“God, I hope not.”

“Because to my way of thinking, if you were just in it for the fun, me saying I owed you wouldn’t put your back up. So I’m going to give you that favor whether you want it or not. And here it is.” He looked back into Gull’s eyes. “If you’re serious about her, don’t let her push you back. You’ll have to hold on until she believes you. She’s a hard sell, but once she believes, she sticks.

“So.” Lucas held out a hand, shook Gull’s. “I’m going to go have breakfast with my girl. Are you coming?”

“Yeah. Shortly,” Gull decided.

He stood alone a moment, absorbing the fact that Iron Man Tripp had just given his blessing. And thinking over just what he wanted to do with it.

He mulled it over, taking his time walking toward the cookhouse. The siren sounded just before he reached it. Cursing the missed chance of breakfast, Gull turned on his heel and ran for the ready room.

19

After forty-eight hours battling a two-hundred-acre wildfire in the Beaverhead National Forest, getting shot at a few times added up to small change. Once she’d bolted down the last of a sandwich she’d ratted away, Rowan worked with her team, lighting fusees in a bitter attempt to kick the angry fire back before it rode west toward the national battlefield.

The head changed direction three times in two days, snarling at the rain of retardant and spitting it out.

The initial attack, a miserable failure, moved into a protracted, vicious extended one.

“Gull, Matt, Libby, you’re on spots. Cards, Dobie, we’re going to move west, take down any snags. Dig and cut and smother. We stop her here.”

Nobody spoke as they pushed, shoved, lashed the backfire east. The world was smoke and heat and noise with every inch forward a victory. About time, Rowan thought, about damn time their luck changed.

The snag she cut fell with a crack. She positioned to slice it into smaller, less appetizing logs. They’d shovel and drag limbs and coals away from the green, into the black, into a bone pile.

Starve her, Rowan thought. Just keep starving her.

She straightened a moment to stretch her back.

She saw it happen, so fast she couldn’t shout out much less leap forward. A knife-point of wood blew out of the cut Cards was carving and shot straight into his face.

She dropped her saw, rushing toward him even as he yelped in shock and pain and lost his footing.

“How bad? How bad?” she shouted, grabbing him as he staggered. She saw for herself the point embedded in his cheek, half an inch below his right eye. Blood spilled down to his jaw.

“For f**k’s sake,” he managed. “Get it out.”

“Hold on. Just hold on.”

Dobie trotted up. “What’re you two... Jesus, Cards, how the hell did you do that?”

“Hold his hands,” Rowan ordered as she dug into her pack.

“What?”

“Get behind him and hold his hands down. I think it’s going to hurt when I pull it out.” She set a boot on either side of Cards’s legs, pulled off her right glove. She clamped her fingers on the inch of jagged wood protruding from his cheek. “On three now. Get ready. One. Two—”

She yanked on two, watched the blood slop out, watched his eyes go a little glassy. Quickly, she pressed the pad of gauze she’d taken out of her pack to the wound.

“You’ve got a hell of a hole in your face,” she told him.

“You said on three.”

“Yeah, well, I lost count. Dobie, hold the pad, keep the pressure on. I have to clean that out.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Cards objected. “Just tape it over. We’ll worry about it later.”

“Two minutes. Lean back against Dobie.”

She tossed the bloody pad aside, poured water over the wound, hoping to flush out tiny splinters. “And try not to scream like a girl,” she added, following up the water with a hefty dose of peroxide.

“Goddamn it, Ro! Goddamn, f**king shit!”

Ruthless, she waited while the peroxide bubbled out dirt and wood, then doused it with more water. She coated another pad with antibiotic cream, added another, then taped it over what she noted was a hole in his cheek the size of a marble.

“We can get you out to the west.”

“Screw that. I’m not packing out. It was just a damn splinter.”

“Yeah.” Dobie held up the three-inch spear of wood. “If you’re fifty feet tall. I saved it for you.”

“Holy shit, that’s a f**king missile. I got hit with a wood missile. In the face. My luck,” he said in disgust, “has been for shit all season.” He waved off Rowan’s extended hand. “I can stand on my own.”

He wobbled a moment, then steadied.

“Take some of the ibuprofen in your PG bag. If you’re sure you’re fit, I want you to go switch off to scout spots. You’re not running a saw, Cards. You know better. Switch off, or I’ll have to report the injury to Ops.”

“I’m not leaving this here until she’s dead.”

“Then switch off. If that hole in your ugly face bleeds through those pads, have one of your team change it.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He touched his fingers to the pad. “You’d think I cut off a leg,” he muttered, but headed down the line. When he’d gone far enough, she pulled out her radio, contacted Gull. “Cards is headed to you. He had a minor injury. I want one of you to head up to me, and he’ll take your place down there.”

“Copy that.”

“Okay, Dobie, get that saw working. And watch out for flying wood missiles. I don’t want any more drama.”

The backfire held. It took another ten hours, but reports from head to tail called the fire contained.

The sunset ignited the sky as she hiked back to camp. It reminded her of watching the sun set with Gull. Of bullets and blind hate. She dropped down to eat, wishing she could find that euphoria that always rose in her once a fire surrendered.

Yangtree sat down beside her. “We’re going to get some food in our bellies before we start mop-up. Ops has eight on tap for that. It’s up to you since he was on your team, but I think Cards should demob, get that wound looked at proper.”

“Agreed. I’m going to pack out with him. If they can send eight, let’s spring eight from camp.”