Plain Jane & The Hotshot (9 page)

A
s soon as Nick's team was inserted by helicopter into the thick timber surrounding Fort Liberty, they got down to the hard, backbreaking work of creating a firebreak—a swath of cleared ground completely encircling the fort.

This involved first clearing the thick brambles and other fuel, for the larger trees would not easily ignite without natural kindling. It was intense, blistering labor that had to be done quickly because flames were closing in fast.

So Nick split his group into two teams of six, one hour on, one hour off, one well-rested group always at work. He had learned from experience that six rested men could outwork twelve tired ones.

Despite the intense effort, however, his mind was occupied with constant thoughts of Jo Lofton.

Just my luck, he thought more than once. Finally he'd met someone who was the kind he'd like to settle down with, and this damned assignment had to pop up. He felt like a kid with a neat new toy, but those damned grown-ups weren't letting him play with it.

At least, he consoled himself, he was able to get an explanatory note to her. Even so, he felt he'd let Jo down by missing their date. He'd let himself down, too. He wanted to know more about her. It was hard to wait.

Damn this job, anyway. It had driven a wedge between him and Karen, too.

“This is a fine job if you're a woman-hater,” he remarked sarcastically during one of his team's rest periods.

“Hey, you want some cheese to go with that whine?” Jason teased him. “Your little sugarplum will taste just as sweet when we get back to Lookout Mountain.”

Nick, Jason and four others sat eating their bland military rations in a small base camp they had quickly established. They were grimy, their hair sweat-plastered.

“Yeah, if she's still there,” Nick groused. “We could be up here for days if that wind shifts.”

They had been ordered by the fire-command center on Copper Mountain to hold their position until re
lieved. Nick had no idea when that would be. Flames were unpredictable.

“Even if she's gone,” Jason reminded him, “you know where she lives, right?”

“Yeah,” Nick conceded, finding some comfort in the reminder. “I've never been to the town of Mystery, but Jo says it's small. It won't be hard to locate her. How many music teachers can they have?”

“Question is, how many have
you
had?” a smoke jumper named Brian Aldritch said, and the others snickered.

“One was enough,” Nick shot back.

All the guys hooted at that one, but Nick wasn't in the mood for the usual macho razzing. No, he thought, finding Jo would not be the real problem. What truly worried him was trying to find out what was in his own heart. Again he realized he had been searching for one good reason to give up his transient lifestyle and sink down roots someplace.

Face it, he lectured himself, you're not going to find what you've never had unless you stop running.

And he didn't want to run with Jo. She was the first woman he'd felt this way about. Sure, he thought he'd wanted to settle down with Karen, but all the missed dates, all the staying on the mountain to work extra shifts, that had been running from her, too. He'd liked the idea of settling down, but he now knew Karen hadn't been the one. And that was why she got fed up.

But Jo was different. She was the “one good rea
son” he'd been searching for all his life. But could he measure up to his dream? Security, trust, commitment—these were not things included in his background. When Karen had forced him into a choice—either her or his job—it was his fear that made him choose the latter.

With Jo, however, the feelings were strong enough to face that fear. But did she reciprocate his feelings? Sure, the sex had been intense. However, it was still too soon to know if she wanted what he wanted. He was no expert on the female psyche, but he had learned one hard fact from Karen: the woman usually held the “power”. It was she who decided if a relationship had a chance.

“Baker One Actual, this is Baker One,” came a static-fuzzy, familiar voice over Jason's radio transceiver. Mike Silewski…

Nick took the handheld unit from Jason and pressed the talk switch.

“Baker One, this is Baker One Actual,” Nick responded. “Read you loud and clear, Mike.”

“Howzit goin' up there, stout lads? Governor Collins is calling us every hour for a report. He's worried sick.”

“Tell him to calm down, the pros from Dover have the situation well in hand. Hey, did you deliver that note?”

“Relax, studly, I delivered it. Say, you boys are missing all the fun. Bridger's Summit is crawling with hot little numbers. Man, that Texas blonde gave me
a look I could feel in my hip pocket. Think I'll head back up there while you schmucks are busting your humps.”

Jason swore and grabbed the radio.

