Flaming Desire - Part 4 (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) Read online

  Matt seemed to understand, and to my surprise, reached out a hand and gently clapped me on the shoulder before returning to his former position and wielding his pickax. Most of us on the line carried only hand tools. Pickaxes, fire axes, or shovels; we had to do the best we could without any heavy equipment. I continued to scramble upward, foot by foot as we made our way up the slope. Sam was positioned ahead of me, the others struggling slightly down slope behind me.

  We typically kept a distance of between ten to twelve feet between us, but without my realizing it, Sam had gotten nearly twenty feet ahead of me. I frowned, thinking that either I had slowed down or she was moving too quickly. I glanced behind me, saw one of the other firefighters about eight feet behind, and beyond him, Matt working on his section of the slope. I turned back toward Sam, opening my mouth to call out to her to slow down. Sam didn’t hear me, but just rounded a bend in the slope.

  I jumped when I heard a scream that cut off almost as soon as it started. I looked up. Sam? Where was she?

  I quickly scrambled up the slope toward where I’d last seen her, trying to catch sight of her along the way. Nothing. Where had she disappeared to? My heart thudding in increased alarm, I glanced down, saw a faint dust trail quickly dissipating in the breeze.

  “Sam!” I shouted and watched in horror as she tumbled the last fifteen feet or so down the cliff’s side, flashes of her yellow jacket appearing and disappearing as she slid through the underbrush, her arms flailing as she desperately tried to grab hold of something to stop her rapid descent.

  “Sam!” I screamed again, praying she could grab on to something, anything before she tumbled off the edge.

  She didn’t.

  My stomach tightened and my breathing stopped as she went over. Then, to my horror, she landed face first onto the narrow shelf below.

  I turned down slope, where Matt and the others were scattered, working hard, oblivious to what had just happened. “Matt!” I hollered. He didn’t hear me. I yanked the handkerchief down from my face as I glanced down once more at Sam. She wasn’t moving. I quickly headed down slope, slipping and sliding. “Matt!”

  He heard me and looked up, frowning. I’m certain he saw the look of alarm on my face. He paused, straightened, and then took a few steps toward me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sam! She slid down slope, down a short cliff to a shelf below!”

  Matt stood frozen for a moment, his eyes wide with alarm. Then he turned and shouted over his shoulder toward the others. Several men raced up to meet him, and together, we headed back up slope to where Sam slipped over the edge.

  “Shit!” Matt swore, looking down. He looked at the two men who had followed him. “We need some rope!” He grabbed his walkie, tried to alert the crew further down slope, but all he received for his efforts was a loud crackling. I tried my walkie with the same result. Either our position blocked the signal or we were too far from the other crew.

  “Sam!” I hollered, trying to find a way down to her. It was steep, but possible. I took a few steps toward the edge, but a hand reached out and grabbed me, pulling me back.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  I swung around and gazed at Matt was surprise. “I’ve got to go down! I think I can make it—”

  “You’re not going down there,” he snapped. “It’s bad enough that she went over the edge, but you can’t risk trying to get down there without a harness and rope.”

  I gazed up at him; saw the look of fear in his expression. For Sam or for me? I shook my head. It didn’t matter. “We’re out of range for the walkies,” I said. “Someone is going to have to go down far enough to send a clear transmission.”

  He nodded. “You go. I’ll try to get down there and see how bad she’s hurt.”

  I shook my head. “Matt, what makes you think you can get down there and I can’t?”

  He said nothing as we all stood at the top of the slope, gazing down at Sam, lying still on the shelf about fifty feet down.

  “One of the guys near the base of the line has rope. If we had that, I can rappel down there,” said one of the other men, gazing between Matt and Sam lying below. “I’m a rock climber, so I could probably get down there without it, but getting her back up is the problem.”

  Matt shook his head. “We’re probably going to need the Stokes basket,” he muttered.

  I saw him looking at me, frowning. I couldn’t quite understand why he was giving me such a look. Before I could say anything, ask anything, he gestured with his chin.

