A Blaze To Bear (Fire Bear Shifters Book 1) (3 page)

Charlotte shook out her sleeping bag and started slipping out of her jumpsuit, which weighed close to a hundred pounds due to all the gear stored in the huge cargo pants on the legs.

“Well, your daddy must be very proud,” she said. “If you want, once we get back to base camp I can give you some lessons on steering and handling your parachute even better.”

Hunter beamed. “Really? That would be awesome.”

“Yes, really. I’ve learned a few things over the years I’ve been doing this. I’d be happy to share them with you.”

“Thanks,” Hunter said.

Just then, a loud crash sounded out as Ian finally freed his gear from the tree and sent it tumbling down to the earth. He followed closely behind, shimmying down to the forest floor and cursing the whole way.

“Looks like the boss could use a few flying lessons, too,” Charlotte said.

Hunter grinned at Charlotte sheepishly. “Hey, sorry we’ve all acted so strangely. We’re just…really different from most people, and it’s hard to have another stranger around. Ian’s a really great guy, if you give him a chance. He may not be great at steering a parachute, but he’s a really great firefighter with a lot of experience.”

Charlotte was tempted to make a snarky comment about how being a woman didn’t automatically make her that different from them, but she decided to bite her tongue and take the olive branch that Hunter was offering. “Thanks, buddy,” she said, flashing him a bright smile. “I’m sure we’ll all get along just fine given a little time.”

Once Ian and Luke made it down from the tree and everyone got their gear sorted out, Ian started barking orders. The Burning Claws Crew buckled down to work.

One of the things that initially surprised Charlotte about fighting fires in the wilderness was that you didn’t fight fires with water out here. You fought fire with fire. These fires were too large to kill completely with water, but if you took away their fuel source, they wouldn’t be able to continue burning. The crew set to work clearing a large line of trees and brush. They would keep clearing everything out until they achieved a short “no fuel strip” where there was nothing for a fire to burn. Then they would purposely set a fire on the other side of that strip, which would burn in the direction of the bigger fire, since that would be the only direction it had to go. If everything went according to plan, the two fires would meet and merge into a giant fire that suddenly had no fuel in either direction, and had nowhere to burn but out.

The Oregon sun beat down on the crew as they chopped and sawed their way through the thick trees and underbrush, following Ian’s directions closely. Their fire resistant clothes offered good protection against burns, but wearing them in this heat felt like being inside an oven made of clothes. For several hours, the crew worked, and Charlotte tried her best to do just as much, if not more, than all of the men. She wanted to prove to Ian that his awful attitude toward her had been a mistake. By the time the sun went down, the fuel free zone had been cleared. Ian inspected it and then nodded his approval to Zach.

“Alright, Zach, let her burn,” he said.

Zach let out a whoop and took a flame torch to the far edge of the fuel strip. In the gathering dusk, he let loose a stream of fire onto the dry brush in his path. It didn’t take long for a new, large blaze to take hold. Just as expected, it started burning in the direction of the original fire. Zach rejoined the crew and watched with them for several minutes.

“Not bad for a day’s work,” Ian said. “Looks like we took care of this even quicker than Boise thought we would. Let’s grab some gourmet dinner and watch the show.” The crew groaned at the reminder that they would be eating Spam and protein bars for dinner.

The group wouldn’t start a campfire up here, for obvious reasons. But they sat around a few battery powered lanterns as darkness fell over the mountain. Illuminated by the light of the lanterns and the distant glow of flames, the crew opened up their various foods they had brought along as meal replacements. Charlotte made a face as she saw Luke pouring Gatorade into a can of Spam.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he stabbed the soaking meat with a fork and downed a huge mouthful.

“Gatorade and Spam. They taste awesome together.

“That’s disgusting,” Charlotte said.

Trevor reached over and stuck his fork in Luke’s Spam, swiping a good sized bite. “It’s really good. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Trevor said.

Charlotte made a face, and Luke shoved Trevor aside. “Hey, man, get your own Gatorade Spam. This one’s mine.”

Charlotte shook her head at them, and tore into a protein bar. “I’m just going to stick with my protein bar and take your word for it,” she said.

“So tell us about you,” Luke said around mouthfuls of Spam. “How’d a pretty little thing like you end up fighting fires?”

Ian let out what sounded like a growl, startling Charlotte. “No one needs to be nosey, Luke. The less questions the better. Let her be,” he said.

