by Rachel Hanna
Who caught her breath.
He had pale ice blue eyes, darkly lashed and set in a suntanned face made up of chiseled angles. He was older than her, she thought maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with hair that looked black in the sunlight. Thick chest with defined pecs she thought she could see the striations in even through his t-shirt, and arms that compared favorably to Dwayne Johnson's. He stood easily a head taller than her.
All that work getting off the mountain and she was going to die right here. Heart attack. Or forgetting to ever take a breath again. Or she might breathe in an insect and choke, because she seemed unable to close her mouth.
"Taylor Adams, I presume?" he asked with a goofy guy-next-door grin (he was anything but the guy next door to anywhere she'd ever lived) and held out his hand. "I'm Tanner Davis. SEArch & Rescue."
His hand was warm and dry and huge and enveloped hers and she had no desire to try and take her hand back. Ever.
"Taylor," she said, as if she were acknowledging what he'd said and not just too stupefied to realize he'd just identified her. "This is Monster."
At which point Tanner endeared himself to her even more than the rescue had already done – he dropped into an easy crouch, held his hand out to shake Monster's paw and when Monster – untrained and untrainable – just stared, then looked back at Taylor with a WTF expression, laughed, and gave the Lab a hug.
Lucky dog, Taylor thought, right before her attention snapped back to the fire – and her friends.
"My friends are out there," she said. Then remembered – "Danny contacted you?"
"Bad connection, but he got through. He and the others in your party were headed down the mountain."
Taylor panicked. "But that's – "
"Right. So I'm going back up." He turned to the ranger. "Any contact with the group of hikers? It's three males and three females."
"First we've heard of it," the ranger said, and Taylor paid attention for the first time. He was a redhead, tall and slender and serious, wearing an official Forest Service uniform. He had already turned to a computer terminal in the lee of the huge garage where only one sage green truck was still lodged. Even as he entered information he threw out questions to Taylor and to her rescuer.
She gave him the names and ages of everyone in the party, fast enough it didn't matter they were all pretty much the same age. Then descriptions of the three vehicles they'd used to get there, a rented RAV-4, a borrowed Jeep Wrangler, and Jessie's Toyota 4x4.
"Right," Tanner Davis said, already striding back to the helicopter. "Why don't I put another pair of eyes in the sky?'
The ranger nodded, still entering info and starting to send it out to the planes flying overhead dropping either water or retardant – Taylor hadn't noticed on the way in. She'd been too busy convincing herself she wasn't going to die like eggs dropped from an incredible height rather than in the fire that would have been leaping up the creek in another five minutes. What she had noticed about the flight was she hated it more than she hated commercial airliners – Taylor liked to have her feet on the ground unless she was the one in charge of whatever was going on that had gotten her off of it, and she didn't fly – but now he was headed away from her, she called, "I know the vehicles and I think I know where we were." Now she was back down on the ground, the map of the area seen from the ground and from the mountain top and from the air was starting to come together in her mind.
"Come on," he called without looking back. He was already swinging up into the cockpit.
She turned fast to the ranger. "Can you keep Monster here?"
The guy grinned. Monster had that effect. So did his name. "Are you a Monster, buddy? Sure. I'll put him in the truck. If we have to head out fast, he'll be with me."
"Thanks!" She bent, kissed her dog, kept her head down and ran for the helicopter, climbed onboard and took the proffered helmet from Tanner.
Shame to put away a guy like that into a helmet, she thought irrationally. Then she was spouting info as they ascended. "We came in from the south, as Jason kept telling me over and over. The entrance is south and it was about two miles from the trailhead. We headed west up the trail – " Because that's the only direction it goes from there, but what the hell, she kept talking because she was scared to death for her friends, scared of the helicopter, and in awe of the beautiful man beside her –
He took the chopper south, flying high over the fire until they had positioned themselves between the mountain and the ranger station, and she started scanning the ground. He couldn't get too low, not with the weird currents fires put out but it only took her a minute to spot the vehicles.
They were moving, a tiny convoy, and from the looks of it, hemmed in by flames. She could see one escape route, but all the fire had to do was fill in behind that gap and they'd be trapped again.
"Hang on, " Tanner said. "I’m going to bring them up. It's gonna be a rough couple minutes in the fire winds." Then he handed her the controls.
Taylor panicked, suddenly wishing she were on the ground in the middle of the fire and not here –
"I don't know how -- !" she said, trying to back away, but the harness held her in place and there was nowhere to go.
"It's fine. Just hold it steady . Keep it right where it is. I'm going to be directly behind your seat. But this time I have to bring people into the craft, I can't leave how many – "
"Six," she said.
"People in the basket. Won't hold them."
She rubbed her wet palms on her cargo shorts. "What if I – "
"You won't," he said, and unexpectedly darted in close to her as he stood, the controls in her hands, bent to accommodate his bulk inside the helicopter, and gave her a very quick kiss.
