Chasing Fire Part 44

Ella studied Lucas across the pretty breakfast table she'd set up on the deck.

She'd gone to a little trouble-crepes and s.h.i.+rred eggs on her best china, fat mixed berries in pretty gla.s.s bowls, mimosas in tall, crystal flutes, and one of her Nikko Blue hydrangeas sunk into a low, square gla.s.s vase for a centerpiece.

She liked to go to the trouble now and again, and Lucas usually showed such appreciation. Even for cold cereal and a mug of black coffee, she thought, he always thanked her for the trouble.

But this morning he said little, and only toyed with the food she'd so carefully prepared.

She wondered if he was regretting taking the day off to be with her, to go poking around the Missoula Antique Mall. Her idea, she reminded herself, and really, did any man enjoy the prospect of spending the day shopping?

"You know, it occurs to me you might like to do something else today. Lucas,"

she said when he didn't respond. "What?" His gaze lifted from his plate. "I'm sorry."

"If you could do anything, what would you want to do today?" "Honestly. I'd be up in Alaska with Rowan."

"You're really worried about her." She reached over for his hand. "I know you must worry every time, but this seems more. Is it more?"

"I talked to L.B. while you were fixing breakfast. He thought I should know- No, she's fine. They're fine," he said when her fingers jerked in his. "But the fire's tougher and bigger than they thought. You get that," he added with a shrug. "The thing that's got me worried is it turns out they jumped with several pieces of defective equipment, tools."

"Aren't those kind of things inspected and maintained? That shouldn't happen."

"Yeah, they're checked and tested. Ella, they think these tools may have been tampered with." "You mean ... Well, G.o.d, Lucas, no wonder you're worried.

What happens now?"

"They'll examine the equipment, investigate, review. L.B.'s already ordered a complete inspection of everything on base." "That's good, but it doesn't help Rowan or the rest of them on the fire."

"When you're on a fire, you've got to depend on yourself, your crew and, by G.o.d, on your equipment. It could've gone south on my girl." "But she's all right? You're sure?"

"Yeah. They worked nearly twenty-four hours before making camp. She's getting some sleep now. They'll hit it early today; they'll have the light. They dropped them more equipment, and they're sending in another load of jumpers, more hotshots. They're sending in another tanker, and ..." He trailed off, smiled a little, waved his hand. "Enough fire talk."

She shook her head. "No. You talk it through. I want you to be able to talk it through with me."

"What they had was your basic cl.u.s.terf.u.c.k. Delays in calling in more men and equipment, erratic winds and a hundred percent active perimeter. Fire makes its own weather," he continued, and pleased her when talking relaxed him enough to have him cutting into a crepe. "This one kicked up a storm, kept b.u.mping the line-that means it spots and rolls, delays containment.

Blowups, eighty-foot flames across the head."

"Oh, my G.o.d." "She's impressive," he said, and amazed Ella by smiling.

"You really do wish you were there." She narrowed her eyes, pointed at him.

"And not just for Rowan."

"I guess it never goes away, all the way away. Bottom line is they've made good progress. They're going to have a h.e.l.l of a day ahead of them, but they'll have her crying uncle by tonight."

"You know what you should do-the next best thing to flying yourself to Alaska and jumping out over Rowan's campsite? You should go on over to the base."

"They don't need me over there."

"You may have retired, but you're still Iron Man Tripp. I bet they could use your expertise and experience. And you'd feel closer to Rowan and to the action."

"We had plans for the day," he reminded her. "Lucas, don't you know me better by now?"

He looked at her, then took her hand to his lips. "I guess I do. I guess you know me, too." "I like to think so."

"I wonder how you'd feel ... I'd like to ask if I could move in here with you. If I could live with you." It took a minute for her brain to catch up. "You-you want to live together? Here?"

"I know you've got everything you want here, and we've only been seeing each other a few months. Maybe you need to-" "Yes."

"Yes?"

"I mean, I'll have everything I want here when you are. So, yes, absolutely yes."

