Rescued By Her Rival

As much to stave it off as to just get the task complete, he picked up speed. A vigorous run was never good for deep conversation.

She kept up.

He glanced to the side and found her facing forward, eyes on the path. At least there was that.

She didn’t ask again, but the cadence of sneakers on compact earth began to sound too loud, too heavy.

“We’re careful. Haven’t lost anyone in a long time.” He spoke truth, words that’d probably comfort her, even if she should be afraid of the fire. Everyone should be afraid before they leaped in. “But I should be there.”

“Fires come earlier every year. There was always a chance the call could come while you were at camp.”

“So?”

“So, you can’t do everything.”

He snorted.

“What?”

“Funny, coming from someone who wants to be the best at everything.”

She didn’t say anything to him then, but he could hear her muttering under her breath. When he looked over, he saw her shaking her head and staring ahead like she could happily murder him.

“What?”

“You don’t get it. I have to be the best.” The words came out and she piled on speed, borrowing his tactic.

She didn’t get to drop that and run away.

“That’s crap,” he said when he pulled level again, although the more they argued, the harder the run became. “There aren’t tons of women in the service, but there are some and they’re treated the same.”

She didn’t slow down, kept up the speed even when she had to leap roots twisting over the path. “Have you asked them that?”

“Asked them what?”

“If your perception matches their experience.”

He stopped running. Did that mean something had happened to her?

She slid to a more graceful stop and looked back at him. “We’re not supposed to keep taking these breaks.”

“We weren’t required to run,” he reminded her, wanting to ask, but also not.

She thought for a second, then shrugged and propped her hands on her hips, breathing deep and fast, waiting for him to answer the question she’d dropped.

“I don’t socialize with them.” Or anyone else. This was the most he’d chatted with anyone that he could remember. At least anyone that wasn’t an animal.

“I noticed.”

“So I never asked them.”

“Hence my point. How can you know what they experience without asking when you see them for only short periods and don’t talk to them?”

Another point.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, because the truth sounded a lot more pathetic. He was usually pretty good at reading people, and leaned on that ability to keep from having to ask questions. From having to talk. From having to get involved.

She looked at him for a long second, then nodded, and jerked her head in the direction they’d been running. “Offer of couch or cabin still stands.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.” With that, she got back up to pace, leaving him to run a few yards behind and consider his options.

The idea that anyone would be treated unfairly bothered him, even though he’d seen it frequently enough in life. It jarred with the whole team life Treadwell pitched. It also didn’t line up with what he wanted the service to be. A teammate, though temporary teammate, was offering him a place to sleep.

It might not be so bad to take the couch she offered. But it would be dumb, if simply touching her hand made parts of his body go tingly.

Last time he’d brought a tent and never shared quarters with anyone, using only the communal showers and dining facilities when he was awake and not actively sweating to death. Having any roommate was a step up from that, proof he was trying to be a team player. But volunteering to room with the woman who’d made him see her as a woman, not just another coworker, would be the kind of stupid Treadwell already seemed to think him.

As they neared the end of the second lap, about to cross their five miles off for the evening, he sped up to catch up with her so she wouldn’t leave immediately when she stepped off the path.

“Hey.” He touched her arm to stop her, but as soon as he did, the words he’d wanted to say left his head. Her skin was so hot and slick...firm...

The touch of his hand, no matter how quickly he drew it back, stopped her in her tracks. She turned slowly back to face him, and stepped forward one pace, breaching that bubble of empty space he usually kept around himself. Out in the open air, the last light of day was fading, but the lights on poles around them buzzed, beginning to burn, and he found those astonishingly green eyes staring back at him.

The calm he’d been seeking tickled at the edge of his perception, like a hint of honeysuckle on the night breeze, and he wanted to touch her again.

Swallowing, he took one step back.

“If someone dumps on you because you’re a woman, tell me.”

As soon as he’d gotten the words out, before he saw more than her little ears pulling back as her face lit with surprise, he stepped around her and jogged off. It was almost chow time, and he was hungry and in need of a shower away from honeyed golden skin and perceptive green eyes.

No way would he take her up on the invitation to share a cabin. He was used to roughing it. Sleeping outside in a sleeping bag hardly qualified. He’d wait for his cabin assignment.

* * *

The next morning, Beck awoke in the cab of his truck, neck stiff and head clogged with thoughts he generally avoided. He’d dreamed about her. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d dreamed about a woman.

