She squared her shoulders and faced the guy watching her speculatively from behind the desk. She’d been proving herself all her life—or more accurately, disproving the assumptions everyone made about her. In high school all she’d had to do was demonstrate her willingness to break the rules to crack the mold her family had created for her. Considering that breaking the rules usually involved sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll—all the things her father railed against—divorcing herself from her family’s politics hadn’t been all that hard. Most of the time rebelling had been fun, but she wasn’t sixteen anymore, and while she still chafed under the weight of rules and regs, she’d pretty much given up all the rest. The drugs and rock ’n’ roll for sure, and the sex most of the time. But then, it didn’t take a whole lot of sex to get her into a whole lot of trouble.

Realizing the guy was still watching her, still waiting, she said, “I guess you weren’t expecting me.”

He grinned fleetingly. “You’re quick.”

Jac shook her head and muttered, “Damn it, Nora, thanks for warning me.” She walked forward and held out her hand. “Jac Russo. I take it you got that part already.”

“Chuck Sullivan. I’m kind of the overseer around here, but Ice calls the shots.”

“Interesting nickname.”

His gaze narrowed. “None better at the job.”

Jac held up her hands. “Hey, I don’t doubt it. She just seemed a little fiery there for a minute.”

Again the fleeting grin and a shake of his head. “Not much riles her up.”

“I’m not sure I’m happy about having that privilege, then.” Jac sighed. “I didn’t know about this myself until yesterday when someone on my father’s staff told me, but I thought you’d been contacted. I don’t blame you for being pissed.”

“I’m not pissed,” Sullivan said quietly.

Jac tilted her head toward the door behind her. “She is.”

“Don’t worry about it. Pass basic training, you’ll be part of the team.”

Too bad it wasn’t that easy. Being good at what she did, being qualified, pulling her own weight—all those things helped her fit in, but they never helped her to be accepted. When she’d been younger, she’d desperately wanted to be accepted. Now she didn’t care. At least that’s what she told herself most days. The freeze in Mallory James’s eyes was nothing new, although usually the disdain was motivated by something other than her showing up where she wasn’t expected or wanted. All the same, for the first time in a long time, she’d wanted to melt the icy reception she’d gotten used to receiving.

She wanted this job, sure. She’d wanted it for a long time, but she hadn’t planned on getting it this way. But now she was here, and she wanted to stay. She wanted Mallory James to admit she was good enough to stay.

Chapter Two

Mallory about-turned out of Sully’s office and steamed across the yard to the standby shack. The barracks in the back, adjacent to the locker rooms, held twenty single, plain, metal-framed beds, ten to a row down each side. She chose to sleep in the hangar loft, not out of modesty but just for a few moments of peace and quiet at the end of the day. The guys would be stirring any minute. No time now for anything but a quick shower and a hurried breakfast, but it really didn’t matter. She was too aggravated to relax anyhow.

She cut through the main equipment room on her way to the locker room. Orderly rows of jump suits, helmets, and gear belonging to the crew on the jump list she’d made up the night before hung from pegs on the wall. Her Kevlar jacket and pants hung closest to the door. She was the IC when she jumped, and as incident commander, she was first in and last out of the hot zone.

A windowless swinging door on the left side led to the women’s locker room, where she and Sarah Petrie, a veteran jumper and her best friend, stored their extra gear and clothes, and shared a six- by-six-foot communal shower. The plywood walls didn’t do much to mute the noise when all the guys were next door, and any conversation was easily audible. Not that the illusion of privacy really mattered. They lived together for six months straight, eating and sleeping and sweating and risking their lives together. Privacy took on a whole new definition under those circumstances. The only truly private place was in her head.

She peeled off her clothes, piled them on the bench running lengthwise between the row of gunmetal gray lockers and shelves holding towels and cubbies for gear, grabbed a towel, and walked naked to the shower. After twisting the dial to hot on one of the four showerheads, she stepped under the water. Standing under the pounding spray, she replayed the meeting with Jac Russo. She couldn’t quite put her finger on what annoyed her, and that annoyed her even more. Sure, Russo had circumvented normal channels in getting the posting, and that offended her sense of order. Maybe her sense of fair play too. All the same, she didn’t usually vent her feelings out loud, particularly in front of people she didn’t know. Or in front of a coworker like Sully. She prided herself on being in control, on being cool, on placing reason ahead of emotion. It’d earned her the nickname Ice, and she liked it. Some people extended the name to Ice Queen, but she wasn’t bothered by that. If she did keep her feelings under wraps, what of it?

