Flash of Fire (4 page)

“Vanessa and me,” Gordon whispered to Mickey in a tone of bewilderment, completely missing that he was in charge.

Oddly, Mickey could almost see that working, the dusky Italian beauty and the tall, Wyoming rancher boy. He gave Gordon an encouraging slap on the arm.

“I'm also sending one of the Twin 212s because the fire map looks ugly. Carly thinks they're underestimating the trouble they're in.” Which meant they were wrong, because the Fire Witch never was.

Mickey held his breath, wondering which he'd prefer: Washington or Alaska, a chance to rub shoulders with Vanessa or the new pilot? He was on the verge deciding the latter on the basis of no more than that shock of shining hair and her brilliant blue eyes, when Mark called for the other pilot.

“Bruce, you're for Leavenworth. I need Mickey's deep experience in Alaska.”

“No argument from me,” Bruce called out. Bruce was just a two-year man. Good enough but needed close watching on the big fires. A small but messy fire would be good for him.

“Mickey, you're with the Firehawks.” Mark raised his voice. “Your refuel stops are in Vancouver, BC; Juneau, Alaska; and final destination, Dawson City, Yukon Territory. There's an airstrip eight miles due east of town along the highway that will be our base of operations. You're aloft in ten. Firehawk One?”

“Yo,” the new pilot called back. Nice voice. He'd expected rough and salty, or deep and throaty, but it wasn't either. It was surprisingly normal. A nice contrast to her tough demeanor—because she radiated the tough attitude that the guys had been warning him about.

“You'll have a standard config for that bird, which is Carly as your copilot and Steve with his drones in back. Denise?”

“Here.” The mechanic raised her hand though there was no need. Despite her short stature, her long mane of blond hair would stand out anywhere.

“Kick your assistant Brenna and some supplies over to Bruce's bird. You and your main shop are with Vern up to Alaska. That does it. Get a move on, people; the forest is burning.”

Denise and Brenna bolted off toward the service trailer.

Mickey almost left Gordon to his own devices, but he'd be bound to screw it up. Just as he was duty bound to try to cut his friend off from any attractive woman, he also had to help him if he could.

“Gordon?”

“What?” His friend still looked a little overwhelmed.

“With Vanessa, just be yourself. Don't gum it up with trying to be charming; it doesn't work for you.”

“Sure it does,” he protested. “I'm a charming kind of guy.” He shot Mickey a grin.

Then he looked more carefully at Mickey's expression and sighed. Mickey didn't have to say a word.

“Okay, maybe not so much with the charm. Thanks, Mick.” And he turned for his helo.

Mickey caught his sleeve before he could move off. “Her name?” He nodded back over his shoulder toward the newbie.

“Robin something.”

“Like the bird?”

“Like,” that smooth female voice sounded from close behind him, “Robin Hood, who will put an arrow in your ass if you say Robin Red Breast.”

Mickey turned to face her. He decided that all of his first judgments at a distance were accurate, and at this close range, they were ten times more powerful—both the fine looks and the serious dose of attitude.

“Hi! Mickey Hamilton.” He held out a hand. “As long as it's not a Firehawk you're trying to ram up my ass, I'm fine.”

That earned a half smile; nice on the lips, not touching those crystalline, pure blue eyes. Her hand was fine fingered yet strong, like she did a lot of lifting with it. A lot. She glanced over his shoulder.

“He's Gordon Finchley,” Mickey filled in before Gordon could speak and get a foot in the door. Helping him with Vanessa was one thing; easing his access to this pretty unknown was
not
going to happen. “Yeah, Finch just like a little Tweety Bird. Don't pay him any mind.”

“Hi, Gordon. Good luck in Leavenworth.” She leaned around Mickey and reached out a hand, which Gordon shook as he mumbled something unintelligible. Or perhaps it was intelligible and Mickey just couldn't hear it.

He was struck by several things at once. It was the first time he'd actually seen Robin move, and both of his first guesses of ballerina and workout diva were equally justified. Her simple move was both lithe and powerful. Martial arts student perhaps. If so, it was a different form than his Taekwondo, something with more grace and flexibility.

