Sweet Burn

by Anne Marsh

  “It’s going to be a bad summer,” he said gruffly.

  “Dry?”

  “You bet.”

  “You take care of yourself now.” She delivered her words with a sharp punch to his side.

  He grunted. “You didn’t warn me that you had a violent side.”

  “Consider yourself warned.”

  “I’ll be fine out there.” He aimed the remote toward the TV and hit the off button.

  “Guys get hurt. Accidents happen.”

  That was true. “You worried about me?” Shifting, he rolled her beneath him and braced himself over her on his forearms.

  She stared up at him, clearly not interested in going anywhere. “You’re a big boy.”

  “It’s okay to admit the truth,” he teased.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Let’s talk about your day. Any sign of Herring or other gang-affiliated folks targeting your butt?”

  “No.” She hesitated. “Maybe I’m in the clear. Maybe no one was shooting at me, or maybe the Molotov cocktail was all he had in mind.”

  “You need to be careful too. No crazy chances, you hear me?”

  “That goes double for you,” she sighed. “I’m not the one who makes a living jumping out of planes into fires.”

  Since there was nothing more he could say, he settled for lowering his head and kissing her.

  ***

  The DC-3 circled back around over the jump site. Mack wasn’t jumping today. Instead, he and Jack were resupplying the guys on the ground. The fixed-wing aircraft had brought the jumpers out yesterday, but they were already running low on supplies.

  Spotted Dick was on the radio to the Incident Commander, letting the IC know the plane was coming in for a cargo drop. The airspace over the fire was busy, making the heads-up even more critical. Two tankers dropped slurry, coating the fire’s northern edge with red fire retardant, as an observation aircraft checked out the burn from above. Cleared for the drop, Spotted Dick reduced their altitude, taking them down to just 1500 feet above the ground. Show time.

  To the plane’s left, it was all green forest and sunshine. Smoke punched up from the ridge on the right and the air took on a smoky haze. Patches of orange flame chewed at the trees. He could make out the small dots of the guys digging line. The jump team would have to hike out to the nearest access road and wait for a pick-up there. The DC-3 was a one-way ride unless there was a local airstrip Spotted Dick could put her down on.

  That wasn’t happening here. Instead, they’d brought three pallets of cache items. The pallets mostly held extra pumps and hose, plus two replacement chainsaws. Somebody on the ground had also ordered Subway sandwiches. Dinner was going to be flat as hell, but hey. Mack had no problem with delivering.

  Spotted Dick’s voice filled his headset, calling out their altitude. “1500AGL.”

  That worked for him. He nodded to Jack and braced in the open door, holding onto the guide wire he’d clipped himself onto. The blades of the right-hand engine chewed up the air a few yards from his head.

  “Streamers away.”

  He leaned out the open bay to drop the drift streamers. The weighted crepe paper sank and then the paper caught the wind, the tail pointing out the wind’s direction. Yeah, baby.

  When the streamers hit the clearing, he observed their landing position and then pulled his head back inside. On the other side of the bay, Jack was doing the same thing.

  The goal was to set it down in the clearing, rather than the thick ring of ponderosas hemming the open space. Equally bad options included the charred downhill slope or the areas that were actually burning. Since each pallet topped out at 120 pounds, no one on the ground wanted to have to move the stuff. The drop zone wasn’t flat, though, since Mother Nature worked like that. The streamers had landed closer to the edge of the clearing than he liked. The ground was high and upwind. Shit. He checked for jumpers, counting four guys on the ground and two in the burnout.

  He held up six fingers to Jack, who flashed his own thumbs-up. It wouldn’t do to drop the cargo on anyone’s head.

  “Up 100?”

  Jack nodded in agreement and relayed the correction to Spotted Dick. Adjusting the drop altitude by one hundred feet should put them closer to dead center. The plane banked right and came back around facing into the wind for the second pass. This time the streamers hit where they wanted, so Mack let Spotted Dick know they’d be dropping the cargo on the next pass.

  “Short final,” Spotted Dick barked and Mack and Jack got ready.

  “Standby.”

