Firestorm

Chapter Twenty-three

Stinging eyes and a dull throb in the back of her head forced Jac from an uneasy slumber. She blinked away sweat from the corners of her eyes, feeling the cloying dampness of perspiration inside her shirt and pants. The cave had steamed up with the four of them inside, and she was hot where her front molded to the boy and chilled everywhere else. The boy beside her lay still and silent, his breathing low and raspy. The girl whimpered occasionally in her sleep but didn’t seem to be aware of anything that was happening. The ice beneath Jac’s side was hard as marble. She’d prefer the hot gritty sand of the desert to this, but not if it meant being there alone.

Mallory’s fingers were entwined with hers, and she didn’t want to move. Mal needed to sleep. And Jac didn’t want to lose their tenuous connection. Isolation was a state of being for her—normal to be solitary, physically and emotionally. She loved her baby sister to distraction and loved her mother and father as much as she could love two people whose lives were bound to hers, but who did not know her or understand her or even really want her in their lives. She’d never had a relationship with anyone where she’d felt seen, where she’d been known and appreciated for her good points and her bad points, her strengths and her weaknesses, her dreams and desires. After a while she’d come to the conclusion that relationships like that didn’t really exist, and if they did, she hadn’t run into one and wasn’t about to spend her life searching. She had other things to do. Missions to accomplish. When she wasn’t deployed, she worked alone at jobs that made a difference. Ski patrol. Forest service. Keeping people safe, fighting nature’s dangers, pitting herself against the odds. She’d been satisfied with the work, had a sense of purpose, and that had been enough.

All that had changed when she’d spent a few intimate hours late in the night over hands of cards with a woman who mattered. Mallory could have sent her packing back into the night, or feigned interest as so many others had, without really caring who she was. But Mallory, despite her preconceptions, had given her a chance to prove herself. To show herself. And in the process, Jac had discovered the soul-satisfying experience of being herself, without subterfuge or façade, with a woman whose smile lit up her life. Now being alone was a circumstance she could and would tolerate if she had to, but she’d never be able to go back to believing it was what she wanted. She knew what she needed now, and she knew who she wanted. All the same, wanting did not necessarily equal having. She didn’t have many cards left to play, and Mallory seemed to be holding the power hand.

“Did you get any sleep?” Mallory murmured.

“Some. You?” Jac waited for Mallory to pull away, and when she didn’t, her heart picked up speed. Mallory’s thumb played over the top of her hand, and the whispered touch made her thighs tremble.

“On and off. Did you reach David?”

“Not the last time I tried,” Jac murmured. “Probably the storm.”

“I know. I couldn’t get through either.” Mallory propped herself on her elbow, regarding Jac across the two unconscious climbers. “We ought to have daylight now. I’m going to go check on the storm.”

“Don’t go too far,” Jac said, her throat husky with sleep and terrifying need. Mallory’s hair had come loose and lay tangled around her shoulders. Smudges of fatigue made her darkening green eyes seem endless. Her lips were chapped, her voice raspy. She looked weary and rumpled and so goddamned beautiful Jac wanted to cry. “I wouldn’t want to lose you out there. Not after all this.”

Mallory studied Jac solemnly, as if she were trying to decipher some hidden meaning to Jac’s words. “You think it’s that easy?”

“What?” Jac asked, her stomach tightening.

“For people to walk out the door and never come back.”

“It’s happened.” Jac grimaced. “Although, to be fair, most of the time I was the one walking out and never coming back.”

Mallory smiled ruefully. “Leave before you get left?”

“Not so much. Just being realistic,” Jac said, although maybe Mallory was right. Or maybe she just chose people—women—she knew would never stay. So much easier when there were no expectations, no dreams to be shattered, no desires to be abandoned. So why did she suddenly feel like a coward? “I guess I never found any reason to stay.”

“Well, I don’t intend to get lost. So you don’t have to worry.”

Jac wasn’t certain if Mallory was talking about their current situation or something far more personal, but she’d never had a conversation even close to this with anyone before. She’d never let her guard down this way, never had any desire to—not so much because she feared rejection as because she had come to anticipate it. So why bother? She’d never considered closing doors around Mallory, never tried to protect herself, and that very fact made everything that happened between them unique and so very important. She just wished she knew what it all meant. She was patrolling a minefield without a map, with no idea where the explosive devices were hidden. She’d never felt so vulnerable, or so helpless to change her circumstances. But she was no coward. “What do you say I buy you dinner when we get out of here today?”

The corners of Mallory’s mouth shot up before she schooled her expression to seriousness again. “Russo, you’re impossible.”

“So far that’s worked pretty well for me.”

“Yeah, I can see where it would.” Mallory squeezed Jac’s hand and let go. “I’ll be back in a second.”

Jac got up to her knees, wincing at the discomfort in her shoulder and the ache in her lower back. “I’ll change the IVs while you’re gone. They’re getting low on both these kids.”

“Thanks.”

“Dinner?”

Mallory tilted her head as if she were trying to read Jac’s mind or see into her thoughts. After a second she shook her head, stymied. “You really are fearless.”

“Not really. Just determined.”

“Ask me again when we’re off this mountain.”

“I’ll do that.”

Mallory wiggled along the side of the cave and disappeared into the tunnel. Mallory had not said no, and a tiny spurt of hope blossomed in the center of Jac’s chest. Mallory might hold all the cards, but she was still in the game.