It wasn’t one of those dreams, it wasn’t even her pestering him with a million questions. They were just sitting on the porch of his little cottage, playing cards and drinking beer, and she’d kept looking over the top arching edge of her red-backed cards, her eyes even greener for the proximity, and flashing mischief.

There was something very sweet about it, although even trying to explain why just left him wanting to call it boring. Boring dream. Cards. Beer. Porch. Stupid thing to dream about. He’d rather have had some kind of wild sex dream about her. If he’d taken her up on the offer to sleep in the other bed in the cabin she’d claimed, he probably would’ve had something more cinematic in his head last night.

So he was up early, and made it to the dew-covered field just as the sun came up. Mist still rose from the grass, the morning siren hadn’t even blasted, but a few other folks were coming down from the cabins.

“Here.”

Her voice came from the side suddenly, and he turned at the waist to see her, his neck refusing his order to turn. She looked as fresh as a daisy, and had a steaming paper cup in each hand, one of which she held out. “I don’t know how you like coffee, but there was a coffee maker in the cabin, and I doubted you had one in the trunk.”

“Truck,” he corrected. The quirk of her lips said she’d knowingly made that verbal typo. He probably did look like he’d been sleeping in a trunk.

“Black, but I have sugar in my pocket,” she added.

God help him, he’d bet she did. Sugar. Sweet, addicting sugar...

“I like it black.”

“Thought you might. You probably also like it a week old when it’s condensed down to an inky liquid you could use to strip an engine block.”

“You’ll get used to roughing it.” He took a sip with some effort, the bitter shot of liquid a fleeting wake-up jolt. “Men in my unit used to pack coffee grounds in their lower lip like tobacco when on guard duty.”

“Gross.”

“Or chew coffee beans directly.”

“Double gross.”

“When you’re tired enough and the threat of a court-martial rides on you staying awake...”

She smiled at him then, and he really looked at her. Even in the low morning light, it was the first thing he saw. Malachite. Beautiful. She was girl-next-door cute, but her eyes...

He took another drink of his coffee. Talk. Ask her something. Just stop thinking. She liked to talk. “You’re not former military.”

The siren blast that called everyone to morning PT startled her, causing her hand to jerk, and heavily creamed coffee sloshed over the side.

“Should’ve warned you,” he said, watching her grumble and shake the liquid off her hand. “Every morning. Get used to it.”

“I’ll get a sippy cup,” she muttered, wiping her hand on her hip.

He grinned at the image, so opposite from the tough exterior she portrayed. Cute. Funny. Able to laugh at herself. That was something new.

When he opened his mouth to comment, the sound of movement behind him had him turning. More folks streamed in, but nowhere near as many as there had been yesterday—the teams were still out. Treadwell, however, was back. He walked in from the main buildings.

“Wasn’t sure they were back,” he murmured to Autry.

“Looks like he just got here.”

The observation wasn’t wrong. Treadwell’s hair had the spiky, sweaty quality of a head that had spent hours in a helmet being baked from the outside, and the sturdy, vibrant man from yesterday looked like he could’ve been knocked down with a breath.

“Does he always look like that after a fire?” She kept her voice low, for his ears only.

A closer look and the contrast between the man he saw and what he expected immediately concerned him.

Without another word, he broke away from Autry to catch the chief before he got to the group.

“Everyone okay?”

It was indirect, and the least offensive way to find out if Treadwell was well. Start with the crew, work his way back.

“Had to put Kolinski in charge for this one,” Treadwell muttered, shaking his head. “Never seen one so bad so early.”

The answer was both oblique and telling. “I can take these guys this morning if you need to catch some sleep.”

The old man smiled at him, the first time in a long time, and for the moment he felt like he was doing things right. “I can make the morning PT, son. Might take you up on it for the afternoon. I’m passing you lot to the other trainers for classroom time after. We’re hitting the tower.”

“So soon?” The tower usually came in the second week.

“I want to make sure everyone’s ready for the season as early as possible.”

Translation: he thought they might need to pull in some rookies early. The fire must be really bad.

He looked north, and with the brightening sky, even a forty-minute flight south of the wildfire, he could see haze against the pinks and blues of dawn.

Treadwell started forward again to begin PT.

When Beck looked at Autry, he could see the concern still there. He hesitated only a moment, then moved back to her side to continue their quiet conversation. “It’s a bad one.”

“Did we lose anyone?”

We. She’d already invested, even not knowing anyone. He could hear it in her voice, and although the same worry creaked down his stiff spine, he knew how to divorce himself from it. To keep making good decisions. It was anyone’s guess whether or not she could.

