by Nora Roberts
“Land on your head a few more times, you’ll be retiring early.”
Gull kept walking. Outside the rain that had threatened all day fell cool and steady. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he walked into the wet. He turned toward the distant hangar. Maybe he’d wander over, take a look at the plane he’d soon be jumping out of.
He’d jumped three times before he’d applied for the program, just to make sure he had the stomach for it. Now he was anxious, eager to revisit that sensation, to defy his own instincts and shove himself into the high open air.
He’d studied the planes—the Twin Otter, the DC-9—the most commonly used for smoke jumping. He toyed with the idea of taking flying lessons in the off-season, maybe going for his pilot’s license. It never hurt to know you could take control if control needed to be taken.
Then he saw her striding toward him through the rain. Dark and gloom didn’t blur that body. He slowed his pace. Maybe he didn’t need to play poker for this to be his lucky night.
“Nice night,” he said.
“For otters.” Rain dripped off the bill of Rowan’s cap as she studied him. “Making a run for it?”
“Just taking a walk. But I’ve got a car if there’s somewhere you want to go.”
“I’ve got my own ride, thanks, but I’m not going anywhere. You did okay today.”
“Thanks.”
“It’s too bad about Doggett. Bad landing, and a hairline fracture takes him out of the program. I’m figuring he’ll come back next year.”
“He wants it,” Gull agreed.
“It takes more than want, but you’ve got to want it to get it.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
On a half laugh, Rowan shook her head. “Do women ever say no to you?”
“Sadly, yes. Then again, a man who just gives up never wins the prize.”
“Believe me, I’m no prize.”
“You’ve got hair like a Roman centurion, the body of a goddess and the face of a Nordic queen. That’s a hell of a package.”
“The package isn’t the prize.”
“No, it’s not. But it sure makes me want to open it up and see what’s in there.”
“A mean temper, a low bullshit threshold and a passion for catching fire. Do yourself a favor, hotshot, and pull somebody else’s shiny ribbon.”
“I’ve got this thing, this . . . focus. Once I focus on something, I just can’t seem to quit until I figure it all the way out.”
She gave a careless shrug, but she watched him, he noted, with care. “Nothing to figure.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said when she started into the dorm. “I got you to take a walk in the rain with me.”
With one hand on the door, she turned, gave him a pitying smile. “Don’t tell me there’s a romantic in there.”
“Might be.”
“Better be careful then. I might use you just because you’re handy, then crush that romantic heart.”
“My place or yours?”
She laughed—a steamy brothel laugh that shot straight to his loins—then shut the door, metaphorically at least, in his face.
Damned if he hadn’t given her a little itch, she admitted. She liked confident men—men who had the balls, the brains and the skills to back it up. That, and the cat-at-the-mousehole way he looked at her—desire and bottomless patience—brought on a low sexual hum.
And picking up that tune would be a mistake, she reminded herself, then tapped lightly on Cards’s door. She took his grunt as permission to poke her head in.
He looked, to her eye, a little pale, a lot bored and fairly grungy. “How’re you feeling?”
“Shit, I’m okay. Got some bug in my gut this morning. Puked it, and a few internal organs, up.” He sat on his bed, cards spread in front of him. “Managed some time in manufacturing, kept dinner down okay. Just taking it easy till tomorrow. Appreciate you covering for me.”
“No problem. We’re down to twenty-two. One of them’s out with an injury. I think we’ll see him back. See you in the morning then.”
“Hey, want to see a card trick? It’s a good one,” he said before she could retreat.
Tired of his own company, she decided, and gave in to friendship and sat across from him on the bed.
Besides, watching a few lame card tricks was a better segue into sleep than thinking about walking in the rain with Gulliver Curry.
3
Gull lined up in front of the ready room with the other recruits. Across the asphalt the plane that would take them up for their first jump roared, while along the line nerves jangled.
Instructors worked their way down, doing buddy checks. Gull figured his luck was in when Rowan stepped to him. “Have you been checked?”
“No.”
She knelt down so he studied the way her sunflower hair sculpted her head. She checked his boots, his stirrups, worked her way up—leg pockets, leg straps—checked his reserve chute’s expiration date, its retainer pins.
“You smell like peaches.” Her eyes flicked to his. “It’s nice.”
