A Blaze To Bear (Fire Bear Shifters Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

of the crew members complained. In fact, the mood as they packed up camp bordered on jovial. It felt good to have their first mission be a success, even if it had been a relatively easy job.
    Ian led the group as they traipsed downward toward a small airstrip. They tried to leave the forest as untouched as possible, although occasionally the undergrowth became too thick and they had to chop their way through.
    The crew talked and joked as they hiked, and included Charlotte in their conversations. Now that they had spent time fighting a fire with her, everyone seemed more comfortable around her. Well, everyone but Ian. Charlotte could not even get Ian to make eye contact with her. It was painfully obvious that he was avoiding her, but everyone acted like nothing abnormal was happening. At first, Charlotte felt flattered by his avoidance, now that she knew it was due to his feelings for her. But as the day wore on and he laughed easily with all of the crew members except her, she started to become annoyed.
    Who did he think he was, treating her so differently from the rest of the crew? So what if he felt uncomfortable around her? He was a crew chief. Part of his job description included fostering unity and camaraderie amongst the crew members. Completely ignoring one of the crew members was unacceptable behavior. By the time they finally broke for lunch, Charlotte’s mood had turned sour, and she started taking it out on the other guys. She snapped at Hunter when he jokingly tried to stick Spam mixed with Gatorade in her face.
    “Keep your shit to yourself. You know I don’t want it,” she barked at him.
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy, tiger. It was just a joke.”
    Charlotte scowled at Hunter and stormed away from the group holding a protein bar. She stopped several yards away, kicking the trunk of a tree angrily as she wolfed down the tasteless food.
    She knew she had to get it together. She had worked harder than she ever thought possible to get a place on a smokejumper crew. If Boise had to reassign her again, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t just send her back to a ground crew for the season. And Charlotte definitely did not want to be sent back to a ground crew. As nervous as she felt every time she stood in the door of that airplane, she loved the thrill of flying through the air toward the earth, then jerking to a slow, floating fall when her parachute opened.
    Ian was already threatening to push for a reassignment when they got back to base. Charlotte didn’t need to give him extra reasons to campaign for her removal. As much as it hurt her pride to do it, Charlotte needed to bury her angry, agitated emotions and play nice. She took a deep breath, and walked slowly back to where the rest of the crew sat on the ground in an uneven circle, finishing up their lunch. She clapped Hunter on the back in what she hoped was a congenial gesture.
    “Sorry, buddy. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
    Hunter’s face brightened immediately. “No worries. I completely understand.”
    I’m not sure you do , Charlotte thought to herself. But she bit her lip and gave Hunter a smile. She could feel Ian scowling from across the circle, but she refused to look in his direction. She focused intently on drinking water from her canteen until the group’s conversation naturally moved on to other topics. The remainder of the hike down proved uneventful. Ian didn’t speak to anyone, but at least he was being an equal opportunity asshole now. Charlotte felt better since she was no longer the only one being ignored. Charlotte remained mostly silent as well. She couldn’t stop thinking about what she had overheard about the men being shifters, and she listened and observed the crew members carefully, searching for some clue to their true natures. But nothing they said or did seemed out of the ordinary. After hours of hiking had passed, she still hadn’t seen anything to indicate that any of the