Cal and I head to the clinic the next morning with the dog, who has been shut in the captain’s office for his own safety. Cal suggests we stop at Peak Grounds, which is less a suggestion and more Cal steering us through the door before I’ve agreed.
Micah’s behind the counter. Glasses, beard, fewer words per shift than most people use ordering breakfast.
“What does Dr.Hartley usually order?” I ask.
“Black. No sugar,” Micah says.
Black coffee. No sugar. No foam, no vanilla, no almond milk, no caramel drizzle. Every woman I’ve ever taken to coffee has ordered something with a minimum of three adjectives. Micah has to be wrong. Or Dr. Hartley is playing a long game with her coffee order, and either way, I know what I’m doing.
I order a vanilla latte.
Micah watches me order. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. The look over those glasses is a complete essay on the subject of men who ask for advice and then ignore it.
Cal, behind me, says nothing. His silence is louder than most people’s commentary.
At the clinic, I set the cup on the counter in exam two. Dr.Hartley looks at it. Looks at me. Picks it up. Reads the label. Sets it down again with a politeness so complete it could end a marriage.
“Thank you,” she says.
She doesn’t touch it again. She looks at the dog, same routine, same explosion of tail and paws and total species betrayal. She runs the exam while the vanilla latte sits on the counter going cold. The dog presses into her. She checks the burns. The medication’s starting to work on the dermatitis. She mentions she can see improvement in the skin around the treated areas. She is outstanding at discussing the dog.
“Healing well,” she says. “Come back tomorrow, Sullivan.”
In the waiting room, Cal leans toward Janet. “Wrong coffee order. Vet didn’t touch it.”
“Cal.”
“Current prediction: six weeks.” He holds up his phone. “Hanna put up a graph. She’s a Larsen—we graph things.”
I shake my head and walk past him on the way to the truck.
The call comes mid-afternoon: dry grass south of town, wind pushing it toward a fence line. Both crews roll.
My guys hit the flanks. Station 7 lays hose. Small fire, nobody’s worried, but it’s the first time both crews have worked on the same scene. Ty works the nozzle with Diaz on the line behind him. They don’t talk. Quick work. Done before the adrenaline catches up. Black ground, wet ash, steam.
“Not bad,” Diaz says on the ride back. From Diaz, that’s a standing ovation.
Cal, riding shotgun, turns around. “Hey, Sullivan. We drove past the clinic on the way out. You notice that?”
“I didn’t notice that.”
“You noticed,” Cal says.
At dinner that night, Derek announces the brush fire like a sportscaster. “Two acres. Fifteen minutes. Both crews. Historic collaboration. Also, Sullivan slowed down when we passed the vet clinic.”
“The engine slowed down,” I say. “Speed limit.”
“The engine knows,” Derek says in a spooky voice. “It’s been to that clinic every day this week. It’s forming attachments.”
Navarro, across the table, is trying not to laugh. Rivera isn’t trying at all.
Diaz and I hike the ridgeline east of town on a morning when the dew burns off too early and the wind comes from the wrong direction. I’ve already been to the clinic: quick visit, burns stillhealing, Dr. Hartley still professional, dog still choosing her over me. The routine is settling in. And being irritating.
“Fuel load’s heavy.” Diaz points ahead of us, up through beetle-kill pine, past granite where the trail quits. “Decade of drought. Beetle-kill everywhere. Wind funnels through that eastern gap and this whole slope goes up like a torch.”
“Defensible space?”
“Around town, it’s decent. The ranches south, though—” He shakes his head. “Nobody’s cleared it in years.”
