“Someone’s here,” he suddenly said against her lips, and she realized a second later she’d heard a knock at the door too.
“Kolinski.” She whispered his name.
His arms relaxed slowly and she found herself on the floor before him, unable to tear her eyes off his mouth.
His...sooty mouth.
“Go wash your mouth. He’s here for me.”
“He’ll want to talk to me too.”
She tried again, gesturing to her own mouth. “Nose to chin, you’ve got a sooty clown mouth thing going on.”
He looked completely baffled at her and she almost grinned.
“Didn’t you ever get a lipstick smear before?”
“I never wear lipstick,” he said, expression too serious except for a slight lifting of the corner of his sooty mouth. Joking. He was joking.
She grinned and played along, the teasing making things better somehow. “You’d look really nice in a soft, beachy coral.”
Kolinski pounded on the door again, and she stepped back, giving Beck a small shove toward the bathroom while she went to face the music.
Her right arm clamped right back to her body because the pain surged as her senses returned, she opened the door. “Come in, Lieutenant.”
Kolinski only stepped in far enough to close the door behind him, and looked past her to Beck, who was drying his face.
“Who wants to tell me what happened up there?”
Beck looked at her a second, and she lifted her good hand, ready to spill the beans, when he cut in.
“I screwed up,” he announced, keeping his eyes on the lieutenant, not responding to her wide what are you doing? eyes. “In the past week I’ve become...attached to Autry. When it came to it today, I tried to get her not to jump because I hadn’t ever seen her make an actual jump before and panicked about her going for the first time over a fire.”
Lauren didn’t have to look in a mirror or have anyone ask, she felt her mouth fall open at Beck’s words.
He was taking the blame for her screwup.
He was covering for her. Making sure her stupid lie didn’t come out. It was such a thing that could never happen, she wasn’t even certain it was happening.
“What did you do to make her not jump?” Kolinski asked, then looked at her, which prompted her to try and close her mouth again because she didn’t know what to say.
Beck clearly hadn’t put any thought into this plan. He ummed a couple times, then said, “Said some nasty things about her being...not ready.”
“You said nasty things about her not being ready, then went ahead of her and told her not to jump?”
“Yeah.”
It sounded like a lie. It was so obviously a lie. Kolinski crossed his arms and stared at Beck, then included her in his stare. It was a lot harder to lie with your mouth than with pen and paper and the shame of poor follow-through on your planning.
Beck’s jaw had clamped shut. She could feel her own stunned expression like a mask on her face. Neither of them looked normal. They looked like liars.
Liars Kolinski was playing along with. “So he jumped without you and you decided to go anyway?”
“He...” She didn’t want to blame him, and she really didn’t want to lie anymore. They’d accept it if she said she needed more of a refresher before going back up, or if she asked to be bumped back with the rest of the rookies.
Whatever she said, she couldn’t let him lie for her.
“I panicked when I saw the fire below,” Lauren admitted, then added, “Beck’s trying to help me now because he’s my partner. And maybe because he feels bad for having jumped when I was struggling. He went ahead, it’s his job, then I started feeling like a total failure and made myself go. Didn’t think so much time had passed. It was my fault. He’s just trying to look out for his partner now.”
She didn’t know what to think about that grown-attached business, so she didn’t say anything about that.
Kolinski shifted his gaze from one to the other for several long, heart-stopping seconds. “If you’ve got a romance going on and it’s screwing everything up, you should both be re-partnered.”
“We don’t need to be re-partnered,” Lauren said quickly, shaking her head. “He was just covering.”
Beck backed her up then. “It was a glitch. We both screwed up and it won’t happen again. I’m trying. She’s helping me...”
Kolinski nodded. “She knows?”
Beck nodded once.
The lieutenant shifted his gaze to her then. “Did you have your arm looked at?”
“I did. It’s bruised.”
“Not broken? Not sprained?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, then this is a warning. Formal paperwork will be in your boxes tomorrow. Get your act together. One more and you’re both out.”
Kolinski delivered his lovely parting words then left, and Lauren locked the door behind him.
Then she was back at Beck’s side, completely unable to summon the words to ask why he’d done that, gone to bat for her, lumped his fate in with hers.
“It was my fault. Stupid. I shouldn’t have jumped. I shouldn’t have gone up there. I can’t let you lie for me.”
“I was trying to have your back. Share the blame.” He sounded a little put out, but there was nothing to be done for it. “And it was my fault too. You were my partner and I abandoned you. We have to do better than this.”
“Why was this strike two? What was strike one?” She hadn’t gotten anything official in her box before.
His lips thinned again, and he grunted. “Probably the day we burned the field.”
When she’d had to chase him all over. He’d earned them that strike, but they’d both earned today’s.
