Wildfire on the Skagit (Firehawks Book 9) by M. L. Buchman Read Free Book Online Page B

was only about three hours. Most of the smokies had crashed into sleep the minute they were aboard, some stretched out on the floor, others atop lumpy piles of gear. That opened up enough of the sideways facing seats down one side of the hull for others to stretch out there.
    Krista had landed sitting beside the jump door, and Evan against the back of the pilot’s seat at the far end of the plane.
    She’d considered being hurt, the way Evan had backed away from her. Considered it seriously even though she was so used to it. School dances, county fairs, boys never approaching her.
    But then she’d watched how Evan Greene attacked the fire. This was a big, powerful man battling some serious issues. And she could only respect the way he did it, by working so damn hard that he was forcing other MHA crew to struggle to keep up.
    It was kind of funny that maybe she’d so messed with a man’s head that he was turning from a good firefighter into a great one. She didn’t have that kind of effect on guys. They jumped her or she jumped them, they had a good time for as long as it lasted, and they were done.
    But Evan had something else happening and she could tell it wasn’t just about her, so she’d let it run a while.
    He read fire as well as the next five-year smokie, but he fought it like only she and Akbar could—with a tireless efficiency that pushed right past physical limits as if they weren’t even there. Probably his soldier training. Even Ox didn’t have that level of discipline, he simply had such a deep capacity that he could keep up.
    But whatever drove Evan, she was starting to be ticked that it seemed to be driving him away from her rather than towards.
    Whatever demons were biting his ass didn’t scare her, they were his demons after all, not hers. And, she had to admit to herself that she liked that about him. Johnny Q. Boring, Mr. Enlightened and well-rounded, “I know who I am,” never did anything for her. Oh, they could be fun for a tumble; but the dark-and-broody soldier guy? That made Evan…interesting.
    “He doesn’t do something about it soon, I will,” she muttered to herself.
    “Ha!” Akbar had been slouched against the rear bulkhead close beside her, but she’d thought he was asleep. “That explains it.”
    “Explains what?” she knew her attempt to sound innocent was lame. She’d never gotten away with it before. She’d tried, like after gluing the school quarterback’s locker shut with industrial adhesive from the auto shop, with the quarterback inside—in payment for how he was treating the cheerleaders. Rather than being thankful, they had all flocked to the jerk’s defense. Then when they’d found out she’d been the one—real tough, she was the only person bigger than he was in the school and she’d been lousy at protesting her innocence—they’d ostracized her even more than she already was.
    “No way,” Akbar sounded totally pleased with himself. “I’m not copping on a bro, but now I get what’s going on.”
    “Careful or I’ll rename you Johnny the Dweeb and I’ll make it stick.” Her failed attempts to look away from the sleeping rookie wasn’t helping her claims of innocence any.
    “You can’t,” Akbar didn’t sound the least worried. “It’s my name.”
    “Soon to be Johnny the Dweeb,” she threatened. But he was right. Johnny Akbar Jepps’ middle name actually meant “great,” so Akbar the Great was technically redundant. And he was a great firefighter even if he now owed her three beers for better parachute landings and she only owed him one.
    “I can tell you this though,” Akbar shifted into a more comfortable position and shut his eyes. “Only one way you’re gonna find out what’s driving him. Gotta get up close and personal for that, just like I did with Laura.”
    “You went after her like a lovesick bull calf.”
    “Yep,” he agreed sleepily. “And look where it got me.”
    Krista considered the advice and decided it was