Match Made In Paradise

by Barbara Dunlop

  “Too bad,” Kenneth said with a regretful grin. Young, strong and capable, it was no secret he liked coming along on the flights as a swamper to load and unload cargo. He gave Silas a mock salute and hustled back to the forklift.

  “I’d like to get the fresh produce out next,” Raven said to Brodie. “And the Three Rivers operation needs a fuel haul.”

  “The fuel will have to wait until tomorrow. We can send the beavers out with the produce—do it in overlapping loops to save time, assuming the weather holds.”

  The WSA fleet had two beaver airplanes. They took smaller payloads than the islanders, but they’d fly though anything and you could land them anywhere.

  Raven’s hand-held radio crackled.

  “Dixie for Raven,” the Galina Expediting bookkeeper’s voice came through the speaker.

  Raven keyed her radio, looking up to the glassed-in mezzanine, where Dixie was looking down at them. “Raven here.”

  “Going on a coffee run to the Bear and Bar. You want anything?”

  Raven looked at Brodie and Silas, lifting her brow to see if they were in.

  “Coffee and a cinnamon bun,” Brodie said.

  Silas shook his head. He planned to go straight out to the airstrip and help load the islander.

  “You share?” Raven asked Brodie.

  Bear and Bar cinnamon buns were legendarily huge.

  Brodie chuckled and shook his head as if she was being a wimp. “Sure.”

  Raven keyed the radio again. “Two coffees and a cinnamon bun. Thanks.”

  “You got it.” Dixie gave a thumbs up through the upstairs glass.

  “Catch you later,” Silas said, turning away.

  “Your Fairbanks run tomorrow?” Raven asked, stopping him.

  Silas turned back. “I’ve got drillers going into Three Rivers, why?”

  “Can you bring in an extra passenger?”

  “To Three Rivers?”

  “Here.”

  He guessed it might be possible. “Is he big? Does he have a lot of cargo?”

  The mining drillers knew to pack light, but there were already five of them going in the Navajo plane. There wasn’t a lot of extra capacity.

  “Small,” Raven said. “It’s a woman. She’s lightweight, maybe with a few days of clothes and toiletries.”

  “Sure,” Silas said, catching an odd expression from Brodie.

  “What?” he asked his boss.

  “Nothing,” Brodie said in a tone that said it was something.

  Silas looked to Raven for more information.

  “It’s my cousin. From LA.”

  “Oh.” Silas was a little surprised to learn Raven had a cousin in LA. He knew she’d grown up on a mining property in Alaska with three brothers and a father. This was the first he was hearing about an extended family.

  Still, there was nothing odd in a cousin coming to visit Paradise. Well, maybe a little odd, since the town wasn’t exactly a tourist hotspot. Nobody but fishing and mountain climbing enthusiasts would consider it a prime destination. They didn’t have a hotel, and the Bear and Bar was pretty much it for restaurants. Paradise residents usually traveled outside to visit friends and family rather than the other way around.

  “Is she sporty?” he asked. “Outdoorsy?”

  Brodie’s mouth twitched as he obviously fought a smile.

  “It’s a getaway,” Raven said vaguely.

  Silas didn’t know what was going on with Brodie, but whatever. It wasn’t his problem. He was just the pilot.

  “A vacation in Paradise is definitely getting away,” he said easily and left them to it.

  * * *

  * * *

  It was coming up on twenty-two-hundred hours. The storm clouds had cleared and the sun was still high as Silas and his copilot, Xavier, went short final in the islander bush plane returning to the Paradise airstrip. The West Slope Aviation radio operator gave them wind speed, direction and altimeter.

  Xavier was at the controls right now, gaining experience landing the twin engine.

  “Full flaps,” Silas advised through the headset. “Don’t let your airspeed get too slow.”

  Silas’s attention went from the gauges to the ground, checking the minutia of Xavier’s landing. “Okay. Looks good down there. Touchdown abeam the windsock. That’s the sweet spot, smooth and level.”

