Turbulent Intentions

by Melody Anne

  The bright orange and white paint could be seen on the side of the helicopter, telling Cooper the Coast Guard was here. A small sense of relief came over him as he pulled Wolf over to the wing and held on, Wolf on his back with Cooper holding his chin above the waves. The helicopter disappeared from the wreckage, presumably to summon assistance.

  “Captain! Captain, over here,” one of the flight attendants shouted as they paddled a raft closer.

  The sea lay silent as the water lapped the edges of the plane’s fuselage. The surroundings were dimly lit by fuel burning here and there on the water’s surface. Cooper could see yellow life rafts filled with passengers. The once piercing screams that had filled the air were now a quiet rumble as people sobbed their relief.

  The flight attendants’ training had paid off for everyone on board, it seemed, as they’d quickly and safely ushered the passengers out of the submerging cabin and onto the bobbing rafts.

  For what had seemed like an improbable task, Cooper and his first officer had done their job. The plane was intact and all souls accounted for, but further efforts were needed to ensure everyone’s continued survival.

  “Is everyone off the plane?” he shouted.

  “Every single passenger is accounted for,” she gladly told him.

  Cooper had to fight tears as he glanced at his crew, all of them doing their job, going above and beyond, and not allowing a single soul to lose his or her life. This was the airline he owned; these were the people he employed. He’d chosen well.

  He could abandon ship now.

  Cooper reached out and grabbed the rope that encircled the yellow raft. “I need help over here. Wolf needs CPR.”

  With the help of some passengers, Cooper lifted Wolf and placed him on the floor of the raft and then climbed in himself. He pushed the boat clear of the airplane and began CPR on his friend, giving him one good breath and watching his chest rise and fall. He then began chest compressions.

  “Come on, Wolf, breathe.” Cooper continued the cycle of one breath and fifteen chest compressions, each time checking for signs of life. Passengers from their raft and others turned to watch, their minds no longer focused on their own woes.

  “Wolf, come on, man. Don’t make me face Tori. The girl terrifies me.” Cooper got more desperate as the chest compressions became more violent.

  At that moment a slight gurgling could be heard as Wolf cracked open his eyes. “That’s it, spit it out, buddy.” Cooper sat Wolf up, patting him on the back. An explosive spray of water came out of his mouth as his lungs took in a deep breath of fresh air.

  Applause could be heard from the bobbing rafts as the passengers showed their appreciation to the pilots for saving their lives. Exhausted from this traumatic event, Wolf laid his head on the side of the raft. He grabbed Cooper’s hand and with a raspy voice said, “Thanks, man. I owe you one.”

  Cooper cracked a smile.

  “We’ll discuss terms later.”

  Now it was time to find out how many people had been hurt.

  “What is the status on injuries?”

  “As far as I know, Captain, lots of bumps, bruises, cuts, scrapes, and some broken bones. However, nothing life-threatening.”

  “That’s good to hear. Let’s make sure we attend to the wounded the best we can and try to pass out as many blankets as you managed to snag.”

  “How about we get you bandaged up first?” the flight attendant asked.

  Cooper reached up and wiped blood from his gash. He’d completely forgotten, during all the commotion, that he’d been wounded.

  The flight attendants began doing what they could to bandage the wounds and keep the passengers warm. Although the water was calm, the slow-pulling currents moved the rafts farther away from the sinking plane.

  As the rafts drifted, the plane went down quickly. The sea water bubbled and sprayed into the air as the creaking metal frame dipped below the water’s surface.

  Everyone turned to watch as the last portion of the jet, its tail, was claimed by the sea. It seemed surreal to Cooper as he watched the Trans Pacific logo disappear from sight with a swirl of sea water marking the grave of the only casualty of this horrific event.

  The night became colder and the passengers fought to stay warm while adrift in the middle of the sea. Only a few random spots of burning jet fuel remained unextinguished by the lapping water. A few hours seemed like days as the hope of a rescue started to fade. Why wasn’t the helicopter back?

