Page 86 of Stuck With the Smokejumper

“Wasn't his news to tell.”

I know that's how Reid would see it too, but I'm planning to give him a hard time about keeping something this enormous from me anyway.

I feel my own smile shift into something Beck clearly notices, because he tilts his head, studying me.

“What?”

“There's something I haven't told you either.”

Now it's his turn to wait, watching me with obvious curiosity.

“I've got a few offers. Different places. One of them is with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks as a Wildlife Habitat Biologist.”

“That's incredible, Ivy—”

“It's based in Silver Creek.”

He goes still, the same way I did a few minutes ago, working through what it means.

“Did you take it?”

“Not yet. I've got until next week to decide.” I look at him. “I wanted to know where you'd be before I picked.”

His eyebrows go up, and he doesn't say anything, like he hadn't considered I might have been waiting on him.

“I applied broadly,” I tell him. “All over the state, a couple positions outside it too. I didn’t think I should limit myself to one region. But Silver Creek's one of the best fits I found. Wildlife and habitat monitoring, post-wildfire recovery, restoration. It's the kind of fieldwork I've wanted to build a career around. I know this landscape. I love this ecosystem.”

“So if I wasn’t staying in Montana—”

“I had other options. One in Colorado.”

“So Silver Creek,” he says finally.

“Silver Creek.” I feel my whole face doing something I can't control. “Now that I know you're staying at Blackpine, there's really no contest.”

“When were you going to tell me you had offers?”

I raise an eyebrow. “When were you going to tell me about Blackpine?”

He laughs, and there's nothing either of us can say to that, because we've both been holding enormous news, waiting to share it in person.

Beck: permanent Forest Service position, Blackpine, year-round.

Me: about to accept Montana FWP, Wildlife Habitat Biologist, Silver Creek, the town where we had our official first date.

Different jobs. Different employers. Related work, same region. No Colorado. No cross-country move. No countdown ticking toward another inevitable separation waiting somewhere on the calendar.

For the first time since our relationship started, we know where we're both going to be. I think about what he told me that night on the porch before he left. I don't need to know where we'll be in October to know I don't want us to end. Back then, what would happen in October was a question we couldn't answer, no matter how much we love each other. Where he would go. Where I would end up. Whether any of this could survive past a Montana summer.

I kiss him again. This time there's no clock running underneath it. No deployment tomorrow. No unknown winter assignment waiting somewhere else. No job offer that might have taken me states away.

October is here now.

And we can finally see past it.

thirty-four

Epilogue – Ivy