  After a storm, Silas knew to miss the patchy puddles at the west end of the strip. And the windsock was the guide to putting it right on the numbers, just short of the access road to the WSA hangar and office complex, the only infrastructure at the remote airstrip.

  Silas saw the airspeed drop.

  “Wind sheer,” he instantly called out as the plane canted sideways and dropped like a stone to hit the strip and bounce. Rocks clanked up beneath them, one making a loud, definitive twang.

  “Max power.” Silas closed his hands on the yoke. “I have control.”

  “You have control,” Xavier echoed, letting go.

  Silas righted the aircraft, taking them to the center of the airstrip and smoothing it out.

  “Sorry, man,” Xavier said through the headset.

  “It happens,” Silas said, relieved to have stayed cockpit side up.

  As chief pilot, he tried to give his copilots as many takeoffs and landings as he could, because the only way to become a good bush pilot was to practice. Truth was, as a new pilot, you wanted to be tested while there was a captain in the plane to bail you out.

  “Was that a prop strike?” Xavier asked, sitting up tall, looking out both sides. Not that he was going to see anything on the spinning props.

  “I hope not,” Silas said as he turned to taxi to the tie-down area and the West Slope Aviation hangar.

  He knew it was a prop strike, but he didn’t want to say anything to Xavier just yet. Let him get past the difficult landing first.

  “Three-Zero-Alpha closing flight plan,” Xavier announced to radio operator Shannon Menzies. “Taxiing for the hangar.”

  “Three-Zero-Alpha, flight plan closed,” Shannon replied.

  “Can you get Cobra to meet us?” Silas asked Shannon, referencing the company’s aircraft maintenance engineer, their AME.

  “Confirming, Cobra to meet,” Shannon said back.

  Xavier groaned.

  “Let’s check it out, see what we’ve got,” Silas said to Xavier.

  Silas eased the airplane to a stop in front of the hangar and killed the power. He released his harness and draped his headphones around his neck while Xavier worked through the shut-down checklist.

  WSA owner Brodie came out of the hangar, ambling toward them with AME Cobra Stanford. Cobra was one of the few guys in town who dwarfed the athletic Brodie. Tall and brawny, he could muscle engine parts into place that normally took a jack or hoist.

  “Seriously?” Xavier said in an incredulous voice. “The boss has to be here too?”

  “Brodie’s going to find out sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.”

  “It was a prop strike, wasn’t it?”

  “Sounded like,” Silas admitted.

  “Am I going to get fired?”

  “It was the rock’s fault, not yours.”

  “I messed up the landing. Brodie was here. He saw it. It is my fault.”

  Silas swung his door open. He reached behind the seat for his pack. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

  Xavier muttered something as they both climbed out of the aircraft.

  Silas felt for the guy. Nobody wanted to be responsible for damaging an airplane. Repairs could be ridiculously expensive.

  “Oil pressure stay up?” Cobra asked.

  “Pressure’s been fine,” Silas said. “We kicked up a rock on the landing, sounded like a prop strike.”

  “Which side?”


  “Right.”

  Cobra moved to the propeller, and Xavier followed him.

  “Wind sheer caught us,” Silas said to Brodie.

  “Xavier took the landing?”

  Silas nodded.

  “I didn’t think that looked like you,” Brodie said, the gleam of a tease lurking in his dark eyes.

  Silas frowned instead of smiling. He sure hoped his landings didn’t look like that.

  “There’s a ding, all right,” Cobra called over to them. “I’ll have to measure. Could go either way.”

  “Either way?” Xavier asked, clearly worried.

  Cobra clapped him on the shoulder in a gesture of reassurance and headed inside to get a tool.

  Xavier stuck with Cobra, following him in.

  Silas couldn’t tell whether Xavier was curious about the repair process or afraid to stay out here with Brodie.

  “Everything else go okay?” Brodie asked.

  “Xavier’s coming along fine on the twin. It’s good that he’s getting lots of hours.”

  Xavier was young and new to Alaska, but he had good hands and feet, the raw skills needed to make a good bush pilot.

