She walked up to him without comment and, more importantly, without any of the media noticing. She looked so different, like…she was finally herself.
Liesl, who’d been standing right next to him, was most of the way through introducing herself before she startled and reached for her camera. Then she hesitated for half a moment before lowering it again and offered a radiant smile.
“I want the last-ever interview with The Soldier of Style.”
“Too late, she’s already gone,” Zoe declared her line in the sand. “But she just might have taped a few final thoughts on video for you to post as part of your wrap-up story.” Zoe handed her a thumb drive. “When you’re done, the crosslink will be her site’s last-ever post.”
Liesl bounced it on her palm a few times before pocketing it and turning to Drake and Nikita, “Let’s go get drunk somewhere. You’ve never really been to Lima until you’ve gotten hammered—that is the right word, ja?—on Pisco Sours.”
Drake had been talking to Ahmed and apparently missed Zoe’s near-miraculous transformation. Christian was off with the other Legends. Nikita didn’t even blink, pausing just long enough to give Zoe a hug as if nothing had changed.
“Where’s your father?”
“I sent him home. The race is over and he was really terribly homesick. I don’t know if he’s ever left southern California before.”
“Just remember, he came for you and he stayed for you.” Nikita hugged her again and moved off with the others.
Now they were alone in the middle of a crowd that was surging up and down the main plaza.
Zoe simply stood and waited him out.
“I’m…so sorry,” Luke finally dredged up the only apology he could think of for what he’d done to her father.
She reached out and tentatively touched a hand on his crossed arms. When she left it there, hardly trusting himself, he unfolded one of his arms so that he could rest his hand over hers. She didn’t pull away.
“I believe you, Luke. And I’m sure that if I’d told you the truth about my father and his best friend, you’d never have betrayed that trust.”
Too late to argue that one way or the other. He’d already done the damage so he kept his mouth shut.
“Maybe if you spoke more, asked me a question once in a while instead of swallowing it down so hard that it was choking you, I’d have told you the truth and we’d have avoided the whole mess. Though maybe not. It was locked away awfully deep.”
He started to nod, then decided to speak instead, “Yeah, maybe.”
“Wow! Three whole syllables, Luke. That was masterful.”
Rather than speaking, he offered her a triumphant smile. And why not? He was feeling pretty damn triumphant. They’d survived The Dakar for a fifth place finish. And they’d taken out Hathyaron—who turned out to be a father/team manager and his daughter, Tammy the driver.
“Oh, that’s why it’s Hathyaron, the plural, not Hathyar,” he finally got it.
“Weapons, not weapon,” Zoe blinked in surprise. “We never thought to look for a family team—Dad-and-daughter Gunrunners Incorporated.”
They shared a smile.
And there was Zoe, the real Zoe—shining in the look she’d been born with—right here with him.
“One last thing I have to tell you. You can never talk about this except with me or Nikita. You can never let anyone else know.”
“The one question I’ve never asked,” Luke knew it couldn’t be anything else.
“…My mother,” Zoe just said it flat, though he could see her eyes closing down and her struggle to not do that.
Her mother? She was the one other person who knew about the horrors of Zoe’s past? Luke didn’t know what to do with that. He’d never have guessed that in a hundred years. He reached for her, but Zoe raised a hand to stop him. She left it on the center of his chest, anchoring him in place—at a safe distance. No, so she could watch his face.
“I went to her first. I could see the shock, the horror, then she sort of shook herself, like a duck shaking off water.”
“She didn’t believe you?” Luke wasn’t going to not speak to her, he was going to strangle her until she felt even half the pain her daughter had.
“I think that she couldn’t. She knew what it would do to my father. If you think he’s a gentle dreamer now, you should have met him twenty years ago. It absolutely would have destroyed him, as it almost destroyed him this time. If Mom is smart, she’ll never admit a thing to him when he tells her about it. Because without her, I know my father would never survive.”
