Читать книгу Back to Eden - Melinda Curtis - Страница 9

COLE HUDSON FINISHED sweeping the razor across his chin, rinsed the last of the shaving cream from his face and paused to stare into the sliver of a mirror someone had hung above the outdoor sinks at the Flathead, Montana, base camp.

“We made it through a day without the fire getting the better of us,” Jackson, the supervisor of the wildland firefighters known as the Silver Bend Hot Shots, announced beside him. “I think that calls for a beer, don’t you?”

“And a thick, juicy steak,” Logan seconded, shoving his shaving kit into his pack, pausing to look at the plastic-encased picture of his family dangling from the strap.

Cole hesitated. It had been a tough few weeks in the Flathead Mountains of Montana. The beast had toyed with the crews on a daily basis and finally overrun them with near deadly consequences two days ago. Cole’s best friend, Aiden, better known as Spider in Hot Shot circles, had nearly lost his dad in the flash fire. Spider now sat vigil at a hospital in Missoula waiting for his father’s recovery.

“I heard they were serving steak tonight, too.” Jackson dried his hands with a towel, lingering over his wedding band.

“But not beer,” Logan lamented. Alcohol wasn’t allowed in fire camps. “Let’s get into the chow line before they run out of beef. If I lose any more weight this season, Thea will kill me.”

Cole knew exactly what Logan meant. After six months away from home, the entire crew was pretty lean. Thanks to the demanding physical labor and the fight against dehydration, they didn’t carry much fat.

“Just another day or so,” Cole murmured. They’d served their time, and the Forest Service would have to decide if they would stay on with a day of rest, or if they’d be sent home.

Now that they had air support, this fire just might be brought under control. Although some teams would continue working for another few weeks, others would begin winding down from the long season and go home in time to take their kids trick-or-treating and make plans for the holidays. This year, for the first time in a long time, Cole would be the only one of his friends to go home alone.

Jackson had reunited with his wife. Logan had found someone who’d brought light to his dark side. And now Spider had reconciled with his dad and was about to become a husband and father himself. Spider, who Cole had been certain would never grow up, was eager for his new role.

Poor, lucky sap.

Cole stared into the mirror, noting the wrinkles and the laugh lines emphasized by so many fire seasons under the hot summer sun. It wasn’t that he didn’t have a pretty decent life. With a job he loved and a group of friends he’d trust with his life, Cole had nothing to complain about. He even had someone at home, or at least someone in his heart. A woman he loved.

A woman he’d let go.

“You’re the only one for me,” Missy had whispered to him.

Eleven years ago he’d walked out of Missy Quinlan’s life, hoping she’d follow. Today, after battling a monster of a fire, and about to face three to four months of life alone in a small apartment, something unsettling crept into his thoughts.

It was time.

He was finished waiting for Missy. He had to know if she was happy without him. If so, he’d move on, no regrets. As soon as they were released from the fire, Cole would drive to Eden and find out if he’d been a fool all these years or an incredibly wise man.

“LOOKING FORWARD to the end?” Danny asked as he and Rachel walked through base camp on their way to dinner. He moved with a limp and shoulders stooped with age, but he was still one of the best air tanker pilots around.

“Hey, we’re heading into October and I’m in the black this year. Why would I want it to end?” Rachel joked, even as she wished herself home with her family. It was weird how she absolutely loved to fly and absolutely hated the guilt her job created.

Rachel operated Fire Angels air tanker service. She’d picked up several good contracts from the Forest Service in states to the east of Wyoming over the past few years, purposefully avoiding Idaho and Montana. But at the end of a long season, federal parks were still burning in many of the western states, so all the firefighting resources and personnel were shifting west instead of hunkering down in their homes for the winter.

Danny removed his baseball cap and gestured at the firefighters in front of them with a laugh. “Yeah, these losers are probably more than ready to head home, and we’re itching to get in the air again.”

“We’ve got the promise of tomorrow. That’s more than we’ll have next week.” Although Rachel wanted the fire to be out and the season to be over, she couldn’t help but appreciate any reason to take to the skies. Nothing could compare to the feeling Rachel got from flying.

