Firelights of Christmas Read online

  TheFire Lights ofChristmas

  a Firehawks romance story

  by M. L. Buchman

  1

  “Rise and shine,” Patsy Jurgen swept down the hall of the Cascade Hotshots barracks. This was their first wildland firefighting season, the newest hotshot team in the country. And the worn-out, board-and-batten building was their new home. She thumped the side of her fist once on each wooden door, making them rattle loudly on old hinges.

  She smiled to herself. It had taken her six years to make foreman of an Interagency Hotshot Crew and this was about the nicest place she’d ever lived. She’d heard some of the new recruits griping good-naturedly about a “hardship post.” Once the fire season hit, they wouldn’t be in residence here in Leavenworth, Washington all that often. And after their first month or so walking to the wildfires, they’d bless having running water, a cot, and a roof that only leaked a little.

  After two weeks of recruit selection and three more of intense training, the twenty hotshots had really come together. The old hands and the new were blending well. They had yet to be tested by anything more strenuous than a prescribed burn to cut fuel levels in untended fields around the mountain town, but she knew the real thing would be happening all too soon.

  Not soon enough for her.

  Candace Cantrell’s phone call that she was forming up the Cascade IHC had brought Patsy running. Cantrell had been a kick-ass foreman on the San Juan IHC and Patsy wanted to lead her own crew someday. She couldn’t ask for a better slot than being Cantrell’s foreman, her Number Two. Of course she had to share that particular slot, one super and two foremen to a crew.

  Jess Monroe, the other foreman, opened his barrack door before she could thump it.

  “Yeah, yeah! I’m up already, Jurgen.” He didn’t look it, but she knew from overlapping him on various crews over the years that he wasn’t a morning person and the only thing that really woke him up fast was a fire. He wore shorts, and nothing else. He was hotshot fit, muscle rippled along his legs and chest.

  “Day one, Monroe.” Candace had just informed her team last night that she’d let the Forest Service know the Cascade IHC was ready for call out. A real testament to her skill as a superintendent that they’d trained up so fast, because Patsy agreed. They were ready.

  “Day one,” he looked down at his watch. “Still early yet. Wanna come in and celebrate?” He held the door a little wider. As foreman, he had a room to himself instead of a two-bunk, just as she did.

  “I think you’re still dreaming, Jess.” The man would flirt with a burning tree. He never pushed; teasing women was just some kind of a game to him. Most flirted back and they all seemed to have fun with it. A skill she’d never had nor wanted. She reached out and pulled his door shut—with him on one side and her on the other.

  It wasn’t that early. She’d woken everyone just early enough to ease into it and eat before the day’s planned exercise.

  Candace and Luke Rawlings, one of the newest recruits, had gotten a small apartment also close by the fire station. The heat between them was amazing to watch; it was just so…right. Candace had always been deadly serious about hotshotting; fire chief’s daughter, no big surprise. But with Luke she glowed like, well, like she was happy.

  Patsy hadn’t seen that one coming at all. Candace was so dedicated to wildfire that she had become a role model for Patsy. Her suddenly finding love was like a crack in Patsy’s worldview—one she still didn’t know what to do with.

  Patsy had woken before sunrise, an old habit, and gone outside to watch the day break before waking the others. The sun had lit the towering peaks of the Cascade Mountains which climbed up to the west of Leavenworth eventually topping out at Stevens Pass. The line of sunlight had moved down the conifer and gray rock-covered slopes like the slice of a knife, the line was so clean. To the east, the mountains fell away into hills headed for the rolling sagebrush and orchard steppes of Eastern Washington.

  On the silent air, broken only by a blue jay’s call, the scent of pine washed through the river valley. Dry pine. It was only June, but already she knew it was going to be a hot summer and a busy fire season. They’d been smart to sponsor a hotshot crew here.

  Now that everyone was awake, but not moving yet, she was suddenly at loose ends. So she walked the couple blocks into the sleeping town; hadn’t had a moment to breathe during training to give it the once over. All of her prior postings had been pretty far out into the nothing. “Town” usually meant a church, a grocery store that was also a gas station, and a pizza joint that was more importantly the sole bar. But here, the Cascade hotshots had been formed by Chelan County and posted in a resort town surrounded by towering timber.

  Leavenworth was…bizarre. A failing timber town in the 1950s, it had resurrected itself as a Bavarian Alps village in the 1960s and been a tourist mecca ever since. The kitsch was so complete that it was almost believable. She wondered if even Bavaria looked this German.

  Coming east from the fire station, just a block off Route 2—the second biggest east-west highway across the Washington Cascades—she walked right into the heart of “old town.” A gazebo on the village green. Red brick cobblestone paving with ornate black cast-iron streetlights. White buildings with that zig-zag dark wood accenting. Generous balconies that dripped with massive red geraniums.

  Every building that didn’t boast a beer garden was lush with souvenirs. There was a lederhosen store for crying out loud and, she’d seen in the few breaks they’d had from training, that it did a serious business. Tourist kids tromped around town with an ice cream cone and wearing attire right out of The Sound of Music.

