by Anne Marsh
This was damn awkward. Did he pull his jumpsuit back up and hightail it out of there? The page buzzed angrily, and this time Evan looked down. Yeah. Incoming.
Her words hung in the air between them. He had to say something. But he wasn’t some kind of superhero. He didn’t have a cape, and he wasn’t riding to the rescue. He was just doing his job.
“I have to go.” He took a step toward the exit, and that last foot of space suddenly looked about the size of Siberia. Miles of icy white waiting to freeze a man to death. That one page had sucked all the joy out of the evening and replaced it with a whole lot of pissed.
“Yeah.” She didn’t look sure, though, and he knew he was screwing this up. That really wasn’t a news flash, but he still felt bad. How had something so smoking hot gone so cold, so fast?
“You want the keys to the cabin?” he asked, because, without him, she had no way to get back to town now. “Or you can take my truck.” He’d never let anyone else drive the beast, but he owed her. And she needed the wheels.
Her eyes widened, and he wanted to tell her she could stay put right there in the loft, too, and he’d be back as soon as he could, but why would she wait?
Instead, he tossed her both sets of keys and beat a hasty retreat.
Evan hit the lockers because he needed to get his ass into the air. Rio and Jack had beat him into the locker room again. When he came slamming in, taking out his frustration on the door, they both looked up as if they’d been waiting to razz him—and then shut the hell up when they got a good look at his face.
Yeah. He figured he wasn’t much of a Welcome Wagon.
Instead, he got busy fast, pulling on his jumpsuit and grabbing gear.
“We got an ETA?” he asked, when the silence got a little too long.
“Sure thing,” Rio drawled. “Glad you could make it. In the nick of time.”
“Five minutes,” Jack interrupted, clearly more interested in keeping the peace—and a full jump team—than in razzing his brother. “Spotted Dick’s gassed up and ready to go. All we have to do is get out there, and we’re cleared for takeoff.”
“Good.” He snagged his gloves and gestured toward the door. “Ladies.”
Shaking his head, Jack moved out. “Jesus, Evan. You check your good mood at the door?”
“Must be the company he’s keeping,” Rio observed to no one in particular. “How’s Faye doing, Evan?”
“She’s fine. You want to have a heart-to-heart right now?” He wasn’t feeling all come-to-Jesus himself, so they could back off. Covering the fifty yards to the plane’s open door suddenly seemed like it would take a fucking eternity.
“Not particularly,” Rio said, way too cheerful for Evan’s taste.
“Look, she’s up here all alone, and Mike asked you to look in on her.” Jack shot him a look. “I know you. That’s all. You like to look after the lost and lonely. Make things all better.”
“You kept us,” Rio volunteered.
“That’s different.” Evan wasn’t going to make the plane without hearing how they felt—that much was clear. But when had the three of them gotten into the business of discussing feelings?
“How?” Jack threw up a hand to hold Evan off. “No, hear me out here, Evan. She doesn’t have a place of her own, she’s alone, and—”
“She’s damn hot,” Rio inserted.
“So you start thinking about keeping her. That’s okay, but—”
“You don’t even have a cat, so a woman might be a bit of a learning curve,” Rio pointed out. “Although I hear you can learn lots from books these days. Let me know if I should be swinging by the library for you.”
“Looking after Faye is a favor to an old friend,” Evan emphasized.
“That all?” Rio stared back at him, skepticism written all over his puss. “You sure about that?”
“One hundred percent.”
Maybe ninety, because, climbing into the plane, Evan had plenty of time to admit the truth to his own sorry ass. He was in over his head. The flight deck and the jump were both familiar territory. These were his world, and he knew where he fit here and what was expected from him. Faye, on the other hand, was rapidly turning out to be uncharted, dangerous territory. She made him feel, and he wasn’t at all sure he wanted that—yet he couldn’t keep himself from thinking about her, from dreaming about the welcome she might give him after tonight’s jump.
It was just sex, he reminded himself. Really, really great sex.
She didn’t want more than that, and he didn’t have it to give.
