Flash of Fire

by M. L. Buchman

  He wasn’t quite sure who to be angry at for all this kerfuffle. Mark and the guys for trying to protect him, or the women for trying to protect Robin from him. He had only himself to blame for his outburst of frustration in front of everyone at French Pete’s restaurant, which had made them all overly watchful.

  “Whatever,” he mumbled as he dropped back into his seat.

  Vern stretched out his long legs, once more effectively blocking Mickey in. “Know exactly what you mean, buddy. Last winter, you would not bee-lieve what Denise did to me once I fell for her. I mean there we were in Honduras and—”

  “Honduras? Is that where you guys went?”

  “Shit, shouldn’t have said that,” Vern whispered in a hurry. “You better keep that one strictly between us.”

  Mickey nodded and slouched lower in his seat and tried to think what he knew about Honduras. Nothing except it was in Central America and had good coffee. And he only knew the second part because Vern had come back from last winter talking about the wonders of Honduran coffee. A clue that Mickey had completely missed. He wanted to ask a thousand questions but knew they wouldn’t be welcome. And if Mark found out he was asking questions, he just might not be included in whatever was about to happen. He really didn’t want to be moving in a different direction from Robin.

  “What did Denise do to you?” He tried not to descend back into bitterness about his own recent experience. They were still one of the oddest couples imaginable, though Denise had come a long way out of her shell since the two of them had married. She was cute as all hell, but he’d never imagined her as even being available. All she cared about was her helicopters. “You two are happy enough now.”

  “Madly,” Vern agreed with a smile that couldn’t be denied.

  “But what did she do?”

  “It wasn’t so much what she did…” Vern drifted off into happy-memory land. Mickey had seen it on enough faces of married MHA men to wonder what happy drug they were dosed with during the wedding ceremony. Or maybe it was administered along with getting your marriage license.

  “Okay, so what didn’t Denise do to you?”

  “It wasn’t that either.”

  “You’re not being helpful, Vern.” Mickey tried slouching lower. Too bad the Dreamlifter didn’t have any amenities like an old-time stewardess in a short skirt serving from an open bar. Instead, like military flights, there was a small refrigerator stocked with juice and sandwiches. Strictly self-serve. Maybe he’d get some in a minute and see if he could run into Robin there.

  “Sorry, man.” Vern shrugged. “But that’s exactly what she did to me. I felt like I was twisting in the wind. Everything I knew about women just went out the door and didn’t matter anymore. Suddenly this little blond demon took over and occupied all my thoughts.”

  “Demon. I like that.” Denise appeared out of nowhere and leaned in to kiss Vern. “I always wanted to be a demon.” Then she dropped a couple sandwiches and juices into their laps.

  Mickey took his reluctantly, so much for that ploy.

  “Damn,” Vern drawled. “Aren’t the stews on this flight just the cutest thing ever?”

  Mickey opened his mouth.

  Denise pointed a finger at him. “Careful there, Mickey.” And then she was gone.

  He closed his mouth, unsure what he’d been going to say anyway. Something about agreeing…if Robin was one of them.

  Mickey opened his mystery-meat-and-white-bread sandwich and concentrated on not thinking about Robin.

  Vern was right.

  It wasn’t working.

  * * *

  “Of course they’re talking about you,” Denise reported as she brought sandwiches over to the low table they’d gathered around.

  Robin wanted to go look for herself, wanted to see Mickey’s face so that she could gauge it. But that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  Emily and her daughter, Tessa, had flown back to the Lower 48 on their way to visit Emily’s parents back east somewhere. Jeannie had her penned in to one side, Carly on the other. Now Denise sat across the table.

  Egg salad on whole wheat, not bad. Except it was five in the morning body time, and they were fast approaching Japan.

