Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“If you’re going to be sorry, mean it, damn it. Put some action behind it. Show me. Otherwise it’s as pointless as—”
“Sims says be ready for—Whoa. How are you guys still not ready?” Garrick burst back into the room.
“Sorry. Give me five.” Sighing, Linc started pulling on gear.
Effectively dismissed, Linc’s answer plain as a Vegas billboard, Jacob did the same and somehow they were ready at the hangar in time to finish gearing up and to check their cargo.
Garrick did his cross-check instead of Linc, hands impersonal as he checked Jacob’s parachute rigging. Once on the airstrip, waiting for the plane, Linc shifted his weight from foot to foot, standing apart from the rest of them, looking like he was one stiff breeze away from rattling apart. Or possibly puking.
Damn it. Jacob hated himself for caring and hated the situation for making them so reliant on each other right when space was what they probably needed. Distance. Perspective. Anything other than this helpless caring. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore. Pacing over to Linc, he stared him down.
“What the fuck is your problem?”
“Nothing. Just...you sure your connection points are good? That one buckle...”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Because of course that was it. Of course Linc cared, even though he didn’t want to. Of course it was concern over Jacob making him so agitated. Damn it. This would all be so much easier if Linc didn’t care so deeply. Defeated, Jacob stretched his arms out. “Go ahead. Check me over. Better safe than...”
“Sorry.” They both whispered the word in unison, and something passed between them as Linc did his cross-check. Not forgiveness precisely, but an understanding maybe. A shared regret. Despite everything, they still had that shared grief, always would, Wyatt tying them together even as his memory continued to shove them apart.
“Plane’s coming in,” Garrick shouted. Finishing his check, Linc moved away, emotion etched on his face.
“Fire’s kicking up. Fucking wind,” Ray said as they regrouped together. His shrewd gaze said he hadn’t missed the tension between them. “Gonna be a tricky one. Need our heads about us. All of us.”
Jacob nodded even as he tried to ignore the gnawing in his stomach. He hadn’t prayed in years, but right then, all he wanted was to survive the shift, nothing else to go wrong.
Chapter Nineteen
The plane headed into the smoky sky, a familiar route which should have calmed Linc down, but somehow today the smoke seemed that much more ominous. The combination of unseasonably warm and dry and windy made the fire hard to predict and far more dangerous for all involved. Their assignment would involve some digging of hand line, and for all he was mixed up, he was glad Jacob was on their crew as he’d already proven himself capable of digging line to keep back fire like a machine.
And Linc had no doubt that Jacob could turn off all that anger and be professional in the field, be that mechanical firefighting machine. He hadn’t wanted Linc’s apologies, had been, if anything, even angrier than last night. Put some action behind it. Damn it, what was Linc supposed to do? He’d been close to grabbing Jacob, hauling him in for a kiss when Garrick had interrupted, but that would have been just as pointless as his words. Bottom line was that he simply couldn’t give Jacob what he thought he most wanted, and that fucking sucked. For all of them.
The plane made a practice pass, approaching the drop zone, allowing them to recheck the winds, then circling back to drop the cargo away.
“Gotta trust this weather holds,” Garrick shouted as they deployed the cargo.
Something about the way he said trust made the word linger in Linc’s brain. He wasn’t much good at trusting these days. He’d trusted his mom to stick around forever, and then the universe had taken her way too soon. Ditto his brother. Ditto Wyatt. And he had too many years of experience to ever trust a fire. Too many times where he’d done everything right and it still all went to shit to trust anything, let alone something as mercurial as wind conditions.
But you trust Jacob. Unbidden, memories of the night of Jacob’s birthday slammed into him. He did trust Jacob, on a fundamental level that went far beyond the physical. When Jacob had told him it wasn’t his fault Wyatt had died, he’d listened. It had taken months to internalize it, and he still struggled with guilt, but he’d listened far more than he would to any other person. Jacob’s unwavering belief in him mattered.
Maybe you gave your word to the wrong guy? Jacob’s years-old question dug into him as surely as a too-snug piece of webbing, burrowed under his flesh to the places where he’d tried to bury both doubts and longing. And if he had...well, what the fuck was he supposed to do with that sort of misgiving?