9
Tori didn’t know what she was doing. It was her first break in weeks. The fire season was running hot and heavy, but Candace had finally declared that enough was enough and shuttered the Leavenworth Hotshots for five days. Thirty days without a break, they were all so punchy that safety was becoming an issue.
Tori had thought about hanging out in town like usual. But she didn’t want the noise and the bars. She wanted the quiet that a smokejumper had introduced her to an age ago.
By the time she parked her battered Toyota pickup beside the shiny Jeep Wrangler, Tori at least knew her destination. As if she hadn’t looked up the access road on a topo map the moment she’d gotten off the Checker Mill Fire.
She spent most of the hour’s hike up his trail telling herself she was being an i***
