Slowly, so slowly she could have counted the minutes before he moved, his hands came around her. Not to her waist, nor tracing her hips or cupping her breasts. He simply wrapped his arms around her and held her tight to him, so tight she had trouble breathing.
The shivers that shook him had nothing to do with the cold water that flowed about them. The convulsions rooted from somewhere deep inside and jarred him against her, until all she could do was hold on until they eased.
When at long last he was still and his breath almost normal, he moved his hands to her shoulders. Offered to push her away, let her free. A silent “thank you” by the gesture of a slight squeeze.
In answer, she kept her arms around him.
This time when he kissed her, the need was no less, but it didn’t ravage. It didn’t ignite or burn with its heat. Instead it smoldered deep and strong. A slow burn that could last for days.
That almost made her forget they’d been standing still in cold water.
Steve swept her up in his arms and carried her from the water.
As he went to set her in the tall grass, he almost dropped her.
“Goddamn it!”
She could feel him shift as his bad leg lost traction. Could feel the anger come back into his shoulders.
“Real romantic there, flyboy.” She tried to make it a joke.
He started to say something as he set her on the grass, but she cut him off.
“And if you apologize, you’re going back in the water. Now kiss me again.”
He knelt between her legs and leaned down toward her.
As he did, he swore again and then collapsed to his left, landing hard on her leg, rolling off to end up flat on his back.
She put a hand over his mouth before he could speak or curse again.
Carly replaced her hand with her lips and slowly stretched out on him. Body to body from their lips to their toes.
Did she want this?
God, the man’s kiss could make her feel drunk all on its own.
Last night she hadn’t. Last night the specter of the past had loomed large before her, blocking the sight of the man who had held her close while she slept.
She moved to his neck and breathed him in. Smoke and fire. Heat and pine. He smelled of the forest in all its forms.
Tonight. Tonight was a world away. Tonight she did know what she wanted.
She sat upright, straddling him, feeling his arousal through their wet jeans.
Somewhere she’d found certainty.
Would she regret it in the morning? Maybe. But the morning was a whole world away as well.
Knowing she was invisible in the dark, she unbuttoned her shirt.
***
Steve lay on his back in the grass above the river and marveled at the feel of Carly’s trim waist. He slid his hands under her soaked shirt to discover the true lines of her perfect shape, even though it was covered in goose-bumped skin.
The same hands that he’d used to grab her, to very nearly hurt her. He’d attacked her like some mad beast.
And what had she offered in return?
He could still feel the outline of her fingers over his heart. Who was this Flame Witch? He’d heard the nickname, but never thought she’d cast a spell over him.
And how could he want her so much? Plenty of women had turned his head over the years, just never for long. They were fun, and he did his damnedest to be fun for them too. It had always been easy to turn away and look elsewhere when it grew dull and boring. Or she got too clingy. Or…
Steve wanted Carly Thomas; he needed her. Like no woman he’d ever needed in his life. If that wasn’t a scary proposition, he didn’t know what was.
He dug his fingertips into those lower back muscles that he’d been dying to touch, caress, learn. He slid his hands a little way under her tight waistband, hips that even da Vinci never would have thought up.
She leaned in and kissed him on the lips, then shifted upward. A soft hand on his cheek guided his mouth to her bare breast. Already aroused, he took her as gently as his desperate need allowed.
Carly cupped the back of his neck and pulled him against her hard, holding him there until his control let go and he drank her in, until he could feel her very being curling up somewhere inside his chest and her moans filled his ears.
He’d been embarrassed that he’d dropped her, that he couldn’t kneel over her, that his knee was too weak to leave him a whole man.
And still she offered herself up to him.
He placed his lips between those perfect breasts and kissed her there. Kissed her hard. Kissed her as if he really meant it.
The odd thing was, he did.
Chapter 17
They washed in the river. Giggling like children. Carly hadn’t laughed that high, girly laugh since… ever. Her girly laugh had probably died with her mother when she was still in kindergarten. Carly Thomas had been the only child in her class in Hood River Elementary who didn’t have a mother, no matter who the other kid’s moms might actually be shacked up with. Her friends had a lot of odd family arrangements, some three families deep on both sides, but at least they all had mothers.
But she also hadn’t had a man ever help her out of soaking wet jeans on a grassy bank by a soft-flowing river. Coax her until she knelt over him, his hands cupping her behind, the both of them naked in the silver light of the crescent moon.
Having no protection, he had pulled her up his body and taken her with his mouth until her body burned and flared. Until the very last bit of fire in her was wholly quenched and she lay sprawled atop him, exhausted, spent.
Steve wrapped the blankets about her before pulling on wet clothes, now cold with river water and the cooling night.
She slapped his ass as he set off toward camp to get them dry clothes. Yet another first.
Sated, alone, Carly watched the night sky, trying to find the story Steve had told her last night. The vain queen and the sad king she could find. But the beautiful daughter lost upon the rocks and the noble hero evaded her.
Steve returned so quietly, she barely heard him set fresh clothes down beside her. A mere shadow against the stars as he undressed and slid between the blankets with her.
“Anyone see you?”
He pulled her tight until she lay as much on him as on the blanket.
