“Then I’ve never heard of her.”
Ed snorted.
The man’s hands shifted once on the hose. He didn’t smile. “I’m Flint Sparks. Fire Mountain safety contractor. Volunteer department. Former smokejumper.”
“Flint Sparks,” I repeated.
Because apparently the universe had looked at my life, my brand, my fire-themed food business, my campaign shoot, and decided subtlety was for cowards.
Caprice, traitor that she was, whispered, “Oh my God, that’s perfect.”
I pointed at her without looking away from Flint. “Don’t produce this moment.”
“I would never,” she said.
Ed’s camera made a tiny mechanical adjustment.
I whipped toward him. “Ed.”
“What? My finger slipped.”
“Your finger better slip into the off position.”
Flint Sparks, menace of Cinder Ridge Meadow and destroyer of dairy, glanced at Ed’s camera, then at Caprice, then back at me. “You’re filming this?”
“We were filming,” I said. “Past tense. Before you turned my set into a water park.”
“You were about thirty seconds from losing the grass edge.”
“And you were about thirty seconds from asking one polite question before blasting thousands of dollars’ worth of product into the dirt.”
His jaw flexed again. Heat rose in my chest that had nothing to do with the weather. The man had the kind of face that belonged on a wilderness calendar, which was deeply inconvenient because I wanted to throw a wet basil bunch at it.
He studied the flooded set, then the dead smoke, then the grass edge.
“Sunny,” Joelle said carefully.
I turned. “Please tell me the words about to leave your mouth are ‘the backup product is dry.’”
“The backup product is in the camper.”
“Great.”
“The camper door was open.”
I looked toward my retro camper.
Water dripped from the little striped awning. Inside the open door, one plastic tub had taken a heroic splash across the label marked SHORTCAKE / BEAUTY BATCH.
My eye twitched.
Caprice stared at her phone. “Okay. So. The map is... not ideal.”
Flint’s brow rose.
“Don’t look smug,” I snapped.
“I’m not.”
