Page 39 of Light My Fire

“Douse the flank with water, half in, half out of the fire. Starve it of fuel.”

Stevie’s eyes watered as she dumped the water. It sloshed on her legs, but the flames sizzled, white smoke rising from the blaze. She emptied the bucket, nearly to the far edge, then ran back for more.

Meanwhile, the fire had burned up to Tucker’s line and simply died, the black a fine line along the edge of the turned earth. He continued scraping along the forest line, halting the fire there, also.

She was just finishing filling the bucket when he came up behind her, picked it up, and ran it back to the line, dousing the fire that wanted to escape the far edges.

“Fill it again!” he said, tossing it to her.

Then he walked right into the burned area and began to turn over the earth. Great swaths of smoke rose and with it, ash and cinders as he buried the fire into the ground.

The fusee was still lit, and he used the shovel to bang it out.

She returned, the water sloshing on her jeans. He took it from her again and reinforced the edges, then poured the water over the surface.

The fire died, white smoke dissolving into the flames of the meager twilight.

He dropped the bucket and headed over to Stevie, tugging down the bandanna. “You okay?”

She nodded. Sweat dripped down his forehead, and he wiped it with his arm.

Then he picked up the shovel, walked over into the unburned clearing.

He launched the shovel like a javelin into the forest with a roar so guttural that it found her bones and shook her to the core.

Then he fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands.

She stayed away as she watched his shoulders shake.

Six

Stevie shouldn’t have let Tucker come along. Shouldn’t have given in to the fierce look he’d given her back at camp.

Shouldn’t have let her heart be wooed by the idea that she might, for however briefly, have a partner.

Because Vic had been right—she was trouble, every single time—and she couldn’t help the gut-deep sense that she’d dragged Tucker in with her.

Her throat felt swollen, bruised from March’s grip. She kept swallowing, as if that might help dissolve the scratch inside, but she felt like a burr had lodged.

The hour was late, the sun now faded beyond Denali, the sky a bruised, purple haze that had turned the mountains black. Tucker had spent the last hour turning over the dirt around the edge of the fire. Mopping up, he called it. The patch had stopped steaming, mostly.

Stevie sat on the front steps of the cabin and held March’s revolver in her grip, running her thumb over it.

She should have just shot him instead of giving him the chance to surrender. But she’d wanted…maybe to prove that she could do this job.

Like when she arrested her father. When she swore a statement that indicted him. When she testified to the events that put him away.

Sorry, Punk.

No. She was sorry.

Tucker came over. He looked rough—a bruise across his temple where March had clocked him. Reddened eyes, which probably had just as much to do with what happened, quietly, in the shadows of the yard as the fire he’d fought. “Now what, boss?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You said you were in charge.”

She shook her head. “Now I think we wait for reinforcements.” She tucked the gun back in her belt. Looked up at him. He was staring down at her with so much intensity, she had to look away. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

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