Page 1 of Light My Fire

One

His knee had turned into a melon, achy and soft, and Tucker Newman’s entire body throbbed, right down to the marrow. Please, just give him one night without trouble.

Without ash in his hair, smoke gritting his eyes.

Without the lurking sense of danger that tonight, someone might die.

Sheesh, he was getting morbid.

He was just angry, mostly at himself, the kind of fury that settled into his bones and simmered, a quiet frustration that he couldn’t burn away.

It was quite possible he’d lost his edge.

Tucker leaned against the bar and tried to get his head back into the now, the black, the fact that they’d all lived.Hello.

“C’mon, pal, it shouldn’t be that hard.”

Tucker stared at Vic, the bartender for the Midnight Sun Saloon, her hair pulled back into a thinning blonde ponytail, her lips pursed, annoyance in her eyes. She fisted a bar cloth on her beefy hip.

“Right.” She’d offered him plenty of choices—three on-tap brews, the standard bottled beers.

Behind him, shouts rose. Which meant he should probably order his wings to go. Because a glance in the mirror behind the bar at his exhausted but wired teammates—eight hardy smokejumpers who’d just stepped off the line with him—told him the night was only going to get rowdier.

“Ginger ale and a basket of wings.”

Vic grabbed a glass and reached for the bar hose.

The Midnight Sun Saloon reminded Tucker of the Ember Hotline back home in Montana. Pictures of local heroes on the walls, neon beer lights reflecting against a long, mirrored wall that held bottles and glasses. Tables covered in red vinyl cloths, a scuffed wooden floor, and a television mounted in one corner that played a satellite-beamed replay of the Super Bowl, already forgotten in the Lower 48.

This Alaskan version of the local grub joint, however, hosted an unfair share of elk and reindeer antlers, a moose head, and two grizzlies with their incisors bared. Half-lit Christmas lights still hung from the polished wooden beams overhead, and dark, smoky logs held up the low ceiling embedded with decades of smoke, grease, and raucous music.

Home sweet home up here in the wilds of the last frontier, one hundred miles north of Anchorage.

Tucker turned around, leaned against the bar, and cast a babysitter gaze on his team.

The Jude County Smoke Jumpers. Seven men and one woman—sloughing off a ten-day firefight in high decibel laughter bouncing off the collection of amber-colored bottles and not a few take-to-their feet callouts over the rerun football game playing on the flat screen.

A tired, edgy, courageous bunch that he loved more than family.

Because, well, they were hisonlyfamily, weren’t they? Tucker glanced at Riley down at the end of the bar, leaning on his elbow, chatting up a blonde with her back to the room. Riley held a brown bottle of something in his grip, gesturing, brown eyes alight, probably telling a whopper about the fire they’d just climbed out of.

Across the room, Reuben, their big sawyer, and petite jump pilot Gilly were huddled together in a booth in the front of the saloon, sharing a pizza.

Gilly and Reuben, Riley, Jed and himself were all that remained from their restart three years ago, after a tragedy wiped out seven members and decimated the team. Three years shouldn’t count as seasoned in the world of firefighting, but when you started with more than half the team as rookies every year, it had fallen to Tucker to step up and help train.

Lead.

Babysit.

And tonight, he might have his hands full.

Riley walked over to an ancient jukebox and popped in a quarter. “The Boys Are Back in Town” hit the speakers and with it, some karaoke from the patrons.

“It’s going to get loud tonight.”

Tucker turned—he hadn’t noticed Jed join him at the bar. He slid onto a stool beside Tucker.

“Probably.”

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