  On Spotted Dick’s terse “Kick,” he and Jack sprang into action, pushing the pallets out the open bay. The load swayed wildly, buffeted by the wind and the orange-and-white-striped chutes that popped open to guide the bundles down. Jack whooped as the cargo set down nicely in the center of the clearing, the chutes collapsing over the goods. A job well done.

  He and Jack lay back on the floor of the plane. They had thirty minutes until they were wheels-down back at the base. Everyone was running low on sleep, so they’d rest up while they could. Still, he turned his head and eyeballed Jack. Jack had his sunglasses on underneath his helmet and there was no way of telling if the man had passed out yet or not.

  “Got a question for you.” He elbowed Jack just in case the words hadn’t done the trick.

  Jack turned his head toward him, pushing up the glasses. “Shoot.”

  Not asleep. Good.

  “Can I borrow your wife?”

  Jack blinked. “You want my Lily?”

  “I need her advice,” he clarified.

  A smile quirked the corners of Jack’s mouth. “Good. Because I don’t lend her out for just anything.”

  “I want to drive down to Sacramento and pick out a ring.”

  “For yourself?”

  This time, Mack punched Jack in the shoulder. The man knew. Hell, all of Strong probably knew. Thank God Mimi hadn’t been subtle in the bar the other night. Now he didn’t have to hide anything either.

  “For Mimi.”

  He waited and, sure enough, Jack laughed. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

  “You picked out a ring.”

  “Yeah.” Another smile, but this one was deeper. Mack was looking forward to grinning like a loon himself. “Lily’s a keeper.”

  “So’s Mimi.”

  He didn’t know if Jack would argue with him. They both knew she’d spent some time last summer seeing Rio—and that Rio hadn’t been the first smoke jumper she’d dated. Mimi liked her firefighters. He might not have been her first, but he was planning on being her last.

  And her best.

  “So you’re serious,” Jack said finally, raising his head to look at Mack.

  “I am.”

  “Quick,” Jack observed.

  He shrugged. “How long did it take you with Lily? When she’s right, she’s right.”

  “A word of advice. She’s always right.”

  Mack knew he had a cheesy grin splitting his face. “Learned that one already.”

  Jack’s head thumped back against the floor. “You’re surprising her.”

  Mack figured that was obvious.

  Jack wasn’t done yet. “Have you asked her to marry you? Or are you going for a total ambush? Because you could drop to one knee in the bar and give us all a free show.”

  Mack uttered a curse word and Jack laughed.

  “I asked,” he admitted. “She didn’t say no.”

  “A step in the right direction.”

  “Says the man who’s only asked once.”

  “Yeah, but it worked. That practically makes me an expert.” Jack fished his phone out and texted Lily. “You sure you don’t want to take Mimi with you? Let her pick out her own ring?”

  He’d thought about it, but the problem was the not-a-yes she’d given him. She hadn’t said no, but she hadn’t said yes, either. The expression on her face had said she was thinking about it, though. His tough, kick-ass
girl was seriously thinking about it. He was hoping something sparkly would nudge her over into that yes territory.

  “I’m going with the element of surprise,” he said.

  “Lily’s free tomorrow and you’re not on the jump roster. Surprise away.” Jack grinned. “But if you’re feeling charitable, do your asking in the bar. I’d like to see this.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Two days later, Mack had himself a ring, but still no bride. He’d barely driven back from Sacramento (and reunited Lily with Jack), when the call went out. Jack had put the entire team on standby that afternoon. California’s weather was unseasonably hot and January and February had been almost bone dry. The reservoirs were tapping out and still thirsting for a refill, the hills browning when they should be green. It would be a shit summer. That was certain.

  The hotshot teams had been recalled weeks ago, packing out to beat down the grassfires that had popped up wherever hikers and hunters got too careless. The southern part of the state waited with bated breath—and ready hoses—for the Santa Ana winds to kick in. Then, all it would take would be one more careless cigarette, a hunter who didn’t check his fire circle… hell, even a spark from a weed whacker. Everything would go up in flames.

