“I really should go.” Mallory looked down at the cardboard tray and the paper cups and the plastic-wrapped muffins, wondering how she’d come to be standing in the loft with a sexily sleep-tousled Jac Russo a few feet away. She hadn’t meant to come here. She’d been on her way to grab some food, and then she’d heard Sarah’s voice in her head, telling her Jac had been restless, sleepless, skipping meals. Because of her. And she’d wanted to see her. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”

“Let me help you.” Jac took the tray and set it down on a small packing crate between the heads of their two cots. She straightened and eased forward again, moving slowly, hoping Mallory wasn’t going to bolt back down the ladder. She stopped a few inches from Mallory and closed her hands tightly before she put them all over Mallory. She wanted to grip her shoulders and pull her forward and kiss her. Simple and uncomplicated. Oh yeah, real simple. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“I ran into Sarah in the locker room.” Mallory pushed her hands into her back pockets. “She mentioned you were worried, maybe.”

“Maybe, a little. Yeah.” Jac added quickly, “I know that’s silly.”

Mallory moistened her lips and took a deep breath. “Yeah, maybe. Not necessary. Nice, though. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Jac gripped her hair again, contemplating pulling it out. She felt about twelve, trying to figure out how to ask for her first date. “You want some coffee?”

Mallory glanced at her watch. “I should probably get going. I want to see Ray before roll call.”

“Why don’t I walk over with you?” Jac pulled the two cups from the tray and handed one to Mallory. She unwrapped a blueberry muffin, broke it in half, and passed part to Mallory. “We can save the other one for break time.”

Mallory laughed, and the sound hit Jac like a flashover. “Thanks. They were out of bran.”

“I’ll put in a request. Charlie loves me.”

Mallory’s eyebrows rose. “Is that right? And how do you figure?”

Jac bit into the muffin and Mallory followed suit. Jac wanted to moan, not because the muffin was wonderful, which it was, but because watching Mallory eat one might be the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. “He gave me pie.”

Mallory stopped chewing. “No.”

Solemnly, Jac nodded.

“I never took you for a prevaricator.”

“Oh.” Jac slammed her hand against her chest. “You wound me.”

Mallory narrowed her eyes. “Charlie really gave you pie?”

“Two pieces.”

“Now I know you’re lying.”

Jac grinned. “I speak only the truth. Ask Sarah, she’ll tell you.”

“Sarah was there to witness this? When?”

“About three this morning.”

“Really.” Mallory’s voice became a few degrees cooler.

“I was restless,” Jac confessed. “I ran into her in the canteen.”

“You’re a puzzle, Russo,” Mallory said softly.

“I don’t think so.”

“No, you probably wouldn’t. You don’t hide much, do you?”

Jac laughed at the irony. “God, Mallory. I hide everything.”

“Why doesn’t it seem that way to me?”

“I don’t know. You make me want to tell all my secrets, and it’s damn scary.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jac’s heart beat so hard she wondered if she might be having a heart attack. “For what?”

“For making you think…” Mallory stopped, shook her head.

“I don’t think anything, Mallory. I’m not after anything. Some things just are.”

“And I don’t know what to do with that, Jac,” Mallory said helplessly. “I really don’t. And I need to go.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jac felt Mallory leaving, even though she hadn’t moved. She was helpless to hold her, knew she couldn’t. Letting go felt like her heart was exploding. “So I’ll see you at roll call.”

“Don’t be late, rookie,” Mallory murmured and climbed over the side of the loft and down the ladder.

Mallory always seemed to be walking away. Jac glanced around, feeling Mallory’s absence even more than she had the night before, and remembered the price of letting anyone close.

Chapter Fifteen

“Listen up,” Mallory called down to the group assembled around the wooden scaffold. “On my mark, you’ll step to the edge, pivot with your back to the ground, tuck your chin, and drop.”

Jac squinted at the six-foot-high platform and the hard-packed ground beneath. She was supposed to step off into nothing and land on the ground wearing a full pack and all her gear as if landing with a parachute. She glanced at Ray. “Is your head okay for this?”

“There’s nothing wrong with my head, but I’m not sure about my sanity,” he muttered.

Jac grinned. “Yeah. I’m feeling a little bit crazy myself right now.”

Mallory glanced in their direction and raised an eyebrow. “Problems over there?”

“No ma’am,” Ray said briskly.

“Not a thing,” Jac said.

“Okay.” Mallory stepped to the edge. “Don’t hold your breath unless you want to lose it all when you hit.” She grinned down at them. “And remember your chin.”

