Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [132]
“I do.” Flashes hit her of a whirlwind courtship that had enticed her to forget he was a pilot. Of wedding white and the sweetness of her first married kiss. Of a man who’d worn his military uniform to marry before heading back to Vietnam.
“If you love him, you need to realize that that boy,” Anna nodded toward Georgia’s midsection, “is gonna want to fly with his daddy more than anything.”
Georgia had always thought if she had a child, it would be a girl. Someone small, pink and sweet smelling. Kendra would be a champion quilter and biscuit maker, winning ribbons all the way to the Idaho State Fair.
For the first time, she considered the possibility of a boy. Georgia had never known the rough and tumble of a brother, but she’d watched John and Anna raise their raucous brood. If she and Deering had a boy . . . or a girl . . .
You’ll want to fly with your daddy. She smoothed her stomach.
The telephone rang and her heart started to pound. She answered, “Hon?”
“Mrs. Deering.” The deep voice was made soft by a Southern inflection. “This is Garrett Anderson with the West Yellowstone Fire Command.”
She wished she could turn back the clock, crawl into bed and go to sleep. Maybe she would dream that Deering had his arm snug around her. “He’s not here,” she managed.
“Yes, ma’am, I know. I’m calling to tell you that he flew out yesterday afternoon and we haven’t heard from him.”
Georgia dropped the phone from nerveless fingers and heard it clatter and ding. She was vaguely aware of Anna picking it up and talking to the man on the other end. Last time Deering had been AWOL she’d seen him come back . . . with that Clare.
But he’d sworn that was done. Yesterday, he’d promised to come home and if she’d mistaken the love and remorse in his voice, she was never going to trust her instinct again.
Anna put down the phone and the look on her face said it all. This time they didn’t think he was held up at some spike camp by the wind. They never would have called unless they thought he’d gone down.
Clare struggled from her dreams and picked up the telephone in mid-ring. The clock beside her bed at the Stagecoach said it was nearly nine.
“Yeah,” she managed in a sleep-ravaged husk. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Steve stretched out beside her with the sheet draped over his bare hip. His mussed hair spoke of midnight pleasure and his eyes said he’d not had enough.
“It’s Garrett,” said the distinctive voice on the phone.
“Yeah.” Clare ran a nervous hand through her newly shorter hair.
“Some good news. Those hikers were sighted down in the Lamar Valley by Johnny Arvela when he was flying in around sunset. I just got word.” His somber tone said there was more and it wasn’t pretty.
“That is good.” She twisted the phone cord and noted a patch of beard burn on her left breast. A surreal feeling split her into two women, one who wanted to hang up and crawl back into a cocoon with Steve, and a mother screaming inside for news of her child.
Garrett went on. “The rangers at Old Faithful questioned the firefighters after the North Fork passed. When Deering’s chopper took off, a number of persons said they counted two passengers.”
A shudder went through her. Steve touched her arm. If Deering was down somewhere in the mountains . . . “Who would be with him?”
“I’m afraid that this morning your buddy from Houston, Javier Fuentes, heard about the search. He called in to say he saw a blonde with curly hair beside a helicopter, talking to the pilot.”
“Oh, God.”
Steve’s hand tightened.
“Fuentes thought it might be Devon. This was during the height of the firestorm.”
Clare opened her mouth to say that there were a lot of blondes, but Javier knew Devon. A pit of cold fear opened in her chest.
“The smoke is pretty thick this morning,” Garrett said. “They’ll be starting the air search as soon as they can.”
Demetrios Karrabotsos led Clare and Steve across the tarmac at West Yellowstone Airport. Tankers and helicopters were lined up at the ready, their crews