by M. L. Buchman
Welcome to Flash of Fire, the latest installment in the Firehawks series. Releases tomorrow, May 3rd.
The heli-aviation wildland firefighters of Mount Hood Aviation have a problem.
Lead pilot Emily Beale can't fly this fire season. Hired as a one-season replacement, ex-National Guard heli-pilot Robin Harrow wears a chip on her shoulder about the size of the Tucson desert that she calls home. From a long line of single moms, who are just awesome thank you very much, she aspires to the same herself if she can just find the right pilot for the flight she's planning.
Mickey Hamilton grew up on the rivers of Oregon helping with his dad's raft-and-kayak guiding business. Robin spins his head worse than an auto-rotation landing in a bad firestorm. The heat between them burns so hot that its undeniable. But their hearts remain at odds until the fire burns so high that all other concerns are seared away in their race for survival.
An Excerpt
Mickey and Robin have just finished a horrendously long day, their first flying together. The heat and banter have been fun and a brief first kiss definitely left Mickey's blood moving fast. They are in the northern Yukon, watching the brief night of a summer sky masked by the smoke of a massive blaze they have come here to fight.
Welcome to Flash of Fire, the latest installment in the Firehawks series. Releases tomorrow, May 3rd.
The heli-aviation wildland firefighters of Mount Hood Aviation have a problem.
Lead pilot Emily Beale can't fly this fire season. Hired as a one-season replacement, ex-National Guard heli-pilot Robin Harrow wears a chip on her shoulder about the size of the Tucson desert that she calls home. From a long line of single moms, who are just awesome thank you very much, she aspires to the same herself if she can just find the right pilot for the flight she's planning.
Mickey Hamilton grew up on the rivers of Oregon helping with his dad's raft-and-kayak guiding business. Robin spins his head worse than an auto-rotation landing in a bad firestorm. The heat between them burns so hot that its undeniable. But their hearts remain at odds until the fire burns so high that all other concerns are seared away in their race for survival.
An Excerpt
Mickey and Robin have just finished a horrendously long day, their first flying together. The heat and banter have been fun and a brief first kiss definitely left Mickey's blood moving fast. They are in the northern Yukon, watching the brief night of a summer sky masked by the smoke of a massive blaze they have come here to fight.
Mickey
leaned back against his helicopter and let the exhaustion wash over him. Now
that they were done with the day, he could let it in and it was a tidal wave.
If he were a different man, he would seriously consider weeping. Or at least
whimpering.
He
didn’t know what he was waiting for until he saw the silhouette of a woman
walking toward him through the twilight. Despite the impossibly long first day,
she still moved the same as he’d initially seen her.
Dancer.
No,
soldier.
But
her motion was like a dancer too, sliding easily through the grass. Not one of
his sister’s delicate ballerina types with their waiflike bodies and impossible
flexibility, but like those modern-dance types. All strength and fluid moves.
He
was still puzzling at dancer or soldier when she stopped in front of him. There
was just enough light to see her clearly this close up.
“You
look like I feel,” her voice rough with exhaustion.
“I
look like a beautiful woman? Aw, shucks, Robin. Though actually, I haven’t had
a chance to figure out if you feel as fine as you look.” Yet. But he didn’t
want to wait too much longer before finding that out.
She
jabbed her finger into his ribs, but there wasn’t any heat behind it. Then she
collapsed back against his Twin 212 so that they were leaning side by side and
staring up at the sky.
The
sky was a glorious blood red. The plume of smoke high above them glowed as if
the sky itself was on fire.
“Not
a lot of stars tonight,” he managed.
“I
always wanted to see the Northern Lights,” she replied a comfortable time
later.
“Need
to wait for winter. I don’t think it gets dark enough in mid-summer here,”
Mickey was pretty sure that was right.
He’d
flown fires up here before with MHA, but he was too tired to trust his
memories. And maybe the last time he’d seen the aurora had been in…August maybe,
so there’d be more dark. Though wasn’t the Alaska fire season over by then? He couldn’t be sure.
“It
might be—”
His
thought was cut off by the woman who rolled off her shoulder and lay against
him, pinning him between her body and the helicopter. He was suddenly paying
very little attention to the sky.
If
she was going to offer, he wasn’t going to be dumb enough to hesitate.
He
slipped his hands around her and pulled her tight against him. Yep! Definitely
felt like he was holding onto a beautiful woman.
She
offered a kiss and he leaned into it. She tasted of fire smoke and very faintly
of grilled hamburger. But mostly she tasted of the impossible high-mountain
freshness that so reminded him of home.
