Page 11 of Colton in the Wild
Too bad telling himself that’s all he felt for her wasn’t working so well.
Soon they were circling over the small high-country clearing that got less interest than the fishing camps, but got a lot from people looking for isolation, a respite from the madness of the everyday world. He understood that. It was sort of what he was sad to see go when summer and the high-traffic tourist season rolled around. Although he tended to like better those who had never been here before who came wanting to see the more remote places. He’d always figured they had something in common under the surface, more so than he had with those who just came looking for the best fishing spot.
But that season was what allowed him to live the way he wanted, so he wasn’t about to complain. RTA was supporting his preferred lifestyle and keeping his cousins Parker and Lakin busy as well. Not to mention all the other people they employed.
Including the woman beside him, handling the controls of the Cessna with such calm competence. And who much preferred this season for flying. She’d told him once that with the stark, unbroken ice white of winter, it was too easy for pilots to lose the sense of how high—or low—they really were. And she didn’t like the retractable skis for snow landings, or the extra bounce. Give her a smooth water landing any time.
Her long, dark hair was pulled back as usual, he guessed in part so it didn’t get in the way of the headphones. He’d asked her once if the noise canceling didn’t impair her ability to hear a potential problem with the engine, and she’d explained that it helped instead, by toning down the constant steady drone, so that anything unusual in fact actually stood out more.
He yanked his focus away from her and shifted position so he could look down below.
“That quaking aspen went down,” he murmured to himself, making a mental note. He’d noticed the last time he was up there that the thirty-foot tree was leaning rather precariously. He’d taken a close look and seen no sign of damage or infestation, but there had been a large root making its way from a neighboring spruce and he’d suspected that was what was tilting the much smaller aspen. He’d need to come up here with some equipment and cut into logs, then split, since it didn’t dry well in the round. The wood wasn’t something he’d want for lots of heat or length of burn, but it was great to get things started, especially for people who might not be expert fire builders.
“Good excuse to get up here, huh?”
Hetty’s voice in his ears told him he’d muttered that louder than he’d thought he had. But he didn’t deny it. Just looked at her and grinned as he said, “Yep.”
“Learn to skydive and I’ll drop you off,” she quipped.
His grin widened. He liked this Hetty, relaxed and willing to joke. Usually quite brisk and businesslike around clients, she would never kid around.
“My luck, I’d land on the chainsaw I need to bring.”
She laughed before saying, “You have what you need?”
Not really.
His gut knotted at his own thought. Because what he needed was this Hetty, lighthearted and at ease. And he needed her a lot more than he wanted to admit.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice a little rough as he fought down his unwanted response to her cheerful mood. “Everything else looks good.”
She nodded and banked the plane to turn toward their next flyover, the fishing camp RTA had built a few years ago, which had become one of their most popular. As he usually did coming out of that turn, he remembered the flight when a thick cloud layer had dropped in, masking the mountains around them. Then the wind below it had kicked up and they’d been a bit tossed. Staying under the clouds but not being trapped in a valley between mountains without room to turn around, or any place to land, had been the real trick. Hetty hadn’t turned a hair and handled it as if it were any routine flight. Because that’s what she did.
But today was clear and he had a great view. He could see nothing from the air that indicated any problems, so he checked the camp off his mental list.
And finally they were done with the airborne survey and headed for their destination. He glanced at his watch. After noon, but they’d still have time for him to get all the gear, food and other supplies off-loaded, and the tent he jokingly called a “canvas house” put in place for the next excursion. The Radford family were regulars and he knew they’d never missed a trip once it was set.
It wasn’t long—or didn’t seem that way because of his mood, which was in turn because of Hetty’s mood—before he spotted the gleam of the sun on the lake up ahead. They circled above first, so he could take a look at the area surrounding the cleared campsite. He didn’t see anything amiss and was about to give the okay to take them on in when he heard an odd, high-pitched sound he didn’t recognize. He looked at Hetty and realized she’d changed. Gone was the relaxed, easygoing woman of a few moments ago. In her place was a taut, focused pilot.
“That squeal?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, only nodded again, clearly focused on all her instruments and the controls.
He remembered her once saying the plane talked to you, if you knew how to listen. A change in pitch, the variance between engine noise and airframe noise, it all meant different things. She’d explained, in almost professorial tones, how hearing was second only to vision in maintaining awareness while flying. And that sounds had three variables that all provided data. “Frequency, intensity and duration,” she’d quoted at him.
He also remembered asking her if frequency meant the pitch of the sound or how often it happened. She’d given him that now-all-too-rare smile that he’d first seen when he’d begun to make rapid progress back in those tutoring days, when the pieces had started to fall together visually in his mind.
“Both,” she’d said approvingly.
He snapped out of the memory, special though it was, to focus on the present. Which, judging by her demeanor, might not be pleasant at all.
He looked up front to see, thankfully, the propeller still spinning normally. Then he shifted his gaze back to her, awaiting any sign or request—no, judging by the set of her jaw, it would be an order—that he do something.
“Fuel’s dropping too fast. We’re going straight in to landing—” She broke off in the same moment the prop stopped turning.
They were definitely going down.
Chapter 7
