Hotshots (Wildfires Book 1) by Jana Leigh, Lynn Ray Lewis Page A

her since a week after the accident that had claimed his best friend. She was still in a coma at that time, but he had to leave to get back to headquarters, and they’d lost touch over the months.
    “Jez, I am so sorry about the accident, and I stayed with you and your mom until I had no choice but to leave, others depended on me too, and I, well…I needed to do something at the time to keep my mind busy.”
    She knew what he was trying to say, and she shook her head. “Gibs, you know Dad would have done the same thing you did. He would have gotten into the chopper and got the job done, so I understand and it’s all good.” She looked over the giant of a man and teased him a little about his ability to find a new woman wherever he landed. “I could see you’ve been up to your old tricks with the ladies too. Is Ms. Prim-and-Proper a wildcat after work? I almost turned around and let you work your magic uninterrupted, but I wanted some information and you are the first person that I knew would tell me what I need to know without trying to put me off.”
    Shit, she was going to ask him questions and he didn’t want to answer them. She knew he was a man who never lied, even when it would be easier and better to keep his knowledge to himself, if she asked a question, he would answer her honestly. He could only hope she didn’t ask the right questions so he could honestly answer that he had no idea. He shrugged, “Go for it, what do you need from me?”
    “I want to know what happened that day, when we went up, Dad said it was just a small fire that would easily be contained, when that tree blew, the entire area was flaming. Why didn’t he know about the fire being that extensive?”
    Gibson turned his head away while she asked the question. Fuck, she got right to the meat of the matter. He knew she was going to be hurt or pissed, and he damned his moral code, but answered her honestly.
    “When you two took off, that was the report he got. You must have been approaching the scene when he was told the extent of the fire had expanded and what happened after that I have no knowledge. All I have is the word of the team leader who was telling him directions from the middle of the fire. He was the same man who carried you out of the fire that day.
    “He kept you alive until the medics could take over, and I heard he told them to keep you alive, that you had a mother that was going to need you. The support personnel said he turned around and walked back into the fire to help his crew. Jez, we all heard him telling Stryker to heave to the north for his approach over the com links. We heard him yelling, repeating himself, but he got no response from Stryker, the next thing we heard was the explosion from the tree and the team leader cursing and out of breath as he talked to you, he gave you mouth to mouth and oxygen so he could move you. If he hadn’t been there, well, I’m just glad he was and leave it at that. We lost two men on the ground that day, and Stryker, and somehow something good happened. You were alive.”
    She was frowning, trying to remember if her father had said anything at the time, but she remembered him tapping his headset and frowning. She shook her head and told Gibs, “I remember him tapping on his headset, he was frowning, but he didn’t say anything. Within seconds, we came up on that tree looking like a giant torch. He tried to pull up, but it was too late.”
    “Well that explains a lot to me, obviously something was screwed up with his com link and he didn’t hear Nix giving him instructions at the time.” Gibs was nodding as he finished his observation on her information. “I’ll tell him what you’ve said. I think it will make him understand what happened that day. It wasn’t the first time he packed someone out of a fire, but it was the first fire that he lost any of his team.”
    She sat there speechless for a few seconds. Did he say the team leader’s name was Nix? She asked him to