Page 2 of Recovered By Firefighter Daddy

CHAPTER TWO

Shane

"Get up already!" exclaimed Jordan as he gently pushed me off the couch that I had been sleeping on in the living room of the fire station. "There's been another avalanche in Avalanche Gulch, and there's somebody buried underneath the snow. I need to go get them." I yawned stiffly as I rolled to my feet and stretched, shaking off the exhaustion that had accompanied the after-effects of my nap.

"How deep are we going in?" I asked as I hurried over to get my gear. "Are we going to be in the middle of Avalanche Gulch, or are we lucky enough that we're going to extract them from the end of it?" Jordan was busy pulling on his own boots as he shook his head.

"We're lucky, and the person is buried on the sign next to Highway 267," he informed me as he pulled on his jacket. "From what everybody told me, the female was almost on the highway when she got buried in the snow. They're estimating about five feet of snow between us and the vehicle. " Relief washed over me as I hurried to finish getting ready to go so that we could hurry out to save the woman.

"Well, that's a bit of a relief," I said as I followed Jordan back to the vehicle. Looking around, I found out when I realized that Jeremy and Dakota weren't around either. "I thought Jeremy was going to be in today." Jordan shrugged as he climbed into the vehicle.

"No one knows what he's up to anymore, it seems," he said as we climbed into the vehicle. "Ever since he started dating Clary, he's been doing nothing but spending time with her, and nobody ever knows if he's coming or going. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if she's even a good influence on him." As much as I wanted to say the same thing about Lacey, I knew better than to argue with Jordan.

Before Jeremy went on vacation and met Clary, everything at the fire station had been lively, and we always spent time together. However, once Clary entered Jeremy's life, it seemed as though everybody was starting to drift apart, leaving a huge rift in our relationships. Now that Jordan was married as well, it felt as though the group had gotten a bit smaller.

Once everybody was loaded up in the vehicle, I counted the number of heads and realized there were about five of us, including Jordan and I. It didn't seem like a big crew in order to do a search and rescue mission, but, considering how easy this seemed, I didn't see this working out for the worst. As soon as everybody was inside, we set off towards Avalanche Gulch.

Because of how often we had to do search and rescue missions inside Avalanche Gulch, the fire station was actually posted less than a mile from the entrance, keeping us out of danger of being buried underneath the snow but also making it easier to access anybody who did in fact end up buried underneath all the snow. It seemed like a perfectly logical resolution to an issue that had been going on ever since the town had been established, and I couldn't believe that it had taken them several generations actually to get it done.

When we finally arrived, everybody immediately climbed out of the vehicle, and I was attached to a harness in order to walk across a large amount of snow in order to try to locate the young woman that had been buried underneath. I didn't know what she looked like or how far out she was. All we knew was that she was on the side of Highway 267 and had been able to see the highway before she even got buried underneath. Granted, it meant that she could be out as far as a mile or less, but I was the man for the job. It was better for me to go out there rather than anybody else because I was the one who was more practiced in this type of rescue.

When I was finally ready to head out, I climbed up onto the heap of snow and started to march out, careful not to make too much noise as I traveled along. All the while, I made as little noise as possible in order to listen for anything that might indicate where she was. It was a very tedious process that could have ended in a complete disaster, especially if I made too much noise, especially since I didn't have the protection of a vehicle like she did, I knew I had to do it at this point. There was no telling what had set in first, lack of oxygen or hypothermia. Every minute spent looking for her put her a minute closer to disaster.

As soon as I heard the muffled voice underneath the snow, I immediately knew that I had found the vehicle and hit my knees, careful not to make too much noise and cause another avalanche. For fear of causing another avalanche, I was afraid to call anybody over to help me. Even though it was considered close enough that a few of us could have come out and worked on getting her out together, especially with all the snow already between the person and I, I knew that it wasn't a good idea. Taking a deep breath, I prepared myself before pulling out the trowel and shoveling the snow aside as quickly as possible, silently and efficiently removing the snow until I saw the hood of the vehicle.

"Hello?" I called her down in a soft voice. "Is anybody in there?" From inside the vehicle, I heard a soft, shaking voice call out from the vehicle, hardly audible as they replied.

"I'm in here," came the gentle voice of a female as a hand appeared by the window. "Please get me out of here. It's cold." Looking back towards the fire truck, I waved a hand at Jordan, who immediately sent Keaton over with a much bigger shovel in order to help me remove the snow so that I could get her out.

"Just sit tight, ma'am," I called down to the girl. "We'll have you out soon enough. I just need you to hold on."