  “I thought they’d be here by now,” a passenger said from an adjacent raft.

  Everyone’s attention seemed to be on Cooper, as he was their leader. “What should we do, Captain?”

  Cooper turned and looked out over the survivors as they gazed back at him, hoping for some modicum of reassurance. This was what his father had always wanted out of him, to be able to lead, to assure, and to make a difference. His head was spinning with how much had changed in the past six years. His heart ached that his father wasn’t there to see the man he’d become.

  “They’ve already spotted us and we have our locator beacon activated. It shouldn’t be too much longer.” These words seemed to satisfy them as there wasn’t much of a response. Not thirty minutes from the last spoken word, a low rumble accompanied by a consistent splashing sound could be heard.

  “Look over there,” a passenger shouted as they pointed into the darkness.

  “It’s a ship!”

  Out of the darkness came the sharp white and orange bow of a Coast Guard cutter. The large ship was accompanied by three smaller boats with bright lights that pierced through the now approaching fog bank. The deep whine of the smaller boats brought a sense of relief for the passengers and Cooper.

  Not long after the boats arrived, helicopters started circling above. He didn’t see the Coast Guard orange on their sides. As he looked closer, he caught a glimpse of the side of one of them labeled NEWS 19. Fury filled him as he glared up at the vultures hoping to get the first pictures of dead bodies floating in the water. Well, they were out of luck.

  Cooper turned to Wolf. “They’re here to get us, bud. We’re going home.”

  Wolf nodded his head, still out of it from the crash, but he managed to crack a smile.

  The Coast Guard began to pull passengers on board, immediately giving them dry clothes and warm blankets. Cooper waved to one of the boats to come in his direction. It approached alongside his raft, its wake causing the light boat to move up and down in the water. A Coast Guard lieutenant leaned over the side.

  “I have one that’s injured and needs immediate medical attention,” Cooper told him.

  Wolf was pulled into the boat.

  Cooper sat back against the raft’s side, refusing to board the ship until every last passenger was picked up out of the water.

  Cooper now sat alone in his raft, floating on the cold waters of the Pacific, tuning out the sound of people talking. The water in the raft sloshed from side to side with every rock of the sea. He sat with his life vest over him and a blanket wrapped around his body as he fought the cold.

  With his shaking hand, he reached into his soaked pants pocket and retrieved a little black box. The once cardboard box was now more mush than cardboard. He opened it and peeled away the soaked parts, revealing the stunning diamond ring, sparkling in the lights from the Coast Guard vessel.

  “Everyone is on board, Captain, but we’ve had a request that you get flown home,” the man said.

  Cooper smiled, knowing exactly where that request had come from. As the ship backed away, he could hear the distinct sound of the humming rotor of a Coast Guard helicopter.

  The light became more intense as it neared his position. The light’s rays were interrupted temporarily by a man in a basket being lowered down. The man grabbed Cooper’s hand as he pulled him into the basket alongside him. The cable swayed back and forth as the helicopter crew began to reel the basket up.

  “Brother, it’s so damn good to see you!” Cooper exclaimed.


  “Not as good as it is to see you. You scared the shit out of me this time, Coop,” Nick admitted. “I couldn’t even fly this bird.”

  “Yeah, it would be the same for me if the situation were reversed,” Cooper told him.

  “Where are we landing?”

  “We’re taking all passengers to the Red Cross crash assistance center.”

  “You gotta pull some strings and give me a reroute, Nick.”

  “Sorry, brother, no can do. Orders are to take any survivors to the center to get checked out.”

  “Don’t make me pull the older brother card. I need to get to Stormy, and if the fates are with me, she’ll be at the airport,” Cooper said, getting frustrated.

  “You’re going to get my ass chewed, Coop,” Nick said.

  “Just take me to Sea-Tac,” Coop repeated, before admitting to his brother, “I love her, Nick. I have to tell her I love her.”

  “All right man, but this is only because I’m a sappy romantic,” Nick replied as he ordered the helicopter to turn toward the Seattle airport.

