They'd Most Certainly Be Flying

by M. L. Buchman

  “We got us a trio of perfectionists in this bunkroom. Now if someone could explain the trash in those other two bunkhouses, that might help some.”

  “They’re men. I guess we need to cut them some slack.” Not that they’d been working one minute less than the women on the team.

  When they had all first practiced together, it soon became apparent that Jana and Curt had assembled a very skilled group of pilots. But that wasn’t enough for them as they’d conceived something grander.

  In her experience most outfits debriefed the fire’s behavior after each flight. The Firebirds debriefed aerial tactics. And it was paying off. On the first fire, a controlled burn over in Corvallis that had run out of control, they’d beaten and battered at the fire. Each MD 520N could deliver a half-ton of water—two hundred gallons—out of the belly tanks rigged between their skids. Curt had even spent the extra for deployable snorkels, so that they didn’t have to land to retank, but could just hover over a stream or lake and refill in thirty seconds. If a retardant truck was handy, they could also land and refill in not many seconds more. But they’d made six separate attacks, fighting the fire in too many places at once.

  Now, five hard weeks later, they attacked the fire in a tight line bunched like hydroplanes at the start of a race on Devil’s Lake in Lincoln City. They focused on one house at a time. There was no way for their six little helos to stop the main front of a raging wildfire. But first they’d learned how to hold it back around a single house. Then they’d advanced. Rather than stopping the fire, they punched holes in it—holes that expanded to gaps. More than once, they’d saved a whole row of houses with the fencelines scorched out between them, but the structures still standing. Ka-ching! That’s what they got paid for.

  Doing it on their first big fire this week over in Idaho had confused the crap out of the air bosses. They’d had to fight tooth-and-nail to prove that their tactics were saving more homes, even at the cost of more forest. They’d finally convinced that one guy, but the next fire was probably going to be the same battle all over again. It was too exhausting to even think about.

  Stacy’s body was buzzing with that exhaustion so there was no way she was going to get to sleep.

  “I need a beer,” not that it would help, but it was better than lying here and not sleeping while her body buzzed.

  “Something other than camp food,” Jana sighed. “Like…pizza!”

  “Men,” Maggie groaned from the upper bunk. “We definitely need men.”

  “We’ve already got a supply of those,” Stacy could feel them in the small huts next door.

  “No. Those are our men. We need real ones. The kind we can be stupid about and not regret it in the morning.”

  There was a sudden silence as Stacy glanced over at Jana.

  “Beer,” she whispered.

  “Pizza,” Jana sat up enough to look at her.

  “Men,” Maggie again leaned out enough to block the light with her head.

  “Road trip!” They all said it in unison.

  “Shh!” Maggie made the sound far more loudly than they’d been speaking. “Let’s sneak. Otherwise our men will follow us and spoil the fun.”

  Jana dressed in nice slacks and a pretty blouse, a bright scrunchy hanked her long blonde hair into a ponytail.

  “You’re not going to wear your cosmetic hand?” Stacy had seen it in the drawer, because there was no privacy in a room this small. Come to think of it, she’d never seen Jana wearing anything but the hooks.

  “I can drink beer and eat pizza with this one,” she flexed a shoulder and clicked the opposing hooks together to emphasize her point. “If a guy can’t deal with it, to hell with him.”

  “To hell with him,” Maggie agreed cheerfully and Stacy echoed the sentiment.

  Yes, to hell with him, whoever him was. Keeping that in mind, Stacy rehung her one fine change of clothes in the tiny closet. Instead she went with her standard Oregon attire: jeans with no char spots, a red t-shirt that said “Fire pilots are like fire, too hot to touch!”, and a fleece REI shirt that covered most of the words. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and she was done.

