“Not with the fire coming this way.”
“Maybe the firefighters have it under control by now. Maybe the winds have—”
“They haven’t, Kel. Damn it, I know you don’t want to do this, but you don’t have a choice.”
“All I want to do is keep my son safe.”
“That’s why we’re going to do this my way.”
She didn’t have anything to say about that. Instead, she stood there, staring at him as if she were the one dangling a hundred feet above the ground—and he’d just cut her cable.
“We don’t have a choice,” he repeated.
“If anything happens—”
“Nothing’s going to happen,” he snapped.
Raising her hand to her mouth, she covered it as if to muffle a sound. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him,” she whispered.
“Kelly…damn it—”
“I’ll never forgive you. I swear, if something happens to him, I’ll never forgive you.”
The urge to go to her was strong, but Buzz knew that would be a mistake. Instead he steeled himself against the fear he saw in her eyes, against the tremulous voice and shaking shoulders—and his own need to make her understand that it would be infinitely more dangerous for them to stay.
Instead, he simply walked away.
Chapter 15
K elly watched the bright orange smoke from the flare curl into the morning sky only to be swept away by the wind at treetop level. In the distance, she could hear the rumble of the Pratt and Whitney engines and the whop-whop-whop of the chopper’s rotors cutting through the air. A few feet away, Buzz fitted Eddie with a safety harness the chopper had dropped on a fly-by a few minutes earlier, adjusting it to fit his smaller frame.
“What happens if the cable breaks?” Eddie asked the question with the same unconcerned nonchalance as if he were asking about the weather.
“The cable won’t break.” Buzz slipped the harness between the boy’s small legs, then tightened the straps at his waist. “It’s steel. And you’re not exactly tubby.”
“I weigh forty-two pounds,” Eddie put in.
Kelly watched the exchange, wishing desperately they didn’t have to use a cable—steel or otherwise, to get her little boy into the chopper. Her hand shook when she reached out and ruffled her son’s hair. “How you doing, kiddo?”
“Fine, Mommy. I’m not even scared.”
She was feeling the same sick panic as the first time she’d had to leave him at daycare when he was nine months old—only this time it was multiplied exponentially because seeing him dangle from a cable one hundred feet above jagged rock was nothing compared to leaving him with Mrs. Hemmelgarn. She thought it ironic that her son was so brave when she felt as if she were coming apart inside. She glanced at Buzz. “What about a helmet?”
“We don’t have one.”
“I’ve got a really hard head, Mommy.” As if to prove the point, Eddie rapped on the top of his head with his knuckles while opening and closing his mouth, making hollow sounds.
“That’s what I thought,” Buzz said.
Eddie looked at him and grinned. “What?”
Buzz grinned back. “Your head is hollow.”
“Is not!”
Kelly wasn’t sure how she managed it, but she laughed. At least she thought it was a laugh. Anything was better than the terror that had her tied up in little knots. She was so worried she could have lain down on the ground and cried, but the last thing she wanted to do was scare her son at a time like this.
Kneeling in front of Eddie, she zipped his jacket closed then kissed the tip of his little nose. “Buzz is going to take good care of you.”
“I know. He showed me his muscles this morning. They’re big.”
If she hadn’t been on the verge of tears, she would have rolled her eyes. As it was, she barely managed a smile.
“Don’t be scared, Mommy.”
She did laugh then and wondered when her four-year-old child had become so perceptive. “I’m not scared, honey.”
“Are, too. The end of your nose is all red.”
Blinking back tears she didn’t want either male to see, she hugged him to her and held him tight. “You’re the smartest little boy in the whole world,” she whispered. “I love you, puppy face.”
“Love you, too, Mommy.”
She pulled away and rose, her eyes seeking Buzz’s. He stood several feet away, his head craned up as if trying to spot the chopper. He was wearing a harness. Kelly tried not to notice the way the straps at his hips accentuated his male attributes, but she did and the realization that she could notice something like that at a time like this made her realize just how bad she had it for her ex-husband.
Putting the last touches on his harness, Buzz jerked his gaze to hers and walked over to her. “He’s in good hands, Kel.”
“Don’t let him get hurt,” she said, fighting tears.
“He’s not going to get hurt.”