“Hey, Mike? You can't see this, but we're all flipping you the bird, pal.”

“Right back atcha, Hotshots. Over and out.”

“Time to hit it, boys,” Nick said, consulting his watch. He stretched the stiffness from his back, then shouldered his modified ax, one side cutting blade, the other a pick.

The last thing a fireslayer needed was a woman on his mind, but Nick knew he was going into the mouth of hell with one terrible Achilles' heel. Jo would not be banished from his thoughts.

Nor, he hoped, from his life.

 

After verifying that Nick and his team had apparently struck their camp and departed, Jo and Hazel returned together to their own camp.

“We'll get out on the river, keep you busy,” Hazel consoled her. “I know it won't be much fun, sweet love, but it'll be better than moping around thinking about things.”

The rest of the afternoon was reserved for practicing emergency rescues before the younger women braved the Chute day after tomorrow, the most turbulent stretch of the river during the almost three-hour rafting trip to the floor of Crying Horse Canyon.

Jo really did try to get into the spirit. But all of it
seemed unreal, somehow, as if she was just an actress pretending to have fun.

Bonnie leaned over and said low in her ear, “She must be over her PMS!”

Bonnie shifted her eyes enough to remind Jo how close the thwart behind them, where Kayla sat, was. Even Jo, distracted though she was, had noticed what Bonnie was alluding to. Everyone had by now. Kayla, usually overflowing with gripes, complaints and criticism, seemed to have withdrawn into herself. And shock of all shocks, she was being cooperative and civil.

Now Jo shrugged and said, “Who knows? She's stopped riding me, so I hope whatever it is keeps up.”

But Bonnie's allusion to PMS made Jo suddenly nervous. She was still on the pill, yes, but had she taken them all lately? Since the end of her affair with Ned, she had been careless at times because she was only using up the last of her supply.

The question hadn't nagged her when she and Nick were close; now, with him evidently riding off into the sunset like a cowboy at the end of a Western, fear clutched at her.

Please, she prayed fervently, don't let me be pregnant—especially not now.

Hazel and the others were conferring quietly in their raft nearby, Hazel pointing off to the north. Jo glanced in that direction and saw a thick, gray-black cylinder of smoke rising.

“That's a new fire,” Hazel said. “I'm sure it's still
safe down in the canyon, but we better monitor this closely.”

Right then Jo couldn't have cared less about the fires. She was too busy accusing herself of gross stupidity.

She should have listened to that voice that warned her not to succumb to Nick's charm, good looks and flattering campaign to win her over. For in fact, those who had constantly measured her against her mother and found Jo lacking, were absolutely right. She saw that clearly now. As clear as bedbugs on a clean sheet, as Hazel often phrased it.

So clear it hurt all over again as if it had just now happened.

Her eyes filmed, and only with great effort did she hold back the tears.

Men might be sexually attracted to her, but obviously she had nothing to hold them after their lust was spent. Call it charisma, feminine mystique, whatever—she didn't have it nor a clue how to get it.

Well, all right, then. If she had been man-wary before, now she was washing her hands of them completely. A future spent in singles' bars and casual one-night stands was not her idea of romance.

No more being kissed in corners by married men, no more “convenience sex” for horny con men like Nick, either. Sure, she enjoyed the sex just as he did. But for whatever reasons, men didn't suffer the blows to their self-esteem that she did.

Suddenly Bonnie's voice, more impatient now, again jolted her back to reality.

“Hey, Jo! When are you gonna come to the party? This isn't a bathtub, you know!”

With a stab of guilt, she realized they had reached the frothing rapids and the raft was bouncing around like a cork, in part because she wasn't doing her job with the paddle.

“Sorry,” she muttered, putting her back and shoulders into it.

Bonnie softened. “It's okay, but keep your head up from here. Day after tomorrow it won't be for practice. We'll all have to depend on each other, and no space cadets need apply.”

Bonnie seldom lectured, and it only made Jo feel even more ashamed that her distraction had pushed her into it. She forced herself to pay attention for the next hour and a half.

