by Radclyffe
“Jump to conclusions much?” the woman said.
“Sorry,” Mallory muttered. “I didn’t realize you were behind me.”
“I gathered that.” The really nice lips smiled, but the eyes were cool. “I’m Jac Russo.”
“Yes.” Mallory indicated the folder. “I saw the picture.”
“Did you also see the part that said I’ve got search and rescue experience? Can handle explosives? How about the part—”
“I noticed you’re short on field experience,” Mallory said tightly, “and this isn’t remedial class. Basic training starts”—she checked her watch—“in forty-five minutes.”
“I’ll be ready,” Russo said. “And I’m a fast learner.”
“We’ll see,” Mallory murmured.
“What—you’ve already made up your mind?” Jac’s expression tightened and her eyes went flat. “Let me guess. Something you heard on TV, maybe?”
“Sorry, I must have missed the bulletin,” Mallory shot back. She lifted the folder. “I was talking about what isn’t in here.”
“Don’t be so sure you know all about me from what you read,” Russo said.
“I’ll reserve judgment till I’ve seen how you run. You’ll be first up this morning.”
“Good enough.”
Sully cleared his throat loudly. “Russo, I’ve got some paperwork for you to complete.”
“Yes sir, I’ll be right there.” Jac didn’t shift her gaze from Mallory’s. “I didn’t get your name.”
“Mallory James.” Mallory smiled thinly. “I’m the ops manager and training coordinator. You can call me Boss. Or Ice.”
“What do your friends call you?”
“Mallory.” She made sure Russo got the message she wasn’t planning to fraternize with her. Not that she ever really did with any of the crew. She hung out with them, swapped stories, but she never really shared anything personal with anyone. Breaking away from Russo’s probing gaze, Mallory turned and tossed the folder onto Sully’s desk. She wasn’t sure what besides anger might show in her eyes, and she didn’t want Russo to see past her temper to her worry, or her fear. “Roll call at oh six hundred. Don’t be late.”
“Can’t wait.”
Mallory snorted and strode away.
Jac watched until the ops manager disappeared into a building across the tarmac. Well, that was a great start.
She’d been hoping to slide in under the radar, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen now. She couldn’t tell from the conversation exactly what was behind Mallory James’s animosity. Most of the time, a cold reception had little to do with her and a lot to do with her father. The higher he’d risen in national politics, the more airtime he got and the more controversy he stirred up. He seemed to thrive on the reactions his often extreme positions evoked—even death threats didn’t bother him. Unfortunately, the more visible he became, the more his notoriety overflowed onto his family. Her mother was an anxious wreck who didn’t want to leave the house past the line of protesters lined up across the street and the reporters in the driveway. Her sister Carly was generally humiliated by her parents anyhow, the way all seventeen-year-olds were, and was trying even harder than Jac had to prove she was nothing like their ultraconservative right-wing father. She’d started running with a tough crowd of dropouts and delinquents.
Jac had been hoping to escape some of the recent fallout here, but no such luck. She was used to being judged on the basis of her father’s latest sound bite, and usually that didn’t bother her. Today it did.
She squared her shoulders and faced the guy watching her speculatively from behind the desk. She’d been proving herself all her life—or more accurately, disproving the assumptions everyone made about her. In high school all she’d had to do was demonstrate her willingness to break the rules to crack the mold her family had created for her. Considering that breaking the rules usually involved sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll—all the things her father railed against—divorcing herself from her family’s politics hadn’t been all that hard. Most of the time rebelling had been fun, but she wasn’t sixteen anymore, and while she still chafed under the weight of rules and regs, she’d pretty much given up all the rest. The drugs and rock ’n’ roll for sure, and the sex most of the time. But then, it didn’t take a whole lot of sex to get her into a whole lot of trouble.
Realizing the guy was still watching her, still waiting, she said, “I guess you weren’t expecting me.”
He grinned fleetingly. “You’re quick.”
Jac shook her head and muttered, “Damn it, Nora, thanks for warning me.” She walked forward and held out her hand. “Jac Russo. I take it you got that part already.”
