Hot Point (10 page)

“Roger, boss.” Vern wasn't panicked, running, arguing…nothing. “And so you know, I'm one mechanic heavy.”

“She suited up and strapped in?”

Vern glanced over at her and nodded for her to respond, as if they were merely cruising down the highway in her car.

She wanted to curse him when he nodded again. “Damn you!”

Vern chuckled, to her complete annoyance. See if she'd be kissing him again anytime soon.

She rested her hand very lightly on the cyclic control and pulled the microphone switch. It changed her from intercom communication to transmitting over the radio. “Yes and yes!” she snapped out at Mark and let go of the switch but left her hand in place.

“Good,” Mark came back, terribly amused about something. “You might want to hang on anyway.”

“Why? I—” And gravity disappeared. And the horizon along with it. Her hands convulsed on the cyclic and again pressed the radio switch. She heard a scream through her headphones, again that weird girlish sound of shock and surprise.

They stopped dropping and she managed to release the mic switch.

“Oh God!” Her hands were shaking. “Everyone heard that, didn't they?”

“Everyone with an eardrum left anyway.” Vern's tone was light enough to nudge her sensibilities loose. “Easy on the controls, Wrench.”

Once she eased off, she could feel the smooth confidence with which Vern maneuvered the cyclic and the five tons of helicopter carrying that same amount again in retardant.

They rolled over almost onto their side in a steep bank and dove down along a ridgeline. Gravity came back during an ear-popping twist. No more than a few hundred feet—four rotors, she corrected herself—beyond her door, flames were roaring aloft, far higher than they were flying.

Vern kept them nose down and began counting down seconds. His voice soothing in her ears.

Which was exactly why he was doing it aloud. She was so thankful that maybe she would kiss him again.

Though not right now.

The next change she felt right through the soles of her feet resting on the steel decking. A buzz of motors actuating the dump doors on the Firehawk's belly tank.

She stuck her head out into the bulge in the window and marveled at the long, red spray that poured out of their craft. It splatted down into the trees, coating them with the sticky fire retardant intended to keep the oxygen away from the fuel. No oxygen, no fire.

If the coating was perfect…that's why it was retardant and not fire-stopper.

The buzz of the closing doors, again tickling up through her feet, indicated the first thousand gallons was down on the fire. Abruptly 4.4 tons lighter, the Firehawk roared back aloft like the best roller coaster on the planet.

Her pulse was ripping at her chest. Her breathing was shallow and rapid; her trembling hands reminded her to keep them away from the radio switch.

“Holy shit!”

* * *

That was exactly how Vern felt watching Denise. The Woman of Stainless Steel was nowhere to be seen.

Stainless Steel?

Ha!

She didn't kiss like steel.

She kissed like wildfire, flashing to full heat in the blink of an eye. She'd kissed him barely ten minutes ago, the fire line only twenty miles and six minutes from the Missoula airport, and his body was no closer to recovering than the moment she'd hauled his lips down to hers.

He was glad she'd been in back long enough for him to make a few discreet adjustments to his clothing or he'd have been in pain.

Did she have any idea what she'd done to him?

Did he?

It was the fantasy of the gorgeous woman in the Italian sports car come true. The unadulterated joy she revealed in her driving had been nowhere to be seen this morning.

Then,
pow
!

She'd come running toward the chopper—like in one of those movie scenes. Then, for reasons he still didn't dare ask about, she dragged him down into a blazing-hot kiss.

He really needed to pay attention to what the hell he was doing. They were descending back into the Missoula Aerial Fire Depot for another load of retardant, and he didn't remember how he'd gotten here.

He talked to the tower and settled beside Emily's Oh-One.

The Zulies' ground crew clearly had this down to a science. His chopper was still rocking on its shock absorbers when he heard the loud clunk of retardant hoses hooking up to it. They ran dual two and a half inchers, which meant…

“You've got seventy seconds if you want off,” he informed Denise.

“Are you kidding?” She sounded breathless, wound way up. “I thought roller coasters were fun. I had no idea.”

He kept his attention on the tank fill. He needn't have bothered. The loading team roared up to twenty gallons short of filled, then topped off at a thousand exactly using the reaction time to shut down the pumps. Three seconds later he heard the double-slap on the outside of the chopper, signaling that he was good to go.

He had the rotors humming even as the verbal confirmation came in over the headset.

