“He passed,” Damien said, interrupting them without compunction. “No worries. No fuss. He flew us home tonight. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you!”
Spencer grinned, obviously insufferably pleased with himself, and then reached for Theo’s hand. “Yes, I’m a genius pilot, and we all love me. But hush! We’re missing it!”
“Of course,” Theo said, looking at Damien and Preston meaningfully.
They nodded and sat, stretching their legs out to the fire and cracking their own beers while Theo sank down in the chair next to Spencer and rested his hand, palm up, for Spencer to lace fingers with him.
And with that touch, that warm and kind touch from the man he loved, the whole world held its breath.
Spencer and Theo—and Damien and Preston—looked up to the west, over the hills, as the orange sun sank into a luxurious pink and fluffy bed of clouds, and night pulled a purpling blanket over it in sleep.
For five minutes, there was nothing but the warmth of Spencer’s hand in his, Colonel’s patient breaths, and that breathtaking appreciation that they’d all seen another day come safely to a close.
When it was over, and they were left in twilight with the crackling fire at their feet, Damien broke the silence with a soft-voiced, “Amen,” and they all echoed him.
Spencer was the one who’d started that, the moment of holy gratitude for the sun and the moon and the stars and the sky. Glen, Damien, Elsie—even the two new pilots, who had come out here too over the summer—all seemed to hold the same reverence, and Theo wondered if it was one of those things that came with being a pilot, like the vulnerable hearts that Cash had talked about that long-ago, wonderful, terrible moment in the hospital.
Conversation started up then, and Preston and Damien disappeared to help Belinda and Oscar bring the food out to the picnic table. Damien paused to click on the electric pole light Preston had installed as well, and for a moment Theo and Spencer were the only ones out there under the chilly purple sky.
“Theo?” Spencer said softly.
“Yeah?”
“Back when we were starting out, I dreamed of this. You and me out here watching the sunset, having a beer, with Colonel at our feet.”
Theo’s smile went all the way to his eyes—to his heart. “Yeah?”
“It’s my favorite dream. Every day we can do this, it comes true.”
Theo closed his eyes. “God, I love you.”
“Me too.”
They held hands in the quiet then, listening to the crackle of the flames. The lovemaking would come later, after the family dinner, and it would be wonderful, as it always was between them.
But that moment—that perfect moment—was one of many that let Theo know that Spencer’s arrival into his life may have been a complete accident, but the relationship they’d forged and the life they’d been building together was anything but chance.
Happiness didn’t just fall out of the sky like random helicopter pilots. Theo and Spencer had needed to work long and hard for that elusive dream.
And every time they watched a sunset together, Theo gave thanks, once again, that their happiness had come true.
THIS was posted on my Patreon about a month before I started writing Hidden Heart—just in case you were wondering why Spencer’s story about how he came to be living on Preston’s property was so detailed…
Rescue
By Amy Lane
“SHIT!” Spencer called over coms. “We’ve got another one. Elsie and I have fuel—we’re going in!”
“Goddammit!” Glen caught his breath as a vicious updraft caused by smoke, heat, and wind rocked the refurbished Black Hawk, and Damien, sitting next to him, swore.
“Where are they at?” he asked tersely.
“Out of Napa. Let’s get these guys to shelter and fuel up. This wildfire is moving like, well—”
“If you say wildfire, I’ll beat you,” Damien muttered. Another blast of smoky wind rocked them, and he shut up. Mother Nature was not fucking around with these wildfires, and apparently even bad jokes to lighten the mood were off-limits.
“C’mon, motherfucker, c’mon, motherfucker,” Glen chanted, wrestling the stick in his hands. The frightened people who’d been rescued at the edge of the lake as the fire had closed in on them couldn’t hear them over the sound of the chopper’s blades, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Glen’s arms ached from hanging on to the stick, his lungs and eyes burned from the smoke, and his heart ached from seeing half his state go up in flames while all he and his friends could do was bail out campers and residents who hadn’t been given nearly enough warning to flee. At this point Glen didn’t give a damn what the people in the back thought of him, as long as he got the helicopter down and the passengers safely delivered and could launch into the air quickly enough to get the next batch.
And as long as the next call wasn’t from his brother.
They had just landed at a field outside of San Francisco, where other refugees from the fires were grouping, exhausted and terrified and still coughing from the smoke. He and Damien were running a check over the helicopter while it refueled, making sure it was good to go in the air again, when Damien swore.
He was looking at his phone in agony, and he met Glen’s gaze with grim determination.
“It’s heading there?” Glen asked.
Damien nodded. “They’ve already started loading the truck with crates to get the dogs out, and they’re about to hook up the horse trailers,” he said. Both of them took deep breaths and quickened their pace.
Preston was in trouble.
PRESTON and Damien had outlined the evacuation procedure very specifically. Damien had been stressed—Preston could tell.
Preston could not fathom flames overtaking his grandmother’s vast acreage, but a sheriff’s deputy had just stopped by to tell them that the flames were ten miles away and they should think about heading out.
Now Preston was stressed.
He, Oscar, and Belinda worked quickly, putting the small dog crates in the back of Belinda’s van and the big dog crates—as many as they could fit—in the back of Oscar’s two-ton pickup. They’d had to pack their belongings—their go-bags, their electronics, their personal items—in between the dog crates, because even though Preston had a truck, there was no guarantee they could fit every last damned dog in the vehicles they had.
The thought of leaving dogs here in crates made Preston’s breath come hard and his brain fuzz out. They had to get all the dogs out.
They just had to.
He and Oscar sent Belinda out first, with a minivan full of dog beds and the horse trailer hitched to the back. She and Oscar shared a frantic, tearful “be careful” kiss through the window as she left. As they kissed, Preston could see the flames over the trees on the horizon, and they all caught their breath at the roar of a water plane passing over their heads, recently filled from a skim over their nearby lake.
The plane dropped its cargo on the approaching flames, but Preston’s momentary excitement gave way to despair when another line of flames appeared.
He and Oscar looked at each other in absolute fear.