“He would’ve said. He didn’t. But we’re hitting the tower for classroom today.”

“What?”

Her voice, far more shrill than its usual pleasant timbre, drew his gaze.

“You don’t want to do the tower?”

“We haven’t done the pack run yet.” He could see her trying to moderate her reaction, waving a hand as if to dismiss the alarm still there in her features, even though her voice had dropped down off the treetops.

Afraid of jumping? That would really get in the way of the job.

Couldn’t be that.

“You’re getting worked up because the schedule is different than you expected.”

She cleared her throat, waved her hand again and finished off her coffee. “I’m fine with it.”

Bull.

“Wouldn’t be surprised if the pack run was this morning’s PT.” He let her off the hook, but then they quieted to listen as Treadwell announced they’d be doing a body carry around the track this morning.

“Or not.”

The chief asked if there were preferences for partners, and he glanced over just in time to see her hand shoot up and point to him once and then at herself.

“Ellison and Autry.” The chief marked their names on the list.

“You want me to carry you?”

“No. I’m going to carry your grumpy butt,” she answered without pause. “Your neck and your night in a trunk would make it hard for you to carry anyone.”

“I don’t need to be carried.”

“Shut up, Beck.”

She used his first name, and rather than annoying him he found himself smiling.

“You’re pushy, Lauren.”

“Damned right I am. I grew up in a fire family who still don’t want me to serve. Dad’s chief in our house, and my three big brothers are also all in the same station. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

“You’re the one who’s been obsessed with me the past two years.”

She paled then and in response shoved him with one hand, just hard enough for him to sway a little. “Shut up. I wasn’t obsessed. I just remembered. And then your name was everywhere, like the universe was gloating at me.”

“I see. I don’t know what you mean about my name being everywhere, but whatever you say.” He didn’t usually tease people. Or play. Or flirt. Crap, he was flirting. What was even being talked about before he started down this alien path?

Her family at the fire station...

“Why would I know about your family?” he asked, but Treadwell blew his whistle, calling everyone to the track.

“Autry’s kind of a legendary name in the fire service. Maybe in the forest service, it’s not.”

He didn’t pay attention to that kind of thing, which he almost regretted now. It sounded like they’d paid no small part in turning her into a tight little ball of competitive energy.

Which he hoped didn’t mean she’d over-extended herself by volunteering to carry him.

“I’m heavier than I look, you know.”

“You look like you’re made of lead.” She finished her coffee and held out her hand for the empty cup he was also holding. “See if you can make it to the track, iron man. I’ll meet you there.”

“You know if you drop me or crap out, we’re both in the muck.”

She turned around, shoulders popping up. “Trust me.”

Easier said than done. But the truth was, she’d be the one getting a strike if she couldn’t do it, he was already in. If anything, Treadwell would look upon him allowing her to carry him as a mark of his team spirit, especially as it was the most undignified position. Especially when she was almost a foot shorter than he was, and at least sixty pounds lighter.

Regardless, they were soon both at the track, Treadwell saying, “Once around, Ellison. Don’t drop her.”

“I’m carrying,” Autry corrected, making the chief pause and look her up and down once, then shift the same measuring but obviously tired look to him.

“I told her I was heavy.”

“And I told him to trust me,” she countered, and then slowly turned to look across the track, three lanes in, where two of the guys were snickering, and he remembered the name of neither of them. It took her turning for him to pick up that they were laughing at her. At the idea of her carrying him.

This was it. This was what she’d been talking about last night.

They weren’t snickering out of concern, it was a joke to them. They didn’t think she could do it.

He felt a whiff of shame as the next thought crystallized: he’d questioned whether she could do it too, even after she’d said it. Still questioned it, had only made a decision to trust her, which was something he’d never do with the bozos, now doing the far more obnoxious version of what he and Treadwell had just done.

After his offer, he couldn’t let it stand, regardless of the state of his neck.

Beck surged forward, ignoring the stiff, pinching pain in his neck, and didn’t stop until he was chest to chest with the one who had laughed the loudest. “Problem?”

The man stood up straighter, meeting his gaze and holding it, a challenge there. Briefly, then he took a step back, not saying anything in response.

It was always a gamble in a crowd of tough guys, going straight for the most aggressive maneuver, but whether it was Beck’s seniority or the amount of disgust dripping off him, the man backed down.

“She’s really small,” he said. “If she can carry you around the track, I’ll buy her a case of beer.”

