The Rescue Pilot. Rachel Lee
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I wasn’t expecting Cait to be exposed at all.”
Wendy nodded as she rose to open one of the overhead bins. She wore a baggy sweater and jeans, and a very sensible pair of work boots. Just like Rory herself. Accustomed as she was to being on work sites, Rory dolled up only for business meetings, and this trip hadn’t qualified for that.
“What about you?” Wendy spoke as she fought with the bin door, at last managing to yank it open.
“I have a parka I dug out before we left.”
“Good. I don’t usually carry spares of those.”
Wendy pulled a thick-knit cap out of a leather duffel and passed it to her. “There you go.”
“Thank you so much!”
Wendy smiled, and the expression reached her eyes. “Hey, we’re all in this together.”
Cait murmured quietly as Rory put the stocking cap on her, but then settled back into sleep. Rory stood looking down at her sister, wishing that for just a few moments she could see that spark again in Cait’s expression, but it had vanished long before Rory got home.
Tears pricked at her eyes, but she couldn’t afford to let them fall. Not now, not ever. She had to remain strong for Cait’s sake, no matter how tough it got. And right now it was tough. All her worst imaginings for Cait’s future had just been compounded by a plane crash in the wilderness. In a storm.
Sometimes she thought the gods enjoyed a laugh at human expense. If so, they must be finding this all hilarious.
Time. There was so little time for Cait now. And this accident was eating away at it like a miserable rat. Just enough meds for four days. Then what? Not that the meds were doing much but holding the beast at bay, and not doing a very good job at that. In the days since she’d gotten back to Seattle and had gathered the information and recommendations that had led her to the decision to fly her sister halfway across the country for experimental treatment, she’d watched Cait drift away further and further. Losing even the energy to smile, or whisper more than a few words.
Days, hours, minutes were precious right now. And they were slipping uncaringly between her fingers like the finest of sands.
Her spine stiffened suddenly, and she turned around to march back into the main cabin. There was a pilot who had a lot of explaining to do, and she was going to get her answers the instant he came back inside.
She might not be able to change the situation, but she was sure as hell going to understand it and all that they were up against. She didn’t function well in the dark and she refused to be kept there.
Chase and Yuma returned to the plane after a mere thirty minutes. Long enough to assess their situation outside, long enough to dig through the snow at the forest’s edge to find some wood and pine needles. They’d even dug a place near the plane to build a fire safely, although that was going to be difficult in this wind.
But Chase had candles onboard, and chafing dishes for those fancy flights where people expected exquisite meals. Plenty of candles. He could heat some soup, maybe even brew some coffee, but open flames in the plane made him uneasy, and they’d suck up the oxygen.
He was holding an internal debate as he and Yuma closed the door behind them. And the first words he heard were:
“Why the hell did this plane crash?”
He turned slowly, his cheeks stinging from the cold outside. He stared at the Campbell woman, reminding himself that she was undoubtedly edgy because of her sister. And, yes, because of the crash. Plenty of reason to be truculent.
He pulled off his leather gloves while staring at her, and threw his hood back. “Well,” he said slowly, “that’s the question, isn’t it? We ran out of fuel. Unexpectedly, inexplicably. All of a sudden. And since I had the plane in Seattle for an overhaul, I’m going to guess that somebody screwed up. But once that fuel started draining like Niagara Falls, there wasn’t much I could do except try to get us down in one piece.”
He waited, expecting to get his butt chewed about something, but amazingly, it didn’t happen. Then she nodded. “Okay. What now? What are our chances?”
He unzipped his jacket and shrugged it off, tossing it over a seat back. “The charts I looked at before takeoff suggest the storm might last two days. That was then. It wasn’t supposed to catch up to us as fast as it did. That’s now. It’s a helluva blow, and we aren’t going to stir from the safety of this plane until it lets up.”
“Two days,” she said, and sounded almost frightened.
“Two days,” he repeated. “If the emergency beacon is working, rescue should come soon after.”
“If?”
“We didn’t exactly make a soft landing. The body of the plane is twisted pretty badly. I don’t know how many electrical connections are out, or what hidden damage we have. Just after we crashed, it looked like my sat-nav went out. GPS to you. And the emergency beacon needs that to tell rescuers where we are, after the storm passes. The standard transponder, which I also have, broadcasts from the underside of the plane, so we can pretty much count that out. Regardless, the storm itself will probably interfere with all radio communications, so I can’t say for sure whether the problem is the weather or something is broken. I’m going to check on that right now, if you don’t mind.”
No objection emanated from the beauty, although her expression suggested that she’d have loved nothing better than a fight. Of course. To work off the adrenaline, probably. Or maybe she just hated the sight of him. He didn’t care either way. He started to turn but her voice caught him.
“Won’t they know where we are from the flight plan? From our last recorded position?”
He faced her again. “We were traveling at over six hundred miles per hour. From the time things started to go wrong, we traveled a long way. And we didn’t exactly stay on the flight path while I tried to get us down on some open ground rather than in the forest. So they’re going to have to search quite a wide area.”
“Then you’d better make sure that beacon is working.”
Chase ground his teeth. Now he was absolutely certain he didn’t like her. “That thought has occurred to me as well, ma’am.”
Stiff now, he turned toward the cockpit. When he got there, he closed the accordion door behind him. This, he thought, was not going to make anything any easier.
Rory watched the pilot close the door behind him. What was his name again? She’d paid scant attention … Oh, yeah, something like Hunter. No, Chase. Chase Dakota. He was a large enough man, well-built, with ruggedly chiseled features that hinted just a bit at a possible Native American heritage somewhere in his family tree. Gray eyes that reminded her of steel.
And not especially friendly. Although she supposed she wasn’t exactly inviting friendliness at the moment. But why should she? Her sister’s life was hanging in the balance, and whether this crash was his fault hardly seemed to matter. Bottom line: They had crashed and they were stuck for two days. At least two days. She would have given her right hand for some assurance that was all it would be.
She realized that Wendy had risen and was moving around toward the rear of the plane, in an alcove just behind the passenger seating but forward of the bedroom in the tail. Rory took a few steps to look and saw the redhead opening lockers above a microwave. The plane’s small galley.
Needing to do something, Rory joined her.
“I’m looking at our supply situation,” Wendy said, smiling. “Chase always stocks well, but it would sure be nice if I could manage to make us all something hot to drink. Soup, tea, maybe coffee.”
“We can’t cook. Not without a fire.”
“Ah, but we might be able to manage something with candles and these chafing dishes.”
“True.” Rory allowed herself to be distracted