by Jill Shalvis
Thanks to her job, she’d spent a lot of time in this particular mountainous region. Surprisingly enough, she’d fallen for the wide, open, undiscovered beauty, and had made it her mission to fly south as often as possible, ensuring that each and every one of the myriad of hidden villages received dental and health care, or whatever they needed. Not a small job.
But right now one of her favorites, an especially isolated village named San Puebla, needed help with a slash-and-burn ranch fire. Due to limited water sources and remoteness, the flames had escaped control. Compounding the problem was the severity of the drought this year, and the fact that wildfires had become a nationwide crisis.
More than seventy Mexicans had lost their lives in this season alone in the deployment of airplanes, helicopters, and firefighters. In southeastern Mexico, 250 Mexican firefighters currently were hard at work, along with 550 military personnel and 2,400 volunteers, all battling the out of control fires still burning. Guatemala and Honduras were threatened by similar situations. The San Puebla fire was considered insignificant in comparison.
No doubt, they desperately needed help. She had some of that help on its way. The man in her Cessna had been a firefighter in South Carolina, and had the skills necessary to organize a big crew.
And a big crew was needed. Just a few days ago the fire had been at twenty acres, but it’d escalated since, blooming over three hundred acres now, threatening the village.
“Kick ass,” she said to herself, with a grim smile for the man who was no longer around to see her do exactly that.
“We almost there?”
This from her passenger. Firefighter Griffin Moore had gotten on board casually enough, without a glance at her, though she’d glanced at him. She always glanced at a good-looking man; it was a sheer feminine reaction of healthy hormones.
But in the last few moments, since the change in altitude from San Diego as they climbed over the Barranca del Cobre, sailing through majestic peaks dangerous and remote enough to swallow them up if they wanted to, he’d begun to exhibit signs of nerves.
“We’re about sixty miles out,” she said of the just over five-hundred-mile flight.
“Bumpy ride.”
His voice was low, gravelly. As if he didn’t use it often. And since he spoke to the window, she wasn’t clear on whether he was making an idle observation or complaining.
At least he hadn’t hit on her. It happened, and every time it did, it both surprised and amused her. Most of the time she was so wrapped up in her work she actually forgot she was female. But then some guy, usually a gorgeous one—she’d never understood why the better-looking ones always turned out to be jerks—figured her for a captive audience. Not that she had anything against men in general. Actually, she enjoyed men very much, she just liked to do her own picking. And she was picky.
Bottom line, her life was flying. And unlike Sam, her boss at Hope International—a man who appreciated the finer, more delicate dance of getting women into his bed—she didn’t consider the experts she flew prospective lovers.
When a passenger wouldn’t take no for an answer, she had no problem explaining the basics. One, she was a black belt. And two, she wasn’t afraid to open the passenger door—in the middle of a flight—to assist an annoying passenger off the plane.
That threat alone usually warded off any further advances.
But this man hadn’t so much as spared her a glance. He hadn’t even spoken until now. “There’s always turbulence right here,” she explained, trying to be a good hostess. “And to tell you the truth, it’s going to get a little worse.”
He lost his tan.
“Need a bag?” Damn it, she’d just cleaned out the back yesterday. “Let me know.”
Oh, now he looked at her. Right at her with icy blue eyes and a voice turned hardened steel. Except for a sensual mouth, the rest of his face might have been carved from stone. “I’m not going to be sick in your plane.”
How many times had she heard that from some cocky expert, usually a know-it-all surgeon pressed into doing charity work by his hospital, only to spend the rest of the day cleaning up the back of her plane?
Once again, she eyeballed her forest firefighter, who was dressed in the dark green Nomex pants of his profession, with a darker green T-shirt tucked in. Broad shoulders and long legs, both of which made fitting into the compact seats a challenge. Light brown hair clipped short. His big hands gripped the armrests. Not good. Not good at all. “You sure you’re okay?”
He had a quietly sober face, expression unyielding, gaze unflinchingly direct. “Just get me there.”
A charmer. But since she never bothered to be charming either, that didn’t bother her. She looked away from him and glanced down at the alpine crests lined with a green ribbon of conifers and small, hidden rivers as far as the eyes could see. Glorious, and a small part of her heart—not usually tied to any land—squeezed.
It squeezed even more when she got over the next peak. Off in the distance, marring the stark blue sky, grew a cloud of smoke that was so much bigger and more threatening than she’d imagined, her throat closed up.
This guy better be good at his job, she thought, and looked him over once again, this time assessing for strength and character. She already knew he hated to fly, which seemed odd. “I’m taking it you’re not a smoke jumper.”
He had his face plastered to the window, clearly trying to get a better view of the fire, impossible to do with the smoke impeding their visibility. “I didn’t drop out of planes, no.”
Didn’t. Past tense. Odd…“A hotshot, then?”
“Yes.”
So he battled his fires from the ground, in fiery, unfathomable conditions requiring strength and stamina, facing mayhem and death at every turn. Still…“You knew you’d have to fly here, right? Maybe you should keep your volunteering closer to home if you don’t like to get on a plane.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” His knuckles were white on the armrests. He shifted in the seat and bumped his knees. He was a pretty big guy. Rather mouthwatering, too, if she was being honest, and she usually was. There was a suppleness to all that lean muscle—and a good bit of pure power. It was obvious that physical labor was a part of his lifestyle, weak stomach or not. Interesting.
