Page 25 of The Smokejumper's Lady
But I will.
As soon as this jump is over, I’ll find her.
I don’t care if I have to knock on every door from Glacier to Missoula. I don’t care if I have to sit through awkward dinners with her trust-fund parents, or throw fists at any bastard who tries to shut her down again. She belongs in that park, out in the trees, living wild and free and untamed.
And I belong wherever the hell she is.
The burn site comes into view, smoke curling into the sky like the world is still holding its breath. The closer we get, the quieter it gets in the chopper.
That’s how you know it’s bad.
No jokes. No banter. No nervous laughter to chase away the tension. Just the sound of blades thudding over the roar of wind, the comms crackling, and the kind of silence that tastes like ash.
Below us, the world’s on fire.
From up here, it doesn’t look real. More like a living thing, sprawling and snapping, eating through forest and mountain like it’s starving. The smoke is thick, curling high and wide, turning the sky into a bruised orange blur.
Someone mutters through the headset, “One for the books.”
Yeah. No shit.
This one’s the monster.
Fires like this don’t just scorch…they incinerate. Melt steel, vaporize flesh. One bad turn of the wind, and you’re cooked from a football field away. These kinds of blazes don’t negotiate. They swallow.
But we live for it.
Every single one of us.
Smoke jumpers are a different breed. Adrenaline junkies, the lot of us. We want the challenge. Want the risk. Want to beat the unbeatable.
And normally? I’d be right there with them. Normally my only goal is to save lives, my little brother’s voice whispering in my ear, telling me to save just one more person. One more.
If I’m being honest, I normally don’t care whether I make it out alive.
But everything is different now. I have someone to live for.
I check my rig, even though I already checked it twice. Can’t help it. Can’t stop the twist in my gut that says this jump’s different.
The light turns green, and we go.
I launch out into the sky like I’ve done a hundred times before. No hesitation, just that perfect second of free fall where the world goes still and silent and right.
But suddenly—
The wind shifts. Hard.
I jerk midair, my chute catching rougher than expected, whipping me to the side. The updraft is hotter than it should be. That means the fire’s moving faster than the satellite estimates guessed.
That means we’re fucked.
I grit my teeth and steer. It’s tighter than we expected, less clear ground, more embers already eating through the brush. The smoke’s curling in unnatural ways, like it’s being sucked into some unseen vortex.
When I hit the ground, it’s not graceful. It never is in a drop zone like this. The landing knocks the breath out of me, my knees taking most of the impact as I roll and rip the chute away.
“Clear!” I shout, but my voice gets swallowed in the crackle and roar of the inferno.
The heat hits like a goddamn freight train.
