Chapter Two
Jazz navigated herHarley off the back road and onto the wide drive, passing under an arched sign that readEndeavour Ranch, proof the gas station attendant in Grand hadn’t steered her wrong despite what she’d half begun to suspect. The five miles she’d ridden outside of town had revealed nothing but plowed fields ready for planting and heavy equipment churning up dirt.
It was a little past ten in the morning. She’d left civilization behind an hour or so ago. She drove another mile up the long, snaking drive before spotting any signs of human habitation. She cut her engine in front of a massive L-shaped, single-story mansion with three identical wings—two facing the drive and one angled to the right so it overlooked the shining waters of the Tongue River. No landscaping had yet been accomplished, although a sectioned-off piece of dry ground surrounding the walkway, and a hose with a sprinkler, indicated it might have been seeded.
The house appeared to be mostly framed in, unfinished, and uninhabited. Two half-ton trucks wearing construction company logos plastered to the doors lent credibility to her theory it was a work in progress. So did the sounds of hammering and the buzzing of saws. The Custer County sheriff’s SUV next to the trucks, however, left her wondering if this was also the scene of some crime.
Behind the main house, three barns trailed the length of what remained of the drive, which reached its conclusion in front of an enormous, fenced-in pasture containing horses and an adjoining corral. The warm spring air reeked of horses, manure, raw wood, and fresh sawdust. To Jazz, who’d grown up in a large city filled with nightlife and tourists, the combination was oddly exotic, and more pleasant than not.
She scanned the wide, rolling fields that stretched to either horizon, interrupted by a lone butte far to the right. Where had they hidden the airfield?
A sudden urge to turn around and head back to Helena hit hard. She was a city girl. She knew firefighting, not ranching, and while no one hoped they’d see fires, if she didn’t, what would she do with herself for a whole summer here?
She’d whip the Endeavour smokejumper operation into shape—that was what. She’d come too far to have second thoughts.
She flipped down the bike’s kickstand with her right boot, then unfastened the chin strap on her helmet and swung her leg over the seat so she could stand. She hung the helmet from the handlebar and finger-combed her short hair, even though only optimism suggested it would do any good.
She’d been told to ask for Dan McKillop, one of the Endeavour’s three owners. Since she didn’t see anyone standing around outside to ask, she followed the sounds of construction. The day was warm so she left her leather jacket behind with her helmet. As she crossed the yard, the sun bit through her thin cotton blouse and heated the leather encasing her thighs. The protective leather biking pants were jeans-style, so they weren’t super-tight, but leather didn’t breathe.
She knocked on the doorframe, which seemed silly considering no door had yet been installed, but politeness overruled. She stepped past the threshold and out of the sun and waited for her eyesight to adjust.
“Anyone home?” she called out.
The hum of the saws carried on, but the hammering stopped. A head and one drywall-dusted shoulder popped sideways through an interior doorframe, as if their owner were leaning back from some task rather than allowing himself to be completely disengaged. Whatever he wrestled with appeared to be winning. Any second now, Jazz expected him to topple onto his back.
“How can I help you?” the floating head asked.
“I’m looking for Dan McKillop.”
“That would be me. Give me two seconds. I’ll be right with you.” The head and shoulder disappeared. The hammering picked up again, with greater determination than before. Then came a grunt of what might be satisfaction, the rattle of metal on concrete, and the entire person appeared from behind the far side of the wall, wiping his hands on his jeans.
Jazz had grown up around the casinos in Vegas, so she was familiar with men who had money—or more specifically, and of far more value, the subtler nuances between those who pretended to have it and those who pretended they didn’t—but, while she hadn’t known what to expect a billionaire rancher on his home turf to look like, this wasn’t it.
In his early to mid-thirties, Dan McKillop was a good half a head taller than her, making him at least six feet two inches, although broad shoulders gave him the appearance of far greater size. Sun-streaked blond hair, cropped short over the ears, had been licked off his forehead on top. His drywall-speckled jeans sagged off his hips beneath the tail of a T-shirt that might once have been white. Not any longer. It had a tear in one sleeve and a collar that sagged from too many washings. His steel-toed boots, covered in a fine, gray-powdered dust, showed a level of wear and tear beyond what one might expect from one of the Endeavour Ranch’s wealthy new owners.
He wore an easy confidence that belonged on a much older man. It said he had no need to pretend a thing. He didn’t miss anything, either. Sky-blue eyes scrutinized her in a way that said he’d memorized every detail about her, from the leather pants right down to the pale pink hue of a bra that her cotton blouse didn’t quite hide, within seconds. His eyes held a question, plus a glitter of interest Jazz had seen too many times before.
Dan McKillop liked women. And he was confident women liked him.
She realized she was staring. Of course she was. His confidence regarding women wasn’t misplaced.
“I’m Jazz O’Reilly,” she said, stepping forward to shake his hand. He had a nice grip, firm, but not overlong. “I thought you’d be older,” she blurted out, afraid he might think her stare meant she was hitting on him.
Why wouldn’t he think that? He looked like a short-haired Keith Urban and had money. Women probably threw themselves at him every day.
Well, Jazz wouldn’t be one of them. Men with money were nothing but trouble for women without it. She could thank the casinos and her mother for that particular life lesson.
He let go of her hand. The smile threatening the corners of his mouth stiffened before it had a chance to fully engage. The interest in his eyes flickered out of existence. “I assumed from your name that you’d be a man, so it turns out we’ve both been surprised. I’m going to have to rethink the sleeping arrangements at the base.”
She hadn’t considered he might not know she was a woman. Firefighting communities were tight-knit and she was one of a very small number of women in an already small pool of smokejumpers. Everyone knew everyone else, or at the very least, knew of them.
She swallowed a fresh wave of homesickness. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to rely on the people she worked with—both in Helena and Missoula—or how sheltered from real life she’d become, which was beyond ridiculous. She was a grown woman who leaped from airplanes without a second thought. She fought forest fires. And she ran into burning buildings—not from them.
“Whatever arrangements you have in place will be fine. I’m used to bunking with men,” she said, and yes, she knew how that sounded. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to deliver that line. She braced for the inevitable joke, but it never came.
“We’ll find a way to make do for now. Everything is a little chaotic around here,” Dan confessed, his expression rueful. His gaze flitted around the unfinished room with its sawhorses, stacks of lumber, and exposed sheetrock. “Luckily, the airfield was already in place before we took ownership of the ranch, and we’ve started to upgrade the three hangars, although the sleeping quarters are still a bit tight. The beds are wedged together and there’s no real kitchen installed yet. There’s a portable outhouse for a toilet and we’ve rigged up an outdoor shower with a hose. You’ll have to use the laundry services in Grand until we get the plumbing sorted out.” An eyebrow shot up. The smile returned. “Want to change your mind?”
He threw it down like a challenge.