Luke could only sigh. She was probably right. He’d ended up liking Brian DeMille, but her father was not a strong man used to facing life’s harsh realities.
“Mom and I were never close, I was always a daddy’s girl. Let’s just say we’ve been even less close since then.”
Without thinking, Luke finally pulled her against his chest this time and held on. Soon he could feel the hot tears through his t-shirt. She wasn’t sobbing or shaking, she was crying as gently as her father had because she was absolutely Brian DeMille’s daughter.
“I’m sure you misinterpreted what happened. Bob would never do such a thing,” Zoe managed in a dead voice that sounded nothing like her. “That’s what she said to me. Told me to not exaggerate things all the time. I’d been a fanciful girl up until that point—perhaps too much like my father. But I didn’t misinterpret a thing. I was only eleven when it started and I barely understood what was happening to me. He was…Uncle Bob. Somehow convincing me that it was my fault he couldn’t keep his hands off me. It went on until I was fourteen—the pain and the fear had become my new normal. Then one day I sort of woke up in mid-attack and went after him with a shop knife. After that I always wore a blade and I made sure he knew it. Don’t mess with me in a knife fight, Luke. I’ve taken a lot of classes. From Spec Ops instructors too.”
“You took control of your own life.” Luke also made a mental note to heed her advice on the knife.
“I guess,” she sniffled against his chest. “I abused myself, went full-on slut for…far too long. The Soldier of Style was my way out of that, though I didn’t really understand that until very recently. I just knew that if I kept reinventing myself, I never had to look at my real self.”
Luke knew she was strong. He’d learned that one the hard way. But did she know, really know that about herself as she was now?
He stepped her back enough to look at her. He combed his fingers through her lovely pure black hair, then brushed at the tears still trickling from those brilliant blue eyes.
“You are so goddamn beautiful, Zoe. You, not the mask you raised,” he stroked her cheek. “And I’m not talking about your lovely face. Please tell me I get to keep looking at you for the rest of our lives.”
She nodded once, like a puppet jerked on a string. Then, as his words sank in, she threw her arms around his waist and pulled herself tightly against him once more. This time the hot tears didn’t worry him, he’d seen the bright flash of joy in her eyes.
The words that should have been a shock—What idiot believes in long-term commitments?—felt perfectly natural now that he’d said them.
The most classic Maine joke—Cain’t get thea from hea!—oddly didn’t apply at all. You could get there from here, as long as there included Zoe DeMille.
“Had an idea,” he mumbled against her hair.
He could feel her hold her breath.
“Next year. The Dakar.”
And her happy sobs turned into delighted giggles. Damn but he loved this woman.
“Though,” Luke dragged it out enough to make her pause. “Unless you want to be mobbed by The Soldier of Style Brigade again, you might want to consider changing your name. At least your last one.”
“I do that and you will be stuck with me for life.”
“Works for me.”
“Zoe Altman,” she whispered as she snuggled more tightly into his arms. “I like the sound of that. We’ll m
ake one hell of a car team.”
“Malles Motos.”
She kept her arms tight about him, but leaned back enough to look up at him with those sparkling blues of hers. “But I don’t ride motorcycles.”
“They’re the best. I’ll teach you.”
“Okay,” she smiled at him so sweetly, he could feel himself melting. “Or maybe, if you’re a good boy, I’ll teach you how to really drive a rally car. Then, instead of competing against each other, we can race together. I bet I can talk Christian into being a team manager and financing us.”
Luke had to admit that he liked that image, “Your dad as our mechanic.”
Her little gasp of delight told him it was the perfect thing to say.
Zoe pulled him down into a kiss and he could feel her smile. He knew he’d just lost that coin toss—rally car it was—but he was still buying her a motorcycle as soon as they hit US soil.
“I guess we’re gonna do it. I know by now that there’s nothing you can’t do once you set your heart on it.”
“I like that, Luke,” she whispered against his lips. “I’ve got my heart set on you—a lifetime’s worth. And you’re actually pretty good with words. Don’t stop, okay?”
