Wildfire on the Skagit (Firehawks Book 9) Read Online Free PDF Page B

lighter than any other time during his entire first day with MHA.
    It shouldn’t matter that much that Krista had complimented him and used his real name. But it did.
    And that smooth and silky tone in her voice…who knew a smokejumper could sound so sexy.

Chapter 3
    The next time Evan was conscious of anything other than the fire, the sun was setting—for the second time.
    The first afternoon’s wind had brought flare-ups. Pitched battle had been engaged to keep the line. They were in country too steep for dozers and all the arrival of the Hotshot team had done was take over the flanks to free up MHA for the battle of the ridge.
    One moment he’d be digging line, the next across the ridge and down in the unburned valley to the north with Ox killing off a spot fire. As the wind kicked harder, they’d spent more and more of their time scrambling up and down the treacherous terrain killing nascent fires that embers were trying to spark on the next slope.
    In the quiet of the night they’d desperately cut more line trying to save the next valley over and then spent the entire second day defending that line.
    It was the evening of Day Two when he ground to a halt.
    The smokies all finished together high up in the saddle between two peaks. They just stood in the high clearing and looked dazedly about. Evan knew he was no better off than those around him, blinking hard in surprise at the sudden lack of anything to do.
    In front of them, the fire snapped and spat.
    But they’d contained it and it wasn’t going anywhere.
    The MHA helicopters were already down for the night—Forest Service contract said they were out of the sky from a half hour before sunset to a half hour after sunrise. Sometimes night operations were authorized, along with the stiff extra fee, but it wasn’t needed on this fire. All the fire needed tonight was a lookout, making sure it didn’t escape as it finished burning the woods inside the fireline.
    Behind them was a hundred thousand acres of untouched forest lands except for a few charred spots where they’d beaten down spot fires—not one of them bigger than an acre.
    “Camping here,” Akbar croaked in a voice hoarse with firesmoke and exhaustion.
    Still there was little movement. Nick the Greek may have been the first one to drop to one knee, but in the next second everyone was down on the ground except Krista.
    Evan watched as she started gathering kindling and firewood.
    He forced his own legs—rubbery from two days and a night on the line—into motion and clambered down across the fireline to fetch a brand from the sputtering fire. He chose a well-burned branch still flaming hot enough at one end to start a campfire easily.
    He made it back up the hill—barely—and rammed it into Krista’s pile of wood before sitting down. He wound up next to Krista.
    She’d shed her hardhat, jacket, and long-sleeved fire shirt. All she wore now was a sweat-stained cotton t-shirt that clung to every curve and outline. Stretched wide across her breasts the shirt declared, “Smokejumpers do it best in a fire.”
    He was staring. He knew it, but damn.
    # # #
    “Good first fire, Rook,” Krista could see Evan battling to look her in the face rather than the chest. It was kind of sweet actually. Most men either talked directly to her breasts or took one gander at her solid frame and went looking somewhere else.
    She’d been built to be on the football team, not the cheerleading squad. Not that the high school in Concrete, Washington had much of either one, but they tried. She’d been told to go out for shot put and she’d told them to go to hell.
    And here was this guy, looking her in the eyes now, like she was something special. Absolutely no one had ever done that. Not even her father, though he was so meek he never looked anyone in the eye, and spoke only rarely. It was likely she’d inherited all the brass Pop had never found.
    “First fire. Yeah,” Evan’s voice sounded as tired as she felt.