Hot Point (16 page)

“I don't care which.” Vern's voice was soft. “We go together.”

She squeezed his hand and leaned against his shoulder for a moment, desperately hoping it was that easy. That it would even be a choice.

Where would they be going? That spooked her. Australia had been scary enough, though the idea of going back sounded fun.

She'd only traveled outside the Northwest four times in her life before that. Once to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at the Wright-Patterson base in Ohio and once to the U.S. Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker in Alabama. Both times with her dad to review some possible exhibits for the Boeing museum. Three years to Connecticut for the Sikorsky plant, which had included the trip to Beijing. And that didn't really count because she'd never left the air show and hadn't been able to see anything while there due to the smog. She'd never even explored New York, though the city was about an hour from the Sikorsky plant.

Australia had left her head spinning for all five months she'd been there. She'd never really gotten used to it.

The sun had finally set enough that the shining beacon of Mount Hood's glaciers was extinguished. Night had come on quickly after that.

“Oh shit!” Vern cursed in the darkness. “Remember what I said Mark and Emily were talking about? It's going to be goddamn Honduras.”

Honduras? Denise almost choked. She didn't doubt for a second that he was right, and it was totally freaking her out. Vern had told her about the troubles he'd had there. The coup. The murder rate. They spoke Spanish there, and she'd taken French in high school. It had all sounded so…foreign. She knew that was terribly parochial of her, but that didn't make it feel any less true.

So quietly that she hadn't heard them coming, Mark and Emily were beside them. From slightly different directions, Steve and Carly came up, and then Jeannie and Cal.

At an easy stroll, Mark started leading them down the runway, farther from the lights over the still-boisterous group at the tables.

“You've had questions about some of the, ah, occurrences at MHA.” He made it a flat statement and Denise knew he was talking to her.

She nodded, realized it was useless this far from the lights, and acknowledged the fact aloud. He was talking about the new airframe on Oh-Two.

“Vern?”

Denise could feel him shrug through their still-clasped hands.

“You know me, Mark. Tell me the plan and I'm aboard.” He squeezed her hand in the dark before she could protest. He hadn't forgotten that they were going to decide together. “But did it have to be Honduras?”

“How the… Shit!” Mark stopped himself. “Well, so much for being circumspect. You both signed nondisclosure agreements when we redid the paperwork last year.”

“I knew it!” Denise clamped her lips together, but she'd known it.

“Knew what?” Vern hadn't put it together. “What paperwork?” he asked Mark in turn.

Mark stopped and did his folded-arms thing. The group gathered in a circle about him.

“Mount Hood Aviation flies under a second contract, about which you've signed an NDA—a nondisclosure agreement—as part of last year's re-up of your contracts. The people standing here with us know what's behind the wall of that NDA, as does the company's owner. No one else. Absolutely no one else. If you decide to step up on the second contract, you will perjure yourself to the police, the military, the Supreme Court, and the President before you mention anything done under the scope of that contract.”

“Is it legal?”

“It is authorized.”

Denise harrumphed. That wasn't an answer, but she knew it was all she was going to get.

“You will never be intentionally placed in harm's way.” The fact that Mark felt it was necessary to say that wasn't a good sign.

“What happened to the original Firehawk Oh-Two?”

Jeannie started to speak, but Mark cut her off.

“Need to know.”

Denise felt a shiver go up her spine as the pieces fit together. “I know that the bird I sent to Australia with Jeannie last year is not the one she came back with. Cosmetically the same, and someone went to a lot of trouble to fake the service logs.” She smacked her forehead as the next piece slid in neatly beside the others. “You said ‘harm's way.' I get it now. Firehawk Oh-Two didn't manage to stay out of harm's way. And that fire-whorl photo that Cal shot last year of firefighters going into shelters at ‘an unspecified fire' was you guys.”

“Me, anyway,” Jeannie whispered.

“Jeannie!” Mark cut her off.

“By the way, great photo, Cal.” Vern spoke up from the darkness beside her. “That wasn't Australia. No forests like that.”

“Thanks. East Timor.”

“Will you people stop it!” Mark sounded pissed.