A dozen feet aloft, Denise spoke over the intercom, her voice so calm and steady that it wholly belied the breathless gasp of moments before. “I really liked kissing you.”

Beautiful, charming, and spoke her mind without games. Who the hell was she?

Another part of him answered with,
What
the
hell
do
you
care?

He didn't. He'd be perfectly content to answer that particular puzzle as they went along.

“Well”—if she was going to be so forthright, he couldn't return less—“I'll admit to counting the seconds until I get to kiss you again.”

“Forty-two thousand, three hundred and sixty.”

“Say what?” He reached cruising altitude, high enough to clear the peaks en route back to the fire, and nosed down for best speed.

“Local sunset is eight-oh-two tonight, minus thirty minutes earlier that you're required to be down per U.S. Forest Service contract. Seven hundred minutes times sixty, plus six more minutes.”

Not many people made Vern feel stupid, but this woman could make a good try at it. “Wait, no way you had that on tap.” As they cleared the second major ridge, he glanced over to see her smile.

“While you were flying us back to base, I got to wondering how much longer I'd get to stay aboard. Same amount of time until I can kiss you again.”

Vern could feel himself grinning as he lined up for the next run down the ridgeline, right on Firehawk Oh-One's tail. “There's always lunchtime.”

“Thirty minutes mandatory,” Denise agreed. “Feeling lucky, flyboy?”

Damn! Lucky didn't begin to cover it.

At lunchtime, Henderson called a pilots' meeting and flew down from his station above the blaze. The smaller choppers had arrived and gotten in a half-dozen runs each.

Vern landed right behind Emily. He'd managed to keep up with her, barely. Damn, but the woman flew so smoothly. He had the feeling that she was actually moving a touch slow to coddle his male ego. Or maybe to teach him.

Former military—well, so was he. But she was former SOAR.

The Special Operations Aviation Regiment was an absolute legend. Only the very best were given even the chance to take the tests that rejected three-quarters of the applicant pilots. He probably had a lot more to learn from her than how not to make a total fool of himself with a Firehawk.

So even if she was flying slower so he didn't feel totally hopeless, his male ego wouldn't complain about that bit of coddling. He didn't mind being outflown by two women; he just minded being outflown at all.

He stretched as he climbed down, trying to work out the kinks from flying mostly nonstop from 4:00 a.m. to noon. The Zulie Air Depot was cloaked in smoke now—visibility under five miles and falling. The quadrangle of buildings framed an area big enough to easily park MHA's three planes and seven choppers. The tarmac was immaculate except for the two filling stations, their white concrete stained bright red with the dribbles of ten thousand loads of retardant.

He'd always enjoyed the energy of a firebase. Even when everyone was too exhausted to breathe, there was a unified front—everyone working to stop the fire. He'd seen fuelies and loaders catnapping on the concrete even when the choppers where running just minutes apart. He'd seen smokies, pulled off the line for a break, almost impossible to wake from where they'd fallen asleep sitting up in a chopper's cargo bay.

And then he'd seen the woman who had sat beside him for the whole morning's flight. His overwhelming relief at Jasper's passage from Denise's life was offset by the more he learned about her. Denise was sufficiently daunting that he was again buying into her steel-like reputation.

When he'd been a young teen reading John D. MacDonald thrillers and picturing an endless line of easy women and vigilante justice, she'd been reading Patrick O'Brian and Tom Clancy.

The old sailing ships and the modern military, she'd patiently explained her reasons, both authors gave such exceptional descriptions of how and why the equipment works.

He'd graduated from high school a year early and bummed around the sailing circuit for a couple of years. He'd been in some oceanic races as a crewman and done some big crossings. He'd finally gone Coast Guard, because Yuri had threatened to kick his butt if he didn't, and ended up flying choppers all over the waters of the Pacific coast of the Americas. Had drifted around afterward and ended up fighting forest fires.

Denise had gotten her airframe and power plant certification before she was twenty: fixed-wing and rotorcraft. Spent three years at Sikorsky, but hadn't liked Connecticut. Had walked right into the new expansion plans at MHA.

He thought kissing her still sounded like a pretty good idea, despite her incredibleness. But she'd rushed her team into an inspection of the air filters, and Mark had monopolized the lunch break by laying out his plan of attack on a large, plastic-coated map rolled out on a picnic table with bags of burgers and fries pinning down the corners.

Back up they went, and six hours later, Vern didn't know if he was ever going to move normally again. He set the chopper down in front of the Zulies' buildings and shut it down. Digging deep, he tried to find the energy to pull out his log, but his nerves were powerless.

