Page 38 of Befriending the Bear (Forestville Silver Foxes #6)

FRASER

T wo weeks into the training program in Missoula, I remembered how much I’d loved the rhythm of early mornings and structured days.

Wake up before dawn, stretch the stiffness from my knee, grab the thermos with coffee Calloway made me and a homemade breakfast sandwich, and head into snow-covered classrooms full of eager, slightly terrified rookies who hadn’t yet figured out just how many ways fire could outsmart you.

It felt good to be back. Not in the “I wish I’d never left” way, but in the way you smile when you bump into an old friend who reminds you of a different version of yourself. I wasn’t trying to revive my old life. I was integrating it into the new one.

Calloway helped. He adapted to Montana with quiet resilience.

He’d never been here before—never dealt with snow measured in feet, not inches—but I’d watched him break in his boots with a sense of purpose, stack the fridge in our rental house with enough soup ingredients to feed an army, and coax warmth into the cold, boxy space with the fireplace and a massive stack of throw blankets.

Each day, I left for the forest service office before sunrise, a thermos in one hand and a goodbye kiss still warming my lips.

When I returned in the evenings, he was always there—either reading in the worn armchair we’d dragged closer to the fire, or curled up on the couch with his laptop open, editing his memoir.

Our days orbited each other without effort.

Which made returning to my old orbit—even if for only one night—feel like stepping into a different kind of gravity.

I’d asked Calloway to come with me for a reunion with my old crew, but he’d declined, saying I needed time with them alone. Maybe he was right.

Friday evening, I left him in the living room, a mug of cinnamon tea warming his hands, a blanket drawn up to his neck, and a book resting in his lap, and drove to The Timberline Tavern downtown.

It was the kind of place that hadn’t changed in twenty years, with dark wood booths, peanut shells on the floor, and beer signs that buzzed just a little too loudly.

The air smelled like sawdust, whiskey, and the memory of cigarettes long since banned.

I spotted my old crew immediately. They were in a corner booth near the pool table, already halfway through beers. Martinez stood to greet me first, his wide grin as familiar as my own name. He’d filled out in the years since he’d been a rookie, but the mischief in his eyes hadn’t dimmed one bit.

“Well, if it isn’t Grandpa Smokejumper,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder with enough force to make my leg wince. “Thought you got lost in the Pacific Northwest.”

I grinned, squeezing his shoulder in return. “Figured I’d wear flannel, grow a beard, and make peace with the rain.”

“Peace?” boomed Chase, our sawyer and a walking mountain of sarcasm and biceps. “You? You were born to argue with wind direction.”

They all laughed, and I let it wash over me. The jokes, the camaraderie, the way our conversation fell into old patterns like we’d seen each other last week instead of a year ago.

Dinner was greasy and perfect—burgers dripping with melted cheese, fries so salty they probably violated a health code.

We passed pitchers of beer around—alcohol free for me since I was driving home—and shared stories, none of which ended the way they were supposed to.

Martinez reenacted the time a raccoon broke into our truck mid-briefing, and Chase reminded everyone of my spectacular wipeout on the muddy slope in Idaho.

“Still think about that tumble every time it rains,” he said, chuckling. “You went down like a sack of bricks with grace.”

“I still have the scar,” I replied, touching my right elbow reflexively.

“You should see his biggest one, on his shoulder,” Martinez said, elbowing me. “Some shrapnel from the Oregon tree incident, right?”

“More like an entire widowmaker decided to get revenge. That rookie still owes me beers for life.”

It felt good. Familiar. Like shrugging into an old jacket you didn’t know you’d missed. These were my people, the ones who understood without explanation what it meant to run toward fire, to live on smoke and adrenaline, to catch your breath only when the season ended.

Later, as we had switched from beer to bourbon, sticky with condensation, someone asked about retirement.

“You miss it?” Chase asked, not unkindly. Just curious.

“Some days, yeah,” I admitted. “Not the jump weights or the back pain, but the part where I felt like I mattered. Like my hands knew what to do and my body could follow.”

“We sure as fuck miss you,” Gordon, our swamper, said. “It’s not the same without you yelling at me to get my ass in gear.”

I grinned as I scratched my beard. “Well, you do need a lot of yelling at. Hope my replacement does it just as well.”

