A Match Made In Alaska. Belle Calhoune
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been spared, there was no escaping the grim reality of his current situation.
He shoved his hand through his hair and muttered angrily. This wasn’t fair! With the town of Love having suffered a recession in recent years, his company had already taken some hard financial hits. Because money had been tight and he had never had a single accident, he had opted to lower his insurance premiums. In light of the accident and his destroyed plane, the ramifications were mind-boggling. With limited insurance and a lowered payout for the accident, he had no idea how he would be able to replace Lucy. And without a replacement for his beloved seaplane, he wouldn’t be able to run O’Rourke Charters and make a decent living. Not with just one plane left. Everything would be in shambles.
The very thought of it was unfathomable! Who was Declan O’Rourke without his company? Nobody. Nothing. The son of a convict. A tiny voice buzzed in his ears. Flying planes was the only thing he’d ever been good at. It was the only vocation he’d ever known.
“Mr. O’Rourke. Are you all right?” The feminine voice splashed over him like a bucket of ice-cold water. It was jarring to be intruded upon at a moment like this. He felt her tugging on his sleeve with an insistence that grated on his nerves.
“Just dandy,” he said through gritted teeth. He had almost forgotten about his client. His focus had been wholly consumed by Lucy’s destruction. Miss Murray had come up beside him without him even realizing it.
“I called your name three times. You didn’t seem to hear me.”
He swung his gaze toward her as a numb feeling swept over him. “I didn’t,” he said in a curt tone. He jutted his chin in the direction of the charred, still-smoking seaplane. “I was a little preoccupied with my life going up in flames.”
A little squeak slipped past her lips, and she raised her hand to her throat. “Oh no! Your plane is gone. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how awful you feel about it.” He looked away from her, startled by the raw emotion emanating from her warm brown eyes. She barely knew him, but here she stood, full of concern and sympathy.
Something about her reaction served as a domino effect. The sting of tears blurred his eyes, and he sniffed them away. He never cried. Tears were a sign of weakness. He had learned that lesson as a child at his grandfather’s knee. Stiff upper lip. Never let them see you cry. Declan O’Rourke wasn’t a weak man. Not by a long shot!
As he always did, he would use humor to diffuse the tension. He was a master at stuffing things down that he didn’t want the world to see. He’d been doing it ever since he was a kid. It had always served him well.
“This too shall pass,” he murmured, knowing he had been through worse losses in his thirty years. “Honestly, I’m more concerned about my aviator sunglasses. I spent a lot of money on those,” he cracked. “Wish I had grabbed them before we exited the plane.”
Silence greeted him. Miss Murray’s expression was dubious. She raised an eyebrow and twisted her mouth. If he had to guess, he’d say she didn’t buy his act.
“If you say so,” she said. She held up her cell phone. “There’s no cell service. Is there a way to radio for help?”
“We’re going to have to wait for rescue. The only radio went up in flames with the plane. I have my cell phone, also, but it’s pretty useless without a signal.” He shook his head as all the possible avenues for communication with the outside world seemed to evaporate. “I can’t imagine they would be able to ping our location in this forest. This area is too remote. When we don’t make it back to Love by nightfall, a red flag will be raised. A search and rescue will be put into motion.” His chest tightened at the thought of his best friend, Boone Prescott, and his entire family worrying about his demise. Even his brother, Finn, would be put through the ringer by the news, he imagined. Finn, who never took anything seriously, would be forced to face the grim news head-on. “At least for a little bit, there wouldn’t be an escape route from the pain and fear and loss, Miss Murray.”
“Annie. My name is Annie,” she corrected him. “And considering the circumstances we find ourselves in, I think we can use first names when addressing each other.”
Declan nodded. “Annie it is. Feel free to call me Declan.”
“So, Declan, do you have any idea how long we’ll have to wait for rescue?”
He scratched his jaw. “I imagine until morning. By the time the alarm is rung by the FAA and my friends in town, it will be nightfall. They don’t routinely send out planes at night to look for crash sites.”
“And you registered your flight plan?” she asked, her expression somber.
Her question made him want to grin. Annie Murray knew a little something about planes, he surmised. “Yes, I did, which means they’ll be scouring the route we took. Are you an aviation buff?”
“Not exactly. I’m a town librarian. Reading is my superpower,” she said with a smile.
Annie’s smile packed quite a punch. It reached all the way into his chest cavity and tugged with a mighty force. He shook off the feelings her smile elicited. Annie wasn’t his type. The sort of women who appealed to him were classic beauties—tall, elegant, refined. Annie had small town written all over her. Not that there was anything wrong with small towns, but as the product of one, he knew he needed something different in a romantic relationship. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t been tempted by any of the women who had arrived in Love to participate in the town’s matchmaking enterprise. Although a few of them had made their interest in him known all over town, he hadn’t reciprocated their feelings. It was just as well, he realized. The women who had moved to Love were interested in settling down and finding husbands. Declan wasn’t the marrying kind, and it would have been cruel to make any woman believe otherwise.
“Well, flying planes is my superpower,” he said. He twisted his mouth. Doubt crept in. “Or at least, it was until today.”
He scratched his jaw as his mind wandered to the events leading up to the plane’s malfunctioning. What had happened? He wasn’t entirely sure, which shook him. Everything had happened so quickly. All his attention had been focused on landing the plane safely and ensuring that he and Annie walked away from the plane in one piece. He didn’t like all the unanswered questions that were bouncing around in his mind. Had the crash somehow been his fault?
“That’s a wonderful superpower to have,” Annie said. “I’m very grateful that you were my pilot today. What you did...safely landing the plane...it’s rather incredible.”
Incredible? He wasn’t sure he agreed with Annie, although he appreciated the sentiment. As an experienced pilot, it was his job to avert disaster and to skillfully maneuver all aspects of aviation.
In his opinion, a crash landing should never have been necessary in the first place. It bothered him deeply that something had gone so catastrophically wrong on his watch.
“Thanks for saying so. I wish that I could have kept us up there in the wild blue yonder. If all had gone well, we’d be getting ready to make our final descent into Love right about now.” He shook his head ruefully. As soon as they made it back to Love, he would begin putting the pieces together in an effort to find out what had gone so terribly wrong with Lucy. He wouldn’t rest until he had those answers!
Annie began to shiver right before his eyes. She folded her arms across her chest and rubbed her arms over her cloak in an effort to get warm. He wished he had a blanket to throw over her shoulders. He’d been so preoccupied with their location and the events leading up to the crash that he had allowed his mind to wander from the pressing matters at hand.
“We need to find shelter and hunker down for the night before it gets dark.” And he needed to build a fire before they froze to death out here. The fire from the plane had petered out, no doubt due to the snow and ice on the ground as well as the low fuel supply. There had been only enough fuel in Lucy to get them back to Love, which might have been a blessing. If conditions had been different, the blaze from the plane could have spread to the forest and led to a wildfire.