Sniper Fire (Love in the Crosshairs) (20 page)

Kyle threw a punch into the nearest solid object.

“Damn, Kyle, I thought you loved that truck.”

Ignoring both the dent in his beloved truck and the pain in his hand, Kyle turned on the sheriff. He pointed at the clinic with a throbbing finger.

“Go back in there and tell her she isn’t needed.”

Despite the open regret on his face, Pen shook his head. “I can’t do that. She is needed. Like I said before, there’ve been too many injuries fighting this fire. Resources are stretched thin trying to keep it out of populated areas. People are making mistakes. The more doctors we have at the on-site medical triage stations, the better.”

“Shit!” Kyle limped to the front of his truck. The sky in the south west was a nasty mix of brown, black, and gray. Ominous.

“Speaking of resources…”

Kyle faced the sheriff. The man had moved close enough to lean his tall body on the hood of Kyle’s truck.

“I’ve been told they’re having trouble keeping some of the equipment running.” He patted the hood. “You know how it is. The county’s been meaning to replace the older models, but hasn’t gotten around to it. Gene Anderson wanted to come,” he said, mentioning the mechanic who’d taught Kyle everything he knew about cars, “but you know he’s got asthma. A few other mechanics are up there trying to keep things repaired, but frankly, they’re run ragged. They could use some help?”

The last sentence came out sounding like a question. Kyle met the sheriff’s patient gaze. “Funny you should say run,” Kyle said, rapping the brace cinched tight around his leg with his cane.

The sheriff didn’t even bat an eye. “Last I checked, you held tools in your hands, not your feet. And there’s no running required when you’ve got those hands in the guts of an engine. This isn’t Bedrock, you know.”

Kyle snorted a laugh.

“What do you say, Kyle? Tinkering with a bunch of reluctant engines beats crawling into a hole any day, right? Besides…” A slyness slipped into Penwell’s shrewd gaze. “I can probably get you assigned to the same station as Farrah.”

A mountain of tension avalanched off Kyle’s shoulders. The chuckle that escaped his lips was a combination of relief and admiration. “Damn, Pen, I’d forgotten what a canny bastard you are.”

The sheriff shrugged. “What can I say? Canny is part of the job description.”

The door to the clinic popped open. Farrah appeared, a heavy duffel bag hanging off one shoulder, her arms loaded with boxes. Her nurse, Mary, came out behind her carrying several stuffed-to-bursting plastic bags.

“I’m ready.” She stopped and glared at Kyle. “You’re still here? I thought you’d have the dirt pulled in behind you by now.”

Kyle wiped the grin off his face with effort and replaced it with what he hoped was a black scowl. “Don’t worry, honey, I’m leaving.” He must not have been completely successful because Farrah’s expression turned suspicious.

“You’re not going to try talking me out of going again?”

He widened his eyes as he opened the dented door of his truck. “Who, me? Nothin’ doin’. I’m a firm believer in the old saying, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

He closed the door, cranked the truck, and lowered the window. “Send a map to my cell,” he murmured, just loud enough for Pen to hear. “Oh, and don’t tell her.”

The sheriff nodded once. Kyle glanced at Farrah, took in her puzzled frown, and almost burst into laughter. No, that would keep. He’d wait to see her face when he showed up at the outpost, then he’d laugh. Shifting into gear, he backed up and pulled out of the clinic’s small parking lot. Oh, yeah. Proving Miss Proper wasn’t always right about him was going to be a hoot.

Chapter Eleven

“Dr. Hastings? We got another one coming in!”

Farrah jerked awake. She could already hear the thumping of the helicopter as it circled to land on the stretch of bare beach between the medical tent and the winding mountain stream. Biting back a groan, she rolled to her side and sat up. She blinked at her watch. Two whole hours of sleep. That was almost more than she’d gotten altogether over the past two days. Maybe that meant things were slowing down.

“Dr. Hastings?”

“Yes, I’m coming.” She shoved back her hair as she stood, quickly tying the unruly mass into a messy pony tail with the band she kept around her wrist. She hurried to the sink set up in the corner to begin washing up. “How many?”

“Just one, I think.” Crissy, the young RN volunteer assigned to Farrah stood by the tent flap, ready to pull it back.

“Rose getting some rest?” Farrah asked. She’d sent the other volunteer nurse to bed hours ago. Rose had been manning the triage station by herself until Farrah and Crissy had arrived.

