Flying Home (7 page)

“Yes, it is,” she said, sitting a bit straighter. “And it’s free. There’s no student loans for living your life.”

“Said like someone who has student loans?”

“Whew, yes, some,” she admitted. “But I did receive a few very good scholarships to help out along the way.”

“I take it you were good in school?”

“Good enough. How about you?”

He grimaced and felt the bandages on his wound tug at the skin around them. “I hated it. I graduated high school just because my mother wouldn’t let me drop out.”

“But you’ve got the company and from what I heard from Moses, you’re incredibly gifted when it comes to construction and design.”

He settled his head against the back of the seat and let his eyes close. “Moses is a talker. No, I don’t have a gift, just a knack for picking things up and doing them.” He sighed heavily. “You did it the right way by getting a degree.”

“I’m actually thinking of going back to school to work on some sub specialties.”

“For what?”

“Simply put, to get a broader base to work with the needs of emotionally challenged children.”

He whistled, a low, soft sound in the cabin. “I’m impressed.”

“I haven’t done it yet. I’m still trying to recover from just getting my degree and being certified.”

He liked her voice, and wanted her to keep talking while he settled more. “It was a lot of work?”

“Yes, but it was worth it.”

“Financially?”

“I wish. No, the salary’s okay, but the payoffs aren’t money related.”

“Such as?”

“I was able to come home to Wolf Lake, where I’ve wanted to be since forever, and I’m actually renting the house I always dreamed of living in when I was little. I’m going to try to buy it, if the owner, Willie G., ever decides to sell.”

“Willie G.,” he murmured, as an image of the old man with long gray hair and darkly weathered skin came to him. Willie had been a fixture in Wolf Lake for as long as Gage could remember, and long before that. “Willie G. doesn’t sell anything. He’s into keeping all he can for his people on the Rez.”

“Oh,” she said and in that single word he heard real disappointment.

“But you never know,” he found himself adding. “He might get to like you, and want you to stick around and let you buy the place. By the way, which piece of land is it? He’s bought up a lot of Wolf Lake.”

“An old Victorian two story. It’s blue, just like it was when I was a kid.”

“The one on the side street near the inn that Mallory Sanchez owns and runs?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“I heard he bought it years ago off Momma Dot, a teacher who used to work at the Rez school.”

“Good to know,” she said. “I used to pass it as a kid and make up all sorts of scenarios about it, like who lived there and me buying it and...” Her voice trailed off. “I guess we’ll see what he’ll do down the road sometime.”

“Yes,” he said, not adding that he hoped they both had another chance to meet up with Willie. “Where’s my headpiece?” he asked, deftly changing the subject again.

“Here somewhere,” she said, and he felt her moving, then the seat by him shifting. He opened his eyes, watching her intent on what she was doing. She turned back to him and held out the headpiece, but he waved it off. “You put it somewhere safe. It’s no use to us now.”

He watched her slip it in a side compartment by the backseat, and he asked as she moved back to the prone seat, “Why is Wolf Lake so special to you?”

She didn’t speak for a bit, but finally said, “It’s always been home to me, and with my stepfather being in the military, we never put down permanent roots anywhere after we left Wolf Lake. Just places we stayed for a few months, or if we got lucky, a year. But no home.”

“That must have been difficult,” he said softly.

“That’s an understatement. I went to eleven schools before I graduated high school. The only time I stayed put was for college, and that was staying in a dorm room with three other students, taking as many credits as I could every semester and working to get extra money.

“When I was done, I simply didn’t want to move again, not until the offer from Wolf Lake came in. Then, I got to go back home, and I’m being paid for it, at least for two years.”

“Then what?” He really wanted to know what path she had planned.

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “I’ve never come up with an answer for that even for myself. But I really hope I can stay with the center in some capacity.” She sighed. “And maybe buy Willie G.’s house.”

The wind and snow shook the plane violently, and he realized how effective the pills were. Any pain from the sharp jerks was lost in a mellow haze. But Merry gasped, and gripped the sides of the prone seat.

“Tell me we aren’t near any chasms or cliffs,” she demanded with a panic-stricken look on her face.

“Just trees, lots of trees, especially that big one.” He didn’t know what was beyond the trees and snow, but he didn’t mention that.

“I know, and it’s six feet away.” She sat back again and said, “Six whole feet.”

“A miss is as good as a mile,” he said. “In any event, you need to get those thermals on, then we should get ready for the night.” He watched her tense up again, and he was almost grateful that he suddenly felt incredibly tired. His eyes fought to close as he rested back against the seat. But he kept them open.