  Maggie changed into lacy red underwear—“In case I actually get lucky”—and then a low cut, clingy dress of flirty gold that offset her dark skin so that it looked like she was both glowing and perhaps a little evil. The hem landed well above her knees and pretty much guaranteed her luck if there was a single man anywhere in a dozen miles. She was also pixie high and by far the cutest of the three of them, so she and Jana wouldn’t stand a chance until Maggie had her pick. Which was fine, Stacy wanted a beer. She might be tempted by a pizza, but men were nowhere on her list. Not until she found one with an ego smaller than a gray whale migrating up the coast. Not gonna happen on a fire line.

  They slipped out the back, climbed into Stacy’s little Toyota because they were all sick of riding back from Idaho in the big GMC Denali pickups. Maggie slipped into one of the small backseats that had her sitting sideways and they were off.

  Jana turned to the only radio station that reached this far into the hills. They were playing Boondocks by Little Big Town. Definitely where they were. They sang along all the way into town.

  6

  Unable to sleep, Curt had tried to slip out, but Jasper had caught up with him in the parking lot. They’d been hanging together since they were teenagers dreaming of hot cars and chasing girls, or was it chasing cars and dreaming of hot girls. Their moods were so in sync, that it wasn’t like he was following—if one went somewhere, of course the other one did as well.

  The other three pilots, Drew, Amos, and Palo, were still sacked out.

  They’d run into Ty mucking the road trip food wrappers and soda cans out of the trucks. “In case we get a call up tomorrow.” He was the camp handyman, cook, and receptionist. Also Jana’s right hand in training as well as helping Maggie with anything that took two people to fix. Ty chose to sack out rather than join them.

  He and Jasper had just driven with no real destination in mind. They’d stumbled on Wild River Pizza in Cave Junction and pulled in. He parked his Trans Am in a shadowed corner so that no one would park next to it and give him a door ding.

  They were sitting and watching the local talent, pretty thin on a Thursday night except for some tourists out to visit the Oregon Caves.

  “Five weeks. Haven’t seen the caves yet.”

  “Five weeks,” Jasper agreed as he tipped his chair back on two legs. “Haven’t seen much of anything except fire.”

  “Good thing,” Curt propped his feet on an empty chair across the table.

  “Keeping us busy.”

  “Keeping us paid.”

  They watched a couple playing pool. There was a nice view as the girl bent over to take a reaching shot. Not bad either when she stood up and did a little happy dance at sinking her ball. The guy standing beside her congratulated her with a kiss that looked very welcome.

  “Yep,” Jasper observed.

  “Yep,” Curt agreed. There was such a thing as being too damn busy, even if it was a good thing. The front door banged open and a trio of women strode in. There was a bright light making it hard to see their faces, but the rest of what showed was very fine. Their laughter brightened the sleepy bar.

  “Huh,” Jasper noted that the prospects for the night had just picked up.

  Then the cheery trio stepped past the light and into clear view.

  “Huh,” Curt slouched down in his seat. Nothing happening, it was the Firebird women. Maggie did look hot, but that wasn’t a real surprise—she always abounded with energy, though who knew she had legs like that. And enough deeply bronzed cleavage that…

  That… Nothing! She was his mechanic. Besides, he knew that Drew and Amos were both all hot and bothered over her. Definitely didn’t want to step into that mess. Still, tonight Maggie was a way hotter and sexier version of herself than he’d even guessed. He couldn’t wait to rub it in that Drew and Amos both slept through the who
le thing.

  Jana too was transformed by dressing up—a major rarity for his sister—and had pulled her hair back. She normally wore it half covering her face. The legs of Jasper’s chair thumped down onto the floor. He never spoke to Jana. One of these days, Curt would have to ask what he had against her.

  But not tonight, because that’s when Stacy stepped clear of his sister.

  She looked…perfect.

  He couldn’t look away from her because she was so wholly unchanged. She was herself right to the core. The only thing she’d altered was wearing her hair down rather than in a ponytail. Damn but the woman had glorious hair.

  Jasper tugged his cowboy hat lower until he might have not been able to see them at all.

