Page 11 of One Last Storm
Axel stared at the ring in the small velvet box, the firelight flickering off the simple solitaire diamond, the white gold band. Oops. He hadn’t meant to bring it on this trek but…
Aw, who was he kidding. He wasn’t letting it out of his sight until he put it on Flynn’s finger.
He closed the case and slipped it into the zipper chest pocket of his Air One jumpsuit.
Don’t panic. He turned away from the fire and patted the pocket. Yes, zipped in, safe.
“You keep doing that.” Luna Frost sat cross-legged on a braided rug near the wood-burning stove, bright pink winter coat unzipped to reveal a Christmas sweater covered in reindeer. Dark hair spilled over her shoulders as she tilted her head, studying him with the unblinking curiosity of a six-year-old.
Heat crept up Axel’s neck. “Just making sure I didn’t lose anything.”
“What is it?”
“Nothing important.” Nothing important? The engagement ring that had cost him three months’ salary and represented his entire future with Flynn. Yes, it was definitely something.
Everything, actually.
He should have proposed a year ago when Moose had gotten married. But she’d been involved in an investigation of a drug trafficker, and when she put her nose to a hunt…well, he’d sort of stood on the sidelines, not sure if he should wave his arms or just wait it out.
According to Flynn, they’d lost their suspect, vanished—poof—into the Alaskan interior.
Which meant, maybe…
Through the frosted windows of the Matthews homestead’s main cabin, wind shrieked like a living thing, rattling glass and sending snow in horizontal sheets across their remote compound. What had started as challenging flying conditions three hours ago had become a full-scale Alaskan blizzard that grounded helicopters and trapped rescue teams ten miles from their destination.
Ten miles from the Clearwater village where Christmas packages waited to be delivered.
Forty miles from Flynn.
The lodge’s main room buzzed with quiet activity as the Matthews clan—Dr. Caius Matthews, his wife Una, and his three adult children—Everest, Sage and Bear—sorted through the medical supplies Winter had been carrying. The Matthews had developed a sort of family compound in the woods, with Caius and his wife settling here, at the edge of a small lake some thirty years ago. They’d built a cabin, then a lodge, then more cabins and a couple barns and managed to eke out an impressive compound here in the middle of nowhere.
Axel knew them from their occasional forays to Copper Mountain, the town at the foothills of Denali where he and Moose grew up.
Mid-fifties, the bush doctor had a reputation here for being a sort of healer. He combined ancient natural remedies with current medicines and had probably seen every baby born in the bush for the past twenty years. Including his own children and grandchildren.
Luna Frost’s mother had been Caius’s daughter, so no wonder she spent Christmas here, on the Matthews homestead, with her widowed father, Wilder.
“These’ll take care of the Thompson baby,” Dr. Matthews said, holding up a package of antibiotics. “Pneumonia’s been touch and go for weeks.”
“We’ll get them there, Dad,” Bear said. His son, also a physician, came in, stamping his feet from where he’d loaded up the snowmobiles for the trek to the Thompsons. “Storm or no storm.”
Una Matthews, the doctor’s wife, was sorting through a different pile—wrapped Christmas packages bound for the Clearwater village. Children’s toys, family letters, and precious supplies that connected the remote settlement to the outside world.
“Forty-three packages for Clearwater,” she announced, voice warm despite the concern creasing her features. “Including toys for twelve children.”
Axel’s stomach clenched, even as he glanced outside.
Brains said that they stayed here, hunkered down and wait out the storm.
His hand went to his pocket again.
“We’ll get them delivered,” Moose said from where he stood studying a hand-drawn map spread across the dining table. His brother’s voice carried that quiet confidence that had gotten Air One through a hundred impossible situations. “Question is how.”
“Not by air,” London said, her tone grim. She’d been monitoring weather reports on the cabin’s ham radio for the past hour, each update worse than the last. “Winds are gusting to forty miles per hour, and visibility is down to zero. Nothing’s flying until this system moves through.”
“How long?” Axel asked, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice.
Sage Matthews—the doctor’s daughter and clearly the practical one—looked up from the radio, expression apologetic. “Weather service is saying maybe two days. Storm’s stalled over the region.”
