Maybe he wanted to propose…
But that didn't matter now. She had been 100% honest when she told him that she didn't know when she'd be back and couldn't commit to a date to reschedule. It wasn't like she'd had a choice…or that she'd flaked out on purpose.
But he said he was okay with my job!
They had met via ShiftMatch last autumn, when she returned to Pueblo after the end of fire season.
They had hit it off on their first date last November. Her coyote half hadn't objected to him, so Kara had continued dating Ed over the winter and early spring, until it was time for her to report to the Rocky Mountain Smokejumper base for her annual PT test and refresher training.
How long are you going to be out of touch this time? Ed had asked her at the beginning of the summer.
Until the fire's out. That's how long, she had answered honestly.
Now she remembered the bewilderment in his expression and her realization that although she had talked about what her job was like, he hadn't understood—truly understood—about fire season.
With her unpredictable schedule, she had known that it would be hard to maintain a serious relationship between May and October. She never knew when she'd be jumping into a remote wilderness area and staying there, out of cell range and working 18-hour shifts for as long as it took to extinguish or control a fire. She might be out of touch for three days or three weeks.
But still, Kara had been hopeful that maybe she'd found the right coyote shifter to become her mate and start a family with her.
Now, she badly wanted to leave the smokejumper's ready room, with its noise and air of cheerful excitement, and find a private corner on the base to cry her eyes out.
She couldn't do that, though. Not with roll call only minutes away and the likelihood that she and the rest of her team would be heading out very shortly after that.
It was a fact of shifter life that the mating bond made it difficult for mates to spend time apart.
Therefore, mating meant the end of a smokejumping career for most shifters. They tended to transfer to jobs within the National Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management, which required only brief absences from home.
Kara loved smokejumping, and she'd worked damned hard to become one of the few female jumpers in the country.
Sure, she wanted a mate and family, but she wasn't ready to give up the hardest, most exciting, and most rewarding job in the world and settle down to work at Coyote Moon Wilderness Adventures.
CMWA organized and led everything from whitewater rafting adventures to hiking trips to photography safaris, and nearly every member of her family worked for CMWA in one capacity or another.
Sure, working as a whitewater rafting guide, leading trail rides, or helping newbies learn how to paraglide sounded way better than being stuck in a cubicle farm under fluorescent lights. But it couldn't compare to smokejumping.
On the other hand, Kara knew that she wasn't getting any younger. Like most of her fellow smokejumpers, she had a bachelor's degree in Forestry and had worked as a wildland firefighter for several years before applying for the smokejumper job.
"Roll call!" a familiar voice shouted over the din.
Everyone piped down immediately.
Kara stuffed one last packet of beef jerky into her PG bag before hurrying to join the other jumpers gathering in the big open space near the Operations Desk.
She found her teammates standing in a cluster at the edge of the crowd, and went over to stand with them.
Her thoughts were still spinning around Ed and that stupid text, and she tried to shove them into a mental footlocker. These briefings were vital for doing her job safely and efficiently, and she really needed to pay attention.
Her former teammate, Carl Jensen, now a member of the Alaska Smokejumpers, stepped up to the magnet whiteboard and scanned the jump list posted there before turning to face the gathered smokejumpers.
He was a tall, golden-haired wolf shifter, all lean muscle, with intense, dark-blue eyes and a warm smile. He'd grown a beard since Kara had seen him at his wedding, which had taken place a few weeks before this fire season began.
Originally from Alaska, Carl had worked with the Rocky Mountain Smokejumpers for six fire seasons. Then, last autumn, he'd gotten mated. He and his new mate Michelle had decided to relocate from Colorado to his wolf pack's territory in Palmer, located near Anchorage on the southern Alaskan coast.
"First of all," Carl said, in a voice that carried all the way to the back of the ready room, "I'd like to welcome our guests from the Missoula, North Cascades, Redding, and Rocky Mountain Smokejumpers. I'm sure you've all heard by now that the McKinley Fire is a gnarly one, and we're real glad to see all of you guys."
Kara saw heads nodding all around her. The fire had made the national news, and while it was currently burning within the boundaries of Denali National Park, it would only take a shift of the wind to send a firestorm raging towards the homes and communities built along the highway that skirted the park's eastern border.
Carl continued, "All right. Before I call roll, a couple of announcements. First off, a field biologist from State Fish and Game is giving a class later this morning on grizzly and black bears. This might be of interest to those of you who've never seen a grizzly in the wild. Basically, he's going to inform you that bears are highly unpredictable, have big teeth and claws, and can outrun you. If you're interested in the class, let me know after roll call. Also, there will be a weapons certification class for those of you planning to carry guns. Just remember, the unofficial policy is: 'Don't shoot them unless they've actually started eating you.'"
A ripple of nervous laughter moved through the assembled smokejumpers at that.
"But any Alaskan will tell you," Carl said, "bear spray works better than a gun. And also, given the size of this fire and the number of jumpers working the line, you're gonna be in bigger danger from the Alaska state bird—" Carl paused, and the Alaska Smokejumpers in the crowd chuckled knowingly "—or as the folks from the Lower 48 call them: mosquitoes. Don't forget to pack mosquito nets and plenty of bug dope, or you're gonna be really sorry."
As Carl continued with the daily forecast weather and wind conditions briefing, Kara struggled to push down the hurt and disbelief fogging her brain, and concentrate on this important information.
Then a big hand settled on her shoulder, its warmth soaking through her t-shirt.
"Hey, Joker, you okay?" Mike Nakano murmured.
He was a tall Japanese-American man from California. Like Kara, he was in his early thirties. He had high cheekbones, warm brown eyes, crew-cut black hair, and shoulders a mile wide in the typical linebacker bear shifter build.
Mike and Kara had joined the Rocky Mountain Smokejumpers at the same time. She had nicknamed him "Grumpy Bear" on their first day of rookie training, and that nickname had stuck throughout the subsequent fire seasons, even after she realized that he was anything but grumpy.