He had no idea what to do with a woman like her, anyhow.
Sure, Jack had decided to take the plunge with Lily Cortez, and the two of them were busily planning their happily-ever-after together. Their engagement was working out well for the two of them, and Evan was happy for Jack. Whatever it was Jack had found with Lily, it didn’t take a rocket scientist—hell, it didn’t take a second glance—to see that what they had together was all kinds of special. Lily lit up when Jack hit the room, with his brother doing his own version of neon, too. They were good together.
This thing he was feeling for Faye Duncan wasn’t the same, though.
Not that his team had gotten that memo.
“Heard Evan here had a date,” Mack roared, climbing in. Joey looked interested in confirming deets, as well. Hell. That was the thing about Strong: people talked, and it was all neighborly good fun—until they got up into your personal business. There was no way to shut them down, because they were good people with good intentions. And shitty radar.
“Does this look like date night?”
Joey flicked him a mock salute and let it go, so one hurdle surmounted. Instead of making eye contact and joining the conversational roar filling up the plane’s belly, Evan concentrated on shifting his gear bag and getting comfortable. Whatever hot spot had been called in, Spotted Dick would get them there, and then it would be ass out the door, feet first, tearing toward the ground, because getting there fast counted, no matter what it took. Today they had a ride, but he’d done more than his share of ten-mile hike-ins with a hundred-pound pack strapped to his back. If there was no way to chute in, you walked. It was that damn simple.
You got there.
You got the job done.
That was what holding the line was all about.
Faye Duncan was simply a different kind of a job. A real pretty, sweet kind of a job, but a job. And, no matter how much he enjoyed his work, he couldn’t afford to forget that.
And yet a primal part of him was glad he’d marked her. Worse, he’d wanted to leave part of himself inside her. He couldn’t do that, though. It wouldn’t be fair or safe for her. But he’d still wanted to do it. To know she would carry the scent of him inside and out, on her skin and deeper.
That was fucked up, not to mention just plain wrong.
There was no right way to have both Faye and the jump team. She’d already made it damn clear that wasn’t what she wanted. He got that. She’d only recently come out of an empty marriage with her L.A. firefighter husband. With Mike. She wasn’t in any hurry to get back on the marriage train or even the love train, and it wasn’t as if these were things he’d ever thought much about himself. He’d never seen himself as husband material. The odds of his screwing up a marriage were high, and he wouldn’t do that to a woman. Or to any kids she’d have. He’d keep his screwed-up to himself. He had a job to do—and no room for Faye Duncan.
Spotted Dick gunned the motor, and they barreled toward the end of the runway and liftoff.
Chapter Ten
As the plane came around, smooth and easy in Spotted Dick’s capable hands, Evan knew the fire was going to be a bad one. The first clue was the massive column of dark smoke punching up into the sky far too close for comfort. But smoke jumping wasn’t comfortable. He knew that, too. His brothers and the team were in danger every time they went out there.
“Door’s waiting, ladies.” The spotter had to yell to be heard over the roar
of the slipstream tearing past the open door, but a grin lit up his face. The same grin Evan saw painted all over the other faces in the cabin. Hell, they were all adrenaline junkies. They should start weekly meetings or something. Hello, my name is . . . and I’m a smoke jumper.
He angled closer to the door and got his first full-on view of what they were facing today. The jump down was straight into the fucking inferno from hell. They’d had three hundred yards of drift when the spotter tossed the streamers, but the winds had picked up below two thousand feet, which was going to make a tight jump trickier. He’d jumped worse, though, so he nodded his understanding to the spotter and lined up behind his jump partner.
Jack was first up to go out the door. Evan and he bumped fists, and then Jack wedged himself in the exit, the spotter bawling last-minute instructions and warnings as he pointed out the jump spot. It was a damn small target on a narrow ridge, more of a bare patch in the forest with fire eating up the bottom of the slope and creeping toward the ridge itself. It was going to be one hell of a night.
Spotted Dick leveled out the plane.
Here we go.
