Plain Jane and The Hotshot

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Hazel’s strong voice was like an explosion in the slumbering peace of the cabin.

Jo bolted upright in bed, wondering what the emergency was.

“Up and at ’em!” Dottie’s twanging voice chimed in, loud enough to wake snakes. “We should be five miles down the road by now, cowgirls. Shake the lead out.”

Still groggy, Jo groaned when a powerful flashlight beam swept into her eyes.

“My God, it’s still dark outside!” Bonnie complained.

“C’mon, sweethearts, are you bolted to those beds?” Hazel said. “The wilderness is calling you.”

“Okay, okay, we’re up,” Jo protested, although she couldn’t help grinning when she saw the stupefied look on Kayla’s sleep-puffy face.

Dressing in the dim illumination of an oil lantern, Jo donned the sturdy outdoor clothing she’d packed: blue jeans, red flannel shirt and sturdy high-top shoes. A splash of water to her face and she felt almost human. Brushing back her hair, she tied it into a ponytail and tucked it under her shirt.

While she tucked it, however, heat crept into her cheeks. She was recalling the scene yesterday with Nick Kramer.

I still feel the challenge in spite of your generous peep show.

In your dreams, bucko, she wished she’d retorted. Why did the good lines always come to her too late to use them?

As Hazel had promised, the day’s new sun was just edging over the horizon by the time the girls, still knuckling sleep from puffy eyes, trooped up to the crackling flames of the breakfast fire.

Seeing the sun blaze to life, hearing the “dawn chorus” of hundreds of birds celebrating the arrival of daylight, Jo felt instantly buoyed. Her freshly renewed anger at Nick Kramer receded, and she felt a little thrill at the natural beauty around her.

She could see why this wilderness spot had grown on Hazel and her friends. “Back of beyond,” Hazel called it.

“We’re burning good daylight,” said the wise matron gruffly when Kayla straggled in, inappropriately dressed in pink shorts and a midriff top. “We’ve got a three-mile hike down to the canyon floor and the river, so let’s make tracks.”

Jo hadn’t realized how much her sedentary teaching job had affected her physical condition. After only thirty minutes on the trail—a series of looping switchbacks that descended to the floor of Crying Horse Canyon—she was short of breath. So were the rest of the younger women.

Yet amazingly, Hazel and the other two seniors were strutting out front, setting the brisk pace, joking and chatting and identifying various birds.

But no one was suffering the way poor, befuddled Kayla was.

Jo couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for her. Her golden-braised midriff was already pocked with the swollen bites of pesky flies, and several times she had scraped her exposed legs on thornbushes. She even managed to snag her ankle bracelet while stepping over a downed tree branch. If Jo hadn’t caught her in time, Kayla would have been sprawled facedown in the dirt.

“Break time,” Stella called when they reached the halfway point, a little fern bracken with several fallen trees providing seats.

Hazel, in the meantime, seemed intent on studying the skyline to the north.

Thin wisps of smoke curled in the wind, and Jo could hear the steady thucka-thucka of chopper blades as the Forest Service fought blazes in the adjacent canyons.

“Is the fire getting closer?” Jo asked Hazel.

“I can’t tell,” her friend admitted. “But it does feel like the wind’s been rising, instead of dying down as predicted. And if you ask me, the humidity is down, not up.”

“You can smell flames a little more, too,” Stella said, taking off her floppy jungle hat to swat at flies. “And I’m guessing smoke has forced more insects into this canyon. I’ve never seen this many flies.”

“I hope the fire does spread!” Kayla burst out resentfully. “I’m sick of this Danny Crockett stuff.”

“Davy Crockett,” Hazel corrected her, laughing in disbelief. “Some Texan you are,” she added before leading the women to one of the quiet pools in the river.

“Bait your hooks,” she ordered. “This is one of the best fishing holes west of the Great Divide.”

“This is incredible!” Stella marveled after they’d been fishing for not even an hour. “The trout are practically leaping on the banks for us.”

