by Jana Leigh
Hotshots
Wildfires
Book One
by Jana Leigh and Lynn Ray Lewis
© Copyright March 2015 JK Publishing, Inc.
ISBN# 978-1-311-53694-5
All cover art and logo © Copyright March 2015 by JK Publishing, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Cover by Jess Buffett
Published by JK Publishing, Inc.
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Dedication
I am so fortunate to have worked with Lynn Ray—she is an amazing, talented author and a wonderful friend!!
~Jana Leigh
To firefighters everywhere!
~Lynn Ray Lewis
Table of Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Books by Jana Leigh
Books by Lynn Ray Lewis
Excerpt from Sleeping with the Enemy
Excerpt from Jody’s Men
Excerpt from Cajun Protection
Excerpt from Mobile Pleasure
JK Publishing, Inc. Authors
Prologue
Jezebel ‘Jez’ Siomne walked toward her helicopter. It was hers; she finally owned the only thing she ever wanted. Now, to find a job to help pay the loans she had taken out. She grinned as she neared her baby. The only child of the infamous wilder fire pilot ‘Stryker’ Siomne, how could she not, it was in her blood. Her dad loved flying and it was ingrained in her at an early age.
Jez stood in front of the nose of her baby and sighed. Yes, she needed a job, and she knew exactly where she was going to go. Her godfather owed her; he promised that if she passed her licensing test, he would get her a job in Colorado, one of the premiere places to fight fires. She only needed to convince him that she was healed.
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, her father would love her baby. One year ago yesterday he had told her he was proud of her and a day later, he was dead and she was in a coma. This was the life of a wildfire pilot, her father knew it, and she knew it. It didn’t make the devastation of waking up and finding out she missed her father’s funeral any less painful. Her mother had tried to wait, but Jez understood the situation since she had been in coma for three weeks. She closed her eyes and remembered the crash.
Striker was laughing with some of the guys when she arrived to the airfield, she would always remember the smile on his face when she walked up to say hello, he loved his job, and his life, her mother knew it and lived with that knowledge. The season had just started, and Jez was going to fly with her father to get her hours in for her license. She was excited and ready. Her father was proud; he told her enough times, so she knew it was true.
“Come on, Jez,” her father had smiled. “Just got a call, we have a small fire to fly over and check out.”
Jez practically jumped up and down with excitement, but she played it cool because the guys were watching her. They got into her father’s helio and she grinned. It was a perfect day, the sun was shining, the winds were calm.
It happened when they were just rising over the foothills in Northern Colorado, the fire had moved fast and her father was listening to the radio as his team was giving coordinates. It should have been a dump and go, but the fire caught one of the members of the team, and grew fast. Her father tried to save him and help with the spread of the fire. Jez saw the huge tree in front of them explode from the heat and she didn’t have a chance to scream before her father lost control because of the force.
The last thing she remembered of her father was him yelling at her to brace and that he loved her, and then she woke up in the hospital with her mother trying to smile at her gently while she told her Stryker didn’t make it.
Jez reached up and touched her baby, he was a Sikorsky S-70 “Firehawk”, and she had dubbed it ‘Stryker’, after her father. She was going to get the job, and she was going to make her father proud. It was the only thing she’d ever wanted and she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to get it.
Chapter One
Jez laced her black work boots and stood. Her first day of work and she was fucking doing this. She had to fight to make her godfather accept her into the program. He wanted to make sure she was healthy after being in a coma and then having to go through physical therapy. She was in the best shape of her life and she had to prove it to him before he agreed. She had done it, and now she was going to meet her team.
She looked at herself in the mirror and grimaced. She had never been a pin-up model, though she wasn’t ugly before the accident. However, now her usually long dark brown hair was cut short having only grown out from the accident to her chin. It was still fine, though thicker than what it had been before, which worked for her because is gave her natural curls a bit of a bounce. Her green eyes were sparkling with excitement and her normal round face was thinner. Her curvy frame was still curvy althou
gh it was firmer. But none of that is what she saw when she looked into the mirror. The only thing she saw was the ugly scar that ran from her hairline just above her ear to her chin, and down her neck. She had almost bled out when they found her; thankfully, the men hadn’t pulled the piece of metal from the helicopter from her face until she reached the hospital.
