Their mother, Carol May Stuart, had been raised in Blue Ridge, having met their father at college. They both liked the idea of their daughters being exposed to the same grassroots upbringing she experienced. The girls loved Blue Ridge; their grandparents loved having them stay. It had been a perfect arrangement. Until the summer after Aubrey’s freshman year at the University of Arizona when everything went to hell in a handbasket.
“Do you remember the day you came home and announced you’d eloped?” Grandma Rose’s smile turned sentimental. “I was so happy for you both.”
If Gage was ill at ease with her grandmother’s reminiscences, he didn’t show it. His attention didn’t waver from Aubrey once while the older woman recounted the incident. Not that Aubrey had made eye contact with him. But she could feel his stare just as surely as if he’d reached over and laid a hand on her.
“I remember everything,” he said in a husky voice.
She remembered everything, too. And despite the scalding temperatures, a shiver ran through her.
Perhaps sensing Aubrey’s discomfort, Grandma Rose slapped the arms of the wheelchair. “Would you look at the time.” No one had so much as glanced at their watch. “We’d best be on the road, hadn’t we, Aubrey?”
“Yes,” she mumbled and gratefully rose.
Gage also stood and grabbed the back of her chair, pulling it out. She couldn’t help herself and looked at him. Given the sexually charged atmosphere in the SUV yesterday, she fully expected desire or longing to be reflected in his features. What she saw there caught her off guard and affected her far greater.
Sadness and, unless she was mistaken, regret. For their marriage, she wondered, or that it ended? She couldn’t tell, and maybe that was for the best.
“And I need to get back to work. That ramp won’t build itself.” Gage’s smile vanquished all trace of negative emotion from his face. “Can I help you into the car, Rose?”
“Yes, thank you. That would be nice. Aubrey, fetch my purse for me, will you? It’s on the kitchen counter.”
“Sure, Grandma.”
They were leaving at last. Retrieving her grandmother’s purse first and then hers, Aubrey headed back outside just as Gage was assisting Grandma Rose into the SUV. The scene was tender enough to give Aubrey pause.
He had no sooner buckled her grandmother’s seat belt when a series of loud beeps cut the air. Stepping away from the SUV, he reached for the radio hooked to his belt. Aubrey remembered seeing similar communication devices being used by the local ranchers. After listening to a garbled voice, Gage depressed a button and returned the radio to his belt, a frown creasing his brow. “I have to leave.”
“Problems at home?” Aubrey asked.
“No.”
Without so much as a wave goodbye, he abandoned Grandma Rose and hopped into his truck. Throwing it into Reverse, he tore out the driveway, the tires spewing a shower of gravel and dirt. He hadn’t even bothered to put the tailgate back up. His ball cap sailed out and landed at the end of the driveway.
“What the heck was that all about?” Aubrey asked after retrieving the cap and loading the wheelchair into the back of her SUV. It annoyed her that Gage would take off and leave the ramp half-done, not to mention a mess in the front yard.
“I suppose he got called to a fire,” Grandma Rose answered. “What fire?” She scanned the nearby rooftops. No telltale plume of gray-black smoke billowed skyward.
“In the mountains somewhere, I suppose.” She peered out the window. “Or anywhere in the state. Once they went to California and twice to Colorado.”
Aubrey jammed the key in the ignition, inexplicably irritated. “The volunteer fire department doesn’t travel outside Blue Ridge.”
“No. But the Blue Ridge Hotshots do. Gage is also a wilderness firefighter.”
Aubrey’s mind grappled with the unexpected information. “Since when?”
“For a while now. During the summers, mostly. He does something else with them the rest of the year, too, but I don’t know what. Part-time, of course. He still works the ranch with the family.”
“You’re kidding.”
“He didn’t tell you?” Grandma Rose looked surprised.
Aubrey shook her head. “No one did.”
Her family seldom talked about the Raintrees after the divorce. Aubrey’s father resented Gage and flew off the handle every time his former son-in-law’s name was mentioned. Because his outbursts had accounted for any number of unpleasant family gatherings, Aubrey opted to keep the peace and stopped asking about Gage. News occasionally made it her way via her grandmother, but not with any regularity.
She had yet to start the SUV, and the vehicle’s interior temperature quickly escalated. Turning on the engine, she set the air-conditioning on maximum before pulling out of the driveway.
The drive to Pineville took about an hour, not all of which was filled with conversation. During the frequent lulls, Aubrey’s mind drifted to Gage. Besides being captain of the Blue Ridge Volunteer Fire Department, he was also a wilderness firefighter. Amazing.
Mountain fires had been in the news too often during the last few years for her not to know what a Hotshot was and how important they were to the safety and preservation of Arizona’s endangered high country.
She’d always assumed—along with most people in Blue Ridge—that Gage would follow in his father’s footsteps and take over management of the Raintree Ranch. To discover he’d chosen a different profession, one as dangerous and challenging as a wilderness firefighter, intrigued her.
And being intrigued by Gage was a complication she neither wanted nor needed in her life right now.
Chapter Three
The smell of chicken enchiladas, homemade pizza and hot apple pie commingled, filling Aubrey’s SUV as she drove the main road through town the following morning. From their resting place on the floor in front of the passenger seat, the foil-wrapped food dishes rattled and shook in protest with every bump, pothole and sharp turn.
Buildings and landmarks marked Aubrey’s short trip, most familiar, a few new. The feed store, the one-room public library and Mountain View Realty’s log cabin-style office building were the same as she remembered. A life-size wooden statue of a bear now stood in front of the Blue Ridge Inn, its big paw raised in greeting.
How, Aubrey asked herself, had she let her grandmother coerce her into running this errand? Some of the Hotshot crews, as reported by her grandmother’s neighbor, Mrs. Payne, had taken over the Blue Ridge community center. “A satellite fire camp of sorts,” she’d said, and explained a little about how the twenty-member crews rotated shifts. In a show of support, many of the townsfolk prepared food for the wilderness firefighters, who used the community center to eat, sleep and otherwise relax before returning to action.
According to recent reports, the blaze had been raging in the mountains twenty-five miles east of Blue Ridge since yesterday, apparently started from the smoldering remains of an illegal campfire left by recreationists. It didn’t take much to ignite a fire during the hot, dry Arizona summers.
Originally, Mrs. Payne had planned on delivering the food items. But the two older women got to chitchatting and decided Aubrey should do it. That way, they could work on a baby quilt for Mrs. Payne’s newest grandchild. Aubrey agreed, only because she didn’t have the heart to deny her grandmother the opportunity to spend an enjoyable hour