Pure Heat (13 page)

Carly sat way in the back of the Firehawk and wondered how in blazes Emily had talked her into coming. They had another twenty minutes roaring through the skies until they reached the Rogue River, up in the heart of the Umpqua National Forest.

One moment she'd been mostly asleep under the covers at six in the evening, in the privacy of her own cabin. The next she'd been holding a cheerfully burbling Tessa in her arms while Emily and Aunt Margaret were getting out her fishing gear, sleeping bag, and tent, and folding some clothes into a knapsack. Her cabin was small—bedroom, kitchen and a small great room. So they didn't have far to go to find everything.

Now she was wedged between TJ's ice chests and Betsy's cooking gear. Henderson and Emily were flying; Emily had her daughter. Carly hadn't realized the ICA also flew choppers, though it made sense. Two SOAR pilot majors. Bet they had some stories to tell.

Aunt Margaret and TJ, along with Chutes and Betsy, were having a gay old time sitting on a couple of jump seats installed in the middle of the cargo bay. Akbar the Great and a cute windsurfer blond named Tori, who was a good foot taller than he was, were perched on the tents and sleeping bags discussing ancient Greek dramas, as far as Carly could tell.

And Merks bloody Mercer sat up in his little control seat and pretended he wasn't massaging his leg. He was also pretending that they weren't sitting like two boxers who'd retreated to their opposite corners of the roaring aircraft.

She covered her eyes with her palms.

He'd tried to be nice when she showed up in Margaret and Emily's tow, still carrying Tessa. That was the one thing that made sure she couldn't bolt, having someone else's baby in her arms. Had that been intentional? Margaret sat with her back toward Carly. Emily was invisible up in Carly's spotter seat in the copilot position. Maybe Carly didn't want to know just how thoroughly she was being manipulated.

Steve had tried to be nice.

“I'm sorry for… you know.”

Yeah, she knew. For making her feel like shit.

She'd liked his body. Enjoyed it. Liked the way it felt against hers and the way it made her feel. She'd also been surprised at how good he made her feel. A whole part of her had been closed off for the year since Linc's death, a part she'd somehow forgotten.

And in the light of the morning she could see what she'd also felt in the night, the damage to his leg.

The rest of him was so tan, it made his leg a stark, pale contrast. Of course, he'd clearly spent a long time in a cast. Muscle atrophy explained some of what was wrong, but the long scar, as well as his mood, said there was way more to the story.

She'd mused about how magnificent he must have looked when whole. The women must have flocked. Actually, she liked him this way. Otherwise he'd have that weird curse of being too perfect, too handsome. It would be like those actors with the perfectly symmetrical features, so handsome that they looked fake, as if no personality could compete with such features.

One thing Steve Mercer didn't lack was personality. She felt battered by the chaos of his emotions: the playboy, the smokie hero, the drone nerd, his desperate need, and his impossible tenderness.

That's what had done it, what had made her weak in the head on the subject of Steve Mercer. She couldn't predict him. With Linc, you always knew the next sentence before he spoke. With Steve, not even close.

Then he'd spotted her looking at his leg as her thoughts wandered. That's when he'd closed down. She hadn't connected the timing this morning, but that was definitely it.

Some part of her had thought that the morning-after sex had been taken as cheap or easy and he'd decided to cast her off.

But for once maybe it wasn't about her.

What if it was about him?

She uncovered her eyes and looked across the cabin at him.

As if sensing her, he turned.

His face quiet. Again that calm moment, making sure she knew the choice was hers. How did he do that? He didn't give her anger or try to dump guilt; he simply waited.

She offered a short nod of acknowledgment, which he returned ever so carefully before facing forward once more.

Once again he'd done the decent thing.

Damn him.

Steve kept stopping in wonder as they set up camp.

Betsy had led them to a lazy curve high in the headwaters of the Rogue River. A broad rock ledge had forced the river to swing wide to the south before curling back around the other side and continuing on its way. It created a low rock promontory surrounded on three sides by water and by towering trees on the fourth.

