Match Made In Paradise

by Barbara Dunlop

Intensely thirsty from the exertion and the fear, she grabbed herself a bottle of water. She stood in the break room chugging it and wondering what to do next. Some of the pickups likely had keys left inside. Was she bold enough to borrow one and head for the bridge? It was an emergency, after all.

  The radio crackled behind her. “WSA base, this is Three-Zero-Alpha.”

  Mia whirled.

  “WSA base, this is Three-Zero-Alpha. Come in WSA base.” It was Hailey on the radio.

  Mia set down the water bottle and crept to the doorway of the radio room. Why wasn’t Shannon here if planes were coming in right now?

  “WSA base? You there?”

  A new voice came on, Silas this time. “Three-Zero-Alpha this is Echo-Sierra.”

  Mia gasped at the sound of Silas’s voice, feeling its timbre to her bones.

  “Hey, Silas. Roger that,” Hailey said.

  “I’m inbound over Clear Hills, weather’s good to the north, crap to the south. What do you see?”

  Mia moved to the desk and sat down at the radio, staring at the lights and switches.

  “We’re skirting the edge of it,” Hailey said. “Should be able to make Paradise before it catches us. Shannon, you there?”

  Mia’s hand shook as she pressed the microphone button. “WSA base. It’s, uh, Mia.”

  “Mia?” Silas’s voice sounded shocked. “What are you doing there?”

  “Shannon’s not here,” Mia said. “You guys should know the bridge may have washed out.”

  “Say again?” Hailey asked.

  “The bridge. I didn’t see it, but I heard it. I think it washed out. The creek’s flooding the road.”

  “Did you check the strip?” Silas asked.

  “I just got here.”

  “We need an airstrip condition report,” Silas said.

  Suddenly everything Mia had learned and read flooded into her brain. “Roger that,” she said. “Stand by.”

  She hopped up from her chair and was halfway to the office door when she remembered the bears. She stumbled to a halt. There were grizzly bears outside. And they were mad at her. But Silas was up in the sky. The pilots needed her now.

  She took a step forward, then another, then defiantly flung open the door and ran up the access road.

  She took note of the windsock on the way, twelve knots, north, northeast. Then she came out on the strip and stopped to stare. Her heart sank all the way to her toes. It looked like the whole of Falls Creek had washed out onto the strip, leaving mud, rocks, tree branches and trunks, big uprooted trunks out in the middle.

  Her hand went to her forehead in a moment of despair. Then she shook herself. It was what it was, and she had to focus. She turned to sprint back to the radio room.

  Out of breath, she made the call. “WSA base here. Wind is twelve knots north, northeast. But the airstrip is compromised. Echo-Sierra, Thee-Zero-Alpha, reroute to your alternate airstrips.”

  “How bad?’ Hailey asked.

  “Mud and debris across the middle of the strip, one hundred feet west of the access road.”

  “Roger that,” Hailey said. “Three-Zero-Alpha rerouting to Mulberry Trail. You have us on tracking.”

  Mia checked the tracking screen. “I’ve got you.”

  “We’ll overnight and try to approach Paradise strip fifteen-hundred tomorrow. Three-Zero-Alpha out.”

  “Three-Zero-Alpha, approach Paradise strip fifteen-hundred tomorrow,” Mia confirmed.

  “WSA base, Echo-Sierra,” Silas came back.

  “Go ahead Echo-Sierra.”

  “Alternate airstrip is a no-go.”

  Mia’s mind screamed no, and her hand trembled again. “Say again?”

  “Alternate airstrip for Echo-Sierra is a no-go. Insufficient fuel to return to survey camp. Echo-Sierra is landing WSA strip in forty-five minutes. I’m in the PC-12. I need the whole strip.”

  “But . . .” She didn’t know what else to say.

  “Describe the debris.”

  “Mud, rocks, branches, tree trunks. They’re big, Silas. I can’t move them.”

  There was silence for a moment. “How far across?”

  “All the way. All the way across.”

