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break into a song-and-dance routine. And Mickey Mantle died about the time we both entered grade school, so I’m not him either.”
    â€œHow about Mickey Blue Eyes ?”
    â€œWell, my name is Mickey. Eyes are blue.”
    â€œYou don’t strike me as the Hugh Grant romantic comedy type.”
    He shrugged noncommittally. “You the type to watch them?”
    â€œNot so much,” Robin admitted. Astute question. “So, Mick Blue Eyes it is.”
    At that, he smiled and those blue eyes lit and sparkled with laughter that was only suggested by the sudden curve of his lips.
    Then those deep blue eyes shifted over Robin’s shoulder for a moment and she could feel someone coming up close behind. Give her one guess and it was an easy one.
    But rather than scooting away from the incoming Queen Bitch Beale, Mick—no, she did like Mickey better—turned back and took Robin’s hand again for a moment. Instead of shaking it, he just held it for an instant and she rather liked the warm, steady feeling.
    â€œSee you in the air.” Then he nodded to the woman behind Robin. “And we’re really going to miss you, Emily.” He addressed her much more easily than Robin would have dared.
    â€œI can see that.” The Queen’s tone was dry enough to make the Tucson desert look well irrigated.
    Mickey, looking not the least abashed, squeezed Robin’s hand a final time and headed over toward his smaller Bell Twin 212—a respectable enough machine, though it couldn’t carry half of what the pretty Firehawk hauled.
    Robin braced herself before turning to face Queen Beale. Even pregnant, she was fit and beautiful. Her straight hair was a perfectly trimmed fall of gold to her shoulders. It caught the morning sun like a maiden Viking’s helmet.
    â€œYou’re a fine pilot,” the Queen launched in without preamble.
    Robin opened her mouth and then shut it again when the unexpected compliment registered.
    â€œYou also think you’re the best pilot, which you aren’t. But you have the potential to be or we wouldn’t have hired you out of the forty applicants that we accepted for interviews and tests or the two hundred that we didn’t accept at all.”
    Forty? Shit! Robin had kind of assumed she’d been the only one to apply. She sure hadn’t seen anyone else around and had been hired right in the middle of the interview flight. Which meant QBB knew exactly what she was looking for, even if Robin had no idea why she was it.
    Queen Beale had her take runs at flaming barrels with tanks full of water dipped from narrow streams. They’d flown tortuous routes among the crags and peaks of Mount Hood, right up past the tree line, to where the air was thin enough to drastically change performance profiles, and down into forested valleys so thick with fir trees that there was no sign of the land beneath.
    She’d been sliding up to hover close beside a cliff when Beale’s voice had shifted. Suddenly there were no longer instructions of “Do this! Go there!” It all became “When you’re flying in this situation, you’ll find…”
    Robin had only needed to glance at Emily to be given the nod, “Yes, you passed. Now let’s work on skills.” And they had done nothing else for the last three days. Robin was good, but the amount Queen Beale knew about helicopters and fire was astonishing.
    â€œBruce, Vanessa, and Gordon are good pilots,” QBB told her as they started across the runway. “They’re coming up nicely, but they’re on the Leavenworth fires, so you won’t have to think about them yet. Jeannie, Vern, and Mickey, the three that you’ll be traveling to Alaska with, are all exceptional. Jeannie has a degree in fire management and years of fire, Vern’s years of flying Coast Guard makes him our best pilot, but Mickey is your fire specialist. He has more years flying to