“Is it close?” Lily asked calmly, although her eyes took on that dark, deep hue that usually indicated she was worried.
“Over here,” Chase said, motioning for Lily to follow her to the far side of the platform away from the cluster of campers and counselors. Lily was no stranger to a crisis, and from the rate at which the smoke cover was spreading, a crisis was a distinct possibility. “From where I put the fire, there’s no danger to populated areas right now, but I can’t say yet what we’re facing. Let me call it in—chances are good I’m going to have to go.”
Lily’s mouth set and she nodded. “I understand. Is there anything I should do here?”
“If I have to leave, Alisha will be in charge until you’re all back at the lodge. No reason for the regular schedule to be interrupted.” Chase pulled her radio off her belt. No reason to mention the fire was closer to the lodge than where they were right then. “This is Fielder, I’m at the raptor tower in Little Neck. Smoke sighted about seventy-five miles north-northwest, vicinity of Eagle Peak.”
“This is Evans,” Natalie came back. “Roger that, dispatching aerial surveillance. Will advise.”
“Copy that. Fielder out.” Chase cupped Lily’s elbow and drew her an inch or two closer. “Lily, if I need to go, there’s no telling when I’ll be back.”
“I can wait,” Lily said quickly.
“No, that’s not what I mean.” Chase shook her head. Lily had spoken quickly, no doubt meaning what she said, but she didn’t know what they might be facing. Chase forced a smile she didn’t feel. “You’ve got responsibilities elsewhere, and I could be gone a week or two. I want you to know that I get how important your work is, not just to you, but to the patients you take care of. I think you’re an amazing woman. I think what you’ve done for thousands of people, who don’t even know it, is incredible.” Her throat tightened and she swallowed. She was out of time, and she needed to say this. “And for me, Lily. Thank you for this summer.”
Lily drew in a slow deep breath and held Chase’s gaze. “I don’t want it to end like this, but if it does, you need to know I—”
Chase’s radio blared. “This is District Supervisor Natalie Evans. This is an all call. We have an unprescribed burn cresting Eagle Ridge. Ground teams from Bolton Fire, Lake George Fire, and Ticonderoga Fire Rangers responding. All district five officers report to the station for briefing and deployment. I repeat, all call.”
“That’s me,” Chase said. “I’ve got to go, Lily.”
“You be careful,” Lily said, gripping Chase’s shirt with one hand. “Do not take any chances.”
Chase knew this might be the last time they were together, and she didn’t care who was watching. She pulled Lily close and kissed her. Lily leaned into her, returning her kiss with a fierceness that flamed Chase’s senses. Cradling Lily’s cheek in her palm, Chase drew in the scent of her, absorbing the sweet and tangy taste that ran like life over her tongue. When she drew back, her body quivered. “You too, Lily. Be careful down there.”
Chase turned and took the steps down the middle tower without looking back.
* * *
Lily quickly crossed to the far side of the platform and watched Chase’s figure disappear down the trail and kept watching for long seconds after she’d disappeared. What had just happened? She understood emergencies, of course—the stat page that terminated conversations midsentence or the phone call that interrupted an intimate moment one too many times, putting an end to any chance of another evening with that person. Events that demanded whatever personal pleasure or problem of the moment be set aside to allow the gears to shift, the mind to focus, and the job to come first.
But this was different—this was not a casual moment she could shut off and forget. Chase was gone. Their summer had just ended. Everything they had shared was neatly tied up and dispensed with. They had just said good-bye, while her lips still tingled from the heat of Chase’s kiss and her blood raced with wanting her.
Lily gripped the railing to steady herself, reeling to take in the abrupt departure—as final and traumatic as an amputation—while struggling to keep the well of sadness that brimmed within her from spilling out.
“Something happening?” Alisha asked at her shoulder.
“Forest fire.”
“I saw the smoke. Looks like it might be sizable.”
Lily turned when she was certain she had control again. “Chase said we should keep to today’s schedule. I’m without a compass here. How worried do I need to be?”
