Tempt the Flames (The Smokejumpers) by Marnee Blake

Author:Marnee Blake [Blake, Marnee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-09-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Lance killed the engine, resting his palms against the steering wheel. The apartment building in front of him looked like every other apartment building in small, urban towns. Cookie-cutter windows, low-maintenance brick facade…there was no way to tell which unit Meg lived in. The place had no personality, no distinguishing character.

It was the opposite of where he expected Meg to live.

What was he doing here? He should go back to the bunkhouse, get a good night’s sleep, and prepare himself for the judgmental stares of the other recruits and jumpers tomorrow. But her text…

Was she okay?

He left the hospital as fast as he could. Couldn’t stomach the places. They wanted to run a bunch of tests. MRI, CT scan. No way. He was fine. And if he wasn’t, Joe Buchanan would have another excuse to fire him. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Better that he not find out.

So he hightailed it out of there, before they found anything to keep him. Before he left, though, he asked about Hunter. It took some convincing, but he got the nurse at his station to spill that he was still on the operating table. A little eavesdropping and he learned that they were working on his shoulder and his leg was broken.

Fuck. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

He closed his eyes. He ran through the events after their plane exit. He’d seen Hunter’s parachute tangle, he tried to think of all of the ways he could have done things differently, all of the ways he could have kept Hunter out of the hospital.

But he couldn’t find anything he would’ve done differently. He slammed his palm against the steering wheel. Not Hunter…

He tried to imagine how his old friend must be feeling. They had always dreamed of becoming smokejumpers. An injury like this, it could sideline him for a year, longer maybe. Even forever. If there were lingering issues, he might never fight a fire again. Someone like Hunter, he didn’t deserve this.

And Meg…she was going to take this hard.

He should leave. He needed to be her friend, to keep his cool around her. Showing up at her place at 9 o’clock at night, it was too intense for friendship. He should send her a text. Ask about Hunter, see how she was doing.

But even though it would be smarter to do that, he had to see her, to verify with his own eyes that she was okay.

He was only going to stay for a minute. Someone was probably there. Meg had so many friends, a huge loving family…she wouldn’t need to be alone, not if she didn’t want to. He was just going to go up, make sure she was fine, and then he was going back to the air center, where he belonged.

Decided, he plucked the keys out of the ignition, and threw open the door. Stepping out, he winced as he put too much weight on his sore left foot. He had no idea how he was going to run on that tomorrow.

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