Flash of Fire Read online

  They were ready.

  As she climbed aloft and turned north, she rocked the controls side to side to wave good-bye to Emily. It was the best comfort she could offer.

  Robin climbed up out of MHA’s base on the side of Mount Hood in Oregon, turned north, and tipped the nose down. The Firehawk leaped for the horizon like an unleashed thoroughbred—or at least what they always looked like in the firefighting videos; she’d watched hundreds to prepare for the interview.

  A quick glance back showed the others forming up around her. Diamond formation, Vern and Jeannie slightly to the rear and off to either side.

  She couldn’t see Mickey. After a moment’s panic that something might have happened to him, she spotted him on the radar, flying just a little higher than she was and dead astern.

  That moment of panic wasn’t like her. Since when did she worry about a man that way? She hadn’t thought of the helicopter or the pilot, she’d been thinking of the man.

  As Mount St. Helens reared her pretty, glacier-capped head, Robin vectored the flight west to avoid the cluttered airspace around Joint Base Lewis–McChord and the Seattle–Tacoma mayhem. She’d give this part of the country credit for having some character. Thick with green everywhere she looked, towering volcanoes, island-dotted Puget Sound—the Pacific Northwest was living up to its reputation for amazing geography. Maybe she’d take some time to explore it after the fire season, before she returned to the Arizona desert.

  Robin’s reputation was for being a ball buster, not someone who thought about a man’s feeling. It wasn’t by choice—not really. In the AANG and even more at the family truck stop, it had been a survival trait.

  More than a few overly macho National Guarders had found out just how fast her counterstrikes were. Another gift of her grandmother’s insistence on a dozen years of kung fu lessons. Robin and Mom had earned their black belts together, which had totally rocked. It had also provided a great deal of help during Robin’s angry-teenager years. They’d worked out a lot of their problems on the sparring mat. Better than therapy.

  In exchange, for her mom’s sake, Robin managed not to threaten to rip the nuts off the truckers who palmed her ass. At least, not too often. Somehow, her section never drew the decent guys trying to make a living driving the long road. Her tables either drew the saccharinely happy married couples—which was never going to happen to this Harrow girl as long as she had any say about it—and the shits who did deserve a slow and painful castration.

  Problem was, after one time having come pretty close to doing precisely that, she got a reputation down the line. Now, the worst of the truckers would come in to see just how tough she really was. A long line of bloody noses and broken fingers oddly hadn’t hurt business or discouraged those trying to breach the femizon Iron Maiden’s bastions.

  Maybe she’d have been better off if she hadn’t chosen to worship the bad girl who only survived for sixteen comic books, but what was a preteen girl seeking a role model supposed to do?

  Sue Storm the Invisible Woman?

  “Hi, I’m all-American and sweet at heart!”

  Shit, woman. No way!

  Wonder Woman?

  Chick in a too-tight one-piece. That’s supposed to be a girl’s role model?

  Iron Maiden, cloak of shadowy chain mail that clung to every sexy curve, deadly assassin of Earth-616 series.

  She at least had some moxie.

  If she was Iron Maiden, what did that make Mickey? Iron Man?

  Chapter 2

  “Not there,” Mickey called over the radio and watched as Robin pulled to a hover a hundred feet above the airport.

  The Dawson City Airport in the heart of the Yukon Territory was a mile-long strip of gravel beside the Klondike Highway, which was itself alongside the Klondike River. The airport was the one flat stretch in a bowl of rounded, pine-covered hills. The field had two white soft-sided, half-cylinder hangars, a Dumpster, and an airport terminal that couldn’t hold more than a dozen seats. At the far corner of the field was a fueling station.

  The Sherpa C-23 and the DC-3 smokejumper planes had already delivered their cargo to the fire and were parked along the side of the airstrip between the terminal and pop-up hangars.

  “Why not?” Robin was in the lead as they arrived and had started to settle next to the jump planes.

