The Rescue Pilot

by Rachel Lee

  But not for long. Not for long at all.

  He slid up and over her, his staff seeking entrance. She reached down to help him, finding him sheathed in latex, knowing a momentary pang that there was something between them, however necessary.

  And then he slipped into her, filling her, answering that ache for his swollen member. How could she have forgotten how good it felt to be filled and stretched this way? Had it ever felt this good?

  His mouth clamped to her breast again, making her feel as she were one long wire of exquisite feeling, as if nothing existed but his hardness driving into her and his mouth tormenting her.

  He plunged again and again, rotating gently in a way that caressed her swollen knot of nerves.

  Higher and higher until…until everything vanished except the peak they strove for. Until nothing existed but the pleasure between them.

  She sucked in a sharp breath, feeling it happen. Nerve endings exploded everywhere, a hard ache turning to incredible release that rolled through her like ocean wave after ocean wave.

  Endlessly.

  “Damn, Rory,” he panted by her ear. “Damn.”

  She doubted that she could move a muscle. Talking seemed like way too much effort. “Something wrong?” she managed thickly.

  “God, no! I’ve never…”

  “Me, either,” she mumbled.

  He groaned. “Sorry.”

  She almost protested when he rolled off her. She didn’t want him gone, but understood. She was growing cold. He had to take care of things…?.

  It was the cold that brought her completely back. He found a candle on one of the shelves and lit it. By its dim flickering light, he untangled the heap of clothes on the floor and quickly started helping her to dress.

  As soon as she was clothed again, he donned his own garments. Then he laid down with her and pulled the blankets over them, snuggling her close as warmth returned.

  “You’re amazing,” he murmured, and kissed her.

  “So are you. I’ve never…” She didn’t want to say it, but she didn’t need to.

  She snuggled into his embrace, her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “Thank you for everything.”

  “I think you got that the wrong way around.”

  “I hope you think so.”

  He squeezed her and shifted a bit so that his leg lay between hers. “I really do want to date you after all this is cleared up.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “I mean, I realize it’ll be tough with you a country away and all, but I do have wings.”

  “You’ll need to persuade some of your clients to check out the oil biz in Mexico. All so that we can eat tortillas and drink tequila together.”

  “Oh, I think we’ll do more than eat tortillas.”

  She smiled. “Probably.”

  “No probably about it. Now try to get some sleep, darlin’. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later.”

  Now she didn’t want to sleep for another reason. She wanted to savor the afterglow, to remember each detail of what had just happened so she could take it out and enjoy it again and again no matter what happened.

  But she really hadn’t had enough sleep, and despite her efforts to hold it off, it claimed her almost without warning.

  Wendy and Yuma let them sleep until suppertime. When Rory emerged from the bedroom, having stepped in the bathroom to wash quickly with some paper towels and icy water, she found Cait awake and sipping another hot beverage. Playing cards were laid out, even in front of Cait.

  “She’s been playing rummy with us,” Wendy said brightly.

  Something in that bright tone alerted Rory. She took a second look at Wendy. “What?”

  “Cait’s a little more congested. We’ve been working on it.”

  That didn’t sound good, but Rory didn’t want to ask in front of Cait for fear of adding to her stress. “Should I tent her more often?”

  “Yeah,” Wendy said. “And if she starts to sound tight again, wake me, okay?”

  That was not good. The last lingering bit of afterglow fled as she slid into a seat beside Cait. “Playing rummy, huh?”

  Cait gave a little nod. “Sort of. They were helping me.”

  Rory studied her sister’s face and didn’t like what she saw. Cait’s eyes appeared too bright, and her color, so pale for so long, had risen. Fever. She wanted to reach out and check, but again hesitated for fear of adding to Cait’s concerns. She glanced up at Chase and saw him frowning.

  “I’m going to go try the damn radio and GPS again,” he said. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  So he was worried enough to struggle with equipment, even though he knew it probably wouldn’t work until the storm had passed. Or even then.

  Because it was beginning to seem to Rory, although she was no expert, that the amount of atmospheric disturbance required to keep them totally out of touch this long was probably not normal.

  And Chase’s march into the cockpit seemed to substantiate that.

  When he returned twenty minutes later, he gave her a shake of his head. “We need to eat.”

  A totally different topic. And now her fears had ratcheted up another notch, something she would have thought impossible. Guilt speared her, too. When she had gone to take her nap, Cait had actually seemed a little better, a little stronger. Now she could only kick herself for not being beside her sister when she was obviously getting sicker.

  It was a stupid thought, as if she could have prevented this. Wendy had done everything possible while they were stuck in this trap. She didn’t doubt it, so why beat herself up over it?

  Yuma had apparently made dinner before waking them. Chase heated what was left over with candles. Cait stirred and agreed to another cup of tea.

  It was so little to do for her sister, so very little. She felt the worst urge to indulge in a primal scream just to ease the tension.

  Chase brought out more muffins, too. Rory ate without tasting, in between getting more sips of heavily sweetened tea into Cait, and encouraging her to eat some muffin.

  “I never ate so much sweet stuff at one time,” Cait whispered.

