That was the lesson he’d seen in the older members of the gang. It was the lesson his foster mom had certainly taught—even offering herself to him when he was man-grown. Instead he’d taken one of the high school cheerleaders for the football team as his first time. Couldn’t even remember her first name—might not have ever known her last one.
It was the lesson that every woman in every bar had taught him.
Instead, the moment he’d touched Maggie, his world had shifted. He’d never taken his time kissing a woman. Hell, he’d screwed far more women than he’d ever kissed because that’s what women were for.
With Maggie Torres, he’d wanted to give her a gentleness he’d never found—never imagined—before.
And she’d responded with an openness and an innocence that had shocked him to the core. Shocked them both apparently. That little cry as he’d stepped her back from the kiss told him more than he’d ever known about her.
Maggie was an innocent. Not a virgin—he wasn’t dumb enough to think that, or care. Not unworldly either.
But she thought the world shone as a far nicer place than he knew it was.
A part of him had wanted to take her. Tear away her t-shirt to dig his fingers into those perfect, high breasts. Yank down her cute little gym shorts, bend her over, and ram himself home. He knew about that. He knew how to do that.
He knew nothing about how to kiss and hold a woman who sighed her breath into his mouth as he wrapped his arms around her. He’d filled his hands with her rich bounty of hair. Rather than an urge to yank down on it to force her head back—to ravage her neck and chest—he’d wanted to brush it over his face and feel how the soft curls touched lighter than fire smoke.
She had stood, shining in the moonlight, stunned into a small whimper. The violence of his desperate need for her was so close to the surface that she’d known. She must have.
He had wanted her so badly in that instant, that he could no longer trust himself. Another breath filled with her scent, another heartbeat racing because of the feel of her, and he was going to take her down like any bar whore.
Not Maggie.
So he’d slid clear and stalked away into the darkness not knowing where he was going. He’d finally slept under a tree, having to wait for dawn to figure out where he was and walk the five miles back to the airport.
Thank god he’d arrived just in time for another fire call. It spared him having to face her as they all raced to load up the remaining helos and start the five-hour drive down to Chico, California. A prairie fire was turning its sights on the airport there—with the town not far behind.
9
As usual, she, Jana, and Ty drove the three pickup trucks, each towing a pair of MD 520N helicopters on long trailers. In her truck, Maggie had Stacy in the front and Jasper in the back. Curt and Palo rode with Jana and the knuckleheads ended up in Ty’s truck.
It always ended up that way and for the first time, she was beginning to understand why. Even if she didn’t like it.
She’d tried to maneuver Palo into riding with her and Stacy. Not so that they could talk, exactly. But maybe they’d be able to anyway if he sat up front and Stacy pretended to be asleep in the back.
But that would mean Jasper would have to ride with Jana. He made it clear that wasn’t going to happen, by chucking his go-bag in the back seat of her own truck.
Instead it was her and Stacy, with Jasper catching some shut-eye.
“It was one kiss,” she’d whispered to Stacy after they were finally away from Cave Junction. They’d all grabbed breakfast at the River Valley Restaurant. They’d pulled a couple tables together which the waitresses soon buried in tall stacks, waffles, and biscuit-and-gravy combos. Palo had somehow ended up at the opposite end of the long table.
“Uh-uh. Not pulling the wool over this gal’s eyes. I know what a normal kiss looks like,” Stacy sounded entirely too pleased with herself.
Maggie had to remember that she wasn’t the dreamy airhead she’d been appearing to be lately. She was a top pilot with an amazing track record against fire. Other than Jana, she was probably the brains of this outfit.
“Is that what happened to him?” Jasper wasn’t snoozing off his breakfast the way he’d appeared to be. “He never came back to the bunkhouse last night. Kissed you, huh? Explains what he was talking about.”
“What he was talking about?” Maggie wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Tell us! Tell us!” Stacy twisted around enough to look back, meaning there was no escape now.
“Was asking about how Curt got you, Stacy.”
“What did he say?” Stacy went off into her dreamy world voice.
“You think he knows? He told Palo to ask you.”
And Stacy sighed happily. “That’s my Curt. Just like Jana warned me. The best of men, just not a real deep thinker.”
“So how did he get you?” Jasper’s tone changed and Maggie wished she could turn to see his expression. His ever-present cowboy hat made him impossible to read in the rearview mirror.
“Blind luck,” Stacy sighed.
Jasper harrumphed. “Exactly what he said.”
“It’s true. He’s just this great guy. I haven’t had a lot of experience with those but he completely sold me on them. Who’s on your horizon, Jasper?” She turned to Maggie when he didn’t answer. “We need to find Jasper a girl.”
“Not gonna happen,” and she could see him pull his cowboy hat down even further, indicating he was done with this conversation. Maggie was sure that she knew the answer he was avoiding.
“Looks like you already found your man,” Stacy bubbled happily, missing all of the dynamics.
There was no way that a kiss, one kiss, could mean that. She’d kissed plenty of men, but not one had been like Palo. It was like he was worshipping at the altar, so gentle and sweet that it had wholly taken her breath away. No one had ever kissed her like that before.
