Page 41 of Smoke Season

“I’ll do you one better,” he told her as Claude saw himself out with a promise to return at first light. “How about you sleep with me in Daddy’s big bed tonight?”

“Like . . . a slumber party?”

“Exactly.”

Setting her onto the king bed, Sam lay down on top of the comforter Mel had bought half a decade ago, trying to allow Annie’s presence toground him. His daughters were his stability, as crazy as that sounded, given Annie’s condition. His magnetic north, pointing him toward a sense of purpose. And knowing his purpose usually calmed Sam.

Tonight, this calm was short-lived, as Annie tugged away her O2 mask and succumbed to another fit of coughing. Sam patted her back softly, just as he’d done for her as an infant and as a toddler. Just as he’d seen Claude do. It never got easier.

It would forever feel unnervingly unnatural to him, watching a small child catch her breath after only a few minutes of play, watching her seek out a seat to sit quietly while the world spun along without her participation.

“It’s to be expected, nothing out of the ordinary in her condition,” all the specialists told them. They educated the Bishops with graphs and maps of the human heart, illustrated the path of oxygenated blood through the network of arteries and veins spanning throughout Annie’s body. “You see how much more effort it takes?” they all pointed out. “You see how much harder her heart has to work? Normal for her. All normal.”

Yes, Sam saw. And there was nothing normal about it. Becoming educated on the anatomy of the human heart made it intrinsically worse, somehow, knowing exactly why Annie felt so winded. Knowing exactly what was broken inside her.

Only True seemed immune from coddling Annie. Picking her up without a care in the world, she tossed her on her back like a sack of potatoes, not like the fragile specimen everyone else saw, and gave her a piggyback ride to whatever next activity eluded her. She said things like “C’mon, kid, let’s go,” not “Do you need another rest, Annie?” She expected her to keep up with Astor, to take on both hidingandseeking when they played, to get her oar in the water whenever she took them out on the river for a day trip. If anyone was pampered by True, it was Mel, not Annie. Oh, Sam suspected why, but not a day went by that True didn’t act classy about it. Besides, could Sam blame her?

Was Mel finally getting some sleep at the station tonight? As Annie’s breathing grew more rhythmic, he checked his phone. Two missed calls. He texted Mel back with a thumbs-up and anAnnie okay for the night, too tired and frustrated to do more before falling into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 20

July 12

6:00 a.m.

Thirty-six hours after the spark that ignited the Flatiron Fire set the week on an entirely new trajectory, True woke to a radio report citing that the blaze still raged at under 20 percent containment, with weather that continued to defy normal heat and humidity levels.

Just rain already,she thought fervently, rising from her Paco Pad next to Astor in the Eddy office to peer out through the gloom of the deck. They’d been too exhausted last night to even make their way to Sam’s apartment upstairs. The events of the evening came back to her like a bad dream. Fallows, threatening them. Sam ... God, the look of suspicion on Sam’s face, the potential for outright disappointment waiting in the wings behind it, had cast her right back to the bank of the Outlaw, seeing that same expression on Vivian. Was she destined to let down everyone she cared about in the same twenty-four hours? If so, she guessed she could count on wronging Mel next.

Which had her staring out in the direction of the river corridor again, trying to read the weather. Was it a trick of the low, hazy light, or had the sky grown overcast somewhere above the smoke? Rain could be a blessing, but it could also come with lightning, and more lightning was the last thing Carbon needed right now.

She’d promised Astor her famous river pancakes, complete with Nutella, so she returned to the kitchen to hunt up ingredients, determined to stay in the good graces of at least one Bishop, trying hard not to think about making these for Emmett and Vivian just days before. She’d volunteered to stay over with Astor because she loved the kid and wanted to help Sam and Mel, but also because she’d dreaded the idea of being left alone to ruminate on what couldn’t be.

She’d just dumped the Bisquick into a bowl when the Eddy door creaked open, the unexpected intrusion causing the box to slip from her fingers. Pancake powder puffed in a cloud around her face.

“It’s just me.”

“Shit. Mel. You scared me.”

But the fear only settled in more adamantly when True turned to face her. Mel had bad news. She just knew it. “What?”

“I just came from my morning briefing. As the Flatiron Fire spreads, it looks like it’s heading south by southwest, as I feared, which means—”

“The Outlaw,” True supplied in a resigned whisper, the name of her beloved river tight in her throat. “God, Mel, it’s bad enough for the river road to close, but if firefighters are actively—”

“I know,” Mel hissed. “I know.” Her voice was even tighter than True’s, maybe even close to tears. The stress was consuming both of them, and Mel probably wouldn’t admit it, but the loss of Sam’s trust had to be eating away at her, too.

True rounded the corner of the bar to place her hands on Mel’s shoulders. She was back in fresh yellows, the heavy fabric rough under True’s palms. “Just breathe. We’ll think of a plan.”

Mel shook her head wildly. “You heard Fallows.” She mimicked his crude drawl. “There is no Plan B.” She looked up at True. “If the ammo box fails to show, we’ll never see this last payoff needed to keep Annie current with her meds. She needs refills as it is.”

Closure or no closure, fire or no fire, True would not let that scenario come to pass. Even if her hands were as tied as everyone else’s. “Then we’ll come up with a Plan B of our own.”

“I don’t see how.”

“If the fire’s actively threatening the river corridor, maybe I can get a rapid tag for my place. Access the river that way.” The county-issued tags allowed evacuated homeowners back onto restricted roads and property to retrieve possessions and assess damage. Of course—

“You know those are only for useaftera fire,” Mel said, shaking her head again. “Not to gointoone.”

---