The Complete Hotshots Read online

  “That one needs a lesson or two in humility. Kick his ass, sister.”

  Before Jill could respond, Candace had once again clamped onto her branch and was dragging it off into the trees.

  For the next twelve hours, she and Jess did just that.

  “Swamping. It’s called swamping the branches, not dragging.”

  “Why?”

  Jess paused and laughed, making her stumble on the branch he’d been dragging just in front of her. “I haven’t a clue. But it’s swamping. That much you can trust me on.”

  As they worked back and forth across the fire line, following behind the sawyers, they spared a some breath to talk. Jess told her about his degree in Psychology.

  “Never was much at research and I sure didn’t want to spend my life listening to other people’s problems. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was interesting and I met some good friends, but being indoors wasn’t my idea of living. I met Candace in a coffee shop. She was from a firefighting family and she made it sound so amazing. She and I worked crews all over the west. When she got the call to form up a new team and tapped me for assistant super, it was just about the best day of my life. It was like I really knew I’d done something.”

  The way he talked about Candace was a curious mixture of humbling and daunting. The more he talked about her, the more imposing the super became. He clearly worshipped the ground she walked on. But it was also a little bit odd. He only spoke of her in relation to firefighting. How she’d done recruitment in a way he’d never seen before. How she kept everyone’s spirits up even after a two-day cut on a fire line that was overrun. He never once said anything about their relationship.

  “I came from a firefighting family,” she told him, but Jill never had much to say beyond that. She came from a line of firewomen. She was the only daughter of two of Seattle’s first female fire officers. That she was straight didn’t bother her moms; they had made her various boyfriends welcome over the years. And her birth mom’s father, Grampa Jones, had been one as well. Jill had served with her parents awhile, but felt overshadowed by them. They were both such strong, outgoing personalities that Jill had feared she was becoming invisible in her own quiet way.

  They’d been surprised when she’d signed up for the wildland engine crew. But if they’d been hurt, they didn’t show it. Instead, for her birthday they’d given her tuition for both emergency vehicle training and the expensive CDL—the commercial driver’s license wasn’t required but they had gotten it for her anyway. Neither of which would have saved her from the rolling tree that had wiped out their engine even if she’d been at the wheel.

  She kept quiet on the details of her firefighting family because she’d learned over the years that most guys didn’t understand about growing up with two mothers, so she kept that fact to herself.

  She hadn’t gone to college. She’d been a Junior Fireman in high school and gone straight into the academy for three months to earn her firefighter certifications. There had never been any question about what she’d do, only what her particular path to fire would be. Listening to Jess Monroe talk about Candace Cantrell was definitely giving her ideas.

  6

  Jess couldn’t get a feel for Jill Conway-Jones. He remembered down at the wrecked engine that she’d been funny. But up here on the line, she was mostly quiet. When she spoke, it was to ask him about hotshotting.

  They switched over to grubbing a twenty-foot line, which was just as exciting as it sounded. It was working the dirt with a Pulaski until there was nothing living in a swath that was hopefully wide enough to stop a fire from crossing—not even organic duff was allowed to remain. The cut trees would force the fire down to the ground, the removal of the branches and underbrush would rob it of fuels to slow it further, and the grubbed line would hopefully stop it cold.

  But for everything she didn’t say, she more than made up for by doing. She’d tirelessly leaned into branches that must have weighed more than she did. And, once she got the proper Pulaski technique, she kept up with him right down the line.

  The more he did manage to get from her, the more he cursed the luck of Trent the engine driver, whether he was Conway or Jones. A woman like her didn’t come along even every year, never mind every day.

  He did finally poke around enough to rediscover her funny side.

  “Supergirl is trying to be superhotshot,” Jess had forgotten his early nickname for her until they’d worked through the whole night and a dirty, smoking dawn was approaching.

  “No, she’s actually trying not to be superlame.”

  “She’d can’t be,” Jess insisted in between slices with the Pulaski—he had to chop out a stubborn root. “That job description has already been taken by me. Only one allowed per team.”

  “Fine. You want the title, it’s yours,” the smile he could hear in her voice through the exhaustion just made him like her all the more. “I’ll get myself a t-shirt to prove it. It’ll have the red and yellow S on it and then in tiny letters, I’ll have it say, ‘…and, yes, he is with me’.”

  Almost too exhausted to breathe, she still gave him the energy to laugh.

  When sunrise finally did happen, they’d sat on a cut log to rest through a breakfast break of energy bars, an orange, and a canteen of water with electrolyte powder.

  “Yum! You hotshots really know how to live the high life.”

  Jess grimaced, “Just wait until the fire gets here. This has all been prep.”

  As if in answer to her question, the first air tanker of the morning raced by low overhead, dumping a long line of red retardant on the line of trees beyond the firebreak. Wouldn’t do to have some errant spark, of which there would be plenty to hunt down and kill during the height of the battle, ignite the fire beyond the fire line.

  7

  “How’s our tag-a-long doing?” Candace walked up to where she and Jess were still eating on the log. Beside her was one of the sawyers, a big handsome guy she hadn’t met yet. Candace put enough sarcasm in her voice that Jill knew she was being teased.

