Hazel’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve learned to trust my instincts over the years where love is concerned. And right now they tell me that Jo is all wrong about Nick—sure, he’s a hunk, all right. But the eyes are the windows to the soul, and I saw real depth of character in Nick’s eyes. Despite what Jo may think, he’s not the slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am type.”
Hazel said no more. Her mind was too full of machinations for conversation right now.
Nick Kramer and Jo Lofton struck Hazel as perfect for her master plan. She was on a secret mission that had become the passion of her twilight years: a mission to save her beloved hometown of Mystery, Montana, population four thousand and dwindling. Mystery, and the fertile valley it lay in, had been founded by Hazel’s great-great-grandfather, Jake. But the longtime ranching community was changing rapidly as outside developers moved in, turning it into a summer-tourist mecca. More than anything else, Hazel feared that uncaring strangers would obliterate its original identity, making Mystery just one more indistinguishable hodgepodge of chain stores and trendy boutiques.
It would be a loss too great to be endured.
Sure, change was inevitable, but Hazel wanted it guided by love and vision, not profits.
So the matriarch of Mystery had come up with a plan: pairing natives who loved Mystery, as Jo did, with the kind of outsiders who would bring new life while respecting the old traditions—precisely the kind of unselfish man Hazel sensed Nick Kramer was. Greedy yuppies did not put their lives on the line to save forests and protect strangers. Hazel had a special affection for men who “stood on the wall,” as she described those with dangerous jobs.
While it was too early to know anything for certain where Nick and Jo were concerned, Hazel had developed a sixth sense around romance. She’d become a matchmaker, a second career that so far had produced three wonderful marriages. Her instincts had been instantly alerted the moment Nick and Jo had laid eyes on each other. As the playwrights phrased it, the stage lit up.
And where there’s smoke, the matriarch punned to herself, usually you’ll find some fire, too.
“Okay, you clowns, listen up,” Nick called out as he returned with the canteens to his fire crew’s base camp on Lookout Mountain. “So far it’s been a piece of cake. Right now the crews on both sides of us are ahead of the fire curve. We’ve had enough humidity lately to make the flames lay down nice.”
He tossed the string of canteens down.
“But the barometer is falling, instead of rising like it was predicted, and you know how those flames will roll over if the air gets too dry, especially if the wind kicks up. So tonight we take advantage of a full moon and thin out the green pockets down on the canyon floor.”
“I got a better idea, Nick,” called out his radioman, Jason Baumgarter. “Let’s go up on the summit and do a safety inspection of the cabins—a whole carload of babes is camped up there.”
This suggestion was met with cheers and whistles. Nick’s twelve-man crew were seated around the hearty flames of a campfire, eating supper.
“Our fearless leader,” quipped Nick’s second-in-command, Tom Albers, “has already reconnoitered that situation topside, gentlemen. I saw him walking with a well-endowed blonde earlier, sacrificing himself for the rest of us.”
“Yes, for my sins,” Nick clowned, looking humble.
The fire crew jeered him good-naturedly in return, a familiar ritual. But despite the usual camp routine as the men prepared to go on duty, Nick felt a new distraction this evening, and she wasn’t blond.
Rather, she was a dark-haired, green-eyed beauty with one hell of a chip on her shoulder.
Jo Lofton had intrigued him from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. But unfortunately, the emotions she stirred within him dredged up other feelings, too, and memories he usually worked hard to quell.
Looking at women like Jo was downright madness for him, because it made him yearn for a lifestyle he wasn’t sure he could live. Many people suffered from what was done to them, but Nick had discovered that his deepest scars were mainly scars of omission—the parents he never knew, the loving home he never had, the lack of any reason for putting down roots.
The one woman he had dared to let himself love, for whom he would have given up this nomadic job of his, did not let him make that choice. Karen had left him. According to her, she’d found something better. And her stubbornness triggered his own.
“Earth calling Nick Kramer,” a voice said loudly, and Nick’s thoughts suddenly scattered.
Tom Albers stood before him in the gathering light, buckling on his utility belt.
He stared down at Nick with a face taut with concern.
“You got a mind for this today? Last thing we need is a preoccupied man getting himself into trouble.”
“I’m all right,” Nick said, his jaw hardening.
Tom nodded. “How do you want us to insert?” he asked again. “Two teams or three?”
“Three,” Nick replied, forcing dangerous thoughts of Jo Lofton out of his mind. “One north of the river, two south. It’s too steep for vehicles, so we’ll have to hike out. Each team leader radios me on the hour.”
“Got it,” Tom affirmed.
But as Nick rigged his ax to his backpack, Jo’s taunting words snapped in his mind like burning twigs: I’m not a challenge—I’m a zero possibility where you’re concerned.
Four
“Let’s go, ladies. Rise and shine!”
Hazel’s strong voice was like an explosion in the slumbering peace of the cabin.
Jo bolted upright in bed, wondering what the emergency was.
“Up and at ’em!” Dottie’s twanging voice chimed in, loud enough to wake snakes. “We should be five miles down the road by now, cowgirls. Shake the lead out.”
Still groggy, Jo groaned when a powerful flashlight beam swept into her eyes.
“My God, it’s still dark outside!” Bonnie complained.
“C’mon, sweethearts, are you bolted to those beds?” Hazel said. “The wilderness is calling you.”
“Okay, okay, we’re up,” Jo protested, although she couldn’t help grinning when she saw the stupefied look on Kayla’s sleep-puffy face.
Dressing in the dim illumination of an oil lantern, Jo donned the sturdy outdoor clothing she’d packed: blue jeans, red flannel shirt and sturdy high-top shoes. A splash of water to her face and she felt almost human. Brushing back her hair, she tied it into a ponytail and tucked it under her shirt.
While she tucked it, however, heat crept into her cheeks. She was recalling the scene yesterday with Nick Kramer.
I still feel the challenge in spite of your generous peep show.
In your dreams, bucko, she wished she’d retorted. Why did the good lines always come to her too late to use them?
As Hazel had promised, the day’s new sun was just edging over the horizon by the time the girls, still knuckling sleep from puffy eyes, trooped up to the crackling flames of the breakfast fire.
Seeing the sun blaze to life, hearing the “dawn chorus” of hundreds of birds celebrating the arrival of daylight, Jo felt instantly buoyed. Her freshly renewed anger at Nick Kramer receded, and she felt a little thrill at the natural beauty around her.
She could see why this wilderness spot had grown on Hazel and her friends. “Back of beyond,” Hazel called it.
“We’re