Page 14 of Light My Fire

She frowned. “I don’t need babysitting.”

“I know. I need you on watchout.” He pointed to where he’d climbed earlier. “Watch our backs.”

She sighed. “I can keep up.”

“I know. Believe me, I wouldn’t have passed you if you couldn’t. But we need someone to make sure we all stay alive.”

She nodded. “Firefighting Order five. Post a lookout when there is danger.”

He grinned at her as he watched her go.

Make sure these yahoos get back to the ranch in one piece.

Yes, sir.

* * *

It tookStevie twenty minutes to stir up the nerve to go inside the tiny homestead loft cabin. A wide porch overlooked the mountains to the north and west, the mountains hazy in the blue of the morning. The empty rocking chairs practically called to her to come home. To sit and soak in the view, let the memories curl up next to her, to heal, and perhaps even restore.

Or, alternatively, bruise, rend, and destroy.

Perhaps her mother felt it too—the fear that should they call a truce, it might only lead to something darker.

Worse, more bloodshed.

Because it wasn’t like her mother didn’t know Stevie had parked just down the dirt road, her pickup black and shiny in the morning sunlight.

Didn’t know that she’d spent the night curled up on the front seat in her emergency kit blanket.

Maybe she should have gone inside.

Yeah, well, her life was rife with maybes.

She’d woken early under the sauna of the morning sun in the cab, but her mother was already up, a curl of smoke trickling from the cook stove. Stevie’s entire body ached for a cup of coffee, but she waited and let the voices inside her brain wage war.

Stay out of trouble, Stevie.

Tucker’s voice in her head—she’d let him walk into her brain and sit there for a good portion of the night. The way he’d winked at her, the fierce expression of concern in his eyes.

How he’d walked away, swinging his key around his finger, those wide shoulders, his tousled dark brown hair, the kind she’d like to twirl her fingers around.

Oh, good grief. This was how she got namedtroublein the first place. Besides, Tucker was probably already on his way back to the Lower 48, if not at another fire.

But his caution hit the mark. She shouldn’t go inside, stir up the past, reopen the wounds.

Besides, what would she say?“Hey, Ma, how are you?”She knew perfectly well how her mother was.

Lonely.

Angry.

And an “I’m sorry” would probably be met with a “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

Which, of course, wasn’t the truth, but that would only lead to an argument, a rehashing of her guilt, and she’d spent the past three years trying not to drag up the indictments.

She’d had her hand around the handle of the door when her mother came outside, dressed in a flannel shirt, a pair of dirty cargo pants, and work boots. She’d loaded up cut firewood into her arms off the porch and headed back inside.

Moments later, she returned wearing a grimy jacket, embedded with years of oil and grease, and Stevie predicted her morning activity. One of their many vehicles needed repair. No one knew how to turn a wrench like her mother. In fact, there wasn’t much Alva Mills couldn’t do. A born homesteader, Alva had grown up on an original homestead in Homer before meeting her husband—Archer—and moving with him to Copper Mountain.

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