Summer of the Burning Sky
Page 13
Stevie fully expected to wake, trussed up and kidnapped, in the back of March’s truck, the next in his line of women who would disappear, only to be discovered—raped and murdered—months later.
Instead, Stevie swam up through the pain and layers of shadow into the sunlight, her head throbbing, to the grunts and shouts of something feral happening a few feet away from her.
She opened her eyes. The world was spinning and blotchy, but clear enough to make out March wrestling with—wait. Tucker?
How did he—?
She couldn’t unravel it now. They held each other in head locks, scrabbling to bring each other down. Tucker landed a fist in March’s gut, then tripped him.
They thundered to the ground, the smack of fists against bone sharp.
She rolled to her knees, nausea rushing through her. Get up.
She pressed her head to the ground, gulping in breaths.
Get up.
A groan next to her, and she glanced over.
Dad. He held her jacket to his wound, his face pale, his breathing thin and reedy.
“Hang on, Dad. Just hang on.”
She pushed to her feet. Still woozy, she reached out, bracing her hand on the truck.
March had kicked Tucker away. He fell back, scrambling to his feet.
Tucker glanced over at her then, the fury, the fierceness on his face—yeah, he wore the same look her father had as he’d run toward her. As he threw himself in front of her to save her life.
I want that kind of love someday.
Her too. Oh, her too. Because if she could ever love anyone, it would be Tucker Newman.
The guy who just couldn’t stop showing up.
March grabbed up his tire iron and swung it at Tucker’s legs.
“Tucker!”
The crunch of iron against bone, Tucker’s brutal cry as March took him down ripped through her.
She fell to her knees. The gun—where was March’s gun?
“Stevie!”
She turned and spied a woman creeping around the back of the truck. Skye?
But her hard gasp, the “No—!” made Stevie turn.
March had crawled on top of Tucker, his knee in his chest, the tire iron above his head as if—
A blow like that could kill a man.
She ran straight for March with a scream. “No!”
He jerked, and she caught his arm just on his downward swing. She propelled him backward, off Tucker, and for a white-hot second, she landed on top of March, her hands around his neck, her gaze in his.
Dark. Cold. More animal than man.
He cuffed her across the shoulder with the tire iron. The pain dazed her, sent her into the gravel.
You’re not in this alone. And that day…that day when no one shows up? It’s not today. Because I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.
Tucker’s voice, maybe, although it sounded deeper, resonated in her bones, her cells, a fire that lit her from inside. Galvanized her.
Yes.
Because maybe she’d never been alone—not really.
Even when she’d chosen it.
Tucker had risen, grabbing at March, dragging him away from Stevie, his arm around March’s neck.
“You’re done, March! You’re done!”
March’s feet kicked, his hands scraping at Tucker’s arms. But Tucker had the arms of a man who spent hours slinging an axe, wrestling trees, and fighting fire. He pulled March down, wrapped his legs around his torso and held on.
Stevie sat up, glanced at her father unmoving in the dirt. Skye bent over him, her hands pressed to his wound, staring at the fight with her eyes wide, frozen.
“Call for help!” Stevie said and rolled over to her knees.
The sunlight winked off—yes—her revolver. She scrambled to it. Scooped it up.
Skye screamed. High and bright and horrified.
Stevie turned.
March was writhing and had gotten hold of the tire iron. He used the sharp end to stab Tucker.
Tucker howled, jerked back, and March broke free. He rounded on Tucker, swinging the iron back like a baseball bat.
Aiming for Tucker’s head.
No—no!
Stevie took a breath, aimed the gun, center mass. Shoot the bear, Stevie!
Please, don’t miss.
She pulled the trigger.
The gun recoiled hard, the sound ricocheting through the trees, rebounding back to her as the smell of gunpowder reeked the air.
March fell back, writhing in the dirt, bleeding from a wound in the center of his chest.
Tucker scrambled away from him. Got to his feet.
