“Quick, Jo,” Sheryl asked urgently. “What do we do?”
Jo had read the phrase “rendered witless by terror.” Now she knew exactly what it meant.
Below them, spot fires raged on both sides of the river, and farther down, past the Chute, a huge inferno covering dozens of acres roared out of control.
“We can’t keep going!” Bonnie repeated. “Look, the fire is even jumping the river! We’ll be literally floating in flames!”
“We can’t head to shore here,” Jo said, somehow finding her voice. “Look how steep the banks are—we’ll never get tied off. But the current is getting stronger as we descend toward the Chute, so we’ll have to make our try soon—the first place we see where we can nose in and get to the shore.”
Even as she spoke, dark, acrid smoke wafted to her nostrils, bitter and sharp, carrying with it the hint of a terrible death.
Seventeen
“Okay, Hazel,” Nick said tersely from the back seat of her Fleetwood. “This is as far as you ladies go. Do not drive beyond the treeline. This whole area could go up like a fireworks store.”
Nick and Tom piled out of Hazel’s car, Jason and Brian out of Dottie’s station wagon right behind.
“Look!” Jason shouted, pointing out over the river. A news helicopter was circling the area. “The vultures must have been monitoring the radio and heard about this.”
Ahead of them, still out of sight, the otherwise steep banks of the Stony Rapids River leveled out briefly on the east side, site of the tall sandstone pinnacle called Monument Rock. About fifty yards downriver from there, however, began the steep final descent of the Chute—“final” in every sense of the word right now, for the entire north canyon was a roaring wall of wind-whipped flames.
The searing heat and oxygen depletion could kill a human being within minutes.
The only hope for anyone on the river was to detour here and escape to the high ground while there was still oxygen.
Nick only hoped they’d reach them on time.
At first, after they entered the trees, Nick and the other smoke jumpers made good progress as they made their way toward the river, easily avoiding the hot spots. But suddenly Jason called a warning. “Nick! The fire’s closing in behind us! Pincers drift!”
Despite the adrenaline spiking his blood, Nick felt his heart turn over in dread.
All smoke jumpers had one rule drummed into them from their first day of training: Never surrender your escape route. “Pincers drift” was code meaning that the only way to safety was being pinched off. Under the usual rules, at this point smoke jumpers gave up and retreated while they could, fire be damned.
But rules didn’t matter now to Nick. Jo and three others were about to die a terrible death if they weren’t stopped at Monument Rock. He knew he could never live with himself if he let the woman he most wanted to spend his life with perish.
He coughed as burning smoke filled his lungs, then exchanged a quick glance with the others. He knew they were thinking about the same thing he was: the deadly Mann Gulch and South Canyon fires, charred graveyards littered with the ashes of smoke jumpers who’d surrendered their escape route.
“You guys get the hell out!” he shouted. “You ain’t paid to go on suicide missions!”
“What, and let you get all the glory? We’re dogging your heels, sweetheart!” Tom hollered. “Let’s get it done!”
Time was not on their side.
As they neared the river, more and more hot spots forced them to keep seeking safe routes. Nick began to fear the girls would shoot past before he and his crew even got to them.
“Screw it!” he finally shouted when yet another detour sent them in circles. “Go to foil, gents, and follow me!”
Without hesitation, all four smoke jumpers broke out their foil ponchos and threw them on. Then, with a silent prayer to Saint Jude, patron saint of lost causes, Nick led his men at a full charge into the teeth of the fire.
“I’m jumping out!” Kayla cried. “It’s our only chance.”
“No!” Jo snapped without hesitation. “That current will take you all the way down to the canyon floor.”
“We’ve got life vests, and—”
“Jo’s right,” Bonnie argued. “Look, Kayla, look at those banks! Even if you could fight your way to the side, you’d never be able to climb out. You’re better off in the raft.”
“At least it’s a plan!” Kayla said, nearly hysterical now. “All we’re doing now is waiting to die.”
