making the climb for fun. It’s been a rough summer with fire after fire. This is our last hurrah as a unit before we scatter for the winter.”
“Huh. So you aren’t all from the same place?”
“No.” The denial was accompanied by a crisp shake of her red curls.
“I imagine you’re anxious to get home to your family, what with the holidays around the bend.”
Mick noticed that a brittleness overtook her usually friendly demeanor. Had he crossed some kind of line? Granted, in the past they’d never got around to discussing anything personal.
“I struck out on my own at sixteen, Mick,” she said briskly. “I took three part-time jobs so I could graduate from high school. Before that I was shuffled through a lot of different homes. There’s none I’d remotely call family.”
“So you were, what? In foster care?”
“Care? If you say so.” She spat the word with distaste. “I hope that’s not pity in your eyes, Mick Callen. I’ve done fine. This winter I’m enrolling in a couple of courses at UCLA. One day I’ll have my degree in forestry.” She followed that with a halfhearted laugh. “I’m surprised Jess hasn’t regaled you with the fact that I’m UCLA’s oldest underclassman. But I think I should qualify as a junior this semester.”
Mick felt her underlying anxiety over baring so much of her soul. He usually played things cool, too, when it came to spilling his guts. Now he felt moved to share. “This past spring my grandfather died. Pappy. You probably heard about it.”
“I did. Mick, I’m so sorry. You know he bragged about you something fierce. You must miss him terribly.”
“Yeah. I rattle around the house.” Mick dug deep to keep his voice from breaking. It was one thing to share a private grief, and another to show weakness.
“I heard your sister married Wylie Ames. Gosh, does that mean you’re totally alone this holiday season?”
“Marlee and Wylie want me to spend a week with them at Thanksgiving. I probably will if I haven’t winged my way to a sandy beach in some warmer clime. Their baby’s due right around Christmas, and they’ll have a house full with Jo Beth’s grandmother coming to help with the baby. Especially if weather forces the midwife to bunk over.”
Mick thought Hana’s eyes looked wistful as she said eagerly, “They’re having a baby? I can’t believe you’d want to miss that.”
“I wouldn’t have a clue what to do around a newborn. By the time I come back in the spring, the kid’ll be sitting up and there’ll be something substantial to hang on to. They don’t live far from here, Hana. Maybe if you’re not off fighting a fire, I’ll swing by and take you to see the baby, since you sound keen on little kids.”
She gazed beyond him into the distance, and an awkwardness fell between them. “Uh…maybe.”
“My sister wouldn’t mind. You’ll be back here next spring, right?”
She lifted one slender shoulder and Mick’s heart slammed hard up into his throat at the very possibility that she might not be coming back to Montana.
Wingman started racing around and bounding to the end of his leash, barking his head off. A long shadow fell across the couple. A muscular, dark-haired man wearing a frank scowl strode up and shouldered Mick aside.
“Hana, what’s taking so long? Kari said you came to collect our supplies from Mick. Everything else is loaded in my Jeep. Come on, you’re holding us up. I want to make camp at the fir tree break in time to pitch tents for the night.”
Hana didn’t respond to Jess Hargitay’s order.
Mick felt tension drawing tight as if there were a power struggle between the two. Wanting to intercede, Mick tapped Jess on the back. “Cloud Chasers’ office manager said you’d pay cash for this load, Hargitay.” Mick dug a wadded-up charge slip from his shirt pocket and shoved it none too gently against Jess’s chest. “Soon as you cough up the dinero, I’ll haul these supplies to your Jeep.”
There had never been any love lost between the two men who glared at each other now. The dislike had existed before Hana, but intensified whenever Jess caught them talking.
Always cocky and sure of himself, Jess brushed off Mick’s hand. Locking eyes with the pilot, he reached out in a too-familiar manner and filtered his fingers through Hana’s curls. “Hey, babe, I’m kinda short this month. Run back and pass the hat among the rest of our climbers. I’m supplying the wheels and gas to get to the site. The least all of you can do is spring for food, canned heat and long johns.”
Hana opened her mouth as if to refuse. Instead, she moved her head and ducked under the thickly muscled arm, and murmured a final farewell to Mick.
The air crackled in her wake. Neither man spoke, but they continued to take each other’s measure until tall, beanpole thin Kari Dombroski loped up to hand Mick a collection of bills and coins.
He stuffed the money in his pocket without counting it. Brushing past Jess, Mick pulled the supplies out of the Huey.
As if to keep Mick from seeing Hana again, Jess relieved him of most of the load, except for the small stuff, which he snarled at Kari to grab.
Wingman lunged at the end of his leash to bark at Jess, and Mick turned his back on the smoke jumpers and bent to calm the dog. “Nice guy, huh, pooch?” he muttered. “If you could talk, I’d ask you what in hell Hana sees in that jackass.”
The dog whined and licked his face as Mick untied him and hoisted him into the chopper. Before Mick had his harness and the dog’s fastened, the mottled black Jeep kicked up dust farther down the dirt road.
As he lifted off, Mick noted with interest that he and Jess were both headed toward dark clouds building over the mountain range.
He tried not to think of petite Hana Egan climbing craggy ridges topped by snow and already shrouded in a thickening gray mist.
To distract himself, he projected his worry onto Saturday’s potluck. What if the wind was the first taste of the Canadian storm? If it got so bad the party was cancelled, Marlee would be devastated. Oh, his sister made noises about not wanting to attend, but Mick had seen right through her. She wanted the day to be perfect. And Mick wanted that for her, too. She and Wylie deserved to kick back a bit after nursing Dean, Wylie’s son, through Burkitt’s lymphoma last winter. Between worry over Dean, and Pappy’s funeral not long on the heels of Dean’s remission, the whole family needed a bit of fun.
CHAPTER TWO
PINE NEEDLES BLEW out from under the Huey as Mick set the lumbering chopper down on Wylie’s private runway. Mick sat and admired the handsome six-seat turbo prop Merlin housed under an open shed to the left of the runway. He had helped his brother-in-law buy the plane as a surprise for his bride. Wylie had said Marlee had cried happily when she saw it.
When Mick had told Pappy, he’d merely laughed and said he’d known all along that any woman born a Callen would consider a plane an appropriate wedding gift.
Mick thought any woman who lived in remote Montana would think it an excellent gift. But then, he was more practical than sentimental. When he was a kid, this part
