Chasing Fire

hot.”
    She couldn’t argue, as she’d seen Jim snag women like rainbow trout anytime the unit had pulled a night off to kick it up in town. He’d hit on her, she remembered, about two short seconds after he’d arrived on base. Still, he’d been good-natured about her shutdown. She’d implemented a firm policy against dating within the unit.
    Otherwise, she might’ve been tempted. He had that open, innocent face offset by the quick grin, and the gleam in the eye. For fun, she thought, for a careless pop of the cork out of the lust bottle. For serious—even if she’d been looking for serious—he’d never do the trick. Though they were the same age, he was just too young, too fresh off the farm—and maybe just a little too sweet under the thin layer of green that hadn’t burned off quite yet.
    “Which girl’s going to bed sad and lonely if you’re still dancing with the dragon?” she asked him.
    “Lucille.”
    “That’s the little one—with the giggle.”
    His fingers tapped, tapped, tapped on his knee. “She does more than giggle.”
    “You’re a dog, Romeo.”
    He tipped back his head, let out a series of sharp barks that made her laugh.
    “Make sure Dolly doesn’t find out you’re out howling,” she commented. She knew—everyone knew—he’d been banging one of the base cooks like a drum all season.
    “I can handle Dolly.” The tapping picked up pace. “Gonna handle Dolly.”
    Okay, Rowan thought, something bent out of shape there, which was why smart people didn’t bang or get banged by people they worked with.
    She gave him a little nudge because those busy fingers concerned her. “Everything okay with you, farm boy?”
    His pale blue eyes met hers for an instant, then shifted away while his knees did a bounce under those drumming fingers. “No problems here. It’s going to be smooth sailing like always. I just need to get down there.”
    She put a hand over his to still it. “You need to keep your head in the game, Jim.”
    “It’s there. Right there. Look at her, swishing her tail,” he said. “Once us Zulies get down there, she won’t be so sassy. We’ll put her down, and I’ll be making time with Lucille tomorrow night.”
    Unlikely, Rowan thought to herself. Her aerial view of the fire put her gauge at a solid two days of hard, sweaty work.
    And that was if things went their way.
    Rowan reached for her helmet, nodded toward their spotter. “Getting ready. Stay chilly, farm boy.”
    “I’m ice.”
    Cards—so dubbed as he carried a pack everywhere—wound his way through the load of ten jumpers and equipment to the rear of the plane, attached the tail of his harness to the restraining line.
    Even as Cards shouted out the warning to guard their reserves, Rowan hooked her arm over hers. Cards, a tough-bodied vet, pulled the door open to a rush of wind tainted with smoke and fuel. As he reached for the first set of streamers, Rowan set her helmet over her short crown of blond hair, strapped it, adjusted her face mask.
    She watched the streamers doing their colorful dance against the smoke-stained sky. Their long strips kicked in the turbulence, spiraled toward the southwest, seemed to roll, to rise, then caught another bounce before whisking into the trees.
    Cards called, “Right!” into his headset, and the pilot turned the plane.
    The second set of streamers snapped out, spun like a kid’s wind-up toy. The strips wrapped together, pulled apart, then dropped onto the tree-flanked patch of the jump site.
    “The wind line’s running across that creek, down to the trees and across the site,” Rowan said to Jim.
    Over her, the spotter and pilot made more adjustments, and another set of streamers snapped out into the slipstream.
    “It’s got a bite to it.”
    “Yeah. I saw.” Jim swiped the back of his hand over his mouth before strapping on his helmet and mask.
    “Take her to three thousand,” Cards shouted.
    Jump altitude. As first man, first stick, Rowan rose to take position. “About three hundred yards of drift,” she shouted to Jim, repeating what she’d heard Cards telling the pilot. “But there’s that bite. Don’t get caught downwind.”
    “Not my first party.”
    She saw his grin behind the bars of his face mask—confident, even eager. But something in his eyes, she thought. Just for a flash. She started to speak again, but Cards, already in position to the right of the door, called out, “Are you ready?”
    “We’re ready,” she