Steve spoke up. “They already know most of it. And, as you said, they're on the inside of the NDAs.”

“But not the contract.” Mark's voice took on the edge that silenced everyone.

“How could you dare to fake the service logs?” Denise felt sick that anyone would do such a thing.

Mark groaned. “I'm not a complete idiot just because I'm a pilot. Why do mechanics always think that?” he asked no one in particular.

Denise could list several dozen reasons not to trust a pilot about anything mechanical.

He didn't give her a chance to answer but continued right on. “Our sponsors tracked down a bird in storage that was manufactured within a hundred units of the original Firehawk Oh-Two. They then went through your entire electronic service record and made sure each of those services were done. So, it was a safe and accurate record for this craft. How did you know?” He motioned down the field toward where the Firehawks were parked.

“A mechanic recognizes her own repairs. Besides, there were differences inside the machinery as well,” she informed him, trying to decide if she was livid that she'd finally confirmed the falsification of the record or impressed at how thorough the cover-up had been.

“Shit,” was Mark's comment. “Well, we tried. Should have known you were too damn skilled to fool. That's my bad.”

As compliments went, Denise decided that was a pretty good one. “Are you going to tell me what really happened to the original?”

“Not yet.”

“Stalemate,” she told him. She wasn't going to get crossed up again.

The other five in the party were just shadows, silent silhouettes in the night.

“Do you need us both?” Vern asked the darkness.

“Ideally, yes. Vern, you're the best pilot I've seen outside of SOAR. Sorry, Jeannie, but he is.”

“You wouldn't catch me trying to survive what he flew through in Missoula.”

Denise was surprised by the awe in Jeannie's voice. She'd seen the damage to the chopper and had guessed enough from that to know Vern was good, but she hadn't known that he was that kind of good.

“And you”—Mark's silhouette turned more toward her—“there's a mechanic named Connie who I'd like you to do some training with someday, but that can only happen inside the second contract. You two were made for each other in many ways.”

“I've heard of her. She's a legend at the Sikorsky plant. I always tried to live up to that standard.”

“Well, you're doing pretty well so far.”

Denise was glad for the darkness. Connie Davis was a complete legend at Sikorsky. When her notes had come in from the field, changes had been implemented in production standards, inspection cycles, even wiring layouts. It had gotten to the point where Denise wondered if the woman was mythical. To be compared to her quite took Denise's breath away.

Silence settled over them. Clearly the decision point had arrived.

Through their connection, she could feel Vern turn to face her. He kissed her on top of the head and whispered too softly for the others to hear, “Lady's choice.”

Last time he'd said that, she kissed the living daylights out of him.

“Nothing further until we agree?” she asked Mark. “Honduras and secretly swapped helicopters and a mysterious second contract?”

“That's it.” His tone made it clear that was his last word on the subject on this side of the line.

Being together with Vern wasn't enough of a reason by the sound of it. Denise weighed factors as quickly as she could. Two of the finest pilots ever, now retired from SOAR. Carly was rumored to be the best Fire Behavior Analyst out there, and her husband helped her with his spotting drone and had also been the lead smokejumper in southern California before an injury. To make lead really meant something; to make it in California meant he was one of the very best in the world.

Jeannie, she knew, was a damn fine pilot. Most people thought her husband, Cal, was simply an award-winning photographer and former hotshot fire crew member. Yet last year in Australia, when the MHA crew had split up, Cal had traveled with these people rather than joining her and the rest of the choppers.

They must have been traveling under this “second contract.” And it was Cal's leadership that had saved the town of Alice Springs from a rolling bushfire. A man with many hidden talents.

Denise tightened her grip on Vern's hand and he responded in kind, maintaining the comforting pressure. She really hoped that she wasn't about to totally screw everything up.

“I think that the chance to fly with a team as good as this one is a once-in-a-lifetime moment. We're in.”

A wave of relief rippled around the circle.

“Good!” That simple and it was done.

She heard someone slap Vern solidly on the shoulder. Such guys.

