Chasing Fire

1

Caught in the crosshairs of wind above the Bitterroots, the jump ship fought to find its stream. Fire boiling over the land jabbed its fists up through towers of smoke as if trying for a knockout punch.

From her seat Rowan Tripp angled to watch a seriously pissed-off Mother Nature’s big show. In minutes she’d be inside it, enclosed in the mad world of searing heat, leaping flames, choking smoke. She’d wage war with shovel and saw, grit and guile. A war she didn’t intend to lose.

Her stomach bounced along with the plane, a sensation she’d taught herself to ignore. She’d flown all of her life, and had fought wildfires every season since her eighteenth birthday. For the last half of those eight years she’d jumped fire.

She’d studied, trained, bled and burned—outwilled pain and exhaustion to become a Zulie. A Missoula smoke jumper.

She stretched out her long legs as best she could for a moment, rolled her shoulders under her pack to keep them loose.

Beside her, her jump partner watched as she did. His fingers did a fast tap dance on his thighs. “She looks mean.”

“We’re meaner.”

He shot her a fast, toothy grin. “Bet your ass.”

Nerves. She could all but feel them riding along his skin.

Near the end of his first season, Rowan thought, and Jim Brayner needed to pump himself up before a jump. Some always would, she decided, while others caught short catnaps to bank sleep against the heavy withdrawals to come.

She was first jump on this load, and Jim would be right behind her. If he needed a little juice, she’d supply it.

“Kick her ass, more like. It’s the first real bitch we’ve jumped in a week.” She gave him an easy elbow jab. “Weren’t you the one who kept saying the season was done?”

He tapped those busy fingers on his thighs to some inner rhythm. “Nah, that was Matt,” he insisted, grin still wide as he deflected the claim onto his brother.

“That’s what you get with a couple Nebraska farm boys. Don’t you have a hot date tomorrow night?”

“My dates are always hot.”

She couldn’t argue, as she’d seen Jim snag women like rainbow trout anytime the unit had pulled a night off to kick it up in town. He’d hit on her, she remembered, about two short seconds after he’d arrived on base. Still, he’d been good-natured about her shutdown. She’d implemented a firm policy against dating within the unit.

Otherwise, she might’ve been tempted. He had that open, innocent face offset by the quick grin, and the gleam in the eye. For fun, she thought, for a careless pop of the cork out of the lust bottle. For serious—even if she’d been looking for serious—he’d never do the trick. Though they were the same age, he was just too young, too fresh off the farm—and maybe just a little too sweet under the thin layer of green that hadn’t burned off quite yet.

“Which girl’s going to bed sad and lonely if you’re still dancing with the dragon?” she asked him.

“Lucille.”

“That’s the little one—with the giggle.”

His fingers tapped, tapped, tapped on his knee. “She does more than giggle.”

“You’re a dog, Romeo.”

He tipped back his head, let out a series of sharp barks that made her laugh.

“Make sure Dolly doesn’t find out you’re out howling,” she commented. She knew—everyone knew—he’d been banging one of the base cooks like a drum all season.

“I can handle Dolly.” The tapping picked up pace. “Gonna handle Dolly.”

Okay, Rowan thought, something bent out of shape there, which was why smart people didn’t bang or get banged by people they worked with.

She gave him a little nudge because those busy fingers concerned her. “Everything okay with you, farm boy?”

His pale blue eyes met hers for an instant, then shifted away while his knees did a bounce under those drumming fingers. “No problems here. It’s going to be smooth sailing like always. I just need to get down there.”

She put a hand over his to still it. “You need to keep your head in the game, Jim.”

“It’s there. Right there. Look at her, swishing her tail,” he said. “Once us Zulies get down there, she won’t be so sassy. We’ll put her down, and I’ll be making time with Lucille tomorrow night.”

Unlikely, Rowan thought to herself. Her aerial view of the fire put her gauge at a solid two days of hard, sweaty work.

And that was if things went their way.

Rowan reached for her helmet, nodded toward their spotter. “Getting ready. Stay chilly, farm boy.”

“I’m ice.”

Cards—so dubbed as he carried a pack everywhere—wound his way through the load of ten jumpers and equipment to the rear of the plane, attached the tail of his harness to the restraining line.

Even as Cards shouted out the warning to guard their reserves, Rowan hooked her arm over hers. Cards, a tough-bodied vet, pulled the door open to a rush of wind tainted with smoke and fuel. As he reached for the first set of streamers, Rowan set her helmet over her short crown of blond hair, strapped it, adjusted her face mask.

She watched the streamers doing their colorful dance against the smoke-stained sky. Their long strips kicked in the turbulence, spiraled toward the southwest, seemed to roll, to rise, then caught another bounce before whisking into the trees.

Cards called, “Right!” into his headset, and the pilot turned the plane.

The second set of streamers snapped out, spun like a kid’s wind-up toy. The strips wrapped together, pulled apart, then dropped onto the tree-flanked patch of the jump site.

“The wind line’s running across that creek, down to the trees and across the site,” Rowan said to Jim.

Over her, the spotter and pilot made more adjustments, and another set of streamers snapped out into the slipstream.

“It’s got a bite to it.”

“Yeah. I saw.” Jim swiped the back of his hand over his mouth before strapping on his helmet and mask.

“Take her to three thousand,” Cards shouted.

Jump altitude. As first man, first stick, Rowan rose to take position. “About three hundred yards of drift,” she shouted to Jim, repeating what she’d heard Cards telling the pilot. “But there’s that bite. Don’t get caught downwind.”

“Not my first party.”

She saw his grin behind the bars of his face mask—confident, even eager. But something in his eyes, she thought. Just for a flash. She started to speak again, but Cards, already in position to the right of the door, called out, “Are you ready?”

“We’re ready,” she called back.

“Hook up.”

Rowan snapped the static line in place.

“Get in the door!”

She dropped to sitting, legs out in the wicked slipstream, body leaning back. Everything roared. Below her extended legs, fire ran in vibrant red and gold.

There was nothing but the moment, nothing but the wind and fire and the twist of exhilaration and fear that always, always surprised her.

“Did you see the streamers?”

“Yeah.”

“You see the spot?”

She nodded, bringing both into her head, following those colorful strips to the target.

Cards repeated what she’d told Jim, almost word for word. She only nodded again, eyes on the horizon, letting her breath come easy, visualizing herself flying, falling, navigating the sky down to the heart of the jump spot.

She went through her four-point check as the plane completed its circle and leveled out.

Cards pulled his head back in. “Get ready.”

Ready-steady, her father said in her head. She grabbed both sides of the door, sucked in a breath.

And when the spotter’s hand slapped her shoulder, she launched herself into the sky.

Nothing she knew topped that one instant of insanity, hurling herself into the void. She counted off in her mind, a task as automatic as breathing, and rolled in that charged sky to watch the plane fly past. She caught sight of Jim, hurtling after her.

Again, she turned her body, fighting the drag of wind until her feet were down. With a yank and jerk, her canopy burst open. She scouted out Jim again, felt a tiny pop of relief when she saw his chute spread against the empty sky. In that pocket of eerie silence, beyond the roar of the plane, above the voice of the fire, she gripped her steering toggles.

The wind wanted to drag her north, and was pretty insistent about it. Rowan was just as insistent on staying on the course she’d mapped out in her head. She watched the ground as she steered against the frisky crosscurrent that pinched its fingers on her canopy, doing its best to circle her into the tailwind.

The turbulence that had caught the streamers struck her in gusty slaps while the heat pumped up from the burning ground. If the wind had its way, she’d overshoot the jump spot, fly into the verge of trees, risk a hang-up. Or worse, it could shove her west, and into the flames.

She dragged hard on her toggle, glanced over in time to see Jim catch the downwind and go into a spin.

“Pull right! Pull right!”

“I got it! I got it.”

But to her horror, he pulled left.

“Right, goddamn it!”

She had to turn for her final, and the pleasure of a near seamless slide into the glide path drowned in sheer panic. Jim soared west, helplessly towed by a horizontal canopy.

Rowan hit the jump site, rolled. She gained her feet, slapped her release. And heard it as she stood in the center of the blaze.

She heard her jump partner’s scream.

The scream followed her as she shot up in bed, echoed in her head as she sat huddled in the dark.

Stop, stop, stop! she ordered herself. And dropped her head on her updrawn knees until she got her breath back.

No point in it, she thought. No point in reliving it, in going over all the details, all the moments, or asking herself, again, if she could’ve done just one thing differently.

Asking herself why Jim hadn’t followed her drop into the jump spot. Why he’d pulled the wrong toggle. Because, goddamn it, he’d pulled the wrong toggle.

And had flown straight into the towers and lethal branches of those burning trees.

Months ago now, she reminded herself. She’d had the long winter to get past it. And thought she had.

Being back on base triggered it, she admitted, and rubbed her hands over her face, back over the hair she’d had cut into a short, maintenance-free cap only days before.

Fire season was nearly on them. Refresher training started in a couple short hours. Memories, regrets, grief—they were bound to pay a return visit. But she needed sleep, another hour before she got up, geared up for the punishing three-mile run.

She was damn good at willing herself to sleep, anyplace, anytime. Coyote-ing in a safe zone during a fire, on a shuddering jump plane. She knew how to eat and sleep when the need and opportunity opened.

But when she closed her eyes again, she saw herself back on the plane, turning toward Jim’s grin.

Knowing she had to shake it off, she shoved out of bed. She’d grab a shower, some caffeine, stuff in some carbs, then do a light workout to warm up for the physical training test.

It continued to baffle her fellow jumpers that she never drank coffee unless it was her only choice. She liked the cold and sweet. After she’d dressed, Rowan hit her stash of Cokes, grabbed an energy bar. She took both outside where the sky was still shy of first light and the air stayed chill in the early spring of western Montana.

In the vast sky stars blinked out, little candles snuffed. She pulled the dark and quiet around her, found some comfort in it. In an hour, give or take, the base would wake, and testosterone would flood the air.

Since she generally preferred the company of men, for conversation, for companionship, she didn’t mind being outnumbered by them. But she prized her quiet time, those little pieces of alone that became rare and precious during the season. Next best thing to sleep before a day filled with pressure and stress, she thought.

She could tell herself not to worry about the run, remind herself she’d been vigilant about her PT all winter, was in the best shape of her life—and it didn’t mean a damn.

Anything could happen. A turned ankle, a mental lapse, a sudden, debilitating cramp. Or she could just have a bad run. Others had. Sometimes they came back from it, sometimes they didn’t.

And a negative attitude wasn’t going to help. She chowed down on the energy bar, gulped caffeine into her system and watched the day eke its first shimmer over the rugged, snow-tipped western peaks.

When she ducked into the gym minutes later, she noted her alone time was over.

“Hey, Trigger.” She nodded to the man doing crunches on a mat. “What do you know?”

“I know we’re all crazy. What the hell am I doing here, Ro? I’m forty-fucking-three years old.”

She unrolled a mat, started her stretches. “If you weren’t crazy, weren’t here, you’d still be forty-fucking-three.”

At six-five, barely making the height restrictions, Trigger Gulch was a lean, mean machine with a west Texas twang and an affection for cowboy boots.

He huffed through a quick series of pulsing crunches. “I could be lying on a beach in Waikiki.”

“You could be selling real estate in Amarillo.”

“I could do that.” He mopped his face, pointed at her. “Nine-to-five the next fifteen years, then retire to that beach in Waikiki.”

“Waikiki’s full of people, I hear.”

“Yeah, that’s the damn trouble.” He sat up, a good-looking man with gray liberally salted through his brown hair, and a scar snaked on his left knee from a meniscus repair. He smiled at her as she lay on her back, pulled her right leg up and toward her nose. “Looking good, Ro. How was your fat season?”

“Busy.” She repeated the stretch on her left leg. “I’ve been looking forward to coming back, getting me some rest.”

He laughed at that. “How’s your dad?”

“Good as gold.” Rowan sat up, then folded her long, curvy body in two. “Gets a little wistful this time of year.” She closed ice-blue eyes and pulled her flexed feet back toward the crown of her head. “He misses the start-up, everybody coming back, but the business doesn’t give him time to brood.”

“Even people who aren’t us like to jump out of planes.”

“Pay good money for it, too. Had a good one last week.” She spread her legs in a wide vee, grabbed her toes and again bent forward. “Couple celebrated their fiftieth anniversary with a jump. Gave me a bottle of French champagne as a tip.”

Trigger sat where he was, watching as she pushed to her feet to begin the first sun salutation. “Are you still teaching that hippie class?”

Rowan flowed from Up Dog to Down Dog, turned her head to shoot Trigger a pitying look. “It’s yoga, old man, and yeah, I’m still doing some personal trainer work off-season. Helps keep the lard out of my ass. How about you?”

“I pile the lard on. It gives me more to burn off when the real work starts.”

“If this season’s as slow as last, we’ll all be sitting on fat asses. Have you seen Cards? He doesn’t appear to have turned down any second helpings this winter.”

“Got a new woman.”

“No shit.” Looser, she picked up the pace, added lunges.

“He met her in the frozen food section of the grocery store in October, and moved in with her for New Year’s. She’s got a couple kids. Schoolteacher.”

“Schoolteacher, kids? Cards?” Rowan shook her head. “Must be love.”

“Must be something. He said the woman and the kids are coming out maybe late July, maybe spend the rest of the summer.”

“That sounds serious.” She shifted to a twist, eyeing Trigger as she held the position. “She must be something. Still, he’d better see how she handles a season. It’s one thing to hook up with a smoke jumper in the winter, and another to stick through the summer. Families crack like eggs,” she added, then wished she hadn’t as Matt Brayner stepped in.

She hadn’t seen him since Jim’s funeral, and though she’d spoken with his mother a few times, hadn’t been sure he’d come back.

He looked older, she thought, more worn around the eyes and mouth. And heartbreakingly like his brother with the floppy mop of bleached wheat hair, the pale blue eyes. His gaze tracked from Trigger, met hers. She wondered what the smile cost him.

“How’s it going?”

“Pretty good.” She straightened, wiped her palms on the thighs of her workout pants. “Just sweating off some nerves before the PT test.”

“I thought I’d do the same. Or just screw it and go into town and order a double stack of pancakes.”

“We’ll get ’em after the run.” Trigger walked over, held out a hand. “Good to see you, Hayseed.”

“You too.”

“I’m going for coffee. They’ll be loading us up before too long.”

As Trigger went out, Matt walked over, picked up a twenty-pound weight. Put it down again. “I guess it’s going to be weird, for a while anyway. Seeing me makes everybody... think.”

“Nobody’s going to forget. I’m glad you’re back.”

“I don’t know if I am, but I couldn’t seem to do anything else. Anyway. I wanted to say thanks for keeping in touch with my ma the way you have. It means a lot to her.”

“I wish... Well, if wishes were horses I’d have a rodeo. I’m glad you’re back. See you at the van.”

She understood Matt’s sentiment, couldn’t seem to do anything else. It would sum up the core feelings of the men, and four women including herself, who piled into vans for the ride out to the start of the run for their jobs. She settled in, letting the ragging and bragging flow over her.

A lot of insults about winter weight, and the ever-popular lard-ass remarks. She closed her eyes, tried to let herself drift as the nerves riding under the good-natured bullshit winging around the van wanted to reach inside and shake hands with her own.

Janis Petrie, one of the four females in the unit, dropped down beside her. Her small, compact build had earned her the nickname Elf, and she looked like a perky head cheerleader.

This morning, her nails sported bright pink polish and her shiny brown hair bounced in a tail tied with a circle of butterflies.

She was pretty as a gumdrop, tended to giggle, and could—and did—work a saw line for fourteen hours straight.

“Ready to rock, Swede?”

“And roll. Why would you put on makeup before this bitch of a test?”

Janis fluttered her long, lush lashes. “So these poor guys’ll have something pretty to look at when they stumble over the finish line. Seeing as I’ll be there first.”

“You are pretty damn fast.”

“Small but mighty. Did you check out the rookies?”

“Not yet.”

“Six of our kind in there. Maybe we’ll add enough women for a nice little sewing circle. Or a book club.”

Rowan laughed. “And after, we’ll have a bake sale.”

“Cupcakes. Cupcakes are my weakness. It’s such pretty country.” Janis leaned forward a little to get a clearer view out the window. “I always miss it when I’m gone, always wonder what I’m doing living in the city doing physical therapy on country club types with tennis elbow.”

She blew out a breath. “Then by July I’ll be wondering what I’m doing out here, strung out on no sleep, hurting everywhere, when I could be taking my lunch break at the pool.”

“It’s a long way from Missoula to San Diego.”

“Damn right. You don’t have that pull-tug. You live here. For most of us, this is coming home. Until we finish the season and go home, then that feels like home. It can cross up the circuits.”

She rolled her warm brown eyes toward Rowan as the van stopped. “Here we go again.”

Rowan climbed out of the van, drew in the air. It smelled good, fresh and new. Spring, the kind with green and wildflowers and balmy breezes, wouldn’t be far off now. She scouted the flags marking the course as the base manager, Michael Little Bear, laid out requirements.

His long black braid streamed down his bright red jacket. Rowan knew there’d be a roll of Life Savers in the pocket, a substitute for the Marlboros he’d quit over the winter.

L.B. and his family lived a stone’s throw from the base, and his wife worked for Rowan’s father.

Everyone knew the rules. Run the course, and get it done in under 22:30, or walk away. Try it again in a week. Fail that? Find a new summer job.

Rowan stretched out—hamstrings, quads, calves.

“I hate this shit.”

“You’ll make it.” She gave him an elbow in the belly. “Think of a meat-lover’s pizza waiting for you on the other side of the line.”

“Kiss my ass.”

“The size it is now? That’d take me a while.”

He snorted out a laugh as they lined up.

She calmed herself. Got in her head, got in her body, as L.B. walked back to the van. When the van took off, so did the line. Rowan hit the timer button on her watch, merged with the pack. She knew every one of them—had worked with them, sweated with them, risked her life with them. And she wished them—every one—good luck and a good run.

But for the next twenty-two and thirty, it was every man—and woman—for himself.

She dug in, kicked up her pace and ran for, what was in a very large sense, her life. She made her way through the pack and, as others did, called out encouragement or jibes, whatever worked best to kick asses into gear. She knew there would be knees aching, chests hammering, stomachs churning. Spring training would have toned some, added insult to injuries on others.

She couldn’t think about it. She focused on mile one, and when she passed the marker, noted her time at 4:12.

Mile two, she ordered herself, and kept her stride smooth, her pace steady—even when Janis passed her with a grim smile. The burn rose up from her toes to her ankles, flowed up her calves. Sweat ran hot down her back, down her chest, over her galloping heart.

She could slow her pace—her time was good—but the stress of imagined stumbles, turned ankles, a lightning strike from beyond, pushed her.

Don’t let up.

When she passed mile two she’d moved beyond the burn, the sweat, into the mindless. One more mile. She passed some, was passed by others, while her pulse pounded in her ears. As before a jump, she kept her eyes on the horizon—land and sky. Her love of both whipped her through the final mile.

She blew past the last marker, heard L.B. call out her name and time. Tripp, fifteen-twenty. And ran another twenty yards before she could convince her legs it was okay to stop.

Bending from the waist, she caught her breath, squeezed her eyes tightly shut. As always after the PT test she wanted to weep. Not from the effort. She—all of them—faced worse, harder, tougher. But the stress clawing at her mind finally retracted.

She could continue to be what she wanted to be.

She walked off the run, tuning in now as other names and times were called out. She high-fived with Trigger as he crossed three miles.

Everyone who passed stayed on the line. A unit again, all but willing the rest to make it, make that time. She checked her watch, saw the deadline coming up, and four had yet to cross.

Cards, Matt, Yangtree, who’d celebrated—or mourned—his fiftyfourth birthday the month before, and Gibbons, whose bad knee had him nearly hobbling those last yards.

Cards wheezed in with three seconds to spare, with Yangtree right behind him. Gibbons’s face was a sweat-drenched study in pain and grit, but Matt? It seemed to Rowan he barely pushed.

His eyes met hers. She pumped her fist, imagined herself dragging him and Gibbons over the last few feet while the seconds counted down. She swore she could see the light come on, could see Matt reaching in, digging down.

He hit at 22:28, with Gibbons stumbling over a half second behind.

The cheer rose then, the triumph of one more season.

“Guess you two wanted to add a little suspense.” L.B. lowered his clipboard. “Welcome back. Take a minute to bask, then let’s get loaded.”

“Hey, Ro!” She glanced over at Cards’s shout, in time to see him turn, bend over and drop his pants. “Pucker up!”

And we’re back, she thought.

2

Gulliver Curry rolled out of his sleeping bag and took stock. Everything hurt, he decided. But that made a workable balance.

He smelled snow, and a look out of his tent showed him, yes, indeed, a couple fresh inches had fallen overnight. His breath streamed out in clouds as he pulled on pants. The blisters on his blisters made dressing for the day an... experience.

Then again, he valued experience.

The day before, he, along with twenty-five other recruits, had dug fire line for fourteen hours, then topped off that little task with a three-mile hike, carrying an eighty-five-pound pack.

They’d felled trees with crosscut saws, hiked, dug, sharpened tools, dug, hiked, scaled the towering pines, then dug some more.

Summer camp for the masochist, he thought. Otherwise known as rookie training for smoke jumpers. Four recruits had already washed out—two of them hadn’t gotten past the initial PT test. His seven years’ fire experience, the last four on a hotshot crew, gave Gull some advantage.

But that didn’t mean he felt fresh as a rosebud.

He rubbed a hand over his face, scratching his palm over bristles from nearly a week without a razor. God, he wanted a hot shower, a shave and an ice-cold beer. Tonight, after a fun-filled hike through the Bitterroots, this time hauling a hundred-and-ten-pound pack, he’d get all three.

And tomorrow, he’d start the next phase. Tomorrow he’d start learning how to fly.

Hotshots trained like maniacs, worked like dogs, primarily on highpriority wilderness fires. But they didn’t jump out of planes. That, he thought, added a whole new experience. He shoved a hand through his thick mass of dark hair, then crawled out of the tent into the crystal snowscape of predawn.

His eyes, feline green, tracked up to check the sky, and he stood for a moment in the still, tall and tough in his rough brown pants and bright yellow shirt. He had what he wanted here—or pieces of it—the knowledge that he could do what he’d come to do.

He measured the height of the ponderosa pine to his left. Ninety feet, give or take. He’d walked up that bastard the day before, biting his gaffs into bark. And from that height, hooked with spikes and harness, he’d gazed out over the forest.

An experience.

Through the scent of snow and pine, he headed toward the cook tent as the camp began to stir. And despite the aches, the blisters—maybe because of them—he looked forward to what the day would bring.

Shortly after noon, Gull watched the lodgepole pine topple. He shoved his hard hat back enough to wipe sweat off his forehead and nodded to his partner on the crosscut saw.

“Another one bites the dust.”

Dobie Karstain barely made the height requirement at five six. His beard and stream of dung brown hair gave him the look of a pint-sized mountain man, while the safety goggles seemed to emphasize the wild, wide eyes.

Dobie hefted a chain saw. “Let’s cut her into bite-sized pieces.”

They worked rhythmically. Gull had figured Dobie for a washout, but the native Kentuckian was stronger, and sturdier, than he looked. He liked Dobie well enough—despite the man’s distinctly red neck—and was working on reaching a level of trust.

If Dobie made it through, odds were they’d be sawing and digging together again. Not on a bright, clear spring afternoon, but in the center of fire where trust and teamwork were as essential as a sharp Pulaski, the two-headed tool with ax and grub hoe.

“Wouldn’t mind tapping that before she folds.”

Gull glanced over at one of the female recruits. “What makes you think she’ll fold?”

“Women ain’t built for this work, son.”

Gull drew the blade of the saw through the pine. “Just for babymaking, are they?”

Dobie grinned through his beard. “I didn’t design the model. I just like riding ’em.”

“You’re an asshole, Dobie.”

“Some say,” Dobie agreed in the same good-natured tone.

Gull studied the woman again. Perky blond, maybe an inch or two shy of Dobie’s height. And from his point of view, she’d held up as well as any of them. Ski instructor out of Colorado, he recalled. Libby. He’d seen her retaping her blisters that morning.

“I got twenty says she makes it all the way.”

Dobie chuckled as another log rolled. “I’ll take your twenty, son.”

When they finished their assignment, Gull retaped some of his own blisters. Then, as the instructors were busy, taped Dobie’s fresh ones.

They moved through the camp to their waiting packs. Three miles to go, Gull thought, then he’d end this fine day with that shave, shower and cold beer.

He sat, strapped on the pack, then pulled out a pack of gum. He offered a stick to Dobie.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Together they rolled over to their hands and knees, then pushed to standing.

“Just imagine you’re carrying a pretty little woman,” Dobie advised, with a wiggle of eyebrows in Libby’s direction.

“A buck-ten’s pretty scrawny for my taste.”

“She’ll feel like more by the time we’re done.”

No question about it, Gull mused, and the instructor didn’t set what you’d call a meandering pace along the rocky, quad-burning trail.

They pushed one another, that’s how it was done. Ragged one another, encouraged one another, insulted one another, to get the group another step, another yard. The spurring fact was, in a few weeks it would be real. And on the fire line everyone’s life depended on the other.

“What do you do back in Kentucky?” Gull asked Dobie while a hawk screamed overhead and the smell of group sweat competed with pine.

“Some of this, some of that. Last three seasons I doused fires in the national forest. One night after we beat one down, I got a little drunk, took a bet how I’d be a smoke jumper. So I got an application, and here I am.”

“You’re doing this on a bet?” The idea just appealed to his sense of the ridiculous.

“Hundred dollars on the line, son. And my pride that’s worth more. You ever jump out of a plane?”

“Yeah.”

“Takes the crazy.”

“Some might say.” Gull passed Dobie’s earlier words back to him.

“What’s it feel like? When you’re falling?”

“Like hot, screaming sex with a beautiful woman.”

“I was hoping.” Dobie shifted his pack, winced. “Because this fucking training better be worth it.”

“Libby’s holding up.”

“Who?”

Gull lifted his chin. “Your most recent bet.”

Dobie gritted his teeth as they started up yet another incline. “Day’s not over.”

By the time it was, Gull got his shower, his shave, and managed to grab a brew before falling facedown on his bunk.

Michael Little Bear snagged Rowan on her way into the gym. “I need you to take rookie training this morning. Cards was on it, but he’s puking up his guts in the john.”

“Hangover?”

“No. Stomach flu or something. I need you to run them on the playground. Okay?”

“Sure. I’m already on with Yangtree, on the slam-ulator. I can make a day eating rooks. How many do we have?”

“Twenty-five left, and they look pretty damn good. One beat the base record on the mile-and-a-half course. Nailed it in six-thirty-nine.”

“Fast feet. We’ll see how the rest of him does today.”

She knocked thirty minutes off her planned ninety in the gym. Taking the recruits over the obstacle course would make up for it, and meant she’d just skated out of a stint sewing personal gear bags in the manufacturing room.

Damn good deal, Rowan thought as she put on her boots.

She grabbed the paperwork, a clipboard, a water bottle and, fixing a blue ball cap on her head, headed outside.

Clouds had rolled in overnight and tucked the warm in nicely. Activity swarmed the base—runners on the track or the road, trucks off-loaded supplies, men and women crossed from building to building. A plane taxied out taking a group up for a preseason practice jump.

Long before the fire siren screamed, work demanded attention. Sewing, stuffing, disassembling equipment, training, packing chutes.

She started toward the training field, pausing when she crossed paths with Matt.

“What’re you on?” he asked her.

“Rook detail. Cards is down with some stomach deal. You?”

“I’m up this afternoon.” He glanced skyward as the jump plane rose into the air. “I’m in the loadmaster’s room this morning.” He smiled. “Want to trade?”

“Hmm, stuck inside loading supplies or out here torturing rookies? No deal.”

“Figured.”

She continued on, noting the trainees were starting to gather on the field. They’d come in from a week of camping and line work, and if they had any brains would’ve focused on getting a good night’s sleep.

