Pure Heat Page 5

  “Next dump, I’m gonna load in a wheelchair so you can get up and down the ridge safe.”

  “Still faster than you, Chutes, even with the crutches.”

  Laughter circulated around the table. It was good laughter and Carly did her best to join in. Chutes had been an all-state cross-country runner when he was in college and still ran in the woods every morning they weren’t attacking a fire.

  Uncle TJ and Chutes were the two senior guys. Chutes on the wrong side of fifty to be loading and humping pallets and parachutes all season, and TJ was on the wrong side of forty to be smokejumping, even if he kept acting as if he was on the right side of thirty.

  Someone else was razzing TJ about not knowing smokejumping from tree-jumping, and when the hell was he going to get halfway decent at either one?

  TJ patted her leg out of sight below the table as he leaned over to whisper to her, “It was just a tree, honey. Caught by a bad fall. I’d have gotten out. Maybe not so well if your young man hadn’t come along, but I’m fine.”

  She took his hand and held it tightly, feeling the heavy calluses. Squeezing it hard to prove to herself he really was okay here beside her.

  “Hold it!” The words registered. “My young what?”

  TJ nodded casually across the way. “That love-struck mooncalf who can’t stop staring at you. Or maybe it’s me. I’m pretty damned good-looking for my age, you know. Women keep telling me so.”

  “As long as those women are all named Aunt Margaret, we’ll be okay.”

  TJ squeezed her hand and faced down the table, raising his voice back to normal without releasing his grip. “Well, all of you had gone tree-jumping down the hill. Knew you were too lazy to climb back to me, so I just waited for my buddy Merks over there.”

  Everyone turned to look at the new guy.

  Carly couldn’t stop herself from turning with the others. Handsome. Not gorgeous, like that new Incident Commander—Air Major Henderson, retired, who she still had to straighten out. But more handsome, as if he’d traveled a hard road yet still found some bright lights. A really good smile there, despite suddenly being the center of attention. For all of it, he didn’t appear to be playing games. A friendly wave that engaged and welcomed. Almost as if he’d become everyone’s best friend all of a sudden.

  And in a way he had. He’d rescued TJ and now been thanked for that act in front of all. Some might be angry that they hadn’t been there. Angry at themselves for not being right there, for not having TJ’s back. His fire partner, Akbar, had thought TJ was just a yard or two behind him until the falling tree had cut him off with a wall of fire.

  In the end, all that mattered was the moment when TJ and Steve had both been lifted clear of the flames, waving to the cheering crew below.

  Then she saw Mercer’s gaze shift to where she and TJ sat, and his face shuttered like a hard-doused fire. He looked down, but not fast enough to hide a sour grimace. One that didn’t appear to be assuaged by a hard slug of beer or a fierce stab of his fork into dinner. A stab that drew nothing to his mouth but empty air. He didn’t pay any more attention to his food or even try again with his fork. Whatever he was paying attention to, it wasn’t his food.

  And, at least at the moment, it wasn’t her.

  If it was just them, she’d go and ask, even though he was a newbie. But her uncle’s hand and her weak knees at his close call were enough to stop her.

  ***

  Steve’s knee hurt like hell.

  He half wished he still had the damn cane. Then he’d look like the cripple he really was. For a moment there, one brief moment, he’d been part of the crew. Backslaps and raised beer salutes from other tables.

  Then he’d looked at TJ. Twenty years older than Steve and almost three decades of fighting fire. People here worshipped him. Chutes, the jumpers at the next table, and the pilots and maintenance crew who shared Steve’s table. All of them affirming that’s what a man should be.

  And there, shining beside TJ like a golden light, a woman he didn’t know, but who sure as hell wouldn’t want a cripple. And the doctors had assured him he’d always be just that. Too much tissue loss, too many staples and screws and plates. “At least you kept the leg,” they kept telling him. About the only good point, and he’d had to fight with them about that even as they were putting him under.

