Expectant Father (6 page)

It took Roadhouse about twenty paces to work up enough saliva to ask, “Something bothering you?”

“Wouldn’t tell you if there was. You gave up that right a long time ago, starting with my first birthday.” Aiden didn’t look at Roadhouse. In fact, he looked away, to the orange glow of the fire on the horizon. “Haven’t seen you at a birthday since.”

“Suppose I did give somethin’ up,” Roadhouse admitted,
half under his breath. When Maria had left, her mother had taken over the daily duty of raising Aiden and had been adamant that Roadhouse not undermine her authority or spoil his son on his sporadic visits. He’d never gotten along with his mother-in-law to begin with. After Maria had left, things had become unbearable, until Roadhouse had stopped visiting Aiden altogether. Yet, he never stopped thinking about his firstborn.

If asked, he’d admit he didn’t know how to be a good dad. But he’d always thought fondly of his kids—even wrote them letters.

He just never sent them.

He wanted his parental rights back. Forget that Aiden was thirty, Roadhouse wanted to be a part of his life. Ever since his mother-in-law had died, he’d made an effort to be on teams that operated in or near Idaho. He’d told Aiden about his other two children in Vegas, hoping the truth would bring them closer, only to have Aiden seem to resent him even more. Still, he wouldn’t give up.

But he could tell by the set of Aiden’s expression that now wasn’t the time for bonding, so he let Aiden walk away, back into camp, alone with his thoughts.

Roadhouse headed to the rise where he’d talked to Sirus earlier. He squatted on the ground beneath the generators, heedless of the noise created by the machinery. From this point, he could see the various areas where fire crews were bedded down for the night and the tents off to the right of the IC and base-camp staff tents. Behind him was a harsh medley of sound—the washers and dryers chugging away in the laundry trailer, metal grinding on metal as Pulaskis, chain-saws and shovels were sharpened for another day of work—battling to be heard over the hum of generators.

Rummaging in his pack, Roadhouse pulled out a plastic
bag stuffed with dog-eared letters. Carefully, he sorted through the envelopes until he found one in particular, pulling it out as gently as if it were a precious piece of antique glass. He withdrew the folded paper from the envelope and started reading the scrawled handwriting slowly, as if every word weren’t already etched in his memory.

Aiden,

We saved a family from the fire today. Their little boy had dark eyes, like yours. It made me wonder how you’re doing. Are you behaving for Abuelita? Are you riding the red bike I got you for Christmas? If you were here, I’d ask you to play catch. I’d show you off to my friends and then tuck you into a sleeping bag under the stars. The stars are so close up here at night that you can almost touch them. If you were here, things would be different.

He’d scribbled “Love, Dad” as illegibly as he could beneath the brief missive. It was the way he signed all of his letters, as if he weren’t sure he deserved the title or the right to express the sentiment after all the mistakes he’d made.

Ignoring the ache in his knees that had become as painful as the emptiness in his heart, Roadhouse continued to stare at the paper and dwell on the lost opportunities of his youth. He’d never thought he’d end up like this—alone, having nearly outlived his usefulness and with no place to go. He doubted he’d be able to pass the stringent physical exams next year. The time had come to retire.

Too soon.

Someone laughed across the compound. Roadhouse looked up in time to see Aiden take off his boots and slide into his sleeping bag on the ground. Weather permitting, Hot
Shots slept out under the stars. Tents took time to pack and space to transport, not to mention they were stifling in the heat. Roadhouse tilted his gaze up to the sky, where only a few stars peeked through the blanket of smoke.

He’d seen Aiden walking with the pregnant Fire Behavior Analyst. It was unlikely that Aiden saw any action from the woman. But he had been with her. And now he was upset.

Looking down on base camp, Roadhouse wondered what that might mean.

A flicker of hope ignited in his chest.