Now Mark raised his voice to make it clear he was addressing the whole group. “In six days we leave from here and fly to Joint Base Lewis-McChord where we'll be loaded aboard a C-17 for transit to Honduras. Denise, I need you to split your service shop container, one for the three Firehawks, one for the rest of the group to take with them. You told me Brenna was up for it on the smaller birds, so she will travel as chief mechanic for them, hiring assistance as she needs it. Get it done and get off base for a break. We're going to be busy when we get there. Any questions?” Mark delivered the whole thing in a single breath, or close enough.

Denise was still trying to digest it and think about how to split the gear when Vern spoke up.

“What are we going to be doing when we get there?”

Mark chuckled. “Fighting fire.”

“This
is
kind of fun. Though the automatic really is a crime. I can't imagine a single situation in which you'd think an automatic is better than a standard.”

Vern had foolishly assumed that riding in his Corvette would feel less life-threatening than in her Fiat Spider.

Giving Denise a five-hundred-horsepower engine in a car capable of a sub-four-second zero-to-sixty was not a wise choice. How she didn't get a ticket, he'd never know. Maybe it was because they were little more than a bronze-colored streak as they soared along the roads. Whether he'd live to tell about it was still in question.

The quiet country roads of Vashon Island would never be the same. They'd reached the Tahlequah ferry at Tacoma in record time. The fifteen-minute crossing to Vashon gave his heart a few moments to recover. But any recovery was wasted as soon as Denise launched off the boat. They should never have let her be first off—she'd treated the raising of the red-and-white traffic bar at the head of the ferry ramp like a green flag at the Indy 500.

He hoped that Mike had his cruiser in for service or was working his speed trap up by the Fauntleroy-Southworth ferry at the far end of the island, a dozen miles away. Hopefully that would be far enough away that Mike couldn't hear six liters of engine begging for an open stretch of road.

The number of times Vern had cruised these roads was beyond counting. Headed down to the Tacoma Dome for a Bruce “The Boss” or Britney concert, his old Chevy Blazer packed to the gills. Fetching some boat hardware for his dad. Headed off to find a quiet corner of the island for a round or two of female adventuring.

He guided Denise down narrow two-lanes almost lost in the towering trees, at first to slow her down, and then because he wanted to show her the views and some of his favorite hangouts. The view from Neill Point out by Kevin's construction shop. Camp Sealth perched over Paradise Cove on the West Passage. Up to the Wax Orchards airport.

The last was a small, private grass strip with apple trees planted down either side of the runway and for a fair way around. At this time of year, hundreds of small planes flew in because they could pull up right beside the cider press, buy a couple gallons of the best apple cider on the planet, grab a caramel apple, and zip aloft once more.

They parked and drank glasses of cider that were less than a minute old, so thick you couldn't see the shadow of your fingers through the glass, and snacked on local Dinah's cheese that put paid on any Camembert he'd ever had. Those were two of the tastes of the island. For all the traveling he'd done, he was surprised each time he came home how much he'd missed it.

“I love this place.”

Denise nodded her agreement. She seemed to downshift gears herself as he showed her the island. It wasn't that she was frenetic; quite the opposite. She was…

“Why are you so driven?”

She brushed aside enough hair to look over at him as they sat side by side under an apple tree and watched a small Cessna land on the grass. “Am I?”

“Let me guess: straight-A student, never traveled except for work, never thinks of sleep when there's something to be fixed or a system to be improved. You drive better than probably half of the NASCAR field, and I'll bet you haven't met a machine you couldn't fix.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” She let the hair fall back in place.

He caught it and tucked it behind her ear. “Didn't miss a single one, did I?”

“No.” This time she turned to him. Her face was set hard, as if she was trying to pull up the steel shields, but they didn't scare him any longer. “What about it?”

“Denise, my beautiful, crazy mechanic, I'm blown away by you is what. I'd wager you don't know how to relax much. That's all I'm saying.”

“While you do?”

He cracked open the gallon jug he'd bought to take to Mom and Dad and took a slug off it before passing it to Denise. “Professional slacker Taylor. That's me.”

“Now let me guess: didn't like school, probably one of the troublemakers.” She began counting on the fingers of one of those delicate but strong hands he'd learned to really appreciate. “Six years U.S. Coast Guard.”