Those who had would probably feel pretty fresh this morning.

She’d soon take care of that.

A few of them wandered the obstacle course, trying to get a gauge. Smart, she judged. Know your enemy. Voices and laughter carried on the air. Pumping themselves up—and that was smart, too.

The obstacle course was a bitch of the first order, and it was only the start of a long, brutal day. She checked her watch as she moved through the wooden platforms, took her place on the field.

She took a swig from her water bottle, then set it aside. And let out a long, shrill whistle. “Line up,” she called out. “I’m Rowan Tripp, your instructor on this morning’s cakewalk. Each of you will be required to complete this course before moving on to the next exercise. The campfire songs and roasted marshmallows of the last week are over. It’s time to get serious.”

She got a few moans, a few chuckles, some nervous glances as she sized up the group. Twenty-one men, four women, different sizes, shapes, colors, ages. Her job was to give them one purpose.

Work through the pain.

She consulted her clipboard, did roll call, checked off the names of those who’d made it this far. “I hear one of you rooks beat the base record on the mile-and-a-half. Who’s the flash?”

“Go, Gull!” somebody shouted, and she watched the little guy elbow bump the man next to him.

About six-two, she judged, dark hair clean and shaggy, cocky smile, easy stance. “Gull Curry,” he said. “I like to run.”

“Good for you. Speed won’t get you through the playground. Stretch out, recruits. I don’t want anybody crying about pulled muscles.”

They’d already formed a unit, she determined, and the smaller connections within it. Friendships, rivalries—both could be useful.

“Fifty push-ups,” she ordered, noting them down as they were completed.

“I’m going to lead you over this course, starting here.” She gestured at the low platform of horizontal squares, moved on to the steep steel walls they’d need to hurdle, the ropes they’d climb, hand over hand, the trampoline flips, the ramps.

“Every one of these obstacles simulates something you will face during a fire. Get one done, hit the next. Drop out? You’re done. Finish it, you might just be good enough to jump fire.”

“Not exactly Saint Crispin’s Day.”

“Who?” Dobie asked at Gull’s mutter.

He only shrugged, and figured by the sidelong glance the bombshell blonde sent him, she’d heard the remark.

“You, Fast Feet, take the lead. The rest of you, fall in behind him. Single file. If you fall, get your ass out of the way, pick up the rear for a second shot.”

She pulled a stopwatch out of her pocket. “Are you ready?”

The group shouted back, and Rowan hit the timer. “Go!”

Okay, Rowan thought, fast feet and nimble feet.

“Pick up those knees!” she shouted. “Let’s see some energy. For Christ’s sake, you look like a bunch of girls strolling in the park.”

“I am a girl!” a steely-eyed blonde shouted back, and made Rowan grin.

“Then pick up those knees. Pretend you’re giving one of these assholes a shot in the balls.”

She kept pace with Gull, jogging back as he raced for, charged up, then hurdled the first ramp.

Then the little guy surprised her by all but launching over it like a cannon.

They climbed, hurdled, crawled, clawed. L.B. was right, she decided. They were a damn good group.

She watched Gull execute the required flips and rolls on the tramp, heard the little guy—she needed to check his name—let out a wild yeehaw as he did the same.

Fast feet, she thought again, still in the lead, and damned if he didn’t go up the rope like a monkey on a vine.

The blonde had made up ground, but when she hit the rope, she not only stalled, but started to slip.

“Don’t you slide!” Rowan shouted it out, put a whiplash into it. “Don’t you slide, Barbie, goddamn it, and embarrass me. Do you want to start this mother over?”

“No. God, no.”

“Do you want to jump fire or go back home and shop for shoes?”

“Both!”

“Climb it.” Rowan saw the blood on the rope. A slide ripped the skin right off the palms, and the pain was huge. “Climb!”

She climbed, forty torturous feet.

“Get down, move on. Go! Go!”

She climbed down, and when she hurdled the next wall, left a bloodstain on the ramp.

But she did it. They all did, Rowan thought, and gave them a moment to wheeze, to moan, to rub out sore muscles.

“Not bad. Next time you have to climb a rope or scale a wall it might be because the wind shifted and fire just washed over your safe zone. You’ll want to do better than not bad. What’s your name—I’m a Girl Barbie?”

“Libby.” The blonde rested her bloody hands on her knees, palms up. “Libby Rydor.”

“Anybody who can climb up a rope when her hands are bleeding did better than not bad.” Rowan opened the first-aid kit. “Let’s fix them up. If anybody else got any boo-boos, tend to them, then head in, get your gear. Full gear,” she added, “for practice landings. You got thirty.”

Gull watched her apply salve to Libby’s palms, competently bandage them. She said something that made Libby—and those hands had to hurt—laugh.

She’d pushed the group through the course, hitting the right combination of callous insult and nagging. And she’d zeroed in on a few as they’d had trouble, found the right thing to say at the right time.

That was an impressive skill, one he admired.

He could add it to his admiration of the rest of her.

That blonde was built, all maybe five feet ten inches of her. His uncle would have dubbed her statuesque, Gull mused. Himself? He just had to say that body was a killer. Add big, heavy-lidded blue eyes and a face that made a man want to look twice, then maybe linger a little longer for a third time, and you had a hell of a package.

A package with attitude. And God, he had a hard time resisting attitude. So he stalled until she crossed the field, then fell into step beside her.

“How are Libby’s hands?”

“She’ll be okay. Everybody loses a little skin on the playground.”

“Did you?”

“If you don’t bleed, how do they know you’ve been there?” She angled her head, studied him with eyes that made him think of stunning arctic ice. “Where are you out of, Shakespeare? I’ve read Henry the Fifth.”

“Monterey, mostly.”

“They’ve got a fine smoke-jumper unit in Northern California.”

“They do. I know most of them. I worked Redding IHC, five years.”

“I figured you for a hotshot. So, you’re wanted in California so you headed to Missoula?”

“The charges were dropped,” he said, and made her smile. “I’m in Missoula because of Iron Man Tripp.” He stopped when she did. “I’m figuring he must be your father.”

“That’s right. Do you know him?”

“Of course. Lucas ‘Iron Man’ Tripp’s a legend. You had a bad one out here in 2000.”

“Yeah.”

“I was in college. It was all over the news, and I caught this interview with Iron Man, right here on base, after he and his unit got back from four days in the mouth of it.”

Gull thought back, brought it into the now in his head. “His face is covered with soot, his hair’s layered with ash, his eyes are red. He looks like he’s been to war, which is accurate enough. The reporter’s asking the usual idiot questions. ‘How did it feel in there? Were you afraid?’ And he’s being patient. You can tell he’s exhausted, but he’s answering. And finally he says to the guy, ‘Boy, the simplest way to put it is the bitch tried to eat us, and we kicked her ass.’ And he walks away.”

She remembered it as clearly as he did—and remembered a lot more. “And that’s why you’re in Missoula looking to jump fire?”

“Consider it a springboard. I could give you the rest of it over a beer.”

“You’re going to be too busy for beer and life stories. Better get your gear on. You’ve got a long way to go yet.”

“Offer of beer’s always open. Life story optional.”

She gave him that look again, the slight angle of the head, the little smirk on the mouth that he found sexily bottom-heavy. “You don’t want to hit on me, hotshot. I don’t hook up with rookies, snookies or other smoke jumpers. When I’ve got the time and inclination for... entertainment, I look for a civilian. One I can play with when I’m in the mood over the long winter nights and forget about during the season.”

Oh, yeah, he did like attitude. “You might be due for a change of pace.”

“You’re wasting your time, rook.”

When she strolled off with her clipboard, he let himself grin. He figured it was his time to waste. And she struck him as a truly unique experience.

Gull survived being dragged up in the air by a cable, then dropped down to earth again. The not altogether fondly dubbed slam-ulator did a damn good job of simulating the body-jarring, ankle-and-knee-shocking slam of a parachute landing.

He slapped, tucked, dropped and rolled, and he took his lumps, bumps and bruises. He learned how to protect his head, how to use his body to preserve his body. And how to think when the ground was hurtling up toward him at a fast clip.

He faced the tower, climbing its fifty feet of murderous red with his jump partner for the drill.

“How ya doing?” he asked Libby.

“I feel like I fell off a mountain, so not too bad. You?”

“I’m not sure if I fell off the mountain or on it.” When he reached the platform, he grinned at Rowan. “Is this as much fun as it looks?”

“Oh, more.” Sarcasm dripped as she hooked him to the pully. “There’s your jump spot.” She gestured to a hill of sawdust across the training field. “There’s going to be some speed on the swing over, so you’re going to feel it when you hit. Tuck, protect your head, roll.”

He studied the view of the hill. It looked damn small from where he was standing, through the bars of his face mask.

“Got it.”

“Are you ready?” she asked them both.

Libby took a deep breath. “We’re ready.”

“Get in the door.”

Yeah, it had some speed, Gull thought as he flew across the training field. He barely had time to go through his landing list when the sawdust hill filled his vision. He slammed into it, thought fuck!, then tucked and rolled with his hands on either side of his helmet.

Willing his breath back into his lungs, he looked over at Libby. “Okay?”

“Definitely on the mountain that time. But you know what? That was fun. I’ve got to do it again.”

“Day’s young.” He shoved to his feet, held out a hand to pull her to hers.

After the tower came the classroom. His years on a hotshot crew meant most of the books, charts, lectures were refreshers on what he already knew. But there was always more to learn.

After the classroom there was time, at last, to nurse the bumps and bruises, to find a hot meal, to hang out a bit with the other recruits. Down to twenty-two, Gull noted. They’d lost three between the simulator and the tower.

More than half of those still in training turned in for the night, and Gull thought of doing so himself. The poker game currently underway tempted him so he made a bargain with himself. He’d get some air, then if the urge still tickled, he’d sit in on a few hands.

“Pull up a chair, son,” Dobie invited as Gull walked by the table. “I’m looking to add to my retirement account.”

“Land on your head a few more times, you’ll be retiring early.”

Gull kept walking. Outside the rain that had threatened all day fell cool and steady. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he walked into the wet. He turned toward the distant hangar. Maybe he’d wander over, take a look at the plane he’d soon be jumping out of.

He’d jumped three times before he’d applied for the program, just to make sure he had the stomach for it. Now he was anxious, eager to revisit that sensation, to defy his own instincts and shove himself into the high open air.

He’d studied the planes—the Twin Otter, the DC-9—the most commonly used for smoke jumping. He toyed with the idea of taking flying lessons in the off-season, maybe going for his pilot’s license. It never hurt to know you could take control if control needed to be taken.

Then he saw her striding toward him through the rain. Dark and gloom didn’t blur that body. He slowed his pace. Maybe he didn’t need to play poker for this to be his lucky night.

“Nice night,” he said.

“For otters.” Rain dripped off the bill of Rowan’s cap as she studied him. “Making a run for it?”

“Just taking a walk. But I’ve got a car if there’s somewhere you want to go.”

“I’ve got my own ride, thanks, but I’m not going anywhere. You did okay today.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s too bad about Doggett. Bad landing, and a hairline fracture takes him out of the program. I’m figuring he’ll come back next year.”

“He wants it,” Gull agreed.

“It takes more than want, but you’ve got to want it to get it.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

On a half laugh, Rowan shook her head. “Do women ever say no to you?”

“Sadly, yes. Then again, a man who just gives up never wins the prize.”

“Believe me, I’m no prize.”

“You’ve got hair like a Roman centurion, the body of a goddess and the face of a Nordic queen. That’s a hell of a package.”

“The package isn’t the prize.”

“No, it’s not. But it sure makes me want to open it up and see what’s in there.”

“A mean temper, a low bullshit threshold and a passion for catching fire. Do yourself a favor, hotshot, and pull somebody else’s shiny ribbon.”

“I’ve got this thing, this... focus. Once I focus on something, I just can’t seem to quit until I figure it all the way out.”

She gave a careless shrug, but she watched him, he noted, with care. “Nothing to figure.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said when she started into the dorm. “I got you to take a walk in the rain with me.”

With one hand on the door, she turned, gave him a pitying smile. “Don’t tell me there’s a romantic in there.”

“Might be.”

“Better be careful then. I might use you just because you’re handy, then crush that romantic heart.”

“My place or yours?”

She laughed—a steamy brothel laugh that shot straight to his loins—then shut the door, metaphorically at least, in his face.

Damned if he hadn’t given her a little itch, she admitted. She liked confident men—men who had the balls, the brains and the skills to back it up. That, and the cat-at-the-mousehole way he looked at her—desire and bottomless patience—brought on a low sexual hum.

And picking up that tune would be a mistake, she reminded herself, then tapped lightly on Cards’s door. She took his grunt as permission to poke her head in.

He looked, to her eye, a little pale, a lot bored and fairly grungy. “How’re you feeling?”

“Shit, I’m okay. Got some bug in my gut this morning. Puked it, and a few internal organs, up.” He sat on his bed, cards spread in front of him. “Managed some time in manufacturing, kept dinner down okay. Just taking it easy till tomorrow. Appreciate you covering for me.”

“No problem. We’re down to twenty-two. One of them’s out with an injury. I think we’ll see him back. See you in the morning then.”

“Hey, want to see a card trick? It’s a good one,” he said before she could retreat.

Tired of his own company, she decided, and gave in to friendship and sat across from him on the bed.

Besides, watching a few lame card tricks was a better segue into sleep than thinking about walking in the rain with Gulliver Curry.

3

Gull lined up in front of the ready room with the other recruits. Across the asphalt the plane that would take them up for their first jump roared, while along the line nerves jangled.

Instructors worked their way down, doing buddy checks. Gull figured his luck was in when Rowan stepped to him. “Have you been checked?”

“No.”

She knelt down so he studied the way her sunflower hair sculpted her head. She checked his boots, his stirrups, worked her way up—leg pockets, leg straps—checked his reserve chute’s expiration date, its retainer pins.

“You smell like peaches.” Her eyes flicked to his. “It’s nice.”

“Lower left reserve strap attached,” she said, continuing her buddy check without comment. “Lower right reserve strap attached. Head in the game, Fast Feet,” she added, then moved on up the list. “If either of us misses a detail, you could be a smear on the ground. Helmet, gloves. You got your letdown rope?”

“Check.”

“You’re good to go.”

“How about you?”

“I’ve been checked, thanks. You’re clear to board.” She moved down to the next recruit.

Gull climbed onto the plane, took a seat on the floor beside Dobie.

“You looking to tap that blonde?” Dobie asked. “The one they call Swede?”

“A man has to have his dreams. You’re getting closer to owing me twenty,” Gull added when Libby ducked through the door.

“Shit. She ain’t jumped yet. I got ten right now says she balks.”

“I can use ten.”

“Welcome aboard,” Rowan announced. “Please bring your seats to their full upright position. Our flying time today will depend on how many of you cry like babies once you’re in the door. Gibbons will be your spotter. Pay attention. Stay in your heads. Are you ready to jump?”

The answer was a resounding cheer.

“Let’s do it.”

The plane taxied, gained speed, lifted its nose. Gull felt the little dip in the gut as they left the ground. He watched Rowan, flat-out sexy to his mind in her jumpsuit, raise her voice over the engines and—once again—go over every step of the upcoming jump.

Gibbons passed her a note from the cockpit.

“There’s your jump site,” she told them, and every recruit angled for a window.

Gull studied the roll of the meadow—pretty as a picture—the rise of Douglas firs, lodgepole pines, the glint of a stream. The job—once he took the sky—would be to hit the meadow, avoid the trees, the water. He’d be the dart, he thought, and he wanted a bull’s-eye.

When Gibbons pigged in, Rowan shouted for everyone to guard their reserves. Gibbons grabbed the door handles, yanked, and air, cool and sweet with spring, rushed in.

“Holy shit.” Dobie whistled between his teeth. “We’re doing it. Real deal. Accept no substitutes.”

Gibbons stuck his head out into that rush of air, consulted with the cockpit through his headset. The plane banked right, bumped, steadied.

“Watch the streamers,” Rowan called out. “They’re you.”

They snapped and spun, circled out into miles of tender blue sky. And sucked into the dense tree line.

Gull adjusted his own jump in his head, mentally pulling on his toggles, considering the drift. Adjusted again as he studied the fall of a second set of streamers.

“Take her up!” Gibbons called out.

Dobie stuffed a stick of gum in his mouth before he put on his helmet, offered one to Gull. Behind his face mask, Dobie’s eyes were big as planets. “Feel a little sick.”

“Wait till you get down to puke,” Gull advised.

“Libby, you’re second jump.” Rowan put on her helmet. “You just follow me down. Got it?”

“I got it.”

At Gibbons’s signal, Rowan sat in the door, braced. The plane erupted into shouts of Libby’s name, gloved hands slammed together in encouragement as she took her position behind Rowan.

Then Gibbons’s hand slapped down on Rowan’s shoulder, and she was gone.

Gull watched her flight; couldn’t take his eyes off her. The blue-and-white canopy shot up, spilled open. A thing of beauty in that soft blue sky, over the greens and browns and glint of water.

The cheer brought him back. He’d missed Libby’s jump, but he saw her chute deploy, shifted to try to keep both chutes in his eye line as the plane flew beyond.

“Looks like you owe me ten.”

A smile winked into Dobie’s eyes. “Add a six-pack on it that I do better than her. Better than you.”

After the plane circled, Gibbons looked in Gull’s eyes, held them for a beat. “Are you ready?”

“We’re ready.”

“Hook up.”

Gull moved forward, attached his line.

“Get in the door.”

Gull leveled his breathing, and got in the door.

He listened to the spotter’s instructions, the drift, the wind, while the air battered his legs. He did his check while the plane circled to its final lineup, and kept his eyes on the horizon.

“Get ready,” Gibbons told him.

Oh, he was ready. Every bump, bruise, blister of the past weeks had led to this moment. When the slap came down on his right shoulder, he jumped into that moment.

Wind and sky, and the hard, breathless thrill of daring both. The speed like a drug blowing through the blood. All he could think was, Yes, Christ yes, he’d been born for this, even as he counted off, as he rolled his body until he could look through his feet at the ground below.

The chute billowed open, snapped him up. He looked right, then left and found Dobie, heard his jump partner’s wild, reckless laughter.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!”

Gull grinned, scanned the view. How many saw this, he wondered, this stunning spread of forest and mountain, this endless, open sky? He swept his gaze over the lacings of snow in the higher elevations, the green just beginning to haze the valley. He thought, though he knew it unlikely, he could smell both, the winter and the spring, as he floated down between them.

He worked his toggles, using instinct, training, the caprice of the wind. He could see Rowan now, the way the sun shone on her bright cap of hair, even the way she stood—legs spread and planted, hands on her hips. Watching him as he watched her.

He put himself beside her, judging the lineup, and felt the instant he caught it. The smoke jumpers called it on the wire, so he glided in on it, kept his breathing steady as he prepared for impact.

He glanced toward Dobie again, noted his partner would overshoot the spot. Then he hit, tucked, rolled. He dropped his gear, started gathering his chute.

He heard Rowan shouting, saw her running for the trees. Everything froze, then melted again when he heard Dobie’s shouted stream of curses.

Above, the plane tipped its wings and started its circle to deploy the next jumpers. He hauled up his gear, grinning as he walked over to where Dobie dragged his own out of the trees.

“I had it, then the wind bitched me into the trees. Hell of a ride though.” The thrill, the triumph lit up his face. “Hell of a goddamn ride.’Cept I swallowed my gum.”

“You’re on the ground,” Rowan told them. “Nothing’s broken. So, not bad.” She opened her personal gear bag, took out candy bars. “Congratulations.”

“There’s nothing like it.” Libby’s face glowed as she looked skyward. “Nothing else comes close.”

“You haven’t jumped fire yet.” Rowan sat, then stretched out in the meadow grass. “That’s a whole new world.” She watched the sky, waiting for the plane to come back, then glanced at Gull as he dropped down beside her. “You had a smooth one.”

“I targeted on you. The sun in your hair,” he added when she frowned at him.

“Jesus, Gull, you are a romantic. God help you.”

He’d flustered her, he realized, and gave himself a point on his personal scoreboard. Since he hadn’t swallowed his gum, he tucked the chocolate away for later. “What do you do when you’re not doing this?”

“For work? I put in some time in my dad’s business, jumping with tourists who want a thrill, teaching people who think they want, or decide they want, to jump as a hobby. Do some personal training.” She flexed her biceps.

“Bet you’re good at it.”

“Logging in time as a PT means I get paid to keep fit for this over the winter. What about you?”

“I get to play for a living. Fun World. It’s like a big arcade—video games, bowling, bumper cars, Skee-Ball.”

“You work at an arcade?”

He folded his arms behind his head. “It’s not work if it’s fun.”

“You don’t strike me as the kind of guy to deal with kids and machines all day.”

“I like kids. They’re largely fearless and open to possibilities. Adults tend to forget how to be either.” He shrugged. “You spend yours trying to get couch potatoes to break a sweat.”

“Not all of my clients are couch potatoes. None are when I’m done with them.” She shoved up to sit. “Here comes the next group.”

With the first practice jump complete, they packed out, carrying their gear back to base. After another stint of physical training, classwork, they were up again for the second jump of the day.

They practiced letdown in full gear, outlined fire suppression strategies, studied maps, executed countless sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, ran miles and threw themselves out of planes. At the end of a brutal four weeks, the numbers had whittled down to sixteen. Those still standing ranged outside Operations answering their final roll call as recruits.

When Libby answered her name, Dobie slapped a twenty into Gull’s hand. “Smoke jumper Barbie. You gotta give it to her. Skinny woman like that toughs it through, and a big hoss like McGinty washes.”

“We didn’t,” Gull reminded him.

“Fucking tooting we didn’t.”

Even as they slapped hands a flood of ice water drenched them.

“Just washing off some of the rookie stink,” somebody called out. And with hoots and shouts, the men and woman on the roof tossed another wave of water from buckets.

“You’re now one of us.” From his position out of water range, L.B. shouted over the laughter and curses. “The best there is. Get cleaned up, then pack it in the vans. We’re heading into town, boys and girls. You’ve got one night to celebrate and drink yourself stupid. Tomorrow, you start your day as smoke jumpers—as Zulies.”

When Gull made a show out of wringing out his wet twenty, Dobie laughed so hard, he had to sit on the ground. “I’ll buy the first round. You’re in there, Libby.”

“Thanks.”

He smiled, stuffed the wet bill in his wet pocket. “I owe it all to you.”

Inside, Gull stripped off his dripping clothes. He took stock of his bruises—not too bad—and for the first time in a week took time to shave. Once he’d hunted up a clean shirt and pants, he spent a few minutes sending a quick e-mail home to let his family know he’d made it.

He expected that news to generate mixed reactions, though they’d all pretend to be as happy as he was. He slid a celebratory cigar into his breast pocket, then wandered outside.

The e-mail had cost him some time, so he loaded into the last of the vans and found a seat among the scatter of rookies and vets.

“Ready to party, rook?” Trigger asked him.

“I’ve been ready.”

“Just remember, nobody gets babysat. The vans leave and you’re not in one, you find your own way back to base. If you end up with a woman tonight, the smart thing is to end up with one who has a car.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You dance?”

“You asking?”

Trigger hooted out a laugh. “You’re almost pretty enough for me. The place we’re going has a dance floor. You do it right, dancing with a woman’s the same as foreplay.”

“Is that the case, in your experience?”

“It is, young Jedi. It surely is.”

“Interesting. So... does Rowan like to dance?”

Trigger raised his eyebrows. “That’s what we call barking up the wrong tree.”

“It’s the only tree that’s caught my interest and attention.”

“Then you’re going to have a long, dry summer.” He gave Gull a pat on the shoulder. “And let me tell you something else from my vast experience. When you’ve got calluses on your calluses and blisters on top of that, jerking off isn’t as pleasant as it’s meant to be.”

“Five years as a hotshot,” Gull reminded him. “If the summer proves long and dry, my hands’ll hold up.”

“Maybe so. But a woman’s better.”

“Indeed they are, Master Jedi. Indeed they are.”

“Have you got one back home?”

“No. Do you?”

“Had one. Twice. Married one of them. Just didn’t take. Matt’s got one. You got a woman back home in Nebraska, don’t you, Matt?”

Matt shifted, angled around to look back over his shoulder. “Annie’s back in Nebraska.”

“High-school sweethearts,” Trigger filled in. “Then she went off to college, but they got back together when she came home. Two minds, one heart. So Matt doesn’t dance, if you get my drift.”

“Got it. It’s nice,” Gull continued, “having somebody.”

“No point in the whole screwed-up world if you don’t.” Matt shrugged. “No point doing what we do if nobody’s waiting for us once we’ve done it.”

“Sweetens the pot,” Trigger agreed. “But some of us have to settle for a dance now and again.” He rubbed his hands together as the van pulled up in a lot packed with trucks and cars. “And my toes are already tapping.”

Gull scanned the long, low log building as he stepped out of the van, contemplated a moment on the flickering neon sign.

“‘Get a Rope,’ ” he read. “Seriously?”

“Cowboy up, partner.” Trigger slapped him on the shoulder, then strutted inside on his snakeskin boots.

An experience, Gull reminded himself. You could never have too many of them.

He stepped into the overamplified screech and twang of truly, deeply bad country music performed by a quartet of grungy-looking guys behind the dubious protection of a chicken-wire fence. At the moment the only things being hurled at them were shouted insults, but the night was young.

Still, people crowded the dance floor, kicking up boot heels, wiggling butts. Others ranged along the long bar or squeezed onto rickety chairs at tiny tables where they could scarf up dripping nachos or gnaw on buffalo wings coated with a suspicious substance that turned them cheesepuff orange. Most opted to wash that combo down with beer served in filmy plastic pitchers.

The lights were mercifully dim, and despite the smoking ban dingy blue clouds fogged the air that smelled like a sweat-soaked, deep-fried, overflowing ashtray.

The only reasonable thing to do, as Gull saw it, was to start drinking.

He moved to the bar, elbowed in and ordered a Bitter Root beer—in a bottle. Dobie squeezed beside him, punched him in the arm. “Why do you wanna drink that foreign shit?”

“Brewed in Montana.” He passed the bottle to Dobie, ordered another.

“Pretty good beer,” Dobie decided after a pull. “But it ain’t no Budweiser.”

“You’re not wrong.” Amused, Gull tapped his bottle to Dobie’s, drank. “Beer. The answer to so many questions.”

“I’m going to get this one in me, then cut one of these women out of the herd, drive ’em on the dance floor.”

Gull sipped again, studied the fat-fingered lead guitar player. “How do you dance to crap like this?”

Dobie’s eyes slitted, and his finger drilled into Gull’s chest. “You got a problem with country music?”

“You must’ve busted an eardrum on your last jump if you call this music. I like bluegrass,” he added, “when it’s done right.”

“Don’t bullshit me, city boy. You don’t know bluegrass from bindweed.”

Gull took another swig of beer. “I am a man of constant sorrow,” he sang in a strong, smooth tenor. “I’ve seen trouble all my days.”

Now Dobie punched him in the chest, but affectionately. “You’re a continual surprise to me, Gulliver. Got a voice in there, too. You oughta get up there and show those shit-kickers how it’s done.”

“I think I’ll just drink my beer.”

“Well.” Dobie tipped up the bottle, drained his. Let out a casual belch. “I’m going for a female.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Ain’t about luck. It’s about style.”

Gull watched Dobie bop over to a table of four women, and decided the man had a style all of his own.

Enjoying the moment, Gull leaned an elbow back on the bar, crossed his ankles. Trigger, true to his word, already had a partner on the dance floor, and Matt—true to his Annie—sat with Little Bear, a rookie named Stovic and one of the pilots they called Stetson for his battered and beloved black hat.

Then there was Rowan, chowing down on the orange-coated nachos at a table with Janis Petrie, Gibbons and Yangtree. She’d pulled on a blue T-shirt—snug, scoop-necked—that molded her breasts and torso. For the first time since he’d met her she wore earrings, something that glittered and swung from her ears when she shook her head and laughed.

She’d done something to her eyes, her lips, he noted, made them bolder. And when she let Cards pull her to her feet for a dance, Gull saw her jeans were as snug as her shirt.