“C
OME ON
, Q
UEEN, LET’S SEE
what you’ve got,” Spider challenged his new charge as they clawed a hand line out of the mountainside the next afternoon, trying not to think about his meeting with Becca the night before.

The Silver Bend Hot Shots had been ordered to build a firebreak on the safer western boundary of the fire, this time with the aid of two other Hot Shot crews. Once it was done, they’d burn the area from their line to the advancing fire, halting its progress in this direction. “Or are you a little princess with nothing left to give?”

Victoria hacked at the ground with her Pulaski with a fervor that would leave her running on empty in another twenty minutes. The heat and unyielding ground would take the steam out of her arms quickly.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got enough juice to clear a path to that ridge,” Victoria assured him, although her voice lacked the conviction to inspire confidence.

“We’ll see.” Spider glanced over to the ridge. Smoke rose in deceptive puffs, as if the fire were gasping its last breath. Spider wasn’t fooled. Becca was just as deceptive, and every
time he thought of her carrying his child, he had the same sense of doom he felt when working on this fire.

The blaze was stalled a half mile to the north. Spider knew it was just teasing them, waiting for the right moment to roar back to life. In which case, Spider and his team, including Victoria, had to be ready to make for safe ground.

Where was the safe ground with Becca?

Victoria was at the front of a group of five Silver Bend Hot Shots hacking away on the bushes and tree roots in their path. The ridge was still a good hundred yards ahead of them, beyond a thick stand of pine trees. Leading the team, Chainsaw cut trees out of their way while Golden kept lookout. Behind them, five of the crew dug away what was left of the roots and brush with shovels, and five raked the debris with McCloeds, a compact, sturdy rake. Logan brought up the rear, raking any missed debris out of the way.

They operated efficiently when everyone pulled their weight. Spider was going to make sure Victoria understood this, otherwise she’d have to quit.

“Don’t let him beat you, Queenie,” someone encouraged from the back of the line.

Eyeing the group, Spider walked uphill until he stood next to Golden.

“If this is your new way of keeping their spirits up…man.” Golden shook his head, and then continued quietly. “Don’t break her. We need her. I don’t want to get classified ‘ineffective’ because we can’t field a full crew, and be sent home early. This is my last shot at overtime this season, and I don’t want to come home without a full wallet. Lighten up.”

Under the burden of his discovery about Becca, Spider found it impossible to be upbeat. He didn’t want to be a father. He wasn’t the fatherly type. Being a father meant the end
of…of…the life he loved. More than anything, he wanted to hear Becca say that the baby she was carrying wasn’t his. And if she said otherwise…well, he’d do what had to be done, whatever that was. He just wasn’t ready to think about that yet.

He looked over to where Victoria worked. Keeping her and the others on the crew safe was what was important. Distractions, like the possibility of fatherhood and deceitful, beautiful women, had no place out here. “I don’t want Victoria to snap either. She’ll either bend or break. If she can’t cut it, so be it. I’m not going to go easy on her.”

“I never took you for such an ass.” Golden had a way of staring at you that made you want to confess all your secrets and sins.

“Yeah.” Spider forced a grin on his face and kept his sins to himself. “You just thought I was an everyday, ordinary ass. But I’m not going to let her slide just because the season’s nearly over and I’m not going to let her assume her performance is acceptable. You know out here that one screw up multiplies until the entire team is at risk.”

“That’s cold, man.” Golden shook his head.

“Is it? Do you remember the first fire of the season? The one right after we found Logan’s Aunt Glen in the mountains?” Spider looked at Victoria, then at the rookie next to her, O’Reilly. Should he be worrying about the rookie, too? He had a kid, didn’t he? And he’d frozen when the order had first been given to run the other day.

Damn. Now he was seeing weakness everywhere.

“Technically, Thea and Logan found her,” Golden corrected, pulling Aiden’s attention back from his mini-panic attack.

Spider waved that small detail aside. “They got lucky.
Anyway, we went to New Mexico afterwards for that fire and Victoria choked.”

