Page 39 of Falling for the Playboy Pilot

DALTON

I didn’t have time to think about Janna and her hurtful words. I knew I had wounded her with my own first. I got it. She was throwing my words back at me. She wanted me to feel like shit the way I had made her feel.

My natural reaction was to protect myself from people. People got hurt. People died. I couldn’t stop the hurting and dying, but I could protect myself from feeling that pain. And guilt.

Keeping myself from forming relationships allowed me to be the best at my job.

I was about to fly into Satan’s inferno and I was thinking about her.

That was exactly why I couldn’t be involved in relationships.

And she may not admit it, but she was thinking about me.

We were both putting ourselves and everyone counting on us at risk because we were both dealing with feelings.

I fucking hate feelings.

I snatched the rest of the gear and made my way over to Chief. I spotted my S-2 on the tarmac and knew it was already loaded with retardant. Judging by the activity, the fire was as bad as it got.

I walked up to Chief while keeping my cool. Panicking and acting like a lunatic helped no one. “Sir.”

He looked at me and I saw it. I’d been working with Chief long enough to know when we were dealing with the real deal.

Chief didn’t get rattled. He handled fire operations like someone might take your order for dinner or run a kitchen.

He didn’t sweat. He was never concerned.

I sometimes felt jealous over his ability to completely detach.

I was a cocky, confident son of a bitch but Chief’s confidence was different.

It was calm. Quiet. And no one questioned it.

Everyone knew Chief had it. He knew the right answers. He knew what to do in every situation.

And the man standing in front of me looked shook.

“Dalton, this one’s not just another containment run,” he said.

“This is Hollow Gorge. That fire is marching on the town.” There was a vein on the side of his head throbbing.

And the way his hand clenched the large marker in his hand, I could see his fear.

I could feel it. “These people feed us, take care of us. We owe them everything. And right now, we need to give them everything we have. We don’t stop until we’ve drained every resource. And then we dig deep and keep trying.”

“Understood,” I said.

He tapped the board. “I need you to lay retardant lines around the east flank. Slow it down, reroute it away from homes. We’re sending in tankers for support.

I’ve warned you about your cocky flying and taking chances, I’m not telling you not to do that now.

You do whatever you have to do to save those people. Save that town.”

“Understood.”

Chief pointed to the map marked with red lines and circled areas. “We’re focusing on a defensive perimeter around the town center. Everything outside that—the farms, the outlying properties—we can’t protect them all. Not with what we have.”

I studied the map, tracing the fire’s projected path with my finger. “What about the airfield? Is Reddington safe?”

Chief’s jaw tightened. “Hard to say. The fire line around the airfield is solid for now, but if the wind shifts?” He shrugged. “We’ll have time to drop retardant if it comes to that. But right now, the town takes priority. We need to get everyone out before evac routes get cut off completely.”

I nodded, understanding the seriousness of the situation.

In a fire this size, you couldn’t save everything.

You had to make choices. Hard ones. It was unfair.

I couldn’t do Chief’s job. Or the other leaders that had to decide whose property got saved and which ones were sacrificed for the greater good.

That was a lot of pressure. But reality was a bitch and there was just no way to save all of them.

Especially in a rural area where they were so spread out.

“Your primary drop zone is here,” Chief continued, pointing to a ridge east of town.

“Create a barrier between the fire and the residential area. Secondary drops along this creek bed if you can manage it. Use the natural firebreak. Laser’s spotting from above. She’ll guide you to the hottest spots.”

“Copy that.” I memorized the coordinates, the landmarks, the escape routes. I knew that once I was up there, I would basically be blind. It was going to be thick, black smoke and it would be easy to get lost. I couldn’t afford to drop my load in the wrong place or on top of hotshots on the ground.

“What about the choppers? Janna’s out there with Pickle.

” I knew it wasn’t my concern but I told myself I asked because I was concerned for my team.

And when we were doing these heavy flight operations, I didn’t want a helicopter getting doused.

Air traffic control was a bitch when no one could see anything.

It was a choreographed dance. A dance partner stepped on your toes up there and it was lights out for a whole lot of people.

“They’re handling evacuations. Hospital first, then assisted living. They’ll be in and out before the fire reaches town center.”

I wanted to ask more, wanted to know exactly where she’d be at all times, but I caught myself. That was exactly the kind of thinking that would get people killed. I had to trust that Pickle knew what he was doing.

“Anything else I need to know?”

“Yeah.” Chief’s voice dropped. “The fire’s moving faster than our models predicted. Wind’s erratic. What looks safe one minute could be a death trap the next. You stay sharp out there, Herc. We need you focused.”

Focused. Right. The same word Janna had thrown at me minutes ago. I pushed the thought away and grabbed my helmet.

“I’ll do my best, Chief.”

“I know you will.”