  It was just past midnight when Nick touched the helicopter down on a taxiway across from the TPA passenger terminal, where all flights had been cancelled for the remainder of the night.

  At the exact moment the helicopter touched down, Cooper slammed open the sliding passenger door on the right side of the rescue helicopter.

  Through a gale of rotor wash and the deafening noise of the helicopter’s engines, Cooper dashed from the rescue helicopter in a full sprint to the terminal.

  “Hey—what the hell are you doing?” one of the guys cried, reaching out in a vain attempt to pull Cooper back in.

  “Let him go. He knows what he’s doing,” Nick radioed back through the mic on his flight helmet. “If we get busted for letting him off here, I’ll let him take the heat, but I somehow doubt anyone will say anything to the captain that pulled off an ocean landing at sunset in a Boeing 757 with zero casualties.”

  Cooper ran into the terminal, his uniform still damp with seawater, his body aching from the crash. He pushed past the concourse and kept on going. Cooper was now suffering from fatigue as his body shook and his damp uniform clung to his body.

  It seemed to take forever, but finally he made it to the ticket counter and was thrilled to see familiar fingernails clicking on a keyboard.

  “My heavens! Cooper, what are you doing here? You should be at a hospital!” Meredith chastised.

  “Stormy?” Cooper began as he leaned against the counter.

  “Stormy?”

  “Yes, is she here? I need to see her . . .”

  “No, she’s been taken to the hospital.”

  Panic flooded him more than when he’d been crash landing in an ocean that wanted to swallow him and his crew whole. What had happened? “Which one?”

  Meredith told him, and then he stopped listening. He ran through the terminal. He had to find her.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Her eyes opened and Stormy was startled by the monitor on her finger and the machine echoing her heartbeat.

  “What’s happening?” she croaked.

  “You’re being monitored in the hospital,” Sherman said. She turned to see his ashen face by her side.

  “Sherman?” She didn’t have to finish the sentence.

  “Coop’s okay,” he told her. “He’s on his way here now.”

  “I can’t sit here!” She yanked at the device on her finger and began sitting up, the monitors instantly screaming. A nurse ran in.

  “You have to stop,” the nurse ordered.

  “No!” Stormy surged from the bed, her head a little light as she stood up. The nurse tried to keep her back, but Stormy needed to find Cooper. She couldn’t do that lying in a bed.

  She leapt for the door, nearly knocking over Nick, who was just coming inside to tell Sherman that Cooper would be there any minute.

  Rushing to the stairs, she made it to the overhang that looked out at the lobby, her gaze scanning the crowd of people reuniting. She couldn’t find Cooper anywhere. At the bottom of the stairs, she was swallowed up in the crowd before she finally saw him.

  Her heart racing, she pushed past the people in her way and flew across the room, grabbing his arm.

  “I’ve been so scared. I really thought I lost you,” she whispered. “I need to tell you that I . . . I love you.” Tears were streaming down her face and she didn’t care.

  The man turned around and to Stormy’s horror, it wasn’t Cooper.

  “Why, thank you. It’s not every day a beautiful woman throws herself at me. In fact, it’s usually every other. So . . . do you come here often?” The man smiled and she couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, but she was mortified.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry. I thought you were . . . I thought you were someone else.”

  The man really did look like Cooper, though. His height, skin tone, and hair were nearly if not completely identical, but now that she was closer, it was obvious that they had different builds. And the guy was wearing a very expensive designer suit. Through all of this, though, Stormy was struck most by his eyes.

  Unlike the piercing green of Cooper’s, this man had gray slanted eyes, which captured Stormy’s gaze in a seemingly endless moment. She felt as if she were crossing paths with a lone wolf in a frozen wasteland.

  “Have we met before?” Stormy finally asked.

  The man, appearing a bit worried, suddenly straightened his tie and cleared his throat.

  “Yeah. I meant to call you back, but I lost your number. It’s so great to see you again.”

  “Again? Have we met?”