“The thermals,” she repeated and moved to pull them into her lap.

“Use first class, and I’ll close my eyes.” He almost smiled as she hesitated. “I promise not to peek and I’m a man of my word. I keep my promises.”

Her face fell, and she bit her lip hard. Wrong thing to say, he realized, when she murmured, “At least one of us does.”

“Hey,” he said brightly. “You meant that promise. You did everything you could to make it happen. No one can expect more from you than that, even kids.”

She closed her eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them, looking at him now. “
I
expected more,” she said on a whisper, then shifted to the front of the seat and levered the back to an upright position. Without saying anything else, she shrugged out of her suede jacket, then grabbed the hem of her top and started to tug it up without saying anything to him.

That’s when he did keep his promise and closed his eyes. He didn’t open them again, until he heard her say, “All done.”

When he looked at her, she appeared pretty much the same, except she’d either taken the tie off her ponytail, or her hair had come free in the process of changing clothes. Either way, her thick hair fell a few inches past her shoulders, and even in the dimness, he could catch the coppery streaks in it.

Her seat back went down again, and she scooted into a comfortable sitting position. She looked at him expectantly. The soft waves of her hair framed her face, and he didn’t even try to rationalize why his only thought right then was that she was stunning. No fancy clothes or makeup, and she looked incredible there on the seat, watching him.

“Okay, let’s get ready,” he said, and as her expression seemed a bit strained, he was almost thankful for the heaviness in his eyes. He needed to sleep, despite her worries about a concussion. “There’s a side panel back here. Open it and get out the blankets and a thermal wrap, then we’ll turn the heater off for a while.”

He pushed himself to keep an eye on her, until she’d retrieved the items he’d asked for. “Got them,” she said a few moments later.

“Good,” he replied as she faced him with the supplies in her hands. Yes, she sure was beautiful.

CHAPTER SEVEN

W
HEN
M
ERRY
HANDED
him a blanket, she was so close to Gage that she could see the pulse beating in the hollow of his throat. She quickly looked away and accidentally dropped the blanket on his lap. His eyes were on her, measuring her in some way she didn’t understand, but she could tell that the medication was having an effect. “Sorry,” she said, reaching for the blanket.

His hand moved to hold it where it landed. “Let it be,” he almost whispered. “Now, we need to figure out the food situation.”

“There are energy bars and suckers in the first-aid kit,” she offered.

“If you could shut down the heater first, and then grab some bars and a couple bottles of water, we’ll move on to the blankets.”

She moved carefully to the console and soon returned with the water and snacks. Putting the bottles of water in the cup holders, she found the seat lever, and tilted it as far as possible, making the seat not as flat as the front seats, but enough to make things much more comfortable for both of them.

She stretched out by Gage and could tell that any heat she felt had to be from his body. The air in the rest of the cabin was cooling off quickly.

He looked so much more peaceful now than he had before, and she felt a degree of relief, then he whispered something she didn’t quite hear. She leaned closer to him, asked, “Pardon,” and heard him say softly, “Listen.” Frowning, she stared at him, his eyes closed.

“To what?” she asked, then knew.

Nothing. She couldn’t hear the wind or the snow blowing against the plane anymore. To check she looked out the side window. “Oh, wow,” she breathed. “Storm’s over.”

As she turned back to Gage, his eyes opened and his mouth curved into a slightly goofy smile that she suspected had a lot to do with the medication.

“Wonderful, isn’t it?”

She wondered if he meant the current weather conditions or the pain pills. Either way, his smile was endearing, and if his ribs hadn’t been broken, she knew that she would have hugged him then and there.

“Absolutely wonderful,” she agreed and hugged herself. “Now we just wait,” she said, feeling a tiny spark of renewed hope.

“And stay warm,” he added softly.

“Yes, definitely, stay warm.”

Gage pointed at the blankets and she grabbed them. She shook out the top blanket, surprised to find that it sounded like crinkling plastic but felt like thermal material, colored a deep orange. It barely weighed anything. The other one was what she’d call a “real” blanket, soft and heavy, in a pale blue color.

“You’d better take off your shoes, then settle back and put the orange blanket over the blue blanket.”

Merry glanced at him, found his eyes still closed, and then followed his instructions. Her boots hit the floor first before she tackled the blankets. Once they were in place, she repositioned herself in the seat. “Now what?”

“Scoot closer this way, then tuck the blankets around your legs and feet, as far under your body as you can.”

Closer? She didn’t have to ask what he meant, but felt oddly reluctant to get too close. She slid a few inches in his direction and jumped when he said, “I won’t bite. Promise.”

