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“Yes. Towns don’t get much smaller or more rural than McCall, Idaho.”
McCall.
Home to a major smokejumper base.
Marc squinted at the squiggles on the pad. “Did you work for the city?”
A few seconds ticked by.
“No. US Forest Service.”
The speculation he’d been playing with gained traction. “Were you a smokejumper?”
Another pause.
“Yes. After I logged five years of hotshot experience.”
Wow.
Marc set his pen down, leaned back, and stared at the file folder he’d put on his laptop screen the day he’d taken his first job with the ATF but rarely opened anymore.
Bri had been part of the elite group of four hundred or so men and women who risked their lives parachuting into isolated, rugged terrain to fight wildfires up close and personal with only the equipment that dropped in with them and little hope of rescue if a situation went south.
In the firefighting world, they were the stuff of legends.
And he thoughthe’dled an exciting life.
“Can I say I’m impressed?”
“It’s just firefighting on a different scale. There’s no magic to the job. A willingness to work hard is the main prerequisite.”
“Along with a boatload of courage.”
“Lots of jobs require courage.”
“Some more than others.” He added modesty to her list of virtues and shifted the focus to practical matters, since she seemed uncomfortable with praise. “So why did you leave?”
“Parachute accident. My main chute didn’t deploy properly, and the descent on the backup is faster. I had a bad landing. But I did live to tell the tale, albeit with a souvenir. I’m sure you’ve noticed my limp.”
“Yes.” Pretending otherwise would be disingenuous. “What happened with your main chute?”
“No idea. But I packed it, so the career-ending mistake was mine. A shattered femur held together with plates and pins isn’t conducive to smokejumping or firefighting. When it comes to regrets, that slipup tops my list.”
“I’m sorry.” What else was there to say?
“Thanks. But I’d have aged out of the job eventually anyway. That’s why I double majored in forestry and forensic science. Fire investigation was always where I wanted to end up—just not this soon. As Mom liked to say, though, we may not always understand God’s timing as it unfolds, but in hindsight we can often see a purpose to it.”
He moved his cursor to the file folder and circled around it.
What purpose could there be in a potentially fatal accident that had left her with a permanent limp?
“Have you?”
“Yes. Mom began to decline about the time of my accident, so after I recovered, I trained in fire investigation, got a job in a municipality within driving distance of St. Louis,and was ready to step into my present job when the opening came up. The accident allowed me to be closer to Mom in her final months.”
Somehow Bri had found the bright side to an experience that would have made many people bitter and resentful.
Talk about making lemonade out of lemons.