  “He’s got a future,” Brodie said.

  Silas nodded to that. He and Brodie generally agreed on pilot assessments.

  “Wildflower Lake sent back a bottle of the cabernet.” Silas swung his pack from his shoulder and pulled the zipper. “And Cornelia said to tell you thanks.”

  Brodie chuckled. “You know it’s a bribe.”

  “Hell, yeah, it’s a bribe.” Silas removed the bottle and handed it over. “And it’s a good one. You can double-check with Raven on the price, but that’s one expensive bottle of wine.”

  Brodie stared at the label for a moment. “I’ve been thinking about fixing her roof.”

  Silas was confused. “Cornelia’s roof?”

  “Raven’s roof. It’s leaking again, and I can’t convince her to move into staff housing.”

  Silas could understand Raven’s reluctance. He personally had no problem with the utilitarian camp trailers and central cafeteria, but WSA and Galina were 99 percent men, and she probably wanted a little privacy.

  “I can give a hand with that.”

  Raven was like a sister to the guys at West Slope. She kept Galina Expediting running like a well-oiled machine, making their lives easier and enabling them to maximize flying hours, thereby maximizing their paychecks.

  Cobra returned with a set of calipers to evaluate the prop and got to work.

  “And?” Brodie asked after a couple of minutes.

  “Not good,” Cobra said.

  Brodie gave a curse under his breath.

  “What does that mean?” Xavier asked, looking from Cobra to Silas, skipping over Brodie.

  “That means we ship it out for a teardown and inspection,” Cobra said.

  “The prop?” Xavier sounded like he was in pain.

  “The engine,” Silas said. It was as bad as he’d feared.

  The color drained from Xavier’s face.

  “The prop goes too,” Cobra clarified.

  Brodie smacked his flat hand on the fuselage.

  Xavier cringed, obviously waiting for Brodie to bring the hammer down.

  “Well . . .” Brodie paused. “That’s aviation. Better start stripping it out.”

  Xavier gaped at Brodie, clearly taken aback by his blasé reaction.

  “You,” Cobra said to Xavier, pointing at him with the calipers, “can help me with that.”

  “Sure,” Xavier said. “Yeah. No problem.” He snapped-to beside Cobra.

  “Misty Mountain Mine wants the crew picked up in Fairbanks this week,” Brodie said to Silas as the other two men headed for the hangar.

  “Same as Viking?” Silas guessed. “Until they fix the washout?”

  Brodie shook his head. “They’re making a permanent change in procedure. Corporate brass wants FBO Fairbanks from now on.”

  “That’ll cost them,” Silas said.

  “I know.”

  “Good for us, though.”

  “Can you set it up?”

  “You bet.” Silas moved his thinking on to tomorrow morning. “Did you know Raven had a cousin in LA?’

  Brodie started for the office. “I did not.”

  “Odd.”

  “Odd how?”

  “Can you picture a citified version of Raven?” Silas couldn’t.

  Brodie looked amused again. “No. And apparently Ms. Mia Westberg is accustomed to the finer things in life.”

  Silas considered that for a second. “Well, she won’t find those in Paradise.”

  Chapter Two

  The Fairbanks FBO wasn’t what Mia had expected. She was familiar with fixed base operators, the posh, amenity-rich check-in and lounge areas for private aircraft that some of Lafayette’s clients used. But the one Raven had sent her to . . . not so posh.

  It was cramped, utilitarian with a tiny coffee, fruit and pastry station in one corner and a small lounge full of worn furniture that was merely an extension of the check-in space. LA’s local bus station was fancier than this. The place didn’t even have a proper ladies’ room; nothing but a single person unisex restroom with an unpredictable lock on the door. It boasted a urinal stall beside the toilet and a free-standing sink with a tiny hanging mirror. Forget about a powder room lounge and proper lighting.

  Mia had landed in Anchorage yesterday after a comfortable first-class flight on a wide-body jet. The commuter flight to Fairbanks had been considerably scaled down, but that was fine. The attendants were cheerful, and the seats were small but comfortable.