  “Look at them. What do you see around them?” If it was anyone else, Mickey would just explain, but Robin had preoccupied enough of his thoughts on the flight that he felt the need to get back at her somehow. He’d been in straight-and-level flight close behind her for the last twelve hours, with only two half-hour breaks for fuel and food. The only one of the team flying solo, that had left entirely too much time for his imagination.

  “A bunch of nice, open, paved parking area,” she snapped back at him, the irritation clear over the radio.

  “Paved is the issue. We want to be on the other side of the strip by the fuel depot. Trust me.”

  You met her for only about eighteen seconds. She really shouldn’t make you feel angry.

  But Robin did, even if he couldn’t pin down why. And each stop had only made it worse.

  On a long haul, most pilots climbed out of their aircraft and moved around like they were in their dotage, doing twists and turns to try and shake out the kinks.

  Robin climbed down in the fluid, dancer-like way of hers, and then began a series of stretches that reminded Mickey of his martial arts training. At Vancouver, he’d been too mesmerized and merely watched from a distance as she bent and twisted, completely forgetting to flex his own body.

  At Juneau, he came up beside her and they silently went through the stretching routine together. She was right, of course, he felt better on the final leg of the journey than he had on the second. She’d also completely fired his body’s imagination, and his body had a good one. Limber, powerful, and probably plenty dangerous.

  He didn’t even know her last name. Hood, she’d said. Robin Hood. No, that had been a joke. Hadn’t it? And maybe he should have just explained rather than teasing her.

  He tried to clear his mind, but it was all blurred after the long flight.

  Dawson City Airport was blurred as well, and the sting of smoke on the air told him it wasn’t only the long flight that was affecting him. It was wood smoke. Enough to haze the sun.

  Wildfire was coming and Dawson City was still directly downwind from wherever the burn was happening. After eight years flying to fire, the smell always edged up his nerves until he could attack the flames. So instead, he was attacking the newbie.

  Robin hovered there, a hundred feet from putting them in the wrong place. He was about to explain, when, without any further question, she slammed her Firehawk across the field and landed on the grassy strip on the far side of the empty gravel strip.

  The others lined up beside her in a neat, evenly spaced row. They left little more than a rotor between aircraft. It was the best way to measure a distance with a helicopter, one “rotor diameter”—sixty feet on a Firehawk, forty-eight on his 212. Three rotors was a safe minimum distance if flying in clear air. Double or triple that in rough air.

  “Oh, my aching butt!” Mickey griped as they deplaned. Rubbing it brought little comfort. The Twin 212 seat was meant for shorter hauls.

  The Firehawk pilots looked fine as they clambered down out of their comfortable craft. One of them looked especially fine and started moving his way.

  Damn! He could see what Gordon had meant about her walk. She was pissed, and every stamp of her stride practically shivered the earth beneath her feet rather than the shock of her steps jarring her body. She walked like she totally owned the planet.

  He tried stretching again.

  “Hey, buddy.” Vern came over from the closest Firehawk—Oh-Three—and clapped him on the back. Denise was already busy checking over her containerized helicopter mainten
ance shop that Vern had carried north slung beneath his Firehawk. “Looking all gimped up there.”

  “Says the guy with the cushy seat.” Mickey had always liked him. They were two Northwest boys, he from Oregon and Vern from an island in Washington. They’d been flying together for years. Someday, he might have to try a Firehawk, but his whole career had been in the 212, and other than his sore butt, he’d never found the desire to change his platform.

  “Beats being shuffled off to spot fires in Leavenworth.” Vern had started out in the MD500s and jumped up to the Firehawk last season—the season that had seen him marrying Denise, the cutest mechanic on the planet. Even now, as she began checking out the first of the helos, the soft, smoke-laden breeze was teasing her long, blond hair into a banner.

  “Agree with you there.” Mickey decided that he’d much rather be on an Alaska wildfire than fighting spot fires in Washington.

  He kept an eye on Robin, but she’d stopped to check in with Jeannie at Oh-Two. A smart move as a leader.

