Slow Burn: A Colorado High Country Novel

  It had been a pretty quiet week. A fatal MVA involving a motorcycle in the canyon. An EMS call involving Mrs. Beech, the old high school English teacher, who’d collapsed in the Food Mart parking lot. An MVA with injuries, this time involving a car and a bicycle. Hank’s hash oil explosion.

  How was Hank, anyway? Eric would have to give him a call.

  Then he came to the report of the fatal rollover MVA involving the little girl who’d drowned. She’d unbuckled her seatbelt, trying to help her injured mother, and the creek’s current had carried her right out of the car’s broken window. Moretti had tried to reach her, breaking with Team safety procedures by jumping into the water with no rope or harness, but he hadn’t been able to catch her. There was nothing he could have done differently, nothing anyone could have done.

  Bad fucking business.

  Eric pulled a box of cards out of his bottom desk drawer—condolence cards—and filled one out, signing it on behalf of the Scarlet Springs Fire Department and addressing it to the child’s parents. It wouldn’t make one damned bit of difference to them, but it was the only thing he could do.

  He’d just stuck a stamp on it when Taylor called to suggest they take Moretti climbing to get his mind off things. “That’s a good i—

  The department’s tone sounded out through the hallway.

  Dispatch called them over the scanner. “Scarlet FD, we have a report of a car fire on Fourth of July Road.”

  “Sorry, man, got to go.”

  Fourth of July Road sat high above Scarlet in an area that was almost entirely wilderness. It was a narrow, winding road with steep drop-offs and sharp switchbacks that made it tough to access with anything wider than a pickup. A car fire up there could easily spread to the trees and turn into a dangerous wildland blaze.

  Eric replied to dispatch, feeling almost relieved to have an emergency on his hands. Unlike his feelings for Victoria, this was something he knew how to handle.

  He shouted to Ryan, his A-shift captain, who fell in behind him as they jogged to the locker room. “I’ll drive the water tender. You head up in your pickup.”

  “I thought you were on vacation.”

  “I’m taking a vacation from my vacation.”

  Ryan laughed. “You got it, chief.”

  .

  Chapter 16

  Vic sat with Lexi, Britta, and Winona in the ocean-themed waiting room at the spa, trying to catch up on her emails from Abigail. The women were all wrapped in fluffy, white bathrobes, fresh from getting facials. Now it was time for the manicure and pedicure.

  “I think we should match, don’t you, Vic?” Lexi asked.

  Vic looked up. “Yes, absolutely.”

  “Then let’s all get French manicures and pedicures,” Lexi said.

  The door opened, and four manicurists walked in.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we don’t allow cell phones in the treatment areas for security reasons. You can store your phone in your locker.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Vic of all people could appreciate that. She got to her feet. “I need to send an important message. I’ll be right back.”

  She stepped out of the waiting room into the locker room, quickly scrolling through Abigail’s messages then answering all of the questions in a single long text message. She ended it by letting Abigail know she wouldn’t be available for the rest of the day or tomorrow either.

  I’m about to head into a spa for a mani/pedi, and they don’t allow phones. Tonight is the rehearsal. Tomorrow is the wedding. I’ll be in touch Sunday when I get home. Call Jeff if you have more questions.

  Abigail’s reply was almost instantaneous.

  Maybe I should give Jeff your raise.

  Vic stared at her phone, stunned by Abigail’s threat, anger making her face burn. She typed a reply.

  Jeff is hard-working and deserves a raise.

  She pressed send, shut off her phone, and locked it in her locker with her handbag, so angry she could spit. She’d done her best—mostly—to keep up with Abigail’s messages and emails, but she was on vacation, her first real vacation in more than a year. She couldn’t help it if the spa didn’t allow cell phones. Besides, she couldn’t very well get her nails done and text at the same time. Tomorrow was her best friend’s wedding, one of the most important days in Lexi’s life, and Vic was her maid of honor. She wasn’t going to spend the wedding rehearsal or the wedding on her phone.