  Well, now she knew what Mickey and Vern were talking about, even if she didn’t know what they were saying. If she did the same, she’d be far too conscious of him. And, no matter what Emily said about her being in love with Mickey… Robin tested the feeling like a sore tooth, gently. But she didn’t know what she was testing for. Was her desire to get back to where they’d been the moment before he fed her pancakes moving forward or was it a retreat? And from what? Thinking about it didn’t make her head hurt, instead it gave her an ache deep in her chest that was so cliché that it was just stupid.

  Someday she’d have a kid, a girl, and the long line of single Harrow women would continue. Maybe even with Mickey if he was willing to do it without strings. Robin almost laughed. The answer to that one was easy to guess; Mickey simply wasn’t a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy. Too bad, because that’s all she was interested in. No matter what Emily said. This whole line of thinking was just making her feel miserable and she was sick of that.

  “Fine,” she said aloud, which stopped the quiet conversation among the other women about what few words Denise had overheard.

  Time for a subject change.

  “Any guesses on why we’re going to Korea? Don’t they have firefighters?”

  “Don’t want to talk about men that badly?” Jeannie teased her.

  “No.”

  “Not even a little?” Carly nodded forward.

  Cal, Mark, and Carly’s husband, Steve, had gathered up at the very nose and were standing together looking very fit and handsome.

  “Not even a little,” Robin grumped.

  “Killjoy.” Denise offered a smile with her insult.

  “You should have seen him.” Jeannie bit into her sandwich.

  “Who?” It slipped out before Robin could stop it.

  “Him who.” Denise waved her sandwich toward where Vern and Mickey sat across the cabin and forward.

  She could only see Vern at the aisle. Mickey was completely hidden from view.

  “I’ve never seen anyone yell at Emily before.” Carly shook her head. “Can’t even imagine it.”

  Robin choked on her egg salad. “Mickey yelled at Emily? About what?”

  The three women went quiet.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know what she said that set him off, but man, oh, man did he blow, mate.” Jeannie giggled.

  “Emily asked him what he’d done to her pilot.” Denise would of course be the one to get close with no one noticing. “I can only correlate that she was speaking of you because the rest of us were there. She’s very possessive about us, you know?”

  “You too even though you aren’t a pilot,” Robin assured her.

  “I am now.” Denise fished a card out of her wallet and handed it around. “Just got my ticket, though I’ll never be as good as Vern.”

  “Wow!” High fives happened around her.

  “Though Emily always made sure I was okay even as one of her mechanics.”

  “Head mechanic.”

  “Emily’s great.”

  “She’s the best,” the others agreed.

  Robin’s attention drifted back to where Mark was signaling for Vern to come join them. Maybe, if Robin could get free of this circle, she could go and take Vern’s seat and have a talk with Mickey.

  “Mickey told her to go to hell,” Denise stated.

  “Wait! What?” Robin tried to imagine such a thing and looked from one face to the next of the three women. They weren’t making this up.

  “Not just Emily,” Denise said matter-of-factly. “You too.”

  Robin dropped back in her seat. Sh
e tried again to make sense of Mickey being angry and it just wasn’t coming together. She’d dunked him and he’d explained why he hadn’t taught her to Eskimo Roll. She’d hit him on the helmet and he’d laughed. She’d slashed at his heart and he’d just sat there and taken it.

  “He told me to go to hell?” She could barely whisper it around the tightness once again lodged in her chest.

  “‘To hell with her and to hell with you.’”

  “Denise!” Jeannie admonished her.

  “What? Those are the correct words. You all heard it because he shouted it loudly enough to—” Then she stumbled to a halt. Denise blushed brightly and then rested a hand on Robin’s arm. “Sorry, sometimes I’m not very good with people. Vern is trying to teach me.” She bowed her head and a curtain of hair covered her face.

  Jeannie gave her a side hug. “You’re doing great, honey. But I thought it was us making all the difference in your life.”

  Denise shook her head and mumbled, “Vern” from behind her blond shield. Then she peeked out as Jeannie and Carly burst out laughing and offered a soft smile of chagrin.

