by Nancy Warren
Even the whales cooperated with her tour guide routine, hanging around in the same area where she’d last seen them. Once more she dipped down low, giving the men an up-close view of whales at play.
When she landed at the dock of Polar Air, she powered down and took a moment to enjoy the silence, before hopping down from the plane and tying up to the dock.
She had a couple of hours before her next flight, so she headed up the dock and turned, not to the office, but in the direction of her grandmother’s house.
Lynette Lundstrom was nearing seventy-three and Claire’s favorite person in the world. She usually found time to visit her grandmother every day, either for coffee or a sandwich. They ate dinner together at least twice a week.
She banged open the front door and headed for the kitchen, cheerfully calling out, “Coffee on?” She didn’t immediately get a response.
She quickened her step and found her grandmother sitting at the big oak kitchen table with a scatter of papers fanned in front of her.
She pulled up a chair and sat down opposite her grandmother, concern building when she saw the expression on Lynette’s face. “What’s up?”
Lynette looked up at her, looking like an old woman for the first time Claire could remember. “I think we’re in trouble. The bank is threatening to call in the mortgage.”
Claire glanced at the fan of papers on the table. “What mortgage?”
The older woman was obviously upset. Her voice wavered. “Your grandfather and I started that airline back in the ’50s,” she reminded Claire as though she could possibly have forgotten the family history. “We used to fly in supplies for miners, fly in timber cruisers and transport Indian chiefs. We’ve helped with rescue missions. We delivered mail.” She tapped her fingers angrily against the table. “My whole life is here and connected to Polar Air. How can a bank take this airline away?”
“Calm down, Grandma. Nobody’s going to take our airline away from us. I don’t think they can.” She swallowed. “Can they?”
“The trouble is I’ve let things go a little. I know there have been some problems, but—”
“What problems?” Everything seemed fine to Claire. But she was busy with flights, and didn’t have a lot of patience for paperwork and administration. Some of their previous business had dropped off, it was true, but they’d added a lot of new business through tourism.
Claire frowned over the sheets of paper Lynette passed to her. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She glanced up at her grandmother’s worried face.
“I didn’t want to bother you. You’re busy flying. Now that I don’t fly anymore, I feel that I should at least be able to run the place. I thought business would pick up and we’d be able to pay the mortgages back.”
Lynette turned to gaze out over a pair of old armchairs that sat by the window of her log house. The window faced one of the most spectacular views in Alaska. Probably the entire world. Set on a bluff overlooking the ocean, the house commanded views of crashing waves, of the islands out in the strait, and of the otters, whales, dolphins and seals that called the area home.
And they weren’t the only ones. Lynette had called Spruce Bay home her whole life. Claire realized she’d been doing the same for almost half of hers.
“I didn’t want to worry you,” Lynette said once more.
“Well, I’m worried now. What’s going on?”
“After your grandfather died, I left Frank in charge of day-to-day operations. They won’t let me fly anymore and I’m not good in the office.”
“I know.” Lynette had been a bush pilot for forty years. It had nearly killed her when she’d had to give up her license after a mild heart attack. The irony was that the heart trouble hadn’t slowed her grandmother down at all. It was losing her license that had devastated her. Fortunately, she’d found a new calling coaching the women’s hockey team in Spruce Bay. It was something she’d done back when Claire first turned in her figure skates for a pair of speed skates.
Sometimes Claire felt guilty that she hadn’t stepped in to run the airline after her grandfather died, but she loved to fly and she had no interest in running an airline. Like Lynette, she’d believed Frank Carmondy was both capable and honest.
“Oh, honey, I’m not sure. Frank came to me around five years ago and said we needed to get a bigger credit line. You know, we always used to have one. The recession was on and we needed to access some capital. He arranged it all and I signed the papers.”
“Grandma,” she said, making an effort to keep her voice calm, “how much money are we talking? And why the hell is the bank calling the loan?”
2
MAX LOVED TO FLY almost as much as he loved sex. In some ways the two were similar. The freedom, the feeling of utter contentment. The ride was sometimes wild, sometimes smooth and familiar but he always, always ended up with a thrill.
Today was no different. He flew over majestic stands of evergreens, interspersed with logging clear-cuts as he skirted the coast. His flight plan took him over tankers and cruise ships, a pod of hunting orcas. He landed his Cessna at Polar Air’s airfield in Spruce Bay, and coasted until he came to a stop on a serviceable strip.
He turned off the engine, took off his headset. Climbed out of the plane and grabbed his battered briefcase.
He secured his plane and then entered the small, squat building that housed Polar Air.
And walked right into a very interesting situation.
The first thing he noted was the shapeliest backside he had ever seen. The rounded hips belonged to a dark-haired woman with a ponytail hanging down her back who was currently asking a portly middle-aged man in a Polar Air jacket some very pointed questions.
They were so deep in conversation that neither of them had heard his entrance. He was about to cough or announce himself in some way, when she said, “I spent the last couple of hours looking at the financial records on the computer. It seems to me that this company’s financial situation is worse than it should be.” Max bit back his fake cough and listened. Seemed his flight up here was already paying off.