“Good work,” Hazel praised them as they hiked back upriver toward camp so the girls could change into dry clothing. “Only, remember that today there were no big rocks to contend with. Tomorrow, when you get about halfway down the Chute, you'll encounter a stretch of huge boulders. Just remember what Dottie told you before. If you fall into the river around rocks, don't fight the current. Go with the flow, and it'll most likely take you around the rocks.”

Believe me, Jo thought in grim silence, I'll follow your advice. I already know how it feels when I crash into a rock.

The wind gusted against her wet skin, making her shiver.

But she wasn't worried about the dangers ahead for her in the rapids. Surviving the fear-inspiring Chute was kids' play compared to surviving her own wayward heart.

“H
ere comes the cavalry, boys!” Nick called out to his team, pointing toward the sky. “Saved by the Canadians!”

Just south of the firebreak Nick's team had finally finished, a royal-blue transport helicopter hovered above the treeline. Orange-clad members of an elite smoke-jumper team from Alberta fast-roped down, sent in to relieve the Hotshots.

“So what?” complained Tom Albers. “HQ is sending us right back to Sector One without a day off.”

Sector One, on their working maps, included Lookout Mountain and Crying Horse Canyon. Normally, after working day and night on special assignments
like this rescue of Fort Liberty, a team got at least one day off.

Now, however, a potential new danger loomed. The weather station at Eagle Pass was predicting a potential “inversion” situation over the Bitterroot country—a unique set of atmospheric events that, in mountainous terrain, could act almost like a giant bellows on forest fires. In the worst-case scenario, even the smallest smoldering hot spots could be whipped into raging fires in a matter of hours.

“You think our fearless leader cares about time off?” Jason Baumgarter answered Tom, aiming a sly glance at Nick. “The man is in love, dude. He's champing at the bit to make more melodies with his hot little music teacher.”

Assuming she's still here, Nick fretted, not even bothering to toss insults back to his second-in-command and his radioman. Based on what Jo had told him, the women should be here through tomorrow, when the younger women were supposed to raft the river.

They might have left early, perhaps discouraged by the fire news. Nick had no idea if evacuation plans had been issued yet to the general public. Or maybe something had changed with Jo. Of all the times to suffer a forced separation, it had to be right after they'd made love.

Even before the Canadian team members had hiked up to their positions, Nick instructed Jason to radio for their own transport.

In no time at all the Hotshots were once again setting up camp on the slope just beneath Bridger's Summit.

“We've still got six hours of good light left,” Nick announced to his team. “The command center is worried about all that old growth at the north end of Crying Horse Canyon. Because of local topography, if we get an inversion situation, that part of the canyon will turn into a wind tunnel. We'll start thinning it out. Time is critical, so we'll fast-rope in. Be ready to stage out in—” Nick checked his watch “—in twenty minutes.”

That would give him just enough time, if he hurried, to see if Jo was up at her cabin.

She wasn't.

In fact, both cabins were deserted. But at least the three cars were still parked in the lot, so they hadn't pulled up stakes and left yet.

Fighting back his disappointment, Nick took the stub of pencil from his pocket and dug an old cash-register receipt from his billfold, using the back of it to write a little note:

“Jo—stopped by to see you. Will try again later. Nick”

He glanced quickly around the clearing and decided to leave it on the redwood picnic table, weighing it down with a stone. He hated leaving such an impersonal note. “Love, Nick” was really how he wanted to sign it, but he found he longed to say the word more than write it.

Looking forward to seeing her later, Nick hurried back down the slope toward his camp. Already he could hear the chopper approaching from the command center on Copper Mountain—his ride to work.

 

“Slow down, Jo!” Hazel teased her friend. “Us old fogies can't keep up!”

“Us young ones, neither,” Bonnie complained. “Why so gung-ho all of a sudden, Lofton? Are you training for the Olympics?”

The situation now, Jo realized as she stopped so the rest could catch up, was a direct reversal of their first day up here, when she was the one hurrying to keep up with Hazel.

But all this was deliberate. After wallowing in self-pity because of Nick's sneaky departure from the park, Jo had “bucked up” and transformed her attitude.

Okay, so her torrid tryst with Nick Kramer wasn't the smartest thing she'd done all year. She was determined to get over it and move on.