I headed toward my aircraft, forcing myself not to look toward the horizon where Janna’s chopper had disappeared. The air was thick with the smell of the fire. The horizon was a grotesque orange and black. Fire was a fucking beast.

The S-2 was fueled and loaded, ready for war. This was what I lived for. My singular focus was on the mission. No room for doubt, no space for fear.

No time to think about blue eyes and cruel words that cut deeper than they should have.

Janna’s face flashed through my mind. I hated that things were rocky.

If I was going to fly into my death, I really wished things could have ended on different terms. I should have apologized.

If something happened, I knew that was going to be my last thought.

I let her go. Wanted her to walk away. I got what I asked for.

I shook my head, shoved it aside. Not now.

I climbed into the cockpit and ran through my preflight in under two minutes. I was relying on the maintenance team to have done their job.

Engines roared and I taxied out onto the runway. I hit the throttle, the plane shuddered under 1200 gallons of red goo, thick and heavy, ready to fight the blaze. I pulled back as I soared into the sky.

Below me, the ground faded. A wall of smoke crept across the horizon.

“Spotter One,” Laser’s voice buzzed over the headset.

“Go.”

“The fire’s jumped the east ridge, heading into county line. High winds. Explosive spread. Town’s got thirty minutes, tops. Your drop zone is red-lined. We need a retardant wedge, right across Main Street southwest flank.”

“Copy that. Lining up data on screen.”

The wind battered the aircraft. Thermals ripped through the air.

It was like the fire was fighting me. Fighting back against our attempts to extinguish it.

I sometimes wondered what would happen if guys like me didn’t do what we did.

When would the fire burn out? Winter? I knew there were some places that were left to burn until the snow fell.

I understood it but it pricked my ego. It was like backing down from a fight.

That didn’t sit well with me.

“Smoked dropped,” Laser said.

Go time. Flaps down. I slowed and dove.

“Come on in, Herc,” Laser said.

I scanned the area, my finger hovering over the button to open the belly of my plane.

The smoke was brutal. I was going to have a migraine later.

I remembered driving through a blizzard at night.

It was close to the same. The harder I tried to focus, the worse it got.

I had to basically blur my vision in order to see through the smoke, which was counterintuitive.

Our eyes were hardwired to focus on an object.

In the thick smoke, I couldn’t focus on anything.

I had to see everything and nothing at the same time.

And then I saw the pink haze drifting through the black. That was my target.

“Got it,” I said. “Going for the drop.”

I sent up a silent prayer that the doors worked. There couldn’t be a worse time for a mechanical failure. I hit the button and glanced out the window. The drop doors opened with a metallic groan.

Below, a thick red wave spilled out, washing across the ground below.

It was messy but it worked. When we went in to blanket the town, homeowners would bitch about the mess.

We tried to avoid dropping the retardant on ag areas because it could damage the ground.

But sometimes, they had to weigh the good with the bad.

Losing a crop of corn or wheat was a hell of a lot better than losing lives and homes.

“Good drop,” Laser said.

“Heading back in.”

Waves of smoke rolled up in protest.

“Fuck you,” I muttered. I took firefighting personal.

I banked hard left and headed back toward the airfield. The return flight felt longer than it should have, every second counting while that monster chewed through more forest.

The moment I touched down, the ground crew was already moving. They’d been watching my approach, and by the time I taxied to the reload station, they were in full sprint mode. This wasn’t their first rodeo, and it showed.

“Fuel first or retardant?” shouted Gilbert, the crew chief, already dragging the fuel line toward my wing.

“Both! Fast as you can!” I called back, not bothering to shut down the engines completely. We’d perfected this dance over the years. We kept her running hot, minimizing turnaround time.

The crew moved like a NASCAR pit team. Gilbert and his guys had the fuel flowing while Thompson and his team were already positioning the retardant truck. The thick, red slurry started pumping into my belly tank before I’d even finished my post-flight checks.

“How’s it looking out there?” Gilbert yelled over the engine noise, sweat beading on his forehead.

The ground crew were the real heroes. They worked nonstop and they did not slow down. We got to sit in the cockpits while they worked their asses off.

“Bad,” I shouted back. “Real bad. Fire’s moving faster than we’ve ever seen.”

He nodded grimly and signaled to his team. They picked up the pace, if that was even possible. These guys knew what was at stake. Half of them lived in Hollow Gorge. Their families, their homes, schools. Everything was on the line.

The fuel gauge climbed steadily. Seventy percent. Eighty. The retardant tank was filling simultaneously, the aircraft settling lower on its landing gear as the weight increased.

“Ninety-five percent on fuel,” Gilbert called out.

“Retardant’s topped off,” Thompson added, already pulling the hose clear.

Three minutes and forty-two seconds. A new record.

I gave them a thumbs-up and pushed the throttles forward. The S-2 groaned under the full load but responded, rolling down the tarmac. As I lifted off again, I caught a glimpse of the ground crew already prepping for the next plane coming in hot.