Page 64 of Falling for the Playboy Pilot

The memory played out in my head like a movie I’d seen too many times. It was the recurring nightmare that visited me at least once a week. “Wind was tricky that day. Kept shifting, but nothing we hadn’t handled before. I made my drop right where I was supposed to, laid down a good line of retardant. Looked perfect from the air. The jumpers were in position. Everything was going according to plan.”

I stopped, my throat tight. Janna’s hand found mine in the darkness, her fingers threading through mine. I didn’t pull away.

“I flew back to base to reload. Standard procedure. Should have been an easy run. I was going to be back in the air in twenty minutes, max.” I shook my head, still angry at myself after all this time. “But there was a problem with the mixing equipment. Took them forty-five minutes to get me loaded up again.”

The silence stretched between us. I could feel her waiting, not pushing, just there.

“By the time I got back, everything had gone to hell. The wind had shifted hard, came out of nowhere. The fire jumped my retardant line like it wasn’t even there and circled around behind the jumpers. They were trapped in a box canyon with flames on three sides and nowhere to run.”

My voice cracked on the last words. “I could hear them on the radio, calling for extraction, but there was no way to get a helicopter in there. Too much smoke, too much heat. I made drop after drop, trying to open up an escape route, but it was too late. The fire was moving too fast.”

Janna’s grip tightened on my hand.

“But they never gave up. Command called in a helicopter for extraction. Risky as hell in that smoke and heat, but it was the only chance those guys had.” I paused, remembering the chaos at the staging area. “I wasn’t supposed to go. I was a pilot, not a rescue jumper. But I knew that terrain better than anyone, and I knew those guys. I’d been in their spot before. I think I told you that’s how I got my start.”

“Cheryl—Laser did,” she said.

I nodded. I could still smell the smoke, feel the heat radiating up from the canyon floor. That day had been burned into my memory in more than one way. “The chopper pilot was good, but he needed a spotter. Someone who could guide him through the smoke to where the jumpers were holed up. I grabbed a headset and climbed aboard.”

Janna’s thumb traced across my knuckles, a small gesture that made it easier to keep talking.

“The smoke was so thick we could barely see ten feet in front of us. Had to fly by instruments mostly, with me calling out landmarks when I could spot them. The heat was incredible. It felt like flying into an oven. The chopper was struggling in the thermals, getting tossed around like a toy.”

I closed my eyes, remembering the desperate voices crackling through the radio. “We found them in a clearing about the size of a basketball court. They’d deployed their emergency shelters, but the fire was closing in fast. We had maybe five minutes before that whole area went up.”

“The pilot brought us down as close as he could, but we couldn’t land. Too much debris, too much smoke. So we hovered about six feet off the ground while the jumpers made a run for it. One by one, they dove into the chopper. Seven guys made it.”

My voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Martinez was bringing up the rear. He was maybe twenty yards from the chopper when a burning tree came down right in front of him. Cut him off from us. The fire was moving so fast…”

Janna’s other hand covered our joined ones. She was doing all she could to comfort me. Or maybe she was trying to comfort herself. She was probably imagining herself in a similar situation.

“I did something stupid. The kind of thing that gets people killed. I grabbed a rope and rappelled down from the chopper. Told the pilot to hold position no matter what. The heat was so intense I could feel it through my gear, but I had to try. Martinez was trapped behind this wall of flame, and I thought maybe I could get to him.”

I touched my left leg unconsciously, feeling the familiar tightness of scar tissue beneath my jeans. “I almost made it. Got within maybe ten feet of him when the wind shifted again. A wall of fire rolled over us both. I managed to get Martinez to the rope, got him clipped in, but my gear caught fire. The flames went right through my pants, burned through to the skin.”

“Oh God, Dalton,” Janna whispered.

“The chopper crew pulled us both up, but Martinez had inhaled too much smoke. Too much superheated air. His lungs were cooked. He died on the way to the hospital.” I stared out into the darkness. “If I’d been forty-five minutes earlier like I was supposed to be, if the equipment hadn’t malfunctioned, if I’d made that second drop when I should have—Martinez would still be alive. All of them would have had a clear escape route.”

Janna shifted beside me, but I kept staring into the darkness, unable to look at her.

“Dalton, that wasn’t your fault⁠—”

“Wasn’t it?” I finally looked at her, seeing the pain in her eyes, the way she was looking at me like I was something broken that needed fixing. “I’m the one who laid down the retardant line. I’m the one who left them out there while I dealt with equipment problems. I’m the one who should have been back in the air, giving them cover.”

“You saved seven men,” she said quietly. “You risked your life to save them all. You did everything you could.”

“It wasn’t enough.” The words came out harsher than I intended. “It’s never enough. That’s the thing about this job, Janna. You can do everything right, follow every protocol, be the best pilot in the world, and people still die. Good people. People with families, with kids, with whole lives ahead of them.”

She was quiet, her thumb still tracing patterns on my hand. I had never told anyone all the dirty details. Most of the folks around there knew the story. The guys that did survive had all told their versions. But no one had ever heard it from my point of view.

I waited for her to say something, anything, but the silence stretched on. Part of me wondered if I’d just made a huge mistake telling her all this. Maybe she was sitting there realizing exactly what kind of damaged goods she’d gotten herself mixed up with. Maybe she was thinking about Martinez’s family, about how I’d failed to save him, about how I might fail to save her if it came down to it.

I didn’t want her pity. That’s what I got from most people when they found out about the accident. I was so used to that look, like I was some wounded animal that needed to be handled with kid gloves. The careful way they would change the subject, the awkward silences, the way they would start treating me like I might break if they said the wrong thing.

I stole a glance at her profile in the darkness. She was still holding my hand, still sitting close enough that I could smell her shampoo mixed with the lingering scent of barbecue smoke. But her face was unreadable, and that scared me more than I wanted to admit.

“You probably think I’m some kind of head case,” I said, trying to keep my voice light but hearing the defensive edge creeping in anyway. “Guy who can’t let go of something that happened three years ago.”

She turned to look at me, and I saw something in her eyes that wasn’t pity. It was deeper than that, more complicated.

“No,” she said quietly. “I think you’re a hero and you don’t know it.”