She looked different because of the surgeries, and even though her mother assured her that she looked good, Jez didn’t care, she wasn’t here for a beauty contest, but still it sucked that people would look at her with pity. Her armor was in place at least. Her black shirt, black jeans, and black boots made her look like a badass bitch, at least that’s what her mother had said. Jez liked it, so she made sure that was her new wardrobe when she was released from the hospital, no longer able to fit into her baggy clothes.
Jez turned and pulled her bag up; she was ready. Today she would go to the training facility, they would assign her to a team, and then the training would begin. She was in Denver, Colorado, and her team was going to be stationed here, somewhere in the front range of the Rocky Mountains. She loved it here, and had dreamed of getting a job here since she was young. Her father had been stationed here although they lived in Northern Wyoming, a great place to learn how to fly a helicopter but a sucky place for a single woman to live. Not that she cared right now, but at least maybe here she could find someone who would accept her flaws.
Once they assigned her team, she would find out where she was moving to and where their new house was. She grinned at the thought of flying to her new home, it would be awesome. Housing was provided by her godfather’s company. She had been in plenty of houses because of her father. She always loved seeing how they had set up the inside, because seriously, fifteen people living in one house was always entertaining. Thankfully, her godfather was successful, and had thought of comfort rather than just beds. If she had been hired on by the state she would be staying in old military barracks in Denver. Although she wanted to live in Colorado, she didn’t want to live in barracks nor in the huge city where she was currently staying. She was from a small town in Wyoming and really didn’t like the pace of a huge city. She would be happier in the mountains where her godfather stationed his crews. The houses were generally huge and spacious, which was good, but they were also homes. When they arrived to their new home, a team of trainers would be there prepared to tell them what the next three months would be like before the fire season. They would be in huge RVs parked on the land, she knew her godfather was going to be part of her training squad, because he told her.
Jez checked out of her room and grabbed a cab, asking to be taken to headquarters. With a deep breath, she leaned back and relaxed for the last moments before she would enter into the world she was born to be in.
Shit, Jez thought as she looked around the room, it was real now. The crew was being briefed on where they were going and she wanted to get out of the room and into the air as soon as possible. Yes, she had gotten the place she had always dreamed of, she just didn’t know who her team was. The benefits from making sure her training included high elevation mountainous areas, she wouldn’t have to be trained, she already had it, so it made sense when her godfather told her and the other pilots their sites prior to this meeting. Her team was going to be heading to a base outside of Steamboat Springs, CO. It was gorgeous up there and secluded. The perfect place for her to start her new life, she wanted to call her mother, she would be happy.
They had discussed this already. Jez knew if she got the job she would be moving here permanently, and her mother was ready to come with her. They needed a new start, losing her father had devastated them all. Their home held too many memories and her mother had no family other than her, so once she made the phone call, her mom would be looking.
Jez felt the butterflies in her stomach as she looked around the room. Not everyone would make it through training. She knew it, and she also knew she would not fail, but she wondered who in the room would be washed out.
Living conditions while on assignments could be primitive. Fresh meals, soft beds, and regular showers were not to be expected. Little miss fake tits blondie would never make it, field assignments away from home base can last several weeks with daily work shifts averaging sixteen hours, but sometimes extending up to 48–64 hours. She wanted to laugh aloud when she thought of fake tits actually looking like crap after that. Sleep deprivation is common, as is routine exposure to dust, smoke, poison oak, extreme weather—both heat and cold—and other environmental hazards, there was no way she would survive. There was no way a few of these people could handle that. The blonde chick with big hair at the side of the room being number one, but the guy next to her that stared at her chest like he had found the Holy Grail was the other. This was not a dating site.
