Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [140]
Clare’s forehead and cheek stung, but it didn’t feel like she was going to blister. Her hair, already short, came away in singed corkscrews when she ruffled her hands through it.
Steve slid open the chopper door to admit the paramedics. Clare related Karrabotsos’s status, cautioning them that he’d been burned before, while the attendants transferred him onto a stretcher.
A look around revealed that they had landed near the main terminal of West Yellowstone where she and Deering had set down the night of the Mink Creek blowup. Just as he had that evening when she waited to grill him about his duplicity, he was shutting down the aircraft.
Today she wasn’t angry, despite that he’d crashed with her daughter on board. The Army blanket that had been around Devon’s shoulders, the can of Vienna sausages, and the gauze over her burn all spoke of his kindness. She’d seen his hesitation at the controls on the mountain, heard what had passed between him and Steve and knew he was beating himself up as surely as she had when Frank and Billy Jakes had died.
All the passion and anger that had been between them had burned out, but she touched his shoulder. “Thank you for taking care of Devon,” she said simply, “and for getting us back here.”
Steve let himself down from the door and landed with a groan. Despite his infirmity, he helped Devon.
When her feet hit the pavement, she folded down and sat. A faint look of surprise crossed her face and then faded. Clare clambered out and knelt beside her. “Hon?”
Devon did not answer.
Deering came out of the examining room into the hall at West Yellowstone Hospital. The doctor had pronounced him free to go, with advice to take it easy for a few days.
That was an understatement. Since the crash, his muscles had been stiffening like a strap of wet rawhide in the sun. All he could imagine was going back to his bed at Karrabotsos’s house and finding solace in the dark comfort of sleep.
Had someone, perhaps Karrabotsos, called and told Georgia that he was missing? He hoped she didn’t know yet, for he wanted to be the one to tell her. He might have dodged the bullet, the fires might burn on, but he was out of this particular war for the duration.
When he’d returned to Vietnam after a leave between tours, he’d ridden part way back on the carrier Lexington. The naval aviators had flown training missions night and day, the roar of jets and the smell of exhaust fouling the warm tropical sea. Deering had waited in a damp twilight mist with a crowd of seamen while a downed pilot was brought aboard. Whispered word passed that it was his second time to put an A-4 Skyhawk in the drink.
The pilot walked off the rescue helicopter under his own power, a stocky kid with hair so blond and short that he looked as though he’d shaved his head. Several enlisted men and an officer tried to speak to him, but he brushed them aside on his way to the edge of the flight deck. Deering held his breath, for if the pilot intended to jump no one was near enough to stop him.
Still dripping wet, the young aviator plucked gold wings from his uniform and flung them into the sea.
Deering looked up and down the hall, thinking that there was something he should do before he left. Back in July, Clare had shown up in his room at the Lake Hospital by mistake, but their lives had been entwined since that moment. He wanted to find her and make sure that Devon was okay.
His boots were loud on the tile floor as he headed toward the lounge and nurses’ station.
He was just opposite a swinging door marked X-ray - No Admittance when someone pushed the portal wide and nearly collided with him.
“Whoa . . . “
“S’cuse me.”
Steve Haywood, still dressed in dirty Nomex, leaned on a pair of aluminum crutches. The fluorescent lights hummed harshly, casting a pale wash over the windowless walls and Steve’s pain-lined face.
There didn’t seem to be anything more to say. Deering moved to