Wildfire on the Skagit (Firehawks Book 9) (6 page)

And then she’d known what she wanted.

She’d wanted to feel like she had when he’d first kissed her atop that ridge. She wanted to feel beautiful, though she knew she wasn’t. She wanted to feel desired, which Evan clearly did. And—much to her surprise—she wanted Evan.

Krista wasn’t big on denying herself.

So, she looked him right in the eyes, daring him to deny her. Then she placed his hand once more on her breast, exactly as it had been that night and leaned back in for the kiss she wanted.

Krista expected the attack, the hunger, the desperate need.

What she didn’t expect was for him to kiss her eyelids closed. To cradle her breast in that powerful hand as if it was a rose. To brush his other hand into her hair and pull her close.

This time, when he nuzzled her neck, it wasn’t thick with soot and sweat and it didn’t make her laugh. It made her groan.

The world blurred, the forest became a swirl of bright sun and dim shadows beyond her closed eyelids. Flashes of green leaf and bark brown when she managed to open them, and Evan’s eyes which had gone almost black.

But still he didn’t rush, didn’t grope or grab.

She’d have known what to do with that. Hold tight, drive hard, sweat, and be done.

When he pulled loose her shirt and bra he slowed to an excruciating pace, admiring, tasting, nuzzling until the cry that was forced out of her silenced the forest. Tenderness was not something any man brought to Krista; the power of it shocked her almost as deeply as the action itself.

Then her pants were gone, a moment she didn’t remember. And his lips had traveled up her thigh, a series of moments she remembered perfectly, he groaned in turn.

“I need you, Krista. But I didn’t bring any…”

Now it was her turn to lay a hand upon his lips. He might not have, but she knew what she’d gone hunting in the forest this day, even if this was more, so much more than she’d planned. She dug some protection out of her pants pocket and pressed it into his palm. Her need to feel him take her had grown until she was shuddering with it.

An easy tug peeled free his t-shirt, and he shucked his pants—a naked warrior god in the wilderness. She could see that his body was battered—he bore several scars, but it was also magnificent—powerful despite the damage. Perhaps more so specifically because it had survived the damage.

Then he lay her down on the forest floor upon their spread clothes, and finally he delivered what she’d expected. From the first moment he entered her, it was as if they’d both stepped into the middle of a fire.

The heat didn’t spark, it flashed over. Like a wildfire at mid-afternoon, when the wind shifted and the air was so achingly dry that it ripped the moisture right out of the wood, a wild heat and energy blew up between them.

Evan drove at her, but no harder than she pressed up to meet him. He grabbed at her chest, drove her down with his mouth, and pinned her to the forest floor until she thought they might ignite it.

He swallowed her cries and she his when the out-of-control blaze scorched through their bodies. He drove her so far upward that all she could do was hang on and let him take all he needed.

With a final arching moan that ripped from deep in his body, he froze and then released in glorious pulses that sent her flying again.

They spun down from the sky, locked together, riding the twisting winds, until they finally landed so softly that she could easily cushion his final fall with her body. He lay upon her like a dead man, which was appropriate, for she lay like a spent woman.

“Damn, Rook. We strike fire like that, we must be doing something right.”

Evan finally propped himself up on his elbows, but lifted no more than his head. “I’m on the verge of saying something stupid,” his voice was a whisper as he inspected her reaction with those dark eyes and their secret depths.

“Then don’t. Anytime you want to bring that much game to the firefight, I’ll be ready for you.”

# # #

Evan looked down at her and saw only a smile and those marvelous blue eyes that always smiled too. He’d wanted to use her and ended up being gentle instead. And then when he’d finally thought he’d be gentle, she had welcomed him in and he’d gone near to madness.

“In that case, I’ll resist being as stupid as is my norm—”

“Yeah, right. I can see that stupid is one of your issues.”

“—and I’ll simply say that you’re incredible.”

“See,” Krista wiggled beneath him with her legs still firmly clamped behind his butt, “not stupid at all.”