Delighted by his blank stare, she laughed. "How soon can you pack?" He let out a breath, then picked up the mimosa, drank deep. "I thought you'd say no, or that we should wait awhile more." "Then you shouldn't have asked.

Now you're stuck."

"Stuck with a beautiful woman who knows me and wants me around anyway.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what I did right." He set the gla.s.s back down. "I did this backward because first I should've said-I should've said, I love you, Ella. I love you."

"Lucas." She got up, went around the table to sit in his lap. Took his face in her hands. "I love you." She kissed him, sinking in. "I'm so happy my son wanted me to jump out of a plane." She sighed as she laid her cheek against his. "I'm so happy."

WHEN HE LEFT, she adjusted her plans for the day. She had to make room for a man. For her man. Closet s.p.a.ce, drawer s.p.a.ce. s.p.a.ce for manly things. The house she'd made completely her own would become a blend, picking up pieces of him, shades of him.

It amazed her how much she wanted that, how very much she wanted to see what those shades would be once blended.

She needed to make a list, she realized, of what should be done. He'd want some office s.p.a.ce, she decided as she took out a notebook and pen to write it down. Then she tapped the pen on the table, calculating which area might work best.

"Oh, who can think!" Laughing, she tossed down the pen to dance around the kitchen. She had to call her kids and tell them. But she'd wait until she'd settled down a little so they didn't think she'd gone giddy as a teenager on prom night.

But she felt like one.

When the phone rang, she boogied to it, then sobered when she saw Irene's readout. She took two quiet breaths. "h.e.l.lo."

"Ella, Ella, can you come? Leo. Leo called."

"Slow down," she urged when Irene rushed over the words. "Leo called you?"

"He turned himself in. He's at the police station, and he wants to talk to me.

They let him call me, and he said he's not saying anything about anything until he talks to me. I don't know what to do."

"Don't do anything. I'll be right over."

She grabbed her cell phone out of the charger, snagged her purse on the run.

On the way out the door, she called Lucas. "I'm on my way over to Irene's.

Leo's turned himself in."

"Where?" Lucas demanded. "Where is he?"

"He called her from the police station." She slammed her car door, s.h.i.+fted the phone to yank on her seat belt. "He says he won't talk to anyone until he talks to her. I'm going with her."

"Don't you go near him, Ella."

"I won't, but I don't want her to go alone. I'll call you as soon as I'm back."

She closed the phone, tossed it in her purse as she reversed down the drive.

WAKING TO THE VIEW of the Alaska Range and Denali lifted the spirits. As she stood in camp, Rowan felt the mountain was on their side. The crews had worked their hearts out, had the burns and bruises, the aches and pains to prove it. They hadn't slayed the dragon, not yet, but they'd sure as h.e.l.l wounded it. And today, she had a good, strong feeling, today they'd plunge the sword right through its heart.

She knew the crew was banged up, strung out, but they'd gotten a solid four hours' sleep and even now filled their bellies. With more equipment, more men, an additional fire engine and two bulldozers, she believed they could be flying home by that evening, and leave the final beat-down and mopping up to Alaska.

Sleep, she decided, the mother of optimism.

She pulled out her radio when it signaled. "Ro at base camp, go ahead." "L.B., Ops. I've got somebody here who wants to talk to you."

"How's my girl?"

"Hey, Dad. A-OK. Just standing here thinking and looking at a big-a.s.s mountain. Wish you were here. Over." "Copy that. It's good to hear your voice.

Heard you had some trouble yesterday. Over."

"Nothing we couldn't handle with some bubble gum and duct tape. We softened her up yesterday." She watched the cloud buildup over the park, and puffs of smoke twining up from islands of green. We're coming for you, she thought. "Today, we'll kick her a.s.s. Over."

"That's a roger. Ro, I've got something you should know," he began, and told her about Leo. When she'd finished the radio call, Rowan walked over, sat down by Gull. "h.e.l.l of a view," he commented. "Libby's in love. She's talking about moving up here. Ditching us for the Alaska unit." "People fall for the mountain. Gull, Leo turned himself in this morning. He's in custody."

He studied her, then drank more coffee. "Then it's a d.a.m.n good day."