In answer he simply held her. He’d been right the very first time he’d met her: there was no other woman like Zoe DeMille. Which was good, because one of her was about all he could handle.
If you enjoyed the adventure and romance,
don’t miss the Firehawks Smokejumper series:
Wildfire at Dawn
(excerpt follows).
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Wildfire at Dawn (excerpt)
If you enjoyed this, you’ll love the Firehawks Smokejumper series!
Wildfire At Dawn
Excerpt
Mount Hood Aviation’s lead smokejumper Johnny Akbar Jepps rolled out of his lower bunk careful not to bang his head on the upper. Well, he tried to roll out, but every muscle fought him, making it more a crawl than a roll. He checked the clock on his phone. Late morning.
He’d slept twenty of the last twenty-four hours and his body felt as if he’d spent the entire time in one position. The coarse plank flooring had been worn smooth by thousands of feet hitting exactly this same spot year in and year out for decades. He managed to stand upright…then he felt it, his shoulders and legs screamed.
Oh, right.
The New Tillamook Burn. Just about the nastiest damn blaze he’d fought in a decade of jumping wildfires. Two hundred thousand acres—over three hundred square miles—of rugged Pacific Coast Range forest, poof! The worst forest fire in a decade for the Pacific Northwest, but they’d killed it off without a single fatality or losing a single town. There’d been a few bigger ones, out in the flatter eastern part of Oregon state. But that much area—mostly on terrain too steep to climb even when it wasn’t on fire—had been a horror.
Akbar opened the blackout curtain and winced against the summer brightness of blue sky and towering trees that lined the firefighter’s camp. Tim was gone from the upper bunk, without kicking Akbar on his way out. He must have been as hazed out as Akbar felt.
He did a couple of side stretches and could feel every single minute of the eight straight days on the wildfire to contain the bastard, then the excruciating nine days more to convince it that it was dead enough to hand off to a Type II incident mop-up crew. Not since his beginning days on a hotshot crew had he spent seventeen days on a single fire.
And in all that time nothing more than catnaps in the acrid safety of the “black”—the burned-over section of a fire, black with char and stark with no hint of green foliage. The mop-up crews would be out there for weeks before it was dead past restarting, but at least it was truly done in. That fire wasn’t merely contained; they’d killed it bad.
Yesterday morning, after demobilizing, his team of smokies had pitched into their bunks. No wonder he was so damned sore. His stretches worked out the worst of the kinks but he still must be looking like an old man stumbling about.
He looked down at the sheets. Damn it. They’d been fresh before he went to the fire, now he’d have to wash them again. He’d been too exhausted to shower before sleeping and they were all smeared with the dirt and soot that he could still feel caking his skin. Two-Tall Tim, his number two man and as tall as two of Akbar, kinda, wasn’t in his bunk. His towel was missing from the hook.
Shower. Shower would be good. He grabbed his own towel and headed down the dark, narrow hall to the far end of the bunk house. Every one of the dozen doors of his smoke teams were still closed, smokies still sacked out. A glance down another corridor and he could see that at least a couple of the Mount Hood Aviation helicopter crews were up, but most still had closed doors with no hint of light from open curtains sliding under them. All of MHA had gone above and beyond on this one.
“Hey, Tim.” Sure enough, the tall Eurasian was in one of the shower stalls, propped up against the back wall letting the hot water stream over him.
“Akbar the Great lives,” Two-Tall sounded half asleep.
“Mostly. Doghouse?” Akbar stripped down and hit the next stall. The old plywood dividers were flimsy with age and gray with too many showers. The Mount Hood Aviation firefighters’ Hoodie One base camp had been a kids’ summer camp for decades. Long since defunct, MHA had taken it over and converted the playfields into landing areas for their helicopters, and regraded the main road into a decent airstrip for the spotter and jump planes.
