A Blaze To Bear (Fire Bear Shifters Book 1) Read online

  “Hunter!” Ian roared. “Shut your mouth.”

  Hunter meekly retreated to his can of Spam, but Charlotte looked up in shock.

  “He heard that?” she asked. “But you were barely speaking above a whisper!”

  Hunter stared down at his food, apparently unwilling to speak anymore. Charlotte looked around the circle at the other men, who all seemed to be suddenly very interested in their food as well.

  “Ugh,” she said as she stood and brushed the crumbs from her protein bar off of her clothes. “What is wrong with you people? Are we back to not talking again?”

  Charlotte paused for a moment, looking around the circle. No answered, so she stormed off to find her sleeping bag. They would all take shifts tonight being the lookout. Someone had to be watching at all times to make sure the fire didn’t do anything unexpected while they were sleeping. But Charlotte didn’t bother asking what her shift was. Whoever was ahead of her could wake her up when it was time.

  She was exhausted, and she was tired of dealing with this strange group of men who acted rude and secretive at every turn.

  Chapter Four

  Ian sat on a large rock overlooking much of the valley and watched the fire burning in the distance. The fire his crew had set had almost reached the larger fire. When it did, they would know for sure that their efforts had worked. Once that was confirmed, they could hike down the ridge until they reached a spot where either a helicopter or a truck could pick them up. And then, Ian would have a brief reprieve from being out in the wilderness with Charlotte.

  Being in the woods made his bear restless, which made his feelings for Charlotte even harder to push down. He couldn’t believe Luke had started asking her personal questions like that. If the crew asked her questions, she was bound to start asking them questions. And she didn’t need to know where they were from or what their stories were. She didn’t need to hear about how they had all grown up together in the wilds of Northern California, enjoying a carefree childhood as bear cubs until a rockslide killed most of their families. After a stint in the army, they had joined the firefighting crews at Ian’s suggestion. The men had made him alpha, even though no one in Ian’s family had ever been alpha before. But who else would have taken the role? None of them had any clue what they were doing in those early days.

  “Hey, Boss, you should take a break. You’ve been up way too long and you need some rest,” Zach said, sitting down on the rock next to Ian.

  Ian gave him a sidelong glance and said nothing. Then he went back to staring at the fire in the distance. After several minutes, Zach spoke again.

  “She’s not a bad crew member. She more than pulls her weight. She’s a good jumper. She isn’t nosey. It could be a lot worse. Let’s just get through this month and hopefully we can get her reassigned. The threat will be over, then.”

  “My bear wants her,” Ian said, still not looking at Zach.

  “Shit. Really?”

  Ian sighed. “Yeah. Since the first time I saw her, I’ve been drawn to her like a magnet. Being out here with her is torture. I can’t focus on my job properly. All I can do is think about how to keep her far enough away from me so that I can manage to keep some semblance of normalcy. I think I can make it through this trip. It’s going to be a shorter mission than command central originally told us. But after this she has to go. I don’t know how I’m going to convince Boise to reassign her, but I have to. I can’t go out in the wilderness with her again.”

  Zach stared out in the direction of the glowing fires, which had nearly fused together at this point. “Well, shit,” was all he said.

  After several more moments of silence, Ian sighed and spoke again. He didn’t like to appear weak, and so he rarely confided in anyone. But he trusted Zach completely, and he needed to get this weight off of his chest.

  “Do you think there’s any possibility that she would accept a bear shifter?”

  Zach looked up at him. “You’re not thinking of outing us to her, are you?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. Not right now anyways. But, despite the way I’ve been acting around her, I actually do like her a lot. She’s beautiful, and strong. And she fights through her fear with such a calmness. She was terrified on that plane today, I could smell it. But she jumped anyways. She never even flinched outwardly. Her determination is admirable. I guess what I’m saying is, I wonder if I’ll ever find anyone as perfect for me as she seems to be. If I had met her under different circumstances I would have asked her out on a date. But, with her being on the crew and my being chief…” Ian let his voice trail off.

