"Kincaid, what the hell are you mumbling about?"
Perrie glanced up at Milt, then shook her head and groaned. "I'm so confused. And I think I may have made a big mistake."
"On the Riordan story?"
"Oh, to hell with the Riordan story, Milt. I'm talking about me and Joe. I just walked out on him. When, all the while, he believed I would want to stay."
"Stay where?"
"In Alaska."
Milt stared at her, head cocked, as if she'd completely lost her mind. Then he patted her on the shoulder again. "By the way, I showed your wolf story around. Great piece of work. In fact, one of the syndicates got hold of it and called me. Wanted to pay big bucks for more. I told him you didn't live in Alaska and there wouldn't be more."
"I could live in Alaska," Perrie said, the notion not nearly as ridiculous as it once seemed.
"No, you couldn't," Milt replied. "You work in Seattle."
"I wouldn't have to work in Seattle. I could work in Muleshoe. I could call that syndicator and sell my stories to him. I have a lot more. And I could string for the Fairbanks or Anchorage paper. Or I could start my own paper. There's this old newspaper office above Paddy Doyle's tavern. I mean, I'd have to upgrade the equipment, get a computer, maybe even a new press. And there's not much circulation. But Joe makes flights into the bush all the time. I bet those families would be glad to get some local news. And running a weekly would be-"
"Kincaid! Stop! You're talking like a crazy woman. You can't live in Alaska."
A slow smile grew on Perrie's lips. "Yes, I can. I can live wherever I want."
"But what about your career?"
"I'm a writer, Milt. I can write anywhere, including Muleshoe, Alaska."
"I think you're overtired, Kincaid. Jet-lagged. Maybe you've been in the wilderness too long. It's my fault. I made a mistake sending you there. Go home. Get some rest You can write the Riordan story tomorrow."
Perrie reached down beneath the desk and grabbed the strap of her shoulder bag, then yanked it out. "No, Milt," she said, placing the bag in his arms. "You can write the Riordan story. Here are all my notes and research and evidence."
"The story is yours, Kincaid. You have to write it."
She stood up. "No, I don't. Right now, I have to go back to Alaska. I have to find out if Joe Brennan really loves me."
"Joe Brennan loves you? My Joe Brennan?"
Perrie laughed. "He was your Joe Brennan, but now he's my Joe Brennan." She grabbed the phone from the corner of the desk. "I have to call him and tell him I'm coming." She snatched her hand away. "No, maybe I should just fly up there and talk to him." She shook her head. "I'll call Julia. I'll let her know I'm coming. She can pick me up at the airstrip."
Perrie rummaged through the bag Milt held, searching for her day planner before she realized she didn't have the number for the lodge. "I need the phone number. Get me the phone number, Milt. Never mind, I'll get it."
She sprang out of her chair and hurried toward Milt's office. His phone file was on his desk and she riffled through it until she found the card for the Bachelor Creek Lodge. Grabbing Milt's chair, she pulled it up to the desk and sat down, then dialed the phone.
Her heart pounded in her chest and she prayed that Joe wouldn't answer. When she finally spoke to him again, she wanted to be standing face-to-face. She wanted to be able to look into his eyes and see the truth there.
The phone was answered on the first ring. "Joe?" said a feminine voice.
"Julia?"
"Who is this?"
Perrie cleared her throat. "It's Perrie Kincaid."
"Oh, Perrie. Thank goodness you called. Has Joe contacted you?"
Perrie frowned. "No, he hasn't. Isn't he there?"
A long silence met her question. Then Julia finally spoke. "Perrie, I have some bad news. Joe was ferrying supplies to a town near the Arctic Circle and he never showed up. He filed a flight plan and he radioed ahead so they were expecting him before dark. He took the Cub. At first we thought he might have flown down to see you."
"Me?"
"Tanner said he seemed pretty upset after you left. We thought he might have flown down to Seattle to straighten things out."
"He-he isn't here," Perrie said. "He didn't call."
"Hawk says that Joe would never deliberately deviate from his flight plan. That's why we're worried."
