Hot Point (13 page)

It also gave him a new level of respect for Mark and Emily. They extracted every nuance of his observations, getting him to report things he hadn't even known he'd seen, until they built a precise picture of what he'd done and also a protocol on how to recognize and avoid similar conditions in the future.

He found it hard to remember sometimes that these were two of the very best heli-pilots on the planet. They had both made it to the rank of major flying for the U.S. Army's 160th SOAR. The Special Operations Aviation Regiment flew those deep, dark, crazy missions like attacking bin Laden's compound.

So when Emily finally said, “I wouldn't want to try flying that route,” Vern knew he'd done pretty well. Mark's “You didn't miss a single trick” made him feel even better.

Which was good, because despite the last lazy couple of hours—including one long, hot shower where he finally let the shakes out—he was hammer-down exhausted.

He did go out to check on his Firehawk.

Mickey tagged along for moral support.

They stood side by side in the darkness and stared at the chopper.

It sat alone. Only a few security lights were aglow. The main compound lights were off.

“How late is it?”

“Past eleven,” Mickey responded.

A silence hung over the airport as thick as a smoke blanket, everything muffled, finally quiet.

“Man, she has really trashed that thing.”

A line of “Do Not Cross” tape had been strung around his helicopter, and he could see why. His poor machine looked like one of those exploded-view diagrams that were so useless on “some assembly required” sets of instructions. But he could see there was a perfect order to it.

Starting from the tape line, Denise and her crew had laid out each section of the disassembled helicopter in order: scrap bits closest to the tape, next sheet metal, after that carefully arranged carts of new and rebuilt parts, and a big tool chest that had been closed for the night. She hadn't been kidding when she said full inspection.

Denise was nowhere to be seen. It was late and doing an all-night push on repairs was no safer than doing all-night flights as a pilot. Besides, even a full night wouldn't get his bird back together.

“You're actually seeing Denise? Like…seeing her?” Mickey's voice was as disbelieving as his own would have been even a few days ago.

“Maybe.”

“
Maybe?
How can you not know?”

“Well, we slept together,” Vern admitted.

“Well, duh! That means—”

“But no sex.”

Mickey left a long silence.

The main airport's lights shut off, darkening the scene even further.

“That's just weird, Vern. You're not making any sense.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” He stared upward, seeking the stars. Nothing but a smoke-hazed moon.

“Hey, glad I caught you.” Mark arrived out of the darkness.

Not really a night for romance anyway; Vern was weaving with exhaustion and had no idea where Denise was bunked down.

“Hell of a mess,” Mark observed, surveying Denise's handiwork.

Or perhaps it was a comment on the mess Vern had created.

“I need you tomorrow, if you're up for it.”

Vern shrugged. He realized the gesture probably wasn't visible, but he was having trouble finding the energy to speak.

Mark apparently took his silence as sufficient assent. “Vanessa's training is coming along, but I think you could really help her. Do a fly-along instructional round with her.”

“Oh man,” Mickey groaned with envy. “Hot Italian babe in a tiny helicopter. You lucky son of a bitch. Her accent totally slays me.”

Mickey was such a dog. Sure Vanessa was five ten of dark, sleek Italian. But when Vern tried to picture the moment the way Mickey was, he came up with five feet of shy blond instead.

“Sure, Mark. I won't be flying Hawk Oh-Three tomorrow. That's for damn sure.”

The three of them surveyed the carefully organized mayhem spread across the tarmac before them.

“Well, you got that much straight.” Mickey sighed. “Man, what a mess.”

“In more ways than you think, buddy.” What the hell was he going to do about Denise? And where was she anyway?

It was too late, and he was too tired to ask.

Resigned, he headed back to his room.

When he opened the door, it let a splash of light in from the hall. Enough light to shine off a flowing expanse of blond hair. Denise was curled beneath the blanket on his bed with her hair over the covers. Sound asleep, but here, of all crazy places.

He closed the door and let his eyes adapt slowly to the pale moonlight coming through the unshaded window. She'd gone to sleep close against the wall, leaving just enough space for him to join her.

Denise Conroy wanted him beside her.

