A long, extremely loud rumble of thunder shook the house, making his bed vibrate. He heard dishes and glasses rattling in a cabinet somewhere in the house.
By the sound of it, a big storm was brewing outside.
The tread of booted feet thumped hollowly against porch boards outside, and a door slammed.
Whoever lived here had just come home, Carl guessed. Maybe I'll get some answers now.
There was a long pause, then lighter footsteps. He peered through the half-open bedroom door and saw a female silhouette approaching from a hallway.
Carl struggled to push himself to a sitting position. His head and leg still hurt, but his thoughts were clearer.
A glance at a bedside digital alarm clock showed him that a good four hours had passed since he'd jumped from the plane.
Shit. I've been here for half the afternoon? Dismay pervaded him. The rest of his team was out there somewhere, fighting the fire, while he had been taking a nice long nap in a real bed.
Dammit. That's what I was supposed to do earlier. I need to radio in. They must be wondering where the hell I am.
But when he looked around the bedroom, he didn't see his PG bag anywhere.
He swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and tried to climb to his feet. His leg promptly jabbed him with a nasty spear of pain to inform him that it was still on strike and would not be supporting his weight any time soon.
Carl sat back down faster than planned. He panted through clenched teeth as he waited for the pain radiating from his left leg to subside.
The bedroom door swung all the way open, and a tall, lovely woman with dark, shoulder-length hair strode in. He recognized her scent from the bedclothes and inhaled deeply and appreciatively.
The sight of her made his wolf stir happily inside him.
She smells like home. Good. Right, it said silently, surprising him.
The woman caught sight of him halfway out of the bed and halted with a surprised expression. "You're not seriously trying to walk, are you?"
Her voice was low, and it caressed his ears. She had high cheekbones and a wide, generous mouth, with beautiful dark brown eyes that currently looked worried. She added, sounding serious, "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise."
With appreciation, he noticed the generous curves under her faded jeans and the tight t-shirt. She also wore an unbuttoned flannel shirt with bits of dry grass and pine needles stuck to it. More odds and ends of vegetation were tangled in her glossy, shoulder-length black hair.
His mouth went dry with a sudden, vivid image of that dark mane spread over the pillows behind him as he draped himself over her soft, generous curves…
"Uh…" Carl swallowed hard. His cock pulsed, and he was suddenly glad for the corner of the quilt draped loosely over his lap. "Thank you?"
She smiled, momentarily dissipating her worried expression. "De nada. How are you feeling?"
"Grateful that you saved my sorry ass," he began.
His next words choked in his throat as he caught the distinctive whiff of a recently fired gun mingled with fresh goat and llama over her appealing scent.
He was very familiar with the smell of guns. He'd grown up hunting on two legs as well as four on his family's ranch in Palmer.
The sharp chemical smell of gunpowder triggered a fresh rush of memories. And the pieces fell into place.
She shot me!
Suddenly, his head wound made more sense.
If she was the one who had shot him while he was in wolf shape, then she had also likely witnessed him shifting back to human shape while he was out cold.
And she was 100% Ordinary. Shit. This is bad.
Worse yet, despite her outwardly calm demeanor, her scent was sharp with stress, and he didn't miss the wary distance she maintained from the bed. Yeah, she saw me shift all right.
But she still brought me home and bandaged me up. That's got to be a good sign, right?
Interestingly, despite her obvious suspicion and wariness, he could smell that she was also attracted to him. It was subtle, but definitely there.
Good, said his wolf. We want this one as our mate. She smells right.
What the hell, wolf? Carl thought with silent incredulity.
In all the years of Carl's dating life and the occasional girlfriend, his wolf had never reacted this way to any of Carl's partners.
She's an Ordinary. Who shot us! Do you have a thing for homicidal maniacs?
His wolf replied with calm certainty, This one belongs to us.
Chapter 5
Uninvited Guest
"I was looking for some livestock that had wandered off my property, and, uh, my dogs found you," the woman said, her body language radiating deep discomfort. "You're Carl Jensen, and you're a smokejumper, right?"
Surprised that she knew who he was, Carl nodded. He instantly regretted it as a fresh crowbar of pain threatened to split his head from his eye sockets to his neck.
"Yeah, I'm Carl." He hated lying, even by omission, but he decided the safest thing was to play dumb until he had a chance to scope out the situation and find out whether she'd seen him shift. "I was jumping to the Baldy Peak fire and encountered some unexpected crosswinds. I remember hitting a tree on the way down, but everything else is kind of a blur."
She nodded, her serious brown gaze never leaving him. "Looks like a branch speared you in the leg. I cleaned it out and disinfected it, but you're probably going to need some stitches."
Carl saw her hesitate and eye him warily, then her mouth thinned in a determined expression. She stepped closer and extended her hand. "I'm Michelle Hernandez. I own this ranch."
