Running a finger over her lips, she sat back down and closed her eyes. His beard had been soft and his lips had moved over hers with the perfect combination of tenderness and purpose. If she’d met him at some boring celeb party in L.A. would she have still felt that overwhelming attraction?
She didn’t remember falling asleep, but the harsh blare of the alarm jerked her awake. Bleary-eyed, she slammed the snooze button—5:00 a.m.
Within thirty minutes she was dressed and in a cab headed for Anchorage International. She instructed the cabbie to drop her off at the General Aviation Hangar.
Once in the office, there was a desk with a security guard. He looked up as she approached. Through the office window she could see the hangar with a couple of planes inside.
“I’m Serena Sandstone. There should be a clearance badge waiting for me?”
The guard checked a clipboard of papers, then nodded and stood to unlock the door to the hangar for her. “You want to know about a particular plane?”
“Uh, no. I wanted to look at all the different types of prop planes, if that’s okay. Just to get a feel for their size and how they land and take off.”
He stared at her as if she were a ditzy airhead, but he waved her through the door.
“Thanks.” Releasing her pent up breath, she smiled and took her badge. “Is it okay if I look at the planes outside, too?”
The guard shrugged. “Be my guest.”
Faking an air of confidence, she strolled through the door into the hangar, then checking through the window that the guard had returned to his desk and wasn’t looking, she slipped out the door to the tie-down ramp.
Outside, it was still dark and freezing cold. Only one lone light overhead cast shadows around the small aircrafts. And the wind made an eerie sound as it blew over and under their wings and turned propellers. She shivered and hugged her arms.
She spied the weathered white Cessna she’d seen Max Taggert jump out of yesterday and made straight for it. It sat higher than it looked from far away. With one last glance around, she grabbed hold of the pole running between the body of the plane and wing, climbed up onto the foothold and tugged on the door.
It opened.
Jeez, her heart was thudding so hard she could feel it pounding against her rib cage. She hadn’t even considered what she’d do if the door had been locked. Which she should have. What kind of drug runner left his plane unlocked?
She took in a fortifying breath of Arctic air. Just do it.
She climbed in and crawled behind the pilot’s seat into the cargo space. Digging out a flashlight from her purse, she shone the light around and spied a large toolbox, a slatted crate next to it and a wadded-up tarp in the very back. Other than that, the interior was empty.
She rifled through the crate and found a butane lantern, some canned goods and other camping type items. Only tools in the toolbox. Nothing under the tarp. That left hidden compartments in the walls.
She’d finished feeling one side when she heard men’s voices carried on the wind. Someone was out there. The door. She’d left it open. On her hands and knees she scrambled to the pilot’s seat and saw two men talking just outside the hangar entrance. One of them was Max Taggert.
Thankfully, neither man was facing the plane. She slowly closed the door, then crawled back to the cargo area and hid under the tarp, curling into a tight ball.
She didn’t hear anything else until the plane’s door opened. Serena held her breath.
“—talked to the tower and visibility is four miles,” Max said to someone. She’d recognize that deep, smooth voice anywhere. There was a soft thud as the plane bounced under the weight of whatever was being loaded.
“Need to sign your flight plan and you’re ready to go,” the other guy said, and she heard metal clanking on the ground. They were untying it.
Another thud and the plane bounced again. The first item was shoved farther back into the cargo area. Two more heavy items were loaded and Serena feared she might be blocked in.
Finally she heard the plane’s door close and there was silence. Sounded as if she only had a few minutes. She threw off the tarp and turned on her flashlight. Two duct-taped coolers and a couple cardboard boxes sat ominously around her. Before she could rethink her actions, she stuck the flashlight between her teeth, slowly peeled the duct tape off one cooler, and peeked inside.
Meat?
She dug underneath the top layer. Frozen packages of steaks, chicken, pork chops, roast beef, ground round.
No drugs.
Unless they were hidden in the meat. And how could she tell?
She closed the cooler and replaced the tape, then pried open one of the cardboard boxes. Gourmet food. Fancy soaps. Egyptian cotton bed linens?
If this guy was transporting drugs, would they be hid den inside soaps and jars of truffles? If so, she couldn’t see them.
Time to go.
Breathing heavily, she picked her way around the coolers and boxes, squeezing between while trying to move them as little as possible. Grasping the door handle, she turned it slowly and lifted outward.
“Woof!” The dog was sitting on the asphalt outside the plane. He leaped up and scratched his paws on the pilot’s door.
Serena barely suppressed a scream with her hand over her mouth and jumped backward, knocking into the passenger seat. She couldn’t breathe. Her whole body shook. The hangar door opened. She grabbed the plane’s door and clicked it shut, and then scrambled back behind the two tall coolers just as the door opened.
“What is it, Mick?” Max sounded as if he stood just outside.
The dog whined and then barked again.
“Are you hungry, boy? I know. You want that steak, don’t you?”
Mick continued barking and scratching, pawing at the plane.
“No, Mick. Come on. Get in.”
