Chapter 19
Deanna
The jump list was posted in the shack with Deanna’s name at the top, as usual. She stared at it, then pushed through the door to find her jump boss, Rooster Madsen, at a desk, comparing deployment schedules with the fire’s latest progression maps.
Rooster’s weathered face creased with concern. “Westlake informed me about Kylie, but unfortunately we need all the jumpers and hotshot crews we can get as the fire’s making a run toward Copper Creek.”
“I can’t jump, knowing someone is holding Kylie against her will.” Deanna swallowed hard, tamping back her emotions. “Can you designate Ryan O’Connor as the jumper-in-charge? He’s also worked as Air Attack supervisor on Alaska fires.”
“Yeah, I know about Ryan’s capabilities.” Rooster raised an eyebrow.
As if summoned, Ryan appeared in the doorway, his gear bag slung over one shoulder. “Heard my name in vain.” His face sobered at the sight of Deanna. “I’m sorry about Kylie. A kidnapped firefighter is a first for me.”
“Me, too,” said Deanna. “Hey, think you can fill in for me as jumper-in-charge for our crew jumps for a couple of days?”
Ryan straightened. “After you cut me free from a burning snag? I’d walk through hell for you.” He turned to Rooster. “Put me back on the jump list. I’ve mended enough to work.”
His words meant the world. If only the Aurora Crew could have heard him say it. Deanna shoved the swell of emotion down.
Rooster looked between them and heaved out a sigh.
“Okay, then. Ryan, you’re back on. Brooks, you’re removed for forty-eight hours.
If you need more time, we’ll discuss it later.
” Rooster stood to mark the change on his board.
“O’Connor, jump briefing’s in ten. We need jumpers to establish a new anchor point on the Copper Creek ridgetop. ”
Deanna left them to their discussion of deployment strategies.
If she couldn’t jump, she could still work, and work was the only thing standing between her and losing her mind.
She spent the day wherever camp needed hands: restocking supply caches, logging weather updates, running messages for the overhead team.
Anything to keep from checking her phone every five minutes.
By late afternoon, her body hit its limit, and she walked toward the sleeping quarters. The base camp atmosphere wasn’t the same without Kylie’s laugh at one of Deanna’s dumb jokes.
She pushed into the tent she shared with Kylie and stopped short.
Kylie’s gear bag sat zipped on her cot, in the same spot she’d left it the morning before. The dog-eared paperback she’d been reading lay face-down on her pillow. Everything in its place, like she’d be back any minute.
Deanna collapsed onto her cot and let the tears flow.
The sheer exhaustion from ceaseless fire duty, absence of sleep, and the worst morning of her life left her body barely able to function.
Before she knew it, she’d drifted off to sleep.
“Deanna? You in there?” Colton called from outside the tent.
Took a groggy minute to shake herself from her much-needed nap. “You’re back already? What time is it?”
Colton pushed through the tent flap in his flight suit. “Almost dinner time. Made some drops, then finished for the day. What’s goin’ on?”
She shook her head as everything caught up to her at once.
“I promised Kylie’s mom, Colton. Janet called the morning we dispatched to Montana, like she always does, with the same question: ‘You’ll bring my girl home?
’ And I give her the same answer: ‘Always, Mrs. Sumner. Always.’” Her heart cleaved in two.
“She sends us cookies, Colton. Snickerdoodles in a tin with our names on it. She’s been doing it since we were fourteen, going to summer camp.
” She’d spent half her life alongside Kylie.
Colton sank down next to her, folding her into his arms. She buried her face in his flight suit and let herself break again. He said nothing, only held her.
She wiped her face with her sleeve. “Westlake informed her parents.”
He stroked her hair. “He had to once the county law enforcement got involved.”
“Good to know.” She stared at Kylie’s untouched things on the other side of the tent. “Whoever did this knew our routines. Knew where our tent was, when Kylie would be alone, and when no one was watching. Why did they take her? Why not me? Or any of us, for that matter?”
“Maybe they took Kylie because she figured out who the bad guys were,” Colton said. “They may have taken her to keep her from talking.”
“Oh, God.” Ice slid through Deanna’s veins. She reached for Colton’s hand, needing the anchor of his touch.
“We’ll find her.” His grip on her hand steadied. “Whatever it takes.”
“Thanks for being here for me.” She drew strength from his reassurance. Kylie was counting on them to help her.
Colton angled toward her. “What if Reeva crashed the helicopter yesterday to establish an alibi?”
Deanna shook her head. “Too far-fetched. She was injured and barely conscious when we got her out. Someone on the inside contaminated the drafting pond with fuel. Any firefighter could do it without being noticed.” The thought made her shudder.
“But this person also knew which tankers to target,” said Colton. “They knew about Precision’s insurance payouts and Ace’s crashed tanker and how much to demand. They timed it for when we’d be overwhelmed, resources running thin and short on equipment.”
Deanna’s mind raced. “Someone who’s worked these fires, but no longer does. We should look at who’s demobed recently. People take leave all the time for family emergencies, injuries, or hardship at home.”
