Simon engineered it that he was the one to sit beside her in the front. After doing up his seatbelt, he put on the headset, prepared to enjoy himself. The cockpit was small, so he was sitting quite close to her. Unlike the women he was accustomed to, she did not smell of expensive perfume. She smelled of woodsmoke.
She checked over her shoulder to see that she had her four passengers. Then, all her movements calm and unhurried, she flipped a number of switches and opened the throttle. The blades started to whirl, faster and faster, and the cockpit jounced up and down. After waiting a couple of minutes for the starter to cool, she turned the generator on, wound to full throttle and did the last of her checks.
Then her voice came over Simon’s headset. ‘Patrol three to fire boss. Taking off with four mop-up crew for the south flank of the fire. Over.’
‘OK, patrol three. The Bambi’s out there already. Proceed to the head of the fire for water drops. Over.’
‘Roger, fire boss. Over and out.’
The Bambi, Simon knew from his course, was the brand name for the water-bombing bucket. His muddled feelings for the woman beside him coalescing into simple admiration for her skill, he watched as she eased up on the throttle with her left hand, her feet adjusting the anti-torque pedals. As gently as a bird, the helicopter lifted from the ground, the dust swirling from the downdraught. She turned the nose into the wind, picked up the rpm’s, and with her right hand on the cyclic drove the machine forward and up. Feeling much as he had on his first plane trip, Simon saw the depot fall behind them, the trees diminishing to little green sticks, the dozer road to a narrow brown thread.
He said spontaneously, ‘How long have you been a pilot?’
‘Four years on helicopters. Three years fixed-wing before that.’
As she brought the helicopter round in a steep turn to face the fire, his shoulder brushed hers. The contact shivered along his nerves, much as the ripples had spread over the surface of the lake. Because her shirt-sleeves were rolled up, he could see the dusting of blonde hair on her arms, and the play of tendons in her wrists as she made the constant small adjustments to the controls. She wore no rings. Her fingernails were rimed with soot.
Why dirty fingernails should fill him with an emotion he could only call tenderness Simon had no idea. Fully aware that everyone on board could hear him, he said tritely, ‘You like flying.’
‘I love it,’ she said. ‘It’s what I like to do best in the world.’
The fire was closer now, so that Simon could see its charred perimeters and the columns of smoke shot through with leaping flames. I want to make love with you, Shea Mallory, he thought. I don’t know when or where or how. But I know it’s going to happen. I’m going to make you laugh with passion and cry out with desire, your cool grey eyes warming to me like mist burning off the lake in the sun. And you’ll find there’s something else you like to do the best in the world.
Deliberately he leaned his shoulder into hers again, and with a quiver of primitive triumph saw her lashes flicker and felt her muscles tense against his. So she was not as unaware of him as she might wish to appear.
But when she spoke into the intercom she glanced over her shoulder, and her voice was utterly impersonal. ‘We’ll land in that bog to the right of the perimeter—the gear is stashed near by, and the ground’s dry.’
She was addressing all four of them, not him alone. Simon’s lips quirked. He liked an opponent of mettle. Larissa, his companion of the last several months, would never have reprimanded him about Jim as Shea had, and certainly would never have been seen with dirty fingernails. Larissa was an ambitious young model who had liked him for his fame and money, in turn furnishing Simon with her ornamental person at all the right parties. While the gossip columnists would have been flabbergasted to know they had never been lovers, Simon by then was just starting to acknowledge how badly askew his life had become, and was not about to encumber himself with a love-affair. As for Larissa, she was quite shrewd enough to know that the appearance of an affair could be just as useful as the affair itself. Yet the few decorative tears she had let fall at a farewell dinner for him had by no means been fake.
Shea’s shoulder twisted against his as she checked the visibility around her. ‘Fire boss, this is patrol three coming in to land. Over.’
‘We read you, patrol three. Over.’
Again, fascinated, Simon watched the interplay of feet and hands as Shea eased the helicopter down towards the bog. The tangle of alders and tamaracks grew closer and the long green grass fanned out in the wind. The landing was flawless. Over the intercom she said, ‘Keep low when you get out, and don’t go near the tail rotor or the exhaust. Good luck, fellows.’
Simon unbuckled his belt, sliding the shoulder harness over the back of his seat. But before he took off the headset he said sincerely, ‘Thanks, Shea—my first helicopter ride, and with a real pro.’
As if she was surprised by the compliment, she glanced sideways at him. A flash of sardonic humour crossed her face. ‘Hope your first fire goes as smoothly,’ she said.
He held her gaze. ‘Do you ever smile?’
She raised her brows in mockery. ‘At my friends.’
‘You and I aren’t through with each other. You know that, don’t you?’
She said gently, ‘You’re holding up the fire crew, Mr Greywood. Goodbye.’
‘There’s an expression I’ve picked up from my brother that I like a lot better than goodbye. See you, Shea Mallory.’
He got up, bent low because the cockpit wasn’t constructed with six-foot-two men in mind, and with exaggerated care laid the headset on the seat. Even though he had had the last word, he suspected round two had gone to her, too.
Why then did he feel so exhilarated?
He swung himself down to the ground. Crouching, he ran beyond the whirling disc of the blades, the wind flattening his clothing to his body, the noise deafening. Two Lands and Forests employees who had been standing near by hurried towards the helicopter, dragging a large orange pleated bucket; Shea raised her machine five feet off the ground and the men, wearing gloves against static, attached the metal cables of the bucket to the belly of the helicopter. When the job was done the helicopter rose into the sky, the bucket dangling incongruously, like a child’s toy.
One of the men grinned at Jim. ‘You have to be careful doin’ that—if the cables get caught in the skids, you got a crash on your hands. You guys headin’ out for mop-up? Your gear’s just beyond that clump of trees. We’re joinin’ up with another bunch thataway. See ya.’
See you, Simon had said to Shea; but the helicopter was now lost in the smoke and his confidence seemed utterly misplaced and his exhilaration as childish as the Bambi bucket. One small word had banished them both. Crash, the man had said, as casually as if he were discussing the weather.
Accidents happen. Helicopters crash. Simon strained his eyes to see through the thick blanket of smoke.
‘Coming?’ Jim said.
With a jerk Simon came back to the present. Shea, cool, competent Shea, would be truly insulted if she knew he was worrying about her crashing, he thought wryly, and forced his mind to the job at hand. And there it stayed for the next eleven hours. Each man was given a sector to work at the tail of the fire, that desolate, charred acreage where
