by Radclyffe
Sarah shrugged. “I am bi-flexible.”
Mallory choked on a laugh. “Since when?”
“Since Mark,” Sarah said with a snarl.
“Well, if you don’t mind, I’d rather you not drag one of the rookies away.”
“Ha ha. Does it matter which one?”
“Any of them,” Mallory said, only half-joking. She was pretty certain Sarah was kidding about Jac, but not entirely. And the image of Jac with Sarah, touching her, being touched by her, set fireworks off in her head. “I really can’t think about this right now.”
Sarah’s brows drew down. “Think about what?”
“Never mind.” Mallory grabbed a light windbreaker, collected her laundry, and started toward the door. “Enjoy your shower. I’ll see you at roll call.”
“Welcome back,” Sarah called as Mallory went through the door.
“Thanks.” She was glad to be back. Glad the call had been successful, glad for having done her job well. And glad that in a few minutes, she’d see Jac again. Pretending otherwise was silly. She didn’t lie to herself, even if she wasn’t about to admit how many times she’d thought of Jac while she’d been gone.
Mallory slowed in the middle of the yard. Jac was still probably asleep. Maybe going up to the loft right now wasn’t such a good idea. Abruptly she changed course. No use complicating something that didn’t have to be complicated.
*
Jac woke at dawn to the rumble of a truck engine revving in the yard. A jumble of deep male laughter rolled upward on a gust of wind, then faded just as quickly, and silence descended. A quick check of her watch told her what she already sensed—she had a few minutes before she needed to get up if she wanted breakfast before reporting for roll call. She folded her arms behind her head and tried to quiet the rush of air in and out of her lungs, waiting for the soft fall of footsteps nearing the ladder. When none came, she pushed herself up and out of her sleeping bag. She had one leg in her cargo pants when Mallory climbed into the loft.
“Morning,” Jac said, balancing on one foot.
Mallory’s eyes swept down her body and then back to her face. The spark in Mallory’s eyes stirred a fire in the pit of Jac’s stomach, heating the places where she’d been cold for a long time.
“I got you coffee and a muffin,” Mallory said, averting her gaze abruptly. She hesitated as if not quite certain what she should do with the items she held in her hands, staring at the cardboard tray as if not sure why she held it. “I was getting some anyhow and I thought…”
Quickly, Jac pulled her pants on and scrabbled around in her duffel for a shirt to cover the tank she’d slept in. She shrugged into a red cotton button-up and pushed a hand through her hair, trying for some semblance of composure. She took a step forward, intending to take the tray. “How are you?”
Mallory’s eyes met hers, and the sparks intensified and broke free. Flames danced in the air. “I’m okay. Everybody’s okay.”
“Good.”
“I really should go.” Mallory looked down at the cardboard tray and the paper cups and the plastic-wrapped muffins, wondering how she’d come to be standing in the loft with a sexily sleep-tousled Jac Russo a few feet away. She hadn’t meant to come here. She’d been on her way to grab some food, and then she’d heard Sarah’s voice in her head, telling her Jac had been restless, sleepless, skipping meals. Because of her. And she’d wanted to see her. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”
“Let me help you.” Jac took the tray and set it down on a small packing crate between the heads of their two cots. She straightened and eased forward again, moving slowly, hoping Mallory wasn’t going to bolt back down the ladder. She stopped a few inches from Mallory and closed her hands tightly before she put them all over Mallory. She wanted to grip her shoulders and pull her forward and kiss her. Simple and uncomplicated. Oh yeah, real simple. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“I ran into Sarah in the locker room.” Mallory pushed her hands into her back pockets. “She mentioned you were worried, maybe.”
“Maybe, a little. Yeah.” Jac added quickly, “I know that’s silly.”
Mallory moistened her lips and took a deep breath. “Yeah, maybe. Not necessary. Nice, though. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Jac gripped her hair again, contemplating pulling it out. She felt about twelve, trying to figure out how to ask for her first date. “You want some coffee?”
Mallory glanced at her watch. “I should probably get going. I want to see Ray before roll call.”
