Page 56 of The Outpost (Jamison Valley 4)
He sat on my cot and I obeyed, plopping down next to him.
“Fuck.” He started rubbing his jaw as my hand nervously twirled some hair. “What are the fucking chances? We never use this place. I can’t remember the last time there was a fire on this side of the ridge. The one year when I don’t want anyone up here and now it’s going to be crawling with people.”
The odds were not in my favor. This was the longest string of bad luck I could ever remember.
“And what a fucking time for me to take a vacation,” Beau said. “If I had been in town, I could have steered everyone somewhere else. We need a fucking telephone out here. It’s going to cost a fortune but I’m having one put in all the outposts in my jurisdiction. They should be able to run a line by the power poles.”
Beau was rambling, something I’d never seen him do, and his fretting was doing nothing to ease my worries. With every word, I just felt guiltier for putting him in this position to begin with.
Part of me wished he had been in town too, but at the same time, yesterday had been wonderful. That waterfall hike had soothed so many of my troubles. And our kiss this morning? I couldn’t regret that. Still, I just kept adding to Beau’s stress level.
“Sorry,” I said. “This is my fault.”
“It’s not your fault. Shit happens. Murphy’s Law, I guess.”
“I could go back to town,” I suggested. “Maybe hide out at the ranch with Felicity and Silas.”
“Not an option. I wouldn’t put it past Ivan to come back. Right now, I don’t want you anywhere near town.”
I smiled at his protectiveness and fell into his side. He threw an arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer.
“Why didn’t you tell Michael and Nick who I was?” I asked.
“The fewer people who know about your situation, the better. I trust them both but let’s not drag them into our trouble if we don’t have to. If we have to tell them, we can, but for now, let’s go with the fake story.”
“What if someone on the crew recognizes me? Or talks about me when they get back to town?”
He sighed. “I don’t know what else to do. We’re going to have to take a chance and go with the fake story. Fingers crossed people buy it.”
“There’s no way I can pull it off, Beau. Why did you have to make my pretend job about bugs? I hate bugs. I don’t even know what a pine beetle looks like.”
He chuckled. “Sorry, it was the first thing that came to me. Just do your best to be vague and avoid the subject completely. Stick close to me and we’ll keep people off that topic. With any luck, the crew will get the fire contained in a day or two and everyone will clear out.”
“I have a bad feeling about all this.”
He sighed again. “Me too.”
We sat quietly for a few minutes. As the trees rustled outside, my mind swam through all of the things that could happen in the next hour. Would someone on the firefighting crew recognize me? If I did need to escape the outpost, where would I go? I had come to feel safe and secure here.
I liked it here.
“Come on.” Beau unwrapped me and stood. “Let’s go outside.”
He didn’t hold my hand as we walked, which didn’t surprise me. We needed to have a long conversation about that kiss and how quickly things between us had escalated, but now wasn’t the time. Right now, he was Beau Holt, mountain-man hero. I was Sabrina MacKenzie, beetle lover. Yuck.
As we emerged from the trees and into the meadow, I noticed a change in the air. The normal bright-blue sky had a filmy overlay and the fresh smell was now tainted with smoke. My eyes immediately started burning. From the meadow, I couldn’t see a plume of smoke but there was enough of it in the air to determine the direction from which it came.
“So, how did the fireworks show go?” Beau asked Michael.
Michael blushed but just said, “Good.”
“It was awesome,” Nick said, patting Michael’s back. “Best year yet.”
“Congrats. What kind of stuff did you light up?”
The men started talking about the fireworks as I stared at them dumbly. How was this fire business not driving them crazy? It was driving me crazy! How could they be so calm? Of course, they were all used to this and none of them were on the lam from a dangerous criminal family. I had a few more problems on my mind. But still, fireworks? Couldn’t that conversation wait until later?
“Have you ever been around a fire crew before, Sabrina?” Nick asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
