Out on a Limb

by Rachelle Mccalla

  Elise looked up at him with shadowed eyes and asked in a drained voice, “Is this our hiding place?”

  “Sure is.” Cutch settled into place beside her as she slumped heavily against his shoulder. Also not a good sign. “This old plane was built to withstand enemy fire. It’s as good a hiding place as any and safer than most.” The large hangar was full of old junk, besides the junk-filled outbuildings. Bromley and his men would have plenty of places to look for them—unless they thought to check the plane first.

  He thought he heard a vehicle approaching outside, and he felt Elise tense slightly. She’d obviously heard it, too, though her shallow breathing told him she was no longer as alert as she’d been. She’d lost a lot of blood. He wondered how much longer she’d be able to hang in there. While he listened to the activity outside, he prayed the paramedics would reach them before Elise suffered much more.

  Outside, the engine stilled and doors slammed. Cutch could hear indistinct shouting and in the distance, sirens. He hoped the paramedics were on their way, or even the federal authorities, but he feared it might be Gideon Bromley and his deputies using the long arm of the law to protect his brother’s drug ring.

  He shifted Elise against his shoulder and tried to make her comfortable. “Elise, honey, hang in there. Help is on the way. It won’t be much longer.” He prayed the words were true.

  Her weak hands clung to the fabric of his shirt as she leaned against him.

  She’d given it her all. Cutch could hardly believe what she’d endured that day—and all for his sake. She could have walked away and let him rot in jail, but instead, she’d come to his aid and flown at his side. His heart swelled inside him.

  “I love you so much.” The words escaped from his mouth before he realized he’d consciously thought them.

  Elise’s eyes opened, and she seemed to regain some of her strength as she looked up at him. “You what?”

  Realizing the words were true and hoping hearing them again would distract her from her injury, Cutch repeated, “I love you, Elise. I’m sorry I let you down. If there was anything I could do to make it up to you, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

  Before he could continue, the muffled noises outside burst into sharp clarity as Darrel’s deep voice shouted, “Come out, or we’ll burn down every building here. We know you’re in there. Come out before we light this place on fire!”

  Fear replaced the pain on Elise’s face. Cutch let out a long breath and frantically tried to think. The old wood-and-tin building would burn like so many matchsticks, its dusty contents nothing more than tinder to fuel the flames. If Bromley’s men decided to torch the place, he and Elise would be done for. In a way, he figured he was lucky the man had given them a choice.

  He doubted the window of opportunity would be open for long.

  He shifted Elise gently away from his shoulder. “I’m going out there.”

  Elise gripped the front of Cutch’s shirt tightly, as though she could hold him back with the feeble strength of her weakening hands. “No,” she whispered.

  “I’ve got to. If they light a match, we’re dead.”

  “The Feds are on their way,” Elise reminded him. “And my dad.”

  “Unless they’ve got a fire brigade with them, they’re not going to be able to stop Bromley. This might be my only chance. If I go out there now, I might be able to stall them until help arrives.”

  “Cutch,” she pleaded, refusing to let go of his shirt. “They’ll shoot you.”

  He froze. The seconds ticked by while the men outside issued another gruff warning. A bright orange flash of light flared beyond one of the dusty old windows, and Elise realized the men had torched one of the outbuildings. They were trying to flush them out.

  “I need to hurry,” he said, pulling away from her as the angry shouts escalated outside.

  “Don’t leave me.” Elise tried to grab hold of his shirt again, but he was already climbing out of the plane. She wasn’t sure exactly what the men outside had planned, but she felt certain if Cutch turned himself over that they’d kill him.

  Not that their odds were very good if they stayed inside the building, either. “Cutch,” she called after him, wishing her voice was stronger but unable to muster up any more volume in her weakened state. She couldn’t let him leave without telling him how she truly felt—not if he was going out to his death. “I love you.”