She could feel the need in him. Could feel its fire scorching her. Maggie had even felt the violence in him, the need to take so strong, yet held under such perfect control that he could hold her that lightly.
What would it be like to just let herself be taken? To give herself over to a man’s desires when what he desired was her? Because he absolutely didn’t see her as “just some woman.” A man like him didn’t need to control himself around “just some woman.” He was good-looking, incredibly strong, and there wasn’t any doubt in Maggie’s mind about his ability to deliver anything a woman could want. She—
“You need a mirror,” Stacy broke in on her thoughts as they rolled through Grant’s Pass and picked up I-5 south.
“Why?”
“You know that look you keep accusing me of?”
“No!” Maggie definitely had not gone all dreamy on a guy after a single kiss.
Though it had been an amazing kiss.
10
Not talkin’ about that.” Palo hunched down in the back seat and wished there was a way he could disappear. He’d already talked more with Maggie last night than he did in most weeks. He was talked out. He was done.
“Well, you did something to her, Palo,” Jana was at the wheel, but had twisted the rearview mirror so that she was staring straight at him each time she glanced away from the road.
“I kissed her. That’s all I did.”
Curt turned to look back at him. “You kissed, Maggie Torres? You lucky shit.”
“You’re happily married, remember?” Jana reminded her brother.
“Didn’t say it was me. Didn’t say I was trying to,” Curt backpedaled fast. “Just saying that Maggie lets very few men aboard. Damn, brother!” He held up a fist for Palo to do a fist bump with. He sighed and did it because he knew Curt wouldn’t let it go until he had.
“Assholes,” Jana grumbled as they twisted and turned down the steep hills before hitting the open flatlands of Medford.
“Hey!” Curt had turned away, but now twisted back to look at him.
“No.”
It was too easy to guess where Curt’s thoughts had gone and he didn’t want him telling his sister. He didn’t want it getting back to Maggie.
“That’s why you were asking how I caught Stacy.”
“Blind luck,” Jana zinged him.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Curt faced forward and folded his arms over his chest.
“Think about how amazing Stacy is.” Jana kept facing straight ahead, but Palo could feel her smiling.
“Yeah,” Curt sighed. “Blind luck. You gotta do better, Palo. Don’t let a woman like that slip through your fingers. We’re talking about a major keeper.”
A couple miles passed in silence, something Curt was never good at.
“Hey! We gotta get you a man, sis.”
“Not in this lifetime,” she held up the hooks that were her right hand. “Nobody sees me past these.”
“Gotta be someone. Come on, Palo. Who do we know that deserves my sister?”
That was the problem.
Did he himself deserve a woman like Maggie Torres?
She was a major keeper. But was he?
11
Enough already!” Maggie stood beside his door the moment Palo landed the helo.
She was wearing a wide-brimmed goofy white sun hat with her mechanics coveralls—which she’d hacked off as short shorts. The woman was so damn cute he couldn’t stand it.
He was just in from the last run of their fifth day on the Chico fire. It was half an hour to sunset and the little MD 520Ns didn’t have the expensive, and heavy, gear to be night-certified. Just as well, they needed eight hours rest out of every twenty-four and that’s about all the darkness there was this time of year.
He was hot, sweaty, hungry, and tired.
He was hot for the little slip of a mechanic standing there with her fists propped on the toolbelt hanging slantwise on those ever-so nice hips. Getting sweaty with her sounded even better than a shower. He was hungry for the taste of her. And he was tired of running away.
“I’m a grown woman despite my size.”
He wasn’t going to argue that point.
“I know what I want.”
“Fine,” he grunted against a dry throat. Flying over the fire did that. Flying over one in the superheated flatlands of Chico, California could parch a man for life. The two together sucked.
“Fine?” Causing her to blink in surprise.
“Fine.” More than fine. “Where and how soon?”
She pointed as imperiously as a queen in a toolbelt, coveralls, and fashionable sunhat could. It was summer and the campus was mostly empty. With the airport smoked out and shut down—though not burned yet—their six helos were lined up in two rows on the open field outside the stadium. The college had opened up one of the dorms for the firefighters.
The rooms were doubles with two small beds and zero sound insulation. He’d bedded enough coeds when he was that age to know. That would never do.
“Get in.” When she started to protest, he pulled the door shut in her face.
She huffed around the nose of the helo as he wound the engine back to life. Her hair caught and fluttered in the vagaries of the air turbulence coming off the flattened blades. He pushed in a little bit of negative lift with the cyclic, sucking the air up through the main rotor. It made her hair float up off her shoulders as she clamped a hand atop her hat. Yes, he remembered her hair’s lightness in his hands and couldn’t wait to touch her again. Why he’d hidden from her for five days was…well, obvious. To be done with that was more relief than a cold shower could ever provide.
Once she’d shed her toolbelt and was buckled in, he took them aloft.
The other helos, which had been coming in behind him, hesitated when they saw the two of them together through the large windshield. Curt waggled his helo side to side in a cheery wave, as did Stacy. Jasper just flew by. Drew and Amos seemed to stumble in the air.
