Flying Home (5 page)

He knew his ribs weren’t right, but he guessed that was from the restraints. And his head, well he’d been told often enough how hard headed he was, so he guessed it was a simple cut. “I’m okay,” he told her.

The exhaled breath said it all. “Good, good,” she murmured and looked back down into the tin.

“What about you?” he asked.

She hesitated, then shook her head. “No blood or lacerations, so I’m fine,” she said. “Just grateful that you knew what to do to get us down.”

“I made a mess of it,” he said flatly. “But any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”

The rapid-fire speech started up again as the wind moaned and drove snow against the plane. “Bandages, antibiotics, wipes, cotton pads, tape. bandages...four, no, five of them.” She pushed aside the perfectly packed supplies. “They even have gum and energy bars, pain pills and lollipops, of all things.”

“We’re covered,” he said, shifting in the seat and feeling a stab of pain on his left side.

She took some things out, laid the tin behind her on her seat, then turned to Gage. “We...we just need to stop the blood, and get a bandage on it.” She reached toward him, the tips of her fingers brushing at his hair, and a frown spread across her face. “You might need stitches.”

“Whoa, you don’t do stitches, do you?”

She drew back. “No, but I think when we get to Wolf Lake you should see your doctor.”

“Good suggestion, when we get there.” He wasn’t going to say anything about “if” they got there. Now wasn’t the time to give her a rundown on what most likely was going to happen.

She tore open a package that held a cotton pad. “I’m going to have to put pressure on the wound, so it might hurt.”

“Go for it,” he said, feeling a trickle of blood on his cheek. “It sure can’t hurt as much as the results of one of Adam’s dares that went wrong.”

She eased the cotton gently onto his wound, her free hand brushing at his hair to clear it from the mess. He winced before he could stop himself. Lots of exposed nerve endings, he thought as he closed his eyes and let her do what she had to do. When she sat back with a sigh, he opened his eyes again. The blood on her hands startled him. She reached for a wipe and started to make the deep red disappear.

“Thanks,” he said gratefully.

“What did Adam dare you to do?” she asked as she finished cleaning her hands, ripped open another package and tore off short strips of adhesive tape.

As she put on the bandage, he told her about his wild, but fun childhood. “The midnight run to the lake, and the cliff we almost fell off of,” he murmured as she wiped at his jaw and neck with a cool cleansing pad. “Adam dared me to do that.”

“I can’t believe you accepted those dares.”

“Sure did. And lived to regret them,” he confessed as she gently fastened the adhesive strips to the cotton pad and his skin.

She moved back a bit and studied him. “You need clean clothes.” She waved vaguely at his jacket and shirt that he knew were ruined. “They’re really...” She crinkled her perfectly straight nose. “Really messy.”

“I wish I had a change of clothes, but...” He shrugged. “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

Unexpectedly, his offhanded quote brought the touch of a smile to her lips. “And I’d need to learn to ride if wishes were horses.”

His own smile nudged at him, despite the pain that seemed to be clamping around his head. “I’d teach you,” he murmured, intrigued by the softening in her face, and how she turned from him as he spoke.

She drew away, maneuvered back to her seat, miraculously getting the tin with the first-aid supplies back on the console before she dropped down in her seat with a whoosh. Finally, Merry glanced over at him. “Just tell me what happened to make us...land,” she said, obviously avoiding the word
crash.
“And what has to be done to get this thing going again.”

He blinked, hoping against hope she was joking. She wasn’t, so he answered her first question. “My best guess is, besides the storm, there was a problem with the electric and the motor was stalling, they couldn’t get in sync again.” He didn’t sugarcoat his next words. “And thankfully it doesn’t smell like there’s any break in the fuel lines, or it could have been a whole lot worse.”

He was going to continue to answer her, but was stricken with a sharp jolt of pain. He stayed very still. He had no choice. His ribs had chosen right then to feel like a hot vise around his chest. He kept that to himself. A broken rib was manageable if there weren’t any other symptoms that developed.

