скачать книгу бесплатно
“She’ll get over it. The young suffer a great deal, but their anger dies quickly.”
“Addy thinks I’m too hard on her.”
It was time, Sam decided, to say a few things that had been on his mind lately. “Sometimes you are. I think you need someone to make what you say to her more pal—” He stopped, trying to envision the right word in his mind. In spite of all the progress he’d made, sometimes the consequences of the stroke still plagued his speech, but Nick knew better than to help him.
The word wouldn’t come. After a frustrated moment he said, “To make what you say not such a bitter pill to swallow.”
“There are plenty of people around here sugarcoating every word I say to her.”
“You need more than that. You need a real mother for the girl. And a wife for yourself, Nick. A helpmate.”
There was a swift change in Nick’s expression. He stopped tightening the laces on his second boot and looked at his father as though he had suffered another stroke. “A wife! That’s the last thing I need.”
“Why? Look at your mother and me. So many happy years. Marriages are made in heaven.”
“So are thunder and lightning,” Nick said with a bark of laughter. He turned back to his boots, a touch of impatience in the set of his mouth. “I don’t think we need to have this discussion. Let’s go see if we can talk Mom out of some lasagna.”
Sam moved his wheelchair closer. “Don’t brush me aside. I’m serious. You think one bad marriage and it’s over? Just because you burn your mouth once does not mean you have to blow on your soup forever.”
Nick rose, raking a hand through his hair. “I don’t know where this is coming from,” he muttered. “I haven’t been this uncomfortable since our birds and the bees talk.”
“Your mother and I—we see you. You take on too much. You share nothing. Not even your thoughts anymore. This mountain is becoming your fortress. I know this is because of me.” Sam’s right arm was his strongest, and he let his fingers brush against the side of the wheelchair. “Because of this. You think we can’t manage without you.”
The discussion was sapping his energy. Sam could feel his head drooping a little. In a softer tone he said, “Well, perhaps you are right. Perhaps we can’t.”
Nick came to the chair and knelt in front of his father. He took his hand in his, massaging the long, bony fingers lightly. “I see improvement in you every day, Pop,” he said in a gentle voice. “You keep going, and I’ll be out of a job in no time. In the meantime, I enjoy looking after everyone here. I’d be bored without all this insanity.”
Sam looked his son in the eyes. “You are a healthy young man. Good Italian stock. You should date.”
Nick grinned. “I do. Didn’t I take Helen Grabowksi to Broken Yoke’s Fourth of July celebration?”
“Bah!” Sam said with a grimace. “That woman, she is…she has…” Again he struggled to find the word. When it failed to materialize, he settled on something easier. “Your grandfather would have said she has la malocchio!”
Nick’s Italian was pretty good, but he’d seldom heard that word. He straightened and placed his hands on his hips. “I don’t see how a woman who works at Becky’s House of Hair can have the evil eye.”
“She giggled all through the national anthem.” Sam didn’t bother to hide the acid in his tone.
“God help her if it had been the Italian national anthem. You’d have had her run out of town on a rail.”
“That woman is not your type.”
“Type!” Nick exclaimed with more laughter. “I was looking for fun and a little companionship. Not a blood transfusion.”
“Nicholas—”
“We can talk about my love life later. Much, much later. I have to get back to the hangar. I’m surprised Addy hasn’t called screaming bloody murder because I’ve been gone so long.”
He moved around to the back of Sam’s wheelchair, bending forward as he pushed his father out into the hallway. “If you and Mom want to work on finding someone a mate, start with Addy. Get her interested in a man and maybe she’ll stop bugging me about more flight time.”
ALL THE WAY DOWN the mountain in his Jeep, Nick couldn’t stop smiling.
Imagine his father and mother worried about his love life! What was that all about? Maybe he hadn’t been in the best of moods lately, but how did they figure getting involved with a woman was the answer? If anything, it would just make everything more…complicated.
He should have told his father not to bother. He was no damned good at the husband/wife game. Ask Denise, his ex. She’d have given Pop an earful, although Nick wasn’t sure she’d be completely impartial about where the blame lay. Some of the reasons their marriage had failed had been his fault. Okay, a lot of them. It probably didn’t matter now which ones. It was enough to say that their quarreling had corroded and eventually killed what they’d once had together.
A new relationship? These days he couldn’t find much reason to try. He was too tired. Too set in his ways. Too busy to blow the dust off the old male/female dance steps and find someone new to whirl out onto the floor.
Besides, who in these parts could even inspire him to try?