  Mack backed his truck in next to Jack’s beat-up Ford, parking face out toward the road, because sometimes seconds counted. He recognized most of the other vehicles already there—in addition to a few beat-up SUVs and Jeeps, there were a pair of trucks he knew by heart. Joey’s ride was jacked up high, the wheel wells muddy from some off-road fun. The man had never met a road he didn’t race down. Thank God he wasn’t allowed to get his hands on the chopper’s controls.

  Mack didn’t know what was going on with Joey and the good sheriff, but since Joey was flying and jumping, the two of them must have worked it out. As far as he knew, Mimi was the only one who had gotten her butt arrested after that wild night ride.

  He swung down, grabbed his gear bag from the truck bed, and headed inside. The heads-up page had said takeoff was in thirty minutes and the inside of the hangar was a bevy of loud activity. Jack and Rio were doing a final gear sort, while Joey and Kade shuttled packs out to the waiting DC-3 on the runway. He did a quick headcount—Donovan Brothers had six jumpers in the house, plus Kade. The man had come back from Afghanistan the past summer, but he’d been banged up bad. He hadn’t been up yet and Mack doubted his leg would take the impact, even if Kade’s jumpsuit and steel-toes said the man might think differently. It wasn’t his business, though, if Jack had cleared the man.

  “Jumping?” he asked, slapping Kade on the shoulder and silently checking in.

  Kade shook his head. “I’m spotting today.”

  That was a better deal for everyone. Kade was a big, broad-shouldered ex-SEAL who still wore his hair buzzed short. He had a scar on the edge of his jaw, like he’d face-planted in jagged metal. The mark wasn’t all that bad, but it was grim enough to make most of Strong back up just a step or two. Kade also walked stiff-legged and there was no missing his limp and lurch. As far as Mack could tell, the leg was getting better. It was just that Kade had had a long way to go from where he’d started.

  Spotting was a good way to get his head back in the game since the spotter was responsible for picking the LZ and timing the jumps. Kade wouldn’t get out of the plane, but it was a valuable job. Mack was glad that Kade was headed up with them, but even gladder the man wasn’t going to push things. He’d seen perfectly healthy guys snap a leg when they came down wrong, and none of the terrain they’d jumped into this last year had been easy.

  “Good deal,” Joey added, butting in. “Kade’s got eagle eyes. He’ll pick the right LZ.”

  The radio crackled and the hangar fell silent. Park rangers had been looking for a pair of hunters since early yesterday. Recreational hunters, the two men were supposed to have checked in with their wives, but had instead failed to do so. Not surprisingly, since there was little in the way of cell phone towers and reception out in the park, the wives also hadn’t been able to raise their guys on their phones.

  From what the Incident Commander had to say on the radio, though, the rangers just might have found the missing hunters though. Or, more accurately, they’d spotted the smoke signal the two men had set up. Fuck. That was stupid. It was too easy to lose control of a fire—and that appeared to be exactly what had happened. Fortunately, the fire hadn’t grown too big yet. The flames had devoured twenty acres, but now the fire’s head was pointed downhill and making for a dry-as-tinder patch. If the winds shifted, the fire would likely change course and head south. That put far more people than trees in the fire’s path, including a couple of subdivisions and one of those Indian casinos. Since they were headed into the weekend, that casino would be bustling.

  Before he put his helmet on, he stepped outside the hangar and dialed Mimi. “I’m headed up,” he said when she answered. “I’ll probably be out in the field for the next forty-eight.”

  There was a brief pause on the other end. The ring was burning a hole in his pocket (and, yeah, he had it tucked into a buttoned-up pant pocket because he wasn’t hiding the thing in his damned house). He wished he could see her face.

  “Thanks for letting me know,” she said brightly.

  He could only imagine what she’d get up to while he was gone.

  “Be careful?” He made it a question, not a warning or a demand. He knew how Mimi reacted to ultimatums. She’d go right out and do the opposite, just to prove her point.

  “Yeah,” she grumbled, sounding slightly winded.

  “You okay?”

  “You mean right this moment? Or is that a general concern?”

  “You sound—” He was going to put his foot in it.