  His eyes level with the cockpit as he climbed down, Cutch froze and met her eyes. “What?” he asked, surprise and hope filling his face.

  Elise bit back the pain that speared through her leg and leaned toward him. “I love you. I don’t want to love you. I tried not to. I didn’t want to get hurt again,” she started to explain, but Cutch hoisted himself back into the cockpit and wrapped his arms gently around her.

  “Can I kiss you?” he asked, his lips mere inches from hers.

  “I’ve always wanted you to, but the last time—” her voice caught.

  His nose brushed hers, as he whispered, “This won’t be anything like our last kiss. I know how much you mean to me now.”

  Just as his lips were about to meet hers, she heard a ruckus outside. Cutch pulled back, his expression intent as they both listened to sort out what was going on.

  Shouting met shouting. Uncle Leroy’s bellowing voice was easy to identify—he was the one threatening to shoot the next person who moved. Grandpa Scarth’s voice didn’t sound so old as he accused Bromley and his men of trespassing on private property. The lone female voice was clearly Anita McCutcheon. She hollered, “You’ll have to go through me first!”

  And the calmer men’s voices that tried to reason with everyone had to belong to their fathers. As Elise squinted through the dusty windows at the front end of the hangar, she could see her father and Old Cutch standing side by side.

  Cutch squeezed her hand gently. “They’re uniting to protect us.”

  A lump filled Elise’s throat. Eight years before, she’d prayed every night that their families would get over the feud that ran between them. God had finally answered her prayer.

  But a moment later, she wondered if they hadn’t come too late. A loud whooshing noise filled the room as the back end of the dilapidated hangar burst into flames.

  The building was on fire.

  Cutch quickly assessed their situation. The entire back end of the building was on fire, and the flames were quickly spreading to the dry contents and along the side walls. Bruce and his men had likely doused the building with gasoline. The fire burned quickly and smoke began to fill the air.

  Elise clung to him. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I know.” Cutch looked back toward the place where they’d come in. Just as he began to wonder if they had any chance of sneaking out that way, flames ignited all along the back wall. He didn’t know how Bruce’s men had managed to sneak past all their relatives who’d come to their aid, but one thing was clear: Bruce Bromley wasn’t playing around.

  “There’s no way out,” Elise gasped. “We’re surrounded by fire. What are we going to do?”

  Cutch looked down and began to pray. He got no further than, “Lord, help us,” when his eyes landed on the shiny key stuck in the plane’s ignition. Had his Grandpa Scarth really fixed up the plane enough to make it fly? Or had his improvements been merely cosmetic? There was only one way to find out.

  “Hold on tight,” Cutch cautioned Elise as he reached for the key and gave it a turn. To his shock and relief, the motor revved smoothly.

  “What are you doing?” Elise screeched. “Does this old plane really fly?”

  “We’re going to find out,” Cutch said, looking for the throttle. “Help me figure out how to fly this thing.”

  “You’ve got to free the brake first,” Elise reached past him and something popped. “Now rev it like you mean it.”

  While Elise worked the controls, Cutch turned the steering wheel and pointed them toward the wall that had been burning the longest. The old wood was prob
ably burned nearly through. In fact, the roof would likely soon collapse. He was glad for the broad wings that shielded the cockpit. They’d need all the cover they could get.

  The plane lurched forward under Elise’s able hands and gathered speed as it plowed past the clutter between them and the burning wall. Cutch instinctively threw his hands up, covering their faces as they burst through the wall. He was glad the old war plane had been built to withstand enemy fire.

  An instant later they were breezing down the runway along the open field. They could breathe again.

  Elise coughed and slumped against him. “You fly,” she said weakly.

  Cutch realized she’d probably exhausted the last of her reserves of strength getting them out of the building. It had been years since Grandpa McCutcheon had given him flying lessons, but Cutch had watched Elise enough times over the last couple of days to recall the basics that his grandfather had insisted he learn all those years ago.

