Beautiful Burn (The Maddox Brothers, #4)(32)

Tyler guided me to his truck and helped me inside. I tried to face forward and keep my eyes on the road, because riding in the back of the Audi on the way to Winona’s an hour before was rather brutal.

Less than fifteen minutes later, we turned onto Mills Drive. His truck bounced over the uneven asphalt and ice as he parked in a lot south of the station.

“Sorry,” he said. “We’ve got a short walk.”

A vent was bleeding white mist out of the side of the brown building, and I stepped down and looked across the street, squinting my eyes to try to see if the lights were on yet at the MountainEar.

“If you need to throw up, now is the time,” Tyler said, walking around the front to stand next to me. His thick arm hooked around my shoulders, but I shrugged away.

“I’m fine. Don’t baby me. I did this to myself.”

“Yes. Yes, you did.” Tyler stepped through the blanket of snow covering the broad gap between his truck and the station. We reached the back door, and with a quick twist of the knob, it was open. Tyler swept his arm toward the hallway ahead. “After you.”

I crossed my arms to ward off the cold as I walked inside. It was much harder to keep warm when I was hungover for some reason—another thing to be pissed about.

Tyler stomped his boots on a large industrial mat, and I did the same. He gestured for me to follow him down a hallway lined with cheap frames holding pictures of former superintendents and a few fallen fire fighters. The last picture was from the late nineties, and the guy couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. I paused, staring at his freckles and sweet smile.

We passed an open doorway that led to a brightly lit garage full of pumper trucks, engines, and equipment. Packs and helmets hung from hooks on the walls, and extra hoses were squared away on large shelves.

“I’ll let you get some shots in here after we get the okay from the superintendent,” Tyler said. “My squad boss said he’s in today, sorting through applications.”

After a few closed doors, we crossed the threshold of another doorway. Tyler pointed behind us. “That’s the squad boss’s office. The superintendent is in there now, cussing at the computer. His name is Chief.”

“Is he the chief or superintendent?”

“His name is Chief. His position is superintendent. He’s the one who has to clear you to stay at the dorms.”

“Gotcha. Wait. I’m staying at the dorms? Where are the dorms?”

“Farther into Rocky Mountain National Park. If you’re going to follow us around, we can’t come into town to get you every time we get a call.”

“Holy shit. So I’m going to have to, like … pack?”

“Yep. These,” he said, nodding forward, “are our quarters. TV room,” he said, pointing left. Two sofas and four recliners sat in front of a large television. It was a widescreen, but seemed to be its own unit, older than most of the guys watching it. Tyler waved, and they waved back, curious but not enough to move from their chairs. “Another office,” he said, pointing to a room farther down on the left. “We do our reports on that computer. And there,” he said, pointing right, “is the kitchen.”

I walked through the doorway, seeing a rectangular table that seated eight on one side, and a modest cooking area with cabinets on each side, a refrigerator, and a stove. Next to the sink sat a toaster and a microwave. They seemed to have everything they needed, although it was the size of a closet to serve eight or so men.

Tyler continued through a second doorway. “These are the sleeping quarters.”

“Seriously?” The room looked like an infirmary, with beds set almost side-by-side, separated only by individual, square, armoire-like pieces. “What are those?”

“They hold our personal belongings—extra clothes, coats, stuff like that. There are two on each side, sort of like lockers.”

“You sleep like this? In one big room with a bunch of guys?”

“Sometimes. Yes, some of them snore.”

I made a face, and Tyler laughed. “C’mon. Let’s go see the superintendent.”

We walked back through the kitchen, passing the guys in the TV room. They were just beginning to stir, standing up and stretching.

“Are they going somewhere?” I asked.

“They eat breakfast and watch the news. Then they go down and do chores unless we get a call. In off-season, we work a typical forty-hour week, five AM to four PM or four PM to ten PM.”

“No fires at night?”

“Yeah, for the full-time engine guys.”

“Chores?”

“Yep. Wash the vehicles, sweep and mop floors, dishes … whatever. We don’t have maids here.”

I snarled at him, knowing it was a dig at me.

“Downtime—if we get any—is a lot different at the hotshot duty station. We dig new trails and fix fence and signage, run drills…”

“So, not really downtime,” I said.

Tyler knocked on the door across from the quarters, and a deep voice growled from the other side.

“Come in, damn it!”

Tyler winked at me and opened the door. The superintendent sat behind his desk, partially hidden by several file folders and an ancient, boxy computer, looking frustrated.

“Hey, Chief. I have a journalist here who—”