A squirrel ran across the top of the log they now lay beside and paused to look down at two naked people wound tightly together before skittering along.

The type of women he’d always been attracted to, with their long legs and designer clothes, would never be caught making love where a squirrel could stop and observe. Instead he’d just screwed the living daylights out of a woman who—

With a twist of her hips, she flipped him onto his back, knocking loose a waft of rich pine and good soil from the forest floor. Last winter’s leaves were soft beneath him and if the needles pricked a little, he didn’t care.

“Now,” she looked down at him. “Let’s see just what we can do with this nice body of yours while it recovers.”

He bore a dozen scars, bullet, knife, and fire and she didn’t seem to care. Instead she took just as much time teasing and tasting as he had. Her hands were powerful but gentle as no lesser woman’s had ever been, which only made her all the more impressive—all that strength ever-so carefully controlled.

By the time she was straddling him and his hands were once again filled with those amazing breasts, he didn’t care about anything either, except making sure he could get more of this woman.

As she eventually eased her way over him, so slowly it was almost painful, he nudged at the darkness inside him. Except it wasn’t there to nudge.

It had been a constant companion for so long that he knew it would be back. But finding freedom from it for even this one moment was enough to make the world shine.

But none of it shone like the woman moving over him, her fair skin dappled in sunlight and shadow, those blue eyes closed and her head thrown back as if she felt just as incredible as she looked.

Chapter 6

“We need calories,” Krista
groaned; groaned because she didn’t want to leave their idyll in the woods.

“And sleep,” Evan noted.

“Wish you hadn’t said that.” They’d been awake for most of the last three days except for the six hours between when the Deerness Fire lay down and the sun came up. Now she could feel every muscle sagging with weariness, both from the fire and from the unaccustomed, but very welcome exercise they had just performed.

“C’mon, Rook,” she rolled to her feet and offered him a hand up.

That got a low laugh from him.

“See, Mama Krista got what it takes to cure them ills,” she shook her hips like a belly dancer.

When she turned for her clothes he came up behind her and scooped his hands around and up over her breasts.

“Enough of that. We know what you like.” But she did let herself lean back against him for a moment and simply enjoy his attention. He was an amazing lover. And so what if they were on the same smoke team; it wasn’t really going to hurt anything if they had some fun for a while.

That didn’t sound like her at all. She never…but oh god for the first time she wanted to.

No harm, no foul. Not if they kept it light? She hoped so because she was past caring about that.

When he started in on more than her breasts and she could feel him recovering where he pressed against her, she brushed his hands aside and stepped out of reach.

“Get dressed, now.”

“Yes, Master Sergeant!” He snapped to attention and saluted her. And his hand wasn’t the only thing saluting.

“You are going to be so much fun, Rook. I’m looking forward to it.”

And she was. Far more than was usual for her. He was funny, when he wasn’t doing his dark-and-foul-mood macho thing. And he was built to order for her body. Even the men who were her height were often of a lighter build. Evan was big and solid enough to make her feel feminine, which was definitely a new experience.

She waited until she had her shoes laced and he was still missing one shoe and his shirt. “Race you to the mess hall, Rook. First one in gets pick of the fridge.”

“Sure thing, just give me a sec,” he bent down and tugged on his other shoe.

Krista placed a hand atop his head and shoved hard.

He tumbled backward, letting it turn into a roll and landed back on his feet. He glared up at her. The cool move was ruined by all of the dead needles and bits stuck in his dark hair.

She bolted before he could recover.

She dove over the log they’d started out sitting on, did a tuck and roll like a parachute landing, and came back to her feet at a run. Not just some mile-eater of a smokie trot…

A bark of laughter sounded behind her—well behind her, but she bet that its owner wouldn’t remain far back for long.

…instead she went for an escaping-a-runaway-fire sprint.

# # #

Evan scooped his shirt, stuffed it down in his waistband and vaulted over the big log as if it was a gymnast’s pommel horse.