Even Kayla had gotten over her pouting. Now she seemed to be having the time of her life as she reeled in fish after fish.

It was especially remarkable, Jo told herself, because they were all “survival fishing,” using just fish-line and hooks tied to sticks—no fiberglass poles, no reels, only twigs for bobbers.

“Are they suicidal?” Hazel wondered as she tossed another fat trout onto the growing stack.

“It’s the fires nearby, Hazel,” a friendly masculine voice called out from behind them. “It’s messed up the river ecosystem and forced a huge number of fish into other feeding habitats.”

All six women turned to see an amazing sight: twelve men in their physical prime, all smudged and rumpled, all jockeying for a better view of the fisherwomen.

“Well, boys,” Hazel greeted them with amiable irony, “am I that much of a sex goddess in blue jeans? Oh, I see—you’ve noticed the children.”

“Mighty fine-looking kids, ma’am,” one of the smoke jumpers cracked, and another added: “We do baby-sitting gigs between fires.”

The men laughed, including Nick, but he also added in an undertone, “Manners, boys, manners.”

His eyes found Jo’s, and he sent her a friendly, let’s-make-peace smile.

Despite being over her earlier anger, however, a mechanical smile was all she could muster. Especially with a dozen men ogling her—although Kayla, not surprisingly, seemed their primary focus.

“Y’all been puttin’ out fires like big, brave heroes?” the blonde asked, waving at them.

“With our bare hands, sugar!” one of them assured her.

“We’re off duty now,” Nick explained. “We spent the night burning out some cheatgrass pockets—that’s why we’re smudged. No fires in Crying Horse Canyon. Now we’re just hiking back to our camp.”

With twelve men and six women, neither Hazel nor Nick attempted any introductions. But no name tags were required—his men weren’t bashful about breaking off into little groups to flirt with the women a bit before they left.

Jo wasn’t in the mood for socializing.

She waded partway into the river and tried to look intently busy baiting her hook.

But Nick made a point of walking over to her.

“I’m glad I’m not that worm,” he joked as she poked one with her hook. “I mean—you know, the symbolism and all.”

She didn’t like the way he seemed to crowd her. The river water was ice-cold and she dared not go farther out.

Her noncommittal glance only seemed to amuse him.

He tried another tact. “Look, I’m sorry if I came off a bit flip or smart-ass or whatever yesterday. That crack I made about you baptizing everybody—well, that was out of line.”

“I see.”

He shrugged one shoulder. When he replied, his tone wasn’t quite so friendly. “No need to get all gushy with forgiveness.”

Her cheeks heated. “Look, don’t worry about it, Mr. Kramer—”

“I only came over to make conversation—”

“Actually,” she challenged, leveling him a cool stare, “I don’t think you’re interested in conversation.”

“I give as good as I get,” he defended himself, his tone taking on a scalpel edge. “I s’pose you’re a scrubbed angel?”

“More scrubbed than you,” she returned, giving his soot-smudged face a once-over.

He stopped. Then as if suddenly finding the humor in her words, he tipped back his head and laughed. White, even teeth sparkled.

She found herself wanting to laugh, also, or at least smile. But instinct told her it would only lead her down the path to attraction, and then, destruction.

“Look, apology accepted, Mr. Kramer,” she finished, dismissing him.

“You give every man that go-to-hell look?”

She glanced at him and must have given him another one, judging from the sneer on his face.

“Sorry I’m not some sober-suited, country-club accountant who never gets his hands dirty. I admit I haven’t shaved in a while. I sleep in a tent and bathe in rivers, but it’s hard work fighting a fire. And I didn’t expect to meet some woman—”

She finally turned around and faced him.

His mouth formed a tight defensive line. His eyes were wary.

“Please don’t think I don’t appreciate your sacrifice,” she said. “Many would be unable to fulfill even your smallest of tasks to fight a wildfire. However, Mr. Kramer, this is a fishing hole, not a watering hole. If I wanted to meet a big strong man like you, I’d have gone to a bar, not gone camping.”