Burnin' For You: inspirational romantic suspense (Montana Fire Book 3)

by Susan May Warren

  “We have two loads,” Gilly said. “I’m going to start the run at the high edge of the canyon, then slip down into the saddle, drop the first load, and bank out to the southeast.”

  He just hoped to hold on. But she needed more than him just holding on. He reached for the yoke, added pressure with the foot pedals.

  Gilly always made flying a sort of aerial ballet, the plane moving as if an extension of her body, up and over the trees, along the ridge, dropping into the canyon along the wind currents, almost effortless. She made it seem, well, easy.

  Unless he glanced at her, took in the set of her mouth, her whitened grip on the yoke.

  They dropped into the canyon, the heat rising around them, and suddenly their ride turned to washboard as they bumped along the gusts and flares of the firestorm.

  “Hold on!” Gilly shouted.

  Oh yeah. It was a good thing he hadn’t eaten anything, because his gorge rose again. He tightened his grip on the yoke, following her lead, and fought with the pedals for control, shaking away the rising fear that they’d simply flip and nose down in a fiery ball, straight into the flames.

  He couldn’t help, also, a glance out at the right wing, just to make sure the new rivets still held under all this jarring. They were shuddering, but maybe Gilly was right—Patrick wasn’t out to kill her.

  Just Reuben and the other surviving smokejumpers from last year’s team—Pete and Conner.

  She did exactly as she said—ran them along the leading edge of the fire. And just before they reached the head, she shouted, “Release!”

  He’d already moved his hand onto the trigger, the button that would unleash a ton of slurry onto the fire. The syrupy, red liquid drifted out below them, dropping onto the flames, coating the trees, the bushes, the loamy, sizzling forest floor with a mixture of water, fertilizer, and clay.

  White smoke sizzled up from the muted flames as Gilly banked and ascended out of the turbulence.

  Once free, she came back around, surveying the damage.

  “One more drop and we’ll have that head shunted. At least until the fire can regroup—and by then the PEAK Rescue team should be able to get in.”

  She descended, heading again toward the far ridge, apparently for a repeat run.

  “Young to Eight-Seven-Alpha-November, come in.”

  Conner.

  Reuben toggled the radio. “Eight-Seven-Alpha-November, copy, Young. Come in.”

  “I’ve found them. They’re all alive—and Pete’s here. He’s already called in the PEAK chopper. Just keep that fire out of our back pockets. Come back.”

  “Roger that. Over.”

  He glanced at Gilly, offered a smile.

  And that’s when he saw it. Something shiny and gray out of the left window, shooting across their airspace.

  A bird—no—

  Gilly let out an exclamation—more surprise than anger—banked hard to miss the projectile. Reuben slammed against the cockpit door.

  “What was that?” Gilly leveled the plane, searching for the object.

  But Reuben recognized it too well—although disbelief turned him cold.

  “A drone,” Reuben said thinly. “It looks like the one Conner lost in the Cabinet Mountains a couple weeks ago.”

  Gilly shot him a look, wide-eyed, her mouth gaping. “You’re kidding me—”

  “Patrick’s a mechanic. He must have found the drone and patched it up. And then listened to our radio transmission.”

  “And now he’s trying to crash us. So much for him not trying to kill me,” Gilly said.

  Reuben’s mouth tightened. “No. I think he’s trying to kill me.”

  She came around to start her run—undaunted as usual.

  He spotted the drone again, this time aiming right for their cockpit. “Gilly!”

  She turned, saw it, banked hard left, and dove.

  The drone missed them by inches, but with the plane banking, the right wing made an excellent secondary target.

  The drone’s impact shuddered the entire plane in an explosion of metal and chaos. The plane spun, inverted.

  Gilly fought to right it, to roll them back.

  Reuben slammed his hands into the cockpit ceiling, then grabbed the yoke.

  “Foot pedals—Reuben, give me more right rudder!”

  He also added heft to the yoke, and they managed to bring the plane back to trim.

  But the wing shivered, and Reuben glanced out the window, searching for a tear in the rivets.

  Yes. There, along the strut, weakened by the previous tear.