Taking her eyes off him, she simultaneously turned the control wheel and applied rudder pressure for an eastward banking turn.
He let out a low oath.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I could fly this thing upside down and backward and still get us there.”
If possible, his grip on the armrest tightened.
“Really,” she said. “This is just a barely more challenging approach than most because of the quick change in altitude, but I’ve done it so many times I could—”
“Yeah. Fly it upside down and backward. Got it.”
A smart-ass, too. That bothered her even less than the lack of charm, but because he’d gone an interesting shade of green, she wanted to keep him talking instead of puking. “You do this often? Volunteer?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I hear a firefighter’s schedule can be pretty hectic. Twenty-four hour shifts, right?”
He lifted a shoulder.
“Well, I hope you’re braced for that because you’re going to hit the ground running down there. There are people in danger of losing everything. And believe me, they don’t have much to begin with.”
With another noncommittal grunt, Griffin pressed closer to the window so she could no longer see even his profile, but she had no problem getting the message.
Conversation over.
Fine. She’d only been trying to help him forget to lose his lunch in her clean plane. Instead, she’d concentrate now on getting them there. Time was of the essence this time around. Beneath them lay Copper Canyon, a breathtaking network of more than twenty canyons covering 20,000 square miles. Four times the size of the Grand Canyon, the place was a natural wonder. Lost in there, in the foothills of the Sie
rra Madre Occidental, lay San Puebla. The village had once been a miner’s jackpot but was now too remote and isolated for anything or anyone but the most rugged of ranchers. The thought of them losing what little they had frightened her. She could only hope this man had what it would take to direct the crew, who would likely be a bunch of ranchers and a few military laborers sent in by train, all with little to no fire training.
She dipped the plane into a low valley, her breath catching at the vast beauty of the forest, the undiscovered creeks and rivers. The deep gorges and canyons and high vistas were some of the most amazing in the world, unarguably among the most rugged and secluded.
Above her, the sky spread glorious blue for as far as the eye could see—except for the ominous cloud billowing up from the ground. A cloud that began to threaten her visibility as she came in close.
Nearly there now, she stole another peak at her stoic passenger, over six feet of pure heartache. “You okay?”
He took his gaze off the window to send a baleful stare her way.
Right. He still didn’t want to talk.
The smoke thickened even more. It’d been a while since her passenger had spoken. There was no sound in the cockpit except the drone of the engine. She squinted a little, as if that could help her see. No matter how many hours she had in the air, flying in conditions like this could mount tension faster than anything, and she mentally prepared for the inevitable difficult landing.
“Can you even see?” he grated out a moment later when visibility had gone down to next to nothing.
Not so much, no. But they were only a few miles out now. She could see the bright glow of the actual blaze. It was a horrifying sight, and she could hardly make out the land beneath, but she knew the layout extremely well. “Don’t worry.”
He let out a muttered response to that, but he didn’t understand. Flying was her life. Some women her age had husbands, or kids.
She had this.
Up here she controlled her destiny; up here she was free as a bird, and just as content in all this wide open space, no matter what the challenge. This would be a difficult and unwelcome challenge, but she wasn’t in over her head—yet. She made a sharp bank to the right to accommodate the stunning landscape beneath her—and for one quick moment, visibility deserted her entirely. Nothing but dark, thick, choking gray smoke in every direction. She blinked rapidly but didn’t see even a crack in the smoke. She let out a long breath and carefully checked her instruments, decreasing their altitude.
“We’re going down?”
One way or another, but, concentrating on her instruments—all she had at the moment—she didn’t answer. Still no visibility. She dropped them even lower in a last-minute attempt on her part to clear the smoke. “Damn.”
“What?”
“The wind’s picked up to thirty knots.”
“Too high?”
Well twenty would have been mildly challenging, forty would have been deadly. “Hopefully we’ll miss any crosswinds, so really, it could be worse.” Again she had to adjust their altitude, this time going higher to miss the craggy, sharp mountain she knew was there even if she couldn’t see it. The rocky turbulence threw them around for a moment but she fought for control and maintained it, barely. Even her stomach pitched.
Only a few more minutes.
Another rough drop but her hands and eyes remained steady, as did her heart, though her palms had grown damp.
Behind her she heard the slap of a sweaty hand on an armrest. Heard the low, muttered curse.
In her mirror, their eyes locked and held. “We’re okay,” she said.
“Don’t waste your breath coddling me, just get us there.”
She dropped altitude again.
At the abrupt shift, she heard another sharp intake of breath. She took one herself, then let it out slowly, using all her strength to guide them in.
Blind. “Hang on.” Thrusting the throttle forward, she executed a sharp climb to miss the crest that was leaping with flames, banking sharply to the right, swinging back around for another shot at the landing.
And again lost all visibility.
“Pull up again,” he said. “Take your time.”
She glanced down at her gauges. “No can do.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Not enough fuel.”