She caught his eye when Cards swung her into a spin, then stopped his heart when she shot him a wide, wicked smile. He decided if she was going to kill him, she might as well do it at closer range. He ordered another beer, carried it over to her table.

“Hey, fresh meat.” Janis toasted him with a dripping nacho. “Want to dance, rookie?”

“I haven’t had enough beer to dance to whatever this is.”

“They’re so bad, they’re good.” Janis patted Rowan’s empty chair. “A few more drinks, they’ll be nearly good enough to be bad.”

“Your logic tells me you’ve walked this path before.”

“You’re not a Zulie until you’ve survived a night at Get a Rope.” She glanced toward the door as a group of three men swaggered in. “In all its glory.”

“Local boys?”

“Don’t think so. They’re all wearing new boots. High-dollar ones.” She topped off her beer from the pitcher on the table. “I’m guessing city, dude-ranch types come to take in some local color.”

They headed toward the bar, and the one in the lead shoulder-muscled his way through the line. He slapped a bill on the bar.

“Whiskey and a woman.” He punched his voice up, deliberately, Gull imagined, so it carried above the noise. The hoots and laughter from his friends told Gull it wouldn’t be their first drink of the night.

A few people at the bar edged over to give the group room while the bartender poured their drinks. The lead guy tossed it back, slapped down the glass, pointed at it.

“We need us some females.”

More group hilarity ensued. Looking for trouble, Gull concluded, and since he wasn’t, he went back to watching Rowan on the dance floor.

Janis leaned toward him as the band launched into a painful cover of “When the Sun Goes Down.” “Ro says you work in an arcade.”

“She talked to you about me?”

“Sure. We pass notes in study hall every day. I like arcades. You got pinball? I kill at pinball.”

“Yeah, new and vintage.”

“Vintage?” She aimed a narrow look with big brown eyes. “You don’t have High Speed, do you?”

“It’s a classic for a reason.”

“I love that one!” Her hand slapped the table. “They had this old, beat-up machine in this arcade when I was a kid. I got so good at it, I’d play all day on my first token. I traded this guy five free games on it for my first French kiss.” She sighed, sat back. “Good times.”

Following her gaze as it shifted to the bar, Gull glanced back in time to see the whiskey-drinker give a waitress passing by with a full tray a frisky slap on the ass. When the woman looked around, he held up both hands, smirked.

“Asshole. You can’t go anywhere,” Janis said, “without running into assholes.”

“Their numbers are legion.” He shifted a little more when Rowan stepped off the dance floor.

“That’s my seat.”

“I’m holding it for you.” He patted his knee.

She surprised him by dropping down on his lap, picking up his beer and drinking deep. “Big spender, buying local brew by the bottle. Don’t you dance, moneybags?”

“I might, if they ever play something that doesn’t make my ears bleed.”

“You can still hear them? I can fix that. Time for shots.”

“Count me out,” Gibbons said immediately. “The last time you talked me into that I couldn’t feel my fingers for a week.”

“Don’t do it, Gull,” Yangtree warned him. “The Swede has an iron gut. Got it from her old man.”

Rowan turned her face close to Gull’s and smirked. “Aw, do you have a tender tummy, hotshot?”

He imagined biting her heavy bottom lip, just one fast, hard nip. “What kind of shots?”

“There’s only one shot worth shooting. Te-qui-la,” she sang it, slapping her palm on the table with each syllable. “If you’ve got the balls for it.”

“You’re sitting on my balls, so you ought to know.”

She threw back her head on that sexy saloon girl laugh. “Hold them for a minute. I’ll get us set up.”

She hopped up, swung around a couple times when Dobie grabbed her hand and gave her a twirl. Titania to Puck, Gull thought.

Then she hooked her thumbs in her front pockets and joined him in some sort of boot-stomping clog thing that had some of the other dancers whistling and clapping.

She shot a finger at Gull—and damn, there went his heart again—then danced over to the bar.

“Hey, Big Nate.” Rowan leaned in, hailed the head bartender. “I need a dozen tequila shots, a couple saltshakers and some lime wedges to suck on.”

She glanced over, gave the man currently grabbing his crotch a bored look, shifted away again. “I can take them over if Molly’s busy.”

The crotch-grabber slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the bar in front of her. “I’ll buy your shots and ten minutes outside.”

Rowan gave the bartender a slight shake of the head before he could speak.

She turned, looked the drunk, insulting bastard in the eye. “I guess since you lack any charm, and the only way you can get a woman is to pay her, you think we’re all whores.”

“You’ve been wiggling that ass and those tits out there since I came in. I’m just offering to pay for what you’ve been advertising. I’ll buy you a drink first.”

At the table, Gull thought, shit, and started to rise. Gibbons put a hand on his arm. “You don’t want to get in her way. Trust me on this.”

“I don’t like drunks hassling women.”

He shoved up, noted the noise level had diminished, so he clearly heard Rowan say in a tone sweet as cotton candy, “Oh, if you’ll buy me a drink first. Is that your pitcher?”

She picked it up and, with her height, had no trouble upending it over the man’s head. “Suck on that, fuckwit.”

The man moved pretty quick for a sputtering drunk. He shoved Rowan back against the bar, grabbed her breasts and squeezed.

And she moved faster. Before Gull was halfway across the room she slammed her boot on the man’s instep, her knee into the crotch he’d been so proud of, then knocked him on his ass with an uppercut as fine as Gull had ever seen when the drunk doubled over.

She back-fisted one of his buddies who’d been foolish enough to try to yank her around. She grabbed his arm, dragged him forward, past her. The boot she planted on his ass sent him careening into his friend as the man started to struggle to his feet.

She whipped around to man number three. “You want to try for me?”

“No.” This one held up his hands in a don’t-shoot-me gesture. “No, ma’am, I don’t.”

“Maybe you’ve got half a brain. Use it and get your idiot friends out of here before I get mad. Because when I get mad, I just get crazy.”

“I guess she didn’t need any help,” Dobie observed.

“That does it.” Gull laid a hand over his heart, beat it there. “I’m in love.”

“I don’t think I’d want to fall in love with a woman who could wipe the floor with me.”

“No risk, no point.”

He hung back as a half dozen Zulies moved in to help the three men to the door. And out of it.

Rowan gave her T-shirt a fussy tug. “How about those shots, Big Nate?”

“Coming right out. On the house.”

Gull took his seat again, waiting for Rowan to carry the tray over.

“Are you ready?” she asked him.

“Line them up, sweetheart. You want some ice for your knuckles?”

She wiggled her fingers. “They’re okay. It was like punching the Pillsbury Doughboy.”

“I hear he’s a mean drunk, too.”

She laughed, then dropped down into the chair Gibbons pulled over for her. “Let’s see what kind of drunk you are.”

4

Gull watched her eyes as he and Rowan knocked back the first shot, as the tequila hit his tongue, his throat, and took that quick, hot slide to the belly.

That, he realized, was her first appeal for him. Those clear, cool blue eyes held so much life. They sparkled now with challenge, with humor, and there was something in the way they leveled on his that made the moment intimate—as much of a hot slide through the system as the tequila.

Matching his pace to hers, he picked up the next shot glass.

Then there was her mouth, just shy of wide, heavy on the bottom—and the way it so naturally, so habitually formed a smirk.

Small wonder he lusted for a good, strong taste of it.

“How ya doing, hotshot?”

“I’m good. How about you, Swede?”

In answer she tapped her third shot glass to his before they tossed back the contents together. She brought the lime wedge to her mouth. “Do you know what I love about tequila?”

“What do you love about tequila?”

“Everything.” After a wicked laugh, she drank the fourth with the same careless gusto as the first three. Together they slapped down the empties.

“What else do you love?” he asked her.

“Hmm.” She considered as she downed number five. “Smoke jumping and those who share the insanity.” She toasted them to a round of applause and rude comments, then sat back a moment with her full glass. “Fire and the catching of it, my dad, ear-busting rock and roll on a hot summer night and tiny little puppies. How about you?”

Like her, he sat back with his last shot. “I could go along with most of that, except I don’t know your dad.”

“Haven’t jumped fire yet either.”

“True, but I’m predisposed to love it. I have a fondness for loud rock and tiny little puppies, but would substitute heart-busting sex on a hot summer night and big, sloppy dogs.”

“Interesting.” They tossed back that last shot, in unison, to more applause. “I’d’ve pegged you for a cat man.”

“I’ve got nothing against cats, but a big, sloppy dog will always need his human.”

Her earrings swung as she cocked her head. “Like to be needed, do you?”

“I guess I do.”

She pointed at him in an aha gesture. “There’s that romantic streak again.”

“Wide and long. Want to go have heart-busting sex in anticipation of a hot summer night?”

She threw back her head and laughed. “That’s a generous offer—and no.” She slapped a hand on the table. “But I’ll go you another six.”

God help him. “You’re on.” He patted his pocket. “I believe I’ll take a short cigar break while we get the next setup.”

“Ten-minute recess,” Rowan announced. “Hey, Big Nate, how about some salsa and chips to soak up some of this tequila? And not the wimpy stuff.”

The woman of his dreams, Gull decided as he opted to go out the back for his smoke. A salsa-eating, tequila-downing, smoke-jumping stunner with brains and a wicked uppercut.

Now all he had to do was talk her into bed.

He lit up in the chilly dark, blew smoke up at a sky sizzling with stars. The night struck him as pretty damn perfect. Crappy music in a western dive, cheap tequila, the companionship of like-minded others and a compelling woman who engaged his mind and excited his body.

He thought of home and the winters that engaged and absorbed most of his time. He didn’t mind it, in fact enjoyed it. But if the past few years had taught him anything, it was he needed the heat and rush of the summers, the work and, yes, the risk of chasing fires.

Maybe it was just that, the combination of pride and pleasure in what he’d accomplished back home, the thrill and satisfaction of what he knew he could accomplish here that allowed him to stand in a chilly spring night in the middle of almost-nowhere and recognize perfection.

He wandered around the building, enjoying his cigar, thinking of facing Rowan over another six tequila shots. Next time—if there was a next time—he’d make damn sure they had a bottle of Patrón Silver. Then at least he’d feel more secure about the state of his stomach lining.

Amused, he came around the side of the building. He heard the grunts first, then the ugly sound of fist against flesh. He moved forward, toward the sounds, scanning the dark pockets of the parking lot.

Two of the men Rowan had dealt with in the bar held Dobie while the third—the big one—whaled on him.

“Shit,” Gull muttered, and, tossing down his cigar, rushed forward.

Over the buzz of rage in his ears, Gull heard one of the men shout. The big man swung around, face full of mean. Gull cocked back his fist, let it fly.

He didn’t think; didn’t have to. Instinct took over as the other two men dropped Dobie in a heap and came at him. He embraced the madness, the moment, punch, kick, elbow strike, as he scented blood, tasted his own.

He felt something crunch under his fist, heard the whoosh of expelled air as his foot slammed into belly fat. Someone dropped to his knees and gagged after his elbow jabbed an exposed throat. Out of the corner of his eye, Gull saw Dobie had managed to gain his feet and limped over to the retching man to deliver a solid kick in the ribs.

One of the others tried to run. Gull caught him, flung him so he skidded face-first over the gravel.

He didn’t clearly remember knocking the big guy down, getting on top of him, but it took three of his fellow jumpers to pull him off.

“He’s had enough. He’s out.” Little Bear’s voice penetrated that buzz of rage. “Ease off, Gull.”

“Okay. I’m good.” Gull held up a hand to signal he was done. As the grips on him loosened, he looked over at Dobie.

His friend sat on the ground surrounded by other jumpers, a few of the local women. His face and shirtfront were both a bloody mess, and his right eye was swollen shut.

“Did a number on you, pal,” Gull commented. Then he saw the dark stain on Dobie’s right pant leg, and the dripping pool. “Christ! Did they knife you?”

Before Gull reached him, Dobie two-fingered a broken bottle of Tabasco out of his pocket. “Nah. Busted this when I went down. Got a few nicks is all, and a waste of good Tabasco.”

L.B. crouched to get a better look at Dobie. “You carry Tabasco in your pocket?”

“Where else would I carry it?”

Shaking his head, Gull sat back on his heels. “He dumps it on everything.”

“Damn right.” To prove it, Dobie shook out the little left on the ass of one of the semiconscious men. “I came out for a little air, and the three of them jumped me. Laying for me—or any of us, I reckon. You sure came along at the right time,” he said to Gull. “You know kung fu or some shit?”

“Something like that. Better go get patched up.”

“Oh, I’m okay.”

Rowan moved through, crouched in front of Dobie. “They wouldn’t have gone after you if they hadn’t been pissed at me. Do me a favor, okay? Go get patched up so I don’t have to feel guilty.” Then she leaned over, kissed his bruised and bloody cheek. “I’ll owe you.”

“Well... if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Do you want me to call the law?” Big Nate asked him.

Dobie studied the three men, shrugged. “Looks to me more like they need an ambulance.” He shrugged again. “I don’t care if they go to jail, to fiery hell or back wherever they came from.”

“All right then.” Big Nate stepped over, toed the man sitting up nursing his face in his hands. “You fit to drive?” When the man managed a nod, Big Nate toed him again a little harder. “You’re going to get in your truck with the fuckers you travel with. You’re going to drive, and keep on driving. If I see you around my place or any other place I happen to be, you’re going to wish to God almighty I had called the law. Now get off my property.”

To expedite the matter, several of the men hoisted the barely conscious big guy and his moaning companions into the truck, then stood like a wall until it drove away.

Gull received a number of shoulder and back slaps, countless offers of a drink. He wisely accepted all of them to avoid an argument as he watched Libby, Cards and Gibbons help Dobie into one of the vans.

“Do you want a doc to look you over?” Little Bear asked him.

“No. I’ve had worse falling out of bed.”

Little Bear watched the van as Gull did. “He’ll be all right. It takes more than three assholes to down a smoke jumper.” He gave Gull a last shoulder slap, then turned back toward the bar when the van pulled out of the lot.

Gull stayed where he was, trying to reach for his calm again. He knew it was in there, somewhere, but at the moment, elusive.

“Is this yours?”

He turned to see Rowan holding his cigar.

“Yeah. I guess I dropped it.”

“Butterfingers.” She took a few puffs until the tip glowed true again, then helped herself to one long, deep drag. “Prime cigar, too,” she added, then offered it back. “Shame to waste it.”

Gull took it, studied it. “That’s it,” he decided.

He flung it down again and, grabbing her, yanked her against him. “That’s it,” he repeated before his mouth crushed down on hers.

A man could only take so much stimulation before demanding release.

She slapped both hands on his chest, shoved. “Hey.”

For a moment he figured he’d experience her excellent uppercut up close and personal. Then she mirrored his initial move and yanked him back.

Her mouth was as he’d imagined. Hot and soft and avid. It met his with equal fervor, as if a switch had been flipped in each of them from stop to go. She pressed that killer body to his without hesitation, without restraint, a gift and a challenge, until the chilly air under the sizzling stars seemed to smoke.

He tasted the sharp tang of tequila on her tongue, a fascinating contrast to the scent of ripe peaches that clung to her skin; felt the hard, steady gallop of her heart that matched the pace of his own.

Then she drew back, looked in his eyes, held there a moment before drawing away.

“You’ve got skills,” she stated.

“Ditto.”

She blew out a breath—a long one. “You’re a temptation, Gull, I can’t deny it. Stupid to deny it, and I’m not stupid.”

“Far from it.”

She rubbed her lips together as if revisiting his taste. “The thing is, once you mix sex into it, even smart people can get stupid. So... better not.”

“No’s your choice. Mine’s to keep trying.”

“I can’t hold that against you.” She smiled at him now, not her usual smirk but something warmer. “You fight like a maniac.”

“I tend to get carried away, so I try to avoid it when I can.”

“That’s a good policy. What do you say we postpone the tequila and get some ice on that jaw of yours.”

“That’s fine.”

As they started back, she glanced over at him. “What was that technique you were using on those bastards?”

“An ancient form called kicking ass.”

She laughed, gave him a friendly hip bump. “Impressive.”

He returned the hip bump. “Sleep with me and I’ll give you lessons.”

She laughed again. “You can try harder than that.”

“I’m just getting warmed up,” he told her, then opened the door to the overheated bar and lousy music.

Rowan zipped her warm-up jacket as she stepped outside. She’d put in some time in the gym, and checked the jump list on the board in Operations. She was first load, fourth man. Now she wanted a solid run on the track, maybe some chow. She’d already checked and rechecked her gear. If the siren sounded, she’d be ready.

Otherwise...

Otherwise, she thought as she shot a wave to one of the mechanics, there was always work, always training. But the fact was she was ready, more than ready, to jump her first fire of the season. She cast a look up at the sky as she walked toward the track. Clear, wide and as pretty a spring blue as anyone could want.

Below it, the base chugged along in early-season morning mode. Jumpers and support staff stayed busy, washing vehicles or tuning them up—or tuning themselves with calisthenics on the training field. After the night’s revelry plenty were getting a slow start, but she wanted air and effort.

And saw as she looked toward the track, she wasn’t the only one.

She recognized Gull not only by the body, but the speed. Fast feet, she thought again. Obviously tequila shots and a bar fight hadn’t slowed him down.

She had to admire that.

As she jogged closer she noted that despite the cool air he’d worked up a good sweat, one that ran a dark vee down the faded gray tee he wore.

She had to admire that, too. She liked a man who pushed himself, who tested his limits even when he was in his own world.

Though she’d already loosened up, she paused to stretch before peeling off her jacket. And timed her entrance to the track to veer on beside him.

“What’re you up to?”

He held up two fingers, saving his breath.

“Going for three?” When he nodded, she wondered if he could keep up that killing pace for another mile. “Me too. Go ahead, Flash, I can’t keep up with you.”

She fell off his pace, found her own rhythm.

She loved to run, loved it with a pure heart, but imagined if she’d had Gull’s speed, she’d have adored it. Then she forgot him, tuned into her own body, the air, the steady slap of her shoes on the track. She let her mind empty so it could fill again with scattered thoughts.

Personal supply list, juggling some time in for sewing some PG bags, Gull’s mouth, Dobie. She should give her father a buzz since she was on call and couldn’t get over to see him. Why did Janis paint her toenails when nobody saw them anyway? Gull’s teeth scraping over her bottom lip. Assholes who ganged up on a little guy.

Gull kicking ass in a dark parking lot.

Gull’s ass. Very nice.

Probably better to think of something else, she told herself as she hit the first mile. But hell, nothing else was as appealing. Besides, thinking wasn’t doing.

What she needed—what they all needed—was for the siren to blast. Then she’d be too busy to fantasize about, much less consider, getting tangled up with a man she worked with.

Too bad she hadn’t met him in the winter, though how she’d have run into him when he lived in California posed a problem. Still, say she’d taken a vacation, dropped into his arcade place. Would she have experienced that sizzle if she’d met him across the lane in the bowling alley, or over a hot game of Mortal Kombat?

Hard to say.

He’d have looked as good, she reminded herself. But would there have been that punch if she’d looked into those green eyes when he sold her some tokens?

Wasn’t at least part of the zip because of what they both did here, the training, the sweat, the anticipation, the intense satisfaction of knowing only a select few could make the cut and be what they were?

And, hello, wasn’t that the reason she didn’t get sexually or romantically involved with other jumpers? How could you trust your feelings when they were pumped through the adrenaline rush? And what did you do with those feelings when and if—and most likely when—things went south? You’d still have to work with, and trust your life to, somebody you’d been sleeping with and weren’t sleeping with anymore. And one or both of you had to be fairly pissed about it.

Entirely better to meet somebody, even if he sold you tokens in an arcade, have a nice, uncomplicated short-term relationship. Then go back to doing what you do.

She kicked up her pace to hit the last mile, then eased off to a cooldown jog. Her eyebrows lifted when Gull fell into pace beside her.

“You still here?”

“I did five. Felt good.”

“No tequila haze this morning?”

“I don’t get hangovers.”

“Ever? What’s your secret?” When he only smiled, she shook her head. “Yeah, yeah, if I sleep with you, you’ll tell me. How’s the jaw, et cetera?”

“It’s okay.” Banging like a drum after the five miles, but he knew that would subside.

“I heard Dobie nixed the overnight for observation. L.B.’s got him off the jump list until he’s fit.”

Gull nodded. He’d checked the list himself. “It won’t take him long. He’s a tough little bastard.”

She slowed to a walk, then stopped to stretch. “What were you listening to?” she asked, gesturing to the MP3 player strapped to his arm.

“Ear-busting rock,” he said with a smile. “You can borrow it the next time you run.”

“I don’t like music when I run. I like to think.”

“The best thing about running is not thinking.”

As he stretched, she checked out the body she’d been thinking about. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

They started the walk back together.

“I didn’t come out here because I saw you on the track.”

“Well, hell. Now my day’s ruined.”

“But I did admire your ass when you were whizzing by.”

“That’s marginally satisfying,” he considered, “but I find it doesn’t fully massage my ego.”

“You’re a funny guy, Gull. You tend to use fancy words, and read fancy books—I hear. You’re mean as a rattler in a fight, fast as a cheetah and spend your winters with foosball.”

He bent to snag her jacket off the ground. “I like a good game of foosball.”

As she tied the sleeves around her waist, she gave his face a long study. “You’re hard to figure.”

“Only if you’re looking for one size fits all.”

“Maybe, but—” She broke off as she spotted the truck pulling up in front of Operations. “Hey!” she shouted, waved her arms, then ran.

Gull watched the man get out of the truck, tall and solid in a battered leather jacket and scarred boots. Silver hair caught by the wind blew back from a tanned, strong-jawed face. He turned, then opened his arms so Rowan could jump into them. Gull might have experienced a twinge of jealousy, but he recognized Lucas “Iron Man” Tripp.

And it was a pretty thing, in his opinion, to see a man give his grown daughter a quick swing.

“I was just thinking about you,” Rowan told her father. “I was going to give you a call later. I’m on the second stick, so I couldn’t come by.”

“I missed you. I thought I’d check in, grab a minute and see how it’s all going.” He pulled off his sunglasses, hooked them in his pocket. “So, a strong crop of rooks this year.”

“Yeah. In fact...” Rowan glanced around, then signaled to Gull so he’d change direction and join them. “Here’s the one who broke the base record on the mile-and-a-half. Hotshot out of California.” She kept her arm around her father’s waist while Gull walked to them.

“Gulliver Curry, Lucas Tripp.”

“It’s a genuine pleasure, Mr. Tripp,” Gull told him as he extended a hand.

“You can drop the mister. Congratulations on the base record, and making the cut.”

“Thanks.”

She had her father’s eyes, Gull noted as they covered the small talk. And his bone structure. But what made more of an impression was the body language of both. It said, simply and unquestionably, they were an unassailable unit.

“There’s that son of a bitch.” Yangtree let the door of Operations slap behind him, and came forward to exchange one-armed hugs with Lucas.

“Man, it’s good to see you. So they let you skate through again this year?”

“Hell. Somebody’s got to keep these screwups in line.”

“When you’re tired of riding herd on the kids, I can always use another instructor.”

“Teaching rich boys to jump out of planes.”

“And girls,” Lucas added. “It’s a living.”

“No packing in, packing out, no twenty hours on a line. You miss it every day,” Yangtree said, and pointed at him.

“And twice on Sunday.” Tripp ran a hand down Rowan’s back. “But my knees don’t.”

“I hear that.”

“We’ll get you a couple rocking chairs,” Rowan suggested, “and maybe a nice pot of chamomile tea.”

Lucas tugged her earlobe. “Make it a beer and I’m there. Then again, I heard the bunch of you had plenty of those last night, and got into a little ruckus.”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Yangtree claimed, and winked at Gull. “Or you couldn’t handle, right, Kick Ass?”

“A momentary distraction.”

“Did the momentary distraction give you that bruise on your jaw?” Lucas wondered.

Gull rubbed a hand over it. “I’d say you should see the other guys, but it’s hard to be sure how they looked since they ran off with their tails tucked.”

“From having them rammed into your fists.” Lucas nodded at Gull’s scraped and swollen knuckles. “How’s the man they ganged up on?”

“Do you know everything?” Rowan demanded.

“Ear to the ground, darling.” Lucas kissed her temple. “My ear’s always to the ground.”

“Dobie’s a little guy, but he got some licks in.” Yangtree turned his head, spat on the ground. “They beat on him pretty good until Kick Ass here came along. Of course, before all that, your girl put two of them on their asses.”

“Yeah, I heard about that, too.”

“I didn’t start it.”

“So I’m told. Starting it’s stupid,” Lucas stated. “Finishing it’s necessary.”

Rowan narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t come by to check in, you came by to check on.”

“Maybe. Want to fight about it?”

She gave her father a poke in the chest, grinned.

And the siren went off.

Rowan kissed her father’s cheek. “See you later,” she said, and took off running. Yangtree slapped Lucas’s shoulder and did the same.

“It was good to meet you.”

Tripp took the hand Gull offered, studied the knuckles. “You’re off the list because of these.”

“Today.”

“There’s tomorrow.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Gull headed to the ready room. He was off the jump list, but he could lend a hand to those on it. Already jumpers were suiting up, taking their gear out of the tall cabinets, pulling on Kevlar suits over the fire-retardant undergarments. By the time he spotted her, Rowan had dropped into one of the folding chairs to put on her boots.

He helped with gear and equipment until he could work his way to her.

Over the sound of engines and raised voices, he shouted at her, “Where?”

“Got one in the Bitterroots, near Bass Creek.”

A short enough flight, he calculated, to warrant a buddy check prior to boarding. He started at her bootstraps, worked his way up. He’d already gotten past the state of his knuckles, and his temporary leave from the jump list.

No point in regrets.

“You’re clear.” Gull squeezed a hand to her shoulder, met her eyes. “Make it good.”

“It’s the only way I know.”

He watched her go, thought even the waddle enforced by the suit and gear looked strong and sexy on her.

As he walked out to watch the rest of the load, he saw Dobie hobbling over. And in the distance Lucas “Iron Man” Tripp stood, hands in his pockets.

“Fuckers screwed our chances.” Puffing a little, his face a crescendo of bruises, his brutalized eye a vivid mix of purple and red, Dobie stopped beside Gull.

“Others to come.”

“Yeah. Shit. Libby’s on there. I never thought she’d catch one before me.”

Together they stood as the plane taxied, as its nose lifted. Gull glanced down to where Lucas stood, saw him lift his face to the sky. And watch his daughter fly toward the flames.

5

The heart of the wildfire beat hot and hard. Cutting through it loosed a waterfall of sweat that ran down Rowan’s back in constant streams. Her chain saw shrieked through bark and wood, spitting out splinters and dust that layered her clothes, gloves, hard hat. The roar and screams of saws, of cracking wood, crashing trees fought to smother that hard, hot beat.

She paused only to chug down water to wet her throat and wash out the dust and smoke or to swipe off her goggles when the sweat running down her face blurred them.

She stepped back when the ponderosa she’d killed to save others whooshed its way to the forest floor.

“Hey, Swede.” Gibbons, acting as fire boss, hailed her over the din. Ash blackened his face, and the smoke he’d hiked through reddened his eyes. “I’m taking you, Matt and Yangtree off the saw line. The head’s shifted on us. It’s moving up the ridge to the south and building. We got spots frigging everywhere. We need to turn her while we can.”

He pulled out his map to show her positions. “We got hotshots working here, and Janis, Trigger, two of the rooks, flanking it here. We’ve got another load coming in, and they’ll take the saw line, chase down spots. We’ve got repellent on the way, should dump on the head in about ten, so make sure you’re clear.”

“Roger that.”

“Take them up. Watch your ass.”

She grabbed her gear, pulled in her teammates and began the half-mile climb through smoke and heat.

In her mind she plotted escape routes, the distance and direction to the safe zone. Small, frisky spot fires flashed along the steep route, so they beat them out, smothered them before continuing up.

Along their left flank an orange wall pulsed with heat and light, sucked oxygen out of the air to feed itself as it growled and gobbled through trees. She watched columns of smoke build tall and thick in the sky.

