Page 30 of Burnin' For You
Another tip from Jed.
And all these hints Kate had passed onto Gilly. Right before Gilly went to jump camp, hoping she could someday join Kate on the fire line.
Kate looked up and gave her a wry smile. Gilly returned it.
If she couldn’t be an official smokejumper, she could at least get the team to their drop zone safely.
The other female smokejumper, Hannah, closed her locker, gathered her dark hair into a pony tail and waddled toward the briefing room carrying her gear. Brave and tough, despite her short, curvy frame, Hannah had surprised them all with her grit. She’d spent an hour under her fire shelter earlier this summer—earning a few burns that had landed her in the hospital. Gilly and the entire team would have understood if she’d decided to hang it up.
But so few women made it as smokejumpers. Hannah had a tight fist on her accomplishment and wasn’t going to let a few burns keep her from being among the elite.
Gilly tried not to envy her. Or taste the old bite of failure, acrid and thick in her throat.
She hated how her fears kept her from—well, the life she wanted. Smokejumping. Even, maybe, Reuben—or more accurately, romance. A man in her life.Not necessarily Reuben.She had no doubt he wouldn’t ask her to dance again, anyway.
Frankly, she wasn’t sure how she felt about dating a guy she’d have to climb onto a chair to kiss.
Her face heated at the thought, and the one behind it that had his arms curled around her, her own over those magnificent shoulders, her fingers twined in his unruly hair.
Feeling all that strength and power channeled, focused, on her.
She shook herself out of the image, almost trembling.
No, no, that couldn’t happen. Ever.
Because despite her sister’s teasing, there was no room for anything between teammates but getting the job done. Sure, Jed and Kate had something special—but that had started years ago.
She should probably just erase last night from her brain. Poor Reuben probably wanted to forget it, too.
Gilly walked past the lounge and into the ready room, equipped with four long parachute-folding tables and older, heavy-duty Singer sewing machines. Near the front, chairs were set in a semicircle to face a whiteboard with the roster list and call-out activity sheet hanging next to a large map of the entire Kootenai range—their main territory.
She knew the national forest from memory, every peak, ridge, canyon,ASAP and river—from the air.
“Gilly,” Jed had come up behind her. “Did you get a flight map from air control?”
“Yep. We’re all set. I finished up my preflight, plotted our route, and now I’m headed out for my preflight check. Wheels up in fifteen.”
She sat in the back, however, as Jed briefed them on the fire. Just a little flicker, probably not big enough to cause a problem, but the area around Yaak was as dry as Egypt, and with the little camp town only a few miles away and populated by summer and hunting cabins, they needed to get in and snuff it out before it grew into something the fire service couldn’t extinguish.
“It’s just west of Davis Creek, in the canyon, between Black Top and Mushroom Peak in the Cabinet Mountains. There’s an old hunting road that we can use to flank it. We’ll do a burnout along the edge, contain it on this side of the ridge. If it jumps the ridge, we’ll have to call in the tankers. The NIFC would like to get it under control ASAP, see if we can keep costs down on this fire.”
From Jed’s calm explanation, it sounded like something they could do in their sleep.
“We’ll get on the ground, and if we need to call for reinforcements, Gilly will bring them in. Pete, I know you’re on the jump list, but I want you to stay back with the second crew.”
She liked hearing her name in the game plan. See, she was a vital part of the team.
Gilly got up, noticed Reuben didn’t even glance her direction, and headed outside to her beautiful Twin Otter, just back from a one-hundred-hour inspection.
She ran her hand along the smooth white surface and along the red stripe. She stood back, gave the plane a once-over, checking the tire pressure and wings before diving into her checklist.
Then she ducked into the cockpit, grabbing the ARROW documents—airworthiness certificate, registration, radio station license, operating limitation documents, and weight and balance information—all attached to the plastic pouch on the cockpit wall.
She opened the aircraft log and noted the signer on the inspection. Patrick Browning. She hoped he’d checked the transponder—it had been replaced in the winter and had its own inspection schedule.
Yes. He’d made a notation in the margins. Patrick was thorough, if not an old hand at the game of patching up aircraft.
Gilly did her cockpit check, making sure all the valves and switches worked, leaving them in the correct position. She turned on the battery switch and noted the fuel quantities for later recollection, then made sure the magnetos were off.