Serena would have laughed if it hadn’t been so disastrous. Outwitted by a dog. The one thing she hadn’t thought of. All he had to do was shift a cooler or reach back here for something and he’d see her.
Before she realized it, Max shouted something and started the engine. With a jolt, the plane began rolling back. Maybe she should just surrender and give him the returning the gloves story. But that felt too much like giving up.
And if he was dangerous, he could do worse than press charges for trespassing.
Just stay calm. She had two choices: reveal herself now and risk jail. Or ride to Barrow. She could sneak off after he unloaded his plane, and then catch a commercial flight back.
She’d never been to Barrow. If he was selling drugs there, maybe the local police force would have some information. Or she could tail him and see if he met anyone.
The plane turned and picked up a little speed, taxiing down the runway. Then the engine roared louder and the plane sped up and her stomach dipped as it lifted off.
Too late now.
Afraid to move for fear he’d hear her, she laid her head on her arm and resigned herself to a long ride.
She must have slept some, but she woke up shivering. The temperature had dropped substantially. How long was the flight to Barrow? Fear curled around her throat. Could she freeze to death back here? She zipped up her parka and slowly scooted to the back of the plane to fish out Max’s gloves from her purse and slip them on.
The tarp! She lifted it, crawled under, and then curled up and tried to get back to sleep. Then the engine sputtered.
That wasn’t good.
It sputtered again, and then the front of the plane lowered and leveled out. Oh God, what was going on?
The engine sputtered again and, again, the plane’s nose lowered, and then leveled.
Then the engine stopped completely. And there was nothing but silence.
3
“SONUVABITCH!” Max checked his instruments. Everything was normal. His fuel was good. He lowered the nose again and restarted the engine.
Somehow the center of gravity had shifted to the rear of the plane. He hadn’t
noticed any of the cargo sliding backward. But that’s the only thing it could be. If he didn’t keep his nose down, the engine stalled. Which meant losing altitude. Which meant landing. And fast.
He scanned the ground below for a decent place to set down. The middle of freakin’ nowhere. Again. Memories flashed through his mind’s eye and panic settled in his gut. No. He shook his head, pushed it down. Concentrate, dammit.
He was about forty miles outside Nome. Not much here but tundra. And he wouldn’t be able to take off from tundra.
There. At two o’clock. A frozen lake. He banked to the right and fought to keep the nose down and the flaps steady.
He turned to Mickey, who was strapped in better than Max was. “Brace for impact, buddy. Here goes.”
The wheels touched down and he braked and immediately started to spin over the ice. It took every bit of strength in his left arm to hold the wheel while working the rudder with his right to minimize the spin and keep both wheels down so the plane wouldn’t flip. It was a small lake. He’d run out of ice soon. After three spins, the plane skidded into the embankment and he heard metal snap as the pilot’s side collapsed. Dammit!
Shutting down the engine, he opened the door and climbed out to inspect the damage. The long string of curse words he yelled would have made his grandmother cover her ears and offer up prayers to the spirits. The damn wheel strut was bent. He wasn’t sure he could repair it.
Flashbacks of the crash three years ago hammered his psyche and his vision got jittery. The sound of his friends screaming in pain. The blood. The death. The days-long walk in frigid temperatures. He couldn’t survive another ordeal like that.
Suck it up, Taggert. This was nothing like last time. The plane was mostly intact, including the radio. He glanced at his watch. Ten forty-seven. He was due in Nome for refueling right about now.
Hoisting himself back in, he got on the radio and contacted Nome, giving them his situation and coordinates. He’d have a better idea of his expected arrival time after he tried to make the repairs. He flipped the pilot’s seat forward and jerked his sunglasses off to check the cargo.
As if possessed, the tarp in the tail of the fuselage moved and then a head poked out from under it.
“You!”
The woman from last night flinched and bit her lip.
He truly was cursed.
So that’s what Mickey had been barking at. He looked over at his faithful companion and unbuckled the malamute’s seat belt. “Sorry I didn’t pay attention, boy.”
“Um, I can expla—”
“What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know what you’ve done? We’ll be lucky if we make it back to civilization alive.” Okay, so he might be exaggerating slightly.
Her face paled and there was fear in her wide eyes.
“We’re out in the middle of nowhere and my damn landing gear is busted thanks to you! Are you insane? Even if I can fix it, I ought to make you walk back to Anchorage, you conniving little—”
“How is your plane breaking down my fault?”
Max ground his teeth. “Your extra weight in the back of the plane made the engine stall.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip again.
“Oh?” he roared. “I should sue you! By the time I’m through with you, you’ll be looking at federal charges.”
“If you’ll stop yelling I’ll explain.”
“Just get out.” He needed to pound something, but he settled for grabbing the closest box and hauling it up to the snowy embankment. Even with the worn leather on the soles of his caribou-skinned boots, his footing slipped on the ice.
He whistled for Mickey. “Come on, boy. Take care of business and keep an eye out for wolves.”
Mickey barked his answer and leaped out, loping across the ice and out into the snow. There was a line of trees about a hundred yards to the north, mountains to the west, and nothing but tundra to the south and east.
He went back for another box as the woman was climbing out.