“Why don’t I walk over with you?” Jac pulled the two cups from the tray and handed one to Mallory. She unwrapped a blueberry muffin, broke it in half, and passed part to Mallory. “We can save the other one for break time.”
Mallory laughed, and the sound hit Jac like a flashover. “Thanks. They were out of bran.”
“I’ll put in a request. Charlie loves me.”
Mallory’s eyebrows rose. “Is that right? And how do you figure?”
Jac bit into the muffin and Mallory followed suit. Jac wanted to moan, not because the muffin was wonderful, which it was, but because watching Mallory eat one might be the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. “He gave me pie.”
Mallory stopped chewing. “No.”
Solemnly, Jac nodded.
“I never took you for a prevaricator.”
“Oh.” Jac slammed her hand against her chest. “You wound me.”
Mallory narrowed her eyes. “Charlie really gave you pie?”
“Two pieces.”
“Now I know you’re lying.”
Jac grinned. “I speak only the truth. Ask Sarah, she’ll tell you.”
“Sarah was there to witness this? When?”
“About three this morning.”
“Really.” Mallory’s voice became a few degrees cooler.
“I was restless,” Jac confessed. “I ran into her in the canteen.”
“You’re a puzzle, Russo,” Mallory said softly.
“I don’t think so.”
“No, you probably wouldn’t. You don’t hide much, do you?”
Jac laughed at the irony. “God, Mallory. I hide everything.”
“Why doesn’t it seem that way to me?”
“I don’t know. You make me want to tell all my secrets, and it’s damn scary.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jac’s heart beat so hard she wondered if she might be having a heart attack. “For what?”
“For making you think…” Mallory stopped, shook her head.
“I don’t think anything, Mallory. I’m not after anything. Some things just are.”
“And I don’t know what to do with that, Jac,” Mallory said helplessly. “I really don’t. And I need to go.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jac felt Mallory leaving, even though she hadn’t moved. She was helpless to hold her, knew she couldn’t. Letting go felt like her heart was exploding. “So I’ll see you at roll call.”
“Don’t be late, rookie,” Mallory murmured and climbed over the side of the loft and down the ladder.
Mallory always seemed to be walking away. Jac glanced around, feeling Mallory’s absence even more than she had the night before, and remembered the price of letting anyone close.
Chapter Fifteen
“Listen up,” Mallory called down to the group assembled around the wooden scaffold. “On my mark, you’ll step to the edge, pivot with your back to the ground, tuck your chin, and drop.”
Jac squinted at the six-foot-high platform and the hard-packed ground beneath. She was supposed to step off into nothing and land on the ground wearing a full pack and all her gear as if landing with a parachute. She glanced at Ray. “Is your head okay for this?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my head, but I’m not sure about my sanity,” he muttered.
Jac grinned. “Yeah. I’m feeling a little bit crazy myself right now.”
Mallory glanced in their direction and raised an eyebrow. “Problems over there?”
>
“No ma’am,” Ray said briskly.
“Not a thing,” Jac said.
“Okay.” Mallory stepped to the edge. “Don’t hold your breath unless you want to lose it all when you hit.” She grinned down at them. “And remember your chin.”
She pushed off, seemed to turn in midair like a diver at the pinnacle of her leap, then fell gracefully, landed soundlessly, and rolled to her feet.
“Questions?” Mallory asked, unsnapping her helmet as she walked over.
When she shook her hair out in an unconsciously sensual move, Jac’s heart went into free fall. God, she was every kind of beautiful.
No one had any questions, but a couple of the guys looked a little green.
“Hooker,” Mallory said. “Why don’t you go first and demonstrate. You at least know what the ground feels like coming up at you from your skydiving experience.”
“Sure. No problem,” Hooker said.
Mallory climbed back up to the platform and Hooker followed.
