by Grey, Helen
I had never had much money left over from my paychecks to indulge in luxury, and I can't remember the last vacation I had taken. Sure, I had taken time off for training, but that didn’t really count. It had been years since I had taken time off just to lounge around, or even to go back and visit family. I didn't like to be idle, and so in that regard I supposed I understood Matt’s choice of careers. Still.
The plane flew north and my thoughts went around and around, wondering about Matt, what compelled him to do what he did, and of course examining my own feelings about it. I wasn't one to bury things too deep without contemplating once in a while and sitting on the plane with nothing to do but stare out the window at the clouds passing by certainly gave me time to think. Matt and I shared some commonalities, but up until this point, that was as far as it went. I think he liked me and heaven knew I liked him, but what of it? Did he mean anything?
I leaned my head against the side of the airplane, listening to the quiet hiss of the oxygen coming from the little tube gadget over my head in my ears, the sound of the engines pulling me into a deep state of relaxation. My eyes half closed, I just stared at Matt's profile. He looked asleep, but I couldn't be sure. His profile was so strong, so handsome, that I wanted to reach out and stroke my fingers over his face; feel every ridge and bone as if I were studying a fine statue. Instead, I folded my hands in my lap and resisted.
Realizing that my feelings for him were venturing beyond like and into something else–into a territory that I had not explored for some time–gave me cause for concern. I didn't need to be distracted by my emotions while I was trying to fight a fire. That job demanded my complete focus and attention. So for now, I decided to put my question over my growing emotional attachment to Matt into the back of my mind. Or at least I tried.
Besides, I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment. Working with Matt at the hospital and with the ride-alongs with the paramedics had been great, and the thought of fighting a fire with him was even better, but when we got back to Santa Fe, there was a good chance that he might decide not to work in the emergency room. He might even decide that Santa Fe General was not for him. I also had to remind myself that I knew practically… no, next to nothing, about his personal history. What if—?
“Why do you keep staring at me?”
I saw his lips move, and even though his eyes were still closed, I realized he was speaking to me. I made a face. “What makes you think I'm staring at you?” I asked, chagrined. He opened his eyes and turned to grin down at me.
“I can feel your eyes on me. What is it?”
I felt a surge of heat pucker my nipples and clench the muscles in my nether regions. What the hell? A mere grin could now turn me horny? I shook my head, my eyes wide with feigned innocence. “Nothing,” I said. Was that a hint of defensiveness I heard in my voice? I had a feeling I wasn't fooling him a bit.
“You’ve got something on your mind, I can tell,” he said. “I may not have known you long, Jesse, but I think I've gotten to know you well enough to read you like an open book. You're not very good at covering your emotions, you know.”
“Really?” I asked. “And what emotions am I feeling right now?”
“Curiosity… perhaps contemplation.”
I tried not to convey my surprise. He had me nailed. How did he know what I was thinking? I open my mouth to deny it and then decided that perhaps honesty was the best approach.
“I guess I was just wondering what compelled you to go into nursing… and firefighting.” I shrugged. “I told you my story, but what's yours?” He said nothing for several moments and I initially thought that he wasn't going to reply. He looked out the window past my shoulder and then glanced at me.
I wanted him to tell me something about his past. I wanted him to tell me if he was, as Jeremy claimed, a billionaire. I wanted to know, if it were true, how he had come to be so rich. Had he inherited? Was his family wealthy through a business connection? Had a rich relative left his estate to him? What hat molded Matt Drake into the person he was? What kind of experiences had he had growing up? Had he been a good kid, a good son? Had he ever been a husband or father? He had never mentioned anything about his private life to me, and I had to wonder about that. Then again, it wasn't like we were dating or anything. He didn’t owe me any explanations or any glimpses into his history.
Still, I had to bite my lip to keep from asking some of the very questions that my knowledge about his past and present barraged in my thoughts. Why? Why was a billionaire working as a nurse? Why was a billionaire working as a Hotshot? Why, why, why?
