“Nope,” I said, popping the p with a little too much emphasis. The guys caught everything. Dante rubbed his hand down his chest.
“Then I think I need to introduce myself to her.”
“You do. You die. Plain and simple.”
“Oh!” When the others chimed in, I showed Dante my fist. The motherfucker hadn’t turned off the microphone, goading me on purpose.
Dante threw up both hands. “Hey, I’m just saying. If you can’t handle a beautiful woman, I certainly can.”
“Fuck you.” We were given the evil eye by the captain. “Said with full adoration in my heart.”
One taste and it just wasn’t enough. Why I’d given her my old cell phone I didn’t know, other than the thought of her being without some level of communication bothered me. Yeah, I didn’t think her father would let anything happen to her, but I also didn’t like the thought of not being able to get in touch with her.
Even if the way we’d left our time together was as if we’d never see each other again.
I shook my head, unable to get images of her out of my mind. She was still a handful after all these years.
“Earth to lover boy,” Dante continued teasing. “Hey, Cap’n, I think we need to vote on a name change for our rookie here.”
The term had gotten old long before now. Before, I’d felt the camaraderie of every man on this plane, so I’d let it go. Asudden, unwanted feeling of irritation threatened to build into anger. I flipped in my mind, hissing loudly enough for everyone to hear my annoyance.
Captain Daughtry seemed to catch that I was close to the edge. “Keep you goddamn eye on the ball, gentlemen. We have an arsonist out there. The structure fire appears suspicious and got out of control quickly.”
“Not enough firefighters,” I threw in.
“Cause you left them, Axe man,” Rock teased.
The others burst into laughter, stopping only when the captain cleared his throat loudly in the microphone.
“As I was saying. We don’t know the forest fire isn’t what the son of a bitch was hoping for. For all we know, there could be other accelerants out there buried in the wilderness. Stay focused.” The captain rarely cursed. We were all pissed. Because of the arsonist, Will was gone.
“Yes, sir,” we said collectively.
Dante was still grinning.
And even with the captain’s reminder, I was still thinking about the beautiful woman. I’d hated lying to her about Wade. Maybe some part of me had thought our momentary lapse of judgment could stay our little secret. While I doubted Kenzie would confide anything to her brother, since he was the one who’d come to pick her up, he’d jump to conclusions.
I had to wonder what story he would end up telling her.
Or if she’d shut him down.
“Two miles out,” Captain Daughtry barked into the communications system. “Look alive, people.”
We stood, every jumper hooked on the line keeping us secure. The smoke was clearly seen out the windows on the starboard side of the plane. I was antsy like the other jumpers. The reason was the rumor mill that had already run the gamut through the system.
As noted by the captain, the fire that had started the wildfires had likely been caused by arson. It was possible whoever had torched the old mill hadn’t calculated the wind speed. But it was also possible there was something even more sinister with his or her plans.
Embers from the flames had carried two miles to the edge of the forest that hadn’t received the previous day’s storm. Given our budget had been cut, we hadn’t gone out on our usual yearly debris clearing missions.
Doing so could have prevented the flames crawling up the mountain. The combination with the lack of rain was a death sentence for the terrain.
“Buddy check!” the captain called. Today, I was paired with Rock, who yanked on my parachute straps first.
“Watch yourself out there, rookie,” he teased, knowing exactly how I’d react.
After giving him the finger, I checked his gear as well. Since Will’s death, he’d been the one to take me under his wing, pretending he wasn’t worried about me. That was not something I’d wanted in any way, shape, or form and he knew it.
“The fire is barely twenty percent contained,” Captain Daughtry explained. “Two air tankers have come and gone. With the size of the fire, we’re pulling in another shift. We’ll be stretched thin, gentlemen. No room for mistakes.”