  “Hurry up, Jesse… get down slope and send a transmission as soon as you get within range. If you pass one of the others on your way down that has rope, send him up.”

  With that, he turned away from me. I stared at him a moment and then realized that now was not the time to ask a bunch of stupid questions. I had no idea why he thought I couldn’t go down and help, but I wasn’t about to waste precious time arguing. I turned and began to scramble down slope, nearly tripping several times in my haste.

  After I had descended about one hundred yards, I began to see some of the other Hotshots. They saw me coming and paused in their work, instinctively knowing that something was wrong. I quickly told them of the accident and told them we needed rope. One of the men I spoke to pointed, telling me that there was a guy a short distance around a crook in the trail who carried rope slung over his shoulder.

  I dashed down as soon as I heard that, and in a matter of another minute or two, had spotted the man. His back was to me as I ran up to him. I quickly tapped him on the shoulder and when he turned toward me I told him he was needed up slope, there had been an accident, and they needed his rope. Without a word, he quickly began to ascend while I continued to descend.

  Every twenty yards or so I checked my walkie, but I still wasn’t receiving a signal. I think I stopped every twenty or thirty yards to check. What the hell use were these things if I couldn’t transmit or receive? It seemed to take forever before I was able to transmit.

  Shaking with exhaustion, adrenaline, and relief, I informed base camp of the accident location, requested a rescue chopper, and then, following acknowledgment, I sank down onto my haunches, my knees and legs trembling with exhaustion.

  I sat like that for several minutes, fighting back tears, praying that Sam would be okay. My emotions were in a turmoil, not only because of Sam’s accident and worry for her, but because of everything that had happened since I’d arrived. I was sad, afraid…, and pissed. Afraid and sad that I might very well have ruined everything with Matt, and pissed that I cared.

  Still, I couldn’t dwell on my own personal problems for long. I needed to get back up there, to help in any way I could. Looking up the mountainside, I shook my head and then forged upward.

  By the time I made it a quarter of the way back up slope, I heard the rumble of a chopper passing overhead, heading toward the area where Sam had fallen. I hoped that she hadn’t been hurt too badly, but that had been quite a fall.

  By the time I reached the others, now gathered at the top of the slope, I was about ready to collapse with exhaustion. Leaning against a tree to catch my breath, I peered down. It looked like two guys, one of them Matt, had managed to make their way down to Sam. She was lying face up now, but I couldn’t tell if she was conscious. The helicopter hovered overhead, the Stokes basket slowly lowering on its cable. In a matter of moments, Matt and the other guy had loaded Sam into the basket, strapped her in, and then gestured for the helicopter to bring her up.

  The helicopter hovered in place while the Stokes basket was reeled back into its yawning opening before it quickly turned a one-eighty degree turn and zoomed off toward base camp. I watched as Matt and the other guy slowly made their way back up, hand over hand up the rope that they had tied around a nearby tree trunk. I watched with bated breath until I saw Matt reappear over the edge; first his head, then his shoulders, his waist, and then he pulled himself back onto the slope, not fifteen feet away from me. I
wanted to rush toward him, embrace him, but I couldn’t.

  He rested on his hands and his knees, gasping for breath, his head hanging low. The other firefighter appeared a minute or so later, equally tired. The others slowly and wordlessly drifted back to their former positions, but I remained were I was, gazing down at the shelf where Sam had landed. Matt, now sitting back on his haunches, looked at me. I couldn’t fathom his expression. “How is she?”

  “She took a bad fall,” he finally replied. “Contusions, bruises, a couple of broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, and likely a concussion.”

  “Oh my God,” I said, my hand over my mouth. Suddenly, Matt rose to his feet, his expression dark and angry. I felt horrible. Maybe if I’d been closer to Sam, I could’ve—

  “What the hell, Jesse?” His voice was angry. “How could you let that happen?”

  I stared at him in surprise. “What?” My heart thumped heavily.

