She’d always been a runner. The intense conditioning she’d put herself through was built on a lifetime of running, ever since she’d started T-ball and soccer, because her brothers had all played and they hadn’t taken it easy on her, even at six.
Doing what she was meant to do, made her strong. With the track underfoot, she felt peace. She felt in control of her destiny. Able to overcome that small mistake she’d made on her application...
In a matter of seconds, the group she’d started with thinned. Sixteen started at her heels, and before her lungs even began to burn, she no longer heard feet pounding beside her. Or behind her. Even when listening hard.
Nope. No one. She was alone.
Which was when she remembered: this wasn’t a race. She wasn’t supposed to be outrunning anyone. Not even Ellison. She was supposed to be outlasting them. This was an endurance test. And speed ate up endurance. Endurance she’d need to make it through the day.
It took some effort to slow herself down, she felt it every clap of her heels against the packed earth, jarring her bones.
Six laps was the expected minimum. She’d go longer just to show she could. Not faster. Longer. Longer than them. Longer than Ellison.
She made it to the third lap before she gave in to temptation to look behind her. The closest to her, who seemed to be moving at a much steadier lope? Ellison. Of course, he was taller. Longer legs didn’t need to run as hard for the same speed.
Never mind.
By the fourth lap her lungs were pretty warm.
By the sixth she legit wanted to stop. She could still finish first, but she wanted to finish best.
By the seventh lap, he’d caught up to her and when she gave in to the temptation to look up at him, she was met with one arched brow that said three things.
I know you.
I remember how competitive you were last time.
I still think you’re an idiot.
For the briefest second, her vision swam with a lovely little brain movie of her throwing one leg to one side and sending his curly arrogance into the dirt. But then her vision cleared, and the sweeter side of her nature took over. She looked back to the track, and kept running.
Eight.
When was he going to stop? Were they actually racing now? Was this a thing that was happening?
Other people had already stopped.
Eight and a half... Treadwell whistled again, loud and shrill. A call to stop. She let inertia carry her forward a few more yards to slow and stop naturally.
Hands on her knees, she kept herself up and gulped air, sweat plastering her shirt to her back, and the grit she’d kicked up from the dirt track rubbing like sandpaper against her bare legs. Should’ve stopped after the seventh.
“Not a race, Autry.” Ellison panted too, where he’d stopped a couple lanes away, the curls she hated to admire a little crisper from the light sweat he’d built.
Of course he’d have better hair too.
And not the point. Not a race, he’d said, but he’d still kept up with her ridiculous pace.
“Tell yourself.”
She straightened, less inclined to bear the grudging respect she’d built for him since he’d turned out to actually be something special, someone she could feel better about herself for having lost to, and walked much more slowly to center field, where the chief gathered his group again.
Ignore Ellison. What was next?
Maybe water. Please, let there be water.
* * *
Beck followed Autry off the track, his breathing more rapid than his sluggish thoughts. He’d been in a haze all week, trying to decide what his life was supposed to be, and had quietly hoped that once he’d made his decision the fog would lift, and he’d know whether he still had it in him to be what he’d felt called to his whole life.
No such luck. The only thing clear was his broken life compass. And that he’d somehow annoyed the woman he’d briefly met two years prior.
She seemed fit. Maybe a little harder than she had been. Normally, he’d say harder was a good thing—harder emotions meant distance, control, better decision-making in dangerous situations. But annoyed was just another flavor of the same emotional unsteadiness he’d seen in her when she’d gone teary after not making the ranks.
She’d sworn to Treadwell she’d be back next year. Last year. Was that another fail? Surprising, but probably no more than it was for her to see him as a rookie this year too.
Didn’t matter. Once training was complete, she’d be off to her own unit and her emotionalism wouldn’t be his problem. He had his own issues to focus on.
Before joining the others, he stopped to retrieve the radio he’d dropped earlier and wedged one earbud in to get another update on the wildfire he’d been monitoring since yesterday. A dry winter and an even drier spring meant the fire season had come early. When rain and runoff existed, spring wildfires were easier to handle and didn’t grow at the vicious speed this one was. The team would be called in today, for sure. If luck was with him, the call would come before he’d spent himself on the rookie field, while he still had enough energy to give Treadwell a reason to stop looking at him like he was the embodiment of all human disappointment.
The radio crackled and he stopped en route to the coolers, but no report followed. Maybe luck wouldn’t be with him. It certainly hadn’t been with him last season.
He grabbed a drink and joined the others, half listening to Treadwell go over the next exercise, the other tuned into the earpiece. It was the first day, and his attention was rightly divided. He didn’t need to hear the physical requirements, he remembered them. Listening for the call was an act of team spirit, for his true team. Not these rookies. Besides, no one was a spirited teammate on day one. Team-building took more than a day.
He worked better alone anyway—fewer distractions. Fewer people to worry about. Something that hadn’t been a problem until last season. One mistake had turned the chief’s opinion of him upside down.
Turned him upside down too. Getting back out there today would help in a way that four months tending his forest territory had somehow failed to help.
If his chief didn’t also take the rookies every year, he might not have even had the opportunity to try again, and he wasn’t ready to picture a future where this wasn’t his job. That meant he had to show up, do whatever Treadwell demanded for the next several weeks. Wear his rookie badge. Take his lumps.
Be like Autry.
She stood so straight and stiff she might as well have been in a muster, her attention narrowed on the chief with laser precision. Though none of what he said could’ve been news to her, the physical requirements were public information. Requirements that included the height minimum, so she’d certainly have read them.
As if feeling his gaze, she turned his direction, and met his steady examination with folded arms and a churlish bent to her brows. Still annoyed.
Whatever. He looked back at the radio because of another round of crackling static, and the next he knew, she was at his side.
“They stuck you with the new recruits?”
Her breathing had already leveled out, the only evidence of her prior exertion the pinkness of her cheeks. She’d run as if chased by wolves, but looked none the worse for wear. He should probably ask what had happened to last year, but that would only encourage conversation. And questions in return.
“Looks like it,” he muttered, and turned up the volume on the single earpiece as a quick buzz announced an