Chapter 14
Colton
His phone buzzed ahead of the morning alarm, jarring him from a restless sleep. A text from Ace: Something’s up with Kylie. She’s getting weird texts from some loser. Deanna asked me to come over first thing this morning.
Colton bolted upright, rubbing his face. “Now what the hell is goin’ on?” he growled.
He dressed and drove to the Command Center, where he found Deanna in the cafeteria, sitting alone at a corner table, her scrambled eggs untouched. The lines around her eyes softened as he approached.
“Mind if I sit?”
“You don’t have to ask, Sky King.” She gave him a close-mouthed smile.
He slid into the chair across from her. “Ace told me Kylie’s freaked out about texts she’s been receiving?”
Deanna set down her fork and yawned. “She told me about it last night. Someone’s sending her creepy messages. Hard to get sleep after that.”
“Ace will help her report it.” He sipped his coffee and eased back in his seat. “How are you doing with today being your dad’s anniversary and all?”
“Better, now that you’re here.” She stared into her coffee cup, fingers tracing the rim.
“Thought about what you said last night. Got me to thinkin’ about things.” Colton rolled the warm mug between his palms and studied the steam curling off the surface. Some wounds he kept where no one could reach them. But she’d dredged up her worst for him, and he figured he owed her the same.
“I had a first officer, Mack McKinney. We flew aerial fire suppression for three seasons on some of the same fires. Four years ago, we worked on a fire near Bozeman. Wind shear slammed us into a ridge.” The impact still lived in his bones.
“Oh, no, Colton.” She placed her hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“The NTSB concluded it wasn’t pilot error because no one could have predicted the downdraft.” A short, hard laugh escaped him. “But I had the stick. My hands on the controls. I often wonder what I could have done differently. Ascended sooner, approached from another angle, anything.”
Deanna squeezed his hand. “Survivor’s guilt is a bitch. But you can’t assume the responsibility for his death.”
He turned his hand over and laced his fingers through hers.
“I told you this for a reason. It wasn’t your fault for wanting to be valued and loved.
You’ve realized why you did what you did and that’s the part that matters.
That takes guts, like I said last night.
Guilt only weighs you down. Trust me on that one. ”
Her smile was as intimate as a kiss. “You have no idea how much I appreciate you saying that.”
Deanna bore zero resemblance to the manipulative woman Reeva had warned him about. This woman had burned through her life the way fires blazed through the timber. Only she’d put out the fires and stopped to survey the damage.
“Kylie and I have this running joke,” said Deanna. “Man-Eaters Anonymous. Five steps to become a better human.”
His brows lifted. This should prove interesting. “Do tell.”
She ticked them off on her fingers. “Admit you’ve been a disaster, own the wreckage, when you meet a good man, don’t sabotage it, and oh, yeah, apologize to the people you’ve hurt. The fifth one’s the killer.” Her voice caught. “Accept you deserve to be loved without stealing it from someone else.”
He held up a hand. “Hang on. Back up to number three. When you meet a good man, don’t sabotage it?” He cocked an eyebrow. “Did you just call me a good man?”
Heat climbed into her cheeks, and she gave him a sheepish shrug. “Kylie wrote that one.”
“Smart woman.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
He chuckled. “Too late. So, which step are you on?”
“Currently cycling through four and five.” She studied her plate of uneaten eggs.
He leaned forward and spoke in a hushed voice, his full attention on her. “You haven’t stolen me from anyone, Deanna. I’m with you because I choose to be. I’m staying.”
She reached for his hand and squeezed it, forcing the water back from her eyes.
“Thanks for not judging. And giving me the benefit of the doubt.”
Oh, God, he is staying.
“Everyone deserves a second chance.” Colton finished his coffee and stood. “We should get to the briefing. Oh, and Deanna . . .” He waited until she stood and looked her in the eye. “I don’t scare easily. I’m a pilot, remember? Don’t worry, Brooks. We’ll figure it out.”
The worry visibly lifted from her shoulders. This was a lottery win.
For both of them.
THE MORNING brIEFING brought ominous news of multiple starts from overnight lightning, thin resources, and deteriorating weather. A trifecta that should have made Colton groan, but he was pleased to get back in the air.
After the briefing, he entered the jump shack to coordinate the day’s flight plans with the pilot of the Twin Otter.
As the two men discussed the air traffic plan, Colton eyed Deanna cycling through her pre-jump routine of checking gear and reviewing strategies with her jump crew.
Since Ryan was off jump status while his leg healed, she’d taken his place on the jump list.
When he finished his coordination with the jump ship pilot, he gave Deanna a subtle wave, then drove out to the airfield.
