Chasing Fire
Page 19

“By the time I scraped off the stink, I barely made it from the shower to the bed. Slept like a rock,” she added, smiling at Libby. “Had room service, put in my ninety PT, ate more, and here I am ready to do it all again.”
“Sweet.” Libby spread out her chute. “Room service?”
“Gull brought me a breakfast sandwich.”
“Is that what they call it in Missoula?”
Rowan pointed a finger. “Just the sandwich, but he did earn some points. Have either of you seen Chainsaw?”
“Yeah, I poked in before I ran into Matt. He showed me his stitches.”
“Is that what they call it in California?”
“Walked right into that one.”
“He’s lucky,” Matt said. “Only hit meat. An inch either way, different story.”
“It comes down to inches, doesn’t it?” Libby ran her fingers over her chute. “Or seconds. Or one tiny lapse of focus. The difference between having an interesting scar or...”
She trailed off, paled a little. “I’m sorry, Matt. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay. You didn’t even know him.” He continued his inspection, cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know, not for sure, if I was going to be able to really do it again until yesterday. In the door, looking down at the fire, waiting for the spotter’s hand to come down on my shoulder. I didn’t know if I could jump fire again.”
“But you did,” Rowan murmured.
“Yeah. I told myself I did it for Jim, but until I actually did it... Because you’re right, Libby. It is about inches and seconds. It’s about fate. It’s why we can’t let up. Anyway.” He let out a long breath. “Did you know Dolly’s back?” he asked Rowan.
“No.” Surprised, Rowan stopped what she was doing. “When? I haven’t seen her on base.”
“She came back yesterday, while we were on the fire. She came by my room this morning after breakfast.” He kept his gaze fixed on his chute. “She looks okay. Wanted to apologize for how she was after Jim died.”
“That’s good.” But Rowan felt a twist in her belly as she completed her chute inspection.
“I told her she ought to do the same to you.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Can I ask who Dolly is?” Libby wondered. “Or should I mind my own business?”
“She was one of the cooks,” Rowan told her. “She and Jim had a thing. Actually, she tended to have things with a variety, but she’d narrowed it down to Jim most of last season. She took it hard when he died. Understandable.”
“She came at you with a kitchen knife,” Matt reminded her. “There’s nothing understandable about that.”
“Well, Jesus.”
“She sort of came at me,” Rowan corrected as Libby gaped at her.
“Why?”
“I was Jim’s jump partner that day. She needed to blame somebody. She went a little crazy, waved the knife at me. But basically she blamed all of us, said we’d all killed him.”
Rowan waited a beat to see if Matt would comment, but he kept his silence.
“She took off right after. I don’t think anyone expected she’d be back, or get hired back, for that matter.”
Matt shifted his feet, looked at her again. “Are you okay with it?”
“I don’t know.” Rowan rubbed the back of her neck. “I guess if she doesn’t wave sharp implements at me or try to poison me, I’m cool with it.”
“She’s got a baby.”
It was Rowan’s turn to gape. “Say what?”
“She told me she had a baby, a girl, in April.” His eyes watered up a little, so he looked away. “Dolly named her Shiloh. Her ma’s looking after her while Dolly’s working. She said it’s Jim’s.”
“Well, God, you didn’t know before? Your family doesn’t know?”
He shook his head. “That’s what she apologized for. She asked if I’d tell my mother, my family, and gave me some pictures. She said I could go see it—her—the baby—if I wanted.”
“Did Jim know?”
Color came and went in his face. “She said she told him that morning, before the jump. She said he was really excited, that he picked the name. Boy or girl, he told her, he wanted Shiloh. They were going to get married, she said, in the fall.”
He drew a wallet-sized photo out of his pocket. “Here she is. This is Shiloh.”
Libby took the picture. “She’s beautiful, Matt.”
His eyes cleared at that, and the smile spread. “Bald as a melon. Jim and I were, too, and my sister. I’ve got to call my ma,” he said as Libby passed the photo to Rowan. “I can’t figure out how to tell her.”
Rowan studied the chubby-cheeked, sparkle-eyed infant before handing the photo back. “Go take a walk, work it out in your head. Then call your mother. She’ll be happy. Maybe a little mad she didn’t know sooner, but overall she’ll be happy. Go on. I’ll take care of your chute.”
“I can’t get it off my mind, so I guess you’re right. I can finish the chute later.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks. Thanks,” he repeated, and wandered out like a man in a dream.
“It’s a lot to deal with,” Libby commented.
“Yeah, it’s a whole lot.”
She let it simmer in the back of her mind while she worked. Others came in, and since word of Dolly Brakeman’s return spread, it reigned as the hot topic of the day.
“Have you seen her yet?”
Rowan shook her head at Trigger. Since she’d finished clearing her own chute, she focused on Matt’s.
“Word is she came in yesterday afternoon, with her mother and her preacher.”
“Her what?”
“Yeah.” Trigger rolled his eyes. “Some Reverend Latterly. The word is it’s her mother’s preacher guy, and Dolly’s going to church regular now. And so they closeted up with L.B. for an hour. This morning, she’s in the kitchen with Lynn and Marg, frying up the bacon.”
“She can cook.”
“Yeah, that was never her problem.”