  Not wanting to cast shadows over everyone else’s fun, Vic took a deep breath and followed her manicurist to the treatment room where Lexi and the others now sat in pedicure chairs, their feet soaking in warm, scented water.

  She pushed a smile onto her face. “I’m back.”

  But Lexi knew her too well. “Trouble at work?”

  “Nothing important.” She sat, slipped off her little spa sandals, and put her feet in the water. “Oh, that feels good.”

  Winona, who’d never had a pedicure before, was busy playing with the massage controls. “You should try this, Vic. Did you see? The chair gives massages.”

  Vic didn’t tell her that most pedicure chairs were like this. “Cool!”

  “She doesn’t need a massage,” Britta said. “She has Eric.”

  Not for much longer.

  Vic forced another smile onto her face. “Should we practice your vows, Lexi?”

  “I’d like that. I’ve got them memorized, but I’m afraid I’ll be so nervous that I’ll screw up.”

  Vic read along while Lexi recited the vows she and Austin had written, Winona laughing and struggling to hold still.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It really tickles.”

  “Oh, my God, Lexi, look at the clock!” Britta blurted. “By this time tomorrow, you’ll be a married woman.”

  Lexi’s eyes went wide. “It’s really happening, isn’t it?”

  Vic took her hand. “Yes, sweetie, it is.”

  It was almost one in the afternoon when they left the spa. They ate a late lunch at a trendy sushi joint, then strolled Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall, checking out the boutiques, talking and laughing the way they’d done when Lexi lived in Chicago.

  “I’ve missed this,” Vic said.

  Lexi threw her arm around Vic’s shoulder, gave her a squeeze. “So have I.”

  Vic bought a little sleeveless blue dress with a poppy-red floral pattern, taking time in the dressing room to send a text message to Eric.

  All of me misses all of you.

  It was the truth. She could barely think of anything but him, her mind filled with images from last night. Eric looking like a movie star in his white tux. Eric tearing off his tie and shirt and yanking down his fly, eager to get inside her. Eric dancing his way to the bed, naked, with her in his arms.

  How about we fuck until we break this bed?

  She waited for a response, but when he didn’t reply in a few minutes, she quickly finished dressing and slid her phone back into her purse.

  He still hadn’t responded two hours later when they left Boulder and headed back up the canyon toward Scarlet. She tried to tell herself that he was probably just busy with Austin doing guy things. They’d talked about climbing today. Still, she couldn’t shake the fear that she’d gone too far by admitting she missed him.

  Oh, she hated this part of romance—all the uncertainty, having feelings she was afraid to express in case he wasn’t feeling the same way. It was a stupid dance, and it wasted her time, energy, and sanity. Then again, this wasn’t really a romance, was it? She didn’t know what it was.

  “Oh, look!” Lexi pointed as they pulled into the inn’s driveway. “The tent is up.”

  A forty-foot-long white party tent stood on the west side of the inn. Staff from the rental company were busy setting up chairs in a wide spiral around the little stand of aspens to the south. The bench that usually sat there had been moved to make room for the wedding party at the center.

  Vic and the others followed Lexi to the party tent, where staff were draping cloth banners in
lavender and sage from the ceiling of shirred white fabric. “This is beautiful.”

  Lexi gave them a tour. “There will be antique green bottles on all the tables with bouquets. That table at the end is where we’ll all sit, Austin and I in the center. There will be bouquets on that table, too. The dance floor will be on the other end. I think that’s the cake table there. Or maybe that’s the guestbook table.”

  Lexi introduced herself to the person in charge and answered a few questions, giving Vic time to run up to her room, freshen up, and change into her new dress.

  And still nothing from Eric.

  She willed herself to put him out of her mind. Today wasn’t about her and Eric. It was about Lexi marrying the man she loved.

  When Vic went back outside, she found Lexi talking with Rose, who’d dressed in a white broomstick skirt, white tank top, and a white lacy shawl.

