Burns So Bad (Smoke Jumpers) Read online

  Jack lent him a hand sliding the harness off. Rio didn’t need the assist—the chute lines were the issue, not the buckles—but Jack clearly needed to do something.

  His brother paused, gear slung from his hands. “Are you hurt?”

  No and that was another mark in the miracle column. “Not so much as a scratch. If you tell Nonna, I’ll kill you.”

  Their adoptive mother didn’t need to know she’d almost lost one of them today. She understood the risks of what they did. Smoke jumping wasn’t for the faint of heart and, sometimes, good men got hurt. He was just damn fortunate he hadn’t joined their number today.

  Because Gia Jackson hadn’t let go of him.

  “We’re starting in five,” Jack said. He didn’t ask again if Rio was okay. They needed all hands on deck to knock down this fire and Rio had no intention of sitting this one out to commune with his inner self.

  “Got it.” He turned around, scanning the clearing. Gia was on the side nearest the fire. Of course.

  “She’s good,” Jack said quietly.

  She was. She was also the first woman they’d brought on board. It wasn’t that the Donovans preferred to keep the team all-male—although it certainly made certain logistics like suiting up simpler—but there just weren’t that many women interested in jumping out of planes into the very center of a forest fire. And then hauling a hundred-plus pounds of gear around with them while they shoveled dirt onto twelve-foot flames. Maybe women were simply smarter than men. He grinned. Jack’s fiancée, Lily Cortez, would have agreed with that statement.

  He strolled over to Gia, not sure what to say. The DC-3 pilot had dropped a crate of supplies for them and she was checking out a chainsaw. She’d tugged off her gloves, one caught between her teeth, her fingers flying over the tool. Gia definitely knew her stuff.

  “Hey,” he said, squatting beside her.

  She set the chainsaw down on the ground and rocked back on her heels. “You ready to roll?”

  “Always.”

  “Good.” She nodded and reached for her glove lying on the ground.

  When his hand shot out and grabbed it first, she looked up and glared at him. “Are we playing keep away now, Donovan? Because that’s real mature of you.”

  “Thanks,” he said roughly.

  “You’re welcome.” She made a give-it-up gesture with her bare hand. “Return the glove.”

  He winced. “You saved my life.”

  Some things had to be said.

  She huffed out an impatient breath. “Does this mean we share some kind of psychic bond now, or you’re going to pull a Robin Hood and stick by my side until you’ve returned the favor?”

  He shook his head. “Not in my plans for today, no.”

  “Good.” She smiled, a lazy, happy stretch of her lips that warmed him up inside. This was why he generally opted for pissing her off rather than pleasing her, because he felt the effect of her smile straight to his toes. With a really, really long detour in certain parts in the middle. “Can we go back to fighting the fire?”

  He held the glove open for her. She stared at him for a moment and then slowly slid her hand inside.

  “Would it kill you,” he asked, “to say You’re welcome, Donovan?”

  She thought for a moment. He kept his fingers loose around hers because, hell, they were practically holding hands out here in the forest and he was pathetic. In the month since she’d joined the jump team, he’d yanked her up and down a dozen hills when everyone was scrambling with the gear. A helping hand was also standard practice getting in and out of the DC-3. But this was different somehow.

  She shrugged. “Okay then. You’re welcome. Now can we go fight the fire?”

  “You bet.” He stood, pulling her with him.

  When they were both on their feet, she looked at him and then down at their joined hands. “You can let go now, Donovan.”

  He did. She was right. They had a fire to knock down. Part of him wished she’d call him Rio. Not Donovan and not partner, but by his name. He wasn’t interchangeable with his brothers.

  “Thank you,” he said again, starting for the fire. “For catching my ass. That was above and beyond. I owe you one.”

  “I’m not expecting a fruit basket.” She sounded irritated. “Or joint accounting.” She waved an arm impatiently toward the rest of the guys. “That’s our team right there. We jump together. We fight together. We stick together. If you’re dumb enough to fall out of a plane, I catch your ass. You’d do the same for me because that’s how it works. I’m one of your boys.”