  The Eagle-View Motel last night had been something else entirely. Alastair’s assistant, Veronica, had made a last-minute reservation, claiming the big chains had all been booked up.

  At first, Mia wondered if Veronica had lost her mind, or if she’d been influenced by Mia’s detractors and enemies at Lafayette and this was some form of retribution. If that was the case, as soon as Mia was in charge, Veronica was going to find herself out of a job.

  But it hadn’t turned out to be the case. Through an excruciatingly slow internet connection last night, Mia discovered the Eagle-View Motel’s marketing created a false impression. The website showed clean, spacious, if dated rooms. The property description boasted an extensive breakfast buffet, an indoor pool and a fitness club.

  Ha! After a painful night’s sleep on a saggy bed, Mia had suffered through a lukewarm shower, dried off with a threadbare towel, skipped breakfast altogether and was genuinely afraid of what might be growing in the indoor pool.

  Thankfully, this was the last leg of her trip. In a couple of hours, she’d be in Paradise, Alaska, with her cousin Raven, out of the reach of the protesters and media hounds who’d staked out her house and far enough away that online threats couldn’t turn into real threats.

  As of yesterday, it was either get out of town for a few weeks or hole up in her house and hire round-the-clock private security. She couldn’t even use her patio and pool for fear of photographers’ long lenses catching her every move and interpreting her every action and expression as confirmation that she was a gold-digging widow dancing on her husband’s grave.

  She’d had enough.

  Good luck to them finding her in Alaska.

  Most of the Fairbanks FBO lounge was taken up by five scruffy men who looked to be in their thirties, slouched and sprawled out in chairs reading dated magazines or scrolling through the screens on their phones. They all had beards, wore scuffed canvas work pants with too many pockets, threadbare shirts of nearly indistinguishable color and steel-toed boots that had clearly seen better days.

  One of them gave her a nod.

  She wasn’t afraid of them, more worried that her white and blue knit top would soak up residual dirt fr
om their clothing.

  She’d worn jeans today, knowing Alaska was a more laid-back state. The pair was from the Boyfriend Collection, slim and stylish, but comfortable too, with a slightly lower waist, which was good for long periods of sitting. She’d paired the jeans with tan leather ankle boots, low-heeled and pre-aged for a nice outdoorsy look.

  Her shirt was striped, a knit fabric for flexibility. And she’d gone with a simple gold necklace and flat gold stud earrings. She’d even put her hair in a high ponytail, informal but crisp in case she ended up out in the wind. It was low-key casual, and she thought she’d nailed it.

  She arranged her burgundy plaid roller-bags, her garment bag and her carry-on in a corner of the lounge and checked out the seat beside them. It looked gritty, so she crossed to the snack bar and pulled a couple of napkins from the dispenser. Then she returned to wipe the seat and dropped the soiled napkins into a trash.

  When she turned to sit down, all five of the men were staring at her.

  Also staring was a man in an olive-green flight suit with wings on his chest and stripes on his arm. He was standing in the glass doorway that led to the runway.

  Magnificent was the first word that came to her mind. If she was casting a model for a rugged, outdoors spread to attract women from far and wide, inspiring them to buy something for their own man from a new Lafayette wilderness clothing line, this would be her guy. There was a hint of irony in his half-smile, a hint of mischief in his blue eyes. He was fit and tall and confident enough to take on the wild. They’d make a fortune.

  He looked her over from head to toe. Then he moved his attention to her luggage.

  The five men rolled to their feet.

  “Hey, Silas,” one of them said.

  “Ricardo,” the man, obviously a pilot, and apparently named Silas, said in return.

  “How’s it going?” another of the men asked Silas.

  “Welcome back to the grind,” Silas said.

  The other man grinned and nodded.

  They all hoisted their backpacks and lifted their compact duffle bags to head for the door.

  Silas, the pilot, stepped to one side, out of their way, while Mia sat down to wait.

  “I take it you’re Mia,” Silas said.