It had taken nearly a month to find this job in Billings, to make sure that Flagstaff had a replacement for her. And a few days longer than that for her to stop believing, or wanting to believe, Kyle’s lies. It had taken Danya telling her she knew Kyle to be both a liar and a cheater.
He gave her plenty of time now to process the knowledge. He was quiet even as they arrived at the hotel and he walked her to her room, though he had his hand on her back the whole way. Opening her door for her, he handed over the key card and her bag.
He was in her space again, and he touched a finger to her chin. “Is this a permanent move? To Billings, I mean.”
She shook her head. She’d wanted to get away, but she hadn’t been brave enough to leave Flag for good. She’d left the door open. “It’s a locum tenens job. I’m just covering someone’s maternity leave.”
He’d leaned in very close, his lips almost touching hers. “I figured. Mary Cat’s.”
Moving just a hair back, she smiled a little. “Did you hit on her, too?”
“Before or after her husband Carl, who I’ve gone drinking with, knocked her up for the third time?”
“I guess you don’t do that.”
His blue eyes were very clear, very intent. “Haidee. I do not do that.”
He kissed her then, touching only with his finger at her chin and his lips. But he was good at it, his lips soft and warm and, somehow, hard and cool all at once. He kept it up for several breaths, until her mouth was open and he’d gotten a small taste of her. Until her nipples had come to hard points and other parts had started to ache.
His breath was a little uneven when he lifted away. It looked like he was aching a little, too. After a couple of breaths, he spoke. “Wheels up at oh-nine-hundred?”
She nodded.
“I’ll knock on your door at 8:15.”
“Okay. Good night, Danya.”
“Danny’s okay. Good night, Haidee.”
Chapter Two
Good God. Apparently, this flying service—Van’s, she’d noted the night she’d gone to Denver, and today, as she’d climbed into a helo—specialized in super-hot pilots. This guy’s name was Lev. He’d greeted the EMT who accompanied Haidee with a handshake, back-slap deal and then turned his gaze—blue again, but darker, like a night sea—on her. More masculine appreciation washed over her, and she had to admit it was a heady feeling. A balm to the bruised feelings Kyle had left her with.
Landry, the EMT, was cute and very competent, but he was also totally gay. The way he looked at her—skeptically checking out the newbie in an entirely reasonable evaluation—just didn’t affect her the same way.
This was totally Haidee’s kind of flight. They were going after a climber who’d fallen, somewhere southwest of Billings near a town called Red Lodge. Granite Peak was there, twelve thousand feet high and just too tempting to resist for serious climbers. Park rangers out of Yellowstone had the guy on a body board and were bringing him down. Lev said he could get them close, but they’d still have a hike to meet up with the rescue party.
They were all three dressed nearly the same—high-end hiking boots and pants, layered tops with their rescue windbreakers. Lev had converted his pants to shorts, and Haidee didn’t fail to notice his long, muscled legs. It was like he was trying to show them off. When she’d gotten the call, she’d been told they might see snow, despite the fact that it was August and ninety degrees in Billings, and she wondered if Lev knew. She figured he did, but was too manly to care.
It was glorious flying. She sat in the copilot seat, and the first thing she heard Lev say over their headsets was, “CAVU.” It was appreciation for a pilot’s favorite flying conditions—ceiling and visibility unlimited. Out of Billings, the three of them went over their briefing. But they were silent—out of awe in Haidee’s case, likely out of the need to concentrate on his flying in Lev’s—when they got to the mountains.
They were spectacular and, yes, there was still snow along the peaks. Haidee spotted a half-dozen alpine lakes that she was certain contained pristine, ice-cold water. And fish, apparently, since she also noted a campsite and a couple hearty fishermen. She became aware she was gawking like a rube, peering excitedly out the windshield, when she felt Lev’s gaze on her.
She sat back, met his eyes, and felt the blush on her cheeks. But he nodded in understanding.
“God’s country,” he said.
