“Ray,” Jac said, kneeling beside him. “How you doing, buddy?”

“Been better,” he muttered, rubbing his face and smearing the blood onto his hand and neck. He looked around, his expression confused. “Never was much of a runner. Tried to cut some of the distance and took the red trail. Must’ve tripped.” He squinted at her. “What are you doing here?”

“Got lonely up there. Let me take a look at your head.” Jac gently cupped his chin and checked his eyes. Pupils were equal, but pinpoint. Adrenaline surge. Maybe a prelude to shock. The laceration was long and deep. He’d need stitches. “How are your arms and legs, Ray? Can you move them? Feel everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He braced a hand on the rock behind him and tried to push himself upright. “I’m okay. I need to finish the course.”

He swayed, his face graying, and Jac quickly jumped up and wrapped an arm around his waist. “I don’t think you’ll be doing any more running today, buddy. Let’s just take it easy and get back to level ground. I’ll flag down a spotter.”

“No way. You need to finish the run. Go on, get outta here.”

She grinned. “Oh no, I’m not leaving you. Hell, you’ll probably try another shortcut, get lost, and I’ll be up half the night looking for you.”

“Frak you, Russo.”

“Promises, promises.” Jac slung his arm over her shoulders, gripped the waistband of his pants, and took his weight. “Let’s go. Nice and easy now.”

“Crap.” Ray leaned heavily on her, his balance unsteady and his breathing labored. “James is going to fry your ass, you know, if you don’t finish.”

“You let me worry about the boss.” Jac eased him down the slope toward a clearing in the trees, trying to ignore the acid burn of disappointment in her stomach. Mallory James had been right. She was going to wash out the first day.

*

Mallory checked her watch and watched the trees, resisting the urge to pace. Three rookies were already back at base. Jac wasn’t with them. Neither was Ray Kingston. The others had made it under the time limit, but Jac should’ve been in well before them. Mallory moved a little away from the group and radioed the pilot in the spotter helicopter. “Benny? You got anything?”

“Just sighted them, Ice. Looks like we got one down.”

“Damn,” Mallory muttered. “Where?”

She was already striding toward the equipment room for a FAT pack as Benny radioed the location. “I’ll be there in seven minutes. Stay over them until I get there.”

“Roger that.”

Mallory shouldered into the field and trauma kit, mentally sorting down the emergency response checklist that was second nature to every paramedic. Firefighters got injured all the time—occupational hazard. Still, having a rookie go down the first morning was not how she wanted to start boot camp. Anxiety swirled in her stomach, and she pushed the feeling aside. She was just worried about one of her team, that’s all.

But as she raced for the trail, the image of Jac running so effortlessly, her stride as smooth and graceful as a deer, flashed through her mind. She didn’t want to imagine Jac lying injured somewhere. She didn’t want her to be hurt. Warning bells clanged, too loud to ignore. She couldn’t afford to have any kind of personal feelings for another firefighter, not even friendship. She couldn’t take another loss.

Chapter Four

Mallory took the left fork off the yellow trail and cut cross-country, following her GPS to the coordinates Benny had triangulated from the spotter craft. Off trail, the groundcover was dense. Her Kevlar jump jacket protected her from the worst of the gouges and scratches that might have been inflicted by low-hanging limbs and broken branches. At home in the mountains, she moved as quickly and surely as a New Yorker maneuvering crowded midday Manhattan sidewalks—effortlessly dodging, weaving, and bounding over obstacles.

The squirming tension in her stomach was an unfamiliar background noise that she tried to ignore, chalking that unusual disturbance up to her new level of responsibility. Surely her unease had nothing to do with the identities of the rookies out on the trail. She let her mind empty. Speculating about what she might find when she reached the injured was pointless. Emergency triage protocols were so ingrained in her mind she didn’t have to think about them. And she didn’t want to think about the individuals. She ruthlessly obliterated faces and names. She was a paramedic and she had injured. She didn’t need to know anything else and wanted to feel even less. Her mind settled into the zone, that place of ultimate focus, where her heart beating a steady tattoo in her ears and the sensation of her breath flowing in and out of her chest centered her, at once readying her for action and obliterating all distractions.

Immersed in this calm, focused energy was where she loved to be, sure of herself, in control, battle ready. Battle worthy.