Luke shrugged. “Sorry. I was just trying to make conversation,” he said.

“Well, don’t,” Ian replied, his voice angry.

“No, no, it’s okay. I don’t mind the questions,” Charlotte said. She actually welcomed them. It was nice to have some of her crew members talking with her, instead of staring at her like she was from Mars. She had no idea what Ian’s problem was. The guy was good looking, but he had some serious antisocial tendencies. As Charlotte opened her mouth to continue speaking, Ian got up and walked sulkily away from the group.

“What’s his problem?” Charlotte asked. “I mean, I think I more than pulled my weight today. The worst thing I’ve done is give him shit about his parachute landing, which, admittedly was awful. But as far as I can tell I’m not some horrible person causing you guys a bunch of trouble or something.”

Hunter leaned over and whispered in Charlotte’s ear. “I don’t think the problem is that he likes you. I think the problem is that he likes you too much.”

“Hunter!” Ian roared. “Shut your mouth.”

Hunter meekly retreated to his can of Spam, but Charlotte looked up in shock.

“He heard that?” she asked. “But you were barely speaking above a whisper!”

Hunter stared down at his food, apparently unwilling to speak anymore. Charlotte looked around the circle at the other men, who all seemed to be suddenly very interested in their food as well.

“Ugh,” she said as she stood and brushed the crumbs from her protein bar off of her clothes. “What is wrong with you people? Are we back to not talking again?”

Charlotte paused for a moment, looking around the circle. No answered, so she stormed off to find her sleeping bag. They would all take shifts tonight being the lookout. Someone had to be watching at all times to make sure the fire didn’t do anything unexpected while they were sleeping. But Charlotte didn’t bother asking what her shift was. Whoever was ahead of her could wake her up when it was time.

She was exhausted, and she was tired of dealing with this strange group of men who acted rude and secretive at every turn.

Ian sat on a large rock overlooking much of the valley and watched the fire burning in the distance. The fire his crew had set had almost reached the larger fire. When it did, they would know for sure that their efforts had worked. Once that was confirmed, they could hike down the ridge until they reached a spot where either a helicopter or a truck could pick them up. And then, Ian would have a brief reprieve from being out in the wilderness with Charlotte.

Being in the woods made his bear restless, which made his feelings for Charlotte even harder to push down. He couldn’t believe Luke had started asking her personal questions like that. If the crew asked her questions, she was bound to start asking them questions. And she didn’t need to know where they were from or what their stories were. She didn’t need to hear about how they had all grown up together in the wilds of Northern California, enjoying a carefree childhood as bear cubs until a rockslide killed most of their families. After a stint in the army, they had joined the firefighting crews at Ian’s suggestion. The men had made him alpha, even though no one in Ian’s family had ever been alpha before. But who else would have taken the role? None of them had any clue what they were doing in those early days.

“Hey, Boss, you should take a break. You’ve been up way too long and you need some rest,” Zach said, sitting down on the rock next to Ian.

Ian gave him a sidelong glance and said nothing. Then he went back to staring at the fire in the distance. After several minutes, Zach spoke again.

“She’s not a bad crew member. She more than pulls her weight. She’s a good jumper. She isn’t nosey. It could be a lot worse. Let’s just get through this month and hopefully we can get her reassigned. The threat will be over, then.”

“My bear wants her,” Ian said, still not looking at Zach.

“Shit. Really?”

Ian sighed. “Yeah. Since the first time I saw her, I’ve been drawn to her like a magnet. Being out here with her is torture. I can’t focus on my job properly. All I can do is think about how to keep her far enough away from me so that I can manage to keep some semblance of normalcy. I think I can make it through this trip. It’s going to be a shorter mission than command central originally told us. But after this she has to go. I don’t know how I’m going to convince Boise to reassign her, but I have to. I can’t go out in the wilderness with her again.”

Zach stared out in the direction of the glowing fires, which had nearly fused together at this point. “Well, shit,” was all he said.

After several more moments of silence, Ian sighed and spoke again. He didn’t like to appear weak, and so he rarely confided in anyone. But he trusted Zach completely, and he needed to get this weight off of his chest.

“Do you think there’s any possibility that she would accept a bear shifter?”

Zach looked up at him. “You’re not thinking of outing us to her, are you?”