The top bunk made more sense. All they'd shared were a few kisses and one brief awakening. Despite the implicit invitation, it would make more sense if they actually spoke and maybe got to know each other better before they went any further.

Resolute, he undressed, stopping at the last moment to keep his underwear in place. He folded down the sheet on the top bunk. Then, after telling himself he was a complete and total idiot who should be flogged for what he was thinking, he slid into the lower bunk.

Denise didn't wake…not really.

She slid against him and wrapped a leg over his, rested her cheek on his shoulder, and with a soft sigh settled back into sleep.

Vern stared at the shadowed bottom of the upper bunk. Never before had he slept with a woman who wasn't first a lover. Never before last night anyway.

With some chagrin, he laid his cheek against her ever-so-soft hair and thought back to the moment he'd broken the Firehawk while returning to the MHA base from the grassland fire.

No question, he'd been absolutely right.

Denise was killing him.

Vern woke alone and blinked at the sunlight shining in through the window. The bright, mid-morning sunlight. That meant the smoke was clearing out of Missoula. That in turn meant either a wind shift, which could be a very bad thing, or they were beating the fire. And he was supposed to be aloft with Vanessa at first light.

He rolled up out of the bunk. Right before he made it upright, he remembered that he hadn't been alone when he went to sleep. He turned to inspect the empty expanse of sheets, at the same moment his temple whacked hard against the upper bunk.

Collapsing back onto his pillow, his groan didn't make him feel any damned better.

When the stars had cleared and the spins stopped, he tested for blood. Nope, though his breath hissed out at the contact. Leaking brain matter? No more than usual, despite how hard he'd clocked himself. Just an already rising lump from hell, his usual price for being stupid.

Rising much more carefully, he dressed and hunted down coffee and a sandwich that Betsy was nice enough to make for him because that was clearly beyond his capabilities at the moment.

With his second cup topped off in his travel mug, he tracked Denise down on the flight line.

As he had last night, he simply had to watch her for a moment. She and Malcolm had pulled the decking on his Firehawk's cargo bay, leaning in to inspect the wiring and whatever else it was that ran under there. One thing his libido was deeply aware of was that the woman looked equally delicious from front, side, or back. His body definitely remembered being pressed against the back of her, and his hands tingled with memory of the splendid curves of her front.

And at the rate things were going, a great view was the only enjoyment he was going to get for quite some time to come.

She turned from giving instructions and spotted him. Weaving between parts and carts and bits of melted helicopter, Denise came over, moving fast and easy. Jeans, denim shirt, and that standard sexy-gunslinger tool belt wrapped around swaying hips. Pure murder.

“Hi.” The caffeine had finally reached his speech centers allowing him to greet her with at least one level better than a grunt.

“Morning, Slick.” She'd been headed into his arms; he and his libido were pretty happily sure of that. But a single step away she braked to a halt and inspected his forehead. “What happened to you?”

“Nothing.” He'd tried putting on his cap to cover it, but there was no way that was going to happen until the pain and the swelling went down.

“Did someone look at that?”

“No need.” He shrugged it off. Betsy, who was an EMT in addition to being the MHA cook, had checked it out and told him to be more careful.

“I didn't wake you this morning, did I?”

“No.” Looking down at her sunny face and compact body, he wished to hell she had. “Last night, I don't think I woke you.”

“You were supposed to.”

He closed his eyes. Okay, beyond idiot right over into doofus.

“I mean, I like sleeping with you, Vern. But this is getting ridiculous.”

He winced and looked down into those green eyes. On its own, his hand came up and he brushed a thumb over the soft skin of her cheek.

“I won't let it happen again, Wrench.”

“You better not, Slick. Or I'm going to think something's wrong with me.” There was a momentary darkness. “Or maybe with you.” She covered the fleeting shadow with a teasing smile.

“Trust me. It's not you.” Vern slid his fingers through her hair, then leaned in to kiss her forehead. “On the other hand, there's plenty wrong with me. Ask my mom.”

“I'll do that.”

This time it didn't feel so forward, suggesting that Denise and his mother would meet someday. If only he could get some alone time with Denise when they weren't both exhausted. Yeah, welcome to firefighting. He sighed.