  “I appreciate your suggestions, but I think we’ll just do it the way we planned.”

  Vic walked over to offer Lexi moral support.

  “If you’d like, we could do a purification ceremony tonight—smudge the grounds, the tent, and the wedding party.”

  Lexi shook her head. “I think we’ll just go with the ceremony the way it’s written on the sheet I gave you. But thanks so much, Rose. I know you care.”

  “I’m just trying to bring a sense of sacredness to your joining.”

  Vic had an idea. “What if you smudged the space right now—before the rehearsal? That way it will all be purified before they step into it as a couple.”

  Lexi gaped at her.

  “That’s a good idea, Victoria.” Rose glanced at her watch. “There’s not much time before we’re supposed to start.”

  “Austin texted to say the guys are going to be late, so there’s no rush,” Lexi said. “They went climbing in Eldo and hit bad traffic.”

  That explained why Eric hadn’t texted Vic back. He’d probably been dangling in the air when her message had come.

  “I’ve got to run home, but I can be back in about five minutes.” Rose took off at a fast walk, shawl flapping in the air behind her like butterfly wings.

  As soon as she was out of sight, Lexi sagged against Vic. “That ought to keep her busy for a while. I think you just saved my sanity.”

  They joined Britta and Winona, who sat on the back porch sipping lemonade with Cheyenne, Austin’s sister, and his parents, Michael and Roxanne.

  Kendra walked outside with another pitcher of lemonade and a stack of plastic cups. “The bride’s girls are here. I hope the groom didn’t get cold feet.”

  “There’s no chance of that,” Roxanne said. “My boy is head-over-heels.”

  A few minutes later, the sound of tires on gravel turned everyone’s heads toward the driveway. Austin pulled up, and he, Jesse, and Chaska stepped out of the vehicle, all of them looking dirty and sweaty. They moved in on the lemonade like predators, taking cups as fast as Kendra could fill them.

  Vic’s stomach sank.

  Eric wasn’t with them.

  “Where did you boys go climbing?” Michael asked.

  Austin held out his cup for more. “We played around on a couple of routes on Red Garden Wall. Is Hawke back yet?”

  “He didn’t go climbing with you?” Chey asked.

  Austin set his empty cup on the table. “He got toned out for a car fire up on Fourth of July Road. I listened on the scanner for a while. It had begun to spread to the hillside by the time he and his crew arrived, so they’ve had a busy afternoon.”

  Now do you feel stupid?

  Vic had been worried that she’d made him angry or that he was just ignoring her, when he’d been off saving the world again.

  Eric stripped out of his gear, glancing at the clock on the locker room wall. The wedding rehearsal had started a half hour ago. He didn’t have time for a shower. Unless he wanted to miss the entire thing, he’d have to go as he was—sweaty and smoky and high on adrenaline.

  Damn, he loved his job.

  He’d arrived at the scene to find an old Ford F-150 and a quarter-acre patch of the hillside on fire. The owner had already popped the hood, letting lots of nice oxygen reach the fire and enabling it to spread. They’d divided into three teams, one for the vehicle and two for the hillside. After that, it had been textbook—apart from the volunteer who’d moved in to overhaul the vehicle fire without full bunker gear or an air pack.

  “What the fuck do you think this is—a barbecue?” Eric had shouted at him through his mask. “Get away from this scene, Nelson, and read your training manual again. Move it!”

  Eric hadn’t lost a firefighter in the two years he’d been in charge, and he wasn’t about to start now. What would have happened if that vehicle had blown with the kid standing right there, exposed?

  Still, it had felt good to be out there, working his body hard, strategizing to beat the flames, taking control of an emergency before it could become a catastrophe. It had helped to clear his head, get his mind off Victoria, put things back into perspective.

  Yeah, his life was sane again.

  He slipped into his jeans and T-shirt, then swung by his office to shut down his computer and get that condolence card in the mail. He found his cell phone sitting on a stack of papers on his desk. He grabbed it and hurried out to his truck, checking it for calls and messages. There was only one, and it was from Victoria.

