“There’s something about the bandages and the fake blood,” Sarah said, forcing a laugh. “And I won’t take that bet.”

“Care to wager on who volunteers to be medics?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one. Marty for sure, probably Ford. And of course, Merrick from cabin three, who we all know plans on being a flight surgeon.”

Lily laughed, the camper in question having made his military career plans clear to everyone on a daily basis. His excitement, however, was contagious, and no one seemed to mind. “I haven’t done a field training like this in a decade. Under other circumstances, I’d be looking forward to it too.”

Sarah squeezed her arm. “I know it’s useless to say don’t worry, but try not to. This isn’t Chase’s first rodeo, you know.”

“You’re right, of course.” Lily forcibly shook off the anxiety she could do nothing to assuage. “You’ll let me know as soon as you hear anything?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks. I’m off for a quick shower before dinner, then.”

She needed the shower after a day hiking, but even more, she needed a few moments to compose herself. She thought she’d have a week to prepare for leaving, and now it appeared she had no time at all. The thought of returning to the city without seeing Chase again was intolerable. She sank down on the side of her bed and tried to take stock of what she was feeling.

She couldn’t. This sense of being lost somehow and not even knowing how or why or where the right path lay was completely foreign to her. She’d never been indecisive in her life. She’d known from childhood that she would follow her parents into medicine. She knew from her first day in medical school that she was destined for the emergency room. She knew where she would practice, in the largest metropolitan area in the nation and one of the largest in the world, where anything could happen and had happened. She’d known that a serious relationship—when and if—would happen how and when she was ready. And now here she was in the last place on earth she would ever expect to be, about to return to the life she’d made, and all she could feel was sadness and uncertainty.

* * *

Chase pulled on her Nomex pants and flipped the suspenders up over the shoulders of her yellow shirt. She checked the contents of her backpack for the air filters, the heat tent, the extra water, the salt tabs, the MREs, and her goggles before shouldering the pack and tucking her hard hat under her arm. Tom Perry jogged over to her.

“Knew this was coming,” Perry said. “No rain for three weeks.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and the forecast will be wrong,” Chase muttered. No rain was forecast for another week at least.