“She did not choke,” Golden protested, a note of warning in his voice. There were limits to his patience. “I’d know if she choked.”

With a quick shake of his head, Spider defended his assessment. “That was the first time I realized she wasn’t cut out for the Hot Shots. She kept falling behind as we hiked out of there, until she just wasn’t behind me anymore.” It was Spider’s job to bring up the rear and account for stragglers, regardless of whose unit they were in. “So I backtracked until I found her and I waited while she puked her guts out trailside.” Spider dropped his voice as if someone could have heard them over the chain-saw. “You don’t do that unless you’re losing your nerve.”

“Come on, you’ve been on her case from day one.” Golden wasn’t buying it. “Face it, she’s the first female Hot Shot we’ve had and you don’t accept her because she’s a woman.”

Spider had no problem with her being a woman. Yet, he knew that Golden wouldn’t want to hear about Spider’s worries concerning their safety on this fire. The men didn’t talk about their fears. So without a word, Spider moved back to the line, stopping behind Victoria to hack at a root with his Pulaski. Sure, she’d had a solid first year, but being a Hot Shot was about endurance.

“You need to ease up,” he said quietly. “You can’t push yourself to the limit, without keeping something in reserve.” The way she was pushing herself, she’d never make it if they had to run for a safety zone.

“You can’t break me,” she said just as softly.

Spider wasn’t so sure.

“Hey, Spider, I saw you last night with the Fire Behavior Analyst,” O’Reilly called out after a few minutes. With little to oc
cupy their minds during such physical tasks, wildland firefighters were notorious talkers and latched onto any event as a source of entertainment. “Has your taste in women changed?”

So much for having a private conversation with Becca at base camp. At least no one suspected Becca might be carrying his kid.

Hell, who was he kidding? She hadn’t come out and said it, but that kid was his. Spider still couldn’t believe she’d offered him a way out. It was tough raising kids. For all her holier-than-thou attitude, she ought to know that she shouldn’t be doing it alone.

The question was: How badly did Spider want to be a father? That is, a better father than his dad had been, because Spider wouldn’t repeat his father’s parenting mistakes and have his kid resent him.

A father. The idea was horrifyingly intimidating.

“His taste has changed, alright. To
older,
pregnant women,” Doc said, as if Spider needed clarification. “This winter, he’ll be cruising the retirement village for dates.”

The countercomments and rounds of laughter indicated the mood on the crew had shifted, lightened. At Spider’s expense.

“Might want to save your breath, Doc,” Spider warned, a bit of venom in his tone. “As soon as Victoria burns out, you’re switching spots.”

“I’m not burning out.” Victoria stood, wiping sweat from her brow.

“She won’t burn out. She’s tough,” Doc defended her.

“Why don’t you switch with her now, Romeo? Yeah, I’m not kidding. Make the switch.” Victoria was visibly slowing and the last thing Spider needed was Doc, with his suave ways, making a play for his teammate. A within-team romance was the last distraction they needed right now.

Victoria would be royally pissed at anyone Spider sent to replace her. Anger kept you going.

Yeah, Doc was the perfect choice.

“T
HIS IS THE KIND OF FIRE
you tell stories about to your grand-kids, eh, Roadhouse? Wicked slopes, out in the middle of nowhere, inaccessible by fire-engine crews, forced to engage in fire-at-your-boots combat. It’s my kind of heaven.” From his place in line next to Roadhouse, Bart sighed happily, wiping his forehead with his blue bandana. Why wouldn’t he be happy? At forty, he had a wife and two kids ready to spend the winter listening to his stories.

Roadhouse grunted. Had he been ten or twenty years younger with a family at home, he would have reveled in this fire and the challenge it presented, too.

As it was, Roadhouse couldn’t wait for it to be over! His knees traitorously ached with every move he made. He wanted to sit in a chair somewhere for a day with his feet propped up, talking to Aiden, making up for the mistakes of his youth.

