Smolder: A Hot As Hell Prequel by Wood Vivian

Author:Wood, Vivian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

4

Cade

Montana, Six Months Ago

“Here we go,” Barron said as he slid into his seat on one of the fire choppers beside Cade. “My guess is cigarette. Got five on it. You?”

Cade shook his head and grinned. “I’m not betting with you after that last time. How the hell’d you know it was a kerosene lamp anyway?”

Barron shrugged. “Saw it on Facebook before we got there.”

“Bastard,” Cade said with a chuckle.

Dominguez and Fields each stuck to their sides of the fire rescue chopper, looking down at the terrain below.

“Ain’t seen the fire yet, maybe we’ve been called out for a false alarm,” Barron said.

He was the youngest on the repeller crew, just nineteen years old, and came from an all-boys military prep school where he swore up and down he hadn’t seen a girl for four straight years.

“Doubtful. I’ve worked as a hotshot for fifteen years, and this would be my first,” Fields muttered.

The helicopter pilot made his way north, and soon enough they could see the smoke and little bits of orange flame here and there in the trees.

They kept going north, almost ten minutes, and Cade’s concern level grew. Each minute north they went, the flames were more and more prominent.

“What the hell?” Cade said under his breath. He called to the helicopter pilot. “Hey, Sean, I thought the Captain said this was just a two alarm. This—hell, this is a full-blown wildfire.”

“I’ll call in to report that,” Sean said and clicked on the his radio. “Sean here, you hear me, Captain?”

It crackled, but there was nothing.

“Captain, you copy? This isn’t a two alarm, you copy?” Sean clicked it off. “Fuck, man, this piece of shit isn’t working.”

“It’s alright,” Cade said as he got ready to rappel out of the chopper. “We gotta go anyway. Just get back as soon as you can manage, and let everybody know. Where’s the other crew?”

Sean shrugged. Cade sighed and heaved the door open. The tiny chopper seemed to struggle to stay upright. Dominguez and Fields jumped out, their lines attached to the helicopter still.

“Well, let’s get it started. Guys, you know what to do. Barron, you’re with me.”

“How’d I get so lucky?”

Cade jumped, the feeling of freefall hitting him hard for a few seconds. Then his line caught, and he quickly began rappelling downward. In less than two minutes, he and Barron were on the ground.

The fire was everywhere.

Cade led the way into the thick of it, gear heavy on his back. He practiced his breathing without thought. It was built into him. The heat slapped at his face, and from his peripheral vision he could see Barron one step behind him. Twenty feet away, Dominguez and Fields forked off into the brush.

They needed to find someplace to start a firebreak, a big dirt trench that would essentially interrupt the fire, keep it from spreading. He surveyed the land.

This isn’t right, Cade thought. The fire’s too hot, it’s burning too fast.

He glanced back toward the chopper, but the air where it had been was vacant.

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