  “Mia.”

  “Yes.”

  “The loader.”

  She shook her head.

  His voice was perfectly steady. “Start up the loader, use the bucket, and push whatever you can out of the middle of the strip.”

  She keyed the mic. “Silas, you know I can’t . . .”

  “You can do it. It doesn’t have to be pretty. Just give me some space.”

  Her breathing turned shallow. She couldn’t do this. She’d mess it up, like she’d messed everything else up.

  “Mia?”

  “What?” she asked on a gasp.

  His tone turned gentle. “I do have faith in you.”

  She closed her eyes as her chest contracted with emotion. Then she willed the shaking from her hands to stop and swallowed, telling herself Silas needed her. She pressed the microphone button, keeping her voice strong. “Roger that, Echo-Sierra.”

  “Echo-Sierra forty-three minutes from WSA strip, coming in west, will do one fly-over and go-around. Echo-Sierra, out.”

  “Echo-Sierra, one fly over coming in west, WSA base, out.”

  Mia gave herself twenty seconds to breathe and get a grip. Then she marched into the break room, grabbed a pair of leather gloves and jogged to the loader in the corner of the parking lot.

  She climbed the ladder and hoisted herself into the cab, wrestling the glass door shut behind her.

  She took another breath, telling herself at least she was safe from the bears up here. She struggled to calm her mind and remember the lesson Silas had given her.

  First, she buckled her seatbelt. Then she reached for the ignition key. She turned it one click and stopped herself. “Diesel. Glow plugs. Wait fifteen seconds.” She waited.

  Then she gritted her teeth and turned the key. The engine rumbled to life beneath her, vibrating the entire loader. She almost cheered in relief.

  She used the lever to lift the bucket. Then she put the machine in forward and pressed on the accelerator. The giant beast inched its way ahead. She turned the steering wheel toward the access road, and it rumbled in the right direction.

  “Just a big car,” she muttered to herself. “Just a big ol’ giant-ass car. There isn’t even any other traffic.”

  She dared to press a little harder on the accelerator, and the loader sped up. The wheels bounced her up and down against the seatbelt and she hung on as she made her way to the strip.

  The light was getting lower as the evening wore on, and the clouds were closing in darker above her. She glanced at the windsock to see that it hadn’t changed. That was a good thing, since she had no way to contact Silas again.

  She drove to the middle of the strip, then turned sharply right and aimed herself at the debris pile. She didn’t know if the loader would push an entire tree, or if she should try one end at a time. So, she went straight on, lowering her speed and lowering the bucket.

  She pressed into the debris, gritting her teeth as the bucket met with an eighteen-inch log and a pile of branches. To her surprise, the loader didn’t even hesitate. It kept right on going as if there was nothing in the way.

  She drove straight through the pile and pushed it off to the side.

  Then she got bold, putting the loader into reverse to turn, she lined up for another pass.

  Again, success. She pushed a significant amount of the debris out of the way and off to the side.

  Six passes later, she was running out of time. She struggled to remember how wide the wingspan was on the PC-12, and how high the wings were off the ground. But she couldn’t differentiate from plane to plane.

  She w
asn’t positive, but she thought it looked like enough room for any of them.

  The space she’d cleared was still scattered with bits of rubble, and she had ten minutes left. She pushed the bucket right down to the ground and made four more passes, doing her best to smooth out the muddy surface.

  When she pulled out of the way, she could see Silas’s plane, a dot in the distance.

  He grew closer and larger then rumbled low over the strip, obviously checking her work. He circled back to the west and lined up to land.

  She pushed the loader door open and leaned out to watch.

  He came down on the strip at the far end. He slowed and cut through the center of the debris pile, coming to a stop about fifty feet past.

  The pitch of the prop changed, and he turned to taxi.

  Feeling fantastic at her success, she shut the door, rebuckled her seat belt and drove the loader down the access road, stopping in the middle of the parking lot and deciding it could stay right where it was. She shut off the engine as Silas climbed out of the plane.

