do the Q&A.
She could imagine now how it’d go.
What was the rating on the largest fire you encountered this year?
Big.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Here.
What’s your biggest weakness?
Talking.
When the hour struck one, and not a second before, Ellison jogged up from the food hall and onto the field. If someone’s posture could shout belligerence, his did. He held himself so erect she’d have expected his collarbone to snap with an accidental shoulder twitch. Everyone else seemed to pick up on it too. Absorbed it so well even that when he asked for questions, no one said a word for a long time, until Lauren shot her hand up. To help him out, of course. Not just to torture him. To get the ball rolling. And because she wasn’t scared of a grumpy off-season forest ranger.
“You’ve been at it two seasons. Have you had any close calls? Or, you know, back when you were a combat firefighter? That could be cool to hear about.”
He shouldn’t look so surprised, she’d only had forever to dwell on what had gone wrong last time. Marine combat firefighter? More impressive than the daughter of a local chief who only let her into the fires when she was able to outmaneuver him.
She wasn’t outmaneuvering Ellison. He held his tongue long enough that it seemed like he was translating words in his head, and then produced a miserly portion to answer only the first part, ignoring her question about his surly marine firefighting days. Another hand went up and the conversation moved on.
Where was the biggest blaze?
Did he enjoy the off-season? What did he do?
Forest ranger. Clearing brush. Controlled burns.
Nailed it!
Biggest mistake people made in the field?
Most useful advice to someone starting out?
That last one was the one that tripped him up. His mouth opened and closed no fewer than three times, and she could all but see him sorting through his options of advice to dole out. It meant nothing to her if he had so much advice to give he couldn’t decide on what was best, but when he spoke, he sounded like someone parroting words given to him at some point. Like he didn’t believe a word of what came out.
“Your team is your biggest asset. Be a team player. Watch out for your team. Follow orders.”
One look around confirmed that everyone thought this advice was basic, but he cut the questions off, having just scraped five, and sent everyone for their woodland run.
Everyone but her, the one who’d actually heard the chief’s orders. She went to fetch her things from the boot of her car, and on her way back through, stopped beside where he sat on the grass, hands behind him, propping himself up.
“Go Team, eh?”
He ignored her question again, his gaze fixed across the field to the wooden steps that led up to the rough, woodland running track where he’d sent them. “Not running?”
“You forget, I actually heard what the chief said.” She grinned down at him, not that he was looking, and put down her duffel. “I don’t see you running either.”
“I will. When the crowd thins.”
“So will I.”
“They need to do it.”
She hadn’t questioned that. Of course, they needed to do it. It was called Hell Week for a reason. Every one of them was supposed to come out in better shape than they’d gone in, and no one got better by sitting on their butt, enjoying the blistering afternoon sunshine, as he was doing. “No argument from me. I’m just getting my gear moved into a cabin first.”
“Cabin assignments haven’t been made yet.”
Contrary creature. Looking for things to pick apart? Lent more weight to the notion that he just didn’t want her there.
She could really tick him off by sitting down beside him, where he looked far too comfortable, his muscled legs sprawled out in the grass. The man wasn’t bulky, but he was dense and lean in a way that made the shape of every muscle down his arms and legs show under hair-dusted skin.
He’d had a certain soldierly hunkiness before, but now he looked like he’d dulled all his sharp, military corners except for those of his physique. Longer hair. Loose cotton clothes. White and gray, no khaki or green anywhere. And he spent enough time in the woods that he wasn’t as bronzed as he’d been either.
All softening touches. And somehow he was more churlish. Strange that years after leaving combat he’d become less friendly. By the look of him, and the way he’d stood apart from everyone, this man was the one who most needed a friend. What had he even been saying?
Oh, right. She was picking her own cabin, not waiting on orders. Blah-blah cabin shenanigans. They would’ve made cabin assignments today if everyone hadn’t been called to the field for an emergency.
“Do you really think the chief wouldn’t want everyone having a bed?”
“They do things a particular way.”
“And they can do things that way tomorrow.” She shrugged, shifting topic. “What’s your plan?”
“Truck.” He looked up at her finally.
Back to one-word answers.
“Did you have a stutter as a child?”
“What? No.”
“Propensity for mispronouncing words?”
“No.”
“Do you have some kind of a Samson situation going on in reverse? The longer your hair gets, the weaker your vocabulary?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You were more talkative last time we met,” she answered, “even if you weren’t exactly Mr. Conversation. Did something bad happen that you find painful to revisit?”
He actually paled then and she immediately felt bad for asking. Suddenly it was something she couldn’t joke about. Something bad had happened. And now he was a rookie.
No smokejumpers had died, she would’ve heard if there had been any deaths. They were so well trained and prepared they could go decades without a fatality.
“Nothing happened.”
The man was not a good liar, at least not when directly questioned.
Lauren’s friends were mostly men, due to the nature of her profession. She wasn’t a native speaker of Dude Language, but she had fair fluency. In this kind of triggering