“I wonder how we look from outside,” he said, hating the unsteadiness in his own voice.

He knew the wing on his side had either been ripped off, or had been shredded, and since something was keeping the plane fairly level, shredded was his guess. He’d felt the torque when they hit land before he’d blacked out and come to with Merry over him, talking.

He’d been taught to undo the doors before impact in an emergency crash, and he’d totally forgotten. Now he was glad he had skipped that step. The windows and doors seemed to be intact, keeping out the wind and snow, but the coldness was starting to seep into the interior of the plane. He wasn’t sure how much he could move, but he had things to do, and he needed to do them now.

“Merry?” Gage said slowly, watching her closely. “I need to check the plane.”

“What?” Now her eyes were wide with disbelief.

“I need to see what condition it’s in,” he said as he reached for the door handle by his left side, but that was as far as he got. Merry had his right arm clutched in both of her hands, and was leaning into him. He barely kept from gasping because of the pain and had to will himself to turn very cautiously back to her.

“No,” Merry was saying emphatically, “you can’t. It’s a blizzard out there. You can’t go out.” She was still holding him and he could feel the pressure of her fingers through his jacket sleeve. She looked terrified.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he told her, but didn’t make any move to get free of her hold on him. “I’m just going to go around the plane and get back in.”

“No,” she said again. “You’ll get out there and disappear. You’ll get lost.”

He’d thought she was fairly controlled, that she was dealing with this as well as he could expect her to. But he’d been wrong. That unexpected sense of protectiveness surged through him. “Okay, okay,” he acquiesced, and he felt her fingers ease a bit, but they didn’t let go. “I’ll explain how I’ll do it, and...” He paid the price in acute pain to use his free hand to cover hers resting on his sleeve. “We’ll get through this,” he said simply, never breaking eye contact with her.

He saw her swallow. “Promise?”

“Absolutely. We’ll do it together.” That statement stunned him. He never joined forces with anyone if he could avoid it, but he’d meant what he said. “We’ll get out of here.”

He thought he’d handled that well until Merry sat back and spoke, releasing her grip on his hand.

“Clearly, you know what you’re doing, so sure, of course, you need to see what you have to do to fix the plane. And if you think you’re well enough to do it right now, I’ll help any way I can so we can get out of here sooner rather than later.”

He didn’t know how to word what he had to tell her, but it had to be said, despite the fact that it would wipe away that hopeful look on her face. “It can’t be fixed,” he said as evenly as possible. As the statement hung between them, the hope not only disappeared, but it was replaced by fear. He plunged on quickly. “We’re lucky that the plane seems intact, that there wasn’t a fire, but I need to check it to make sure it’s going to protect us until we can get out of here.”

“How can you do that?”

He had to admit that if he stood up just then, he might fall right back down again. His head was killing him, and nausea was beginning to rise in his belly. “I need to get the straps off,” he said, not answering her question.

The relief from surviving the crash was rapidly being sucked away by the thought of what he had to do and what he most likely couldn’t do. But he had to try. “I have to get out, now,” he said, trying to speak firmly. “Do you understand? I have to get out.”

Her tongue touched her slightly parted lips, then she finally said, “Yes, I do.”

CHAPTER FIVE

“G
OOD
,” G
AGE
SAID
, surveying the cabin. “My hat?”

Merry glanced past him to snatch something off the floor by his feet. His baseball cap had survived unblemished. He took it, slipped it on, and when the band came against his wound, he gritted his teeth and pulled it down. “Can you reach over and get the door handle up for me?”

She didn’t ask why she had to do it when he was so close to it. That saved him from telling her that he couldn’t do it himself and save any chance of further pain. He knew pain, and he knew that after enough of it from his ribs and head, he’d be unable to move at all. So, he had to get this over with as quickly as possible.

