A Match Made In Alaska. Belle Calhoune
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the one to get it going. He let out a sigh. Boone had been stepping in to rescue him ever since.
“If you’re cold, you should pull something from your luggage and add another layer,” he suggested. “It may take a bit to get a fire going.”
Annie nodded and dug around in her bag until she produced a knitted blanket. She wrapped it around her shoulders and let out a contented sigh.
“Where exactly are we?” she asked, looking around her surroundings with big eyes.
“Midway between Anchorage and Love. We’re in the Chugach National Forest. I spotted it as we flew overhead. Although this area is sparsely populated and heavily forested, I seem to recall a campground in these parts.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his trusty compass. It was his habit to carry it around with him. It was the only earthly keepsake his grandfather had been attached to during his lifetime. When he had passed away, Killian O’Rourke had made sure to hand it off to his favorite grandson. Declan had kept it in his shirt pocket close to his heart ever since.
And under different circumstances, he might have been able to use the compass to lead them toward rescue. But there was no way they could navigate their way out of the forest. And the likelihood of stumbling across the campground was remote. Surviving in the wilderness meant making smart choices. He owed it to both of them to make wise moves from this point forward.
Now that the shock of the plane crash was beginning to wear off, he had a better viewpoint on their situation. It was a blessing they had been traveling over land at the time of the plane trouble rather than Kachemak Bay, where he would have been forced to crash-land on the water. They would have been in the middle of nowhere out on the water with no means of rescue or saving themselves. Hypothermia would have set in shortly. In all likelihood, they would have perished.
Declan began scouting out their immediate area. Knowing it wasn’t wise to stray too far from the crash site, he began surveying for the driest area that was protected from the elements. By tonight it would be much colder, with a fierce wind to accompany the temperature drop. There was a copse of pine trees about one hundred feet from the wreckage. Declan walked over to check it out. When he reached the pine trees, he bent down and noticed that there was a relatively dry area between the trees where Annie might be able to make a pallet for sleep. He would stay up tonight to watch out for any signs of rescue or predators. Although it was unlikely that planes would be searching at night, he didn’t want to miss any window for rescue.
There was no need to scare Annie by telling her about bears or wolves that roamed the Alaskan wilderness. The last thing he needed was for her to panic. As it was, he was slightly amazed she’d been holding it together. He hadn’t pegged her for the calm, cool and collected type.
He walked back over to Annie. She was sitting on a rock and rummaging through her bags with a determined expression plastered on her face. She let out a cry of glee as she pulled out a pair of thick red mittens. “Score! I found them. These will be a game changer. My fingers are frozen.”
He nodded approvingly. “Those will definitely help, especially as the temperature drops in a few hours.”
She looked up at him with her brows knitted together. “Where are yours?”
Declan shrugged. “I didn’t bring any. This was supposed to be only a short flight from Love to Anchorage and then back home.” He grinned at her. “I’m not in the habit of bringing mittens on my flights.”
She ducked her head and dug back into her bag. A look of triumph flitted across her face as she held up a pair of black mittens with a pink heart on each. “Ta-da! I found another pair. You’re welcome to borrow them.”
Declan frowned. He wasn’t exactly the type of guy who sported mittens with hearts on them. They were super girly. But his hands were getting cold. Annie was holding out the mittens to him with an expectant look on her face. Suddenly he didn’t want her to feel bad about his refusing her sweet little mittens. There was something about Annie Murray—eccentricities and all—that reeked of pure goodness.
He reached out and took the mittens from her. “Thanks,” he said as he slid them on, letting out a contented sigh as his hands began to warm up from the cold. “You might have just saved my fingers from frostbite.”
“Just returning the favor,” she said with a huge grin. “After all, you saved both of us with your skilled crash landing. Something tells me not every pilot could have pulled that off.” She held out her hands toward the forest. “With all these trees, you had to be dead-on with that landing.”
“It’s a first for me, Annie. I’ve never had to make an emergency landing like this, but I’m thankful for years of flying experience. I learned to fly a plane when most kids are dreaming of getting their first kiss.” Declan felt a rush of joy rising up inside him at the memory of his first flying lesson with his grandfather. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the thrill of soaring up above the clouds into the clear blue skies of Alaska. He had felt invincible up in the air, as if none of the heartache and pain of his early years could touch him. And the praise his grandfather had heaped on him had truly made him feel a sense of accomplishment, one he’d never experienced before in his life. For the first time, he’d felt as if he was good at something.
And he was a good pilot. A great one, according to most of his clients. How he wished his grandfather could have seen it all come to fruition. He’d passed away before Declan had gotten his pilot’s license. Now O’Rourke Charters had gotten off the ground. The old man would have been so proud and tickled that Declan had made a business out of flying planes, the thing his grandfather had always loved most of all. It hadn’t been fair to lose his grandfather to the ravages of diabetes before he’d had the opportunity to give the old man a glimpse of his aviation enterprise. But the one thing life had taught him was that fair hardly ever entered into the equation.
He shook his head in an effort to drag himself out of the past. Those memories could do nothing but hurt him. At the moment, he needed to focus on survival and making it through this ordeal. Night was quickly approaching, and being able to get a fire going would be a huge advantage for them.
He pointed at the area he had just checked out. “That spot over there is probably the best shelter we’re going to find. It’ll give us a little protection from the elements, and if we can get a fire going, we’ll be able to stay warm through the night.”
Annie rubbed her hands together. “A fire sounds good. It will save us from hypothermia. I’m sure you’re aware of it, but hypothermia sets in when your body core temperature is below ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. Signs of hypothermia can be drowsiness, confusion, shivering and a slowed-down heart rate.”
He nodded his head. As a native Alaskan, he had known about hypothermia before he’d learned to tie his shoes. “Good to know, Annie. I for one do not intend to find that out firsthand,” Declan said. “I’m going to make haste and look for some tinder to get the fire going.”
Declan began to root around in the brush. He picked up pine needles, shredded bark and a few twigs. When he returned to the makeshift shelter with an armful of tinder, he deposited it in a heap on the ground. He noticed that Annie had moved her belongings over to the site. She had made a little pile of things in front of her seat on a log. With a cheeky grin on her face, Annie held up a granola bar.
“Voilà! It’s not a five-course meal, but it should tide us over until tomorrow.” She pointed at the pile of snacks set out in front of her.
Declan’s stomach grumbled with appreciation at the sight of chocolate, trail mix, beef jerky, peanut butter and crackers. And a bottle of water. For someone who hadn’t eaten since this morning, it was a veritable feast. God was good!
“It’s a divine meal as far as I’m concerned,” Declan said as he accepted the granola bar she held out to him. “It was brilliant of you to bring all these snacks on the flight.”
A smile lit up her face. “Not brilliant. Just practical. I sometimes get low blood sugar, so I always make sure I have