Sweet Burn (17 page)

“Are you taking it back?”

He spun in a smaller circle, her legs brushing his as she turned.

“Absolutely not,” he said. She could have whatever she wanted, even if he had no idea what they were discussing.

“
Good.
” Her hands cupped
his
ass and squeezed. Right there in the bar, where everyone could see them. Well… hell. “Because I’ve decided we can try.”

“Try what?” Jesus. His mind was happy to supply a long list of possible sex acts, but he wasn
’
t sure that was where Mimi was going.

“A relationship,” she announced. “We’ll try it. The getting married thing, however, is completely off the table.”

“Uh-huh.” His mouth curled up in a smile. Damn, she was bossy and he loved it. Loved
her
.

“We should probably establish some rules.” She looked serious, but her fingers were doing a very naughty dance over his backside.

“If you grope the goods in public,” he warned, “we’re leaving and going back to my place. I just think you should know that.”

“Good to know.” A small smile teased the corners of her mouth, so he had to lean down and brush a kiss over her lips as the song came to an end.

“Break’
s over,
” she said gently. Reaching up, she patted him on the cheek. The move was nowhere near close to a real kiss and he sure as hell wasn’t getting tongue on the dance floor but… yeah, he was grinning like a first class moron. She might as well have announced their coupledom to the rest of Strong in blinking neon lights.

Mack
’
s day at work had been shit. While the fire hadn
’
t been a big one, it had been tough to access. The terrain was thickly forested and the local access roads couldn
’
t get the teams on the ground close enough so the local hotshots team had to pack in ten miles. Their landing zone was a scrap of empty space hemmed in by tall ponderosa pines. He
’
d hung up and had to cut himself free, but at least he hadn
’
t plummeted thirty feet to the ground.

Worse, they hadn
’
t gotten the fire under control. At all. The fire had hopped the line and come far too close to a housing development that butted up against the wildland space. One guy had burns. Nothing bad, but again: something that shouldn
’
t have happened. The team had hiked out, knowing they
’
d lost this one. The mood in the trucks was somber and pissed off.

Mimi was in the bedroom when he finally made it home, flicking on the TV real low so he didn
’
t wake her up. After a little channel hopping, he settled on a zombie show, because watching the news right now would be a mistake. He knew what he
’
d see: living Technicolor proof of his failure. The zombies had taken down one of the good guys when she came out of the bedroom. She nudged him forward, so she could sit down behind him on the couch, wrapping her legs around his waist loosely.

“Hey,” she said quietly. She was wearing that shorty pajama thing he liked so much, the thin cotton cupping her ass and the straps slipping down her arms. When she leaned into him, her breasts pressed against his back. “You coming to bed?”

“Soon.” He was still too wound up to sleep. A drink might fix that, but he
’
d sworn off alcohol as medicine when he
’
d come home from his last military tour, and so he
’
d have to wait for nature to take its course.

She rubbed his shoulders, her thumbs digging into the sore spots and rubbing away the tension. And, thank God, she didn
’
t want to talk about his day. She was clear on the no trespassing sign he
’
d thrown up and respected it.

On screen, one of the good guys bit it in a spectacular spray of gore.

“He should run faster.”

“You bet,” he answered, wondering if he could have dug faster. If he could have done anything differently out there in the field that would have made a difference. Probably not, but there was no way to know for sure unless there was a parallel universe out there somewhere where his doppelgänger had made other, better decisions.

When the show finally wound down (all Mimi said as the zombies overran the compound and the good guys achieved a spectacularly unhappy ending was “God, that
’
s gross.”), he felt marginally more human. Maybe it was the comparison with the small screen. Mimi slipped out from behind him and curled up next to him.

“It
’
s going to be a bad summer,” he said gruffly.

“Dry?”

“You bet.”

“You take care of yourself now.” She delivered her words with a sharp punch to his side.

He grunted. “You didn
’
t warn me that you had a violent side.”

“Consider yourself warned.”

“I
’
ll be fine out there.” He aimed the remote toward the TV and hit the
off
button.

“Guys get hurt. Accidents happen.”

That was true. “You worried about me?” Shifting, he rolled her beneath him and braced himself over her on his forearms.

She stared up at him, clearly not interested in going anywhere. “You
’
re a big boy.”

“It
’
s okay to admit the truth,” he teased.

“
I don’
t want you to get hurt.”

“Let
’
s talk about your day. Any sign of Herring or other gang-affiliated folks targeting your butt?”

“No.” She hesitated. “Maybe I
’
m in the clear. Maybe no one
was
shooting at me, or maybe the Molotov cocktail was all he had in mind.”

“You need to be careful too. No crazy chances, you hear me?”

“That goes double for you,”
she sighed.
“I
’
m not the one who makes a living jumping out of planes into fires.”

Since there was nothing more he could say, he settled for lowering his head and kissing her.

***

The DC-3 circled back around over the jump site. Mack wasn
’
t jumping today. Instead, he and Jack were resupplying the guys on the ground. The fixed-wing aircraft had brought the jumpers out yesterday, but they were already running low on supplies.

Spotted Dick was on the radio to the Incident Commander, letting the IC know the plane was coming in for a cargo drop. The airspace over the fire was busy, making the heads-up even more critical. Two tankers dropped slurry, coating the fire
’
s northern edge with red fire retardant, as an observation aircraft checked out the burn from above. Cleared for the drop, Spotted Dick reduced their altitude, taking them down to just 1500 feet above the ground. Show time.

