Hotshots (Wildfires Book 1) Read online

  Jeb nodded. She knew early on she wouldn’t get cut, well only if she sucked at flying and she didn’t suck at flying so she was going to be staying. That was one thing she had been relieved about when she decided to become a firefighter pilot, they were scarce so there was always a need for them.

  “She is gonna be fine, I am going to help her, which is why I wanted to talk to you today. I am leaving tonight, will not be back for a week or so, your ma has the truck rented, I just need to go and drive it back down. Get her moved in and then things will be set. However, before I leave, I need to see how you are dealing with all this. I mean you liking the team and everything?” Jez looked down at the table, she had no idea if her mother had told him anything, and seriously as shit, she didn’t know what the fuck to say, so she did the only thing she could think of and diverted the conversation saying the first thing that popped into her head.

  “You need to have someone stock up the tampons, we are almost out,” she blurted out and Jeb leaned back fast.

  “Oh well,” he sputtered and she closed her eyes and wanted to sink into the damn floor from embarrassment.

  “Shit,” she muttered. “Sorry. Things are going good, Jeb. I like the people and am excited to get things rolling.”

  He looked at her closely and then nodded. “Let’s get you in the air!”

  “Right on!” she crowed and jumped up.

  She loved her job, that was the only thing she could think of when she landed the copter and smiled at her godfather. He had put her through the paces and she knew she did well.

  “Good job, girly!” Jeb said with a grin.

  “Thanks,” she said softly and then she bit her lip and looked out the front windshield. She wanted to ask him a question but she wasn’t sure how the hell to bring it up.

  “What?” Jeb asked softly and she turned and smiled at him. She should have known she didn’t have to say anything, he would know something was bothering her; he always knew when something was bothering her. It had been that way since she was small. Jeb and she had a special relationship, mostly because her father always made sure that Jeb was available when he was gone.

  “The day Dad died,” she started and, Jeb growled and turned to her and interrupted.

  “I know what you are going to say. I have been waiting for someone to say something to you about it.” Jeb sighed and ran a hand over his face. “Your father knew what he was doing, he also took risks, some of them were dangerous. Up until that day, all of them worked, and he saved lives. I guess what I am trying to say is that it is in the past. Your father was the best at what he did, he did everything in his power to save people. In the moment, none of us but the one who was sitting in the pilot’s seat can say a damn thing about what happened. Be proud of your father, just let the other shit go.”

  Jez frowned and opened her mouth to say something but she could have saved her breath. Jeb opened the door and jumped out of the cockpit before she had a chance to respond. Shit, she really wanted to talk about that to Jeb. Since Nix had brought it up, it bothered her. What had he been talking about when it came to her father? Had he made a mistake? From what Jeb said it could go either way, of course, now she had more questions than answers. Fuck it all if she could let it go.

  Jez walked into the large headquarters center that was set up for their crew. It held all the latest technology used to help aid in fighting fires. She skimmed the room though looking for Gibson, he would tell her the facts.

  Gibson was one of her father’s best friends, aside from Jeb, he was probably the closest thing to a best friend Stryker had. Jeb was always number one with her father, but if there could be such a thing as a number two best friend, Gibson would be that guy. In fact, if she remembered correctly, the last year of her father’s life, she would say that Gibs was seen more often than Jeb had been.

  She spied the computer wizard sitting on the edge of the desk of a pretty woman wearing a frilly white blouse and a wide smile on her face as she listened attentively to whatever he was saying. The woman that came toward her was shaking her head and rolling her eyes at the two in the corner.

  When Jez offered her a friendly smile and her hand in greeting, she smiled back and shook hands briefly before asking “I’m Quinn, what can we do for you today.”

  Jez pointed to the corner and said in a fairly loud tone, “I came to see Gibson, but if he is too busy to talk to me today, I can always come back another time.”

  Quinn grinned at her and matched her tone. “Well I don’t know, he has been perched on that desk for almost an hour, I’m not sure I can interrupt such an intense meeting, but I will see if he has a minute to see you.”

  By the time the words had left her mouth, she had to draw back while the bear of a man grabbed Jez and swung her around in a circle, smiling all the while. She was still grinning as she went back to her computer.

  Jez was laughing before he set her back on her feet. “Hey, I missed you, and figured I should pay you a visit before the season gets too busy for some free time. I joined the team that Jeb is training. I brought the new chopper and plan to move up here soon.”

  Gibs gave her another squish and pulled her into his office so they could have some privacy to talk. He hadn’t seen her since a week after the accident that had claimed his best friend. She was still in a coma at that time, but he had to leave to get back to headquarters, and they’d lost touch over the months.

  “Jez, I am so sorry about the accident, and I stayed with you and your mom until I had no choice but to leave, others depended on me too, and I, well…I needed to do something at the time to keep my mind busy.”