  Curt thought about it, then tugged his red Firebird billed hat lower, but not so low that he couldn’t keep at least one eye on Stacy. Moving up to the bar, the women took stools. In moments they had beers and were flirting with the barman.

  “Think we can slip away safe?” Jasper whispered from under his hat, though his head was cocked to watch the three women.

  “Run or stay?”

  “Run. Definitely.” All six-three of Jasper was in danger of disappearing completely under his hat.

  Best friend said “run,” it was probably good advice. He dug out a twenty and was about to toss it on the table when his sister looked into the angled mirror over the bar and glared right at him. After a long moment she mouthed something at him, so distinctly that he couldn’t misread it.

  7

  “Chicken,” Jana said loudly enough for Stacy to hear but not enough to interrupt Maggie’s flirtation with the cute bartender.

  “Why? Because I wouldn’t answer your question earlier? Fine. Nothing’s bothering me that three days of sleep wouldn’t fix.”

  Jana turned to her from contemplating the mirror over the bar. “How long have we known each other?”

  “A flight and an interview longer than anyone else in this outfit.”

  “That means I know you better than any of them.”

  Stacy considered. Then she raised her beer and clinked the already half empty glass against Jana’s mostly full one—way fast for her. “First one I’ve shared a beer with. Does that make us best friends?”

  That earned her a cool look and she wondered if Jana was the sort of woman to have best friends. Stacy liked her well enough—and respected the hell out of her competency—but friends might be a bit of a stretch.

  “Beer’s talking,” she swallowed back some more to make her point. She’d never had more than two since the day she’d understood that her parents were both alcoholics, never wanted more either, so she was safe.

  “I’d say it makes me friend enough to call bullshit on your, ‘Nothing’s bothering me’ pitch.”

  “But nothing is, other than how good a pilot you are. I’ve learned more about holes in my technique from you than I think I knew in total before meeting you.”

  Jana smiled sadly at that. “If I still had my hand, I’d take you up and show you some real 101st Airborne shit.”

  Stacy had almost stopped seeing the hooks that served Jana as her right hand.

  “Anyway, I’m still calling bullshit on you.”

  “Why?” Stacy couldn’t think of anything really bothering her.

  Jana just nodded upward.

  Stacy went to empty the dregs of her beer as she looked up into the mirror…and almost choked when she saw Curt standing just a step behind her.

  8

  Maggie had found a couple of retired Navy buddies, traveling with their wives. The five of them were talking Navy jets and RVs. Curt knew from long experience that anything with an engine earned a hundred percent of Maggie’s attention no matter how she was dressed.

  Jasper and Jana were playing a silent pool game with a grim determination that was actually a little freaky. The remains of a demolished beef, mushroom, and onion large-size pizza was spread across four plates, with a couple slices going over to Maggie.

  Stacy sat across the table from him, leaning forward with an intensity that he’d wager wasn’t going to make it to the bottom of her second beer. He liked that she was a total lightweight. It fit her far better than a woman who could chug a six-pack. Nervous energy was all that sustained her at the moment.

  “What was it like?”

  “What was what like?”

  She held up a hand and twisted it back and forth in the air, the fingers curved into a hook. She even pincered her thumb and index finger apart and back together.

  “You’d have to ask Jana. She’s the one it happened to.”

  “No, I mean…” Then she grimaced to herself. “I don’t know what I mean.”

  “You mean, you’ve had too much beer.”

  “Or too little sleep. Your sister seems to think you’re bothering me.”

  “Me?” He’d been damned careful to steer clear of her. Being around Stacy was like a constant adrenaline high. First he’d been taken by her beauty and sass. Then her piloting—because, damn, this woman could fly. Even his sister had remarked on it. Stacy also appeared to be the first woman friend Jana had chosen in a long time which was rare praise indeed. “How am I bothering you?”

  “I don’t know. I was thinking maybe you could tell me. I guess we’ll never know.” She unleashed a tonsil-deep yawn, then her head began sinking toward the last half of her beer and the last slice of pizza.