“We have a plan,” Jo insisted above the gathering roar of the approaching Chute. “But it’s going to take every one of us acting as a team, Kayla, do you understand that?
“We’re only gonna have one shot at getting off the river at Monument Rock,” Jo went on. “We do it just like we practiced, sharp turns up above. On my command, we all stick our paddles straight down, close to the raft on the right side. With luck, that will throw us toward the east bank.”
“You with us, Kayla?” Sheryl demanded.
“Kayla, are you with us?” Jo repeated, on the verge of slapping the panicking Texan.
Something in her voice must have gotten through.
“Yes,” Kayla promised. “On your command.”
Jo had begun to notice some alarming bodily symptoms as the river carried them lower: increasing headaches, dizziness, difficulty breathing, requiring deeper and deeper inhalations to satisfy the lungs.
“Oh, God,” Bonnie said beside her, so low only Jo could hear. “We’re running out of oxygen.”
“Just a few more minutes, Bonnie,” Jo encouraged her. “Stay focused, we’ll be making our move. We’re only getting one quick shot at it, so be ready.”
Nick’s desperate gambit paid off. All four smoke jumpers made it to the river with no serious burns. He had no idea yet, however, if they were on time to intercept the raft.
“There’s nothing to tie the rope to on the other side,” he told his companions. “So two of us are going to hold it. Tom, you take this bank. I’ll swim across and brace myself in that clutch of rocks. We’ve got to keep it about one foot above the water, so it grabs the raft but doesn’t knock the girls into the river.”
He coughed again, blinking smoke from his eyes as he turned to the other two. “Brian and Jason, you guys wade out as far as you can. If we can slow the raft, you two can help wrestle it in. Main thing is, make sure that if any of them fall into the river, you grab them.”
Nick pointed downstream, where a plume of mist marked the beginning of the Chute. “Unless we can pull a rabbit out of the hat, guys, they’re screwed, glued and tattooed. So are we if that current takes us.”
Nick was already wading out into the swift-running river as he issued these words. Just before the current began to bowl him off his feet, however, he saw the raft suddenly shoot around the bend ahead, its four whey-faced passengers poised to plunge their paddles.
Good, they were planning to try an escape here. But damn it, they were approaching too quickly! He’d never get the rope across.
“Forget it, Tom!” he shouted above the roar of the river. “Here they come!”
Nick realized now that his plan was no good, anyway, for the current was too strong. It took all his strength to keep from being washed down.
There could be only one plan now: wait for the women to do their thing, then try to block the raft if they failed.
But in fact, Jo’s plan worked too well. Nick heard her shout, “Now!” and watched all four of them move as one, plunging their paddles. However, the motion did not just send the raft right toward the flat bank—it threw it into a spin.
At least they were closer to shore. But Nick saw they were in danger of being sucked right back out into the middle of the river.
“Jump!” he screamed, fighting hard now just to stay afloat.
All of them leaped into the churning water, and Nick saw Tom and the others racing out to help them.
Jo, however, had been the last one into the water,
and she was farther out by the time she jumped.
A flailing tumble of arms and legs, she hurtled past Nick.
In a desperate effort, he lunged, grabbed hold of one of her ankles and began the struggle of his life to break the death grip of the raging current.
Then, inch by torturous inch, Nick fought his way toward the bank, Jo in tow. By the time they collapsed in the shallow water, safe, he was so exhausted that every breath ended in a little groan.
Kayla, her nerves stretched tight, began to sob almost hysterically when she realized they had survived the river. But tired as they all were, the most dangerous part still lay ahead. Wordlessly, the four smoke jumpers put their foil ponchos around the women.
Nick took Jo’s hand. “Hazel’s waiting just past the trees. One quick run and we’re safe. Ready?”
She squeezed his hand. The lump of fear in her throat made it difficult to talk just then, but she nodded.
“Ready,” she managed.