  As soon as he tactfully could, he withdrew. Steve dumped the rest of his dinner in the garbage and tried not to limp as he delivered the tray to the kitchen cleanup bucket, then headed around the end of the kitchen building.

  Pretty damned morose, Merks—he tipped the beer bottle up to check it in the fading evening light—especially on half a beer. He’d never really started the first one that afternoon. It had long gone warm and flat before he’d left the table to find his quarters and move in. A duffel bag shoved onto a shelf in a room made cramped by a pair of bunk beds, cramped even without anyone else in the room. He hadn’t met his bunkmates yet; they must still be out on the fire. Another damned reminder of where he wasn’t.

  He dumped his beer on the ground and tossed the bottle into recycling as he passed it. A casual glance showed that though he was in plain view, no one was watching him, no one except Carly. Her face was turned just a little more than necessary if she was merely talking to Chutes, the loadmaster.

  Gods, it used to be so easy. A woman who looked like that… That wasn’t even it. A woman so convinced of her own abilities that she’d face down someone like Henderson. That was the kind of a woman he would have just walked up to, maybe even spent some time getting to know rather than just targeting her. Back when he was a whole man. Back when he could walk.

  Steve got around the corner and out of sight walking tall and easy.

  Then he let go of his control. The left knee buckled, and he collapsed. His back slammed against the back of the building, then he slid downward until his butt landed hard on the ground. All he could do was lie there and massage the screaming muscles and stare up at the mountain. The only places the sun still hit were the shining glaciers atop Mount Hood. A beacon in the evening light.

  If the thing were a goddamn beacon, shouldn’t it be guiding him somewhere?

  Chapter 5

  The next morning, the truck with Steve’s gear showed up right after breakfast. A breakfast where he’d carefully sat with his back to the angel. The truck was the smallest field version SkyHi made, assembled on the frame of a small apartment-sized moving truck, a twelve-foot-long box, and a low, ten-foot trailer on the hitch. The trailer consisted of a hitch, two wheels, and a small catapult launch for the drones. The whole thing didn’t look all that different from a snowmobile on a trailer with just a few more jacks and features.

  The truck itself was the most basic rig, but with dualies on the back. All of the gear inside the truck’s cargo bay couldn’t weigh more than a couple hundred pounds, so the dual tires on the drive axle would allow him better traction if he ever had to haul up a logging road. That was nice.

  It was painted jet black. The manufacturer’s bright yellow SkyHi logo and, below it, the red-and-orange flame-licked MHA logo of Mount Hood Aviation made it look sharp and dangerous. He liked that. On top of a good night’s sleep that had eased his muscles, the sight of that truck did a good job of clearing out last night’s attitude.

  Steve had the delivery guy bring the rig past the parking lot, slip it between the buildings, and park it just beyond the parachute loft. On the blank side of the farthest building of the camp. Good for clearance is what he’d tell everyone, and it was.

  Also, it maximized his privacy once people got used to him. He was in a mood to have a minimum of witnesses watching him limp around all summer.

  “Need a hand setting up?” The driver tossed Steve the keys as he climbed out of the cab.

  “No thanks. I’ve got it.” Steve had to prove he was still good for some damn thing. As soon as he said it, he knew he’d be sorry. His knee was better, but it still throbbed from yesterday’s overuse and wouldn’t
be getting any better from all the labor needed to set up his gear. The work wasn’t stressful, but it would keep him on his feet for much of the day.

  He considered calling the driver back. Then the angel wandered over, and he couldn’t take back his words in front of Carly.

  The guy waved and climbed into a yellow-logoed black SUV that had followed him into camp. He could have had two helpers. Crap. In moments they were gone and he was left holding the keys. Literally.

  “Pilot.”

  Steve turned to see Carly standing close beside him, looking at the logo on the truck. Her arms crossed over her chest. Not aggressively clasped, just comfortable being a little closed off from those around her. Looking as good as she did, it was easy to understand why that might be her default at-bat stance.