“Doghouse? Hell, yeah. I’m like ten thousand calories short.” Two-Tall found some energy in his voice at the idea of a trip into town.
The Doghouse Inn was in the nearest town. Hood River lay about a half hour down the mountain and had exactly what they needed: smokejumper-sized portions and a very high ratio of awesomely fit young women come to windsurf the Columbia Gorge. The Gorge, which formed the Washington and Oregon border, provided a fantastically target-rich environment for a smokejumper too long in the woods.
“You’re too tall to be short of anything,” Akbar knew he was being a little slow to reply, but he’d only been awake for minutes.
“You’re like a hundred thousand calories short of being even a halfway decent size,” Tim was obviously recovering faster than he was.
“Just because my parents loved me instead of tying me to a rack every night ain’t my problem, buddy.”
He scrubbed and soaped and scrubbed some more until he felt mostly clean.
“I’m telling you, Two-Tall. Whoever invented the hot shower, that’s the dude we should give the Nobel prize to.”
“You say that every time.”
“You arguing?”
He heard Tim give a satisfied groan as some muscle finally let go under the steamy hot water. “Not for a second.”
Akbar stepped out and walked over to the line of sinks, smearing a hand back and forth to wipe the condensation from the sheet of stainless steel screwed to the wall. His hazy reflection still sported several smears of char.
“You so purdy, Akbar.”
“Purdier than you, Two-Tall.” He headed back into the shower to get the last of it.
“So not. You’re jealous.”
Akbar wasn’t the least bit jealous. Yes, despite his lean height, Tim was handsome enough to sweep up any ladies he wanted.
But on his own, Akbar did pretty damn well himself. What he didn’t have in height, he made up for with a proper smokejumper’s muscled build. Mixed with his tan-dark Indian complexion, he did fine.
The real fun, of course, was when the two of them went cruising together. The women never knew what to make of the two of them side by side. The contrast kept them off balance enough to open even more doors.
He smiled as he toweled down. It also didn’t hurt that their opening answer to “what do you do” was “I jump out of planes to fight forest fires.”
Worked every damn time. God he loved this job.
The small town of Hood River, a winding half-an-hour down
the mountain from the MHA base camp, was hopping. Mid-June, colleges letting out. Students and the younger set of professors high-tailing it to the Gorge. They packed the bars and breweries and sidewalk cafes. Suddenly every other car on the street had a windsurfing board tied on the roof.
The snooty rich folks were up at the historic Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood itself, not far in the other direction from MHA. Down here it was a younger, thrill seeker set and you could feel the energy.
There were other restaurants in town that might have better pickings, but the Doghouse Inn was MHA tradition and it was a good luck charm—no smokie in his right mind messed with that. This was the bar where all of the MHA crew hung out. It didn’t look like much from the outside, just a worn old brick building beaten by the Gorge’s violent weather. Aged before its time, which had been long ago.
But inside was awesome. A long wooden bar stretched down one side with a half-jillion microbrew taps and a small but well-stocked kitchen at the far end. The dark wood paneling, even on the ceiling, was barely visible beneath thousands of pictures of doghouses sent from patrons all over the world. Miniature dachshunds in ornately decorated shoeboxes, massive Newfoundlands in backyard mansions that could easily house hundreds of their smaller kin, and everything in between. A gigantic Snoopy atop his doghouse in full Red Baron fighting gear dominated the far wall. Rumor said Shulz himself had been here two owners before and drawn it.
Tables were grouped close together, some for standing and drinking, others for sitting and eating.
“Amy, sweetheart!” Two-Tall called out as they entered the bar. The perky redhead came out from behind the bar to receive a hug from Tim. Akbar got one in turn, so he wasn’t complaining. Cute as could be and about his height; her hugs were better than taking most women to bed. Of course, Gerald the cook and the bar’s co-owner was big enough and strong enough to squish either Tim or Akbar if they got even a tiny step out of line with his wife. Gerald was one amazingly lucky man.
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