Malcolm and Brenna came back from around the tail section where they’d been inspecting for other damage.

  “This is a full teardown inspection.” Denise plucked at a paint blister, and a six-inch patch of paint peeled off in her hand exposing silvered metal beneath. “This bird doesn’t go aloft until we replace every piece of rubber on this side including the tire. I don’t care if we put it in new yesterday, replace it. Then we fully inspect the other side.

  “Brenna, you’re on drive train. Malcolm, control systems and watch for any sign of melting in the wiring. I’ll start with structural integrity and rotor blades. Let’s go, folks. We want this bird aloft again. I want it perfect right down to the paint job, and we don’t have a week to do it.”

  They didn’t need any further instruction, but were headed off to the shop-box at a good hustle. It was a tight team, maybe the best she’d worked with outside of the Sikorsky factory itself.

  She went up and tugged on the tree limb that was sticking out of the rear fuselage. Its surface was scorched, as if it had been flaming when it was driven in. It was firmly embedded; they’d probably have to drop the panel and cut it out.

  Then Vern’s big hands wrapped around the branch above hers. Together, they managed to haul it free. Three feet of tree limb reluctantly slid out of the Firehawk’s guts.

  “Spartacus,” was Vern’s dry comment as he hefted it.

  “Like in the gladiator guy?”

  “Heaving his javelin at me, but I survived.”

  She looked up at him. The sunlight, softened by smoke, lit his face. The joker wasn’t there; neither was the easygoing pilot. Instead, for the first time, she could see the man who’d flown for the U.S. Coast Guard and knew more about flying to fire than anyone in Mount Hood Aviation. Emily might have flown longer and be the chief pilot, but Vern had the most fire experience of anyone on the crew.

  He reached out and rested a palm against the chopper and closed his eyes. It wasn’t for support to stand up. It actually looked as if he was offering the damaged Firehawk his support, or perhaps thanking it for bringing him home.

  She left him to it and went to fetch her tools, but the image didn’t go away.

  The man was so damn handsome, a military hero brought to life in a fire, and for some reason, he wanted her. Well—she felt a spring enter her step—she wanted him, so that worked out nicely.

  She could feel the fear that had lurked beside her all day slide away as she set to work.

  * * *

  At a half hour to sunset, the other pilots were down. Five minutes later, Mark Henderson called a pilots’ meeting, and five minutes more after that, they were grouped around a set of tables pulled together in a corner of the mess hall.

  Three hours later, Vern’s head was whirling. Right through dinner, they’d reviewed every detail of both his flight and the drone’s—which Steve had managed to save through some piloting almost as creative as his own. They pieced together what radar imaging and flight tracking they could, and slowly rebuilt each step of the fire and the flight.

  Twenty-seven seconds. How so much could happen in twenty-seven seconds was beyond him. Looking over the final re-creation of what he’d done only made his successful escape that much more unlikely.

  It also gave him a new level of respect for Mark and Emily. They extracted every nuance of his observations, getting him to report things he hadn’t even known he’d seen, until they built a precise picture of what he’d done and also a protocol on how to recognize and avoid similar conditions in the future.

  He found it hard to remember sometimes that these were two of the very best heli-pilots on the planet. They had both made it to the rank of major flying for the U.S. Army’s 160th SOAR. The Special Operations Aviation Regiment flew those deep, dark, crazy missions like attacking bin Laden’s compound.

  So when Emily finally said, “I wouldn’t want to try flying that route,” Vern knew he’d done pretty well. Mark’s “You didn’t miss a single trick” made him feel even better.

  Which was good, because despite the last lazy couple of hours—including one long, hot shower where he finally let the shakes out—he was hammer-down exhausted.

  He did go out to check on his Firehawk.

  Mickey tagged along for moral support.

  They stood side by side in the darkness and stared at the chopper.

  It sat alone. Only a few security lights were aglow. The main compound lights were off.

  “How late is it?”

  “Past eleven,” Mickey responded.

  A silence hung over the airport as thick as a smoke blanket, everything muffled, finally quiet.

  “Man, she has really trashed that thing.”

  A line of “Do Not Cross” tape had been strung around his helicopter, and he could see why. His poor machine looked like one of those exploded-view diagrams that were so useless on “some assembly required” sets of instructions. But he could see there was a perfect order to it.

  Starting from the tape line, Denise and her crew had laid out each section of the disassembled helicopter in order: scrap bits closest to the tape, next sheet metal, after that carefully arranged carts of new and rebuilt parts, and a big tool chest that had been closed for the night. She hadn’t been kidding when she said full inspection.

  Denise was nowhere to be seen. It was late and doing an all-night push on repairs was no safer than doing all-night flights as a pilot. Besides, even a full night wouldn’t get his bird back together.

  “You’re actually seeing Denise? Like…seeing her?” Mickey’s voice was as disbelieving as his own would have been even a few days ago.

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? How can you not know?”

  “Well, we slept together,” Vern admitted.

  “Well, duh! That means—”

  “But no sex.”

  Mickey left a long silence.

  The main airport’s lights shut off, darkening the scene even further.