A section of the wall pushed out, skipped and jumped across the rough track in front of them, and began to burn merrily. She leaped forward kicking dirt over it, using her Pulaski to smother it while Yangtree beat at it with a pine bough.

They beat, shoveled and dug their way up the ridge.

Over the din she caught the rumble of the tanker, pulled out her radio to answer its signal. “Take cover!” she shouted to her team. “We’re good, Gibbons. Tell them to drop the mud. We’re clear.”

Through the smoke, she watched the retardant plane swing over the ridge, heard the thunder of its gates opening to make the drop, and the roar as the thick pink rain streaked down from the sky.

Those fighting closer to the head would take cover as well, and still be splattered with gel that burned and stung exposed skin.

“We’re clear,” she told her team as Yangtree gnawed off a bite of an energy bar. “We’re going to jag a little east, circle the head and meet up with Janis and the others. Gibbons says she’s moving pretty fast. We need to do the same to keep ahead of her. Let’s move! Keep it peeled for spots.”

She kept the map in her head, the caprices of the fire in her guts. They continued to chase down spot fires, some no bigger than a dinner platter, others the size of a kid’s swimming pool.

And all the while they moved up the ridge.

She heard the head before she saw it. It bellowed and clapped like thunder, followed that with a sly, pulsing roar. And felt it before she saw it, that rush of heat that washed over her face, pushed into her lungs.

Then everything filled with the flame, a world of vivid orange, gold, mean red spewing choking clouds of smoke. Through the clouds and eerie glimmer she saw the silhouettes, caught glimpses of the yellow shirts and hard hats of the smoke jumpers, waging the war.

Shifting her pack, she pushed her way up the ridge toward the ferocious burn. “Check in with Gibbons,” she shouted to Matt. “Let him know we made it. Yo, Elf!” Rowan hailed Janis as she hurried forward, waving her arms. “Cavalry’s here.”

“We need it. We got scratch lines around the hottest part of the head. The mud knocked her down some, and we’ve been scratching line down toward the tail. Need to widen it, and down the snags. Jesus.”

She took a minute to gulp some water, swipe at the sweat dripping into her eyes. The pink goo of repellent pasted her hat and shirt. “First fire of the season, and this bitch has a punch. Gibbons just told me they’re sending in another load of jumpers, and they put Idaho on alert. We gotta cut off her head, Swede.”

“We can start on widening the line, downing the snags. Hit a lot of spots on the way up. She keeps trying to jump.”

“Tell me. Get started. I got the rooks up there, Libby and Stovic. Keep ’em straight.”

“You got it.”

Rowan dug, cut, beat, hacked and sweated. Hours flashed by. She sliced down snags, the still-standing dead trees the fire would use for fuel. When she felt her energy flag, she stopped long enough to stuff her mouth with the peanut-butter crackers in her PG bag, wash it down with the prize of the single Coke—nearly hot now—she’d brought with her.

Her clothes sported the pink goo from a second drop of repellent, and under it her back, legs, shoulders burned from the heat and the hours of unrelenting effort.

But she felt it, the minute it started to turn their way.

The massive cloud of smoke thinned—just a little—and through it she saw a single hopeful wink of light from the North Star.

Day had burned into night while they’d battled.

She straightened, arched her back to relieve it, and looked back, into the black—the burned-out swatch of the forest the fire had consumed, the charred logs, stumps, ghostly spikes, dead pools of ash.

Nothing to eat there now, she thought, and they’d cut off the supply of fuel at the head.

Her energy swung back. It wasn’t over, but they’d beaten it. The dragon was beginning to lie down.

She downed a dead pine, then used one of its branches to beat out a small, sneaky spot. The cry of shock and pain had her swinging around in time to see Stovic go down. His chain saw bounced out of his hands, rolled, and the blood on its teeth dripped onto the trampled ground.

Rowan let her own drop where she stood, lunged toward him. She reached him as he struggled to sit up and grab at his thigh.

“Hold on! Hold on!” She pushed his hands away, tore at his pants to widen the jagged tear.

“I don’t know what happened. I’m cut!” Beneath the soot and ash, his face glowed ghastly white.

She knew. Fatigue had made him sloppy, caused him to lose his grip on the saw or use it carelessly enough, just for a second, to allow it to jerk back.

“How bad?” he demanded as she used a knife from her pack to cut the material back. “Is it bad?”

“It’s a scratch. Toughen up, rook.” She didn’t know either way, not yet. “Get the first-aid kit,” Rowan ordered when Libby dropped down beside her. “I’m going to clean this up some, Stovic, get a better look.”

A little shocky, she determined as she studied his eyes, but holding.

And his bitter litany of curses—a few of them Russian delivered in his Brooklyn accent—made her optimistic as she cleaned the wound.

“Got a nice gash.” She said it cheerfully, and thought, Jesus, Jesus, a little deeper, a little to the left, and bye-bye, Stovic. “The blade mostly got your pants.”

She looked him in the eye again. She’d have lied if necessary, and her stomach jittered with relief she didn’t need the lie. “You’re going to need a couple dozen stitches, but that shouldn’t slow you down for long. I’m going to do a field dressing that’ll hold you until you get back to base.”

He managed a wobbly smile, but she heard the click in his throat as he swallowed. “I didn’t cut off anything essential, right?”

“Your junk’s intact, Chainsaw.”

“Hurts like hell.”

“I bet.”

He gathered himself, took a couple slow breaths. Rowan felt another wave of relief when a little color eked back into his face. “First time I jump a fire, and look what I do. It won’t keep me grounded long, will it?”

“Nah.” She dressed the wound quickly, competently. “And you’ll have this sexy scar to impress the women.” She sat back on her haunches, smiled at him. “Women can’t resist a wounded warrior, right, Lib?”

“Damn right. In fact, I’m holding myself back from jumping you right now, Stovic.”

He gave her a twisted grin. “We beat it, didn’t we, Swede?”

“Yeah, we did.” She patted his knee, then got to her feet. Leaving Libby tending him, she walked apart to contact Gibbons and arrange for Stovic to be littered out.

Eighteen hours after jumping the fire, Rowan climbed back onto the plane for the short flight back to base.

Using her pack as a pillow, she stretched out on the floor, shut her eyes. “Steak,” she said, “medium rare. A football-size baked potato drowning in butter, a mountain of candied carrots, followed by a slab of chocolate cake the size of Utah smothered in half a gallon of ice cream.”

“Meat loaf.” Yangtree dropped down beside her while somebody else—or a couple of somebody elses by the stereophonics—snored like buzz saws. “An entire meat loaf, and I’ll take my mountain in mashed potatoes with a vat of gravy. Apple pie, and make that a gallon of ice cream.”

Rowan slid open her eyes to see Matt watching her with a sleepy smile. “What’s your pick, Matt?”

“My ma’s chicken and dumplings. Best ever. Just pour it in a fivegallon bucket so I can stick my head in and chow it down. Cherry cobbler and homemade whipped cream.”

“Everybody knows whipped cream comes in a can.”

“Not at my ma’s house. But I’m hungry enough to eat five-day-old pizza, and the box it came in.”

“Pizza,” Libby moaned, then tried to find a more comfortable curl on her seat. “I never thought I could be this empty and live.”

“Eighteen hours on the line’ll do it.” Rowan yawned, rolled over, and let the voices, the snoring, the engines lull her toward sleep.

“Gonna hit the kitchen when we get back, Ro?” Matt asked her.

“Mmm. Gotta eat. Gotta shower off the stink first.”

The next thing she knew they were down. She staggered off the plane through a fog of exhaustion. Once she’d dumped her gear she stumbled to her room, ripped the wrapper off a candy bar. She all but inhaled it while she stripped off her filthy clothes. Barely awake, she aimed for the shower, whimpered a little as the warm water slid over her. Through blurry eyes she watched it run dingy gray into the drain.

She lathered up, hair, body, face, inhaling the scent of peaches that apparently tripped Gull’s trigger. Rinse and repeat, she ordered herself. Rinse and repeat. And when, at last, the water ran clear, she made a halfhearted attempt to dry off.

Then fell onto the bed wrapped in the damp towel.

The dream crept up on her in the twilight layer of sleep, as her mind began to float back from the deep pit of exhaustion.

Thundering engines, the whip of wind, the heady leap into the sky. The thrill turning to panic—the pound, pound, pound of heart against ribs as she watched, helplessly, Jim plunge toward the burning ground.

“Hey. Hey. You need to wake up.”

The voice cutting through the scream in her head, the rough shake on her shoulder, had her bolting up in bed.

“What? The siren? What?” She stared into Gull’s face, rubbing one hand over her own.

“No. You were having a nightmare.”

She breathed in, breathed out, slitting her eyes a little. It was morning—or maybe later—she could tell that much. And Gulliver Curry was in her room, without her permission.

“What the hell are you doing in here?”

“Maybe you want to hitch that towel up some? Not that I mind the view. And, in fact, could probably spend the rest of the day admiring it.”

She glanced down, saw she was naked to the waist, and the towel that had slipped down wasn’t covering much below either. Baring her teeth, she yanked it up and around. “Answer the question before I kick your ass.”

“You missed breakfast, and you were heading toward missing lunch.”

“We worked the fire for eighteen hours. I didn’t get to bed till about three in the morning.”

“So I hear, and good job. But somebody mentioned you didn’t get to eat, and have a fondness for bacon-and-egg sandwiches, with Jack cheese. So...” He jerked his thumb at the bedside table. “I brought you one. I was going to leave it on the nightstand, but you were having a bad one. I woke you up, you flashed me—and just let me insert you have the most magnificent rack it’s ever been my privilege to view—and that brings us up to date.”

She studied the sandwich, the bottle of soda beside it. This time when she breathed in, the scent nearly made her weep with joy. “You brought me a bacon-and-egg sandwich?”

“With Jack cheese.”

“I’d say you earned the flash.”

“I can go get you another if that’s all it takes.”

She laughed, yawned, then secured the towel before grabbing the plate. The first bite had her closing her eyes in ecstasy. Wrapped in pleasure, she didn’t order him off the bed when she felt it give under his weight.

“Thanks,” she said with her mouth full of bite two. “Sincerely.”

“Let me respond, sincerely. It was way worth it.”

“I do have exceptional tits.” She reached for the drink, twisted the top off. “The fire kept changing direction on us, spitting out spots. We’d get a line down, and she’d say, Oh, you want to play that way? Try this. But in the end, she couldn’t beat the Zulies. Have you got any word this morning on Stovic?”

“Now known as Chainsaw. He and his twenty-seven stitches are doing fine.”

“I should’ve kept a closer eye on him.”

“He passed the audition, Rowan. Accidents happen. They’re part of the job description.”

“Can’t argue, but he was part of my team, and I was senior member in that sector.” She shrugged. “He’s okay, so that’s okay.”

She shifted her gaze. “Your hands look better.”

“Good enough.” He flexed them. “I’m back on the jump list.”

“Dobie?”

“He’s coming along, but it’ll be a couple more days anyway. Little Bear discovered Dobie can sew like Betsy Ross, so he’s been keeping Dobie chained to a machine. I won fifty-six dollars and change at poker last night, and Bicardi—one of the mechanics—got half lit and sang Italian opera. That, I believe, is all the news.”

“I appreciate the update, and the sandwich. Now go away so I can get dressed.”

“I’ve already seen you naked.”

“It’ll take more than a breakfast sandwich for you to see me naked again.”

“How about dinner?”

God, he made her laugh. “Out, hotshot. I need to hit the gym, put my time in and work out some of these kinks.”

“To show what a classy guy I am, I’ll refrain from making any of the obvious comments to that statement.” He rose, picked up the empty plate. “You’re one gorgeous female, Rowan,” he said as he walked out. “It keeps me up at night.”

“You’re one sexy male, Gulliver,” she murmured when he’d gone. “It’s messing with my head.”

She put in ninety in the gym, but kept it light and slow to avoid overworking her system, then hit the cookhouse.

Feeling human again, she texted the basics to her father.

Killed the fire. Am A-OK. Love you, Ro

She headed to the loft to check the chute she’d hung the night before. She began to check for holes, snags, defects.

She glanced up when Matt and Libby came in.

“Well, don’t you look flat-tailed and dull-eyed.”

“Remind me never to eat like a pig before crawling into bed.” Libby pressed a hand to her belly. “I couldn’t settle till after five, then lay there like a beached whale.”

“You didn’t make it to the cookhouse,” Matt commented when he brought his chute over.

“By the time I scraped off the stink, I barely made it from the shower to the bed. Slept like a rock,” she added, smiling at Libby. “Had room service, put in my ninety PT, ate more, and here I am ready to do it all again.”

“Sweet.” Libby spread out her chute. “Room service?”

“Gull brought me a breakfast sandwich.”

“Is that what they call it in Missoula?”

Rowan pointed a finger. “Just the sandwich, but he did earn some points. Have either of you seen Chainsaw?”

“Yeah, I poked in before I ran into Matt. He showed me his stitches.”

“Is that what they call it in California?”

“Walked right into that one.”

“He’s lucky,” Matt said. “Only hit meat. An inch either way, different story.”

“It comes down to inches, doesn’t it?” Libby ran her fingers over her chute. “Or seconds. Or one tiny lapse of focus. The difference between having an interesting scar or...”

She trailed off, paled a little. “I’m sorry, Matt. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t even know him.” He continued his inspection, cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t know, not for sure, if I was going to be able to really do it again until yesterday. In the door, looking down at the fire, waiting for the spotter’s hand to come down on my shoulder. I didn’t know if I could jump fire again.”

“But you did,” Rowan murmured.

“Yeah. I told myself I did it for Jim, but until I actually did it... Because you’re right, Libby. It is about inches and seconds. It’s about fate. It’s why we can’t let up. Anyway.” He let out a long breath. “Did you know Dolly’s back?” he asked Rowan.

“No.” Surprised, Rowan stopped what she was doing. “When? I haven’t seen her on base.”

“She came back yesterday, while we were on the fire. She came by my room this morning after breakfast.” He kept his gaze fixed on his chute. “She looks okay. Wanted to apologize for how she was after Jim died.”

“That’s good.” But Rowan felt a twist in her belly as she completed her chute inspection.

“I told her she ought to do the same to you.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Can I ask who Dolly is?” Libby wondered. “Or should I mind my own business?”

“She was one of the cooks,” Rowan told her. “She and Jim had a thing. Actually, she tended to have things with a variety, but she’d narrowed it down to Jim most of last season. She took it hard when he died. Understandable.”

“She came at you with a kitchen knife,” Matt reminded her. “There’s nothing understandable about that.”

“Well, Jesus.”

“She sort of came at me,” Rowan corrected as Libby gaped at her.

“Why?”

“I was Jim’s jump partner that day. She needed to blame somebody. She went a little crazy, waved the knife at me. But basically she blamed all of us, said we’d all killed him.”

Rowan waited a beat to see if Matt would comment, but he kept his silence.

“She took off right after. I don’t think anyone expected she’d be back, or get hired back, for that matter.”

Matt shifted his feet, looked at her again. “Are you okay with it?”

“I don’t know.” Rowan rubbed the back of her neck. “I guess if she doesn’t wave sharp implements at me or try to poison me, I’m cool with it.”

“She’s got a baby.”

It was Rowan’s turn to gape. “Say what?”

“She told me she had a baby, a girl, in April.” His eyes watered up a little, so he looked away. “Dolly named her Shiloh. Her ma’s looking after her while Dolly’s working. She said it’s Jim’s.”

“Well, God, you didn’t know before? Your family doesn’t know?”

He shook his head. “That’s what she apologized for. She asked if I’d tell my mother, my family, and gave me some pictures. She said I could go see it—her—the baby—if I wanted.”

“Did Jim know?”

Color came and went in his face. “She said she told him that morning, before the jump. She said he was really excited, that he picked the name. Boy or girl, he told her, he wanted Shiloh. They were going to get married, she said, in the fall.”

He drew a wallet-sized photo out of his pocket. “Here she is. This is Shiloh.”

Libby took the picture. “She’s beautiful, Matt.”

His eyes cleared at that, and the smile spread. “Bald as a melon. Jim and I were, too, and my sister. I’ve got to call my ma,” he said as Libby passed the photo to Rowan. “I can’t figure out how to tell her.”

Rowan studied the chubby-cheeked, sparkle-eyed infant before handing the photo back. “Go take a walk, work it out in your head. Then call your mother. She’ll be happy. Maybe a little mad she didn’t know sooner, but overall she’ll be happy. Go on. I’ll take care of your chute.”

“I can’t get it off my mind, so I guess you’re right. I can finish the chute later.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks. Thanks,” he repeated, and wandered out like a man in a dream.

“It’s a lot to deal with,” Libby commented.

“Yeah, it’s a whole lot.”

She let it simmer in the back of her mind while she worked. Others came in, and since word of Dolly Brakeman’s return spread, it reigned as the hot topic of the day.

“Have you seen her yet?”

Rowan shook her head at Trigger. Since she’d finished clearing her own chute, she focused on Matt’s.

“Word is she came in yesterday afternoon, with her mother and her preacher.”

“Her what?”

“Yeah.” Trigger rolled his eyes. “Some Reverend Latterly. The word is it’s her mother’s preacher guy, and Dolly’s going to church regular now. And so they closeted up with L.B. for an hour. This morning, she’s in the kitchen with Lynn and Marg, frying up the bacon.”

“She can cook.”

“Yeah, that was never her problem.”

She met Trigger’s eyes, gave another quick shake of her head. “She’s got a kid now.” Rowan kept her voice low. “There’s no point shaking all that out.”

“You think the kid’s Jim’s, like she says?”

“They were banging like bunnies, so why not?” Because, neither of them said, she had a habit of hopping to lots of male bunnies. “Anyway, it’s not our business.”

“He was one of ours, so you know that makes it our business.”

She couldn’t deny it, but she tuned out the gossip and speculation until she had stowed the chutes. Then she hunted out Little Bear.

He straightened from his hunch over his desk, gestured for her to close the door. “I figured you’d be stopping by.”

“I just want to know if I need to watch my back. I’d as soon not end up with a bread knife between my shoulder blades.”

He rubbed a spot between his eyebrows. “Do you think I’d let her on base if I thought she’d give you any trouble?”

“No. But I wouldn’t mind hearing that right out loud.”

“She worked here three years before Jim. The only problem we ever had was the wind from how fast she’d throw up her skirts. And nobody much had a problem with that, either.”

“I don’t care if she gave every rookie, snookie, jumper and mechanic blow jobs in the ready room.” Rowan jammed her hands in her pockets, did a little turn around the room. “She’s a good cook.”

“She is. And from what I heard a lot of men missed those bj’s once she hooked up with Jim. And she’s got a kid now. From the timing of it, and from what she says, it’s his.” L.B. puffed out his cheeks. “She brought her preacher with her. Her mother got her going to church. She needs the work, wants to make amends.”

He waved a hand in the air. “I’m not going to deny I felt sorry for her, but I’d’ve turned her off if I hadn’t believed she wanted a fresh start for her and the baby. She knows if she gives you or anybody else any trouble, she’s out.”

“I don’t want that on my head, L.B.”

He gave Rowan a long look out of solemn brown eyes. “Then think of it on mine. If you’re not all right with this, I’ll take care of it.”

“Hell.”

“She’s singing in the choir on Sundays.”

“Give me a break.” She shoved her hands in her pockets again as L.B. grinned at her. “Fine, fine.” But she dropped down in a chair.

“Not fine?”

“Did she tell you she and Jim were going to get married, and he was all happy about the baby?”

“She did.”

“The thing is, L.B., I know he was seeing somebody else. We caught that fire last year in St. Joe, and were there three days. Jim hooked up with one of the women on the cook line; he seemed to go for cooks. And I know they met at a motel between here and there a few times when he was off the jump list. Others, too.”

“I know it. I had to talk to him about expecting me to cover for him with Dolly.”

“And the day of his accident, I told you, he was jittery on the plane. Not excited but nervous, jumpy. If Dolly dropped the pregnancy on him before we got called out, that’s probably why. Or part of why.”

He tapped a pencil on the desk. “I can’t see any reason Dolly has to know any of that. Do you?”

“No. I’m saying maybe she found God, or finds some comfort in singing for Jesus, but she’s either lying or delusional about Jim. So it’s fine with me if she’s back, as long as we understand that.”

“I asked Marg to keep an eye on her, let me know how she does.”

Satisfied, Rowan stood up again. “That’s good enough for me.”

“They’re getting some lightning strikes up north,” L.B. told her as she started out.

“Yeah? Maybe we’ll get lucky and jump a fire, then everybody can stop talking about the return of Dolly. Including me.”

She might as well clear it up altogether, Rowan decided, and made the cookhouse her next stop.

She found dinner prep under way, as she’d anticipated.

Marg, the queen of the cookhouse, where she’d reigned a dozen years, stood at the counter quartering red-skinned potatoes. She wore her usual bib apron over a T-shirt and jeans, and her mop of brown hair secured under a bright pink do-rag.

Steam puffed from pots on the stove while Lady Gaga belted out “Speechless” from the playlist on the MP3 Marg had on the counter.

Nobody but Marg determined kitchen music.

She sang along in a strong, smoky alto while keeping the beat with her knife.

Her Native American blood—from her mother’s grandmother—showed in her cheekbones, but the Irish dominated in the mild white skin dashed with freckles and the lively hazel eyes.

Those eyes caught Rowan’s now, and rolled toward the woman washing greens in the sink.

Rowan lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “Smells good in here.” She made sure her voice carried over the music.

At the sink, Dolly froze, then slowly switched off the water and turned.

Her face was a bit fuller, Rowan noted, and her breasts as well. She had her blond hair in a high, jaunty ponytail, and needed a root job.

But that was probably unkind, Rowan thought. A new mother had other priorities. The rose in her cheeks came from emotion rather than blush as she cast her gaze down and dried her hands on a cloth.

“We got pork roasting to go with the rosemary potatoes, butter beans and carrots. Veggies get three-cheese ravioli. Gonna put a big-ass Mediterranean salad together. Pound cake and blueberry crumble for dessert.”

“Sign me up.”

Rowan opened the refrigerator and took out a soda as Marg went back to her potatoes.

“How are you doing, Dolly?”

“I’m fine, and you?” She said it primly, chin in the air now.

“Good enough. Maybe you could take a quick break, catch a little air with me?”

“We’re busy. Lynn—”

“Better get her skinny ass back in here right quick,” Marg interrupted. “You go on out, and if you see her, send her in.”

“I need to dry these greens,” Dolly began, but shrunk—as all did—under Marg’s steely stare. “Okay, fine.” She tossed aside her cloth, headed for the door.

Rowan exchanged a look with Marg, then followed.

“I saw a picture of your baby,” Rowan began. “She’s beautiful.”

“Jim’s baby.”

“She’s beautiful,” Rowan repeated.

“She’s a gift from God.” Dolly folded her arms as she walked. “I need this job to provide for her. I hope you’re Christian enough not to do anything that gets me fired.”

“I don’t think about it being Christian or otherwise, Dolly. I think about it as being human. I never had a problem with you, and I’m not looking to have one now.”

“I’ll cook for you just like I cook for the rest. I hope you’ll show me the respect of staying clear of me and I’ll do the same. Reverend Latterly says I have to forgive you to get right with the Lord, but I don’t.”

“Forgive me for what?”

“You’re the reason my baby’s going to grow up without her daddy.”

Rowan said nothing for a moment. “Maybe you need to believe that to get through, and I find I don’t give a shit either way.”

“I expect that from you.”

“Then I’m happy not to disappoint you. You can claim to have tripped over God or to’ve been born again, I don’t care about that either. But you’ve got a baby, and you need work. You’re good at the work. What you’re going to have to suck up, Dolly, is to keep the work, you have to deal with me. When I feel like coming into the kitchen, I will, whether you’re around or not. I’m not going to live my life around your stipulations or misplaced grudges.”

She held up a hand before Dolly could speak. “One more thing. You got away with coming at me once. You won’t get away with it again. New baby or not, I’ll put you down. Other than that, we won’t have a problem.”

“You’re a heartless whore, and one day you’ll pay for all you’ve done. It should’ve been you instead of Jim that day. It should’ve been you, screaming your way to the ground.”

She ran back to the kitchen.

“Well,” Rowan mumbled, “that went well.”

6

Rowan slept poorly, and put the blame squarely on Dolly. She’d checked the radar, the logs, the maps before turning in. Fires sparked near Denali in Alaska and in the Marble Mountains of Northern California. She’d considered—half hoped—she’d be called up and spend part of her night on a transport plane. But no siren sounded, no knock banged on her door.

Instead, she’d dreamed of Jim for the second night in a row. She woke irritated and itchy, and annoyed with her own subconscious for being so easily manipulated.

Done with it, she promised herself, and decided to start her day with a good, hard run to blow the mood away.

As her muscles warmed toward the first quarter mile, Gull fell into step beside her.

She flicked him a glance. “Is this going to be a habit?”

“I was running first yesterday,” he reminded her. “I like putting in a few miles first thing. Wakes me up.”

He’d gotten a look at her, too, and decided she looked a little pissed off, a little shadowed around the eyes. “Are you going for time or distance?”

“I’m just going for the run.”

“We’ll call it distance then. I like having an agenda.”

“So I’ve noticed. I think three.”

He snorted. “You’ve got more than that. Five.”

“Four,” she said just to keep him from getting his way. “And don’t talk to me. I like being in my head when I run.”

Obligingly he tapped the MP3 playing on his arm and ran to his music.

They kept the pace steady for the first mile. She was aware of him beside her, of the sound of their feet slapping the track in unison. And found she didn’t mind it. She could speculate on what music he ran to, what agenda he’d laid out for the rest of his day. How that might tumble apart if they caught a fire.

They were both first stick on the jump list.

When they crossed the second mile she heard the sound of an engine above, and saw one of her father’s planes glide across the wide blue canvas of sky. Flying lesson, she determined—business was good. She wondered if her father or one of his three pilots sat as instructor, then saw the right wing tip down twice, followed by a single dip on the left.

Her dad.

Face lifted, she shot up her arm, fingers stretched high in her signal back.

The simple contact had the dregs of annoyance that the run and Gull’s companionship hadn’t quite washed away breaking apart.

Then her running companion picked up the pace. She increased hers to match, knowing he pushed her, tested her. Then again, life without competition was barely living as far as she was concerned. The building burn in her quads and her hamstrings scorched away even those shattered dregs.

Her stride lengthened at mile three. Her arms pumped, her lungs labored. The bold sun the forecasters had promised would spike the temperatures toward eighty by afternoon skinned her in a thin layer of sweat.

She felt alive, challenged, happy.

Then Gull glanced her way, sent her a wink. And left her in his dust.

He had some kind of extra gear, she thought once he kicked in. That’s all there was to it. And when he hit it, he was just fucking gone.

She dug for her own kick, found she had a little juice yet. Not enough to catch him—not unless she strapped herself to a rocket—but enough not to embarrass herself.

The last half-mile push left her a little light-headed, had her breath whooping as she simply rolled onto the grass beside the track.

“You’ll cramp up. Come on, Ro, you know better than that.”

He was winded—not gasping for air as she was, but winded, and she found a little satisfaction in that.

“Minute,” she managed, but he grabbed her hands, pulled her to her feet.

“Walk it off, Ro.”

She walked her heart rate down to reasonable, squeezed a stream from the water bottle she’d brought out with her into her mouth.

Watching him, she stood on one leg, stretched her quads by lifting the other behind her. He’d worked up a sweat, and it looked damn good on him. “It’s like you’ve got an engine in those Nikes.”

“You motor along pretty good yourself. And now you’re not pissed off or depressed anymore. Was that your father doing the flyover?”

“Yeah. Why do you say I was pissed off and depressed?”

“It was all over your face. I’ve been making a study of your face, and that’s how I tagged the mood.”

“I’m going to hit the gym.”

“Better stretch out those hamstrings first.”

Irritation crawled up her back like a beetle. “What are you, the track coach?”

“No point getting pissed at me because I noticed you were pissed.”

