Melody laughed. “No, but I haven’t been anywhere interesting in so long, I’m not sure I’d know if I were.”
“Good enough for me.” He pushed open his door and paused on the running board. “Stay here for a sec.”
Melody watched while he fumbled with his keys, then unlocked the smaller door and disappeared into the hangar. A moment later, the corrugated panel began to sweep upward, folding in half like an accordion to reveal Justin standing behind it. He grinned and waved her over.
Melody hopped out of the SUV and slowly approached the hangar. It really was a giant garage, filled with toolboxes and parts and things she couldn’t name. But instead of a car, the interior housed a gleaming blue-and-white airplane. Its wings were low below a bubble cockpit, with a single prop in front.
She didn’t know what she’d expected from a home-built plane, but this sleek, professional-looking thing was not it. “You actually built this?”
“My dad and I, but yes. What do you say?”
Excitement built in Melody along with a little apprehension when she saw the word experimental emblazoned across the back of the cockpit behind the seats. “Is it safe?”
“As safe as flying a small plane can be.” When Melody hesitated at that unhelpful comment, he sighed. “Look, I totally get it if you’re not comfortable with this. If it makes you feel any better, this plane just had its annual inspection, so I know it’s in perfect condition. I’ve logged over five thousand hours, several hundred of them in this plane. I’m completely confident in our safety.”
She recalled her early cocky answers and nodded. “Okay then. Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“You know, I think they call that kidnapping.”
“Only if you’re not coming willingly.” He grinned. “Now I just need to pull it out.”
“And how do you do that?” She looked around, but there was nothing resembling tow machinery in the hangar.
He disappeared and came back with a piece of metal that looked like a two-pronged pitchfork. “You might want to stand back.” He attached the tow bar to the plane’s front wheel, then after checking to make sure Melody was clear, tugged the plane forward. It rolled easily.
Her stomach did a flip-flop. Planes were supposed to be huge, heavy things that could withstand storms and turbulence. Not something barely bigger than a car that could be pulled by a garden tool.
Where’s the adventurous risk-taker now? her own thoughts mocked her.
They must have shown on her face because Justin called, “I won’t think any less of you if you want to back out.”
Melody straightened her spine. “No, I’m good. It will be fun.”
Justin didn’t look completely convinced, but he didn’t say anything more, just climbed into the SUV and moved it into the hangar space the plane had just occupied. “Let’s close this up, and then we’ll get going.”
He led her to the right side of the plane and boosted himself up on the step to slide back the canopy. Then he hopped down and offered her a hand. “Climb on up.”
“On top of the wing?”
“Yep. Be careful. Only step in the spots that are marked.”
Gingerly, she climbed up with his help, avoiding the flaps, and settled herself into the right-hand seat, the leather cushion split to make room for the control stick between her knees. Justin was doing something outside—maybe giving the exterior a check, she thought. Finally, he climbed up beside her and settled into the left seat. He reached behind him and slid the canopy closed, then twisted the handle to secure it.
“Your seat belt is behind you, five-point harness.” He demonstrated with his own, pulling the V over his head and fastening it to the buckle between his legs. “Push-button release. Exits are above and to your right and left. To open the canopy, you twist the handle counterclockwise and then slide it back.” He demonstrated again to make sure she understood, then picked up two headsets with boom mics attached and indicated for her to put hers on. As soon as she did, he twisted a knob on the radio in the panel in front of them, and his voice came out of the earphones, slightly tinny. “Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you.” Her stomach did a backflip. Being strapped into this tiny cockpit with the bubble canopy above her felt a little like being trapped in a hamster ball.
Her apprehension must have shown because Justin reached over and placed his hand over hers. “We don’t have to do this. The last thing I want is for you to feel pushed into something.”
“No. No, it’s just my first time in such a tiny plane. I’ll be fine, really.” She smiled at him, and he nodded.
He went through his start-up procedure, checking panel switches and electronic instrumentation against a checklist on his knee. A series of buttons and switches later, he started the engine, giving a disturbingly sputtery start before it settled into a steady hum. After a couple of minutes, Justin seemed satisfied by whatever he was monitoring and threw her an encouraging smile. “Here we go.”
The plane moved slowly forward down the small road between hangars and then out toward the regular part of the airport, all connected by yellow lines that Melody assumed made sense to him. Then he stopped and went through another series of checks on instrumentation, flipping on switches and adjusting . . . she couldn’t imagine what he was adjusting, but his confident attitude at least steadied her nerves.
“Centennial Ground, Experimental RV One-one-one-four-Quebec, with ATIS Alpha, departing northwest bound. We require a run-up.”
A pause and then a female voice returned, “RV One-one-one-four-Quebec, taxi to north run-up area and monitor tower.”
Justin repeated back the instructions, and then they were moving again. Even on Sunday afternoon, aircraft of all sizes surrounded them, some moving back to parking areas, others taxiing toward the runways as they were.
Melody waved a hand toward the radio. “So this is all routine to you?”