  “That’s just weird, Vern. You’re not making any sense.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” He stared upward, seeking the stars. Nothing but a smoke-hazed moon.

  “Hey, glad I caught you.” Mark arrived out of the darkness.

  Not really a night for romance anyway; Vern was weaving with exhaustion and had no idea where Denise was bunked down.

  “Hell of a mess,” Mark observed, surveying Denise’s handiwork.

  Or perhaps it was a comment on the mess Vern had created.

  “I need you tomorrow, if you’re up for it.”

  Vern shrugged. He realized the gesture probably wasn’t visible, but he was having trouble finding the energy to speak.

  Mark apparently took his silence as sufficient assent. “Vanessa’s training is coming along, but I think you could really help her. Do a fly-along instructional round with her.”

  “Oh man,” Mickey groaned with envy. “Hot Italian babe in a tiny helicopter. You lucky son of a bitch. Her accent totally slays me.”

  Mickey was such a dog. Sure Vanessa was five ten of dark, sleek Italian. But when Vern tried to picture the moment the way Mickey was, he came up with five feet of shy blond instead.

  “Sure, Mark. I won’t be flying Hawk Oh-Three tomorrow. That’s for damn sure.”

  The three of them surveyed the carefully organized mayhem spread across the tarmac before them.

  “Well, you got that much straight.” Mickey sighed. “Man, what a mess.”

  “In more ways than you think, buddy.” What the hell was he going to do about Denise? And where was she anyway?

  It was too late, and he was too tired to ask.

  Resigned, he headed back to his room.

  When he opened the door, it let a splash of light in from the hall. Enough light to shine off a flowing expanse of blond hair. Denise was curled beneath the blanket on his bed with her hair over the covers. Sound asleep, but here, of all crazy places.

  He closed the door and let his eyes adapt slowly to the pale moonlight coming through the unshaded window. She’d gone to sleep close against the wall, leaving just enough space for him to join her.

  Denise Conroy wanted him beside her.

  The top bunk made more sense. All they’d shared were a few kisses and one brief awakening. Despite the implicit invitation, it would make more sense if they actually spoke and maybe got to know each other better before they went any further.

  Resolute, he undressed, stopping at the last moment to keep his underwear in place. He folded down the sheet on the top bunk. Then, after telling himself he was a complete and total idiot who should be flogged for what he was thinking, he slid into the lower bunk.

  Denise didn’t wake…not really.

  She slid against him and wrapped a leg over his, rested her cheek on his shoulder, and with a soft sigh settled back into sleep.

  Vern stared at the shadowed bottom of the upper bunk. Never before had he slept with a woman who wasn’t first a lover. Never before last night anyway.

  With some chagrin, he laid his cheek against her ever-so-soft hair and thought back to the moment he’d broken the Firehawk while returning to the MHA base from the grassland fire.

  No question, he’d been absolutely right.

  Denise was killing him.

  Chapter 7

  Vern woke alone and blinked at the sunlight shining in through the window. The bright, mid-morning sunlight. That meant the smoke was clearing out of Missoula. That in turn meant either a wind shift, which could be a very bad thing, or they were beating the fire. And he was supposed to be aloft with Vanessa at first light.

  He rolled up out of the bunk. Right before he made it upright, he remembered that he hadn’t been alone when he went to sleep. He turned to inspect the empty expanse of sheets, at the same moment his temple whacked hard against the upper bunk.

  Collapsing back onto his pillow, his groan didn’t make him feel any damned better.

  When the stars had cleared and the spins stopped, he tested for blood. Nope, though his breath hissed out at the contact. Leaking brain matter? No more than usual, despite how hard he’d clocked himself. Just an already rising lump from hell, his usual price for being stupid.

  Rising much more carefully, he dressed and hunted down coffee and a sandwich that Betsy was nice enough to make for him because that was clearly beyond his capabilities at the moment.

  With his second cup topped off in his travel mug, he tracked Denise down on the flight line.

  As he had last night, he simply had to watch her for a moment. She and Malcolm had pulled the decking on his Firehawk’s cargo bay, leaning in to inspect the wiring and whatever else it was that ran under there. One thing his libido was deeply aware of was that the woman looked equally delicious from front, side, or back. His body definitely remembered being pressed against the back of her, and his hands tingled with memory of the splendid curves of her front.

  And at the rate things were going, a great view was the only enjoyment he was going to get for quite some time to come.

  She turned from giving instructions and spotted him. Weaving between parts and carts and bits of melted helicopter, Denise came over, moving fast and easy. Jeans, denim shirt, and that standard sexy-gunslinger tool belt wrapped around swaying hips. Pure murder.

  “Hi.” The caffeine had finally reached his speech centers allowing him to greet her with at least one level better than a grunt.

  “Morning, Slick.” She’d been headed into his arms; he and his libido were pretty happily sure of that. But a single step away she braked to a halt and inspected his forehead. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing.” He’d tried putting on his cap to cover it, but there was no way that was going to happen until the pain and the swelling went down.

  “Did someone look at that?”

  “No need.” He shrugged it off. Betsy, who was an EMT in addition to being the MHA cook, had checked it out and told him to be more careful.

  “I didn’t wake you this morning, did I?”

