Smolder (Firefighters of Montana Book 1) (7 page)

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” She practically wailed when his lips cruised to the spot near her ear that always made her knees buckle. “We can’t do this.”

“Mmm,” he murmured against her skin. “I have to go on a jump in forty minutes. The rest is going to have to wait until I get back.”

Laurel tapped her head against the back of the door in the hope of knocking some sense into her woozy brain. “No. That’s why we can’t do this. Now or ever.”

His face was hard again as he pulled away and Laurel’s body screamed at her in protest. She pressed her palms to the cool wood of the door to keep from digging her fingers into his T-shirt and pulling his body back against hers.

“
That’s
what I came to tell you,” she whispered.

“Do you ever say what you really mean?”

She hated that he had a point. “I have a little problem with impulsive behavior. But I’m working on it.”

“And what, I’m too impulsive for you?” he drawled, angrily. “Or not impulsive enough?”

Laurel pointed to the jump pack sitting ominously in the corner of the room. “Too risky. Your job is too risky, which makes
you
too risky.”

There was a brief flash of anguish in his eyes before he shuttered them behind the hard mask he’d likely perfected in the army. Laurel felt a spasm of guilt for having brought him any pain. But she had two hearts to protect—hers and Tyson’s.

“Yeah,” he said stoically. “It seems I’m destined to attract women who feel that way.” He reached behind her and pulled open the door. “We should be back on Friday sometime. Tell Tabitha not to worry.”

Laurel started for the reception area before turning back to Sam. “Be careful out there,” she couldn’t help saying.

His only acknowledgement was a stiff nod. Feeling a bit like a cold-hearted bitch, Laurel spun around and nearly careened into Jacqui Edwards, Russ Edwards’ widow. She was headed toward Sam’s office, Vin Kingston riding shotgun at her side.

Jacqui was the last person Laurel expected to see at the base. She’d been a fixture around the place for years, having worked the reception desk and as the file clerk. But just days after Russ had been laid to rest Jacqui took off without a word to anyone. Not that she and Laurel were particularly close. Still, Laurel liked the younger woman and her heart ached for her loss. Seeing the pain still so transparent in Jacqui’s big brown eyes validated the decision she’d just made with Sam. Laurel couldn’t expose her heart to the potential loss.

She gave the petite woman a warm smile. “Hey, Jacqui. I didn’t know you were back.” She gestured at Jacqui’s dark hair, once long but now cut in a stylish pixie that framed her face and made her cheek bones look model worthy. “Great hair. That suits you.”

“Thanks. I just got back, literally a few hours ago.” Jacqui touched her hair, taking a slight step toward Vin.

Both Jacqui and Vin had been through the ringer these past few months. Laurel was glad the young widow had someone helping her navigate the mourning process. Her thoughts flew to Sam. Who had helped him grieve? Surely he’d had more than a prize quarter horse to lean on?

“Vin,” Sam said, interrupting her errant thoughts.

Laurel quickly reminded herself that she wasn’t thinking of Sam that way. She couldn’t.

She looked on as Vin introduced Jacqui to Sam, noting the proprietary way Vin stood beside Russ’s widow. Despite the fact Vin was one of the very best men Laurel knew, she still hoped Jacqui had enough sense to protect her ravaged heart and not fall for a smokejumper twice.

“I wasn’t expecting you to come in on your way from the airport,” Sam said. “Unless… Were you just here to see…?” His gaze flicked to Russ’s parachute and Laurel’s heart squeezed.

“No. I thought we could talk about, um, my job,” Jacqui replied.

Sam didn’t bother to hide his relief. “That’d be great because things are a mess. I need to get someone in here pronto.”

Ignoring Laurel, Sam ushered Jacqui into his office. Laurel tried not to let her disappointment show as she gave Vin a quick wave and made her way out of the station.