Perfunctorily, she squirted shampoo into her palm and lathered up her hair, turning, eyes closed, letting the heat smooth out some of the tension in her back. So why was she bothered so much by Russo? Because she hadn’t picked her? That seemed a little bit petty, and she didn’t like thinking of herself that way. But Russo was an unknown, and unknowns made her uneasy. Fire was enough of an unknown, appearing on its own timetable, spreading at its own rate, jumping lines where least expected, blowing up, cresting a ridge where it never should’ve been, trapping eleven wildland firefighters in a clearing that should’ve been a safety zone. A safety zone she’d picked. Nine of them had walked away.

She closed her eyes tighter, trying to forget the anguished faces of the families waiting to see who walked out of the forest alive, and who did not. Looking to her for information, for answers, and her having none.

She shuddered and opened her eyes, waiting for reality to drive the memories away, and all she got was tears in her eyes. Tears that had to be from soap, nothing else.

This year everything would be different. This year she was in charge from day one—ops and training manager. She’d see that the rookies were hammered into shape and the vets honed to razor sharpness. She’d picked her new guys so carefully. They all had the goods, they were all young and healthy and strong. And then along comes Russo. The outlier, the unknown. Sure, Russo had some firefighting experience, but the details were pretty thin on paper. Russo was still practically a rookie, and the way she’d been appointed suggested she didn’t have the skills to make it on her own. That was a real problem.

Mallory sudsed her breasts and torso, bending to finish the rest of her body in quick automatic swipes. Russo. Maybe she’d wash out. One thing was for certain, Russo wouldn’t be jumping if she didn’t make it through basic training. Mallory was going to be sure Russo’s month was every bit as rigorous as she could make it.

Mallory flipped off the shower, wrapped the towel around her chest, and knotted it above her breasts on her way into the locker room. The four metal lockers against the wall were an optimistic number since even two women stationed in the same place was unusual. Out of the three hundred smokejumpers in the country, less than one-tenth of those were female. Sarah should be arriving the beginning of June. If Russo was still here, that would make three, with a locker to spare. Sarah slept off base whenever she could and usually bunked in the main barracks when she couldn’t. Russo would have to as well. Mallory considered the extra bunk in her loft and discarded the idea. No way was Russo sleeping in her quarters. A clear picture of dark challenging eyes and a sinful mouth, just a hint of a mocking smile turning up one corner of full sensuous lips, shot through her mind. Oh hell no, Russo wasn’t sharing her loft.

Mallory opened her locker, pulled out a clean white sleeveless tank, a short-sleeved navy T-shirt, and navy cargo pants from the stack on the top shelf, and tossed the pile onto the bench. After dumping her dirty clothes into the laundry bag in the bottom of her locker, she toweled off her hair and lobbed the damp towel into the hamper, feeling her skin pebble and her nipples tighten in the cold room. The slight scuffling sound of the door opening behind her brought her whipping around, flinging wet hair from her eyes. Russo stood framed in the doorway, her duffel dangling from one hand.

“You have a bad habit of sneaking up on me,” Mallory said, feeling her nipples tighten even more under the unabashed scrutiny.

“Sorry about that,” Russo said, her husky voice deeper than Mallory remembered.

“You want to close the door?” Mallory said.

Russo pulled the door shut, closing them into the cramped space. “Sully told me to bring my gear over here. I guess he didn’t know you’d be naked.”

Russo wasn’t much taller than Mallory, five ten or so, and rangier. Lean where Mallory had a bit of curve even when in hard, summer shape. Russo’s gaze was direct and unapologetically appraising. Mallory’s breathing kicked up, and she willed herself not to grab for her shirt. She’d been naked with Sarah thousands of times and never given it a thought. Sarah was straight—at least she’d never indicated otherwise—but even if she wasn’t, Mallory wouldn’t have thought anything of being undressed around her. Work and sex never crossed paths in Mallory’s consciousness.