  She knew what he was trying to say, and she shook her head. “Gibs, you know Dad would have done the same thing you did. He would have gotten into the chopper and got the job done, so I understand and it’s all good.” She looked over the giant of a man and teased him a little about his ability to find a new woman wherever he landed. “I could see you’ve been up to your old tricks with the ladies too. Is Ms. Prim-and-Proper a wildcat after work? I almost turned around and let you work your magic uninterrupted, but I wanted some information and you are the first person that I knew would tell me what I need to know without trying to put me off.”

  Shit, she was going to ask him questions and he didn’t want to answer them. She knew he was a man who never lied, even when it would be easier and better to keep his knowledge to himself, if she asked a question, he would answer her honestly. He could only hope she didn’t ask the right questions so he could honestly answer that he had no idea. He shrugged, “Go for it, what do you need from me?”

  “I want to know what happened that day, when we went up, Dad said it was just a small fire that would easily be contained, when that tree blew, the entire area was flaming. Why didn’t he know about the fire being that extensive?”

  Gibson turned his head away while she asked the question. Fuck, she got right to the meat of the matter. He knew she was going to be hurt or pissed, and he damned his moral code, but answered her honestly.

  “When you two took off, that was the report he got. You must have been approaching the scene when he was told the extent of the fire had expanded and what happened after that I have no knowledge. All I have is the word of the team leader who was telling him directions from the middle of the fire. He was the same man who carried you out of the fire that day.

  “He kept you alive until the medics could take over, and I heard he told them to keep you alive, that you had a mother that was going to need you. The support personnel said he turned around and walked back into the fire to help his crew. Jez, we all heard him telling Stryker to heave to the north for his approach over the com links. We heard him yelling, repeating himself, but he got no response from Stryker, the next thing we heard was the explosion from the tree and the team leader cursing and out of breath as he talked to you, he gave you mouth to mouth and oxygen so he could move you. If he hadn’t been there, well, I’m just glad he was and leave it at that. We lost t
wo men on the ground that day, and Stryker, and somehow something good happened. You were alive.”

  She was frowning, trying to remember if her father had said anything at the time, but she remembered him tapping his headset and frowning. She shook her head and told Gibs, “I remember him tapping on his headset, he was frowning, but he didn’t say anything. Within seconds, we came up on that tree looking like a giant torch. He tried to pull up, but it was too late.”

  “Well that explains a lot to me, obviously something was screwed up with his com link and he didn’t hear Nix giving him instructions at the time.” Gibs was nodding as he finished his observation on her information. “I’ll tell him what you’ve said. I think it will make him understand what happened that day. It wasn’t the first time he packed someone out of a fire, but it was the first fire that he lost any of his team.”

  She sat there speechless for a few seconds. Did he say the team leader’s name was Nix? She asked him to clarify. “I want to talk to him, when you said Nix, were you referring to Nixon Cayson?”

  The nod of his head was unnecessary, but it confirmed she’d heard him correctly. The knowledge that Nix had reason, or she corrected her thoughts, thought he had reason, to worry about her following orders was explained.

  Gibs began talking again. “Jez, Stryker was the best of the best, he was legendary, and he saved hundreds of lives and millions in property, he didn’t always follow the rules and yet he’d bring that chopper in when all hope was lost and save the day. He told me that he loved the drama and we both know he lived for that next flight.”

  He smiled at the girl Stryker had been so proud of, and knew that his old friend would be grinning from ear to ear knowing that his kid had followed in his footsteps. “If you are as much of an adrenaline junkie as your old man, you’ll soon be as legendary as he was.”

  She wanted to deny it, she wanted to tell Gibs that she was more cautious than her father had been, but why disillusion the man? She knew how to “set the chopper on a tree top” as Nix had said, but she wasn’t about to play the superhero, or anything close. She did love to fly, but that was not her only interest. Unlike her dad, she didn’t have that wild steak that made her want to push herself and her machine to the limits, and then push just a bit more each time.

  They talked about her mother moving to Colorado and he promised to stop by once she settled and visit with her. Jez decided to get moving, and gave him a hug on her way out of the door. Ms. Prim-and-Proper was staring at her with narrow eyes, and she couldn’t resist sending the woman a little finger wave as she left the room. Quinn hadn’t been in the room or she would have said goodbye to the friendly woman.

  All the way back she kept hearing Gibs telling her how Nix had kept her alive and given her mouth to mouth. It was a shame she didn’t remember those firm lips on hers, but with a little luck, she might find out how it felt to receive a real kiss from the handsome man sometime in the future. Now that she knew what he’d known all along, she needed to figure out how to deal with him.

  He told her the proof would be in the doing, and she resolved to show him she wasn’t her father. She loved her dad, and nothing would ever take that from her. He told her many times he was happy she was a good mix of him and her mother because the world wasn’t ready for two of him, and they’d laughed together as he taught her some new maneuver that scared her, even as she mastered it under his critical eyes, and received praise for accomplishing the feat.

  Jez decided to again attempt to resolve the trust issue with Nix. It bugged the hell out of her and she wanted to get it out of the way so they could form a good, solid working relationship and hopefully he would open his mind to the possibility that she was not her father.