  He seemed to hear her this time, and the man let out a relieved breath while unsuccessfully trying to pass off his previous comment as misplaced humor. “I would certainly remember you, darling. Why haven’t we met before now?”

  She gasped. “Oh my gosh, you’re Ace, Cooper’s brother.” How had she not figured that out instantly?

  “Yep, the old man’s my brother,” Ace finally admitted.

  “I’m your brother’s . . . friend.” Stormy stopped short of declaring herself his girlfriend, considering what had taken place the last time she’d seen him. But did any of that really matter now? She corrected herself. “Girlfriend, I’m his girlfriend.”

  “Well, which is it? Do I have a shot or not?”

  “No, not a chance,” she said. Her heart belonged to only one Armstrong. “I am Cooper’s girlfriend. Or at least I hope I still am.”

  “Where is my brother dearest? I hear he narrowly escaped death.”

  Damn, this man was hardened. But Stormy wasn’t one to judge someone at first glance. And there was something in his eyes that had her wondering if Sherman was right, if he did want to come back home. She didn’t know if she’d get the chance to ask him or not.

  “I haven’t found him yet.” Stormy began looking around the lobby again for Cooper, who was perhaps sitting down somewhere. He had to be exhausted.

  “Well, we can take different directions and see what we come up with,” Ace said, and he slipped away.

  Stormy decided to retrace her steps and go back upstairs to her hospital room. Maybe he was searching for her, too.

  And then he was there.

  The room full of people fell away as her eyes locked with his. And right then, in that moment, she knew everything would be okay. He broke away from his uncle and Nick, and though he had to be exhausted, he ran to her.

  No words were spoken as he lifted her, his lips connecting with hers as she sobbed against him, so grateful to be in his arms again.

  It was too soon when he pulled back, but Stormy knew words had to be said. Tears slid down her cheeks as she touched his face. The past hours had been miserable thinking she might never get to do so again. It put things into perspective.

  “I’m sorry, Cooper. I should have trusted you. It all seems so petty now,” she cried.

  He held his hand up and cupped her cheek.

  “No. I was the o
ne who should have told you everything. I understand why you reacted like you did.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I promise you it doesn’t matter. All that I care about right now is the fact that you’re okay,” she said.

  “I haven’t been honest with you, Stormy. I’ve withheld a lot of information,” he began.

  “I don’t care,” she told him.

  “I don’t just fly for Trans Pacific Airlines. I own it,” he told her in a hushed tone.

  That made her stop for a minute. “Wow.”

  “I love flying and I could never settle for working for someone else. I have a lot of money, Stormy, and I’m sorry if I’ve hidden things from you. It’s taken me a long time to earn my trust back in all people, but you, I trust with my entire heart,” he told her.

  “Oh, Cooper. I don’t care what you have. I just want to be a part of your life,” she said with tears streaming down her face.

  “I love you, Stormy. I was planning on telling you this sooner, but things got messed up,” he said, a sparkle in his eyes. “By the grace of God, the sea refused to bury me in its depths; instead, it brought me back to you.”

  “I love you so much,” she replied. “I’m sorry I left—that I ran away. I won’t run again.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, repeating her words.

  Suddenly, he let her go as he dropped to one knee, pulling from his coat pocket a very mushy black ring box. There before her, a brightly polished gold ring was shining like the sun, set with three diamonds, the center stone larger than the surrounding accents.

  “Stormy, marry me and I’ll cherish you for as long as I have left on this earth. I’ll give the entire inheritance to whatever charity you want. I’ll do whatever it takes to prove to you that I want you, only you.”

  With her left hand still in his, Stormy placed her right on his check, gently caressing his jaw. Never breaking eye contact, she knelt down on both knees, lightly kissed him on his lips, and nodded her head.

  “Yes, Cooper, yes. I want to be yours for the rest of my life. And I do trust you. Even if I forgot that for a few days.” Tears of tender joy streamed down her face as she smiled and kissed the corners of his mouth. Cooper removed the diamond ring from the crumpled velvet box and slipped it on her finger.