Pop was right about Helen Grabowski. Way too giddy. Ellie Hancock, the owner of Ellie’s Book Nook? Too timid. You had to work hard to get a single word out of her. Paulette Manzoni, the pretty ski instructor he’d met in Vail the last time he was there, had been a possibility. She had a great appreciation for the bed and was Italian, to boot, which would certainly please his parents. Only thing, she collected teddy bears, which was a nice little hobby—until Nick had discovered they took up every square inch of her house.
No. Definitely not.
Broken Yoke, the nearest town, didn’t offer much hope. The woman who’d shown up at Angel Air’s office today had been right. If something didn’t happen soon, the only inhabitants there would be ghosts.
Kari Churchill. Pretty name. Pretty lady, too, although she had one heck of a nerve expecting them to drop everything to fly her out to Elk Creek Canyon. He didn’t care for egotists who had so little respect for other people’s time. She’d put his back up right from the start with that attitude of hers, and Nick suspected the feeling was mutual.
Too bad, because they could have used the money. But if he was going to be tied up at the lodge, he hadn’t wanted Addy taking up that flight. Not in the last hour of good daylight. Not when his sister still didn’t know his birds like the back of her hand.
But he couldn’t say that in front of her. So he’d probably lost that booking and made an enemy of the Churchill woman for life. Sorry, Pop. Scratch that name off your list of potential mates.
Rain splattered the windshield of the Jeep. In the distance he heard the rumble of thunder. Those clouds he’d seen earlier hadn’t lied. He was getting pretty good at predicting storms. Soon he’d be like Great-Uncle Giovanni, forecasting weather with his big toes.
Addy was going to be furious. It took both of them to get the birds into the hangar, him pushing from the tail while she maneuvered the skid dolly. Now they might have to manage it in pouring rain.
He frowned as he pulled into the parking lot. The outside floodlights weren’t on and Kari Churchill’s vehicle was still sitting there. The lights in the office weren’t on, either, but what made Nick’s stomach drop right down to his toes was the chopper pad.
Raven One was gone.
Ramming the key into the office lock, he flipped on the lights and strode back to the hangar in less than a dozen steps. It was dark, too. No copter. Nobody in sight.
He ran back into the office. Not possible. Addy wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have taken the copter up with a storm coming in. She knew better.
Didn’t she?
His mind stretched back, trying to recall if she’d been standing there when he and Dwayne Patterson had shared that awkward conversation about the weather.
We’ll get a thunderstorm later.
You really think so?
Where had Addy been? On the pad, right? On the pad right beside him. No. Not there. Checking on that little witch Hannah Patterson.
If she hadn’t known about the coming storm, then she might have gone up. When he’d pulled out of the parking lot, had there been anything but pretty blue sky overhead? He couldn’t remember. Would she really have let the Churchill woman talk her into something? No! She’d check the weather service. She knows the drill. She knows it…
His legs felt as though they were filled with water as he dropped behind his desk, knocked everything aside and pulled the base radio to his chest. He had to swallow hard.
Focus. Don’t lose control.
Oh, damn it, sis! Where are you?
“BASE TO Nine-Zero-One-Bravo. Where the hell are you?”
Ground radio transmissions were normally more difficult for a passenger to hear, nothing more than muffled signals, but Kari didn’t miss a word of the angry male communication that practically made her ears ring. And it wasn’t difficult to figure out just who was trying to reach them.
She and Addy exchanged a look.
Addy pressed the radio switch. “Nine-Zero-One-Bravo to Base. Who wants to know?”
“Damn it, Addy! Where are you?” Nick demanded again. At what had to be the top of his lungs. “I don’t think this is funny, Adriana. If you get down here in one piece I’m going to break every bone in your body.”
Kari threw Addy a worried glance, but the woman only grinned and gave her a look of mock terror. She pushed the radio button again. “Stop acting like a raving maniac. I’m not hurting your bird. We’re flying.”
“I don’t give a damn about the bird. Are you aware there’s a thunderstorm on your tail?” There was a moment of hostile silence. “And who’s we? It better not be who I think it is.”
“She can hear every word, Nick,” Addy said patiently. “That’s not the way to talk to our paying customers.”
“She wasn’t supposed to be a paying customer. Not today. Get down here.”
“Soon, big brother. We’ve been watching the storm. I think we’re outrunning it.”
“You think?”
“We’re getting a little wind. But stop worrying. We’ll be down in about five minutes. I can see the power station lights up on the ridge.”
“Okay. Okay,” Nick said, sounding a little more calm. “Keep your airspeed up. And don’t overdo your cyclic. Pull back too hard and she’ll plant your tongue to the roof of your mouth.”
“I know that,” Addy said in a put-upon voice. “Now leave us alone. You’re making me nervous. And you’ve got to promise to be civil when we get down. No yelling.”