He was looking very comfortable, with the blankets up to his chin and his eyes closed. Without saying anything, she moved over until his side was against hers and she could feel his body heat. That was the idea, she knew, and accepted it. “Good,” he murmured. “Much better.”

Awkwardly, she tucked the blankets all the way around Gage’s other side, then his feet, and then she finally started tucking herself in until she was laying back, feeling as if she was in a cocoon.

“Done,” she announced. A few minutes passed before she asked the question that was the equivalent of the elephant in the room. “Gage, what happens if they never find us?”

“They’ll find us.”

“But what if—?”

“What if the sun doesn’t come up? Nothing we could do about that, is there?” His voice was low and showed no sign of anger or impatience. “They’ll find us. It’s all up to them now. We got down in one piece,” he finished, ignoring the elephant completely.

“Yes, yes we did,” she said, feeling grateful. They were both alive and relatively unscathed.

He caught her off guard by saying, “Sort of like Gilligan’s Island, isn’t it? They started on a three hour tour and look what happened to them. All we had to get through was two hours.”

But there’s only two of us,
she thought, but kept it to herself. Then again, he’d gotten them down, and he seemed to know what he was doing. “Old TV shows aside, what can we do if no one ever shows up?” She needed to say it and she needed to get an answer.

* * *

G
AGE
DESERVED
HER
prodding after he’d so glibly thrown out the idea before that flying was so much safer than driving. Now, they were living the exception that broke that rule. “Okay, worst case scenario, we’re stuck here and we’ll have to walk out. But we won’t have to face that for a few days, if ever.”

Gage turned his head to the side until he could see her. She was like reading an open book. She was processing what he’d said, and coming to the conclusion that it might not be all that hopeless. When she finally spoke, he knew he was partially right.

“So we wait, then find a path to get down the mountain.” Before he could agree and hope she’d drop the subject, she hit him with, “If not, we end up here forever.” He could see the unsteadiness in her chin and tears at the corners of her eyes.

“No,” he said emphatically. “No!” That got her attention and her eyes widened slightly as she turned more toward him. “We are not here forever. You are going to get back to Wolf Lake to see your kids, and I’m going to get back there to do my job and see my family. It’s that simple. They’ll find us, and we’ll go home.”

Boy, whatever had hit her in those words hit her hard and she started to sob. With her hands covering her face, she cried like her heart was broken. He tried to shift more toward her, but found even the pills couldn’t stop the pain in his left arm when he moved. Slowly, pacing himself, he got his arm over his body until he could rest his hand on her shoulder.

When he made contact, she moved, too, but not away from him, instead, closer to him. Her head was on his right shoulder, her face tucked into his flannel shirt, and her tears were soaking the soft material. She cried so hard she was shaking all over and all he could do was touch her head with his chin and slip his hand to her back. Helpless. He’d never felt so completely helpless in his life.

* * *

M
ERRY
GAVE
IN
TO
every bit of fear and misery that had been building in her since the plane had gone down. She cried so hard she could barely breathe, and hated herself for giving in to her despair. She pressed against Gage, taking comfort in his closeness, and wished she could wake up and find this was all a twisted dream. But it wasn’t. This was her reality, and thank goodness she wasn’t in this alone.

Gradually she wearied of the sobbing, and became aware of the heat and strength she was nestling up against, and the arm wrapped protectively around her, never faltering. And a voice so low it seemed made just for her ears.

“We’ll be okay, we will. I promise.”

She hiccoughed sharply, gulping back the tears, but she didn’t move away. She let him hold her, and she closed her eyes tightly, letting his heat seep into her. In that fleeting moment, she felt safer than she’d felt in her whole life. It was crazy, laying with a stranger, a man who hadn’t wanted her on his plane at all, yet a man who had ended up being her only hope of getting home.

She slowly moved back, easing into the cold leather, not able to look at Gage right then. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said in a voice that she barely recognized.

“Nerves are nerves, even if you’re a shrink.”

She grimaced at his choice of words, and let her head rest against the back of the seat. “Yes, they are,” she admitted.

Gage brought the blanket back up near their chins. They were side by side now, his arm gone from around her, but his heat was still there. And she needed it desperately. “We’ll be okay,” he repeated.

She breathed deeply several times, an attempt to calm herself and regain control of her emotions. No words would come, so she merely nodded. And as she lay there next to Gage, something he’d mentioned before came back to her. “You...you said you had a job in Wolf Lake?”

“Hmm?”

“A job, I thought you said you had a job to get to?”

“Oh, yeah, well...a possible job.”

She’d thought he was passing through on his way to another job close to Wolf Lake, or something like that. “In Wolf Lake?”

