No, Riley, I don’t think you can.
Larke was most definitely right. Probably saved them both from a very awkward morning.
Riley followed the path up to the lodge and headed inside.
Romeo sat at the long island counter drinking coffee while Tucker and Barry Kingston leaned over a map spread out on a table in the middle of the kitchen. A great-room window overlooked a cloud-covered Denali, blue sky beyond hinting at a glorious day.
He could live in Alaska. A man could escape, disappear from his life, hide forever in this vast state.
A massive, two-story river rock fireplace stretched to the peaked roof, and over the mantle hung a picture of the Kingston clan. Riley glanced at it briefly and spied the three brothers Larke had mentioned. She stood in the middle of them, her blonde hair down, and he shooed away the memory of it twining between his fingers, soft and silky.
Riley filled his mug with coffee, capped it, and came over to stand beside Tucker. The man wore a red bandanna over his dark brown hair, his sunglasses backward on his head as leaned over the map.
Tucker acknowledged him with a nod. He was on the line with a guy from the Bureau of Land Management, his phone on speaker in the middle of the table. From the looks of the map and the markers attached to it, the fire was about eight clicks north in Denali Park country, a fly-in-only zone.
He’d caught the tail end of the man’s words—ten acres, no tankers available, they needed to get in, knock it down, or at least slow it. Might need a reinforcement team.
Riley glanced at Tucker. Of course Jed would pick him to lead in his absence. Because Tucker did everything right. Followed the rules. Was The Guy People Counted On.
The man Riley should have been, if it’d been up to his dad.
The voice came over the phone after a pause. “Just checking, but are you guys okay to deploy? I know you just came off a fire—”
“We’re good,” Tucker said. “As soon as Barry gets the plane fueled, we’ll get loaded up.”
Riley raised an eyebrow. But yeah, he’d rather be in the fight, injured, than on the sidelines watching.
The BLM guy hung up and Tucker stayed quiet, reading the map.
“We need to get our chutes repacked,” Riley said. They still hung in the big ranch barn, next to a dozer and a sizable 5th wheel, after being checked over yesterday. And they’d better get to it because it would take hours to get them repacked.
Seth and the two Zulies wandered in.
“We could use the extras from the BLM team,” Tucker said, glancing up at him.
The Alaskan team used rectangle ram-air canopies, self-deploying instead of automatically pulled by the static line from the plane. Sure, they offered more controlled steering, especially in the winds off Denali, but the landings were harder, faster. He could handle it, but they had rookies—
“Those are squares. Not rounds,” Riley said.
Tucker seemed not to hear him. Instead, “There’s a Boy Scout camp at the base of that mountain, about three miles from the blaze. And we’re just down the road another five clicks.”
Whatever. But, “I’m in, Tuck. But you’ll need to babysit the rookies.”
Tucker glanced over his shoulder at the crew. “We did at least five jumps on rams before coming up here.”
“Yep,” Riley said. “At least five.” And he might have continued, but right then Larke chose to walk into the room.
He spied her out of the corner of his eye, her blonde hair almost white in the pale light of the morning, pulled back into a cute ponytail. She wore yoga pants and a T-shirt that read Take to the Sky King, and all he could think was…
I could be more.
Breathe. Full stop. Smile, shrug, and walk away. “I gotta pack my PG bag,” he said to Tucker.
Larke was getting coffee as he walked out, and he couldn’t look at her. For her safety as much as his. Because he’d do something stupid like walk up to her, pull her into his arms. Shoot, the way he was feeling right now, he might even lean down and kiss her, right in front of his team and…yeah. He was doing a superb job of leaving last night behind.
Riley escaped to his cabin and packed his bag.
By the time he returned, the team was assembling in front of the lodge. Tucker took roll and gave them the rundown on the fire. “It’s about eight miles north of here, about ten acres so far, but growing. There’s a wind coming off Denali that could cause us some trouble, but I’ve mapped out a strategy with the BLM, and we can definitely shut this fire down. One more thing—we’re using squares.”
Riley glanced around, looking for reactions, but even Skye just nodded.
Okay, then.
“Wheels up in ten,” Tucker said and dismissed them to assemble the gear.
Larke had disappeared.
Probably—definitely—a good thing.
Riley walked out to the tarmac and helped load the cargo boxes filled with fuel, water, fusees, chain saws, and the hose line into Kingston’s Otter. He noticed Tucker checking Skye’s gear.
Riley climbed into his jumpsuit, grabbed his helmet, and threw his chute into the belly of the plane. Checked his leg pockets for supplies—hard hat, leather gloves, letdown line.
Barry Kingston finished his walk around the plane, and before Riley could climb aboard, the man addressed the crew. Tucker had come up beside Riley.
He liked Barry Kingston, bush pilot. He wore a fraying red cap, a canvas jacket, and aviators like he might be a retired fighter pilot. Maybe he was—certainly it required the guts and finesse of a warrior to fly through the craggy mountains of Alaska.
“Before you go—I gotta pray for you guys.”
Really? Riley cocked a look at Tucker, but he was staring at the ground.
Ho-kay.
