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But the serene beauty of the Bitterroot country soon scattered her thoughts as she descended a looping path, the only sound the natural chorus of insects.
There were more trees as she descended, aspens not yet blooming gold, and narrow silver spruces. She reached the stone footbridge Hazel had mentioned; it arched over a narrow but deep-cut, bubbling stream.
It was peaceful on the bridge, beauty surrounding her on all sides, and she paused to enjoy the moment. Long, narrow shafts of sunlight poked through the overhead canopy of leaves, making silvery flashes of the minnows below in the creek.
A swarm of mosquitoes assailed her, and she suddenly remembered that her long hair, which because of the windy car ride she’d pulled into a ponytail and tucked into her blouse, was useless as protection.
Absently, Jo set the water container down and undid the two top buttons of her blouse. With graceful, languid movements, she reached behind her collar and pulled out her hair.
A masculine voice startled her. “Going skinny-dipping?”
She flinched, turning to confront the handsome smoke jumper who’d shown up with Kayla. Nick Kramer, that was his name. She remembered how his quick gaze seemed to take in every detail—the way a gyrfalcon studies a meadow looking for a little gray mouse.
She had to shade her eyes from the sun behind him. What with the sun blindness and the fact that his dark silhouette seemed to tower over her, she took an instinctive step back.
When his own gaze dropped south and lingered there appreciatively, she glanced down and felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. With two buttons undone, her blouse was wide open and gave him a good view of her bra and bare flesh.
“Can I help you?” she asked defensively, fingers fumbling to button her blouse.
“Me?” He almost seemed to laugh. “Usually I’m the one doing the helping.”
“I asked if you needed some help. I did not say help yourself,” she snapped.
“Evidently I should, judging from what I’ve just seen.”
She felt the betraying flush all the way to her collarbone.
The corner of his mouth tugged. “Let me guess—you’re a closet nudist? Hey, don’t let me interfere with your free expression of—”
“I was not undressing,” she flung at him.
“I’m sorry, then.” His words were strangely quiet and wistful.
He was well over six feet and she had to look way up to meet his gaze. Being a townie and an academic, she usually only worried about intellectual might, but now, alone in the woods with a man who was strong enough and big enough to take without asking, she suddenly became acutely aware of her physical vulnerability. She took another wary step back from him.
He only flashed that self-assured grin of his. “I’m not following you, so forget the paranoia. I’ve got the same job you have.”
He held up at least a half-dozen plastic canteens, all strung on a length of cord.
Seeing the canteens brought her back to reality. He wasn’t some woman-hungry medieval maurader. It was the twenty-first century, and he would prove no threat at all if she just stayed uninvolved.
Reminded of her own task, she smiled her relief and picked up the water container next to her.
“After you,” he said, holding out his hand.
She smiled again, the smile she used for students who irritated her, and headed toward a hand pump just past the bridge.
“Hey,” he called from behind her. “Hazel introduced you as Jo. Is it just Jo—or something else?”
“Why does it matter?” she replied, her tone casual, her heart still beating as if she’d run a mile.
She didn’t want to have a conversation with the man. After Ned, she was sworn off men, and her only reason for coming on this trip was to get away from the loneliness he’d left her with. Now here she was, in the wilderness, feeling like the only female on ladies’ night at the Bullnose Barroom.
“It’s Joanna, but you can call me anything you like, since I doubt we’ll be seeing each other much,” she answered breezily. “Believe me, you’re here to put out fires, and I am definitely planning on avoiding fires.”
She pushed down on the rusty hand pump. Putting all her weight into it, she still couldn’t get it to move. It finally released with a bang, and she nearly fell over. Next she had trouble getting pressure built up in the thing; all she could get out of it was a series of gurgling, choking noises.
“Here, let me help you.”
He gave the handle a few fast pumps, and clear water came gushing out.
“Let there be water,” he quipped.
“Thanks,” she muttered, nervous at the way he seemed to be crowding her. “I can manage it now.”
But in fact it was difficult, once the container started to fill, to keep it up under the spout. It weighed a ton.
“Let me hold it for you,” he offered.
Her instincts gone awry, she snatched the container from him when he tried to take it. Water splashed across her blouse, plastering the thin fabric to her skin.
