The Ides of Matt 2016

Summer of Fire and Heart-3

“I’m not there yet,” she told him. “I did night school online and have two years of credits.” She’d never told that to anyone; it had always been her own private goal. “That was my ticket out of Paramus and a bonafide guarantee that I’d never go back to Hepler. With me gone, Hepler is down to a hundred and thirty-one people. The nearest high school was fifteen miles away. That’s why I did so well at track-and-field. In addition to practice I rode my bicycle both ways to school because there was no late bus.”

“We should go visit Lamar someday. It’s huge!” Brent spread his arms wide, accidentally bumping her on the head. “At least by comparison. Seven thousand people. Impressed?”

“Terribly!” She clasped her hands to her chest as if about to swoon with delight. They no longer held hands, but still sat close enough that she could feel him there beside her. “What is a Colorado flatlander doing with a hang glider?”

The air show was fading along with the light. The fire was reported as contained and now just needed beating all the way down.

“I,” Brent looked out the window, but she couldn’t quite tell what he was looking at. “It’ll sound stupid.”

“I’m a Kansas farm girl who sold cowboy boots in Paramus, New Jersey. Top that one. I dare you.”

6

Brent kept looking, but it wasn’t dark enough yet. He couldn’t see the reflection on the inside of the cab’s glass—the reflection of a man he wouldn’t recognize sitting next to…

He cleared his throat, still convinced that this wasn’t really happening.

“I’m a first year professor at UM. They kept me on after my grad work; I teach undergraduate astronomy.”

“Which has what to do with hang gliding?” Ashley’s tone was light. She made it easy for him to talk and with the fading light he was slowly becoming less daunted by her beauty and more enamored of her innate warmth of heart.

“I…” In for a penny, Tucker, in for a pound. “My dad said I’d never amount to crap,” he said it fast so that he wouldn’t sound bitter. “Probably because he hadn’t either. I decided that every summer—while school was out—I would learn something new, really learn it, to prove him wrong. I started a couple years back. I spent a summer learning to do long-distance bike riding, made it to Wisconsin and back. I worked a summer with a swim coach until I won a couple of amateur competitions. I did ballroom dancing last year. This year I decided to try hang gliding. I’ve got my H3—there’s only one more level of licensing, but the H4 is a lot of work.” Crap! This was making him sound like he had no direction at all. He loved teaching astronomy and working with the kids. It was—

“Ballroom dancing?” Ashley sounded aghast.

Perfect. She was one of those people who thought that meant he was some sort of pansy who—

“However did you talk to women who were your dance partners? I’m not sure how you’re talking to me.”

Not the response he’d been expecting.

Ashley kept proving that in addition to being beautiful woman, she was also a very insightful one.

“Um, I just focused on the dance. Started with a male teacher so that I could learn the woman’s role and understand how I should be guiding her. Then all I talked about with any partner was the dance. And…I have no answer for your second question. You’re just the type of woman who scares the crap out of me. Let’s just call it temporary insanity.”

She watched him closely for a long moment before speaking, long enough that he wondered if she’d ask him to leave.

“Show me.”

“Show you what? Why I can’t talk to you?” How was he supposed to do that when he was?

“No. Show me how to dance.”

And, much to his surprise, he did. In slow, careful steps, they worked a basic waltz step around and around the narrow space between counter and the Osborne Fire Finder. The sunset filled the cab’s windows with gold, reds, and finally deep purples. When the only lights outside were a tiny spot of brightness from the distant fire and the rising moon, she lit a candle lantern. He could see their reflections inside the glass as they moved more and more in sync about the tiny space.

His awareness of her grew until it was more than an ache or a need. It grew until he was conscious of nothing else but the warmth and softness of her beneath his hands, of the wild, fresh smell of her, and of the musical ring of her soft voice as she took over counting the time and steps. They moved from the slow waltz to the Viennese. She flowed easily into the quick Irish and finally the almost slouching country-western waltz.

They staggered to a halt after the world outside had gone completely dark, and only the flickering candlelight coaxed the blue from her eyes.

How long they stood in the perfect frozen silence together, he didn’t know. Then she stepped back out of his arms.

He had brought no sleeping bag or blanket, he’d expected to be back off the mountain still in the heat of the day. Where would he—

Brent’s thoughts stumbled to a halt as Ashley reached down to her waist and then pulled off her t-shirt. Her b*a was the same color as her eyes, and all he could do was stare in bewilderment as that too hit the floor.

When she stepped back into his arms, she moved all the way in. Her skin was a silken wonder and for just a moment as their lips first met, he looked at their reflection in surprise.

Then any thoughts other than the woman in his arms simply flew away into the night.

7

June slid into July then August. Ashley could only look out at the wilderness in wonder as each day dawned.

How had she ever felt alone in the Montana Wilderness?

Brent’s schedule had slowly slipped around until he flew in the mornings and then hiked back up in the afternoon to lie in her arms. Sometimes they’d sit out on the catwalk for hours, staring up at the stars as he told her the stories of heroes and gods in the constellations. Other nights he’d tell her about spectral colors, fusion byproducts, and Doppler effects.