She smiled and relaxed, and he went back to work. He had the rescue team on radio now, and he used a GPS system to find them. Haidee spotted them first, touching her hand to his arm when she saw them.
He followed her direction, nodded again when he had eyes on, and then searched out a safe landing spot. He found it a couple hundred yards away—and many feet below—the team.
As he shut the helo down, Landry and Haidee collected their gear. They’d converted their bags and duffels to backpacks for this rescue. She’d lifted Landry’s to his back and had turned for him to help her in the same way when Lev took it from the EMT and slung it over his own shoulder—without help.
She turned to face him. “It’s my equipment. I carry it.”
He was unimpressed, looking down at her from his extra half-foot of height. “Can you move faster without it?”
Of course, but—“I’ll need my supplies when I get there.”
Like he already knew the outcome of the argument, he was fastening the straps across that big chest of his. “I’ll keep up,” he said. “Are you done talking yet?”
Landry was already fifty feet gone. She turned her back—and then rolled her eyes—and set out at a trot.
It was rough country with no trails. Slabs of sheared-off granite the size of small houses were interspersed with smaller, sharp-edged boulder-sized chunks of rock. Runs of rugged, treacherous, golf ball-size gravel made for poor footing in between. Much of the rock was covered with lichen which, where it was wet with snowmelt, added its own slippery danger.
Relieved of her pack, Haidee quickly overtook Landry. Without looking back, she knew that Lev was hot on her six. She tried hard not to be annoyed about that, since it meant getting to her patient faster.
They lost sight of the park rangers a couple times as she made hairpin turns up a steep, rocky slope. There was no clear, easy path to reach them, and Haidee appreciated that Sherpa Lev seemed content to follow her lead. She paused at one point, seeking out the best route ahead and trying to catch her breath. Lev halted, too, close to her shoulder.
“Air’s thin up here,” he said, not appearing to be laboring for breath at all.
Haidee nodded, enjoying, in her imagination, slugging him a good one.
He pointed to the west, the most direct route to the rangers. “That pile of scree’s gonna have the worst footing. I’d suggest taking that ridge due south. It’s longer, but I think it will get us there faster in the end. And safer.”
She followed his line of sight. And he was right—the ridge had a backbone of rock that would be challenging but climbable. It would take them up to the right altitude then they’d just have to cut over to reach the rescue team. They’d have to deal with the scree on the way down, with the stretcher.
Saving her breath, she nodded once more and took the lead. But when she bent to scrabble up a steep slope, he went ahead, grabbed her hand, and pulled her along. She was too winded to object, and, again, it was all the better for the injured man.
Lev got them there a few minutes ahead of Landry.
One of the rangers gave a decent report. There were two of them, loaded with climbing gear, and three other young men who were obviously part of the wounded man’s group. Their faces were white and drawn with concern. Haidee eyed them each briefly while she took the report.
Lev set her pack down as she knelt beside the injured guy—a wiry man of twenty-three named Eric. She looked up at Lev once. “Sit those three down and get them water. It’s in Landry’s pack. Some protein bars, too. Watch yellow shirt there—he’s almost shocky.”
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p; “On it,” Lev said. He patted her shoulder once before he left to meet Landry.
She nodded when the ranger, Owen, finished his report. “Good work. You guys, too,” she told him and his partner. “Sit down, rest, and hydrate.”
Her primary patient—the only one she hoped would really need her—had multiple traumas. Most concerning were the compound fracture of his left leg that had been splinted pretty well already but was a source of significant blood loss, and the head injury that had left him unconscious.
Well, Haidee thought, that wouldn’t be the worst way for him to endure his rough ride down the mountain. If he woke up, they’d need narcotics to keep him still, and that wouldn’t help his respirations. He was breathing, but his pulse was a little fast and thready. She leaned over him until he was in her shadow and then flashed a light in his eyes. His pupils reacted normally, which gave her hope that he was suffering from a concussion rather than a major brain bleed. She reached into her pack for a bag of LR for fluid replacement and started looking for a vein. Landry came down on the other side and fitted Eric with a mask attached to a small O2 tank. They spoke only sporadically as they worked, both having trained endlessly to know their tasks.