Jac didn’t think she’d ever get used to seeing Mallory with the clouds at her back, sunlight glinting in her hair. Her face was flushed with exertion and pure exhilaration. She looked happy. Mallory hadn’t looked happy in the loft that morning. She’d looked confused and uncertain and reluctant. Making Mallory unhappy was the last thing Jac wanted to do. Hell, she hadn’t even gotten close to Mallory yet, and she was already screwing things up. What she needed to do was back off. Give Mallory space. That ought to be easy enough to do, if she could only figure out how to stop thinking about her. And keep her heart from stuttering to a standstill every time she unexpectedly caught a glimpse of Mallory out of the corner of her eye. If she could only manage not to tighten up inside at the mere sound of her voice. Then it ought to be easy to maintain some distance.
“You ready for this?” Ray said.
“Huh?” Jac said.
“This exercise.” Ray gave her a look. “Where’s your head at, Jac? You need to score some points with the boss.”
“You can say that again.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
Above them, Mallory said, “Hooker, take your place. On my mar—”
Hooker dropped off the edge, tucked, landed, and rolled.
“What the fuck was that?” Ray whispered. “Wasn’t he supposed to—”
“Yeah,” Jac muttered. “He was.”
Hooker was testing Mallory, subtly ignoring her authority in front of everyone. Jac just couldn’t figure out why. The guy must’ve known who was in charge of the station when he signed up, so if he had problems with Mallory, why didn’t he opt out of the placement? What did he think he was going to gain by antagonizing her? She’d wash him out at this rate.
Hooker sauntered over, a satisfied smirk on his face. “Piece-a-cake, ladies. You all will be fine.”
Mallory climbed down the ladder and walked over. “Too much wind up there, Hooker?”
He pulled off his helmet and shrugged his shoulders. “Nope. Felt great.”
“So you weren’t having a problem hearing me?”
He looked at her innocently. “Nope.”
“Want to explain why you took off early?”
“Hey,” he said nonchalantly. “You said you wanted me to demonstrate, I demonstrated. Any problems with my…technique?”
“The exercise isn’t just about technique,” Mallory said steadily, her gaze never wavering from Hooker’s. “It’s about performance. And part of performance out here is following protocol. Protocol keeps us all alive.”
Hooker’s jaw tightened. “Does it? That’s real good to know. Considering.”
Something hard stole into Mallory’s eyes, and a wave of heat surged in Jac’s chest. She clamped her jaws so hard, her ears ached. She wanted to challenge Hooker, hell—she wanted to kick his ass.
“Russo,” Mallory said softly. “You’re up.”
“Roger that.”
Jac waited for Mallory to lead the way up the ladder, watching the rigid line of her back as she ascended, knowing Hooker had drawn blood and wanting to filet him for it. Up on the platform, the wind blew Mallory’s hair around her face, and Jac ached to catch some of those strands on her fingers and tuck them behind Mallory’s ear. Any excuse to touch her. Maybe a futile gesture to ease her pain. Words, sympathy, even having been there herself, couldn’t touch the private wound, and she knew it. Still, the helplessness ate at her.
“Questions?” Mallory asked.
“No.”
“Repeat the sequence for me, please.”
Mallory’s tone was mechanical, remote, distant. She’d gone someplace inside, behind the barriers that helped deflect but never blocked the pain.
Jac did the only thing she could. Her job, just like Mallory. “Step to the edge. On your mark, step off, turn in the air, tuck my chin, land and roll.”
“Good.” Mallory rapped Jac on the back of her hardhat. “Don’t forget your chin, Rookie.”
The slight reverberation of Mallory’s knuckles against the protective headgear shot through Jac like a hot caress. Her breath caught in her chest.
“Right.” Jac stepped to the edge.
“Ready,” Mallory said, her voice the only sound. “Go.”
Jac pushed off and pivoted, searching for Mallory. She found Mallory’s eyes fixed on her, steady and intent, and calm suffused her. The next second, she hit hard, harder than she’d expected, and the breath rushed from her chest. Coughing, trying to suck air back in, she immediately rolled onto her side, and some of the shock dissipated. Thankfully, she managed a breath and got to her feet. Her legs were still a little wobbly. She chalked that unsteadiness up to the hard landing. She wanted to pretend her moment of disorientation hadn’t been all Mallory. But it was. Pretty pathetic that a casual rap on the head would turn her upside down. She hustled out of the landing area and made her way to the back of the line.