  “How far away were you from Sam when she fell?” he demanded.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know… maybe twenty feet—”

  “Why weren’t you closer? You know that the slope is treacherous here! You shouldn’t have allowed so much space between you two!”

  I was speechless. Finally, my frustration cut loose. “Screw you, Matt. We were focusing on what we were doing, not measuring the distance between us! Even if I had been closer, I doubt I would’ve been able to catch her before she slipped—”

  “You might have—”

  “No, Matt,” I responded, growing angry now. Now he was blaming me because Sam had slipped and fallen? I couldn’t believe it. “You know as well as I do how easy it is to get hurt doing what we do. It could easily have been me, you, or any of the other guys down there! It doesn’t mean anyone was being careless! It happens!” He said nothing. “Now I hope to God that Sam is okay, but don’t you dare blame me for what happened!”

  I was infuriated. How dare he blame me for something that no one had any control over? I turned away, blinking back tears. “I need to get back to my position,” I snapped. As I brushed past him, I held my chin high and tried to hide my sense of hurt.

  “Jesse—”

  He reached for me, but I sidestepped his hand. I spied my fire ax lying in the dirt several yards away. I stooped down to pick it up, my muscles screaming in protest. My heart thudded, not just from physical exertion, but from the pain of his accusation. I knew he had blurted out the words because he was scared and worried for his friend, but like the words I had blurted to him the evening before, he couldn’t take them back.

  “I’m sorry, Jesse,” he said as I stomped away.

  “I am too, Matt,” I muttered. “I am too.”

  Chapter 2

  Another day passed. A another day of inhaling smoke and ash, digging, pulling, and yanking at underbrush, sometimes even helping chop down a tree or two.

  Matt seemed to be avoiding me and I wasn’t quite sure what I thought about that, but maybe it was for the best. His reaction to Sam’s accident made me realize how traumatized he still was by his past. Then again, wasn’t I?

  Sam had been airlifted to a hospital in Boise. She’d broken several ribs and her collarbone, but should be okay. I knew that she was likely disappointed that she wouldn’t be returning to the fire line, just as I know I would have been, but we all knew that injury was a chance we took. Burns, broken bones, falls, and collapsing debris and trees were a risk that each of us had to take on a daily basis.

  Sometimes I wished I had eyes in the back of my head so I could watch out for all the dangers that might befall me. I had, over time, developed a heightened sense of watchfulness when I was on the fire line. Some might call me jumpy, but it was that hyper alertness that I relied on to keep me safe from rolling boulders, falling branches, and, God willing, from sliding down a steep slope on slippery shale like Sam had.

  I tried a couple of times to talk to Matt about what happened, but though he apologized, I wasn’t quite sure what he apologized for. I knew he was frustrated with me, but until we had a chance to talk in private, I doubted that I would be able to obtain a decent explanation from him.

  I wanted to talk to Matt about our relationship, or even if it was a relationship. Had everything we experienced up until now just been about sex? Nothing more? If that was the case, I wanted to know. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue a relationship if it was nothing more than sexual release for Matt.

  I wanted more than that, and if not with Matt, then perhaps someday with someone else. I wasn’t in the habit of just sleeping with men for the sake of sex. Of course, sex with Matt was incredible. Just thinking about it made me tingle and wish that he would climb into my sleeping bag again, but in the past couple of days, he had kept his distance.

  In the meantime, the fire was on the move. As Sam had feared, the wind had changed direction. Matt and I had been on the line on the south side of the mountain when we’d received orders to retreat and regroup down at the base camp. On the way down in the crew truck, I was startled to realize that the fire had finally topped the ridge. My heart sank.

  All that work and effort that we had taken during the past couple of days proved fruitless. The wind was gusting at twenty to twenty-five miles an hour, sometimes up to forty, and the fire lines that we had constructed were no match for wind speeds like that. Once the fire had topped the ridge, if could spill over, consuming everything in its path.