“Chuck Sullivan. I’m kind of the overseer around here, but Ice calls the shots.”
“Interesting nickname.”
His gaze narrowed. “None better at the job.”
Jac held up her hands. “Hey, I don’t doubt it. She just seemed a little fiery there for a minute.”
Again the fleeting grin and a shake of his head. “Not much riles her up.”
“I’m not sure I’m happy about having that privilege, then.” Jac sighed. “I didn’t know about this myself until yesterday when someone on my father’s staff told me, but I thought you’d been contacted. I don’t blame you for being pissed.”
“I’m not pissed,” Sullivan said quietly.
Jac tilted her head toward the door behind her. “She is.”
“Don’t worry about it. Pass basic training, you’ll be part of the team.”
Too bad it wasn’t that easy. Being good at what she did, being qualified, pulling her own weight—all those things helped her fit in, but they never helped her to be accepted. When she’d been younger, she’d desperately wanted to be accepted. Now she didn’t care. At least that’s what she told herself most days. The freeze in Mallory James’s eyes was nothing new, although usually the disdain was motivated by something other than her showing up where she wasn’t expected or wanted. All the same, for the first time in a long time, she’d wanted to melt the icy reception she’d gotten used to receiving.
She wanted this job, sure. She’d wanted it for a long time, but she hadn’t planned on getting it this way. But now she was here, and she wanted to stay. She wanted Mallory James to admit she was good enough to stay.
Chapter Two
Mallory about-turned out of Sully’s office and steamed across the yard to the standby shack. The barracks in the back, adjacent to the locker rooms, held twenty single, plain, metal-framed beds, ten to a row down each side. She chose to sleep in the hangar loft, not out of modesty but just for a few moments of peace and quiet at the end of the day. The guys would be stirring any minute. No time now for anything but a quick shower and a hurried breakfast, but it really didn’t matter. She was too aggravated to relax anyhow.
She cut through the main equipment room on her way to the locker room. Orderly rows of jump suits, helmets, and gear belonging to the crew on the jump list she’d made up the night before hung from pegs on the wall. Her Kevlar jacket and pants hung closest to the door. She was the IC when she jumped, and as incident commander, she was first in and last out of the hot zone.
A windowless swinging door on the left side led to the women’s locker room, where she and Sarah Petrie, a veteran jumper and her best friend, stored their extra gear and clothes, and shared a six- by-six-foot communal shower. The plywood walls didn’t do much to mute the noise when all the guys were next door, and any conversation was easily audible. Not that the illusion of privacy really mattered. They lived together for six months straight, eating and sleeping and sweating and risking their lives together. Privacy took on a whole new definition under those circumstances. The only truly private place was in her head.
She peeled off her clothes, piled them on the bench running lengthwise between the row of gunmetal gray lockers and shelves holding towels and cubbies for gear, grabbed a towel, and walked naked to the shower. After twisting the dial to
hot on one of the four showerheads, she stepped under the water. Standing under the pounding spray, she replayed the meeting with Jac Russo. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what annoyed her, and that annoyed her even more. Sure, Russo had circumvented normal channels in getting the posting, and that offended her sense of order. Maybe her sense of fair play too. All the same, she didn’t usually vent her feelings out loud, particularly in front of people she didn’t know. Or in front of a coworker like Sully. She prided herself on being in control, on being cool, on placing reason ahead of emotion. It’d earned her the nickname Ice, and she liked it. Some people extended the name to Ice Queen, but she wasn’t bothered by that. If she did keep her feelings under wraps, what of it?
Perfunctorily, she squirted shampoo into her palm and lathered up her hair, turning, eyes closed, letting the heat smooth out some of the tension in her back. So why was she bothered so much by Russo? Because she hadn’t picked her? That seemed a little bit petty, and she didn’t like thinking of herself that way. But Russo was an unknown, and unknowns made her uneasy. Fire was enough of an unknown, appearing on its own timetable, spreading at its own rate, jumping lines where least expected, blowing up, cresting a ridge where it never should’ve been, trapping eleven wildland firefighters in a clearing that should’ve been a safety zone. A safety zone she’d picked. Nine of them had walked away.