Taylor stilled completely, shocked. She wanted to demand to know what he was doing or – or to grab him at the expense of everything and return the kiss or to – what was he doing?
"Just distracting you," he said, gave her that goofy grin again that made him look like anything but a search and rescue dude, and went behind her seat.
Instantly she felt like her sweating hands were slipping on the controls and as if, when trying for a better grip, she was moving them. The fact that the chopper held steady changed nothing. Clearly she was going to get them all killed.
But when Tanner's amplified voice came outside the craft, booming around them with the fire winds, she didn't even flinch and the chopper stayed steady. Which, she thought, either meant she wasn't actually doing anything, or she was doing better than she thought.
"My name's Tanner Davis," he said. "Duncan, wave, I can't see you."
Taylor looked down and saw Danny's arm sticking out of the Wrangler.
"Very good. Are all of you accounted for? Give me a thumb's up."
The thumb went down and Taylor gagged on fear.
Tanner swore. "Sorry! Very sorry. I've got Taylor Adams with me. Is everyone else accounted for?"
This time Danny's thumb turned upwards. Taylor felt a sob tear loose. Relief could be a bitch.
"Good! I'm going to lower the basket. Anybody there hysterical enough they have to come up with someone else? Because I'd really rather not."
Jessie, Taylor thought, and sure enough, Jess climbed from her truck holding so tightly to Barb there was a good chance she'd throttle her.
"Right. Two girls we can handle. Basket coming down." He gave them instructions, told Danny to cheek the carabiners and lowered it away.
Taylor sat holding the joysticks, feeling like an imposter – and kind of having fun. Her own danger was sliding past, already becoming memory and she was forgetting the exact details, only reveling in not being in the creek, not being responsible for Monster's death, and maybe, just maybe, being partially responsible for the rescue of her friends.
Scariest day ever. And then Tanner appeared beside her and took back the controls and she thought just maybe what she'd thought was her last day might turn out to be one of the best.
Chapter Seven
&nb
sp; "That was one hell of a hike!" Danny couldn't stop talking. He was on an adrenaline jag, tall, thin, sandy haired, and currently speed talking. He kept pacing round Taylor's tiny kitchen, talking.
Jason for a change was quiet, like something had impressed him during the day. There were times at work Taylor thought she'd pay good money for anything that would shut Jason up and now she just wished he'd be himself again. She didn't like seeing him brought down.
"Not your fault," she said quietly under the rumble of the remaining non-victims. Barb and Tess had already left, looking shaken, though for all Taylor knew that might have been because of the pilot. They'd all gotten a good look at him and helmet or not, he was fucking hot. Then again, that might be what was up with a quiet version of Jason, too – she was never sure which side he batted for. Jason and Robert stood out on her deck, which was bigger than the kitchen and faced into a bunch of palm trees and neighbor's yards. Taylor's place was tiny but cheap and not situated for views. She might as well not live anywhere near an ocean, but she'd been saying she was going to move and This year is the year and so on for so long no one even listened anymore.
Even Taylor herself.
Under cover of the vibrant conversation from her friends and from Monster who felt the need to be included in the general merriment because he'd been included in the general emergency, were all making more than enough noise to cover her silence – Taylor thought about her life.
She had parents. They were separated and both living in Arizona, which was apparently the west coast version of Florida for some retired folks. She might only be twenty-four but her parents were each on their second marriage when they had Taylor and her sister.
She had friends, too, important to her but --
But. There shouldn't be a but. Monster was the closest relationship she had and while he was the best, she couldn't quite ignore the fact he was a dog.
Face it, she thought, as Danny waxed loud about something to do with Chinook helicopters and Special Forces, if I'd died I would have left behind some debt, a beautiful dog that at least Jessie would take – if I left behind Jessie. She might not have made it out either. I'd have left an uninspiring career in IT and uninspiring career in various schools before that, an ex boyfriend I thought was serious and –
And nothing. She didn't even have any big intentions. No Things To Do Before the Final Before happens. She hated the term Bucket List, she didn't want to run a marathon or write or publish a novel, she hadn't trained for anything other than IT and she hadn't cared. She knitted but it wasn't a passion (or very good). She cooked and threw parties for her friends, but she wasn't passionate about those, either.
In college she'd been friends with a girl named Angela who worked for a computer software financials company even while taking classes. She was frequently gone on business trips over the weekends and during the week, making up her work when she got back because it was hard for the school to argue she wasn't getting an education from her work, too. When she'd come back from a hair-raising flight with lots of turbulence she never failed to recount the things that went through her mind – her novel, her semi-fiancé (they were probably going to get married some day, though they were currently polyamorous and didn't seem concerned about the number of people in their relationship or when they'd wed), what she really wanted to do with her life (write), where she really wanted to live (Seattle), when and how she'd get there (good question) –
"She had a life she was afraid of losing," Taylor said, so quietly no one heard her, not even Monster. "Me, I'm just afraid of not being alive anymore."
And that was a huge difference.
