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Crash Landing
by Becky Avella
ONE
Deanna Jackson just wanted to see the sky. The tiniest sliver of blue would be enough.
The real sky was up there somewhere, hidden behind the canopy of smoke hovering above the rooflines of Main Street. It called to her to be free, to escape the doom and the stress in her airplane, but she couldn’t. Although it looked like it was nearing nightfall, it was really only eleven in the morning, and Deanna was stuck indoors. Stuck being a grown-up with bills to pay.
Eerie shadows flickered through her coffee shop windows, making the inside of The Hangar feel too bright, as if its cheeriness offended the gloom outside. Occasional chunks of charred debris and ash dropped onto the sidewalks like dirty hail, a taste of what awaited the small town of Kinakane, Washington, if the wildfires bearing down on them weren’t contained.
“Make that coffee extra hot, please.” Sharon Grabe’s hands trembled as she dug through her purse for her wallet. Sharon was one of the many refugees stranded in town awaiting word that she could return to her home, wondering if her house in Salmon Creek still stood and if her husband would get out in time. If he’d be smart enough to know his life mattered more than a building, no matter how many generations of memories that building might hold.
“What are you doing, Sharon? Put that money away,” Deanna insisted.
Sharon slapped her debit card on the counter and covered it with her hand. There was no trembling now. Her resolve solid as stone, she slid the card across the counter. “Don’t make me a charity case, Deanna. Not yet, anyway. I’m not ready to exchange hope for a free latte.”
Deanna swallowed the lump in her throat, wishing she had more to offer, but she knew she’d despise the pity she was feeling for Sharon if it were turned in her direction.
Townspeople used to complain about a little summertime smoke in the air caused by far-off wildfires in the mountains. Now the entire Northwest appeared to be ablaze, and five separate fires hemmed them in, sucking the life out of already taxed firefighting resources. The threat squeezed in on Deanna so tight she could hardly breathe.
She felt the flames coming, their approach rumbling through her like the vibrations of an ancient army marching on a besieged city. More and more refugees were streaming into town bringing new horror stories every day. Homes and ranches that had been in families for generations, obliterated by infernos. Old Harley Hopkins died of a heart attack because after telephone poles burned out in Scotch Creek, he had no phone service to call 911.
One way or another, it was clear Deanna wouldn’t escape this fire season unscathed. Even if she didn’t physically lose anything, seeing her neighbors suffering like this hurt enough.
Her grandmother’s voice cut through her thoughts, snapping her focus back on more immediate concerns.
“How long do you plan to make the king of Kinakane wait for you?” Gram whispered.
Deanna’s gaze landed on the tall, broad-shouldered man in the leather easy chair by the front door. Her landlord removed his Stetson and leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, obviously impatient with her. Deanna’s stomach knotted. It wasn’t just the smoke that choked her. She was stalling, and Blake Ransford wasn’t the waiting kind of man.
Blake might not be an actual king, but he really did own most of Kinakane. He could be overbearing, but he was her mentor, always quick to bail her out whenever she needed it. Because he was seven years older than she was, it had never occurred to Deanna that Blake might want anything more from their friendship. But last night in an unguarded moment, he’d confessed that he wanted much more than she did.
Hot coffee sloshed over the edge of the mug she held, scalding the back of her hand. “Ouch!” She dropped the cup, sending a sticky river across the counter.
Deanna waved her hand to cool it. Who wanted this hot of coffee in July, anyway? She reached for a clean mug to remake Sharon’s drink, but Gram’s soft, wrinkled hand on her arm stopped her.
“When are you going to get it through your thick head that you don’t have to do this all by yourself? Get going already.”
Deanna glanced at Blake. His confession had come out of left field. She didn’t know how to feel about it, but if she let him, he could help her.
When she laid her head on her pillow each night, the word bankruptcy echoed through her mind, stealing any hope of sleep. Now there were rumors of next month’s big rodeo being canceled. The whole town needed those tourist dollars, but without them Deanna would be finished. If there was no Roundup, she’d have to close The Hangar.
Blake had promised to give her some advice over lunch. Lunch was harmless enough, right? She’d just have to be honest with him.
“Fine,” she huffed and surrendered her mug to Gram.
Blake stood. “Ready?”
How could she make him see she was in survival mode? Every bit of energy went into finding a way to provide for her and Gram. To keep from failing. If she said these things to him, he’d only offer her money. That’s not what she wanted. She wanted to prove to herself and everyone else that she could make it on her own.
Besides, wasn’t the fire threat enough stress? Were they supposed to go on a date right now and pretend that those fires weren’t marching toward them?
She started to speak, but the little bell above the front door jangled in alarm. All eyes turned to watch a dark-haired cowboy rush inside. At the sight of him, Deanna’s face flushed and an old pang of guilt tightened her chest.
“Sean?”