“I couldn't agree more.” She matched her sigh to his. She rested her hand on his chest, making him impossibly aware of his own heartbeat. “But here comes your ride.”

He heard the high-whip sound of his old MD500 descending out of the almost-blue sky. Vanessa, back for refueling. Time to go flying and do some training.

“Crap.”

Vanessa did a nice job of setting down her bucket so it kissed the tarmac. Empty, the bucket looked like the lower half of a pumpkin, made of canvas and folded accordion-like. It was big enough for three or four guys to pile into if they had to when it was open, yet it would stow in the back of the tiny chopper if it was collapsed.

She then shifted enough sideways to set the long-line down without landing one of the MD's skids on it. That told him that she'd learned a lot these last few days over rough terrain about exactly where her bucket was. From this point, it would be polish. She had the essentials down.

He could see Mickey's point; Vanessa was fully on display in the MD500's bubble nose. Dark complexion, long dark hair. Even the Nomex and cargo pants couldn't hide the length of her legs.

Vern looked back down at Denise. This was what he wanted. He leaned down to brush his lips over hers, and she opened to his kiss as if they'd been lovers for years rather than, well, never.

“Soon, Slick,” she whispered against his lips.

“Real soon, Wrench.” They traded smiles and he hurried off to pull on his gear so that he didn't delay Vanessa's return to the fire once she was refueled.

* * *

Denise wondered which god she should curse or make a burnt offering to or something. Yet another night when they'd been too busy and too exhausted to do more than collapse into each other's arms.

As predicted, the high carbon content of the ash in the air had begun to take its toll, and her crew had spent hours cleaning, tightening, and doing some replacing. It was midnight before the birds other than Vern's had been ready for flight.

Mark's wake-up call had been painful, and she didn't have the energy to tease, promise, or even simply enjoy the moment. Vern was in no better shape. They'd helped each other dress, and it had been about as sexy as helping a friend bind a hurt hand.

At least before he opened the door, he'd sat down on the one chair and pulled her into his lap. They sat for a long five minutes they couldn't really afford that went by impossibly fast. They hadn't traded a word or even a kiss.

He held her close, and she in turn let herself be held as she curled against him. Still not having spoken—for what was there to be said?—they confronted the day.

Denise's team had finished, tested, and certified Firehawk Oh-Three by early afternoon. It was about the same time Mark declared the fire fully contained and handed it off to a Type II Incident Team. The Hoodie smokejumpers had worked their own miracles over the last five days and were even now being trucked back down for the flight out.

The Zulies were still down on the Hard Creek Fire, but the prediction was that they'd be released in another forty-eight hours.

So the MHA Hoodies had decamped from the Zulie base. Now it was an hour to sunset, and they were nearing the MHA base camp in the foothills of Mount Hood.

Denise huddled in the copilot's seat.

A part of her insisted she was making up the whole thing.

No. He held me in his sleep. He held me in his lap just this morning.

But there was an old tape. A stronger, deeper one that lurked deep inside. One that insisted that there was nothing real between her and Vern except a bit of lust and a shared love of helicopters. They didn't even love the same part. He was like a rocket jock and she like a NASA engineer, no common ground.

She tried to hold on to the memories that her body insisted were real, but she was so tired that she no longer believed anything.

Exhausted by it all. Exhausted by her own thoughts and hurt by the pending disappointment of what had seemed so promising, she curled up on her seat and kept quiet. Her life's plan had been right. She was a woman who wasn't built for deep or meaningful relationships, and she shouldn't dream of them, because the pain of losing even that thread of hope cut deep.

Every pilot was talking about the flight Vern had made. He'd been elevated to some godlike-flier status by the MHA core. The flight was even more impressive than she'd thought, and she'd been pretty impressed to begin with.

Then Denise had overheard Bruce and Gordon talking about her and Vern as a couple. They didn't understand how their friend could be such an odd duck when there were all of these normal women who apparently were just waiting for him in some goddamn magical wonderland. Bruce and Gordon envied him all the great women who were apparently holding out for him.