Only, Roadhouse didn’t want the fire to be over because this was almost certainly his last one. This close to the flames, the smoke hung heavy around them. He filled his lungs with gray-brown air, savoring it as a smoker about to quit smoking might his last cigarette.

Days after Aiden and his team had nearly been consumed by a tunnel of fire, Roadhouse found his team assigned near Aiden’s. The fire burned low meadow brush thirty feet away
as gentle as a ringed campfire. His team had eked out fifty feet of brush across a rise on this southern edge of the blaze, working their way down toward the Silver Bend Hot Shots. Hopefully, the fire wouldn’t be able to cross the line they were building. With little more than a puff of wind in the air, barely more than five miles an hour, the fire was currently a tame beast heeling upon command.

The superintendent of Montana #5, Jack Strand, thought that meant the fire would soon be contained. Roadhouse knew better. There was a perverse character to this fire, as if it had split personalities.

Working with deliberate movements, Roadhouse kept one eye on the ground fire. According to the Fire Behavior Analyst, the winds could pick up late in the day, creating wind tunnels that would fan the meek morning embers into more than one hundred and fifty terrifying feet of flame, gobbling whatever lay before them in mere seconds.

Jack laughed somewhere farther down the line, pointing to a grizzly lumbering through the stand of pine trees below them. Roadhouse shook his head in disgust. The superintendent wasn’t even radioing the other teams in the area to warn them that a bear was making its way out of the fire’s path. Jack was so irritating that no one had come up with a nickname for him. Privately, Roadhouse thought of him as Jack-ass. Roadhouse had never wanted the responsibility of leadership, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know what it took to be a good leader.

A super should position himself higher than the rest of the crew where he’d be more likely to notice any abnormal activity on the fire or feel the stirrings of the wind. Instead, this moron stood at the bottom of the line, joking with his buddies and letting Incident Command—miles below them, val
leys between them—determine when conditions turned dangerous.

About sixty feet down the mountainside, Roadhouse noticed a flash of yellow in the trees. It was Golden, wearing a yellow fire helmet, doing an advance scout ahead of his crew, as a good leader should. After staring a few moments at the fire, he turned his face skyward as if reading the weather. On a quick turn of his heel, Golden returned the way he’d come.

Something about the way he moved, quickly and with purpose, worried Roadhouse.

Aiden was down there, working along the edge of that large stand of pine trees. It was dangerous to be working blind like that without a good superintendent to watch over you. Roadhouse tried not to worry about Aiden, but it was hard not to when you knew the potential danger of an unpredictable wildfire. He’d lost too many friends over the years to take the job of wildland firefighter lightly, and he had too many regrets about his kids already.

“Do you need an engraved invitation to move, Monsieur Roadhouse?” Bart asked from behind him, with a poor imitation of a French accent. “Or do I need to kick your butt outta my way?”

Roadhouse ignored him, lifting his face to the heavens as Golden had done. No wind caressed his face. The crackle of the ground fire was gentle, almost lazy.

What had spooked Golden? Or was it his own overactive imagination reading more into Golden’s action than there was? Perhaps some misplaced desire to watch over Aiden as he should have done years ago?

Just one hundred feet and they’d have completed the first successful firebreak on the southern boundary. Bending to his task, Roadhouse tried not to worry. Even now, he could hear
the grind of chainsaw against wood as Silver Bend cleared a ten-foot wide path through the trees.

The Fire Behavior Analyst hadn’t been happy that they planned to hem in the fire on this slope. He’d seen her frown when the IC announced the day’s duties. There was risk here.

Roadhouse worked faster, ignoring the pain in his knees. According to the meteorologist, the afternoon wind would kick up in the late afternoon. It was barely two-thirty now.

Something orange danced into his line of vision. Roadhouse looked up from his work.

Feather-light embers floated and twirled across their line. A breeze brushed tauntingly against his cheek, then returned with a much stronger caress.