He strode toward her, passing Blake without a second glance. Deanna’s mouth dropped open. Nobody ignored Blake like that.
No one except Sean Loomis, apparently.
Dressed for work in a black T-shirt and Wranglers, Sean didn’t look as if he’d taken any time to spit-shine himself for town like Blake had done. It looked instead like he’d left straight from horseback. His boots were still dusty and his hair was flat on top where a baseball cap must have sat minutes earlier.
“I need to hire a pilot,” Sean demanded. “It’s an emergency.”
Deanna closed her gaping mouth and pushed away the old high school memories. That was history; this was business.
He ran a hand through his raven hair and cocked an eyebrow. “Can you help me?”
Blake stepped beside Deanna and put a possessive hand on her elbow. “Actually, we were just leaving.”
Sean balled his fists, his lips a straight, hard line. “I’m trying to save a horse, Deanna. I thought if anyone would understand that, it would be you. I’ll pay you cash. More if you come with me right now.”
Deanna pulled her elbow free from Blake’s grip. She’d known Sean Loomis her whole life—they’d been in the same schools since kindergarten, had competed in rodeo and 4-H together—but she’d never known him to be this assertive. He looke
d different, too. Was he taller?
It wasn’t just inches. His baby face had been replaced with a more chiseled version. The Native American features he’d inherited from his father were more recognizable than ever. How had she missed this change? She must have been blind, because this was not the skinny loner she remembered riding bareback around the rodeo grounds in high school. This was a man on a mission.
“I think she made it clear that she’s not going anywhere with you today, Loomis,” Blake said. “Have you looked at the sky out there? How could you think of going up in those conditions?”
“Where are we flying?” Deanna asked. The fires were far enough away for her to fly legally as long as she didn’t get in the way of the fire crews. This was her business, not Blake’s, and she didn’t appreciate his acting so territorial.
“My ranch.” Sean’s shoulders slumped. “He’s a new stallion—I haven’t even had time to name him yet. I had him in the stables and somehow he got loose. Could have been a cougar or bear chased him up into the timberline. I’m not sure, but I’ve got to find him before the fire gets to my place, and I’m running out of time. Can you help me or not?”
Blake stood up to his full height and faced her, his arms crossed. His eyes were cold, more navy blue now than cobalt. She and Sean hadn’t bowed down to the king’s wishes. Blake couldn’t be used to that.
Deanna gnawed on her bottom lip again.
“Gram?” she called over her shoulder. “Can you cover for me?”
“Sure,” Gram said.
“Wait!” Blake grabbed Deanna’s arm as she passed by him. “I thought we were going to lunch.”
Deanna avoided looking into his eyes. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got a paying customer.”
Then she followed Sean out the door without looking back.
* * *
“Are you going to survive, cowboy?”
Sean exhaled and relaxed his white-knuckled grip on the door handle. He gritted his teeth. “I’m okay.”
Sweat rolled down his spine. Deanna had the pilot-side window pushed open as far as it would go, and a small fan attached to the dashboard whirred at the heat. None of it did any good. It was hotter in the cramped cockpit than it had been on the ground. Shouldn’t it be cooler in the clouds?
The blue-and-white Cessna dipped suddenly, and Sean’s stomach nose-dived along with it. He glared at Deanna.
“Sorry.” Her melodic laughter rang through his headset. “You’re looking a little green, Sean.”
He shifted in his seat and wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans. He was a rough-stock rider. It was common for him to ride a bull, a saddle bronc and a bareback bronc all in one night of rodeo. And during Roundup every year, he competed in the Ridge to River Run, riding a mustang straight down the side of a sharp hillside. He knew how to manage fear. But soaring through the air in a machine that felt less substantial than a breath-mint tin? That was a whole new experience.
“Can’t be worse than riding a bull, can it?”
He looked down at the rugged, high desert valley below him. “Just a lot farther to fall off.” He’d barely finished his sentence before they dropped elevation again. He sucked air through his teeth and glanced sideways, studying Deanna.
She was dressed in faded jeans and a cotton blouse. Practical but feminine. Just his style. But what was new? Hadn’t Deanna Jackson always been just his style? It was the fact that he obviously wasn’t her style that had kept them apart.
He looked away. As nice as it was to be alone with her—something he would have paid money for in high school—he had a job to do that was far more important than flirting with a pretty girl.
Her voice crackled in his headset again. She pointed out the window to his right. “There’s one of the fires there—can you see it?”
Sean spotted the orange lick of flame glowing behind the foothills that housed his ranch. Plumes of menacing black smoke billowed high above the eastern horizon. Unless the winds changed or some freak snowstorm fell in the middle of July, that fire was heading for his land. Seeing it from this perspective made it all the more real. He sighed. He should be down there getting ready for it.
“We’re here,” Deanna said. “I’m going in closer.”