Haidee checked the splinted leg and reinforced the bandage that had bled through while Landry checked the security of the neck brace the rangers had placed. They’d done good work. With oxygen and IV fluids pushed through with a pressure bag, Eric was doing better. His O2 saturation reading was hovering close to ninety percent, and his pulse was slowing down.
Nodding to Landry to maintain observation, Haidee got up to check on the other three climbers. Lev had put his own baseball cap on yellow shirt’s head for sun protection, and he was looking a little less pale. He told her his name was Nic and responded appropriately to her questions.
She was in charge of the rescue. She had one seriously injured on a body board. She had Lev and Landry, and then two semi-professionals who’d already sweated through their shirts getting the victim as far as they had. The second ranger, Chip, was just a little too heavy to be scampering around the mountains.
Then she had three more semivictims who needed at least shepherding back to civilization.
“Where’s your vehicle?” she asked the rangers.
Owen gestured with his head. “Other side of the mountain. We came up from Silver Fish.”
“How about you guys?” she asked the heartiest looking of the climbers.
“We rode dirt bikes up from Red Lodge,” he said. He pointed off past the helicopter that was visible below them. “We left them a couple miles down the mountain.”
She nodded then looked at Lev. Motorcycle was no way for these guys to get home after what they’d been through.
“How many can we carry?”
He shook his head. “Not everyone. There’s not enough room with the stretcher, and the air’s too light up here to risk overloading us.”
“All right. The three of us will take Eric down. It didn’t take long to get here from Billings. Can you come back for the others after we offload Eric?”
“Yep,” he said. He looked at the anxious group. “It won’t take much more than an hour after lift-off. We’ve got plenty of light left.”
Haidee nodded, decided. “All right. Owen, I need you to help get Eric to the helicopter. Chip, you bring these guys down to the landing site after they rest a little more. Take it slow. Everyone’s tired, and we don’t want more injuries. Finish the food and water we have here before you head out. We’ll leave more water down below. Lev will be back almost before you get there.”
That last was a bit of an exaggeration. Chip, being the least in shape of the ones they left behind, would keep that group moving slowly. But the slowest, most exacting task, would be getting Eric down the mountain.
It wasn’t great, but it was the best plan she had. It got Eric to the trauma center as fast as they could make it happen, and it kept the rest of them relatively safe. Lev nodded his approval, and, even though he bordered on annoying, she had to respect him. He understood what was needed, and his rock-solid confidence was reassuring to the others. He said he’d be back for them, and they could believe he’d keep his word.
She wasn’t surprised or really even offended when he took charge of their descent to the helo. He and Owen took the stretcher. She got her own pack back, though she could see he didn’t like it. As though he were Superman, he’d rather have managed both the stretcher and the pack himself. She could walk alongside Eric when there was space, but she was to stay on the up-mountain side of him.
He was slightly domineering—or maybe not so slightly—but very attractive. As they picked their way down the mountain, balancing on that fine line between hurry and risk, she thought of the other very attractive pilot she’d met a few days ago. Danya had talked her into something like a date—an evening hike out on the South Rims to watch the sunset over the Yellowstone River. But the fires around Helena were still uncontrolled. They needed more smoke jumpers up there, and he had to fly. Rain check, he’d said. Probably literally.
Haidee wasn’t sure she was in the kind of mental shape to consider even the most benign sort of date with Danny. Certainly, she shouldn’t be checking out another dude’s attractive ass. What was she thinking?
