Slow Burn (Smoke Jumpers) by Anne Marsh Read Free Book Online Page B

down, he got by with part-time gigs or unemployment.
    He was smart, or so the test-your-brain exams the teachers had passed out claimed, but he still couldn’t seem to get the hang of bookwork. Taking tests, turning in papers—those things didn’t go so well for him. But that was okay. He was out here now, where the only grade that mattered was how fast and far you dug your line.
    Spotted Dick’s plane was only a silhouette now, disappearing over the horizon as it winged its way toward the dark plume of smoke punching up into the sky. God, he wanted to be on that plane. One of the team.
    He’d get there, too. Whatever it took, he’d make them see he was good enough. He might be a loaner from a volunteer fire department two towns over, but he could belong here in Strong. He knew it.
    All he needed was the chance.
    He hit the kitchen, and the camp cook looked up. It was so damned quiet up here that Hollis figured his stopping by had to be a highlight of the guy’s day. “You don’t get bored?” He lit the tip of his new cigarette from the smoldering end of his last one. “It’s real quiet here.”
    The camp cook eyed Hollis’s Marlboros, but Hollis wasn’t wasting a perfectly good cigarette by stubbing that bad boy out before it was done. Fifteen bucks an hour didn’t go that far. No way the Marlboro Man would have backed down on the issue, either. He liked the image of the Marlboro Man riding all over the range. That man was one tough son of a bitch. He’d probably have made a good smoke jumper if he’d been given the chance.
    “Give me a hand here.” The other man was stacking up used plastic plates as if he was running a five-star restaurant.
    Hollis finished up the cigarette and stubbed it out. He wasn’t shoveling plates for the remainder of the summer. No way. Sure, fifteen bucks an hour wasn’t bad money for a guy like him, and the overtime helped some, but what he was jonesing for was a place on the jump team. He could pull his weight there. He knew it.
    He grabbed the stack of plates. All he needed was one chance.
    He’d show them how helpful he could be.
    Out there. On the fire line.
    Hollis’s hoarse bark of laughter had the camp cook looking around, but fuck him. He gave the matchbox in his pocket a quick rub. Plenty of opportunities waited for him here in Strong.

Chapter Four
    I t took twenty minutes of bouncing around in the back of the plane, a clear shot down, and then four hours on the ground before the jump team had packed out. Thank God for quick jumps. The way Evan saw it, the day had been just a little same-old, same-old. Which was good. He didn’t need different right now. Didn’t need a shake-up. A summer lightning strike that smoldered for weeks until the dry log housing it finally gave in and combusted? That made sense.
    Fires, he could do.
    The woman undoubtedly steaming in his cabin back at the jump camp? Yeah. She wasn’t making anywhere near as much sense. Or maybe what didn’t make sense was his half-assed plan of parking her there to wait for him. He’d bet that plan hadn’t gone down well.
    Whatever. Just thinking about Faye Duncan made him antsy. The need to be doing something was an itch he had to scratch.
    So he really didn’t need Rio’s 411 when the jump plane touched down to know that palming Faye Duncan’s keys hadn’t been his best move. He’d had a come-to-Jesus call waiting for him on his cell from Nonna, too, which meant word had definitely gotten around about his pickup at the bar last night. Christ, no matter how he looked at it now, it had been a fairly dumb move on his part.
    So he’d screwed up.
    Again. He’d made more than his share of mistakes in his younger days, so he recognized regret when it bit him on the ass. He left the hangar as quickly as he could, tossing his gear into the back of his Ford. Swinging himself into the cab, he hit the road.
    He did not look left when he took the fork back to Strong. If Faye Duncan was sitting on his