  “We’re going to lose the right lower wing, Gilly.”

  “Not before I drop this load.”

  They hit the leading edge of the fire, plummeting toward the flames, and the entire aircraft shimmied in the air.

  With a screech, the wing fractured, the lower panel breaking free of the strut, flopping .

  “The entire wing is going to sheer off!”

  “I’m almost there.” She was gritting her teeth, rattling in the seat as she gripped the yoke, pushing them toward the fire.

  “Gilly—we have to jump—”

  “No! Not before we drop this load. Then we’ll be lighter and—”

  “Gilly!”

  His voice turned her then, and she stared at him, her eyes wide, ferocious. “What?”

  He cut his voice low, solid, piercing the rattle of the plane. “We go now, or we die.”

  “And if we don’t drop this load, the team dies,” Gilly shouted. Although the first run had worked, the team would stand a better chance with another dump of slurry.

  She glanced at him, and he stared at her, his mouth a tight line of disbelief. “Get out if you want,” she said then. “Just go—”

  His eyes narrowed slightly, and he shook his head. “I can’t.”

  Okay, she got it—they were over the fire. And too low. So she turned back. “We’ll drop the load, and I’ll get you up to three thousand, and then you can go.”

  “I can’t without you.”

  She frowned, his words reverberating through her, but she didn’t have time to argue.

  Not with the gusts threatening to roll the plane, rip it apart.

  “She’ll hold together, Rube! Trust me!”

  She could taste the smoke in her mouth, her eyes burning as it invaded the cockpit.

  “Fine—dump this load, and then let’s get out of here.”

  “I need to get lower. If we drop now, it’ll dissipate and do nothing.”

  His jaw tightened, but he didn’t argue, so she turned back in the seat, staring down at the smoke. The flames licked up through the treetops. The plane shook with the descent, and if she didn’t pull up, they’d simply arrow down into the blaze, causing another fireball.

  She eased back on the yoke, fighting against the pressure of the damaged ailerons from the lower wing.

  Next to her, Reuben worked with her, pulling the yoke back in tandem.

  The AN2 threatened to shake apart as it surrendered. Her altimeter approached five hundred, and she could have leaned out and spit on the fire. “Ready?”

  “Always,” he said.

  Ho-kay. She trimmed it level— “Release!”

  Again, the slurry fell, this time in thick blobs that dropped on the fire like paste. She could almost hear the blaze sizzling, choking, fighting for life.

  Then she pulled back on the yoke once more, heading to the skies. One thousand feet, fifteen hundred.

  And that’s when she heard it. The shudder of the lower wing finally losing it. It broke free of its mount and sheered away, dangling from the body of the plane.

  Ripped free.

  The plane yawed to the right and Reuben was on it, fighting the rudder to straighten it out.

  Miraculously, they were still climbing.

  But a horrible rush of wind behind Reuben’s seat suggested— No! Gilly looked and confirmed.

  The lower wing had taken with it the mounted right wheel, tearing a hole in the
fuselage. She could see flames, trees, smoke, and sky from the hole behind Reuben’s seat.

  Which meant they weren’t landing.

  Heat filled her eyes, but she kept climbing.

  Because she didn’t know what else to do.

  A hand on her arm—solid, a grip she knew—turned her.

  “Get us to three thousand. Then, Gilly, we jump.”

  She drew in a breath, shook her head. Turned back to the blue skies.

  “Honey—listen. You’ll be fine.”

  “I can’t, Rube—I—”

  “Yeah, you can. Because you’ll be with me. I’m not going anywhere without you.” He unbuckled and, hooking himself to the overhead bar, made his way to the back. He returned at twenty-seven hundred feet with an empty harness, his own chute already attached.

  “Put this on.” He climbed back into his seat, took the yoke.

  She stared at it, back to him. “Where’s the chute?”

  “I’m getting you out of here if I have to carry you, Hot Cake.”

  Her eyes burned, probably from the smoke.

  No. She couldn’t do this. Tears turned her world hazy.

