Summer of Fire (45 page)

Today she wasn’t angry, despite that he’d crashed with her daughter on board. The Army blanket that had been around Devon’s shoulders, the can of Vienna sausages, and the gauze over her burn all spoke of his kindness. She’d seen his hesitation at the controls on the mountain, heard what had passed between him and Steve and knew he was beating himself up as surely as she had when Frank and Billy Jakes had died.

All the passion and anger that had been between them had burned out, but she touched his shoulder. “Thank you for taking care of Devon,” she said simply, “and for getting us back here.”

Steve let himself down from the door and landed with a groan. Despite his infirmity, he helped Devon.

When her feet hit the pavement, she folded down and sat. A faint look of surprise crossed her face and then faded. Clare clambered out and knelt beside her. “Hon?”

Devon did not answer.

Deering came out of the examining room into the hall at West Yellowstone Hospital. The doctor had pronounced him free to go, with advice to take it easy for a few days.

That was an understatement. Since the crash, his muscles had been stiffening like a strap of wet rawhide in the sun. All he could imagine was going back to his bed at Karrabotsos’s house and finding solace in the dark comfort of sleep.

Had someone, perhaps Karrabotsos, called and told Georgia that he was missing? He hoped she didn’t know yet, for he wanted to be the one to tell her. He might have dodged the bullet, the fires might burn on, but he was out of this particular war for the duration.

When he’d returned to Vietnam after a leave between tours, he’d ridden part way back on the carrier Lexington. The naval aviators had flown training missions night and day, the roar of jets and the smell of exhaust fouling the warm tropical sea. Deering had waited in a damp twilight mist with a crowd of seamen while a downed pilot was brought aboard. Whispered word passed that it was his second time to put an A-4 Skyhawk in the drink.

The pilot walked off the rescue helicopter under his own power, a stocky kid with hair so blond and short that he looked as though he’d shaved his head. Several enlisted men and an officer tried to speak to him, but he brushed them aside on his way to the edge of the flight deck. Deering held his breath, for if the pilot intended to jump no one was near enough to stop him.

Still dripping wet, the young aviator plucked gold wings from his uniform and flung them into the sea.

Deering looked up and down the hall, thinking that there was something he should do before he left. Back in July, Clare had shown up in his room at the Lake Hospital by mistake, but their lives had been entwined since that moment. He wanted to find her and make sure that Devon was okay.

His boots were loud on the tile floor as he headed toward the lounge and nurses’ station.

He was just opposite a swinging door marked
X-ray - No Admittance
when someone pushed the portal wide and nearly collided with him.

“Whoa . . . “

“S’cuse me.”

Steve Haywood, still dressed in dirty Nomex, leaned on a pair of aluminum crutches. The fluorescent lights hummed harshly, casting a pale wash over the windowless walls and Steve’s pain-lined face.

There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. Deering moved to go.

“That was some decent flying you did today,” Steve said evenly. “Not to mention dragging my dead ass up that hill.”

Deering stopped. “I didn’t think you believed I could pour piss out of a boot.”

“I didn’t.”

“So?”

“Clare suggested that perhaps my view of you was colored by my . . . past experience with flying.”

For the first time, Deering imagined what it must have been like for Steve to survive while his wife and baby lay mangled in the plane’s wreckage. How excruciating would it be if Deering never saw Georgia again?

“I’ve been thinking about that day we went down in the lake,” Steve went on. “That whole business with the wind off the fire and trying to use the bucket to help those folks . . . well, who’s to say we didn’t both do the best that was humanly possible?”

“Who is to say?” Deering asked carefully. “First Assurance?” Suzanne Ho was still out there, unwilling to authorize his claim until she talked to his passenger.

Almost casually, Steve shrugged, “Insurance companies are a pain in the butt.” He flashed a small grudging grin. “Ya done good today.”

The two men fell into step. The brighter light at the end of the hall silhouetted a small woman, her red-gold hair a halo.

Deering inhaled sharply.

From beside him, Steve said, “Is that . . .?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Georgia’s eyes looked enormous in her pale face. “Garrett Anderson called me at the hotel and said you were here. I drove up this morning.”

Deering’s steps quickened. He buried his face in the side of her neck and wrapped her tight against him. She pressed close and slid her hands inside his filthy flight suit.

Relief suffused him, as profound and complete as any he had ever known. Her touch said she’d forgiven him Clare, and if fortune smiled, their lives could go on.

“Hon,” she said brokenly. “We’re going to have a baby.”

Only a moment before, he’d been stupid with fatigue and, surely, he still was, but at the sound of her voice, he took off without benefit of wings. “A kid!”

The surge of elation surprised him. He thought of Clare’s daughter, nearly grown, and yet she’d longed to find her mother when trouble struck at Old Faithful. Would he and Georgia be able to raise a loyal and loving child like that?

Deering became aware that his wife was waiting with her breath held for him to express something other than surprise.

How would he feel after the first shock subsided? He and Georgia weren’t young; he’d be nearly sixty when the kid started college . . .

But Lord, what a chance to start again. His brother had grandchildren and whenever Deering held one of the tiny mites, it gave him the thrill of possibility. Thinking of life’s changes reminded him of his gift to Georgia, the one she’d waited for over twenty years.

“That’s great about the baby.” He spread a hand over her warm tummy. “I’ll have lots of time to spend with him . . .”

“Him?”

“Or her. I’ll be home since I’m giving up flying.”

“You’re what?” She looked at him with disbelief. “I’m going to retire.”

Georgia pressed his hand to her stomach. “But this little one’s going to need college money.”

“I’ll find something else.”