  One of his boys? Like hell she was.

  She shoved past him and stalked off toward the fire.

  Christ. She was good. And her speech showed true management potential. He’d have to talk to Jack about giving her more responsibilities on the jump team. Unfortunately, though, he still had a problem, because there was no way he saw Gia as just one of his boys. He had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to help himself. He’d held Gia and he wouldn’t be forgetting the feel of her anytime soon. Hell. Lusting after a team member was every kind of wrong and he damned certain didn’t look at Mack or Zay or Joey that way. So he had no business looking at Gia like he wanted to strip her jumpsuit down those long, long legs and follow his hands with his mouth.

  Gia Jackson was off-limits.

  Chapter Two

  Ten hours later, it was dark and past time to take a breather. Although the twenty-acre wildfire was mostly contained, knocked back behind the lines the team had dug, the surrounding area was red and black, lit up like a parking lot. The jump team sprawled on the ground, debating the relative merits—or lack thereof—of dinner. The MREs they’d packed provided calories, but not much in the taste department. Gia was no cook, but this stuff sucked.

  Her body had aches and pains in places she hadn’t known she possessed. A long soak in a Jacuzzi followed by an hour with a massage therapist sounded ideal, but definitely wasn’t an option for tonight. Instead, she wriggled her ass around the small hollow she’d excavated in the ground and stretched her boots out in front of her. Hell, just getting off her feet was bliss.

  Rummaging in his pack, Evan Donovan produced a bag of marshmallows and someone else grabbed a handful of sticks. Evan had a sweet tooth—and a team of hungry jumpers. Five minutes later, everyone had a piece of sweet gooey goodness speared and toasting. Five minutes after that and the stories started coming.

  For a while, Gia was content to sit back and listen. Since she preferred her marshmallows burnt black on the outside and heated to volcanic temps on the inside, her turn over the fire had lasted just long enough to catch her goodies on fire.

  Joey swung his stick wildly to illustrate a point in his story, narrowly missing her head. Par for the course for him, since the team’s youngest jumper didn’t do anything by half measures, whether it was jumping, fighting or simply talking.

  “Hey,” she protested. “Until there’s a bottle of shampoo in my future, keep that thing away from me.”

  Going with the short hair had been a smart move. She’d chopped the mane off five summers ago because hair got in the way during a jump. She hadn’t mourned the length even if she routinely woke up with a raging case of bedhead. Wash and go was practical out in the field, and she didn’t have time to mess with ponytail elastics. Plus, she already had to work twice as hard to pull her weight on the team because her biology put her at a disadvantage. God hadn’t equipped her with the balls—or the muscle—to cut line the way Rio did.

  When fire season ended, however, she went back to U.C. Davis and her graduate degree in meteorology. That fun fact had amused the shit out of the Strong jumpers. Joey in particular was convinced he’d wake up one morning and spot her face on his television. TV didn’t interest her anywhere near as much as weather patterns did, but there was no persuading Joey of that.

  He shrugged, his marshmallow making a return pass. “Worried about your good looks, Jackson?”

  Mack leaned in and handed over
another marshmallow. “You gonna read us the weather?”

  She’d weathered—har har—endless jokes about being the weatherman. She didn’t have the classic good looks or the polish the job required. And she didn’t have the interest. She wanted to do more than talk about the weather and spit out tidy sound bites for tired commuters and families planning weekend getaways to the beach. She wanted to analyze weather conditions behind the scenes, be the person issuing the forecasts and alerts.

  She also wanted to jump.

  It didn’t matter that she had a heart that sometimes bordered on busted, or that her PSVT was arguably grounds for sitting out the season. Forever. The PSVT was a heart arrhythmia she could work around and she needed to jump. B trumped A every time. The first day she’d gone out a plane bay, wind roaring in her ears and fire waiting for her on the ground, she’d known. This was her calling. This was what she loved.