“Don’t need to worry yet.” Alisha checked to see that the other counselors had the campers engaged before continuing. “Fires aren’t uncommon during high summer when there hasn’t been much rain and the forests are dry. Added to the danger of natural causes like a lightning strike, we’ve got the most hikers dispersed throughout the area as we’ll have all year, increasing the chance of a careless campfire or tossed cigarette.”
“How difficult are they to get under control?”
Alisha grimaced. “The fire protocols are very effective—establish the natural local barriers—a stream or rock face where the fire won’t jump, shore up the defenses by cutting clear any underbrush or flammable foliage, starve it out from the air with retardants spread over the burn. Usually once the fire lines are secured to prevent it jumping into adjacent areas and after dampening the burn from the air or with ground water—if there’s any nearby—the fire will burn itself out.” She frowned. “If the weather cooperates.”
“Cooperates how?” Lily railed inwardly at her ignorance. She hated there were so many things she didn’t understand about this life, about Chase’s life. About the things that could endanger Chase’s life. For Lily, understanding was comfort, the lessening of worry and anxiety. Although that worry would never completely go away whenever Chase was out of sight. Except that had already happened, hadn’t it? She might’ve said good-bye to Chase for the last time already. When would that reality ever not shock her?
Her hands trembled and she carefully slipped them into the pockets of her shorts. She focused through the frustration and pain. “Wind, you mean. That’s what drives the flames, gives it air to breathe, to grow.” Her hands clenched tighter. She wouldn’t voice what could happen—the wildfire that roared down mountainsides, changing direction unexpectedly, jumping fire lines, trapping firefighters. She would not give those images any more power to terrify her.
“The best thing we can do,” Alisha said, her expression kind and gentle, “is just keep on with our regular routine. Sarah will be in constant contact with the DEC and keep us informed. The kids only have four days left, and they’re busy ones. If they have questions, we’ll answer them as needed.”
Lily nodded. She would do her job just as Chase was doing hers. And she would trust in Chase to be every bit as good at hers as she knew her to be. She did trust her, or else she never would’ve given Chase her heart. Even if she hadn’t realized that’s what she had done until now.
* * *
Lily watched the smoke while circulating through the groups of teens, none of whom except Marty, who stared in the direction of the fire, seemed concerned by the distant black smudges hanging above the treetops.
“It’s quite a ways away,” Lily said as she leaned on the rail next to them.
“No rain in the forecast,” Marty said. “I checked it this morning.”
“I understand they drop fire retardant from the air.” Thank you, Alisha, for the brief lesson in fighting wildfires.
Marty nodded, their gaze still distant. “It’s a little bit like war, I guess. You’re trained to fight, right? So when you have to, you do.” They looked at Lily. “So Chase and the rest of them—they’ll be okay.”
Lily hugged them quickly. “Yes, they will.” She didn’t say and so will your dad, but the tension eased from Marty’s shoulders, so Lily knew they’d heard. “Come on—I think it’s time to head down to the vans.”
The moment they returned to the lodge, Lily sought out Sarah. “Do you have any word yet on the situation out there?”
Sarah shook her head, her eyes full of undisguised concern. “Nothing yet. Nat will get in touch when she has time, but until the teams are deployed and the aerial surveillance provides detailed information on the location, they won’t know the scope of the burn.” She sighed. “If we hear before tomorrow, I’ll be surprised.”
Lily let out a sigh. “That long. Waiting has never been my strong suit.”
“All the responders are veterans of this kind of thing,” Sarah said. “Wildfires are always unpredictable, but everyone out there knows that. The teams are very well trained, and there’s always the chance they’ll have it under control in a couple of days if not sooner.”
“Right. And we carry on.”
“We do. The next two days are kind of highlights of the summer season, and the campers usually love it.”
“I imagine for them playing accident victims and medics beats climbing rock faces or learning water rescue techniques.”
“For some of them,” Sarah said with a smile.
“Ha,” Lily said, “I’m willing to bet most of them volunteer to be accident victims.”
“There’s something about the bandages and the fake blood,” Sarah said, forcing a laugh. “And I won’t take that bet.”
“Care to wager on who volunteers to be medics?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one. Marty for sure, probably Ford. And of course, Merrick from cabin three, who we all know plans on being a flight surgeon.”