“Maybe not, but you’re right here.” Still, she dropped down into a hamstring stretch.

“From what I’ve heard, you’ve got cause to be.”

She lifted her head, aimed that icy blue stare.

“Let me sum up.” He opened the kit bag he’d tossed on the edge of the track, took out some water. “Matt’s brother and the blond cook spent a good portion of last season tangling the sheets. Historically, said cook tangled many other sheets with dexterity and aplomb.”

“Aplomb.”

“It’s a polite way of saying she banged often, well and without too much discrimination.”

“That also sounded polite.”

“I was raised well. In addition, Jim also tended to be generous with his attentions.”

“Get you.”

“However,” Gull continued, “during the tangling and banging, the cook decided she was in love with Jim—that I got from Lynn, who got it from the blonde—and the blonde broke the hearts of many by focusing her dexterity exclusively on Jim, and closed her ears and eyes to the fact he didn’t exactly reciprocate.”

“You could write a book.”

“The thought’s crossed. Toward the end of this long, hot summer, the cook gets pregnant, which, rumor has it, since she avoided this eventuality previously, may have been on purpose.”

“Probably.” It was one of the things she’d already considered, and one of the things that depressed her.

“Sad,” he said, and left it at that. “The cook claims she told Jim, who greeted the news with joy and exaltation. Though I didn’t know him, that strikes me as sketchy. Plans to marry were immediately launched, which strikes sketchier yet. Then more sadly yet, Jim’s killed during a jump which the ensuing investigation determines was his error—but the cook blamed his jump partner, which would be you, and tried to stab you with a kitchen knife.”

“She didn’t exactly try to stab me.” The hell of it was, Rowan thought, she couldn’t figure out why she kept defending the lunatic Dolly on that score. “Or didn’t have time to because Marg yanked the knife away from her almost as soon as she’d picked it up.”

“Points for Marg.” He watched her face as he spoke, cat eyes steady and patient. “Grief takes a lot of forms, and a lot of those are twisted and ugly. But blaming you, or anyone on that load, for Jim’s accident is just stupid. Continuing to is mean and stupid, and self-defeating.”

She didn’t want to talk about this. Why was she? She couldn’t seem to help it, she realized, with him watching her intently, speaking so calmly.

“How do you know she still blames me?”

The sunlight picked out the gold in his brown hair as he drank down more water. “To wind it up, the cook takes off, and finds religion—or so she claims and maybe even believes. Not enough grace and faith to tell the father’s grieving family about the baby, until she comes back to base looking for work. So I call bullshit on the God factor.”

“Okay.” Maybe she couldn’t help it because he’d laid it out flat, and in exactly the way she saw it. “Wow.”

“Not quite finished. You seek out the cook, engage her in private conversation. Though, of course, privacy is slim pickings around here. During the not-so-private conversation, the cook becomes very steamed, does a lot of snarling and pointing, then storms off. Which leads me to conclude finding religion didn’t include finding forgiveness, charity or good sense.”

“How did you get all this? And I do mean all.”

“I’m a good listener. If you care, the general consensus on base is she had Jim’s kid—and Matt’s niece—so she should get some support. In fact, Cards is taking donations for a college fund in Jim’s name.”

“Yeah,” Rowan replied. “He’d think of that. He’s just built that way.”

“The consensus continues that if she gives you grief or talks trash about you, she gets one warning. Second time, we meet with L.B., lay it out and she goes. You’ve got no say in it.”

“I—”

“None.” The single syllable remained calm, and absolutely final. “Everybody pretty much wants her to keep her job. And nobody’s going to let her keep it if she causes trouble. So if you don’t agree with that, you’re outvoted. You might as well stop being pissed off and depressed because it’s not going to do you any good.”

“I guess I don’t agree because it’s me. If it was somebody else, I’d be right there.”

“I get that.”

“Leaving out a lot of stuff I’m not in the mood to talk about, my mother died when I was twelve.”

“That’s hard.”

“They weren’t together, and... that’s the lot of stuff I’m not in the mood to talk about. My father raised me, with his parents taking a lot of the weight during the season when he was still jumping. What I’m saying is, I know it’s not easy to be a single parent, even with help and support. I’m willing to cut her some slack.”

“She’s getting slack already, Rowan. She’s working in the kitchen. It’ll be up to her if she stays.”

They’d walked back while they talked. Now he gestured toward the gym. “Feel like lifting?”

“Yeah. Can I use this?” She tapped his MP3 player. “I want to check out your playlist.”

“Working out without the tunes is a sacrifice.” He pulled it off, handed it to her. “Consider that when you’re lining up the reasons to sleep with me.”

“I’ll put it at the top of the list.”

“Nice. So... what did it bump down?”

She laughed and walked inside ahead of him.

Once she finished her daily PT, cleaned up, she hiked to the cookhouse to fuel up on carbs.

In the dining hall, Stovic chowed down on bacon and eggs and biscuits while Cards ragged on him for being a malingerer between forkfuls of pancakes. Gull had beaten her there and was already building a stack of his own from the breakfast buffet.

Rowan grabbed a plate. She flopped a pancake onto it, laid two slices of bacon over that, added another pancake, two more slices of bacon. She covered that with a third pancake over which she dumped a hefty spoonful of berries.

“What do you call that?” Gull asked her.

“Mine.” She carried it to the table, dropped into a chair. “What’s the word, Cards?”

“Plumbago.”

“That’s a good one. Sounds like a geriatric condition, but it’s a flower, right?”

“Shrub. Half point for you.”

“The flower on the shrub, or plant, is also called plumbago,” Gull pointed out.

Cards considered. “I guess that’s true. Full point.”

“Yippee.” Rowan dumped syrup over her bacon pancakes. “How’s the leg, Chainsaw?”

“Stitches itch.” He glanced over as Dobie wandered in, grinned. “But at least it’s not my face.”

“At least I didn’t do it to myself,” Dobie tossed back, and studied the offerings. “If I hadn’t lost that bet, I’d’ve joined up just for the breakfasts.” To prove it, he took a sample of everything.

“Your eye looks better,” Rowan told him.

He could open both now, and she recognized the symphonic bruising as healing.

“How are the ribs?”

“Colorful, but they don’t ache much. L.B.’s got me doing a shitload of sit-down work.” He pulled out a bottle of Tabasco, pumped it over his eggs. “I asked if I could have some time today. I figured I’d walk on down, check out your daddy’s operation. Watch some of those pay-to-jump types come down.”

“You should. A lot of people make a picnic of it. Marg would pack you up something.”

“Maybe I’ll go with you.”

Dobie wagged an impaled sausage at Stovic. “You’ve got that gimp leg.”

“The walk’ll take my mind off the itch.”

It probably would, Rowan thought, but just in case. “I’ll give you the number for the desk. If you can’t make it, they’ll send somebody to get you.”

Marg stepped in, scanned the table as she walked over and set a tall glass of juice in front of Rowan. “Are you all going to be wandering in and out of here all morning, and lingering at my table half the day? What you need is a fire.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Rowan picked up the glass, sampled. “Carrots, because there are always carrots, celery, I think, some oranges—and I’m pretty sure mango.”

“Good for you. Now drink it all.”

“Marg, you’re looking more beautiful than ever this morning.”

Marg cast a beady eye on Dobie. “What do you want, rookie?”

“I heard tell you might could put together a bag lunch if me and my fellow inmate here mosey on down to Rowan’s daddy’s place to watch the show.”

“I might could. You tell Lucas, if you see him, it’s past time he came in to pay a call on me.”

“I’ll sure do that.”

As he had a short window before a tandem jump, Lucas made a point of walking out when he got word a couple of the rookies from the base were on the grounds.

A lot of tourists and locals came by to watch the planes and the jumpers, with plenty of them hooking the trip to his place with a tour of the smoke jumpers’ base. He figured it was good for business.

He’d started with one plane, a part-time pilot and instructor, with his mother handling the phones. When they rang. His pop ran dispatch, helped with the books. Of course in those days, he’d only been able to give the half-assed business his attention off-season, or when he was off the jump list.

But he’d needed to build something for his daughter, something solid.

And he had. He took pride in that, in his fleet of planes, his full-time staff of twenty-five. He had the satisfaction of knowing one day, when she was ready, Rowan could stand on what he’d built and have that solidity under her.

Still there were days he watched a plane rise into the sky from the base, knew the men and women on it were flying to fire, that he missed it like a limb.

He knew, now, what it was to be on the ground and know someone he loved more than anything in the world and beyond was about to risk her life. He wondered how his parents, his daughter, even the wife he’d had so briefly had ever stood that constant mix of fear and resignation.

But today, so far, the sirens stayed silent.

He stopped a moment to watch one of the students—a sixty-three-year-old banker from town free-fall from the Otter. Applause broke out in the audience of watchers when the chute deployed.

Zeke had been Lucas’s banker for close to forty years, so Lucas watched a moment longer, gave a nod of approval at the form, before he walked over to the blanket where the two men from the base stretched out with what he recognized as one of Marg’s famous boxed lunches.

“How’s it going?” he asked, and crouched down beside them. “Lucas Tripp, and you must be Dobie. I heard you got in a scuffle at Get a Rope the other night.”

“Yeah. I’m usually prettier. It’s a pleasure meeting you,” Dobie added as he held out a hand. “This one’s Chainsaw, as he likes to use one to shave his legs.”

“Heard about that, too. If you’re going to get banged up, it might as well be early in the season, before things heat up.”

“It’s a real nice operation you got here, Mr. Tripp,” Stovic commented.

The polite deference made Lucas feel old as an alp. “You can hang the mister around my father. We’re doing pretty well here. See that one.” He gestured toward where Zeke touched down and rolled. “He won’t see sixty again. Bank manager out of Missoula. Granddaddy of eight with two more coming. Known him longer than either of you have been alive, and up until a couple months ago, he never said a word to me about wanting to jump. Bucket List,” Lucas told them with a grin. “Since that movie came out, we’re getting a lot of clients and students with some age on them coming in.

“I’ve got a tandem jump coming up. Client’s due in about fifteen. Fifty-seven-year-old woman. High-school principal. You never know who’s got a secret yen to fly.”

“Do you miss it?” Dobie asked him. “Jumping fire.”

“Every day.” Lucas shrugged as he watched his banker wave to a trio of his grandkids. “But old horses like me have to make room for you young stallions.”

“You must have a lot of stories from back in the day.”

And older yet, Lucas thought, but grinned at Stovic. “Get a couple beers in me, I’ll tell them all, whether you want to hear them or not.”

“Anytime,” Dobie said. “Anyplace.”

“I might take you up on it. I better get on, give the principal the thrill of her life.” Lucas pushed to his feet. “Enjoy your day off. You won’t get many more of them.”

“I don’t see how he could come to give it up,” Dobie commented. “I don’t think I could.”

“You haven’t jumped fire yet,” Stovic pointed out.

“In my head I have.” Dobie bit into a drumstick Marg had fried to a crispy turn. “And I didn’t try to castrate myself with a chain saw.”

Stovic gave him a good-natured punch in the arm. “It got the Swede’s hands on my thigh. Worth every stitch.”

“You try to move on that, Gull’ll give you more than a few stitches. His eyes’re homed in that direction.”

“I ain’t blind. But she’s sure got a nice touch.” Stovic dug into the potato salad as they watched the next jumper.

Lucas checked his logs, the aircraft, had a quick conversation with his mechanic and the pilot for the tandem. Even if the client arrived on time, Marcie—his service rep—would sit her down for an overall explanation, have the client fill out the necessary forms. Since she’d ordered the DVD package, he swung through to make sure his videographer was lined up for the go.

When he walked into the operations building, he spotted Marcie and the client at one of the tables dealing with the paperwork. His first thought was a cliché, but true nonetheless.

They hadn’t made principals like that when he’d been in high school.

She had red hair, and a lot of it, that kind of swept around her face, and eyes like forest shadows. Deep and green. When she smiled at something Marcie said, shallow dimples popped out in her cheeks, and her lips turned up in a pretty bow.

He wasn’t shy around women—unless he was attracted to one. He felt the wash of embarrassed heat run up the back of his neck as he approached the table.

“And here’s your jump master,” Marcie announced, “and the owner of Zulie Skydiving. Lucas, I was just telling Mrs. Frazier she’s about to experience the thrill of a lifetime, and she’s got the top dog to take her through it.”

“Well,” Lucas managed as the heat spread to the top of his skull.

“If I’m going to be thrilled, I like knowing it’s with the top dog.” She offered her hand—narrow, slender-fingered. Lucas took it loosely, released it quickly, worried he might crush it.

“Mrs. Frazier’s son bought her the package for Christmas,” Marcie added.

“Make it Ella, since we’ll be jumping out of a plane together. He heard me say I wanted to try skydiving one day, and took me seriously, even though I believe I’d had several glasses of wine at the time.” Those lips bowed up again; the dimples popped. “He and his family are out poking around, as are my daughter and hers. They’re all excited to watch.”

“That’s good. That’s nice.”

“So...” Ella waited a beat. “When do we start?”

“We’ll get you suited up.” Though she beamed smiles, Marcie slid a puzzled look up at Lucas. “While we do, you’ll watch a short instructional video. Then the boss will give you a little training, answer any questions. That’ll take about thirty minutes, so you’ll be familiar with the equipment, feel comfortable and learn how to land.”

“Landing would be key. I don’t want to traumatize my grandchildren.” She said it with a sparkle in her eye.

Married. Lucas’s brain caught up with the rest of him. With kids. With grandkids. Knowing she was married eased the shyness. Now he could just admire how pretty she was, seeing as she was off-limits.

“No worries about that.” He was able to grin back at her. “They’ll remember today as the day they watched their grandmother fly. If you’re done with the paperwork, we’ll get you your flight suit.”

He changed into his own while Marcie got the client outfitted. He generally enjoyed doing tandems with first-timers, soothing their nerves if they had them, answering questions, giving them the best experience possible, and a memory they’d carry for the rest of their lives. He expected this run would be no exception.

The client looked fit, which helped. He glanced at his copy of the form and noted he’d been on the mark on her statistics. Five-five, 123 pounds. No physical problems.

He stepped outside to wait for her.

“I feel official.” She laughed and did a little turn in her flight suit and jump boots.

“Looking good. I know Marcie went over the procedure with you, but I can go over it again, answer any questions you’ve got.”

“Marcie was thorough, and the video was great. The harness attaches me to you, start to finish, which is very important from my point of view.”

“It’s a good way to make a first jump. Low stress.”

She bubbled out a laugh. “Easy for you to say. I guess you’re used to screamers.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m betting you’re going to be too happy and too dazzled by the view to scream.” He led her to a small training field. “We’ll go up to about fourteen thousand feet. When you’re ready, I’ll take you on a trip into that big sky. The free fall’s a rush, exhilarating. It’ll last about a minute before the chute deploys. Once it does, you’ll float, and listen to the kind of quiet only jumpers know.”

“You love it.”

“Absolutely.”

“I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. First for my son. I just couldn’t disappoint him. And second, I realized on the way here, to remind myself I used to be fearless. Tell me, Mr. Tripp—”

“Lucas.”

“Lucas, how many people chicken out once they’re up there?”

“Oh, there’s some, sure. I can usually peg them before we get off the ground.” He gave her an easy smile. “You won’t be one of them.”

“Because?”

“You were fearless once. You don’t forget what you are. Sometimes you just put it aside awhile.”

The dimples fluttered in her cheeks. “You’re right. I’ve learned that lesson the last few years.”

He showed her how to land, how to use him, her own body for a soft touchdown. He strapped the harness so she could get accustomed to the feel of it, and having his body against hers.

The little jump in the belly he felt had him relieved to remind himself she was married.

“Any questions? Concerns?”

“I think I’ve got it. I’m supposed to relax and enjoy—and hope I don’t scream the whole way down so the DVD shows me with my mouth wide open and my eyes squeezed shut.”

“Hey, Mom!”

They looked over at the group hovering at the edge of the field.

“The family. Do you have time to meet them before we do this?”

“Sure.”

He walked over with her, made some small talk with her son—he looked pale and nervous now that it was zero hour—her daughter, the three children, including the one watching him like an owl from his daddy’s hip.

“You’re sure about this? Because if—”

“Tyler.” Ella rose to the toes of her jump boots, kissed her son’s cheek. “I’m revved and ready. Best Christmas present ever.”

“Nana’s gonna do this.” A boy of about five shot the toy parachutist from their gift shop into the air. It floated down on a bright red chute.

“You bet I am. Watch me.”

After hugs and kisses, she walked off with Lucas toward the waiting Twin Otter. “I’m not nervous. I’m not going to be nervous. I’m not going to scream. I’m not going to throw up.”

“Look at that sky. It doesn’t get prettier. Until you’re floating in it. Here’s Chuck. He’ll be videographing your entire experience.”

“Chuck.” She shook hands. “You’ll get my best side, right?”

“Guaranteed. Nobody gives a tandem like Iron Man, ma’am. Smooth as silk.”

“Okay.” She blew out a breath. “Let’s do it, Iron Man.”

She turned, waved to her family, then got onboard.

She shook hands with the pilot, and to Lucas’s eye stayed steady and attentive through the flight. He expected more questions—about the plane, the equipment, his experience—but she played it up for the camera, obviously determined to give her family a fun memento.

She mugged, pretended to faint and surprised Lucas by crawling into his lap and telling her kids she was flying off to Fiji with her jump master.

“We need to go back for a bigger plane,” he told her, and made her laugh.

When they reached jump altitude he winked at her. “Ready to harness up?”

Those lips bowed up with nerves around the edges. “Let’s rock and roll.”

He went over the procedure again, his voice soothing, easy, as he hooked them together.

“You’re going to feel a rush of air, hear more engine noise when we open the door. We’re miked, so Chuck will pick up what we say for your DVD.”

As he spoke he felt her breathing pick up. When the door opened, he felt her jerk, felt her tremble.

“We don’t go until you say go.”

“I swam naked in the Gulf of Mexico. I can do this. Let’s go.”

“We’re go.” He nodded to Chuck, who jumped first. “Watch the sky, Ella,” he murmured, and leaped with her.

She didn’t scream, but after a strangled gasp, he heard her clearly shout, “Holy fucking shit!” and wondered if they’d want that edited out for the grandchildren.

Then she laughed, shot her arms out like wings.

“Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God ! I did it. Lucas!”

She vibrated against him, and in tune with her he recognized exhilaration rather than fear.

The chute deployed, a rush of wings, and the whippy dive became a graceful float.

“It was too fast, over too fast. But, oh, oh, you were right. This is beautiful. This is... religious.”

“Put your hands on the toggles. You can drive awhile.”

“Okay, wow. Look at Nana, Owen! I’m a skydiver. Thank you, Tyler! Hi, Melly, hi, Addy, hi, Sam!” She tipped her head back. “I’m in the sky, and it’s blue silk.”

She fell silent, then sighed. “You were right about the quiet. You were right about everything. I’ll never forget this. Oh, there they are! They’re waving. You’d better take over so I can wave back.”

“You have a beautiful family.”

“I really do. Oh, gosh, oh, wow, here comes the ground.”

“Trust me. Trust yourself. Stay relaxed.”

He brought her down soft.

With excited screams, wild cheers, her family jumped and waved. When Lucas detached the harness, she dropped into an exaggerated curtsy, blew kisses.

Then she spun around, her face glowing, and stunned him by throwing her arms around him and kissing him firmly on the mouth.

“I’d have done that in midair if I could have because, my God, that was orgasmic. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I think you just did.”

She laughed, made him laugh by doing a quick victory dance. “I jumped out of a damn plane. My ex-husband said I’d be crazy to do it, the jerk. But I feel crazy, because I’m going to do it again.”

Still laughing, she ran over, arms wide, to her family.

“Ex-husband,” Lucas managed. And the heat spread up the back of his neck again.

7

With the siren silent, Rowan spent most of her time in the loft checking, clearing or mending chutes. She’d caught up on paperwork, repacked her personal gear bag, checked and rechecked her own chute, readied her jump gear.

She remained first jumper, first stick.

“Going stir-crazy here,” Cards said when he got up from the machine.

“Aren’t we all. And the word of today is...”

“Fastidious. We’ve been doing dick-all but cleaning and organizing. The ready room’s freaking fastidious enough to suit my mother’s scary standards.”

“It can’t last much longer.”

“I hope to Christ not. I had to kick my own ass for cheating at solitaire yesterday, and I’m starting to think about crafts. We’ll be knitting next.”

“I’d like a nice scarf to match my eyes.”

“It could happen,” he said darkly. “At least I had phone sex with Vicki last night.” He pulled the deck of cards from his shirt pocket, shuffling as he paced. “It’s fun while it lasts, but it doesn’t really do the job.”

“And gone are the days you’d hunt up a companion for actual sex?”

“Long gone. She’s worth it. I told you she and the kids are coming out next month, right?”

“You mentioned it.” One or two thousand times, Rowan thought.

“Gotta get in some time now, so I can take a couple days next month. I need to work, need the pay, need—”

“To resist trolling the aisle of the craft store,” Rowan finished.

“I won’t be trolling alone if this lull lasts much longer. Have you got anything to read? All Gibbons has are books that give me a headache. I read one of Janis’s romance novels, but that doesn’t help keep my mind off sex.”

“Nothing deep, nothing sexy. Check.” She signed and dated the tag on the repaired chute. “What’re you after?”

“I want something gory, where people die miserable deaths at the hands of a psycho.”

“I could fix you up. Come on. We’ll peruse my library.”

“Dobie’s in the kitchen with Marg,” Cards told her, passing a hand over Rowan’s head, then flipped out an ace of spades. “He got some recipe of his mother’s, and he’s in there cooking up some pie or other.”

Cooking, knitting—that bake sale could be next. Then struck, Rowan paused. “Is Dobie hitting on Marg?”

Cards only shook his head. “She’s got twenty years on him.”

“Men routinely hit on women twenty years younger.”

“I’m bored, Ro, but not bored enough to get into a tangle on that with you.”

“Coward.” But when they stepped outside, she paused again. “Look, check out those clouds.”

“We got scouts.” His face brightened as he studied the clouds over the mountains. “A nice string of them.”

“Could mean smoke today. With any luck, we’ll have that ready room messed up again before afternoon. Do you still want that book?”

“Might as well. I’ll get myself all settled in, good book, good snack. It’s like guaranteeing we’ll fly today.”

“It’s the slowest start to a season I remember. Then again, my father once told me when it starts cool, it ends hot. Maybe we shouldn’t be so eager to get going.”

“If it doesn’t get going, what’re we here for?”

“No argument. So...” She tried for a casual tone as they crossed to her end of the barracks. “Have you seen Fast Feet this morning?”

“In the Map Room. Studying. At least he was about an hour ago.”

“Studying. Huh.” She wasn’t interested in settling down with a book, but a little byplay with Gull might be just the solution to boredom she needed.

Inside, she led the way to her quarters. “Gruesome murder,” she began. “Do you want just violence, or sex and violence? As opposed to romantic sexy.”

“I always want sex.”

“Again, it’s hard to—” She broke off as she opened her door. The slaughterhouse stench punched like a fist in the throat.

A pool of blood spread over the bed. Dark rivers of it ran down hills of clothes heaped on the floor. On the wall in letters wet and gleaming dripped the statement:

BURN IN HELL!

In the center of the ugliness, Dolly whirled to face the door. Some of the blood in the canister she held splattered on her shirt.

“Son of a bitch!” Fists up, her mind as red and vicious as the blood, Rowan charged. A war paint line of pig’s blood splatted on her face as Dolly screamed and dropped to the ground—seconds before Cards grabbed Rowan’s arms.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.”

“Fuck you.” Rowan pushed off her feet, adding to the blood when the back of her head connected sharply with Cards’s nose and had it spurting.

He yelped, and through sheer grit managed to hold on for another second or two.

“You’re so dead!” Rowan shouted at Dolly, and, blind to anything but payback, jabbed her elbow into Cards’s ribs, sprang free.

Shrieking, scrabbling back, Dolly pitched the canister. Globs of blood flew, striking wall, ceiling, furniture, when Rowan batted it away.

“You like blood? Let’s see how you like painting with yours, you crazy cunt.”

Rowan clamped her hands on Dolly’s ankles when Dolly tried to crawl under the bed. Even as she hauled Dolly across the blood-smeared floor, men who’d come running at the commotion dived in to grapple Rowan back.

Rowan didn’t waste her breath. She punched, kicked, jabbed and kneed, heedless of where blows landed, until she ended up facedown on the floor, pinned.

“Just stay down,” Gull said in her ear.

“Get off me. Goddamn you, get off me. Do you see what she did?”

“Everybody sees it. Jesus, somebody get that screaming idiot out of here before I punch her.”

“I’m going to kick every square inch of her skanky ass. Let me up! You hear that, you psycho? First chance I get it won’t be pig’s blood you’re wearing, it’ll be your own. Let me the fuck up!”

“You’re down until you calm down.”

“Fine. I’m calm.”

“Not even close.”

“She’s got Jim’s blood on her,” Dolly wept as Yangtree and Matt pulled her from the room. “You all have his blood on you. I hope you all die. I hope you all burn alive. All of you.”

“I think she lost her religion,” Gull commented. “Listen to me. Rowan, you listen. She’s gone, and if you try to go after her and take a shot at her now, we’re just going to put you down again. You already bloodied Cards’s nose, and I’m pretty sure Janis is going to be sporting a black eye.”

“They shouldn’t have gotten in my way.”

“If they, and the rest of us, hadn’t, you’d have punched a pathetic lunatic, and you’d be off the jump list until it got sorted out.”

That, he noted, had her taking the first calming breath. He signaled for Libby and Trigger to let go of her legs and, when she didn’t try to kick them, pointed to the door.

Libby shut it quietly behind them.

“I’m letting you up.” He eased his grip on her arms, braced to grab them again if necessary. Then, cautiously, he shifted off her, sat on the floor.

Blood covered both of them, but he was pretty sure she had the worst of it. It smeared her face, dripped from her hair, coated her arms, her shirt. She looked as if she’d been whacked with an ax. And it made him sick.

“You know, it’s a goddamn pigsty in here.”

“That’s not funny.”

“No, it’s not, but it’s the best I got.” He eyed her coolly as she pushed up to sit, watched her right hand bunch into a fist. “I can take a punch if you need to throw one.”

“Just get out.”

“No. We’re just going to sit here awhile.”

Rowan used her shoulder to wipe at her face, smeared it with more blood. “She got that crap all over me. All over my bed, the floor, the walls.”

“She’s sick and she’s stupid. And she deserved to have every square inch of her skanky ass kicked. She’ll get fired, and everybody on base and within fifty miles will know why. That might be worse.”

“It’s not as satisfying.” She looked away a moment as, with the wild heat of temper fading, tears wanted to sting. She clamped her hands together; they’d started to shake.

“It smells like a slaughterhouse in here.”

“You can sleep in my room tonight.” He hitched a bandanna out of his pocket, used it to wipe blood from her face. “But everybody who sleeps in my room has to be naked.”

She huffed out a tired breath. “I’ll bunk with Janis until I get it cleaned up. She has the naked rule, too.”

“Now that was just mean.”

She looked at him then, just sat and looked while he ruined his bandanna on a hopeless job. It helped to see he wasn’t as calm as he sounded, helped to see the temper and disgust on his face.

Oddly, seeing it calmed her just a little.

“Did I give you that bloody lip?”

“Yeah. Back fist. Not bad.”

“I’ll probably be sorry for it at some point, but I can’t work it up right now.”

“It took five of us to take you down.”

“That’s something. I have to go wash up.”

She started to rise when L.B. knocked briskly on the door, opened it. “Give us a minute, will you, Gull?”

“Sure.” Before he stood, Gull leaned over, laid a hand on Rowan’s knee. “People like her? They never get people like you. It’s their loss.”

He pushed to his feet, and closed the door on his way out.

L.B. looked around the room, rubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus, Ro. Jesus. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry.”

“You didn’t do it.”

“I shouldn’t have hired her on. I shouldn’t have taken her back. This is on me.”

“It’s on her.”

