Full Blaze

by M. L. Buchman

  To help keep her focus and her edge, Jeannie started teaching Cal how to fly. Showing him which instruments to watch and which to ignore. Even configuring one of his screens so that it only showed the few primary elements he’d need: artificial horizon, heading, altitude, and the engine’s health and usage monitoring system. He laughed that wonderful laugh of his when she explained it was abbreviated as HUMS. To help pass the time, he began composing a HUMS song that sounded suspiciously like a hummed Beatles’ tune. Once he had some idea of those instruments, she added fuel usage rate and tanking controls.

  The ease with which he picked it up told her that in addition to being a natural, he must be even smarter than she’d thought. She rarely had to repeat an explanation, and his touch had remained just as gentle as the first time he’d gingerly tried the controls. By mid-afternoon, he could handle straight-and-level flight and simple turns. As end of day approached, she let him do one of the dump runs. Not that he wasn’t following every word and instruction she fed to him, but there was still something about how a chopper felt when you were doing it yourself.

  They killed the second head right before sunset.

  “We have to move better and faster tomorrow, or by end of day we’re going to start losing parts of the town.” Jeannie looked in exasperation at the wide fire front still traveling westward.

  ***

  Cal stared out at the fire and the sun almost kissing the western horizon. They couldn’t see Alice Springs yet, but it wasn’t far enough over the horizon to be safe. Their successive runs for water had been growing shorter and shorter with each passing hour.

  “One more run, then I’m grounded,” Jeannie practically wailed.

  Her voice tore at him. She’d kept it inside all day. He could tell that by how much more aggressively she flew this fire than Santa Barbara. Not faster or more efficiently; he wasn’t sure that was even possible, she was so damned good. No, she flew this fire angrier. Her dumps were tightly done, not a single second wasted.

  Was she even aware of the emotions radiating from her body? He’d bet not. She’d think she was simply flying at the fire: calm, professional, cool. The truth was: outwardly calm, absolutely professional, and no hint of cool anywhere in sight. She burned with the need to kill this thing. It was so deeply personal that she didn’t even see it.

  The odd thing that struck Cal was that she cared so deeply about the loss. Yet another vast difference between them. She had a past to lose, and its loss had eaten at her. He’d never had a past worth keeping—and what had that done to him? How was he revealing that without being aware?

  The loss of a single home would wound her here, far more than a dozen losses had in Santa Barbara. If it was in his capacity to avoid that, he’d find it.

  On the last run out, after she’d dumped her load of water and foam, he had her set the chopper down near Akbar’s crew. He grabbed his personal radio, his hard hat, and a Pulaski. Then, after a moment’s consideration, he clipped his camera bag on the seat that had become his, right in plain view beside Jeannie.

  “Go.”

  “Cal, no!”

  “Go!” he shouted at her.

  When she still didn’t move, he did about the stupidest thing he could think of for a man who was supposed to be on an outbound flight a dozen hours ago. He stalked around the nose of the chopper, wrenched open her door, grabbed her head with both hands, and kissed her hard and long. If he was going to be supremely stupid tonight, if this was going to be his last act on earth, he wanted the taste of Jeannie Clark on his lips.

  The woman was like a dose of supercharger on a racing engine. When she moaned, he was half tempted to drag her from the chopper and see just what they could both do, the fire be damned. Instead, he brushed his thumb down her cheek and whispered softly, “Trust me, Helitack. Now go.”

  He latched her door.

  She went.

  Cal watched her aloft until she caught the light of the setting sun a hundred meters up, making her Firehawk glow. Rather than watching her fly off into the distance like some lovelorn mooncalf, he dialed Henderson’s direct frequency.

  “Henderson, Cal here. I’ve got a stupid idea. You want to do some night flying in a chopper?”

  “I’m not certified for night drops, and Emily has to get some rest. All our helitacks need the legally mandated rest. They’re totally jet-lagged.”

  “Just need you to fly, not drop.”

  There was an eagerness in the man’s voice when he continued, “Keep talking.”

  ***

  Six wildfire engines, twelve smokies, one helicopter, and a dumb-ass, sleep-deprived, overzealous, ex-hotshot photographer too stupid to keep his mouth shut. And he’d hung up his cameras. In a woman’s chopper! He wasn’t just losing it; he’d gone and totally screwed himself up over a woman. Some form of insanity had overcome him, one he certainly didn’t recognize. That had been Cal’s assessment of their situation when he’d climbed off Jeannie’s Firehawk, and that was his assessment now as the first hint of pink sunrise graced the horizon.

  But through the night, they’d pulled off a friggin’ miracle. Henderson had taken his wife’s helicopter aloft. The entire force had positioned itself on the south side of the fire. Foot by foot they fought the battle, letting the flames burn north or west, but never south.

  Slowly, they gained on the fire by cutting down trees. Henderson spent part of the night circling back to keep the wildfire engines charged with water. But most of the time, he was dangling a long lead line, which they used to haul the cut trees outside of the fire’s damage path, slowly robbing it of fresh fuel.