  As the marshmallows heated up and disappeared, the guys started talking, trading chitchat. War stories at first. Fires fought, fires lost. Who’d hiked in, hiked out or bunked down in the shake-and-bake, holding the fire-resistant shelter in place as the fire roared overhead. Twenty-acres became two hundred, then two thousand in a familiar game of one-ups-manship. First, the fire stories, then the Penthouse letters to the forum. She had no idea why the bigger the fire, the bigger the dick, but clearly there was a connection.

  Jack flashed her a grin from across the fire and she felt her own answering smile. She loved the rough-and-tumble un-PC crew. Her guys were honest to a fault and—for most of them—missing any kind of a verbal filter. Jack’s fiancée appeared to have taught her man something, because Jack had stopped sharing when the conversation took a right turn from fighting fires to fending off the females.

  Joey started telling some impossible story involving a fire truck and the fire chief’s twin daughters and pretty soon good-natured laughter greeted each new addition to the tale. He didn’t believe his bullshit either, but the team egged him on, demanding deets. Which Joey added.

  Or made up.

  Gia needed to write a book.

  The rest of the team sprawled on their packs, popping the tops on the MREs. Catching five or ten minutes of rest because they all knew the fire wasn’t done with them. Evan fished a squashed PB&J out of his pocket and Rio leaned over and snatched it playfully.

  “Man, you’ve got to work on Faye’s cooking skills.”

  Two slices and a slap of peanut goodness sounded way better than the MRE Gia had forced down. Any meal that came in a poop-brown plastic bag was definitely no Wolfgang Puck special.

  “That sandwich is my own stuff,” Evan grumbled, slapping a hand on Rio’s shoulder. Rio rolled with the blow, but he let his brother pluck the sandwich from his hand. “You think Faye should be cooking because she’s the girl in our relationship?”

  Rio’s answering laugh crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Shit, no. I think she needs to cook because I know you can’t. The two of you are gonna starve, unless you decide to move in with Nonna.”

  Rio’s contagious smile had Evan grinning ruefully. “Faye wants us to have our own space, but those Sunday dinners are a lifesaver.”

  Rio always could make anyone smile.

  Stop it.

  Attraction in the workplace was a no fly situation. Sex with someone Gia worked with? An even worse idea. Sure, her team was parked around a campfire, shooting the shit and sharing sexcapades. The topic of conversation was about as far from PC as words could get, but the conversation wasn’t mean-spirited either.

  And it meant that her fellow jumpers saw her as one of them.

  She wasn’t having sex with a co-worker, and definitely not one of her boys. After all, she knew precisely what kind of no good, love-em-and-leave-em nonsense those boys got up to. Exhibit A? Tonight’s stories. If she slept with a jumper, she would become irrevocably a girl in the team’s eyes and then she didn’t jump again without a fight. They were good guys and they had hearts of gold—but they were protect and defend to the core. She’d end up the girlfriend waiting at home and, as much as she loved being a woman, she was also a jumper. This was what she did and she was good at it.

  Rio Donovan was damned pretty however, bona fide eye candy, and she wasn’t going to deny herself a look.

  It was just touching that was off-limits.

  “We need another story,” Joey demanded when conversation finally lagged, speaking around a mouth of marshmallow. He looked like a five year-old demanding his companions flip the television to his favorite station.

  Mack grinned and settled back. “Bedtime stories are the best.”

  There was no doubt in Gia’s mind what kind of story her boys wanted. This wasn’t toddler time at the local library. All heads swiveled towards Rio, even Jack and Evan looking interested.

  The request didn’t faze Rio, not in the slightest. He eyeballed his audience and sprawled back on a pile of packs like a modern day pasha, all sexy confidence. “A story?”

  Mack snorted. “Or tell the truth if you dare.”

  “You and Mimi still dating?” someone asked.

  Rio looked disappointed. “You’re asking me to kiss and tell?”

  Last summer, Rio had taken up with Mimi Hart, the local bartender and proud owner of Ma’s Bar. That was the camp gossip, backed up by a handful of Facebook photos. Gia was fairly certain the pair hadn’t survived the year. At any rate, she hadn’t spotted Rio and Mimi together since she’d joined the jump team. Since Rio didn’t strike her as the subtle type, she figured he wasn’t slinking around with Mimi on the side. No, if he’d been dating the other woman, he’d have been up front and open about it. There was a lot to be said for Rio’s blatant, unabashed sensuality.

