Nest in the Ashes by Christine Goff

Cecilia. “Let’s give her a chance to clean up.” She opened the screen door and shooed Lark into the kitchen. “Just drop the pack, and we’ll take care of it. And we’ll make you some tea and something to eat while you go take a shower.”
    “Bath,” Lark corrected. Cecilia had been right the first time.
    Lark stripped in the laundry room. When she saw the state of her clothes, she wondered what the front seat of her pickup looked like. She’d probably have to vacuum it before driving anywhere tomorrow.
    Luckily, she didn’t have to go back out on the fire. Butch Hanley had announced that the seasonal fire crews would handle the mop-up. That meant Eric would be out there working, but not the majority of volunteers.
    She wondered how he was doing. He had walked her out to the truck when she left, squeezing her shoulder and telling her to drive carefully. He had looked so forlorn that she’d hesitated to go, but there was something about his manner that told her it was better to go and leave him to his private bereavement. That this was something he had to work through on his own.
    For all the sadness of the day, Lark laughed when she saw herself in the mirror. Her hair, face, neck, and hands were black with soot, except for a bowl-shaped circle of blond hair left where her hard hat had covered her head and circles around her eyes where her goggles had been. She looked like a raccoon with large blue eyes.
    Cecilia was right. Shower first.
    Allowing the water to wash away the grime, she luxuriated in the comfort of the heat and steam, her skin soaking in the moisture like a needy sponge. She shampooed her hair twice, scoured the porcelain, then drew a tub full of water.
    The wait proved to be too much for the sisters. Lark had no sooner settled under the bubbles when Dorothy knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you almost finished in there?”
    “Give me a few more minutes?” Lark asked.
    “The tea is ready.”
    “I’ll be right there.” Lark compromised. She soaked for a minute more, then reluctantly pulled the drain plug and struggled up out of the bath. Her muscles ached with a soreness that went straight to the bone. Toweling dry and putting on pajamas required monumental effort, which was rewarded by hot tea and a chicken pot pie.
    “So…” prompted Dorothy once she sat down at the kitchen table. “Tell us what happened up there.”
    The women flanked her, scooting their chairs up to the table and leaning forward.
    “It was scary,” Lark said. “And awful.”
    She processed the emotions of the day as she recounted the events. Laughter spilled out when she described the encounter with Ranger Susie; anxiety tightened her muscles as she recalled the firestorm, and she found herself clinging to the edges of her seat. Talking about Wayne Devlin proved the hardest.
    Lark hadn’t ventured near the body. Twice in the past year she’d had occasion to see dead people. Once in the thicket when her friend Rachel Stanhope had stumbled over the body of Donald Bursau, a reporter from Birds of a Feather magazine. And once when her partner Esther Mills had been stabbed behind the Warbler Café. The first time she’d thrown up in the bushes. The second, she’d kept her distance and had almost thrown up. This time she’d positioned a large rock between herself and the deceased, and breathed.
    Harry had been all business, but Eric had been visibly shaken. He had been close friends with Wayne, practically a member of the Devlin family. Lark had known Wayne in passing, and Jackie only slightly better, because of chance encounters in the grocery store and the café.
    “I wonder how Jackie and Tamara are doing,” Dorothy said, settling back in her chair.
    “And to think,” added Cecilia, “she was just in the Warbler today, buying him coffee.”
    “She’s apt to want a refund.” The words popped out, and Lark buried her face in her napkin. “I can’t believe I said that.”
    “You’re just tired,”