She intersected the red trail fifty yards from her destination and sprinted north, covering the uneven, uphill terrain in long quick strides. As soon as she skirted a craggy outcropping, she saw them. Ray Kingston slumped by the side of the trail with his back propped against a broad pine. Jac knelt with her hand on his wrist and her eyes tracking Mallory’s approach. Ray’s face was bloody. Jac appeared unhurt, her expression steady and calm. Mallory held Jac’s gaze, and her stomach settled for the first time since Benny had radioed they had injured. She couldn’t think about that now, or what it might mean.

“What have we got?” Mallory asked. Jac, like every firefighter, had basic EMT skills, and as the first responder, her assessment was critical.

“He was alert and oriented times three when I reached him approximately ten minutes ago,” Jac said. “By his account, he took a header. His memory for exactly what happened is vague. There’s a full-thickness ten-centimeter laceration on his forehead. Moving all fours, he walked down here with help.”

Mallory crouched in front of Ray and flicked her penlight into his eyes. Both pupils equal and reactive. “Hey, Kingston. Did you knock yourself out?”

Ray frowned. “I don’t think so, but I don’t exactly remember.”

“Good enough.” She palpated his carotid, noting a strong, rapid pulse. She pulled the blood pressure cuff and stethoscope from her kit and tossed it to Jac. “Check his BP, will you.”

“Sure thing,” Jac said, wrapping the cuff around his upper arm.

While Jac worked, Mallory slid her hand around the back of Ray’s neck, running her fingertips over each spinous process in his cervical spine, searching for tenderness or irregularities. No evidence of damage.

Jac said, “One ten over eighty.”

“Good.” Mallory took her stethoscope from Jac and moved the diaphragm quickly over his chest. Heart sounds sharp and clear. Moving air through both lungs. After slinging the stethoscope around her neck, she ran her hands up and down both his arms, then both legs. “Give me your right hand.”

Ray grasped her hand and she said, “Squeeze.” When he did, she repeated the process with his left hand, then had him lift first his left leg and then his right while she pressed down on them. Good strength in all four extremities.

Leaning back on her heels, she said, “It looks like the head trauma is the worst of it, Ray. I’m going to have the helicopter drop a Stokes. I don’t want you walking out.”

“Oh, frak no,” Ray protested. “No way am I getting lifted out of here. I’ll never live it down.” He glanced at Jac, his expression pleading. “Come on, buddy. Tell her I’m okay.”

Mallory stiffened, waiting for a challenge.

“Have a heart, will ya,” Jac said, sounding pained. “You don’t really want me to buck the boss on the very first day, do you?”

“I’ll never be able to show my face around here again.”

Jac clapped him on the shoulder. “Sure you will. Go along with the program, and I’ll let everybody know you would have beat my ass back to base if you hadn’t had to follow me off trail to make sure I didn’t get lost.”

Ray studied Jac, a furrow forming between his brows. “Thanks, I owe you.”

“Nah.”

Mallory moved a few feet away and radioed for the litter. While she directed Benny to drop the long line down into the clearest part of the trail, she regarded the steep side of the ravine and mentally extrapolated where Jac had been running along the crest when she’d left her. Considering where they were now, Jac would’ve had no reason to deviate from the yellow trail.

“Russo,” Mallory called. “You want to handle getting the Stokes down? Let’s see what kind of retrieval skills you’ve got.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” Jac sprinted to the clearing and craned her neck to watch the slow descent of the lightweight metal stretcher from the belly of the helicopter. When the lower edge of the stretcher was just above her head, she caught it and guided it to the ground, released the winch hook, gave it two sharp tugs, and stepped back so the line could be reeled up and away. Once the heavy metal hook was above her head and there was no danger of it swinging around and catching her, she lifted the stretcher and carried it back to where Mallory crouched beside Ray.

“Nice work,” Mallory said. Jac had been efficient and careful. Full marks. “All right, Ray, let’s get you in here.”

Grumbling, he started to rise, and almost instantly moaned, “Oh frak.” Groaning, he lurched away and vomited.

“Okay,” Mallory said briskly, grasping him around the waist as Jac steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get you horizontal again.”

They got him stretched out on his back in the Stokes, strapped in with a cervical collar around his neck, within seconds. Mallory glanced at Jac. “Ready?”