by J. H. Croix
I had no idea what Dave and Nancy saw on my face, but they looked at each other and then Nancy asked, “Is there something else?”
“She was a virgin.” Fuck. That just leapt right out of my mouth. If Holly found out that I shared that detail, she would probably fucking kill me.
I groaned, leaning forward and resting my head in my hands, tunneling my fingers through my hair. When I straightened, two pairs of wide eyes met mine.
“Oh,” Nancy said.
“That’s it? Oh?” I asked.
Dave snagged his coffee from the counter and took a swift gulp before leveling his gaze with mine again. “Well, that’s kind of big. I don’t mean to look so surprised.”
“Trust me, I was shocked too. It wasn’t like she was saving herself or anything. Or at least that’s what she said,” I muttered.
Nancy had recovered and adjusted the heat on the potatoes, setting a lid over the wok. “Whether she was saving herself or not, that’s big.”
“I know,” I finally said. “She said after the accident…” I glanced at Dave, wondering if he had ever mentioned it to Nancy.
He filled in the blanks for me. Looking to Nancy, he explained, “You know the accident I told you about in high school. It was after I graduated, but a kid died. He was dating Holly.”
“Okay,” was all Nancy had to offer, although she nodded, indicating she recalled what he meant.
I picked up the thread in the conversation. “Anyway, Holly said everyone just steered clear of her after that. Then, she said it was just one thing after another and before she knew it, she was still a virgin.”
“Do you love her?” Nancy asked flatly.
A rush of emotion tightened in my chest. My answer came instantly. I didn’t even have to ponder it. “Yes.”
“Well, then you better tell her,” Nancy said firmly.
“Dude, do whatever Nancy says. I take her advice on all relationship matters,” Dave added solemnly.
Nancy burst out laughing and rolled her eyes in his direction. “Not always.” Sobering, she glanced back at me. “I just think she needs to know because this will be all kinds of messy if everything is not straight up front. You’re an upfront guy. If you love her, then don’t let it wait.”
“I guess I didn’t want to push too hard, too fast. I was afraid she wouldn’t trust me,” I offered, my own explanation making me wince inside.
“If you don’t want your reputation to precede you, you damn well better say something soon,” Dave said.
With Nancy and Dave’s words echoing in my mind, I borrowed their satellite phone to radio in, and asked Fred to pick up the group when he flew in. Fred affably agreed, but then, he was that kinda guy. I didn’t wait and immediately packed up, then said my goodbyes. Although Brenda looked disappointed, she was gracious and headed out for a ski before I left.
As I readied my plane, I calculated I’d be landing in Willow Brook by late afternoon. The skies were clear when I lifted up and stayed that way for a good hour. Then, air traffic control radioed in, telling me to expect some turbulence with a storm passing through. The wind had changed direction, and a storm to the west of us was now blowing east.
Radioing back to air traffic control, I asked for more information. The radio crackled in my ears before the reply came through. “This storm has been blowing out toward the ocean, west of where you are. With the wind shift, it turned back and it’s picking up fast. Considering where you need to fly, I’d say you want to get out of the air within the next hour. Find somewhere you can land and wait this out. It shouldn’t be long.”
“Got it, how far away am I from that summer lodge?”
It wasn’t my preference to land and wait this out, but the visibility was getting bad fast. Much as I wanted to get to Holly, even more, I wanted to stay alive.
After reporting in my planned destination, I flew through the thick snow squall that had kicked up, landing safely within the half hour. If the weather had been clear, I’d already have been on the ground in Willow Brook, which made it damn painful to land. I radioed in to confirm my landing, and then trudged through the snow to an empty wilderness lodge. This place didn’t have guests in the winter. It was an official emergency shelter for pilots in Alaska, so we could use the gravel runway just above it on a hillside, and had the access code to get into the lodge to wait out any episodes of bad weather.
I would spend the night, warm and dry and with basic food, yet I didn’t know whether I’d be able to call Holly. Not that she was expecting to hear from me, but ever since my conversation with Nancy and Dave, I was beyond restless to get to her. I sure as hell didn’t appreciate a fucking snowstorm slowing me down.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Holly
“Have you heard?” Ella asked.
“Heard what?” I countered, leaning forward to snag a tortilla chip from a bowl in the center of the table.
I’d been looped into regular card nights with Ella. Her sister-in-law, Amelia, and a few other friends hosted these often. They were all friends of mine, although Ella was my closest link. Ever since she’d moved back to Willow Brook, we often came together and hosted gatherings in the rotation.
Tonight, we were at Lucy and Levi’s place. Lucy loved card night and had missed a few since she had her baby right after the holidays. Baby Glory was named after Levi’s mother, Gloria. At the moment, Lucy held Glory on her lap and was saying something to Amelia. The door to the kitchen opened, and Maisie stepped through, glancing around with a smile.
“Hey everybody,” she called as she shrugged out of her jacket, hanging it on the crowded coat rack.
She strode from the kitchen door to the table and slipped into the only chair left. “Have you heard?” she asked, looking to me.
Chewing my tortilla, I lifted my hands in confusion. “No, but it’s weird you just asked me the same thing Ella did,” I replied, as I took a sip of water to chase down the tortilla.