“She got the chance to come at you this way because I gave her one.” He hunkered down so their faces were on level. “We’ve got her in my office, with a couple of the guys watching her. She’ll be fired, banned from base. I’m going to call the law on this. Do you want to press charges?”

“I do because she earned it.” The tears had backed off, thank God. Now she only felt sick, sick and tired. “But the baby didn’t. I just want her gone.”

“She’s gone,” he promised. “Come on, you need to get out of here. We’ll have some of the cleaning crew deal with it.”

“I need to get some air. Apologize to some people. I need to take a shower, wash this off me.” She blew out another breath as she looked down at herself. “I probably need the full Silkwood.”

“Take as long as you need. And nobody needs you to apologize.”

“I need me to. But this shit’s all over my stuff. I need to clean some of it up myself.”

She got up, opened the door. Looked back. “Did she love him this much? Is this love?”

L.B. stared at the bloody words on the wall. “It’s got nothing to do with love.”

The siren sounded as she stepped out of the shower.

“Perfect,” she muttered. She dragged on underwear without bothering to dry off, pulled on a shirt, her pants, and zipped them on the run.

The nine other jumpers on the list beat her to the ready room. She listened to the rundown as she suited up. Lightning strikes on Morrell Mountain. She and Cards had judged those morning clouds correctly. The lookout spotted the smoke about eleven, around the time she’d surprised Dolly and her goddamn pig’s blood.

Over the next hour or so, the fire manager officer had to consider letting it burn, do its work of clearing out some brush and fallen trees, or call in the smoke jumpers.

A few more lightning strikes and unseasonably dry conditions made the natural burn too big a risk.

“Ready for the real thing, Fast Feet?” She put her let-down rope in her pocket while Gull grabbed gear from the speed rack.

“Jumping the fire, or you and me making some?”

“You’d better keep your mind off impossible dreams. This isn’t a practice jump.”

“Looking good.” Dobie slapped Gull on the back. “Wish I was going with you.”

“You’ll be off the disabled list soon. Save me some pie,” Rowan called out, and shambled over to the waiting plane.

She tucked her helmet in the crook of her elbow. “Okay, boys and girls, I’ll be your fire boss today. For a couple of you, this is your first fire jump. Do it by the numbers, don’t screw up, and you’ll do fine. Remember, if you can’t avoid the trees...”

“Aim for the small ones,” the crew responded.

Once they were airborne she sat next to Cards. “At least the nose didn’t ground you.”

He pinched it gently to wag it back and forth. “So I don’t have to be pissed at you. Like I said, Swede, the girl’s batshit.”

“Yeah. And it’s done.” She took the note passed back to her from the cockpit. “We’re going to hold off while they drop a load of mud. It was a hard winter in that area, and there’s a lot of downed trees fueling this one. It’s moving faster than they figured.”

“Almost always does.”

She pulled out her map, scanned the area. But in moments she only had to look out the window to see what they were dealing with.

A tower of smoke spewed skyward, gliding along the mountain’s ridge. Trees, standing and downed, fueled the wall of fire. She scanned for and found the stream she’d scouted out on the map, calculated the amount of hose they had on board, and judged they’d be able to use the water source.

The plane bucked and trembled in the turbulence while jumpers lined the windows to study the burning ground. And bucking, they circled to wait for the mud drop on the head that shot up flames she estimated at a good thirty feet.

She waddled over to L.B., who’d come on as spotter.

“See that clearing?” he shouted. “That’s our jump spot. A little closer to the right flank than I’d like, but it’s the best in this terrain.”

“Saves us a hike.”

“The wind’s whipping her up. You want to keep clear of that slash just east of the spot.”

“You bet I do.”

Together they watched the tanker thunder its load onto the head. The reddened clouds of it made her think of the blood soiling her room.

No time for brooding, she reminded herself.

“That’ll knock her down a little.” When the tanker veered off, L.B. nodded at her. “Are you good?”

“I’m good.”

He gave her arm a squeeze, a tacit acknowledgment. “Guard your reserves,” he called out, and went to the door.

From his seat, Gull watched Rowan as the wind and noise rushed in. About an hour earlier she’d been spitting mad with blood on her face and blind vengeance in her fists. Now, as she consulted with their spotter over the flight of the first streamers, the cool was back in those gorgeous, icy eyes. She’d be the first out, taking that ice into fire.

He didn’t see how the fire had a chance.

He looked out the window to study the enemy below. In his hotshot days, he’d have gone in, one of twenty handcrew, transported in The Box—the crew truck that became their home away from home every season.

Now he’d get there by jumping out of a plane.

Different methods, same goal. Suppress and control.

Once he was down, he knew his job and he knew how to take orders. He shifted his gaze back to Rowan. No question she knew how to give them.

But right at the moment, it was all about the getting there. He watched the next set of streamers, tried to judge for himself the draft. With the plane bucking and rocking beneath them, he understood the wind wasn’t going to be a pal.

The plane bumped its way up to jump altitude at L.B.’s order, and as Rowan fixed on her helmet and face mask, as Cards—her jump partner—got into position behind her, Gull felt his breathing elevate. It climbed just as the plane climbed.

But he kept his face impassive as he worked to control it, as he visualized himself shoving out the door, into the slipstream and past it, hurtling down to do his job.

Rowan glanced over briefly so he caught that flash of blue behind her mask. Then she dropped down into position. Seconds later, she was gone. Gull shifted back to the window, watched her fly, and Cards after her. As the plane circled around, he changed angles, saw her chute open.

She slid into the smoke.

When the next jumpers took positions, he strapped on his helmet and mask, calmed and cleared his mind. He had everything he needed, equipment, training, skill. And a few thousand feet below was what he wanted. The woman and the blaze.

He made his way forward, felt the slap of the wind.

“Do you see the jump spot?”

“Yeah, I see it.”

“Wind’s going to kick, all the way down, and it’s going to want to shove you east. Try to stay out of that slash. See that lightning?”

Gull watched it rip through the sky, strike like an electric bullet.

“Hard not to.”

“Don’t get in its way.”

“Got it.”

“Are you ready?”

“We’re ready.”

“Get in the door.”

Gaze on the horizon, Gull dropped down, pushed his legs out into the power of the slipstream. Heat from the fire radiated against his face; the smell of smoke tanged the air he drew into his lungs.

Once again L.B. stuck his head out the door, scanning, studying the hills, the rise of trees, the roiling walls of flame.

“Get ready!”

When the slap came down on his shoulder, Gull propelled himself out. The world tipped and turned, earth, sky, fire, smoke, as he took a ninety-mile-an-hour dive. Greens, blues, red, black tumbled around him in a filmy blur while he counted in his head. The sounds—a roaring growl—amazed. The wind knocked him sideways, clawed him into a spin while he used strength, will, training to revolve until he was head up, feet down, stabilized by the drogue.

Heart knocking—adrenaline, awe, delight, fear—he found Trigger, his jump partner, in the sky.

Wait, he ordered himself. Wait.

Lightning flared, a blue-edged lance, and added a sting of ozone to the air.

Then the tip and tug. He dropped his head back, watched his chute fly up, open in the ripping air like a flower. He let out a shout of triumph, couldn’t help it, and heard Trigger answer it with a laugh as Gull gripped his steering toggles.

It was a fight to turn to face the wind, but he reveled in it. Even choking on the smoke that wind blew smugly in his face, hearing the bombburst of thunder that followed another crack of lightning, he grinned. And with his chute rocking, his eyes tracking the ugly slash, the line of trees, the angry walls of flames—close enough now to slap heat over his face—he aimed for the jump site.

For a moment he thought the wind would beat him after all, and imagined the discomfort, embarrassment and goddamn inconvenience of hitting those jack-sawed trees. And on his first jump.

He yanked down hard on his toggle, shouted, “No fucking way.”

He heard Trigger’s wild laugh, and seconds before he hit, Gull pulled west. His feet slapped ground, just on the east end of the jump spot. Momentum nearly tumbled him into the slash, but he flipped himself back in a sloppy somersault into the clearing.

He took a moment—maybe half a moment—to catch his breath, to congratulate himself on getting down in one piece, then rolled up to gather his chute.

“Not bad, rook.” Cards gave him a waggling thumbs-up. “Ride’s over, and the fun begins. The Swede’s setting up a team to dig fire line along the flank there.” He pointed toward the wicked, bellowing wall. “And you’re elected. Another team’s going to set up toward the head, hit it with the hoses. Mud knocked her back some, but the wind’s got her feeling sexy, and we’re getting lightning strikes out the ass. You’re with Trigger, Elf, Gibbons, Southern and me on the line. And shit, there goes one in the slash and the other in the trees. Let’s haul them in and get to work.”

Gull trooped over to assist Southern, but stopped when his fellow rookie got to his feet among the jagged, jack-sawed trees.

“You hurt?” Gull shouted.

“Nah. Damn it. A little banged, and my chute’s ripped up.”

“Could’ve been worse. Could’ve been me. We’re on the fire line.”

He maneuvered through the slash to help Southern gather his tattered chute. After stowing his jumpsuit, Gull headed over to where Cards was ragging on Gibbons.

“Now that Tarzan here has finished swinging in the trees, let’s do what we get paid for.”

With his team, Gull hiked half a mile in full pack to the line Rowan had delegated Cards to dig.

They spread out, and with the fire licking closer the sounds of pick striking earth, saw and blade slicing tree filled the smoky air. Gull thought of the fire line as an invisible wall or, if they were lucky, a kind of force field that held the flames on the other side.

Heroic grunt work, he thought while sweat ran rivulets through the soot on his face. The term, and the job, satisfied him.

Twice the fire tried to jump the line, skipping testing spots like flat stones over a river. The air filled with sparks that swarmed like murderous fireflies. But they held the flank. Now and then, through the flying ash and huffing smoke, Gull spotted a quick beam of sunlight.

Little beacons of hope that glowed purple, then vanished.

Word came down the line that the hose crew had to fall back, and with the flank under control, they would move in to assist.

After more than six hours of laying line, they hiked their way up the mountain and across the black where the fire had already had her way.

If the line was the invisible wall, he thought of the black as the decimated kingdom where the battle had been waged and lost. The war continued, but here the enemy laid scourge and left what had been green and golden a smoldering, skeletal ruin.

The thin beams of sun that managed to struggle through the haze only served to amplify the destruction.

Limping a little, Southern fell into step beside him.

“How’re you holding up?” Gull asked him.

“I’d be doing better if I hadn’t landed in that godforsaken slash,” he said in the fluid Georgia drawl that gave him his nickname. “I thought I knew what it was. I’ve got two seasons in on wildfires, and that’s before we’ll-whoop-your-ass recruit training. But it’s shit-your-pants hard is what it is. I nearly did just that when I saw I was going to miss the jump spot.”

Gull took a heat-softened Snickers out of his pack, pulled it in two. “Snickers really satisfies,” Gull said in the upbeat tone of a TV voice-over.

Southern grinned, bit in. “It sure enough does.”

They hit the stream, veered northeast toward the sounds of engines and saws.

Rowan came out of a cloud of smoke, a Viking goddess through the stink of war.

“Dry lightning’s kicking our ass.” She paused only to chug down some water. “We’d beat the head down, nearly had her, then we had a triple strike. We got crown fire along the ridge due north, and the head’s building back up west of that. We gotta cut through the middle, stop them from meeting up. Hold here until we’re clear. They’re sending another load of mud. We got another load from base coming in to take the rear flanks and tail, keep them down. Bulldozer made it through, and he’s clearing brush and downed trees. But we need the line.”

She scanned faces. “You’ve got about five minutes till the drop. Make the most of it—eat, drink, because you won’t see another five minutes clear today.”

She went into a confab with Cards. Gull waited until they stepped apart, then walked to her. Before he could speak, she shook her head.

“Wind changed direction on a dime, and she just blew over. She melted fifty feet of hose before we got clear. Then boom! Boom! Boom! Fourth of July. Trees went up like torches, and the wind carried it right over the tops.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“No. Don’t look for clean sheets and a pillow tonight. We’ll be setting up camp, and going back at her tomorrow. She’s not going to die easy.” She looked skyward. “Here comes the tanker.”

“I don’t see it.”

“Not yet. You can hear it.”

He closed his eyes, angled his head. “No. You must have super hearing. Okay, now I hear it.”

She pulled her radio, spoke with the tanker, then with the crew on the ridge.

“Let it rip,” she mumbled.

The pink rain tumbled down, caught little stray rainbows of sunlight.

“We’re clear!” Rowan shouted. “Let’s move. Watch your footing, but don’t dawdle.”

With that, she disappeared into the smoke.

They hacked, cut, beat at it into the night. Bodies trained to withstand all manner of hell began to weaken. But resolve didn’t. Gull caught sight of Rowan a few times, working the line, moving in and out as she coordinated with the other teams and with base.

Sometime toward one, more than twelve hours after he’d landed in the clearing, the fire began to lay down.

To rest, Gull thought, not to surrender. Just taking a little nap. And hell, he could use one himself. They worked another hour before word came down they’d camp a half mile east of the fire’s right flank.

“How’s the first day on the job going, rook?”

He glanced over at Cards’s exhausted face as they trudged. “I’m thinking of asking for a raise.”

“Hell, I’d settle for a ham on rye.”

“I’d rather have pizza.”

“Picky Irishman. You ever been there? Ireland?”

“A couple times, yeah.”

“Is it really as green as they say, as it looks in the pictures?”

“Greener.”

Cards looked off into the smoky dark. “And cool, right? Cool and damp. Lots of rain.”

“That’s why it’s green.”

“Maybe I’ll go there one of these days, take Vicki and the kids. Cool and damp and green sounds good after a day like this. There we are.” He lifted a chin to the lights up ahead. “Time to ring the supper bell.”

Those who’d already arrived had set up tents, or were doing so. Some just sat on the ground and shoveled their Meals Ready to Eat into their mouths.

Rowan, using a rock near the campfire as a table, worked over a map with Gibbons while she ate an apple. She’d taken off her helmet. Her hair shone nearly white against her filthy face.

He thought she looked beautiful, gloriously, eerily so—and was forced to admit she’d probably been right. He was, under it all, a romantic.

He dumped his gear, felt his back and shoulders weep with relief before they cramped like angry fists.

No Box to crawl into this time, he mused as he popped his tent. Then like the others, he dropped down by the campfire and ate like the starving. The cargo drop included more MREs, water, more tools, more hose and, God bless some thoughtful soul, a carton of apples, another of chocolate bars.

He ate his MRE, two apples, a candy bar—and stuffed another in his PG bag. The vague nausea that had plagued him on the hike to camp receded as his body refueled.

He rose, walked over to tap Rowan on the shoulder. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

She stood up, obviously punchy and distracted, and followed him away from the campfire, into the shadows.

“What’s the problem? I’ve got to hit the rack. We’re going to be—”

He just yanked her in, covered her mouth with his and feasted on her as he had on the food. Exhaustion became an easier fatigue as he fueled himself with her. The twinges in his back, his arms, his legs gave way to the curls of lust low in the belly.

She took back in equal measure, gripping his hips, his hair, pressing that amazing body against him, diving straight into those deep, greedy kisses.

And that, he thought, was what made it so damn good.

When he drew back he left his hands on her shoulders, studied her face.

“Is that all you have to say?” she demanded.

“I’d say more, but the rest of the conversation requires more privacy. Anyway, that should hold you for the night.”

Humor danced into her eyes. “Hold me?”

“The crew boss works harder than anybody, to my way of thinking. So, I wanted to give you a little something more to take to bed.”

“That’s very considerate of you.”

“No problem.” He watched her eyes shift from amused to puzzled as he tipped down, brushed a kiss on her sooty brow. “’Night, boss.”

“You’re a puzzle, Gulliver.”

“Maybe, but not that hard to solve. See you in the morning.”

He went to his tent, crawled in. He barely managed to get his boots off before he went under. But he went under with a smile on his face.

8

Rowan’s mental alarm dragged her out of sleep just before five A.M. She lay where she was, eyes closed, taking inventory. A world of aches, a lot of stiffness and a gut-deep hunger, but nothing major or unexpected. She rolled out of her sleeping bag and, in the dark, stretched out her sore muscles. She let herself fantasize about a hot shower, an ice-cold Coke, a plate heaped with one of Marg’s all-in omelets.

Then she crawled out of her tent to face reality.

The camp slept on—and could, she calculated, for about an hour more. To the west the fire painted the sky grimy red. A waiting light, she thought. Waiting for the day’s battle.

Well, they’d be ready for it.

She rinsed the dry from her mouth with water, spat it out, then used the glow of the campfire to grab some food. She ate, washing down the rations with instant coffee she despised but needed while reviewing her maps. The quiet wouldn’t last long, so she used it to strategize her tasks, directions, organizing teams and tools.

She radioed base for a status report, a weather forecast, scribbling notes, quick-drawing operational maps.

By first light, she’d organized her tools, restocked her PG bag, bolted another sandwich and an apple. Alert, energized, ready, she gathered in her small pocket of alone time.

She watched the forest come to life around the sleeping camp. Like something out of a fairy tale, the shadows of a small herd of elk slipped through morning mists veiling the trees like wisps of smoke. The shimmer of the rising sun haloed the ridge to the east, spreading its melting gold. The shine of it trickled down the tree line, flickering its glint on the stream, brushing the green of the valley below.

Birds sang their morning song, while overhead in that wakening sky a hawk soared, already on the hunt.

This, she thought, was just one more reason she did what she did, despite the risks, the pain, the hunger. There was, to her mind, nothing more magical or more intensely real than dawn in the wilderness.

She’d fight beyond exhaustion alongside the best men and women she knew to protect it.

When Cards rolled out of his tent, she smiled. He looked like a bear who’d spent his hibernation rolling in soot. With his hair standing up in grungy spikes, his eyes glazed with fatigue, he grunted at her before stumbling off for a little privacy to relieve his bladder.

The camp began to stir. More grunts and rustles, more dazed and glassy eyes as smoke jumpers grabbed food and coffee. Gull climbed out, his face shadowed by soot and scruff. But his eyes were alert, she noted, and glinted at her briefly before he wandered off into the trees.

“Wind’s already picking up.” Gibbons came to stand beside her, gulped coffee.

“Yeah.” She looked toward the smoke columns climbing the sky. Orange and gold flared through the red now. Like the sky, the magic, the camp, the dragon woke. “We’re not going to get any help from the weather gods today. Wind’s variable, fifteen to twenty, conditions remain dry with the temps spiking past eighty. She’ll eat that up.”

Rowan pulled out her hand-drawn maps. “We held her flank along here, but we lost ground at our water source, and when she crowned, she swept straight across this way. The hotshots hit that, kicked her back to about here, but she turned on them, about midnight, and then had to RTO,” she added, speaking of reverse tool order, “and retreat back to this line.”

“Was anybody hurt?”

“Minor burns, bumps and bruises. Nobody had to be evaced.” She glanced over her shoulder as Gull walked up. “They’re camped here.” She unfolded the main map to show Gibbons. “I’m thinking if we can pump water on the head from about here, and lay line along this sector, intersect the low point of the hotshot line, then cross. We’ll head up while they work over. We could box her in. It’s a hell of a climb, but we’d smother her tail, block her left flank, then meet up with the pump team and cut off her head.”

Gibbons nodded. “We’re going to have to hold this line here.” He jabbed a finger at the map. “If she gets through that, she could sweep up behind. Then it’s the line team that’s boxed in.”

“I scouted this area yesterday. We’ve got a couple of safe spots. And they’re sending in more jumpers this morning. We’ll be up to forty. I want ten on the water team, and for you to head that up, Gib. You’re damn good with a hose. Take the nine you want for it.”

“All right.” He glanced back at the fire. “Looks like recess is over.”

“Where do you want me?” Gull asked her when Gibbons stepped off to pick his team.

“Saw line, under Yangtree. You hold that line, or you’re going to need those fast feet. If she gets behind you, you make tracks, straight up the ridge and into the black. Here.” She looked into his eyes as she laid a finger on the map. “You got that?”

“We’ll hold it, then you can buy me a drink.”

“Hold the line, cut it up and around to the water team, and maybe I will. Get your gear.” She walked over toward the campfire, lifted her voice. “Okay, boys and girls, time to kick some ass.”

She caught a ride partway on a bulldozer, then hopped off for a brutal hike to check the hotshots’ progress firsthand.

“Winsor, right? Tripp,” she shouted at the lean, grim-faced man over the roar of saws. Fire sounded its throaty threat while its heat pulsed strong enough to tickle the skin. “I’ve got a team working its way up to cross with you. Maybe by one this afternoon.”

A scan of the handcrew told her what she’d suspected. They’d downplayed injuries. She gestured to one of the men wielding a Pulaski. His face glowed with sweat and showed raw and red where his eyebrows had been singed off. “You had a close one.”

“Shit-your-pants close. Wind bitched on us, and she turned on a freaking dime, rolled right at us. She let out that belly laugh. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah.” It was a sound designed to turn your bowels to ice. “Yeah, I do.”

“We RTO’d. Couldn’t see a goddamn thing through the smoke. I swear she chased us like she wanted to play tag. I smelled my own hair burning. We barely got clear.”

“You’re holding her now.”

“These guys’ll work her till they drop, but if we don’t knock that head down, I think she’s going to whip around and try for another bite.”

“We’re pumping on her now. I’m going to check in with the team leader, see if he wants another drop.” She faced the fire wall as ash swirled around her like snow. “They underestimated her, but we’re going to turn this around. Look for my team to meet up with yours about one.”

“Stay cool,” he called after her.

She hiked back around, filling her lungs when she moved into clearer air. Moving, always moving, she checked in with her teams, with base, with the fire coordinator. After jumping a narrow creek, she angled west again. Then stopped dead when a bear crossed her path.

She checked the impulse to run, she knew better. But her feet itched to move. “Oh, come on,” she said under her breath. “I’m doing this for you, too. Just move along.”

Her heart thumped as he studied her, and running didn’t seem like such a stupid idea after all. Then he swung his head away as if bored with her, and lumbered away.

“I love the wilderness and all it holds,” she reminded herself when she worked up enough spit to swallow.

She hiked another quarter of a mile before her heart settled down again. And still, she cast occasional cautious looks over her shoulder until she heard the muffled buzz of chain saws.

She picked up her speed and met up with the fresh saw line.

After a quick update with Yangtree, she joined the line. She’d give them an hour before hiking up and around again.

“Pretty day, huh?” Gull commented as they sliced a downed tree into logs.

She glanced up, and through a few windows in the smoke, the sky was a bold blue. “She’s a beauty.”

“Nice one for a picnic.”

Rowan stamped out a spot the size of a dinner plate that kindled at her feet. “Champagne picnic. I always wanted to have one of those.”

“Too bad I didn’t bring a bottle with me.”

She settled for water, then mopped her face. “We’re going to do it. I’m starting to feel it.”

“The picnic?”

“The fire’s a little more immediate. You’ve got a good hand with the saw. Keep it up.”

She headed up to confer with Yangtree again over the maps, then, ripping open a cookie wrapper, headed back into the smoke.

While she gobbled the cookie, she considered the bear—and told herself he was well east by now. She clawed her way up the ridge, checked the time when she met the hotshot line.

Just noon. Five hours into the day, and damn good progress.

She cut up and over, her legs burning and rubbery, to check on the pumpers.

Arcs of water struck the blaze, liquid arrows aimed to kill. Rowan gave in, bent over, resting her hands on her screaming thighs. She couldn’t say how many miles she’d covered so far that day, but she was damn sure she felt every inch of it.

She pushed herself up, made her way over to Gibbons. “Yangtree’s line is moving up well. He should meet up with the hotshots within the hour. She tried to swish her tail, but they’ve got that under control. Idaho’s on call if you need more on the hoses.”

“We’re holding her. We’re going to pump her hard, go through the neck here. If you get those lines down, cut them across, we’ll have her.”

“I want to pull out the fusees, start a backfire here.” She dug out her map. “We could fold her back in on herself, and she’d be out of fuel.”

“I like it. But it’s your call.”

“Then I’m making it.” She pulled her radio. “Yangtree, we’re going with the backfire. Split ten off, lead them up. I’m circling back down. Keep drowning that bitch, Gib.”

Rowan stuffed calories into her system by way of an energy bar, hydrated with water as she backtracked. And considered herself lucky when she didn’t repeat her encounter with a bear. Nothing stirred in the trees, in the brush. She cut across a trail where the trees still towered—trees they fought to save—and the wildflowers poked their heads toward the smoke-choked sky. Birds had taken wing so no song, no chatter played through the silence.

But the fire muttered and growled, shooting its flames up like angry fists and kicking feet.

She followed its flank, thought of the wildflowers, took their hope with her as she hiked to the man-made burn she’d ordered.

At Yangtree’s orders, Gull peeled off from the saw line to deal with spot fires the main blaze spat across the border. Most of his team were too weary for conversation, and as speed added a factor, breath for chat was in limited supply.

Water consumed poured off in sweat; food gulped down burned off and left a constant, nagging hunger.

The trick, he knew from his years as a hotshot, was not to think about it, about anything but the fire, and the next step toward killing it.

“Get your fusees.” Gibbons relayed the information in a voice harsh from shouting and smoke. “We’re going to burn her ass, pull her back till she eats herself.”

Gull looked back toward the direction of the tail. Their line was holding, the cross with the hotshots’ cut off her flank—so far. Spot fires flared up, but she’d lost her edge of steam here.

He considered the timing and strategy of the backfire dead-on. Despite his fatigue, it pleased him when Yangtree pulled him off the line and sent him down with a team to control the backfire.

With the others he hauled up his tools, left the line.

He saw the wildflowers as Rowan had, and the holes woodpeckers had drilled into the body of a Douglas fir, the scat of a bear—a big one—that had him scanning the hazy forest. Just in case.

Heading the line, Cards limped a little as he kept in contact with Rowan, other team leaders on his radio. Gull wondered what he’d hurt and how, but they kept moving, and at an urgent pace.

He heard the mumble of a dozer. It pushed through the haze, scooping brush and small trees. Rowan hopped off while it bumped its way along a new line.

“We’re going to work behind the Cat line. We got hose.” She pointed to the paracargo she’d ordered dropped. “We’ve got a water source with that stream. I want the backfire hemmed in here, so when she rolls back she burns herself out. Watch out for spots. She’s been spitting them out everywhere.”

She shifted her gaze to Gull. “Can you handle a hose as well as you do a saw?”

“I’ve been known to.”

“You, Matt, Cards. Let’s get pumping. Everybody else, hit those snags.”

He liked a woman with a plan, Gull thought as he got to work.

“We light it on my go.” Rowan offered Cards one of the peanut-butter crackers from her PG bag. “Are you hurt?”

“It’s nothing. Tripped over my own feet.”

“Mine,” Matt corrected. “I got in the way.”

“My feet tripped over his feet. It was pretty crazy on the line for a while.”

“And now it’s so sane. Soak it down,” she told them. “Everything in front of the Cat line, soak it good.”

Manning a pumping fire hose took muscle, stability and sweat. Within ten minutes—and hours on the saw and scratch line—Gull’s arms stopped aching and just went numb. He dug in, sent his arcs of water raining over the trees, soaking into the ground. Over the cacophony of pump, saw and engine, he heard Rowan shout the order for the light.

“Here she goes!”

He watched fusees ignite, burst.

Special effects, he thought, nothing like it, as flames arrowed up, ignited the forest. It roared, full-throated, and would, if God was good, call to the dragon.

“Hold it here! We don’t give her another foot.”

In Rowan’s voice he heard what flooded him—wonder and determination, and a fresh energy that struck his blood like a drug.

Others shouted, too, infected with the same drug. Steam rose from the ground, melded with smoke as they pushed the backfire forward. Firebrands rocketed out only to sizzle and drown on the wet ground.

This was winning. Not just turning a corner, not just holding ground, but winning. An hour passed in smoke and steam and ungodly heat—then another—before she began to lie down, this time in defeat.

Rowan jogged over to the water line. “She’s rolled back. Head’s cut off and under control. Flanks are receding. Take her down. She’s done.”