  Jess groaned as if wounded to the core and Jill had to fight to suppress a laugh. His constant energy and sense of fun was all that had kept her upright through a brutal night’s work.

  “I think I’m now the tag-a-long,” Jess whined like an old man. “Jill doesn’t know the meaning of slow down. Picks up technique faster than any recruit who’s ever crossed our lines.”

  “He’s been a great teacher,” Jill put in. His constant fine-tuning, even long after exhaustion had them both staggering, had revealed a drive for excellence that matched her own and a style of patient teaching that she could only hope to learn some day.

  “She learns even faster than you, big guy,” he addressed the sawyer.

  “No way!” The guy faced her squarely. “Okay, lady. That means it’s you and me for the fire. Then we’ll see how you do.”

  Jill couldn’t tell if he was teasing or serious. He was an imposing man. Like one of those military clichés with the manly jaw and the broad shoulders.

  “Aren’t men just the cutest things?” Then Candace pulled him into a kiss.

  And not just some friendly peck either.

  Jill startled and looked from them to Jess to see how he was taking it. Rather than angry, he looked…jealous?

  “Come on you two. Do you have to keep proving how happy you are? Get a room, go behind a tree, something.”

  The big guy broke off and looked down at Candace, “We’ve got to get him a lady.”

  Jill was still trying to catch up with what was happening. Jess wasn’t with Candace? The big guy was?

  That explained why he’d only talked about Candace on the fires, because that’s what she and Jess did together—team superintendent and assistant.

  Jill had to sift through all the stories he’d told about their meeting and working together. If they weren’t a couple, everything shifted to show his huge respect for a strong woman. She’d thought he was putting his lover up on some sill
y pedestal, ready to fall.

  “How about you, lady?” The big guy looked down at her. “You in the market for a slightly used hotshot? He’s kinda scruffy, but we all like him well enough.”

  “No, she’s got a guy, the broken arm we medevaced out last night. Her name’s Jill,” Jess offered. “Jill, this char-monkey is Luke. But we call him Mud to keep his ego in check.” Then he leaned close as if to whisper in confidence, “Doesn’t help.”

  Jill felt cornered until she caught Candace’s sly smile. Here were two men who thought that a strong woman was an asset—not just an asset, but absolutely worth seeking out and following. Jill had been raised by two of the strongest women that she’d ever met, ones she’d spent her whole life trying to make proud.

  And she’d bet that both of her moms would love these three.

  Here they were, three magnificent firefighters, standing as friends for a moment in the dawn light before turning to face the approaching flames.

  Could there be any place that she’d rather be?

  Then she turned to look at Jess. Considerate, passionate…single. He’d spent the whole night telling her about his life and how much he loved what he did and the people he did it with. She’d learned less about some boyfriends in six months than she’d learned about him in the last dozen hours. Jess had blown poor Trent out of the water in the first thirty seconds when he’d caught her and laughed at one of her jokes.

  Jill looked at Candace, “Need another hotshot?” What would have been a ridiculous question a dozen hours ago felt completely normal now.

  Candace simply held out a hand and they shook on it. Deal. Done.

  Yes!

  She could really get to enjoy working for a woman like her.

  She looked back up at Luke.

  “Scruffy hotshot slightly used? Might work for me,” she poked Jess in the arm as if she was testing a side of beef. “How about this one? Think he’s interested?”

  She’d never been so forward in her life, but the way his muscles felt, she’d have to do it more often.

  Jess was blinking at her, trying just as hard to catch up.

  “Trent was my fire partner, Jess,” she offered the missing clue.

  He kept blinking at her in surprise.

  “Not the quickest one is he?” Jill glanced up at Candace.

  “He’s fast enough under normal conditions. But like all the really good ones,” Candace went up on her toes to kiss Luke on his cheek, “you can knock them into stunned puppy land pretty easily.”

  Jill decided to help Jess along, since she was the one being forward.

  He had called her Supergirl after all.

  She leaned over and kissed him.

  It took Jess Monroe about two more seconds and then he caught on very well indeed. In moments the exhaustion that had been coursing through her body like an aching pulse beat was replaced with a sizzling heat.

  “Maybe,” Luke drawled out, “we should get one of the helos to do a water drop on these two; cool the fire down a bit.”

  Maybe, Jill thought to herself, but she didn’t think it would make any difference at all.

  A Hotshot Christmas

  Heavy equipment driver Sheila Williams got blown up one too many times. The Army kicked her loose for that idiot reason. How the hell she ended up in a tourist town for the holidays makes even less sense.

  Hotshot Randall Jones fights wildfires for a living. The adrenaline fits him like a fire in the forest.

  They both feel the heat in A Hotshot Christmas.

  Introduction

  I wanted to end the series with a bang. This was to be my last Hotshot short story, my last Firehawks short story, and actually, my last Firehawks tale of any kind—the last Firehawks novel, Wild Fire, was written earlier and released only a dozen days after this story. Of course it turned out that fire wasn’t done with me, even if I thought I was done with it. But the Oregon Firebirds were still an undreamed-of series waiting two years in the future.