“It’s Nate. He was on his way back to Willow Brook and had to do an emergency landing during a storm,” Maisie explained.
My stomach tightened, anxiety churning in my gut, and worry spinning through me.
“Is he okay?” I blurted out, my voice sounding high and tight.
Maisie nodded, and I fell silent because I didn’t know what the hell to say. I had a million questions.
Ella caught my eyes from where she sat across from me. “Caleb heard it from Maisie, and then called up to dispatch in Fairbanks for an update because they’re closer,” Ella added.
We were sitting at a large round table—me, Ella, Amelia, Lucy, Maisie, and Charlie tonight. Not everyone was here, but close.
“What the hell happened?” I asked, still not able to tamp down my worry. I didn’t like the idea of Nate having to make an emergency landing in Alaska in the middle of the wilderness. Not at all.
Maisie took the beer that Amelia handed over when she leaned back to grab it off the kitchen counter. As she took the cap off, she explained, “Exactly that. When he left this morning, the weather was clear where he was and was supposed to be decent. A storm to the west changed direction and went right back into his flight path. Don’t worry, he’s safe and sound. He already reported back to air traffic control out of Anchorage.”
Only now did it occur to me to wonder how anyone other than Ella would think I might be interested to know about this.
“We all know,” Lucy said, when she caught me glancing around. She adjusted a sleepy Glory in her arms and flashed a smile.
“Even Glory knows,” Amelia said with a slow smile.
My cheeks were flaming. The brief flare of anxiety for Nate had my adrenaline pumping. I looked to Ella.
“I didn’t say anything,” she protested. “Apparently, Caleb said something to Cade.”
“Who said something to Beck,” Maisie added with a low laugh. She took a sip of beer and then set the bottle down. “I love my husband, but he’s kind of nosy. He’s not really a gossip, but he tells me ev
erything. So, he said something to me, and then I asked Amelia, and then… Well, there you have it. Now we all know. What’s with the big secret anyway?”
Between my abrupt worry about Nate, not really knowing enough about what happened today, and our one-sided argument the other night, a rush of emotion slammed into me, and I burst into tears.
“Oh God,” Lucy said. “Are you okay?”
I grabbed a napkin from the middle of the table and wiped my eyes before taking a shaky breath and nodding. “I’m fine. I think I’m just emotional because you kind of scared me.”
“Nate is fine,” Maisie said firmly.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be okay,” Lucy added. “Or at least that’s what I tell myself when I’m up on only two hours of sleep.”
Maisie laughed and threw her a sympathetic smile. “I promise, someday Glory will sleep through the night.” With two of her own toddlers, Maisie had the most experience with babies at the table.
“Anyway, do tell,” Amelia said, circling her hand in the air.
“It’s not a big secret,” I mumbled.
Charlie cut in. “I think it’s the definition of a secret. You had something on the down low with Nate, and none of us knew about it. Except Ella, I guess.”
“For what it’s worth, I only found out about one night and nothing more,” Ella added.
I couldn’t help but laugh, even though I was a bit of an emotional wreck. “I haven’t talked about it because I didn’t want things to get weird. I mean, we’re all friends, and Nate is friends with all of you…”
“Yeah, and he’s your brother’s best friend,” Amelia interjected.
“I know. That’s exactly why I didn’t say anything. I don’t know what’s going on. I mean, we had sex. And—”
“More than once?” Ella cut in.
I bit back a groan. Clearly, Ella felt empowered by the group dynamic here.
“Yes,” I said. As I scanned the table, I found curiosity tempered with understanding in the faces looking back at me. They might tease me, but everyone at this table would have my back, and I knew it.
Relaxing, I leaned back in my chair and nodded. “Things have been pretty intense, and I wasn’t sure where things were going. Then, well, that woman showed up the other night, and I remembered exactly why I told myself I shouldn’t let anything happen between us. For all I know, he’s shacked up with her in the middle of a snowstorm now.”
Just thinking about that made my heart ache.
“He’s alone,” Maisie offered.
“How would you even know?” I asked.
“Since I work in dispatch, I can get that kind of information. When I heard that he had to make an emergency landing, I called up to a friend in air traffic control and they told me he was alone in the plane.”
I absorbed that bit of information, but it didn’t make me feel better.
“So, are you two broken up now?” Lucy asked.
“How can they be broken up when none of us even knew they were together?” Maisie chimed in.
I burst out laughing. With my emotions right at the surface, I couldn’t think clearly. “I don’t even know if we’re together. He tried to come by the other night, and I told him to get lost. Maybe not exactly like that, but that was the point. Now, apparently, he’s stranded alone.”
“I thought alone was a good thing,” Charlie offered.
“It’s better than him shacking up with some chick who’s got the hots for him, but what if he dies and he’s all alone?”
As soon as that question tumbled out, I started crying again. Oh my God. This mess—this tornado of emotion, unreasonable and irrational—was precisely why I should’ve known better than to let myself get involved with Nate. I didn’t know how he felt about me, and I didn’t know what to do about any of this.