Now she was throwing herself into the outdoor activities with a vengeance, bound to forget Nick and justify Hazel's confidence in her.

Day nine, their last day before the floating final exam, as Hazel called the swoop-for-your-life, had been set aside for confidence-building and wilderness instruction. In the morning the girls ran through a special “circuit course” installed by the state university, a trail with numbered stations including climbing
obstacles, balance logs, scramble nets and rope bridges, all safe but physically and mentally challenging.

It all kept Jo mercifully busy and focused on something besides Nick. But the brief break for lunch at midday gave her too much time to recall his face and touch, the feel of him inside her, the crushing rejection as he apparently slipped out of town like a thief in the night. Taking her heart with him, despite her safeguards and defenses against men like him.

“Jo,” Hazel admonished, moving up beside her in the little clearing where they'd stopped to eat, some remote place well over on the western slope of the mountain, “drink some of your water and slow down a little. You're looking a little peaked today.”

“I thought you brought us up here to toughen us up,” she retorted aggressively. “Not to mother-hen us.”

Hazel, in a rare show of surprise, backed off. That afternoon was devoted to a three-hour hike that took them off the mountain slopes and down into the canyon floor. Their destination was the site of an old Blackfoot Indian summer camp.

“This spot isn't mentioned in any of the tourist guides,” Hazel explained, “because it was mainly just a work camp where they smoked and dried fish for the winters, not being a tribe that favored pemmican. We're gonna do it, too, on the same racks they used. It's fun.”

Jo asked questions and pitched in with an enthusiasm she knew was excessive, yet for her necessary.

The others noticed it, too, and exchanged glances—or so it seemed to her. She hated this self-consciousness she now felt, which left her feeling literally beside herself, as if she was watching herself trying to cope.

And she definitely hated and resented their pity. Hated it most of all.

“Smoke's not bad at all on this side,” Dottie said to Hazel late that afternoon when they were ready to hike back. “But look how it's massed toward the river.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Hazel replied. “I meant to follow the fire news closer today, but we've been on the move and I didn't get to it.”

She didn't bother to add that earlier when she heard all those choppers on the far slopes, it occurred to her Nick might still be in the area, after all.

However, Hazel wasn't about to mention it. Her instincts advised her to just let this one play itself out.

“We'll catch up on fire news tonight,” Stella promised. “Any signs of trouble, we cancel the swoop.”

“Oh, there's signs of trouble already,” Hazel said thoughtfully, her gaze fixed on Kayla. “Human trouble, that is.”

Dottie's grand-niece was rinsing her hands in the nearby stream, getting rid of the fish gunk, as she called it.

“You and me, Hazel,” Dottie remarked, “have tied our thoughts to the same rail. Ain't Kayla being a model mountain gal these past couple days? At least, compared to the way she was?”

“Mm. Like maybe she's nursing a guilty conscience?”

“No fair, you two,” Stella complained. “What do you know that I don't?”

“Nothing you can burn a brand into,” Hazel admitted. “But something doesn't quite add up here. I'm thinking we better stand by for a blast, because something is due to blow.”

 

The last of the day's sunlight was bleeding from the sky when the tired women finally returned to their cabins on Bridger's Summit.

Jo was sliding her backpack under her bed when Hazel came in and handed her a scrap of paper.

“Found this on the picnic table,” the older woman informed her without any additional comment.

Her heart racing at the knowledge that he was still in the area, after all, she read the two-line scrawl.

It was a note from Nick. But in her present mindset, the note was not unlike a red rag to a bull.

Sure, he wanted to see her again. He was horny again, no doubt and she was the easiest game in town.

Much later, when none of this would matter, she would realize that it was her strange mood—exhausted, defensive, angry and hurt—which caused the ill-fated night. Despite her relief that Nick wasn't re
ally gone, her disappointment in him was still too strong.

“Big deal,” she said, crumpling the note into a little wad. “So he stopped by. What's he want for that—a gold star?”

“No,” Hazel retorted pragmatically. “He wants to see you.”

“‘See' me? I'm sure he does. I'm just wondering, where was he two days ago?”

“Well, have you asked him that?”

“Why should I
have
to ask? I was ready, I waited. He's the one who blew it off.”