  Zach narrowed his eyes at Ian. “You’re talking in circles, Boss. What are you trying to say? Are you suggesting that you let her stay on the crew and try to woo her?”

  Ian nodded.

  “Boss, you can’t do that. I mean, I agree with you that she seems like a great person. But in case you haven’t noticed, our job is pretty damn dangerous. We’re all a lot safer if we’re focused on firefighting, and not on impressing a girl or hiding our shifter status from her.”

  Ian didn’t answer for a long time, and Zach just let his words hang in the air. Finally, Ian stood and clapped Zach’s shoulder. “You’re right, of course. It’s too risky. It’s just my luck, though, that when my bear finally likes someone, it’s someone I can’t have.”

  Zach gave Ian a sympathetic look in response.

  “Alright, well, I do need to get some shuteye,” Ian said. “You okay with taking the next watch?”

  “No problem. Go get some rest.”

  “Thanks, buddy. When you’re ready for a break, wake up Hunter and have him watch for a while.”

  “You got it.”

  Ian walked back to where the rest of the crew lay snoozing in their sleeping bags. The crew never took tents with them. That would have been just one more thing to carry, and the huge cargo pockets on their jumpsuits were already ridiculously overloaded with gear. Chainsaws, axes, flame torches, and other such tools of the trade didn’t leave room for luxuries like tents.

  Ian slipped into his own sleeping bag and stared up at the stars, which looked murky in the smoke that rose from the blaze. The fires were less than an hour from meeting, and would probably be burnt out by mid morning tomorrow. This first smokejumping mission had been somewhat mundane from a firefighting standpoint, but that wasn’t a bad thing. It gave everyone a chance to get the first jump jitters out of the way before they were sent to a more serious blaze.

  Ian glanced over at Charlotte’s sleeping bag. Her back was turned to him, so he couldn’t see her face. But he could make out her silhouette as it rose and fell rhythmically to the beat of her dreams. He wished he could slide his sleeping bag up next to hers and feel what it felt like to have her body against his. But he would never be able to fulfill that desire. When he got back to base, he had to call Jessica and figure out a way to convince her that Boise really did need to find a different crew for Charlotte. He’d tell the god’s honest truth if he had to. The embarrassment of admitting he was romantically interested in a crew member was less painful than the struggle to keep his feelings in check with Charlotte sleeping just a few yards away from him.

  Ian sighed and pulled his sleeping bag close over his body, blocking out the cool mountain air. Even though the summer was hot and dry, the nights were still chilly. That was good. Hopefully the cooler air would help the fire burn out. Ian closed his eyes and let sleep overtake him, finally giving in to the exhaustion that he’d been fighting off for the last several hours.

  * * *

  A few yards away, Charlotte was not actually sleeping. She kept her breathing rhythmic and her eyes closed so Ian and Zach wouldn’t realize that she was awake, but as she heard Ian’s soft snoring coming from a somewhere behind her, she opened her eyes again and stared out into the dark night. The sky was a dark, hazy orange, thanks to the glowing fires in the distance. When Charlotte had first started firefighting, the strange color of a night sky lit by fire had seemed cre
epy to her. Now, the sight was a familiar one.

  What wasn’t familiar at all, though, was the way she felt listening to Ian and Zach’s conversation. She had missed snippets here and there, but, for the most part, the wind had carried their voices clearly in her direction. She felt nervous, confused, and incredulous. For one thing, Ian actually liked her. Respected her, even. She had been convinced that he would hate her work no matter how good it was, just because she was a woman. But overhearing his conversation with Zach made her realize that Ian had been acting so strangely because he had deep feelings for her that he didn’t know what to do with. That part of the conversation had actually excited her, because no matter how hard she tried not to think about Ian as anything more than the crew chief, she couldn’t help but notice his sexy muscles and chiseled face every time he turned around.