“Far as I know,” Crissy said. “Though I bet she’ll wake up when that helicopter lands.”

Probably. Nothing she could do about that though. Farrah dried her hands and stepped past Crissy through the tent opening. She looked up, squinting, but could see nothing beyond the bright emergency lights illuminating the night. She scanned the rest of the busy camp. Things were only slightly less frantic in the false daylight than they were during the day. The fire gobbling up acre after acre of water-hungry forest didn’t care what time it was. It burned constantly, regardless of the harried and exhausted humans.

The helicopter dropped out of the darkness. As soon as it settled in the designated landing area, men rushed forward to the door and pulled out her next patient.

Farrah stepped out of the tent an hour later. The helicopter carrying her latest patient to the nearest hospital was already out of sight. She’d immobilized his broken leg, making sure the compound fracture did no more damage to fragile vessels and veins. She’d also packed the ragged wound to slow the bleeding, and given the man something for the pain. She’d wanted to finish the job, set the bone and sew the torn tissue closed, and had to remind herself that was someone else’s job. She was triage, her focus was minimizing trauma to the wounded, making sure they were stable enough to make the longer trip to the hospital. She lifted her arms over her head and stretched, wincing as joints popped and tight muscles loosened. “How long has it been?”

Crissy and Rose exited the tent behind her, both of them looking as bleary-eyed as Farrah felt. Rose yawned and waved at Crissy. “Your turn.”

Crissy looked at her watch. “Two days, twenty-two hours, and…” Her lips moved, counting. “Thirteen minutes.”

“They lied,” Rose said flatly. “When I volunteered, they said the fire would be under control within twenty-four to thirty-six hours.”

“Oh, come on, Rose,” Crissy said. “You didn’t really believe them, did you? I’m usually the naive one and
I
didn’t believe them.”

“I’m just saying they shouldn’t have lied, that’s all. I can have an opinion, can’t I?”

“Yes, but your opinions usually involve a lot of yelling and rude gestures.”

Rose smirked. “You know what they say. A rude gesture a day—”

“Keeps the fools away,” Crissy finished quickly. “Yeah, Rose, I know.”

“Not fools. The word’s as—”

“I know, Rose! Just leave it alone, will you? Geeze.”

Rose laughed and pointed at Crissy. “Geeze is right. You should see your face. You’d think you never heard the word ass—”

“Rose! I swear, if you don’t stop…”

Rose just laughed more and gave the other woman a brief hug. “Darn, woman, you get so cranky when you’re tired.”

Farrah smiled. The two longtime friends liked to argue back and forth. She didn’t mind their bantering or even the occasional cuss word from the more outspoken Rose. Truth was, she was too tired to care about much of anything. What she wouldn’t give for a nice long shower and an even longer nap in a nice soft bed. She sighed. Neither was in her immediate future, however.

Then her gaze rested on the fast stream of water flowing nearby. Nice, cool, refreshing water. Farrah looked over her shoulder at Rose. “Where did you say that little pool with the waterfall was?”

****

The sound of feminine laughter drew Kyle from beneath the hood of the pickup. He squinted across the clearing to the medical side of the station. It was the first time he’d seen Farrah outside the triage tent in almost twenty-four hours. He’d lost count of the times he had to stop himself from going in there and dragging her out so she could get some proper rest.

“Hey, Kyle, almost done?”

He turned back to the truck to face its driver. “Give me a second,” he said. After tightening a couple of hard-to-reach bolts, he straightened and slammed the hood. “Okay, try it now.”

The truck’s engine turned over on the first try. The driver whooped and jumped out of the cab. He held a hand out to Kyle. “Thanks, man. I can already tell it’s the best this old clunker has run in years.”

Kyle wiped his hands on a rag before taking the man’s hand. “You’re welcome.” The man popped back into his truck and backed up to turn around, headed once again to one of the fire lines with a load of supplies. Finding a clean patch on the rag, Kyle wiped the sweat from his face, then turned back to the medical tent. The two nurses were seated at a picnic table beneath a lighted canopy, talking and drinking from bottles of water. Farrah was nowhere to be seen.

He grabbed his cane from where it lay across an open tool chest, leaving the wadded up rag in its place. He limped over to the table.

“Ladies.” He nodded his head.

“Hey, Kyle,” Rose said, her voice a husky invitation. She scooted a little on the bench seat. “You can sit over here by me if you like. I promise not to bite.”

