“Where did you boys go climbing?” Michael asked.
Austin held out his cup for more. “We played around on a couple of routes on Red Garden Wall. Is Hawke back yet?”
“He didn’t go climbing with you?” Chey asked.
Austin set his empty cup on the table. “He got toned out for a car fire up on Fourth of July Road. I listened on the scanner for a while. It had begun to spread to the hillside by the time he and his crew arrived, so they’ve had a busy afternoon.”
Now do you feel stupid?
Vic had been worried that she’d made him angry or that he was just ignoring her, when he’d been off saving the world again.
* * *
Eric strippedout of his gear, glancing at the clock on the locker room wall. The wedding rehearsal had started a half hour ago. He didn’t have time for a shower. Unless he wanted to miss the entire thing, he’d have to go as he was—sweaty and smoky and high on adrenaline.
Damn, he loved his job.
He’d arrived at the scene to find an old Ford F-150 and a quarter-acre patch of the hillside on fire. The owner had already popped the hood, letting lots of nice oxygen reach the fire and enabling it to spread. They’d divided into three teams, one for the vehicle and two for the hillside. After that, it had been textbook—apart from the volunteer who’d moved in to overhaul the vehicle fire without full bunker gear or an air pack.
“What the fuck do you think this is—a barbecue?” Eric had shouted at him through his mask. “Get away from this scene, Nelson, and read your training manual again. Move it!”
Eric hadn’t lost a firefighter in the two years he’d been in charge, and he wasn’t about to start now. What would have happened if that vehicle had blown with the kid standing right there, exposed?
Still, it had felt good to be out there, working his body hard, strategizing to beat the flames, taking control of an emergency before it could become a catastrophe. It had helped to clear his head, get his mind off Victoria, put things back into perspective.
Yeah, his life was sane again.
He slipped into his jeans and T-shirt, then swung by his office to shut down his computer and get that condolence card in the mail. He found his cell phone sitting on a stack of papers on his desk. He grabbed it and hurried out to his truck, checking it for calls and messages. There was only one, and it was from Victoria.
All of me misses all of you.
Her words caught him right in the solar plexus, breath gusting from his lungs.
God, he missed her, too.
So much for sanity.
He set the phone aside, figuring he’d get there faster if he just drove and didn’t spend ten minutes trying to come up with some kind of smart, sexy reply.
Two minutes later, he parked his truck behind the inn, which had been transformed into a wedding theme park with a giant white tent and chairs. The others stood together on the back porch, waiting.
Shit.
He climbed out of the truck and jogged over to them. “Sorry I’m late.”
Taylor grinned. “Did you have a nice fire?”
Taylor knew him too well.
Eric chuckled. “An old Ford pickup overheated and ignited fuel leaking through a cracked seal. It burned about a quarter acre of the hillside, but we got it.”
Then he noticed Rose, who walked across the lawn, wafting smoke into the air from one of her sage bundles with a large black feather and saying something, the words just beyond his hearing. “What the hell is she doing?”
“Purifying,” everyone said at once.
Ookay.
“She wanted to change our wedding vows and work in a purification ceremony, but Vic suggested this instead. It’s definitely keeping her busy.”