  “Out of breath?” This time, there was no mistaking her wry tone, half-amused, half something else.

  “Yeah,” he settled for saying.

  “I was doing my yoga.”

  And…wow. The mental image of her doing the yoga thing was hot.

  “No,” she said.

  “No, what?” He hadn’t asked anything.

  “I’m not doing yoga for you naked, even if I do an awesome downward dog pose.”

  “Did I ask?”

  “You were thinking it.” She sounded certain.

  The image of her in those clingy workout pants and a bra top was hot. “You going to tell me what this downward dog thing is? Just so I can get the fantasy right?”

  There was another pause. Then she told him and.,.holy Jesus. Yeah. He could image her bent over at the waist, butt up and hands down. Naked would just be the icing on that particular cake.

  “If I crash land out there today, it’s all your fault.”

  “Glad to help.”

  Then he hung up, looked up… and he had himself a peanut gallery. Shit. Maybe he should have stepped outside.

  “Yoga, huh?” Joey slapped him on the back.

  Kade didn’t smile, but his face lightened up some. “The girls have a Saturday morning class out near the river.”

  “You go?” Joey sounded horrified. And intrigued.

  Kade shrugged. “It’s good for my knee. And the scenery’s good.”

  As soon as the plane was loaded up, they taxied down the runway. There’d be a five-mile pack out to the road, but if they got in there now, there might be a chance. Still, when he was finally spiraling down towards the LZ, wind tearing at his face and smoke stinging his eyes, Mack knew.

  This was going to be a bad one.

  ***

  After two days on the ground, the jump team packed out. Their pickup point had been located on one of the main roads, a twelve-hour hike from the landing zone. They’d done what they could and cut the fire off at one point. Two housing sub-divisions were a little singed, but nothing some Sherwin-Williams couldn’t fix. The homeowners wouldn’t even need to call in the insurance adjusters.

  Heading home was a relief, until Mack actually got there. Mimi was conspicuously missing. His front d
oor was unlocked, but there was no sign of her when he stepped inside. Not that he’d been expecting to holler honey, I’m home and have her come out to greet him buck naked with a beer, but fantasies were sometimes all that got him through a really bad fire. Since there was no sign of a forced entry or violent struggle, however, he was probably looking at yet another instance of Mimi being Mimi. He’d asked her to stay; she’d insisted on going. He’d have to get used to that if he wanted a future with her.

  Still, he couldn’t help looking around for some sign that she’d spent the last two nights sleeping in his bed and living in his house. The place looked more or less unchanged. She’d created her own stack of books on the floor next to his, cowboy novels spilling haphazardly onto his stack of nonfiction. He grabbed a book—for research purposes only—and reconned the rest of his place. The bedroom was as empty as the living room, the coverlet twitched up into a semblance of order and all the pillows redeployed on the right-hand side of the bed. Six of his plastic hangars decorated the shower rod in the bathroom, displaying a fantastic collection of drip-drying bras and panties. He suspected intentionality on that one. He wandered back out and into the kitchen.

  She had left a note propped up against the lone bottle of beer in his fridge (since there had been four beers when he left, she’d clearly spent some time at his place). “Honey, I went out.”

  Like they were in some kind of bad sitcom.

  He reminded himself that he loved her and, for no particular reason that he could think of at the present moment, that he wanted a future with her. He had to work with what he had. He sat down at the table, popped the top on the beer, and texted her.

  I’m drinking the last beer.

  Her response came less than a minute later: Ha ha.

  Maybe she was waiting for him in her own way. The burst of hope probably qualified him as first-class pathetic but, again, he was working with what he had. He sent another message.

  You coming home soon?

  He’d like to see her, to hold her some. Plus, he had her ring burning a hole in his pocket. He took it out and played with it while he waited for her response. The ring was a ridiculous scrap of platinum and diamonds. There was nothing practical about it—it was just pure pretty and all special. He hadn’t even bought a new one, picking out an antique instead. He liked the thought of some other woman wearing it in sickness and health, the good times and the bad. He’d bet there’d been more good than bad, too, based on the worn but loving inscription inside the wedding band.