Page 9 of Some Like It Hot
Sometimes he couldn’t believe the words that came out of his own mouth.
He pulled on his green Nomex pants, a moisture-wicking, flame-resistant T-shirt, and his yellow shirt-jacket. All clean, thanks to the Sky King laundry room.
A fresh start to a new day, a new fire, another escape into a world where hard work kept him from thinking.
He needed to restock his PG pack, get more MREs, check the batteries for his flashlight, nab a couple more protein bars, instant coffee, first aid gear, GPS, and his blue necessaries bag with fresh socks, another shirt, underclothes, and toothpaste. He’d also add a red bag stuffed with his sleeping bag, a compact camp stove, and a tiny, one-man tent.
Everything he needed to live on the line for at least a couple days, if not longer.
But he might perish without coffee first. Riley grabbed his travel mug and headed outside.
The fresh, piney air, the drape of sunshine against a rippled, indigo lake, and sparkling diamonds in the dewy grass caught him up, filled his lungs. He couldn’t help but cast a quick look toward the cabin beneath the ridge.
I can be more…
He should just forget about her, because chances were that the team was headed back into the bush to fight another blaze. And if not, they would be heading back to Montana soon enough.
No, Riley, I don’t think you can.
Larke was most definitely right. Probably saved them both from a very awkward morning.
Riley followed the path up to the lodge and headed inside.
Romeo sat at the long island counter drinking coffee while Tucker and Barry Kingston leaned over a map spread out on a table in the middle of the kitchen. A great-room window overlooked a cloud-covered Denali, blue sky beyond hinting at a glorious day.
He could live in Alaska. A man could escape, disappear from his life, hide forever in this vast state.
A massive, two-story river rock fireplace stretched to the peaked roof, and over the mantle hung a picture of the Kingston clan. Riley glanced at it briefly and spied the three brothers Larke had mentioned. She stood in the middle of them, her blonde hair down, and he shooed away the memory of it twining between his fingers, soft and silky.
Riley filled his mug with coffee, capped it, and came over to stand beside Tucker. The man wore a red bandanna over his dark brown hair, his sunglasses backward on his head as leaned over the map.
Tucker acknowledged him with a nod. He was on the line with a guy from the Bureau of Land Management, his phone on speaker in the middle of the table. From the looks of the map and the markers attached to it, the fire was about eight clicks north in Denali Park country, a fly-in-only zone.
He’d caught the tail end of the man’s words—ten acres, no tankers available, they needed to get in, knock it down, or at least slow it. Might need a reinforcement team.
Riley glanced at Tucker. Of course Jed would pick him to lead in his absence. Because Tucker did everything right. Followed the rules. Was The Guy People Counted On.
The man Riley should have been, if it’d been up to his dad.
The voice came over the phone after a pause. “Just checking, but are you guys okay to deploy? I know you just came off a fire—”
“We’re good,” Tucker said. “As soon as Barry gets the plane fueled, we’ll get loaded up.”
Riley raised an eyebrow. But yeah, he’d rather be in the fight, injured, than on the sidelines watching.
The BLM guy hung up and Tucker stayed quiet, reading the map.
“We need to get our chutes repacked,” Riley said. They still hung in the big ranch barn, next to a dozer and a sizable 5thwheel, after being checked over yesterday. And they’d better get to it because it would take hours to get them repacked.
Seth and the two Zulies wandered in.
“We could use the extras from the BLM team,” Tucker said, glancing up at him.
The Alaskan team used rectangle ram-air canopies, self-deploying instead of automatically pulled by the static line from the plane. Sure, they offered more controlled steering, especially in the winds off Denali, but the landings were harder, faster. He could handle it, but they had rookies—
“Those are squares. Not rounds,” Riley said.
Tucker seemed not to hear him. Instead, “There’s a Boy Scout camp at the base of that mountain, about three miles from the blaze. And we’re just down the road another five clicks.”