She closed her eyes tighter, trying to forget the anguished faces of the families waiting to see who walked out of the forest alive, and who did not. Looking to her for information, for answers, and her having none.
She shuddered and opened her eyes, waiting for reality to drive the memories away, and all she got was tears in her eyes. Tears that had to be from soap, nothing else.
This year everything would be different. This year she was in charge from day one—ops and training manager. She’d see that the rookies were hammered into shape and the vets honed to razor sharpness. She’d picked her new guys so carefully. They all had the goods, they were all young and healthy and strong. And then along comes Russo. The outlier, the unknown. Sure, Russo had some firefighting experience, but the details were pretty thin on paper. Russo was still practically a rookie, and the way she’d been appointed suggested she didn’t have the skills to make it on her own. That was a real problem.
Mallory sudsed her breasts and torso, bending to finish the rest of her body in quick automatic swipes. Russo. Maybe she’d wash out. One thing was for certain, Russo wouldn’t be jumping if she didn’t make it through basic training. Mallory was going to be sure Russo’s month was every bit as rigorous as she could make it.
Mallory flipped off the shower, wrapped the towel around her chest, and knotted it above her breasts on her way into the locker room. The four metal lockers against the wall were an optimistic number since even two women stationed in the same place was unusual. Out of the three hundred smokejumpers in the country, less than one-tenth of those were female. Sarah should be arriving the beginning of June. If Russo was still here, that would make three, with a locker to spare. Sarah slept off base whenever she could and usually bunked in the main barracks when she couldn’t. Russo would have to as well. Mallory considered the extra bunk in her loft and discarded the idea. No way was Russo sleeping in her quarters. A clear picture of dark challenging eyes and a sinful mouth, just a hint of a mocking smile turning up one corner of full sensuous lips, shot through her mind. Oh hell no, Russo wasn’t sharing her loft.
Mallory opened her locker, pulled out a clean white sleeveless tank, a short-sleeved navy T-shirt, and navy cargo pants from the stack on the top shelf, and tossed the pile onto the bench. After dumping her dirty clothes into the laundry bag in the bottom of her locker, she toweled off her hair and lobbed the damp towel into the hamper, feeling her skin pebble and her nipples tighten in the cold room. The slight scuffling sound of the door opening behind her brought her whipping around, flinging wet hair from her eyes. Russo stood framed in the doorway, her duffel dangling from one hand.
“You have a bad habit of sneaking up on me,” Mallory said, feeling her nipples tighten even more under the unabashed scrutiny.
“Sorry about that,” Russo said, her husky voice deeper than Mallory remembered.
“You want to close the door?” Mallory said.
Russo pulled the door shut, closing them into the cramped space. “Sully told me to bring my gear over here. I guess he didn’t know you’d be naked.”
Russo wasn’t much taller than Mallory, five ten or so, and rangier. Lean where Mallory had a bit of curve even when in hard, summer shape. Russo’s gaze was direct and unapologetically appraising. Mallory’s breathing kicked up, and she willed herself not to grab for her shirt. She’d been naked with Sarah thousands of times and never given it a thought. Sarah was straight—at least she’d never indicated otherwise—but even if she wasn’t, Mallory wouldn’t have thought anything of being undressed around her. Work and sex never crossed paths in Mallory’s consciousness.
Odds were, Russo was straight too, but Mallory was glad for the bench that bisected the space. Her skin felt hot, and Russo seemed to take up more space than she ought to. Maybe it was her eyes—they never wavered once they looked at you. Like you were all she saw.
“I don’t think whether I’m dressed or not is really on Sully’s radar.” Nonchalantly, Mallory reached into her locker for a pair of navy bikini briefs, pulled them on, and slid the tank over her head and down over her breasts. Russo’s gaze followed her movements, and Mallory had a second’s flash of Russo’s hands tracking where her gaze had just gone. Her stomach tightened. What the hell?
“Ought to be on someone’s radar,” Jac said.