“No, no. Nothing like that. Not right now anyways. But, despite the way I’ve been acting around her, I actually do like her a lot. She’s beautiful, and strong. And she fights through her fear with such a calmness. She was terrified on that plane today, I could smell it. But she jumped anyways. She never even flinched outwardly. Her determination is admirable. I guess what I’m saying is, I wonder if I’ll ever find anyone as perfect for me as she seems to be. If I had met her under different circumstances I would have asked her out on a date. But, with her being on the crew and my being chief…” Ian let his voice trail off.

Zach narrowed his eyes at Ian. “You’re talking in circles, Boss. What are you trying to say? Are you suggesting that you let her stay on the crew and try to woo her?”

Ian nodded.

“Boss, you can’t do that. I mean, I agree with you that she seems like a great person. But in case you haven’t noticed, our job is pretty damn dangerous. We’re all a lot safer if we’re focused on firefighting, and not on impressing a girl or hiding our shifter status from her.”

Ian didn’t answer for a long time, and Zach just let his words hang in the air. Finally, Ian stood and clapped Zach’s shoulder. “You’re right, of course. It’s too risky. It’s just my luck, though, that when my bear finally likes someone, it’s someone I can’t have.”

Zach gave Ian a sympathetic look in response.

“Alright, well, I do need to get some shuteye,” Ian said. “You okay with taking the next watch?”

“No problem. Go get some rest.”

“Thanks, buddy. When you’re ready for a break, wake up Hunter and have him watch for a while.”

“You got it.”

Ian walked back to where the rest of the crew lay snoozing in their sleeping bags. The crew never took tents with them. That would have been just one more thing to carry, and the huge cargo pockets on their jumpsuits were already ridiculously overloaded with gear. Chainsaws, axes, flame torches, and other such tools of the trade didn’t leave room for luxuries like tents.

Ian slipped into his own sleeping bag and stared up at the stars, which looked murky in the smoke that rose from the blaze. The fires were less than an hour from meeting, and would probably be burnt out by mid morning tomorrow. This first smokejumping mission had been somewhat mundane from a firefighting standpoint, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It gave everyone a chance to get the first jump jitters out of the way before they were sent to a more serious blaze.

Ian glanced over at Charlotte’s sleeping bag. Her back was turned to him, so he couldn’t see her face. But he could make out her silhouette as it rose and fell rhythmically to the beat of her dreams. He wished he could slide his sleeping bag up next to hers and feel what it felt like to have her body against his. But he would never be able to fulfill that desire. When he got back to base, he had to call Jessica and figure out a way to convince her that Boise really did need to find a different crew for Charlotte. He’d tell the god’s honest truth if he had to. The embarrassment of admitting he was romantically interested in a crew member was less painful than the struggle to keep his feelings in check with Charlotte sleeping just a few yards away from him.

Ian sighed and pulled his sleeping bag close over his body, blocking out the cool mountain air. Even though the summer was hot and dry, the nights were still chilly. That was good. Hopefully the cooler air would help the fire burn out. Ian closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him, finally giving in to the exhaustion that he’d been fighting off for the last several hours.

* * *

A few yards away, Charlotte was not actually sleeping. She kept her breathing rhythmic and her eyes closed so Ian and Zach wouldn’t realize that she was awake, but as she heard Ian’s soft snoring coming from a somewhere behind her, she opened her eyes again and stared out into the dark night. The sky was a dark, hazy orange, thanks to the glowing fires in the distance. When Charlotte had first started firefighting, the strange color of a night sky lit by fire had seemed creepy to her. Now, the sight was a familiar one.

What wasn’t familiar at all, though, was the way she felt listening to Ian and Zach’s conversation. She had missed snippets here and there, but, for the most part, the wind had carried their voices clearly in her direction. She felt nervous, confused, and incredulous. For one thing, Ian actually liked her. Respected her, even. She had been convinced that he would hate her work no matter how good it was, just because she was a woman. But overhearing his conversation with Zach made her realize that Ian had been acting so strangely because he had deep feelings for her that he didn’t know what to do with. That part of the conversation had actually excited her, because no matter how hard she tried not to think about Ian as anything more than the crew chief, she couldn’t help but notice his sexy muscles and chiseled face every time he turned around.

But Ian’s interest in her hadn’t been the only surprising thing she’d overheard tonight. She could have sworn that Ian and Zach had been discussing the fact that they were shifters. Charlotte had heard rumors from members of other hotshot crews that wolf shifters existed up in Alaska. At the time, she had laughed off the idea that a human being could turn into an animal. Surely, these were just fanciful rumors started by firefighters to make the slow days on the job a little more interesting. But Ian and Zach had talked about shifters so matter-of-factly. What if she had been wrong to roll her eyes at these stories? What if shifters did actually exist?

