“Good thinking,” Joe replies, as he stations the water tank on the far side of the ridge that leads down to the marsh. We’re in the midst of it now, fire licking up on either side of us. Our hefty suits are designed to keep us safe, but the snarling bite of the flames through the trees sends my heart into a thumping stress reaction in my chest.
“Take the right,” I call to them. “We’ll take the left. Come on, Dylan…”
Dylan positions the water tank as I aim the hose, dousing the flames closest to us in a jet of water—the hose flexes and tries to break free from my grip with the sheer force of the pump, but I grip tight to the metal handle on the top, steering it steadily to take out the fire.
I’m distantly aware of the sound of Callum and Joe working on the other side of the forest, but I don’t break my gaze for an instant to look around and check on them. That’s the thing about working with these men. I know I can trust them with my damn life—and I have, more times than I can count. Handling fires like this all over the state, we’re a first line of defense, a force that can be quickly deployed to these smaller rural settings when the larger groups need more time to mobilize.
Soon, as I turn the hose on the last rush of the fire along the bank of the marsh, the flames are doused. I can see flashes of orangeand red through the trees, but they’ll have to wait till we can restock our water tanks. At least they’re back behind the marsh for now. Callum’s right, it’s not like they can move across the swampy ground—nothing to burn there.
I look around to see Joe and Callum running low on water just as the flames fade out to nothing. I pull off my helmet and drag my hand along my forehead, the bitter taste of ash clinging to my tongue.
“We need to get back to the safe house,” I call out to them as we regroup in the center once more. “See where else we’re seeing threats from, call in some help?—”
“And check on Angelie.”
Dylan is the one who says her name out loud first, but I can tell from the reactions around us that each and every one of us has been thinking about her. I coil the hose as best I can while we start up the hill once more, grabbing the other end of the water tank and helping Callum lift it over the rocks.
Nobody says a word for a moment. Nobody knows what the hell we’re meant to say, I can tell that much.
When we got the call to come to Devin Ridge, I knew that not a single one of us thought that we would see her here. The last time we all lived in this place, she was away studying at college, pursuing the career that she wanted so badly. I had assumed, perhaps wrongly, that she would stick it out somewhere far from here, somewhere she never had to think about us again.
That night at the bonfire was just a last hurrah for her.
Even if it was part of what bonded the four of us together for life. We had shared so much already, me and the guys, just by virtueof growing up in the same place. But sharing that, something so damn intimate, it brushed aside whatever might have stood between us, whatever bullshit macho crap might have kept us from being honest with each other in our entirety. We went from friends to something more—to the point that, when I decided to sign up for service, the three of them did the same, almost as a matter of course. Where one of us went, all of us went. That was the agreement. We had each other’s backs and we always would, one of the many reasons we made such a good team…
But now, as we stack our equipment back in the van, there’s something hanging over us—something that I know we need to contend with, even if it’s the very last thing any of us want to say out loud. If we’re heading back to that safe house, then we’re going to be there with Angelie and the kids, and we’re going to have to figure out justwhento ask the question that’s on the tip of all of our tongues.
“So,” Dylan finally demands, his voice blunt, “anyone else notice how old those kids were?”
Silence hangs over us for a second. Nobody wants to be the one to say it, because it will change everything, for all of us, if one of us is the father of those children. I can hardly bring myself to string the pieces together, but what choice do we have? They’re the right age to have been conceived on that night at the bonfire, and trying to pretend otherwise…
“Doesn’t mean they’re ours,” Joe shoots back as he secures the water tank to the van. “She went to college right after that. Could have gotten herself knocked up there, came back to be with her parents and sister so they could help her?—”
“You saw the way she looked at us,” Dylan retorts. “Like she’d seen a damn ghost. Four of them, to be exact. She hasn’t been with anyone else since that night, I’m sure of it?—”
“No, she hadn’t been with anyonebeforethat night,” Callum replies, shaking his head. “Doesn’t mean that she wasn’t with anyone else after it?—”
“You can’t seriously be telling me that you believe for a second that those children aren’t ours?” Dylan exclaims, loud enough that his voice echoes out around the forest that surrounds us. “Jesus Christ—Carlisle, do you believe me, at least?”
I grit my teeth. I have to acknowledge the possibility, but that doesn’t mean that I entirely trust the idea that those kids could be mine. Or ours, or however it is she wants to see it.
But we’ve been gone for a long time, a long enough time that she would have had the chance to reach out to any of us if she had wanted to let us know, to give us a chance to be a part of their lives, and she didn’t. Which leaves me with the conclusion that she doesn’t want us to have anything to do with those kids, even if they do belong to us, which we have no proof that they do.
“We can’t get distracted with that,” I reply, doing my best to keep my voice neutral. “We’re here to keep the fire under control?—”
“So I just have to ignore the fact that the woman we all had sex with hasfourkids who line up with that night?” Dylan replies, tossing his arms in the air with incredulity. “Yeah, sorry, but I’m not doing that. We have to address it eventually. Better to get it out of the way now, when we can?—”
“She might be losing her home,” Joe points out. “The last thing she wants to deal with is any of us throwing accusations at her.”
“Not accusations if they’re the truth?—”
“No matter what they are,” Joe cuts him off. “We’re here to do a job, not go digging up the past.”
“It’s not digging it up if it’s right there in front of us?—”
“Guys, we need to get back to the safe house and replenish our equipment,” Callum reminds us, swinging himself into the back of the van. “And we need to figure out how to get Angelie and her kids somewhere to stay—she can’t just go to one of the motels that the rest of them are staying at, not with four kids, so we’ll have to?—”
“Fine,” Dylan mutters, clearly sensing that he’s not going to get through to us right now. I almost want to pull him aside and tell him that my mind is at the exact same place his is, determined to get to the bottom of this one way or another, but it doesn’t work like that. We have to focus on the task at hand, not get dragged into a history that all of us thought we’d left behind.