“It’s heavy, I just—”
“I—I can manage,” she repeated, her mouth firming in a frown. “Don’t you have a forest somewhere to save?”
She hadn’t meant to be so cutting. But he exhibited all the signs of a fast mover, and no doubt with his good looks he had a woman in every national park.
But not her.
She had no desire to join that convenient, far-flung sisterhood of harem partners.
“All right, suit yourself.” He stood back, still towering over her. “But you’re sure wasting a helluva lot of good water.”
She really was, too, for she was forced to let the container go lower and lower as it got too heavy, until most of the water was splashing onto the ground or onto her chest.
He just stood there waiting his turn, and she sent quick peeks his way, unsure if that odd contortion of his mouth was meant as a smile or a goad. The silence between them became painful, then excruciating.
She felt remorse for snapping at him.
“Well…thanks for your help,” she said, giving him a light, uninvolved smile.
She’d meant to be polite, but her wooden gratitude rang a false note, and he seemed to detect it. She was halfway across the bridge, the heavy container bumping into her legs, when he said, “Now I see why you’re the one fetching the water. It’s so you can baptize everybody, right?”
She turned to send him a cold stare.
“Just a tip,” he bit out. “When you decide to freeze out a man, make sure your shirt’s not wet, because you sure don’t look cold to me.”
Her gaze shot to her chest. Her nipples were like hard buds, completely outlined in the sheer white fabric of her clinging shirt.
In shock, she lost her grip on the heavy water jug. It bounced and poured over her feet while she crossed her arms over her chest in a lame attempt to cover herself.
He laughed out loud.
Furious, she picked up the half-empty jug and made to head for camp. She would just have to make two trips for water. And it would be worth it, because the next trip was definitely not going to include meeting him.
“Hey, come back,” he taunted. “I like a challenge.”
“Then stick to fighting fires because I’m not a challenge—I’m a zero possibility where you’re c-concerned,” she stammered, her teeth gnashing and chattering at the same time.
That goading twist of his mouth was back.
“Now that’s a sure-nuff challenge!” he volleyed.
“No,” she tossed right back, “it’s advance notice to try elsewhere.”
“I’m glad we had this friendly little chat,” he shouted at her retreating back. “And you know what? I still feel the challenge in spite of your generous peep show!”
She almost spit she was so mad.
She hadn’t spent five minutes with the man, and she couldn’t remember being this undone.
So much for controlled and dignified academics.
Three
Jo noticed little of the waning day’s beauty on her way back to the summit campground, for she was too preoccupied with angry resentment directed at Nick Kramer.
Big deal, so he was a smoke jumper—a “Hotshot,” at that. He figured women would be all over him, and perhaps they were.
Her brow furrowed. She didn’t need this. She was still licking her wounds over Ned. It rankled her that she’d even noticed Nick Kramer—and his incredibly piercing eyes and his big athletic body.
His sexy voice, too.
She frowned.
She might as well admit it: she was angrier at herself than at him. At least she was self-aware. Being brutally honest with oneself in the company of the opposite sex was the only way to stay sane, and most of all, safe. And more than anything, she was determined to stay safe.
Her thoughts unwillingly jogged back to Nick. He wasn’t vain but he sure was arrogant. Couldn’t he have faked just a little humility? She felt her own mouth twist cynically. No, he’d probably scored so often he didn’t need it. He struck her as the type who considered himself God’s gift to women.
Just like back there at the pump—he acted as though he was doing her a favor by hitting on her.
The water container was heavy, and the return to camp uphill. She arrived back at the cabins out of breath, wet and out of sorts.
“There’s our water girl,” called Dottie, who had gotten a fire started in the outdoor oven and grill at the center of the clearing. “We were starting to think maybe you skedaddled with that smoke jumper.”
Hazel, busy untangling a length of fishing line, glanced at Jo and immediately recognized the turmoil she was in.
“Here, let me wrangle that, hon,” Hazel offered, and the seventy-five-year-old startled Jo by carrying the water container easily with one strong arm.
“We were just kidding,” Hazel added for her ears only, “about you meeting up with Nick Kramer.”
“Meeting up? Huh! I think the creep followed me to the pump.”