He caught only flashes of her golden hair through the thick underbrush as he ducked under branches and dodged blackberry patches. He hadn’t run into them coming out, so she must know about them and was trying to lead him into their clutching thorns.

This wasn’t a Green Beret operation and he wasn’t wearing full battle gear. So, to protect his bare chest, he lost time dodging around the wide, prickly bushes and still earned a few scratches from far-arching branches he didn’t spot in time.

She had a hundred feet on him when they hit the road.

Seventy-five at the parking lot.

He dug in until he was spitting gravel from beneath his sneakers just as the departing muscle cars had earlier.

Krista still had him by fifty feet at the far side of the lot as they crossed into the compound. Damn but she was a magnificent runner. Her legs were long, but there wasn’t a thing frail about them. They were powerhouses that delivered immense speed.

Up between the weathered-shingle bunkhouses on the left and the back of the kitchen on the right. At the battered picnic tables where MHA ate meals when at camp, Krista ran down the length before taking a sharp turn toward the kitchen door.

In a last effort to beat her, Evan turned at the same moment she did, taking a diagonal path. He used a bench to jump up to the tabletops and ran over them like rough terrain—bench, tabletop, bench, ground, bench, tabletop—up and down, up and down.

She hammered through the door two steps ahead of him and managed to slam it in his face. Unable to stop, he crashed into it full force, only thinking to turn a shoulder at the last moment.

# # #

The heavy wooden door blew off its hinges with a
crack
as loud as a falling snag.

Krista barely managed to dodge aside as Evan crashed through.

The door landed flat onto the concrete floor and Evan tumbled into the cramped dining room where they ate when it was too cold or wet to eat out at the picnic tables.

He rolled twice before fetching up against a stack of folding metal chairs. They scattered to the floor with such a crash she had to cover her ears for several seconds and still her ears hurt.

Impossibly, he came out of it in a low crouch poised in what looked like some kind of martial arts stance. Soldier trained.

“Real smooth, Rook,” Krista managed it with a straight face. The doorframe was shredded, the door on the floor was badly cracked, and metal chairs were scattered every which way throughout the room. Crouched in the middle of it was a gorgeous piece of soldier bleeding from a half dozen scratches.

He grinned up at her, “Green Berets are known for their grace and delicacy.”

For half a second she considered being insulted, those two adjectives had certainly been aimed at her as weapons many times in her past. But she couldn’t deny his grin and burst out laughing.

They both lost it and were soon both holding their sides at the pain of the laughter.

As promised, once they’d recovered their sanity, he gave her victor’s choice of the leftovers. They were back in the kitchen—she wolfing down some cold spaghetti and meatballs, Evan with a massive meatloaf sandwich of bread-meatloaf-bread—no stopping for any fixings—when a shout sounded from the main door.

Krista peeked out and saw Betsy standing in the shattered doorway, fists on her hips.

“What the hell have you done to my dining room?”

Krista started heading for the back door with bowl and fork in hand, but Evan blocked her way. “Can’t go dodging your deeds, Mama Krista.”

Betsy stalked into the kitchen. She might be barely five-six of lean redhead, but she ruled the kitchen and hence the stomachs and hearts of all of MHA’s smokies.

“Krista! What the hell?” Betsy waved a hand toward her shattered dining room.

Think fast! Gotta be a way out of this.

Krista turned and pointed at Evan.

“He did it!”

Chapter 7

The Tillamook Hill Fire
led to the Reno Creek Fire, and then a trio of brutal burns down in Southern California.

Downtime wasn’t an issue—they had none. So Evan didn’t have any trouble keeping his focus on the fire.

However, not having any downtime was becoming a serious issue for other reasons.

You aren’t seventeen, Ev!
That year he’d graduated high school and signed up for Army ROTC at Boise State. He’d only gone ROTC because he’d burn in hell before giving his parents the “we paid for you schooling” weapon to add to their arsenal.

