Chasing Fire

anymore.”
    “She’s moving in tomorrow. I need to pack up a few more things I’ll need with me now. Ella’s been helping her do the same—pack up what she’ll need—and pack up what she wants to take with her when she goes.”
    “It’s a big step she’s taking. A lot of big steps. Leaving Missoula, leaving her husband, her friends, her job.”
    “I think she needs it. She looks better than she has since this all started. Once she decided what she needed to do for herself, for the baby, I think it took some of the weight off.”
    He took a long, slow drink. “Speaking of decisions, big ones. I won’t be moving back into the house. I’m going to live with Ella.”
    “Jesus, are you going to marry her?”
    He didn’t choke, but he swallowed hard. “One step at a time, but I think that one’s right down the road.”
    “I’m just getting used to you dating her, now you’re moving in together.”
    “I love her, Rowan. We love each other.”
    “Okay, I guess I’m going to sit down for a minute.” She chose the side of the bed. “Her place?”
    “She’s got a great place. A lot of room, her gardens. She’s done it up just the way she wants it. Her house means a lot to her. Ours?” He let his shoulders lift and fall. “Half the year or more it’s just where I sleep most nights.”
    “Well.” She didn’t know what she felt because there was too much to feel. “I guess if I’d known that would be our last dinner in the house together, I’d’ve . . . I don’t know, done something more important than skillet chicken.”
    “I’m not selling the house, Ro.” He sat beside her, laid a hand on her knee. “Unless you don’t want it. I figured you’d take it over. We can get somebody to cut the grass and all that during the season.”
    “Maybe I can think about that awhile.”
    “As long as you want.”
    “Big changes,” she managed. “You know how it takes me a while to navigate changes.”
    “Whenever you got sick as a kid, we had to dig out the same pajamas.”
    “The blue puppies.”
    “Yeah, the blue ones with puppies. When you outgrew them there was hell to pay.”
    “You cut them up and made me a little pillow out of the fabric. And it was okay again. Crap, Dad, you look so happy.” Her eyes stung as she reached for his face. “And I didn’t even notice you weren’t.”
    “I wasn’t unhappy, baby.”
    “You’re happier now. She’s not the only one who loves you,” she told him, and kissed his cheeks. “So consider I’ve got my blue puppy pillow, and it’s okay.”
    “Okay enough that you’ll take some time when you have it to get to know her?”
    “Yeah. Gull thinks she’s hot.”
    Lucas’s eyebrows winged up. “So do I, but he’d better not get any ideas.”
    “I’m running interference there.”
    “You’ve had some changes yourself since he came along.”
    “Apparently. This is the damnedest season. Gull’s got it into his head that somebody on base might be responsible for what’s been going on, instead of Brakeman.”
    “Does he?”
    “Yeah, and in his Gull way he’s got all the data and suppositions organized in a file. I think it’s whacked, but then I start wondering, once he’s done laying it out. Then I go about my business and decide it’s whacked again. Until he points out this and that. I end up not sure what to think. I hate not knowing what to think.”
    Gently, he skimmed a hand over her crown of hair. “Maybe the best thing to do is keep your eyes, your ears and your mind open.”
    “The first two are easy. It’s the last that’s hard. Everybody’s edgy and trying to pretend they aren’t. We’ve jumped nearly twice as many fires as we did by this time last season, and the success rate’s good, injuries not too bad. But outside of that? This season’s FUBAR, and we’re all feeling it.”
    “Do me a favor. Stick close to the hotshot, as much as you can. Do it for me,” he added before she could speak. “Not because I think you can’t take care of yourself, but because I’ll worry less if I know somebody’s got your back.”
    “Well, he’s hard to shake off anyway.”
    “Good.” He patted her leg. “Walk me out.”
    She got up with him, chewing over everything they’d talked about while they walked outside. “Is it different with her, with Ella, than it was with my mother? Not the circumstances, or rate of maturity, or any of that. I mean . . .” She tapped a fist on her heart. “I’m okay with however