“Creep?” Hazel repeated the word as if it was foreign to her. “Girl, either you need glasses or I do. If he was any better-looking, he’d be a traffic hazard. Here you go, chef.”
She plunked the water down near the fire.
“Where’s everybody else?” Jo asked, glancing quickly around.
As she spoke, Kayla emerged from the younger women’s cabin, carrying a shiny little vinyl shower kit and a fluffy pink towel. She crossed to the big water container and began filling an empty plastic milk bottle, slopping water all over the ground.
“Go easy on that,” Dottie snapped. “Jo didn’t haul it up here so you could pour it on the ground.”
“It’s only water,” Kayla pouted. “Jo, you don’t mind if I take a little, do you?”
“Knock yourself out,” Jo replied, totally uninterested in a clash with Kayla—the conflict with Nick Kramer had been enough for one day.
Dottie noticed Jo’s frown and sent her a sympathetic smile as Kayla walked away. “I know you must be wondering why I brought Kayla. It’s a crying shame, but she deliberately acts dumber than she is because she thinks men find it attractive.”
“She’s right—plenty do,” Hazel cut in. “Hell, I love cowboys, but most of mine care only about boobs, not brains. They get nervous real quick when a gal mentions a book she’s read.”
“Well, anyhow,” Dottie said, “Kayla doesn’t mean to come off as irritating. At heart she’s really a sweet and friendly girl. It’s just that she’s insecure. She works hard to keep all eyes on her. It didn’t sit well to see that gaze go your way.”
“If you mean Nick Kramer’s gaze, believe me, she can have him. I’m not playing the dating game anymore,” Jo said.
“I certainly would be if I were your age,” Hazel assured her. “He’s the bee’s knees, all right.”
“He’s horny, that’s all,” Jo stated bluntly.
“Horny as a funeral in New Orleans, most likely,” Hazel agreed. “So are you, but you won’t admit it.”
Jo flushed.
“Besides,” Hazel went on, “that’s not all. Give the man some credit. He does an incredibly dangerous job that has to be done. He’s not stupid. He knows he can get laid. But I think he actually likes you, Jo.”
“What makes you possibly think that?” Jo asked, incredulous.
“My gosh, hon, it would be obvious to a blind man. The guy’s eyes lit up the moment he saw you.”
“And why not?” Dottie demanded. “A looker like you, he’s just being honest.”
Right, thought Jo, honest—just like Ned Wilson, who praised her looks so much it embarrassed her. But what good was it to be called attractive by men who cared about nothing else but sexual gratification? Men who lied to get what they wanted, then returned to their families or took off for parts unknown? Her answer from now on was always going to be, “No thanks.”
Jo mustered a mechanical smile.
Both older women were only being nice. But no matter how right she knew Hazel was, colorings of insecurity—even of inferiority—often tinged even Jo’s brightest moods.
Plucky but pathetic—that’s how she felt when she tried to act confident. Ever since Ned, trying to start over made her feel like a gunshot victim trying to whistle past a shooting range.
“Well, guess I’ll finish unpacking,” she said, mainly to end the awkward silence. Both older women watched her cross the clearing.
Dottie, who had known Hazel for seven decades, suddenly grinned.
“I’ve seen that look in your eye before, Hazel McCallum. What are you up to now?”
“Who, me?” Hazel feigned the innocence of a cherub. “I’m just happy for Jo, that’s all.”
“Happy! Crying out loud, she’s all upset.”
“She sure is,” Hazel agreed. “And I like seeing her animated like this, even if it’s negative emotion. That girl is too dreamy and unassertive. Sometimes she even comes off like a mouse. But Nick Kramer’s got her all revved up.”
Hazel’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve learned to trust my instincts over the years where love is concerned. And right now they tell me that Jo is all wrong about Nick—sure, he’s a hunk, all right. But the eyes are the windows to the soul, and I saw real depth of character in Nick’s eyes. Despite what Jo may think, he’s not the slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am type.”
Hazel said no more. Her mind was too full of machinations for conversation right now.
