Page 66 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

“I'm just saying,” Nolan announces, apropos of nothing, “that broken branch pattern near the north trail is suspicious.”

“It's suspicious that a tree fell down,” Tessa says.

“It fell in a very specific direction.”

“Trees do that. It's called gravity.”

Mabel picks her way across the porch and settles onto Reid's lap without ceremony. He looks smug about it, like this proves some point he's been trying to make all summer.

For a while, sitting here listening to Nolan defend Bigfoot's honor, everything feels like it has for weeks. Ordinary. Easy.

Eventually Beck and I move together to the porch swing, far enough away from the others that the conversation gets quieter between us.

“You think they're going to call you back,” I say. Not really a question.

He doesn't try to soften it. “If things keep going the way they're going.”

“When?”

“Don't know. Could be a couple weeks. Could be sooner.” He turns his water bottle over in his hands, thinking about how to say the next part. “If it comes, it won't come with much warning. We're already trained, already equipped. We're not starting a new job. We're just going back to the one we left.”

“So you could just be gone. A day or two.”

“Yes.”

I hadn't quite let myself think through what that would look like until he says it out loud. When he went to Elk Ridge, the departure was sudden but with a return we both knew was coming. This will be different. No expected return. His bed at the crew house will just be empty one day, and he won't be back. That hurts more than I expect it to, sitting here on a porch with him still beside me.

Beck's watching me closely, enough I know he can see where my thoughts have gone. He reaches over and takes my hand, not saying anything.

“This is different from Elk Ridge,” I say.

“Yeah.” Then, quiet, steady: “But I'm not disappearing on you. Whatever happens with the recall, that's not the same as this ending.”

I don't know how the logistics of a long-distance version of this would even work. Neither of us has solved that, and I'm not sure tonight's the night to try and figure it out. But I hear what he's saying. I let myself believe it, mostly because the alternative is spending our remaining time together grieving something that hasn't happened yet.

He squeezes my hand. I lean into his shoulder, and we just sit here for a while, not talking, listening to Nolan and Tessa continue their Bigfoot debate a few feet away, the evening settling in warm and gold around us.

Eventually Cassidy calls Beck into an argument about which fast-food chain has the best fries, a debate that's been simmering since dinner. The moment eases back into the larger group, everyone's voices overlapping. Mabel migrates from Reid's lap to Beck's without explanation. I try to just be here, in this, instead of quietly counting how many evenings like this one might be left. It mostly works.

We all go to bed at a reasonable hour, tired from the day's work. But I lie awake longer than usual.

The next morning starts like most mornings do. Coffee. Boots by the door. Somebody arguing about whose turn it is to drive. I'm halfway through a piece of toast when I notice Beck's gone quiet at the table, phone in his hand, reading something with an expression I don't like.

Reid notices too. He's across the kitchen, but something in the way Beck's sitting pulls his attention, and he crosses over, looking down at the screen over Beck's shoulder.

Neither of them says anything for a second.

Phones have gone off all morning, same as always, nobody paying much attention. This time is different, and I know it before either of them looks up.

“What?” I ask.

Beck looks at me. Not panic. Just a flicker of something that tells me whatever he's reading isn't unexpected. But not entirely welcome either.

“I think we're getting recalled.”

twenty-four

Beck