That was it. No words. No hand on the shoulder.
It was enough.
Bear turned back to the scene, to the next set of headlights coming down Bitterroot Road, to the radio crackling in his vest. He worked the rest of the shift from there — sandbag relays at the low bridge, medical standby at the Peterson Road closure, two hours helping the county’s crew move equipment to the high staging area. He worked alongside Hank Goodwin’s deputies without incident. He did not look for Greta, and if she was in the same frame as him — at the staging table, at the fuel depot, at the sandbagging line — he moved to a different frame. Not because he was angry. Because he couldn’t stand in the same space as her right now and not say something he wasn’t ready to say, and the unspoken thing between them was gathering weight with every hour he didn’t address it.
The storm broke around six.
He was sitting on the running board of the rig when it did — that specific quiet that came after heavy rain, not silence but the cessation of violence, the world remembering it had a baseline. Around him, the crew was starting to stand down. Radios going to standby. Coffee thermoses coming out.
He turned the sobriety chip over in his wet palm. Both sides. Back to front.
He was afraid of what the silence between them meant, and he’d been afraid of it for the last three hours, and he was running out of things to do to avoid finding out.
He found her behind the firehouse.
She’d pulled her Jeep around to the back lot, out of the flow of departing equipment, and she was standing at the cargo door stripping off her SAR vest, her soaked base layer plastered to her back, her braid half-undone and stiff with creek mud. Atlas sat on the Jeep’s running board watching her, and when Bear came around the corner, the dog’s tail moved once before stilling.
Greta turned.
She looked at him, gaze sweeping up and down, doing a full inventory, and then she set the vest aside on the bumper and faced him.
“You ignored my line.”
“I heard you?—”
“You ignored it.” Her voice didn’t rise. It came out flat and certain, the way she gave compass readings. “I pulled three times before the bank gave. Three. And you were still in the cab.”
He held her gaze. The bruise at her throat had gone purple overnight, and he hated himself for noticing it right now.
She stepped closer. She was still soaked and he was half-surprised she wasn’t steaming from the fury radiating off her. “I have been doing this for nine years. Coldwater, Blacktail, the Cedar Creek collapse in 2019, the Henley Pass search that went four days in December. I have never—never—lost control of ascene. I have never stood on a bank and had to watch my anchor go under and not be able to do a damn thing about it.”
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. Because what else was there to say?
She pressed the back of one hand to her mouth for a half-second. “I couldn’t breathe, Bear. I couldn’t get air.”
“I’m okay.”
“You act like you’re invincible.” She gestured at him, a short, impatient sweep of her hand. “I know how big you are and I know how strong you are, but none of that matters when Mother Nature wants to take a bite out of you.” Her voice finally fractured, just at the edge, just once. She pulled it back. “You’re big and mean and a badass, but you are not invincible. You are not expendable. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
She sucked in a breath like she planned to say more, but stalled out. The dawn was gray and still behind her, the wet pavement reflecting the last of the emergency lights from the front lot. Atlas hadn’t moved. Somewhere around the building, radios murmured.
He waited until he was sure she was done.
“Luke was saying he was sorry. Over and over. Just—I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” He stopped. Looked at the pavement between them. “I have said that. In rooms, to people. Sat across tables from people and had to watch them decide whether my sorry was worth anything.” He looked up at her. “I could not pull back and let his last words be an apology.”
Greta stared at him, eyes too bright. “It was stupid.”
“I know.”
“I could’ve lost you.” She closed the three feet between them and grabbed the front of his vest with both fists, the wet nylon crushed in her grip. She yanked him down and kissed him.
It had none of the heat of the woodshed, none of the tease or the dare. This was something else. She kissed him like she was still angry, like the anger and the relief had wound so tight they couldn’t be separated anymore.
He pulled her in, one arm around her back, and felt her breath hitch against his mouth.
Her radio squawked.