In her eyes, Nick was all hero during the difficult climb out of the canyon. His instructions to the other men were swift and absolute, and through years of trust and experience, the men followed him as if he were their god.
Bonnie and Jason got caught in a sudden flare-up. Nick raced down the incline and fought for their escape route. Then and there, Jo realized she’d fallen in love with him. Steadiness or not, when he’d disappeared behind the curtain of flames, he was all she wanted.
And when he reappeared with the two through the smoke, it was all Jo could do not to run to him and leap into his arms like a schoolgirl.
At the top of the ridge all media hell had broken loose. Ambulances were arriving in case they were needed, and two helicopters battled to see who could get the best shot of the rescue.
But the eight who had fought their way to safety barely noticed. They were too exhausted.
Hazel shooed the cameras away and made sure for herself no one was injured. Then she hustled Jo and Nick away from the media circus to the back seat of her car.
The matriarch drove her Caddy like a skilled barrel racer, dodging ambulances and satellite trucks in her haste to put them behind her.
Jo was grateful for the peace. Staring at Nick, she knew she had something to say that was long overdue.
“Forgive me,” she whispered to him.
His eyes looked impossibly beautiful in a faceful of soot. “Forgive you for what? You didn’t know about the inversion.”
She shook her head. “No, forgive me for being so selfish. I do want someone steady in my life and if you’re the one, I really think we could be happy.” Her heart tightened. “But if you don’t want that, if you can’t make that work for you, then I want you to know I understand. You’re a hero, Nick. What you do out here is important. If you need five women to take the edge off, I can understand that now.” She gave him a sad little smile. “I just wish I didn’t care for you so much so I could be one of them.”
He reached out his hand.
She pressed his palm against her cheek. The calluses felt good. Just another indication of how capable and strong he was.
“I’ve never needed five women, Jo. Just one.” His voice grew husky. “Just you.”
She stared at him, hardly daring to hope. “I’m not good at sexual games, Nick. It needs to mean something—”
He didn’t let her finish. Pulling her to him, he kissed her deeply, stroking her face with his scraped knuckles. “I’ve always dreamed of one woman to love, and one woman to love me, forever. You’re the first woman I’ve ever met, Jo, who let me see forever.”
With that, he wiped away the tears from her cheeks. Then he kissed her and kissed her, never seeing the smug satisfaction on Hazel’s lined face in the rearview mirror.
Eighteen
“So this is the famous Mystery Valley,” Nick said in a deeply impressed tone, enjoying a stellar view of it from the twelfth-story balcony of the area’s finest resort hotel. “No wonder you and Hazel love it. Crops, grassland, forest, and all of it surrounded by mountains. I’ve seen a lot of the American West, but nothing to top this.”
Jo pointed toward a huge pasture dominating the distant view.
“You can’t actually see the town itself from here except for the spire of the Methodist Church. But that’s one of Hazel winter pastures. The Lazy M occupies one-third of the valley. Right now her cattle are up in the summer pastures in the foothills.”
“She’s the big nob in this town, and to think,” he said with that wolfish grin she’d grown to love, “we’re driving around in her Caddy and using her plastic. I feel like a VIP.”
“You complaining?” Jo teased. “Or maybe you’re just tired of the company?”
“Yuck, sick of it,” Nick said, literally lifting her off her feet as he pulled her into a deep, breath-quickening kiss.
Nick and his three companions had received the customary one week off, at full pay, always granted to smoke jumpers who received the coveted Lifesaving Award, as the four of them had. But a grateful Hazel, who had wept with gratitude when all eight of them emerged from the trees safely, had insisted that wasn’t enough.
“Both of you kids are heroes to me,” she effused to Nick and Jo, “and you’re gonna have a heroes’ holiday, on me.”
Nick could have named anyplace in the world, so Hazel and Jo both took it as a promising sign when he immediately voted for “this Mystery Valley that seems to produce such remarkable women.”