"I guess it is." She heaved out a breath. "Yeah, I guess it is. Let's make it better and kill this dragon dead." "I hear that," he said, and leaned over to kiss her.

IT SHOOK IRENE to the core to walk into the room and see Leo shackled to the single table. He'd lost weight, and his hair, thinner, straggly, hung over the collar of the bright orange prison suit. He hadn't shaved for G.o.d knew how long, she thought, and the beard had grown in shockingly gray around his gaunt face.

He looked wild. He looked like a criminal. He looked like a stranger.

Had it only been a month since she'd seen him?

"Irene." His voice broke on her name, and the shackles rattled obscenely in her ears when he reached out. She had to look away for a moment, compose herself.

The room seemed airless, and much too bright. She saw the reflection in the wide mirror-two-way gla.s.s, she thought. She watched Law& Order, and she knew how it worked.

But the reflection stunned her. Who was that woman, that old, bony woman with dingy hair sc.r.a.ped back from her haggard face?

It's me, she thought. I'm a stranger, too.

We're not who we were. We're not who we're supposed to be. Were they watching behind that gla.s.s? Of course they were. Watching, judging, condemning.

The idea struck what little pride she had left, kindled it. She straightened her shoulders, firmed her chin and looked into her husband's eyes. She walked to the table, sat, but refused to take the hands he held out to her.

"You left me."

"I'm sorry. I thought it'd be better for you. They were looking to arrest me, Irene, for murder. I thought if I was gone, you'd be better off, and they'd find the real killer so I could come back."

"Where did you go?"

"I went up in the mountains. I kept moving. I had the radio, so I kept listening for word they'd arrested somebody. But they didn't. Somebody did this to me, Reenie. I just-"

"To you? To you, Leo? I signed my name with yours, putting up our home for your bail. You left, and now I'm going to lose my home because even taking another job isn't enough to meet the payments."

Pain, and she judged it sincere, cut across his face. "I didn't think about that until I'd already gone. I wasn't thinking straight. I just thought you and the baby would do better if I left. I didn't think-" "You didn't think I'd be alone with no idea where my husband was, if he was dead or alive? You didn't think I'd have a baby to tend to, bills to pay, questions to answer, and all this right after I put my daughter's bones in the ground?"

"Our daughter, Reenie." Under the beard his cheeks reddened as he pounded his fist on the table. "And they think I killed my own girl. That I broke her neck, then burned her like trash in a barrel. Is that what you think? Is it?"

"I stopped thinking, Leo." She heard her own voice, thought it as dull as her hair, her face. "I had to, just to get from one day to the next, one ch.o.r.e to the next, one bill to the next. I lost my child, my husband, my faith. I'm going to lose my home, and my grandchild."

"I've been living like an animal," he began. Then stopped, squinted at her.

"What are you talking about? They can't take s.h.i.+loh away."

"I don't know if they can or not. But I know I can't raise her right on my own without a good home to give her, or enough time. The Brayners will be here tomorrow, and they're taking her home to Nebraska."

"No." That stranger's face lit with fury. "Irene, no. G.o.dd.a.m.n it, you listen to me now."

"Don't you swear at me." The slap in her voice had his head snapping back.

"I'm going to do what's right by that baby, Leo, and this is what's best. You've got no say in it. You left us."

"You're doing this to punish me."

She sat back. Funny, she realized, she didn't feel so tired now, so worn, so full of grief. No, she felt stronger, surer, clearer of mind than she had since they'd come to tell her Dolly was dead. "Punish you? Look at yourself, Leo. Even if I had a mind to punish you, and I just don't, you've already done plenty of it on your own. You say you lived like an animal-well, that was your choice."

"I did it for you!"

"Maybe you believe that. Maybe you need to. I don't care. There's an innocent baby in all this, and she comes first. And for the first time in my life I'm putting myself next. Ahead of you, Leo. Ahead of everyd.a.m.n-body else."

Something stirred in her. Not rage, she thought. She was sick of rage, and sick of despair. Maybe, just maybe, what stirred in her was faith-in herself.