From Out of the Blue

by Nadia Nichols

  “How rough?”

  “I wouldn’t drive that rental car in there. The rental agencies don’t like their cars being driven on gravel roads.”

  “Is there an airport somewhere out there?”

  “I don’t think I’d go so far as to call it an airport. There’s a grass strip on the right-hand side just before the road gets really rough. You’ll see where the road forks to the right. That leads to the landing strip. Wally’s Air Charter flies out of there.”

  “Oh? Is it any good?”

  The clerk hesitated. “I hear the pilot’s great, but the plane’s a derelict. We usually recommend Polar Express out of Talkeetna.”

  Kate considered his advice as she returned to the cabin. Hayden had eaten breakfast with Rosa and was complaining about not being able to watch his favorite TV programs because the cabin didn’t have a TV. Rosa turned a practiced deaf ear. She’d grown up without the “one-eyed monster” as she referred to it. She would take him outside, she told Kate, and show him all the small wonders around their cabin.

  “Thank you, Rosa. That sounds better than TV any day,” Kate said. “I’ll be back by dark and maybe a whole lot sooner, depending on how things go. You can order room service or eat in the restaurant when you get hungry, whichever you choose. My mom’s phone number is in my bedside drawer if you should need it.”

  “Yes, señora.”

  “There are lots of books for guests to read in a bookshelf in the living room of the main lodge.”

  Rosa smiled, seeing through Kate’s stall tactics. “We’ll be fine, señora. Good luck.”

  Luck was something she’d run out of several months ago, but nevertheless Kate was feeling optimistic as she climbed into the rental car. Maybe it was seeing the way the morning sunlight had illuminated the snowfields on Denali’s peak an hour earlier, but she felt as if today might turn out to be pretty good. Maybe this meeting with Mitchell McCray wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it’d turn out great.

  Maybe her luck was about to change.

  Ten minutes later, not quite a mile down the gravel road, she felt the steering wheel pull hard to the right and knew before she stopped that she had a flat tire. She got out and stared at it for a moment, then looked down the rutted gravel track that led toward all the answers she was seeking and felt a growing sense of despair. If this was an omen of what those answers would be, she took it as a bad one.

  The second bad omen was when she discovered that the rental car didn’t have a spare, and because she already knew that bad things happened in threes, she figured it was only a matter of time before the hammer fell.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MITCHELL MCCRAY hated Mondays. For some reason, Monday seemed to be the day most of the emergency calls came in. The groups that had been flown in to base camp a week or two before would almost always have a member in trouble by Monday and be on the radio to the flying service that abandoned them there, asking for assistance. Begging, sometimes in that desperate and disbelieving way, as if the idea of failure had never occurred to them. As if illness or injury or bad weather had never figured in to any of their carefully thought-out plans.

  But that wasn’t why he hated Mondays. Mitch hated Mondays because it was written into Wally’s secret code of work ethics: never, ever show up for work on Mondays. And because Wally was the boss, he got away with spending every Monday with Campy, who also had Mondays off and was sexy enough to make any red-blooded man forget that Monday was supposed to be the first day of the work week, not the last day of the weekend.

  Therefore, all of Monday’s woes fell on his own shoulders and he never had backup. He also hated Mondays because if there was one day of the week the damn plane malfunctioned it would be on a Monday. Somehow, Wally had infused his own pathetic work ethic into the very rivets of the temperamental flying machine he’d dubbed Babe. What kind of a mechanic/pilot/flying service owner would name a plane after a cartoon pig? Then again, maybe it was a perfect moniker. The old red-and-white Stationair sucked down aviation fuel like a factory-farmed market hog and was about as athletic. It had crash-landed twice, sustained serious structural damage both times and taken additional abuse from several bad hail storms, which was why Wally had been able to buy it so cheap.

  Which was also why it was on the ground more often than it was in the air.