Shaking, she held the gun on March in case he moved.
“Stevie,” Tucker said, breathing hard. “You okay?”
She nodded, then felt his hands on her shoulders.
She met his eyes. So brown. Soft in hers. Holding her.
“You followed me,” she said, more of a mumble than words.
“You just saved my life.”
She glanced at March. He’d stopped struggling, his body still. “I think I killed him.”
Tucker drew her face back to his, his hand on her cheek. “He killed a lot of people. And he would have killed you.” His gaze went to the hot spot on her forehead. “And he hurt you.”
He wore a bruise on his temple, dirt on his face, a look in his eyes that made her want to stay right here, not move.
“Alone is not better,” she said softly.
“No. It’s not,” he said, and a smile lifted. He might have leaned down to kiss her if she hadn’t heard voices. She looked past him to Skye, who had gotten to her feet.
“Over here!” Skye said, waving, and in a moment a man appeared wearing the blue jacket of a US marshal.
Newt Kennedy. And right behind him, another man from her office—Blake Warner. Newt knelt next to her father, yanking out his radio.
Blake ran over to her, his brown eyes assessing her. “You okay?”
She looked at Tucker, then back to Blake. Mid-thirties, dark-skinned and built like a linebacker, from the Midwest somewhere.
“Yes. But Eugene March is dead.”
Blake glanced at March. “Yeah. Good shot.”
Stevie still trembled deep in her bones. And Tucker must have figured it out because he squeezed her hand.
She squeezed his back.
Then she went over to her father. Newt was calling in a medical extraction as Blake checked her father’s vitals.
“It’s a through and through,” he said, moving him to check.
“I’m fine,” her father said, groaning.
“Don’t be stupid, Dad,” Stevie said. “You’re shot.”
“Yeah, but you’re alive.” He smiled up at her. “That’s all that matters.”
Heat slicked her eyes as she bent next to him. “Dad. Why did you escape?”
“Why do you think, Punk? Because I knew you’d go after him. And I…I can’t stop myself.”
“Daddy. You’re the one who taught me to be tough.”
He shook his head. “That was just in case something happened and I wasn’t around. I didn’t want to fail you.”
“You never failed me, Dad. I failed you—”
He caught his hand around her neck, pulled her down, and kissed her forehead, met her eyes when she drew back. “You saved me that night when you arrested me. That was the right thing to do.”
She swallowed. “I shouldn’t have been with Chad—”
“No. Chad shouldn’t have been with you. And he knew it. And that’s what I told him that night. And before that, too. He was going to hurt you someday, and I couldn’t wait for that.”
“You don’t have to protect me all the time—”
“Says who? I’m your father. That’s what fathers do. Don’t take the privilege away from me. It doesn’t mean you aren’t capable. It just means…” He gave a wry smile, looked away.
“I love you too, Dad,” she said and kissed his leathery cheek.
Stevie moved away, and he bent over her father, taking his pulse, then examining the wound in his side. “The bleeding has slowed, and it looks like it hit right above his hipbone. No broken bones. I’ll pack the wound, and we’ll get him into an ER, get him stitched up.” He grabbed his bag and pulled out gauze and packing. Blake worked alongside him, examining his foot.
Tucker’s hands curled over Stevie’s shoulders, and he pulled her to himself.
“You should get that knee looked at,” she said.
Newt came back. “There’s a small clinic near Denali Lodge. We’ll meet an ambulance there.”
They began to pack her father up, to load him into the SUV.
“Go,” Tucker said.
She turned. “Not without you.”
“I have a fire to fight,” he said, touching her face.
She caught his hand, wove her fingers through his. “You certainly lit my fire, hotshot.”
He grinned, one eyebrow raised. The words were awful and corny. She wrinkled her nose, her face heating as she looked away.
And then he laughed, the tenor of it sneaking under her skin, warm and rugged.
“Oh yeah, baby.” Then he lifted her chin and kissed her.