  “Enjoy. They’ll probably take it all away from you again at the hospital.”

  Cait managed a smile, then started coughing again. Rory definitely didn’t like the sound of it.

  “I’ll get the tent,” Chase said immediately.

  Once again Rory huddled under the survival blanket while steam filled it from the chafing dish, holding her sister’s hand and pounding her back every few minutes.

  Cait’s congestion had increased; Rory could hear it. Worse, her cough sounded tighter. Pneumonia. The dreaded word could no longer be pushed away.

  Finally, exhaustion claimed Cait, taking her into slumber so deep it approached unconsciousness. Rory sat awhile longer, waving steam toward her sister’s face, but no more coughs came.

  At last she pushed away the blanket and looked at Chase. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I know. But not in the dark. Not until the storm stops. It won’t do anyone a damn bit of good—least of all Cait—if we go out there, get lost, break legs…”

  “I know, I know. I just want some mercy. Just a little mercy.” It sounded exactly like the plea it was: a cry straight from her soul.

  He nodded, his mouth tightening.

  But what could he say? Not a word. “Eat up,” he said after a moment. “You need to pack in as many calories as you can. We may well be hiking out of here early.”

  She nodded. She didn’t want to think of all the difficulties that would face them in these mountains. But if the plane wasn’t sending out a locator signal, they couldn’t afford to wait. Not now.

  Her heart sank to her toes.

  Chapter 9

  It happened during the wee hours. Rory had refused to leave Cait’s side even to sleep, so she was dozing beside her sister. A groan awoke her and for a few seconds she couldn’t identify it.

  She turned at once to Cait, who still sl
ept, and noticed that her breathing sounded a little raspy, but not terrible. Evidently, she hadn’t made that sound.

  Then it came again. Chase, who had been slumbering across the aisle sat bolt upright. “Hell,” he said.

  “Chase?”

  He didn’t answer. He jumped up immediately and went to get Wendy and Yuma. A few minutes later they stumbled out of the back cabin, carrying their boots.

  “Everybody get dressed. Everything you’ve got, as many layers as you can. Rory, if you have an extra set of thermal stuff, get it on Cait.”

  She did. Why she had an extra set, she didn’t know.

  At the time she’d bought it, she’d wondered, but for some reason had felt compelled. Maybe because she’d been worried about how cold she would get in Minnesota when she was used to Mexico.

  Wendy helped her before finishing her own dressing. They dug out more survival blankets and tucked them along with every available blanket around Cait.

  “What’s happening?” Rory demanded even as she worked.

  “I’m not sure, but I think we’re about to move.”

  “Why?”

  “Yeah,” Yuma said. “Doesn’t it usually get colder behind a storm?”

  “I don’t know,” Chase said flatly. “I don’t know. But I feel something…” He told them all to buckle into their seats.

  Then he blew out the candles and they waited.

  For a long time nothing happened. Then she heard another groan from the metal around them. Her heart slammed, because this time she thought she felt movement. It was hard to be sure, but her body seemed to have felt a slight slip, the smallest increase in pressure of her back against the seat.

  She gripped the arms of her chair until her fingers ached, her heart rapidly pounding, and waited…waited…

  The next few minutes felt like eternity. Just as she began to hope that nothing more would happen, it did.

  There was a sudden slip, a shriek from metal, she knew a few moments of dizziness, a lurching feeling, and the next thing she was aware of was snow blowing in her face.

  She opened her eyes, but could see nothing at all.

  “Nobody move,” Chase barked. “It might not be over.”

  He was right. Another lurch, another scream from the plane, more icy air and snow whipping about her.

  Then she felt as if she were riding on one of those circular sleds, round and round like a top, only not as fast. A huge crunching sound rent the night, then it all came to a sudden halt that threw her sideways and made her seat belt tight.

  Then nothing. For a long, long time, nothing except the cold and blowing snow. She felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath.

  A light snapped on. Chase had a flashlight. He was still belted into a seat and she could just make him out as he played the beam around the cabin.

  She followed the light, gasping in horror as she saw that the fuselage had torn open. And somehow, impossibly, the very back of the plane seemed to have filled with snow.

  “Don’t anybody else move,” Chase said. “I can’t be sure it’s over. Rory, make sure Cait’s face is covered.”

  She leaned over, aided by his flashlight, and drew one of the blankets over Cait’s face. Amazingly, Cait seemed to have slept through it all. Not good. In fact, terrible. No one should have been able to sleep through that. That frightened Rory so much she leaned over to make sure her sister was still breathing. Yes, she was, but it didn’t sound good.

  Chase shined the light on his watch. “Dawn in two hours. I think our options just grew more limited.”

  “I agree,” Yuma said. “We just lost our shelter.”

  The protection the plane had provided was gone. They were exposed now, as exposed as if they had walked out into the storm.

  “It doesn’t seem to be blowing anywhere near as hard now,” Chase remarked. “It must almost be over.”

  But the rest had only just begun.

  They waited a long time before Chase was convinced that they were probably done moving, at least for a while. Rory jumped up when he said he was going out to see what had happened. She looked at Wendy, who nodded toward Cait, signaling that she would watch her.