Justin flicked her a quick look. “There’s nothing routine about any flight. When I started out, though, I had a major case of mic fright. I bungled it so bad one time I swear I could hear the controller laughing at me.”
Melody grinned. “I find that hard to believe.”
He shrugged, but his lips twitched into a smile. “I was only sixteen. I couldn’t even talk to girls, let alone air traffic control.”
When they finally made it to the run-up area, along with several other planes, Melody fell quiet and let Justin do his checks on the engine and whatever else he was verifying. He transmitted his readiness to depart, getting a reply that amounted to “wait.” A few minutes later, they got their taxi clearance and were moving toward the runway.
“I didn’t understand any of that,” she said when the radio went silent.
Justin grinned. “Don’t worry. I did.” He gave her a play-by-play and tried to help her unravel the nearly indecipherable communications from the control frequency. She’d never realized this little airport was quite so busy. How did he possibly keep it straight?
She sneaked a sideways glance at him while he wasn’t looking. Despite her best efforts, it was getting a bit difficult to resist the pilot appeal.
Tower came on again with their call sign, giving them departure clearance on runway 17L. Justin followed instructions and moved the plane toward the white-striped portion of the airfield.
“Ready?” He glanced at Melody, a questioning look on his face as they began to taxi again. It was a purely rhetorical question, but she nodded anyway.
Justin made one more transmission, ending with “good day,” which was evidently a sign-off of some sort, and then they were speeding down the runway. Or maybe slowly building up speed was more accurate. The prop seemed to blur and shift at the front of the plane, barely visible through the windshield, until the aircraft lifted off the runway. As they bobbed into the air like a cork in a glass of water, Melody’s stomach dropped out beneath her, then righted itself as they climbed into the sky.
The
runway still stretched out beneath them, the surrounding fields already growing smaller. Justin was talking on the radio again, but she wasn’t paying attention, too fixed on the shrinking landscape beneath them. Office buildings looking like nothing more than tiny boxes set beside postage-stamp parking lots. A main road—the expressway, she thought—with cars crawling by. A smile widened on her lips and a laugh of delight escaped her mouth.
When she looked at Justin, he was smiling.
“What?”
“You’re not afraid anymore.”
“I wasn’t afraid!”
“Sure you weren’t.”
Melody stuck her tongue out at him, earning a laugh, but went right back to her fascinated inspection of the landscape below them. They made a wide left turn, and then they were heading northwest toward the mountains.
After a few minutes, she asked, “How high are we now?”
“About eight thousand feet.”
She peered out the window again. “It doesn’t look that far up.”
“That’s because the land below is over five thousand.”
Melody sat back in her seat and gave a happy sigh. “You do know how to make an impression, I’ll give you that. This must go over with the women.”
He slid her a funny look. “I’ve only taken one other woman up in this plane, and that was my sister.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No, really. I guess I didn’t figure any of the others had your sense of adventure.”
The fact that she was set apart gave her a warm feeling in the center of her chest. Even though she didn’t want to know the answer, she couldn’t resist the chance to ask about his dating history. “‘Any of the others’? Just how many are we talking about?”
“Many,” he replied sheepishly. “Most of them didn’t last past the third date or so. The ones who did . . . they figured out pretty quickly that I’m never going to be around for the office Christmas party or the brother’s wedding or any of the other normal events that they want a boyfriend for.”
Melody cast around for the proper response. “I think they were shortsighted.”
“Oh yeah? Why?”
“The souvenirs, of course. I know you said you don’t fly to Europe, but if you ever make it to Paris, there’s this bakery called Pierre Hermé on rue Bonaparte. Bring me back some macarons?”
Mischief glinted in his eyes. “You and my niece would get along well. She doesn’t care about having me back; she just wants the refrigerator magnets I bring her. Even though I think my sister wants to kill me. She’s running out of space on the fridge.”
“A girl after my own heart. Why have five when you could have fifty? In case you hadn’t noticed from my apartment, I’m a hopeless collector.” She would have said more, but she was too distracted by Denver’s landscape creeping by beneath them. The view was pretty spectacular. She took her headset off for a moment out of curiosity, but the roar of the engine put an end to that thought. Instead, she turned her attention on Justin. He looked completely relaxed and comfortable, like he was cruising along a freeway, but she noticed he was keeping an eye on the electronic gauges and GPS screen, minute adjustments of the stick keeping the wings level and the speed constant. At least that’s what she thought he was doing. She asked him to fill her in on how everything worked, which was all the encouragement he needed.
Her attention was coaxed away from his thorough descriptors by their gentle upward climb, the terrain beneath them turning from city to foothills to mountains, their craggy peaks covered in snow. He seemed a little more attentive to the outside view and the GPS now, even though he was as relaxed as ever. And then they began to descend.
“So, I don’t want to scare you or anything . . .”
Melody jerked her head in his direction just as a shudder vibrated through the plane. “I don’t tend to like sentences that begin like that.”
He grinned. “The approach to the airstrip looks worse than it is. It’s a cool day with no wind, so it should be pretty smooth. Just giving you a heads-up.”