  The only thing open at this hour was the Bavarian Bakery. She was missing breakfast, eggs and bacon no doubt, most of them taking white toast. Why was it that hotshots had no imagination about food? They certainly had to eat enough calories to survive a fire season, but they always went for the fastest and the easiest.

  As she walked by the bakery’s window, someone slid a tray of delicacies into the display. When the baker saw her hesitation, he flashed her a big smile and waved her to come inside.

  The tray looked fantastic.

  2

  Sam Parker waved at her again.

  The woman watched him for a long moment, then shrugged and turned for the door.

  “First customer and not a tourist. For that you get an extra special treat,” he greeted her before the bell even stopped jangling. Not a local either. He’d only bought the bakery a month ago, but there was something in the way she moved that was different.

  A tourist rubber-necked and wandered, and if they were up at this hour of the morning then they’d be wearing their runner’s togs. Seattle folks who didn’t know how to slow down for even one second.

  A local would be moving with purpose and direction. This woman had been out strolling at sunrise for the sake of strolling.

  “Smells good,” she’d stopped one step inside and sampled the air. Most went straight to the big display cases brimming with confectionary. Or headed straight for the register to order their triple-shot skim macchiato, which wasn’t a macchiato at all.

  Instead she remained where she was long enough to let him really get an eyeful. Her honey-blond hair was short-cropped, and offset her dark eyes. Her face was thin and well-tanned though it was still more late spring than summer.

  She wore a yellow shirt and cargo pants with big thigh pockets and serious boots. He could see the power of her despite the loose clothing just in the way she stood.

  “I give up.” Nobody back in Providence, Rhode Island had ever come into his shop looking like this. He couldn’t mak
e sense of her outfit.

  She slanted a look over at him, but didn’t say a word.

  “What are you?”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  Okay, maybe not the best greeting, so he waved a hand at her attire rather than risking more words. He ran a bakery, words were almost as important as sugar to making a success of it, but he didn’t know which words to use with this woman.

  She inspected herself carefully and then looked back at him, again raising that single eyebrow. Without the least hint of a smile, she answered, “Homo sapiens, female of the species.”

  At Sam’s burst of laughter, she barely blinked.

  3

  While he laughed, Patsy turned back to inspect the display cases. Most bakeries smelled of sugar, sugar, coffee, and more sugar. But just as a wildfire had hints of cedar, redwood, pine, maple, and a hundred other clues, the air of the Bavarian Bakery was deeply nuanced.

  The sugar was there. And the chocolate. But she could smell the butter in the croissants, the apricot in the Danish before she spotted it, the smoothness of rich Bavarian cream, the sharp cinnamon in the baked apple strudel. Hotshots were always lean, there was simply no way to consume more calories than you burned during a season; often there simply wasn’t time to do so. But this was a place a woman just might have to be careful. It all looked as incredible as it smelled.

  The baker hadn’t gone back behind the counter, but instead had remained out front with her. She knew what he’d meant of course, had received the question so many times over the years that the straight answer had long since worn out any interest for her.

  A hotshot? What’s that?

  I fight wildland fires.

  Forest fires? Like a smokejumper?

  Yes, but without the parachute.

  I thought that was a guy thing, jumping out of planes.

  As if she hadn’t just said…

  Sure, hotshots were predominately male. The upper body strength required meant a woman had to want it twice as badly as any man to make the grade—had to bust her ass to overcome genetic predisposition.

  Not as unusual as it once was.

  It was common now for a hotshot crew to have at least a couple women. The even more strenuous smokejumper roles were starting to see women on the crews as well.

  She’d grown so tired of all the stupid follow-on questions, that she’d stopped answering the first one. But usually the men knew she was avoiding a straight answer, grew offended, and left her alone.

  This one had laughed, a good laugh. It made her glance back over when she didn’t intend to. He didn’t look like a German baker: round-faced, blond-haired, and all of the other stereotypes in her brain. He was as lean as she was, an inch or so taller, and his big hands and powerful arms showed a hundred small burn scars and a few older ones that weren’t so small. Working with fire. She knew how that looked; had her own fair share of them.

  “Homo sapiens, male of the species,” he answered her apprising look.

  She could feel a smile tugging up one corner of her mouth. The man had a sense of humor, and he worked with heat. Even if it was in another form, it was intriguing in its own way.

  4

  Sam pushed himself up the trail. He’d left the bakery at noon, after a typical nine-hour day, baker’s hours. And he enjoyed unwinding on the hiking routes that abounded so close to Leavenworth that he could walk to the trailheads. In Rhode Island, the biggest hill had been eight hundred feet and been a half-hour drive away. Now he lived at twelve hundred feet and couldn’t turn around without seeing a half dozen eight thousand footers.

  During his one month here, he’d learned that hiking the Cascades was a different challenge than back East, and not just the elevation. A wrong turn there could lead you back to the highway miles away from your car; do the same thing here and you could walk a hundred miles without ever seeing another human, or a road. Wilderness that even jets took a while to cross over. Lost on foot? Very bad news.