  Glancing behind them, he saw Bruce and his men scrambling to get away from the building as the hole they’d made with the plane set off a domino effect that brought the rest of the roof down. Through the thick smoke that filled the sky, he spotted several more vehicles coming up the roads. More of Bromley’s men? Or were they on his side? He couldn’t see nearly enough to tell through the black smoke that filled the air, so he turned his attention back to getting the plane in the sky.

  They skipped and bumped down the last of the runway before finally lifting off.

  So his grandfather’s old plane really could fly.

  Cutch felt a warm sense of satisfaction coupled with the relief of escaping the enemy’s hands. He wasn’t sure how well the plane would fly, especially after plowing through the burning wall of the hangar, so he kept it fairly low in the sky and circled the airstrip, trying to make out what was going on below.

  “You hanging in there?” he asked Elise as she clung weakly to his shoulders, her eyes closed.

  “I’m fine.”

  Cutch would have laughed at her blatantly inaccurate prognosis if he hadn’t been so concerned for her. “It looks like your uncle Leroy and your dad are both down there, along with some folks I don’t recognize,” Cutch updated her as he circled around for another pass. “As soon as I think it’s safe, I’ll land us.”

  “Are the paramedics there yet?”

  “I think I see them pulling in.”

  “Good.”

  “Want to go down?”

  “Do you think it’s safe?”

  “Somebody just slapped cuffs on Bruce Bromley,” Cutch relayed, “and it looks like they’re giving Gideon the what for.” As he circled past the smoke, Cutch recognized more vehicles and people. “There’s my dad talking to your dad.”

  With a final wide arc, Cutch aligned himself with the landing strip. “Let’s go talk to them.” He tried to speak casually, but his heart was in knots. He’d never thought he’d see the day when the two men would speak civilly to one another. Yet there they were.

  Cutch brought the plane down as gently as he could, wishing he could spare Elise any more jostling than she’d already endured. He taxied the plane toward where his grandfather ran excitedly to meet them. Then he scooped Elise tenderly against him and disembarked.

  “She flies, she flies,” Grandpa Scarth hooted with delight, clapping his hands. “Surprise, surprise.”

  Old Cutch came up behind his father-in-law. “My dad’s plane flies? I never thought…”

  Grandpa Scarth clapped Old Cutch on the shoulders. “He always said she was a good plane. He was right.”

  Bill and Leroy McAlister hurried toward them. “Elise?” Bill asked, reaching them first. “Is she okay?”

  “She should be fine.” Cutch tried to placate Bill’s fears as he carried Elise toward where an ambulance had come to a stop. “She was shot in the leg. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

  The paramedics pulled out a gurney as he trotted over to them, and he lowered Elise carefully onto its waiting surface before tucking her hair back out of her eyes, behind her ears the way he knew she liked it. She blinked at him and gave him a weak smile before lying back and closing her eyes.

  “She’s probably going to need a blood transfusion,” Cutch offered, showing the medics her injury and slipping the camera from where she’d kept it safely zipped away in her pocket.

  He handed over both cameras to Leroy McAlister. “See that the authorities get these.”

  “Don’t you want to talk to them?” Leroy asked.

  Cutch shook his head and was about to explain when his father slumped down. Bill McAlister stepped to his side, supporting his weight.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay,” Old Cutch insisted, though he didn’t look it.

  The paramedics prepared to load Elise into the ambulance.

  “I’d like to ride along,” Cutch requested.

  “But your father,” Elise protested weakly.

  Cutch looked back at his dad, who was standing again, though he leaned heavily on his one-time enemy. His dad waved him on. “You go,” he mouthed silently.

  Knowing he’d picked his father over Elise once before, Cutch climbed into the ambulance after her as soon as she was loaded in.

  With a loud whoosh, the final wall of the burning hangar fell, and the ambulance took off with a wail from its sirens.