And so what that they were standing in the middle of a crime scene, the forest on fire behind them? So what that she hadn’t a clue what tomorrow might bring, if she’d ever see Tucker again.
She’d take right now, this moment in his arms as they closed around her. His mouth sweet on hers, gentle, just a hint of flame in the way he deepened his kiss, quick and delicious. He smelled of adventure, fire, and trouble.
Just what she was looking for.
He eased away from her, met her eyes. “Fun date. Let’s do it again.”
“Maybe without the shooting? The runaway prisoners?”
“Speaking of prisoners…”
Skye.
She’d come up behind them and now Tucker let Stevie go.
“They’re still out there,” Skye said, glancing at the other two marshals, then back to Stevie. “Rio and Darryl and Thorne. They’re out there, and…well, Rio is in big trouble.”
“Yeah, because he’s on the run,” Stevie said. “Our guys will find him.”
But Skye’s expression turned wan, and she shook her head, wide eyed. “I know—that’s the problem. He’s not who he says he is. And he’s in big, big trouble.”
Stevie wanted to roll her eyes. Clearly Rio had done a number on this woman, convincing her of—
Skye dropped her voice, stepped closer. “Somebody is trying to kill him—a guy named Wayne Buttles.”
Stevie stilled. “Wayne Buttles?” She looked at Tucker, then back to Skye. “Buttles is on our Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. He’s…yeah, he makes March look like a small-town hood. Human trafficking, weapons, drugs—he’s a real prize. Why is he trying to kill Rio?”
“Because Rio—and this guy Darryl—can testify against him.”
Stevie raised an eyebrow.
“Listen,” Skye said. “Rio saved my life a number of times. And I trust him. Worse…I think I saw the guy he’s running from.”
“You saw Buttles?” Stevie shook her head. “How?”
“I’ll tell you, but…I think Rio is walking into an ambush. I know where they’re going, but we have to get to him before Buttles does. Please.”
Oh…
Skye’s eyes filled. “If you don’t help me, I’ll go alone.”
Stevie glanced at her father, now being loaded into the SUV, Blake and the medic climbing in after him. She turned back to Tucker.
His jaw had tightened. “No, you won’t, Skye.”
“Yeah, I will. Just like you chose Stevie over the fire line, I need to choose Rio.”
Tucker’s mouth tightened. He looked at Stevie. “It wasn’t a choice.”
Oh, Tucker.
“I’ll go alone then,” Skye said.
Stevie met Skye’s eyes, dark and fierce, and oh, she’d seen that look before. In the mirror, actually.
Fine. Steve turned to Tucker. “Alone is not best.” She gave him a small smile, a shake of her head. “So, I guess you haven’t gotten rid of me yet, hotshot.”
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
1
Skye Doyle was going to get everyone killed.
Including herself, but that would be small consolation to the horrific burning death of her smokejumping teammates.
Throw it, Skye! Throw it!
She could still smell it...the acrid smoke, the growl of the fire, the whoosh of flames as they splashed into the brush around her. Riley’s gloved hand around hers, grabbing the drip torch…
“Skye, what are you doing? Throw the dart!”
She stood frozen, her hand poised at the dart board. Shaking.
Oh wow. Talk about killing her teammate. Handsome, dark-blond-haired Romeo stood a mere foot from the target.
Around her, the crowd of smokejumpers unwound in the Midnight Sun Saloon, a local Copper Mountain, Alaska, grill and pub, drinking beer, consuming wings and pizza, and generally trying to slough off the residue of ten days of a back-breaking, grimy, firefighting battle alongside the Midnight Sun smokejumpers out of Fairbanks. Victory. The blaze had tried—and failed—to consume a resort nestled near Chelatna Lake, some fifty miles west of town.
“I think I’m done for the night,” Skye said, handing her darts to Seth, their blond, Norwegian lumberjack. She went over to her booth and slid in, her hands shaking around her sweaty glass of Coke.