  Before she could even think, she was running his way. She was elated that he was safe and so incredibly happy to see him.

  He wrapped her tight in his arms and held her there. “You did fantastic.”

  “You’re okay,” she said, as much to herself as to him. “You’re safe.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  A new motor sound appeared in the silence, and they both looked to the road.

  It was an ATV, Brodie with Raven on behind him, ripping their way into the parking lot.

  Brodie slid to a stop and killed the engine. He looked around. “Hailey and Tobias?”

  “Diverted to Mulberry Trail,” Mia said. “They’ll try coming in at fifteen-hundred tomorrow.”

  Brodie gave her a surprised look.

  “Mia worked the radio,” Silas said, giving her a one-armed hug, then leaving the arm around her.

  Brodie looked stupefied now, but Raven was grinning as she dismounted the ATV.

  “And the loader?” Brodie asked, seeing that it was sitting in the middle of the access road.

  “That would be Mia again,” Silas said with another squeeze. “Falls Creek washed out at the upper elbow, all the way across the strip. You should see what she did.”

  “That thing is amazing,” Mia said. She was still feeling giddy from the power.

  “You ran the loader?” Brodie asked, clearly baffled by the thought.

  Raven nudged him in the shoulder with her elbow. “Quit asking stupid questions.”

  “I did,” Mia said, meeting his gaze straight on.

  “Saved my life,” Silas said. “Not to mention your PC-12. Rough Hills strip was flooded. I had no alternate and not enough fuel to go back.”

  “I gotta see this,” Raven said, and started hiking up the access road.

  Mia quickly fell into step beside her. “Did you see the bridge?”

  “The bridge is gone,” Raven said. “Gone, gone. We had to ford the river down at the beaver pond.”

  “I heard it go out,” Mia said. “At first I thought it was an earthquake.”

  Silas came up on her other side while Brodie walked next to Raven.

  “How’d you get here?” Raven asked her.

  “I wanted to call into town. So, I jogged up for the wireless. Saw the bears.” The bear encounter had completely slipped her mind.

  “On the road?” Raven asked.

  “The big one charged at me.”

  All three of them swiveled their heads to stare.

  “I bear sprayed it,” she said. “And it ran away.”

  “The grizzly?” Silas asked.

  Mia nodded.

  “With the cubs?” Brodie asked, looking flabbergasted all over again.

  “That’s the one. I was dodging the puddles, then I looked up, and bam, there she was. And she was angry. So, I pulled out the bear spray, and when she got nice and close, I let her have it.” Mia felt a guilty for making herself sound braver than she was, but she didn’t want to admit she’d almost wet her pants. Well, maybe later she’d tell Raven that part of the story.

  “Go, you,” Raven said. “That should keep that old bear out of town for a while.”

  Brodie suddenly stopped in his tracks, staring at the strip ahead. “Wow.”

  “Wow,” Raven echoed as she spotted the debris.

  Staring from this angle at the giant hole she’d made in the pile, Mia’s thoughts proudly echoed their words.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It took three days to get the town and the airstrip back to working order and to get a temporary Bailey bridge set up over the river. But finally, Galina and WSA were back in business.

  Silas and Brodie stood in the front of the WSA hangar watching the first Galina delivery trucks roll in.

  “You’re suspicious,” Silas said to Brodie.

  “I’m realistic,” he said back.

  “Mia didn’t save your plane to use it as a bargaining chip for their matchmaking scheme.”

  “That might not have been her plan. But the dust’s settled now, and you know they’re going to ask again. How do I say no?”

  “Maybe you can negotiate,” Silas suggested, knowing Brodie was probably right. Silas hadn’t seen much of Mia or Raven during the cleanup, but Breena had told him it was still full steam ahead on the matchmaking plans. “They seemed open to cutting the number of women in half. Twelve? We could find a way to accommodate twelve.”

  Brodie frowned. “My main point’s still the same.”