  In the first two hours of the day, Mitch fielded a radio transmission from a bunch of German climbers who were experiencing second thoughts about one of their companion’s stomach pains. “Ve sinks eet might be heez apindeezeez!” So he assured them he’d be along soon, only to discover, when he tried to fire up Babe, that Wally’s market hog had died at the trough sometime between engine shutdown Sunday night and attempted start-up Monday morning.

  Mitch now had to drive all the way into Talkeetna to pick up the part they should have replaced weeks ago, which meant he had to give the German climbers’ rescue over to Polar Express, which meant they’d be the ones to reap the huge gratuity for saving the sick climber from a possibly fatal attack of “apindeezeez” because climbers, especially foreigners, tipped big when they were rescued, which was the only good thing to come out of a Monday.

  All of which put him in a very ugly mood when he climbed into his truck and gunned it down the middle of the airstrip toward Pike’s Creek Road, throwing up a rooster tail of gravel and dust and nearly running over Thor, who woke from his fourth boredom nap of the morning just in time to realize he was being left behind. Mitch slammed on the brakes and the big, black wolfish-looking dog leapt effortlessly into the back. He’d ride there all the way to the “big city” and back, yellow eyes staring through the rear sliding window and the windshield, watching intently for moose—a tact that was both his hobby and profession. The brute was good at it, too, especially at night. Whenever he saw one he’d let out a woof that never failed to get the driver’s attention. Thor had saved Mitch’s life many times over. Seeing a dark moose on a dark road in the dark was damn near impossible, and lots of Alaskans had lost their lives because they hadn’t seen it.

  He was almost out to the highway when he spotted the little tan-colored sedan with the flat tire. Why the hell anyone would try driving a city car like that on a road like this was beyond him. He slowed down. Who knows? Maybe this was a chance to pick up a few extra bucks and put some gas in the tank. Talkeetna was a long haul if you weren’t a crow, and fuel was damned expensive. He pulled alongside and leaned out his window, sizing up the situation. Rental car. Young slender woman with short dark hair, dressed in blue jeans and a fleece jacket trying to put one of those little scissor jacks under the axle on the opposite side of the car. Couldn’t see what she looked like, but maybe she’d be good-looking enough to turn his day around. A man could always hope.

  “Need a hand?” He cut the engine and got out, slamming the truck door behind him. She abandoned her efforts and pushed to her feet to face him as he rounded the front of her car. Recognition struck a hard blow to his solar plexus, stopping him in his tracks. God almighty. K. C. Jones stood in front of him, staring him right in the eye in that proud defiant way, and she was just as dangerously gorgeous as the first time he’d set eyes on her. She’d cut her beautiful long hair, but it was her, all right. He’d thought about her from time to time over the years, more than he liked to think about any woman, but that was because of the way she’d treated him. She was the first woman he’d been intimate with who’d left him without so much as a goodbye.

  “I’ll be damned,” he finally managed to say. “You must be one of them fancy naval aviators the government sent north to field-test rental car tires on the Pike’s Creek Road.”

  “Hello, Mitch,” she said, cool as the morning. “How are you?”

  “Great. You?”

  “Fine.”

  “Been awhile.”

  “Yes, it has.” And then she nodded over his shoulder. “Is that your truck?”

  He glanced behind him as if there might be some question. Thor was standing on the diamo
nd-plate toolbox that spanned the bed behind the cab, ears at attention and eyes fixed on K. C. Jones. “No. It belongs to Thor. The dog. But he lets me drive it,” he said, wishing the rust spots weren’t so big and numerous. “Good to see you, by the way. What’s it been, four, five years? What brings you this far north?”

  She gave him a small smile. “I had some time off and thought I’d see what Alaska looks like without any snow on it.”

  “So it’s just a coincidence that you happened to be driving down this particular road when you got a flat?”

  “Not exactly. I was coming to see you.” After an awkward pause, during which she had the decency to blush, she added, “I’m sorry, I know you must be busy. You were driving somewhere in a big hurry. I probably should’ve called first but…”

  “Not a problem,” Mitch assured her. “I figured you’d show up sooner or later.”

