Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [51]
“Congratulations on getting back in the air.” Clare raised her wine glass and clinked it against Deering’s Coke. He was flying tomorrow and he’d been smiling nonstop since she slipped into the booth opposite him at the Red Wolf Steakhouse.
“You’re one hell of a pilot,” she went on.
When he was happy, he didn’t look nearly as gaunt. The bruise on his cheek had faded from purple to a rainbow of yellows and greens.
Deering cracked his glass against hers again. “You were pretty spectacular out there yourself. Karrabotsos was disappointed you were just here for the season. Said West Yellowstone could use somebody like you.”
The praise felt good. She’d waited at the hospital until Hudson came out of surgery. His prognosis for a full recovery had lifted her spirits so high, she felt she’d been drinking champagne for hours instead of starting her first.
In the dim light of a miner’s lamp above their table, the evening slipped away. A little more wine. Good red meat, the kind the body craved after hard work.
Deering speared a thick bite of sirloin. “There aren’t many women in fire.”
“More every day,” she told him. “There were gals in the volunteer departments in the Houston suburbs back in the seventies, but HFD took a little longer.”
“You ask me, it’s a nice change.”
After three days of Sergeant Ron Travis having no use for a woman firefighter, it was refreshing to have the pilot watch her with admiring eyes. Deering wasn’t exactly good-looking, but his taut intensity attracted. He talked with his slim-fingered hands, one of which bore a fresh scar.
“What’d you do there?” She reached and touched a finger to the spot.
“Oh, that? A little skin cancer.” He was cavalier, but maybe a bit worried. “The doctor said I shouldn’t have any more trouble if I stay out of the sun.” His mouth twisted in a way that said his cockpit was always sunny.
The sunscreen lecture that Clare gave Devon on her way to the pool rose to her lips. She bit it back and forced her eyes away from those expressive hands. He didn’t need her advice, and it felt too intimate to start taking care of him. She’d done everything for Jay and look where that had gotten her.
When they came outside, Clare saw lights in Fire Command. She wondered if Garrett Anderson was still at his post and if he’d taken time for a decent meal.
Deering stood close, but he wasn’t invading her space. “You don’t want to drive back into the park tonight. Come sleep in Demetrios’s third bedroom.” Although his tone was innocent, his alert eyes betrayed an interest in getting her under the same roof.
Going with him wasn’t something she’d do in Houston, but the psychologist had encouraged her to embrace the summer; the way a child swallowed whole a trip to camp.
Part of her wanted to go along a darkened street with Deering’s arm slung around her shoulders. With all that had happened today, and that wonderful heavy meal that Deering had refused to go dutch on, she needed a soft pillow and some shut-eye. As good as she felt about Hudson’s rescue, she might even be able to sleep without nightmares.
Deering brushed back her bangs, a light touch that could turn to something else.
Warning lights and sirens said he was getting too close too fast. On her way back to bunk with Sherry, she thought it was one more reason to hate Jay Chance for making her wary of men.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
August 10
Five days later, Clare dug line on the Red Fire. South of Grant Village, she and a group of soldiers worked the edge of Heart Lake in the shadow of steep-sided Factory Hill. One of her guidebooks said the early explorers had named it because the hot springs’ steam looked like a New England manufacturing town.
The meditative effect of work and a breeze off blue water gave her time to reflect on turning down Deering’s offer that might have led to ham and eggs together in the morning. In the days since, she’d had time to regret rabbiting on him and to wonder if she’d see him again