“Fine. I’m calm.”
“Not even close.”
“She’s got Jim’s blood on her,” Dolly wept as Yangtree and Matt pulled her from the room. “You all have his blood on you. I hope you all die. I hope you all burn alive. All of you.”
“I think she lost her religion,” Gull commented. “Listen to me. Rowan, you listen. She’s gone, and if you try to go after her and take a shot at her now, we’re just going to put you down again. You already bloodied Cards’s nose, and I’m pretty sure Janis is going to be sporting a black eye.”
“They shouldn’t have gotten in my way.”
“If they, and the rest of us, hadn’t, you’d have punched a pathetic lunatic, and you’d be off the jump list until it got sorted out.”
That, he noted, had her taking the first calming breath. He signaled for Libby and Trigger to let go of her legs and, when she didn’t try to kick them, pointed to the door.
Libby shut it quietly behind them.
“I’m letting you up.” He eased his grip on her arms, braced to grab them again if necessary. Then, cautiously, he shifted off her, sat on the floor.
Blood covered both of them, but he was pretty sure she had the worst of it. It smeared her face, dripped from her hair, coated her arms, her shirt. She looked as if she’d been whacked with an ax. And it made him sick.
“You know, it’s a goddamn pigsty in here.”
“That’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not, but it’s the best I got.” He eyed her coolly as she pushed up to sit, watched her right hand bunch into a fist. “I can take a punch if you need to throw one.”
“Just get out.”
“No. We’re just going to sit here awhile.”
Rowan used her shoulder to wipe at her face, smeared it with more blood. “She got that crap all over me. All over my bed, the floor, the walls.”
“She’s sick and she’s stupid. And she deserved to have every square inch of her skanky ass kicked. She’ll get fired, and everybody on base and within fifty miles will know why. That might be worse.”
“It’s not as satisfying.” She looked away a moment as, with the wild heat of temper fading, tears wanted to sting. She clamped her hands together; they’d started to shake.
“It smells like a slaughterhouse in here.”
“You can sleep in my room tonight.” He hitched a bandanna out of his pocket, used it to wipe blood from her face. “But everybody who sleeps in my room has to be naked.”
She huffed out a tired breath. “I’ll bunk with Janis until I get it cleaned up. She has the naked rule, too.”
“Now that was just mean.”
She looked at him then, just sat and looked while he ruined his bandanna on a hopeless job. It helped to see he wasn’t as calm as he sounded, helped to see the temper and disgust on his face.
Oddly, seeing it calmed her just a little.
“Did I give you that bloody lip?”
“Yeah. Back fist. Not bad.”
“I’ll probably be sorry for it at some point, but I can’t work it up right now.”
“It took five of us to take you down.”
“That’s something. I have to go wash up.”
She started to rise when L.B. knocked briskly on the door, opened it. “Give us a minute, will you, Gull?”
“Sure.” Before he stood, Gull leaned over, laid a hand on Rowan’s knee. “People like her? They never get people like you. It’s their loss.”
He pushed to his feet, and closed the door on his way out.
L.B. looked around the room, rubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus, Ro. Jesus. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry.”
“You didn’t do it.”
“I shouldn’t have hired her on. I shouldn’t have taken her back. This is on me.”
“It’s on her.”
“She got the chance to come at you this way because I gave her one.” He hunkered down so their faces were on level. “We’ve got her in my office, with a couple of the guys watching her. She’ll be fired, banned from base. I’m going to call the law on this. Do you want to press charges?”
“I do because she earned it.” The tears had backed off, thank God. Now she only felt sick, sick and tired. “But the baby didn’t. I just want her gone.”
“She’s gone,” he promised. “Come on, you need to get out of here. We’ll have some of the cleaning crew deal with it.”
“I need to get some air. Apologize to some people. I need to take a shower, wash this off me.” She blew out another breath as she looked down at herself. “I probably need the full
“Take as long as you need. And nobody needs you to apologize.”
“I need me to. But this shit’s all over my stuff. I need to clean some of it up myself.”
She got up, opened the door. Looked back. “Did she love him this much? Is this love?”
L.B. stared at the bloody words on the wall. “It’s got nothing to do with love.”
The siren sounded as she stepped out of the shower.
“Perfect,” she muttered. She dragged on underwear without bothering to dry off, pulled on a shirt, her pants, and zipped them on the run.
The nine other jumpers on the list beat her to the ready room. She listened to the rundown as she suited up. Lightning strikes on Morrell Mountain. She and Cards had judged those morning clouds correctly. The lookout spotted the smoke about eleven, around the time she’d surprised Dolly and her goddamn pig’s blood.
Over the next hour or so, the fire manager officer had to consider letting it burn, do its work of clearing out some brush and fallen trees, or call in the smoke jumpers.
A few more lightning strikes and unseasonably dry conditions made the natural burn too big a risk.
“Ready for the real thing, Fast Feet?” She put her let-down rope in her pocket while Gull grabbed gear from the speed rack.
“Jumping the fire, or you and me making some?”
“You’d better keep your mind off impossible dreams. This isn’t a practice jump.”
“Looking good.” Dobie slapped Gull on the back. “Wish I was going with you.”
“You’ll be off the disabled list soon. Save me some pie,” Rowan called out, and shambled over to the waiting plane.
She tucked her helmet in the crook of her elbow. “Okay, boys and girls, I’ll be your fire boss today. For a couple of you, this is your first fire jump. Do it by the numbers, don’t screw up, and you’ll do fine. Remember, if you can’t avoid the trees...”
“Aim for the small ones,” the crew responded.
Once they were airborne she sat next to Cards. “At least the nose didn’t ground you.”
He pinched it gently to wag it back and forth. “So I don’t have to be pissed at you. Like I said, Swede, the girl’s batshit.”
“Yeah. And it’s done.” She took the note passed back to her from the cockpit. “We’re going to hold off while they drop a load of mud. It was a hard winter in that area, and there’s a lot of downed trees fueling this one. It’s moving faster than they figured.”
“Almost always does.”
She pulled out her map, scanned the area. But in moments she only had to look out the window to see what they were dealing with.
A tower of smoke spewed skyward, gliding along the mountain’s ridge. Trees, standing and downed, fueled the wall of fire. She scanned for and found the stream she’d scouted out on the map, calculated the amount of hose they had on board, and judged they’d be able to use the water source.