  “You did? Why?”

  “To apologize for not saying goodbye when you left Eielson.” Her blush deepened. Good. At least she hadn’t forgotten that part. “I’m on my way to pick up a part for Babe in Talkeetna. I’ll fix the flat on your rental car, then if you want, I’ll take you out for lunch.”

  “The rental doesn’t have a spare,” she said. “I discovered that just before you arrived. But lunch sounds fine. It’ll give us a chance to talk.”

  Mitch removed her flat tire in minutes, threw it in the back of the truck to drop off at the local gas station, and in minutes they were on their way.

  She’d said she wanted to talk and he was kind of curious to find out why she’d shown up from out of the blue after four plus years, especially since she’d never answered his letter, but several miles passed without her saying a word. The silence between them soon became the loudest thing he’d ever heard. He figured it was up to him to jump-start this conversation.

  “So, how long have you been in Alaska?”

  “I just arrived last night.” She gave him a questioning glance. “Who’s Babe?”

  “Babe’s the only plane owned by Wally’s Air Charter at the moment, but I have my eye on another.”

  “I heard you left the air force.”

  “Yeah. It was time. I started out on the career track, same as you, but I lost my enthusiasm for military life after they tried to court-martial me.” Her eyes bore into him with such a peculiar look, he nearly drove off the highway, but he wrenched the wheel and managed to keep all four tires on the asphalt. “I wrote you right after it was over. The trial was short because they didn’t have much of a case, but when the time came to reenlist, I didn’t. No regrets.”

  “I see.” She sat through another endless five-mile silence before asking, “How do you like flying for an air charter?”

  “The flying’s great, but business is iffy. Wally’s a good mechanic—he specialized in airframe and power plant in the military—but trying to keep Babe in the air is costing us more than it’s worth. I should be flying out to the mountain to pick up a sick German climber but instead I’m driving to Talkeetna to pick up another airplane part. Which means no groceries this week.”

  Six more miles of silence slipped past before she said, “Do you have a family?”

  Didn’t everyone? “Yeah. Three brothers, two younger, one older; a baby sister; and my dad. My mother died of cancer a few years back. They all stayed put in Maine. I’m the only escapee.”

  This time the silence was brief. “What I meant was, are you married?”

  This wasn’t quite the conversation he’d thought they’d be having. “Huh?”

  “Wife, kids?”

  “Happily divorced for six years, no kids.” Four more miles of silence went by. With the tension screaming around the cab of the truck, he decided they were the longest four miles he’d ever traveled. He was beginning to regret asking her to come along. Why was she here anyway? “You married?” he finally asked.

  “No.”

  He nodded. “I read about you in the September issue of Air Force magazine. Great article, though I thought it was traitorous that they’d profile a Navy flier. It mentioned the difficulties of juggling motherhood and a career. Since it didn’t include ‘husband’ in the mix, I figured there wasn’t one.”

  “You guessed correctly.”

  “But you have a kid?”

  “A son. His name is Hayden. It’s an old family name.”

  “What does Hayden think about his mother being a Navy pilot?”

  “Hayden’s relaxed about everything. He’s a pretty cool kid.”

  “I guess pretty cool women just naturally have pretty cool kids.”

  He thought that might get a smile but she just looked out the window, heaved a small sigh and said, “I was lucky.”

  “Somebody else sure was, too.” The words bounced awkwardly around the cab and he cursed himself for uttering them, but it was true. Somebody was. Some Navy guy, probably. Dare he ask? Ah, what the hell. “What does Hayden think about his father?”

  “I told him his father died in a plane crash.”

  Tragic for them both, but that explained why she wasn’t married. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, hoping his words sounded more sincere than he felt. “So, how long do you have?”

  “Pardon?”

  Okay, maybe the silence was better than talking. She was glaring at him as if he’d just insulted her. “How long are you here for? A week? Two?”

  She faced front again and said, “I don’t have that long. Two weeks, max.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Moosewood Road House.”