“Look at these ground pounders,” Danny said, casting his gaze over the men around them. “I’m almost three times the age of most of them, and they’re dragging their asses like little schoolgirls.”

One of the men in front of them shot Danny a deadly look, so Rachel decided to let the conversation drop. The last thing she wanted was a fight drawing attention to herself, just in case she knew someone here.

Trying to appear like the professional she was, Rachel glanced around, but it was impossible to pick out anyone she knew beneath the yellow helmets and layers of grime. A few of the men looked her up and down, then flashed an interested grin Rachel ignored. With a body built for sin—or so Missy used to tell Rachel—and eyes that even Rachel had to admit slanted more provocatively than Missy’s, it was often hard for Rachel to blend in. And she desperately wanted to blend in today.

Rachel knew Cole was, or had been, a Hot Shot in Idaho eleven years ago. It was with mixed feelings that she’d looked at the fire camp roster a few minutes earlier and seen two Idaho crews listed. Eleven years was forever in a Hot Shot lifetime. The work was tough on the body and the mind. Chances were slim that Cole was still on active duty. With his love of horses and his bent for the big thrill, Cole could have turned from the Hot Shots to the rodeo or NASCAR for his adrenaline rush.

Still, Rachel pulled her baseball cap low over her eyes as she fell into the dinner line with the other fliers and ground support teams. The pilots and their crews had been bussed over to base camp from the airstrip twenty miles away with the promise of hot showers and a steak dinner celebrating the containment of the fire.

“Let’s not go looking for trouble.” Out of the corner of her eye, Rachel caught a glimpse of someone with blond hair and broad shoulders. Controlling the flutter in her stomach, she turned away from the man. “Besides, Danny, you know you’ll have cabin fever at first snowfall. Who wants to hurry home to that?” Back to the slow routine at the ranch, back to homework and laundry, back to the limited repertoire of meals she could cook. In the winter, she felt she was twenty-six going on forty—bound to Eden by love and a responsibility she hadn’t asked for.

“That’s why you and I get along, kid. We’re too much alike.” With a playful flick of a gnarled hand, Danny broke her reverie by flipping Rachel’s baseball hat off. There wasn’t much of a breeze, but it was enough to carry it several feet.

Rachel scrambled to pick it up, but someone beat her to it. As the man straightened, Rachel felt her knees go weak and the blood drain from her face. She half turned, as if to run.

“Rachel?”

It was sad, really, how Rachel recognized Cole Hudson’s voice with its gentle Texas twang more than eleven years after she’d last heard him speak, sadder still that her heart raced at the sound. If she’d been frying in the Indian-summer heat of Montana before, she was broiling now. Rachel was suddenly grateful that she hadn’t looked in the mirrors in the portable latrine, because she preferred to hold on to what little dignity she could muster and pretend she looked presentable. At least she could hide behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

“You’re such a tomboy, Rachel,” Missy said, braiding Rachel’s hair before she went to school. “Why don’t you try out for cheerleading?”

“The only thing better than flying is fixing an engine,” Rachel said. “Cheerleading is for sissies.”

Missy shook her head. “Boys don’t like tomboys.”

As Rachel turned back to face Cole, she caught a whiff of herself—sweat and a combination of exhaust fumes, slurry and engine oil. Ugh. Cole had always liked girlie girls. Rachel plastered what she hoped resembled a smile on her face, hoping at least her manner would convey what a cool, polished woman she’d become, and not raise suspicion about the secrets she was hiding.

“Hey, Cole. Long time no see.” Good. She sounded unfazed, not like a woman whose heart pounded crazily in her chest.

And then Cole was laughing as he scooped her up and spun her around in a crushing embrace.

The world slowed down, winding back, back, back, to a simpler time when anything was possible and happiness had seemed so easy to attain.

Cole.

Without thinking, Rachel clung tighter, pressed closer, until she heard the buzz of a small Cessna’s engine overhead and reality came crashing back.

What was she doing? “Put me down!” Rachel struggled against Cole’s rock-solid chest and her traitorous emotions. “Dammit, Cole. Put. Me. Down.”

