The Rescue Pilot. Rachel Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 by one of her favorite things: problem solving. She took a quick look at her sister and found Cait still sleeping, and gently breathing. Did parents hover over new babies like this, she wondered, waiting for the gentle rise of a chest to indicate that life continued?

      She gave herself a little shake and turned back to help Wendy in the galley. “Coffee might be beyond reach,” she said. “How many candles does it take to boil a pot?”

      “Darned if I know. But I want my coffee, and there’s a whole lot of candles. Besides, we only need to make one pot. I think the guys will build a fire outside soon. We’re going to need it.”

      “That’s for sure.”

      “And I’m sure if we’re patient, we can heat a pot of this dried soup.” She turned on the faucet and, wonder of wonders, water came out.

      “Must be a gravity tank,” Rory said.

      “Whatever it is, it’s a plus. Better to have water right now than have to melt snow on top of everything else.”

      While Rory worked with chafing-dish holders to elevate them enough to put fat, squat candles beneath them, bending legs and stacking a few of them, Wendy found the pieces of the drip coffeemaker and assembled them, then put coffee in the filter. “First pot of boiling water goes for coffee,” she said firmly. “I need a hot drink and some caffeine.”

      “If you watch it, it’ll never boil,” Rory remarked, lighting a candle beneath her assemblage. The women shared a quiet laugh at the old joke, then together balanced a chafing dish full of water on the structure.

      “I think it’ll hold,” Wendy said.

      “It looks like it, but this time I’m going to watch it boil anyway. Too dangerous to do otherwise.”

      “I agree. And maybe I should speak to Chase about this.”

      “Why?”

      Wendy tipped her head. “Because we’re burning oxygen back here, and this plane is probably pretty airtight.”

      Rory hadn’t thought of that, but as soon as Wendy spoke, she knew she was right. Planes had air exchangers, but they probably worked on electrical power like everything else. Power they didn’t have now. “Go ask. I’ll babysit.”

      Much better to have Wendy ask. Not that Chase Dakota had spared her more than a few words, but she got the feeling he didn’t much care for her. Ordinarily, she didn’t turn tail in the face of men like that, but right now she was acutely aware that she wasn’t the person in charge. That put her on the defensive, and for now that meant stirring up as little trouble as possible.

      “Houston,” she muttered under her breath, “we have a problem.”

      Except they weren’t halfway to the moon. Although they might as well have been at the moment. She heard some noise from up front and stuck her head out of the galley. Chase and Wendy’s husband were pushing the door open a crack. Just a crack. Then they disappeared in the men’s compound, so aptly named a cockpit, she thought sourly, and went back to their machinations with the machinery.

      No emergency beacon? She refused to believe that was possible. Weren’t those damn things supposed to work no matter what? Or maybe that was the cockpit race recorder she was thinking of. All of a sudden she wished she knew more about planes and less about finding and drilling for oil. Or more about cancer and her sister’s condition.

      She was so used to being on top of things that it killed her to consider all the things she didn’t know anything about—like planes and cancer and how long it would take that damn water to boil. Because she sure would like a cup of that coffee.

      Wendy rejoined her. “We might get a little chilly. They tried to open the door to a minimum so we don’t suffocate, but …” She shrugged. “Nobody said camping in a blizzard in a crashed plane was going to be easy.” “What do you know about the pilot?” Rory asked.

      “I mean …”

      Wendy’s face gentled. “It’s okay. He’s a stranger to you and here we are in a mess. But, trust me, Chase was a military pilot before he started his charter service. He knows what he’s doing, and if we lost fuel, then he’s right about why. He’s not the kind of guy who would authorize any maintenance shortcuts. And, as for right now, I can tell you the military gave both him and my husband a lot of survival training.”

      “Okay.”

      Something in Wendy’s face changed. “Billy Joe—oh, he’d kill me if he heard me call him that to someone else—”

      “Why?”

      “He’s just never liked his given name. He prefers everyone to call him Yuma.”

      “I can do that.”

      Wendy smiled. “I’m sure you can.” “You were going to say?”

      “Yuma lived up here in these mountains for a few years after he got back from the war. Post-traumatic stress. He knows how to survive these mountains in the winter.”

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