  “Hold on a second.” He waved a hand and got Jana’s attention over at the pool table. He pointed at Jasper and made a key starting a car motion. Jana asked him something.

  Jasper raised his head just enough to glare across the room at him from beneath the brim of his hat. A brief nod—yes, he did have his copy of the Firebird’s key with him—then he returned to setting up his shot.

  Curt didn’t have to carry Stacy out to her truck—quite. Tucking her into the passenger seat almost undid him, though. The first brush of his fingers across her hair as he reached for her seatbelt was the first time he’d ever touched her in any way. So that’s what they mean by soft as silk. He was careful not to touch her more than necessary as he reached across to buckle her in.

  He suddenly couldn’t remember if women wore seatbelts under their breasts, between them, or above them. After standing still for a long moment trying to figure it out, he tugged out all of the slack, snapped the buckle into the receiver, then let the retractor pull the seatbelt into the proper place on its own. Between their breasts. Good to know.

  She was silent for the entire drive back to the field.

  He made a point of releasing her buckle before he climbed out of her truck so that he wouldn’t have to reach across her again. To his surprise, when he opened the passenger door, she clambered out. The only light was a distant security light, a sliver of a moon, and the stars.

  “You know,” she leaned back against her truck. “I think I figured out why you bother me.”

  “Do tell,” he stood in front of her and admired how she looked in the dim light. Soft, real, and still a hundred percent herself. She belonged in her skin like no one he’d ever met. So sure of everything.

  “That. Right there.”

  “What?”

  “Well…just look at yourself.”

  “Hello. It’s dark out and I don’t have a mirror.”

  “I don’t have one either, Mr. Curt-the-Huskies-fan, but I could describe you with my eyes closed.”

  “They already are,” he teased her even though he could just make out glints of starlight reflections caught by them.

  “Feet apart,” her voice sounded as dreamy as the night. “Like Paul Bunyan standing in the forest. Arms folded over your chest like a guy on the defense even though he has no reason to be. And I’d wager that you’re squinting at me like I’ve lost my mind.”

  “Well, you missed that entirely.”

  “How?”

  “My feet are planted so that I don’t come any closer. My arms are crossed in an attempt to keep my hands to
myself. And my eyes are wide open, because you are a vision in the nighttime. Or in the air. Or—” Shit! He was the one who was supposed to be sober. How had he just said all those things to Stacy Richardson?

  “Oh,” her voice was almost as soft as the night.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, oh.”

  Now he did squint at her, trying to see her expression, but there wasn’t enough light.

  “Why?”

  “Why? I already told you why.” And if this conversation went on any longer he was going to lose his mind.

  “No, I mean why are you doing all those things rather than kissing me?”

  He looked up at the stars for guidance and didn’t find any.

  “Maybe that’s what’s bothering me. You’re awfully attractive, Curt Williams, except for your choice in football teams. I’m quite surprised to discover that I like you. And—”

  “You’re exhausted and you’re drunk and I don’t take advantage of women in altered states. Besides, I’m your boss.”

  “I’m tired and I nursed the same half beer for two hours. Probably more sober than you are.”

  “I’m still your boss. I’m not going to take advantage of you.”

  “Curious,” she tipped her head to the side. “Makes me appreciate that bolt of integrity you wear like a sheriff’s badge all the more. What happens if I decide to take advantage of you?”

  Curt blew out a breath in exasperation, “How the hell should I know?”

  “Hmm. Let’s find out.”

  9

  Stacy stepped into his arms—into his crossed arms, because she’d gotten that part right in the darkness. She had to rise up on her toes to kiss him due to the additional separation. For a long moment he didn’t react…then she felt his smile against her lips. It was only there for a moment, but she found it very encouraging.

  “You sure, Stacy?”

  In answer she rested her hands on his arms and pulled them down, not releasing his wrists until they were headed around her and she could step the rest of the way against his chest.