by Marnee Blake
“You should be.” Sledge grunted. “I don’t know how you got in here, but this whole place stinks of playing favorites. There’s no room for that in a job this serious and I’m going to make it my personal mission to make sure that you aren’t a danger to me or anyone else.”
“Playing favorites?” Lance laughed. “If you think I got in here because of favoritism, you’re crazy.” If he’d heard the story of his father, he knew that was ridiculous.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Sledge shrugged. “Between you and the Buchanans”—he snorted, casting a glance at Hunter—“it’s legacy stink all over.”
Hunter stiffened, his mouth tightening.
The injustice of it squeezed Lance’s chest, made him clench his fists. “Leave Hunter out of it. He’s got as much right to be here as any of us. Everyone knows Joe Buchanan only picks the best. His reputation is beyond reproach. Anyone who says otherwise will answer to me.”
“Right. Joe Buchanan, Will Buchanan. Hunt here.” Sledge nudged his head toward him. “Even their sister.” The side of his mouth tilted up. “I mean, she’s fine to look at and all, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who wonders what she had to do to get that cushy job.”
Lance moved before he thought. He ducked his shoulder into Sledge’s gut, and the two of them hit the ground. The force of it was satisfying. He caught a lucky jab to the guy’s kidney before he was yanked off of him.
Two sets of strong hands held him up, and two shoulders dug into his chest. It was only when the blood stopped pounding in his ears that he heard Hunter’s voice. “Cool it, you idiot. You’re playing into his hands.”
Logic crushed him along with the realization that he might have just thrown away all of his dreams of ever being on this or any other smokejumper crew.
What the hell had he done? Of course, Sledge was baiting him. Hearing him talk about Meg had made him lose it. But he’d never have let anyone talk about Meg like that when they were younger and he sure as hell would have none of it now.
“Roberts. Buchanan. Nunez. My office. Now.” Mitch’s face was a mask of fury.
But it was Meg, standing next to him, that struck him in the gut. She looked as if she’d stepped into a schoolyard brawl too late.
He didn’t know how much she’d seen or heard, but less was more probably.
This was it, then. Mitch spun, stalking toward the air center. Dak’s mouth was tight and Hunter’s face was unreadable. They’d been the ones to stop him, then. Not fast enough, but that wasn’t their fault. He slapped them each on the shoulder, thanking them silently.
Well, if this was it, then so be it.
A few yards away, he caught Sledge’s smirking grin. And, because he never left well enough alone, he gave the douche-canoe the finger.
That done, he didn’t wait for a response. He followed the head trainer inside.
* * * *
Mitch’s door hadn’t been closed in months. Maybe years. The jamb stuck when he tried to shut it. When he moved it earlier, for privacy during his questioning of Sledge and Hunter, dust had erupted into the air.
Lance sat outside that closed door, waiting.
Sledge had disappeared inside first. Lance couldn’t hear what was said, but he could imagine it.
Something like: Lance came at him first. And Sledge was only joking. Maybe a little bit of, should someone with Lance’s hot temper and unstable personality be able to work on a team of smokejumpers?
Lance gritted his teeth, thinking about it.
It probably got worse. Sledge, the victim. Lance, the bad guy.
To some extent, he got it. He shouldn’t have gone after him. He wasn’t a teenager. He didn’t get into those kinds of stupid fights anymore. At least he didn’t think he did. When he was younger, sure. He’d been rowdy, unfiltered. Young and stupid, flipping his shit on the regular. Here? There was too much on the line to put himself in jeopardy this way.
Surely, he wasn’t still that guy, that impulsive and hotheaded. He shifted, the possibility making him squirm.
Except…he couldn’t stand what Sledge said about Meg. It was foolish, but hearing those words fall from his mouth, words that denigrated her…it made him sick and mad in a way he’d never felt before. The only thing he had been able to focus on was shutting him up, making him pay for daring to talk about her like that.
He had to admit: that was pretty impulsive.
Sitting here for the past twenty minutes as first Sledge, then Hunter talked with Mitch, he recognized that Sledge had planned that. If Rock could see that there was some history between him and Meg, then Sledge could, too. The guy was a dickhead, but wasn’t blind. Even though Lance had been on his best behavior since he’d talked to Meg, he was sure he still watched her a little too much for a little too long. His eyes followed her when they shouldn’t.
Not much he could do about that.
It gave Sledge ammunition, though. And he’d used it.
The door in front of him opened and Hunter stepped out. He didn’t look at him as he walked by, leaving the door open.
“Come in, Lance.” Mitch motioned from his desk.
Lance stood, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants. He hated how nervous he was. It would be a whole lot easier if he didn’t care if he got thrown out of here. But he did.
He stepped inside, remaining standing in front of his desk. He could feel Meg behind him, against the wall, but he didn’t look at her. He had no idea how much she knew. Sledge hadn’t offered his nastiness about her, he was sure of it. Whether Hunter did or not was a crapshoot.
Worse, Lance had no idea what was acceptable to say. He decided to let Mitch take the lead.
“Seems you had a busy day, son.” Mitch leaned back in his chair, studying him.
