Wildfire at Dawn

Wildfire at Dawn by M. L. Buchman Page A

Book: Wildfire at Dawn by M. L. Buchman Read Free Book Online
Authors: M. L. Buchman
Tags: Romance, firefighter, wildfire, smokejumper
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then began descending toward the center of the presently unoccupied corral—the only space big enough for a chopper to land.
    The man was having pizza delivered by helicopter? She could get very used to this, but didn’t want to let it show quite how much he was sweeping her feet out from under her.
    “Did you get Hawaiian?” she took the quarter step back to slip her arm around his shoulders despite the dirt and sawdust that coated him. The chopper touched down and began cycling down its engines.
    “Got an extra one. Knew it was your favorite.”
    Laura couldn’t help herself. She turned to kiss him. A cheer and a round of applause from around the clearing accompanied the heat of Johnny’s hand holding her ever so tightly against him.
    # # #
    Laura felt as if she’d come out of the closet. For a month, Johnny Akbar Jepps had been all hers. Suddenly she was surrounded by his friends and teammates. And every single one had to check out and approve of their boss’ choice in women.
    The chopper pilot, a woman name Jeannie, sat down next to Laura on the cabin’s porch very early on. She didn’t say much, just sat there in the chair Johnny usually occupied.
    Laura remembered the red streak in her hair from that first meeting at the Doghouse Inn. And when Grayson had gone into the snow, this same helicopter that had delivered the pizza had appeared to save his sorry life. She was obviously a fixture in Johnny’s life, and Laura tried to prepare herself for the upcoming catfight. Laura really needed this day to be over soon.
    Johnny had drifted off with some of the others, holding court around her picnic table suddenly buried in pizza boxes, and a big cooler of sodas nearby.
    At first she was ticked at Johnny for abandoning her. Was he being unthinking? No. Johnny was never unthinking, but he often thought differently than she did. So he was…being a second center of attention so that everyone wasn’t crowded about her at once. She wished he’d found a way to call Jeannie aside, but the woman showed no signs of moving off.
    As time passed and one group of smokies drifted off only to inevitably be replaced by a few fresh recruits, Laura began to see what Jeannie was doing.
    Somehow, by simply sitting beside Laura, she was placing her stamp of approval or at least easing the start of each successive conversation. The crew drifted by in twos and threes, some chatting with Jeannie for a moment as an excuse to not make it look like the tag-team interrogation that it actually was. Everyone wanted to hear from her own lips who she was, what her background was, her political views and…
    It took her a while to figure out that mentioning she was a wilderness guide saved her a lot of well-intended nosiness. It also told her that Johnny hadn’t been bragging about her all around camp. Despite the mayhem he’d unleashed on her today, he apparently respected some aspects of her privacy.
    That simple “wilderness guide” title was a ticket of first-class boarding priority in the smokie world. She’d thought it was just Johnny who felt the way she did about the wilderness. Laura soon figured out that each and every person here loved living and working in the wilderness. Jumping out of a plane to fight a forest-killing inferno up close and personal was a job most of them would pay to be allowed to do.
    Johnny had held off the tall guy until nearly the last. He shot her a slightly worried expression as the man sauntered up to greet Jeannie.
    So, this one was important to him. Of course, they’d arrived at the bar together; apparently Johnny’s wingman both on and off the fire line.
    “Two-Tall, that’s t-w-o, Tim, that’s D-a-v-e,” he offered a genuine enough smile to accompany his joke, and a handshake that wholly enveloped her own hand. “Damn! I can’t believe you brushed me off for Akbar the Great. He is short, you know.”
    “I admit I noticed,” Laura’s throat was dry despite sipping at her soda. Even sitting

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