If she wasn’t more careful, she—and maybe the rest of her team—would be shipped home in body bags back to their home base of Ember, Montana.
She fisted her hands. Blew out a breath. Let in the beat of the song on the juke box—“The Boys Are Back in Town”—and stirred her Coke, one eye on her waitress now carrying chili fries to—shoot. Not her booth.
She nearly followed the fries to the table of flannel-clad locals. Her gaze fell on Tucker, her trainer, seated alone at the bar with a glass of what looked like ginger ale and a basket of wings. At the other end of the bar, Riley, one of the only other seasoned jumpers at the bar, flirted shamelessly with pretty blonde Larke Kingston from Sky King ranch. Their current base camp was a sprawling hunting and bush pilot headquarters where the team was hunkering down during their callout to Alaska.
If Riley hadn’t taken the defective fire torch from her hand and thrown it into the fire…
Skye had panicked. Just an all-out, frozen, What-do-I-do-now reaction to having her drip torch flare over, turn into a freakin’ rocket in her hand.
Not that Riley—or any of her team—had mentioned the fiasco. In fact, they’d invited her to sit with them at least twice. Good guys, all of them. Seth and Romeo from Minnesota and a couple Zulies—Hanes and Eric—who’d transferred from the Missoula team.
She scrubbed her hands—still grimy despite repeated washings—down her sunburned face. The edges of her blonde hair were curled and fried off and maybe her nose hairs too, given the acrid odor of creosote that had her gut churning.
She just wanted to sleep. She would have been happy staying home tonight, collapsing in her bunk at Sky King ranch. Not terrible digs for the team—she was used to sleeping in a grubby tent.
Or under the stars. Except there were no stars out here in Alaska. Not this time of year, at least. The sky was on fire twenty-four/seven which meant her adrenaline never died. She never stopped feeling on edge, never shut down the sense that something was going to go horribly, terribly wrong. And it would be her fault.
Be
cause she’d frozen at the moment when she needed to think. To act.
But that was what she did when life got overwhelming. Froze. Denied. Ignored. Sometimes ran the other direction, toward the next great adventure.
Except now, here in the backwoods of Alaska, she had nowhere to run.
She leaned against the booth, drank in the smells of fried food, beer, and not a little Alaskan history—and conceded that she might be in over her head.
“Ease back there, bro. Give her some room.”
Her head popped up, and she glanced over at Tucker at the bar.
Uh oh. She caught the whiff of trouble happening at his end. Tucker had gotten off his stool and stood in front of a brunette, apparently appointing himself as her keeper. The woman stood a foot shorter than Tucker, with shimmery dark brown hair, dressed in a leather jacket, black T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots and glanced at Tucker as if surprised at his intervention.
Yeah, well, Tucker pretty much thought the entire world was under his watch.
The “bro” in question was an oversized Alaskan tough guy who bore a little make-me in his expression as he stepped up, eye to eye with Tucker.
Skye glanced at the table of smokejumping teammates. Yes, they were watching, the room’s conversation dying just a little. Enough for her to hear Tucker add, “Hey, man, just…give the woman some respect.”
And Tucker was all about respect. Following the rules of society. Which was a little weird since she’d seen him on the slopes—he was a rule breaker to the core on a snowboard, taking the hill with a speed and skill, balanced on the fine edge of reckless, that stole her breath. Fact was, she was drawn to the bold, the strong, the brave.
The guy must have muttered something, because Tucker held up his hands as if I don’t want any trouble.
And probably, he didn’t. Because Tucker wasn’t a brawler. But she’d also seen him swing a Pulaski. For hours and days on end. The man had shoulders, grit and a get ’er done about him that meant Alaskan Tough Guy didn’t have a chance.
More, given the mood in the bar, Tucker wouldn’t be the only one diving into the simmering brawl. Everyone on the team seemed restless, the burning sky pouring a faux energy into their exhausted bones like a shot of Red Bull that ignited a humming under their skin, ready to flash over.