Jack was fighting to stay balanced in the door, the slipstream sucking him toward the opening. The spotter’s hand rose and fell. Evan couldn’t hear the spotter’s slap hit Jack’s shoulder over the roar of the air, but Jack was out of the plane. Evan dropped down into the empty doorway, ass on the edge and feet hanging out. It was as toasty as a beach because of the fire—and it was going to be hotter than hell down there on the ground.
When it came, the spotter’s slap hit his shoulder hard, and he threw himself forward, all muscle memory. The world spun crazily around him, the plane fell away overhead, and his brain kicked in, starting the countdown to pull the chute. Jump thousand. Head down and boots up, spinning ass over teakettle at eighty miles an hour toward the fire and the mountain slope. Landing on his head wasn’t part of the plan, so he straightened himself. Now he and Jack were flying like damn geese in a formation.
Look thousand. Being heavier, he’d made up Jack’s three-second lead. When he looked over at his brother, he knew the crazy-ass grin painting Jack’s face was on his, too.
Reach thousand, and he got his Nomex glove onto the ripcord, ready to go. Pull thousand. He yanked, the chute deployed, and he flew up hard. Then it was all in the steering as he rode the wind and the air right down to a ringside seat in the biggest fucking wildland fire Strong had seen this month.
He looked again for the jump spot, reorienting himself as the wind pulled him right and then pushed him left. Shit. This wasn’t going to be an easy ride in. Jack was coming in fast on his left, steering and cursing like a bitch. There. There it was. He spotted the meadow—and the wall of mean, son-of-a-bitch pine trees ringing it on all four sides. At least he wouldn’t overshoot and fry his ass. No, all he had to worry about was imitating a pincushion. He dropped and dropped, steering like a madman and whooping and hollering for all he was worth, because this was one hell of a ride.
The ground came up fast, and the impact jolted through his steel-toes. Running, he pulled in the chute behind him. The other jumpers would be right behind him, and he needed to get clear ASAP.
The landing zone was strangely pristine. The clearing hadn’t burned or even caught yet. All pretty green, the grassy patch looked strangely normal, given the wall of black smoke punching up on their right. When he looked up, he had an excellent view of Jack—caught a good fifty yards up a ponderosa.
The freight-train roar of the fire chewing up the hillside toward them was deafening and plenty of warning that, despite the hot air, this was no day at the beach. They needed to move. Jack already had his knife out, sawing through the line. If he could curse and cut at the same time, he’d be okay.
“You’d better stick that landing,” Evan roared to the others dropping into the clearing. The second and third jump pairs were down already and rolling up their chutes. The last pair cleared the treetops, coming down fast and hard for the center. He got the hell out of the way and let them have it.
Above them, Spotted Dick held the plane steady while Mack unloaded the cargo. That gear was essential, especially the five-gallon cubies of water. No worries, though. With surgical precision, Spotted Dick and Mack put the cargo down dead center in the jump spot. Thank God. Climbing ponderosa to retrieve gear was a bitch. Behind him, there was a crash, followed by a graphic curse, and then Jack came along, sporting a long tear in the arm of his jumpsuit.
Evan wanted a look at that arm, but Jack was moving on, and that probably meant he was fine. Still, he’d give his brother shit, just to find out if Jack was feeling spunky enough to push back. “I’m not giving you a ten for that landing.”
His brother flashed him the finger and grabbed a Pulaski from the drop, sliding the ax into his utility belt.
“Yeah. Five-point-five,” Joey hollered. “You’d better go back to the ribbons routine, Jack.”
Five minutes later, with the gear unpacked and every man armed for the coming fight, they huddled up. Today, Evan was the team leader, but smoke jumping was more democracy than aristocracy. No one was shy about sharing his opinion.
After they’d hammered out a plan of attack, he leaned in to Jack. “That arm of yours okay?”
“Souvenir,” was all Jack said, and then they were moving, because that fire was roaring up the hill like a son of a bitch.