A jolt ran up his arm to his chest as took her hand, like accidentally touching an electrified fence.
Yes! His wolf sounded triumphant. She's the one!
"Pleased to meet you, Ms. Hernandez." Carl was glad to hear that he sounded normal. He added, "Thanks for the first aid."
"Please call me Michelle." Her fingers twitched against the back of his hand, as if she felt the same jolt.
He didn't want to let go of her. And she didn't try to pull away.
Michelle licked her lips, and Carl couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight of her pink tongue or the moist shine it left behind on her soft-looking lips.
Down, boy! But he wasn't sure if it was the wolf or the man who wanted to pull her onto his lap and find out what her mouth tasted like.
"Is there anything I can get you?" she asked.
Then she seemed to notice that Carl was still holding her hand. A cute pink blush stained her tanned cheeks.
To his disappointment, she pulled away. He reluctantly released her, and instantly missed the contact.
It doesn't mean anything, he thought, trying to convince himself as much as his wolf. Other than she's totally hot and I wouldn't mind dating her.
"Did you happen to find my PG bag?" he asked.
"Is that the blue day pack that you had with you when I, um, found you?" she asked.
Her dark gaze slid away from his, and her body language returned to indicating wariness.
He nodded. "That's the one, my personal gear bag. It's got my radio and…" he ventured a smile up at her "…my pants."
As a rule, shifters didn't have a nudity taboo, but among Ordinaries, he usually tried to avoid casual nakedness, since many of them had weird hang-ups about exposing the bare skin they'd been born with.
"Oh. Right. Of course. You probably want to get dressed." Her gaze dropped to the corner of the quilt still covering his lap. Her blush deepened, and appealing musk spiked in her scent. "I'll bring that right now."
Then she all but fled the room. Despite the fact that he still didn't know if he had inadvertently outed himself, Carl couldn't help smirking at her reaction.
See, she wants to have sex with us, observed his wolf. It sounded smug.
Thank you, Captain Obvious, Carl retorted. But this woman can't possibly be our mate. I mean, sure, she's attractive, but she shot you. Also, s
he's an Ordinary, and I have no idea whether she saw me shift. Or what she's planning to do about it, if she did.
Court her, the wolf ordered, annoyingly single-minded as usual.
Carl rolled his eyes. Can you imagine my parents' reaction if I torpedo their matchmaking plans?
Our pack already picked a mate for us, he reminded his wolf.
Never mind that he hadn't yet met his bride-to-be. In fact, he didn't even know her name. But that didn't make a difference. He wasn't excited about the prospect of an arranged mating, but these types of matches were a long-established tradition in his pack.
And if he intended to try to convince his pack to let him continue smokejumping for another season, he couldn't afford to defy them on the mating front.
Life was full of compromises. No matter what his wolf was urging him to do, it wouldn’t be smart to pursue Michelle Hernandez, however curvaceously attractive she was or how appealing she smelled.
When I get my radio, I'll let Steve know that I'm injured and unable to make it to the jump point. Then he or Pete can dispatch a helitack crew or a truck to evac me, I'll let them know where the rest of gear is cached, and that'll be the end of this clusterfuck.
His wolf howled a protest at the idea of leaving this place. You have to stay! We have to court our mate!
His temples began to throb with another headache. The wolf spirit who shared his body had never before been this insistent or agitated.
Michelle returned shortly, hauling his PG bag by the straps with visible effort. "Jeez, what have you got in this thing?"
This morning, it had weighed in at 22 pounds, which was about average for even an Ordinary smokejumper. The weight was negligible to his shifter strength.
"Rocks," he said, trying to keep a straight face. "For ballast when I'm skydiving. It helps me fall faster and straighter."
She dumped his PG bag next to the bed. Her delicious mouth pursed and her dark brows drew together as she gazed down at him. "You're kidding…right?"
He noticed that she'd stepped inside his personal space without hesitating. Good. That means she either didn't see me shift or she's not going to freak out about it.
"Yeah, it's a joke. The veteran smokejumpers on my team tried to fool me with that one back when I was a rookie." He grinned up at her and leaned down to unbuckle his PG bag. His clothes were still on top and still rolled up. Everything looked untouched.
But when he unrolled his t-shirt, her scent wafted out of the fabric.
She already went through my stuff. His wallet tumbled out of the fabric bundle, and he caught it before it fell to the floor. So that's how she knew who I was. But why pretend that she didn't know what was in my bag?
He pulled the t-shirt over his head, but not before he became aware of her appreciative glance at his bare chest. Her reaction made his wolf happy.
Then he reached for his briefs and shook them out.
Michelle hastily turned her back. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"I'm okay, all things considered," he said, beginning the laborious process of pulling on his underwear while seated and moving his left leg as little as possible.