  Reuben leaned toward her. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think God sent me here to protect you. Because you’re right—He is on our side. And we’re getting off this plane, together, and alive.”

  She looked at him then, and he held her gaze, he was exactly what she’d always known about him—solid, dependable. Strong.

  I love you, Gilly.

  The words he’d spoken at the base. Even though she didn’t deserve it.

  “Okay,” she said, and reached for the harness.

  She tugged it on while he topped off the plane at three thousand feet. What remained of the right wing had started to wobble, shake, and tremor its way free.

  Probably they had seconds before they simply fell from the sky.

  No autopilot on an AN2, but it didn’t matter. He motioned her to the back, and she tumbled into the body of the plane, nearly in the fetal position.

  Reuben climbed back and grabbed the door.

  For a moment Gilly thought it wouldn’t budge, mangled by the destruction of the wing. Then Reuben tore it away as if it were made of paste and fabric. Which, really, it was.

  Then he climbed behind her, his big legs around hers, tucking her into his embrace. She felt him buckling her in, attaching herself to him, tandem.

  The plane had started to lose altitude.

  He plunked a helmet on her head and snapped the chin strap. “When we jump, keep your arms around yourself—I’ll do all the work. Just enjoy the ride.”

  Enjoy throwing up, maybe.

  But with the plane shimmying…

  He moved them over to the door, one arm around her waist, the other on the edge of the door. “You tell me when,” he said.

  She looked at him. “No—just push us out.”

  “No! You have to do this, Gilly. It’s time for you to fly.”

  Time to fly.

  And with his legs around her, his body against her back, his arm around her waist, yeah, she could.

  She glanced at the ground.

  Then out at the pure blue sky with only tendrils of the suffocating fire, the vast, green-furred Cabinet Mountains spread out like a blanket.

  Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.

  The words slipped through her, ribboned around her heart.

  Yes, Lord.

  It was time to fly. She drew in a shuddering breath, put her hands on the door, and yelled her wits out as she pushed.

  The wing separated from the plane. It tore off just as they left the edge, the metal screaming.

  Then they were all falling. The wing, the plane suddenly nosing down, then over and over, rolling, its beautiful white belly up as it plummeted to earth.

  Gilly hung from Reuben’s arms, her own suddenly flung out. She stared at the world below as she gulped in the cool, brisk air. The fire, simmering to the west, her poor Annie plummeting over a ridge, disappearing into the green.

  Reuben tucked his arms around her, clasped his legs around hers and pulled the chute.

  They arrowed up fast, and her breath caught as their fall arrested.

  She looked up, watching as the square billowed out, a deep indigo against the ocean of blue.

  And then they were floating.

  Just soaring above the treetops. A quiet rush of wind filled her ears, but really just silence here, fifteen hundred feet above the earth.

  Not silence. Peace.

  Strapped to her parachute—actually, strapped to her, well, man—the fear drifted out of her chest like a slow exhale.

  “What do you think?” Reuben asked, his deep voice against her helmet, in her ear.

  “Breathtaking. Is this how it is every time?”

  “Not every time,” he said. And then he took her hand and guided it to the parachute toggle. “You drive.”

  She took the other toggle in her hand, and, just like in the simulator and how she’d learned on the platform, she steered them toward the creek bed.

  A gust of wind blew them away from their destination, but Reuben’s hands went up to cup hers, right there to guide them back.

  The crash came into view, her Twin Otter in pieces. She spotted Pete, Riley, Ned, and Tucker attending to Jed and CJ, strapping them to litters. Next to them, on the rocky bed, sat the red-and-blue PEAK chopper from Mercy Falls. An EMT crouched beside CJ.

  “We’re not going to roll,” Reuben said as the ground came up to them. “Just land with me, I’ll cushion our fall. Don’t worry, I got you.”

  She knew that. But the creek bed wasn’t a grassy field, and as she landed, pain speared up her leg and she cried out. But he did have her—his arm went around her waist as he pulled her on top of himself, landed beneath her.

  Breaking her fall. She leaned back into his arms as the chute fell over them.

  A silky blanket of blue.

