Page 5 of Sparked By the Mountain Man Hotshot

“We roll out Thursday,” I tell her, because I don’t hand people weight late. “Detail down south. Two weeks, maybe more.”

Something crosses her face. She nails it down before it can finish.

“Thursday,” she says. “That’s my day too. Chef decides the permanent spot Thursday, and I already know which way that one goes.” A dry tilt of her head. “You roll out, I get my no, all in the same day. Efficient.”

“Reagan.”

“It’s fine. Good, even. Clean.” She throws my own word back with a smile that costs her. “You get your fire, I get my no, right on schedule.”

That, right there, is the trouble.

Because I decided eleven years ago I’d spent my one shot at the staying life and the job had won. I made my peace with the win. Standing on a cold patio watching this woman take herself apart in real time so a leaving man can’t do it for her, I understand I lied about the peace. I don’t want the win. For the first time in a decade, I want to stay. I want the whole life I told everybody I wasn’t built for.

Thirty-odd hours before a truck takes me south.

I’ve never once wished a fire would wait.

I do now.

3

REAGAN

By the time I push through the door at Lea’s, the coffee shop I keep as a second office, I’ve lost the permanent spot eleven times in my head. I still have prep and a full service ahead of me to lose it a few more.

That’s the trouble with a two-day head start on bad news. You get to lose the thing over and over before it’s even gone—a little preview screening, matinee prices.

Marchetti hasn’t decided. I’ve decided for him, in the dark, staring at my ceiling. The spot goes to the guy the resort’s flying in from Denver, the one with the forearm tattoos and a résumé full of kitchens I’ve only ever read about. Of course it’s him. It’s always the guy from Denver.

“You have the look of a woman who’s been arguing with a ceiling,” Lea says, already pulling my cup.

“The ceiling started it.”

“Uh-huh. Regular?”

“Regular, plus whatever’s strongest, plus a second one I’ll pretend is for someone else.” I dig for my card. “Slept about three hours. Now I’m out here rebuilding a personality from the studs before I have to go be a professional.”

“You can rebuild on the house if you sit a minute.” Lea slides the first cup across, then looks past my shoulder, and something in her face rearranges into a small private delight. “Or don’t sit. Company’s here.”

I turn, and Reid Callahan is holding the door open with one shoulder, dark hair damp at the edges, a thermos hooked in two fingers. He’s looking at me like he came down a mountain on purpose.

He did come down a mountain on purpose. I can do the math. Dust on his boots, the hot part of the day still coming off him—he’s come straight down off that ridge, where he’s spent the afternoon. This time of day, he ought to be up there with the crew, not down here holding my door.

Nobody drives off a mountain in the middle of the afternoon for the trout. He came for me. And my heart goes warm and stupid before I can stop it, right before the rest of me remembers the golden rule. The nicer a thing feels coming in, the more it costs going out.

“You’re supposed to be on fire watch,” I say.

“I was on fire watch.”

“And now you’re on coffee watch.”

“Coffee’s a decoy.” He lets the door swing shut behind him. “You’re the assignment.”

“Smooth.”

“Smooth.”

“I’ve been up since four. You get what’s left.” He steps up beside me at the counter, and Lea—traitor—slides him a cup he didn’t have to order, then drifts to the far end to polish something that doesn’t need it. “You didn’t sleep.”