Charlotte slowly rolled over and eyed the three other sleeping forms near her. Was it possible that she was actually sleeping with a group of bears? She looked over at Zach’s back, his silhouette dark against the distant orange blaze of fire. She was tempted to go confront him about what she had heard. But she felt foolish. What if she had misunderstood? Or what if he flat out denied it, even if it was the truth? Charlotte decided to let it go for the moment. She pulled her sleeping bag up closer around her body and furrowed her brow. She would watch over the next few days for signs that the men of the crew were actually shifters. She didn’t know quite what those signs might be, but she would figure it out.

One thing was for sure, her interest had been piqued. She would definitely do everything possible to avoid getting reassigned to another crew until she had gotten to the bottom of this. Charlotte forced herself to close her eyes and get some rest.

The next day, the Burning Claws Crew awoke to find the fire burned out as expected. They packed up their gear to hike down through the forest to a spot where a plane could pick them up. The summer heat was stifling, and hiking even in shorts and a t-shirt would have been miserable. With heavy jumpsuits and gear, it became nearly unbearable. But this was a normal part of the job, and none of the crew members complained. In fact, the mood as they packed up camp bordered on jovial. It felt good to have their first mission be a success, even if it had been a relatively easy job.

Ian led the group as they traipsed downward toward a small airstrip. They tried to leave the forest as untouched as possible, although occasionally the undergrowth became too thick and they had to chop their way through.

The crew talked and joked as they hiked, and included Charlotte in their conversations. Now that they had spent time fighting a fire with her, everyone seemed more comfortable around her. Well, everyone but Ian. Charlotte could not even get Ian to make eye contact with her. It was painfully obvious that he was avoiding her, but everyone acted like nothing abnormal was happening. At first, Charlotte felt flattered by his avoidance, now that she knew it was due to his feelings for her. But as the day wore on and he laughed easily with all of the crew members except her, she started to become annoyed.

Who did he think he was, treating her so differently from the rest of the crew? So what if he felt uncomfortable around her? He was a crew chief. Part of his job description included fostering unity and camaraderie amongst the crew members. Completely ignoring one of the crew members was unacceptable behavior. By the time they finally broke for lunch, Charlotte’s mood had turned sour, and she started taking it out on the other guys. She snapped at Hunter when he jokingly tried to stick Spam mixed with Gatorade in her face.

“Keep your shit to yourself. You know I don’t want it,” she barked at him.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy, tiger. It was just a joke.”

Charlotte scowled at Hunter and stormed away from the group holding a protein bar. She stopped several yards away, kicking the trunk of a tree angrily as she wolfed down the tasteless food.

She knew she had to get it together. She had worked harder than she ever thought possible to get a place on a smokejumper crew. If Boise had to reassign her again, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t just send her back to a ground crew for the season. And Charlotte definitely did not want to be sent back to a ground crew. As nervous as she felt every time she stood in the door of that airplane, she loved the thrill of flying through the air toward the earth, then jerking to a slow, floating fall when her parachute opened.

Ian was already threatening to push for a reassignment when they got back to base. Charlotte didn’t need to give him extra reasons to campaign for her removal. As much as it hurt her pride to do it, Charlotte needed to bury her angry, agitated emotions and play nice. She took a deep breath, and walked slowly back to where the rest of the crew sat on the ground in an uneven circle, finishing up their lunch. She clapped Hunter on the back in what she hoped was a congenial gesture.

“Sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

Hunter’s face brightened immediately. “No worries. I completely understand.”

I’m not sure you do
, Charlotte thought to herself. But she bit her lip and gave Hunter a smile. She could feel Ian scowling from across the circle, but she refused to look in his direction. She focused intently on drinking water from her canteen until the group’s conversation naturally moved on to other topics. The remainder of the hike down proved uneventful. Ian didn’t speak to anyone, but at least he was being an equal opportunity asshole now. Charlotte felt better since she was no longer the only one being ignored. Charlotte remained mostly silent as well. She couldn’t stop thinking about what she had overheard about the men being shifters, and she listened and observed the crew members carefully, searching for some clue to their true natures. But nothing they said or did seemed out of the ordinary. After hours of hiking had passed, she still hadn’t seen anything to indicate that any of the men were hiding an animal within.