Page 121 of Falling for the Playboy Pilot

I pulled Pickle through and closed the door. He lay quietly on the floor. I dropped next to him and checked his pulse. It was steady. No obvious wounds. Just a swollen bump above his left eye.

I pressed my palm on his forehead. His skin was flushed and damp. I unsealed my radio case and peered inside. The crash had smashed the wires loose. I lifted the lid and reattached everything. My fingers trembled, but I pushed through. When I pressed the PTT button, there was nothing.

“Oh, please,” I murmured. “Don’t do this.”

If I couldn’t tell them we were alive, we weren’t going to be rescued. Not that anyone would be dumb enough to come into the inferno. A tear slid down my cheek. Despair threatened to pull me under. I took off my helmet and dropped it on the floor.

I pulled Pickle’s head into my lap. My hand ran through his hair in an attempt to comfort him. I stretched my legs out and leaned back. I was a little jealous. He got to sleep through the terror.

I sat in that cold, dark space and thought about my mom. She’d be getting ready for work right now, probably making her second cup of coffee and checking her phone for messages from me. I usually sent her a good morning text every day, just a quick “love you” or a funny meme. Today there would be nothing. Tomorrow there would be nothing. She’d probably assume I was busy with work at first, but then the news would reach her. Her daughter, dead in a helicopter crash while fighting fires in Colorado.

My dad would blame himself. He’d always worried about me taking risks, following my dreams instead of settling down somewhere safe. When I told him about the firefighting gig he wasn’t exactly happy. He knew he couldn’t stop me because of what he and my brothers did. Now he’d spend the rest of his life thinking he should have tried harder to talk me out of it.

The worst part was that they’d never know how much I loved them. Never know that in these final moments, they were the first thing I thought about. I’d taken for granted that there would always be tomorrow to call, to visit, to say all the things I kept meaning to say.

And Dalton. God, Dalton.

My chest tightened with a different kind of pain. What I’d said to him before we left. It was cruel. Vicious. I aimed for his deepest wound and twisted the knife because I was hurt and angry and wanted him to feel as awful as I did.

I wasn’t that person. He made me crazy. I had all these feelings for him and I knew I shouldn’t, but I did.

This would destroy him. He’d already lost one person he cared about. He’d spent years torturing himself over not being able to save his friend, and now he was going to lose Pickle too. Sweet, funny Pickle who looked up to him like a big brother. Maybe I wasn’t anything special to him, maybe I was just another complication he wished he’d never let into his life, but I had to believe there was something. The way he’d looked at me sometimes, the way he’d held me that night, the desperation in his voice when he’d tried to talk to me before we left.

He’d blame himself for this. Dalton had a bit of a hero complex. He was going to tell himself he could have prevented this from happening. If he somehow stopped me from going up, if he’d been a better pilot or a better leader or a better man, he could have prevented it. He’d carry this guilt for the rest of his life, and it would eat him alive.

I pressed my face into my hands and let the tears come. I’d been so stupid, so fucking stubborn. All that time I’d spent being angry at him for pushing me away, and now I understood why.

This job was no joke.

I felt Pickle move. His hand raised. I reached out and took his hand in mine, the dim glow from the safety light wasn’t much, but just enough.

“You’re okay,” I said.

“What happened?”

“We went down hard. We’re at the diner. Just waiting on rescue.”

No response.

“Pickle, it’s me, Janna. Our helicopter crashed landed. You hit your head. You’re going to be okay. We’re waiting on rescue.”

He was quiet for a few seconds. “What time is it?”

“I’m not sure. Probably nine or ten. We’re in the walk-in cooler at Martha’s Diner. That’s why it’s dark.”

“Are you okay?”

I smiled in the darkness. “I’m good.”

I felt his arm going slack.

“Pickle?”

Nothing.

I gently lowered his arm back to his chest. My hand slid to his wrist and checked his pulse. Still beating.

“Sleep, Pickle. You sleep. I’ll figure this out.”