“No one’s awake. TJ is asleep in his chair, the radio to ground control beside him. I wrapped a blanket around him.”
She kissed his cheek.
“You’re a good man, Steve Mercer. How did that happen?”
“Damned if I know. It’s certainly not what I set out to be.” He gazed up at the stars with one hand tucked behind his head, the other wrapped around her shoulders.
“What did you set out to be?”
“A mad letch. A defiler of beautiful women near and far.” He slid a hand suggestively over her breast, but he kissed her so gently on the eyes that she could barely feel the pressure of his lips. As soft as the night.
“No, really.”
“My friends wanted to fly—rockets, Air Force jets, jumbo airliners. I just wanted to be a firefighter. Ever since…” His voice drifted away.
“Ever since?”
“Another story. Another time.” She could see his silhouette against the stars.
“Steve,” she warned him.
“Not tonight, please. You don’t want me blubbering all over you a second time.” But he didn’t look toward her, simply remained staring up at the heavens. Maybe that’s where he found comfort, looking up at the stories in the sky.
She stroked his cheek, granting him permission.
In response he kissed her so slowly, so deeply that she had no answer but to lose herself in the rhythm of their lovemaking.
While getting their clothes, he’d also scared up some protection. She wasn’t going to ask where.
This time when she straddled him and took him deep inside, her world turned and didn’t stop. Dizzy with the powerful rush, she worked him deeper a
nd deeper until he filled her soul.
She couldn’t be feeling this.
Couldn’t allow it.
But there was no way she was going to stop it either.
Just before they both came, she heard him whisper, “An angel in the stars.”
Chapter 18
“Quiet morning.”
Carly blinked her eyes open to see Emily standing above her in the predawn light. The woman stood casually, a few feet to the side, and looking out over the river. There was an odd smile on her lips. Almost sad. No. But perhaps nostalgic. As if her words belonged in another place, another time.
The man Carly lay curled against remained sound asleep, a self-satisfied smile revealed in the soft glow of a new day. No traces of last night’s pain creased his face.
“Men always look so innocent when they’re asleep.” Emily’s smile was soft, shared. “Don’t be too long waking him up. Mark will want the drone on-site soon.”
Emily turned to walk back toward the camp as Carly did her best not to blush. “Once Mark wakes up and gets that same smile off his face, that is.”
And she was gone.
Carly wanted to linger over Steve’s body. Trace light fingers through his dark hair. Follow the outlines of his workout-strong chest. Maybe see that bad leg he was so ashamed of. To think about how he’d made her feel.
But time was wasting.
With a few strokes, she aroused Steve’s body before he completely awoke. She sheathed him and drove herself down upon him.
His eyes snapped open with a single “Whoosh!” of air bursting out of his lungs. It didn’t take him but a moment to get with the program. He might be a deep sleeper, but he woke up plenty quickly with the right motivation.
He wrapped his hands around her hips and stopped her for a moment. An agonizingly long, wide-eyed moment. She could feel the heat on her skin follow his gaze as he inspected her from her face, down over her chest, and right down to where their bodies were connected in a tangle of curling hair, his dark, hers so light.
“Now that’s an amazing sight.” Then he pulled her down and kissed her. Kissed her right through any fears of what it might be like to wake up together the morning after.
Chapter 19
The flight back to Hood River left Carly feeling disjointed. Uncertain.
The Hoodies had beaten this one and, other than some minor cuts and burns, come out clean. Exhausted but clean.
It had taken most of the third day, but they’d finally been able to turn the fire over to a Type II Incident Management Team. There would still be flare-ups and spot fires, but the winds had held steady. The heart of the fire, cornered by retardant drops, had died for sheer lack of fuel against the triple fire breaks cut by the smokies and hotshots.
Carly and Steve had found a few moments during the day when it was just the two of them—while flying the drone over the scene before it was time to retrieve the smokies, after retrieving the drone, and collapsing the trailer in preparation for the flight back to Hood River helibase.
Steve had remained quiet. Reticent.
Not a word about the sex.
She didn’t expect a profession of love, but she hadn’t expected him to avoid holding hands in public. She’d always liked holding hands, that feeling of connectedness. Carly had missed that.
With Steve, there was not even a gentle brush of fingertips on shoulder in passing. Nothing. He barely met her eyes.
He’d avoided her questions, no matter how gently she started them, about why he’d been so upset last night. Even the question about why he’d always wanted to be a firefighter went by the wayside.
She watched the landscape rolling by beneath the Firehawk. The twisting river valleys looked as snarled up as her innards felt. The flats from Boise, the dry brown hills and clustered trees of the Umatilla National Forest, the dry gullies and patchwork fields in eastern Oregon, and finally the familiar, heavy green of Mount Hood.
For the entire flight the intercom had been silent. She could feel Beale looking over at her a few times, but she refused to turn and meet the woman’s questioning gaze.
How could so much connection, so much sharing as she and Steve had done last night be gone like a single match doused with a full load of retardant?
She didn’t help him land the trailer or unload his equipment. Instead, she rode the helicopter to its pad once he cleared the lift harness.