No, he was thirty-two this fall, but he wanted to be playing grab-ass with a hot woman as if he was still a teenager. There was a major problem here in his libido’s opinion. In truth, they didn’t get a single second of time together, because you sure didn’t play games while on the fire.

Their time off mainly consisted of passed out on the jump plane in transit between fires, or passed out coyote fashion on a fire. He didn’t care if MHA paid a bonus for wrapping himself in a tarp and sleeping where he fell rather than a crappy tent in the middle of a noisy fire camp, it didn’t get him a single moment more with Krista.

The only slow times were meals, and on these fires, a number of those had been eaten while trooping from one fireline to the next wearing sixty pounds of gear.

“Goddamn it, Akbar,” he complained as good-naturedly as he could while they crawled onto yet another flight in full gear. “Don’t you guys ever get off the fireline?”

The engines on the DC-3 roared to life filling the cabin with a healthy dose of hot engine stink before they could shut the rear door.

“Rook is whining!” Akbar called out to the rest of the plane as soon as the engine noise had been mostly shut outside. “Wants a day off when there’s fires burning.”

Calls of “Wimp!” and similar were shouted by the others. Even Krista joined in with a loud raspberry noise.

“Quality of rookies these days is sad state of affairs,” Ox offered in his deep voice, sounding more like a Baptist minister than a Russian strongman.

“Shit you guys, you know the NASA line:
On Earth…”

Everyone on the DC-3 joined in, “
Something is always burning.”

Evan turned to Akbar and held out his hands, palm up. “See?”

“True. True,” Akbar nodded sagely but by the look in his eye, Evan had just made another rookie mistake.

“What?”

Akbar glanced over at Krista who nodded. Then Akbar looked up the plane’s aisle and shouted over the sudden roar of the engines cranking up to launch them down the runway.

“Ox!”

“Yeah, boss!”

“Next week you’ll be promoted to my jump partner for a few days. Rook wants your slot.”

“Hallelujah!” Ox fist pumped.

“What?” Evan had missed something and his jump partner was ecstatic about it.

Akbar simply patted him on the shoulder.

Evan looked at Krista for a clue. She didn’t say a word, but she was grinning like a lunatic. Clearly he’d not only stepped in it, but stepped in it deep.

No amount of hounding Akbar or Krista over the next seven days gained him a single hint.

All Ox, the asshole, offered was a chilling laugh and a darkly muttered, “Doom! Doom!”

# # #

Finally off the fires, Evan got to sleep in a bed. Not with Krista, but he was past caring. The bunk was heaven.

They’d all unloaded, restaged the gear, and crawled into the showers then their bunks. No calls of “Doghouse Inn!” Not many even made it down the buffet line that Betsy somehow managed to drag together despite following the MHA flight crews from camp to camp with her cook tent and supplies in tow.

Three straight weeks on fires equaled severe sleep deprivation.

Evan managed to resurface by midday, sixteen hours later. He felt so much better, except for the permanent kink in his neck from sleeping the whole time in one position.

He went out in front of the bunk house and, blinking at the late morning sunlight like an owl, started doing some stretches.

“Hey, Rook!”

“Hey, Master Sergeant!” Gods but she looked fantastic. “Damn but that smile of yours is a pleasure to wake up to.”

Her smile got even bigger.

“We first up?” The camp was quiet; silent enough for a family of deer to be browsing the other side of the air strip along the line of MHA’s jump planes and helicopters.

“Been up for hours, Rook. You’re about the last one out of the sack. Everyone else is down at the Doghouse for lunch.”

“Sounds great! Let’s go. I could eat a horse or one of those deer; got your bow and arrow handy?” He always lost ten or fifteen pounds each fire season because it was impossible to consume as many calories as he was burning. He felt at least five thousand shy at the moment. Evan started moving in on her wondering if he could get a treat before they ate.

Krista pushed him aside, but not before he got in a nice kiss and a quick feel. “Go see if you can beg breakfast from Betsy.”