"He's a good pilot," Perrie murmured. "The best. He'd never…" Her heart turned to ice and her breath froze in her chest as the true meaning of Julia's words sank in. Joe's plane had gone down in the wilderness and they didn't know where he was.
She brought her fingers to her mouth to stop a cry of fear, then blinked back the sudden flood of tears pressing at the cornets of her eyes.
"I'm flying up mere," Perrie said, her voice surprisingly calm. "I'll get a flight out as soon as I can. I may have to fly into Anchorage and then on to Fairbanks, but I'll get mere by morning. I promise."
"Perrie, you don't have to-"
"I want to be there, Julia. I belong in Muleshoe."
"All right. Call the lodge before you leave Fairbanks and I'll send Hawk out to the airstrip to pick you up."
"I'll be mere as soon as I can. And, Julia?"
"Yes?"
"If they find him before I get there, would you tell him that I love him? And that everything will work out?"
The tiny airstrip at Muleshoe appeared in the distance just as the sun was rising. Perrie stared out the window of the bush plane, shielding her eyes against the glare, hoping she might see the red wings of Joe's Super Cub. But as the pilot descended, her heart fell, as well. There was no sign of the plane.
She said a silent prayer, hoping that Joe had turned up at another airstrip, hoping that he was safe in some other bush town. She'd been in the air all night, flying from Seattle to Anchorage to Fairbanks. And then she had struggled to find a bush pilot in the early hours of the morning.
They'd left Fairbanks before dawn, and as they came into Muleshoe, she realized that she hadn't slept in more than two days, since the last night she and Joe had spent together at her cabin. Her thoughts skipped back to that night, and then to the night after, when they'd made love.
She couldn't allow herself to believe that they would never see each other again. Joe had to be alive and safe. He flew in the wilderness all the time and he had bragged that he could put the Cub down anywhere he pleased. If he'd had trouble, perhaps he'd safely landed the plane and was just waiting to be found.
"Looks like there's someone down there," the pilot shouted, pointing to the far end of the runway.
Perrie squinted against the rising sun and saw the Blazer parked near the row of planes. As the pilot circled the landing strip, she caught sight of Hawk, staring up into the sky. She had talked to him by phone right before she'd left Fairbanks and there had been no news of Joe.
Now, two hours later, she wondered if anything had changed.
The plane landed on the smooth snow and slid to a stop. Perrie shoved the door open and hopped out, then ran across the snow toward Hawk. She threw herself into his arms and he hugged her tight, picking her up off the ground. Then he set her down and stepped back. "I'm glad you came."
"Has there been any news?"
Hawk shook his head. "They're sending out search planes right now. We'll find him."
"What about his radio? Hasn't he tried to contact anyone?"
"Maybe his radio is out."
"But how could the radio just go out, unless-" Perrie stopped short, not wanting to complete the thought. Unless the plane was damaged. Unless Joe had crashed somewhere in the wilderness.
"There are lots of reasons he could have lost radio contact," Hawk assured her. "If he put down in a valley, the mountains might block the signal."
"You know the route he was flying, don't you? So the search teams can find him more quickly?"
"He was flying up to Fort Yukon. He never-"
"Fort Yukon?" Perrie asked. "He was going to Fort Yuko
n?"
"He was taking supplies up there. He has survival gear in the plane. Sleeping bags and dried food. So if he had to put her down, he would be able to wait for us to find him."
A sudden thought came to Perrie's mind when Hawk mentioned sleeping bags. "I think I might know where he is," she said. "What if he put the plane down for a reason, then couldn't take off again?"
"Why would he put the plane down?"
"Maybe he stopped to see Romeo and Juliet," Perrie replied.
"The play?"
"No, the wolves," she cried. "You know, the family of wolves that he watches up at the Yukon Flats. He took me to see them."
"Joe visits a family of wolves?" Hawk seemed completely taken aback by the revelation. "Can you remember where you landed up there?"
"We were at the Gebhardts' cabin."
"On Van Hatten Creek?"
Perrie nodded. "And then we flew west, I think. I didn't notice at first, but then the landscape looked so different from Muleshoe. There was a huge mountain out the left window and I remember the sun was shining off the snow. There were no trees on it."
