"What's your name?" Mike asked, his voice gruff and not especially friendly.
I almost didn't answer. But he was all the help I had at the moment, so I'd have to play nice.
"Shane. Shane Bower."
"I'm Mike Canali."
"Yeah, I got that back there. Was that your brother busting your balls? He kind of looked like you."
He stiffened for a moment, as if offended. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. "Yeah. That's my brother, Donny. He still thinks I'm twelve."
Well, you did sort of act like it. I didn't say it, but his laugh eased my dislike of him a teensy bit. At least he had a sense of humor. "Ah. Well. I'm just glad your boss let me through. I should have thanked him. Did I thank him? God, I hoped I thanked him." I was such a mess.
Mike shrugged. "He let you through because he hopes you can get your grandfather to leave. We went door-to-door this morning. If someone refuses to evacuate they have to sign a form and their name goes on a list. That's so we have proof they were warned if we find them dead." He glanced at me. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
He sounded genuinely embarrassed, like he'd committed a faux pas.
I waved my hand dismissively. "Why do you think I'm doing this? I know he's in danger. And, yeah, Pops can totally be boneheaded. I've been trying to talk him into leaving for a few days, but he kept saying the authorities would never let the fire hit the town, and that he was right near Main Street, so there was nothing to worry about. When I woke up this morning and saw on the news that they were evacuating Crest Lake, I tried to call him, but I couldn't get through."
"Yup. Dixie turned last night due to the winds. We had to evacuate fast."
"Is the town really in danger?" I glanced at him hopefully. It was unimaginable that the whole town of Crest Lake could burn down. I'd graduated from high school there—in a class the whopping size of fifty-two—and a lot of my friends still lived in Crest Lake. But it had happened to other California mountain towns, hadn't it? The Paradise fire, for example. Global warming was killing some of the best places on Earth, and it made me sick.
Please, God, not Crest Lake.
Mike pressed his lips tight. "Let's just get in and out. Okay?"
"Not passing out false hope today, huh? I must have just missed the sale." I attempted to be flip, but my teeth chattered, ruining the effect.
"We'll do our best. The crews working on this are world-class," Mike answered seriously.
"Right. Right. I appreciate that." I sped up a little even though the smoke was thicker than before.
We fell silent. Mike seemed bigger in the car—all that fireman gear and big hard hat. His hands, which rested on his spread legs in a classic guy pose, were dirty from all the fireman-y work he'd been doing. For god knew how long. Maybe he'd been up for days.
I supposed I should cut him some slack. He was right. Our California firefighters were among the best in the world. Bless their hearts. I was swamped with a feeling of gratitude for him and all his fellow firefighters. I was such a sap.
"Thank you," I blurted.
He looked at me, confused. His eyes were so big and brown. His lips were mighty fine too—nice and full. He looked Italian maybe? His slightly crooked nose gave him character. So cute. Too bad he was on team not-Shane. "What are you thanking me for? We're not there yet."
"Just for, you know, being a fireman. I know you guys have been overloaded this season."
"Oh." He grunted something and looked ahead again. "I just started a few weeks ago. But… yeah. My family's got a lot of firefighters. My brothers are working Dixie too."
"Brothers? More than one?"
He snorted. "I've got five. Three of them are firefighters for Cal Fire, and so is my dad. And then there are all my cousins and aunts and uncles. There are so many Canalis in the department, we have our own nickname."
"Yeah? What's that?"
He hesitated, as if thinking better of it. Or realizing he was talking to a stranger.
"Come on. You can't leave me hanging," I prompted.
"It's dumb. It's just… you know what a cannoli is?”
"It's a pastry, right?"
He rubbed his thigh self-consciously. "Yeah. And our last name's Canali. So they call us the hot cannolis. To bust our chops or something." He was blushing. And not looking at me.
I didn't say anything.
"Like, hot because we fight fires," he added.
I almost burst out laughing. I managed to contain it, instead giving him wide eyes and a little sass. "Yeah. I'm sure that's it. Hot because you fight fires. That makes total sense."
He glanced at me, saw my expression, and rolled his eyes. "Whatever."
I laughed out loud. "Nice try. Oh my God, that's priceless. Hot because we fight fires!"
"Shut up," he said, but he was grinning.
A spray of burning embers hit my windshield, making me flinch and ending my amusement instantly. Most of the embers blew away again, but one large one stayed in the middle of my windshield, caught against my wipers. I turned them on and it went flipping away.
"The wind's picking up." Mike looked off to our right. He sounded worried. I could see the red of fire back there through the smoke again.
"I thought your chief said the fire was on the east side of town? But that fire over there is south, right?"
Mike was craning to look at the right side of the road, but he relaxed when he saw me watching him. "Yeah. The fire jumped Highway 49 east of Crest Lake, so there's a flare-up to the south. But we've established a good line in front of that. It should be contained."
Should be. I licked my lips. "You know what? Kudos to you for choosing this as a profession. It's pretty fucking terrifying, honestly." I tried to laugh, and it sounded slightly hysterical. "I mean, it's probably hard-wired in our human brains, right? Like tiger equals bad. You sense a fire and everything inside you is like noooo! Run away!"
Mike gave me an assessing look. "Yet here you are. Not running."
I shrugged. "Believe me, I want to. But it's Pops. He's the only family I have. Or at least, the only family that cares to have anything to do with me. And he saved my life."
Mike stared at me for a long moment, as if he wanted to ask about my family but decided not to. "Cool. You said he lives alone? And he's in a wheelchair?"
It was just a question. Mike didn't sound judgy. But guilt made my cheeks grow hot all the same. "He wants to live alone. I'm a junior at Sac State. I tried to talk him into moving down there and getting an apartment with me, but he loves the mountains. And he's not in a wheelchair all the time. I mean, he broke his hip last year, but he's pretty much healed. He can take a shower by himself and things like that, but he uses the chair if he has to go into town because he can't walk far. He's fiercely independent. He's a freaking bulldog about it."
"Oh. That's good. My granddad has Alzheimer's. So it's good that your grandfather's still sharp."
"Hell ya, he is. He whips my ass in Aggravation and Pinochle."
The line of cars was completely stopped on my left now. The evacuating vehicles were going nowhere fast. Suddenly something loomed out of the smoke on the right. I gasped and flinched.