“Rose!” Crissy hissed. “Leave the man alone.” The pretty blond looked over her shoulder at Kyle. “You’ll have to excuse her, Kyle. She’s been breathing too much thin air.”

Kyle smiled. Both women had started flirting with him as soon as he arrived, Rose more so than her friend. He didn’t mind. Not after he found out both ladies were happily married. Then he realized the little come-ons were nothing more than a harmless stress reliever. Kind of like the bantering he and the other Hawks engaged in right before a battle. Well, used to engage in.

He paused. Funny how the pain of that thought didn’t seem quite so sharp this time.

“Are you looking for Dr. Hastings?” Crissy asked, pulling his attention back to the two women.

“What makes you ask that?”

Rose snorted softly. “Please. You’re always looking for Dr. Hastings.”

No he wasn’t. Except for when he’d first arrived, he’d made a point of not seeking her out. And hadn’t that meeting been fun? The split second of dumbfounded disbelief on her face had been worth every painful step since then. And there’d been a lot of painful steps. As soon as he’d arrived, he’d been up to his elbows in engines. Trucks, tractors, even generators, he’d worked on them all. The sense of accomplishment he felt after each engine started and ran without sputtering had surprised him. He hadn’t thought he’d ever feel that again; the satisfaction of knowing he’d not only completed an assignment, but done it well.

“She went that way.” Crissy pointed upstream. “Said she wanted to cool off.”

“Cool off?”

“Yeah,” Rose said. “There’s a small pool with a little waterfall up that way. Just stay by the stream, you can’t miss it.”

“Has she eaten?”

“Awwww,” Rose said, “are you going to take her a picnic lunch? That’s so sweet.”

“Hush,” Crissy admonished. “You’re just jealous.” She jumped up from the table. “Hang on, Kyle. Ham sandwich and bottled water okay?”

“That’ll be fine.”

She was back within a minute. He took the plastic bag she handed him and started off into the woods. The dark night closed in as soon as he passed the ring of lights. Kyle pulled out the mini flashlight he kept in his pocket and shown it down the path. When he caught sight of the dim glow of a lantern, he switched off his flashlight. Moving with a fraction of his old stealth, Kyle eased up to the small pool fed by a waterfall no more than a dozen feet high. In the center of the pool, floating on her back, was Farrah.

Air caught in Kyle’s throat. The thin t-shirt she had on was plastered to her skin, outlining every feature of her beautiful breasts, including the very taut nipples. He forgot about the bag of food in his hand, the pain in his leg. Forgot everything but watching Farrah.

She rolled over and dove under the rippling dark water as graceful as an otter. When she rose, she pushed her thick mane of hair off her face. The normally light, red-gold waves glinted like wet, dark honey in the steady glow of the lantern, her skin turned to burnished gold. She waded to the waterfall and stood under the spray.

Time stood still for Kyle as the woman he craved tilted her head back, arms reaching up, breasts jutting forward. He could have stood there forever watching her. The forest could have burned down around him and he didn’t think he would notice. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t give her the privacy he knew she’d come here for.

Time started again when she stepped out of the flow, ran her hands over her face, and spoke. “Are you going to just stand there ogling, or are you coming in?”

Kyle pried his gaze from her luscious body up to her face. He wasn’t surprised to see her staring straight at him. The confidence and strength he saw in her dark hazel eyes made his already hard body throb in anticipation. “Is that an invitation?”

She flicked a finger in his direction. “Only if you leave that sorry attitude of yours on the bank with your clothes. This pool is too small for giant-sized pity parties.”

He let the dig go, not about to waste time arguing. A chance like this only came once in a lifetime. Instead, he hung the bag of food on a tree branch and leaned his cane against the trunk. He wanted to take his time stripping for her, raising her temperature as hot as she’d raised his, but that wasn’t happening. He couldn’t go slow if he tried. He found a bare rock near the water’s edge that held Farrah’s clothes and a towel. He scooted them aside and sat. His leg brace came off first, followed by boots and socks. Kyle held Farrah’s gaze as he removed his shirt next. The heat in her eyes had sweat breaking out on his bare skin. Still sitting down, he unfastened his belt, fingers hesitating over the snap of his jeans. He knew if he got into that pool without any clothes on, he wouldn’t stop himself from taking her. He’d make her his and to hell with any prior claim Joshua might have. Betrayal, outright betrayal. Man, was he really going to do this?