“Let’s talk to Westlake about accessing the information.”
“While we’ve been risking our lives protecting communities, someone sabotaged our firefighting efforts for kidnapping and extortion.” Deanna put her hands on her head. “This is mother freaking insane.”
Her gaze landed on Kylie’s notebook of lists and poems, lying on their stack of cardboard boxes. Deanna picked it up and flipped through. Kylie’s last entry stopped her cold.
“Look at this.” She held it out to Colton and read over his shoulder.
Truck #7. Driver looked familiar but couldn’t place him. Saw same guy at the hangar near the tankers. Someone said his name was Zeb. Why is a Type 2 firefighter hanging around aviation maintenance? Ask Colton.
Deanna glanced up at him. “Did she tell you about this?”
Colton’s eyes locked on the page. “No, but Harvey mentioned a firefighter hanging around the hangar all season. A guy named Zeb.” He handed the notebook back. “Bring this with you. We’ll show Westlake after we eat. You haven’t had food in hours.”
Deanna tucked the notebook into her pants pocket. They walked toward the mess tent, past spent crews coming off the fire line, helicopters refueling for another run, the controlled chaos of a fire camp under siege.
“Colton.” Deanna stopped outside the cafeteria. “After we get Kylie back, I want to talk about what happens when this fire season ends.”
“Where did that come from?” His brows shot up. “Deanna Brooks, are you saying you want to officially date a tanker pilot?”
Despite everything, her lips curved up. “If said pilot is interested in a smokejumper with a shit ton of baggage and a talent for jinxing things, yeah.”
“I hear jinxing is her specialty.” He bent to give her a soft kiss. “One day at a time. We’ll get through this. Don’t worry.”
AFTER HE FINISHED EATING, Colton left for Bowman Airfield to put his bird to bed and fill out the day’s paperwork. Deanna sat in the base camp cafeteria with a half-eaten bowl of beef stew, pushing a potato through the brown liquid with her fork.
Two engine crew members from Missoula played cards at a far table.
A helicopter pilot she didn’t recognize dozed with his chin on his chest, a coffee cup cooling in front of him.
At the table nearest the door, a hotshot from one of the Idaho crews sat across from a woman in a BLM polo, talking low.
The woman said something to make the firefighter laugh, and he lifted her hand and kissed it.
Deanna loved the simple gesture. So natural, like breathing.
She looked away. The therapist in McCall had a name for what she’d spent years doing: attachment avoidance masked as pursuit behavior.
Deanna had a simpler name for it: being her mother’s daughter.
A woman who measured her worth by the men she could attract.
The chase had never been about romance. It had been about making another person choose her.
But sitting here, seeing a stranger kiss his girlfriend’s hand, Deanna understood what she’d been missing. Not the men. Not the wins. The ability to let her life happen naturally.
Colton was far from a conquest. He’d pursued her but not for an easy lay.
She hadn’t pursued him back out of sheer self-discipline.
No game, strategy, or angle this time. She’d only presented her raw, truthful self, covered in slurry and blood, relying on the instincts years of training had ingrained in her.
Colton acted like she’d saved planet Earth, and it had confounded her. He knew her ugly truth, but he hadn’t judged her for it.
Reeva’s face intruded into her thoughts. How she’d flown her helicopter with casual ease, saying “Colt” like the nickname belonged to only her. And Colton’s reason for their breakup, where he had tired of her lies. Which meant he’d once loved her enough for Reeva’s lies to wound him.
Deann’s old, worn-out playbook opened unbidden.
Find out what Reeva offered that you can do better. Be more available, exciting, and indispensable. Embed yourself into his life so his ex becomes a mere footnote.
Deanna’s stomach turned at her warped thinking. She recognized the devious calculation like a recovering addict clings to justification before a relapse. It sounded like strategy, but tasted like poison.
The old Deanna is dead. You buried her in an Idaho meadow when you rescued yourself from the burning lodgepole.
She texted Colton: Is it weird to say I miss you when you’ve only been gone for twenty minutes?
His reply came fast: Yes, but I like that about you. Stay weird.
She put the phone face down on the table.
A few months ago, she would’ve deleted that text, unnerved by her own vulnerability.
She hadn’t let herself miss anyone. Missing someone meant needing them, and needing them meant giving them power over her.
Power had been the one thing she’d never surrendered.
She recognized the old pattern . . . and let it go. She wouldn’t risk messing things up with Colton. She closed her eyes and repeated one of her Man-Eaters Anonymous resolutions:
Do. Not. Mess this up.
The resolve hit her with the same intensity as hunkering in the Twin Otter’s open door, wind tearing at her, fire glowing through the smoke far below, when her brain stopped arguing and her body decided for her.
Jump or don’t. That simple.
After clearing her tray, she ambled to her tent and lay on her cot in the dark.
When sleep finally claimed her, she dreamed of a ranch she’d never seen, a horse she hadn’t ridden, and a man for whom staying felt like the bravest decision of her life.
And more exciting than freefall from a plane.