He pulled off his headset and rolled his head enough to glance down the row. At least Emily and Jeannie were equally hammered, still sitting slumped back in their seats.

Denise whisked by outside his windshield so fast he could barely follow her. She'd shed the harness and jacket. Her T-shirt clung and outlined, and even that wasn't sufficient to get him moving. A whole lineup of the easy Florida babes that John D. MacDonald had delivered for Travis McGee to enjoy wouldn't be enough to get him moving.

His door was popped open from the outside, and he almost tumbled out in his surprise.

Denise was standing there, tablet computer in hand. “C'mon, Taylor. I need you to finish your log before I can start my end-of-day inspection.”

He considered whining. He considered pulling the door shut and going back to sleep; he'd been so close. He considered Denise's compact form and generous chest so splendidly outlined in stretchy material, her flowing hair, and her beautiful eyes glaring at him from that lovely face.

Okay. That last one did it.

He hauled out the paper logbook and recorded the vitals: hours in flight, number of drops from his tally, number of gallons—cool! “Beat the crap out of yesterday's drops.”

Denise leaned in to see the count, leaning against him as casually as if they were dear friends completely comfortable with one another, rather than near strangers who'd known each other for a year and a half and had just kissed for the first—and only, damn it!—time this morning. Sitting here, he was only a few inches taller than she was standing on the outside ground.

To hell with it.

He turned until his nose was buried in her soft hair and breathed her in. Now that his hands weren't on the controls, he slipped one into that blond glory and turned her to him.

* * *

Denise groaned against his mouth as Vern kissed her. They were on display for the whole line, and she didn't care.

He didn't taste of fire and reek of smoke. He tasted of heat. As if the fire that he fought with his helicopter ran inside him but was such a contrast to his cool exterior.

Would she ever be able to match his unflappable manner as he flew? She rather hoped not. The last flight had been as amazing and adrenaline-worthy as the first.

And the second kiss was proving that the first had been no fluke.

She melted against him. Denise never melted against anyone. But apparently her body didn't know that about Vern Taylor.

Part of it was the way he saw her.

Part of it was the way his eager hands held her so. He wasn't gentle—as if she were a goddamned delicate china doll—the way her few boyfriends had treated her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close as if she was a strong woman.

That word “incredible” floated by her consciousness somewhere but slipped away. His mouth on hers took and gave.

When the kiss finally broke, he didn't step her back, which was a good thing because her legs were a long-forgotten concept lost in a land far, far away. Instead, he buried his face in her hair and breathed her in. She could feel his chest expand beneath her hand, which had come to rest over his heart. He breathed her in as if he'd never stop, as if she were the finest tonic in the universe.

“Damn,” he whispered softly against her neck. “That's all I can think to say, Wrench.” He breathed her in again and exhaled another soft “Damn!”

Denise knew in that instant that they weren't going to stop anytime soon. They weren't going to kiss a few times and move on. No. They were going to sleep together, and that wasn't going to be particularly far in the future.

She'd never known it so early on or known it so assuredly.

Leaning farther into the helicopter, she rested her head on his shoulder and let herself simply enjoy being held.

She also had never so looked forward to it.

* * *

Vern had thought he was in trouble before.

Ha! Not even close.

He finally managed to trade places with Denise, so that she was the one in the pilot seat with her checklist and he was the one standing outside the door.

Bruce and Mickey strolled by, especially slowly. Bruce looked somewhere between aghast and horrified. Mickey gave him a look that said, “Who the hell you kidding, Vern? Guys like us don't get women like Conroy.” And Vern wanted to bury his nose in her hair again and smell the heady woman, mechanic, summer-afternoon scent of Denise Conroy.

“Anything I can do, Wrench?” He fell back on the familiar. It was the only way he could find to not simply ravage her where she sat. A nice kiss was a long way from an invitation to a tumble. Nice kiss? Shit! Who was he kidding?

“No. Go away, Slick. You're distracting me.”

Vern nodded, managed to fumble on his cap, and turn for the showers. A really cold one.

“Don't make the shower too cold, Flyboy,” Denise called from behind him as if she'd read his mind. “Save a little heat for me.”

The smooth tarmac offered no excuse of a gopher hole or a stray tuft of grass to explain his stumbling gait as he moved away from her.