“I suppose so, sir.”
They gazed at each other. Lance didn’t look away. He wasn’t ashamed of what he did. If someone else defamed Meg right now, he’d do the same thing again, in a heartbeat. If he was going to get thrown out because he stuck up for one of the most decent people he knew, so be it. He needed to look at himself in the mirror tomorrow.
“I’m letting you stay,” Mitch proclaimed abruptly.
Lance exhaled a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. “I’m staying.” He repeated the words as if he needed clarification. Maybe he did.
“Yes.” Mitch lifted his eyebrow. “This is your warning, though. I won’t tolerate fighting in my crew. If you ever pull a stunt like that again, if you’re a distraction in any way, you’re out. I don’t care what the reason is.” He glanced past Lance to where Meg was standing behind him.
As Lance couldn’t see her, he couldn’t decipher that look. She might not have heard all of the gory details, but she’d gotten enough. He nodded. “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”
The supervisor nodded back.
Lance didn’t linger. Turning, he caught Meg’s gaze. Looking away, he hightailed it out of there. The ramifications of Mitch giving him a pass—how Mitch must feel about it, how this would look to the rest of the team, what they would assume when Lance stayed after going after a teammate—he didn’t know. More, Meg wouldn’t appreciate that he connected them so personally. Not at all.
He had to keep his head down and do his job or he’d never find out what happened with his father.
Outside Mitch’s office, he rubbed the back of his neck. Even as he decided again to keep it cool, he wasn’t the sort to turn away if he felt someone needed him to step up. Especially Meg.
He only hoped that wouldn’t be the case again.
Chapter 9
It took Meg a full day to catch Lance alone. The task was made more difficult because she didn’t want to look like she was trying to get him alone. But, the night after Lance took Sledge to the ground, she found him in the loft, packing a chute bag.
Now in the second week, the
trainees had spent the better part of the past two days learning about smokejumper gear. As their field was so specialized, they needed to custom make the majority of the things they wore to do their jobs. That included their jumpsuits—made out of specialized, fire-retardant fabric and boasting pockets all over to carry gear—and their parachutes.
Each recruit was required to learn to repair the parachutes and stuff them into their bags the right way. There was a rigorous set of checks and balances to ensure that every chute was safe and ready for activity at any time. The rookies would pack and repack chutes so many times over the next few weeks, they’d be able to do it by muscle memory, or that was the plan.
Most of the time, the jumpers who needed time alone could be found up here in the loft of the bunkhouse, repairing gear and packing chutes. The constant togetherness of the air center could weigh on them, she guessed. For the most part, the jumpers thrived in the wilderness. Being cooped up inside with so much company made them all a little stir crazy. They’d come up here to do this ever-present and monotonous work and find some peace and quiet. A couple of them were even pretty cocky about their skills with a sewing machine.
That’s where she found Lance on Sunday night. The recruits had been given a few hours to leave, get some food, blow off some steam. She heard Rock and Digger ask Dak to go into town to have a beer. She assumed Lance had gone with them. Apparently not.
“Hey,” she offered. He glanced up, then back at the pack he was working on. Not encouraging. When he continued his work, his brow still tight, she tried again. “Mind if I join you for a minute?”
“Sure.” He grunted, yanking on the pack. “But, probably not best if you’re trying to avoid me. Remember? We need to stay professional.”
She debated running. She could leave, walk back downstairs. Go back to her mom’s place. She bet her mother hadn’t made anything for dinner. Over the past week, her mother’s floundering mental state had become clearer. She went to work, but nowhere else. After work, she came home, got into her pajamas and sank into the couch. Sometimes she even slept there, only waking for her next shift. If the boys didn’t have to get up to go to school, Meg didn’t doubt her mother would stay on the couch and sleep forever.
She could go home, feed her mother, try to pull some words out of her.
Or, if she wanted the easy route, she could drive back to Bend. See her friends. Shawn, the guy she’d been casually dating, called her earlier in the week, asked if she was busy this weekend. Going to Bend, though…nothing about it appealed to her. There was so much going on in Redmond. She was ashamed to admit she hadn’t thought of Shawn at all while she’d been here, and she hadn’t returned the call. She could text him, if she wanted.
Instead, she stepped into the loft. She probably could have texted Lance. She’d even debated it. But, there were things she needed to say, and she wanted to say them to his face. Texts wouldn’t do the trick.
Might as well get it done. Besides, the longer she put this off, the more awkward it would be. She didn’t want weirdness between them, had been trying to make it better, not worse.
Meandering forward, she attempted to defuse the tension. “Stuffing chutes?”
He nodded. As she gathered her courage, tried to decide how to begin, she watched him carefully fold, then refold the material until it met his satisfaction. Again, as it had repeatedly over the past week, his attention to detail and his intense drive to master everything they did here struck her. Today alone she’d mentioned to Mitch that Rock might not be taking the minutiae of tending to smokejumper gear seriously enough. While she liked him, she feared that he didn’t have the focused determination the job required. This was serious work, and he might not be able to do what needed to be done.
Lance could. She’d watched him prove it again and again.