The rock also made a perfect perch for the Firehawk, its black-and-fire paint job appearing to actually burn in the last of the sunlight.

In the upstream and downstream curves of the rocky bluff, two broad beaches of sand and small gravel had been built by the spring floods. It didn't take a group of firefighters more than a few minutes to have a good campfire rolling on the upstream beach. There were a few pitched tents, but most were clearly going to opt for an air mattress and a sleeping bag under the stars.

It was past nine o'clock by the time they were set, but another meal seemed in order. You couldn't help but be hungry when surrounded by the cobalt blue sky of dusk, the fresh air, and the noisy chatter of the river working stones downstream toward an ocean two hundred miles away. They could be all alone in the world right here.

Shaved twigs were soon sporting a variety of hot dogs and marshmallows. S'mores were in the making. Steve hated marshmallows, but grabbed a couple of graham crackers and some chocolate to eat while his hot dog got crispy.

Carly sat not quite across from him. Setting the fire directly between them would have been too obvious a snub. But just as clearly, she wasn't ready to trust him after how he'd treated her this morning. Thankfully, people were mixing it up a bit so their mutual avoidance wasn't too obvious.

Betsy had settled between Emily and Margaret to play with the baby, who had discovered the game of alternating flashing smiles and sticking out tongues. Chutes, clearly at a bit of a loss, had landed between Henderson and TJ.

Steve ended up with Henderson on one side, and Akbar and Tori between him and Carly.

“Why Akbar the Great?” Steve asked to appear casual.

“Akbar is my middle name. My first name is actually Johnny.”

Tori laughed. She had a good laugh. And talk about the ultimate pickup line. “Hi, want to go on a camping trip in a Firehawk helicopter that I rode into a forest fire just yesterday?” Damn, Steve had never had a line that good.

“Johnny the Great?”

“Akbar means ‘great.' So my name is Johnny Great the Great Jepps. Makes me feel all-powerful sometimes… right until a tree smacks you.” He nodded over toward TJ, who had downgraded to a cane. “That was good, Steve, what you did.” He turned to Tori.

“This guy”—he pointed at Steve—“saved that guy's”—he pointed at TJ—“life last week. Not bad for his first day on the job.”

Steve pulled his hot dog out of the fire, blew on it to put out the flames, and put it on a bun he'd been toasting on a flat rock near the coals.

“You'd have done the same, Akbar.”

“Sure. But you were the dude there when it counted. I was busy hustling my ass down that cliff.”

“Which is the only reason that tree didn't land on your head.”

“True, but a tree hits this head, it's gonna bounce off. Warning you, Tori, I'm a hard-headed dude.”

“As long as you're hard-bodied as well.” Her smile was pure tease.

Steve could feel the heat where he was. He'd bet Akbar the Great's body temperature had just gone fire hot. He was almost surprised the man didn't burst into flames on the spot.

In a matter of minutes, there was no longer anyone sitting in the space between Steve and Carly.

***

By some form of mutual consent and in the same instant, they each shifted one spot toward the other around the fire. Both in motion, too late to stop without making it look stupid.

Carly would have welcomed a remaining gap between them, but she knew they needed to talk. By shifting together, they also shifted away from the others and had at least a feeling of privacy.

“This morning—”

“I'm sor—”

They both stopped.

Rather than play some stupid “you first” game, Carly just kept her mouth shut. Steve didn't make her wait long. A simple nod, acknowledging he had some explaining to do.

“This morning…” A nod to acknowledge her words. “I'm sorry that I overreacted.”

She waited for more.

“I…” He turned to study the fire, his hand absently moving down to massage his thigh.

He didn't appear to be able to continue.

“Does it hurt?”

He jerked his hand from his leg as if it had been burnt, then set it back down slowly with a sad smile.

“More the memory of pain. At least I still have the leg.”

“How long out of the cast?”

“Two months. I'm supposed to be in PT still, but I couldn't miss another season.” His voice was clear on that point, definite.

Carly didn't know what she'd do if she couldn't fly to fire. She'd lost her father and her fiancé to fire, and still she flew.

