Logan Crawford only slept well in two places. On the ground on the side of a mountain, with his pack for a pillow, or in a short takeoff and landing fixed-wing aircraft.

Smoke in the air.

Logan leaned back against his seat, the vibration so familiar now that he hardly rested when he couldn’t hear the rumble of an airplane engine or feel the hard ground of the backcountry.

This was what he’d been born to do.

He’d discovered in the last few years that he could fight fire anywhere, but he needed the rush of jumping. The flap of the parachute above him. There was nothing like the feel of falling through the air. Couldn’t find that in a town like Last Chance County, fighting residential fires as part of a rescue squad with his twin, Bryce. Being back home had been great, but there was nothing like smokejumping.

“I see the header!” their spotter, Mark, called out down the plane. Then he trained his binoculars on the copilot window, his attention on their target while his long gray hair hung down his back.

Logan glanced at the cockpit, also occupied by the pilot, who was a retiree who’d flown for JPATS for years. According to Neil, flying a bunch of rowdy smokejumpers wasn’t so different from flying transports between judicial districts and correctional institutions for the US Marshals. Thankfully, Neil didn’t have to fear for his life if something went wrong.

At least, not beyond the normal perils of being a wildland pilot.

The smokejumper boss, Jade Ransom, hefted herself out of her seat and went to speak with Neil and Mark. She’d been Logan’s jump boss at the end of last season in Montana and had moved back up here with her boyfriend Crispin in the offseason.

They weren’t the only ones who’d come north.

“Almost there, right?”

Logan glanced at the smokejumper in the seat next to him. Orion Price was another one of the people he knew from Ember, Montana. A rookie smokejumper this year, and with his brown hair and blue eyes, the kid looked like a college student. Young, but not as young as one of their hotshots, Mack. “Nervous?”

Orion said, “You ever look out the window of the plane and wonder why you thought this was a good idea?”

No way. Nervous, but trying to hide it. “You trained plenty for this and passed the qualifiers,” Logan said over the drone of the plane engine. “You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t earned it by proving you can do the job.”

Logan gritted his teeth, steering with the toggles. He picked a spot on the ground before the tree line where something had flashed in the sunlight. He aimed for it like a beacon, aptly named because the red metal glinted in the sun. Not a house or cabin…

It was a car.

Same color as hers. As if God would land him right in her path.

Jamie.

I know You don’t work like that. I’m not just going to bump into her. Alaska is a big place, even if she’s nearby.

But the need to see her—to know she was safe—gave him what he needed to focus. To fight the wind with enough strength he landed just shy of the trees. His boots hit the dirt road hard, and he caught the tumble, only a little wince. Pretty glad no one saw that. It was the wind’s fault.

Logan shoved off his helmet and got his chute gathered up, both of which he tucked in his packout bag.

He tugged the radio from the same bag and turned the dial. He couldn’t see anyone else on the team now. Had they all made it to the jump spot on the other side of that hill? “Jade, this is Logan. Come in.”

He stomped off the frustration by heading over to look at the car. Not even the same make and model as Jamie’s. Abandoned, like the cabin behind him. A wreck, with the roof caved in and half the porch under debris. No one had lived here in years.

The radio crackled in his hand. “Yeah, Logan. Can you hold, over?”

Logan frowned. “What’s going on, Jade?”

He leaned on the car and peered in the window. Not an abandoned vehicle. Someone who’d run out of gas, maybe? A terrifying thought in the middle of nowhere. He peered in the window and spotted a duffel on the backseat. The paperwork on the dash indicated it was a rental, but he knew that bag. Oh no.