The afternoon wind was early.

Had Golden sensed the change? Would Aiden be pulled back to safety or be trapped in the trees below?

A quick glance revealed the obvious— Jack-ass had no clue yet. Roadhouse waved him over, gestured to the fire with a nod of his head. “The wind’s starting to pick up.”

Jack gazed around, sniffed the air, seemingly unconcerned. “So?”

“So? Don’t you think we ought to consider pulling out?” It pained Roadhouse to even suggest it, but Aiden—

“Hell, no. You don’t see Silver Bend retreating to a safe zone, do you?”

“Not yet.” But he hoped it wouldn’t be long before they did.

“Let me tell you something, old-timer. We don’t pull out until the DoF crews do. Wouldn’t want a reputation as a chicken, now would we?” Jack-ass slapped Roadhouse on the shoulder.

There was a difference on the fire line between being brave
and being stupid. Jack-ass hadn’t learned that difference, had probably never scrambled up a steep slope praying that he could outrun the fiery dragon at his heels. To him, being cautious was a sign of weakness.

Roadhouse was helpless to do anything but his own task, because the only way to ensure Aiden was safe—other than to retreat—was to complete the line. Roadhouse bent and scraped at brush, ignoring the feeling that the wind was increasing, that the fire had suddenly awakened and was doing more than creeping toward them.

“S
PIDER, A WORD
.” Socrates waved Spider over as the team came into base camp after another wasted day fighting the fire. Silver Bend and Montana #5 had hiked in before dawn to defend a ridge. Ten hours and one bear sighting later, they hadn’t been able to finish their line and start back-burning since the fire had raced down the mountain in the early afternoon, cutting them off above and below, nearly trapping them in a triangle of fire on that tricky slope.

Squinting in the late afternoon sunlight, Spider had been casually looking around to see if his father’s team was in base camp, which would mean the old man was okay. They’d been cut off from the Montana #5 team and Spider hadn’t seen them anywhere yet. A quick glance at the expression on the Incident Commander’s face, however, and a feeling of dread rippled through Spider’s gut. Socrates was about to deliver bad news, information Spider was going to reject. His dad couldn’t have been trapped in the fire. He was too seasoned for that, even if his team was under-trained.

He gave Socrates his complete attention.

“I’m pulling you onto IC for a couple of days.”

Expecting bad news of a more personal nature, Spider’s
jaw clenched as his entire body went rigid with relief and dread. He bit back a smart-ass reply, managing one word instead. “Why?”

“Morale is low and you’ve proven…
insightful
when it comes to creative ways to keep a team’s spirits up.”

Translation: You’re good at making an ass of yourself.

Spider frowned. Was that the reputation he’d created for himself after ten years of firefighting? Or was Socrates just trying to make him toe the line? The old man wasn’t beyond giving out duties that were meant to put you in your place.

He caught a glimpse of his dad limping over by the laundry tent, looking relatively unscathed.

Spider was going to be a father soon, whether he liked it or not. Good fathers were upstanding citizens, serious, responsible, early risers. Did Socrates see any of that in Spider?

Probably not. Socrates was constantly telling Spider to grow up.

It was this attitude toward Spider that convinced him this “assignment” was his punishment for the boxer incident, perhaps Becca even had a hand in it. Of course, she had. He clamped his lips together to keep from swearing and making things worse.

Socrates clarified, “I’m making use of your talents. There haven’t been any fights yet, but the tension level in camp is ratcheting so high I expect one at any time.”

That was too much for Spider’s short fuse. “You know I’m much better at starting fights then stopping them.” As a thin, wiry guy in school and then a thin, wiry man on the Hot Shot roster, Spider was often seen as an easy target. He’d learned early that he couldn’t let people push him around or he’d forever be looking over his shoulder.