Thirty-six hours later, they’d lost the ridge and fallen back to the next one. Waterloo, Armageddon—take your pick, Evan mused. Hell, he might as well choose both, because right now, he definitely wasn’t on the winning side. The team had spent one long night of digging and sweating and digging some more until the act of lifting a Pulaski was pure torture. And yet stopping wasn’t an option, because the black column of smoke punching up over the ridge was even darker and wider than when they’d jumped. He could see it again, now that dawn was coming, lighting up the sky. That morning pink looked way less rosy from the middle of a forest fire.
The lack of any water nearby made the job harder. The tankers were roaring overhead, dropping their loads, but all that water hadn’t made a dent yet. Still, somehow, they’d get this done. Evan just had to figure out how.
The radio barked again, and he was all over it. Out here, down on the ground, that scratchy connection was vital. Without intel, fire could overrun you before you knew it.
“Johnson, Donovan, you hit the head yet?” Johnson’s voice bellowed out of the radio, loud and clear as the dispatcher identified himself. Four years out of the military and the man still sounded like the drill sergeant he’d been.
“Donovan, Johnson. Fuck, no. The fire’s perimeter is at least a half mile out from us, moving fast, and we’re not having any luck with the burn out. If the wind picks up any more, we’re not going to hold it.”
“Copy,” Johnson said.
“You got any good news for us?”
“We’ve got one more tanker headed your way, but then they’ve got to turn around and head back to base to reload. You’re going to be on your own for the next hour after that. Can you get me a closer look, let me know what you think?”
“Will do. You got updates on the other teams on the ground?”
“Sure do. Jump oh-two is holding their line about two miles southwest of you. Jump oh-three is pulling out now. They’ve got fire eating up their flank, and they can’t hold it. Wind’s looking good, though, so if you hold your line, maybe we’ll all go home tonight. Roger that?”
“Copy that. Donovan, clear.” Signing off, he rammed the radio back into its holster on his belt and took another look around the clearing. One line holding. One lost. Those weren’t good odds, and Donovan Brothers were in the hot seat here, taking the worst of it. Smaller waves of flame were running up the ridge, where the jumpers would beat them back. Not to mention fifteen feet of flame on their left flank, waiting for them to blink.
Yeah, the night had just gotten longer.
The promised tanker came in, droppi
ng loads of retardant in a long, pink stream, but the fire ate through it, circling back around as if it had a life of its own.
“We’re losing ground here.” Rio’s hard-eyed assessment earned him nods of agreement from the nearest team members. His younger brother’s soot-blackened face wasn’t so pretty now. Eyeing the fire, Rio was a mean-faced son of a bitch with one purpose. Hold the line. Unfortunately, that was looking like a suicide mission. Spot fires were breaking out, and the air was almost superheated.
“We’re going to hike out a half mile, and then we’ll dig a new line. Connect that line up with the second jump team. Third team got overrun, so they’re hiking out, and we can join forces with them. Hit this thing harder.”
He didn’t know where their inner reserves would come from, but somehow they’d push on. Thirty-six hours of hell while they dug line as if their lives depended on it, because Johnson’s radio reports said their lives did. If that fire started to run, they were down to a handful of safe spots. They had unburned forest north and west of them, which meant hauling ass to the south or east, where the fire had already burned over and there was no more fuel. Embers were falling around him, making it harder to keep a visual on the line. He needed to be able to close the distance between himself and that line if the fire started to burn over. He had to see what was coming.
“We’ve got to go.” Joey jogged toward him. “We’re losing control fast.”
Joey had been the one patrolling the burn out, watching for movement. If he said it was time to go, it was definitely time to fall back. Joey was the kind of fighter who figured he could stand nose-to-nose with a speeding truck, and—maybe—he’d step two inches left when he felt the bumper kiss his chest.
The fire had cooled some overnight, but now that the sun was coming up again, she’d heat back up. Over the roar of the saws chewing through trees, Evan checked the perimeter. And, yeah, it was bad. The fire was making a run for it, right for the trees they were working on. Worse, there weren’t any good spots here to pitch the fire shelters and wait out the burnover until they could hike out safely.