Because
Dad was ski patrol, Mickey had often done last runs of the day with him. The
whole ski patrol would take the lifts to the top, last up the mountain. Then
they’d disperse to ski down every trail to make sure the mountain was clear.
Sometimes, there was some hopelessly over-challenged beginner who had wandered
onto a black diamond trail, but usually the slopes were empty and silent except
for the slick sounds of their skis. The air blown in on the twilight breeze so
clear and fresh that it was always a surprise.
Robin
was like that.
It
wasn’t just the wondrous slopes of her back and shoulders that he discovered as
he trailed his hands over her. It wasn’t the unexpected softness of her hair or
the roughness of her kiss. It was the freshness of her.
He
wanted to roll her so that her back was to the helo and he could press himself
more deeply against her, but her feet were planted wide and it didn’t seem
worth the extra effort.
His
hand was half down her pants, on the inside, before he caught what it was up to
and reeled it back in.
Instead,
he concentrated on appreciating her waist until she finally chose to break the
kiss.
She
lowered her head and he kissed her forehead.
“Damn
it, Hamilton!”
“You
seem to be cursing me a lot today, Robin of the Hood.”
“You
seem to bring out the worst in me.”
“If
that kiss was the worst, I can’t wait to try the best.”
That
earned him a soft laugh. On most women that would have been a giggle. On Robin
it was a friendly laugh, the kind that invited you to join in, so he did.
She
placed her palms on his shoulders and pushed back until she was standing
upright once more.
He
let his hands slip from her waist and then didn’t know what to do with them.
They’d felt so good placed on that nice dip between ribs and hip.
She
blinked like an owl in the twilight and looked around, “I’m, uh, not sure which
tent is mine.”
Mickey
was, opened his mouth, and then thought better of it. If she could fib about
motorcycles, he could fib about tents.
“Got
me.”
“Which
one is yours?”
He
pointed. Afraid that if he said, “the one on the end,” she’d be smart enough to
figure out that they were pegged in the same order that the aircraft were
parked. Betsy was good about doing that, knowing how exhausted a helo pilot
could be after a day on the fire. Keepin’
it simple for you brain-dead dolts, she’d say time and again.
“I
don’t really want to walk in on Mark.”
“Or
Carly and Steve.”
“Or
Carly and Steve,” she acknowledged.
He
was about to run the list, “Or…” when she continued.
“But
definitely not Mark. I’m still a little freaked by the whole him being a Night Stalker
thing.”
“Well,
I know where my tent is,” he tried to
make it sound like her problem and not like the invitation he wanted it to be.
She
looked back and forth along the tents once more.
He
considered relenting, but he was rather enjoying teasing her.
“Okay.”
Now
it was his turn to blink at the woman slowly disappearing in the fading light.
“Okay what?”
“Hamilton,”
she sighed in exasperation. “You can’t be that
tired.”
“Oh,”
well maybe he could. But he’d get over that right now. He placed a hand in the
small of her back, again resisting the urge to slip it down lower, and guided
her toward the closest tent.
He
let her crawl in first. By the time he had zipped up the mosquito screen and
pulled off his boots, she was sprawled out across his sleeping bag. Dead out.
He
undid her boots and then tried to decide just how much of a gentleman was he.
Normally he was pretty good about things like that.
Whether
it was exhaustion, the brief teaser of her incredible shapes and tastes, or
that she’d laid right down the center of the double-wide air mattress he didn’t
know, but he decided that this once he also didn’t care about being too decent.
He
wrapped himself up close behind her, spooning her against his chest.
She
hummed a little in her sleep as he wrapped an arm around her waist. She slid
her hand over his and then pulled it up toward her chin, as if he was a sheet
and she was tucking herself in.
But
she didn’t quite complete the gesture before falling back asleep with her hand
lightly pinning his in place.
Mickey
lay there with her back against his chest, his nose tucked into the soft wood
smoke-and-mountain air wonder of her hair, and his hand full of a truly
exceptional breast with nothing but a thin cotton t-shirt separating them.
Well,
if Vern was smart because he’d kept Denise tucked tightly under his arm, then
Mickey was feeling pretty smart too.
Wide
awake and turned on as hell, but very, very smart.
M. L. Buchman has over 40 novels in print. His military romantic
suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year” and twice Booklist “Top 10 of the Year,” placing
two titles on their “Top 101 Romances of the Last 10 Years” list. He has been
nominated for the Reviewer’s Choice Award for “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of
2014” by RT Book Reviews. In addition
to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.
In among his career as a corporate project
manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and
jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo
around the world.
He is now making his living as a full-time
writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife and is constantly amazed at
what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing and
receive exclusive content by subscribing to his newsletter at www.mlbuchman.com.
Congrats on the release!
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