She slipped as she set her high-heeled boot down on the ice. “Did you say wolves?” She glanced around nervously.
“Yeah, there’re probably several packs close by.” He stopped beside her and leaned into her face. “And they get real hungry in the winter.” He brushed past and grabbed the other box. “Aren’t you more afraid of being out in the middle of nowhere with an alleged murderer?”
“I don’t think you killed anyone.” But she didn’t sound quite sure.
He set the box down at the edge of the lake and turned to face her. “Yeah. I did.”
Her eyes widened and she blinked a couple times. “Who?”
“Hoping to get information for your story?”
“I get it. You could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me?” She spun on her heel and scrambled back into the plane.
What the hell did she think she was going to do in there? He hurried over the ice toward his plane.
A minute later she came out the pilot’s door tugging on one of the coolers.
“Here.” He pushed on her shoulder. “Let me get it before you break something else.”
“I can do it.” She tugged again and lifted the cooler into her arms. She turned to give him a triumphant look and for the first time he saw her up close in sunlight. Her deep blue eyes sparked defiantly, but her full red lips trembled. The sun turned her brunette hair a deep rich mahogany. Something about her beauty made him want to drag her into his arms and claim possession.
What was he doing? Going all soft—or hard—over a pretty face? He grabbed the cooler from her and snarled, “You want a medal?”
By the time he’d set the cooler down in the snow and headed back, she had the last one in her arms. He took it from her. “Get my toolbox.”
“Isn’t someone sending out help?”
“No.” He walked cautiously over the ice and then set the cooler down.
“But, I heard you on the radio.”
“You want me to leave you here, just keep arguing.”
Her eyes widened and she dashed inside the plane.
He approached the Cessna just as she was climbing out with his toolbox in hand.
“I’m not calling for help over a damned bent strut.” Not unless he was forced to. He took the toolbox from her and recognized the gloves she wore as his. The ones he’d given her last night. Just before he’d kissed her. He glanced up, meeting her gaze.
The woman cleared her throat. “Here are your gloves back.” She held them out in front of him.
He spun and hunkered down to take a closer look at the broken gear. Dammit, she’d almost sucked him in again. Concentrate, you moron. Landing gear.
“Keep ’em.” He looked up at her, one eye closed against the bright sun. “For now.” He couldn’t really work with them on anyway. And he still had a traditional sealskin pair his grandmother had made him if he needed them. For now it wasn’t that cold.
He returned his attention to the job at hand. The wheel was sitting at an angle, the steel bar connecting it, bent. He could probably bend it back, but there was no guarantee it would hold through takeoff, much less another landing. He needed a new strut, and they probably didn’t even carry landing gear for a C-206 this old. Well, if he could get it good enough for now, he could probably find one at a junk sale online once he made it home to Barrow. If he couldn’t fix this, he’d be forced to radio to Nome for rescue.
“What can I do to help?”
“You mean besides never coming into my life to begin with?” He reached into his toolbox and pulled out a hammer.
“Yes.” From the corner of his eye he saw her cross her arms. “Besides that.”
“Nothing.”
“Fine.” She turned and walked away.
“Careful of the—”
She screamed and went down on her butt.
Max chuckled. “The ice.” His chuckle turned into a full out laugh as she tried to get up and rubbed her behind.
“Very funny.”
“Yeah,
it is.” He hadn’t laughed out loud like that in…he didn’t know how long. “Maybe you could cut a hole in the ice with that glare of yours and catch us a fish for dinner.”
“Dinner? Are we going to be here that long?”
“Maybe longer. I don’t know.” He examined the busted gear. Might be able to use the oxyacetylene torch to heat the strut enough to hammer it straight. But he needed a way to keep the wheel elevated.
“Where are we?”
“About forty miles southeast of Nome. If you’re going to bug me asking a million questions, make yourself useful and grab that crate from the plane.”
“You ever heard of please?” But she was already moving.
He concentrated on how he was going to jack up the fuselage. “And you can bring me my sunglasses from the visor when you’re done with that.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she quipped from inside the plane. He tried not to smile. Didn’t she know killers don’t appreciate sarcasm?
He didn’t have a jack. He could forage for wood, but, what if…
She climbed out and set the crate beside him, then pulled his sunglasses off the top of her head and handed them to him.
“Ahem, your sunglasses, my liege.” She was bent over at the waist, holding his Ray-Bans in her palms with her arms extended. She had guts, he had to give her that. He took the glasses and she straightened and plunked her hands on her hips. “Will that be all, master?”
She had one brow raised and her ski jacket was unzipped, revealing a tight sweater beneath. It was cold enough her nipples were two tight little points through the sweater. Her bra must be thin. Or she wasn’t wearing one. The thought got him all riled up below the belt.
Her lips tightened into a thin line again and she zipped up her coat.
Dammit. His face heated and he brought his gaze to hers. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
For the first time he wondered why she was here. Sneaking into his plane, hiding out. Chasing after a years-old story. She must be desperate. Surely there were hundreds of other more important things happening in the world she could be reporting on.
Primal Calling Page 3