Page 55 of The Outpost (Jamison Valley 4)
“These guys are here because the storm last night caused a fire about five miles up the mountain,” Beau said.
“Sorry, Sabrina,” Nick said, “but you’re about to get invaded. There’s a forest fire crew on their way here.”
“When are your volunteers getting here?” Beau asked his brother.
Michael shook his head. “It’s not my team. We just came here to give you a heads-up. Dylan’s bringing his hotshot crew over from Bozeman.”
“Fuck,” Beau clipped.
Michael winced. “Sorry. I know you don’t like the guy.”
“He’s a hothead and he’s going to get someone killed one of these days,” Beau grumbled and ran a hand over his beard.
“It wasn’t our call,” Nick said. “The wind is working against us and the Prescott FD volunteers is too small for this one.”
I tried to keep up with the conversation while remaining quiet, but it was difficult with my mind stuck on the fact that an unknown number of people would soon be descending on my super-secret hideout.
This was not good. My armpits were sweating and my hands clammy.
“Did we get a flyover to see how many acres we’re talking about?” Beau asked Michael.
“Yeah. It’s about twenty acres right now but you know that terrain up there is dense. That monster’s going to spread fast. We need a retardant drop because a foot crew alone isn’t going to keep it contained. Sorry, Beau, but we had to call Dylan. We couldn’t get ahold of you.”
Beau sighed and rubbed his beard. “It was the right call.”
Michael’s tense frame relaxed at his brother’s approval.
“How far behind you is Dylan?” Beau asked.
“An hour probably,” Michael said. “Figured you’d want to oversee this one. Since you were here, we decided it was as good a place as any for base camp. We told him to just meet us here.”
“Right.” Beau’s jaw was clamped so tight I worried the throbbing vein on his forehead was going to burst. “Did you bring my gear?”
Gear? Gear for what? I thought Beau ran the forest service office and did search and rescue. Did he put out fires too?
I swallowed my questions because as a fake pine-beetle scientist, I should probably know what they were talking about.
“Yeah, we brought your gear.” Michael nodded. “It’s in the truck.”
“Okay.” Beau pushed out a loud breath. “Let’s get it unloaded.”
While the men went back outside, I paced and brainstormed getaway options. Staying at the outpost wasn’t going to work. What if someone recognized me? The world was a much smaller place these days thanks to social media. I had no idea how far the news of my disappearance had traveled but it could have very well spread from Seattle to Montana. I couldn’t afford to be recognized.
And besides that, I couldn’t pretend I was studying some weird forest bug. Just saying the word “beetle” sent chills down my spine. People would see through that lie in a second.
Deciding my best course of action was to be prepared, I started packing my bag. If I needed to get out of here quickly, I didn’t want to leave anything behind, especially my laptop.
I was so stuck in my head, thinking about where on earth I could disappear to, I didn’t hear Beau approach.
“What are you doing?” he asked from the doorway.
I jumped, clutched my heart and then resumed my packing. “Warn a girl, will you? I’m packing.” I shoved a shirt in my bag, then peered around Beau to see if Michael or Nick were close by.
“They’re in the meadow seeing if they can spot the smoke from here.”
“Oh.” I relaxed and went back to my bag. Beau’s footsteps came closer but I kept working. One second I was folding up a pair of leggings and the next they were yanked out of my hands.
“Sit down,” he ordered. “Let’s talk this out.”