To the plane
’
s left, it was all green forest and sunshine. Smoke punched up from the ridge on the right and the air took on a smoky haze. Patches of orange flame chewed at the trees. He could make out the small dots of the guys digging line. The jump team would have to hike out to the nearest access road and wait for a pick-up there. The DC-3 was a one-way ride unless there was a local airstrip Spotted Dick could put her down on.

That wasn
’
t happening here. Instead, they
’
d brought three pallets of cache items. The pallets mostly held extra pumps and hose, plus two replacement chainsaws. Somebody on the ground had also ordered Subway sandwiches. Dinner was going to be flat as hell, but hey. Mack had no problem with delivering.

Spotted Dick
’
s voice filled his headset, calling out their altitude. “1500AGL.”

That worked for him. He nodded to Jack and braced in the open door, holding onto the guide wire he
’
d clipped himself onto. The blades of the right-hand engine chewed up the air a few yards from his head.

“Streamers away.”

He leaned out the open bay to drop the drift streamers. The weighted crepe paper sank and then the paper caught the wind, the tail pointing out the wind
’
s direction.
Yeah, baby.

When the streamers hit the clearing, he observed their landing position and then pulled his head back inside. On the other side of the bay, Jack was doing the same thing.

The goal was to set it down in the clearing, rather than the thick ring of ponderosas hemming the open space. Equally bad options included the charred downhill slope or the areas that were actually burning. Since each pallet topped out at 120 pounds, no one on the ground wanted to have to move the stuff. The drop zone wasn
’
t flat, though, since Mother Nature worked like that. The streamers had landed closer to the edge of the clearing than he liked. The ground was high and upwind.
Shit.
He checked for jumpers, counting four guys on the ground and two in the burnout.

He held up six fingers to Jack, who flashed his own thumbs-up. It wouldn
’
t do to drop the cargo on anyone
’
s head.

“Up 100?”

Jack nodded in agreement and relayed the correction to Spotted Dick. Adjusting the drop altitude by one hundred feet should put them closer to dead center. The plane banked right and came back around facing into the wind for the second pass. This time the streamers hit where they wanted, so Mack let Spotted Dick know they
’
d be dropping the cargo on the next pass.

“
Short final,
” Spotted Dick barked and Mack and Jack got ready.

“
Standby.
”

On Spotted Dick
’
s terse “Kick,” he and Jack sprang into action, pushing the pallets out the open bay. The load swayed wildly, buffeted by the wind and the orange-and-white-striped chutes that popped open to guide the bundles down. Jack whooped as the cargo set down nicely in the center of the clearing, the chutes collapsing over the goods. A job well done.

He and Jack lay back on the floor of the plane. They had thirty minutes until they were wheels-down back at the base. Everyone was running low on sleep, so they
’
d rest up while they could. Still, he turned his head and eyeballed Jack. Jack had his sunglasses on underneath his helmet and there was no way of telling if the man had passed out yet or not.

“Got a question for you.” He elbowed Jack just in case the words hadn
’
t done the trick.

Jack turned his head toward him, pushing up the glasses. “
Shoot.
”

Not asleep. Good.

“Can I borrow your wife?”

Jack blinked.
“You want my Lily?”

“I need her advice,” he clarified.

A smile quirked the corners of Jack
’
s mouth. “Good. Because I don
’
t lend her out for just anything.”

“I want to drive down to Sacramento and pick out a ring.”

“For yourself?”

This time, Mack punched Jack in the shoulder. The man knew. Hell, all of Strong probably knew. Thank God Mimi hadn
’
t been subtle in the bar the other night. Now he didn
’
t have to hide anything either.

“For Mimi.”

He waited and, sure enough, Jack laughed. “I never thought I
’
d see the day.”

“You picked out a ring.”

“Yeah.” Another smile, but this one was deeper. Mack was looking forward to grinning like a loon himself. “Lily
’
s a keeper.”

“So
’
s Mimi.”

He didn
’
t know if Jack would argue with him. They both knew she
’
d spent some time last summer seeing Rio—and that Rio hadn
’
t been the first smoke jumper she
’
d dated. Mimi liked her firefighters. He might not have been her first, but he was planning on being her last.

And her best.

“So you
’
re serious,” Jack said finally, raising his head to look at Mack.

“I am.”

“Quick,” Jack observed.

He shrugged. “How long did it take you with Lily? When she
’
s right, she
’
s right.”

“A word of advice. She
’
s
always
right.”

Mack knew he had a cheesy grin splitting his face. “Learned that one already.”

Jack
’
s head thumped back against the floor. “You
’
re surprising her.”

Mack figured that was obvious.

Jack wasn
’
t done yet. “Have you asked her to marry you? Or are you going for a total ambush? Because you could drop to one knee in the bar and give us all a free show.”

Mack uttered a curse word and Jack laughed.

“I asked,” he admitted. “She didn
’
t say
no
.”

“A step in the right direction.”

“Says the man who
’
s only asked once.”

“Yeah, but it
worked
. That practically makes me an expert.” Jack fished his phone out and texted Lily. “You sure you don
’
t want to take Mimi with you? Let her pick out her own ring?”

He
’
d thought about it, but the problem was the
not-a-yes
she
’
d given him. She hadn
’
t said no, but she hadn
’
t said yes, either. The expression on her face had said she was thinking about it, though. His tough, kick-ass girl was seriously thinking about it. He was hoping something sparkly would nudge her over into that
yes
territory.

“I
’
m going with the element of surprise,” he said.

“Lily
’
s free tomorrow and you
’
re not on the jump roster. Surprise away.” Jack grinned. “But if you
’
re feeling charitable, do your asking in the bar. I
’
d like to see this.”