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got in the door.
    He listened to the spotter’s instructions, the drift, the wind, while the air battered his legs. He did his check while the plane circled to its final lineup, and kept his eyes on the horizon.
    “Get ready,” Gibbons told him.
    Oh, he was ready. Every bump, bruise, blister of the past weeks had led to this moment. When the slap came down on his right shoulder, he jumped into that moment.
    Wind and sky, and the hard, breathless thrill of daring both. The speed like a drug blowing through the blood. All he could think was, Yes, Christ yes, he’d been born for this, even as he counted off, as he rolled his body until he could look through his feet at the ground below.
    The chute billowed open, snapped him up. He looked right, then left and found Dobie, heard his jump partner’s wild, reckless laughter.
    “Now that’s what I’m talking about!”
    Gull grinned, scanned the view. How many saw this, he wondered, this stunning spread of forest and mountain, this endless, open sky? He swept his gaze over the lacings of snow in the higher elevations, the green just beginning to haze the valley. He thought, though he knew it unlikely, he could smell both, the winter and the spring, as he floated down between them.
    He worked his toggles, using instinct, training, the caprice of the wind. He could see Rowan now, the way the sun shone on her bright cap of hair, even the way she stood—legs spread and planted, hands on her hips. Watching him as he watched her.
    He put himself beside her, judging the lineup, and felt the instant he caught it. The smoke jumpers called it on the wire, so he glided in on it, kept his breathing steady as he prepared for impact.
    He glanced toward Dobie again, noted his partner would overshoot the spot. Then he hit, tucked, rolled. He dropped his gear, started gathering his chute.
    He heard Rowan shouting, saw her running for the trees. Everything froze, then melted again when he heard Dobie’s shouted stream of curses.
    Above, the plane tipped its wings and started its circle to deploy the next jumpers. He hauled up his gear, grinning as he walked over to where Dobie dragged his own out of the trees.
    “I had it, then the wind bitched me into the trees. Hell of a ride though.” The thrill, the triumph lit up his face. “Hell of a goddamn ride.’Cept I swallowed my gum.”
    “You’re on the ground,” Rowan told them. “Nothing’s broken. So, not bad.” She opened her personal gear bag, took out candy bars. “Congratulations.”
    “There’s nothing like it.” Libby’s face glowed as she looked skyward. “Nothing else comes close.”
    “You haven’t jumped fire yet.” Rowan sat, then stretched out in the meadow grass. “That’s a whole new world.” She watched the sky, waiting for the plane to come back, then glanced at Gull as he dropped down beside her. “You had a smooth one.”
    “I targeted on you. The sun in your hair,” he added when she frowned at him.
    “Jesus, Gull, you are a romantic. God help you.”
    He’d flustered her, he realized, and gave himself a point on his personal scoreboard. Since he hadn’t swallowed his gum, he tucked the chocolate away for later. “What do you do when you’re not doing this?”
    “For work? I put in some time in my dad’s business, jumping with tourists who want a thrill, teaching people who think they want, or decide they want, to jump as a hobby. Do some personal training.” She flexed her biceps.
    “Bet you’re good at it.”
    “Logging in time as a PT means I get paid to keep fit for this over the winter. What about you?”
    “I get to play for a living. Fun World. It’s like a big arcade—video games, bowling, bumper cars, Skee-Ball.”
    “You work at an arcade?”
    He folded his arms behind his head. “It’s not work if it’s fun.”
    “You don’t strike me as the kind of guy to deal with kids and machines all day.”
    “I like kids. They’re largely fearless and open to possibilities.