Wildfire Griffin (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew #1)(37)

“Wait.” She grabbed Callum’s sleeve as he started to turn away. “It wouldn’t hold. We need to widened by four more inches on this side.”

He hesitated. His gaze flicked back to the rest of their squad, nearly out of sight across the meadow. In the distance, she saw Rory’s head turn in their direction.

They didn’t exchange any signal that she could see, but Callum nodded. Without a word, he took up his tool again. Working together, they reinforced their line.

“Ha!” Seth’s triumphant voice echoed across the meadow. The men he’d sent out had already ringed their pretend spot fire and returned to the body of the squad. “Suck it, losers!”

Edith’s heart lurched. She kept cutting line, but her arms felt like lead.

C-squad had won the exercise. She’d let everyone down. She’d fumbled the tool exchange. She’d made a bad call on reinforcing the line. She should have gone back and checked with Rory. Buck would fire Rory and it would all be her fault— Buck ambled over to the line C-squad had cut around their red blanket. Even from twenty feet away, Edith could hear his sigh.

“Everyone stop,” he announced. “Hand your tools to C-squad. They’ll be sharpening them for you this afternoon.”

“What?” Seth sounded outraged. “But we finished first!”

“And turned the entire crew into toasted marshmallows.” Buck spat on the ground. “I said the wind had picked up, idiots. This wouldn’t hold.”

Edith swallowed hard as Buck wandered over to inspect their own attempt. Her hands twisted on her Pulaski. She made herself stand still.

Buck grunted. “Good.”

She was so busy making sure she met his eyes, she didn’t realize she should have responded until it was too late. By the time she’d found her tongue, he’d already turned away to check B-squad’s work.

“Woohoo!” Joe jogged up to them, beaming ear to ear. “Nice job. And now we get finish early for the day. Lay on me the highest of fives!”

She grinned back, Buck’s grudging praise still ringing in her ears. She jumped up as high as she could, but her own hand barely made it as far as Joe’s elbow, let alone his palm. Laughing, he lowered his arm to offer a fist-bump instead.

“Come on.” Joe slung an arm over her shoulders. He started to do the same to Callum, but desisted as the other man raised his Pulaski defensively. “We’re going to head into town, find some decent food instead of that tasteless mush our so-called cook dishes up. Drinks are on me.”

Her satisfied glow flickered and died. “Thanks, but I’m kind of tired. I think I’ll just head back to my cabin.”

Joe made a face. “All you’ve done over the past week is work and sleep. You’re gonna dig yourself into the ground at this rate. You can let yourself relax occasionally, you know.”

That was exactly what she couldn’t do. Her face hurt from maintaining her mask-like smile. It was all she could do to keep her hands under control.

“Sorry.” She moved out from under his arm. “I’m not really a bar person.”

Callum frowned at Joe. “I’m not either.”

“A picnic then,” Joe said promptly. “We’ll pack some snacks and drinks, go chill out by the lake. How about that?”

“Sounds good to me,” Blaise said, overhearing as they rejoined the rest of the squad. She tightened the straps on her backpack, settling it on her hips. “Might be the last chance for a while. Buck’s gone off to call Control and officially put us on the books. As of tomorrow, we could get deployed at any time.”

“In that case, we definitely need to celebrate,” Joe said. “Come on, Edith. We’re meant to be a squad, you have to hang out with us. Rory, you tell her.”

He was standing quietly a little way off, waiting for the squad to finish packing up. The late afternoon sun lined him with golden light. His eyes caught hers.

“Join us,” he said gently. “Please.”

He was so beautiful, it hurt her heart. It was hard enough not to stare at him while they were working. Suddenly trying to maintain a polite distance for a minute longer—let alone the rest of the afternoon—was utterly impossible.

“I-I can’t.” She stumbled back, groping for an excuse. “I…I dropped my canteen somewhere. I’m going to go look for it. Don’t wait for me.”

She strode away so fast it was almost a run, pretending not to hear Joe’s protests. She jogged back along the line they’d cut, dreading at any moment that someone would come after her.

To her relief, no one did. She made it all the way back to where they’d started cutting, on the bank of a small brook. The gentle white noise of the water was soothing, quieting some of the jangly static in her head. She sank down onto a fallen log, hugged her knees, and rocked.

Her senses were scraped raw from constantly monitoring her body language. Every bird call and rustle seemed unbearably loud. Every flicker of motion demanded her attention—a falling leaf, a beetle scurrying over the ground, a hawk circling overhead.

Gradually, her jangling discomfort eased. She let out her breath, tipping her head back. The hawk was still circling above her. The smooth, graceful arcs of its flight against the blue sky relaxed her shoulders even further.

It almost seemed like she’d drawn the hawk’s attention too. It dipped lower, balancing on the wind. She glanced around, wondering if it had spotted prey, but the woods had gone silent. The hawk was so low now that she could make out the barred patterns on its wings, the flex of its claws— “Hey.”