“Honey, you don't know—”

“We'll need water for supper,” Jo interrupted her friend. “I'll be right back.”

I sure
do
know, Jo fumed as she went outside and grabbed the water jug. I know all about being some man's low priority.

After the physical and emotional closeness she'd shared, or thought she'd shared, with Nick, there simply could not be any excuse for not letting her know why he stood her up. That kind of carelessness, especially after her failed romance with Ned, was intolerable, period, end of discussion. Better solitude than a casual lover.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she hardly noticed the gathering dusk along the winding path. As she stepped out onto the stone footbridge, a familiar voice behind her made her draw up short.

“Jo! I just missed you topside. Hazel told me you came down here.”

She spun around and watched Nick approach her, smiling uncertainly. In the grainy, dying light his face seemed pale and curiously incomplete—a blunt reminder she'd made love to a virtual stranger. This misery now was her reward.

She aimed a noncommittal stare at him. “Yes, here I am,” she said casually.

Now that he was closer, out on the bridge with her, she saw how dirty and rumpled he looked, smelled the sweat of labor on him. It made her think a bit more about him, even though she'd had two days to stew in her own juices, and her resentment toward him cut deep.

“Hey, you okay?” she hazarded.

“Yeah. I know I look beat.” He glanced ruefully at his smoky, torn attire.

Reaching for her, he bent to kiss her, but her instincts raged. She turned her head.

He let go. “What's this?” he asked, frowning, his eyes darkening with worry.

“Nothing.”

He stared at her. “You want to ease off, don't you,” he stated woodenly.

Inside, she released a moan of frustration. Now that she'd made up her mind to act sane again, he was going to entrap her. But there was no way she was going to tell him how much she wanted
not
to ease off. That conversation was his responsibility. Until
she knew he wanted more from her than just sex she was going to keep her mouth closed along with her legs.

Hiding her hurt and anger, she moved toward the pump.

He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey,” he said, sounding confused, “you got my note, right?”

“Thanks, I got it,” she replied, shaking off his hand. In the waning sunlight, her angry eyes flashed like molten metal.

He stared at her, his expression cloaked. “Then what is it?”

She vowed not to show or feel anything until she was well up the hill and away from his view. “Look, it's just that I've had time to think, and this isn't what I want.”

“What you want?” he echoed, his voice finally yielding to his exhaustion. “Well, out with it. What do you want?”

“I'm not trying to be unfair here. It's just that I— I want…” She turned around and faced the brook. Desperately trying to focus her mind on anything but the sting in her eyes, she finally stammered, “I—I want something, I mean,
someone,
a little more steady, I guess.”

He moved up behind her and pressed her back against him. His arms crossed over her stomach like a steel cage.

Unbidden, need surged in her. If truth be known,
she wanted him, right then and right there, dirt, sweat and all, and the world be damned.

But it was clear now that he knew more than she did. He'd predicted they'd never be friends because sex would always be there between them. Unfortunately, sex wasn't enough when one wanted love and commitment.

“Look,” he groaned, his cheek against her hair, “I know things have never been steady for me.” He paused and his hold grew tighter. “All I've ever gotten out of this life was a fistful of air. It's become the thing I'm used to, but that doesn't mean I don't want more. I want you to know I'll take more if I can get it.”

She couldn't believe his words. It was as if he was talking about candy, and if it was available, he would take as much as he could grab, whether it was chocolates, or peppermints, or both.

And it was the punishment she deserved for being so impetuous, for giving in to her loneliness. She'd had no business getting involved with any man, let alone this one, who touched her every weakness. Now that she was hurt, she had no one to blame but herself. Nick Kramer was who he was; she couldn't change him, couldn't make him want something he didn't. So it all must end, here and now. She couldn't give him another chance to lacerate her heart.

Bitterly she confessed, “Well, that's just it. You see, I don't want to be your port in the storm.”

Shaking her head, she pulled away from his warm
embrace, still unwilling to let him see her face and the silent tears now streaming down her cheeks. “But don't worry, sailor,” she choked, “there's always another port around.” Her voice breaking, she began toward the cabins, ready to jog there if she must in order to get far away from him and the hurt.