Lily laughed, the camper in question having made his military career plans clear to everyone on a daily basis. His excitement, however, was contagious, and no one seemed to mind. “I haven’t done a field training like this in a decade. Under other circumstances, I’d be looking forward to it too.”
Sarah squeezed her arm. “I know it’s useless to say don’t worry, but try not to. This isn’t Chase’s first rodeo, you know.”
“You’re right, of course.” Lily forcibly shook off the anxiety she could do nothing to assuage. “You’ll let me know as soon as you hear anything?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks. I’m off for a quick shower before dinner, then.”
She needed the shower after a day hiking, but even more, she needed a few moments to compose herself. She thought she’d have a week to prepare for leaving, and now it appeared she had no time at all. The thought of returning to the city without seeing Chase again was intolerable. She sank down on the side of her bed and tried to take stock of what she was feeling.
She couldn’t. This sense of being lost somehow and not even knowing how or why or where the right path lay was completely foreign to her. She’d never been indecisive in her life. She’d known from childhood that she would follow her parents into medicine. She knew from her first day in medical school that she was destined for the emergency room. She knew where she would practice, in the largest metropolitan area in the nation and one of the largest in the world, where anything could happen and had happened. She’d known that a serious relationship—when and if—would happen how and when she was ready. And now here she was in the last place on earth she would ever expect to be, about to return to the life she’d made, and all she could feel was sadness and uncertainty.
* * *
Chase pulled on her Nomex pants and flipped the suspenders up over the shoulders of her yellow shirt. She checked the contents of her backpack for the air filters, the heat tent, the extra water, the salt tabs, the MREs, and her goggles before shouldering the pack and tucking her hard hat under her arm. Tom Perry jogged over to her.
“Knew this was coming,” Perry said. “No rain for three weeks.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and the forecast will be wrong,” Chase muttered. No rain was forecast for another week at least.
Tom harrumphed. “Wouldn’t count on that. Without bad luck, I wouldn’t have—”
“Any luck at all,” Chase finished with a wry laugh.
When they walked into the conference room for the briefing, Nat was already there with the fire chiefs from three neighboring towns and the fire ranger captain from Ticonderoga. Nat nodded to Chase and Perry and indicated the aerial map of the fire location projected on a wall screen. “Preliminary reports have the burn encompassing sixty woodland acres, projected to double that hourly. Satellite images”—another image came up—“show a large grassland area in the potential fire zone, depending on wind shift and fire movement.”
Chase grimaced. Wildland fires traveled faster in grassland than in heavily wooded zones, making it all the harder to contain them. Especially if the wind picked up to drive the fire uphill.
The Bolton fire chief, a heavyset man in his sixties with a gray crewcut and summer tan, grunted. “When do we think about evacuations?”
Nat shook her head. “There’s a lot of forest between the burn and any populated areas, but we will be sending teams out to clear any hikers or campers who might be in the red zone once we set up our perimeters.”
She turned back to the satellite images. “We’ve got a water barrier here”—she traced a line with her laser pointer—“and a rocky escarpment along this eastern peak. We’ll put our lines there.” She circled a spot just off the barely visible thin line of an access road that ended below the location of the fire. “Incident command post here. Questions?”
No one had any—the approach to fire containment was standard, although anything but routine. The terrain, the wind, the dryness of the soil, the moisture level in the air, and the ability of firefighters to reach the areas where they needed to work were all unique factors, which would have to be addressed on the ground as the situation evolved.
“I’ll see you out there,” Nat said, and the teams dispersed to head for their assigned locations.
As Chase jogged toward the helicopter, she let her mind drift for the last free moments she’d have before the job ahead demanded all her attention. Her last glimpse of Lily’s face—a little pale and worried—mirrored the emotions swirling through her now. Good-byes were hard, even when necessary, even when expected. She knew that. She and her father hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye, but she and her mother had. This felt a little bit like that, like a little piece of her had died. The pain in her chest was real, and she hadn’t realized that could happen. But her heart felt bruised. She settled into the jump seat next to Tom and pulled on her headgear. She had to let that go for now. After all, she’d have a lifetime to miss Lily and knew that she would.