FIREFIGHTER AND SMOKEJUMPER trainee Lauren Autry jogged with the rest of the herd to the large field behind the main hall at the old twentieth-century 4-H camp the Forest Service had repurposed for spring training facilities.
Every year since the nineteen-fifties new recruits and veteran smokejumpers alike descended upon a handful of camps littering the Northwestern United States for the intense training required to prepare them for the coming wildfire season. The elite firefighting service only took the fittest, the most capable of conquering and surviving the remote, treacherous terrain where wildfires tended to explode—parachuting in with simple tools and supplies to fight and contain big, dangerous blazes, only to be rewarded with a long hike back to civilization after the job was done.
Only the best made it through, and if Lauren had been lacking two years ago, she’d made up for it since then, throwing herself into every kind of study and training she could conceive of—even things not required, at least when her job and family responsibilities hadn’t gotten in the way. She’d trained harder, pushed herself beyond her already insane standards. If only she could’ve figured out how to grow a few more inches, everything would be perfect. And if she’d gotten to complete the civilian skydiving course she’d been counting on. That was something she should’ve better controlled. Better planned for. Not required, she’d get to learn it here, but still. Prepared. Making up for any deficiencies. That had been the plan.
If she made it to a crew—when she made it to a crew—no one would be able to question whether she was capable. Whether she was tall enough, or strong enough, or good enough. Never again. Not her brothers. Not her father. None of the hundreds of dead ancestors who’d been serving the same San Francisco fire station since its founding in the nineteenth century...not that she could hear their critiques, at least.
No more of those questions she’d been suffering the six years since she’d become a firefighter. No more of the insinuations her failure two years ago had amplified.
No more holding pattern of derailed life plans.
This year she’d made it through the selection process, even under the authority of Chief Treadwell, the same man who’d passed her over before and given the last spot to a no-neck marine.
None of that mattered. She was here now.
This was really happening!
The thought sent a jittery, tingling wave washing over her scalp again, every cell in her body seeming to light up at once. It had taken every ounce of willpower to sit still and pay attention through orientation, before she began the endurance test she’d been primed for two years to run. The simple act of moving again, letting her body do what it had been conditioned to do, was the kind of physical relief she’d like to also have mentally.
The crowd stopped in the grass, and so did she, but behind a sea of broad shoulders and crewcuts, she couldn’t see what was going on.
Right. Identify the problem, find the solution.
Turning sideways, she slipped and ducked through the crowd to reach the front, and the unexciting view of three older men with clipboards quietly conversing while everyone else waited. More waiting. More need to move crawling over her knees. An itch to get started. Prove herself. Prove to Treadwell he’d made a mistake passing her over for what’s-his-face.
Soon enough, they began calling names and sorting those assembled into three different groups. When that was done, one look around confirmed: her group was peopled with rookies—she could tell by their yellow badges. All new people. All new dudes. And her. Which was fine. Expected, even. It was the smallest group, which was also fine. She’d get more attention that way. The right kind of attention. Training attention. Proving-herself attention.
Her group split off, moving to the side of the large dirt track to hear the rules again.
Endurance test, first. Mile and a half in under eleven minutes. Easy-peasy. She barely needed to stretch for that, but did anyway.
“Ellison!” Treadwell barked the name just as she’d caught one ankle behind her to stretch her quads, causing her to pitch to the side then scramble to stay upright.
“You’re late!”
Chief. Shouting.
Someone late the first day?
Ellison.
The name caught up with her and she jolted again.
Beck Ellison. Her nemesis! Who likely had no idea he was her nemesis... The Golden Boy she’d only quasi creeped on online because when a girl had a secret nemesis... Well, social media was far too easy to peek at. Not that she’d been hoping to see anything bad. In fact, she hadn’t seen anything at all in terms of a profile for the man. She’d just seen posts about him doing this and that, articles in different newspapers used as PR for the service. Stuff she couldn’t help but see and feel the knife twisting in her spleen every time he did something else wonderful. Smoke Charmer nonsense.
She could do her job without an ego-stoking nickname.
Smoke Charmer.
Then again, if she had to lose out to someone, better he be astounding than abysmal. If she had to lose.
Positive thoughts. Positive thoughts. Maintain habit of sending good intentions out to the universe.
Maybe he was there to teach them all how to become one with the fire, Smoke Charmer style.
She turned slightly from her position at the starting line to catch sight of a tall, shaggy-haired man jogging onto the track to join the group. Curls. That was new. The man had shiny black curls, wafting on the breeze as he jogged to the track—the only trace she could see of his past life as a marine was his fitness. Also new? He had a neck now.
And he was coming to run. Not there to teach. There to run. With the rookies.
His badge was yellow.
Rookie yellow.
He was being placed with the rookies?
Not again. He’d made it two years ago. He didn’t need to weasel into her group now and start showing off.
She took a breath and got back in position at the track. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
This wasn’t a competition. Not one that he knew about, at least. She just sort of...wanted to do better than he did. Today. And every day for the next six weeks.
“Did we inconvenience your plans to sleep in?” Treadwell barked, but Ellison—or the beefy, bipedal sheepdog now impersonating the formerly chisel-cut marine—didn’t respond. He just dropped something black and plastic beside the track and got himself ready to run.
With. The. Rookies.
Let it go. Let it go and focus. She could tumble down some kind of rookie revirginization rabbit hole later, after she smoked him on the track. His legs might be longer, but hers would be faster.
The chief blew a whistle and she launched forward. All the anxious energy that had made her squirm in her seat through the arduous sixty-three-minute orientation finally freed.
She ran, everything falling into place as she pounded down the dirt track, her sneakers giving only the slightest