On the way, Colton mulled things over. He couldn’t reconcile this woman with the one Reeva and Ryan had described. Lots of people battled their inner demons to get back to a sense of normalcy after facing tough times.
So what if Deanna has baggage? Who doesn’t?
Colton wasn’t any different. After Mack died, he’d blown through destructive phases of survivor’s guilt that led to heavy bouts of depression.
People had written him off as a lost cause until he got his shit together.
He was the last person who should pass judgment on anyone.
Deanna’s struggle paralleled his own, so this wasn’t a deal-breaker.
His tanker waited on the tarmac, loaded and ready, the morning sun turning the fuselage a dull silver through the smoke haze.
Harvey stood beneath the starboard wing, a rag slung over one shoulder, his usual “I’d Rather Be Flying!” mug perched on the wing root.
“She’s all yours, kid.” He stuffed the rag into his back pocket.
“Topped off, systems checked out, slurry loaded. Ran her hundred-hour right here, so you didn’t have to ferry her to Helena and lose time on the fire.
Checked out the number two engine this morning.
Fuel flow readings ran a hair off yesterday, but she’s within tolerances now. ”
“Number two. Same position that went out on One-Eight-Zero.” Colton paused. “A hair off how?”
Harvey adjusted his grease-worn baseball cap. “Fuel pressure dropped three PSI during your last run. Nothing to flag a warning, but it got my attention. Might be a sensor or filter housing. I cleaned the sensor and tested the lines. Everything checks out.”
“Thanks, Harvey.” Colton ran his hand along the engine nacelle, a habit he’d learned from his father, who’d say a pilot felt trouble in an aircraft the way a rancher sensed a sudden storm. “I trust your judgment.”
“If that’s true, you’ll bring her back in one piece.” Harvey gave him a two-finger salute and headed toward the hangar, muttering about fuel system tolerances and manufacturer specs.
Colton climbed into the cockpit and ran through the preflight. When he fired the engines, their familiar vibration spread through the airframe, into his bones.
“Tanker One-Eight-Two, cleared for departure,” radioed Air Attack.
“One-Eight-Two, rolling. Dropping two half-loads on the Copper Creek Fire.”
Bird Dog led him to drop the first load on the head of the fire, the red cascade hitting the target to buy the ground crews time to cut their fireline.
“On the money,” said Pointer. “Get on my six, and we’ll rock and roll again.”
“You got it.” Colton loved this kind of flying, and Dash responded like an extension of his body.
I was born to fly this air tanker.
He climbed to six thousand feet for his approach angle, the fire visible through breaks in the smoke as it tore through lodgepole pine.
Pointer flew below him, running the approach line. “One-Eight-Two, same setup. Heading two-one-five, the target is two hundred yards east. Winds are picking up, gusting to twelve. Choppy, but doable.”
“Copy, Bird Dog.”
He nosed the tanker into the descent, building airspeed, when the number two engine coughed. Not a stall. Not a flame-out. A brief, stuttering hesitation in the power output. The RPM gauge dipped, then climbed to normal.
Colton’s hands clutched the yoke as he muttered to his aircraft, “Come on, Dash. Don’t do this. You know better, dammit!”
He continued the approach, one eye on the fire below, the other on the instrument panel. Fuel pressure on the number two engine read normal, as did the temperature and the oil pressure. Whatever had happened, the gauges weren’t talking about it.
“One-Eight-Two, I’m seeing trouble off your number two.” Pointer’s drawl had lost its ease. “You’ve got a heat shimmer. Doesn’t look right. Want to abort?”
“Negative,” clipped Colton. “Committed to dumping this load.”
“Your call, Colt. Have you in my sights.”
The gates opened, and half of the slurry load streamed out behind his tanker. As he climbed away from the terrain to line up for the second drop, the number two engine coughed again. The RPM dropped twelve percent, and the tanker shuddered with the asymmetric thrust.
“Air Attack, this is One-Eight-Two. Intermittent power loss, number two engine.” Colton steadied himself. Panic killed pilots faster than mechanical failure. “Fuel pressure is normal, but I’m aborting the next run. Heading back to the airfield.”
“Copy, One-Eight-Two,” replied Air Attack. “Need an escort?”
“Pointer is with me.” Colton steadied his hand on the yoke. “Still have one good engine.”
“Damn right, I’m with you.” Pointer slid into position off his right wing. “I’m your wingman. If the engine gets worse, I’ll let you know.”
Colton dipped a nod at Pointer through his cockpit glass, keying his radio. “Now we’re talking. Appreciate it, buddy.”
“Buy me dinner. You owe me from the last drop.”