* * * *
Lev hadn’t seen his house for three days and had had eyes on his brothers just in passing. The Forest Service was keeping Van’s busy, on top of the company’s usual increase in charter jobs over the summer. They’d ferried firefighters from Wyoming and Idaho and Utah. The other flying service in town had an old B-52 they used to dump water on fires, and Vashi had been lent to copilot those dangerous flights. Van’s kept a couple cots in a dark room at the back of their hangar, and that was as close to a bed as Lev had seen for a while.
He was tired, and he’d almost turned down the job in the Beartooths. If it had been anything else, he’d have passed on it. But he loved a helo rescue in the mountains and on a day like this there was no better flying to be had. So he accepted the contract and got a big, unexpected bonus out of the deal. One shit-hot flight nurse. Sierra Hotel, big time.
Haidee Wells was sweet looking, and he really didn’t have to dig deeper than that to appreciate a woman. He liked her the moment she climbed into the right seat and tucked a kind of hokey-looking, hippie-ish beaded bag—one of those deals women kept for their bare essentials—under her seat.
It turned out there was plenty more about her to like—competence, confidence, and heart. Without her pack, she’d scrambled up the base of Granite Peak like a mountain goat. He could keep up, but he had to work at disciplining his breathing whenever she looked back to check him out. She took charge of the rescue operation expertly and professionally, and didn’t quibble overly much when he commandeered her pack and then, later, the stretcher with the dumb-ass rock climber.
She was hot as hell.
And he’d lost her, dammit.
He had skids down at Billings just long enough for her and Lan to offload stretcher boy. The helo had enough go-juice to get back to the group they’d left up the mountain, so he was gone again almost before the rotors had spun down. He’d tried grabbing Haidee before she climbed out of the cockpit, had a hand on her wrist and was about to arrange a meeting with her when he got back. But stretcher boy had hiccupped or something, Lan had called to her, and she’d gotten away.
He’d tried again when he’d gotten back from the second round. The rangers had a buddy meeting them in a Park Service vehicle, and the climbers all had family waiting there on the tarmac. Haidee had seen to that. She’d taken names and numbers from each of the climbers and made the calls when they’d gotten in cell range, so they each had reassuring, supportive arms to go into. He’d heard them plan to meet up at the hospital to check in on Eric.
Lev made the same plan, though it wasn’t Eric he’d be checking in on.
But she was gone. By the time he’d shut down the helo and got it refueled and reprepped, finished hi
s end-flight paperwork and showered off, she was off-shift. He took a stab at finding her in the downtown bar where hospital and flight staff tended to gather, but she wasn’t there. There wasn’t anyone else in the bar who interested him, so he took off for home after a single beer.
He’d find her again. Billings wasn’t that big a town. He pulled the shades, darkened his room down, and slept.
* * * *
After a busy flying week, Vashi had a full twenty-four hours on the ground, so he was next up when the call came for the transfer of an unstable stroke patient from the little hospital in Miles City into the med center in Billings. It was his least favorite ambulance kind of ride. Either the patient stabilized and the trip was boring as hell, or there was a crash and burn and all kinds of paperwork. You’d never think it would matter so much what county you were over when a body met his maker.
He had the Citation ready to fly when a significant upside to the trip came on board. He’d heard there was a replacement flight nurse while Mary Cat popped out her third kid—he’d told M.C. to instruct Carl to keep it in his pants for a while, but, no. He hadn’t heard this, though. The new flight nurse was mighty fine.
She did a sort of double take when she saw him in the pilot’s seat but nodded when he invited her to join him in the cockpit. She left her gear bag in the back but tucked a little beaded bag, kind of halfway between goofy and cool, beside the right seat. They exchanged introductions as she belted in.
The flight to MLS was smooth, though there was goo coming in behind them—they’d likely be on instruments on the way back. But this was easy and so they had time to chat.
She was up from Flagstaff and had lived in Arizona most of her life. She told him some of her favorite air ambulance stories, and he talked about his best flying experiences. She was bright and curious, and so, before they got past Worden, she had him sharing his family story.
Three Men and a Woman: Haidee (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 3