“Sorr—that’s a hard rule to follow.”
He could hear the lightness return to her voice. What in the world was in her past to make her apologize for everything? And how completely was that none of his goddamn business?
“Do you—” She cut herself off and started again. “You remember that Jeannie’s helo went down after a tree exploded and took out her rear rotor?”
Back then Jeannie had been an MD 500 pilot like himself. One moment they’d been aloft fighting spot fires, and the next she’d been spinning down toward the fire mostly out of control. He shuddered. Jeannie had, by a miracle of piloting, gotten down in one piece, but it had been awful to witness.
“Yeah.” He remembered.
“Well, when I was done servicing her bird that night, there was a meeting around a picnic table. Quite serious. Th