“Not bad,” Hooker said.
“Thanks,” Jac said, working hard to keep her voice steady. Her lungs didn’t feel fully expanded yet, and she was still air hungry. Her right shoulder was a little sore, but she’d remembered to tuck her chin, and Mallory hadn’t come down to criticize her drop. She’d take it for the first time out.
Hooker leaned too close to her, his big body crowding her. “Probably scored some points with James.”
“That wasn’t high on my list,” Jac said, standing her ground. “I’d just rather not break both my legs the first time I jump from the plane.”
“All the same,” he said, “I get the feeling muffins aren’t gonna get you where you want to go with her.”
Jac tensed. She hadn’t seen him on her coffee and muffin run, but he’d obviously seen her. Careless of her not to be on alert. “Hooker—”
“Hey, babe, good luck thawing that out.” Hooker grinned suggestively. “Whoever named her Ice wasn’t kidding. I don’t think you can get through with a blowtorch.”
She wanted to take him on and she couldn’t, for so many reasons. She’d get booted from the program. She’d probably make the news, and her family would have one more “humiliating escapade,” as her father termed it, to suffer through. Mallory wouldn’t want her to cause problems for the team. Mallory didn’t need her to defend her. “Hooker, are you always such a moron, or am I just the lucky recipient of your idiocy?”
He chuckled. “You really think you’re gonna get over on that one?”
“I don’t think anything at all. What is your problem?”
“Not a thing.” He turned so his back was partially to the platform, and his friendly expression went feral. “If you get a piece of her, congratulations. Maybe you’d even like to share. I’ve got plenty to go around.”
Jac actually drew her fist back, and his gaze flickered to the movement.
“You really do have a hard-on for her.” He laughed. “What are you going to do, hit me?”
Jac turned and walked away.
“Russo?” Mallory called. “Russo. Pro
blem?”
“Just winded. Fell wrong,” Jac yelled back without slowing. She kept going until she reached the shack. She hung her pack on the peg, put her gear away, and pulled off her jump suit. She jogged out of the building, across the yard, and into the woods. The cold mountain air dried the sweat on her skin, but didn’t cool her fury. She had no destination. She only wished she had an IED waiting for her, anything to defuse her frustration and helplessness.
*
Mallory finished writing her evaluations, stacked the forms neatly on the upper right-hand corner of her desk, and stared at the small brass wind-up clock that had adorned her father’s desk until his death. Five o’clock. The sun would set in less than an hour, and the mountains would become a dense, dark labyrinth. No one ventured into the wilderness after dark unless life and limb depended on it. Jac hadn’t returned to the loft to catnap or change clothes or unwind. She was probably in the gym or grabbing an early dinner in the canteen. Maybe playing cards or comparing war stories with the other rookies. Somewhere doing what smokejumpers did while waiting for the action, somewhere safe and sound.
The back of Mallory’s neck burned, probably a bit of windburn from standing up on the tower most of the afternoon. She rubbed at the sore spot, but the niggling irritation didn’t go away. Her warning antennae quivered, and she never ignored her gut.
“Damn it,” she muttered, jumping to her feet. She pulled her sweatshirt off the back of her chair and shrugged it on, jammed her hands into the pockets, and stalked out of the hangar to the ready shack. She checked the equipment room first. Jac’s gear was there, stowed neatly. She cut through to the hallway that led to the gym. The room was crowded, but a quick look was all she needed to know Jac wasn’t there. Okay, so she was having dinner. But the canteen was nearly empty. Ray and Sarah sat with dinner trays in front of them, talking at a far table. Mallory walked over.
“Have you seen Russo?” she said to Ray.
He straightened in his seat. “No…ah. No.”
The itch at the back of her neck spread like a rash, and she wanted to shake, twitching off the irritation like a horse shedding flies in the summer sun. “Sarah? Did you talk to her after the exercise today?”