Firestorm

Chapter Four

Mallory took the left fork off the yellow trail and cut cross-country, following her GPS to the coordinates Benny had triangulated from the spotter craft. Off trail, the groundcover was dense. Her Kevlar jump jacket protected her from the worst of the gouges and scratches that might have been inflicted by low-hanging limbs and broken branches. At home in the mountains, she moved as quickly and surely as a New Yorker maneuvering crowded midday Manhattan sidewalks—effortlessly dodging, weaving, and bounding over obstacles.

The squirming tension in her stomach was an unfamiliar background noise that she tried to ignore, chalking that unusual disturbance up to her new level of responsibility. Surely her unease had nothing to do with the identities of the rookies out on the trail. She let her mind empty. Speculating about what she might find when she reached the injured was pointless. Emergency triage protocols were so ingrained in her mind she didn’t have to think about them. And she didn’t want to think about the individuals. She ruthlessly obliterated faces and names. She was a paramedic and she had injured. She didn’t need to know anything else and wanted to feel even less. Her mind settled into the zone, that place of ultimate focus, where her heart beating a steady tattoo in her ears and the sensation of her breath flowing in and out of her chest centered her, at once readying her for action and obliterating all distractions.

Immersed in this calm, focused energy was where she loved to be, sure of herself, in control, battle ready. Battle worthy.

She intersected the red trail fifty yards from her destination and sprinted north, covering the uneven, uphill terrain in long quick strides. As soon as she skirted a craggy outcropping, she saw them. Ray Kingston slumped by the side of the trail with his back propped against a broad pine. Jac knelt with her hand on his wrist and her eyes tracking Mallory’s approach. Ray’s face was bloody. Jac appeared unhurt, her expression steady and calm. Mallory held Jac’s gaze, and her stomach settled for the first time since Benny had radioed they had injured. She couldn’t think about that now, or what it might mean.

“What have we got?” Mallory asked. Jac, like every firefighter, had basic EMT skills, and as the first responder, her assessment was critical.

“He was alert and oriented times three when I reached him approximately ten minutes ago,” Jac said. “By his account, he took a header. His memory for exactly what happened is vague. There’s a full-thickness ten-centimeter laceration on his forehead. Moving all fours, he walked down here with help.”

Mallory crouched in front of Ray and flicked her penlight into his eyes. Both pupils equal and reactive. “Hey, Kingston. Did you knock yourself out?”

Ray frowned. “I don’t think so, but I don’t exactly remember.”

“Good enough.” She palpated his carotid, noting a strong, rapid pulse. She pulled the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope from her kit and tossed it to Jac. “Check his BP, will you.”

“Sure thing,” Jac said, wrapping the cuff around his upper arm.

While Jac worked, Mallory slid her hand around the back of Ray’s neck, running her fingertips over each spinous process in his cervical spine, searching for tenderness or irregularities. No evidence of damage.

Jac said, “One ten over eighty.”

“Good.” Mallory took her stethoscope from Jac and moved the diaphragm quickly over his chest. Heart sounds sharp and clear. Moving air through both lungs. After slinging the stethoscope around her neck, she ran her hands up and down both his arms, then both legs. “Give me your right hand.”

Ray grasped her hand and she said, “Squeeze.” When he did, she repeated the process with his left hand, then had him lift first his left leg and then his right while she pressed down on them. Good strength in all four extremities.

Leaning back on her heels, she said, “It looks like the head trauma is the worst of it, Ray. I’m going to have the helicopter drop a Stokes. I don’t want you walking out.”

“Oh, frak no,” Ray protested. “No way am I getting lifted out of here. I’ll never live it down.” He glanced at Jac, his expression pleading. “Come on, buddy. Tell her I’m okay.”

Mallory stiffened, waiting for a challenge.

“Have a heart, will ya,” Jac said, sounding pained. “You don’t really want me to buck the boss on the very first day, do you?”

“I’ll never be able to show my face around here again.”

Jac clapped him on the shoulder. “Sure you will. Go along with the program, and I’ll let everybody know you would have beat my ass back to base if you hadn’t had to follow me off trail to make sure I didn’t get lost.”

Ray studied Jac, a furrow forming between his brows. “Thanks, I owe you.”

“Nah.”

Mallory moved a few feet away and radioed for the litter. While she directed Benny to drop the long line down into the clearest part of the trail, she regarded the steep side of the ravine and mentally extrapolated where Jac had been running along the crest when she’d left her. Considering where they were now, Jac would’ve had no reason to deviate from the yellow trail.

“Russo,” Mallory called. “You want to handle getting the Stokes down? Let’s see what kind of retrieval skills you’ve got.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” Jac sprinted to the clearing and craned her neck to watch the slow descent of the lightweight metal stretcher from the belly of the helicopter. When the lower edge of the stretcher was just above her head, she caught it and guided it to the ground, released the winch hook, gave it two sharp tugs, and stepped back so the line could be reeled up and away. Once the heavy metal hook was above her head and there was no danger of it swinging around and catching her, she lifted the stretcher and carried it back to where Mallory crouched beside Ray.

