Page 1 of Burning Hearts

ONE

Logan Crawfordonly slept well in two places. On the ground on the side of a mountain, with his pack for a pillow, or in a short takeoff and landing fixed-wing aircraft.

Smoke in the air.

Logan leaned back against his seat, the vibration so familiar now that he hardly rested when he couldn’t hear the rumble of an airplane engine or feel the hard ground of the backcountry.

This was what he’d been born to do.

He’d discovered in the last few years that he could fight fire anywhere, but he needed the rush of jumping. The flap of the parachute above him. There was nothing like the feel of falling through the air. Couldn’t find that in a town like Last Chance County, fighting residential fires as part of a rescue squad with his twin, Bryce. Being back home had been great, but there was nothing like smokejumping.

“I see the header!” their spotter, Mark, called out down the plane. Then he trained his binoculars on the copilot window, his attention on their target while his long gray hair hung down his back.

Logan glanced at the cockpit, also occupied by the pilot, who was a retiree who’d flown for JPATS for years. According to Neil, flying a bunch of rowdy smokejumpers wasn’t so different from flying transports between judicial districts and correctional institutions for the US Marshals. Thankfully, Neil didn’t have to fear for his life if something went wrong.

At least, not beyond the normal perils of being a wildland pilot.

The smokejumper boss, Jade Ransom, hefted herself out of her seat and went to speak with Neil and Mark. She’d been Logan’s jump boss at the end of last season in Montana and had moved back up here with her boyfriend Crispin in the offseason.

They weren’t the only ones who’d come north.

“Almost there, right?”

Logan glanced at the smokejumper in the seat next to him. Orion Price was another one of the people he knew from Ember, Montana. A rookie smokejumper this year, and with his brown hair and blue eyes, the kid looked like a college student. Young, but not as young as one of their hotshots, Mack. “Nervous?”

Orion said, “You ever look out the window of the plane and wonder why you thought this was a good idea?”

No way.Nervous, but trying to hide it. “You trained plenty for this and passed the qualifiers,” Logan said over the drone of the plane engine. “You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t earned it by proving you can do the job.”

Orion nodded sharply.

Across the plane, on the other side of the aisle, Cadee and Tori chatted to each other—which involved a lot of close talking, trying to whisper but also hear each other over the airplane engine, and the occasional glance at Vince.

JoJo sat with her head back against his seat in the row in front of Cadee and Tori. Another Montana transplant up here to see what Alaska had to offer.

Skye sat in the row in front of Logan, with Vince next to her. Skye was Alaska born and raised, same as Cadee. Vince had been on the smokejumper team in Montana last summer.

Jade turned from the cockpit and her conversation with the pilot and spotter. “Okay, rookies. Give me streamers.”

Jade led the group down the aisle to the back of the plane and rotated the lever to open the door.

Wind rushed in, bringing a stronger scent of smoke with it.

Tori and Orion tossed streamers out the door—weighted crepe paper that told them which way the wind blew and how fast they would descend before they hit the ground. Vince wasn’t a rookie, but he sent his own flying out. It was in all their natures to be a bit of a control freak.

Enough. Logan levered out of his seat with his gear and went to the other side of the plane to get a look out the window. If he was gonna fight this fire, he needed to see where it was first.

Skye did the same at the window of the row in front. “I told you that storm last night was gonna kick it off. Lightning strikes.” She let out a whistle and shook her head. “Fifteen acres at least.” She pointed. “See the ridge line? It’s starting to wake up.”

Logan smirked. “Yeah, I wonder why I didn’t take your bet and risk doing kitchen cleanup in the mess hall for two weeks.”

She shoved his shoulder over the seat back, the same way his sister did to him and his twin brother Bryce.

Logan spotted the header. The plume of smoke that snaked up into the wide Alaskan sky was their destination. The jump spot would land them two miles southeast of it. Northwest of the base, in the shadow of Denali Mountain.

He said, “We need to put this fire out before it spreads all the way to town.” Not to mention the homesteads in its path.

Over the last few years, he had fought wildfires in a lot of places across Australia, Montana, and even parts of Canada. There was nowhere like Alaska. The whole landscape was like the proverbial black widow woman—beautiful and alluring, but underneath the surface, it was trying to kill you.

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