Unceremoniously, his arms released her and Rachel stumbled, but somehow managed to regain her balance.

“This guy buggin’ you, Rachel?” Danny asked, a steadying presence at her side, even though his wiry physique was no match for Cole’s.

“No. He’s an old friend,” Rachel admitted after a moment spent unable to avoid looking at Cole. “Why don’t you get back in line, Danny. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

Danny moved slowly toward the chow line with a few dark looks for Cole.

Meanwhile, Cole didn’t say a word. He just stood there watching her with bright blue eyes that she’d hardly dared stare into when she was fifteen, much less now. With a linebacker’s build, a square jaw and short blond hair, he carried his age well, probably better than Rachel. He looked at peace, far different from the worried expression Rachel saw in her own reflection.

“You look like hell. I almost didn’t recognize you,” he said finally, handing her the baseball cap. “What are you doing out here?”

Rachel put the hat back on her head. His words shouldn’t hurt, but his tone implied she had no business being at a wildland fire camp miles from civilization. Rachel looked beyond Cole to the smoke-filled horizon. Things were so much easier in the air than on the ground.

“I’m contracted with the Forest Service, working the fire just like you are.” Making good money to tide her over through the lean winter months.

He frowned, taking in her appearance from head to toe. “Hot Shot?” She wasn’t wearing the Hot Shot garb that Cole was—fire-resistant drab-green slacks and a yellow button-down.

Rachel flicked her thick ponytail over her shoulder with a laugh. “Fight fires on the ground with nothing more than a shovel or a chainsaw? I’m not that foolish. I’ll leave that to you, thank you very much.” And she should leave him standing there with the question she knew he was dying to ask—How’s Missy? But Rachel’s boots seemed to have taken root in the dirt.

The disapproving expression didn’t leave his face. After a moment Cole said, “You’re not flying air tankers, are you?”

“Yep.” Rachel squared her shoulders. She was proud of the fact that she was one of the few female tanker pilots, prouder still that she was owner of her own tanker service. She flew a PB4Y2 Privateer, an airplane that had served in at least two wars. Dumping fire retardant on forty-foot-high flames on runs reminiscent of those barnstorming fighter pilots who’d come before her was Rachel’s idea of heaven. Sometimes she couldn’t believe they paid her to do it.

Cole cursed under his breath, taking Rachel by the arm. “Look, kid—”

Kid? Rachel bristled at the word. In the back of her mind, she’d always believed that Cole would approve of what she was doing, would jump at the chance to make a run with her. She’d never imagined he’d treat her as if she were still fifteen and waiting for her first kiss. Rachel shook off his touch, even though part of her trembled with the contact.

“This isn’t a game out here. You’ve always been a risk taker, but…” Cole lowered his voice and leaned closer. “I’m sure you’ve noticed how air tankers have been dropping from the sky lately.”

He was right. A lot of the old beauties weren’t able to take the stress of diving into deep valleys and pulling up to avoid the trees on the opposite side of the basin. But Rachel had rebuilt the Privateer herself and knew that its engines could withstand tremendous stress.

“Maybe there have been a few older models that haven’t held up after fifty or more years of hard service, but my plane is different.” Rachel resisted the inclination to tell him she was one of the most respected pilot mechanics in the business, something she could thank her father for. “I know what I’m doing, Cole. Why can’t you just wish me well?” Instead of making her feel two inches high, which was how she felt anyway, because she wouldn’t tell him about Jenna. And then there was Missy… Rachel had never liked hiding the truth. Yet, that seemed to be all she did nowadays. And Cole was, in part, to blame.

Rachel looked for Danny. She couldn’t last much longer without spilling her guts or losing the facade that she was a fully functioning adult.

Unexpectedly, Cole reached out and removed her sunglasses. “What happened to your freckles?”

Rachel snatched them back and thrust them into place. “I grew out of them.” If only she’d outgrown her feelings for Cole.

“And Missy?” Cole finally asked the question she’d been dreading. “How is Missy?”