Sean grabbed the binoculars at his feet and brought them to his eyes as Deanna flew low over Loomis and Callaghan Cattle Co. From this height, his home and all the outbuildings looked like tiny dollhouses.
He lifted the binoculars toward the timberline. Somewhere hidden among those trees was the $50,000 horse he’d owned for less than a week.
Sean massaged his forehead as his gut twisted into knots once again. It seemed like it was his lot in life to be searching for the lost. The disappearance of this horse was painfully similar to another unexplainable disappearance in Sean’s past, and he didn’t appreciate revisiting this level of helplessness and guilt. A weight pressed against his chest as he pictured the yellowing missing-person flyer pinned to the bulletin board in his office. The corners of the paper were beginning to curl with age, marking how long the mystery of his missing father had gone unsolved.
The irony wasn’t lost on Sean. It was that same poster that had driven him to spend his life savings to buy the stallion in the first place. He’d had good intentions—diversify to include more than just cattle, build a breeding business that could help pay for a better private investigator. But none of his good intentions mattered if that horse stayed lost.
Be anxious for nothing, he recalled from his Bible reading that morning. Easier said than done, but it was truth he needed all the same. Worry and guilt were getting him nowhere. They wouldn’t stop the approaching flames or help him find his horse.
They wouldn’t bring Dad back, either.
Deanna sat up straight, suddenly alert. “What was that?”
She craned her neck to look over her shoulder behind them. Sean followed her gaze, goose bumps covering his arms. “Did you see the horse?”
“No.” She looked back again and then flipped around to stare at Sean. “How come you have a landing strip up here?”
“We don’t,” Sean said.
“You do. I just saw it.”
Deanna eased the plane into a turn, heading back where they had come from only moments before. “I want another look.”
“I’m telling you,” Sean said. “I’ve been over every inch of this land. I would know if we had a runway on our property.”
“And I’m telling you, you’re wrong,” she argued.
Her straight, sun-bleached hair fell in front of her fine-boned shoulders as she squinted through the window. Her lips parted in concentration. Whatever it was she thought she’d seen, she was determined to find it.
But Sean wasn’t paying her to go exploring. They had one objective. Whether she approved or not, Deanna wasn’t sidetracking him.
“I’ll look into it later,” he promised her. “Nothing matters more than finding that horse.”
Deanna startled. She seemed so intent on solving this mystery it was like she’d forgotten he was still sitting there. Or was she just shocked that he’d dared to have an agenda that didn’t match her own?
“You don’t think this could be related?” she challenged.
“Maybe. But I don’t have time for chasing maybes.”
Sean winced at the harshness of his tone, but he didn’t apologize. He had to make wise decisions.
“It’s only an instinct,” she said. “But I think we need to get down there and take a look.”
Her eyes were the gray green of the sky before a thunderstorm. He’d never had the luxury of studying the flecks of yellow or the dark rims of her pupils like this. They pleaded with him to agree with her.
“Just give me the word, and I’ll take us down there.”
He blinked himself back to sanity. Landi
ng a plane seemed tricky enough, but on a mountainside, using a runway she thought might be there? No thanks.
“Fools rush in,” he said.
“No. Fools play it safe and miss out,” she countered.
Sean crossed his arms. “Why would there be a runway up here? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Deanna nodded, “Exactly. Why? What if there are answers down there about your horse?”
She broke eye contact. “What if this has something to do with your dad?”
The question gut-punched him. The missing-person case was so cold Sheriff Johnson had stopped calling with updates years ago. After all this time, could there really be a clue? If he stopped Deanna from landing, would he get another chance to find out?
She pointed down to the ground. “There, in that draw—can you see it?”
He aimed the binoculars in the direction she indicated. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.”
“Trust me, it’s hidden but it’s there,” she said. “Not a runway, necessarily, just a strip long enough to put a plane down.”
He pointed the binoculars toward the meadow on the hillside and adjusted the focus. He saw the flattened, patchy grass. Then a quick flash of red between the trees caught his eye. At the edge of the meadow sat another airplane he’d never seen before. Someone was trespassing on his land.
Chills ran up his back. If Deanna hadn’t pointed it out, he would never have seen it as anything other than a meadow.
“Do it,” he said.
“Hold on. I won’t see these landing conditions well. I’ll have to adjust as we go in.”
Sean found the door handle for the second time and gripped it so hard he was surprised he didn’t rip it off. The buzzing motor changed pitch, and he braced himself for a rough landing.
But Deanna was a skilled pilot and performed the landing more smoothly than he’d expected. The plane taxied, decelerating, and then the propeller’s spin slowed and stopped.
Sean moved to exit the plane, but Deanna stopped him. “Wait.”
He stared down at her hand, soft against his arm. He shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts before his face revealed whatever remained of his schoolboy crush. He’d gotten over it. Really. His feelings for her in high school had been a distraction. There wasn’t room in his life for distractions of any kind now.
Texas Takedown Page 19