Back to Eden. Melinda Curtis
After hearing the devastating news, Cole had staggered over to the latrines where he’d tried to decide if he was going to puke or not. Minutes later, with his friends standing in front of him, Cole still wasn’t sure.
Missy was dead.
He wiped a hand over his face. He’d always believed she was The One—the woman he was meant to be with. All she’d had to do was touch him and he’d combusted. She’d given him an ultimatum that last morning he’d seen her, either settle down in Eden or leave her be. There was nothing for him in Eden—no family since his had moved to Idaho, and there sure as hell weren’t any jobs in the dying town. In the heat of anger, he’d told Missy he’d wait for her through her foolish marriage. He’d told Missy he’d wait until she grew up and realized they were destined to be together.
And he had waited, living as if he’d had a marriage vow to honor, knowing she’d come back to him someday.
Only to find out Missy was dead.
“I, uh…” Cole struggled to find the words to tell his friends what had blindsided him. “I just heard that…Missy is dead.”
Without a word they sat on either side of him on the hard-packed Montana earth.
Jackson put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. How did you hear?”
“Her little sister told me a few minutes ago.” Rachel had looked just the same as the picture he carried in his wallet—a stubborn lift to her chin, wisps of long black hair escaping from her ponytail, slender as a reed, wearing cowboy boots, scruffy blue jeans and a T-shirt. If it wasn’t for the way she filled out her T-shirt, she’d have tomboy written all over her.
What Rachel didn’t have written all over her was grief, because she’d had five years to come to terms with her sister’s death. All Cole’s dreams—
“Missy’s sister?” Logan broke into Cole’s thoughts, leaning forward and looking at Jackson, then at Cole. “The little girl who rebuilt your truck engine before she had a license to drive it? The one who beat you in a bareback horse race?”
“Logan.” Jackson held up a hand in Logan’s direction.
“Yeah. She’s a tanker pilot. I should have known she’d end up doing something crazy, especially with Missy gone….” Cole stared down at his boots. Rachel was no longer a little girl. She was a woman who’d never outgrown the daredevil spirit that he’d been sure Missy would temper as they aged. Crap. He still couldn’t believe Missy was long dead. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Maybe after we finish here, we can take a run over to Wyoming and pay our respects,” Jackson suggested softly.
Cole shook his head slowly, in wonder. “You didn’t even know her.”
“No, but we know you, buddy, and even if you’re not ready to talk about it, we’ll be there for you when you are.”
“LAST RUN OF THE DAY,” Rachel said as Danny landed Fire Angel One. They’d done nothing more exciting than drop retardant around the fire all day long. The fire had died down, so that there were no flames raging out of control and no firefighters trapped and in need of rescue. Very ho-hum.
“Last run of the season,” Danny corrected wistfully as he taxied the Privateer to the retardant base.
Despite the shift in winds this afternoon, the dragon appeared to be contained, and they’d been ordered to drop one last load of slurry on the steep eastern slope near the road before refueling and heading home to Wyoming. A season of flying was over.
Rachel sighed. At least she wouldn’t have to see Cole again.
In their passes over the fire, she’d caught glimpses of the crews below, bolstering the last of the fire lines before this beast burned itself out. She couldn’t help but wonder if Cole was one of them, if he looked to the sky as she flew over. How was Cole handling the news about Missy? Rachel had dreaded meeting Cole again. She had so much to blame him for. Even though she’d idolized him all those years ago, Cole Hudson never looked before he leaped, and that had contributed to Missy’s downward spiral and death. After so much time, Rachel had thought he’d shrug, offer his condolences and move on, but he’d appeared shaken.
Beside a shed on the edge of the runway, boots in puddles of red muck, the ground crew stood ready with hoses that would pump another twenty-five hundred gallons of fire-smothering slurry into the belly of the Privateer. Originally a long-range Navy patrol bomber built for World War II, Fire Angel One had been stripped clean to make room for the massive tank that had been riveted within the plane’s belly.
Without waiting for Danny to cut the engines, the ground crew approached, each dragging a hose and looking like aliens from the red planet, because their clothing, hats, goggles, gloves and masks were covered with a sticky glaze of crimson slurry. It would take them only a few minutes to fill the tank to capacity.
“My turn to fly.” Rachel faced the old bomber pilot, raising her voice over the whoosh and splash of slurry pouring into the Privateer. “How much do you want to bet this is the most boring run of the season?”
“I’ll pass on that bet.” Danny turned his cap backward and pushed his sunglasses firmly onto the bridge of his crooked nose. “It’s back to the boob tube for me and engine rebuilds for you.”
“At least I’ve got something to do this winter.” Rachel had an engine to rebuild on an old C119 warplane for a collector in Nevada. Danny would have to wait until spring to pick up work.
Danny laughed, rising to switch seats. “Yeah. Better make this last run stellar, then, kid. Are you up for barnstorming the camp?” Danny was always suggesting risky deeds, probably because as a fighter pilot in Korea and Vietnam, he’d cheated death more than his share of times.
“Are you up for having your pilot’s license revoked?” Rachel groused as she climbed behind the pilot’s controls, wondering why she was so somber. Was it because she’d reawakened her grief over Missy’s death through telling Cole? Or was it that Cole’s shocked reaction wasn’t at all what she’d expected?
The slurry hoses quieted. The tank was sealed back up. With a wave, the men in red retreated to wait for the next plane.
Unaware of Rachel’s mood, Danny grinned, shoving his mirrored glasses on. “Where’s your sense of adventure? Life is meant to be lived. Let’s take to the air, kid!”
“WHO’S READY?” Jackson yelled at the other eighteen Silver Bend Hot Shots packing their gear in base camp.
Doc and O’Reilly, among the youngest of the crew, already had their iPod earphones on and were oblivious to Jackson’s question.
The Silver Bend Hot Shots had been given marching orders. The fire was almost at the mop-up stage. That meant that less-skilled crews with lower hourly rates could be utilized. And since Silver Bend wasn’t a Montana crew, they were among the first to be released and sent home. States took care of their own.
Their duffels were stuffed with dirty clothes and reeked of smoke. They’d been fed and assured their paychecks were in the mail. All that was left to do was to pack up, load up, gas up and head for Idaho. Still, they weren’t in their civvy gear yet. There was always a chance when you were on a fire that you’d be called back into the thick of things. And this fire had created its own weather almost every afternoon since they’d been here, wreaking havoc with predictions and putting lives in danger when the winds whipped flames to dangerous heights.
Even now Cole could feel the wind pick up and change direction.
At the roar of an airplane overhead, Cole looked up. It was one of those antique planes that the Forest Service kept threatening to ground because of performance issues, planes so old they had a high likelihood of crashing. Cole had no way of knowing if it was Rachel or not, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the plane. In some weird way, she was the only thing he had left of Missy. The sisters hadn’t looked alike, and they were