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hesitantly, running a finger underneath one eye and glancing downhill. “I mean, you’ll be alone up here.”
    “I’m used to it. You go on.”
    “I’ll check the satellite feed and print out a fire update so you can review it when you get back,” Julia said with a wave.
    Alone, Becca looked up at the trees towering against a sky blanketed with a thick layer of brownish-gray wood smoke, stroked her belly and took in the grandeur of the forest. Julia didn’t understand what she was missing.
    A quarter of a mile later, Becca was puffing, limping and wishing she’d gone back with Julia. She stopped to take a reading.
    Eighty-nine degrees. Seventy percent humidity. Wind speed ten. The fire wasn’t affecting the temperature and humidity as much this far from the front. The higher she went, the cooler and more humid the air.
    Becca shaded her eyes and scanned as much of the ridge above her as she could see. Her stomach grumbled. Her leg still felt weird. Doubt taunted her tired body. Maybe she had missed the Hot Shots. Maybe she should give up. She glanced back, knowing her stubborn pride wouldn’t let her return just yet. Her mother used to say that pride would one day be Becca’s downfall. That might be true, but willpower and pride had certainly taken Becca far in a field dominated by men.
    She started climbing again. It was slow going. The trail steepened and wove through a patch of boulders. She could walk between some and gingerly climb over others where they overlapped or nearly kissed.
    Aiden had been a great kisser.
    Becca walked faster, despite having to angle her belly this way and that to get through nature’s rock garden. She thought about the baby inside her. Aiden had done his job and they’d both moved on. She’d hardly spared him a thought all these months until she’d seen him on this fire.
    Except she often dreamed about him at night.
    She shook her head, trying to dispel those unsettling thoughts and concentrate on the task at hand.
    A sound on the slope above drew her attention. With images of Aiden still lingering, Becca was startled by a vision of him running over the boulders ahead of her wearing boots and boxers, and carrying his backpack.
    And then her foot slipped and her stomach churned with sickening certainty.
    She was going to fall.
    The baby…
    She cocooned her belly with her arms. Her left elbow scraped across a tall boulder as she stumbled cockeyed,and her temple connected with a sickening thud on that same rock.
    Becca landed with an air-stealing thump on the ground.

CHAPTER TWO
    “W HOA ! W HOA ! E VERYBODY SLOW UP . Big Mama down.” Spider leaped across a couple of boulders just as a pregnant woman with a long blond braid stood on shaky legs.
    “Take it easy, Big Mama.” Spider hopped to the ground next to her.
    She took a step back, her blue eyes widening at the sight of him. Or maybe it was at the sound of thundering booted feet on rock as the rest of the Hot Shots approached.
    “You’re bleeding.” Without sparing a glance at the crew, he yelled, “Doc, get down here!”
    Blood spurted over the side of her face, but that didn’t seem to shake her. “Did you just call me big?”
    “I don’t know,” Spider hedged. His grandmother would tan his hide if she’d heard him disrespect a woman like that. But the woman was big. And carrying…a baby.
    She raised her eyebrows at Spider with the disbelieving expression of a school principal, challenging him to tell the truth.
    Spider lasted another ten seconds before he crumbled. “Okay, I might have.”
    She huffed. “Were you raised by wolves? Never call a pregnant woman big.”
    “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
    But she was on the offensive now. “Are you so blind that you can’t see a pregnant woman in front of you?”
    Spider took a step back. “Hey, these boulders are ten feet tall. I couldn’t see a bear hiding down here.”
    “I wasn’t hiding.” She crossed her arms over her large—really