Their eyes locked. A trickle of sweat ran down his temple. Her own skin was damp. “Hang on,” she said again, and with another drastic maneuver brought them back around, slightly to the west this time, and over fire-free land. “Ready?”
“Shit.” He closed his eyes. Then opened them with a grim determination that took her by surprise. “Ready.”
Ready. And she took them directly into the remote, dizzying, dangerous, and definitely rough-around-the-edges Mexican mountains, flames and smoke and all.
2
The timbered peaks had vanished under the smoke, and Griffin felt his own heart rate accelerate to a pace it hadn’t reached in quite some time as they descended for their landing. Then suddenly they flew in beneath the smoke and could see again, and he took in the heavily grown hills, the bushy plain—and the flames in them.
They came down into a valley, over a low running river and a bridge that looked as if it’d been around for centuries, and then they hit with a hard bump that sent Griffin’s stomach plunging. They bounced up once, twice, then skidded unevenly over the rough dirt road that looked as if it was going to end before they could stop.
Leaving them to plunge down an embankment of which he couldn’t see the bottom.
Lyndie shoved the throttle forward and stomped on the foot pedals, and Griffin gritted his teeth, stomping his own feet into the floor as if he could help stop the plane.
When they finally stopped—mere feet from the end of the runway—he closed his eyes, trying to regain his equilibrium. For a long moment, he sat there after the engine powered down, concentrating on breathing. He’d been told, by just about everyone he knew, that post-traumatic syndrome could and would take place in many forms.
That had pissed him off then, and the thought of it pissed him off now. He wasn’t suffering from post-traumatic syndrome. He’d lived, damn it, and that had been good enough for him.
His pilot stared worriedly into his face. She’d managed to somehow do the impossible, flying on pure skill and talent, keeping them alive, and instead of taking a moment to breathe herself, she was staring at him with concern. “Okay?” she asked, and put a hand on his knee.
“Yeah.”
She didn’t take her hand off his knee. “Take a moment.”
“I don’t need one.” He took off his seat belt with unsteady hands out in the middle of an on-fire nowhere, and he had to shake his head. Just flying had nearly undone him along with the butt-squeaker of a small craft that had shimmied and shuddered like a toy.
How the hell was he supposed to fight that fire out there waiting for him? “That was some flying.”
“Thanks.”
Easy confidence. Something he’d lost. God, this had really been a stupid move. His palms were damp, his heart still threatening to burst right out of his chest. He’d been in some tough spots before, the toughest, but after months of doing nothing more than watching time pass on the beach, clearly he’d lost his edge.
No, scratch that. He’d lost his edge on a mountain in Idaho nearly a year ago.…
Her fingers, still on his knee, squeezed gently. He put his hand over hers and looked into her eyes. She wasn’t beautiful by any means, and yet her eyes could devastate a man at close range. “I’m okay.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then nodded and backed up.
Standing, he came face-to-face with her for the first time. Lyndie Anderson had fiery auburn hair sticking straight up from the aviator sunglasses she’d shoved to the top of her head. The rest of her hair was hacked to her chin as if she’d taken the scissors to it herself. With her temperament, she probably had. Her eyes were sharp green, void of makeup, and
narrowed on him as if he were a bug on her windshield. She wore dark blue trousers and a white blouse that could have used an iron, on a tough, lean body he had no doubt could kick some serious butt. And she hardly came to his shoulder.
Had he thought she wasn’t beautiful? At the moment, with her hero-worthy flight still fresh in his mind, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
She thrust her chin in the air. “What are you looking at?”
“You.” For some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was interesting—arresting—he had to admit. “You’re tiny.”
“I’m stronger than I look.”
Together they moved toward the door, but she pushed ahead of him, throwing a shoulder against it, muscling it open before he could lean in and help her.
It creaked open as if the movement was painful.
“At least the thing got us here,” he muttered.
“Thing?”
“Nicer word than a trap.”
“Trap?” With a lithe easiness, she jumped to the ground and patted the plane. “Don’t listen to him, baby,” she crooned. “You’re a beauty, and solid to boot.”
“You…talk to your plane.”
“Yep.”
Shaking his head, he grabbed his two duffels; the firefighter’s red bag, which held all his personal stuff, and his backpack with the IA gear. Inside the initial attack pack was everything a wildland or forest firefighter might need out in the field, and everything he’d hoped he wouldn’t ever need again.
He eyed the sharp, jagged mountain peaks to the north—what he could see of them, anyway, through the smoke—noting all the heavy vegetation with dread. It was late August now. He knew they’d experienced an incredibly wet winter, followed by no precipitation since. With all the new, thick, heavy growth, things were as bad as they could get.
“Let’s go.” She nodded toward the two metal buildings a few hundred yards away that looked more like an old movie set than a real airport. “It’s an abandoned silver mine,” she said to his unspoken question. “But it’s got the only good solid road around that’s both the right length and straight. Perfect makeshift airstrip. Add in a couple of hangars, and one lone gasoline tanker that comes with a guy named Julio who’ll only fill ’er up if you tip him in booze, and you’ve got yourself an airport.”