  I had such fun writing a previous Hotshot Christmas story, The Firelights of Christmas, that I definitely wanted to try another. Leavenworth, Washington (where my fictional team is based) is a delightful tourist village—pleasant enough that I’ve considered moving there a couple of times. And the most fun time of year there is Christmas. Yes, it’s tourist madness. But it is also vibrantly alive and filled with bright sun, deep snow, and a close camaraderie among the locals who actually reside there.

  I wanted to celebrate that. I wanted to roll around in it and have fun.

  My answer?

  I dropped a character into the midst of the scene who hates the town and the crowds and Christmas and…

  She’s not Ms. Scrooge. She’s a soldier who can’t understand the strange world she encounters once she’s out of the Army.

  Sheila was born from a conversation I had years ago with a soft-spoken female Black Hawk crew chief who had left the Army after serving four years and two tours in Iraq.

  “It’s so strange. No one pays my rent. No one makes my food. I never had to pay bills because I enlisted straight out of high school. I try to explain my confusion of having to make so many choices, but it doesn’t make sense to any civilians. You’re so used to it. My buddies are all still inside and they don’t understand either. It’s so hard you can’t begin to imagine.”

  Sheila is my attempt to understand, and to give that crew chief a happy ending that I’ve since heard she found.

  One further note on this story. As I write, I often laugh and sometimes cry as I write. But every now and then I write a story that just gives me chills (in a good way). And sometimes I read a story after it’s done and I wonder how I managed to write that. This is one of those stories; a great way to finish a series.

  1

  Sheila inspected the heavy dark beams and white plaster of the restaurant. A hostess—in a bad Bavarian costume of ruffled sleeves, low-cut above blousy, cotton-cupped breasts—smiled at her as she sashayed across the hardwood floor in incongruous heels.

  “Table for one?” Just one notch too perky for her to swallow.

  “No, thanks. Just looking in.” Sheila turned abruptly and nearly trampled a couple and their kids coming in the door. Civilians! Too close! She kept the epithet to herself and stepped around them and back out into the crisp darkness.

  To her left was the snow sprinkled faux-Bavarian town of Leavenworth, Washington, so perfect it was like a goddamn life-sized snow globe. To her right was a McDonald’s with a wood and plaster Germanic facade. She’d promised herself that she’d do better than McD’s for a Thanksgiving Day dinner, but crowds were kind of a problem for her and the town was packed.

  Saddle up, girl.

  She didn’t even bother raising her camo jacket’s collar as she turned to tromp through the snow—even the damned falling snow was picturesque—and into the heart of the town. Somewhere there had to be a bar with a burger, a brew, and a minimum of Bavarian.

  She’d been driving to…well, nowhere. She’d been driving away from the family Thanksgiving in Seattle. Five hours through packed city roads and over slick mountain ones.

  Not a soul understood what it meant that she was out of the Army. No one got that a TBI diagnosis didn’t mean she was nuts. Traumatic Brain Injury meant that she’d been blown up one too many times for the Army to trust her at the wheel of her big transport truck. Didn’t meant she was crazy. Please let it not mean she was crazy.

  Which totally explained why she was in a resort town, that looked about as inauthentic as most of the ones in the real Bavaria did, looking for a quiet place to get drunk on Thanksgiving night.

  A polka band playing out on the town’s square made her wonder how the tuba player’s lips didn’t freeze to his mouthpiece. Children skidded around despite all the salt and sand laid down on the sidewalks. One ran into her legs hard enough to fall back on its butt.

  She stopped, knelt down, and picked up the kid to put it back on its feet. See, acting perfectly normal. Helpin
g out.

  It took one look at her, burst out crying, and raced away.

  Sheila closed her eyes for a moment…before standing and continuing through town. She crossed the street to get clear of the square.

  Bavarian Bistro. Not a chance.

  Soup Cellar. O Tannenbaum playing on the juke because Thanksgiving was over in another half dozen hours. She didn’t even make it halfway down the stairs.

  She closed her eyes to get past the garish Christmas store and let the tourists bounce off her until she was clear.

  King Ludwig’s. The Mad King. Not a freaking chance.

  She jostled and was nudged along until she fell out the other end of the town. Four blocks. She’d survived four blocks. Sometimes the victories are small. She hated when the psychs were right, especially when it felt more like defeat.

  At the far end of the tourist strip, the town collapsed back into small American town. Dimly lit, cold. She leaned against the concrete wall of a closed warehouse and did what she could to catch her breath.

  “Been following you,” a deep male voice.

  She really didn’t need this shit right now. She rested her hand on her sidearm, but the Glock 19 wasn’t on her hip where it should be. Where it used to be.

  “No need for that,” the voice continued as she started a hand up to her concealed shoulder carry. Her back was turned, he shouldn’t have been able to spot her motion.

  Sheila risked a glance.

  Big guy. Ten feet back. Standing planted on the sidewalk. No one behind or to the sides. Alone. She recognized the stance.

  “You got somewhere to be?” His voice was soft, steady. She could deal with that. “I can help you get there.”

  Sheila could only shake her head. No, she had nowhere to be. Might never again.

  He waited a while before continuing, like he was studying her and thinking.