“Nothing like a tragedy you experienced,” he spoke softly. “Let's just say that I wanted to do something useful with my life… do something that made me feel needed.”
The comment surprised me. I understood the desire to feel needed, but knowing what I did about his past, which was next to nothing, the comment made me wonder. It made me wonder even more about his personal life and history, but I certainly didn't want to pry. Perhaps I had made an error in judgment, assuming that anyone who was rich would be fulfilled not only materialistically, but emotionally and mentally as well.
Then again, for all I knew—again, next to nothing—he might've had an unpleasant life. After all, money didn't solve everyone's problems. In my job, I had seen plenty of rich alcoholics, rich drug addicts, and rich men and women who had their own worries, dealt with terminal diseases, or who had children dealing with such issues. The old saying that money couldn’t buy happiness was certainly true. Was it true for Matt?
“I understand,” I said. He didn't say anything after that, but simply closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat again. “Quit staring at me, okay?”
I smiled and turned to gaze out the window. Despite my attempt to convince myself to put any emotional feelings or questions about Matt into the back of my mind, his comments just now had done nothing to assuage my curiosity. If anything, my curiosity increased. More than anything, I now wanted to know what it was in his past that shaped who he was today. A person's past, or experiences and upbringing affected us differently, but I felt one thing for certain. Matt carried with him a number of secrets, just like I did. Just because I had divulged a couple of mine certainly didn't mean that he had to reciprocate. I had to accept that. Still, my penchant for inquisitiveness was piqued. I just didn't know what I was going to do about it.
I left him alone for the remainder of the flight. Still, the mystery of who Matt was, and why, intrigued me. If anything, the mystery that surrounded him made me even more attracted to him. It wasn't about the possible money. It was about what made Matt Drake tick. I supposed that over the coming days I might get to know him a little better. I looked forward to that, but in a way, I also dreaded it at the same time. The last thing I needed was to be emotionally drawn to a guy who wasn’t interested in a relationship. As far as that went, I was very hesitant to put myself out there as well, to become emotionally vulnerable to a guy when I had no idea what his intentions were.
The last relationship I had gotten into had ended badly and left me feeling discouraged and, quite bluntly, disgusted with men in general. Matt and I were sexually attracted to one another, no doubt about that. The sexual chemistry between us was undeniable. For me, however, sexual compatibility wasn't enough. If all Matt wanted was a distraction once in a while, I needed to back away. There were plenty of women who would throw themselves at him for sex with no strings, I had no doubt about it. I wasn't going to be one of them.
I realized, that at the same time I understood I was falling for him, I would also need to start putting up barriers. For my own protection. For my own sense of emotional health and well-being. Relationships took a huge toll on the psyche, and I had been put through the ringer on more than one occasion. I had no desire to do it again, at least not anytime soon.
For the remainder of the flight, I try to distract my thoughts, to think of the work ahead. I needed to rest my body and my mind and prepare myself for the
challenges that would surely come my way during the coming days. Still, just thinking of Matt elicited feelings in me that I couldn't tamp down. The feeling of his hand on mine as we took off reminded me of how warm that hand could be against my flesh. That magic tongue of his could elicit within me the most powerful urges and sensations that I had ever felt. The sensation of that broad, muscular chest underneath my fingertips had me growing hot for him, right now in the middle of a plane flight, surrounded by other passengers.
I shook my head, trying to force my thoughts away from Matt's body and the feelings that he elicited in my own, to concentrate on what lay ahead. The problem was, every time I closed my eyes and tried to rest, I saw Matt's profile in my vision, the way his lips curved softly upward, and then, inevitably, how those lips felt against mine.
Dammit.
Chapter 5
The remainder of the flight up to Butte was uneventful. The moment I stepped off the plane in Butte, I smelled the smoke in the air. Pungent. Like the glowing embers of a campfire multiplied a million times over.