  As Cutch had figured, Elise needed to be taken into surgery to have the wound in her leg repaired, but the procedure was nearly completed by the time the rest of their family members arrived at the hospital, and the doctor assured them she’d make a full recovery.

  “You can take turns going into the recovery room one at a time. She’ll be a little groggy at first, but she should be waking up soon.”

  Cutch met Bill McAlister’s eyes.

  “I suppose you want to be the first to go in there.” Bill met his eyes with a look of challenge.

  “I’d like to, but I understand if—”

  “Hurry up, then. She’ll be wondering where everyone went.” Bill cut him off.

  Cutch grinned and took two steps in the direction of the door before he stopped and said, “Thank you. And, sir? Could I marry your daughter?”

  Elise’s father froze and looked at him for a long minute. “I think that’s up to her,” he said finally.

  “But I have your blessing?” Cutch pressed. After all the animosity their families had shared, he couldn’t imagine beginning a life—and eventually a family—with Elise unless he knew they had their families’ support and approval.

  “You do,” Bill pronounced, just as his brother Leroy joined in the conversation.

  “But if you ever hurt her, you’ll wish I’d have just shot you when you stole my ladder,” Leroy threatened.

  Cutch’s laughter was only slightly nervous as he stepped into the recovery room.

  Elise’s eyelids fluttered open. “Cutch?”

  “I hope you’re not disappointed to see me.”

  “You’re the person I was hoping to see.” Her words came out like a sigh, and she coughed dryly.

  “Would you like a drink of water?” he asked, reaching for her hospital mug and holding the straw for her to drink.

  She took a long sip and smiled up at him.

  His heart dipped. He couldn’t wait any longer but leaned close to her and whispered, “Will you marry me?”

  Elise looked up at Cutch and blinked. She was still in a bit of a fog and wasn’t exactly sure what was going on. She’d had some very Cutch-filled dreams in the last couple of hours and wondered if she might still be stuck in one of them. Since she’d finally allowed herself to fall back in love with him, she’d begun to hope they might have a chance for a future together. But obviously it was far too soon to get too serious about the idea. She must be dreaming.

  She shook her head a little and tried to remember what had been going on. “Did they catch the Bromleys?” she asked.

  Cutch frowned. “Yes. And the Bromley brothers are acting like kids about it. Bruce is tryin
g to blame the whole bit on Gideon, who claims he had no idea what his brother was up to. He insists he had nothing to do with the drugs or even with their plans to frame me. They’re both behind bars for now, and Gideon has stepped down as sheriff pending a full investigation. For Gideon’s sake, I hope he’s right about being innocent. He always seemed like a good man to me.”

  “But you’ve been cleared of all charges?”

  “Not officially, but I expect that will come soon. The Feds have already indicated as much. They’ve known for a long time that someone was producing meth in this county, and Bruce fits the profile of the information they’d gathered so far, besides all the materials they found on his land. They were very appreciative for our help in catching him.”

  “That’s a relief.” She looked up into his face, and her heart skipped a beat. His expression was so intense, his blue eyes unswerving as he looked at her. All the feelings she’d pushed away for the last eight years came rushing back, and she felt a little lightheaded. “Am I going to be okay?”

  “Yes,” Cutch assured her, reaching forward and brushing back a stray hair that had escaped from the tucking place behind her right ear. “Your leg muscles just need to heal. The bullet missed the bone and major vessels. They say you were really very fortunate.”

  Elise relaxed a little. “God was watching out for me,” she said with assurance. When she glanced back up at Cutch, he looked a little concerned. Her heart went out to him. He’d done so much for her—risked so much to save her. She wondered if he realized how much she loved him. “Cutch—” she started, when a knock at the door interrupted her.

  They both looked up as her father poked his head into the room.

  “Well? What did she say?” he asked expectantly.

  Cutch looked sheepish. “I, uh—”

  “Haven’t you asked her yet?” Leroy peeked over his brother’s shoulder.

  “I did, but she hasn’t—” Cutch began.