She pushed off, seemed to turn in midair like a diver at the pinnacle of her leap, then fell gracefully, landed soundlessly, and rolled to her feet.

“Questions?” Mallory asked, unsnapping her helmet as she walked over.

When she shook her hair out in an unconsciously sensual move, Jac’s heart went into free fall. God, she was every kind of beautiful.

No one had any questions, but a couple of the guys looked a little green.

“Hooker,” Mallory said. “Why don’t you go first and demonstrate. You at least know what the ground feels like coming up at you from your skydiving experience.”

“Sure. No problem,” Hooker said.

Mallory climbed back up to the platform and Hooker followed.

Jac didn’t think she’d ever get used to seeing Mallory with the clouds at her back, sunlight glinting in her hair. Her face was flushed with exertion and pure exhilaration. She looked happy. Mallory hadn’t looked happy in the loft that morning. She’d looked confused and uncertain and reluctant. Making Mallory unhappy was the last thing Jac wanted to do. Hell, she hadn’t even gotten close to Mallory yet, and she was already screwing things up. What she needed to do was back off. Give Mallory space. That ought to be easy enough to do, if she could only figure out how to stop thinking about her. And keep her heart from stuttering to a standstill every time she unexpectedly caught a glimpse of Mallory out of the corner of her eye. If she could only manage not to tighten up inside at the mere sound of her voice. Then it ought to be easy to maintain some distance.

“You ready for this?” Ray said.

“Huh?” Jac said.

“This exercise.” Ray gave her a look. “Where’s your head at, Jac? You need to score some points with the boss.”

“You can say that again.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

Above them, Mallory said, “Hooker, take your place. On my mar—”

Hooker dropped off the edge, tucked, landed, and rolled.

“What the fuck was that?” Ray whispered. “Wasn’t he supposed to—”

“Yeah,” Jac muttered. “He was.”

Hooker was testing Mallory, subtly ignoring her authority in front of everyone. Jac just couldn’t figure out why. The guy must’ve known who was in charge of the station when he signed up, so if he had problems with Mallory, why didn’t he opt out of the placement? What did he think he was going to gain by antagonizing her? She’d wash him out at this rate.

Hooker sauntered over, a satisfied smirk on his face. “Piece-a-cake, ladies. You all will be fine.”

Mallory climbed down the ladder and walked over. “Too much wind up there, Hooker?”

He pulled off his helmet and shrugged his shoulders. “Nope. Felt great.”

“So you weren’t having a problem hearing me?”

He looked at her innocently. “Nope.”

“Want to explain why you took off early?”

“Hey,” he said nonchalantly. “You said you wanted me to demonstrate, I demonstrated. Any problems with my…technique?”

“The exercise isn’t just about technique,” Mallory said steadily, her gaze never wavering from Hooker’s. “It’s about performance. And part of performance out here is following protocol. Protocol keeps us all alive.”

Hooker’s jaw tightened. “Does it? That’s real good to know. Considering.”

Something hard stole into Mallory’s eyes, and a wave of heat surged in Jac’s chest. She clamped her jaws so hard, her ears ached. She wanted to challenge Hooker, hell—she wanted to kick his ass.

“Russo,” Mallory said softly. “You’re up.”

“Roger that.”

Jac waited for Mallory to lead the way up the ladder, watching the rigid line of her back as she ascended, knowing Hooker had drawn blood and wanting to filet him for it. Up on the platform, the wind blew Mallory’s hair around her face, and Jac ached to catch some of those strands on her fingers and tuck them behind Mallory’s ear. Any excuse to touch her. Maybe a futile gesture to ease her pain. Words, sympathy, even having been there herself, couldn’t touch the private wound, and she knew it. Still, the helplessness ate at her.

“Questions?” Mallory asked.

“No.”

“Repeat the sequence for me, please.”

Mallory’s tone was mechanical, remote, distant. She’d gone someplace inside, behind the barriers that helped deflect but never blocked the pain.

Jac did the only thing she could. Her job, just like Mallory. “Step to the edge. On your mark, step off, turn in the air, tuck my chin, land and roll.”

“Good.” Mallory rapped Jac on the back of her hardhat. “Don’t forget your chin, Rookie.”

The slight reverberation of Mallory’s knuckles against the protective headgear shot through Jac like a hot caress. Her breath caught in her chest.

“Right.” Jac stepped to the edge.

“Ready,” Mallory said, her voice the only sound. “Go.”