Also, her lean toward Gordon had placed her so close that he could smell her. Her Nomex flight suit was brand-new and the woman wearing it smelled of clean soap and…cool ice—that impossible clarity of air when snow skiing. As if—newborn was the wrong image—newly wrought.

* * *

Gordon actually wasn't fluttery like Tweety Bird, but he was also clearly a sweet man—a major mark against him in Robin's book.

She knew from past experience that she tended to scare the shit out of men like him. They wanted her, but she would run over them roughshod, even on the rare occasions when she was trying not to.

This Mickey, on the other hand, she had been able to feel him watching her from the moment she'd hit the line. He hadn't shifted away as she reached past him to greet Gordon, letting her lean right into his personal space.

Guys named Mickey were supposed to look like hoodlums or something. Instead, Mickey Hamilton looked like a cop…or a firefighter. The trustworthy kind, not the sneaky shit she'd always pictured slipping from her mother's bed in the dark of the night and never coming back.

Up close, she could appreciate how nicely broad his shoulders were. And he had the kind of blue eyes that could see through any fog or other BS—far away the best feature on a very handsome face. He was an inch taller than she was but looked bigger and more solid than his taller finch friend.

Robin knew that—because her heritage was half firefighter and half truck-stop mama—she was a pushover for Mickey's type. Now she had to ask if she
wanted
to be a pushover this time or not.

She rocked back onto her heels and Gordon slipped out of her attention. Mickey didn't fade in the slightest. He had a slow smile, a real one that showed beneath the quick grin he'd been using to tease his buddy.

He didn't blink, squint, look away…or look down toward her chest. Mickey faced her eye to eye and offered that slow smile.

Summer is definitely looking up
, she thought to herself.
Most definitely.
Didn't mean she was going to make it easy for him.

“Mickey? Like the mouse?”

Gordon snorted out a laugh, slapped Mickey on the back, and headed away.

“Not Mickey Rooney either,” he offered in an unperturbed tone, showing no desire to hurry off to his aircraft.

“Not short and round?”

“Nor likely to break into a song-and-dance routine. And Mickey Mantle died about the time we both entered grade school, so I'm not him either.”

“How about
Mickey Blue Eyes
?”

“Well, my name is Mickey. Eyes are blue.”

“You don't strike me as the Hugh Grant romantic comedy type.”

He shrugged noncommittally. “You the type to watch them?”

“Not so much,” Robin admitted. Astute question. “So, Mick Blue Eyes it is.”

At that, he smiled and those blue eyes lit and sparkled with laughter that was only suggested by the sudden curve of his lips.

Then those deep blue eyes shifted over Robin's shoulder for a moment and she could feel someone coming up close behind. Give her one guess and it was an easy one.

But rather than scooting away from the incoming Queen Bitch Beale, Mick—no, she did like Mickey better—turned back and took Robin's hand again for a moment. Instead of shaking it, he just held it for an instant and she rather liked the warm, steady feeling.

“See you in the air.” Then he nodded to the woman behind Robin. “And we're really going to miss you, Emily.” He addressed her much more easily than Robin would have dared.

“I can see that.” The Queen's tone was dry enough to make the Tucson desert look well irrigated.

Mickey, looking not the least abashed, squeezed Robin's hand a final time and headed over toward his smaller Bell Twin 212—a respectable enough machine, though it couldn't carry half of what the pretty Firehawk hauled.

Robin braced herself before turning to face Queen Beale. Even pregnant, she was fit and beautiful. Her straight hair was a perfectly trimmed fall of gold to her shoulders. It caught the morning sun like a maiden Viking's helmet.

“You're a fine pilot,” the Queen launched in without preamble.

Robin opened her mouth and then shut it again when the unexpected compliment registered.

“You also think you're the
best
pilot, which you aren't. But you have the potential to be or we wouldn't have hired you out of the forty applicants that we accepted for interviews and tests or the two hundred that we didn't accept at all.”

Forty? Shit! Robin had kind of assumed she'd been the only one to apply. She sure hadn't seen anyone else around and had been hired right in the middle of the interview flight. Which meant QBB knew exactly what she was looking for, even if Robin had no idea why she was it.

