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reviews_and_ramblings
Fire on the Mountain by P.D. Singer Release Date: July 23, 2009
Publisher: Torquere Books
ISBN: 978-1-60370-762-6
1-60370-762-X
Publisher Link: http://www.torquerebooks.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=2083
Blurb: When Jake signs up for a season as a forest ranger in the high country of Colorado, it seems like a great way to take a break before continuing his education. The mountains are beautiful, he gets to live in a cabin near a small lake where he can fish, and his partner Kurt is coaching him in archery. It’s heaven, with the occasional forest fire. Kurt’s a good partner -- confident, competent, experienced, just what a rookie like Jake needs. He’s also good looking, not modest, and always around. Jake’s living in the closet, not just in the great outdoors, but is Kurt trying to get him to come sniff the fresh air? Jake can’t tell, but when a small fire whips out of control, things could really heat up!
Excerpt:
A little snippet from Fire on the Mountain, where rangers Kurt and Jake have been rigging themselves a wilderness refrigerator, because the bear box just doesn't let them have much variety. It's a good idea, but they've succeeded in flipping all their perishables into the lake.
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"First, a wet run," I decided, so the box dipped into the water and was retrieved without incident. Putting the food in changed the balance --too many heavy things must have been on one side. The box came out of the water, draining in cascades from all the holes, when it slipped to one side and opened. All the precious food went flipping into the lake.
"Shit!" we yelped. I started pulling off my boots, and Kurt peeled out of the wet utilities. The wet clothing would be a danger as we went down to the bottom to retrieve our goodies, so I peeled down, too, more easily since my clothes were still dry. Still no underwear, since I hadn’t been able to find a way to smuggle some into the bathroom at HQ. Didn’t matter now. I wrapped a bight of rope around a rock to fix the box in place over the water, and then followed Kurt into the lake.
We dived and surfaced, hands full, loading some of the prizes into the dangling box, then taking things to shore when the box didn’t look like it could take any more safely in its tilted position.
"Did you find the mayonnaise?" I asked, once we’d both been down and back twice empty handed. The water was not clear enough to find anything by sight, so we were hunting by touch.
"No, I thought you did," Kurt said as he treaded water.
"Damn, I really wanted that mayonnaise," I said. I resigned myself to another chilly trip downward. Kurt twisted in the water and did a tucked surface dive, shooting to the bottom as he uncoiled his legs, which gave me a brief look at his package before he submerged. That couldn’t have been intentional, and I was grateful for the cold water that would hinder me from getting hard. I’d seen him naked before, but that was before. Now I was noticing, and I was as naked as he was.
Almost oxygenated enough to go down again to help hunt, I had started to turn in the water when Kurt surfaced next to me. Actually, he’d nearly come up underneath me, and he stroked the length of my body as he rose to the air. Pushing off me to gain a little distance, he planted a foot on my thigh, dangerously close to my groin. The cold water was my ally, I reminded myself --the face full of splashing would help me not react.
"Success!" he crowed, waving the jar around. "Is that everything?"
"I think so," I said, and we swam to shore.
"Careful," he warned as we pulled the dangling box over to land. "I don’t really want to go after all that again." Me either, I thought, though if he brushed against me again, I wouldn’t mind. I just wished he’d done it on purpose.
