Page 33 of Love in the Time of Wildfires

The easiest thing to do was to let her talk. Then Logan didn’t have to reveal anything. He preferred it this way. He liked the tone of her voice, how it was a little lyrical, how it was calming to listen to even when she was being dramatic. He liked knowing exactly how she felt—she didn’t hold things back.

“I thought of something else I love, besides foxes and cheese,” she said when they stopped to take a water break, sharing a granite boulder to sit upon.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Except now that I think about it, maybe it’s a weird thing to say to a wildland firefighter.” She chuckled to herself. “Okay, never mind. I’ll think of something else.”

Now he was curious. “Tell me.” Logan touched her knee to encourage a confession, realizing too late he shouldn’t have. The action had been too easy.

“I was just thinking about what you said about camping when you were a kid, and it made me think about the few camping trips I went on too. The one thing I loved was the smell of campfires. Silly, I know, considering forest fires, but when it’s chilly in the evening and everyone is sitting around a fire yelling out I hate rabbits, and eating s’mores . . . I don’t know. I really love the smell. It feels like childhood and family.”

“Wait . . . back up a moment. You hate rabbits?”

She blinked as though surprised. “When you went camping and the smoke was blowing right in your face, you guys didn’t say, I hate rabbits, in order to redirect the smoke’s direction?”

“No.”

“I . . .” she stopped, pressing her lips together as if in thought. “I actually have no idea where we picked that from. I thought everyone did that?” She threw back her head, laughing fully.

“How is saying you hate rabbits supposed to have any effect on the smoke?”

She giggled again, her eyes lighting up. It was mesmerizing. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just magic. Or maybe by saying it loud enough, your breath affects the direction of the smoke. I mean, all of us kids would be sitting around the fire, yelling I hate rabbits the loudest, just so it’ll go into some other family member’s face. Maybe this is a trick you firefighters should try.”

Unable to help it, he chuckled. “Oh? The official fire study of I hate rabbits? I’ll get right on it. As a wildlife behaviorist it doesn’t seem fair for you to have a rabbit prejudice. How would you feel if the phrase was I hate foxes?”

Her eyes sparkled in the most delightful way. “Huh. I’ve never thought about it before, why rabbits were chosen. Maybe I need to rethink this whole thing. You’re right that rabbits have been unfairly targeted by my family.”

Getting up, they continued the hike. This time he let her take the lead, since the path was marked and there wasn’t a plan to go off-trail yet.

“What’s something that you miss from home when you’re out on the job?”

“Fresh air,” he deadpanned because it was an obvious thing without getting personal. “A real shower and bed.” This was easier to mention than his inability to develop and maintain relationships with people outside of his firefighter crew, which was too heavy for this conversation and more of a long-term systemic problem within the industry in general. This was the job. There wasn’t any use complaining.

He considered asking her for a real, unfuzzy picture of herself to take with him. It seemed only fair since she had one of him. But that was too big an ask considering they weren’t supposed to be anything other than neighbors. Except she was also wearing tiny army-green shorts and a white tank top, reminding him of his boyhood crush Lara Croft, only with Latina curves filling out the wardrobe. He hadn’t thought about the video game character in forever, not since moving beyond silly childhood fantasies. But today River was bringing it all back, making it difficult to function normally.

She held onto the straps of her new backpack as she walked. “Okay, but what about small things, like sweet treats or cookies—”

“Please don’t ever make me cookies again. Fighting against two-thousand-degree heat doesn’t make me as dehydrated as those cookies did.”

She laughed, turning to face him while walking backwards. “That was an accident! Don’t pick on me! I’m sick.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that excuse works anymore. And you definitely weren’t sick when you made those salt blocks you refer to as cookies.”

“It’s the thought that c—” River’s heel hit a rock poking through the path and it nearly sent her tumbling. Logan reacted, grabbing her by the waist to keep her upright, his heart going into his throat.

She gasped, one hand latching onto the fabric over his chest. “Oops,” she said softly, those beautiful plush lips of hers forming a perfect O. His eyes could only switch their focus from her lips to those dark, warm eyes of hers. Sometimes they wandered to the two tiny freckles on her cheeks before landing back on her lips.

“You need to watch where you’re going.” The words were gruff and barely made it out. Logan swallowed hard. She was practically in his arms, and he didn’t want to let go. In fact, he wanted to pull her closer.

“It was an accident.” Her hand gripped his shirt tighter, her mouth tilting closer.

His breath shallowed as though he needed to conserve energy. “An accident?” He was repeating nonsense. Nothing about how she felt within his grip felt anything like an accident. It felt . . . good. This should terrify him, but he didn’t feel anything close to that. If she said anything encouraging or called him osito, he’d be a goner. His head was as heavy as a bowling ball, wanting to drop within kissing range of her lips.

“On your left,” came a male voice, snapping Logan from whatever hypnotism he’d fallen into. He stepped them to the side, righting River before letting her go. Both kept their eyes averted as the older white man in blue jogging spandex brushed past them. Sneaking a look at River, she had a slight blush on her cheekbones and was tucking a strand of her hair behind an ear.

There was an awkward moment before she seemed to force a smile and said, “You’re right. I should watch where I’m going. Shall we continue?”

He motioned with a hand that she was free to lead but soon missed her chatter. Perhaps it didn’t matter because Logan was stuck in his head. Holy shit. He’d been moments from kissing River, and if he’d done so, it would have been difficult to stop. How would she have reacted? Did she know he’d wanted to kiss her? Had she wanted it? These were not the thoughts of a man determined not to start anything with his neighbor. It was similar to someone opening an animal pen, and all the thoughts were roaming like loose sheep. It wouldn’t be easy to wrangle things back. Either way, River was uncharacteristically quiet, which wasn’t a good sign.