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ChapterEighteen
Chase
“You got that?” Graham called.
I glanced over, lifting up the hook he’d just tossed to me. “Got it.”
We kept walking, the frosty ground crunching under our boots. It was spring in Alaska but still thawing in the northern parts of the state. We were returning from a training exercise, which also served to put out a fire. This had been a small one set by the landowner. They'd been burning brush in a burn barrel and left it unattended for too long. The wind tossed some sparks into a dry area, and poof, we had a fire. These were the easy days—fly in, put out a fire, and fly out.
“How's it going?” Rowan asked when I stopped by where some of our crew was seated on fallen logs.
We were waiting for the helicopter that was on its way to pick us up. “Good, easy day. I like a challenge too, but I don’t mind this.”
“These are what I call hero days,” Graham commented as he stopped beside me.
“Hero days?” Rowan prompted.
“Yeah, we fly in and put the fire out inside of a few hours.” He lifted an arm, flexing his muscles.
“Makes sense,” I replied with a chuckle.
Rowan handed me a bottle of water, and I took a few swallows before sitting down beside him on the log. He finished a bite of a granola bar before asking, “So are the rumors true?”
“What rumors?”
“That you're going to be a father.”
I almost choked on the sip of water I’d just taken. After sputtering and taking a breath, I caught his eyes and nodded. “Yes, but how the hell did you know?”
“Well, you told your father who told Mae’s father. Of course, he told Mae’s mother who told Mae, and then she told me,” Rowan offered dryly. “It’s a small town. I'm sure your father told somebody else.”
“Dude, everybody knows,” Graham chimed in. “Can't keep a secret around here.”
I groaned, propping my elbows on my knees and glancing amongst my crew members and friends.
“How do you feel?” Graham prompted.
“Still getting used to the idea, but pretty good. I think,” I said slowly.
“Having a baby is no joke,” Graham offered. “And on the unplanned pregnancy front, at least you're older than I was.”
I burst out laughing. “Dude, you got a girl pregnant when we were seniors in high school.”
He nodded sagely. “Turns out it's really not hard to make a baby when you don't use birth control,” Graham deadpanned.
“I used condoms,” I offered when a few guys arched their brows in question.
“Seriously?” Rowan pressed.
“Oh, yeah.”
“It’s a miracle baby,” someone said.
“If you only knew,” I said, thinking it wasn't my place to go into Hallie’s medical history and the slim odds of her getting pregnant.
“Rex got a phone call about your girlfriend,” Russell said.
“Huh?”