“Yeah, she’s shorter than you, and she’s probably tougher,” Beck replied, not backing off yet but not escalating things. “Don’t bet against someone on your team, jackass.”

“All right, you two.” Treadwell sounded weary, but the chief’s words were enough to bring them back to their corners, which was when he noticed Lauren looking at him strangely. Like she either couldn’t believe what she’d just seen or didn’t want to.

“Runners, pick up your wounded. Once around the track,” Treadwell called, and then added to Lauren, “Don’t drop him, no matter how annoying he gets.”

“Yes, Chief.”

Was she annoyed? He’d told her he’d have her back if someone started giving her grief.

He didn’t have time to ask, or even to suss it out. She grabbed one of his wrists to control the lift, planted her shoulder a little roughly right in his middle to fold him over, and slowly began to lift.

It didn’t take more than a second for his density to become apparent. There was a moment where it seemed she wouldn’t be able to straighten her knees, but with a grunt and a wobble made it fully up.

His natural reaction was to make sure she really wanted to do this, but even thinking the words made him feel like the jerk who’d been laughing.

There was nothing funny about this. Her butt was perched right there in front of his face because of the way his longer torso hung over her shoulder, and he got a really good view of it, up close and personal.

She’d chosen gray gym shorts that were loose enough to allow free movement—not exactly baggy but not tight either. Short enough for active freedom but not indecent. They were perfectly ordinary cotton shorts, but up close they might as well have been a bikini. He could do nothing but look, because talking had been hard enough when they’d just been running through the woods, but now with her carrying his heavy weight? The best thing he could do for her would be to shut up.

And the best thing he could do for himself was ignore the way her bum jiggled as she began to walk. To walk too fast.

“Not a race,” he reminded her rear end.

“You’re heavy, need to hurry.”

Her voice showed strain, but she still kept going, and any thoughts for his own dignity faded against the jiggling reminder of her femininity taking up much of his vision.

There was a mole at the top of her left thigh, just below the hem of her shorts. The tingling resumed in his...

Damn it.

He closed his eyes to picture less pleasant things. Moldy bread. The smell of roadkill...

They needed to make it around the track once, the regular track. One quarter mile. But by the first bend she shook with the effort and he’d grown tense all over, trying very hard not to let his body show how pleasant he found hers.

Her stride became shorter and her steps less quick. No matter how fast she wanted to go, physics couldn’t be ignored.

Focus on that. Being dropped and her washing out of camp weren’t sexy.

“Easy.” He should help somehow. There was nothing he could do about his weight, but he could make himself more stable and easier to carry. Decision made, he wrapped his free arm around her hips to stop bouncing around and she wouldn’t have to engage her core so deeply to carry him.

“Hard.” She grunted the one-word response.

He was significantly heavier than the pack she’d likely trained for. He was also awkward. This was a harder test than the pack, even at the drastically shorter trek.

“Your dad would be proud of you doing it.”

It seemed like the supportive thing to say. Call on fond feelings, a desire to make people who loved her proud of her accomplishments. And it did seem to bolster her strength, though the grip she now had on the back of his thigh suggested it wasn’t with warm, happy feelings.

Dad wasn’t a good subject. Dad who was a chief in her firehouse. And this suggested he wouldn’t be proud of her or she didn’t want him to be.

This was going to be a spite victory. If they made it around.

She made it to the second bend, and three quarters of the way around the track on determination, but made it the rest of the way with far quicker steps, and with one foot over the line, bent to let him down.

And then kept on bending, to sprawl on her back on the packed earth and fine gravel.

“Good work,” Treadwell said, just as Beck reached down to drag her back to her feet.

She clearly didn’t want to get up, despite how uncomfortable it had to be, lying on little rocks, and he had to drag her.

Once on her feet, he returned the favor, wedging his good shoulder into her middle until she folded over, and carried her a short distance onto the grass to let her down again.

“Still the first around.” He nudged her once again prone body on the still-dewy grass.

Her breath was great, chest-expanding gulps, and she could’ve probably blown up a Zeppelin in one go. But it was slowing. “Yay, us.”

She went to clap, highlighting the trembling, uncontrolled quality to her movements.

“Do you get low blood sugar?” he asked, suddenly concerned she’d exerted herself too much before breakfast.

“No.” She held her hand up to him again, and he took it to help her sit back up. “Just over-exertion. I think I was wrong. You’re not an iron man. You’re that hairy one with the metal bones.”

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