"That was probably Snowy Peak."
"Then I think we turned north again, out of the sun. There were lots of trees below and mountains. But then the landscape kind of cleared and there was a wide area that was just snow. It was really flat, like a river covered in white. And that's where Joe put the plane down. He said we were on the southern edge of the wildlife refuge."
"Was there another peak? You should have seen it to the east. Bear Mountain."
Perrie bit her lower lip and tried to remember, but once they'd landed, she had lost her sense of direction. Her attention had been focused on the wolves and on Joe, not on the surrounding mountains. "I don't know," she said in a shaky voice. "Maybe there was. I'd know the landscape if I saw it. I remember that peak."
The pilot from the bush plane walked over toward them, Perrie's bags in his arms. "Here are your things, ma'am."
Perrie grabbed his arm. "How much fuel do you have left in your plane?"
"Enough to get me back to Fairbanks."
"Enough to fly up to Fort Yukon?"
Hawk picked up on her idea. "Never mind about the fuel. We can fill the plane up here. I need you to fly me up to Yukon Flats."
"Me, too!" Perrie cried. "I'm coming along."
The pilot shook his head. "But I've got to get back to-"
"This is a search and rescue," Hawk explained.
The pilot's expression immediately turned from indifference to concern. "Who are we looking for?"
"Joe Brennan."
"Polar Bear Air? I know Brennan."
"We think he might have put the plane down on purpose somewhere up on the flats yesterday."
The pilot grabbed Perrie's bags and tossed them inside the Blazer. "Then let's refuel and get up in the air. Maybe we can find him before he has to spend another night in the cold."
Hawk nodded, then grabbed Perrie's hand and gave it a squeeze. "We'll find him."
The next fifteen minutes passed in a flurry of activity. Hawk helped the pilot refuel, then he called the lodge on the plane's radio just as they were taking off to let Tanner know their plans. They were up in the air before Perrie had a chance to grow impatient.
"He went to see Romeo," she murmured. "I know he did."
She stared out the window from her place behind the pilot's seat, trying to remember the landscape that she'd watched so closely that day. When they reached the spot above the Gebhardts' cabin, she sat up straighter, hoping that Joe's plane might be sitting out front. But Perrie saw nothing there except snow and a thin curl of smoke from the chimney.
The pilot veered west and Snowy Peak appeared in her window. "This is right," she called. "We took off in mis direction. We were just about even with the peak when Joe turned north again."
The pilot waited until the plane drew closer to the mountain, then banked to the right Below them, the landscape looked unfamiliar and Perrie's heart twisted. "This isn't right," she said. "I don't recognize this."
"Just wait," Hawk called from the copilot's seat. "I think Joe might have followed the Little Black River north. Before too long it meets Paddle Creek and there's a wide flat area right near the edge of the refuge."
She took a deep breath and pressed her palm to her heart, trying to calm the rapid pounding in her chest. She felt the crunch of paper beneath her jacket, then reached inside and withdrew the valentine Joe had made for her. Throughout her trip back to Muleshoe, it had rested near her heart, a reminder of what they had shared. She stared at it now, as if willing some mystical power from the paper and lace.
She wasn't sure how long she looked at it, rubbing her fingers over Joe's casual scrawl, remembering the day he'd given it to her.
"Well, I'll be damned."
Perrie looked up to see Hawk staring out his window, a pair of binoculars pressed to his eyes. "What? Do you see something?"
Hawk slowly lowered the binoculars then turned and smiled at Perrie. "You were right. He's down there. And the plane looks like it's in one piece."
Perrie scrambled to the window on the other side of the plane. In the distance she could see a splash of red against the white snow. "Is he all right? Can you see him?"
Hawk looked down again and nodded. "He sees us. He's waving."
Perrie leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. A surge of relief, followed by apprehension rushed over her and suddenly she wasn't sure of what she'd planned. What if she'd been mistaken? What if Joe didn't love her the way she thought he did?
"I'm going to put her down," the pilot called.