Queen Beale had her take runs at flaming barrels with tanks full of water dipped from narrow streams. They'd flown tortuous routes among the crags and peaks of Mount Hood, right up past the tree line, to where the air was thin enough to drastically change performance profiles, and down into forested valleys so thick with fir trees that there was no sign of the land beneath.

She'd been sliding up to hover close beside a cliff when Beale's voice had shifted. Suddenly there were no longer instructions of “Do this! Go there!” It all became “When you're flying in this situation, you'll find…”

Robin had only needed to glance at Emily to be given the nod, “Yes, you passed. Now let's work on skills.” And they had done nothing else for the last three days. Robin was good, but the amount Queen Beale knew about helicopters and fire was astonishing.

“Bruce, Vanessa, and Gordon are good pilots,” QBB told her as they started across the runway. “They're coming up nicely, but they're on the Leavenworth fires, so you won't have to think about them yet. Jeannie, Vern, and Mickey, the three that you'll be traveling to Alaska with, are all exceptional. Jeannie has a degree in fire management and years of fire, Vern's years of flying Coast Guard makes him our best pilot, but Mickey is your fire specialist. He has more years flying to fire than the others combined. He's the best fire pilot I've got. You've met Carly and Steve?”

She had, barely, and offered a cautious nod. She was pretty sure Carly was the one who'd gone up to meet with the other leaders on the radio tower platform, but maybe not.

Emily slowed down her pace midfield with a curse and a hand on her belly. “This one kicks even worse than Tessa did. Carly flies left seat on Firehawk One. She is the top specialist there is on fire behavior. Her recommendations are gold; doesn't mean you have to follow them, but you'll want a good reason not to. Steve flies a spotting drone, typically from the backseat of my bird.”

“Why do you people have a drone?”

Queen Bitch Beale's smile was chilly, enough to make Robin's blood freeze in her veins despite the warm spring morning.

“
We
have a couple drones and they are very useful.” She backed up her words with a look that left no doubt Robin had damned well better take ownership of the team right fucking now.

“Got it!”
Don't need to beat me with a stick. Soldiers know the importance of teamwork.
And even though she was six months out, Robin knew she had a lot of soldier still in her “
We
have a drone.”

“ScanEagle with infrared heat imaging for fires,” Beale continued without acknowledgment. “Steve has a few other tricks up his sleeve as well. He'll mostly feed to Carly and she to you, but be ready for it.”

They reached the Firehawk that had been Beale's but would now be hers for a season. It was in the middle of the line of aircraft parked along the far side of the narrow grass runway. Place of first choice. Yet another sign among the hundred Robin had seen that said, pregnant or not, QBB ruled. Robin liked that in a woman.

“I can see you discounting Mickey's smaller helicopter. Don't. He has more hours in it aloft against fire than you have in your entire National Guard service.”

Robin nodded. Partly because that was interesting information about Mickey and partly because the Queen's attitude was one hundred percent that of a commanding officer, which made Robin's nod a self-preservation instinct. Of course, if Robin had run into a few more officers like this one, she might still be in the Guard.

“You'll be carrying the launch trailer for Steve's drone to Alaska with your Firehawk.”

Her
Firehawk. Just that simply Queen Beale was handing over the reins. It felt…weird.

“He'll make sure you have the information you need. Information's going to come at you fast and hard over a fire.”

“I'm used to that.” Robin patted the nose of Firehawk One.
Hers?

“Not like this. Trust me.” And Emily Beale smiled for perhaps the first time.

It was a powerful, engaging smile that made Robin feel as if she'd just crossed over some line. Unworthy to trusted? Outsider to insider? Most likely heathen outcast to razor-thin tolerance until her initial screwup, then outta there!

“In the Guard, when you were on a fire,” Beale continued, “you heard from one source, Incident Commander—Air, which is Mark for us. But you're seated in the Number One bird for Mount Hood Aviation now. I almost gave it to Jeannie and pushed you into the Number Two slot, but your commanders convinced me to keep you front and center.”