Getting some calories and dragging Krista back into the woods on a beautiful summer’s day sounded like a great idea. He headed for the kitchen to see if Betsy had forgiven him for shattering her door.

“And Rook?” she called when he was halfway there.

“Yeah?”

“Eat fast.”

Didn’t have to tell him twice.

# # #

Ten minutes and only a bit of a groveling for forgiveness later, he was back out at one of the picnic tables with a pair of monster burgers, all the trimmings, and a mug of black coffee that had never been near an Army coffee urn. It must be in some manual somewhere that all Army coffee was required to be served well burnt or maybe the urns were simply all set to stun. Betsy used Honduran beans and a smooth Italian roast for MHA’s signature fare. Totally awesome. Another nice MHA bonus.

As for bonuses, Krista sat down across from him as he ate. Not at the same table so that he could play footsie with her, but instead leaning back against the next table over with her feet propped on the other bench of his table. It let him truly admire the woman.

Jeans, sneakers, a black t-shirt with a simple “Smokejumper” stretched wide across. Dark shades hid the blue eyes. Her smile was up to something and he couldn’t wait to find out what it was.

“You make me wonder what I ever saw in other women.”

“Are you like Ox? Want your women pixie sized?”

“Nope,” he bit into his second burger and continued admiring her. “Always liked ‘em long, just never thought about one who could keep up with me.”

“Oh, I’m way ahead of you, Rook.”

“How’s that?”

“Told you to eat fast. Too late now,” and Krista pointed toward the parking lot.

Evan took another bite of his burger and turned to follow where she pointed. Nothing there. He was about to turn back when he picked up the sound of a big diesel engine changing gears, downshifting for the steep final climb up into the parking lot. Truck-sized. No, his Army training adjusted the assessment even as he made it. Bus-sized. Different timbre to the exhaust.

In a dust cloud, a yellow school bus crested the dirt road and swung into the lot. On the side were the words “Hood River High School.” On the display over the windshield it just said “Special.”

“What the—”

“You wanted off the jump line, Rook. You got it.”

The bus wheezed to a halt and the engine rattled to a stop.

“Mount Hood Aviation Smokejumper Camp for girls. We do this every summer.”

He’d known she and Akbar were up to something with how affable they were being about everything, but this was way the hell out of bounds. Ox’s “Hallelujah” was explained and Evan was so screwed.

Girls began climbing off the bus. High school ones that even at this distance he could see were armed with smart phones and attitude.

“What’s this got to do with getting a break?”

Krista was on her feet. “Akbar never said a word about getting a break. C’mon, Rook. Time to meet our students.” She slapped him hard enough on the shoulder that he almost inhaled the final bite of his burger.

Evan took a slug of his coffee and grabbed a fistful of French fries before tossing the rest in a garbage can and hustling after Krista. He pulled up alongside her just before she reached the kids.

“How many hours?” he whispered around a mouthful of fries and almost choked himself.

Krista just flashed that killer smile at him and turned away to face the twenty-plus girls and two parent chaperones who had piled off the bus. All sizes and shapes, shy and confident, chic and scruffy.

“Hey, girls,” Krista waved merrily. “Welcome to Mount Hood Aviation’s smokejumper and helibase. Hope you like the outdoors because we’ve got three days of fun planned for you.”

“Thr—” was all Evan managed. He really did choke this time.

Krista thumped him on the back, hard enough that he almost spit the last of his fries on the kids.

“I’m Krista.”

She aimed a thumb in his direction as he struggled to recover his composure.

“You can just call him Rook.”

# # #

Krista had started the whole camp idea three years before. She’d thought about how much she loved the outdoors and even though Concrete, Washington was a town of less than a thousand in the middle of the Cascade Mountains, almost none of the girls got out in nature.

Boys went into the woods: deer hunting with their dads, trouble hunting with their buddies.

Girls didn’t do squat. A dozen years ago, they were still expected to do bake sales and car washes to support the sports teams. She hadn’t done anything about it then, but now she could.

