Page 42 of Burnin' For You
He pointed—indicating she should keep moving—down into the dark forest, and she headed toward it, down the rock, sliding on her backside.
Her knee burned, and water edged her eyes. She landed on her good leg, bracing herself on boulders, then started down the trail ahead of him.
He said nothing, and she couldn’t tell if he was debating intervention, or the answer to her question. Then, “We crashed on the ranch, in one of the far pastures. We were flying low, counting cattle, and we got caught in the crosswind of an approaching blizzard. We tried to land, and I did a ground loop.”
“I nearly did that once—my wing caught the ground and spun the plane.”
“In my case, it cartwheeled.”
The way he said it… “Rube, were you the oneflyingthe plane?”
Silence and she glanced back at him. He walked, head down, thumbs hooked into the strap of his utility bag.
“Wow. Was anyone hurt?”
“I broke both my legs.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah. I was in a cast to my waist for about six months. Missed my senior prom, didn’t graduate with my class. Didn’t play college football.”
He was so matter of fact about it, no emotion, but she had this strange urge to stop, to maybe put her arms around him.
Except that would be as awkward as their little trip on the dance floor.
She still hadn’t quite figured out how to get past that.
“So, if you’re so afraid of flying, why are you a smokejumper?”
“Because fear’s not going to win. I love being a smokejumper and yeah, I’m not keen on flying, but I so rarely crash…”
She looked back at him again, and he was grinning.
And her heart did this strange little flip in her chest. Her entire body turned warm.
Juliet’s words thrummed in her mind.That’s a hot cake if I’ve ever seen one.
She looked away, nearly stumbled, caught herself on a tree.
“Okay, really—how bad is your knee?”
Shoot. She righted herself, kept walking. Up ahead, the forest seemed to clear out, and now she could hear water. “Not bad,” she snapped. “I’ll be fine.”
So much for their little spark—her tone put them back where they should be. Two teammates trying to find help.
Reuben said nothing for too long as they walked, and his silence drove into her, settled into her bones.
Maybe she should have tempered her tone.
Juliet was right—she should stop trying so hard to prove herself.
Gilly pushed through a knot of bushy pines and stopped, Reuben nearly banging into her. She stood on the edge of a gorge, a drop of sixty or so feet into a gently running river.
“Pete Creek, if I remember my map,” he said, looking down.
She had a feeling he did.
What he’d left out was the fact that they’d have to rappel.