*

The twin-engine Sherpa
flew a smooth circle over the million acres of Glacier National Park. Sam had asked Miranda to stretch their flight out so he could assess the terrain. The day was clear and bright and, being new to the region, Sam wanted to commit as much of the park to memory as he could. Topography maps and the Internet were great tools, but if a fire or search and rescue came up, Sam needed to use his own mental images to be able to quickly formulate an initial assessment for headquarters without having to rely on others.

He glanced through the metal grate of his face mask across the aisle of the plane at the three smokejumpers on the bench facing him. Seven of the station’s permanent team members were on board the plane, all looking relaxed in their helmets and jumpsuits despite the fact that each one knew this drill was an assessment of some kind. Since arriving in Montana, Sam had taken the initiative to spend time individually with each person on the year-round staff—whether it was on the base or in The Drop Zone. Or, in the case of Molly Rivers—one of the two female smokejumpers who worked for the forest service full-time—it was at the Laundromat on Sunday afternoon.

Sam liked what he saw in all the crew stationed at the base. They were a dedicated lot who trained every day to keep their bodies in peak physical shape. Based on his conversations with each one, he felt all of them were mentally tough enough to handle the grind of a long fire season. Even the guy sitting next to him.

Ace Clark stretched out his long legs, crossing his boots at the ankles. “Rumor has it Jacqui Edwards was in the station earlier,” he said casually. The others on board looked up from their phones to listen in.

“She was. We can all breathe a sigh of relief because she’s coming back to work,” Sam announced. “I won’t need to demote one of you to file clerk.”

Molly, sitting on the other side of Ace, let out a relieved sigh. “Thank goodness.”

“Yeah, we really missed her around the base,” Garrett Broxson said from across the aisle.

“More like you missed the cowboy cookies she used to bring in,” Jessica Mendez teased.

“Hey, don’t tell my wife, but Jacqui makes a mean cookie,” Broxson said with a grin.

“Six miles from the jump spot,” Miranda radioed from the cockpit. The crew immediately sobered up, stowing their phones into the padded pocket sewn into their Kevlar jumpsuits before adjusting their helmets and sunglasses on their heads.

Sam watched as Doster Cohen searched the area with binoculars, looking for an adequate landing area. Practicing to be a spotter without having to worry about a raging fire overtaking the smokejumpers before they landed was a little like learning how to parallel park beside an empty curb. But Cohen had military experience at the job, and a conversation with his former CO revealed he was extremely efficient at the skill. That was enough for Sam to give him a shot. When Miranda began to descend and circle the Lake McDonald Valley, Cohen tossed several streamers out from the jump door. These would help him to determine the wind’s speed and direction. Cohen watched the path of the streamers for a moment or two and then radioed instructions to Miranda in the cockpit.

The Sherpa banked right as it circled around the jump zone a second time, dropping to a cruising altitude of fifteen hundred feet. Cohen gave the cabin a thumbs up and Sam got to his feet. “Buddy up,” he instructed the crew. “Clark, you’re with me.”

Somebody behind them muttered a good-natured “teacher’s pet” at Clark as the group moved in a single-file line toward the jump door. Since they weren’t worried about putting out a fire, Sam had selected a relatively easy landing area in the valley near Lake McDonald. They were splitting duty with the national park service, clearing some of the trails within Glacier. Sam’s team had been given the area around the lake.

He glanced out the jump door to the green meadows dotted with yellow daffodils below. While recreational skydivers jumped from heights of over twelve thousand feet, smokejumpers typically jumped much shorter distances, allowing them to land into a more compact target zone. There was a world of difference between a serene sixty-second free-fall to earth and the ten-second hurtle to the ground smokejumpers experienced.

Sam checked to make sure his static line was secured to the aircraft. For smokejumpers, the static line functioned essentially as a ripcord; once he exited the plane, Sam would have a few seconds of slack before the static line pulled the parachute from its pack. In the unlikely event the parachute didn’t deploy, Sam would have another second to manually operate his reserve parachute. He mouthed the same silent refrain he uttered before every jump, praying he wouldn’t break his ass or anything else when he kissed the ground.