  They’d spooked several mobs of ’roos that exploded abruptly out of the night in giant bounds, then disappeared westward. Panicked cattle trotted by and, every now and then, the sharp smell of burning meat filled the night air. They’d take a quick head count to make sure every person in the ground crew was still accounted for. They were. The smell was some poor critter who didn’t make it out ahead of the flame.

  When at last they found a particularly long and stout tree trunk, Cal hooked a double line to either end and had Henderson drag it across the ground, tearing up great tufts of the dead grass, which were hastily dragged aside.

  Akbar flogged his team, as did the local fire chief.

  As the night deepened and they drew nearer to Alice Springs, local residents in their SUVs started showing up. They brought food, water, and good cheer. They were quickly recruited to drag off the smaller trees.

  The teams’ south line pinched the main blaze. Trapped it and forced it to turn north. Steve kept the drone aloft and fed Cal information throughout the night. It was going to be close, so damned close.

  Cal’s face was sore from the heat baking his skin dry. His back and shoulders hadn’t stung like this in ages, zinging with lactic acid buildup from cutting apart grass clumps with his Pulaski, breaking the root ball into manageable pieces, and dragging it outside the fire’s path.

  The engine crews soaked the fire’s flank, driving it ever northward.

  As day broke, they could see the houses of Alice Springs. The teams were practically in the backyards. They had walked five miles in the night, fighting every single step of the way.

  The farthest north cattle station—a half-finished geodesic dome, a large barn and main building, and a whole jumble of old cars in varying states of decay—lay right in the fire’s eye when Jeannie roared back into the sky.

  Like an avenging demon of war, she hammered the fire away from the house and the barn. The other four choppers rode hard in her wake and pounded away at it as well, but she was magnificent to watch.

  Thirty meters. The blaze itself missed the cattle station by thirty meters. But it missed.

  The fire front was still more than three kilometers wide; they hadn’t beaten it. But they had chased it past the farthest-northern residence along the Stuart
Highway.

  Then the flames hit the highway.

  There was no time to prepare. No time to set up firebreaks, not even time to drop a single load to wet the road. They just had to let it run. Jeannie remained in the lead, driving harder and faster than the others. The cattle station had a small swimming pool. Jeannie was so in the groove that the other choppers simply left it to her and went for other water sources. She was picking up and dumping a thousand gallons every five minutes. At that rate, it took her barely two hours to empty the pool.

  With the heat of the fire, the highway melted and buckled, cutting off the Alice, as the highway to Alice Springs was commonly known. It was one of only two roads that connected the Alice, as the town was also known, to the outside world.

  The highway had two lanes, with shoulders and sandy verges. The shoulders were mowed, plowed, or hit with herbicide to keep the growth back from the edges and the kangaroos from feeding too close to the sealed road. Typically, the night dew built up on the road’s surface and trickled off to either side. This made for lush growth on the shoulders that attracted the ’roos—from the little wallabies to the big reds at two meters tall and a hundred kilos. Their feeding habits made it so dangerous to drive at night that only the buses and the crazy tourists ventured to do an Outback crossing in the dark. The buses had massive “’roo bars” on the front, which at least kept the bus from being destroyed if they clipped a big red. The tourists who ventured out and clipped a red usually just ended up dead.

  Using the highway as a firebreak—it was a better one than they’d had at any point during the night—they narrowed the head to under a kilometer wide before it crossed the road. Akbar led the teams to create one last firebreak well to the west of the highway. And there the bushfire finally died.

  Cal vaguely remembered climbing aboard a chopper, but he wasn’t even sure which one. Someone had guided him back off. He woke up in a bed. It was dark. Just a little light through the edges of a curtain, but it looked artificial. Nighttime.

  He considered what he’d done. Rather than following his common sense and getting on a flight to anywhere, he’d actually walked back into the fire. And for the first time, he hadn’t done it for the fire and the adrenaline rush, or his never-ending quest for the perfect photograph.

  No. He’d done it for a woman. And not even to impress her. Just to keep her from hurting so badly. As if he could fight her internal battles for her. And the craziest part of all was that it had worked. They’d saved the town and he’d saved Jeannie from the reminder of her loss.

  Now that he was waking up, he could feel the clean sheets, could tell that his face wasn’t caked with salt sweat, ash, and grime. He could vaguely recall the feel of the cool washcloth as Jeannie cleaned him up and put him to bed. He was alone now, but the pillow beside him was dented, the covers disarrayed.

  He really had to get out of here. Clean up and go. That was the only answer for him.

  His camera case lay close beside the bed, so close he had to step over it as he dragged himself into the bathroom. Damn the woman for being so considerate. Of course she’d know that would be one of his first questions. The cameras really were his only possessions of any importance. The bathroom was clean and spacious with everything neatly prepackaged. Hotel. An okay one, certainly way better than his last time here in a backpacker hostel. This place had privacy, little bars of soap, shampoo, and fluffy white towels way bigger than a napkin.

  Into shower stall. Water, hot. Immerse head in spray. Close eyes and lean against the wall as every muscle bitched about the unaccustomed workout of the last twenty-four hours.