After feeling lost for so long—ever since the third day of her freshman year when she’d suddenly realized the small-town dead-end nature of Girard High School and Hepler, Kansas—she now felt as if the future was rushing toward her. She could practically hear it in the slow steadiness of Brent’s breathing as he slept wrapped around her on the narrow cot. It was there in the sweetest of wake-up kisses, and in the little treats he would carry up the mountain with him for their meals—even one-cup cartons milk for her lattes, bless his soul.

On her alternate weekends down the mountain, he taught her to fly. She wasn’t ready to tackle Medicine Point, but she’d flown beside Brent for three hours on an amazing updraft finally landing in the University of Montana track field.

She could feel him coming up the trail as she scanned the far hills to the south. Heard the slight clank as he dropped his packed glider at the foot of the tower and the vibrations as his feet climbed the wooden steps up to her.

He slipped up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and held her close as she finished the slow turn and fire scan. He’d learned not to interrupt her or she’d lose her place in scanning the hills. The fire season had heated up and it was a rare day that someone didn’t find a smoke. Her own count stood at twelve—in the upper third of the lookout pack, which didn’t do her ego any harm.

But even his slightest touch left her needing all of her willpower to finish the job. When she did, and had turned and received a proper greeting, he pulled open his pack.

“Fresh bread. Aged cheese. Chocolate. Bubbly,” he held up a bottle of sparkling cider. “I thought about bringing champagne, but I couldn’t figure out how to keep it cold enough.”

“What’s the—” Then she stopped. She knew. Brent was such a romantic. It was three months today since he’d jumped off the cliff to get away from her. Of course he would celebrate their first meeting, even if it was an embarrassment to him, rather than their first dance or the first time they slept together. As she often told him, he really was too sweet for her own good.

She thanked him a little more thoroughly this time.

Then he held up a letter, “I checked your mail, like you asked.”

8

Ashley’s eyes went wide and then she looked aside and blushed.

Over the last three months Brent had learned a great deal about Ashley. And one of the things he’d learned was that she was almost impossible to embarrass. Her heart was so generous that it had let him in and there wasn’t a sneaky bone in her body, but there was also a frank straightforwardness that didn’t flinch aside from anything.

Yet here she was blushing bright red over a letter from his school. He’d wondered at it for the whole hike up. His summer was almost over. Hers would be too, whenever they closed the fire lookouts for the season, perhaps in another month.

He didn’t know what he wanted to happen, but he couldn’t imagine a life without her in it. They hadn’t talked of the future, not a single word, too overwhelmed by how incredible the present felt. The return address on that slim envelope had suddenly dropped the future right into the center of his thoughts.

“It’s…” she took it slowly from his nerveless fingers. “It’s just this crazy idea I had. I didn’t mean it to—” Then she tried again, but still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I just kind of hoped—”

Brent stopped her from wholly turning away by placing a hand on either shoulder. He tried not to hope that she’d done what he’d been praying for the entire hike up the mountain. He pulled out the pair of stools they had sat together on to watch the first of many firefighting air shows. He had to guide her onto one as he sat on the other.

“Just open it. Then we’ll talk about what it means.”

She nodded without looking up, her hair showering forward and hiding her face just as it had the first time he’d ever seen her. She fumbled at the envelope several times and then finally just shoved it into his hands.

Ashley didn’t speak, didn’t look up as he worked the seal.

Careful not to look at the contents, he tried to hand the open envelope back to her, but she refused.

He rested a hand on hers and it was shaking.

Unsure of what else to do, he pulled out the single sheet. He started reading it aloud.

“Congratulations,” was as far as he got before she screamed just as loudly as that first time and then clapped both hands over her mouth.

Now she looked up at him and he brushed back her hair so that he could see the most amazing eyes there ever were.

“I hoped,” she mumbled. And now her eyes pleaded with him, awash with unfallen tears. “I hoped so hard.”

He read on against the tightening in his own throat. “School of Physical Therapy and Rehab. Track and field scholarship. Late start authorized at end of fire lookout season.” He couldn’t believe it. She’d be at UM with him. Ashley Mason wanted to be—

“I won’t take it if you don’t want me there,” she spoke in a rush. “I didn’t want to presume. But the way we—” she tried to hang her head again, but he stopped her with a finger on her chin. “I wanted,” she finally choked out as the first tears fell. “I so wanted.”

Brent couldn’t help smiling. He too had hoped so much. And then in a fashion that he’d barely managed believe, he had taken action himself.

“I have just two questions, Ashley Mason.”

She nodded furiously and covered her eyes in alarm and then uncovered them again without speaking.

“I know that it’s too soon, but I couldn’t stand the thought of you not being in my life.” He pulled the last thing from his pack, a small velvet ring box. He opened it to reveal the small sapphire. “It was the closest I could find to the incredible color of your eyes. I want to look at them every day for the rest of my life. Please say yes.”