Cohen tapped him on the shoulder and Sam reflexively stepped out of the plane. Two seconds later, his parachute inflated behind him with a jerk. The sheet got air but not enough to slow his descent that much. He pulled his feet and knees together, careful to keep his legs slightly bent as the ground rose up to meet him. Smokejumpers were trained to hit the ground by tucking their body into a ball and rolling—technically referred to as a parachute landing fall. When perfectly executed, they first touched the ground with the balls of their feet, tucking and rolling in the direction of the landing while absorbing the gravity of the fall with their calves, thighs, hips, and the sides of their back. The elapsed time for the full maneuver was barely a second.

The move was second nature to Sam and he completed it without injury. He quickly shucked his parachute over his shoulder so he could watch and assess the rest of his team’s landings. He should have known Clark would execute the move with more grace than a cat. But he made a mental note Broxson needed to shed a few pounds to make his landing look effortless. Rivers rolled onto the extra padding sewn into her jumpsuit and Ace yelled something about marshmallows across the meadow at her. The rest of the crew landed without incident, all of them sporting endorphin-fueled smiles on their faces.

“Glacier Creek transport to base,” Sam heard Miranda’s voice on the radio he carried. “Papa and the Bad News Bears have landed. Commence the com transfer.”

There was a chuckle at the other end of the radio when Tyler Dodson’s voice came over it. “I take it everyone is still in one piece, captain?”

“We landed on an effing cushioned mattress, for crying out loud,” Clark grumbled from beside Sam. “The degree of difficulty was negative ten. Everybody had better be in one piece or they’re facing boot camp with the rookies next week.”

Sam’s opinion of Clark rose even higher. Clearly, the guy was into the job.

“Everyone is intact and accounted for,” Sam said into the radio. He watched as the crew was already shedding their Kevlar jumpsuits, pulling items out of the pockets and shoving them into their packs. They then worked in teams of two to secure their parachutes, carefully checking them for any damage before folding and stowing them back into their jump packs.

“Well, you little scouters enjoy your s’mores on the lake,” Dodson was saying. “Ferguson, Kingston, and I will just work our asses off getting this paperwork ready for the start of boot camp next week.”

“Try not to staple your hand to the desk,” Ace called as he rolled up his parachute.

“Check in if you need more marshmallows.” Dodson joked. “Glacier-one out.”

Sam tucked the radio inside the pocket of the down shell he’d brought with him. Normally, smokejumpers wore standard-issue fire gear beneath their Kevlar, but since they’d be wielding axes and kombi shovels to clear trails, they’d all donned comfortable clothing they could work and sleep in. He shoved his helmet into his backpack and grabbed his jump pack.

Broxson and two of the others were busy unpacking the box of equipment Cohen had dropped after they’d all landed. He passed out the four chainsaws to one member of each of the teams of two. Then he strapped the extra water to his own pack while Clark took the other. The afternoon sun was warm on their backs as they hiked two miles east toward the Lake McDonald Ranger Station. Along the way, they made quick work of trees and shrubs overtaking the trail.

Nestled among hundred-foot red cedar trees—some as old as five hundred years—the ranger station looked out over Lake McDonald, a long, narrow nine and half mile body of water that was the largest of the seven hundred and sixty lakes in the park. The vast, blue waters rippled in the spring breeze. Sam stood for a moment admiring the majestic view from the covered front porch of the cabin. Growing up military, he’d lived all over the world, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything more beautiful than the view he was enjoying now.

The station wasn’t staffed during the winter months, and the crew’s first task was to make sure it was habitable for the forest ranger arriving for the summer. Sam punched in the code to the log cabin’s front door before throwing it wide open. The movement was met with a wild fluttering when a family of bats dive-bombed Sam’s head before they made their way out of the cabin. Clark doubled over in laughter as Molly Rivers patted Sam on the shoulder.