Page 7 of Burnin' For You
The ridge approached, flames licking along the top. “But you’d better do it now, before we’re over the fire again.”
“Bomber Five-Three, suggest you bail.” Beck’s voice came through the line. “You’re losing altitude; you’re drifting back over the fire.”
Silence as she fought the wind currents.
“Now or never!” Jared snapped. “Let’s go!”
Frankly, she could use Jared’s help on the yoke to keep the plane from rolling, or worse, stalling and pancaking them right onto the side of the ridge.
But she wasn’t going to beg for help. That’s the last thing she needed—if they survived—a reputation for not being able to handle the plane on her own.
Jared threw down the chutes with another dark word and slid into the copilot seat. “Fine. This better work.”
She angled them back over the ridge, into the smoke, but she had a bead on the lake, rippling crimson and burnt orange under the setting sun and the glow of the flames. “I can get us there.”
“I’m never flying with you again.” Jared had strapped himself in again, his voice tight.
She didn’t want to cheer, but...
Their airspeed barely held at one forty-five, the canyon floor rising, a bed of embers. Flares shot into the sky, igniting the smoky horizon.
Please, God—let the jumpers have gotten to the lake.
She knew Reuben—at least what he let them all know of him—and the panic in his voice over the radio just before she dropped her tank shook her.
Not prone to emotion, Reuben, if anyone, could get the team to safety. Something about him exuded strength. Power. And it wasn’t just his size. Yes, as sawyer for the team, he had the girth of one of those bulls he rode off-season, was probably six foot two, had ropy, wide shoulders, and a solid pack of muscles from carrying his chainsaw around the forest. But he also had a quiet, get-’er-done spirit about him.
If only she didn’t have the kind of baggage that kept her at arm’s length from men, especially big ones like Rube, they might be friends.
She knew better than to get tangled up with a smokejumper. Not only that, but aside from the occasionalthank youwhen she let him sit in the copilot seat, she barely registered on his radar.
What did she expect? She certainly wasn’t the kind of girl who attracted male attention.
Anymore.
They were close enough to the falling edge of the ridge to watch the candling effect—flames climbing up eighty-foot lodgepole pines only to burst into flame at the crown, the fire leaping from treetop to treetop.
“You’d better call in the emergency, tell them we’re putting down into the lake.”
“Roger.” Jared snapped.
The plane sank lower as she throttled forward, listening to him call in their sit rep. She dropped them toward the lake, the plane washboarding over the air currents, her arm aching with the jarring.
The fire had now consumed any remnant of the road, a storm of flame below.
Jared finished calling in their position.
Beck came on the line. “Your entire lower wing is hanging by a thread. You lose that, you lose the plane.”
“That’s a helpful bit of advice,” she said into her headset. “Jared, run the before-landing checklist.”
They’d fallen to fifty feet above the tops of the trees, the flames shooting sparks against their windshield. The rutting of the plane could jackhammer her teeth from her skull.
No wonder her sisters had cornered her at the beginning of the summer, offered her—yet again—a position at their bakery.
She might choose making cupcakes over flying a rattletrap Russian Annie over a sea of flames.
Or not.