Page 69 of Smoke Season

“I’m sure,” True agreed. “You must have been terrified, waylaid like that.”

Vivian gave a breathy little laugh, like she was slightly embarrassed, but held True’s gaze as she said, “I wasn’t scared forus, True.”

It took a second for her implication to sink in. “Oh.” Vivian still wore a self-conscious smile, and True glanced down first, because what if she was misreading this whole thing? She addressed Emmett again. “Oh, well, I’m just fine, as you can see.” She wiggled her feet at him. “Even my river-sandal tan remains intact.”

Emmett smiled, then peered curiously around her toward the yurt. True remembered her manners. “Come on in.”

Emmett didn’t need to be asked twice, taking in the circular room, from the pine lattice work around the canvas to the river rock and the ladder to the small loft space. “Go ahead and explore,” she told him as she held the door open for Vivian.

“We saw other news reports, too,” Vivian said more quietly, once Emmett had begun the climb up to the loft. “A big illegal marijuana bust was made not far from here. Arms, cash, and ammo, too.”

True’s gut tightened, and she took a step back without quite realizing it. What was Vivian implying now?

But she laid a hand on True’s arm, and that subtle but unmistakable current of electricity flew between them again. “You were credited by name as crucial to the success of the arrest,” she continued, then took a breath like she needed to get out whatever else she had to say before True could interrupt, or maybe even Emmett. “And I don’t know the details, and I’m not asking for them, but I want to tell you how sorry I am. For how I acted, that last day on the river. I shouldn’t have doubted you. You gave me no reason to.”

“Well, that’s debatable,” True joked-not-really-joked, because relief was rolling from her in waves. Vivian didn’t blame her. Vivian didn’t see her in the same light she must see people like John Fallows, and True hadn’t even realized quite how devastated she’d been to think otherwise until right now, with these two people in her Outsider.

Maybe that vision she’d had at the Fallowses’ fence line hadn’t been just a smoke-induced dream. Maybe the spark she felt with Vivian was real, and the connection she had with Emmett could last. Just maybe, she could have what Sam and Mel had, her yurt retreat serving as more than just a backup plan for when she hung up her river sandals for good. Stranger things happened.

The Wus spent the rest of the afternoon at the Outsider, Emmett most enamored with the path to the river, Vivian lingering in the welding and art studio, admiring True’s rapid-tag sculpture with such genuine amazement that True’s heart nearly burst from her chest. When the sun set, a vibrant red in the still-hazy sky, they walked back to the rental car, Emmett dragging his heels at the prospect of being stuck in his seat for the six hours back to Marin County.

“I really am sorry you and Emmett had to experience what you did on the river,” True told Vivian, dragging her heels herself. “It wasn’t exactly the Oregon I wanted to show you.”

“Well, about that,” Vivian answered. “I was hoping I could give you a deposit for next season.”

“What . . . now?”

Because Vivian already had her phone open to True’s rafting website, the payment tab displayed. “Well, yeah. I don’t want to lose my spot.”

True smiled. “Let’s aim for June next year,” she told her. “Much better weather forecasts in June.” She went to remove her hand from where it rested on the open car window, then paused. “Of course, autumn here in Oregon is pretty nice, too. Winter as well, when the snow falls.”

Vivian laughed. “It’s a date,” she told her.

In spring, the morels emerged. Outside Carbon, they popped right up out of the ash between the scars of the firebreaks and the blackened Douglas fir trunks still oozing their bloodred-hued sap. Even as the trees wept for what they’d lost, the soil looked forward, with spiraled, tightly furled sprouts nodding toward the sun.

The ferns and mosses had recolonized the ground first, some as early as two weeks after the Flatiron Fire stopped smoldering, the species with rhizomes—horizontal stems tucked away under the earth—poised to repopulate in the rich post-fire soil earliest. The aptly named fireweed followed, then stubborn milk thistle, peppering the barren ground with pops of color.

Mel took measure of the regrowth every time she and Sam visited True at her Outsider, which was often, now that Fallows no longer cast his shadow over the place. True seemed less guarded these days in every regard, actually, opening her door wide for the first time. Maybe, Mel thought with a smile, it had something to do with the frequent visits from Vivian Wu and her son, despite the fact that their next rafting trip wasn’t for another month.

The girls loved it there. Astor had become a regular apprentice in True’s art studio, helping her create the miniature fire sculptures it seemed every Carbon resident now wanted for their mantel or front yard. What had started as a fundraiser for the fire victims had exploded; word of True’s mountain sculptures had spread and were now in demand all over the West.

“I wish they ‘spoke to’fewerpeople,” True said often, a sentiment Mel certainly shared.

“Fire season isn’t going away anytime soon,” she had to admit.

Which was why it was probably just as well that she and Sam couldn’t afford to rebuild on Highline after using the entirety of their home-insurance payout to settle Annie’s medical debt, including the deductible and out-of-pocket costs following her final successfulsurgery. But he’d just shrugged when Mel had voiced her regret over his lost home.

“Nothing to regret,” he’d said, giving Annie an extra squeeze. “Maybe we should follow Claude’s lead and rent a little place on the Oregon coast.” He’d lobbed this suggestion lightly, but the meaningful glance he sent Mel’s way had her giving the idea serious consideration; a transfer to a less tinder-dry county might just offer the family-work balance she’d been craving for far too long. He turned to the girls. “You kids want to take a break from morel hunting and learn how to go crabbing?”

“Yes!” Astor and Annie had chorused.

“’Course you do. You’re Oregonians,” he’d said. “Born and bred.”

For now, he chased them—yes, Annie included—around True’s yard, leaping over logs and sliding around garden fencing.

“Hey! Watch my herbs!” True yelled, laughing with a lightness to her tone Mel hadn’t heard in ... actually, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard True sounding so free.

“You seem really good,” she told her, because one thing Mel had learned in the last six months: You never knew when flames would lick at your door. Best to say things to people you loved when you could.

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