Vern would wake up soon and Denise would be off the pedestal he had her on, real soon. Then he'd be gone and she'd be, well, screwed. Not being a total idiot, she knew how the world worked and that it was better to just let whatever was between her and Vern die now. Fast and quiet. They'd hit base camp. They'd avoid each other until the end of the fire season, which should be any day, and they'd go their separate ways.

“Mark,” she heard Vern call out over the radio.

“Here.” He was in the MHA formation somewhere. They were returning as a unit, one oh-so-happy team. All for one and all that.

“I'm going to catch up with you later.”

“Roger. Fly safe. Out.”

Denise didn't think much of the conversation.

Vern curved their route south and began to descend. She looked out the windscreen and saw the other choppers continuing toward the base on the north side of Mount Hood. She and Vern were headed south of it, but they were already below the height of the ridge they'd have to clear to continue westward.

He continued the descent. Circling down until she could see the trees—not the green mat of a hundred thousand spires, but individuals—and then their branches.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Buck Lake.”

“And what's there?”

Vern didn't say another word as he continued his descent through the bright afternoon.

Buck Lake was a near-circle of water lost among the trees. It was perhaps five hundred feet across. Nothing else nearby except miles of the Mount Hood National Forest.

“There's a hiking trail through the trees into the south side of the lake. There are some campsites under the trees just above the rocky shore. It's rarely used this late in the year.”

He circled around over the north end and found a spot on a rocky bluff to settle Denise's service container. He landed the chopper close by facing toward the water.

Then he shut down the engines and opened the door.

The silence was immense. It covered the lake and filled the chopper. It washed over her as palpably as the roar of turbine engines coming up to speed. The air smelled so fresh and clean; it might never have been used before. It had the purity of high altitude and deep forest in the early days of fall.

“What's here on the north side of the lake?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

Vern used a brush of his thumb on her cheek to turn her toward him. It was so unexpected after what she'd just been thinking that she would have jolted if she hadn't been so surprised. She shifted over to full-body paralysis when, just as gently, he touched his lips to hers, nudging and coaxing until she could feel herself opening to him despite her certainty that nothing existed between them.

A sound broke the silence, softly at first, coming from somewhere deep inside.

As Vern kissed her, brushed his nose on hers, rubbed a thumb over her lips, and tasted… Oh God! He tasted divine! It rose into a roar, then a pounding that filled her ears, a sound created by the unexpected surge of need within her.

“What's here, Denise?” Vern whispered against her lips. “Just us.”

* * *

Vern hadn't been prepared for the response. They'd both been so eager to get their hands on each other; he'd expected anything other than what happened.

Denise sat back ever so slowly, pulling away from him until they sat once again in their separate seats of the Firehawk with the vast canyon of the radio console between them.

Was she upset because he hadn't asked her? He'd wanted to surprise her. It was a beautiful lake, one of his favorite spots. Trees ringed almost the whole thing right to the edge of the water. Even this late in the year, the water would be sun-warmed rather than glacier-fed.

“Seriously?” She faced him.

He tried to read her tone, her face, her body language, anything, but he couldn't. She sounded disbelieving, as if he was lying about it. He nodded. “Seriously.”

She turned to look out the windscreen. After a long moment, she leaned slightly forward and then slammed herself back against the padding. She repeated it again and again.

After the fourth time, he reached out a hand to touch her arm, and she went immediately still.

“You can't want to be with me.” Her voice was even flatter than the silent lake on the still day.

“What makes you say that, Wrench?” He wanted to be with her so much that his body ached with it, and not only his loins. His fingers wanted to brush her cheek. His arm whimpered with a need to encircle her waist and tug her tight against his chest. He longed to taste—

“Because there is no way you want to be with someone as stupid as me.”

He burst out laughing, couldn't stop it. He laughed right in her face.

“Yeah.” She smiled wanly. “Dumb as a thumb, I know.”

“Stupid? How can a woman as smart as you even think something like that?”

She grimaced, then shrugged. “You have no idea. About the time you were planning this nefarious kidnapping so that you could have your evil way with me—”

“That wasn't quite—” He tried to backpedal.

“Which believe me, I want to be a party to.”

That stopped his sputtering attempt to build an apology and left him totally adrift.

“At that same time, I was busy convincing myself that you didn't really want me because otherwise you would have… I don't know. Something.”