  Today, he headed off across the flats to the south of town. He’d spotted a plume of smoke up on the hills and used it as an excuse to hike in a new direction. A boxy truck was parked at the base of the trail. Light green with shining golden script, Cascade Hotshots.

  It was an odd vehicle. The back was a short box with four windows down the sides, like a bus that had its back end sawed off. But instead of being on a bus frame, it was on a very heavy duty truck form, like a cement delivery truck—robust enough to tackle serious loads. Or, he noted that it was parked well across the fields from the nearest street, to negotiate rough terrain. The ride did not look comfortable.

  He continued up the trail, the breeze and sun at his back as he climbed. The trail became steep and tough, but he’d learned, and now wore solid boots rather than light walking shoes.

  Sam rapidly ascended above the meadow line into the wooded hills, and thought of the woman from this morning.

  “Funny how someone can stick in your mind,” he told a nodding bush, pulling out his guide long enough to identify it as a huckleberry. He’d have to come back and pick some once they were ripe. He often talked to himself, or at least to the surrounding wildlife as he hiked.

  And though he didn’t want to be noticing a woman, any woman, she really had stuck in his head. Christi had left him with a gaping wound after a brutal divorce that had sent him all the way to this remote mountain village seeking a bolt hole. Last thing he wanted was to be noticing a woman.

  But when he’d watched her eyes flutter shut in appreciation as she bit into his apricot almond bear claw…

  Then snap open when her pager buzzed loudly. A quick glance at the small device on her waist and she completely changed.

  The slow-moving, slow-smiling woman evaporated as if she’d never been. Now she was pure business. She folded the bear claw in half and stuffed one end of it into her mouth but didn’t bite it off. With her hands free, she dug out her wallet, tossed him a ten dollar bill, and bolted out the door without either her hot chocolate or her change. Maybe she was an ambulance EMT or something. Whatever, she’d simply evaporated.

  “Maybe that’s what was so intriguing,” a chipmunk looked at him doubtfully from its hesitant perch atop a boulder. “My woman of mystery.”

  The chipmunk laughed and scooted.

  So much for that idea.

  He rounded a bluff and stumbled to a halt.

  He’d been hiking steadily upward through thick conifer forest. His East coast brain would call it a pine forest, but his assistant at the bakery informed him that it was mostly fir trees out here. He’d rounded a boulder in the trail, and the world changed. Before him lay a scene from Dante’s Inferno so jarring that the transition made little sense.

  The low grasses and tall trees were gone, replaced by black char. The trees up ahead were tangled with fire. Flames circled and swirled up the tall trunks, heaving ash into the dark cloud of smoke overhead. A gust sent a spray of embers aloft that danced like fireflies against the black smoke and shining flame before reluctantly winking out. It was beautiful and horrible at the same time.

  He looked back over his shoulder. Sun-dappled forest.

  He turned ahead once more…

  There were figures moving about the base of the flames, people in yellow hardhats and coats.

  The souls of the damned!

  Another shower of sparks swirled aloft.

  It was Hell!

  5

  Patsy worked down the line, checking in with her half of the crew—she and Jess each had nine crewmembers. For their first fire, they were doing well; not that it was a big one. It made for a perfect introduction.

  The fire had climbed into a dead-end ravine. Candace had sent scouts both to left and right in case it tried to jump over to the neighboring ravines, but it wasn’t big enough to make the leap—again, just good training. They’d think to go themselves next
time after checking in with her on the radio. The fire already was dying against the walls and the only ones who didn’t know it were the rooks.

  The rookies saw the old hands remain calm around them—she’d alternated them down the line so that the rooks couldn’t feed off each others’ fear—and they had stayed calm in turn. Now it was just a matter of letting it burn out the available fuel in this narrow slot.

  She broke out three rooks and a three-year veteran and led them back down to the base of the fire.

  “Get a one-and-a-half inch hose into that stream over there. Start working this line. We don’t want to leave a single hotspot. When this is done burning out in a couple hours, we want to have the mop-up mostly finished or we’ll miss pizza back in town.”

  That got them moving. Nothing like the promise of real food and a place to brag about your first fire to motivate a hotshot.

  A lone figure with wholly insufficient hiking gear stood at the base of the “black,” as the charred area of a wildland forest fire was called, looking like he’d been electrocuted standing up. She considered climbing down to him, but decided to make him hike his pretty, clean gear up through the base of the black and save her the walk. It would stain up his boots and socks pretty good. Then maybe she’d rid herself of yet another gawker to worry about during future blazes.

  She waved him up the hill to her.

  He hesitated, unsure of himself until she signaled again.

  As he approached, she recognized the face from somewhere. Oh, his eyes going wide as she stuffed his delicate pastry into her mouth like a some squirrel stuffing its face full of acorns.

  She sighed. Graceful had never been one of her strengths.

  6

  Sam was only a few paces from the firefighter before he realized it was a woman. The charcoal smeared shirt might have once been yellow. Close-fitting sunglasses hid her eyes. Her hardhat was blue…and smeared black. The rest of the crew’s were yellow.