Chapter 15
Colton
After showering in his hotel room, Colton drove to the command center. When he found Deanna’s tent empty, he headed toward the bus garage. Deanna stood at a table, repacking her chute.
“Ready to go?”
“Sure thing, got to clean up and change first. Go take a load off and rest on my cot till I finish,” she said.
He liked that idea. “Take your time. Don’t hurry on my account.”
Kylie was gone, so Colton stretched out on Deanna’s cot. Heaven beneath his back. He drifted off to the sound of rotors and lighthearted conversation as people returned from the fireline with hungry stomachs.
His lids fluttered open to Deanna, tapping his shoulder. “Wakey, wakey, Sky King. Time to go eat.”
She’d changed into jeans and a pale blue tee that made her baby blues look like Montana skies. She’d left her hair down, parted in the middle, damp from a shower. Colton fought an impulse to run his fingers through it.
He drove them to the Smelter Grill, overflowing with locals and firefighters. Colton steered Deanna toward an empty corner booth, exchanging nods with pilots and mechanics. They slid in, facing each other.
Their burgers arrived. After the emergency landing and Harvey’s grim discovery, sitting across from Deanna with a plate of food ranked as the closest thing to normal he’d had all day. Colton relaxed, the tension of the past few days easing from his aching shoulders.
When they finished eating, he had an idea. “I have dessert in my hotel room. Ben & Jerry’s from Albertsons grocery. It’s probably the only frozen thing in a fifty-mile radius of these fires.”
Deanna narrowed her gaze. “Is that a come-on line?”
“It’s an offer of dessert with some bad TV. I’m too tired for anything else, if that’s what you had in mind.”
“How do you know what I had in mind?”
“I don’t. Didn’t want you thinking what I thought you might be thinking.”
“Uh-huh, right.” She smiled as she lifted bills from her wallet and laid them on top of the check. “I’m getting your dinner tonight.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“That’s why I did it. Besides . . .” She wrinkled her nose. “You’re kind of cute with that ninety percent stud and ten percent muffin thing you have going on.”
His infectious laughter turned heads, and women couldn’t help but smile his way.
Once in Colton’s hotel room, Deanna kicked off her shoes and scooted back on the bed, sitting cross-legged. He produced the Cherry Garcia from the tiny fridge and grabbed two spoons.
“Fancy,” she said, accepting one.
“Only the best for my special guest.” He crawled onto the bed and arranged himself next to her. They passed the pint back and forth, the TV playing a housewives’ reality show neither of them paid attention to.
“What are your plans after the fire season?” He shoveled in a spoonful.
She licked ice cream off her spoon. “Thinking about going to school. Get a fire science degree to work in fire behavior analysis. What about you?”
“Been toying around with getting a helicopter rating. Fixed-wing is great but would be fun to fly rotors.” He set the empty ice cream container aside. “Sometimes I think about getting out entirely. Find a job with less risk.”
“Do you ever dream about the Bozeman crash?”
“Sometimes. You dream about your dad?” he asked.
“All the time. He spent his weekends teaching me to fly. Hope he isn’t sitting up there on a cloud being disappointed in me.”
He chuckled. “A man who gave his daughter the sky would never give up on her when she hit turbulence. Lady, you have grit. You saved Ryan from a burning tree, and you’re excellent at making split-second decisions.
Not to mention you skydive out of airplanes into flammable wildlands like a wild woman.
Your dad would be far from disappointed. He’d be incredibly proud.”
She rolled her eyes. “But the other stuff I’ve done . . .”
“Is in the past,” he finished. “You’re not that person now. I see who you are. Others do too when you let them. There’s a saying . . . sometimes when your horse takes the wrong trail, he leads you to where you’re supposed to be.”
“I’ll remember that.” She surprised him with a kiss, and he tasted ice cream as her tongue explored his. He returned her kiss with vigor, to show he believed in her.
They slid down to lie side by side on the bed, exhaustion weighing each of them down like an anchor.
“I’m so freaking tired,” she mumbled into the side of his neck. “So, so tired.”
“Me too,” he murmured back, aching to do more than hold and kiss her.
She nestled into him as if she had for years, head on his shoulder, arm draped over his chest. His hand kneaded the tension in her shoulder with a gentle, absent rhythm, as if touching her came as the most natural thing he’d ever done.
“Stay with me,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I love having you here.”
“I love being here . . .” Her words faded into sleep.
She fit perfectly in his arms. He hadn’t had this much warmth and comfort in a long time. Even her breathing synced with his as she slept. He closed his eyes and let sleep take him, still dressed, the TV murmuring in the background.
IN THE MORNING, COLTON woke to find them both in the same position, Deanna’s face peaceful in sleep. The early light softened the line of her jaw.
She stirred, her lids blinking open. When she smiled, his heart did that flutter thing he was getting used to.
“Morning, Sky King,” she said in a sleepy voice. “Forgot where I was for a second.”
“Morning.” He kissed her cheek. “Breakfast?”
“Coffee first. Then breakfast. Then we go save the day.”
“Like every other day.”
When she got up to use the bathroom, Colton stared at the ceiling, where the early light outlined the edges of the curtains.
Two people had told him to walk away from Deanna.
Yet all of it crumbled after she helped him get Ace out of his crashed tanker, cut Ryan free from a flaming snag, and laid her heart bare for him.
For the first time since the Aurora Crew rolled into camp, the knot under his ribs let go, because he was done debating.
His phone buzzed on the table, dragging him back. The morning’s fire updates rolled in: new starts, resources stretched thin, another long day clawing at the Copper Creek Fire. The work hadn’t changed. He had.
Fifteen years he’d spent reading fire, trusting his instruments and his gut when the two argued. Both pointed in the same direction now.
Today he’d fly, knowing where he wanted to land.
With Deanna.