It wasn't exactly a lie. After having been impaled by a tree and shot, he was damned lucky that he'd gotten away with nothing more than a sore leg and a headache. It could have been worse. A lot worse.
He finished pulling up his briefs and reached for his pants, which were made from sturdy, fire-resistant material. "Where am I?"
Without turning around, Michelle said, "My place. Woolly Mountain Ranch. It's, uh, a little off the beaten path. If you need a lift to town or to wherever the rest of your firefighting team is, I'll be happy to do that for you." She paused. "Thinking about it, I really should take you to a hospital. Durango isn't too far away, and there are two hospitals to choose from."
His wolf bristled at that suggestion. She sounded a little too eager to get rid of him.
"No hospitals," Carl said emphatically.
Visiting a hospital emergency room staffed by Ordinaries always posed a big risk for a shifter. There were too many tests nowadays that could betray a shapeshifter's nonhuman qualities.
There were shifter doctors, of course, including the on-call physician for the Rocky Mountain Smokejumpers.
But most shifters had to be half-dead before they'd risk going to a hospital. And Carl was pretty sure that he'd heal up just fine with a few days' rest.
"But what about your leg?" Michelle protested. "That was a really deep wound.”
"You did a great job doctoring me up," Carl assured her. "And I'm going to report in now and let my team know I'm not lying dead in a ditch somewhere. We have a doctor on staff—I promise I'll let her look at it. In fact, I don't think I'll be able to stop her."
He wasn't lying. Dr. Betty Chang, a snow leopard shifter, was practically a force of nature, and her bullshit meter was pegged really, really low.
Carl figured that she'd stitch him up, give him a shot, and then order him to stay off his feet for a few days. Shifters healed fast.
You can't leave yet, his wolf insisted.
Carl tried to ignore his beast as he finished getting dressed, though it was doing the equivalent of anxious pacing inside his aching head.
"Okay, I'm decent," he told Michelle. "You can turn around now."
She did so.
As he reached down to extract his VHF two-way radio from his PG bag, she was watching him closely. And she looked nervous again
He pushed the radio's Transmit button. "Hey, Lopez, this is Jensen. Come in. Over."
Steve Lopez replied almost immediately.
"Howler!" he exclaimed. He sounded relieved. "Are you okay? I was wondering why you hadn't shown up yet."
"Sorry about not checking in sooner," Carl said, conscious that this was an open channel, and that meant anyone could be listening in. "There've been, um, some complications."
"Did you take a wrong turn? Over." Lopez's tone hinted at a generous helping of good-natured teasing to come, if that was the case.
Operating as they did in rugged wilderness area with few trails and fewer roads, all smokejumpers got lost occasionally.
That didn't mean they didn't catch shit from their teammates if they missed a pickup after a mission.
After working long shifts in close company to dig fire lines and cut brush, once the fire had been contained or extinguished, most jumpers hiked out to the pickup rendezvous point in ones and twos. Along the way, they often took time to go swimming in a lake, if there was a nice one on the way, or to pick berries, which seemed to be a particular bear shifter weakness.
Sometimes, even with all of their training and equipment, they ended up heading in the wrong direction.
Over the years, Carl had learned the hard way that a "shortcut" usually wasn't.
"Nope. I'm at a ranch. I know I said I wasn't hurt, but I landed in a tree and clipped my leg. Over."
Smokejumpers prided themselves on their toughness, but now that the initial shock of his accident had worn off, he knew that even if he did shift back to wolf shape and finish his hike to the jump point, he couldn't do his part in fighting the fire.
That realization filled him with frustration, especially since it meant that the rest of his team would have to pick up the slack on this fire call.
A sudden loud burst of static from the radio pierced his eardrums like a shower of needles. He winced. There were times when his enhanced senses were a disadvantage.
The static was immediately followed by another rumble of thunder. It sounded like a cannon going off nearby, and quaked the house.
"Damn," Lopez said. "I don't know what it's like on your end, but rain's been coming down in buckets over here for a while now. Looks like Mother Nature is going to put out that fire for us."
Carl relaxed a bit. At least he didn't have to worry about leaving his team short-handed. "Any chance you can ask Pete to send a truck or something for me? I hate to rub it in, but I'm sitting warm and dr
y at the Woolly Mountain Ranch." He shot Michelle a glance. She still looked tense. He continued, "Hold on a sec, let me get you the directions."
No! Carl's wolf shouted.
Carl winced at the renewed throb of pain that shot through his skull. With an effort, he ignored his beast and offered his radio to Michelle with some quick instructions for how to transmit and receive.
"Ah, hi?" she said hesitantly. "This is Michelle Hernandez. I'm the one who, uh, found Mr. Jensen." She shot Carl a guilty look. "His leg is pretty messed up."
Hard Landing Page 5