The fire’s retreat ran fitful and weak. By evening she could barely manage a sputter. The pulse of the pump silenced, and Gull let his weeping arms drop. He dug into his pack, found a sandwich he’d ratted in at dawn. He didn’t taste it, but since it awakened the yawning hunger in his belly, he wished he’d grabbed more of whatever the hell it was.

He walked to the stream, took off his hard hat and filled it with water. He considered the sensation of having it rain cool over his head and shoulders nearly as good as sex.

“Nice work.”

He glanced over at Rowan, filled his hat again. Standing, he quirked a brow. She laughed, took off her helmet, lifted her face, closed her eyes. “Oh, yeah,” she sighed when he dumped the water on her. She blinked her eyes open, cool, crystal blue. “You handle yourself pretty well for an ex-hotshot rookie.”

“You handle yourself pretty well for a girl.”

She laughed again. “Okay, even trade.” Then lifted her hand.

He quirked his brow again, the grin spreading, but she shook her head. “You’re too filthy to kiss, and I’m still fire boss on this line. High five’s all you get.”

“I’ll take it.” He slapped hands with her. “We were holding her, kicking her back some, but we beat her the minute you called for the backfire.”

“I’m second-guessing if I should have called it earlier.” Then she shrugged. “No point in what-ifs. We took her down.” She put her hard hat back on, lifted her voice. “Okay, kids, let’s mop it up.”

They dug roots, tramped out embers, downed smoldering snags. When the final stage of the fight was finished, they packed out, all but asleep on their feet, shouldering tools and gear. Nobody spoke on the short flight back to base; most were too busy snoring. Some thirty-eight hours after the siren sounded, Gull dragged himself into the barracks, dumped his gear. On the way to his quarters he bumped into Rowan.

“How about a nightcap?”

She snorted out a laugh. He imagined she’d braced a hand on the wall just to stay on her feet. “While a cold beer might go down good, I believe that’s your clever code for sex. Even if my brain was fried enough to say sure, I don’t believe you could get it up tonight—today—this morning.”

“I strongly disagree, and would be willing to back that up with a demonstration.”

“Sweet.” She gave him a light slap on his grimy face. “Pass. ’Night.”

She slipped into her room, and he continued on to his. Once he stripped off his stinking shirt, pants, and fell facedown and filthy on top of his bed, he had time to think thank God she hadn’t taken him up on it before he zeroed out.

In the bunk in his office, where he habitually stayed when Rowan caught a fire at night, Lucas heard the transport plane go out. Heard it come back. Still, he didn’t fully relax until his cell phone signaled a text.

Got nasty, but we put her down. I’m A-OK. Love, Ro

He put the phone aside, settled down, and slid into the first easy sleep since the siren sounded.

Lucas jumped with an early-morning group of eight, posed for pictures, signed brochures, then took the time to discuss moving up to accelerated free fall with two of the group.

When he walked them in to Marcie to sign them up, his brain went wonky on him. Ella Frazier of the red hair and forest-green eyes turned to smile at him.

With dimples.

“Hello again.”

“Ah... again,” he managed, flustered. “Um, Marcie will take you through the rest, get you scheduled,” he told the couple with him.

“I watched your skydive.” Ella turned her smile on them. “I just did my first tandem the other day. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

He stood, struggling not to shuffle his feet while Ella chatted with his newest students.

“Have you got a minute for me?” she asked him.

“Sure. Sure. My office—”

“Could we walk outside? Marcie tells me you’ve got two more tandems coming in. I’d love to watch.”

“Okay.” He held the door open for her, then wondered what to do with his hands. In his pockets? At his sides? He wished he had a clipboard with him to keep them occupied.

“I know you’re busy today, and I probably should’ve called.”

“It’s no problem.”

“How’s your daughter? I followed the fire on the news,” she added.

“She’s fine. Back on base, safe and sound. Did I tell you about Rowan?”

“Not exactly.” She tucked her hair behind her ear as she angled her face toward his. “I Googled you before I signed up. I love my son, but I wasn’t about to jump out of an airplane unless I knew something about who I was hooked to.”

“Can’t blame you.” See, he told himself, sensible. Any man should be able to relax around a sensible woman. A grandmother, he reminded himself. An educator.

He managed to unknot his shoulders.

“Your experience and reputation turned the trick for me. So, Lucas, I was wondering if I could buy you a drink.”

And his shoulders tensed like overwound springs while his brain went to sloppy mush. “Sorry?”

“To thank you for the experience, and giving me the chance to show off to my grandchildren.”

“Oh, well.” There went that flush of heat up the back of his neck. “You don’t have to... I mean to say—”

“I caught you off-guard, and probably sounded like half the women who come through here, hitting on you.”

“No, they... you—”

“I wasn’t. Hitting on you,” she added with a big, bright smile. “But now I have to confess to a secondary purpose. I have a project I’d love to speak to you about, and if I could buy you a drink, soften you up, I’m hoping you’ll get on board. If you’re in a relationship, you’re welcome to bring your lady with you.”

“No, I’m not. I mean, there isn’t any lady. Especially.”

“Would you be free tonight? I could meet you about seven, at the bar at Open Range. I could thank you, soften you up, and you can tell me more about training for the AFF.”

Business, he told himself. Friendly business. He discussed friendly business over drinks all the damn time. No reason he couldn’t do the same with her. “I don’t have any plans.”

“Then we’re set? Thanks so much.” She shot out a hand, shook his briskly. “I’ll see you at seven.”

He watched her walk away, so pretty, so breezy—and reminded himself it was just friendly business.

9

As she had done in her tent, Rowan lay with her eyes closed and took morning inventory. She decided she felt like a hundred-year-old woman who’d been on a starvation diet. But she’d come out of it—as fire boss—uninjured, her crew intact, and the fire down.

Added to it, she thought as she opened her eyes, tracked her gaze around her quarters, during her two days out the pig-blood fairies had not only mopped and scrubbed but rolled a fresh coat of paint on her walls.

She owed somebody, and if she could drag herself out of bed she’d find out who.

When she did, her calves twinged, her quads protested. The bis and tris, she noted, shed bitter tears. The hot shower she’d all but slept through had helped, a little, but the eight hours in the rack after two arduous days required more.

Fuel and movement, she ordered herself. And where was Gull with his breakfast sandwich when she needed one? She settled for a chocolate bar while she dressed, then hobbled off to the gym.

She wasn’t the only one hobbling.

She grunted at Gibbons, who grunted back, watched Trigger wince through some floor stretches. She studied Dobie—wiry little guy—as he bench-pressed what she judged to be his body weight.

“I’m back on the jump list tomorrow,” he told her as he pumped up with an explosion of breath. “I’m ready. Hell of a lot readier than you guys, from the looks of it.”

She shot him the finger, then moaned into a forward bend. She stayed down, just stayed down and breathed for as long as she could stand it, then with her palms on the floor, arched her back and looked up.

The yellow bruising on Dobie’s red-with-effort face made him look like a jaundiced burn victim. And he’d shaved off his scraggly excuse for a beard—an improvement, to her mind, since he looked less like a hillbilly leprechaun.

“Somebody cleaned up and painted my room.”

“Yeah.” With another explosion of breath, he pushed the weights up, then clicked them in the safety. “Stovic and me, we had time on our hands.”

She brought herself back to standing. “You guys did all that?”

“Mostly. Marg and Lynn did what they could with your clothes. Salt’s what gets blood out; that’s what my ma uses.”

“Is that so?”

“Doesn’t work so well on walls, so we got them painted up. It kept us from going stir-crazy while the rest of you were having all the fun. Hell of a mess in there, and smelled like a hog butchering. Made me homesick,” he added with a grin. “Anyhow, that broad must be crazy as a run-over lizard.”

She walked over, bent down, kissed him on the mouth. “Thanks.”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “It was a big, stinkin’ hell of a mess.”

This time she drilled her finger into his belly. After walking back to her mat, she stretched out her muscles, soothed her mind with yoga. She’d moved to floor work when Gull came in. Fresh, she thought. He looked fresh and clean, with his gait loose and easy as he crossed to her.

“I heard you’d surfaced.” He crouched down. “You’re looking pretty limber for the morning after.”

“Just need some fine-tuning.”

“And a picnic.”

She lifted her nose from her knee. “I need a picnic?”

“With a big-ass hamper loaded with cuisine by Marg and a fine bottle of adult beverage enjoyed in the company of a charming companion.”

“Janis is going with me on a picnic?”

“I’ve got the big-ass hamper.”

“There’s always a catch.” Danger zone, she warned herself. The man was a walking temptation. “It’s a nice thought, but—”

“We’re not on the jump list, and L.B. cleared us for the day. Now that we’ve been through fire together, I think we can take a short break, have some food and conversation. Unless you’re afraid a little picnic will drive you into uncontrollable lust until you force yourself on me and take advantage of my friendly offer.”

Temptation and challenge—both equally hard to resist. “I’m reasonably sure I can control myself.”

“Okay then. We can leave whenever you’re ready.”

What the hell, she decided. She lived and breathed danger zones. She could certainly handle one appealingly cocky guy on a picnic.

“Give me twenty. And you’d better pick your spot close by because I’m starving.”

“I’ll meet you out front.”

She hunted up Stovic first, gave him the same smack on the lips as Dobie. She paid her debts. She had a report to write and turn in on the fire, but that could wait a couple hours. Check and reorganize her gear, she thought as she pulled on cropped khakis. Deal with her chute, repack her PG bag. She buttoned on a white camp shirt, slapped on some makeup and sunscreen and considered it good enough for a friendly picnic with a fellow jumper.

She shoved on her sunglasses as she walked outside, then narrowed her eyes behind them. Gull leaned on the hood of a snazzy silver convertible chatting it up with Cards.

She sauntered over. “How’s the leg?” she asked Cards.

“Not bad. Knee’s a little puffy yet. I’m going to ice it down again.” He patted the hood beside Gull’s hip. “That’s some ride, Fast Feet. Some hot ride. Today’s word’s got to be virile, ’cause that machine’s got balls. You kids have fun.” He winked at Rowan and, still limping, went back in.

Hands on her hips, Rowan took a stroll around the hot ride. “This is Iron Man’s car.”

“Since I doubt you’re claiming I stole it from your father, I conclude you’re a woman who knows her superheroes and her motor vehicles.”

She stopped in front of him. “Where’s the suit?”

“In an undisclosed location. Villainy is everywhere.”

“Too true.” She angled her head, skimming a finger over the gleaming fender while she studied Gull. “Iron Man’s a rich superhero. That’s why he can afford the car.”

“Tony Stark has many cars.”

“Also true. I’m thinking, smoke jumping pays pretty well, in season. But I can’t see selling tokens and tracking games at an arcade’s something that pays for a car like this.”

“But it’s entertaining, and I get free pizza. It’s my car,” he said when she just kept staring at him. “Do you want to see the registration? My portfolio?”

“That means you have a portfolio, and I’m damned if you built one working an arcade.” Considering, she pursed her lips. “Maybe if you owned a piece of it.”

“You have remarkable deductive powers. You can be Pepper Potts.” He stepped over, opened her door. She slid in, looked up.

“How big a piece?”

“I’ll give you the life story while we eat if you want it.”

She thought it over as he skirted the hood, got behind the wheel. And decided she did.

He drove fast, had a smooth, competent hand on the stick shift—both of which she appreciated.

And God, she did love a slick machine.

“Do I have to sleep with you before you let me drive this machine?”

He spared her a single, mild glance. “Of course.”

“Seems fair.” Enjoying herself, she tipped her face up to the wind and sky, then lifted her hands up to both. “Riding in it’s a pretty decent compromise. How did you manage to get this all set up?”

“Staggering organizational skills. Plus I figured I’d grab a few hours while I had them. The food was the easy part. All I had to do was tell Marg I was taking you on a picnic, and she handled the rest of that section. She’s in love with you.”

“It’s mutual. Still, I’d’ve had a hard time planning anything when I managed to crawl out of bed.”

“I have staggering recuperative powers to go with the organizational skills.”

She tipped down her sunglasses to eye him over them. “I know sex bragging when I hear it.”

“Then I probably shouldn’t add that I woke up feeling like I’d been run over by a sixteen-wheeler after I hauled a two-hundred-pound bag of bricks fifty miles. Through mud.”

“Yeah. And it’s barely June.”

When he turned off on Bass Creek Road, she nodded. “Nice choice.”

“It’s not a bad hike, and it ought to be pretty.”

“It is. I’ve lived here all my life,” she added as he pulled into the parking area at the end of the road. “Hiking the trails was what I did. It kept me in shape, gave me a good sense of the areas I’d jump one day—and gave me an appreciation for why I would.”

“We crossed into the black yesterday.” He hit the button to bring up the roof. “It’s harsh, and it’s hard. But you know it’s going to come back.”

They got out, and he opened the hood with its marginal storage space.

“Jesus, Gull, you weren’t kidding about big-ass hamper.”

“Getting it in was an exercise in geometry.” He hefted it out.

“There’s just two of us. What does that thing weigh?”

“A lot less than my gear. I think I can make it a mile on a trail.”

“We can switch off.”

He looked at her as they crossed to the trailhead. “I’m all about equal pay for equal work. A firm believer in ability, determination, brains having nothing to do with gender. I’m even cautiously open to women players in the MLB. Cautiously open, I repeat. But there are lines.”

“Carting a picnic hamper is a line?”

“Yeah.”

She slid her hands into her pockets, hummed a little as she strolled with a smirk on her face. “It’s a stupid line.”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t make it less of a line.”

They walked through the forested canyon. She heard what she’d missed during the fire. The birdsong, the rustles—the life. Sun shimmered through the canopy, struck the bubbling, tumbling waters of the creek as they followed the curve of the water.

“Is this why you were studying maps?” she asked him. “Looking for a picnic spot?”

“That was a happy by-product. I haven’t lived here all my life, and I want to know where I am.” He scanned the canyon, the spills of water as they walked up the rising trail. “I like where I am.”

“Was it always Northern California? Is there any reason we have to wait for the food to start the life story?”

“I guess not. No, I started out in LA. My parents were in the entertainment industry. He was a cinematographer, she was a costume designer. They met on a set, and clicked.”

The creek fell below as they climbed higher on the hillside.

“So,” he continued, “they got married, had me a couple years later. I was four when they were killed in a plane crash. Little twin engine they were taking to the location for a movie.”

Her heart cracked a little. “Gull, I’m so sorry.”

“Me too. They didn’t take me, and they usually did if they were on the same project. But I had an ear infection, so they left me back with the nanny until it cleared up.”

“It’s hard, losing parents.”

“Vicious. There’s the log dam,” he announced. “Just as advertised.”

She let it go as the trail approached the creek once more. She could hardly blame him for not wanting to revisit a little boy’s grief.

“This is worth a lot more than a mile-and-a-half hike,” he said while the pond behind the dam sparkled as if strewn with jewels.

Beyond it the valley opened like a gift, and rolled to the ring of mountains.

“And the hamper’s going to be a lot lighter on the mile-and-a-half back.”

Near the pond, under the massive blue sky, he set it down.

“I worked a fire out there, the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.” He stood, looking out. “Standing here, on a day like this, you’d never believe any of that could burn.”

“Jumping one’s different.”

“It’s sure a faster way in.” He flipped open the lid of the hamper, took out the blanket folded on top. She helped him spread it open, then sat on it cross-legged.

“What’s on the menu?”

He pulled out a bottle of champagne snugged in a cold sleeve. Surprised, touched, she laughed. “That’s a hell of a start—and you just don’t miss a trick.”

“You said champagne picnic. For our entrée, we have the traditional fried chicken à la Marg.”

“Best there is.”

“I’m told you favor thighs. I’m a breast man myself.”

“I’ve never known a man who isn’t.” She began to unload. “Oh, yeah, her red potato and green bean salad, and look at this cheese, the bread. We’ve got berries, deviled eggs. Fudge cake! Marg gave us damn near half of one of her fudge cakes.” She glanced up. “Maybe she’s in love with you.”

“I can only hope.” He popped the cork. “Hold out your glass.”

She reached for it, then caught the label on the bottle. “Dom Pérignon. Iron Man’s car and James Bond’s champagne.”

“I have heroic taste. Hold out the glass, Rowan.” He filled it, then his own. “To wilderness picnics.”

“All right.” She tapped, sipped. “Jesus, this is not cheap tequila at Get a Rope. I see why 007 goes for it. How’d you get this?”

“They carry it in town.”

“You’ve been into town today? What time did you get up?”

“About eight. I never made it to the shower last night, and smelled bad enough to wake myself up this morning.”

He opened one of the containers, and after breaking off a chunk of the baguette, spread it with soft, buttery cheese. Offered it. “I’m not especially rich, I don’t think.”

She studied him as flavors danced on her tongue. Caught in a pretty breeze, his hair danced around his face in an appealing tangle of brown and sun-struck gold.

“I want to know. But I don’t want bad memories to screw your picnic.”

“That’s about it for the bad. I’m not sure I’d remember them, or more than vaguely, if it wasn’t for my aunt and uncle. My mother’s sister,” he explained. “My parents named them as my legal guardians in their wills. They came and got me, took me up north, raised me.”

He took out plates, flatware as he spoke, while she gave him room for the story.

“They talked about my parents all the time, showed me pictures. They were tight, the four of them, and my aunt and uncle wanted me to keep the good memories. I have them.”

“You were lucky. After something horrible, you were lucky.”

His gaze met hers. “Really lucky. They didn’t just take me in. I was theirs, and I always felt that.”

“The difference between being an obligation, even a well-tended one, and belonging.”

“I never had to learn how wide that difference is. My cousins—one’s a year older, one’s a year younger—never made me feel like an outsider.”

That played a part in the balance of him, she decided, in the ease and confidence.

“They sound like great people.”

“They are. When I graduated from college, I had a trust fund, pretty big chunk. The money from my parents’ estate, the insurance, all that. They’d never used a penny, but invested it for me.”

“And you bought an arcade.”

He lifted his champagne. “I like arcades. The best ones are about families. Anyway, my younger cousin mostly runs it, and Jared—the older one—he’s a lawyer, and takes care of that sort of thing. My aunt supervises and helps plan events, and for the last couple years my uncle’s handled the PR.”

“For families by family. It’s a good thing.”

“It works for us.”

“How do they feel about your summers?”

“They’re okay with it. I guess they worry, but they don’t weigh me down with that. You grew up with a smoke jumper.” They added chicken and salad to plates. “How’d you handle it?”

“By thinking he was invincible. Talk about superheroes. Mmm,” she added when she bit through crisp skin to tender meat. “God bless Marg. I really considered him immortal,” Rowan added. “I never worried about him. I was never afraid for him, or myself. He was... Iron Man.”

Gull poured two more glasses. “I’ll definitely drink to Iron Man Tripp. He’s why we’re both here.”

“Weird, but true.” She ate, relaxed in the moment and felt easier with him, she realized, than she’d expected to be. “I don’t know how much of the story you’ve heard. About my parents.”

“Some.”

“A lot of some’s glossed over. My father—you’ve probably seen pictures—he was, still is, pretty wow.”

“He passed the wow down to you.”

“In a Valkyrie kind of way.”

“You’re not the sort who decides to die in the battle.”

“You know your Norse mythology.”

“I have many pockets of strange, inexplicable knowledge.”

“So I’ve noticed. In any case, a man who looks like Iron Man, does what he does... women flock.”

“I have the same problem. It’s a burden.”

She snorted, ate some potato salad. “But he wasn’t one for coming off a fire, or out of the season, and looking for the handy bang.”

She arched a brow as Gull merely grinned. “It’s not his way. Like me, he’s lived here all his life. If he’d had that kind of rep, it would’ve stuck. He met my mother when she came to Missoula, picked up work as a waitress. She was looking for adventure. She was beautiful, a little on the wild side. Anyway, they hooked up, and oops, she got knocked up. They got married. They met in early July, and by the middle of September they’re married. Stupid, from a rational point of view, but I have to be grateful seeing as I’m sitting here telling the tale.”

He’d known he’d been wanted, all of his life. How much did it change the angles when you, as she did, considered yourself an oops?

“We’ll both be grateful.”

“I think it must’ve been exciting for her.” Rowan popped a fat blackberry into her mouth as she spoke. “Here’s this gorgeous man who wore a flight suit like some movie star, one of the elite, one at the top of his game, and he picks her. At the same time, she’s rebelling against a pretty strict, stuffy upbringing. She was nearly ten years younger than Dad, and probably enjoyed the idea of playing house with him. Over the winter, he’s starting up his business, but he’s around. My grandparents are, too, and she’s carrying the child of their only son. She’s the center. Her parents have cut her off, just severed all ties.”

“How do people do that? How do they justify that, live with that?”

“They think they’re right. And I think that added to the excitement for her. And in the spring, there I am, so she’s got a new baby to show off. Doting grandparents—a husband who’s besotted, and still around.”

She chose another berry, let it lie on her tongue a moment, sweet and firm. “Then a month later, the season starts, and he’s not around every day. Now it’s about changing diapers, and walking a squalling baby in the middle of the night. It’s not such an adventure now, or so exciting.”

She reached for another piece of chicken. “He’s never, not once, said a word against her to me. What I know of that time I got from reading letters he’d locked up, riffling through papers, eavesdropping—or occasionally catching my grandmother when she was pissed off and her tongue was just loose enough.”

“You wanted to know,” Gull said simply.

“Yeah, I wanted to know. She left when I was five months old. Just took me over to my grandparents, asked if they’d watch me while she ran some errands, and never came back.”

“Cold.” He couldn’t quite get his mind around that kind of cold, or what that kind of cold would do to the child left behind. “And clueless,” he added. “It says she decided this isn’t what I want after all, so I’ll just run away.”

“That sums it. My dad tracked her down, a couple of times. Made phone calls, wrote letters. Her line, because I saw the letters she wrote back, was it was all his fault. He was the cold and selfish one, had wrecked her emotionally. The least he could do was send her some money while she was trying to recover. She’d promise to come back once she had, claimed she missed me and all that.”

“Did she come back?”

“Once, on my tenth birthday. She walks into my party, all smiles and tears, loaded down with presents. It’s not my birthday party anymore.”

“No, it’s her Big Return, putting her in the center again.”

Rowan stared at him for a long moment. “That’s exactly it. I hated her at that moment, the way a ten-year-old can. When she tried to hug me, I pushed her away. I told her to get out, to go to hell.”

“Sounds to me that at ten you had a good bullshit detector. How’d she handle it?”

“Big, fat tears, shock, hurt—and bitter accusations hurled at my father.”

“For turning you against her.”

“And again, you score. I stormed right out the back door, and I’d have kept on going if Dad hadn’t come out after me. He was pissed, all the way around. I knew better than to speak to anyone like that, and I was going back inside, apologizing to my mother. I said I wouldn’t, he couldn’t make me, and until he made her leave, I was never going back in that house. I was too mad to be scared. Respect was god in our house. You didn’t lie and you didn’t sass—the big two.”

“How did he handle it?”

“He picked me right up off the ground, and I know he was worked up enough to cart me right back in there. I punched him, kicked him, screamed, scratched, bit. I didn’t even know I was crying. I do know if he’d dragged me in, if he’d threatened me, ordered me, if he who’d never raised a hand to me had raised it, I wouldn’t have said I was sorry.”

“Then you’d’ve broken the other big one, by lying.”

“The next thing I knew we were sitting on the ground in the backyard, I’m crying all over his shoulder. And he’s hugging me, petting me and telling me I was right. He said, ‘You’re right, and I’m sorry.’ He told me to sit right there, and he’d go in and make her go away.”

She tipped back her glass. “And that’s what he did.”

“You got lucky, too.”

“Yeah, I did. She didn’t.”

Rowan paused, looked out over the pond. “A little over two years later, she goes into a convenience store to pick up something, walks in on a robbery. And she’s dead, wrong place, wrong time. Horrible. Nobody deserves to die bleeding on the floor of a quick market in Houston. God, how did I get on all this when there’s fudge cake and champagne?”

“Finish it.”

“Nothing much left. Dad asked me if I’d go to the funeral with him. He said he needed to go, that if I didn’t need or want to, that was okay. I said I’d think about it, then later my grandmother came into my room, sat on the bed. She told me I needed to go. That as hard as it might be now, it would be harder on me later if I didn’t. That if I did this one thing, I would never have to have any regrets. So I went, and she was right. I did what I needed to do, what my father needed me to do, and I’ve got no regrets.”

“What about her family?”

“Her parents cold-shouldered us. That’s who they are. I’ve never actually spoken to them. I know her sister, my aunt. She made a point of calling and writing over the years, even came out with her family a couple times. They’re nice people.

“And that concludes our exchange of life stories.”

“I imagine there’s another chapter or two, for another time.”

She eyed him as he refilled her glass. “You stopped drinking, and you keep filling my glass. Are you trying to get me drunk and naked?”

“Naked’s always the goal.” He said it lightly as he sensed she needed to change the mood. “Drunk? Not when I’ve witnessed you suck down tequila shots. I’m driving,” he reminded her.

“Responsible.” She toasted him. “And that leaves more for me. Did you know Dobie and Stovic scrubbed up and painted my room?”

“I heard Dobie got to first base with you.”

She let out that big, bawdy laugh. “If he considers that first base, he’s never hit a solid single.” She took her fork, carved off a big mouthful of cake right out of the container. Her eyes laughed as she stuffed it in, then closed on a long, low moan. “Now, that is cake, and the equivalent of a grand slam. Enough fire and chocolate, and I can go all season without sex.”

“Don’t be surprised if the supply of chocolate disappears in a fiftymile radius.”

“I like your style, Gull.” She forked up another hefty bite. “You’re pretty to look at, you’ve got a brain, you can fight and you do what needs doing when we’re on the line. Plus, you can definitely hit a solid single. But there are a couple of problems.”

She stabbed another forkful, this time offering it to him.

“First, I know you’ve got deep pockets. If I slept with you now, you might think I did it because you’re rich.”

“Not that rich. Anyway.” He considered, smiled. “I can live with that.”

“Second.” She held out more cake, then whipped it around, slid it into her own mouth. “You’re a smoke jumper in my unit.”

“You’re the kind of woman who breaks rules. Codes, no. Rules, yes.”

“That’s an interesting distinction.”

Full, she stretched out on the blanket, studied the sky. “Not a cloud,” she murmured. “The long-range forecast is for hot and dry. There won’t be a lot of champagne picnics this season.”

“Then we should appreciate this one.”

He leaned down, laid his lips on hers in a long, slow, upside-down kiss. She tasted of champagne and chocolate, smelled of peaches on a hot summer day.

She carried scars, body and heart, and still faced life with courage.

When her hands came to his face he lingered over those flavors, those scents, the fascinating contrasts of her, sliding just a little deeper into the lush.

Then she eased his face up. “You’re swinging for a double.”

“It worked for Spider-Man.”

“He was hanging upside down, in the rain—and that was after he’d kicked bad-guy ass. Not to mention, he didn’t get to second.”

“I’m in danger of being crazy about you, if only for your deep knowledge of superhero action films.”

“I’m trying to save you from that fate.” She patted the blanket beside her. “Why don’t you stretch out in the next stage of picnic tradition while I explain?”

Gull shifted the hamper aside, lay down hip-to-hip with her.

“If we slept together,” Rowan began, “there’s no doubt we’d bang all the drums, ring all the bells.”

“Sound all the trumpets.”

“Those, too. But after, there’s the inevitable tragedy. You’d fall in love with me. They all do.”

He heard the humor in her voice, idly linked his fingertips with hers. “You have that power?”

“I do and, though God knows I’ve tried, can’t control it. And you—I’m telling you this because, as I said, I like your style. You, helpless, hopeless, would be weak in love, barely able to eat or sleep. You’d spend all the profits you make off quarters pumped into Skee-Ball on elaborate gifts in a vain attempt to win my heart.”

“They could be pretty elaborate,” he told her. “Skee-Ball’s huge.”

“Still, my heart can’t be bought. I’d be forced to break yours, coldly and cruelly, to spare you from further humiliation. And also because your pathetic pleas would irritate the shit out of me.”