  I watched with disheartened dismay as the flames licked at and then consumed acres of drought-ridden pine needles, and sometimes the fire got so close I could hear the pop and sizzle of pine sap as we made our way slowly down the mountain. At one point, both sides of the dirt road we traversed downward were ablaze. We closed the windows to the crew truck, but that did little to keep out the dust, smoke, and the heat of the flames arcing over the road. I had never seen anything like it. It was like venturing through a tunnel of fire. I was afraid if the driver didn’t step on the gas, the tires would start melting.

  Finally, minute by minute, we put some distance between the flames and us. By the time we reached the base camp, it was abuzz with activity. Half of the tents were already down and being loaded onto trucks. Hundreds of men gathered in small groups, most with their designated departments. The National Park Service personnel was where the kitchen trailer used to stand. Groups of Hotshots milled around in different colored T-shirts and jackets where the first aid tent and sleeping tents had been. Further over were groups from the Bureau of Land Management and Forestry Service personnel.

  The command post trailer was still parked, although the maps, charts and lists had been pulled from the outside walls of the trailer. Semis were arriving to hook up the trailers to relocate. I had no idea where we were relocating, or how fast the fire was spreading, although it seemed as if the wildfire was resisting the efforts of hundreds of us in halting its progression.

  When a hand grasped my arm, I startled until I realized it was Matt. I gazed up at him, my eyebrow raised in question.

  “Come with me,” he said, his voice low and serious. “Our group is relocating toward the northwest edge of the fire line on the other side of the ridge.”

  I didn’t say anything, but quickly followed him as he made his way through the throngs of firefighters and Hotshot crews toward one of the transport trucks waiting with the others. We climbed aboard and took a seat near the back. The vehicle was still fairly empty, but I wasn’t surprised. It would take a while for everyone to be appraised of new location assignments, pointed toward the correct transportation vehicle, and so forth. I wondered if I should take the opportunity to talk to Matt while we waited.

  “Have you heard anything more about Sam?” I said, thinking to open the conversation with that.

  He shrugged. “Not since the update yesterday. Why?”

  I looked up at him in surprise. “Why? Because I care,” I said, shaking my head. We sat way in the back, and I thought if I talked low enough, only he would hear me. Other firefighters wearily
climbed onto the truck, took their seats, most of them near the front.

  “Matt, can we talk a minute?”

  He glanced down at me, a blank expression on his face. “About what?”

  “About what happened yesterday with Sam… with us.”

  “I already apologized for the thing with Sam yesterday,” he replied quietly. “I realize that it wasn’t your fault and there was nothing you could have done to prevent her from slipping. I just let my mouth get away with me.”

  “I know, Matt, but I wanted to talk to you about your reaction to—” I was watching him closely and saw him frown. He gazed out the window and then glanced at me. I continued. “Your reaction to her accident.”

  “What about it?” he asked, his eyes now watching as the other members of the Hotshot crew climbed into the truck. He nodded in greeting to some of them.

  “I realize that we both have history, and more than enough baggage to—”

  “I don’t want to talk about this now, Jesse,” he said. “Right now let’s just focus on fighting this fire, okay?”

  I realized I wasn’t going to get him to open up here, on the crew truck, with more Hotshots climbing on every moment. I finally nodded. “Maybe tonight, or the next time we have some time alone together, we can talk about a few things, okay?”

  He nodded and then turned to look out the window. I wondered how much of his current attitude and hesitance to talk to me had to do with my abrupt sharing of my feelings the other day. Once again, I shook my head, disbelieving that I had even said them. It was also extremely disappointing that those three little words could have such an impact on what I thought was our growing relationship.

  I didn’t have too much time to feel sorry for myself, because the truck was soon packed full of Hotshots and we were driving out of the base camp, following several other trucks with more behind us. The trucks raised a cloud of dust that vied with the smoke whirling upward from the fire that had topped the ridge line. A sense of urgency swept through me, so much so that I felt it deep in my bones.