“Listen, guys. You’re headed into danger, and the only thing I have to give you is this.” He looked at Tucker. “‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.’”
His gaze turned and landed on Riley. Riley looked away, a little unnerved by the memory of lying in those green pastures with Larke last night. But he’d behaved himself, thank you.
“‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.’”
Barry finally looked past them, as if into the horizon, the future. “‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.’”
Barry made it feel so natural, as if the words were part of him. And for a second, Riley was standing with his father, listening to his quiet voice reciting his creed. “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you…”
“I am that man.”
The response was more instinct than belief, something his father had drilled into him.
Barry was praying. “Lord—You have this team’s back. You go before them to prepare the way and will shelter them as they do the job to which You’ve called them. You are their good shepherd. Protect them. Guide them. And bring them home safely.”
Okay, Riley was thumbs-up with that.
Barry finished, then looked up, straight at Tucker. “God is able. And you are able through Him. Let’s go.”
Tucker nodded, as if he’d suddenly gotten religious, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing, given their job.
Riley leaned down to grab his PG bag when a hand covered his.
Larke.
He looked up.
She had been standing behind him—maybe that’s who Barry had been looking at. She had changed into a pair of jeans, a jacket, baseball cap, and shades. He would have liked to have seen her eyes.
/> “So…” She made to reach out, as if to touch his chest, his thundering heart, then pulled back her hand. “Just—stay alive, okay?”
A smile tipped his lips and…ah, shoot. He leaned down—
She stepped back. Her mouth in a tight line. “No. I just…” She shook her head. “Last night was then. Today, I’m just saying don’t get hurt. Come back in one piece.”
Okay. Huh. But, “Sweetheart. I’m indestructible.”
“Right.” She crossed her arms. Glanced at his shoulder. Yeah, well, he’d popped enough pain relievers to keep him going for the next eight hours, maybe more.
“Trust me. I’m coming back. Alive.”
“Good.” She turned, but he caught her arm.
“When I do, I want that kiss.”
She raised an eyebrow, caught her lip between her teeth. “We’ll see.”
Oh, great balls of fire, he was so coming back, alive.
And, she’d clearly lost her mind.
Larke unbuckled as the plane lurched to a halt, having worked as spotter as they dumped the team over a cauldron of fire.
Trust me. I’m coming back. Alive.
That possibility seemed grim as the black smoke swallowed up the jumpers one by one.
This could end very, very badly. She climbed out of the plane, stalking back to the lodge.
The last thing she should be offering was a second chance for Riley to find a toehold in her heart. Or a kiss. She’d liked falling asleep in his arms—innocent as it had been—way too much for her own good.
She needed more sleep, maybe. But frankly, she’d had a very rare, nightmare-free night, woken alone, having not broken promises to herself, and felt more alive today than she had in, well, years.
And she blamed it all on Riley. The good guy in wolf’s clothing because when she’d hunted him down last night at the Midnight Sun, watching the stars under a wan moon was not on her agenda. Well, not all that was on her agenda.
And sure, she knew it was simply the lonely, broken, empty places longing for temporary healing, but…
But Riley. Who turned out to be more than she’d expected. Even when he’d kissed her goodnight on the doorstep, not even stepping a foot over the threshold of her cabin.
Keeping his word.
Good thing because she’d nearly tugged him inside.
Instead, she’d closed the door behind him and made herself not open it and run after him as he trekked back to his cabin.
She wasn’t that kind of girl. Not really. Had never been.
But a part of her wanted to be if it meant holding onto Riley a little longer.
Oh, when had she turned into such a weak-hearted mess? Hello—she’d had men leave for the front lines before. Men she cared about. Men she lost.
And she wasn’t weak.
She needed to get her head in the game and stop thinking about those devastating brown eyes, the way he looked at her as he’d leaned down—
“Larke!”
Her father’s voice turned her. He was heading toward his chopper. “Riley radioed. I need to make another run in with reinforcements. There’s a meadow not far from the drop point.”
She turned around, walking backward. “The fire is really close to the Salmon place.” She hadn’t realized how close until she saw the smoke, until they’d soared over the acreage of fire. “I’m going to check on Alicia. She’s due soon.”
“Okay. I’ll keep you posted about the fire, but keep an eye out.”
She shot a glance at the thickening black on the horizon. Stay alive. “Yep.”
She headed toward the barn for her four-wheeler. Poor Alicia’s husband currently sat in the Copper County lockup for some traffic violation. Bad timing—Alicia hoped he was out by the time the baby was born.
Larke had tried calling her on the CB before they took off, but no answer.
It had the medic inside her worrying.
Alicia lived on a dirt road off the highway, just south of the park border in the thick of the wilderness in an A-frame cabin. No phone. No internet. No electricity. Completely off-grid.
Not uncommon up here where people came to hide—or be left alone to fight their own demons.
Larke loaded up the four-wheeler with supplies—stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, thermometer, fetoscope—just in case Alicia was in labor—please, no!—and grabbed her radio. Alicia planned to birth her baby at the hospital down in Copper Mountain, but life didn’t always cooperate, did it?
