Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [87]
“I fucked up?” Clare saw Steve’s muscles bunch as though he were about to rise.
“But since you want to play hardball,” Deering seemed oblivious to people staring, “I’ll have to tell First Assurance I had a passenger who wrapped the bucket cable around the skid. Screwed the pooch.”
Clare put her hand on Steve’s arm. She didn’t know whether she meant to support or restrain him.
“Everybody knows about you, Haywood,” Deering taunted. “It’s already around how you fucked up again today and lost your truck. How you’re scared to fly after that crash with your wife and kid and trying to drink yourself to death.”
The music and talk in the tent seemed far away. Clare felt Steve’s arm tighten and realized that he clenched his steak knife’s handle beneath the table.
Without thinking, she slid her hand down and put a hard grip on his fingers, heedless of his burns. “Don’t let him do this to you,” she murmured.
The knife fell to the earthen tent floor.
Steve sat back, cradling the hand she’d grabbed with his other. She moved her hand back to his arm and thankfully, he failed to leap across the table for Deering’s throat as she half-expected.
Ignoring Steve, Deering turned to her as though nothing had happened. “If the wind doesn’t shift, the Storm Creek’s coming right through camp. You ought to let me fly you out of here.” His tone was proprietary as he reached across to brush her bangs out of her eyes.
She jerked away before she even thought.
And felt Steve’s shocked eyes on her. Of course, he couldn’t have known she’d been seeing Deering.
“Mister Haywood? “ A slight Hispanic man in TW Services coveralls stood behind Steve’s shoulder. “I go to the terminal at Gardiner for supplies. Do you need a ride home?”
With another scathing look at both her and Deering, Steve rose. “Thanks, Miguel, I’d like to get home tonight.”
“How could you?” Clare threw at Deering. Her voice carried and people were still swiveling their heads to look at them. He shook his head, a play to the crowd that said he thought both she and Steve were the ones in error.
Clare shoved back her plate. A murmur of voices trailed her departure.
She looked for Steve, her steps speeding when she realized there were too many men in yellow shirts. Away from the dining canopy and bright lights, she knew she’d lost him. Standing in the parking lot, she tasted smoke, a pervasive foul taint on every wind.
On a nearby Army tent, a hand-lettered sign proclaimed ‘Valley Forge West,’ referring to a shortage of boots in the military ranks. The Army boot soles were not nearly as heat resistant as the heavy White’s brand boots worn by the firefighters. Clare’s own feet felt hot inside hers, as though they had not cooled from the roasting they’d gotten during the Hellroaring’s blowup.
Rapid footsteps sounded on gravel. She stopped, hoping it was Steve.
“Wait,” said Deering.
She set her teeth. Tonight when he’d first arrived, his smile had still had the power to make her feel that extra awareness of him. She had sat there next to Steve and across from Deering and been torn by feelings for both of them, until he had attacked Steve.
Deering touched her shoulders.
She went tense. “Look,” she said, “we had to go into shelters this afternoon and I’m completely wired. My daughter is flying in to Jackson Hole Airport tomorrow.”
He moved his fingers, massaging. “I can make it better . . . “
“Dammit!” Her voice went shrill. “A man died.”
He lifted his hands. From the dining tent, the wail of Crystal Gayle entreated her man. The camp generators droned.
Clare turned on him. “How could you?” she challenged. “What you said about Steve’s wife and child . . . “
Deering’s eyes showed his own pain. “He’s been nothing but trouble for me, ever since he got on board my Georgia back in July. Now I’m stuck flying military surplus.” Deering pointed to Karrabotsos’s helicopter behind the fence erected to deter buffalo and elk from damaging aircraft. “I asked Garrett where you were tonight because I wanted, no, needed to see you. After a full day in the cockpit, I fly over here