He was past caring what others thought.
Palo flew them up into the hills east of Chico. The hills climbed quickly in a jumble of eroded valley through the tall buttes. The Big Chico Creek had cut especially deeply and still flowed year-round. Its rollicking course had been turned into a nature park.
“The entrance to Bidwell Park is closed by the fire, they emptied the place out three days ago even though the park itself is safe.”
He found the spot he was after and spiraled them down. A giant snag, an old tree long since shed of life and bark, stood tall and weather-whitened over a tiny meadow surrounded by towering fir and spruce. The twenty-seven foot sweep of the MD 520N’s rotors was a tight squeeze into the small clearing, but it fit.
Along one edge of the clearing, shaded by a few trees, there was a large pool in the stream formed by a rise of boulders at one end. At the other end, a waterfall splashed loudly into the upper end of the pool.
Maggie had gone quiet and he didn’t know what to think. He did the full shut down. Even when he opened the door to let in the cool of the evening, she didn’t budge.
He circled around and opened her door.
She unbuckled, stepped down, and into his arms. No kiss, no hug. She simply tucked her hands under her chin and leaned in against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and wondered if they could stay like this forever.
“Thank you.”
“For what? I haven’t done anything yet.” Maggie rubbed her face on his sweat-stained shirt as if she didn’t care that he stank.
“For bringing me here. For letting this be important.”
He gathered a handful of that luxurious hair and tugged it just enough to get her to look up at him.
“You are important.”
She nodded once. Then again. “So are you. I’d have taken you either way. A fun tussle or this. But I wanted to thank you for this.”
“That doesn’t cut out the fun tussle part, does it?”
Her smile went electric. “Let’s find out.”
12
Fun tussle,” Maggie managed on a half laugh.
Palo managed to grunt an amused agreement that vibrated down her length as she still lay upon his chest.
They lay on one of the helo’s emergency blankets spread close beside the stream. They had splashed in wearing their clothes, because they needed washing as badly as their bodies. The clothes had soon been tossed on the bank, but they’d swum back and forth in the fifty-foot pool of Brown’s Hole for a long time.
Rather than cooling her off, the delay as they’d floated and talked had given the banked fires time to rekindle and burn anew. Any doubts she had were scorched away when he touched her for the first time as the last ray of sunlight snaked up their canyon to light the pool. His rough hand, softened by the water, had brushed along the side of her breast like an invitation. One she hadn’t refused.
Now, hours later, she could only lie atop him and listen to the night in wonder.
The first time, after she’d fished out some of the protection she’d bought this morning, she had let him take and plunder, because the need was so great and burned so hot that it couldn’t happen fast enough for her.
The second time, she had taken him. Spending the time to appreciate, to caress, and to feel. Holy Mother, to feel! Never had a man made her cry aloud with the pure joy of the moment…her voice had echoed off the basalt walls.
“No way we can keep this from the others. One look at our smiles will give us away.” Now, at least, she knew where Stacy’s outrageous grin came from.
“Can’t keep a damned secret in this outfit anyway.” Palo sounded grouchy about it.
“Like you talking to Curt about how he got Stacy?”
Palo groaned.
“So is that what you’re looking for? Happy ever after?”
“What about you?” She almost called him on dodging the question, but she didn’t know herself and had to think about it.
“Mama and Papa had a great relationship. Even with four girls running around with a thousand demands, they always found ways to b
e together. They’d hold hands while watching TV. Anything.”
“Well? Do you want that?” Palo’s voice was so gentle.
She wanted… “More.”
“More than happy ever after?”
She hid her face against his chest—she’d never told anyone the last part.
“What?” Palo kissed her on top of the head as he flipped a blanket over them against the cooling evening. Sensing her silence, he asked again. “What is it, Torres?”
She couldn’t ignore a voice like that, so concerned, so willing to listen. But she couldn’t do it.
“I just want more. That’s all.”
She snuggled down once more on his glorious chest, hiding and she knew it. She tucked her head under his chin. His breathing slowed, then his hands slipped off her back until he lay limp beneath her.
This?
She listened to him sleep in the darkness.
This she most definitely wanted. For as long as she could have it.
13
What the hell, Palo?” Curt was right in his face and he couldn’t do anything about it because Curt was absolutely right.
He’d screwed up…in flight! The Firebirds had labored long and hard to perfect tight formation flying in the chaotic air currents over a forest fire. Which meant that when he screwed up today, he’d nearly taken three other birds down with him. It was only by some piloting miracle, and a lucky updraft that any of them were still alive.
“Well?”
He could only shrug. He had no idea what had happened.
“You uncaring son of a bitch! You’re grounded!” Curt stalked off.
The other pilots who’d gathered to listen—though Amos had still been so shaky that he’d sat on the ground—looked at him in silence a moment longer.
He shrugged again. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. It was that he didn’t know what had happened. He’d never come so close to dying. And to take others out with him was unforgivable.
For All Their Days Page 3