*

Mallory crawled out of the cave and was assaulted by spears of sunlight arcing off the pristine snow that blanketed the mountainside beneath a flawless robin’s-egg blue sky. The ozone-tinged air bit at her nostrils, thin and sharp as knives. Sweat instantly frosted her neck, and she drew her collar up against the bone-deep cold. The mountain rose behind her, majestic and untamable. For an instant she thought of Jac, every bit as strong and wildly beautiful, and every bit as dangerous as the deceptively gorgeous peaks at her back. She put aside the thought of how natural Jac’s hand had felt cradled in hers, ignored the heat that had flooded her belly when Jac had warned her not to get lost. She should’ve said no instantly to the offer of dinner. Why the hell hadn’t she? She couldn’t think about that now. She needed to talk to David.

Hoping to catch a signal away from the rock face, she pushed through powdery waist-high drifts and struggled to the edge of the narrow plateau where the climbers had sought refuge and nearly found death. They’d gotten far off track, and how the third member of the group had even made it partway down the mountainside alive, she’d never know. Even experienced mountaineers would’ve had a hard time descending the north face in clear weather, but somehow he had managed, and probably, hopefully, saved his friends in the process.

Shielding her eyes with one hand, she tried David again. “Rescue C-ten-one, calling base, over. Rescue C-ten-one calling—”

“This is base, Mallory. How are you doing?”

“We’re all okay, David. What’s the ETA—” The ubiquitous rush of the wind abruptly changed, growing heavier, gaining momentum until a thundering beat reverberated in her chest. Victory bubbled in her throat before her conscious mind sorted out the cause. But she knew. She turned quickly from the brink of the precipice, stared into the sky, and saw salvation. “Helitack coming in now, David.”

“Roger that. Good work, Rescue C-ten.”

Mallory waved in a wide arc, and the rescue helicopter waggled its runners before leveling for the descent. The rotors couldn’t have been more than twenty feet from the vertical rise of the mountainside. Mouth dry, pulse hammering in her ears, she watched until the bird touched down and a bearded man in a bright red flight suit jumped out.

“We’ll need stretchers for both of them,” Mallory called.

He signaled a thumbs up, opened the rear of the helicopter, and reached inside for a stretcher. Leaving him to follow, Mallory plowed her way back to the tunnel and quickly shimmied inside.

“They’re here,” she said breathlessly.

“I heard them,” Jac said, busily capping IVs and checking the cervical collars on the boy and the girl. As she adjusted the collar on the girl, the young climber opened her eyes.

“What? Where—oh God—” The girl’s eyes were glazed, barely focusing, and panic rode her voice.

“You’re okay,” Jac said gently. “You’re still on the mountain, but we’re getting you home soon.”

“Jerry?” She tried to sit up but could only manage the barest movement. “God. Mitch?”

“Your friends are okay,” Jac said. “Don’t try to move around. Let us do all the work. That’s our job.”

Mallory stayed out of the way as Jac efficiently prepped the boy and the girl for transport. Jac had obviously done that kind of work before, and there wasn’t room for both of them to maneuver in the cave. Besides, she just liked watching Jac work. Jac was intense, focused, efficient. Gentle, but unhesitant. Just like she was about everything else that she did. Jac would make a great smokejumper. So much depended upon attention to detail, good judgment, certainty of will. Jac had all those things.

She’d make a great smokejumper, but on someone else’s team. Working with her like this, every day, was going to be torture. Being around Jac threw Mallory’s rhythm off, gave her something to think about besides the goal, the mission, and she couldn’t. She couldn’t afford to do that. She couldn’t afford to have anything intrude on her focus. She didn’t want a personal life. She didn’t want personal feelings. Fortunately, it wasn’t that difficult to get smokejumpers moved around from team to team. They weren’t, like the hotshots, based in one place or strictly integrated as units. Sometimes they’d finish a fire call in one state, pack out to a pickup point, and end up in a completely different state until they were rotated out again with different team members. Sometimes she didn’t get back to Yellowrock for weeks. She’d work the rotation so she and Jac were on different shifts, and they probably wouldn’t see each other for the rest of the summer.

Jac looked over at her. “We’re ready.”

“Good. Nice work.” Mallory grasped the stretcher the helitack crew member had slid down the tunnel behind her, and she and Jac logrolled the girl onto it. On hands and knees, she guided the stretcher out. The man in the red flight suit grabbed the end, and together they lifted.

“I’m Rich Dennis out of McCall. Good to see you.”

Mallory grinned. “Likewise. How’s the flying?”

“Smooth. Ought to be an hour or so to Gardiner Regional.”

They fell silent as they trudged through the drifts to the helicopter. After sliding the stretcher with the girl inside, Rich climbed in and pushed the second stretcher out to Mallory. She dragged it over the snow back to the cave and crawled inside, guiding it behind her. Jac had all the gear packed, and they quickly secured the boy to the stretcher, piled their equipment packs between his feet, and worked their way back to daylight.

“Careful with your shoulder,” Mallory said as Jac lifted her end.

“I’m good. Where are we headed?” Jac asked as they maneuvered the stretcher toward the helicopter.

“Medical center at Gardiner.”

“How far back to base?”

“A solid half day’s drive,” Mallory said. “If the weather lets up.”

Mallory hoped the trip would be quick. As soon as they got back to base, they’d be heading right out to the field camp to complete the pre-season training. She could settle back into her role as training manager, and Jac would be just one of the rookies again. They wouldn’t be partners any longer, and the troubling sense of intimacy would disappear. She ought to be happy about that, but for some reason a cavern yawned inside her, dark and cold and lonely. She so did not need this. Even the satisfaction that usually came from a successful mission eluded her. Ordinarily, rescuing the climbers and getting them to safety would be all she needed to feel complete. The aching sadness in her chest was something new. Something new and unwelcome and, hopefully, something she could quickly correct.