The sky was hazy and looked almost like a light cloud cover, but I knew it wasn't just clouds, but smoke filled with ash from the thousands of acres of burning trees and scrub brush off to the west that gave it a light brownish-orange tint. Where the fire burned hottest the smoke was dark and rose in billowing clouds of dark gray, like charcoal. The color of the smoke depended on whether trees or brush or prairie grass burned.
As soon as the plane landed and taxied to a stop, a ladder was brought over. The door to the passenger cabin opened. The four of us disembarked first. We were met by a National Park Service ranger who directed us toward an empty hangar a short distance away. The gusting wind blew several strands of hair that had escaped my braid into my face, no doubt the cause of the quickly moving fire. The wind would gust strongly, then ebb, then gust again, whipping my hair, tugging at my clothes and of course, carrying ash along with it. I stifled a cough. I would get used to the smell soon enough, but my first few hours in any smoke environment inevitably made my eyes water, my throat burn and itch.
Our equipment and gear would be offloaded first and then brought over to us as quickly as possible. Matt had already told me that we would be transported to the base operations camp by helicopter provided by the Division of Fire and Aviation who worked in conjunction with the National Interagency Fire Center. Providing operational and logistics support for firefighting, the Fire and Aviation management arm of the National Park Service combined with a variety of agencies included wildland fire management, law enforcement operations, and search and rescue agencies. Any response procedures to wildfires insured prompt and swift evaluation for aviation resources.
This side of the airport was busy, now set up as a stage for the airborne fire operations in the nearby mountains. The type of aircraft used to fight wildfires were wide and varied. I spotted two of them at the far end of the tarmac—Lockheed Orions and Neptunes that had been converted to fight wildfires, with a number of retardant disbursing tanks in their bellies. I saw a Grumman S-2T air tanker, which could carry a huge payload of retardants. I even saw an open-sided converted UH-60 Black Hawk, originally a U.S. Army helicopter that was now used to evacuate personnel as well as carry a 780-gallon bucket.
Numerous air tankers were already in the air, as I'm sure were multiple “bombers” and choppers. Fire engines, pumpers, transport vehicles and more would be busy driving fire crews to the front lines. At that moment, one of the tankers, a Neptune Bae-146 flew overhead, its bottom smeared with stains from the fire retardant carried in its belly. It flew so close I felt the ground beneath me rumble from the roar of its engines as it prepared to land.
Moments later, I saw a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane, fitted with interchangeable parts that could be installed underneath for either cargo or transport movements. Most of them were modified to carry a tank that held over two thousand gallons of water that they could suck out of a water source up through a draft hose and into the tank in less than a minute while the crew hovered over the water. Those were odd-looking helicopters that reminded me for some reason of grasshoppers, with its front end separated by a large gap which could be fitted with a tank filled with water.
Air tankers—scoopers as they were commonly called—and air cranes could drop massive amounts of water or fire retardant, depending on location. Fire retardant wasn't allowed to be dropped, at least in the United States, near any body of water. I had watched, many times, those tankers fill up with water, finding it an amazing, thrilling experience. Those pilots could fly! I was in awe of their skill as they guided their aircraft to skim right over the surface as they scooped water to refill the tanks.
I saw that Matt eyed the number of craft nearby as well. Good. I wasn’t the only one fascinated by the number and type of aircraft, presently airborne or grounded. I knew that the aircraft activity would increase, depending on fire containment and tactical operations, and once again was continually amazed at the coordination, skill, and timing with which the pilot, copilot, and ground operations communicated and kept them all focused on certain tasks while at the same time preventing accidents.