“Chief Petty Officer Taylor, at your service.” He saluted as well as he could while leaning back against an apple tree in the warm fall sunshine.

“Is that good?”

“In six years, without college? Hell, yeah.”

“So, damn good in the Coast Guard, maybe even a couple of medals that you aren't admitting to.”

He shrugged nonchalantly. Three. “Yeah, maybe. If you don't count the Good Conduct Medal for a protracted bout of behaving against my natural tendencies.”

“Four years flying fire for MHA,” Denise continued. “Has the respect of two of the best military pilots on the planet. And loves his parents. Did I miss one?”

“Nope. Wait, yes. Totally crazy about an overwound Wrench who really needs to learn to relax.”

“I need to relax?” She ground out each word separately.

“Couldn't hurt to try.”

She snarled at him, rolled from sitting beside him, and landed kneeling across his lap. Hands on his shoulders, she pinned him back against the tree he'd been leaning against. “I. Don't. Need. To. Relax.” Then she cursed under her breath. “Okay”—she unfisted his T-shirt—“maybe a little.”

He ran his hands onto her waist and up along her back. When he gently tried to pull her into a hug, she kept her arms stiff. “Relaxing right now might make this a good moment.”

“Damn you, Taylor.” But she was smiling as she cursed him and didn't complain as he pulled her into his embrace and kissed her.

* * *

The way Vern kissed her beneath that apple tree sent waves of heat coursing through Denise's body. It didn't matter where or when…or what they'd finished doing only moments before. She didn't want to have an insatiable need for anyone.

But she did. For him.

He took his time kissing her. As if doing so was the most important thing in the world.

And every time he did that, her lists and agendas faded from her brain, scattered as effectively as a rotor's downwash over autumn leaves until there was only the present—this moment, this place, his embrace.

How in hell was she supposed to relax? Brenna was headed off for her first time as lead mechanic. She and Vern were flying into a total unknown—the elusive “second contract” job flown for…who knew. Honduras. It was in Central America. The people wouldn't even speak English there. Not just foreign, scary foreign. That she was going to meet Vern's parents only added to the load.

And the biggest stressor at the moment was that, goddamn it, she was in love with him.

She definitely didn't know what to do with that.

She'd never told Jasper she loved him because she hadn't. Never told anyone except her dad. And that had only been when she was a little kid. After Mom died, it was like that part of them was killed along with her. She and Dad were careful with each other, taking care to not brush against sore places. A bullet had taken the words “I love you” out of her life and they'd never come back.

Until now. Here they were.

Vern was no longer kissing her.

“Where did you go, Wrench?”

She sat back on his thighs and brushed her hands down his chest in apology.

“Somewhere not good.” He didn't even have to guess.

She nodded but didn't look up to meet those dark, caring eyes. She didn't want pity for her pain. She just wanted… There was the question that had always eluded her. Wanted what?

Vern slowly pulled her in until she could bury her face against his shoulder and just hold on. Just stop for a moment and be held; another part of her father that had died and left a hollow ache in them both.

Denise considered crying, considered having a good weep and letting it out. Against Vern's shoulder she felt safe enough to, but nothing came. She was—

“I thought that was your car in the lot.” A terribly cheerful female voice that Denise half recognized spoke from somewhere nearby.

“Mom!” Vern struggled to shift Denise while getting to his feet, while knocking over the uncapped cider jug, then reaching to rescue it, while… He collapsed back against the stout tree hard enough under the burden of Denise's weight in his lap that she could hear the
thonk
as his head hit.

“Ow! Shit!” His hands were gone from around her and were now wrapped behind his head. If she hadn't jerked back in time, he'd have rapped her sharply in the nose with the top of his head as he bent forward to cradle it.

Denise rescued the jug and capped it. Then she was left, still sitting on Vern's thighs, with no choice but to look up at the woman standing a few feet away.

“Good thing I bought another jug. Knew you'd be wanting some, but I thought you'd come see your mother first.”

This time Denise was able to place the voice, rich and melodic even in speech. Margi Taylor—Denise had hours of the woman's music on her main playlist.