  Vern nodded and headed back to help his wife. He’d become her assistant mechanic somewhere over the winter. Mickey didn’t know quite how that happened. It had been pretty clear that they were hooking up as a couple toward the end of last season, which had been beyond strange in itself. Denise was pretty as could be, but she’d been such an odd duck—total nerd mechanic—that Mickey had never thought twice about her. Clearly Vern had.

  Then half of MHA had gone to Australia, including Mickey, to fight bushfires for the southern hemisphere summer, and the other half, including Vern and Denise, had gone somewhere else. Somewhere that none of them were talking about, which was seriously strange.

  He caught references to Central America, which had plenty of fire problems, but what was so odd was their joint silence about the fire season. They should have returned with plenty of good stories, but none had been forthcoming. He’d have to corner Vern on that at some point.

  Mickey had stood best man at Vern and Denise’s wedding just a few months ago. Other than parents and one guy from the Boeing restoration museum, it had been strictly an MHA event. No willing bridesmaids for him that time: Emily, Carly, and Jeannie had stood beside Denise—all married. Though they made a stunning array of womanhood when the four of them lined up. Not a guy in the outfit could do anything but stare when they stood together in those sleek dresses.

  So while the warm breeze teased Denise’s long hair, as if the winds had traveled across the Alaska and Yukon wilderness solely for that purpose, for Robin, the wind was busy getting out of her way.

  After Jeannie and Cal at Firehawk Two, Robin stopped with Vern at Firehawk Three, though there was no question that he was her final target. However nice she was being to the others, he wouldn’t be receiving similar treatment. He liked that about her. No games. He could see exactly what she was thinking.

  Betsy was dumping the supplies out of Firehawk Two to set up her kitchen. For the moment, there would only be the pilots to feed, but she’d soon be feeding the smokies when they rotated back into camp for a break, or sending food in for them.

  Robin was still chatting with Vern and Betsy.

  During the long transit to Alaska, Mickey had come to terms with Vanessa drifting out of his summer romance flight pattern. Not that she’d ever really been in it except for a few private daydream fantasies. Beautiful women flying heavy machinery was always a good combo.

  Robin of the Hood flying a Firehawk, well, that definitely fed that corner of his libido.

  He began pulling his camping and personal gear out of the Firehawk. Robin would be arriving soon enough. Then he’d see what was what.

  He inhaled a deep lungful of the wood-smoke air, still lighter than a cabin woodstove on a fine winter’s night. Mickey loved flying to fire, and now that the transit was done, he was feeling damn good about being here—other than his aching butt. The fact that he’d bagged the Yukon wilderness assignment rather than the Washington tourist town completely worked for him. He’d spent every spare moment of his youth outdoors with his dad.

  Dad was winter ski patrol at Mount Bachelor in the winter and a raft-and-river guide when the water was running. In between, he picked up odd jobs leading hikes and bicycle tours. Sis had joined them about half of the time, but Mickey simply couldn’t get enough of it. Still couldn’t. He’d never flown a fire in the Yukon and couldn’t wait to see what lay out there to be discovered.

  Though looking around the barren field, maybe he shouldn’t have been quite so eager. He’d flown Leavenworth-area fires before. The scenery was astonishing. By definition, wildland firefighting was mostly fought in the remotest places that others rarely saw. He never tired of discovering new places, not even when they were on fire.

  And in Leavenworth, the locals made sure you were fed, often put you up in a spare bedroom even if you stank of flying through fire smoke all day. The terrain was harsh, but the accommodations were…more lush. Most tourists who hit Leavenworth did it as a couple; the Bavarianized mountain resort town wasn’t geared to attract singles. But there was always some cute girl glad to share her time with a firefighting helicopter pilot—a line that always worked well in the local bars.

  Here in Dawson City, however, the accommodations for both sleeping and recreation were going to be far less impressive. Betsy was already setting up her cook tent, and their sleeping tents would soon join the lineup.