  All of me misses all of you.

  Her words caught him right in the solar plexus, breath gusting from his lungs.

  God, he missed her, too.

  So much for sanity.

  He set the phone aside, figuring he’d get there faster if he just drove and didn’t spend ten minutes trying to come up with some kind of smart, sexy reply.

  Two minutes later, he parked his truck behind the inn, which had been transformed into a wedding theme park with a giant white tent and chairs. The others stood together on the back porch, waiting.

  Shit.

  He climbed out of the truck and jogged over to them. “Sorry I’m late.”

  Taylor grinned. “Did you have a nice fire?”

  Taylor knew him too well.

  Eric chuckled. “An old Ford pickup overheated and ignited fuel leaking through a cracked seal. It burned about a quarter acre of the hillside, but we got it.”

  Then he noticed Rose, who walked across the lawn, wafting smoke into the air from one of her sage bundles with a large black feather and saying something, the words just beyond his hearing. “What the hell is she doing?”

  “Purifying,” everyone said at once.

  Ookay.

  “She wanted to change our wedding vows and work in a purification ceremony, but Vic suggested this instead. It’s definitely keeping her busy.”

  Chaska stood with his back to Rose, looking pissed, arms crossed over his chest. “I guess I just have to pretend I didn’t see that eagle feather.”

  It was illegal for anyone who wasn’t a member of a federally recognized tribe to possess an eagle feather.

  Eric allowed himself to look over at Victoria, who was wearing the hell out of a little blue dress with red flowers on it. He walked to her side of the table and poured himself a lemonade. “You look pretty.”

  There was uncertainty in her brown eyes. “Thanks.”

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’ve missed you, too—all of you.”

  Sanity was overrated.

  Eric glared at Taylor as they walked back toward the inn. “Dude, the bride has her vows memorized. What’s with you? It’s not like you didn’t know the wedding is tomorrow.”

  “I’ll have it all memorized by then.”

  “Damned straight you will, even if I have to stay up all night drilling you. You’ve got to come through for Lexi tomorrow, man.”

  Irritation flashed across Taylor’s face. “You don’t think I know that? Why are you more tense about this than I am? You’re supposed to be the one reassuring me not to worry and telling me that everything will be all right
.”

  “It will be all right—if you memorize your vows.”

  “How’s your best man speech?”

  Yeah, well, Eric still needed to write that. “I’ll have it done.”

  Taylor fired his own words straight back at him. “It’s not like you didn’t know the wedding is tomorrow.”

  Okay, fine, so they were both procrastinators.

  Lexi and Victoria walked arm in arm ahead of them, one with red hair, the other with dark brown hair, the two of them as close as sisters. They’d both gotten choked up at various points during the rehearsal, the two of them setting Britta off.

  Victoria’s laughter drifted back to him. “Thank God for waterproof mascara!”

  The rehearsal dinner was a cookout. Eric helped Bob get his big gas grill going, while Austin took on the role of grilling burgers and vegetable kabobs for everyone. They ate together around two large rented tables loaded down with salads, condiments, and, best of all, cold beer.

  Eric had just finished his first burger and his first brew when his pager went off. Austin’s went off, too.

  BREECE ARRESTED. MEET @ CAVE 20:00 HRS

  Eric stared at his pager, then looked over at Taylor, who stared right back at him. “Holy shit.”

  “They caught him,” Taylor said.

  “Caught who?” Lexi asked.

  “Ted Breece.”

  Lexi’s face lit up. “Oh, my God! Seriously? That is fantastic!”

  “Who’s he?” Victoria asked. “Wait. Isn’t he the jerk who stole from the Team?”

  “That’s him.” Eric was impressed that she remembered.

  The bastard had stolen more than seventy thousand dollars from the Team, which was a fortune for a nonprofit run entirely by volunteers. Lexi had done the forensic accounting work that had helped them build a case against him, but the bastard had gone on the run the moment he’d realized Megs was onto him.