  She didn’t kick if off. Instead, as Reuben unhooked her, she pulled off her helmet. Then she turned in his arms, lifted his visor, and as he blinked in confusion, she kissed him.

  An awkward, less-than-effective kiss, but he was all in, his arms closing around her, kissing her so sweetly, she knew…tangled up with Reuben Marshall was exactly where she was supposed to be.

  She let him go and met his eyes.

  “Wanna go again?” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I meant the jumping part, but, yeah, I like how you think, Gilly Priest.”

  She laughed, and then someone yanked the blue silk off of them, and she looked up at Pete, standing over them.

  “Do you mind?” Gilly said. “We’re having a sort of private moment here.”

  Pete frowned.

  “Team meeting,” Reuben added and reached for the chute.

  But they couldn’t stay wrapped up together on the ground with the team in need of help, so she pushed herself off of him. He helped her climb to her feet.

  He braced his arm around her and helped her over to the team.

  Their team.

  Jed was white-faced but awake as the PEAK EMTs carried him to the chopper. Kate held his hand. Gilly watched as Reuben went up to them, grabbed Jed’s other hand, and leaned into a one-armed hug from Kate. “I told you I’d be back,” he said.

  “I never doubted it.” She kissed his cheek then followed Jed into the chopper.

  Reuben helped Gilly over to CJ, wrapped like a package in the litter, an IV attached to his arm. He was drifting in and out.

  “We’re taking him to Kalispell Regional Medical Center if you want to follow us,” said the female EMT. Blonde, shapely even under her blue jumpsuit, she crouched to pick up one end of the litter.

  “Hey, Jess, let me help with that.” Pete came running over.

  They carried CJ to the chopper.

  Hannah appeared pale but stronger than when Gilly had left her. “You okay?”

  Hannah managed a smi
le. “Now we are. But you—you don’t look so good.”

  Indeed. A glance at both of them suggested, well, a plane crash, a gunshot wound, a forest fire, and maybe something else.

  A happy ending. Yes, that was the expression Gilly saw on Reuben’s face as he looked down at her, a spark of something in those brown eyes that had her thinking they should probably get back and cleaned up.

  So she could put on the blue dress.

  Chapter 10

  “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to protect you.” Gilly reached over and touched Reuben’s hand, whitened on the steering wheel.

  He released it and wrapped his fingers through hers, letting a low chuckle rumble out of him. “I feel so much better.”

  “I thought you would,” she said, grinning as he turned under the arched entrance to the Triple M, located ninety minutes southeast of Ember.

  Gorgeous. A long gravel-and-dirt drive curved toward a two-story log lodge in the distance. The lush, rolling open range filled with sage and grass undulated as far as the eye could see, dissected by groves of aspen and ragged, dark-green Douglas fir. The entire landscape butted up to the jagged, snow-tipped mountains along the eastern horizon.

  Cutting through the land, the lazy, impossibly blue Geraldine River, bordered occasionally by willows and towering cottonwoods, reflected a cloudless sky.

  Truly, Big Sky Country.

  Reuben slowed, bumping over a cattle gate, and Gilly spotted a field with freshly cut alfalfa in rows, ready to be raked into stacks or baled.

  Black Angus lounged in the grass, their tails swatting the occasional fly. Others roamed the pasture, grazing.

  “How big is the ranch?”

  “A little over nine thousand acres. We also have a private lake, although my cousin Ned calls it a pond. But he’s a Minnesota lake snob.”

  She laughed. Ned, the rookie, had left for home a few days ago, eager to get back to his small town of Big Lake for Labor Day weekend.

  “We also have about six miles of excellent trout fishing on the Geraldine River. Which was named, by the way, for my great-great grandmother.”

  “Wow.”

  “The Triple M was started by my great-great grandfather Marshall when he came over from Scotland back in the late 1800s. He had three sons, so he named it the triple M, probably intending to pass it down to them, in three parts. But the oldest returned to Scotland, and the youngest decided to find his fortune in Alaska, so my grandfather inherited the ranch. He expanded it to five thousand acres, and when my father took over, he bought out two neighboring ranches. We run about three hundred fifty head of cattle.”