  “No.” Looking down at her sunny face and compact body, he wished to hell she had. “Last night, I don’t think I woke you.”

  “You were supposed to.”

  He closed his eyes. Okay, beyond idiot right over into doofus.

  “I mean, I like sleeping with you, Vern. But this is getting ridiculous.”

  He winced and looked down into those green eyes. On its own, his hand came up and he brushed a thumb over the soft skin of her cheek.

  “I won’t let it happen again, Wrench.”

  “You better not, Slick. Or I’m going to think something’s wrong with me.” There was a momentary darkness. “Or maybe with you.” She covered the fleeting shadow with a teasing smile.

  “Trust me. It’s not you.” Vern slid his fingers through her hair, then leaned in to kiss her forehead. “On the other hand, there’s plenty wrong with me. Ask my mom.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  This time it didn’t feel so forward, suggesting that Denise and his mother would meet someday. If only he could get some alone time with Denise when they weren’t both exhausted. Yeah, welcome to firefighting. He sighed.

  “I couldn’t agree more.” She matched her sigh to his. She rested her hand on his chest, making him impossibly aware of his own heartbeat. “But here comes your ride.”

  He heard the high-whip sound of his old MD500 descending out of the almost-blue sky. Vanessa, back for refueling. Time to go flying and do some training.

  “Crap.”

  Vanessa did a nice job of setting down her bucket so it kissed the tarmac. Empty, the bucket looked like the lower half of a pumpkin, made of canvas and folded accordion-like. It was big enough for three or four guys to pile into if they had to when it was open, yet it would stow in the back of the tiny chopper if it was collapsed.

  She then shifted enough sideways to set the long-line down without landing one of the MD’s skids on it. That told him that she’d learned a lot these last few days over rough terrain about exactly where her bucket was. From this point, it would be polish. She had the essentials down.

  He could see Mickey’s point; Vanessa was fully on display in the MD500’s bubble nose. Dark complexion, long dark hair. Even the Nomex and cargo pants couldn’t hide the length of her legs.

  Vern looked back down at Denise. This was what he wanted. He leaned down to brush his lips over hers, and she opened to his kiss as if they’d been lovers for years rather than, well, never.

  “Soon, Slick,” she whispered against his lips.

  “Real soon, Wrench.” They traded smiles and he hurried off to pull on his gear so that he didn’t delay Vanessa’s return to the fire once she was refueled.

  * * *

  Denise wondered which god she should curse or make a burnt offering to or something. Yet another night when they’d been too busy and too exhausted to do more than collapse into each other’s arms.

  As predicted, the high carbon content of the ash in the air had begun to take its toll, and her crew had spent hours cleaning, tightening, and doing some replacing. It was midnight before the birds other than Vern’s had been ready for flight.

  Mark’s wake-up call had been painful, and she didn’t have the energy to tease, promise, or even simply enjoy the moment. Vern was in no better shape. They’d helped each other dress, and it had been about as sexy as helping a friend bind a hurt hand.

  At least before he opened the door, he’d sat down on the one chair and pulled her into his lap. They sat for a long five minutes they couldn’t really afford that went by impossibly fast. They hadn’t traded a word or even a kiss.

  He held her close, and she in turn let herself be held as she curled against him. Still not having spoken—for what was there to be said?—they confronted the day.

  Denise’s team had finished, tested, and certified Firehawk Oh-Three by early afternoon. It was about the same time Mark declared the fire fully contained and handed it off to a Type II Incident Team. The Hoodie smokejumpers had worked their own miracles over the last five days and were even now being trucked back down for the flight out.

  The Zulies were still down on the Hard Creek Fire, but the prediction was that they’d be released in another forty-eight hours.

  So the MHA Hoodies had decamped from the Zulie base. Now it was an hour to sunset, and they were nearing the MHA base camp in the foothills of Mount Hood.

  Denise huddled in the copilot’s seat.

  A part of her insisted she was making up the whole thing.

  No. He held me in his sleep. He held me in his lap just this morning.

  But there was an old tape. A stronger, deeper one that lurked deep inside. One that insisted that there was nothing real between her and Vern except a bit of lust and a shared love of helicopters. They didn’t even love the same part. He was like a rocket jock and she like a NASA engineer, no common ground.

  She tried to hold on to the memories that her body insisted were real, but she was so tired that she no longer believed anything.

  Exhausted by it all. Exhausted by her own thoughts and hurt by the pending disappointment of what had seemed so promising, she curled up on her seat and kept quiet. Her life’s plan had been right. She was a woman who wasn’t built for deep or meaningful relationships, and she shouldn’t dream of them, because the pain of losing even that thread of hope cut deep.

  Every pilot was talking about the flight Vern had made. He’d been elevated to some godlike-flier status by the MHA core. The flight was even more impressive than she’d thought, and she’d been pretty impressed to begin with.

  Then Denise had overheard Bruce and Gordon talking about her and Vern as a couple. They didn’t understand how their friend could be such an odd duck when there were all of these normal women who apparently were just waiting for him in some goddamn magical wonderland. Bruce and Gordon envied him all the great women who were apparently holding out for him.