  After dinner, she went looking for him and saw him standing with Gray and Trystan. She could feel the tingles beginning from just watching the three men laughing and wondered how any woman stayed on a subject around the three of them together, let alone one at a time. It was a good thing she would be heading to bed after their talk, because her panties were being soaked with the fantasy that they were smiling at her.

  Trys and Gray had made no secret of their interest in her, but neither man had made a move or asked her for a date beside the dinner bet with all three. Nix had made no secret of the fact he didn’t like her as a person, but he was attracted to her. It made her feel all girly when any of them made some comment about her being pretty, or complimented her on passing the day’s testing. Nix didn’t praise her, but the assessing look he often wore when he thought she couldn’t see, let her know he might not like her, but his eyes certainly did. She could almost laugh at the insecurities she had when she first came into the program. To these men, her scars didn’t seem to matter at all. Too bad a woman had to choose between men. She had heard of ménage couples, who hadn’t in this day and age? All she could think about that subject was ‘Lucky Bitch’, to have the guts to take on two men that loved her. She shook her head at the pictures floating through her mind. “Leave it to you to have to go one further and dream about all three of the men standing five feet away from where you are.”

  The thought of being made love to by Trystan and Gray was last night’s inspiration for the self-induced orgasm she enjoyed in the shower before dinner. The only disruption to her fantasy had been a picture of Nix, and those golden brown eyes of his popping into the fantasy of having a man sucking her nipples and one licking her pussy. Imagining his hand tangled in her hair, urging her to suck his cock had shoved her over the edge and into the most intense orgasm she’d ever enjoyed on her own.

  She hated to interrupt, but there was no way she would sleep with the issue of trust—lack of his trust—on her mind. She also owed him a long overdue thank you for saving her life that day. “You can do this, Jez, nothing to be worried about, just tell him that you know, and thank him. You can tell him about your dad and…” Dammit, she took a deep breath and walked over to the trio of men.

  They seemed to have radar given the way they turned at the same time as she approached. Her ego got a boost from the varying looks from lust to blatant heat, and she had to smile. If only those looks wouldn’t dim if she chose one or the other of the men to take him up on the offer their eyes were making.

  “Hi, guys, I need to have a chat with our fearless leader for a minute if you have time please?”

  Nix was in a decent mood and was happy she had come to them, even if it was to talk serious shit. “Sure thing, what can I do for you, Jez?” He waved toward his companions. “Ignore them, they are so nosy they would be peeking around the corner or have a water glass to the door, so go ahead. What do you want to talk about?”

  She hadn’t expected this, well, if that’s the way he wanted it. “I had a talk with someone at Headquarters today. He told me about what you did for me when…when the bird went down. I wanted to thank you for saving my life that day. I know it was routine for you, but it’s kind of a big deal for me and my mom, you were right, she needed me alive. So I, how do you tell the person that saved your life thank you? Words don’t seem to be adequate, but it’s all I have. Thank you.”

  Nix figured sooner or later she would start asking questions concerning the crash, oddly he felt let down that she felt the need to say the words. Didn’t she know he gave all of the people listening on the com link plenty of reason to speculate about his feelings for her anatomy, and he didn’t even want to think about what he’d said about her old man?

  He kept telling her how beautiful she was, even as her blood coated his torso and arms. He walked as fast as he could without jostling her body too much. Her beautiful long brown hair had wrapped itself around his neck and strands blew in his mouth as he kept her head cradled between his shoulder and neck. The shrapnel acted as its own pressure bandage, and he didn’t touch it.

  Trys later told him about how he gave a description of her beauty and had speculated out loud about if she shaved everywhere because her skin was so smooth to touch. “Damn, brotha’, I had a s
emi chubby listening to you telling her you would wait until she was awake to tell her how pretty her tits looked. That was about the time you panicked and gave her CPR, I thought you were gonna lose it when you started yelling at her to breathe.”

  When times were stressful, you talked until you were no longer coherent and then you spoke gibberish. Everyone had chalked it up to stress and his attempt to wake her or make her listen to his voice, keeping her responsive while he carried her through the dense brush and open spaces to safety.

  What he’d never told anyone at the time was that she had curled her body into his like she belonged there. Her body kept moving, and it felt like she was rubbing her breasts over his suit to help with stimulating them. It was fucking awesome, if she’d been in her right mind and uninjured, he would have let the fire burn down every tree in the forest while he fucked her where they met.

  “You are welcome, it was fortunate that you were alive to begin with, you were doing the hard part, I just needed to keep you breathing.”

  They shared a smile, and she touched his arm when he began to back away from her. “I have one other thing to tell you, well two actually. The day was bright and sunny; Dad got the call while he was with me and I tagged along, it was reported as a small fire, no one told him the fire had spread so fast. As we approached, Dad kept tapping on his headgear and frowning, we had the same headgear, but his transmitted to mine, I never heard anything coming over the com link, neither did he, I am certain of it. I was told you thought he was disobeying directions again so he could come in hot and save the day as he was reputed to do too often for coincidence. So you see, he wasn’t to blame for the accident; the communication gear was the problem.