department and had a face that was proud with high cheekbones and bright blue eyes. The sex had been great. The conversation had been great.
And come morning, she’d disappeared without so much as a “thanks, it’s been fun.” Not that he was complaining. Earth-shattering sex and no complications was primo. He just wasn’t used to being the one who woke up alone.
No wonder he hadn’t recognized Becca at first. Her body was plumped up from the pregnancy, from her ankles to her cheeks. But the hair was the same, her gestures were the same and her sharp wit was the same. Only she looked about ready to give birth, too far along to be carrying something he’d left behind. She had to have been pregnant before they’d met. An older woman like her didn’t just get pregnant unless they were married.
Spider squinted at Becca, angry now. She hadn’t mentioned she was married in Vegas. Spider didn’t screw around with married women. That was just wrong. Unlike his father, he considered marriage as something sacred, to be honored. If Spider even spotted a glimmer of a ring on a woman’s finger, it was a no-go.
Becca Thomas had used him for her own purposes, whatever those might be, and had made him into a filthy, stinkin’ cheater.
“SIRUS REVIEWED HOW THIS FIRE made a large, hot run this afternoon,” Becca spoke into the portable microphone outside the Incident Command tent as she began her part in the evening-shift briefing.
Blanketed in thick smoke, the sun was receding behind the towering Flathead mountain ridges. It would still bathe them in soft light for another hour, but already the air was cooling. Once the teams were briefed, the crews on the evening shift were heading up to the drop point. Often the winds lessened or died down at night, so some of the best suppression efforts on the ground were possible when the sun went down. Those crews on R & R tended to come over to listen to the brief, to hear the latest on the fire, which was why the group was larger than the number of men and women going out to fight the fire this evening.
Aiden stood at the back of the crowd, probably waiting to talk with her. She tried not to let his stare intimidate her. He was probably still irritated at her snappy comeback in Victoria’s defense.
Becca’s head pounded beneath her stitches. It didn’t matter that Fire Camp Aiden was cold and cocky, vastly different from the Aiden that had charmed her in Las Vegas. As long as Aiden didn’t remember her, he could glower as much as he liked.
“I’m here to tell you that we can expect to see the fire make even more runs.” Becca hated delivering bad news, especially when this fire seemed so low in priority to NIFC that the resources they needed to contain the fire weren’t readily available.
“The winds are predicted to continue to come from the north, hot and dry, which means we’ll have to be vigilant on the south slopes where the fuels are drier still. As you’ve probably heard, these winds kick up without much warning as the temperature rises in the afternoon. I know I don’t need to tell you to set a lookout, but—” she paused to pat her belly “—you’ll forgive me if I sound a little maternal toward you all. Please be careful.”
As she’d hoped, that elicited chuckles from the group.
“Now, as for the conditions you’re likely to encounter out there tonight…” Becca proceeded to go over the possible scenarios the crews were going to be working in that night, as well as trigger points—the geographical limit where a fire became unsafe for the manpower assigned and a retreat was ordered.
She could remember when she’d first started as a Fire Behavior Analyst. She’d been too earnest, all monotone urgency. The fire crews hadn’t paid much attention to her at all. It had scared her to death. If she couldn’t get through to them, their risk of injury increased. Now, after fifteen years of fire prediction, Becca knew how to keep their attention.
When the briefing ended, Becca asked Sirus to walk with her back through the sea of tents to the Fire Behavior tent, hoping to talk to him more about an idea she had to contain the fire—an idea the IC team hadn’t been receptive to—as well as a more personal issue.
Energetic crews were loading into trucks and heading up the mountain. Becca had to give it to the firefighters. They couldn’t wait to get out there and risk their lives. They thrived on the kind of danger she tried to help them avoid.
And, even though she knew so few of them personally, she knew them in spirit. Firefighters with mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, spouses and lovers at home in their air-conditioned houses, hoping for their safe return. Becca hoped she was doing her part to see they made it home unscathed.
“Have you worked a lot in Montana?”