An ugly look came over the face of the guy at the desk. “What right do you have to study the books?”
“My grandmother asked me to.”
“And you’re an accountant now?”
“I’ve got eyes and a brain, Frank. I don’t like what I discovered.”
A deep flush began to mottle his ugly face. “What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting,” she said in a cool, even tone that was steel all the way through, “that the numbers aren’t adding up.”
“You and your grandmother would be lost without me. I think you’d better watch your tone, young lady.”
“Where’s the money, Frank?”
“I’m not listening to this, Claire. I’ll call my lawyer if you don’t shut up.”
There was a beat of charged silence.
“I think that’s a good idea. You should definitely call a lawyer. You’re fired,” she said.
Max didn’t like the expression in the fat man’s eyes. He didn’t like the way he rose from his chair so he could loom over the woman. “You can’t fire me.”
“Yes. I can. And I just did. I think you’d better leave.”
“You little bitch.” The guy moved an inch closer to her and she didn’t budge. “You can’t make—”
Max decided it was time to make his presence felt. “I think you were asked to leave,” he said pleasantly, walking slowly toward the desk.
Both of the combatants turned to face him. He got his first glimpse of the front of the woman with the great ass. As he’d hoped, her front was as alluring—more so—than her back.
She might only stand as tall as his chin but she packed a lot of authority into her curvy body. He liked the way she filled out her jeans and the flight jacket that featured the Polar Air logo.
She’d fed her ponytail through a Polar Air ball cap and she wore sturdy boots.
No rings, he noted absently.
In fact, the only jewelry she wore were small gold hoops in her earlobes. Her hazel eyes were big and round, with flecks of green and gold that fascinated him as he drew closer.
She didn’t look thrilled at his interference, so he turned his attention to the fat guy who looked even less thrilled.
“Let me get the door for you.”
Max wasn’t a big man, but he was fit and tough. He took in the measure of the guy who’d been fired and decided he wasn’t going to end up engaging in a barbarian fistfight. This guy was all blubber and bluster. Still, he kept his muscles on alert, stayed light on the balls of his feet in case he was wrong.
The man sneered at him. And at the woman. “This isn’t over. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
“Good,” she said.
The guy shoved Max’s shoulder on his way out and then slammed the door.
The slam was still echoing when he turned back to face the pretty woman. She didn’t thank him for his assistance. Instead she said, “I was handling that. I didn’t need your help.”
“I know you didn’t,” he said reasonably. “But look at it from my point of view. Once I’d walked in and heard him threaten you, what was I going to do? Creep outside? You’d think I was a coward.”
He saw her lips twitch as she tried to hold back a smile. “I’m Claire Lundstrom,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“Max Varo,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m a pilot. Heard there was a job.”
“Do you have an interview?”
“I did, but I think the guy I was interviewing with just got fired.”
* * *
CLAIRE LIKED THE look of Max Varo. Nice-looking guy, she noted. Neatly trimmed dark hair, Latino, even features. Great body. His jeans and navy fleece couldn’t hide a muscular build. He wasn’t much taller than she was, but the package was nice. Sexy. He had big brown eyes with ridiculously thick, curly eyelashes that most women would kill for. They didn’t make him look feminine, though. Simply added to the impact of those eyes.
She didn’t know how loyal the dozen existing Polar Air pilots were to Frank, but she thought it would be good to have at least one pilot who was a new hire.
Even though she hadn’t appreciated him butting in to go all Sir Galahad on her, she understood that his behavior showed courage and a sense of justice.
“Come into the back office and sit down,” she said, leading him to a small room behind the main counter.
He settled himself in the vinyl visitor’s chair and pulled out a résumé.
She scanned it quickly. “You’ve got all the right certifications. But you haven’t flown for a commercial airline in five years.”
“That’s true. I was running my own business, but I fly every weekend. I’ve logged 500 hours in the last year. The truth is, I needed a change.”
As she knew only too well, people who chose to live in a place like Spruce Bay weren’t your run-of-the-mill types. They were adventurers, dreamers, people who were running away from any number of things. They were different.
Max didn’t really seem all that different. But she caught the gleam of adventure in his eye. A thrill-seeker, she thought.
“I’ll need to see you fly. Check your references. Then you’ll have a second interview.”
“Second interview?” He glanced around as though wondering where she was hiding the rest of the staff.
“My grandmother. She owns the business. She has the final say.”
* * *
LYNETTE LOVED HIM. Not that Claire was surprised. When her grandmother heard the story of how Max had walked in while she was firing Frank Carmondy she laughed her earthy laugh. It was good to hear that sound after seeing her despair the previous day, but then Lynette was never one to stay in the dumps.
“It’s not funny, Grandma. I am pretty sure Frank Carmondy was stealing from you.”
“And he’ll have to pay back whatever he stole. Maybe go to jail.” Lynette was settled in an oak chair at her big, round kitchen table. It was where all important family business was conducted. “But I bet none of that would hurt his pride as much as getting fired by a little snip of a thing like you.”