Jez tuned back in and listened as her godfather kept explaining things. Hotshots' crew vehicles become their homes during the peak fire season, when Hotshots may rarely spend more than two consecutive days at their own station. Jez could only imagine what those two would get up to inside one of the vehicles. The vehicles, also known as Crew Hauls, Buggies, Crummies, or simply the Box, carry Hotshots along with personal gear, tools, and everything else necessary to make the crew self-sufficient for several days.
They were given a list of what they had to pack, which Jez barely glanced at since she already had her go bag and also her duffel packed and ready. Once she was done with this meeting, she was going to take off. She couldn’t wait to see her new home, plus she wanted to make sure her mother knew where she was going.
It was long until they were introducing the team leaders; she looked at the group of men standing in front of the large room and waited. One of the things her father told her over and over again, was if you didn’t trust your crew leader, you were fucked. She spotted some of the guys she had seen before and looked at them carefully, trying to remember what her father told her about them. As her eyes drifted to the end of the line, it was as if the breath was sucked out of her lungs. Two men stood there, they were larger than life, and drop dead gorgeous. Holy shit, she thought as the room faded away for her, she had never had this reaction before to anyone. Jez turned away quickly and looked down, fuck, this was something she completely did not need.
The crews were divided and she waited, only glancing up to see if the men were still there. Damn it, she thought, as her name still wasn’t called. Sweat began to trickle down the back of her neck as the tingling between her legs got more intense.
Jez closed her eyes when she heard her name being called and then opened them to see the two men she had been staring at looking at her with an intensity that was almost palpable. What the fuck?
When they made the announcement, and she saw who she was going to be assigned to, Jez had almost panicked. Why did she have to be with the sexy hot supervisor? Old Jim would have been fine, but no, she had been placed with hottie one and hottie two. Great.
Now she was finally in the air. Here she was at peace though, here she was in control. Taking a deep breath, she focused on the scenery. It was gorgeous, the mountains in front of her, and the forest below. She grinned, swung the joystick around, and skimmed the foothills as she flew north to Steamboat.
The Shack, as they called it, was just west of the town; it sat on a ridge and overlooked the ski village. In the winter it was probably one of the most sought after places to stay, but in the summer, not so much. Mostly because the humidity was non-existent, so the fire danger was high in the area. Campers weren’t allowed to make fires even in grates because the rangers were afraid of sparks.
Her mother had been excited when she called and Jez was relieved. For the first time in a long time, she heard something in her mother’s voice that had been missing for the last year—happiness. Her mother was already planning the move and Jez couldn’t be happier. Finally, they were going to find a way to move on.
She saw the small town, and grinned. Perfect. It was going to be the perfect place to start over. She cir
cled the town, then looked at the coordinates, The Shack was due west. She turned the copter and rolled her eyes when she saw The Shack, the guys had a funny sense of humor to call the huge log mansion a shack. Damn, from the air it was impressive, she could see the training courses, and also the numerous vehicles and out buildings. It was like a little compound all to itself.
Jex saw the landing pad for the copter and she aimed right for it, landing smoothly and easily. She had arrived to her new home away from home. A grin broke out and she hopped from the cab.
“She doesn’t know you already called me, does she?” Soja, Jezebel’s mother, said into the phone as she bit her lip. She didn’t want her daughter to think she was checking up on her, though that was exactly what she was doing. Jeb promised to call right when he found out where Jez was being stationed.
“No,” Jeb said gruffly. “And before you ask, I have a list of houses already that I know are for sale and you can get into quick. One of the realtors owes me a favor.”
Soja was silent, Jeb had been a godsend when Stryker had died, and he continued to be one for her. She hated to ask so much of him, but the man seemed ready to make sure Jez and she were taken care of. He was a widower, and knew exactly what she was going through.
“It is okay, Soja,” Jeb said quietly. “She knows you will want to move close to her.”
“It’s just, I hate to make her feel like she has to take care of me, but she is all I have left you know,” Soja whispered. “She can live her life, I just need to be close.”
