Wildfire at Larch Creek

by M. L. Buchman

  No. They’d find that as soon as they beat this fire.

  It was after that, solving what they were going to do about “dear.” That would be the true miracle.

  Akbar and Laura worked only a few dozen miles apart. They were still trying to solve what to do this winter when MHA took the next Australian contract, but somehow Tim knew they’d work it out.

  They’d had time to work it out…he had a week. Actually, he now had only a few days.

  And a faceful of smoke reminded him of what he was supposed to be working on.

  Macy was back, then gone, then back.

  The fire fought, spit, jumped the line, and was beaten back.

  Usually night ended drop operations for most pilots. But this close to the Arctic Circle, the hours were long and…

  He checked his watch. It was past midnight.

  The helicopter and SEAT both soared by close overhead. As the fire had progressed, Macy and Anne Marie had needed less and less instruction. Finally, he’d been able to provide only vague directions and then forget about them. They coordinated between themselves very effectively.

  “Air attack, you need to get out of the sky. Don’t want to see your faces a minute before eight hours from now.”

  Anne Marie bitched and groused, but Macy didn’t say a word. She simply turned for home without so much as a waggle of her rotors.

  It was okay to push yourself on the ground. If he fell down, he could stand back up. If Macy had a moment of inattention and snagged a tree with her bucket, she would be out of the air in a handful of seconds.

  He turned back to the fire.

  # # #

  Eight hours later, Macy returned to an entirely different scene than the one she’d left. The fire had burned all of the fuel behind it, leaving a scorched swath across the Alaskan wilderness. It was as if a bucket of black had been dumped from where she’d dropped off the hunters yesterday morning to the ridge guarding the valley where she’d gone down.

  But the smokejumpers’ firebreak had held.

  There were two new gashes through the trees where they had cut fresh breaks while she’d slept in the back of her chopper at the hangar. They had done their jobs and the fire hadn’t broken free.

  Instead of yesterday’s mind-numbing battle against towering flames, she and Anne Marie wandered about the sky for an hour dousing hotspots and flareups.

  Smokejumpers wandered through the Black looking like lost souls, as they too hunted and killed hotspots.

  By ten o’clock, she began ferrying them out in batches of five with a sling of equipment dangling on a longline below. She delivered them, each and every one, out to the road in front of the Aéroport d’Orly where a truck waited to ferry them off.

  The last load had only four to carry out.

  Tim wasn’t there.

  “Hank?” she asked carefully, doing her best to not feel afraid. Hank was in the last load.

  “He said you’d know where to find him. Something about washing up in a stream.” The relief was a cold splash of refreshing water.

  When Macy delivered the last of the firefighters to the hangars at Larch Creek, she fetched a half dozen blankets and checked to make sure that Tim’s civilian clothes were still in the rear baggage compartment.

  She wasn’t filthy, but she felt that way; she added soap and a couple towels to her load and headed back to the little valley just past where they had stopped the fire.

  Chapter 17

  Tim watched Macy circle down into the valley. The LongRanger floated down into the valley as if it was as light as dandelion fluff despite the close canyon walls. Having done it the first time without power, this must have felt easy no matter how unnerving it was to watch.

  She didn’t look at him as she powered down the helo.

  He lay on the bank, still in his full gear, watching her neat, precise movements as the rotor blade wound down from pound, through beat, down to a soft whoop-whoop, then stilled into silence.

  His ears rang.

  Slowly the sounds reemerged, the splashing of the rocky creek, the rustle of the trees in the warm wind that was taking a midday stroll along the valley floor.

  Macy stepped down and took his breath away. He’d figured out some things, but he had to see what she was thinking before he dumped them on her.

  “You’re filthy,” she tossed a bar of soap on his chest and a towel beside him.

  “You look something of a mess yourself.”

  “A mess, huh?” she fisted hands on those nice sleek hips of hers.

  “Complete and total, Tyler.”

  She huffed out an angry breath apparently expecting a different conversation. Well, he’d give her that as well.

  “How did you get so beautiful and I never noticed?”

  “Aw, shucks, Harada. You sure know how to sweet talk a girl.”

  “Maybe it’s that I love you.”

  At that she dropped down to sit on his nice clean towel.

  “What?” he reached out and rested a hand on her knee.

  “How am I supposed to work up a good mad when you say something like that?” The tears came so quickly, they caught him struggling upright. She leaned against his shoulder, then pushed him away.

  “Faugh! You stink, Tim.” She now had a black smear on her forehead. It made him want to wet his forefinger and doodle there.

  Instead, he peeled off the smokejumper gear. Layer after layer into a pile.

  “I brought you fresh clothes.”

  That was good because while the air was warm, the valley walls would be blocking the sun soon and he already knew that the stream was icy cold.

  He peeled down past the long johns.

  “Leave those on,” she waved a finger at his underwear and t-shirt. “I won’t be able to think if you take those off. Maybe later.”

