Page 47 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

And I do know it. Elk Ridge needs him for a week, maybe two, and then he'll come back to Blackpine, back to the crew house, back to Sunday dinners and card games and the porch. But something in the back of my mind adds a quiet, unwelcome addition to that thought.

He'll be back this time. What happens when summer ends? I don't let myself think it through, not while I'm elbow-deep in a drainage channel with an audience. But it's there now, small and persistent, the first real acknowledgment that Beck's assignment at Blackpine has an end date, and then the leaving might not be temporary at all.

Tessa glances over, catching something in my face I didn't mean to let show. “You've gone quiet.”

“Thinking about the channel.” I dig at the root harder.

She doesn't push. Instead she launches into a story about a guy she went on a date with back in April. Someone from Bozeman who spent the entire dinner talking about his truck's suspension system like it was a personality trait.

“You never told me about this,” I say, grateful for the distraction and a little annoyed at myself for needing one.

“Because there's nothing to tell. He liked his truck more than he liked me. It was actually kind of impressive, the commitment.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“I told him I hoped the truck knew how lucky it was.”

That gets a real laugh out of me.

“Anyway,” she says, “that's my most recent romantic disaster.”

“Low bar.”

“Extremely low bar. You're welcome.”

We keep working, the conversation drifting into easier territory, whether Nolan's technique with a shovel counts as technique at all, whether Trevor and Cassidy are going to admit they like each other before the season ends or make everyone suffer through another month of pretending. It's the kind of talk that doesn't ask anything of me, and I'm grateful for it.

By the time we finish, the trail's in far better shape, and I'm exhausted. The crew house feels different when we get back. Quieter, obviously, with two fewer people filling it, but it's more than that. Reid's ridiculous Bigfoot shirt is draped over the back of a kitchen chair, apparently deemed unnecessary for fire duty. Beck's Sasquatch caller sits on the kitchen counter.

I notice all the places he usually is. The spot at the counter he leans against while I make coffee. The end of the couch he claims most nights. The porch chair, empty now, that he sat in while I tried and failed to focus on my thesis. His absence feels bigger than I expected it to be.

After dinner, once things quiet down, I settle into my usual porch spot, laptop open. I make real progress for a few hours on my thesis paper, pulling together a section of analysis I've been putting off for a week.

I check my phone more than I need to. Beck said he'd call when he can. But I know what that means. Travel time. Briefings. Setting up camp. Unreliable signal in whatever backcountry stretch of Granite Creek is on fire. Busy, not silent by choice. Knowing doesn't stop me from glancing at the screen every few minutes anyway, some part of my brain unconvinced by logic.

I'm rereading the same paragraph of my thesis for the fourth time when my phone finally buzzes. A message from Beck. Made it. Then, a few seconds later: Long day tomorrow. Then: Already miss the porch.

I smile. He knows I'll understand what he means without him spelling it out. The porch misses you too, I type back.

Just the porch?

I decide to make him work for it, mostly because it's fun to watch him try. Goodnight, Beck.

His reply comes immediately. That's not the answer I wanted.

I laugh out loud, alone on the porch, which probably would look strange to anyone watching, though there's nobody around to see it. I miss you too, I type.

Better.

That's it. That's all either of us needs tonight. He's exhausted, and he's got an early morning. I've got a thesis chapter that isn't going to write itself. But he made it. He's thinking about me. And the physical distance between us isn't quite as far as it seemed an hour ago.

I set my phone down beside my laptop and look at the porch railing where we stood last night, empty now, rain long gone, the first stars starting to come out over the tree line.

One day down. However many are left to go.

sixteen

Beck