She breathed in and out, realizing that her laid-back approach to life might not follow her this high up in the air.
She could feel them slowing down, and then they were descending, seemingly right into the mountains. Vibrations traveled through the plane, and she grabbed the edges of her seat with her fingertips.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Liar.”
They were dipping lower and lower to the ground, the jitters smoothing out. Only then did she notice the big log structure set in the middle of a wide, snow-covered field, beside which lay a long flat strip of newly cleared dirt.
“Wait, that’s where we’re landing?” She didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one as they continued their steady descent. Justin throttled back the engine until it felt like they were barely moving, floating above the dirt, their shadow flying before them on the snow beside the airstrip. Then they touched down with a delicate bounce.
Melody let out her breath and started laughing.
Justin turned to her. “I’ll take it that means you don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. I’m actually pretty impressed.”
“I’m good with that.” He taxied around the end and positioned the plane facing the way they’d come. They sat there for a minute, the engine idling, before he started flicking switches, shutting down the engine and all the electronics. “Brace yourself.”
She didn’t have to ask for what—the frigid air hit her face as soon as he twisted the handle and slid back the canopy. She fumbled for her jacket and zipped it up against the sharp breeze.
Justin hopped out, chocked the wheels, and then was at her side, offering her a hand down.
“Welcome to Silverlark, the best little mountain town no one has ever heard of.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
MELODY BREATHED DEEPLY, the scent of evergreens riding along with the singe of cold air to her lungs. She might live in Colorado, but there was a huge difference between living below in the city and being up in the high country, especially during transitional seasons like spring and fall. Down below, the day would be practically balmy; up here, it was like winter hadn’t yet left.
She accepted Justin’s help to climb down and began moving toward the lodge with him. They’d barely made it halfway across the snowy field before a woman appeared outside, waiting for them.
When they got close enough to make out details, Melody could see she was pretty, around her own age or a little older, with hair so black it took on a blueish tinge in the sunshine. Her only nod to the cold was the unzipped down jacket she wore over jeans and a black T-shirt.
“Reggie, hey.” Justin stepped forward and gave her a brief hug.
Reggie turned from him with a warm smile and held out a hand. “You must be Melody. Welcome to Jasper Creek Lodge. I’m so glad you came prepared. We’ll only need to find you some snow pants. Come on inside.”
Melody looked at Justin. “Snow pants?”
“You’ll see.”
They followed Reggie up the stairs into the lodge, pausing beneath the wide eaves of the porch to knock the snow off their boots. By the door hung a hand-carved sign with the name and a faithful reproduction of the lodge. Below it read Jewel of Silverlark and the altitude, 8,225 feet.
The inside was everything Melody could have wanted in a rustic mountain lodge: a log structure lit with massive iron chandeliers, hand-scraped wood floors, woven Navajo rugs, and heavy leather furniture. A fire burned in a gargantuan stone fireplace. It hardly mattered what else Justin had planned—she’d be content to sit in one of those big armchairs in front of the fire for the rest of the afternoon.
“This way,” Reggie threw over her shoulder, gesturing for them to follow her through a side hallway.
“Is this a hotel?” she whispered, trailing behind.
“Used to be. It’s an event center now. Corporate retreats, that sort of thing.
Reggie runs an outdoor adventure business situated here. It’s kind of a long story. . . .”
“It’s a very long story,” Reggie said, but the words were accompanied by a kind smile. She gestured for them to enter a large room, half the size of the great hall, packed with rack after rack of outdoor gear and clothing. She sized up both of them with narrowed eyes and then went straight to a rack of snow pants. She pulled a pair of black ones and handed them to Justin, then gave a pair of bright-pink ones to Melody.
“Unless you’d prefer black,” Reggie said. “I do.”
Melody grinned. “I like the pink. Where can I go put these on?”
Reggie showed her to a little dressing cubicle with a solid door at the back of the room, where Melody stepped out of her boots. She hesitated only a moment before stripping off her jeans as well. Reggie was a good judge of sizes, because the pants fit her perfectly.
She could just barely catch their conversation outside. “. . . good sport. You really didn’t tell her what you were doing?”
“Nope . . . sure she was going to go for the plane . . . in the Jeep?”
Melody smiled. So this was something he’d been planning for a while. When she decided she’d eavesdropped long enough, she opened the door and emerged.
“Perfect!” Reggie exclaimed. “Why don’t we get you some gloves while Justin changes?” She pulled Melody over to an old-fashioned chest of drawers and opened the second drawer to reveal dozens of pairs of gloves, extracting a white pair. “Now a hat.”
“Oh, I came prepared.” Melody reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out her knit beanie. “It’s usually cold in the bakery at night, even with the ovens going, so I always have one on hand.”
Justin emerged, already changed, his jacket zipped up and a hat pulled onto his head. Reggie reached into her pocket and dangled a pair of keys. “GPS is programmed in case you don’t remember how to get back.”
Brunch at Bittersweet Café Page 21