“All that,” he said after a moment, “from one round in the sack?”

“I’m afraid so. I’ve lost count of the shoes I’ve had to throw away because the soles were stained with the bleeding hearts I’ve crushed along the way.”

“That’s a fair warning. I’ll risk it.”

He rolled over, took her mouth.

For a moment, she thought the top of her head simply shot off. Explosions, heat, eruptions burst through her body like a fireball. She lost her breath, and what she thought of as simple common sense, in the wicked whir of want.

She arched up to him, her hands shoving under his shirt—eager to feel her need pressed to him, his skin, his muscles under her hands.

There was a wildness here. She knew it lived inside her, and now she felt whatever animal he caged in leap out to run with hers.

She made him crazy. That lush, greedy mouth, those quick, seeking hands, the body that moved under his with such strength, such purpose, even as, for just a moment, it yielded.

Her breasts, full and firm, filled his hands as her moan of pleasure vibrated against his lips. She was sensation, and bombarded him with feelings he could neither stop nor identify.

He imagined pulling off her clothes, his own, taking what they both wanted there, on a borrowed blanket beside a shining pond.

Then her hands came between them, pushed. He gave himself another moment, gorging on that feast of feelings, before he eased back to look down at her.

“That,” he said, “is the next step in a traditional picnic.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. And it’s a winner. It’s a good thing I got off on that fudge cake because you definitely know how to stir a woman up. In fact...” She wiggled out from under him, grabbed what was left of the cake and took a bite. “Mmm, yeah, that takes care of it.”

“Damn that Marg.”

Her lips curved as she licked chocolate from her fingers. “This was great—every step.”

“I’ve got a few more steps in me.”

“I’m sure you do, and I have no doubt they’d be winners. Which is why we’d better go.”

Her lips had curved, he thought when they began to pack up, but the smile hadn’t reached her eyes. He waited until they’d folded the blanket back into the well-depleted hamper.

“I got to second.”

She laughed, as he’d hoped, then snickered with the fun of it as they started the hike back.

10

Lucas poked his head in the kitchen of the cookhouse.

“I heard a rumor about blueberry pie.”

Marg glanced back as she finished basting a couple of turkeys the size of Hondas. “I might have saved a piece, and maybe could spare a cup of coffee to go with it. If somebody asked me nicely.”

He walked over, kissed her cheek.

“That might work. Sit on down.”

He took a seat at the work counter where Lynn prepped hills and mountains of vegetables. “How’s it going, Lynn?”

“Not bad considering we keep losing cooks.” She shot him a smile with a twinkle out of rich brown eyes. “If you sit here long enough, we’ll put you to work.”

“Will work for pie. I heard about the trouble. I was hoping to talk to Rowan, but they tell me she’s on a picnic with the rookie from California.”

“Fast Feet,” Lynn confirmed. “He sweet-talked Marg into putting a hamper together.”

“Nobody sweet-talks me unless I like the talk.” Marg set a warmed piece of blueberry pie, with a scoop of ice cream gently melting over the golden crust, in front of Lucas.

“He’s got a way though,” Lynn commented.

“Nobody has their way with Rowan unless she likes the way.” Marg put a thick mug of coffee beside the pie.

“I don’t worry about her.” Lucas shrugged.

“Liar.”

He smiled up at Marg. “Much. What’s your take on this business with Dolly?”

“First, the girl can cook but she doesn’t have the brains, or the sense, of that bunch of broccoli Lynn’s prepping.” Marg waved a pot holder at him. “And don’t think I don’t know she tried getting her flirt on with you a time or two.”

“Oh, golly,” Lynn said as both she and Lucas blushed to the hairline.

“For God’s sake, Marg, she’s Rowan’s age.”

“That and good sense stopped you, but it didn’t stop her from trying.”

“Neither here nor there,” Lucas mumbled, and focused on his pie.

“You can thank me for warning her off before Rowan got wind and scalped her. Anyway, I’d’ve butted heads with L.B. about hiring her back, but we needed the help. The cook we hired on didn’t last through training.”

“Too much work, she said.” Lynn rolled her eyes as she filled an enormous pot with the mountain of potatoes she’d peeled and quartered.

“I was thinking about seeing if we could bump one of the girls we have who helps with prep sometimes, and with cleanup, to full-time cook. But then Dolly has the experience, and I know what she can do. And, well, she’s got a baby now.”

“Jim Brayner’s baby.” Lucas nodded as he ate pie. “Everybody needs a chance.”

“Yeah, and that bromide ended up getting Ro’s quarters splattered with pig blood. Nasty business, let me tell you.”

“That girl’s had it in for Ro since their school days, but this?” Lucas shook his head. “It’s just senseless.”

“Dolly’s lucky Cards was there to hold Ro back long enough for some of the other guys to come on the run and wrestle her down. It would’ve been more than some oinker’s blood otherwise.”

“My girl’s got a temper.”

“And was in the right of it, if you ask me—or anybody else around here. And what does Dolly do after L.B. cans her?” Marg’s eyes went hot as she slapped a dishcloth on the counter. “She comes crying to me, asking, can’t I put in a word for her? I gave her a word, all right.”

Lynn snorted. “Surrounded by others, as in: Get the word out of my kitchen.”

“I’m sorry for her troubles, but it’s best she’s gone. And away from my girl,” Lucas added. As far as he was concerned, that ended that. “How would you rate the rookies this season?”

Marg hauled out a couple casserole dishes. “The rook your girl’s eating fried chicken with, or all of them?”

“All of them.” Lucas scraped up the last bit of pie. “Maybe one in particular.”

“They’re a good crop, including one in particular. I’d say most are just crazy enough to stick it out.”

“I guess we’ll see. That was damn good pie, Marg.”

“Are you after seconds?”

“Can’t do it.” He patted his belly. “My days of eating like a smoke jumper are over. And I’ve got some things I’ve got to get to,” he added when he rose to take his plate and mug to the sink. “When you see Ro, tell her I stopped by.”

“Will do. You’re close enough not to be such a stranger.”

“Business is good, and good keeps me pinned down. But I’ll make the time. Don’t work too hard, Lynn.”

“Come back and say that in October, and I might be able to listen.”

He headed out to walk down to where he’d left his truck. As always, nostalgia twinged, just a little. Some of the jumpers got in a run on the track. Others, he could see, stood jawing with some of the mechanics.

He spotted Yangtree, looking official in his uniform shirt and hat, leading a tour group out of Operations. Plenty of kids being herded along, he noted, getting a charge out of seeing parachutes, jumpsuits and the network of computer systems—vastly improved since his early days.

Maybe they’d get lucky and see somebody rigging a chute. Anyway, it was a nice stop for a kid on summer vacation.

That made him think of school, and school led him to the high-school principal he’d agreed to meet for a drink.

Probably should’ve just taken her into the office, had the sit-down there. Professional.

Friendly business started to seem more nerve-racking as the day went on.

No way around it now, he reminded himself, and dug his keys out of his pocket. As he did, he turned toward the lion’s purr of engine, frowned a little as he watched his daughter zip up in the passenger seat of an Audi Spyder convertible.

She waved at him, then jumped out when the sleek beast of a car growled to a stop.

“Hey! I was going to try to get over and see you later.” She threw her arms around him—was there anything more wonderful than a hard hug from your grown child? “Now I don’t have to, ’cause here you are.”

“I almost missed you. Gull, right?”

“That’s right. It’s good to see you again.”

“Some car.”

“I’m happy with it.”

“What’ll she do?”

“Theoretically, or in practice—with your daughter along?”

“That’s a good answer, without answering,” Lucas decided.

“Do you want to try her out?” Gull offered the key.

“Hey!” Rowan made a grab for them, missing as Gull closed his hand. “How come he rates?”

“He’s Iron Man.”

Rowan hooked her thumbs in her pockets. “He said I had to sleep with him before I could drive it.”

Gull sent her smirk a withering look. “She declined.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I wouldn’t mind giving her a run. I’ll take a rain check on it since I’ve got to get along.”

“Can’t you stay awhile?” Rowan asked. “We can hang out a little. You can stay and mooch dinner.”

“I wish I could, but I’ve got a couple of things to see to, then I’m meeting a client for a drink—a meeting. An appointment.”

Rowan slid off her sunglasses. “A client?”

“Yeah. Yeah. She’s, ah, got some project she wants to talk to me about, and she’s interested in trying for AFF. So I guess we’re going to talk about it. That. Anyway... I’ll get back over soon, mooch that dinner off you. Maybe try out that machine of yours, Gull.”

“Anytime.”

Lucas took Rowan’s chin in his hand. “See you later.”

She watched him get in the truck, watched him drive away.

“Meeting, my ass.”

Gull opened the nose to maneuver the hamper out. “Sorry?”

“He’s got a date. With a woman.”

“Wow! That’s shocking news. I think my heart skipped a beat.”

“He doesn’t date.” Rowan continued to scowl as her father’s truck shrunk in the distance. “He’s all fumbling and flustered around women, if he’s attracted. Didn’t you see how flustered he was when he talked about his appointment? And who the hell is she?”

“It’s hard, but you’ve got to let the kids leave the nest someday.”

“Oh, kiss ass. His brain goes to mush when he’s around a certain type of woman, and he can be manipulated.”

Fascinated with her reaction, Gull leaned on his car. “It’s just a wild shot, but it could be he’s going to meet a woman he’s attracted to, and who has no intention of manipulating him. And they’ll have a drink and conversation.”

“What the hell do you know?” she challenged, and stomped off toward the barracks.

Amused, Gull hauled the basket back to Marg.

He’d no more than set it down on the counter when someone tapped knuckles on the outside door.

“Excuse me. Margaret Colby?”

Gull gave the man a quick summing-up—dark suit with a tightly knotted tie in dark, vivid pink, shiny shoes, hair the color of ink brushed back from a high forehead.

Marg stood where she was. “That’s right.”

“I’m Reverend Latterly.”

“I remember you from before, from Irene and Dolly.”

Catching her tone, and the fact she didn’t invite the man in, Gull decided to stick around.

“May I speak with you for a moment?”

“You can, but you’re wasting your breath and my time if you’re here to ask me to try to convince Michael Little Bear to let Dolly Brakeman back in this kitchen.”

“Mrs. Colby.” He came in without invitation, smiled, showing a lot of big white teeth.

Gull decided he didn’t like the man’s tie, and helped himself to a cold can of ginger ale.

“If I could just have a moment in private.”

“We’re working.” She shot a warning glance at Lynn before the woman could ease out of the room. “This is as private as you’re going to get.”

“I know you’re very busy, and cooking for so many is hard work. Demanding work.”

“I get paid for it.”

“Yes.” Latterly stared at Gull, let the silence hang.

In response, Gull leaned back on the counter, drank some ginger ale. And made Marg’s lips twitch.

“Well, I wanted a word with you as you’re Dolly’s direct supervisor and—”

“Was,” Marg corrected.

“Yes. I’ve spoken with Mr. Little Bear, and I understand his reluctance to forgive Dolly’s transgression.”

“You call it a transgression. I call it snake-bite mean.”

Latterly spread his hands, then linked them together for a moment like a man at prayer. “I realize it’s a difficult situation, and there’s no excuse for Dolly’s behavior. But she was naturally upset after Miss Tripp threatened her and accused her of... having low morals.”

“Is that Dolly’s story?” Marg just shook her head, as much pity as disgust in the movement. “The girl lies half the time she opens her mouth. If you don’t know that, you’re not a very good judge of character. And I’d think that’d be an important skill to have in your profession.”

“As Dolly’s spiritual advisor—”

“Just stop there because I’m not overly interested in Dolly’s spirit. She’s had a mean on for Rowan as long as I’ve known her. She’s always been jealous, always wanted what somebody else had. She’s not coming back here, not getting another chance to kick at Rowan. Now, L.B. runs this base, but I run this kitchen. If he took it into his head to let Dolly back in here, he’d be looking for another head cook and he knows it.”

“That’s a very hard line.”

“I call it common sense. The girl can cook, but she’s wild, unreliable, and she’s a troublemaker. I can’t help her.”

“She is troubled, still trying to find her way. She’s also raising an infant on her own.”

“She’s not on her own,” Marg corrected. “I’ve known her mother since we were girls, and I know Irene and Leo are doing all they can for Dolly. Probably more than they should, considering. Now you’re going to have to excuse me.”

“Would you, at least, write a reference for her? I’m sure it would help her secure another position as a cook.”

“No, I won’t.”

Gull judged the shock that crossed the man’s face as sincere. Very likely the reverend wasn’t used to a flat-out no.

“As a Christian woman—”

“Who said I’m a Christian?” She jabbed a finger at him now, pointedly enough to take him back a step. “And how come that’s some sort of scale on right and wrong and good and bad? I won’t write her a reference because my word and my reputation mean something to me. You advise her spirit all you want, but don’t come into my kitchen and try advising me on mine. Dolly made her choices, now she’ll deal with the consequences of them.”

She took a step forward, and those hazel eyes breathed fire. “Do you think I haven’t heard what she’s been saying about Rowan around town? About me, L.B., even little Lynn there? About everybody? I hear everything, Reverend Jim, and I won’t give a damn thing to anyone who lies about me and mine. If it wasn’t for her mother, I’d give Dolly Brakeman a good swift kick myself.”

“Gossip is—”

“What plumps the grapes on the vine. If you want to do her a favor, tell Dolly to mind her mouth. Now I’ve got work to do, and I’ve given you and Dolly enough of my time.”

Deliberately she turned back to the stove.

“I apologize for intruding.” He spoke stiffly now, and without the big-toothed smile. “I’ll pray the anger leaves your heart.”

“I like my anger right where it is,” Marg shot back as Latterly backed out the door. “Lynn, those vegetables aren’t going to prep themselves.”

“No, ma’am.”

On a sigh, Marg turned around. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m not mad at you.”

“I know. I wish I had the courage to talk like that to people—to say exactly what I think and mean.”

“No, you don’t. You’re fine just the way you are. I just didn’t like the sanctimonious prick.” She aimed a look at Gull. “Nothing to say?”

“Just he’s a sanctimonious prick with too many teeth and an ugly tie. My only critique of your response is I think you should have told him you were a Buddhist woman, or maybe a Pagan.”

“I wish I’d thought of that.” She smiled. “You want some pie?”

He didn’t know where he’d put it after the fudge cake, but understanding the sentiment behind the offer, he couldn’t say no.

Lucas’s stomach jittered when he walked into the bar, but he assured himself it would settle once they started talking about whatever she wanted to talk about.

Then he saw her, sitting at a table reading a book, and his tongue got thick.

She’d put on a dress, something all green and summery that showed off her arms and legs while her pretty red hair waved to her shoulders.

Should he have worn a tie? he wondered. He hardly ever wore ties, but he had a few.

She looked up, saw him, smiled. So he had no choice but to cross over to the table.

“I guess I’m late. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not.” She closed the book. “I got here a little early as the errands I had didn’t take as long as I thought.” She slipped the book into her purse. “I always carry a book in case I have some time on my hands.”

“I’ve read that one.” There, he thought, he was talking. He was sitting down. “I guess I figured doing what you do, you’d be reading educational books all the time.”

“I do plenty of that, but not with my purse book. I’m liking it a lot so far, but then I always enjoy Michael Connelly.”

“Yeah, it’s good stuff.”

The waitress stepped up. “Good evening. Can I get you a drink?”

When she shifted, Ella’s scent—something warm and spicy—drifted across the table and fogged Lucas’s brain.

“What am I in the mood for?” she wondered. “I think a Bombay and tonic, with a twist of lime.”

“And you, sir? Sir?” the waitress repeated when Lucas remained mute.

“Oh, sorry. Ah, I’ll have a beer. A Rolling Rock.”

“I’ll get those right out to you. Anything else? An appetizer?”

“You know what I’d love? Some of those sweet potato skins. They’re amazing,” she told Lucas. “You have to share some with me.”

“Sure. Okay. Great.”

“I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

“I so appreciate you taking the time to come in,” Ella began. “It gives me an excuse to sit in a pretty bar, have a summer drink and some sinful food.”

“It’s a nice place.”

“I like coming here, when I have an excuse. I’ve come to feel at home in Missoula in a fairly short time. I love the town, the countryside, my work. It’s hard to ask for more.”

“You’re not from here. From Montana.” He knew that. Hadn’t he known that?

“Born in Virginia, transplanted to Pennsylvania when I went to college, where I met my ex-husband.”

“That’s a ways from Montana.”

“I got closer as time went by. We moved to Denver when the kids were ten and twelve, when my husband—ex—got a difficult-to-refuse job offer. We were there about a dozen years before we moved to Washington State, another job offer. My son moved here, got married, started his family, and my girl settled in California, so after the divorce I wanted fresh. Since I like the mountains, I decided to try here. I get fresh, the mountains, and my son and his family, with my daughter close enough by air I can see her several times a year.”

He couldn’t imagine the picking up and going, going then picking it all up again. Though his work had taken him all over the West, he’d lived in Missoula all his life.

“That’s a lot of country, a lot of moving around.”

“Yes, and I’m happy to be done with it. You’re a native?”

“That’s right. Born and bred in Missoula. I’ve been east a few times. We get hired off season to work controlled burns, or insect eradication.”

“Exterminating bugs?”

He grinned. “Bugs that live up in tall trees,” he explained, jerking a thumb at the ceiling. “We—smoke jumpers, I mean—are trained to climb. But most of my life’s been spent west of St. Louis.”

The waitress served their drinks, and Ella lifted hers. “Here’s to roots—maintaining them and setting them down.”

“Washington State, that’s pretty country. I jumped some fires there. Colorado, too.”

“A lot of country.” Ella smiled at him. “You’ve seen the most pristine, and the most devastated. Alaska, too, right? I read you fought wildfires there.”

“Sure.”

She leaned forward. “Is it fantastic? I’ve always wanted to see it, to visit there.”

For a minute, he lost the rhythm of small talk in her eyes. “Ah... I’ve only seen it in the summer, and it’s fantastic. The green, the white, the water, the miles and miles of open. All that water’s a hazard for jumping fire, but they don’t have the trees like we do here, so it’s a trade-off.”

“Which is more hazardous? Water or trees?”

“Land in the water with all your gear, you’re going to go down, maybe not get up again. Land in the trees, land wrong, maybe you just get hung up, maybe you break your neck. The best thing to do is not land in either.”

“Have you?”

“Yeah. I hit my share of both. The worst part’s knowing you’re going to, and trying to correct enough so you’ll walk away from it. Any jump you walk away from is a good jump.”

She sat back. “I knew it. I knew you’d be perfect for what I’d like to do.”

“Ah—”

“I know they give tours of the base, and groups can see the operation, ask some questions. But I had this idea, specifically for students. Something more intimate, more in-depth. Hearing firsthand, from the source, what it takes, what you do, what you’ve done. Personal experiences of the work, the life, the risks, the rewards.”

“You want me to talk to kids?”

“Yes. I want you to talk to them. I want you to teach them. Hear me out,” she added when he just stared at her. “A lot of our students come from privilege, from parents who can afford to send them to a top-rated private school like ours. Everyone knows about the Zulies. The base is right here. But I’ll guarantee few, if any, unless they have a connection, understand what it really means to be what you are, do what you do.”

“I’m not a jumper anymore.”

“Lucas.” The soft smile teased out the dimples. “You’ll always be one. In any case, you gave it half of your life. You’ve seen the changes in the process, the equipment. You’ve fought wilderness fires all over the West. You’ve seen the beauty and the horror. You’ve felt it.”

She laid a fisted hand on her heart. “Some of these kids, the ones I’d especially like to reach with this, have attitudes. The hard work, the dirty work, that’s for somebody else—somebody who doesn’t have the money or brains to go to college, launch a lucrative career. The wilderness? What’s the big deal? Let somebody else worry about it.”

She’d tripped something in him the minute she’d said he’d always be a jumper. The minute he saw she understood that.

“I don’t know how me talking to them’s going to change that.”

“I think listening to you, being able to ask you questions, having you take them through, from training to fire, will open some of those young minds.”

“And that’s what your work is. Even though you don’t teach anymore, you’ll always be a teacher.”

“Yes. We understand that about each other.” She watched him as she sipped her drink. “I intend to talk to the operations officer at base. I’d like to, with parental permission, have a group, or groups, go through training. A shortened version obviously. Maybe over a weekend after the fire season.”

“You want to put them through the wringer,” he said with a glimmer of a smile.

“I want to show them, teach them, bring it home to them that the men and women who dedicate themselves to protecting our wilderness put themselves through the wringer. I have ideas about photographs and videos, and... I have ideas,” she said with a laugh. “And we’d have all summer to put the project together.”

“I think it’s a good thing you’re trying to do. I’m not much good at speaking. Public speaking.”

“I can help you with that. Besides, I’d rather you just be who you are. Believe me, that’s enough.”

She picked up one of the potato skins the waitress had served while she’d laid out her plan.

She’d caught him up in it, he couldn’t deny it. The idea of it, the passion behind it. “I can give it a try, I guess. At least see how it goes.”

“That would be great. I really think we can do something that has impact—and some fun. And that brings me to two things.” She took another drink. “Let me just get this off the table. I was married for twenty-eight years. I uprooted myself, then my kids as well to support and suit my husband. I loved him, almost all of those twenty-eight years, and for the last of them, I believed in the marriage, the life we’d built. I believed in him. Until on my fifty-second birthday, he took me out to dinner. A beautiful restaurant, candles, flowers, champagne. He even had a rather exquisite pair of diamond earrings for me to top it off.”

She sat back a little, crossed her legs. “All of this to set it up, so I wouldn’t cause a public scene when he told me he was having an affair with his personal assistant—a woman young enough to be his daughter, by the way. That he was in love with her and leaving me. He still thought the world of me, of course, and hoped I’d understand that these things happened. Oh, and the heart wants what the heart wants.”

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to think what I should say, but nothing that’s coming into my head seems appropriate.”

“Oh, it can’t be any less appropriate than what I said—after I picked up the champagne bucket and dumped the ice over his head. When I went to a lawyer—the very next day—she asked if I wanted to play nice or cut him off at the balls. I went for castration. I’d finished playing nice.”

“Good for you.”

“I wondered if I would regret it. But so far, no. I’m telling you this because I think it’s only fair that you understand, right now, I can be mean, and that both my marriage and my divorce taught me to understand myself, virtue and flaw, and to not waste time in going after what I want.”

“Time’s always wasted if you’re not aiming for what you want.”

“An excellent point. Which brings me to the second thing. I lied to you earlier today when I said I wasn’t hitting on you. I was. I am.”

It wasn’t just that his mind went blank, but that his whole system hit overload and snapped to an abrupt halt. He couldn’t quite manage the simple act of swallowing as he stared into her sparkling eyes.

“I don’t believe in absolute honesty in all things,” she continued, “because I think a little shading now and then not only softens the edges, but makes things more interesting. But in this case, I decided on the bald truth. If it scares you off, it’s better to know at this point, where there really isn’t anything on the line for either of us.”

She took a small sip from her glass. “So... Have I scared you off?”

“I... I’m not very good at this.”

“I should have put in there that whether you’re interested or not, I’m very sincere and serious about the project, and about learning how to skydive. Both of those things might be connected to me being attracted to you, but they’re not contingent on it. Or you reciprocating.”

She sighed. “And that sounded like a high-school principal when I’d hoped not to. I’m a little nervous.”

The idea of that stopped the degeneration of his brain cells. “You are?”

“I like you, and I’m hoping you’re interested enough to want to spend time with me, on a personal level. So, yes, I’m a little nervous that pushing that forward so soon might put you off. But it’s part of my don’t-waste-time policy, so... If you’re interested, or inclined to consider being interested, I’d like to take you to dinner. There’s a nice restaurant a couple blocks away. It’s an easy walk—and I made a reservation, just in case.”

He considered, shook his head. “No.”

“Well. Then we’ll just—”

“I’d like to take you to dinner.” He could hardly believe the words came out of his mouth, and didn’t cause a single hitch. “I heard there’s a nice restaurant a couple blocks away, if you’d like to take a walk.”

He loved watching the way the smile bloomed on her face. “That sounds great. I’m just going to go freshen up first.”

She got up from the table, moved toward the restroom.

The minute the door closed behind her, she did a high-stepping dance in the bold purple peek-toe pumps she’d bought that afternoon.

On a foolish giggle, she walked to the sink, studied her giddy face in the mirror. “Let the adventure begin,” she said, then took out her lipstick.

A few years before, she’d wondered, worried, all but assumed her life was essentially over. In a way, it had been, had needed to be to push her to start again.

So far, the new life of Ella Frazier brimmed with interesting possibilities.

And one of them was about to take her to dinner.

She nodded to her reflection, dropped the lipstick back in her purse. “Thanks, Darrin,” she declared to her ex-husband. “It took that kick in the teeth to wake me up.” She tossed her hair, did a stylish half turn. “And just look at me now. I am wide awake.”

Rowan resisted calling or texting her father’s cell. It struck her as a little too obviously checking up on him. Instead, she opted for his landline at home.

She fully expected him to answer. She’d waited until nine thirty, after all, busying herself with her paperwork. Or trying to. When his machine picked up, she was momentarily at a loss. She had to grope for the excuse it had taken her nearly a half hour to come up with.

“Oh, hey. I’m just taking a quick break from writing up my reports and realized I didn’t get the chance to tell you of my brilliance as fire boss. If I can’t brag to you, who can I brag to? I’ll be at this for another hour or so, then I’ll probably take a walk to clear the administrative BS out of my head. So give me a call. Hope your meeting went well.”

She rolled her eyes as she clicked off. “Meeting-schmeeting,” she muttered. “A drink with a client doesn’t go for two and a half hours.”

She brooded awhile. It wasn’t that she thought her father wasn’t entitled to a social life. But she didn’t even know who this client was. Lucas Tripp was handsome, interesting, a successful businessman. And a prime target for an opportunistic woman.

A daughter held a solemn duty to look after her single, successful, naive and overly-trusting-of-women father. She wanted him to get home and call her back, so she could do just that.

Maybe she should try him on his cell, just in case—

No, no, no, she ordered herself. That crossed the line into interfering. He was sixty, for God’s sake. He didn’t have a curfew.

She’d just finish the stupid report, take that walk. He was bound to call before she’d gotten it all done.

But she finished the report, sent it to L.B. She took a long, admittedly sulky walk, before going back to her quarters and taking twice as long as necessary to get ready for bed.

Annoyed with herself, she shut off the light. During a brutal mental debate about the justification of trying her father’s cell after midnight, she fell asleep.

Voices woke her. Voices raised outside her window, outside her door. For a bleary moment she thought herself in the recurring dream—the aftermath of Jim’s tragic jump when everyone had been shouting, rushing. Scared, angry.

But when her eyes opened in the half-light, the voices continued. Something’s wrong, she thought, and instinct had her out of bed, out the door before fully awake.

“What the hell?” she demanded as Dobie pushed by her.

“Somebody hit the ready room. Gibbons said it looks like a bomb went off.”

“What? That can’t—”

But Dobie continued to run, obviously wanting to see for himself. In the cotton pants and tank she’d slept in, Rowan raced out in her bare feet.

The morning chill hit her skin, but what she saw in the faces of those who hurried with her, or quick-stepped it toward Operations, heated her blood.

Something’s very wrong, she realized, and quickened her pace.

She hit the door to the ready room in step with Dobie.

A bomb wasn’t far off, she thought. Parachutes, so meticulously and laboriously rigged and packed, lay or draped like tangled, deflated balloons. Tools scattered on the torn silks with gear spilling chaotically out of lockers. From the looks of it, tools, once carefully cleaned and organized, had been used to hack and slice at packs, jumpsuits, boots, damaging or destroying everything needed to jump and contain a fire.

On the wall, splattered in bloody-red spray paint, the message read clearly:

JUMP AND DIE

BURN IN HELL

Rowan thought of pig’s blood.

“Dolly.”

With his hands fisted at his sides, Dobie stared at the destruction. “Then she’s worse than crazy.”

“Maybe she is.” Rowan squatted, slid a hand through the slice in silk. “Maybe she is.”