The kids down in Hood River lived in an outdoor paradise but rarely thought beyond the windsurfing in the Columbia Gorge. When she floated the idea, she’d been given full support by MHA. She and Akbar had designed the camp and it was now a major hit with the high school girls.

While they were unloading their gear from the bus, Evan pulled her aside.

“What the—” he clamped down on the curse word and glanced over toward the school bus.

“Takes two to run the exercises safely,” she offered in her sweetest voice.

His look of abject panic was simply too splendid and she couldn’t stop goosing it.

“We take them out wilderness hiking and camping. Clear some line, teach them chainsaw technique. Then run them through the basic parachute trainer. Helicopter ride at the end if there are any helos not out on a fire. This year I even got them coupons for a free tandem parachute jump just south of Portland in case anyone wants to go. Two nights camping wild with the girls; it’ll be great.”

“Those are teenage girls.” He sounded horrified.

“They are, Rook. I found out that some of them pay better attention if we have a macho smokejumper in the mix.”

“Is this what Ox was being so damned happy about all week?”

“Ox was going to help this year, but you volunteered.”

“I didn’t— Well, crap, I didn’t mean to.”

“You want some together time, this is where I’m going to be.” Krista suddenly cared about his answer to that. Which was unexpected. Since when did she care what a guy did or didn’t do?

But before she could really worry at that, he grinned at her.

“Okay, that sold me. But I still think I was shanghaied.”

“You were, Rook,” and Krista couldn’t stop the happy feeling inside that bubbled up at his easy acceptance.

“Can we at least—”

“Nope!” Damn but he was fun to mess with. “You don’t get off the hook that easy. Rook is how you’ve been introduced, Rook is what you’re stuck with.”

He rolled his eyes at her, but followed her forward cheerfully enough when she waved everyone over toward the picnic tables.

# # #

“All electronics: cell phones, watches, music players, tablets,” Krista told the round-eyed girls. “They all go in the bag.”

Evan was handing out drawstring bags with blank name tags to the girls who sat scattered among Betsy’s picnic tables.

“You gotta be kidding me!” More than one protested.

Evan did his best not to laugh in the girls’ faces. “Your next charger is three days away,” he spoke up in support of Krista. “And on a fire, we’re pretty remote, so there are almost never cell towers.”

“Solar charger, duh!” Two girls held up small panels. “Gotta have my music.”

“Those go in the bag too,” Krista informed them. “Nature is providing the soundtrack.”

“Everything you want to have with you,” Evan pointed to a line of rucksacks, “you have to carry in your own backpack for the next three days.”

That certainly changed the dynamic. Within minutes, extra shoes, makeup, a couple of hairdryers, e-readers and books, and a surprising volume of extra clothes had all been transferred into the drawstring bags. It was hard for a guy to keep a straight face while watching such antics, so he did his best to look elsewhere.

Looking at Krista wasn’t doing him the least bit of good. She was clearly used to this and enjoying his fish-out-of-water state far too much; something he’d definitely be paying her back for later. Looking at Krista also made him think other thoughts. He’d never understood those guys who liked younger women. Sure, they were great to look at, so perfect in youth. But the contrast of a woman like Krista, strong, confident, mature, and attractive as all hell put the girls to shame. Except these weren’t girls, these were young women.

Evan had never been comfortable around teenage girls, well, not since he’d been chasing them as a teen himself. Now he couldn’t help but see parts of his younger sister in each one and had to force that away and out of his mind.

Fast.

Down that path lay the ultimate black hole of his life.

He started trying to catalog them.

They’d be less scary that way.

There was the really fit blond wearing the nametag Ash, obviously the top athlete of the group, quiet and focused.

Callie who was like a short, brunette Krista, solid and with a ready laugh.

Mallory, easily the prettiest of them all, was as concerned with her clothes and looks (one of the hairdryers came out of her gear) as with her status among the other girls. She also had a fragility that she was struggling to keep hidden behind a carefully studied perfection and a somber expression.