Rachel’s throat closed as she recognized the expression in Cole’s blue eyes—hope. She’d thought she’d loved this man at one time. Later, she’d realized it had been a foolish teenager’s crush. But it was clear that he was still in love with Missy, the woman he’d slept with just hours before her marriage to another man, and then left alone to face the consequences. And then there was what he’d done five years ago.

Rachel was such a sentimental fool.

“She’s dead,” Rachel managed to tell him, holding her heart together by willpower alone as she waited for Cole to say he’d wondered why Missy hadn’t shown up on his doorstep five years ago, waited for him to explain why he’d never called to see what had become of her.

Instead Cole swayed as if he might be felled by the heartbreaking news that Rachel had been living with for what seemed like an eternity.

Rachel frowned.

“I had no idea.” His gaze wandered around, from the latrines to the chow line to the trucks rumbling out of camp. Then his attention swung back to her. “When?”

Rachel tried to hide her confusion. How could Cole have forgotten? He had to have known. “Five years ago.” Although the vibrant spark that had once been Missy had been extinguished on her wedding day and none of Rachel’s efforts had rekindled that flame. “Car accident. We lost her.” Rachel’s voice sounded distant, as if someone else was speaking, someone who hadn’t known Missy and somehow failed her.

Rachel wouldn’t fail Missy now. She wouldn’t tell Cole the secrets pressing at the back of her throat, the most pressing of which was that he’d created a beautiful little girl on the eve of Missy’s wedding to Lyle.

Rachel had made her sister a promise, and she was sticking to it.

“IF YOU LOVED ME, you’d stay with me here in Eden. I can’t leave Rachel.” Missy’s voice had been filled with an aching sadness, as if she’d known her fate was sealed if Cole left her.

What had Cole done?

“Chainsaw, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” Jackson observed as he parked his booted feet near Cole’s.

Cole squinted up into the sunset to find Jackson and Logan regarding him.

After hearing the devastating news, Cole had staggered over to the latrines where he’d tried to decide if he was going to puke or not. Minutes later, with his friends standing in front of him, Cole still wasn’t sure.

Missy was dead.

He wiped a hand over his face. He’d always believed she was The One—the woman he was meant to be with. All she’d had to do was touch him and he’d combusted. She’d given him an ultimatum that last morning he’d seen her, either settle down in Eden or leave her be. There was nothing for him in Eden—no family since his had moved to Idaho, and there sure as hell weren’t any jobs in the dying town. In the heat of anger, he’d told Missy he’d wait for her through her foolish marriage. He’d told Missy he’d wait until she grew up and realized they were destined to be together.

And he had waited, living as if he’d had a marriage vow to honor, knowing she’d come back to him someday.

Only to find out Missy was dead.

“I, uh…” Cole struggled to find the words to tell his friends what had blindsided him. “I just heard that…Missy is dead.”

Without a word they sat on either side of him on the hard-packed Montana earth.

Jackson put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. How did you hear?”

“Her little sister told me a few minutes ago.” Rachel had looked just the same as the picture he carried in his wallet—a stubborn lift to her chin, wisps of long black hair escaping from her ponytail, slender as a reed, wearing cowboy boots, scruffy blue jeans and a T-shirt. If it wasn’t for the way she filled out her T-shirt, she’d have tomboy written all over her.

What Rachel didn’t have written all over her was grief, because she’d had five years to come to terms with her sister’s death. All Cole’s dreams—

“Missy’s sister?” Logan broke into Cole’s thoughts, leaning forward and looking at Jackson, then at Cole. “The little girl who rebuilt your truck engine before she had a license to drive it? The one who beat you in a bareback horse race?”

“Logan.” Jackson held up a hand in Logan’s direction.

“Yeah. She’s a tanker pilot. I should have known she’d end up doing something crazy, especially with Missy gone….” Cole stared down at his boots. Rachel was no longer a little girl. She was a woman who’d never outgrown the daredevil spirit that he’d been sure Missy would temper as they aged. Crap. He still couldn’t believe Missy was long dead. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Maybe after we finish here, we can take a run over to Wyoming and pay our respects,” Jackson suggested softly.

Cole shook his head slowly, in wonder. “You didn’t even know her.”

