Chasing Fire by Nora Roberts Page A

service?”
    “Gull brought me a breakfast sandwich.”
    “Is that what they call it in Missoula?”
    Rowan pointed a finger. “Just the sandwich, but he did earn some points. Have either of you seen Chainsaw?”
    “Yeah, I poked in before I ran into Matt. He showed me his stitches.”
    “Is that what they call it in California?”
    “Walked right into that one.”
    “He’s lucky,” Matt said. “Only hit meat. An inch either way, different story.”
    “It comes down to inches, doesn’t it?” Libby ran her fingers over her chute. “Or seconds. Or one tiny lapse of focus. The difference between having an interesting scar or . . .”
    She trailed off, paled a little. “I’m sorry, Matt. I wasn’t thinking.”
    “It’s okay. You didn’t even know him.” He continued his inspection, cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know, not for sure, if I was going to be able to really do it again until yesterday. In the door, looking down at the fire, waiting for the spotter’s hand to come down on my shoulder. I didn’t know if I could jump fire again.”
    “But you did,” Rowan murmured.
    “Yeah. I told myself I did it for Jim, but until I actually did it . . . Because you’re right, Libby. It is about inches and seconds. It’s about fate. It’s why we can’t let up. Anyway.” He let out a long breath. “Did you know Dolly’s back?” he asked Rowan.
    “No.” Surprised, Rowan stopped what she was doing. “When? I haven’t seen her on base.”
    “She came back yesterday, while we were on the fire. She came by my room this morning after breakfast.” He kept his gaze fixed on his chute. “She looks okay. Wanted to apologize for how she was after Jim died.”
    “That’s good.” But Rowan felt a twist in her belly as she completed her chute inspection.
    “I told her she ought to do the same to you.”
    “Doesn’t matter.”
    “Yeah, it does.”
    “Can I ask who Dolly is?” Libby wondered. “Or should I mind my own business?”
    “She was one of the cooks,” Rowan told her. “She and Jim had a thing. Actually, she tended to have things with a variety, but she’d narrowed it down to Jim most of last season. She took it hard when he died. Understandable.”
    “She came at you with a kitchen knife,” Matt reminded her. “There’s nothing understandable about that.”
    “Well, Jesus.”
    “She sort of came at me,” Rowan corrected as Libby gaped at her.
    “Why?”
    “I was Jim’s jump partner that day. She needed to blame somebody. She went a little crazy, waved the knife at me. But basically she blamed all of us, said we’d all killed him.”
    Rowan waited a beat to see if Matt would comment, but he kept his silence.
    “She took off right after. I don’t think anyone expected she’d be back, or get hired back, for that matter.”
    Matt shifted his feet, looked at her again. “Are you okay with it?”
    “I don’t know.” Rowan rubbed the back of her neck. “I guess if she doesn’t wave sharp implements at me or try to poison me, I’m cool with it.”
    “She’s got a baby.”
    It was Rowan’s turn to gape. “Say what?”
    “She told me she had a baby, a girl, in April.” His eyes watered up a little, so he looked away. “Dolly named her Shiloh. Her ma’s looking after her while Dolly’s working. She said it’s Jim’s.”
    “Well, God, you didn’t know before? Your family doesn’t know?”
    He shook his head. “That’s what she apologized for. She asked if I’d tell my mother, my family, and gave me some pictures. She said I could go see it—her—the baby—if I wanted.”
    “Did Jim know?”
    Color came and went in his face. “She said she told him that morning, before the jump. She said he was really excited, that he picked the name. Boy or girl, he told her, he wanted Shiloh. They were going to get married, she said, in the fall.”
    He drew a wallet-sized photo out of his pocket. “Here she is. This is Shiloh.”
    Libby took the