She was tall, nearly her son's height. Her hair, rather than dark with a hint of curls like Vern's, was a cascading flutter of rippling coppery red that brushed her shoulders and framed her freckled face.

Her blouse, a flowing gypsy cut in darkest blue, revealed a freckled cleavage, and tight jeans showed where Vern had inherited his lean form. She had a smile for her son that radiated good humor as she bent to kiss the top of his head and say in that wonderfully rich voice, “You are so damn cute, Vern. All better now?”

“Yeah, sure. That helps a concussion a whole bunch.”

“You're beautiful.” Denise hadn't meant to say it aloud, hadn't even thought it clearly before speaking, but it was true. Margi Taylor radiated “mom” in a way that Denise had no other appropriate words for.

“Thanks.” Margi accepted the comment cheerfully. “What's a beauty like you doing with someone who can't even stand up to greet his mother without banging his head?”

“Uh… falling in love with him, I guess.”

Margi raised a single eyebrow.

Denise's words registered in her own brain at about the same moment as Vern's.

“You what?” He jerked his head up fast enough to bang it on the tree again. “Ow!”

Denise took the simple expedient of slapping her hand over her mouth. She was going to keep it there forever, never speak again because who knew what would come out next.

Margi's laugh rang through the orchard. This time she pulled Denise over to kiss the top of her head.

The great laugh was another thing Vern had gotten from his mother.

* * *

Vern spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get Denise aside, but he was stymied at every turn. First, Mom insisted Denise join her for the drive to the house, leaving Vern to follow in his Vette. Dad was out of town, moving a boat for someone from Tacoma up to Tofino, at least a three-day trip. They were going to totally miss him.

Then at the house, the two women had gone for a walk together down to the Point Robinson lighthouse. He'd tagged along, more than a little miffed. Had Denise really said that she loved him? Man, if ever there was a conversation he did
not
expect to be having…but his mother wasn't even giving him a chance to try.

Point Robinson reached halfway across the east channel of Puget Sound. The low, sandy beach had two keeper's cottages, a radio tower, and a lighthouse so automated that it no longer needed its keepers. The red-roofed white structure and its three-story tower guarded the dangerous shoals along this side of the main shipping channel to Tacoma's busy port.

It guarded the shoals as carefully as his mother appeared to be guarding Denise from his questions about what the hell had just happened.

He finally clued in to what was going on, found a nice driftwood log, and sat down to wait. On further consideration, Denise had looked as shocked as he felt. So Mom was giving Denise some time and space to deal with it. As long as Vern was hovering over her shoulder, that wasn't going to happen.

So, they wandered off, and he stayed perched on his driftwood bench and studied the far shore. The rising hills of Des Moines were thick with houses. Beyond, looking four miles away rather than forty, Mount Rainier punched its volcanic cone up into the blue sky. Fourteen thousand feet, with nothing around it.

He'd flown Colorado fires. There, the peaks, the Colorado Fourteeners, started at six or even eight thousand feet. Mount Rainier was just as tall but the upslope turn started at around five hundred feet. Even Mount Hood was snarled up in low foothills, whereas Rainier punched upward out of nothing, ruling the land far and wide. Today it looked as if it had been painted against the sky.

Denise loved him.

What the hell was he supposed to do with that?

Mom was as unflappable as ever, so who knew what she was really thinking. Actually, it wasn't hard to know. The two of them might have been mother and daughter, the way they were acting.

He glanced down the beach. They'd walked out to the very end of the point and were strolling back toward his position near the lighthouse.

He knew Mom was actually an amazing judge of character. And he could read her. Margi was not being polite to her son's girlfriend; she genuinely liked Denise. If she didn't, it would show. He'd see it. So his first guess had been right. They should meet and would like each other.

Vern had also learned to read Denise. A little. It was as if her cloak of invisibility was becoming tattered at the edges. Or maybe she didn't need it as much as she had before.

Normally when she spoke to someone, she was doing her intense, “how much can I communicate in how few words” thing. He'd always thought it was an efficiency monomania, but he was starting to suspect the reason had more to do with shyness that she kept hidden behind that efficient facade.