  Her profile figure was perfectly outlined in a black T-shirt, which he now knew said “MHA Goonies” across the back in large red letters. And she still wore his baseball cap. Her long ponytail of hair, so light it was almost the color of the sun, pulled through the back loop. No way was he going to ask for his hat back.

  “You said you were a pilot, but you didn’t say what kind.”

  “Actually ICA Henderson said I was.” And what idiot part of him had decided that the way to charm a woman was to correct her on trivia that didn’t matter? The idiot part of him that gave up last night because there just wasn’t a chance. Turn it around, Mercer. At least be civil.

  “But, yes, I’m a pilot. A drone pilot.” Didn’t sound the least bit sexy, no matter how he said it. Helicopter pilot would have been cool, wildfire helitack pilot even better, but even if his injury compensation had covered the stiff costs of chopper pilot training, which it hadn’t, the docs had insisted his new knee couldn’t take the constant strain that the pedals would require anyway.

  He’d doubted them until last night. After lying against a building until long after sunset because he couldn’t even face the pain of standing up again, maybe he’d believe them a little. Of course, he’d already proved them wrong by standing and walking on his own two legs. That had also been a never-again, so screw them.

  So now he flew SkyHi surveillance drones. They looked like the model airplanes he used to fly around the backyard as a kid, but on steroids. Instead of weighing a couple pounds, having a two-foot wingspan, and costing about thirty bucks, the drone weighed fifty pounds, had a ten-foot wingspan, and cost about a hundred thousand. But it was a long damn way from walking a fire.

  “What can this do that I can’t?” Carly wasn’t looking at him but continued to focus her attention on the truck. Maybe it wasn’t him she was crossing her arms at.

  “Hard to answer, because I don’t know what you can do.” With any other woman, that would have come out smooth and easy, a flirty, teasing pickup line.

  With Carly Thomas, it came out of his mouth a bit awkwardly and as a strictly factual statement, which made it sound even worse.

  Her glare shifted from the truck to him, showing that she’d picked up the connotation even if he hadn’t managed to give voice to it.

  He shrugged it off and moved toward the truck. He did have a purpose here. He did have a way to join the firefight, at least peripherally.

  “It can see in infrared, would have found TJ faster than I did. It also can remain on-site while other craft can’t. The drone can stay aloft for twenty hours without refueling. We could have seen that the ground crew was headed the wrong way and warned them just that much sooner that the ridge behind them was a false retreat. It can…”

  “Whoa. I get the idea already.”

  Okay, he had been sounding a bit defensive, but it was all he had left. Flying a drone. Pathetic.

  He unlocked the padlock on the truck’s rear door. Pulling up sharply on the handle, he nearly dislocated his shoulder when the door didn’t move. He must be more frustrated than he’d thought and shook out the hand that he’d scraped up on the unmoving handle. He tugged again, more gingerly, but it didn’t budge in the slightest.

  A quick inspection revealed a keypad on the side of the truck. They’d never told him about a key code. But he did have his user-level password that was registered in the SkyHi system. He tried that, rather than having to look stupid and call support just to open the damned door.

  The door rolled upward on quiet electric motors. They’d programmed the truck just for him. That was unusual. It hadn’t been that way on any of the training vehicles.

  Carly moved to stand beside him as the truck’s contents were revealed. One side was a long service bench where he could perform all except the most advanced maintenance. These drones were almost completely modular. If a part broke, all he had to do was insert a spare and send the original back to the factory for service. A clear space on the bench at the end closest to the door allowed for setup of a flight control console.

  On the other side, a tall rack of cases was revealed row by row as the door rose. Two shelves for the birds in heavy, gray plastic boxes a foot high, two feet wide, and about six feet long. Two smaller cases fit together on the next shelf; they’d have the command consoles. The antenna rig on the next. Just what he’d expected.

