of protectiveness. He didn’t like that at all. He didn’t want to be totally responsible for her safety. He went through a lot on his own, answering to no one but himself, but this would be different.
Everything he’d have to do from here on out would be done for both of them, not just him. The usual rush he got from danger, or uncertainty, was gone since it wasn’t only his life at stake anymore. Not by a long shot. One glance at Merry and his stomach clenched. He turned away from the sight of her before he gave in to an overwhelming need to touch her and say, “We’ll make it.” He wasn’t a good liar, and he couldn’t say those words with any conviction right then.
So Gage did what he knew, and got on the radio, trying to make contact with the nearest tower to give them his coordinates. How he wished he’d never listened to Merry in the terminal and never said he’d bring her back home to Wolf Lake....
When he heard a report from the tower through the static about the changing direction and speed of the winds, and the mess they were heading right into, he knew he had to think fast.
“What are we going to do?” Merry asked in an unsteady voice.
If she hadn’t been with him, he would have made an immediate decision and never second guessed himself. Never. But with her, he was going back and forth, contemplating about going up or heading off to the side. He hated uncertainty, knowing that his slightest hesitation could mess things up for them. “We’ll go up,” he said with more conviction than he felt.
“Good,” he thought he heard Merry say as he spoke into the radio, telling the nearest tower what he’d do and asking for wind speed and direction. As he listened, he readjusted the controls and the plane started to climb. With the tower voice in the background, he could feel the small aircraft respond perfectly, and that gave him a sense of relief. It was a great plane. Then he felt the beginning of a drag, a sense of lost direction, right when Merry spoke again.
“Why are we climbing so slowly?”
The radio contact was breaking up, and he ignored it to check the radar. Because the wind is so strong, it’s pushing us back and down, he told himself, but instead said, “The weather.”
He had to concentrate, but was finding it harder than it should have been with Merry so close. He never should have let her get on board. Never. He didn’t need this. It was why he had no wish to be in any long term relationship because he didn’t want the responsibility or pressure. His job and his family were his only responsibilities, and business had been the main focus of his life since he’d started the company.
It still would be if the calls hadn’t come, one after the other over the past month. Calls about mundane things from friends and family in Wolf Lake. But beyond all the banter, he knew their real purpose. His older brother, Jack, needed him and he hadn’t been around.
Initially, Gage had planned on flying back for a day or two closer to summer. Then the request for a full bid on an entertainment complex southeast of Wolf Lake near the Rez had come from the town council, so he had made arrangements to travel there sooner rather than later.
Penciling in a week’s stay in Wolf Lake, he’d pacified his obligations business wise and his own conscience. However, he never thought he’d be in this plane, with a beautiful, confounding woman, flying straight into a storm. When the plane shuddered again, he tried to feather it into the wind to get clear and the action didn’t get any response from Merry. No gasp, no sobs, no petrified screams, so he chanced a look at her.
She was bent forward, her face hidden in her hands, and her back rising and falling rapidly. She was going to hyperventilate if she didn’t stop. He tried to push away that growing sense of protectiveness and that effort made his words sound short and abrupt. “Sit back and stop breathing so fast. You’re going to pass out.”
Her hands dropped just a bit and he could see her green eyes flash angrily at him. “Thanks,” she muttered, but did sit back and drop her hands to her lap.
He dismissed any apology he’d thought he should make, satisfied that she’d stopped counting bubbles and looking so terrified. “Make sure your belts are fastened and tight.”
“You, too,” she said, fiddling with her restraints.
He ignored her curt tone, and went on. “We’re going to have to fight to get to the west,” he told her, focusing on the panel in front of him. “That means jerking and possible dropping, but none of that means that we’re putting down. Do you understand that?”
He heard one word as he kept scanning the screens. “Yes.” She didn’t ask any questions.
“Ready?”
Another single word answer. “Yes.”
He didn’t have to look to know her eyes were shut. “Okay, here we go,” he said and began a painfully slow descent to the west. At first he felt it was working, despite two drops in altitude, and a jerk that snapped his head back. “It’s okay,” he said as much for his own benefit as it was for Merry’s.
“Good,” she replied, but he knew he’d spoken too soon. Things weren’t okay. They were losing altitude at about the same speed he was losing control of the plane. The angry winds knocked them, the snow finally growing into thin flakes that were more like needles being driven at them. Visibility was failing and the compass was nudging toward the south, not the west.
“No,” he murmured, trying to get control. The direction they were heading in was bringing them toward the mountain range that he flew over to get to Wolf Lake.
Now they were twisting in the air, icing on the outside direction adjusters made his control next to nonexistent. He heard Merry saying something, but the static of the radio in his ear drowned it out. He hit the button and heard more static. He felt a rush that came when he got in a tight spot, and he adjusted channels again, trying to get some clear connection between them and the nearest tower.
He gave his call identification, thought he heard someone say, “Roger, where—?” Then abrupt static was all he detected, along with the sounds of the wind beating against the plane, the whine of the engines and his own heart rattling against his ribs. He darted a look at Merry and was surprised to see she wasn’t doing her bubble counting. She was gripping the sides of the seat, but her eyes were on him, filled with what looked like disbelief.
“What?” he asked when she didn’t speak.
With a shake of her head, she rasped, “You’re crazy.”
He didn’t know where that came from. “You won’t be the first to call me that, or the last.”
“I bet,” she managed before biting her lip hard when the plane shuddered from the wind.
“How did you come to that diagnosis, Dr. Brenner?”
“All I had to do was see that excitement in your eyes,” she said. “You’re actually enjoying this!”
He wouldn’t deny that, at least for now, and he hit her with his own question as the plane seemed to settle a bit. “Why exactly are you here?”
Very slowly, they were gaining ground on a southerly direction. “You know why,” she responded.
“No, I don’t know.” Make her talk. Keep her occupied. “You’re terrified of flying, yet spent a hundred dollars to get on this ‘small,