Socrates narrowed his eyes and Spider found himself
caught in the older man’s gaze. When Socrates finally spoke, his words dripped with warning. “You’ll be serving as my assistant for a few days. I need you to work with the support units here in base camp, find out what they need help with, and tell them what it’s like up there without being the voice of doom.” He glanced around. “The last thing we want is people making decisions without hope. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.” Spider did get it. He had to take his punishment like a man, jump when Socrates snapped his fingers, and hide his frustration behind a pleasant smile. He just didn’t believe he could play the obedient assistant for longer than a day or so. There was, after all, one heck of a fire on this mountain, and even though it made him nervous, he’d rather be nervous out there than shackled here in base camp.

“Start with the Fire Behavior team.” Socrates pinned him with a cool stare. “I believe you still owe Becca Thomas a debrief on that blowup a few days ago.”

Spider couldn’t suppress a groan. Cheer up Becca? That would be awfully hard to do when he hadn’t decided whether to forget that her baby was his, as she seemed to want him to do, or tackle the enormous role of fatherhood—a role as doomed to fail as this bogus assistant assignment.

“T
HINK ABOUT IT
, J
ULIA
,” Becca prompted for what felt like the umpteenth time in five minutes, trying to keep her eyes open against the pregnancy fatigue that usually swept over her in the afternoon. “What’s the fire going to do tonight?”

“I thought you already ran the simulations,” Julia said instead of answering the question. “Can’t we just go with those predictions?”

“Systems crash, bugs appear and inputs can be wrong.” The baby played her ribs like a bass drum, eliciting a weary smile
from Becca. The underside of her bra and the back of her shirt were damp with sweat. Becca wanted out of the stuffy tent, longed to step out into the late afternoon breeze. It would still be hot, but at least the air would be moving. She shifted in her chair as best she could with her swollen ankles propped on an empty milk crate, wondering, despite herself, where Aiden and Victoria were and if they were safe. “So, what’s this fire going to do tonight?”

“It’s going to burn something. All it’s been doing is eating up acres.” Twenty thousand so far.

“The satellite picture shows where the fire burns hottest,” Becca prompted patiently, giving Julia a huge clue. If Becca couldn’t get the management job without Julia excelling, Julia would excel. Becca wouldn’t accept failure. She’d mold Julia into a success story if both she and Julia had to go without sleep every night. “Where are the winds?”

Julia let out a ponderous sigh and rubbed her eyes. Becca must have been keeping her up at night with her frequent trips to the bathroom and tossing on the narrow cot, because Julia’s eyes were puffy again.

“Hello, ladies.”

Aiden’s voice.

Becca went cold. The baby quivered deep inside her, as if anticipating its daddy.

Be calm.

But her heart raced. And her eyes were wide open now.

Julia spun around, releasing a breathy
Oh,
the word so loaded with welcome that Becca believed Aiden was here to see her assistant.

With as much grace as Becca could muster past her suddenly bruised, stupid ego—because she had no right to feel slighted that Aiden found Julia attractive— Becca lifted her
puffy ankles off the milk crate and turned to face the man who had the power to make her life as a mother miserable.

He looked like hell in his grimy uniform, with a face smudged with dirt and sweat, and eyes drooping from exhaustion. Becca knew Silver Bend and another crew had been sent out last night for a double shift in the hopes of creating a fire line before the afternoon winds picked up. She tried not to sympathize with Aiden because he looked like every other firefighter just off a long shift. Yet, there was a mantle of defeat that seemed to weigh him down and tugged at her heart-strings.

Needing something to do other than sit and stare at Aiden, Becca gathered up the pencils and maps on her desk. “We’re busy. Maybe you could come back to see Julia later.”

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and stared at her. Finally, he shook his head. “I’ve been sent over by Socrates. He wants you to pick my brain about the fire since you’ve only seen it on a computer screen.”

Becca’s skin grew hot. “If you’re implying we sit down here in base camp with our eyes glued to the computer screen—”