Read Chasing Fire for Free Online

attached,” she said, continuing her buddy check without comment. “Lower right reserve strap attached. Head in the game, Fast Feet,” she added, then moved on up the list. “If either of us misses a detail, you could be a smear on the ground. Helmet, gloves. You got your letdown rope?”
    “Check.”
    “You’re good to go.”
    “How about you?”
    “I’ve been checked, thanks. You’re clear to board.” She moved down to the next recruit.
    Gull climbed onto the plane, took a seat on the floor beside Dobie.
    “You looking to tap that blonde?” Dobie asked. “The one they call Swede?”
    “A man has to have his dreams. You’re getting closer to owing me twenty,” Gull added when Libby ducked through the door.
    “Shit. She ain’t jumped yet. I got ten right now says she balks.”
    “I can use ten.”
    “Welcome aboard,” Rowan announced. “Please bring your seats to their full upright position. Our flying time today will depend on how many of you cry like babies once you’re in the door. Gibbons will be your spotter. Pay attention. Stay in your heads. Are you ready to jump?”
    The answer was a resounding cheer.
    “Let’s do it.”
    The plane taxied, gained speed, lifted its nose. Gull felt the little dip in the gut as they left the ground. He watched Rowan, flat-out sexy to his mind in her jumpsuit, raise her voice over the engines and—once again—go over every step of the upcoming jump.
    Gibbons passed her a note from the cockpit.
    “There’s your jump site,” she told them, and every recruit angled for a window.
    Gull studied the roll of the meadow—pretty as a picture—the rise of Douglas firs, lodgepole pines, the glint of a stream. The job—once he took the sky—would be to hit the meadow, avoid the trees, the water. He’d be the dart, he thought, and he wanted a bull’s-eye.
    When Gibbons pigged in, Rowan shouted for everyone to guard their reserves. Gibbons grabbed the door handles, yanked, and air, cool and sweet with spring, rushed in.
    “Holy shit.” Dobie whistled between his teeth. “We’re doing it. Real deal. Accept no substitutes.”
    Gibbons stuck his head out into that rush of air, consulted with the cockpit through his headset. The plane banked right, bumped, steadied.
    “Watch the streamers,” Rowan called out. “They’re you.”
    They snapped and spun, circled out into miles of tender blue sky. And sucked into the dense tree line.
    Gull adjusted his own jump in his head, mentally pulling on his toggles, considering the drift. Adjusted again as he studied the fall of a second set of streamers.
    “Take her up!” Gibbons called out.
    Dobie stuffed a stick of gum in his mouth before he put on his helmet, offered one to Gull. Behind his face mask, Dobie’s eyes were big as planets. “Feel a little sick.”
    “Wait till you get down to puke,” Gull advised.
    “Libby, you’re second jump.” Rowan put on her helmet. “You just follow me down. Got it?”
    “I got it.”
    At Gibbons’s signal, Rowan sat in the door, braced. The plane erupted into shouts of Libby’s name, gloved hands slammed together in encouragement as she took her position behind Rowan.
    Then Gibbons’s hand slapped down on Rowan’s shoulder, and she was gone.
    Gull watched her flight; couldn’t take his eyes off her. The blue-and-white canopy shot up, spilled open. A thing of beauty in that soft blue sky, over the greens and browns and glint of water.
    The cheer brought him back. He’d missed Libby’s jump, but he saw her chute deploy, shifted to try to keep both chutes in his eye line as the plane flew beyond.
    “Looks like you owe me ten.”
    A smile winked into Dobie’s eyes. “Add a six-pack on it that I do better than her. Better than you.”
    After the plane circled, Gibbons looked in Gull’s eyes, held them for a beat. “Are you ready?”
    “We’re ready.”
    “Hook up.”
    Gull moved forward, attached his line.
    “Get in the door.”
    Gull leveled his breathing, and