“Obviously he means a lot to you,” Ella said, all teasing gone from her tone and her gaze concerned.
I grabbed another napkin and blew my nose as I tried to gather myself together inside. “Yeah, he does, and I don’t know what the hell to do about it.”
Everyone around the table was quiet. Finally, Amelia spoke. “Maybe you need to talk to him when he gets back, so you can find out where he stands.”
“No shit,” I retorted, but I was smiling. And crying.
As I blew my nose again, Ham, Levi’s cute little brown hamster, came scurrying into the kitchen. He ran over to the window, climbing a series of chairs to get to the windowsill where there was a small bed for him. Yes, Levi had a pet hamster he let run loose in the house.
At the sight of him looking over at us, his whiskers vibrating in the air, I burst out laughing again.
Turning over and punching my pillow to adjust it under my head, I stared out the window, which faced Main Street. Willow Brook turned the streetlights off by nine p.m. That schedule had been determined after a rather testy town hall meeting about light pollution. As minor as the issue seemed, the effect of lights at night was far more evident when you were living on the edge of the wilderness.
Smudgy clouds were hazy in the darkness, with a few stars piercing through the veil. The very clouds were likely the edges of whatever storm had forced Nate to land earlier today. Restless, I grabbed my phone. Maybe, just maybe, he had reception where he was.
Pulling up his number, I tapped the dial button. It rang precisely four times and then the sound of his voicemail picked up.
Hey, it’s Nate. In case you missed it, I’m busy. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.
This had been his voicemail message for years. Emotion hit me like a wave crashing over, my heart beating hard and fast and my throat thick from tears. God, I missed him. He’d only been gone for a single day and night, and I was a mess.
I didn’t leave a message, although I felt quite silly for calling afterwards. I didn’t hang up fast enough, so he would have a message of silence from me.
Wiping my nose on the sleeve of my T-shirt, I kicked back the covers to grab some tissues. After a short trek to the bathroom to blow my nose, I returned to my bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress and staring outside. Sleep was hard to come by.
After I finally fell into a restless sleep, my dreams filled with Nate, the vibration of my phone on the nightstand beside my bed woke me in the late morning hours.
In my rush to answer, I almost dropped the phone on the floor. Catching it, I saw Nate’s name flashing on the screen for a second. Then, dropped call.
When I frantically called him back, I didn’t even get to his voicemail before the call dropped.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nate
Holly’s phone rang in my ear, and I waited, praying she would answer. I wasn’t much of a praying man. Resorting to prayer said something about how desperately I wanted to hear her voice.
Nancy’s pointed words about making sure to let Holly know how I felt in the context of my reputation preceding me had been beating like a drum in my brain all night. Unlike Nancy and Dave’s lodge, the lodge where I had landed wasn’t tricked out for winter. Aside from a back-up propane generator, which kept the temperature above freezing and the power running for refrigeration food storage, the satellite cable was turned off, and there was no cell phone reception. On the ground, in the middle of nowhere, I sure as hell hadn’t been able to call anyone. I had asked air traffic control to notify Willow Brook dispatch of my status when I landed. Considering that I’d been expected to arrive there yesterday afternoon, I didn’t want anybody worrying.
On the third ring, Holly’s voicemail picked up. “Fuck,” I muttered to myself as I listened to her voice.
Hey, hey, you know who it is if you’re calling. Leave a message, and I’ll call you back when I can.
A smile tugged at the corners of my mouth at the sound of her voice. I was damn tempted to tell her how I felt via voicemail, yet somehow that didn’t seem quite right.
“Hey, Holly, it’s Nate. I saw that I had a missed call from you. I’m sure you figured ou
t I didn’t have any reception last night. I tried earlier this morning, but the reception was still shit. I’m in the air now, and I should be in Willow Brook within the hour.”
Hanging up, I tossed my phone into the cup holder in between the seats and then radioed in to confirm my estimated time of arrival. I’d waited for the clouds to dissipate before leaving. The sky was clear early this afternoon, a bright blue canvas with the sun rising above the mountains. The wind was behind me, helping to make up a little time on the way. With thoughts of Holly spinning through my mind, there was only one thing I wanted to know—whether she felt even remotely close to the way I did.
My flight path brought me into Willow Brook from the east. As fucking bad luck would have it, a pair of seagulls flew directly in front of the plane, getting sucked into one of my engines.
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered as I radioed in to report it, wrestling to manage the plane with one engine knocked out.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Holly
Maisie looked up from behind the counter in the dispatch area at Willow Brook Fire & Rescue. She shook her head, her brown curls bouncing. “If Nate left you a message, obviously he’s fine. If I had anything to tell you, I promise I would.”
Biting my lip, I looked away, mentally trying to calm down. I’d been edgy and restless all morning. I was running on maybe an hour or so of sleep as it was. Then, I realized Nate had actually called me back while I was in the shower, and I’d missed his call. That had only amped up the tension thrumming inside of me.
Too frustrated to even consider going in to work, I called out for my afternoon shift, which I almost never did. Chris had offered to cover for me and gave me a little pep talk. He told me it was obvious I was in love with Nate and to do something about it instead of dallying around it.