Wildfire at Dawn by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: romance, wildfire, firefighter, smokejumper
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks
Published: 2014-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

“What’s with you, Akbar?” Two-Tall was scraping the soil line to clear it of burnable fuel. The MHA Hoodies were working the line up in the Northern Cascades, just south of the Canadian border in northern nowhere Washington. They were working along the border cut through the heart of the Okanagan Forest, trying to fire proof it so that the approaching wildfire wasn’t among the day’s exports.

The border here lay down in the trees offering only narrow views to the east and west. They didn’t have permission to do any felling where they normally would have on the far side of break. Americans cutting down Canadian timber was frowned on by the authorities, so they were preparing as well as they could to hold the line at the border. The terrain here was high, relatively flat, and almost wholly inaccessible by conventional equipment. So the smokies were on it.

Akbar kept his rhythm going. Nothing was showing, he was sure of that. He was right in sync with the rest of the crew. Ganged up in a line like this, they could clean a thirty-foot wide swath at the equivalent of a slow walk.

Krista set the line and used the wide flat blade of her Pulaski to drag three feet of loose surface crap, from left to right, past where she stood. Then she’d step forward and drag the next blade-width down the line. The team followed behind her stagger step, each moving the initial detritus another two to three feet away from the fire and then scraping their own section clear with a second stroke. By the time the pile reached Akbar and Tim at the end of the line, the bulk could be pretty substantial, but that’s why they were the tail end of the line—the heavy lifters heaving everything as far as they could from the fire break’s edge.

Tim, reading Akbar’s silence as an excuse to continue his harangue did just that. “You been weird ever since we cleared Laura’s woods a couple weeks back. You still good with her?”

“Yeah, we’re still good.” And they were. Mostly. Wanting to tell the woman he wanted to spend his life with her had shocked the hell out of him. He could feel the “L” word looming somewhere on the horizon like a single wisp of smoke promising imminent disaster. The “L” word was one reserved for mothers and sisters, like “Love you, Dipwad.” It wasn’t meant for women he was seeing.

Seeing.

He’d smack himself for that one if both of his hands weren’t busy. “Seeing” is what you did with windsurfer babes. “Dating” is what you did in high school, except he hadn’t. A couple of one-time movie dates with other Chess Club or Physics Club members didn’t count as even that. He and Laura were…

And that’s where he got stuck in his head every time.

Tim was on a roll, though keeping his voice low enough so only Akbar could hear it. He wasn’t talking about the fire trying to

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.