  “Their main argument’s the same too. The guys do have trouble meeting women up here. And maybe it’ll work. Maybe we’ll get some new families started in Paradise.”

  “Or maybe the guys will follow the pretty women back to California. Women get tired of living like this. You know they do.”

  “Are you talking about my mother?” Silas’s mother was a solid case in point for Brodie’s side of the argument.

  “I’m talking about women in general who, quite reasonably, like creature comforts.”

  Silas tried for optimism. “Carl and Shannon are happy here. Reece’s wife, Kelly, came in from outside.”

  “Shannon grew up here and Kelly grew up on a ranch. They weren’t city women to begin with. And you know the thing is going to distract everyone for days on end.”

  Another delivery truck pulled into the parking lot. Xavier and Zeke were on deck waiting to load up a beaver for a flight to Wildflower Lake.

  “Change the timeframe,” Silas suggested, wondering all over again why he was arguing Raven and Mia’s side. “Put it into October. That way, the workload is way down, people are gearing up for their winter holidays anyway, and the visitors will get a better look at the reality of Paradise.”

  “There could be snow by then,” Brodie said.

  Silas shrugged. “Good. If you can’t take the snow, you have no business dating an Alaskan bush pilot.”

  He couldn’t stop his thoughts from shifting to Mia—the poster child for women who had no business dating an Alaskan bush pilot. Good thing she wasn’t dating him.

  “We could free up a few staff units in October,” Brodie said.

  Silas was surprised to hear the concession. “We could,” he agreed in an even tone, purposefully not making a big deal out of Brodie’s change of heart.

  Kenneth and Xavier called out instructions to each other from across the parking lot, while T taxied the caravan to the strip. Hailey and T-Two were methodically filling the big cargo space in an otter.

  “If there’s only twelve of them, we could make a single trip in the otter,” Brodie added.

  “You’d get major brownie points with Raven.”

  Brodie frowned. “Raven and I don’t work that way.”

  “Oh. Okay. How do you two work?”r />
  “She does her job. I do mine.”

  “With Mia and me, it’s more of a free-for-all. Sometimes it’s an argument, sometimes she saves my life, sometimes—”

  Brodie reared back. “What do you mean, Mia and you? Tell me you’re not one of those guys?”

  “Those guys?”

  “Guys who think they have something special going on with Mia . . . Zeke and Xavier, AJ, and who knows who all else.”

  “I’m not like those guys.” Silas really did have something special going on with Mia. Or, at least, he had at one time. He had no idea what the status was now. “But we seem to wander into each other’s orbits a lot.”

  “Just so long as you don’t get too close to her gravitational field.”

  “It’s not a big deal.” Silas would prefer to be totally honest with Brodie about his feelings for Mia. But since nothing real was going on, it was better to just let it lie.

  Brodie turned as another pickup entered the lot. “Is Raven psychic or what?”

  It was Raven’s truck with Mia in the passenger seat, and Silas’s pulse kicked up at the sight of her.

  Her shiny blond hair was bouncing in a ponytail. She wore a snug burgundy top with a colorful scarf around her neck. Her face was fresh and bright, and he could already picture her form-fitting jeans and sexy leather ankle boots.

  His feet started moving, taking him toward the truck as it turned in and halted in front of the hangar.

  Raven got out on their side. She grinned, looking perky and energized. “Feels good to be back in business.”

  “The pilots are raring to go,” Brodie said.

  With the exception of Brodie and Silas, everyone had a flight taking off in the next few hours. The entire ground crew and a few of the Galina workers were here loading up the planes.

  Silas’s attention went straight to Mia as she walked around the back of the pickup box. The view of her beat his expectations, and he had to fight with himself to keep from going straight over and pulling her into his arms, kissing her and more.

  “Hey, Brodie,” Xavier called out. Xavier, Kenneth and T-Two were all walking their way.

  Brodie turned to the call.

  “The tires for Wildflower are causing us grief,” Xavier said. “Tobias says they can take them in the otter.”