“Like what?” She pulled back with hands on hips, his much-loved little harridan. “I know you’ve crashed twice, but look at the good you’ve done.” She didn’t stamp her foot, although he felt like she had. “That Smokejumper you saved . . . and Garrett said how you got those people off the mountain today when Karrabotsos was burned.”

“For Christ’s sake, Georgia, you’ve been on my ass to stop flying ever since I can remember. Can’t you just be happy you finally won?”

She smiled. “I thought I’d never hear you say it.” On tiptoe, she brushed a kiss across his cheek. “It was my fondest dream, but,” her whisper made it real, “promise me you won’t decide today.”

There would be time to think later. For him and Georgia to try and find their way through the briary mess this summer had become. For now, he held her, just held her.

“Babe,” he whispered. “Let’s go home.”

Clare sat in the waiting room and cupped warm Styrofoam. The coffee was the same bitter machine brew she’d sipped at the Lake Hospital back in July. Today in West Yellowstone, she waited to find out whether Devon’s wrist was fractured or merely sprained.

Trying not to think about the frightful blank look on her daughter’s face when she’d collapsed on the tarmac, Clare wondered where Steve was. When Deering had driven them down in his truck behind the ambulance, Steve had been taken away in a wheelchair.

This morning at the airport, she’d never expected him to fly. Even if he had promised she would not be alone, she had not imagined him getting onto a helicopter with her.

She slouched against the uncomfortable straight-backed chair. Steve had stood by her, but on the mountain, she’d let him down. She’d stood on the safety of rock while Deering leaped to his rescue. Although she could plead the excuse of Devon’s weight hanging on her, she did not believe that would suffice. Ahead of her still lay the interrogation surrounding the death of Private William Harrison Jakes.

Clare sighed and looked around the empty room. An abandoned jacket lay in a chair and a blanket and pillow marked where someone had passed the night waiting for news of a loved one. A television high in the corner played the evening news with footage of the fires behind Peter Jennings’s shoulder. The usual firefighters on the march, the obligatory chopper picking up a load of water, the flying tanker dropping colorful retardant. This was where she’d come in, seeing romance and adventure in a line of sweaty firefighters trudging up a forest road.

As much as she longed to explore where she and Steve might have gone, it was time to take Devon home to Houston. Her heart ached, but when it came to blood, a mother’s choice must be for her child. Somehow, she had to convince Devon that she was too young to try and make it on her own.

As to firefighting, she had yet to decide. At Old Faithful, Steve had said Frank would want her to battle the North Fork.

But Frank had been a war-scarred veteran with over twenty years in the department. He’d told her that his grown son was proud of his old man, not scared like Devon had been. If Clare’s work brought continued pain to her daughter, she’d have to cash it in and dust off her teaching certificate.

Clare opened her eyes to find Steve leaning on crutches in Devon’s hospital room doorway. He wore his jeans and western shirt.

“How long have you been there?” She straightened the recliner beside the bed where Devon slept and stretched to release the kink in her back.

A slow smile spread over his face. “Not long. You must have felt me looking at you.”

Clare wished she believed in telepathy with this man. She rose and gestured Steve toward the brown vinyl chair she’d slept in. He remained on his feet.

Outside the window, all was dark except for pole lights in the parking lot. Clare’s watch said it was nearly midnight. “Is Karrabotsos all right?” she asked.

“Doing well, considering. This time around he’ll be looking at more skin grafts.” He looked at Devon, who lay with blond lashes sweeping her cheek, her arm in a cast. “How is she?”

Clare reached to smooth back Devon’s hair. The singed section had been trimmed, leaving her with a lopsided haircut that made her look very young. “No concussion from the crash. Just the burn and a crack in the radius above her wrist.”

Steve advanced into the room with the awkward swinging gate of a person on crutches. “I know you well enough to figure you’re tearing yourself up over what happened with her.”

He’d been her constant cheerleader, telling her to never back down and she was getting sick and tired of it. “I should never have come here,” she said. “Devon would be safe at home if I hadn’t.”

“That’s enough!” He straightened and put more weight on his legs.

Devon sighed and turned her head. She was on Percodan, a strong painkiller that would help her sleep.

In a softer voice, Steve went on, “If you hadn’t come, I would never have met you. You saved my life more than once this summer, and I couldn’t believe it when you pulled Karrabotsos out of that fire.”

She shrugged. “Training and reflex.”

Steve rearranged a crutch and grabbed her hand. He turned the palm up and looked at its calluses, scrapes, and half healed burns. “I was there when your friend Javier from Houston said you had the best hands in the business.”

“All right, I’m fucking good at what I do,” she threw at him. “But I’m a mother, too, and from now on Devon won’t have to be afraid of me getting hurt or killed. I’m taking her home and quitting this business.” Saying it out loud cemented the decision she’d made in the waiting room.

“I’m not going to listen to that.” Steve propped his crutches against the wall and pointed a finger at her. “You think you can control your life by crawling into a hole. That you can protect Devon from what the world is going to throw at her by smothering her. Well, I’ve got news for you, Clare.” His mouth twisted. “Shit happens. If you don’t believe that, just ask a guy who’s been there.”

“Susan,” she said flatly.

“Susan,” he agreed “and Christa.” He looked at Devon. “You can try and run her life, but ultimately, she’s got to figure things out for herself, like we all do. Don’t make any quick decisions you’ll regret.”

Clare sighed. Who wouldn’t want to exert some control after watching the fires burn unchecked for months? After a summer in which two men had died on her watch?

A flicker of pain crossed Steve’s face. She touched his arm.

“You need to sit.”

“I need a lot of things.” His eyes lit with an awareness of last night’s stolen hours, and he lifted a hand to stroke the serrate haircut the fire had left her with. When he touched her neck, it made her aware that comfort wasn’t all she wanted from him.