* * *

Denise finished her inspection as quickly as she could. The choppers had come in at a half hour to sunset. She'd lost a little time with Vern that she'd never, ever regret. And spent an hour going over the choppers. The ash and dust were taking their toll. She shifted a half-dozen items onto the “check daily” list and sent the update to Malcolm and Brenna. But for the moment, she didn't have to order any unusual maintenance.

She found Vern sitting in the Zulies' mess hall, drowsing over his half-finished dinner. The hall was a large, low room that could fit the sixty smokejumpers as well as their support staff. With the smokies still in the field, MHA was rattling around the big space.

The chow line ran down one end of the hall. Wooden tables—every single thing in Missoula was either made of wood or covered in it. Even the room's Sheetrock walls had wide-board trim. It must come from being at the junction of a half-dozen national forests. Steel chairs with faded red padding where the only break in the theme.

Denise grabbed her own meal tray quickly and moved to sit across from Vern. The small Formica table had definitely seen better days, but it was clean and the spaghetti and meatballs smelled heavenly.

“C'mon, Slick. Eat up, then you can go to bed.”

When he didn't respond, she rapped his knuckles with the handle of her knife.

“Huh. Wha'? Oh, hey.” He stared around, clearly uncertain of where he was.

“Eat up, Vern.”

He finally spotted his meal and began to eat mechanically.

Denise looked around the room and could see that the other pilots each had their own attendees. They all looked hammered, but the three Firehawk pilots were beyond pale.

Emily's daughter, Tessa, clearly thought it was time to play and run around after spending much of the day aloft with her dad. One of the Zulie ground crew appeared with a teddy bear in her hands and whisked the girl away. Mark was practically fork-feeding his wife. He didn't look all that much better himself.

Even as Denise watched, Jeannie packed it in, curled up across three chairs—which looked terribly uncomfortable—and appeared to fall instantly asleep. Cal swept her into his arms with a tenderness that came right out of a girl's dreams.

Carly was in slightly better shape, leaning heavily on a limping Steve as they left. His injury might never let him walk normally again or carry his wife, but it made them no less a beautiful couple.

The rest of the MHA and Zulie crews were at least functional, but the chatter was low, no more than a soft murmur in the long room. The view of the parked choppers and failing daylight out the broad windows only reinforced that it was time to be done with this day.

Vern had lost the thread of his meal again while she'd been looking around.

Denise looked at his plate and decided he'd eaten enough.

She piled a couple slices of garlic bread on top of her pasta, stabbed a fork into it, and took that in one hand. With the other, she tugged on his hand. “No way I'm carrying you, Vern. Get a move on. Time to get you in bed.”

His fingers slid into hers as he made it to his feet. No jokes about getting her into bed with him; yet more proof of the depths of his exhaustion.

She led him down the hall. Any attempts to imagine they were walking along romantically holding hands were belied when he clipped a shoulder on a doorjamb and nearly crushed her hand in his grip as he struggled to remain upright. It was a close thing, but she managed to save her dinner.

He'd been assigned one of the two-person bunkrooms. The room was enough wider than the tiered bed to stuff in a chair, a set of drawers, and maybe set your boots on the floor where you wouldn't trip on them. An open window let in the very last of the evening light and a soft breeze that thankfully only hinted at the smoky haze now filling the valley.

Vern collapsed onto the bunk with only the barest guidance. She set her dinner on the dresser, closed the door, and began unlacing his boots. Denise hesitated at his shirt and pants, but he couldn't sleep in those. Managing to elicit a little help from him, she got him down to underwear and T-shirt.

Then the T-shirt was gone and his autonomic habits almost hauled down his briefs before she was able to stop him. Clearly a man used to sleeping naked.

Six feet one of naked Vern Taylor. She definitely wasn't ready for that.

Denise had to take a steadying breath at the mere thought; not that the tight cotton underwear left much to the imagination. But even on its own, his chest was devastating enough. Jasper had tended toward the well fed. Not fat, but he showed definite signs of enjoying his food, and you could already see the suggestion of the beer belly that would arrive over the next five years, now that his knee had ended his windsurfing days.

Vern was as fit as any firefighter, even one who flew for a living. Just because he had a slender frame didn't mean that it wasn't sheathed in a smooth flow of muscle.

He settled in and she got a sheet over him, which was a blessing. She fetched her dinner and perched on the foot of the bunk, leaning back against the vertical support. She'd only stay until she was sure he was settled. At least that's what she told herself.