Page 37 of Falling for the Playboy Pilot

14

JANNA

Icouldn’t stop the thrill of excitement that tore through me. I loved the excitement. The flight had been good. Easy. Even a little boring. I had seen the storm clouds. I wasn’t quite as naive as Dalton seemed to think I was. Alaska and storms went hand in hand. I was used to crosswinds and drastic temperature changes. While thunderstorms happened in Alaska, it was typically the snow and hail that gave us problems. I knew thunderstorms were part of the package. And as a pilot, I needed to know how to deal with them.

Laser was in my ear giving me updates. Yes, the storm was coming in fast but it wasn’t all that bad. I had definitely flown through worse. I felt the thunder more than I heard it.

“Three o’clock,” Dalton said.

“What?”

Before he answered, he talked into the comms and let Laser know there was smoke. I immediately scanned the area to see what he saw. And then I did. It was just a slim tendril of white. I probably would have missed it. My focus was on the horizon and making sure I didn’t fly directly into the storm and get us electrocuted.

But I supposed that was why Dalton was one of the best. It was easy to miss the soft haze that looked like gauzy cotton being stretched out. It could have been a low cloud hovering near the treetops, but it wasn’t. I hated that I probably would have missed it.

Dammit. I wanted to impress Dalton and I missed my chance. But I couldn’t dwell on it. I needed to make sure I didn’t miss anything else. I carefully banked away from clouds while I scanned the area below.

I listened to the clipped words between Laser and Dalton through the headset. It was pretty cool how they seemed to know exactly what the other was thinking. They weren’t even talking in full sentences. It was more like words with no verbs or connecting words. I didn’t interrupt and just kept on my path back to the airfield. I would wait for Dalton to tell me what to do. It was not the time for bullshit. I got that.

“Alright,” Dalton said and for some reason I knew he was talking to me. Maybe it was the tone or maybe the odd sense of calmness in his voice. “We’ve got a fire. Do you see the smoke?”

“I do.”

“Head toward it and drop a thousand feet. Let’s get eyes on that blaze. We’re going to mark coordinates. We need to note hazards and accessibility. We know there aren’t any structures but we’re going to call in high-priority areas.”

I nodded before remembering he couldn’t see me. “Copy.”

I turned the plane and aimed the nose at the smoke that was already thinning in the wind. If Dalton hadn’t seen it, it could have burned for days before anyone saw it. The dude was good. I dropped us down fast but clean, easing into a controlled dive that flattened out as the smoke rose in thin spirals. Even as we closed in on the area, the smoke tendrils widened and darkened. It was picking up fast.

I knew the area was dry. I had done my research on the snowpack in the area and read everything from the so-called experts. Everyone had their own opinions and predictions. But the last three years had been relatively dry and I knew there had been almost no mitigation, which was a disaster waiting to happen. Was I staring at the beginning of the disaster?

A shiver of fear coiled low in my belly. I didn’t want that. Yes, I wanted to fly and pinpoint fires, but I didn’t actually want there to be fires. I supposed it was like becoming a doctor. You wanted to fix people but you didn’t actually want people to be sick or hurt.

“How are you in storms?” Dalton asked calmly.

I snorted. “Have you ever been to Alaska?” I replied. I couldn’t resist the snark. The situation felt too serious for a minute there. If I started being all malleable and meek, he would think something was wrong. I didn’t want him to think I was freaking out. So, there had to be some sarcasm.

“No.” His clipped reply almost made me laugh. Why did I feel the need to poke him all the time? Someone should have taught me better about poking a bear. Or a beehive. Or anything else with a wild, dangerous animal.

“Well, the answer is yes,” I said. “I know my way through a little weather. I told you, I’ve flown through blizzards. Some thunderstorms. I’m not a total noob.”

“A what?” His tone said he was both disgusted and confused.

“A newbie. I’m not a newbie. Can we please just figure out what to do here? You can insult me later.”

“Alright then,” he said. “Pay attention. I need you to do what I say, when I say.”

“Copy,” I said.

I slid into that zone. It was like flipping a switch in my brain. Every sound grew sharper. My breathing slowed. I could still feel the thrum of adrenaline pounding in my chest, but there was no fear. I was born for the job.

Dalton coordinated the call to base while I adjusted altitude again, giving him a better visual from the right side of the plane. “Spotter One to base,” he said. “Fire is roughly two acres and spreading. Requesting immediate tanker support. Coordinates coming now.”

I fed him our position and he relayed it. There was a small part of me that was feeling the pull of adrenaline but I kept it on the backburner. Adrenaline was great and all but it also made a person jittery. I couldn’t be jittery. The storm had come and it had started to rain. I knew how to keep cool when nature got pissed. When I woke up this morning, I was prepared for training. My dad always told me to prepare for anything. Prepare for the unexpected. An actual fire wasn’t really unexpected.

“Let’s keep circling,” he told me. “They’ll need you to guide them in.”

I acknowledged the command. “Copy.”