  He held out his hands to her, “I only stink of me now, not fire.”

  She leaned in and sniffed his shoulder, “Not much better.”

  Then she folded up against him and he pulled her into his lap.

  “One day, Tim. All we get is one more day?” it was practically a wail.

  “I’ve been thinking about that, sitting here by this stream waiting for you.”

  She quieted a bit. He could feel her listening.

  “You’re a damn good pilot, Mace. MHA likes exceptional pilots; they’d hire you in a heartbeat.”

  He ignored the way she stiffened and tried to push away, but it wasn’t hard to hold her.

  “But,” he stopped her. “You’d die away from this place. Interior Alaska is a part of your blood.”

  She held still for a moment, and then gave a resigned nod against his shoulder.

  “You heard about, Tony.”

  She cringed.

  “Yeah, I know. But they want to offer me his job, lead jumper.”

  That bolted her upright. He’d been nuzzling her hair and she cracked her head against his nose hard enough that he saw nothing but stars and shooting lights of pain for a moment.

  “God dabbit, Bace,” he sounded like a clown as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “I warned you,” she managed in a gasp. She started to giggle, fought it, failed, fought it again and then totally collapsed into the grass beside him. Tears of laughter were streaming down her face. Tears that started shifting toward hysteria.

  At a total loss of what to do with the shockwaves of Macy’s emotions, Tim finally leaned down and kissed her. In an instant she calmed and lay there looking up at him with those wide brown eyes.

  “What did you say to them? Are you going to take the job?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “No. No. No!” She sat back up and waved both her hands at him palm out in a stopping motion.

  He raised a hand to protect his nose just in c
ase.

  “You are not putting this one on me. You have to do what’s right for you and not—”

  “Shut up, Tyler.”

  Much to his surprise, she did.

  “The job doesn’t depend on you.”

  “Okay then.”

  “Whether or not I take it depends on if we’re getting married and I’m moving back to Larch Creek.”

  # # #

  Macy knew there were times when stunned amazement or panic weren’t called for. Like when she’d been trying to land her LongRanger right here with a dead stick.

  And those were the moments where hesitation didn’t work, only immediate action sufficed.

  She dove on Tim, driving him back to prone, and kissed him. Hard. Rubbed her nose against his.

  He winced and twitched and swore—no doubt that’s what he was doing despite the kiss. He finally managed to mumble, “Carbul of by dose.”

  She kissed the tip of it for good measure.

  “I take it that’s a yes.”

  Macy sat on his chest and looked down at him. She wasn’t going to let him go anywhere. It was a HUGE yes. But…

  “What about Akbar and MHA? You’ve talked about him so much I feel as if I know him better than you.”

  “No one knows me better than you, Mace.”

  “Maybe once but—”

  “No. Still. Akbar changed when he met Laura. His outsides still think he’s all bravado and ever so cool, but inside he’s so sweet on her. It confused the hell out of me, but now I understand. I know that feeling Mace. It’s this.” He reached up one of those big hands of his and cupped the side of her face. That it smelled of smoke and woods and hot leather gloves didn’t matter. It was Tim.

  “So, you’d trade that in to be lead smokejumper here?”

  “I liked it. I liked discovering that I knew fire just as well as Akbar the Great. We beat that thing, Mace. You, me, Hank, the others. We did that and I wouldn’t take credit away from any of them. But I can tell you: it was a fantastic high to take the lead. I know that I’m the one who really beat that sucker; both of them actually, here and Arctic Village.”

  His smile was the twelve-year-old boy, the moment before she’d chased him around the yard with a two-by-four. It was the fourteen-year old who had dragged her into his mother’s Kung Fu classes. And the eighteen-year old as she’d stood between him and Stephen on the senior prom night.

  “But it’s a short fire season up here, isn’t it?” She knew full well it was. She didn’t know why she was arguing. Macy wanted Tim to be here so badly, but she didn’t want him waking up a year or two from now and cursing the trap she’d placed him in either.

  “That’s the part I’m not so sure about,” Tim’s eyes drifted skyward, then down the valley toward Denali. “I’m sure I could stay on with MHA for the off-season work, Australia or wherever, but then I’d be gone for six months a year.”

  “We could do that…” though she didn’t know how. But if she had to live through the dark winters alone in order to have Tim half the year, she’d do it.

  “I know. It’s not the right answer, but it’s the best I found so far. Heck, Mace. Macy. My lovely Macy Tyler. I don’t want to be away from you a single night, never mind six months every year. It’s not that you’re dragging me back to Alaska. I feel like I’m home here. That’s something I lost in the Lower Forty-eight. I want to be here, with you.”

  No longer using her childhood nickname for distance, now it was as if he was sweeping her in. If he hadn’t already made a marriage proposal, that would have been a good one.

  “I was hoping you had a better idea.”

  “Me?” her voice squeaked.