  “What the hell are we doing on this side of the field, Hamilton?” Robin stormed up and stopped well within what most folks would figure to be his personal space. Robin clearly had no problem walking right into it.

  “You’ll be much more comfortable here, honest.” Mickey wondered if she did that to everyone or only when she was mad. No, she’d done it at the airfield as well. Maybe he was just extra lucky somehow. Or extra in trouble.

  “I didn’t just fly a dozen hours for comfort.” Fists clenched and ready to strike, she glared at him. She’d left her jacket in the helo, and her thin T-shirt left much to admire, but he didn’t do so actively. He was tempted—not to see if his peripheral vision was returning truly accurate reports of strong shoulders, trim waist, and all the nice shapes in between, but to see what her reaction might be. He decided against it, partly because those blue eyes, sharp with irritation, were so intriguing, and partly in case her martial arts training turned out to be better than his.

  “No, it’s after you’ve flown sixteen-hour days on a fire that you’ll appreciate it.” Mickey waved toward the small airport terminal that was the only permanent structure on the far side of the field. “No hotels here, no town nearby. This is our fire camp and instead of hard pavement, we’ll be sleeping on this ground.” He thumped a heel down on the deep, springy grass and soft dirt for emphasis. “You’ll thank me.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time after a flight to find decent beds.”

  “If we do”—Mickey did his best not to laugh in her face—“that will be a first.”

  * * *

  Robin could feel she was being a little stupid, right up in Mickey’s face, but she couldn’t bring herself to back down. She felt a need to push against someone, and Mickey Hamilton presented a very tempting target.

  Moments after takeoff from MHA’s base camp, Carly had crawled into the back of the Firehawk; she and her husband had spent most of the flight studying the fire maps. Robin had been alone the whole way. The short night’s sleep hadn’t been a problem for the first six hours of the flight, but the second half of it had been increasingly done on nerves—by now they were raw nerves. Eleven hours at a helo’s controls was a long day by anyone’s standards.

  The one fact that had done the most to keep her on point was that she was flying in Emily’s seat.

  At first, when they all fell in behind her, she’d thought it was because they were all evaluating her, watching her fly, judging every little bob and weave. Then, after the refueling in Vancouver
where no one paid her any special mind, but re-formed into the same flight pattern for the leg to Juneau, another possibility had dawned on her.

  They were letting her fly in the point position because she was in Firehawk One. Because they were used to flying in Emily’s wake. She’d spent that whole final leg of the flight trying to unravel how in the hell she was going to live up to that standard. WWQBBD had become a mantra in her thoughts: What would Queen Bee Beale do?

  Robin had finally gotten so pissed about how little information she had to go on to answer that question that the phrase had shifted somewhere over the endless forested islands of the British Columbia coastline. But What would Queen Bitch Beale do? didn’t offer any greater insight even if it did make her feel a little better.

  What had the woman been thinking when she put Robin in the lead helo’s seat? Put her there and then given her absolutely no guidance. Emily had signed off on her training yesterday afternoon, and this morning, she was leading the flight north and she couldn’t even be sure of all their names. Tweety Bird Gordon, the other 212 pilot, the darkly Italian and far too pretty woman pilot, and the other female mechanic had all gone off to Washington, which had spared her some of it.

  By the time they’d blown through Juneau and started slicing over the unending forests of the Yukon, she’d given up on trying to remember QBB’s final list of instructions. She’d watch everyone and listen to everyone and goddamn fake it until she made it.

  She’d had to remind herself of that when Mickey directed her to land at the apparently much less desirable side of the field. “Listen to Mickey.” That was the only one of Emily’s final instructions she could remember with any certainty. He could explain what the others did and why. Like maybe he had some sort of stupid crystal ball.

  So why did she still want to attack him even after he explained why the grassy side of the field had been best? And why did she want to jump his bones after the way he’d slid so easily into her kung fu stretching routine? Maybe she could ask him and he could explain both to her.