Nick Kramer and Jo Lofton struck Hazel as perfect for her master plan. She was on a secret mission that had become the passion of her twilight years: a mission to save her beloved hometown of Mystery, Montana, population four thousand and dwindling. Mystery, and the fertile valley it lay in, had been founded by Hazel’s great-great-grandfather, Jake. But the longtime ranching community was changing rapidly as outside developers moved in, turning it into a summer-tourist mecca. More than anything else, Hazel feared that uncaring strangers would obliterate its original identity, making Mystery just one more indistinguishable hodgepodge of chain stores and trendy boutiques.
It would be a loss too great to be endured.
Sure, change was inevitable, but Hazel wanted it guided by love and vision, not profits.
So the matriarch of Mystery had come up with a plan: pairing natives who loved Mystery, as Jo did, with the kind of outsiders who would bring new life while respecting the old traditions—precisely the kind of unselfish man Hazel sensed Nick Kramer was. Greedy yuppies did not put their lives on the line to save forests and protect strangers. Hazel had a special affection for men who “stood on the wall,” as she described those with dangerous jobs.
While it was too early to know anything for certain where Nick and Jo were concerned, Hazel had developed a sixth sense around romance. She’d become a matchmaker, a second career that so far had produced three wonderful marriages. Her instincts had been instantly alerted the moment Nick and Jo had laid eyes on each other. As the playwrights phrased it, the stage lit up.
And where there’s smoke, the matriarch punned to herself, usually you’ll find some fire, too.
“Okay, you clowns, listen up,” Nick called out as he returned with the canteens to his fire crew’s base camp on Lookout Mountain. “So far it’s been a piece of cake. Right now the crews on both sides of us are ahead of the fire curve. We’ve had enough humidity lately to make the flames lay down nice.”
He tossed the string of canteens down.
“But the barometer is falling, instead of rising like it was predicted, and you know how those flames will roll over if the air gets too dry, especially if the wind kicks up. So tonight we take advantage of a full moon and thin out the green pockets down on the canyon floor.”
“I got a better idea, Nick,” called out his radioman, Jason Baumgarter. “Let’s go up on the summit and do a safety inspection of the cabins—a whole carload of babes is camped up there.”
This suggestion was met with cheers and whistles. Nick’s twelve-man crew were seated around the hearty flames of a campfire, eating supper.
“Our fearless leader,” quipped Nick’s second-in-command, Tom Albers, “has already reconnoitered that situation topside, gentlemen. I saw him walking with a well-endowed blonde earlier, sacrificing himself for the rest of us.”
“Yes, for my sins,” Nick clowned, looking humble.
The fire crew jeered him good-naturedly in return, a familiar ritual. But despite the usual camp routine as the men prepared to go on duty, Nick felt a new distraction this evening, and she wasn’t blond.
Rather, she was a dark-haired, green-eyed beauty with one hell of a chip on her shoulder.
Jo Lofton had intrigued him from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. But unfortunately, the emotions she stirred within him dredged up other feelings, too, and memories he usually worked hard to quell.
Looking at women like Jo was downright madness for him, because it made him yearn for a lifestyle he wasn’t sure he could live. Many people suffered from what was done to them, but Nick had discovered that his deepest scars were mainly scars of omission—the parents he never knew, the loving home he never had, the lack of any reason for putting down roots.
The one woman he had dared to let himself love, for whom he would have given up this nomadic job of his, did not let him make that choice. Karen had left him. According to her, she’d found something better. And her stubbornness triggered his own.
“Earth calling Nick Kramer,” a voice said loudly, and Nick’s thoughts suddenly scattered.
Tom Albers stood before him in the gathering light, buckling on his utility belt.
He stared down at Nick with a face taut with concern.
“You got a mind for this today? Last thing we need is a preoccupied man getting himself into trouble.”
“I’m all right,” Nick said, his jaw hardening.
Tom nodded. “How do you want us to insert?” he asked again. “Two teams or three?”
“Three,” Nick replied, forcing dangerous thoughts of Jo Lofton out of his mind. “One north of the river, two south. It’s too steep for vehicles, so we’ll have to hike out. Each team leader radios me on the hour.”
“Got it,” Tom affirmed.
But as Nick rigged his ax to his backpack, Jo’s taunting words snapped in his mind like burning twigs: I’m not a challenge—I’m a zero possibility where you’re concerned.
Four
“Let’s go, ladies. Rise and shine!”
Hazel’s strong voice was like an explosion in the slumbering peace of the cabin.
