Page 23 of Igniting Her

“Then why ask?”

“Three days on a line tell me more about a firefighter than most personnel records.” Cassie paused. “What I saw doesn’t agree with whatever made you leave.”

Ellie had no prepared defense for that. She could tell Cassie what had happened after the cameras left: the closed office, the careful voices, the choice presented as mercy. She could explain why transfer was a cleaner word than the one Ellie used in her own head. Instead, she smiled because the old defense still came fastest. “Maybe I’m excellent at paperwork fraud.”

Cassie’s eyes made it clear she knew what the joke was doing. She let it stand anyway. She looked at Ellie for another second, then faced the roof again. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Ellie had expected pressure. The absence of it left her with nowhere to brace. “That’s unusually reasonable of you, Captain.”

“Don’t spread it around.” The silence afterward was warmer than the joke deserved.

Ellie let her hand fall from her sleeping bag onto the groundsheet. Cassie’s rested there too, palm down between them. Less than two inches separated their smallest fingers. Neither woman moved.

The generators shut off one bank at a time. The camp settled around them. In the sudden quiet, Ellie heard Cassie breathe in and release it slowly. Cassie turned onto her side. Ellie did the same. Their hands remained on the ground between them. Cassie’s face was close enough that Ellie could see the pale line left by her helmet, the tiredness beneath her eyes, the gray gone silver at her temple. There was no office window, no long table, no crew pretending not to watch.

Cassie’s gaze dropped to Ellie’s mouth. Every muscle in Ellie’s body went still. Cassie leaned closer. Not far. An inch, perhaps two. Enough that her breath touched Ellie’s upper lip and the dark narrowed to the space between their faces. Ellie could have closed it. She wanted to badly enough that the mountain briefly stopped mattering. But if Ellie took the last inch, Cassie could call it another reckless choice, put it in a report, and stand outside it.

Ellie stayed where she was. Cassie came close enough that the next breath should have become a kiss. Then she stopped. Her eyes closed once. When they opened, the captain had returned. “Go to sleep, Ridge.” She rolled away. The order left Ellie facing the back of Cassie’s T-shirt, the line of one shoulder beneath it, and the dark fall of her hair across the sleeping bag.

Ellie stared at her for an hour. Wanting did not make the time pass faster. Neither did anger. She lay still while Cassie’s breathing settled and the fire threw its distant light against the tent wall. By the time the camp went completely quiet, Ellie had made her decision.

Back home, Cassie would have to say no without an order to hide behind.

8

CASSIE

The storm erased the harbor by six. Rain drove against the windows in diagonal sheets. The fishing boats, breakwater lights, and restaurants below had vanished. From Cassie’s living room, the coast appeared to end at her deck. Cassie had been home for four hours. She had showered until the water ran cold and put the deployment gear into the laundry bags in a clean row beside the door. Smoke remained in her skin.

So did the tent.

Ridge lying eighteen inches away, too tired to grin properly. Her hand on the groundsheet. The joke about Los Angeles. The silence after it. Cassie had leaned in. She could blame exhaustion, proximity, three days of heat and vigilance. None altered the direction in which her body had moved.

Stopping had been correct. Beginning had not.

The soup on the stove remained untouched. Her phone held two messages from Mo, one declaration of medical independence from Teak, and nothing from Ridge. Cassie checked anyway. Nothing. Relief should not have felt so much like disappointment. She set the phone facedown. Thunder moved over the roof.

The doorbell rang. Cassie did not move.

No one came to her house without calling. Mo had visited twice in twelve years. Even Teak respected a closed door during dangerous weather. The bell rang again. Cassie crossed the hallway and opened it. Ellie stood on the step, soaked through. Rain had flattened her light brown hair against her face and darkened her jacket nearly black. Water ran from her jaw. She looked furious, exhausted, and more certain than anyone had a right to look while on Cassie’s porch.

“You don’t get to look at me like that on a mountain and then order me to sleep.”

For several seconds, the storm occupied every space where Cassie might have answered.

“Ridge.”

“Don’t.” Ellie stepped beneath the porch roof. “Not unless you’re about to say something true after it.”

“How did you find my house?”

“Teak gave me the address.” Of course she had.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Cassie stepped back. Leaving a firefighter on an exposed porch during an electrical storm would have been irresponsible. That was the reason.

Ellie came inside. Water struck hardwood. Ellie kicked off her boots, dropped her jacket over the newel post, and turned. “Tell me I imagined it.”

“You are cold and overtired.”