  But Ian’s interest in her hadn’t been the only surprising thing she’d overheard tonight. She could have sworn that Ian and Zach had been discussing the fact that they were shifters. Charlotte had heard rumors from members of other hotshot crews that wolf shifters existed up in Alaska. At the time, she had laughed off the idea that a human being could turn into an animal. Surely, these were just fanciful rumors started by firefighters to make the slow days on the job a little more interesting. But Ian and Zach had talked about shifters so matter-of-factly. What if she had been wrong to roll her eyes at these stories? What if shifters did actually exist?

  Charlotte slowly rolled over and eyed the three other sleeping forms near her. Was it possible that she was actually sleeping with a group of bears? She looked over at Zach’s back, his silhouette dark against the distant orange blaze of fire. She was tempted to go confront him about what she had heard. But she felt foolish. What if she had misunderstood? Or what if he flat out denied it, even if it was the truth? Charlotte decided to let it go for the moment. She pulled her sleeping bag up closer around her body and furrowed her brow. She would watch over the next few days for signs that the men of the crew were actually shifters. She didn’t know quite what those signs might be, but she would figure it out.

  One thing was for sure, her interest had been piqued. She would definitely do everything possible to avoid getting reassigned to another crew until she had gotten to the bottom of this. Charlotte forced herself to close her eyes and get some rest.

  The next day, the Burning Claws Crew awoke to find the fire burned out as expected. They packed up their gear to hike down through the forest to a spot where a plane could pick them up. The summer heat was stifling, and hiking even in shorts and a t-shirt would have been miserable. With heavy jumpsuits and gear, it became nearly unbearable. But this was a normal part of the job, and none of the crew members complained. In fact, the mood as they packed up camp bordered on jovial. It felt good to have their first mission be a success, even if it had been a relatively easy job.

  Ian led the group as they traipsed downward toward a small airstrip. They tried to leave the forest as untouched as possible, although occasionally the undergrowth became too thick and they had to chop their way through.

  The crew talked and joked as they hiked, and included Charlotte in their conversations. Now that they had spent time fighting a fire with her, everyone seemed more comfortable around her. Well, everyone but Ian. Charlotte could not even get Ian to make eye contact with her. It was painfully obvious that he was avoiding her, but everyone acted like nothing abnormal was happening. At first, Charlotte felt flattered by his avoidance, now that she knew it was due to his feelings for her. But as the day wore on and he laughed easily with all of the crew members except her, she started to become annoyed.

  Who did he think he was, treating her so differently from the rest of the crew? So what if he felt uncomfortable around her? He was a crew chief. Part of his job description included fostering unity and camaraderie amongst the crew members. Completely ignoring one of the crew members was unacceptable behavior. By the time they finally broke for lunch, Charlotte’s mood had turned sour, and she started taking it out on the other guys. She snapped at Hunter when he jokingly tried to stick Spam mixed with Gatorade in her face.

  “Keep your shit to yourself. You know I don’t want it,” she barked at him.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy, tiger. It was just a joke.”

  Charlotte scowled at Hunter and stormed away from the group holding a protein bar. She stopped several yards away, kicking the trunk of a tree angrily as she wolfed down the tasteless food.

  She knew she had to get it together. She had worked harder than she ever thought possible to get a place on a smokejumper crew. If Boise had to reassign her again, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t just send her back to a ground crew for the season. And Charlotte definitely did not want to be sent back to a ground crew. As nervous as she felt every time she stood in the door of that airplane, she loved the thrill of flying through the air toward the earth, then jerking to a slow, floating fall when her parachute opened.

  Ian was already threatening to push for a reassignment when they got back to base. Charlotte didn’t need to give him extra reasons to campaign for her removal. As much as it hurt her pride to do it, Charlotte needed to bury her angry, agitated emotions and play nice. She took a deep breath, and walked slowly back to where the rest of the crew sat on the ground in an uneven circle, finishing up their lunch. She clapped Hunter on the back in what she hoped was a congenial gesture.