  While the team grumbled, Rio looked over at her. It was just a look, she told herself. Nothing different from the way he’d looked at her every day for the past month. A small smile tugged at his lips.

  “You up for a story, Jackson?”

  Two could play this game. “Sure.” She grinned back at him. Give as good as you got. That was rule number one in fire camp. “I’m always game to hear the same old same old.”

  A chorus of wolf whistles filled the air. Her guys always enjoyed a little friendly one-ups-manship.

  “You think you can tell a better story?” Rio asked.

  “Absolutely.” Right on cue, every head swiveled her way. “We are talking about sex, right? I think my subscription to Cosmo is still valid and I’m fairly certain I’ve got all the working parts. Fact or fiction—you decided.”

  Rio smiled.

  She watched his face, wondering if he’d break first in this mental game of chicken they were playing. Probably not—Rio never quit, never gave an inch when he wanted something—so she was on the hook for a hot bedtime story for the guys. Looking at him was pure pleasure. His dark gold hair was buzzed short to his scalp and, at some point during the day, he’d pushed his aviator glasses on top of his head. Dirt and five o’clock shadow streaked his jaw, but his eyes were focused on her face. She had no idea what was going through his head, but that was Rio. He was all smiles and grins on a real pretty surface, but he kept his thoughts and real feelings hidden.

  Finally, he grinned. “Ladies first.”

  “Someone better buy me a beer,” she said. Mack tossed her his canteen and, uncapping it, she swallowed. After a day in the field, the water tasted copper and flat. God. A beer would be pure genius right now.

  “Once upon a time,” she started and her audience groaned. Someone hollered something about a ban on fairy tales, but she kept right on talking. “There was the girl who we’ll call Gina, to protect the innocent.”

  “You claiming to be innocent?” Joey tipped his canteen toward her and she winked, settling back against her pack.

  “Now Gina was paying her own way through grad school and those tuition bills packed a wallop. She figured she needed to get a gig in addition to teaching because she was pretty damn sick of Ramen noodles.”


  “So she hooked up with a bunch of smoke jumpers.” Someone hooted. “Becoming a weatherman comes with a stiff price tag.”

  She didn’t want to talk about the weather.

  Not when she could be out living it on the frontlines.

  Grinning, she plowed ahead with her story. “Smoke jumpers are ugly ass bunch—present company included—and our Gina was looking for something a little prettier. So she put her on dancing dress and this pair of five-inch stilettos…” She mimed sliding a pair of fuck me shoes on her feet, holding out her ash-covered steel-toes. “Just like mine here. A real sexy number.”

  “This isn’t Miss America,” Evan groused. “You don’t have to show me your shoes.”

  “You watch beauty pageants?” Mack leaned in. “Hell, man, the swimsuit part is okay, but a shoe parade on the boardwalk?”

  “How come you know about it then?”

  “I got sisters. And a mother and way too many aunties.” Mack grinned and swiped a marshmallow. “Other than that, I’m pleading the Fifth.”

  “Well our Gina wasn’t running for Miss America. She was looking for something a whole lot less nice.”

  “Did she find what she was looking for?” Rio eyed her and she told herself that was not a shiver she felt chasing down her spine.

  “She sure did. She took herself down to a strip club her friends told her about and she got a job dancing weekends there.”

  Mack frowned. “Are we in fact territory here—or fiction? Because I’m just saying—knowing which would help me visualize this better.”

  Gia grinned at him. “I’m not telling, but if you were standing in line outside the club on a night she was dancing, you’d better be slipping the bouncer more than twenty bucks to get and park your ass in the good seats, because Gina could dance. She had this little school girl skirt and stockings that came up to right here.”

  She sliced a finger across her Nomex-clad thigh. Yep. Every eye in the house followed that move. Sex had that effect on her boys. Even Rio was watching.