She nodded, and when she found herself looking at his mouth again, stepped back toward the bathroom. “I need to soak this grime off. And...erm...we should...we should file that whole...kissing thing under the Romance Leads to Re-partnering column, and, you know, maybe don’t do it. We can’t afford to get distracted.”
“Kolinski did look against the idea of something going on,” Beck said, brow beetled in the kind of deep thinking that never led to good outcomes. “I’ll get the pine needles.”
She’d almost gotten the door closed when his palm suddenly touched down and pushed it back open a bit. “After I see that arm.”
“Beck...”
He shook his head. “I’m not leaving until I know how bad it is.”
It sounded a lot like the kinds of words that usually ticked her off, but considering his attempt to help her with Kolinski... She sighed and unzipped the suit and eased it down to her waist, baring the simple tank top she wore beneath.
“See? Not broken.”
She barely got the words out when he sucked in a sharp breath and began muttering under his breath.
“It’s okay.”
She didn’t want to look at it, she’d seen enough of the eggplant-colored splotch earlier when the EMT had checked her over, and seeing his reaction was enough to confirm it wasn’t any better.
His touch was gentle, but he didn’t shy away from making her move her arm, testing her range of motion through her wincing, making sure that ball joint functioned the way it was supposed to. “It’s not broken, it’s bruised.”
“You need a sling.”
“I don’t need a sling.”
“You’ve been keeping it clamped to your chest to stabilize it because it hurts. You need a damned sling, Lauren.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and paced away then back to her. “In the morning, I’ll get you one from the infirmary.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to deny needing a sling again, but maybe it would help things heal faster. It would certainly help his mood.
“Okay. I’ll wear a sling for a couple of days unt
il it feels better.”
He turned back to her, surprise pitching his eyebrows to high, crazy angles.
“What? I can compromise.”
“Okay.” He nodded, hands on his hips. “Can you accept help too?”
“You just helped. I let you.”
“With jumping.”
She stopped, the subject shift throwing her. “What...? Which part?”
“How we can fix it.” His tilted his head and the way his black eyes fixed on her said as much as his words. How we can fix it. Not how you can fix it. We.
One simple word and the weight that had been crushing her lifted, letting her stand straighter, letting her smile again.
This was it. This was what having a partner felt like. She had to look away from those deep, meaningful looks to hide the mistiness in her eyes.
“You have an idea?”
“You know you can make the jump, but you need to practice landing.” He let go of the door and nodded to her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it now. A man I served with has a plane, operates a small business out of the local airport. I’ll see if he’ll take us up in a couple of days.”
Us. The sweet ping of pleasure in her chest at the word only grew warmer as she caught up to the rest of it. He was going to help her, even after she’d refused to let him take the fall for her. Even after everything.
He’d already started moving again, saying something about salts. Another way he was helping.
She had to find a way to help him too, she just didn’t know how.
* * *
The weekend passed for Lauren in a blur. She slept so long on Saturday Beck had come into her room to wake her up and make her go to dinner. She’d been having a dream so over-sexed she was sure he’d known. No one moaned when being woken up. That was never the appropriate reaction.
Lauren?
Moan.
Not at all humiliating. And the goofy smile? Yep. Just added to it. She might as well have moaned his name. She might have moaned his name.
If she had, he’d been blessedly tight-lipped about it. Just insisted she wear the sling he’d gotten for her, and not use her arm to do anything, despite him dragging her to the mess hall directly after. She’d missed breakfast and lunch, and healing bodies need protein, and blah-blah-blah.
He’d provided her with another sachet of pine needles and his tub-o-salts to put together her own soak afterward and gone to sleep outside for a reason he’d never explained, and she didn’t ask about. Maybe he’d needed fresh air. Maybe he’d just wanted some distance from her so he didn’t tempt her to more kissing...
God, she probably had moaned his name.
* * *
Sunday she’d been the one to make an escape—first shopping to lay in some supplies, then the Laundromat with her soiled everything, and her arm in the darned sling.
By Monday, she was feeling better, and although they still required her to be on another day of light duty—no push-ups or the tree-climbing designated for classroom work that day—she talked her way into being allowed the use of both arms. And she ran. In the morning, in the afternoon, and all without any existential emotional flare-ups. Another small miracle. Or a sign of her growth. She’d like to think so, at least.
Tuesday her week started to turn around. Beck got in touch with his marine buddy and as it was no longer Hell Week, they had somewhat shorter days, which left time to go up with Gavin, the pilot, for three low-altitude jumps to practice jumping and landing.
Her shoulder had done fine.
Between jumps, Beck had given pointers on how to land without breaking anything.
Wednesday they did it again.
Now, suited up and sitting in Gavin’s plane, flying two counties away to a forest that had burned last week, Lauren turned to her partner-cum-trainer. “Why are we going to jump over an old burn again?”
“All new smokejumpers should see the aftermath of a forest fire.”
“I was in actively burning woods. What am I supposed to be learning from that?”