“Nice work,” Mallory said. Jac had been efficient and careful. Full marks. “All right, Ray, let’s get you in here.”

Grumbling, he started to rise, and almost instantly moaned, “Oh frak.” Groaning, he lurched away and vomited.

“Okay,” Mallory said briskly, grasping him around the waist as Jac steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get you horizontal again.”

They got him stretched out on his back in the Stokes, strapped in with a cervical collar around his neck, within seconds. Mallory glanced at Jac. “Ready?”

“Yes ma’am,” Jac replied and signaled for the long line. The winch played out, the hook swung into view, and she connected it to the O-ring on the basket. Two sharp tugs and the Stokes started to ascend, Ray gently swaying as the helicopter pulled him in.

Mallory stood, the tension draining from her back and shoulders, the exhilaration of accomplishment flooding through her chest. She’d never worked with Jac before, but they’d read each other well and functioned naturally as a team. There’d been none of the push-pull that often accompanied working with a new partner. Silently, she gathered her gear and started rapidly back up the trail to base. Jac wasn’t her partner, she swiftly reminded herself. Jac was a rookie, and she’d just failed the first leg of boot camp.

*

Jac jogged beside Mallory in silence, the drone of the helicopter slowly fading as it outdistanced them on the trip back to camp. She tried not to think about what came next for her. Ray still needed attention, and his welfare was a lot more important than her performance rating. Ordinarily, she didn’t mind silence, most of the time she preferred it. The casual chatter around a TV set waiting for the next call or friendly ribbing over cards, whiling away sleepless hours in the middle of the night, was one thing—that kind of aimless conversation made it easy to avoid revealing personal information. The guys she’d worked with last summer, even most of the troops she’d been stationed with, didn’t associate her name with her father. Some of her commanding officers had known of her family connections, but they were too short-staffed and too harried to care about anything other than what she could do with an IED. The anonymity was a relief after growing up in the spotlight.

Right at the moment, though, she would have given a lot to know what was on Mallory James’s mind. The woman never even broke a sweat, all-out running with a pack on her back. Her smooth, unlined face was as calm and unreadable as a carved statue. Her focus was almost eerie, and Jac had the sudden, suicidal inclination to say something provocative just to see that cool façade crack a little bit. A smile. Hell, even a frown. Something to get inside, underneath that icy exterior. Never mind provoking James was probably a really bad idea. Delving into another woman’s personal space really wasn’t her thing. She could hardly ask anyone to respect her privacy when she didn’t respect theirs, so she’d developed a hands-off attitude over the years. She accepted what was given, and never asked for more. She let it be known she wanted the same in return. She’d done really well with that approach until Annabel Clinton. Annabel had not only gotten her to break her own rules, she’d completely snowed her.

She’d met Annabel at a club in Boise right after she’d gotten back from her third ten-month tour in Iraq. She’d been more than ready for the company of a woman who didn’t know her and who seemed to want nothing more than an uncomplicated physical relationship. Annabel had said she was a student at the University of Idaho, and Jac had never thought to question Annabel’s appearance in her life until the first article appeared in the National Enquirer about Franklin Russo’s lesbian daughter. Along with a photograph that made the claim pretty unassailable. In the photo, thankfully fairly grainy, she’d been sitting on the side of a bed naked with a woman straddling her lap. You couldn’t see exactly where her arm was going, but it didn’t take much imagination to know her hand was between the woman’s legs. Annabel’s face didn’t show, but hers was recognizable. She still wasn’t sure where the camera had been, probably in the closet of the motel room. Annabel had insisted the twenty-minute drive to her apartment was too long for her to wait to have Jac inside her, and she’d picked the hot-sheet motel. Maybe she hadn’t lied about the not being able to wait part, though. Some things you couldn’t fake.

When the picture hit the newsstands, her father had claimed Jac needed to disappear from public awareness for the sake of her mother’s health. His political aspirations were not the issue, he’d said, and perhaps he hadn’t been exaggerating too much about her mother. She had her sister to think of too, and Carly was already having a hard enough time in school without more familial notoriety. She’d disappeared all right, but now it looked like that plan was going to fall apart.

“What now?” Jac said as she and Mallory emerged from the forest.

“I need to check Ray,” Mallory said. “But you go grab a shower. Join the rest of the group. Get something to eat.”

“I’d rather tag along with you. See how Ray’s doing.”

Mallory glanced at her. “How is it you wandered off that trail? I didn’t see any sign of Ray when I came up behind you this morning. Where did he come from?”

Jac shrugged and switched her attention to the other rookies clustered in front of the hangar, who pretended not to be watching them. “I don’t remember exactly how it went down.”