"Are-are you sure?" Perrie asked. "I-I mean, someone else could rescue him. You've already done so much."
Hawk turned and looked at her. "He'll be happy to see you."
His words were so direct and so confident that Perrie couldn't help but believe him. She smiled, then mouthed a silent "thank you" to the man who had become such a good friend.
The pilot circled once, but Perrie was afraid to look down. Her entire life, her happiness were riding on this landing. On the hope that she was right about Joe and that he truly did love her. The hope that he wanted her to come back to him, that there was a place in his life for her.
Moments later the plane was on the ground, and they slid across the snow until the pilot pulled back on the throttle and they came to a stop. Through the window, Perrie watched as Joe ran toward the plane, but she was frozen in her seat, unable to move.
Hawk hopped out and ran toward him, then grabbed Joe around the neck and gave him a hug. They talked for a minute, their heads bent, and then Hawk looked back to the plane. Perrie said one more prayer, pushed the door open and stepped outside.
But as she left the shadow of the plane's wing, Joe turned and started back toward the Super Cub. She stepped into the sunshine and Hawk called to Joe. He turned back, a grin on his face. And then he saw her.
Perrie held her breath, her fingers clutching at the valentine in her hands. His grin gradually faded to an expression of confusion and then disbelief. He pushed his cap off and ran his hand through his hair, then shook his head.
Their gazes locked, and, finally, after what seemed to Perrie like an eternity, he slowly started toward her. With each step his smile grew, along with the relief she felt. He stopped, then laughed out loud and held out his arms. Perrie gave a little cry and raced toward him.
She threw herself into his embrace, so hard that they both nearly fell back into the snow. His fingers furrowed through her hair and he brought his mouth down on hers, kissing her wildly, frantically, joyously. "I thought I'd never see you again," he murmured against her lips. "What are you doing here?"
"I had to come back," Perrie replied, trailing a line of kisses along his jaw. "I had to tell you."
"To tell me why you left?"
"No, I had to tell you why I have to stay." She looked up into the brilliant blue of his eyes. "I love you, Joe Brennan."
He star
ed at her a long moment, then glanced up at the sky and smiled. "You had better love me, Kincaid," he said, looking back down at her. "Because I sure as hell love you."
With a shout of delight, Perrie wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. "Do you know how scared I was? When I called the lodge and they told me your plane was missing, I didn't know what to do."
"I stopped to see Romeo and Juliet," Joe said. "I stayed a little too long and when I tried to take off, I couldn't get any power. Ice in the fuel line. By the time I figured that out, it was too dark to see to fix it. I just got it cleared when I saw your plane."
Perrie held his face between her palms. "Why didn't you use the radio and call someone?"
"I did. I radioed Fort Yukon but I couldn't raise anyone on that end. So I radioed the lodge and left my location with Sammy. I explained that he was supposed to have Tanner call Fort Yukon for me and tell them I'd be there in the morning."
"Sammy didn't say a thing."
"Hawk told me mat after Fort Yukon reported me late, Julia sent Sam off with Burdy, knowing mat he'd be upset if he knew I was missing. They didn't explain the situation to him. And Sam just forgot to mention that he'd talked to me."
"I was so worried. I thought I'd lost you."
"Why did you leave me, Perrie? Why did you just walk away?"
She pressed her forehead into his chest, unable to meet his gaze. "Because I was stupid and scared and I didn't believe that you really loved me. I just thought you were doing your job, doing what Milt wanted you to do."
Joe chuckled and tipped her chin up. "Milt never mentioned anything about falling in love with you."
"I meant sleeping with me."
"He didn't mention that, either. I thought of that all on my own."
Perrie felt a warm blush creep up her cheeks. "We are good together."
"Yes, Kincaid, we do make quite a pair," he teased. "And since you agree, I suppose there's only one thing left to do."
Perrie gave him a coy look, as anxious as he was to return to the lodge and a nice warm bed. She felt as if she could sleep, and make love to him, for the next week. "And what's that, Brennan?"
"You'll have to marry me."
Dodging Cupid's Arrow Page 18