She stretched past him, over the console, her jacket brushing across his partially averted face. She twisted the handle, jerked it up and down. With a sigh, she moved back to her seat. “It’s stuck. The handle doesn’t even move much.”

Not opening the doors before impact might not have been so lucky after all. “How about your door?” he asked.

She twisted, grabbed her handle and thankfully it clicked, but just as quickly, it shut again. “The wind, it’s too strong,” she said, staring at him with a “what do we do now?” look.

He struggled to get to his feet, but he pushed beyond it, getting by the console as Merry scooted back in her seat and pulled her legs up to her chest to let him have room to get to the door.

“Okay, pull the handle again,” he said. When he heard the lock disengage, he added, “Push!”

He felt it give, inch by agonizing inch, until it was snatched out of his hand and surged up with a horrendous sound of metal slapping metal. Wind and snow drove into the cabin, followed by air so cold it almost hurt to breathe. He didn’t hesitate, but ducked into the storm and onto the wing. He reached it without letting the biting pain stop him, got to the door, then yelled at Merry. “Get back. It’s going to slam, and slam hard.” And it did as soon as he got it halfway down and let go of it. The force of the slam made the plane shudder.

* * *

M
ERRY
FELT
THE
impact of the door closing, then Gage was gone as if he’d never been there. She waited, willing to hear a sound, anything she could identify as a man moving around, but all she heard was the storm and her own rapid breathing.

She shouldn’t have let him go out there. What could he possibly see? She jumped when there was a metal on metal sound, and held her breath as she waited, but nothing else came. Visions of a piece of the plane hitting Gage bloomed in her mind and she forced herself to close her eyes and lay on the grass, counting bubbles.

She tried to think of something positive, but the only thoughts that came were of the kids and her miserable attempt to keep her promise. That promise was shattered, but she’d make it up to them, she’d do anything it took to make things right, as soon as she could. If she ever could...

It felt like an eternity before Merry heard a heavy thump near her door. Before she could figure it out, the door began to move slowly at first, then quickly. Gage ducked down to look inside. Snow clung to his cap and shoulders. He looked grim and pale, with one hand braced against the door frame. “Move,” he said abruptly. “Get over in my seat.”

She moved as quickly as she could, so thankful to have him back that she would have done cartwheels if he had asked. She dropped into his seat, and had barely turned when she felt the plane shift as Gage dove into the seat she’d just vacated. Less than a breath later, the door slammed with earth shattering force.

He twisted slowly in the seat, then collapsed back against the soft leather, his head on the support, his eyes closed. She started to ask him what he’d found, but stopped when she saw how his jaw clenched and his chest rose and fell rapidly. With an unsteady hand, he pulled off the cap and tossed it behind him. The bandage on his head was dark with blood, and she could see Gage shivering.

He exhaled heavily, and said, “I’m back.”

She felt his jacket. It was sodden and icy. Her eyes flicked over his snow encrusted jeans and books. “You need to get out of those clothes.”

He started to move, then seemed to collapse against the seat. “In a minute,” he said hoarsely.

“What’s wrong?” Immediately, she felt stupid for even asking that when so much was obviously awry.

“Nothing.”

The answer was as bad as her question. “Don’t lie to me,” she said, meaning it. “What’s going on out there?”

“A storm,” he murmured, his eyes still closed.

“The plane, what did you find?” she asked impatiently.

He didn’t answer right away and she couldn’t see his face too clearly with the screens all black and the night sky. The floor lights seemed about as substantial as a flickering candle. “What did you find out there?” she repeated, her nerves getting rawer by the second.

He turned to her and even in the dimness, when his dark eyes met hers, she felt the power of a connection. However, the next words that came from his lips sent her heart plummeting.

“Do you want the good news, or the bad news first?”

* * *

W
HEN
M
ERRY
SAID
SOFTLY
, “Okay, the good,” Gage hated what he had to tell her, but that didn’t stop him. To work together to survive, she had to know everything.