“No, but we know you, buddy, and even if you’re not ready to talk about it, we’ll be there for you when you are.”

“LAST RUN OF THE DAY,” Rachel said as Danny landed Fire Angel One. They’d done nothing more exciting than drop retardant around the fire all day long. The fire had died down, so that there were no flames raging out of control and no firefighters trapped and in need of rescue. Very ho-hum.

“Last run of the season,” Danny corrected wistfully as he taxied the Privateer to the retardant base.

Despite the shift in winds this afternoon, the dragon appeared to be contained, and they’d been ordered to drop one last load of slurry on the steep eastern slope near the road before refueling and heading home to Wyoming. A season of flying was over.

Rachel sighed. At least she wouldn’t have to see Cole again.

In their passes over the fire, she’d caught glimpses of the crews below, bolstering the last of the fire lines before this beast burned itself out. She couldn’t help but wonder if Cole was one of them, if he looked to the sky as she flew over. How was Cole handling the news about Missy? Rachel had dreaded meeting Cole again. She had so much to blame him for. Even though she’d idolized him all those years ago, Cole Hudson never looked before he leaped, and that had contributed to Missy’s downward spiral and death. After so much time, Rachel had thought he’d shrug, offer his condolences and move on, but he’d appeared shaken.

Beside a shed on the edge of the runway, boots in puddles of red muck, the ground crew stood ready with hoses that would pump another twenty-five hundred gallons of fire-smothering slurry into the belly of the Privateer. Originally a long-range Navy patrol bomber built for World War II, Fire Angel One had been stripped clean to make room for the massive tank that had been riveted within the plane’s belly.

Without waiting for Danny to cut the engines, the ground crew approached, each dragging a hose and looking like aliens from the red planet, because their clothing, hats, goggles, gloves and masks were covered with a sticky glaze of crimson slurry. It would take them only a few minutes to fill the tank to capacity.

“My turn to fly.” Rachel faced the old bomber pilot, raising her voice over the whoosh and splash of slurry pouring into the Privateer. “How much do you want to bet this is the most boring run of the season?”

“I’ll pass on that bet.” Danny turned his cap backward and pushed his sunglasses firmly onto the bridge of his crooked nose. “It’s back to the boob tube for me and engine rebuilds for you.”

“At least I’ve got something to do this winter.” Rachel had an engine to rebuild on an old C119 warplane for a collector in Nevada. Danny would have to wait until spring to pick up work.

Danny laughed, rising to switch seats. “Yeah. Better make this last run stellar, then, kid. Are you up for barnstorming the camp?” Danny was always suggesting risky deeds, probably because as a fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam, he’d cheated death more than his share of times.

“Are you up for having your pilot’s license revoked?” Rachel groused as she climbed behind the pilot’s controls, wondering why she was so somber. Was it because she’d reawakened her grief over Missy’s death through telling Cole? Or was it that Cole’s shocked reaction wasn’t at all what she’d expected?

The slurry hoses quieted. The tank was sealed back up. With a wave, the men in red retreated to wait for the next plane.

Unaware of Rachel’s mood, Danny grinned, shoving his mirrored glasses on. “Where’s your sense of adventure? Life is meant to be lived. Let’s take to the air, kid!”

“WHO’S READY?” Jackson yelled at the other eighteen Silver Bend Hot Shots packing their gear in base camp.

Doc and O’Reilly, among the youngest of the crew, already had their iPod earphones on and were oblivious to Jackson’s question.

The Silver Bend Hot Shots had been given marching orders. The fire was almost at the mop-up stage. That meant that less-skilled crews with lower hourly rates could be utilized. And since Silver Bend wasn’t a Montana crew, they were among the first to be released and sent home. States took care of their own.

Their duffels were stuffed with dirty clothes and reeked of smoke. They’d been fed and assured their paychecks were in the mail. All that was left to do was to pack up, load up, gas up and head for Idaho. Still, they weren’t in their civvy gear yet. There was always a chance when you were on a fire that you’d be called back into the thick of things. And this fire had created its own weather almost every afternoon since they’d been here, wreaking havoc with predictions and putting lives in danger when the winds whipped flames to dangerous heights.