  Then she looked tentatively at Robin.

  “I’m not great with people either, Denise, so we’re fine.”

  “Oh no.” Denise shook her head and then had to pause as she shoved handfuls of hair out of her face. “You’re great with people.”

  “Then tell me why I don’t have any friends.” And Robin knew it was wrong the moment the words were out.

  The three women looked at her in shock.

  “Told you I was lousy with people. I’m just not used to having friends yet.” She reached out and took Denise’s hand, unsure of which of them she was trying to reassure. “It’s not something I have any experience in.”

  “Okay.” Jeannie’s easy laugh resurfaced. “You’re really good with people when they aren’t your friends.”

  That got a round of snorts and giggles.

  “Did he say anything else?” Robin asked once they’d all returned to their sandwiches.

  Vern had clambered out of his seat, pulled Mickey after him, and they’d both moved forward. So much for plan C. What was plan D going to be? Jumping out of the plane and hoping that he did too so that they could shed their guardians?

  “I don’t want to hurt you.” Denise was looking at her and Robin forced her attention back to the women.

  “It’s okay, Denise. We all heard it.” Jeannie set down her sandwich and looked straight at Robin.

  Uh-oh! She already knew she wasn’t going to like this.

  “He said, ‘I tell her I love her and this is what I get?’”

  “He said that to all of you?”

  “More the entire bar,” Denise noted. “He seemed quite upset and he was shouting rather loudly.”

  Robin felt ill and wished she’d eaten less egg salad. Perhaps taken some hemlock or arsenic instead. A man tells her he loves her, the first one to ever say it for reasons other than getting her into bed, and what did she give him?

  “Was it romantic?” Jeannie asked.

  “Mickey always struck me as having a romantic side,” Carly put in.

  “I guess.” Romantic had always made her gag.

  Looking at their faces, she could see that it wasn’t enough. She had to tell them the story. One of the things she was learning about having friends, sometimes you owed them.

  No, not sometimes; you always owed them honesty. Well, they’d been honest with her…so she took a deep breath, managed not to look at the man standing with his back to her, and began. “He made these great pancakes on the campfire beside the river…”

  “Good choice of setting,” Carly noted.

  “I told him they were amazing. He said the recipe was a secret…”

  “So he could give it to you but he’d have to kill you?” Denise tried to guess ahead.

  “That was my guess too. He said that it was a family secret and he’d have to marry me.” Robin’s voice felt lost and dreamy even if she didn’t want it to be.

  Denise nodded matter-of-factly. “Would have melted me.”

  Jeannie sighed, and Carly rested her hand on her heart.

  “Then I told him it was never going to happen. I’m not the marrying sort.”

  “What did he say next?” Denise asked as the other two held their breaths.

  “He said, ‘I love you, Robin.’ Just that simple. Said it like he meant it.”

  Mickey stood with the others. His back was to her, but she could feel his attention on her.

  There was no collective, girlish sigh.

  Robin would have found that easy to discount.

  Instead the three women looked forward to the men who had said those words to them. They were soft, quiet, ridiculously mushy looks.

  Robin hoped to hell that her face didn’t look like theirs but decided that no form of honesty required her to say that.

  * * *

  “What the—” Cal was looking back over Mickey’s shoulder.

  One minute they’d been talking about whether or not an investment in more advanced night-vision gear would create any significant advantage, and the next minute everyone was turning to look at the women and putting on their goofy-happy expressions.

  Mickey turned slowly to see Robin watching him.

  There was something at war on her features. A softening, for a moment, that wasn’t really her in some way.

  Then it was erased and there was the Robin he knew. Ready to do battle with all comers. Ready to do battle but with a smile that welcomed him as well. Maybe they didn’t need to talk. Maybe they just needed to give themselves a little time and space.

  He looked at the guys around him. Goners, every one. Except Mark, whose spouse was on the way to visit her childhood friend the President of the United States. Mark just looked at the ceiling and shook his head sadly.