“The good news is...there’s no fire, no fuel leaks, we might be able to get some heat in here, and we ended six feet short of one of the biggest fir trees I’ve ever seen.” He couldn’t even describe to her what he’d felt when he’d discovered how close they’d come to colliding with the huge pine.

As she pressed back against the door behind her, she asked hesitantly, “The bad?”

He took a deep breath and regretted walking around the plane in the heavy snow. It had taken its toll on him. His ribs were tight and sore and every time he moved, he had pain. “The plane is inoperable, one wing is shredded mess, the belly is ripped up, and we’re pretty much being buried by the snow.”

He could see her processing the information. “Okay. So, for sure you can’t fix it?”

“No, it’s done for.”

She was clasping and unclasping her hands. “What can we do? There has to be something we can do. That
you
can do. You know planes. This is your plane...you have to know it and what to do with it.”

He let her go on while he found the seat adjustment lever. Holding his breath, he pulled on it to slowly lower the back of his seat into a reclining position. The pain was worse, and he had almost reached his maximum limit. There was some relief from changing the chair’s angle, however, and he welcomed it. “We will figure this out,” he murmured, closing his eyes again. “Meanwhile, you said there were pain pills in the kit. Could you hand me some, then maybe I can get us a little heat in here.”

“A headache?” she asked.

“Partly,” he hedged.

He heard her rummaging around in the first-aid kit. “It says the dosage is two pills.”

“One.” He didn’t want to have his thinking compromised.

He saw a single white pill on her palm, quivering a bit. He slowly reached for the medication. “There’s bottled water under the seat where the first-aid kit came from.”

She moved quickly, and came back with a bottle of water. He tossed the pill into his mouth, and then washed it down. “Thanks,” he murmured, settling back in the seat again. But as soon as he did, he started to shiver again.

“Heat, you said something about getting heat in here.”

“Yes, I think we can do it, but all it means is we can take the edge off the cold. No raging heat.”

“Whatever,” she said. “Just do whatever you need to do. Or tell me what to do. The sooner you get out of those cold, wet clothes, the better you’ll feel.”

She was right. His clothes and boots were damp and heavy. The shivering wasn’t going to stop until they were gone. “The heater. It’s there.” He motioned to a spot below the main control panel for it. “It might work. I undid the main electric, but I think I remember the sales man telling me it has an emergency setting that isn’t dependent on the main circuitry.”

“All right,” she said. “Relax and let me figure this out.”

He closed his eyes again as she moved around, then he could hear her clicking something. “I think I found it,” she exclaimed.

“Good,” he whispered, all energy draining out of him as the pain intensified. “It’ll take a couple of minutes to either work or not work,” he told her.

He heard a click right before Merry asked hesitantly, “Can I ask you how long you think we’ll be stranded here?”

Gage had no legitimate answer for her question, but told himself to pick a reasonable time span, tell it to her, then get onto the really important issue—survival. Before he could give her an arbitrary hour, long enough for the storm to let up, and time for the GPS signal to be triangulated and the crew to get here, his body was shaken by a violent shiver.

Merry was there, stroking his face, her voice soft, “Oh, Gage, you’re so cold. The heat should be on any minute now.”

He couldn’t talk, not when his teeth were chattering and his body seemed to be trembling inside and out. And the pain seemed to be everywhere. He swallowed hard, feeling sweat trickling down his temple, burning on the wound at his hairline.

“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Merry cooed over and over again, even while he shook uncontrollably. “I just need to get you warm. Warm. The heater.” He heard each word, but her image was out of focus, then gone. “Yes!” The single word echoed in the cabin, and he felt warmth from her hand on his face. “I did it! The heater’s on. It’s on. Warm air is coming out the bottom vents.”

“Good,” he managed again, and meant it when he could feel the hint of heat filling the air. It only made him shiver more as the temperature shifted slowly from cold to almost bearable.