Tanner Davis had kissed her on the helicopter. He'd kissed her one more time when everybody was onboard and he'd taken back the controls.
Nice kisses.
He hadn't said anything about seeing her again though.
It had been rather confused and confusing when it came time for everyone to get off the chopper in San Diego. The vehicles would be taken to a Ranger Station once the fire was out and the danger passed.
In San Diego at the tiny beach house that passed for the offices of SEArch & Rescue.
She knew where he worked.
It wouldn't be that hard to find him again.
She wouldn't even have to put her life or anyone else's in danger.
Shut up.
He'd kissed her.
Why the hell had he done that?
"Boss, you listening?" All five of them were sitting around the conference table, something they'd dragged out of an abandoned hotel before demolitions. Sunshine on his shoulders through the window and the Pacific out there, way too windy and sandy to want to go for a run but damn he was restless. Jake and Angel were talking about Vegas, the contract, the likelihood they'd get it and all he wanted to do was –
Call her.
Not going to do that.
"Not the boss, Angel," he said, voice deceptively lazy. Angel was Latino. Was it a stereotype or a form of prejudice to say he liked to call people boss? Maybe it was just Angel. Beautiful Angel with his cocoa colored skin and perfect dark hair and elegantly sculpted limbs and the scar on his cheek from a run in on that last mission, a scar that girls found sexy.
Girls didn't find Tanner and his scars sexy.
They're afraid of you, bro, Tanner's brother had said. You're too fucking pretty.
Shut up, he'd answered.
They were, after all, twins, even if Tucker had opted to stay in the Midwest and raise things and have a family. Girls weren't afraid of Tucker.
He'd kissed Taylor Adams. On the chopper.
Was it his imagination or had she kissed him back?
Imagination probably. Or heat of the moment. Even beautiful girls like Taylor Adams were bound to get caught up in the romance after being rescued from a wildfire.
Didn't matter. Even though he knew her name and where she worked and who her dog was and bunch of other important information, didn't matter. He wasn't going to see her again. She hadn't said anything or responded in any way other than thanking him for saving them, over and over, until he'd blushed.
He was a Navy SEAL reservist and a search and rescue technician and he was in med school and if that wasn't all enough to scare him away from trying to drag more into his life there was the simple fact that while he didn't understand why girls would be afraid of him.
He was slightly afraid of them.
"Call her, Boss," Angel said.
Shit. His brooding was showing. "Let's talk about blowing stuff up," he said, and not one of them believed the change of subject was authentic.
After the meeting he went running despite the wind, sand and crashing waves.
In the morning Taylor took her laptop out onto the tiny deck and started playing with sites from Authentic Happiness to psych sites that rated the depth of depression, then for kicks took a profile on whether or not she was a multiple personality and, upon finding out she was, wondered how much she could trust the evaluations received from the other sites. She barely had enough personality for one person.
Going back inside, she made herself an omelet, remembered how much she hated omelets, fed it to Monster and went for a run. The day was windy and the sand kept blowing in her face and all the other runners on the beach including octogenarians and whoever it was that was older than that kept passing her like it was nothing while she slogged along getting nowhere.
She went home out of sorts and stopped looking at happiness and sadness ratings, stopped looking at dating sites, stopped looking at movie trailers (it had been a welcome distraction earlier) and went to volunteer opportunities.
One of the first things she found was a new company that used technology to train injured children in the use of artificial limbs. They gamed with them and by distracting the kids into the fantasy world of the game, taught them to use the new limb when they weren't concentrating on it and feeling frustrated or embarrassed.
The company was a start up, depending on grants and don
ations, which made Taylor grind her teeth since the tech giant people called The Devil routinely made enough money to finance this entire project and pay the volunteers.
Then again, perhaps the tech giant did good works elsewhere.
Maybe Taylor could do some good works here.
That led her to checking out volunteer opportunities in her community and drowning under the weight of them. Just about anything she might find herself interested in had some kind of component that lent itself to volunteerism. She could work with injured, abused, neglected, abandoned or sick children, and work with physical therapy, play therapy, horse therapy, cat, dog, pig, cow, cockatiel therapy. She could do arts, stage plays, teach singing (no, really she couldn't) and almost anything else she could dream of to help children who needed it. She could join community gardening projects and with her brown thumb, give the existing volunteers plenty to volunteer doing. There were enough choices out there.
But she kept going back to the first one she'd seen when she wasn't even thinking about volunteering, just thinking she needed to find meaning in her life before something threatened that life again.
The tech tie-in to physical therapy appealed. The others were good works no different than knowing nursing homes would love to have her read there and the food banks would always welcome donations, not just at Christmas.
This, though. This combined what she'd trained in with something she had an interest in because her sister was a physical therapist. Not that she wanted to go play in her sister's sandbox, but at least it would be a miniature bridge should they ever want to communicate again. As sisters.
She filed away the idea, finished living through her Sunday and went back to work at Boring World on Monday, running promptly into Jason.