“Jesus fuck, that dude is something else,” Martinez said, rolling his eyes. “Pratt snores so loud that you can hear him over the roar of the fire. But the rookie, this kid named Devon, is even worse. I thought he was gonna get all of us killed.”

Chase barked a laugh, his whole upper body rocking with it. “Didn’t he fall asleep with his rain gear on backward that one night?”

“Yup,” Gordon chimed in from across the booth, swirling the ice in his whiskey glass. “We were halfway through mop-up before he realized he was wearing his pants as a jacket. I asked him why he had a drawstring around his neck—thought he’d invented some new safety gear.”

Martinez leaned in with a grin, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “But hey, kid can read fire like it’s a language. Remember the Crown Ridge burn? He called the wind shift ten minutes ahead of everyone else.”

“Sure,” Chase agreed, draining the last of his beer, “but then he immediately dropped his hose line and tried to use his gloves to dig a line by hand. Like we were on the fuckin’ Oregon Trail.”

They all laughed again, and I joined them, but something in my chest shifted. I recognized the cadence of these stories, the way legend and memory blurred, how the absurd always sat one chair over from the miraculous. But these stories didn’t have me in them. Not anymore.

“And that lightning strike…” Martinez shook his head, a little more serious now. “Early July, remember that? Hit just north of the Ponderosa line, started a new head while we were still chasing slop fire from the main front.”

Gordon whistled low. “That was a hell of a night. Lost two line-cutters to dehydration. Would’ve lost the whole southern flank if Pratt hadn’t gotten up on higher ground and called it in.”

“And you know what Chief Morrison said after?” Chase raised his eyebrows. “Said Pratt had learn to channel his ‘inner Fraser.’ Like, how would Fraser manage this clusterfuck of a situation?”

Everyone chuckled, and I smiled. But the truth was, I hadn’t been there. I hadn’t fought next to them on that ridge or smelled the ozone before the lightning struck. I didn’t feel the weight of that fire the way they did. I heard the story, like an outsider.

Martinez elbowed me gently. “You see what you left us with? We ended up nearly getting roasted.”

“Sounds like you’re training them well though,” I said, keeping my tone light.

“We try,” Gordon said, offering his glass in a halfhearted toast. “But it ain’t the same without you. Just sayin’.”

I’d known I was missed—Morrison had made that clear—but hearing it from the crew, in their easy, ribbing way, was something else entirely. Yet even letting those words sink in, something hit me.

They had moved on. Yes, they missed me, and that part was genuine.

And I knew that if I was able to return, they’d welcome me back with open arms. But they were doing their job without me.

I wasn’t irreplaceable…and that was a good thing because god knew I’d never be healed enough to return to active duty.

And I was okay with that.

This sharing of stories and knowing I’d been a part of something bigger, that I had mattered, was enough for me now.

What I’d come to understand over the past two months was that I didn’t only want to matter when I was holding a fire rake or barking line instructions.

I wanted to matter in the quiet too. In the making of tea and choosing a Christmas tree and the soft hush of pages turning beside me.

And as the night wound down and the table cleared, I listened to them share stories from the past summer season— blazes I hadn’t been part of, crews I didn’t know—and I didn’t feel left out. Not because I wasn’t a part of them anymore, but because they’d moved forward, and so had I.

I said my goodbyes just after ten, resisting Martinez’s attempt to wrangle me into yet another round.

“Tell that guy of yours”—he winked—“that next time he’s coming too.”

I didn’t bother hiding my smile. “I will.”

The drive back to our rental house passed in quiet snowfall. The roads were slick, but the flakes were soft and unhurried, catching in the headlights like fireflies. I pulled into the driveway, turned off the ignition, and sat there for a moment, staring at the light glowing from the front window.

Inside, Calloway was probably on the couch, feet tucked under a blanket, reading and pretending not to watch the clock.

He’d told me to enjoy myself, said he didn’t need an invitation to that part of my life.

But I’d seen the flicker of something in his eyes—a complicated mix of hope and caution. He had nothing to worry about.

I carefully got out of the car, but my foot still slipped from under me, my knee turning at an angle it didn’t want to go.

I muttered a curse, barely catching myself before faceplanting.

By the time I limped into the rental house, everything ached.

My cane thudded against the threshold as I stepped inside.

Calloway proved how well he could read me now by immediately getting up. He crossed the space between us and pressed a warm hand to my cheek. “You okay?”

“Now I am.”