“I did it,” she said as her hand caressed his cheek again.

“Th...th...thanks,” he managed to get out.

Merry put a hand on his shoulder. “Now, take off your clothes.”

He was shaking, but he almost laughed at what she’d said. Almost. Although, that didn’t mean that the pain wracking his body could stop him from smiling. That didn’t hurt. “You...know, it’s b...b...been a while since a w...w...woman said anything like that t...to me.”

Despite his inability to speak smoothly, he was glad to see a slight tilt of her lips “Really? From the reputation that precedes you and your brothers, I’d suspect that it’s happened more than you’re admitting to.” He felt pressure on his arm through the soggy jacket. “Come on, you need to get this off.”

He glanced back over the seat and frowned. He was too tall to move around much where he was, despite the seat being on the incline. “I kn...knew I sh...sh...should have gone for the bigger model,” he muttered.

Without saying anything, Merry shifted toward him, leaning over the console, and started to methodically undo the buttons on his heavy jacket. She was so close he thought he could see the hint of gold in her green eyes as she worked intently and got the jacket open. There was a bit more warmth in the cabin, but he wondered how much of it was her body heat and how much came from the heater that had to be held on low to conserve energy.

“Okay,” she said on a rush of exhaled air. “This is a good start.”

His shivering was letting up, and he could actually speak without too much stammering. “You are a f...f...forward woman, aren’t you?”

She hesitated, and then said, “Get over yourself. It’s just a wet coat...” She bit her bottom lip. “But, if you prefer to do it yourself—”

“No, sorry, I can’t,” he admitted through clenched teeth.

“Oh, no, it’s your ribs, isn’t it?”

He exhaled. “You got me.”

“You should have told me right from the start,” she said, and even in the dim light, he could tell she was annoyed. It didn’t stop her from reaching for his jacket cuff and pulling at it so his arm straightened in her direction. She kept up the tension, allowing him to slowly work his arm free at his own pace.

He had to twist a bit to get out his other arm, but the pill must have begun kicking in. The pain seemed a bit muffled and he managed to get free of the sodden garment without too much more discomfort. Afterward, Merry reached behind him, tugged the garment off of the seat, and held it up in her hand. “Where should it go?”

He considered that as he relished the touch of light heat on his bare arms. His first reaction was to throw the jacket outside, but that wasn’t a wise one. “Hang it on the back of your seat and it might have a chance of drying out.”

Once that task was done, Merry sat back, looking at him in the dimness. She flicked her gaze over him, and he didn’t miss her grimace when she saw his shirt was covered with blood around the collar. He’d carefully felt for the lever and very slowly raised it to a partial sitting position. At any other time, he wouldn’t think twice about crossing his arms, grabbing the bottom hem of the shirt and pulling it up and over his head to get it off. But that move would be impossible with his ribs.

As if she’d read his mind, Merry went to the first-aid kit, rummaged through it, then turned to him with the world’s smallest scissors in her hand. “You do have clothes back in storage, don’t you?” When he nodded, she said, “Let’s get that shirt off. It’s ruined anyway.”

“You sure do cut right to the chase,” he said. “Pun intended.”

Her expression softened, but no smile came. “Military training, do anything fast and right, without too much loss,” she muttered as she reached for the hem of his shirt with the scissors.

“You were in the army?” he asked as she started to cut, the back of her hand holding the material away from his body, but in the process brushing along his abdomen.

“Not me. My stepdad. He’s in the air force, over in Germany until May. Then they’re going to be sent to Portugal for some mysterious reason.” While she spoke, she neatly cut the shirt from the bottom to within inches of his throat. Pausing, she hooked one finger in the neck and pulled it back a safe distance before making the final cut. “Don’t worry...I’m good with scissors,” she assured him as she sat back and let the split shirt fall open on his naked chest. “I hardly ever draw blood.”