And every time it didn’t, Larke lost a little piece of her faith. Her soul. No wonder she’d returned home from Afghanistan riddled with holes.
She hopped on the four-wheeler. The shortcut as-the-crow-flies route would take her an hour, maybe more.
If Alicia got into big trouble, she might call Orion, her closest neighbor, although she would have to be desperate. Larke knew enough about Orion Starr—his parents had a real sense of humor—to know he probably wanted to be left alone.
She’d first heard the rumors while on base in Bagram. A local who’d joined the Air Force and become a Pararescue soldier, Orion had lost half his team in an ambush in the mountains of the Kunar Province. She didn’t know details, but she had heard about the attack that killed two SEALs, took two hostages to be tortured and killed by the Taliban, and left four more seriously injured. The PJs had deployed to bring the wounded home and suffered an ambush. They’d lost their chopper too.
Somehow Orion, another PJ, and the four SEALs made it back to base.
She had no doubt that Orion spent most of his nights sleepless too.
She remembered him as a few years older than she, the kind of guy who knew the wilderness, trapped, and dogsledded. Occasionally his family had joined hers for projects. Since returning from Afghanistan, he’d kept to himself, tended the family homestead, and led treks up Denali as a guide.
Truth was, Alaska could be an excellent place to run. Regroup. She could hide forever under the shadow of Denali with its jagged peaks, the lush foothills filled with green alder, white and black spruce, willow, and black crowberry bushes, the boreal meadows rich with tufts of blue joint grass, lingonberry, and wild chives with their purple-headed cotton, tender white narcissus anemone.
Up here, only the pine-scented wind found her, and aside from the occasional elk, moose, or bear, she was alone with her thoughts.
Her grief.
Today is the third anniversary of my dad’s death in Afghanistan.
She didn’t know quite what to do with that admission from Riley. Or the story of his friend.
Apparently, she didn’t have the corner on grief. But she could see right through Riley McCord, thank you. Running into danger didn’t heal anything. It only kept the grief from catching up.
Maybe that’s why she’d sunk into his embrace, let herself talk about Freeman. Because with Riley she had nothing to lose.
I can be more, if that’s what you need.
She didn’t need.
But maybe she wanted.
Which probably was why she’d let herself say the words at the plane.
The fresh air was exactly what she needed to clear that craziness from her brain.
She had cut along the backside of their property, along the elk trails into the foothills and forests until she crossed a meadow and trail that led to the back of their property. The clear shot north drew her gaze, and she made out the black tuft of wildfire smoke in the distance, closer than she would have liked.
After the meadow, she cut back into the forest to meet up with the dirt road that led to the A-frame. Flowers in wooden pots lined a wide porch, and a couple of Adirondack chairs faced the west, as if anticipating a sunset.
She liked the place. Quiet, homey. Hopefully Darryl could be cleared of the charges against him and come home soon.
Larke parked next to the open shed that held the firewood fuel, an old four-wheeler, and a snowmobile. The woman needed a car or something, and it more than irked Larke that she’d been left here without transport
ation.
But Alicia was born in this wilderness, knew how to survive. And by the looks of it, wasn’t in trouble at all, the way she waddled up the trail from the tiny lake behind their house.
Larke got off the four-wheeler and hiked down the trail toward her.
Alicia waved. She carried a stringer of fish, maybe caught in one of her traps.
Larke took the rainbow trout from her. “I called you on the CB, but there was no answer, so I got worried.”
Alicia pressed a hand to her back. “I’m fine. Just achy. And fat.” She gave her a wan grin. “Ready to have this baby, if Darryl would just come home.”
Larke gave her hand a squeeze and followed her into the house.
Sunshine bathed the rich pine flooring in the one-room house. A kitchen tucked into the back with stairs that led to the loft overhead. The sweet aroma of freshly canned strawberries inlaid the place. Over a dozen jars sat upside down on a towel on the kitchen table.
“Please tell me you’re not climbing those stairs,” Larke said, setting the fish into the sink. She went to the drawer and found a fillet knife.
Alicia eased onto a kitchen chair. “No. I’m sleeping in the back.” She indicated a curtain, and Larke’s glance caught an unmade twin bed. “I can’t sleep without Darryl anyway.”
Sweet.
Or dangerous. Because as an over-the-road trucker, Darryl spent more time away than at home.
And roads were icy in Alaska.
Oh, Larke shouldn’t bring her jaded heart into other people’s lives. She found a cutting board and unhooked a five-pound trout. “Nice.”
“The lake was stocked a few years ago,” Alicia said. She leaned back in the chair and emitted a groan.
“Go lie down on the sofa. Put those feet up.”
Alicia wore an over-sized button-down shirt, closed to just above her navel, a T-shirt under it, and a pair of jeans, baggy in the back, low under her belly. Larke guessed the entire outfit might belong to her husband. She eased herself off the chair and over to a worn sofa as Larke made quick work of the fish.
She could fillet in her sleep.
She dropped the creamy white fillets into a bowl of cool water and stored them in the fridge, a propane-generated model common in the backwoods.
Summer of the Burning Sky Page 28