“Lower left reserve strap attached,” she said, continuing her buddy check without comment. “Lower right reserve strap attached. Head in the game, Fast Feet,” she added, then moved on up the list. “If either of us misses a detail, you could be a smear on the ground. Helmet, gloves. You got your letdown rope?”
“Check.”
“You’re good to go.”
“How about you?”
“I’ve been checked, thanks. You’re clear to board.” She moved down to the next recruit.
Gull climbed onto the plane, took a seat on the floor beside Dobie.
“You looking to tap that blonde?” Dobie asked. “The one they call Swede?”
“A man has to have his dreams. You’re getting closer to owing me twenty,” Gull added when Libby ducked through the door.
“Shit. She ain’t jumped yet. I got ten right now says she balks.”
“I can use ten.”
“Welcome aboard,” Rowan announced. “Please bring your seats to their full upright position. Our flying time today will depend on how many of you cry like babies once you’re in the door. Gibbons will be your spotter. Pay attention. Stay in your heads. Are you ready to jump?”
The answer was a resounding cheer.
“Let’s do it.”
The plane taxied, gained speed, lifted its nose. Gull felt the little dip in the gut as they left the ground. He watched Rowan, flat-out sexy to his mind in her jumpsuit, raise her voice over the engines and—once again—go over every step of the upcoming jump.
Gibbons passed her a note from the cockpit.
“There’s your jump site,” she told them, and every recruit angled for a window.
Gull studied the roll of the meadow—pretty as a picture—the rise of Douglas firs, lodgepole pines, the glint of a stream. The job—once he took the sky—would be to hit the meadow, avoid the trees, the water. He’d be the dart, he thought, and he wanted a bull’s-eye.
When Gibbons pigged in, Rowan shouted for everyone to guard their reserves. Gibbons grabbed the door handles, yanked, and air, cool and sweet with spring, rushed in.
“Holy shit.” Dobie whistled between his teeth. “We’re doing it. Real deal. Accept no substitutes.”
Gibbons stuck his head out into that rush of air, consulted with the cockpit through his headset. The plane banked right, bumped, steadied.
“Watch the streamers,” Rowan called out. “They’re you.”
They snapped and spun, circled out into miles of tender blue sky. And sucked into the dense tree line.
Gull adjusted his own jump in his head, mentally pulling on his toggles, considering the drift. Adjusted again as he studied the fall of a second set of streamers.
“Take her up!” Gibbons called out.
Dobie stuffed a stick of gum in his mouth before he put on his helmet, offered one to Gull. Behind his face mask, Dobie’s eyes were big as planets. “Feel a little sick
.”
“Wait till you get down to puke,” Gull advised.
“Libby, you’re second jump.” Rowan put on her helmet. “You just follow me down. Got it?”
“I got it.”
At Gibbons’s signal, Rowan sat in the door, braced. The plane erupted into shouts of Libby’s name, gloved hands slammed together in encouragement as she took her position behind Rowan.
Then Gibbons’s hand slapped down on Rowan’s shoulder, and she was gone.
Gull watched her flight; couldn’t take his eyes off her. The blue-and-white canopy shot up, spilled open. A thing of beauty in that soft blue sky, over the greens and browns and glint of water.
The cheer brought him back. He’d missed Libby’s jump, but he saw her chute deploy, shifted to try to keep both chutes in his eye line as the plane flew beyond.
“Looks like you owe me ten.”
A smile winked into Dobie’s eyes. “Add a six-pack on it that I do better than her. Better than you.”
After the plane circled, Gibbons looked in Gull’s eyes, held them for a beat. “Are you ready?”
“We’re ready.”
“Hook up.”
Gull moved forward, attached his line.
“Get in the door.”
Gull leveled his breathing, and got in the door.
He listened to the spotter’s instructions, the drift, the wind, while the air battered his legs. He did his check while the plane circled to its final lineup, and kept his eyes on the horizon.
“Get ready,” Gibbons told him.
Oh, he was ready. Every bump, bruise, blister of the past weeks had led to this moment. When the slap came down on his right shoulder, he jumped into that moment.
Wind and sky, and the hard, breathless thrill of daring both. The speed like a drug blowing through the blood. All he could think was, Yes, Christ yes, he’d been born for this, even as he counted off, as he rolled his body until he could look through his feet at the ground below.
The chute billowed open, snapped him up. He looked right, then left and found Dobie, heard his jump partner’s wild, reckless laughter.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!”
