After spending all day at the security checkpoint waving buses, fire trucks, and Forest Service vehicles through, Dillon was ready for something more exciting.
“Yates! Let’s hit up fire camp for dinner,” his lieutenant, Jake Hamilton, suggested to him as Dillon hopped out of his squad car. No one called him Dillon around here. Everyone in Bounty County called him either Yates or Cowboy.
He wasn’t entirely sure why they called him Cowboy other than the fact he occasionally wore a cowboy hat.
He might know how to rope cattle, but it’s not like he grew up on a ranch. He’d helped some friends in high school with their chores and just took to it easily.
And Dillon might love country music, but sue him! It was good music. It didn’t mean he was a cowboy.
And… he might have tried riding a bull a time or two, but he’d only stayed on the full eight seconds a handful of times. It didn’t mean he was a cowboy.
Whatever.
Dillon had never been to a fire camp before, but he’d heard talk all day about the food there. He was skeptical. Another coworker, Detective Wesson Campbell, came walking out the front door of the sheriff’s office before Dillon could respond to Jake.
“Who’s down for a fire camp sandwich?” Wesson asked.
What the hell is a fire camp sandwich?
“Um, I’ve never been to a fire camp, so I’m game,” Dillon said with a shrug.
“Don’t leave without me, fuckers!” Cole shouted as he ran out the front door.
“What the hell is so good about fire camp food?” Dillon asked.
“Dude, they bring in caterers. It’s like a Hollywood movie set but with a lot more calories. Fuckin’ delicious,” Jake explained. “It’s my favorite thing about fire season.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
They piled into a couple of rigs and headed out of Imminence. Just outside the city limits, a field that mere days ago had been completely empty save for a few lone trees and sagebrush was now bustling with activity. Tents. Trucks. Equipment. Hundreds of people. Most were in green pants and either a yellow button up shirt or a navy blue t-shirt. Some looked exhausted, covered in dirt and ash. Others looked fresh and ready to roll. Dillon assumed the fresh ones were the fire crews that just arrived today.
Dillon, Jake, and Cole were still in uniform, so they got head nods from a lot of the firefighters as they walked through camp. Apparently one of the perks of working the road blocks was the ability to enter and walk through fire camp, grab a tray, get a shit-ton of delicious-looking grub piled on your plate by a catering truck, and pull up a chair in a big tent set up like a cafeteria – all without anyone asking questions.
Because that’s just what they did.
And Wesson was totally right. Fire camp sandwiches were fucking awesome.
“How was running checkpoint today, Cowboy?” Cole asked. More and more firefighters began filing into the tent, taking seats at the tables around them.
“Fine. Boring. But I don’t mind a boring day every once in a while as long as I’m gettin’ paid for it.”
“I’d kill for a boring day again,” Wesson added. He was one of the department’s two detectives and they were always busy. Bounty County may not be the most populated of all the counties in Montana, but it was large in square mileage and heavy with drug activity despite recent successful efforts to stop it.
“But man, you’re a detective. That sounds so kick-ass and you don’t even have to wear this monkey suit.” Dillon gestured to his tan and brown uniform.
“Double-edged coin, man,” Wesson said, shaking his head. Wesson Campbell was a great detective, but he messed up common sayings all the time. It was hilarious, but the only people who ever called him on it were Jake and Wesson’s best friend Smitty, another deputy. Dillon let the ‘double-edged coin’ comment slide.
“Why’s that?” he asked.
“I get called out in the middle of the night all the time. And we don’t have a lot of murder goin’ on in this town, but read my words, Cowboy: if there’s a murder, I’m havin’ to get out of my warm bed that I share with my smokin’ hot wife and head to a cold, dead body and sadness.”
Dillon thought that sounded awesome. He certainly wasn’t ready for a wife, though he wouldn’t mind more smokin’ hot chicks warming his bed. But getting called out to solve a murder sounded like all of his childhood dreams come true. Bringing a murderer to justice – it wouldn’t bring back to person who was killed, but he knew it could help the family find some small semblance of comfort.
“Lemme know if you need help, is all I’m saying,” he offered. “I love overtime and…well, I think I might love being a detective, too.”
Jake laughed. “You’re gonna need approval for those overtime hours before I let Wesson call you out in the middle of the night to check out dead bodies, Cowboy.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dillon scoffed, shrugging away his admission. “Just keep me on your list, is all I’m saying. I know I’m still one of the new guys, but I can do more than run road blocks and speed traps.”
“We’ve been here two years now,” Cole chimed in. “We aren’t new guys anymore, Yates.”
“I got good news on that front, brothers. Bossman got approval for a new position just last week from the Board of Commissioners. You won’t be the newbs for much longer,” Jake added.
“Fuck yeah. About time,” Wesson said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. It was hot out.
“This seat taken?”
Dillon turned toward the very female voice and looked up.
Oh shit.
Fire engine red lips.
The woman from the bus.
She was more beautiful up close than she was when he’d seen her through the bus window earlier today. Black hair pulled up into a ponytail. Porcelain skin. She looked like a pin-up model.
Fuck.
It was about ninety-five degrees outside, but Dillon’s brain was frozen, no longer processing thoughts into words. No synapses were firing.
“Sorry, darlin’. I apologize for how rude my colleague is. That seat is not taken because we’ve been saving it for you,” Cole flirted.
The bombshell from Dillon’s dreams rolled her eyes.
Dillon cleared his throat.
“Sorry, uh. I, uh.” Why won’t my brain work?.
“Oh my god, you guys are witnessing Dillon Yates, notorious ladies’ man, losing his fuckin’ mind over a woman,” Jake teased.
Jesus. Pull yourself together, Yates!
He took a deep breath and then spoke. “Don’t listen to these chuckleheads. Please, sit.” Dillon gestured to her.
“Thanks…Dillon,” she said as if she were practicing saying his name. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her mouth.
Don’t say anything about how juicy her lips look. Don’t say anything about how juicy her lips look.
“You’re welcome.”
Phew.
“It’s Lauren,” she answered.
“You comm staff?” Dillon asked.
“What?” she replied. Dillon wondered if maybe she didn’t hear him.
“Comm staff?” he repeated.
“Like, communications?” she asked, bewilderment in her voice.
“Yeah. Like that.”
“No.” She didn’t offer anything else.
“He’s totally bombing, you guys,” Wesson chimed in.
“It isn’t pretty, is it?” Jake added.
“Fuck off, fuckers,” Dillon turned his back to them and turned to face Lauren. “Ignore them. Please. I do. So what is it that you do here?”
“I’m a hotshot.”
Say what now?
“Really?” he asked, trying not to sound rude but he was really kind of amazed that this beautiful creature was a hotshot firefighter.
“Oh, Cowboy. You’re really fuckin’ this up.” Cole just had to chime in again. That asshole.
“Sorry, it’s just you’re really fuckin’ pretty,” Dillon said quietly.
She didn’t smile.
“What the hell does being pretty have to do with fightin’ fires?” she asked, now clearly pissed off.
“Dammit, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I just…dammit.”
The rest of the crew continued to laugh at his expense and Dillon felt his cheeks flush red with embarrassment.
“Swear to god, I’m not usually this big of an asshole,” he promised and gave her a smile that got most women into his bed.
Lauren didn’t stay pissed for long. She moved right passed it. “What the hell is there to do in this town anyway? I’ve got a free night and if I see another fuckin’ firefighter, I’m gonna lose my mind.”
Dillon grinned.
He was about to show her exactly what the hell there was to do in this town.