“That’s right.”

“What kind of job?”

When she turned her head to see his reaction, their faces were just inches apart. His eyes were closed. “Land development,” he answered.

“Where?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.

“Land south of town—a huge chunk of the Drey spread. Max Drey passed a few years ago, and the family decided to sell. It’s a pristine piece of land, and it’s in the right location for what the powers-that-be in Wolf Lake and the Rez want to do.” He paused. “They asked for a bid from our company to develop the area for an entertainment complex.”

She knew the Drey land and it was beautiful, sprawling and open, the epitome of what she’d always remembered about Wolf Lake when she was a kid. She’d heard rumors about something being done with it, but everyone she’d talked to hadn’t wanted the town invaded by noise and pollution for some project that might never get off ground. Now, a Carson was actually talking about bulldozing his home as if it was just another job.

Staying very still, she asked, “Are you talking about casinos?”

“Exactly.”

“Gage, no!” She abruptly sat up, taking most of the blankets with her. “You can’t.”

He stayed where he was, but his eyes were open now. “What are you talking about?”

“A casino?” She took a deep breath to keep her voice from rising. “No one will want that in town, and how can you in good conscience do that to Wolf Lake, your own hometown?”

She could see that he was confused by what she was saying. “Hold on,” he said, shifting in his seat to look more directly at her. “I was asked to come, to give a bid, to show a design model. I didn’t come here to beg for the work.” His face tightened. “Besides, you haven’t been here for years. What makes you so sure about what should or shouldn’t be in Wolf Lake?”

He was right. She’d been gone for twenty years, but that didn’t matter when it came to right and wrong.

In the past, when she’d heard rumors about a possible gambling center, some hotels and restaurants, and more bars, a segment of the town felt it was “progress,” while the majority felt it would never happen. She believed that putting an “entertainment complex” in a place like Wolf Lake would be like poisoning their water wells, then getting the locals to pay to drink it.

“So, I haven’t been there for a long time, but I was born there. And even I know that it’s a bad idea. A really bad idea.”

“Tell the gaming commission and town officials. They asked for it,” he said, closing his eyes. He made a display of stretching his legs, then putting the blankets back in place around him, tucking himself in as best he could. Despite her anger at him, she helped by rearranging them over his legs and feet.

She spoke as she worked, not finished with this diatribe by a long shot. “There are already a lot of problems with gambling and substance abuse in the area, and what you’re doing will only draw in outsiders in droves with only their self-interest at heart. It’s an uphill fight to keep some kids in school, what do you think is going to happen when they start trying to strike it rich gambling or get anything they want right within reach?”

He hadn’t moved while she talked, and she was almost afraid he was purposely ignoring her. But she couldn’t resist finishing with, “You don’t have any concept of how damaging something like this could be to everyone in Wolf Lake.” With that, she laid back down and retucked the blankets around herself.

A few moments later, Gage finally spoke. “I don’t have an opinion on any of that. I’m only here to find out whether or not it’s a good, sound business decision for my firm.”

Merry didn’t buy that. “That is either greed or ignorance, not indifference.”

When Gage spoke again, she didn’t look at him. She stared at the ceiling, but could hear the anger tingeing his words. “I’m a ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ businessman, and this deal feels good to me. Its effects won’t hurt a soul, not if decisions are made reasonably and caution is taken. And there is such a thing as personal responsibility.”

Merry bit her lip and forced herself to keep staring at the shadows. She couldn’t believe that Gage meant what he said. Wolf Lake was where he’d been born and grown up. He couldn’t be that unfeeling about the chance of something bad happening to it.

The kids. She squeezed her eyes tight to keep any more tears from falling. The poor kids. She’d never made it back, and didn’t know when, or if, she could get there. And now this, this catastrophe of a business proposition, shrouded in the idea that it was good for everyone.

Nothing had worked out how she’d expected it to. Sick with worry about the whole situation, about the kids at the center and, unsettlingly, about the man beside her, she tried to relax. This wasn’t the time for arguments anyway. They needed to focus on getting to safety. Gage was her only hope of survival, she owed him so much, and all she could do was give him a hard time about his ethics? She took a deep breath, then glanced to her left and saw Gage. His eyes were open and clear. “You’re doing okay?” she asked.

“Sure,” he murmured and his hand touched hers, as if to reassure her.

“Did we ever figure out if you should even be trying to sleep?”

“No, but I don’t think it matters.” He shifted ever so slightly to angle his body more toward hers. “Just try to put everything out of your mind and get some sleep. Worry doesn’t get you far.”