  Never built to just wait, Rory joined Chase and Yuma as they clambered through the cracked hull to examine what had happened.

  The plane had turned around somehow as it slid, and had broken in two places: just forward of the port wing and at the tail. In fact, it looked as if the tail had been sheared off as it swung around and hit the trees that earlier had looked so far away.

  “One of the wings must’ve lifted on the wind,” Chase said. “Right as the plane started to slip.”

  They walked back upslope and surveyed the path of the slip. Clearly, the snow under the plane had turned into a sheet of ice. Combined with a few gusts of wind, that had been enough.

  “I guess we’re lucky it didn’t happen sooner,” Yuma remarked.

  “I guess.”

  But Rory noticed something else. “The snow is stopping. The air feels warmer, or am I imagining it?”

  Chase paused and lifted his face. “You’re right.”

  “If it’s been warming,” Yuma said, “that would explain the slip. We were probably frozen in place until then.”

  “Maybe,” Chase agreed. “Okay, we need to get it together. We’re going to have to leave. This isn’t shelter anymore, it’s just additional danger. So we’ve got to gather everything we possibly can, and we need to make a stretcher. Or find a way to tie Cait to my back like a papoose.”

  Rory didn’t object. As sick as Cait was getting, she didn’t want to wait. Plus, it seemed to her they’d all be warmer if they kept moving than they would be if they tried to sit it out now.

  They’d lost their shelter. That didn’t leave a whole lot of options.

  Now that the storm was abating, Chase tried the radio and the GPS once more. Nothing. Somehow, some way, those devices were dead. If any beacon was still broadcasting, it would require homing in on.

  “I figure that if they get anywhere close to the plane, they’ll find us. I’ve got flares to signal if we see a search plane.”

  “Agreed,” said Yuma, and Rory nodded.

  Especially, she thought, since the wind kept blowing, and even from inside the remains of the cabin she could see that the plane was rapidly being buried once again.

  At first light, they were ready to go. Rory put her own jacket on Cait, who was wrapped in layers of blankets, to protect her from the dry air and cold. For herself, she just piled on every other piece of clothing she had, and accepted Wendy’s extra knit hat, scarf and gloves.

  “Once we get into the woods,” Yuma said, “there’ll be a lot less wind.” He stood outside for a few minutes, looking around as daylight revealed the terrain. It had stopped snowing completely, though the sky was still clouded and the snow on the ground kept blowing around.

  “The clouds are good, right?” Rory said.

  “They’ll keep the temperature from dropping suddenly,” Chase agreed. “At this time of the year, it usually gets colder when they clear out.”

  “Small blessings.”

  “I’ll take every one I can get.”

  So would she.

  “I think I know where we are,” Yuma said. “If I’m right, and we head downhill, we should hit a county road.”

  He didn’t say how long that would take, nor did Rory ask. She decided that for once she was better off not knowing some things.

  There was a road out there. She made up her mind that they were going to reach it come hell or high water.

  Amazing everyone, Chase dug some bungee cords out of one of the now-twisted overhead bins. “What?” he said when he realized that everyone was staring at him.

  “Is there nothing you don’t have on that plane?” Rory asked.

  “These are handier than you would believe. I use them all the time. And now we can use them to secure Cait to my back. Maybe later to a stretcher if that seems like a good idea.”

/>   Pretty soon every pocket was stuffed with something, from food packs to lighters, and even a first-aid kit. Wendy and Yuma had been traveling with duffels and backpacks instead of suitcases, and those proved extremely handy.

  By the time they took their first steps away from the plane, Rory felt they had gathered everything they possibly could carry that might be of use.

  She looked back once as they walked away from the plane. It had been good to them, she thought as she watched it get buried even deeper in blowing snow. It had saved their lives.

  Now they had to save their own.

  They reached the forest after only ten minutes, despite the deep snow. Once under the thick boughs, the wind nearly vanished, and the blanket of snow thinned appreciably.

  Rory had only one concern. “No one could see us in the trees.”

  “It’s okay,” Chase said. “I have the flare gun. We hear a plane, we shoot.”

  “Okay.”

  “Then,” said Yuma, “we hunt up a clearing. There are lots of them. But right now we can’t afford the exposure of open ground, or the risk of avalanche.”

  Rory’s heart skipped a beat. “I hadn’t even thought about avalanches.”

  “The safest place to be is in thick woods,” Yuma answered. “Take it off your worry list.”

  “I guess I do have a whole list.”

  Wendy patted her arm. “So would I, in your shoes.”

  Yuma led the way, heartening her with his confidence. He seemed to know where they were, and which was the best way to go. He did pick up a tall stick, though, and she watched him use it to test the ground ahead of him, looking for dips that might have been hidden beneath the snow.

  Every so often, they paused and Rory checked on Cait. Her hands remained warm, her face didn’t feel chilled, but her breathing rattled.

  She and Wendy pounded Cait’s back without untying her from Chase, and managed to clear out her lungs a bit, but not enough.

  “Another hour,” Wendy said. “Another hour and we’ve got to tent her.”