Even now Cole could feel the wind pick up and change direction.

At the roar of an airplane overhead, Cole looked up. It was one of those antique planes that the Forest Service kept threatening to ground because of performance issues, planes so old they had a high likelihood of crashing. Cole had no way of knowing if it was Rachel or not, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the plane. In some weird way, she was the only thing he had left of Missy. The sisters hadn’t looked alike, and they were as different as milk to wine, but it was a link Cole was reluctant to break now that he’d found Rachel again.

WITH A SIGH Rachel took out her camera and snapped a quick shot of the base camp as they flew overhead. She tucked the camera back into her utility vest pocket. When Rachel got home, she and Jenna would sit together in front of the computer and look at her pictures from the season. This year she’d got some spectacular shots from above of other tankers dumping their payloads on hot targets. Jenna always seemed to enjoy looking at her pictures.

Voices crackled urgently in her headset.

“Did you hear that?” Rachel shouted over the roar of the four prop engines.

“You heard right.” Danny grinned. “Wind’s shifted. There’s a crew that might be trapped if they don’t get help soon. This is no longer a milk run, kid.”

Rachel banked and brought the plane into a new trajectory. They were minutes away from the location—a deep slope in a narrow part of the valley. As approaches went, it would be easy. They’d have to fly as low as they could over the canopy of trees. It was the climb out that was going to be tricky. Not impossible for Danny and Rachel, but it would by no means be a cake walk.

Rachel flew over the drop site once, taking in the fire racing after the fleeing men and women in yellow shirts before losing them in thick plumes of smoke, examining the seamless horizon broken only by a lone pine towering forty feet above the main tree line.

“Not much time,” Rachel noted as she prayed that wasn’t Cole down there running for his life. As Rachel angled around for a final approach, she rejected the feeling of guilt for keeping the truth about Jenna from Cole.

“Don’t need much time if your aim’s good,” Danny said, always fearless.

“We’ve got to watch out for that granddaddy pine as we come out,” Rachel observed, scanning the gauges for any sign of stress in the Privateer. Everything looked normal.

She spared a quick glance at her latest picture of Jenna and Matt. Jenna smiled with the unworried expression of a preteen who hadn’t yet discovered boys. Matt’s grin had been known to melt the hearts of ice-cream store clerks.

Coming out of the turn, Rachel leveled out the plane before pushing it into a steep dive through the thickening smoke. Down, down, down they plummeted toward the flaming treetops. Rachel flew as if she had no fear. Part of her reveled when her stomach dropped at their rapid descent. Part of her worried about Jenna and Matt, orphaned back at home if Rachel ever miscalculated.

She wouldn’t disappoint her kids.

“Slow down. Don’t lose them in the smoke.” The voice of the attack boss, circling high overhead in a small Cessna, crackled through the airwaves. “You’re coming in pretty damn fast.”

“Don’t listen to him. He’s never flown a bird like this in his life,” Danny yelled, leaning forward as if that would help him see better through the smoke. “We need speed. More speed.”

Rachel agreed with Danny. They had to come in fast and slingshot out, even if they were breaking a few safety regulations by flying in near-blind conditions. She gave it more throttle.

The plane shuddered with anticipation. The air seemed thick with the heavy threat of danger, making it hard to breathe. Usually Rachel imagined a young Cole was there at her side on adrenaline-pumping runs like this, egging her on, past the fear and into a zone where she operated on instinct.

She couldn’t find that Cole today, couldn’t bring the image of the object of her teenage affections to mind. But Rachel didn’t let the fear hold her back or keep her from diving into the shrouded air space over the retreating crew, who might be consumed by flame if she didn’t slow the fire and create a path to safety.

Visibility dropped as smoke wrapped around them. Rachel craned her neck as she tried to see out. She had no time to acknowledge the fear that clenched her heart, no time for more than a fleeting thought of home.

Pockets appeared in the smoke, showing her the way, then disappeared and teased just at the edge of her vision. Common sense screamed for her to pull up, get out, but Rachel had a job to do.