  What he didn’t expect were the two large black cases at the top of the stack. The birds and gear were always packed in gray.

  Except once. His last day at SkyHi for training, he’d seen black-encased birds.

  He stepped up on the low bed and turned on the light inside the cargo bay to be sure. They were definitely black, not merely shadowed by the early morning light. He inspected them more closely. A glance at the codes stenciled on the side stopped him cold. Then, as casually as he could, he reached for the straps holding the antenna rig.

  Steve started to loosen the shipping strap. Carly climbed up and undid the other one. As they carried the antenna out into the light, he glanced back up at the black boxes. They were definitely there.

  After his training at SkyHi had finished. After they’d certified him in both flight and maintenance of the birds. After he’d received formal notice that MHA was hiring him for the fire season and he’d done all of their damned paperwork on top of SkyHi’s own serious stack of forms, one of the techs had taken him aside.

  Together, Steve and Carly made fast work of unfolding the antenna and hooking the sections together. Part of him paid attention as they attached the base to the socket on the outside front corner of the truck’s box. He threaded the cable from the omnidirectional antenna at the top, down through the clips on the pole, and plugged it into the socket by the truck’s passenger door. With the base attached, they tipped the antenna into place. Carly kept it stable while he seated it properly and secured the mounts up the front corner of the truck’s box.

  Now he was glad that he’d dismissed the help from the SkyHi techs. Carly was not only much easier on the eyes, but clearly good mechanically as well, bracing the antenna just right and double-checking the mounts he’d tightened down. Never hurt to have a second set of eyes on things.

  The other part of him thought back to that tech on his last day at SkyHi’s compound. A man he’d never met through the months of residence there had pulled him aside after breakfast. The guy had led Steve into a different building.

  There he’d been trained on a different kind of bird. A drone in a black box.

  At the time, he’d thought it a pretty serious breach of security. The guy had acted as if he were just showing off a cool toy. But was Steve authorized to know about this thing? Sure, they’d done some serious background checks on him. But a version of these drones was also used in the military, so he’d guessed that their tight security made sense. Even if he was just going to fly them over fires.

  The black-box birds were different. These were the military’s version of the drones. It had creeped him out even to see them, never mind receive twelve hours of training on the enhancements. He’d have to call SkyHi and find out what sort of a screwup had delivered two military drones to a forest fire helibase. What if it wasn’t a mistake? He shook h
is head. That didn’t make any sense.

  Some mechanics teasing each other out on the airfield brought his attention back to the otherwise quiet morning.

  Steve finished anchoring the antenna mounting and then moved to start setting up the trailer.

  Knowing his curiosity was going to get the better of him anyway, Steve decided he’d peek in the black boxes before calling SkyHi. Though one thing for certain, he was going to be alone when he opened them.

  “What’s wrong with your leg?” Carly startled him with her question.

  Stupid. When he wasn’t paying attention, he favored it more than was really needed anymore. The consequence of remembered pain. Time to bite the bullet. And usually people didn’t have the guts to ask how he’d crippled himself. They’d just give him a look of pity and step wide on the sidewalk as if a limp and a cane had made him so ungainly that he needed a six-foot-wide corridor to navigate in.

  “My knee.” Why in the hell did he keep correcting her? Especially since it really was most of his leg, his knee had just been the worst part of a bad scene. “Tore it up last summer jumping the Crystal Peak fire.” He started unfolding the catcher arm on the trailer.

  “You’re a smokejumper?”

  “Past tense.” It came out as a growl. Damn it. Maybe he should just shut up.

  He unlatched the first ten-foot section of pole from the side of the trailer and held it in place while Carly bolted it to the next section in silence. He was starting to recognize that she did that. She thought about things a lot. Saw things, things that others didn’t. He began to wonder just how rare it was that he’d gotten past her defenses by asking if she was TJ’s daughter. Pretty damned rare would be his guess.