It hadn’t been quite the private getaway they’d envisioned, however. Their faces were still too fresh from the recent, dramatic rescue photos and subsequent media interviews—hotel staffers and other guests recognized them, and there was always an awkward “celebrity stir” each time they appeared in the dining room.
It was all so silly.
They wanted none of it. A cabin in the woods and a well for water was all they needed.
Jo finally broke from the long kiss to say, “You know, Hazel really likes you. She sure has been banging the drum on your behalf.”
“No accounting for taste, I guess. The only question is, how do you feel about me, Ms. Lofton?”
“Well, you’re pretty good in the sack.”
She said this deadpan, and they both laughed.
“Seriously,” she said, “I agree with Hazel’s first impression of you.”
“Which was?”
“That you’re a keeper.”
“If Kayla hadn’t absconded with my note, you might never have thought otherwise.”
His arms tightened around her, and she shivered, thinking how fragile their beginning was, how full of fear and flight. It was a wonder any two people could get to know each other.
She looked at Nick and realized how easy love was once found. But before that, it was a lot easier to talk herself out of trying to love than to give it a shot. “All Kayla did,” she said, “was give me an excuse not to risk my heart. I didn’t want to be used like Ned had used me.”
She framed his handsome face with her palms. “But after our escape, as brave as I was in the river, when I saw you I realized I had to be brave one more time. I couldn’t push you out of my life completely. I would have lost so much.”
He grinned. “Kayla gave herself the hiccups, she was sobbing so hard when she confessed. You mad at her?” he asked, pulling her close again.
“Oh, I tried to be, but she was so miserable I couldn’t stay mad. What we went through on the river…it sort of bonded us, I guess. You know, we actually hugged and made up before she and Dottie went home.”
Jo harbored no bitterness, for the trip into the wild had ended with two key discoveries, both very welcome: that Nick had not deserted her, after all, and that she possessed all the confidence and inner strength she’d ever need. Or in Hazel’s earthy terms, she had a backbone to go with her wishbone.
Neither one of them had spent much time fully dressed the past few days. Her hand moved down inside the folds of his robe.
“Um, I see this fireman is feelin
g sparky.”
“Hey, don’t start something you don’t plan on finishing.”
“Who said I don’t plan on finishing?”
She knew him well enough by now to know he had at least two types of smile: one, quick and easy, that he used as a defense against others getting too personal; another, charming and roguish, that could instantly turn her on as it was now.
“I want you,” she whispered urgently, giving his arousal an inviting squeeze.
He never did require an engraved invitation—he easily scooped her up into his arms and carried her back to the queen-size bed. He untied her silk robe and shucked it, along with his own.
Moaning with the building intensity of their sudden passion, still unslaked after several days, they sank onto the bed, Jo rolling over to straddle him.
He grabbed both breasts, but she toyed with him, sometimes letting his mouth take her nipples, sometime making him do without as she rocked herself against him.
Finally, when his arms went around her hips and stilled her, she knew there was only one way to go.
She bent his hard length to the perfect angle and lowered herself onto him, feeling him deliciously filling her. Crying nearly incoherent words of pleasure and encouragement, she began moving her hips, letting his hands take full measure of her breasts as she rubbed along his length.
His head turned from side to side as the pleasure built. Faster and faster, harder and harder, she rode him, her own ecstacy building as he cupped her breasts, kissing each nipple in turn, nibbling them just a little and making them swollen and hard with pulsing blood.
Their lovemaking had shown several moods, and right now their shared mood was pure possession. She had no desire, this time, to prolong her pleasure, to draw it out teasingly. Instead, she, like him needed a thorough coupling and intense explosion of release.
They had driven each other to the edge of control. The moment of possession came like a massive wave, the climaxes wracking her body into surrender. She cried out just as he, in a few deep, final lunges, released himself inside her, his pleasure as hard and greedy as her own.
Plain Jane & The Hotshot Page 12