“Uh-huh. And it doesn’t bother you that the other guys are going to think you screwed up?”

“Does it really matter?”

“Maybe not what they think. But it matters what I do.”

“Look,” Jac said, “I know I didn’t finish the course and—”

“Let’s get Ray squared away. Then you and I will have a sit-down.”

“Okay. You’re calling the shots.” Relieved that Mallory was letting the subject drop, at least temporarily, Jac reached for the door of the standby shack and pulled it open, stepping aside for Mallory to pass through.

Mallory regarded her quizzically. “Thanks.”

Jac realized what she’d done and laughed. “Sorry. My mother raised me to be chivalrous.”

A smile flickered across Mallory’s mouth, almost but not quite cracking her impenetrable cool. “Interesting fact.”

“I’m just a mass of them.”

“Really.” Mallory kept walking, leaving Jac to follow in her wake.

The infirmary occupied a small room off the main building and held three beds, well-stocked equipment carts, and several locked medication cabinets. A Native American who Jac presumed was Benny, given his flight jacket, stood beside a bed where Ray now lay under a snowy white sheet. Another guy with curly blond hair and a slow grin who Jac recognized from the cafeteria that morning leaned against the far wall. One of the regular smokejumpers.

Mallory strode directly to the bed and leaned over Ray. “How’s the stomach?”

“About like my head,” Ray said, his voice tight and strained. “Both a little bit off.”

“Headache?” Mallory shone her penlight into Ray’s eyes again, and he winced, slamming his lids shut.

“Little bit.”

“Got a little photophobia there too,” Mallory muttered. She glanced at Benny, who had just taken Ray’s blood pressure. “Vitals?”

“Nice and stable. One twelve over seventy, pulse is ninety.”

“We’re going to keep you here overnight, Ray,” Mallory said. “I don’t want you getting up and walking around. You’ve probably got postconcussion syndrome, and it may take a day or two for your stomach to settle and the headache to resolve. You know the drill. If anything changes—if you notice any weakness, alteration in sensation, worsening of the headache—let whoever is with you know right away.”

“Can’t I just—”

“No,” Mallory said quietly. “You need to be here. Either that, or in a hospital.”

“Jeez, don’t do that.”

“I won’t, not as long as you’re stable.”

“Fine. Anything you say.”

Mallory smiled. “Naturally.” She signaled to the guy against the wall. “Cooper, can you pull a suture set for me. I want to take care of his forehead.”

“Sure thing, Ice. I’ll get everything set up for you. Hey, Ray. Any allergies or anything?”

“No,” Ray said and started to shake his head. He moaned and went pale again. “Oh man. I hope this doesn’t last long. I hate to puke.”

“I’m with you there,” Mallory said, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

Jac tried not to stare when Mallory rose, shrugged out of her pack, and removed her jacket and sweatshirt. Her throat went dry watching Mallory walk to a small sink in the corner and wash her hands and arms. The back of her tank was sweat stained, a vertical diamond between her shoulder blades a shade darker than the rest. Jac didn’t see the outline of a bra, and couldn’t help but check out Mallory’s breasts when she turned. Not too big, firm and round. Tight-nippled. Damn it, she was so damn hot. “Ice” couldn’t be further from the truth. Jac swallowed, her mouth feeling as if it were stuffed with cotton. She couldn’t ever remember a woman affecting her this way, especially one who wasn’t the slightest bit interested in her. She cleared her throat. “Can I give you a hand?”

Mallory regarded her in that implacable, unreadable way for a long second. “Sure. I could use an assist.”

“Great.” Jac removed her own sweatshirt, washed up, and sorted through the glove packs Cooper had placed beside the suture tray on top of a metal stand. “Sevens?”

“Seven and a half.” Mallory’s gaze drifted over Jac’s hands. “Eights?”

“Yeah.”

Mallory opened the suture pack and snapped on her gloves. After Mallory filled the syringe with local anesthetic, Jac handed her one of the Betadine swabs that came in the suture pack. Mallory efficiently cleaned the area around the laceration in Ray’s forehead. “I’m going to anesthetize you, Ray. It’ll sting for a few minutes.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Ray muttered wearily, his eyes closed. He didn’t budge when Mallory inserted the needle multiple times along the edges of the laceration, injecting the local anesthetic with epinephrine designed to decrease the slow trickle of blood.

While Mallory did that, Jac opened suture packs and loaded needle holders for her. Then she found suture scissors and waited to cut suture as Mallory tied.

Mallory was quick and adept, and within a few minutes the laceration was closed with a neat row of running black nylon sutures. Jac had assisted on or performed the same procedure a dozen times herself, but she didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone look sexier while suturing. She felt dampness accumulate between her breasts and down the center of her belly and between her legs, and only part of it was from the heat in the room. Just being in the vicinity of Ice James made her unaccountably hot. Too bad she wouldn’t be around long enough to try thawing out the ice.