Damn it, Mallory felt herself flush. Annoyed with herself now, she jerked on her pants. Turning her back to Russo, she quickly finished dressing and clipped her radio to her pants. Good. Ready to go. Ready to get to work.
She wasn’t used to anyone putting her off stride, not in the field and not in her personal life. The women she dated, when she had time to date—which this time of year was practically never—were always self-sufficient women with busy lives of their own who wanted good company, interesting conversation, and undemanding sex if the mood was right. If sex didn’t happen, an enjoyable evening with someone who wasn’t on the job was satisfying enough for her. Women just didn’t occupy a big place in her life, and never disrupted it. Russo had done nothing but disorder her usual calm routine just by breathing the same air. Being around Russo made her feel as if she was missing a layer of skin, and she never felt that way. The tingling in her belly was unfamiliar too. No, that was a lie. It was very familiar, just not very frequent. Double damn her body for having no sense of discretion whatsoever. Russo’s sexy dark gaze heated her beneath her skin, in a place she couldn’t control. No matter. No problem. Maybe her body was reckless, but her head wasn’t.
Mallory picked up her watch, strapped it on, and headed for the door. “You can use that locker on the end.”
“Thanks.” Russo unzipped her gear bag and stowed her gear quickly and efficiently.
“If you plan on getting anything to eat, I’d hurry if I were you. Now you’ve only got twenty-five minutes.”
“I’ll be there.” Jac paused. “How about I buy you breakfast? Boss.”
“Breakfast is free,” Mallory said, walking out.
“Figure of speech,” Jac called, hurrying after the woman she had to impress. She hadn’t done a very good job of that so far. Not that sucking up to anyone was part of her repertoire, but Mallory James was her boss. Mallory would decide when she jumped and what she did when she landed. Since she planned to pull her weight on this team—hell, she planned on doing more than that, she wanted on permanently at this post—she’d have to prove herself. And that meant convincing Ice James she wasn’t just some appointee getting a free ride, courtesy of her father’s connections. Just the opposite—her father hadn’t been doing her any favors, but Mallory wouldn’t care about her problems. Why should she? “
Keep you company, then.”
Mallory hesitated, looking as if she might say no.
“Might be our only chance,” Jac said hurriedly, lengthening her stride to stay by Mallory’s side. “Seeing as how you’re going to wash me out later today.”
“You so sure I won’t?” Mallory asked, her green eyes snapping.
Jac grinned. “Pretty sure.”
“Like I said. We’ll see.”
Mallory kept walking, but she hadn’t said no, so Jac fell into step with her. Outside to the east, the first ribbons of dawn purpled the sky over the mountaintops. Base camp was situated in a dip of flat land between towering crags of rock face and dense evergreen forests. At eight thousand feet, the crystal-clear air shimmered with the whistle of the wind, always the wind slicing down the mountainside, and the chatter of daring early birds. Then testosterone-infused laughter laden with the energy of a dozen men eager for adventure erupted in the yard.
Calls of “Hey, Boss” and “Morning, Ice” floated their way, and Mallory waved, a slight smile softening her full lips, turning her classic features from distant to beautiful.
“Ready for a workout, Cap?” called a wiry blond in a green flannel shirt and jeans, his mustache and rough stubble tinged with hints of red.
“That’s my line, Bowie,” Mallory responded. “Hope you didn’t get too soft over the winter.”
“Still hard, Ice.” Bowie patted his belly, and the other guys hooted good-naturedly.
Mallory just shook her head.
“How many rookies besides me?” Jac asked, noting that a lot of guys shot appreciative glances Mallory’s way, though she didn’t seem to notice. Why wouldn’t they? She was a knockout. Thick, wavy chestnut hair just kissing her shoulders, deep-set almond-shaped green eyes, elegantly carved cheekbones saved from appearing delicate by her strong chin and direct gaze. Great body—loose and strong and full in all the right places. Athletic and fit with undeniable grace. Jac’s mouth actually watered, and she nearly laughed out loud at her pathetic musings. Mallory James, if she even liked women in bed, was more likely to give her twenty-five push-ups than the time of day.