  Lean there and soak until he could imagine a cool hand tracing the scars on his back. Until—

  “Shit!” He jerked forward, but there was nowhere to go and he impaled his sternum on the faucet, then stood up straight and rapped his head on the shower nozzle. He spun around, catching the temperature control with his elbow, and suddenly the water was full cold.

  “Jeannie! What? Crap! That’s freezing!” He turned back to adjust the temperature, which went blazing hot. Then, despite his hands still shaking from the surprise, he managed to set it at something tolerable. He turned back cautiously to face her.

  He’d never seen her naked in full light. Where the dim lights at the back of the C-17 had suggested, the bathroom light revealed. Every single thing about her body lived up to the promise made in lesser light. Immensely fit—he could identify the running in her musculature. Incredibly shaped—despite his best intentions, his hands had already slid about her waist, where his palms so perfectly fit the gentle curves of those womanly hips. A feast for the eyes—if he’d seen a nicer set of breasts he most certainly couldn’t recall. Not with those soft brown eyes inspecting his from so close.

  Her taste—he hadn’t meant to kiss her—was exactly as he’d remembered: warm winter fires and moonlit nights. She flowed against him as the water washed over them. Wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in until he couldn’t get away if he wanted to.

  He managed a passing thought of large jets flying to faraway places, but it didn’t take root anywhere of interest. Instead, Jeannie Clark washed into him. Firing him up until he slid one hand into her long, wet hair and the other down onto that fine, fine behind of hers. She slid a leg up around his waist and he pushed her back against the shower wall. They had no protection in the shower, which limited his options in only the slightest way. He also had soap and shampoo, which vastly expanded the possibilities.

  He started with the top of her head, and he made it a quest. If this woman was going to throw herself at him, and he wasn’t going to be smart enough to run in the other direction, he would learn every shape, every curve, every spot that made her catch her breath or tremble. And he did.

  There wasn’t much room to maneuver in the shower stall, but there was enough. Front or back first? he debated. Both. Definitely. He turned her to face the wall, dumped some shampoo on her hair, and began massaging it in. She stopped protesting and braced herself in place with both hands. He worked at it, massaging her scalp, appreciating her slender neck, how dark the red streak became when wet, how her thick hair reached down past the lower tips of delicate but well-defined shoulder blades.

  Shifting to soap, he appreciated her strong shoulders, tapered waist, swelling hips, and firm buttocks. Reaching around, he discovered a flat stomach and full breasts that made her groan as he caressed them. Then he rinsed off one hand and, without warning, cupped her to drag her back against him.

  This time Jeannie’s moan came from deeper, much deeper. He drove her up and up, enjoying the feel of her shifting muscles as she writhed back against him. When she tipped over the edge, she was so far gone that she actually thrashed, throwing herself against his hands until he felt her whole body suddenly go rigid then release in cascading waves that rippled through her flesh, ultimately leaving them both gasping as she sagged in his arms.

  When at last her pulse seemed to stabilize enough that she could stand on her own feet, she turned to face him. Her smile wasn’t happily sated, calmly dreamy, or any of the other expressions he might have expected. Her smile was wicked.

  She twirled her finger like a command to lower a hoist, indicating he should turn around.

  No way.

  She quirked an eyebrow at him, informing him that she was far from done and was more than happy to wait until he turned his back.

  When at last he did, she again did the unexpected: she kissed him right between the shoulder blades. Right where his seventh or eighth foster father had nearly beaten him to death with a thorny switch. He’d bear those scars for the rest of his life, but the man, if he still lived, would never walk again. Cal had made sure of that even as he bled.

  Yet Jeannie, without question, without judgment, had just made it clear that the scars didn’t repulse her or drive her away. He glanced over his shoulder at her and she repeated her t
wirling motion, so that he had to face the wall just as he’d had her do moments before.

  But he’d had to check. There was no sign of repulsion, but neither was there any sign of what he’d feared even more, pity. He’d made himself who he was and how strong he was. He didn’t want pity, wouldn’t accept it.

  Jeannie didn’t offer it. She offered simple acceptance. He braced his forearms against the plastic, resting his forehead against his clasped hands, and braced himself.

  Ever so slowly, Jeannie slid her arms around his waist and simply lay against him. He could feel the pressure of her against him—cheek, breasts, hips. She lay there until he relaxed. She lay there until it was the most natural thing on the planet to be held by her. And finally, until he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

  Then she began to do exactly as he had done, explore his body with soap and fingers. She also used breasts and hair and nose and every possible way they could come in contact—except one.

  He grew harder and harder in anticipation, but she never explored right where most women started off. Right where he started off wanting to be explored.

  No, Jeannie slid arms around to soap his pecs, found a twitchy spot above his left knee, even scraped short nails along his instep. She kept at it until he was biting his lower lip against the throbbing between his legs.

  When he was on the verge of breaking down and begging, she drove her well-soaped hands up between his spread legs from behind. The unexpected attack roared through him hotter than the fire they’d fought and beaten. His pulse pounded in the same wild rhythm as her stroking palms and exploring fingers. She teased and toyed with him until he released harder than he ever had before.

  And when he did, she simply held him. Lay against his back and held him as his body shuddered and shook in a way no one had ever caused before.