Jo bolted upright in bed, wondering what the emergency was.
“Up and at ’em!” Dottie’s twanging voice chimed in, loud enough to wake snakes. “We should be five miles down the road by now, cowgirls. Shake the lead out.”
Still groggy, Jo groaned when a powerful flashlight beam swept into her eyes.
“My God, it’s still dark outside!” Bonnie complained.
“C’mon, sweethearts, are you bolted to those beds?” Hazel said. “The wilderness is calling you.”
“Okay, okay, we’re up,” Jo protested, although she couldn’t help grinning when she saw the stupefied look on Kayla’s sleep-puffy face.
Dressing in the dim illumination of an oil lantern, Jo donned the sturdy outdoor clothing she’d packed: blue jeans, red flannel shirt and sturdy high-top shoes. A splash of water to her face and she felt almost human. Brushing back her hair, she tied it into a ponytail and tucked it under her shirt.
While she tucked it, however, heat crept into her cheeks. She was recalling the scene yesterday with Nick Kramer.
I still feel the challenge in spite of your generous peep show.
In your dreams, bucko, she wished she’d retorted. Why did the good lines always come to her too late to use them?
As Hazel had promised, the day’s new sun was just edging over the horizon by the time the girls, still knuckling sleep from puffy eyes, trooped up to the crackling flames of the breakfast fire.
Seeing the sun blaze to life, hearing the “dawn chorus” of hundreds of birds celebrating the arrival of daylight, Jo felt instantly buoyed. Her freshly renewed anger at Nick Kramer receded, and she felt a little thrill at the natural beauty around her.
She could see why this wilderness spot had grown on Hazel and her friends. “Back of beyond,” Hazel called it.
“We’re burning good daylight,” said the wise matron gruffly when Kayla straggled in, inappropriately dressed in pink shorts and a midriff top. “We’ve got a three-mile hike down to the canyon floor and the river, so let’s make tracks.”
Jo hadn’t realized how much her sedentary teaching job had affected her physical condition. After only thirty minutes on the trail—a series of looping switchbacks that descended to the floor of Crying Horse Canyon—she was short of breath. So were the rest of the younger women.
Yet amazingly, Hazel and the other two seniors were strutting out front, setting the brisk pace, joking and chatting and identifying various birds.
But no one was suffering the way poor, befuddled Kayla was.
Jo couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her. Her golden-braised midriff was already pocked with the swollen bites of pesky flies, and several times she had scraped her exposed legs on thornbushes. She even managed to snag her ankle bracelet while stepping over a downed tree branch. If Jo hadn’t caught her in time, Kayla would have been sprawled facedown in the dirt.
“Break time,” Stella called when they reached the halfway point, a little fern bracken with several fallen trees providing seats.
Hazel, in the meantime, seemed intent on studying the skyline to the north.
Thin wisps of smoke curled in the wind, and Jo could hear the steady thucka-thucka of chopper blades as the Forest Service fought blazes in the adjacent canyons.
“Is the fire getting closer?” Jo asked Hazel.
“I can’t tell,” her friend admitted. “But it does feel like the wind’s been rising, instead of dying down as predicted. And if you ask me, the humidity is down, not up.”
“You can smell flames a little more, too,” Stella said, taking off her floppy jungle hat to swat at flies. “And I’m guessing smoke has forced more insects into this canyon. I’ve never seen this many flies.”
“I hope the fire does spread!” Kayla burst out resentfully. “I’m sick of this Danny Crockett stuff.”
“Davy Crockett,” Hazel corrected her, laughing in disbelief. “Some Texan you are,” she added before leading the women to one of the quiet pools in the river.
“Bait your hooks,” she ordered. “This is one of the best fishing holes west of the Great Divide.”
“This is incredible!” Stella marveled after they’d been fishing for not even an hour. “The trout are practically leaping on the banks for us.”
Even Kayla had gotten over her pouting. Now she seemed to be having the time of her life as she reeled in fish after fish.
It was especially remarkable, Jo told herself, because they were all “survival fishing,” using just fish-line and hooks tied to sticks—no fiberglass poles, no reels, only twigs for bobbers.
“Are they suicidal?” Hazel wondered as she tossed another fat trout onto the growing stack.