Gull grinned, scanned the view. How many saw this, he wondered, this stunning spread of forest and mountain, this endless, open sky? He swept his gaze over the lacings of snow in the higher elevations, the green just beginning to haze the valley. He thought, though he knew it unlikely, he could smell both, the winter and the spring, as he floated down between them.
He worked his toggles, using instinct, training, the caprice of the wind. He could see Rowan now, the way the sun shone on her bright cap of hair, even the way she stood—legs spread and planted, hands on her hips. Watching him as he watched her.
He put himself beside her, judging the lineup, and felt the instant he caught it. The smoke jumpers called it on the wire, so he glided in on it, kept his breathing steady as he prepared for impact.
He glanced toward Dobie again, noted his partner would overshoot the spot. Then he hit, tucked, rolled. He dropped his gear, started gathering his chute.
He heard Rowan shouting, saw her running for the trees. Everything froze, then melted again when he heard Dobie’s shouted stream of curses.
Above, the plane tipped its wings and started its circle to deploy the next jumpers. He hauled up his gear, grinning as he walked over to where Dobie dragged his own out of the trees.
“I had it, then the wind bitched me into the trees. Hell of a ride though.” The thrill, the triumph lit up his face. “Hell of a goddamn ride.’Cept I swallowed my gum.”
“You’re on the ground,” Rowan told them. “Nothing’s broken. So, not bad.” She opened her personal gear bag, took out candy bars. “Congratulations.”
“There’s nothing like it.” Libby’s face glowed as she looked skyward. “Nothing else comes close.”
“You haven’t jumped fire yet.” Rowan sat, then stretched out in the meadow grass. “That’s a whole new world.” She watched the sky, waiting for the plane to come back, then glanced at Gull as he dropped down beside her. “You had a smooth one.”
“I targeted on you. The sun in your hair,” he added when she frowned at him.
“Jesus, Gull, you are a romantic. God help you.”
He’d flustered her, he realized, and gave himself a point on his personal scoreboard. Since he hadn’t swallowed his gum, he tucked the chocolate away for later. “What do you do when you’re not doing this?”
“For work? I put in some time in my dad’s business, jumping with tourists who want a thrill, teaching people who think they want, or decide they want, to jump as a hobby. Do some personal training.” She flexed her biceps.
“Bet you’re good at it.”
“Logging in time as a PT means I get paid to keep fit for this over the winter. What about you?”
“I get to play for a living. Fun World. It’s like a big arcade—video games, bowling, bumper cars, Skee-Ball.”
“You work at an arcade?”
He folded his arms behind his head. “It’s not work if it’s fun.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind of guy to deal with kids and machines all day.”
“I like kids. They’re largely fearless and open to possibilities. Adults tend to forget how to be either.” He shrugged. “You spend yours trying to get couch potatoes to break a sweat.”
“Not all of my clients are couch potatoes. None are when I’m done with them.” She shoved up to sit. “Here comes the next group.”
With the first practice jump complete, they packed out, carrying their gear back to base. After another stint of physical training, classwork, they were up again for the second jump of the day.
They practiced letdown in full gear, outlined fire suppression strategies, studied maps, executed countless sit-ups, pull-ups, push-ups, ran miles and threw themselves out of planes. At the end of a brutal four weeks, the numbers had whittled down to sixteen. Those still standing ranged outside Operations answering their final roll call as recruits.
When Libby answered her name, Dobie slapped a twenty into Gull’s hand. “Smoke jumper Barbie. You gotta give it to her. Skinny woman like that toughs it through, and a big hoss like McGinty washes.”
“We didn’t,” Gull reminded him.
“Fucking tooting we didn’t.”
Even as they slapped hands a flood of ice water drenched them.
“Just washing off some of the rookie stink,” somebody called out. And with hoots and shouts, the men and woman on the roof tossed another wave of water from buckets.
“You’re now one of us.” From his position out of water range, L.B. shouted over the laughter and curses. “The best there is. Get cleaned up, then pack it in the vans. We’re heading into town, boys and girls. You’ve got one night to celebrate and drink yourself stupid. Tomorrow, you start your day as smoke jumpers—as Zulies.”
When Gull made a show out of wringing out his wet twenty, Dobie laughed so hard, he had to sit on the ground. “I’ll buy the first round. You’re in there, Libby.”