He gathered another chute and started the ritual to pack it. She lifted one of the parachutes he’d already packed, studying it. She’d sat in on the training session. Without a word, she checked all of the points. “This looks great.”
“Yeah.” He placed his hands on top of the bag he was working on. Tilting his head, he met her gaze. “What’s up, Meg?”
His features were guarded, as if he wasn’t sure if he should ask. Or, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted an answer.
“I wanted to thank you.” She trailed her fingertips along the table they used to pack chutes, tracing the dents and imperfections in the finish. This table had been here for years, decades even. So much history. “For coming to my defense with Sledge.”
He nodded, returning his gaze to the pack. “He was an asshole.”
“Yes. But you didn’t have to say anything to him.” He still didn’t meet her eyes.
“Hunter was there,” she reminded him.
Sledge and Hunter had told wildly different stories. Sledge insisted Lance jumped him when he denigrated his job performance. He’d gone on about how someone so hotheaded was a risk to their group, how he had reservations about working with him. Mitch had listened, his face unreadable. Meg had stewed.
When Hunter came in, Mitch asked him the same simple question, “What happened?”
Her brother’s face twisted and he stared out the window over Mitch’s head. The pause went on long enough that she wondered if he was even going to answer. If it had been Joe, Hunt might have exploded, but he didn’t know Mitch, and he didn’t want to make a bad impression.
Finally, he said, “Sledge said something awful about Meg.”
His eyes found hers, his brows lowering. Maybe he disliked Lance, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from defending her.
From there, the whole sordid story came out.
Wasn’t it exactly what she’d worried about? Not so much this, maybe. She’d expected the recruits to speculate that she was given the job based on her family’s name. She hadn’t expected that anyone would assume she’d slept her way into it.
Sledge might not even believe that. From both Hunter and Lance’s reactions, he might have only wanted to see what they would do, if they’d blow their tops. As far as tests went, it was a good one.
She might not agree with it, but she understood. Still didn’t like the guy, but she got it.
“You don’t have to thank me.” Lance tugged on one of the straps. “You went to bat for me. Got Mitch to let me stay. I should be thanking you.”
“I didn’t, actually. I didn’t have to.” She shrugged one shoulder, tapping her finger on the table. “Hunter did.”
That stopped him, his hands stilling on the pack. “Hunter?”
“Yeah. I didn’t hear what Sledge said, so he filled it in. Then he said that you were protecting me, and said Sledge was out of line.”
There was a pause. Then he said, “You’ve got the whole picture, then.” He pushed away, turning to stack the three parachutes he’d bagged, pulling another to work on.
“I don’t think I do.” She’d seen her brother’s face. Hunter had been a split second from jumping Sledge. Lance had beaten him to it.
He grunted, noncommittal. Nope, that wasn’t going to work. She needed answers. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why’d you go after him? Hunter was there.”
“I’m faster than Hunter. Always was.” He still didn’t look at her.
She didn’t buy that. “You know what I mean. Why did you do that for me? Hunter would’ve handled it. Maybe not how you did, but he would have gotten the message across. Why did you go after him, Lance?”
He leaned forward on his hands, his gray eyes meeting hers. “I wouldn’t have let anyone talk about you like that before. That hasn’t changed.”
It was a vow, and she didn’t doubt it. She smiled softly, leaning against her hand on the table. “Just like another brother.”
She’d meant the words to break the tension. She could barely breathe through the str
ained conversation. He was agitated, like he was frustrated with her. It had to stop. Her job, his job…their careers depended on them being able to work together, without all this pent-up tension.
If he saw her as a sister, someone to protect, someone to tease, but not as anything more serious, it was probably better that way, from a professional standpoint. At least then, they could be friends, go back to their old comfortable relationship and leave this horrible animosity behind.
Even if they could never be more, she could use a friend.
She missed him.
Except he didn’t smile back, didn’t laugh it off, like she hoped. His gaze darted away to focus on the table in front of him as his head dropped between his shoulders.
“I’m not your brother,” he gritted out, his hands gripping the edge of the table.
She blinked, stung. “I know that.”
“Then don’t say it.” He pushed back and away from the table. He retreated two steps back, putting space between them. As if she was dangerous.
“What do you want from me, Lance?” Exhaustion crushed her. It had been a long week. She’d hoped they could figure this out, but they seemed to speak different languages these days. Maybe she should just go. “I wanted to thank you for sticking up for me. I did. I’ll leave you to whatever you’re doing.”
As she turned, determined to leave with as much dignity as she could manage, his voice stopped her. “You don’t get it.”
“No. I don’t.” She spun to find his face a mask of frustration. “When we were younger, I tagged after you and Hunter. You had to know I had a huge crush, but you never made me feel stupid. Even that one time…” She didn’t want to revisit the day she’d leaned in, her eyes closed. Her lips had probably been puckered, like some cartoon character. “Back then I knew exactly where I stood. I watched you date pretty, popular girls, and I settled for being your best friend’s kid sister. I thought we were friends. At least I hoped we were.” She lifted her hands in exasperation. “Now, though, I don’t know what the hell to think. You almost got thrown out of jump training defending me. And…”