  Mickey turned back in time to see Robin completing her assessment of the three women and shaking her own head. Then she looked right at Mickey.

  They rolled their eyes in sync and totally busted up the tableau with their laughter shared across the length of the cabin.

  It was a good moment.

  Mickey hoped that there were a lot more of them to come. But there were going to be some serious talks before they did.

  Chapter 15

  “Korea.” Mark opened the meeting. They’d gathered in the nose of the 747 Dreamlifter cargo jet as it flew out of night and toward morning, still high over the Pacific.

  Robin moved up close beside Mickey. Not close enough to brush shoulders, but close enough that, she supposed, if someone was looking at them from the outside, they might appear to be standing together. She wanted to test her comfort level around him. And it was pretty damn comfortable despite the last twenty-four hours. Enough so that she wished she hadn’t tried the experiment to begin with.

  Mark looked at her the same way he had when she’d showed up late to the line on that first fire-call morning. Like he was trying to assess quite why she was worth the trouble. Crap! Back to square one? Fine! She could deal with it.

  “There’s a wildfire that first swept southward out of North Korea across the DMZ and into the South.” Mark tapped a tablet computer. A map of the Korean Peninsula showed once he’d logged and retinal scanned in.

  Robin hadn’t seen that kind of security outside of…the military. Suddenly those nondisclosure forms and government clearance checks she’d filled out just a few weeks ago took on another meaning.

  “An attack?” Vern was the only ex-military here other than Mark and herself. Emily had said something about him flying U.S. Coast Guard helicopters.

  “Not unless they sacrificed three villages of their own to do it. It’s in the Taebaek Mountains, which run along the eastern, Pacific-side seaboard of both countries. Maximum height is only five thousan
d feet with an average around three, but very rugged country. Thankfully with low populations.”

  They all were quiet at that. They’d just come off a weeklong battle in an open stretch of forest that had few places for fire to hide and even fewer cliffs to accidentally run a helicopter into. And it had been a total bitch. A big fire in this kind of terrain was going to make the Dawson City Burn look like a cakewalk.

  “The winds have gone through a shift due to a major low-pressure system moving up from Southeast Asia.”

  “How major?”

  “Not bad, just a Category Three.”

  “That’s called a hurricane, Henderson.” Robin felt ill. She joined the AANG well after Katrina, but that disaster was scorched into the stories told by all the people who had been in the service at the time. The Arizona Army National Guard had been heavily deployed in the aftermath.

  “They call it a typhoon in the Pacific,” Denise put in.

  “Doesn’t make me feel any better about it,” Robin told her.

  “Category Three is well over half the speed our Firehawks can fly.” Vern was still taking the lead. “Oh joy.”

  “That’s right up near my never-exceed speed,” Mickey noted about his slower Twin 212.

  “The problem”—Mark’s tone made it clear that it was time to stop interrupting him—“is not the storm. It’s the wind shift that is preceding the storm by several days. They’re predicting that the typhoon will turn inland across China, so that’s not our issue. The problem is that the northerly winds of the approaching storm’s east flank are driving the fire back across the border into North Korea.”

  “Great, now it’s their problem again. Perfect.” Robin dusted her hands together. “Our mission is complete.” She couldn’t let Vern have all the fun of poking at Henderson. Maybe if he hadn’t demoted her back to square one, she’d have cut him some slack. But maybe not.

  “There are two areas where South Koreans were allowed into North Korea,” he ground on as if she hadn’t spoken. “One is a North Korean industrial enclave manned by South Korean labor, which is still legal. That is to the west of the present fire and was briefly closed by a cross-border wildfire in 2015. The other is the Mount Kumgang Tourist Region, a massive park which extends up to the scenic Diamond Mountain.” He traced a large area of rough mountains on the screen. “This area attracted over a million South Korean tourists before the North Koreans shot a tourist and the South closed that border.”