“You’ve got a point. I’ll talk to her about it.”

“Thanks.” Chase hesitated. “Give Sarah a message for me, will you?”

“Of course.”

“Tell her to make sure Lily goes home.”

“That’s it? Will she know what that means?”

“She’ll know.”

“If we weren’t in the middle of this,” Nat said quietly, “I’d ask what’s going on. But there’s no time for it now.”

“No,” Chase said. “No time at all.”

There’d never really been enough time. She just hadn’t wanted to see that.

“I’m headed back to spike camp,” Chase said. “We’ll need to hike all night to get up on that ridge before the fire does.”

“Radio your location if you stop early. I don’t want a crew getting cut off out there,” Nat called as Chase carried her half-finished plate back outside.

“Copy that.”

Fifteen minutes later, she was showered, had donned her spare Nomexes and a clean shirt, had replenished her water and food, and was back in another truck, headed up the mountain. She had a fire to fight and a crew to safeguard. With Lily out of danger soon, she didn’t need to worry about what Eagle Peak had in store for her this time.

* * *

“Did you talk to Chase?” Lily said after Sarah related the details of the call from Nat.

“No, and I don’t expect to. Cell service is nonexistent up there. Everyone’s family knows no news is good news—sometimes it’s a week or more between contacts. We’re lucky Nat is a friend or we might not hear anything at all until Chase shows up back home.”

Lily gritted her teeth. “So how bad is this news—about the spread, I mean? Is it more dangerous for them?”

“No more than usual,” Sarah said. “Sometimes it takes weeks to contain the fire, and that’s if it’s small. With a hundred thousand acres burning like they have on the West Coast at times, it could be months.”

“So we just wait,” Lily said, her voice tight with frustration.

Sarah nodded. “They’ll be there at least another week, at the soonest, I would think. Even if they contain it within a day or two, there will be small hot spots to put out, brush that needs to be cleared, new trails cut for access. They don’t just need to put out the fire. They need to secure and restore the area too.”

“Well, can’t they send someone else in to do that? So they can relieve the crews that have been working for weeks?”

“Did they send in reinforcements when you were working two or three weeks straight in the ER?”

“Not when it was all hands on deck,” Lily said quietly, “like it is for them now.”

Sarah squeezed her shoulders. “Nat didn’t sound particularly worried. So you should try not to too.”