“I…” She reached deep, not even knowing why she did. Maybe for a good man in such obvious pain. Pain of heart. “I know what it takes to do that.”

“How could you?” His scoff was practically a slap. “You're goddamn perfect. Such a reputation leading wildfire air attack that I heard of the Flame Witch all the way down in Los Angeles. Though no one mentioned that you were a woman who was so beautiful that a man would be an idiot not to die to protect you.”

Carly didn't know what to do with the compliments. They were so wrong and so strange that she didn't even know where to begin.

“I don't need a man to die for me. Too many have already done that.” The ice ran into her veins, freezing her right to the very core.

Steve's face went blank, then his skin paled to almost white, despite the ruddy light from the fire. His sympathy, no, his empathy went straight to her—

No!

She couldn't let another man in.

Couldn't lose yet another.

Carly rose and strode into the night. Walked blindly until she was past the Firehawk and down the length of the western beach, where the beach ran out and the low, rocky cliff met the fast-running water. She could go no farther.

There she waited in the darkness. She needed an answer. But none ever came, no matter how many times she asked the question.

“Why?”

Her whisper was lost in the sound of the rushing water.

Steve's hands were inches from Carly's waist when she cried out into the night.

How many times had he faced that one unanswerable question? Hundreds? Thousands?

He finished the gesture, slipping his arms around her.

She fought. Without hesitation. Pounded her fists at his arms where they crossed in front of her belly. He heard the sobs, felt them shake her. She redoubled her force then, unleashing one last cry of anguish before she stopped as abruptly as she'd started.

Carly turned in his arms, rested her face against his shoulder, and wept.

He held her close. Rested his own cheek upon her hair. What the hell was he doing? He didn't rescue women, and he especially avoided weeping women.

But a rocking motion came from somewhere inside, like the motion of the living trees in a breeze.

How long they stood, how long she cried, he didn't know. Had no measure. She soaked his shoulder with her tears long before she quieted. At long last, she turned her cheek and rested her head there.

“I…” Her voice cracked. “I made you all wet and snotty.”

“It's okay. I'm sure that sooner or later someone will throw me in a river to wash up.”

It earned him a sound between a laugh and hiccup.

Again he simply rocked and held her, not that he knew what else to do. Some stupid part of him started picking out the stars of the two bears where they peered at them from over the treetops.

“His name was Linc Hanson. We were engaged.”

Steve did his best not to react. Jealousy? Or anger that someone had hurt her this badly?

“Last summer, at the Pedro Creek Fire, he made a mistake. A series of them.” Now she'd gone so quiet he almost feared she'd fainted. He held her a little tighter to let her know he was listening.

“He wasn't—” Her voice caught hard. “He wasn't a very good firefighter.”

He tried shushing her. “Tell me later. It's okay.”

She pushed away. Took a step, perhaps two into the dark, the gravel shifting and crunching beneath her step the only indicator of which direction she'd gone. Her light hair barely a suggestion of reflected starlight.

“No. I've got to get it out. I don't know if I'll be brave enough to face this a second time.”

“Okay.” He tried to imagine a braver woman, someone who had done more than face the fire after it had taken both her father and her fiancé. He couldn't.

“Linc, ah, got caught with no escape route. Then he snarled his Pulaski in his foil fire shelter and tore the hell out of it in his panic. We found the shreds when we found his body. The fire turned and he wasn't ready. He burned alive screaming for mercy into the radio.”

“Did he—” No, Steve couldn't ask the question. It would be too awful to imagine.

“He only fought fire to try and fill the void my father's death left in my life.” Her voice broke with each word. “And I let him.”

Total self-disgust dripped from her thickened voice.

“He died begging for me to help him as I watched from six thousand feet in a fixed-wing spotter, the closest retardant a lifetime too far. He burned alive screaming my name. It's why I fly helitack instead of a fixed-wing spotter. So that there's a chance if ever… So I could… In case…”

Steve stepped to the shadow swaying before him.

This time, when he slid his arms around her waist, she didn't fight him. She simply lay back against him, exhausted, and let him hold her.

As if that could ever be enough.