Page 35 of Smoke Season

“Raise her again,” he said. “Even if the blaze gets stopped short of the Wild and Scenic river corridor, the smoke’ll be hell.”

“It’s hell everywhere,” she told him ruefully. “Which is why I’m worried about Annie.”

Sam’s shoulders straightened, like he was trying to ready himself for round two. “I told you I called Claude and—”

Mel silenced him with an uplifted hand. She had only mentioned her worry as an explanation, not as a criticism. Together or not, they still had to see eye to eye, tethered as partners in parenthood. No one told you about that part of post-separation life. How no one could just walk away, dusting their hands of it all. Sam’s mantra echoed back to her, as it always did during moments like this.We’re a team.It took both of them to take care of Annie, and that was truer now than ever. But Sam was right. Mel’s trouble was with trusting.

“Listen,” Sam said, “I think ...” He trailed off midsentence, his face a scowl. “What’s he still doing here?” he asked, presumably more to himself than to her.

Mel still turned to follow his stare across the Eddy. Though not as chilling as the idea of John Fallows in the flesh, the sight of Chris standing there by the dartboards like he owned the place was still decidedly unsettling. He was, after all, only a small step removed from the one person Mel absolutely, without question, didn’t want to deal with today. Besides, even looking at Chris Fallows made her feel dirty.

A quick sidelong glance at Sam confirmed that he seemed as wary as she felt. Her irritation with him burned off like alcohol under fire.

“He’s definitely on my last nerve today,” he told her.

“He was in earlier, too?”

At Sam’s curt nod, Mel fought back a new wash of trepidation. Was Chris here on behalf of his father? Was Fallows worried True wouldn’t stay the course on the river? Or, and this possibility appealed even less,had he decided the situation was dire enough to warrant his presence at Temple Bar himself? Every scenario made the nerves dance a staccato beat along Mel’s spine. Fallows had warned her and True from the start: he didn’t want to hear excuses. Problems weren’t a part of their agreement. The Fallowses flat-out didn’t tolerate them. Just look at young Zack, serving time. Take the trimmers roughed up or robbed or both by the competition. Consider Mark Bishop himself to be a cautionary tale; not even the best friend of Fallows was safe from persecution.

Mel forced herself to ignore Chris, which normally would have been highly satisfying. Hell, any other night she’d have done it for sport. Now it took everything in her to shrug carelessly at Sam. Code forLet it go.

She redirected her attention to Astor, who wanted to know if she was going to take a shower now that she was off duty for a few hours.

“You’re smelly.” She laughed.

Mel pinched her arm lightly. “What, you don’t like eau de woodsmoke? It’s this season’s hit fragrance.”

Astor rolled her eyes with dramatic flair worthy of the teenager she would one day become. “You tell dad jokes worse than, you know, anactualdad.”

Mel tried not to read too much into Astor’s observation. The truth was, she and Samhadtraded roles to some extent since the separation and Mel’s promotion to battalion chief. Would she lose her feminist card for letting her new role as chief breadwinner instead of chief nurturer feel like a demotion of some sort? She had to admit: Sam had come a long way from the moment she’d shown him the plus sign on their first pregnancy test.

“What if I’m as bad at it as my own dad?” he’d managed to voice. “What do I know about being a father?”

Mel had tucked herself under the crook of his arm, so that her body fit snugly against his side. She’d hoped the heat of her would be a comfort, a reminder of how well they fit together. “You know plentyabout being my husband,” she’d reminded him. “Fatherhood will feel just as natural.”

She had been right, she thought now, watching Sam coax Astor into finishing her grilled-cheese sandwich. And they’d been happy, absorbing the implications of that pregnancy test together. Sam had taken on the challenge of fatherhood with the same fierce determination with which he took on everything else. Top grades in high school, just to prove he couldn’t be lumped in with the likes of Chris. The best scores on the Army physical the recruiter had ever seen. He’d felt a bit panicky, he’d told Mel, signing his life away, hurtling himself toward two tours in Afghanistan, but who the hell other than Uncle Sam was lining up to support him?

Sam had returned home to Carbon a decorated veteran. “And after all that, you’re going to let an embryo the size of a pea unnerve you?” Mel had joked on that inaugural day of fatherhood. She smiled now at the memory, only to sober again quickly. One thing she knew with near certainty: they would still be together, she and Sam, had Annie’s health not brought them to their knees. What was harder to determine: whether this fact was a crack of light in the darkness, or simply proof of a breach too severe to weather.

“Mom,” Astor whispered now, “is the fire out yet?”

Her heart did that thing it did these days, whenever her children needed her and she could not deliver. She’d be at the station and not able to lend a hand with Astor’s homework. Or in her sparse apartment without the DVD the girls had requested for that night. Or far worse: right next to Annie and still powerless to help her breathe. She swallowed, trying to dislodge the horrible lump that swelled in her chest.

“Not yet, kiddo.”

Her mind skidded to Chris Fallows waiting for her, just steps away in the grill. Because that had to be why he was here. She thought of the houses that had already burned below Flatiron, right down to the framework, still steaming where streams of water hit glowing embers.She thought of the stacks of medical bills thathadn’tburned, in Sam’s home office on Highline. And she swallowed again.

“But we’re on it, Carbon Rural and all the other teams,” she told Astor, purposely ignoring the quick stab of worry she felt for Annie as she said so. Claude had things under control, and Sam would be back with her soon. He’d as good as promised, hadn’t he? “It’s only a matter of time before we have a handle on this thing.”

She let herself absorb these words, willing herself to believe them.

CHAPTER 18

To say it was a tense ride back to Carbon would be an understatement. Only Emmett seemed oblivious to the tension in the air between Vivian and True; several times during the winding journey through the mountains, their driver, Don, a retired trucker from Carbon, caught True’s gaze in the rearview mirror and lifted his eyebrows as if to ask,What the fuck?

True just shrugged at him, hoping he’d assume the out-of-town mom was just stressed about the fire and smoke. It would certainly be warranted. She leaned back against the seat of the shuttle van, trying to keep her eyes open in the dark. Usually, once the sun went down in the mountains, the summer heat disappeared with it, but tonight it was still unusually hot, the interior of the van stuffy and unforgiving.

She dug into one of the coolers at her feet and offered the two cans she grabbed at random to Emmett and Vivian: a Dr Pepper and a Sprite, respectively. Vivian had informed True of a strict no-high-fructose-corn-syrup-or-caffeine rule for Emmett at the start of their trip, but tonight she handed over the Dr Pepper with a quiet sigh. The sound of Emmett popping the top sounded unnaturally loud in the van.

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