She kept her hands steady. There’d be time to let the shakes and the what-ifs take over later.

“Almost there. Don’t let up.” Danny wouldn’t back off either. “And…now!”

With economy of motion, Rachel punched the button on the steering yoke and felt the first three drop doors shudder open. At their rate and angle of descent, the red slurry would fall at a ninety-degree angle. She’d planned this run to catch the front flank of the fire with her first drop, hoping it would slow, if not halt completely, the raging head of the beast.

“Right on target, kid. Hit it again,” Danny cried, peering down at the flaming forest.

Rachel released the final three doors, catching sight of some of the fleeing crew as she did so, hoping this drop would provide a safe escape route for them.

The Privateer was long gone by the time the slurry hit the ground.

The smoke ahead was dense and dark. Visibility dimmed as she entered the plume, then cleared, then dimmed again as Rachel threw the flaps to bank, forcing the plane into a blind move against their momentum, against gravity. The Privateer bucked and groaned in complaint. The cockpit was dim, the air ahead of them impenetrable to the eye.

The attack boss cursed over the airwaves. “Can’t see a damn thing. Where are you, Fire Angel?”

“Hold together, baby,” Rachel murmured, praying for a clear windshield, even if it was only a view of the smoke-filled sky.

“Steady,” Danny cautioned. “You’re doing great.” He’d undoubtedly be crowing when they made it out of here. It was just the kind of adrenaline-pumping last run he’d wanted.

The smoke thinned as the plane climbed, shuddering from the effort.

Then they were bursting out of the smoke into a blinding dose of sunlight toward a thick spire of green. Too close. It was too close!

“The tree! The damn tree!” Danny shouted, as they raced toward the lone pine. It was fifty feet ahead of them and they were flying nearly one hundred miles an hour.

But it was too late to turn. Fire Angel One took the pine head-on about thirty feet from its top. The crack of the tree and the rip of metal was all Rachel heard as the windshield shattered into the cockpit, bringing a barrage of glass, branches, wood and pine cones onto them.

Rachel’s face stung and the air whooshed out of her lungs as something struck her in the rib cage. Impossibly, the plane seemed to float there, as if deciding whether to continue or give up. And then it bucked forward.

“We’re still flying!” Danny cried, as if that were the best news ever. “Three engines running. Hot damn!”

Danny didn’t know how hard Rachel was fighting to keep the plane going or to keep her shit together. Or maybe Danny did know and was just trying to keep her spirits up.

Her ribs were on fire. Something must have hit her when the windshield shattered, because breathing had become agony. But she didn’t dare spare a glance down at herself, because she could barely control the steering yoke, much less reach the other controls hidden beneath piles of green.

The Privateer bobbed and dipped dangerously above the canopy. Rachel didn’t think they could stay in the air much longer. They’d lost an engine on the right side, possibly damaged by debris. The landing strip was too far away, and the only thing between them and the airport was miles and miles of trees.

Something sputtered to her left.

“More thrust!” Danny reached for the thrusters. “Crap,” he yelled as he realized what Rachel already knew. Even if she could reach the control panel, it wouldn’t matter. The thrusters and gauges were covered with chunks of tree, barricaded in as if the old pine, in death, wanted to make sure it didn’t go down alone. Danny tugged at the wood, but a good portion of the trunk lay across the controls.

And pinned Rachel to her seat.

Double crap. Now that Rachel had looked, her hands started to shake.

The noise level decreased as one of the engines on the left died. Something an awful lot like doom swirled in Rachel’s gut. She couldn’t leave Jenna and Matt like this. The corner of their picture peeked out from behind pine needles.

“Fuel?” Rachel shouted as they shot out over the ridge and a new crop of trees waiting to shish kebab them.

Danny tugged frantically at the wood covering the thrusters. “Fuel’s fine, but we need more power. I’ll try restarting the engines.”

“We’re losing altitude,” she said, unsure if Danny heard her.

Danny released a string of curses and dug for the controls Rachel was sure wouldn’t work, her eye momentarily caught again by a corner of the photo still visible on the dash.

What had Rachel done?

Now Cole would never know the truth.