  “Sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

  Hunter’s face brightened immediately. “No worries. I completely understand.”

  I’m not sure you do, Charlotte thought to herself. But she bit her lip and gave Hunter a smile. She could feel Ian scowling from across the circle, but she refused to look in his direction. She focused intently on drinking water from her canteen until the group’s conversation naturally moved on to other topics. The remainder of the hike down proved uneventful. Ian didn’t speak to anyone, but at least he was being an equal opportunity asshole now. Charlotte felt better since she was no longer the only one being ignored. Charlotte remained mostly silent as well. She couldn’t stop thinking about what she had overheard about the men being shifters, and she listened and observed the crew members carefully, searching for some clue to their true natures. But nothing they said or did seemed out of the ordinary. After hours of hiking had passed, she still hadn’t seen anything to indicate that any of the men were hiding an animal within.

  Charlotte was beginning to think that she had imagined that part of the conversation. Ian and Zach had been too far away for her to catch every word of their discussion, and she must have misheard or misunderstood something. Her cheeks turned pink with embarrassment as she realized how silly she had been to think there was a possibility that shifters actually existed. The heat and lack of sleep must be getting to her.

  As the crew reached the pickup point where a small aircraft had flown in to meet them, Charlotte forced herself to turn her thoughts toward something other than Ian or supernatural beings. She began mentally reviewing the repairs she knew she would need to make to her gear when the crew returned to base, and daydreaming about sleeping in a real bed. All these crazy thoughts swirling around in her head would surely be cured by a good night’s sleep.

  Chapter Five

  Ian heard Charlotte’s voice drifting up to his office from the first floor of the hangar. It sounded like she was raving about flaring your parachute properly on landing to avoid injury. Ian rolled his eyes. Just great. After they had all been through vigorous smokejumper training for the last several months, this chick was going to come in and pretend she was some expert. Ian didn’t care how sexy Charlotte looked or how attracted his bear was to her—he wasn’t going to let her dispense advice to his men on how to handle their parachutes. He stormed out of his office to head down the stairs and end her impromptu training session. He had been trying to reach Jessica to push for a reassignment for Charlotte, but Jessica had not returned his phone calls.
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  Ian’s eyes churned angrily as he stormed toward the stairs. He couldn’t take much more of this. His emotions were on edge, and every little thing set him off. As Ian reached the top of the stairwell, he paused to take a deep breath. He needed to calm down, and show that he was in control. He would walk down there with an air of authority, and coolly let Charlotte know that she needed to quit her unauthorized lessons.

  But as Ian stopped to regain his composure, he found himself listening to a few words of what Charlotte was saying. Her theories were actually really interesting. He hadn’t been taught most of what she was saying at smokejumper training, but it seemed to make sense. The instructors at smokejumper training didn’t have time to get into the finer points of flying a parachute, but it sounded like Charlotte had done some pretty advanced training on canopy control. He peeked over the top of the stairwell and saw her drawing something on a whiteboard that she had set up on an easel. She was sketching out landing patterns, and all four of his other crew members sat in a semicircle in front of her, taking notes and nodding occasionally.

  Ian’s anger slowly seeped away, replaced by curiosity. He sat on the top step of the stairwell, where he could hear her but she couldn’t see him, and he listened. The woman obviously knew what she was talking about. She was explaining to her eager students how the gravitational forces of pitch, roll, and yaw affected the way your parachute would fly. Ian raised his eyebrows as she spoke. It was pretty high-level stuff, compared to the training he had received during his smokejumper course.

  Ian listened for several minutes, taking mental notes of the concepts Charlotte presented. His eavesdropping on her lesson was finally interrupted by the sound of his office phone ringing. He quietly stood and walked back to his office, where he saw Jessica’s name popping up on the caller I.D.