My heart thumped with excitement, as it always did when I was so close to the aircraft, equipment, and fellow firefighters coming together to fight wildfires. Before long, I saw an aircraft approaching and wondered if it was our ride. By the sound, I recognized it as a Chinook with tandem rotors, one in front and one in back. The civilian version of the military's Chinook was traditionally used in timber and commercial sectors, but was commonly seen around forest fires, capable of carrying a large bucket for fire suppression tactics. The mighty Chinook could lift 15,000 to 25,000 pounds of cargo, water, or fire suppressant chemicals, depending on elevation and temperature, but at a high altitude here, that range was probably on the lower end.
The Bambi buckets, as they were called, contained high-speed pumps that could fill those buckets in less than ninety seconds from shallow as well as deep water sources such as rivers, ponds, and lakes. They could even fill from shallow streams. I watched that once and had found the skill of the pilot and copilot while they did that incredible. On my last training, I had even watched a Chinook pilot fill a bucket from a stream that couldn't have been more than eighteen inches deep; another time, from a backyard swimming pool.
I had ridden in Chinooks a time or two, along with a Huey and a Bell 205, which could carry nine firefighters, along with the pilot and copilot. To be honest, didn't much care for any of them. It was bad enough having to be in an airplane, but the helicopters, no matter how massive and extreme their maneuverability, made me nervous with their sudden dips, rises, and turns, which often left my stomach rising into my throat.
Still, I knew they were the fastest way to base operations, and so I contained my dislike of the aircraft, knowing that they were essential when it came to delivering fire crews where they were needed. I knew I would see multiple hovering aircraft overhead, not only at base operations but over the fire lines. Some of them would be employed to fight fires with foam or water drops, others to be used for medical evacs, and yet still others for “short-haul” rescues that enabled a fire crew member to be lowered from the hovering helicopter to someone who was trapped or injured below.
A crew member would hook a harness or Stokes basket to a tether that could be pulled up into the helicopter itself, transporting injured or trapped firefighters or civilians to safety.
The sound of the heavy chop chop chop of the Chinook blades rumbled through my body, sending a surge of invigorated excitement through me. I didn't much like riding in them, but they were impressive, no doubt about it.
“Ready?” Matt shouted as the Chinook hovered alongside one end of the tarmac, kicking up a cloud of dust and debris. The rubber tires landed softly, rotors still turning. The counter rotating rotors were designed for lift and thrust. I knew, at least from what a firefighter the last time I was out told me, if one engine failed on it, the other engine was able to drive b
oth rotors. That was good to know.
I glanced behind me and saw one of the airport baggage handlers driving a golf cart sized transport with a small flatbed behind it with our gear piled up on it. I nodded. I was ready. For now, I was a firefighter first and a nurse second. From this moment forward, unless my nursing skills were needed, I would focus solely on my assignment as a wildfire fighter. Of course, I hoped I would be assigned to work with Matt, but it was likely the crew partners or groups would be assigned to various areas of a fire line, depending on the skills of each member.
I made my way with the others to the baggage vehicle, grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulders. Then I grabbed my duffel, while Matt and the other two guys did the same. In a matter of moments, I was following Matt across the tarmac, the two firefighters from Arizona behind us as we headed toward the Chinook, its black, white, and yellow painted blades still rotating, doors open, ready for us. A bubble extended from each side of the pilot and copilot's seats, almost like insect eyes, enabling them to have unobstructed views of the ground.
I always ducked when I got near the helicopters, even though I knew the blades were well over my head. I saw that Matt did the same. It was instinctive I guess. I squinted against the dust and the debris kicked up from the blades, my heart pounding in my chest, feeling the adrenaline, the excitement, the uncertainty surge through me.
Matt tossed his duffel bag inside, where one of the crew quickly grabbed it and shoved it toward the back. Then he climbed up and turned to offer a hand. With a mighty heave, I also slung my duffel into the opening and then allowed Matt to help lift me inside. When I entered the interior, I had to blink to transition from the brighter light outside into the darkened interior of the craft. While it had windows, they were nearly covered by the two rows of canvas transport seats that lined the side of the aircraft.