“Devastation.” He hadn’t had them fly out this far for no reason, but she understood fire. It took a little work to not be insulted by the insinuation that she was unfamiliar with the destruction left behind, reminding herself he took fires personally. He saw fires like monsters, not natural things. Maybe he was the one who needed to come to the fire. Or maybe he just needed to be convinced she understood it.
If that was it, that was fine. She could deal with that. He didn’t have to help her with this, and if his conscience demanded he make sure she fully understood what she was getting into, that was okay too.
“Are we climbing higher?”
A look out the window confirmed the land was much farther away than their two previous days of jumps.
“Higher altitude means longer time steering the chute. We’re going to circle the woods and land in the burned field beside them so you can learn to maneuver better. You’re landing well, now you need better control in the air. You had trouble turning that first day.”
“We’re here, you two,” Gavin called back, interrupting her complete lack of an argument.
Beck handed her a helmet. “Ear bud inside and mic embedded in the mouth area of the helmet. Use the comm. I’ll instruct on the way down. Tell me when you have trouble.”
A minute later, she was in the air, her chute popping as expected, with Beck somewhere behind her. He’d jumped after she had. That was now always the new rule of jumping: he always went second so he could see if she had trouble.
Beck’s voice came over the headset soon after, reminding her what she was doing while simultaneously distracting her. If she’d known how intimate it would be to have his voice in her ear, or that she’d feel it in tingles down her neck, she might have argued against it. She was supposed to be focused on mastering a new skill, not tingling in fun ways.
In truth, in just a few short days her confidence in the air had reached what she’d hoped it would be before entering the training program. The next time she was called to a real jump, she’d be fine. That was because of him. Had nothing to do with the goose bumps that swept over her from a deep, sexy voice in her ear, or the way the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up and saluted when his breath hit the mic and her brain supplied the sensation that would’ve accompanied his breath were he getting steamy in her actual ear.
She had to remind herself to start circling, but as they got closer and the blackened patch of earth became bare, broken trees, her lusty feelings evaporated. Before she knew it, her feet touched down in the burned field and she skidded along with a gust of wind dragging her chute, then rolled to a proper stop when the wind died, and was glad for the helmet protecting her face.
She gathered up her spent chute and turned in time to see Beck landing across the field, then jogged to meet him. Together, they helped one another fold their spent parachutes and stuff them into the empty bags they’d always jumped with to make the walk out easier.
“Is Gavin coming to fetch us?” she asked, falling into step when Beck began leading at a good clip straight into the blackened woods.
One step into the trees and she knew why he’d insisted on coming here. No matter what she’d thought she’d known about burned forests, walking through a wood where the trees were crusted with black, blistered bark and no rustle of leaves and twigs underfoot made the back of her neck go cold.
Fire was natural. The reason it had become a problem in modern living was because of human over-expansion into wooded areas. In centuries past, forest fires had been allowed to burn themselves out, now they needed to be managed to protect people and property. Fire was natural, but in a burned forest her senses were all assaulted by the wrongness of it. It smelled bad. It looked wrong. No brush underfoot. And none of the usual forest sounds she always took for granted. Birdsong. Insects clicking or buzzing away. Fire was na
tural, but being in the forest afterward felt unnatural.
Suddenly, the image of twelve-year-old Beck going to the burned-out woods where he’d lived and his mother had died was something else she couldn’t leave alone.
“Was this what it was like when you went back home after the fire?” she asked, hurrying to catch up so she didn’t have to shout such a question.
Beck stopped walking. “Nature is resilient. Within two years, everything was green again.”
“Not the house...” she said, even though she didn’t know what the house had looked like before. It might have been fully consumed, half-consumed, or just charred outside, gutted within.
“The house half burned,” he confirmed. “Inside the remains of the house and workshop, trees were growing. Grass. Weeds...”
House and workshop.
“You went inside?”
He started walking again, though this time at a slower speed. “Had to make sure she wasn’t there.”
Her hand flew over her mouth and she blinked away the sharp pierce of sudden tears heating her eyes as she realized that his mother’s body had never been found. No words came.
Her new muteness earned a look, and he stopped walking again to pull her hand from her mouth. “You asked.”
“Yeah... Just... You didn’t find her, right?”
He shook his head and started walking again, still holding the hand he’d pulled from her mouth. “Why did you ask?”
His large, strong hand in hers made it harder to focus. Hands of a man who worked outside and manned a shovel, with calluses her own hands were starting to mirror. They fit together like puzzle pieces, square here, round there, textured. Hands that could hold a person no matter the conditions, wet or covered in soot and mud. Strength she saw inside him daily expressed in the strong grip of his hand. He didn’t hold loosely, his fingers wrapped around hers tight enough to meld flesh, but not enough to hurt. Not treating her like she was delicate but like she was something worth holding on to.
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