“I want you to check in with me every minute until you touch down. Base to Nine-Zero-One-Bravo. Out.”
Inside the copter cabin and over the dull whipping of the rotor blades, there was nothing but dead silence for a few moments. Kari’s ears were tingling in her headset, but Addy still seemed unfazed. Maybe she was used to going toe-to-toe with her brother. Kari, on the other hand, had a feeling that if she ever did get to Elk Creek Canyon, it would be another flight service that would take her there.
Addy sighed. “Nice to know he cares.”
“I notice he didn’t make any promises about not yelling.”
The helicopter started to drift and rock as the weather worsened. It seemed to be at the mercy of a giant’s swinging hand, picked up and pushed sideways, then dropped and pulled back in the other direction. Kari began to feel slightly queasy, but Addy seemed determined and calm.
Rain was falling in silver sheets. Kari’s eyes were riveted by the sight of it sliding down the windscreen, where it was violently flung away by the wind. They both became silent, tense. Addy was concentrating and Kari was simply too nervous to speak.
In the next moment lightning zigzagged across the front of the helicopter. There was a sizzling crack, so loud and close that Kari couldn’t hold back a small yelp of surprise and fear. The aircraft bucked and took such a swooping dive that Kari felt her rear end come up off the seat.
“Son of a—” Addy muttered, both hands moving on the controls to correct their descent. “I think we just took a hit!”
She jerked her chin toward the top of the cabin. Over Kari’s head was a small paned opening, like a car sunroof. “Look up there and tell me if you see anything. Sparks. Fire. Anything.”
Kari rose as much as her seat belt would allow. At first she saw nothing but darkness. Then a stray flicker of light from one of the exterior lights revealed that the blades were still turning. Surely that was a good sign. “Nothing,” she said.
“Something’s wrong.”
“Are we going to crash?”
“Not if I can help it.”
The wind seemed stronger, rising and moaning eerily. Kari watched the sure movements of Addy D’Angelo’s pale hands. Up. Down. Back again. Correcting constantly.
A heart-deep fear rose in her. Please. I don’t want to die.
And then the engine failed.
It lasted only a moment or two. Like a misfire in an automobile. But it was enough to send the helicopter plummeting further still, sinking like a bird dropped out of the sky by a hunter’s rifle.
Addy was on the radio instantly, shouting through the headphones. “Base, come in. Springs Flight Service, come in. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Nine-Zero-One-Bravo. We have engine failure from a lightning strike. Two on board. I think we can make Columbine Meadow. I repeat…”
There was no answer. Was the radio dead?
Kari was numb with fear now. She squeezed her eyes tight for a moment, listening to her own rattled breathing and the woman beside her, who muttered and cursed and talked herself through every movement.
“Autorotate, Addy…. Not enough airspeed and height, but you know how to compensate. Easy. Easy. Nose up. Glide in, glide in. You can do it.”
Kari gripped her own hands hard. A flicker of lightning lit up the cabin. In that one brief moment Addy’s face looked both beautiful and terrible.
It couldn’t end like this. Not like this, Kari thought in anguish.
Father. I’m so sorry. Now I’ll never know…
Addy swung her head to look at her. “Columbine Meadow’s less than five miles from Angel Air. We can make it.”
The helicopter shook as though it was coming apart. Although she couldn’t see anything out the front windscreen, Kari knew the ground was coming up fast in spite of all Addy’s best efforts. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God.”
“Hang on,” Addy warned her. “Hang on.” She had pushed back in her seat, bracing, both hands tight on the controls. “Flatten the glide path, Addy. Raise your collective. Keep your nose up, damn it!”
The earth rushed toward them.
Addy shouted at her through the headset. “If we hit hard enough to split the skids, then our bodies are going to take the force of the impact. Get ready.”
The helicopter landed suddenly.
Nothing could have prepared Kari for how crushing it was, how loud, how completely terrifying. Her spine jolted. Her teeth came down hard and cut into her lip, filling her mouth with blood. Something struck her against the right temple. Beside her, Addy D’Angelo gave a short yelp of pain. Above them, the rotor blades still turned, but things banged. Rattled. Screeched in protest.
There was a moment of absolute stunned silence as both of them realized that they hadn’t been instantly killed. That they might even survive this.
Then Addy moaned.
“Addy,” Kari said, reaching out to touch the woman’s arm. “Are you all right?”
Addy jerked away from that contact with a gasp. “Got to shut down. Get us cooled off.” She sounded disoriented and when she reached for the switches, she moaned again. “Oh damn, I think my arm’s broken. Maybe both of them.”