  “Nice place. They have a decent restaurant.”

  “Yes.”

  This conversation was going nowhere fast. He was no closer to finding out why she was here than he had been thirty miles ago, and she hadn’t yet bothered to explain why she’d never said goodbye to him after the night they’d shared. He was beginning to wish she hadn’t interrupted his Monday, except that, damn it all, she was just as provocative as she’d been the first time he’d set eyes on her. His hormones were already at attention as he envisioned a passionate night or two tangled up in the sheets with her. So what if she hadn’t said goodbye? Maybe this time he’d be the one who flew off without a word.

  Fair was fair, after all. Two could play that kind of game.

  KATE REALIZED by the time they reached the tiny town of Talkeetna that she was in way over her head. While Mitch was in the aviation building at the small airport picking up his part, she sat in the truck, wondering if her erratic heartbeat had anything to do with the fevers that came and went or with the man she’d just spent the last hour with. What should she do? He was totally in the dark as to her real reasons for being here. He seemed glad to see her but he didn’t know, nor could she figure out how to tell him, that she’d never read the letter he’d sent.

  Court-martial? That didn’t sound good. He obviously didn’t make much money, and his prospects for the future didn’t appear much better. He wasn’t married and had no kids, just a dog named Thor and a boss named Wally who obviously owned the charter service.

  How should she proceed?

  He stepped out of the hangar door and she was struck again by his sheer masculinity. It didn’t matter that he was dressed in faded Levi’s and an equally faded flannel shirt. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t shaved that morning or that his hair needed to be trimmed. He was handsome in a rugged, athletic way that matched the land he’d chosen to make his home in. Maybe he’d never be rich, maybe he’d never drive a late-model truck or fly a plane that didn’t always need fixing, but she had the feeling that somehow he’d get by. He was the kind of guy that would walk away from a hard landing with that same macho swagger and arrogant grin. Nothing would ever beat him down.

  He wrenched open the truck door, tossed an object wrapped in a clean rag onto the bench seat between them and hauled himself in behind the wheel. “So, what’s your preference? There’s a deli a little ways from here or a roadhouse that serves great burgers. Your choi
ce.”

  “I’m not really that hungry.”

  He fired up the engine and eased the truck into gear. “Then let’s grab a sandwich at the deli. It’s not as fancy and it’s quicker.”

  He was as nervous as she was, she realized as he drove to the deli; only, when she got nervous, she got quiet, whereas Mitch couldn’t seem to shut up. The deli was rustic and charming with big baskets of bright flowers that hung from the porch eaves. He talked about fishing while they waited for their order to be delivered to the little picnic table on the porch, and in between bites of his sandwich he told her about salmon runs and grizzly bears that prowled the riverbank by his cabin and one instance when he’d barricaded himself inside while a bear chewed his favorite fly rod to splinters. And then came a long pause in the conversation and she glanced up and realized those disarming eyes were studying her intently.

  “What?” she said, shifting under his scrutiny.

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Something wrong with your sandwich?”

  “I told you I wasn’t hungry.”

  “You said you wanted to talk, but this is a mighty one-sided conversation.”

  She averted her eyes, heart thumping painfully. “I’m enjoying listening to you describe your life here.” She gave him a faint smile. “Your place sounds nice, except for the bears. Maybe you’d give me a tour while I’m here. I love log cabins.”

  His eyes narrowed and he sat back in his chair. “Sure. Just say when.”

  Kate had spent her childhood dreaming about what she was going to be when she grew up. Once she’d grown up, she’d spent every moment striving to make that dream come true, and every step of the way there had been men standing in her path, blocking her, trying to trip her up and hoping she’d fail and make a fool of herself.

  Getting pregnant had been the worst setback of her career. Getting pregnant had validated all those chauvinistic remarks and those sexist attitudes. For four months she’d had to give up flying. Four whole months she’d been grounded because she’d done just what they’d expected her to do. She’d gone out and gotten herself pregnant, just like a woman.