  “Yeah, you, pretty lady.” Then he reached up and began unbuttoning her shirt.

  She looked at him askance. Slapping at his hands had no effect.

  “It doesn’t seem right that I’m the only person in this valley wearing nothing but their underwear.”

  “Me.” Like that made even the least bit of sense. She did her best to ignore him as he continued undressing her.

  There was an idea.

  An idea tickling away in the back of her head.

  He released her bra and then traced her breast with that rough, powerful, gentle hand of his.

  As she leaned into it, she pictured a pile of manuscripts stacked in his mother’s office.

  Real potential, Eva had said. Loved writing but didn’t have enough time.

  Tim had forgotten about that dream.

  He leaned down and kissed her breast and she wrapped her arms around his smoky hair and held onto him.

  It was easy to picture Tim fighting fires in the summer…

  He lay her onto her back and now she was the one looking up at the blue sky.

  …writing in the winter…

  Then he finished undressing them both and lay down upon her.

  …and coming home to her every night.

  She wrapped her arms around the dream come to life that even holding Tim sent washing over her.

  Her solution could wait for later. Because she finally knew that they were going to have a whole lot of laters.

  About the Author

  M. L. Buchman has over 30 novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been nominated for the RT Reviewer’s Choice of the Year award, and been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year” and Booklist “Top 10 of the Year.” In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.

  In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world. He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com.

  Wildfire on the Skagit (excerpt)

  book 3 of the Firehawks Smokejumper trilogy

  “Guard your reserves!” The spotter shouted after he’d clambered from the cockpit, over all of the smokejumpers, and finally reached the back door of the roaring DC-3 jump plane.

  Krista Thorson slapped her hand over her reserve parachute to make sure it didn’t accidentally deploy when he popped open the door. A glance down the line assured her that all twelve smokejumpers in the flight were awake and doing the same.

  A DC-3’s cabin wasn’t that cramped, until you piled wildland firefighting gear secure behind heavy cargo nets down one side, and a dozen fully geared up smokejumpers prone like beached whales down the other. They’d been trying to finish their night’s sleep after the dawn call-to-fire, but the wildfire was so close to base that a catnap was all any of them had gotten.

  Krista and Akbar “the Great” Jepps, the lead smokie, were always first stick. It had taken Krista a decade to work up to the Number Two slot. When Tim and before him TJ had still been on the crew, she was rarely out of the plane in the first pass—two jumpers was a typical stick for each passage of the plane over a jump spot.

  It was a good, comfortable slot. Despite her constant threats to drop a tree on him and take over, she really wasn’t interested in Lead; Akbar was just too damned good and she couldn’t imagine jumping with anyone else.

  Being Number Two in the first stick also meant that she got to test the air first, find a way down through the roaring winds so chaotic near a fire. She loved the challenge.

  Fifteen minutes out from the fire they’d safety-checked each others’ gear, from heavy jumpsuit pants secured at the boots so no tree branch could slip by, to parachute harness, to helmet with wire-mesh face mask. They were as ready as they could be.

  Terry, Mount Hood Aviation’s spotter for Jump M1, popped the rear door and pulled it inward. There was a slap of
wind, especially where she and Akbar sat crammed at the rear of the plane—just the sort of slap that could snag a reserve parachute, then suck it and the attached smokie out the door after straining her through the metal hull.

  Through the open door the smell of high mountain air and hot engine exhaust swirled about the cabin. The DC-3’s big radial engines were no longer buffered by the airplane’s thin hull, but now delivered their full-throated roar right into the open jump door—sweet music of the first jump of the fire season.

  “Did you remember to call her this time?” Krista leaned down and shouted at Akbar. He was powerfully muscled, and over half a foot shorter than Krista’s six feet plus. He was India’s answer to Tom Cruise, except he was younger, fitter, and from Seattle. But just as short, which she’d usually remind him about now, but he was looking all freaked out.

  “Crap!” He yanked out his cell phone as Krista laughed. He never remembered to warn his wife he was about to jump a fire and might not be able to call for days.

  “You’d be lost without me, dude!”

  “I’d be more lost without her,” he shouted back.

  Amazing, but true.

  Akbar the Great had always been a rocking firefighter—there was a reason he was the lead smokie with such an elite outfit. He’d also been the crassest of womanizers. Right until the moment he met Laura Jenson. She’d done something to him, and not just stopping his ever-growing circle of post-fire flings.

  He wasn’t any less aggressive against a burn, but he was—

  Krista searched for the right word.

  —steadier?

  Whatever it was, Laura had definitely been a good influence on Akbar. And on top of making Akbar behave, she was also a wilderness guide and expert horsewoman which made her real easy to respect. The fact that she was a totally likeable person just meant Akbar was way luckier than he deserved.

  If he was a little less freaking happy all the time, he might be more tolerable. Of course, he was getting it regular from a wonderful woman, so maybe he had reason to be so goofy happy that Krista wanted to smack him sometimes.