She clambered into her Jeep, and seeing that Aunt Margaret had driven up to meet Uncle TJ, Carly left fast and drove to Hood River. Down to the small house that was listed in no phone book. Up a small dirt road that had no name. The cabin she and Linc had built together in the woods back when he’d still been alive to share a dream.
Off call for at least forty-eight hours, Carly shoved her phone in the charger, crawled under the covers, and tried not to cry herself to sleep.
***
Steve got the drone trailer back up. Fifty-fifty chance that the next inning of the fire season would be in their range, and he’d rather be ready.
He missed Carly’s help. She made things easy. Alone, he couldn’t get the pieces to mate, only realizing after twenty minutes’ struggle that he had the middle of the mast flipped backward, by which time, he’d cross-threaded a bolt that had to be sheared off. Barked a knuckle bloody in the process.
He’d been… Damn! He didn’t even know what.
He’d been through a couple too many innings in that last twenty-four hours, that’s what had happened. He’d been such a train wreck last night. Steve Mercer, an emotional train wreck. That was a changeup pitch, if there ever was one.
So what if he had dark moments now and then? He’d made it through with no drugs. No antidepressants. No painkillers after they took him off the heavy, post-surgery stuff. Toughing it out had been brutal, but he’d pulled it off.
Dark moments still blindsided him, like this morning when they’d been getting dressed. He’d still been naively dazzled by an angel’s beauty as she slid impossibly long legs into the off-the-rack jeans of someone who worked for a living. They’d looked fantastic on her, made her more real than some tailored, slim-leg, designer crap.
He was naively dazzled until he saw where she was looking.
His left leg.
He’d looked down, somehow expecting it to be whole each time he did. Each time it was a surprise that his leg would never be normal again. And he’d worked the right leg hard to compensate for being a cripple, which only increased the contrast.
A third of the muscle from lower calf to upper thigh was simply not there. A long scar ran up the side of his leg from ankle to hip, still a broad weal despite the six months since the last surgery. He’d have that scar for life.
The doctors had argued that there wasn’t enough muscle tissue left for the leg to be saved, and he’d fought them every inch of the way. No metal or plastic prosthetics for him. He’d refused to sign the form allowing them to cut it off, even if they thought they had to while he was under.
Cripples didn’t fight forest fires, no matter how many times the hospital’s physical therapist had insisted on always using the word “challenged.” If one more person told him he’d be walking-challenged or activity-challenged or…
“Looking sour, Merks.”
Steve sat down on the rear bumper of the truck as Henderson came up to him.
“The damn antenna didn’t want to go together.”
Henderson didn’t even bother to look up at where it now shifted gently back and forth in the morning breeze. He simply parked himself on the bumper beside Steve.
“That would make you pissed, but you’ve been eating lemons.”
Steve grunted in response. Yeah. Probably.
They sat together in silence for a while. Henderson all relaxed, looking up at the blue sky as if it were a marvel.
Crap. He was allowed to be in a goddamn foul mood if he felt like it. Wasn’t he?
“We’ve got a couple days’ dark, supposedly. Rest and recoup and all tha
t. What are you going to do?”
Damned if he knew. He’d been here less than a week and spent most of that time on fires. He sucked on the still bleeding knuckle. He really needed a Band-Aid, but that would require climbing back into the truck again, which would only remind him about his knee and… screw it. It had almost stopped bleeding now anyway. Almost.
Henderson looked at him for a long moment. “C’mon.”
“What?”
Henderson stood and headed for the parking lot. “Just lock the damned truck and come on.”
Chapter 20
The Doghouse was packed.
Cars on the street had windsurf boards on roof racks. Kids from all over had come to take on the Gorge, which offered some of the best winds in America. Yet another reminder of what Steve couldn’t do.
It would help if more of them were kids. But there were a lot of guys and gals who either were out to prove something or maybe, just maybe, were actually good. Plenty of them older than Steve.
Like a cluster of misfits almost lost in the hipster windsurf crowd, a group of the Hoodies huddled around a six-top table near the Snoopy doghouse. They shoved a couple chairs together at one end as he and Henderson squeezed in.
Chutes was sitting across from them, next to Evans, the “mud” geek in charge of the retardant supply and the bucket rigs for the choppers. Mickey, who flew one of the 212s; his mechanic, Jackson; and Betsy, who ran the base kitchen. A couple of guys Steve didn’t know yet, including the current ground leader and his assistant.
“Akbar the Great.” Chutes introduced the small Indian man with the call sign of Ground Two.
When Steve had met him in the chopper, he hadn’t realized the man’s size or his skin coloring. Between the heavy gear and all the smoke stain, neither had been visible, nor relevant. Over the preceding three days it had become clear that while TJ was missed, MHA put top men on the ground.
“And Two-Tall Tim, ’cause he’s as tall as any two of us strung together and three of Akbar.” One of the most interesting-looking men Steve had ever seen. Even sitting, the slender Eurasian towered over the rest of them, at least six-six, maybe more. Steve decided that the man looked both exotic and almost alarmingly handsome. Paired with Akbar the Great, whose head didn’t even reach Tim’s shoulder while they were seated, they were clearly different species or from different planets.
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