Very conscious that Max was there with them, Claire argued, “I am not a little snip of a thing. I’m a grown woman.”
“When Frank first started working here you were, what, eighteen? He won’t take kindly to the fact that it was you, a young woman, the granddaughter of the man who hired him, who gave him the boot.” She cackled again, blue eyes twinkling. “Lord, I wish I could have seen his face.” She stopped laughing. Looked Max over with her shrewd old eyes. “So, we lost one troublesome male and got ourselves another one, did we?”
“I’m here on approval, Ms. Lundstrom,” he said. “If you don’t agree to hire me, I’ll get the boot too.”
She chuckled again. “Well, he’s smooth, I’ll give him that,” she said to Claire. “Good-looking, too. Looks like that Spanish fellow I like. What’s his name?”
“Javier Bardem?”
“No. The other one.”
“Antonio Banderas?”
“That’s it. You Spanish, Max?”
“Argentinian. Well, my parents are. I was born in the States.”
“Speak Spanish?”
“Yes. Also Portuguese and French.”
“Could be handy with international passengers. If we ever had any.”
She tapped her fingers against the arm of the chair. Her gold wedding ring was the only jewelry she wore. “How’d he do on the flight test?” she asked Claire.
“He’s got good hands and feet. Knows his way around a plane.” If he was uncomfortable with listening to them talk about him, Max gave no sign of it.
“Where you living?”
“I was going to look for a place in town.”
She shook her head. “Tough to find accommodation. The rentals are awful and overpriced. You’d better have the caretaker’s old quarters here on the property.”
“Grandma,” Claire said. “Don’t you think we should talk about this?”
“I think that the sooner Frank Carmondy knows there’s a man living on the property with us the better. He’s got a temper on him, that one. Better he knows we’re not unprotected.”
Claire wondered what her grandmother was doing. The woman had been flying bush planes back when Betty Crocker was learning to cook. She’d faced down grizzlies, blizzards, drunken prospectors, lecherous passengers and she’d never once felt the need for a man’s protection. Lynette could still shoot the O out of a Coke can at fifty feet. She’d taught Claire how to do the same. She did not need to be protected from a blustering bully of an ex-employee.
But Claire wasn’t about to get into all that with Max sitting there, so she said, “It will take a couple of days to clean out the old place and get it habitable. There’s a hotel downtown that will put you up for a few days.”
He turned those liquid brown eyes her way. She suspected he heard subtext the way other people hear regular conversation. He nodded. “That’s fine. I flew in. Is there a taxi?”
Before she could speak, Lynette said, “Claire will drive you into town. We pride ourselves on Northern hospitality.”
Claire smiled through gritted teeth and decided she and her beloved grandmother were going to have a serious talk before too long. She strongly suspected there was some very unsubtle matchmaking going on. As she’d told her grandmother on many an occasion, simply because Lynette had married another bush pilot didn’t mean Claire was going to follow suit.
She even made a point of dating men who kept both feet on the ground most of the time. She’d gone out with the town’s only dentist, a tugboat captain and a mining engineer. All lovely, interesting men. Didn’t matter. Lynette checked out every new bush pilot as though she were measuring him for his wedding tux.
“Come on,” she said to Max. “I’ll drive you into town.”
“Did I pass the interview?” he asked as they headed to the old Yukon. The SUV was pitted
with rust and caked with dust, but it was still as serviceable as when she’d learned to drive on it a dozen years ago.
“Are you kidding? She didn’t just hire you. She practically adopted you. She never invites anyone to stay on the property.”
She hiked herself up into the driver’s seat. Max threw his duffel into the back and climbed in beside her.
“Is that a problem for you?”
She gazed at him. She was a pretty good judge of character and, if you didn’t count Carmondy, she’d say her grandmother was even better. Her instincts told her that she could trust Max Varo. “No. It’s not a problem.”
They headed past the Cessna she knew was his.
“You brought your own plane?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Like an old cowboy would bring his own horse.”
She smiled. He must have saved for years to afford his own plane. She sensed he was as avid a flyer as she was. And that her grandmother was completely smitten.
As they rattled down the road she saw him looking out the dirt-specked window, at the runway, the ocean. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
“See if you still feel that way in January when the mercury dips below zero. That’s when you find out if Spruce Bay is for you or not.”
He glanced over at her. “And is it? For you?”
“Honestly? I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Oh, sure, I love a trip to New York or L.A. to go shopping and eat in great restaurants, but I’m always glad to come back. Spruce Bay is in my blood.”
Though it might not be in her family much longer if she didn’t figure out how to save the business.
She pulled up to the Spruce Bay Inn. “This is the one I recommend. It’s the priciest, but the beds are firm, the restaurant’s good and they have Wi-Fi.”
He turned to her and said, “Have dinner with me.”
“What?”
The term Latin lover flitted through her mind when he turned the full force of those eyes and that charm on her. “Have dinner with me, tonight.”
“I can’t have dinner with you. I’m your boss.”
“No. You’re not. First, I don’t start work until tomorrow. Second, Lynette told me she is my boss.”
