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“There’s a reason the river’s called Awatapu. But I’m hoping like hell both couples are waiting for us up at the hut, living off eels and huhu grubs.”
He noted her pronunciation—Ah-wah-tah-pu. Long vowels, a soft T, even stresses on the syllables. Not far off Spanish. “What’s it mean?”
“The forbidden river, the sacred river. Want to lift your kayak and paddle up here, and I’ll strap them?”
“And... Wairoimata?” he said, hoisting the craft, following her lead on the pronunciation, rolling the R. “That’s the name of the town I’m getting out at, right?”
“Yeah. Wai means water, roimata is tears.”
“Water of tears. Uplifting names. Did you fly them in—the missing tourists?”
She frowned as she strapped the kayak. “The ones from two weeks ago, yes. Danish couple. Experienced kayakers.”
“But not the others—the first couple?”
“I didn’t think they could handle the paddle. Both couples are officially still missing, but yeah, it’s a safe bet they won’t be walking out. We’ve had some late-season snowfalls so it’s not a good time to be lost in the bush. Not that there’s ever a good time.”
He pictured the terrain he’d flown over—the Alps, subalpine scrublands, rainforest... “Guess it can be tough to find people out there.”
She tugged at the kayak—it didn’t budge—then straightened and dusted her hands on her jeans. “Yep. I was up there long days, searching. I’ll be paying off the fuel for months.”
“You cover your own fuel on a search and rescue?”
She picked up the remaining straps and walked to the other side. “I’m funded to a point,” she said as they got to work. “But what am I supposed to do when the budget maxes out, leave them out there? And I took the second couple in, so... They’re probably snagged in tree roots, caught in a sieve. They’ll be flushed out soon, with the snow melting in the tops. The river always gives up its dead. The bush, not so much.”
“I’m getting the idea these aren’t the first people to disappear up there.”
She gave him a sideways look. “How much research did you do on this river?”
“Enough to know it’s one of the wildest kayaking runs anywhere.”
“See, I’d have thought that would warn people away, but it just seems to attract them. I’ve never understood that urge to put yourself in danger.”
“And yet you fly a helicopter.”
“I fly it very safely.” Her voice strained as she pulled a strap. “The lucky ones get airlifted out with broken limbs. Of course, by then they’ve usually been waiting awhile—hungry, dehydrated, hypothermic...”
“You trying to talk me out of it?”
She yanked. “Would you listen?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Would you heed the warning?”
“No, ma’am. You’re just saying that for the record, right? Covering your liability.”
“Yep. That and the fact I’m not your mother. I take it you’ve been in a helicopter before.”
“Many times.”
A dimple in her cheek twitched. “Okay, we’re good to go.”
“I’m a soldier.” Now, why did he feel the need to make that clear?
“You’re a soldier.” Not a question, more a sarcastic echo. She tipped her head and studied him like he’d blown her assumptions and she had to start over.
He laughed.
“What?”
“I can hear you thinking.”
“You’re a psychic, too? Wow.” Deadpan again, like it was the end of a long day and she didn’t want to encourage conversation. Neither did he, normally. Mindless chatter shriveled his soul. But she was fun. There was passion hiding in those eyes, a smile simmering under those lips.
“Yep,” he said. “You’re thinking, ‘What kind of soldier charters a helicopter rather than hiking in?’”
That dimple again. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“‘And what kind of soldier buys a new kit instead of stealing military supplies?’”
“Maybe you are psychic.” She folded her arms. “Or maybe you’re a rich-boy fantasist who thinks that because he’s in some hick backwoods at the end of the Earth he can reinvent himself into anything he wants—like, say, a soldier—so the gullible local girl will trip over herself to fall in bed with him.”
“Whoa.”
“And maybe you’re also a risk taker with a death wish,” she continued, a twitch away from a smile. “You’ve done so many reckless things—out of rich-boy boredom, let’s assume—that you’ve overridden your survival instinct and now it’s only a matter of time before you make headlines and everyone says all that bullshit like ‘He lived life to the fullest’ and ‘He died doing what he loved’ and ‘He’ll always stay beautiful.’ But you’ll just be unnecessarily dead like all the other unnecessarily dead people.”
Shee-it. She was ten kinds of cool. “You calling me beautiful?”
The smile broke through, curving her lips at an intriguing angle. An exasperated smile, but he’d take it. “Still, it’s not a bad thing that fate weeds out the risk takers. Makes the herd stronger. Just try not to die in my country, on my river.”
“Your river.”
“My people’s river. Ko Awatapu te awa, ko Maungapouri te maunga. Awatapu is my river. Maungapouri is my mountain.” She jerked her head at the highest of the snow-crowned peaks jutting up behind the deep green nearer range. “I haven’t always lived here but my whānau—my family—are anchored by these mountains and that river, guardians of them. So yeah, don’t die on my watch because you’ve screwed up your wiring and death is the only challenge left.”
Oh, he was getting a reminder that a very different challenge could still amp him up. He had zero time for women who were impressed by his uniform or his family’s money. A pity legionnaires with death wishes didn’t do relationships.
She walked past him, toward the cockpit. “See, to me, you look like a rich guy with too much time to spend at the gym.”
Okay, so that stung—his fitness had come from hard work, self-control and self-loathing. Those he could take credit for. But it also meant she’d been checking out his body.
Guessing he wouldn’t get an invitation, he circled the chopper and let himself in as she settled in the pilot’s seat.
She raised her chin in cool appraisal, clipping on her harness. “What’s your weapon?”
A test? “Le Fusil à Répétition modèle F2. Sometimes a Hécate II.”
She hovered long, slender fingers over the dials on the instrument panel, eyes narrowed, following their path. Not taking chances, even though the blades had just stopped spinning. Overkill, but he’d tolerate that in a pilot. “That’s the FR-F2, right? Sniper rifles.”
“You know them?”
“Those don’t sound like US military issue. So...what? You’re a mercenary? Sorry, I mean security contractor?”
“In a sense,” he said. “Just not a well-paid one.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of selling out—making money?”
“Not for me. I’m a legionnaire.”
She gave him that sideways look again, pulling on her headset and handing him his. “What, like the French Foreign Legion?” Her voice boomed through the intercom.
“Oui, Légion Étrangère, mademoiselle.”
“You are so full of shit you could be a long-drop at a campground in January.”
“No idea what that is, but it sounds bad.”
She checked the panel above their head, again following her fingers with her eyes, and adjusted a lever. “Seriously? You’re a legionnaire?”
“Yes, ma’am. Caporal Cody Castillo du groupement des commandos parachutistes du 2e régiment étranger de parachutistes de Calvi.”
She did a three-sixty check through the windows, and engaged the starter. “Commandos parachutistes,” she repeated disdainfully. “A parachute commando?”
“You know, most people are impressed by that.”
“You’ll never catch me jumping from a perfectly good aircraft.”
“Afraid of heights?”
“Only of falling from them, which is totally rational and something you should be grateful for right about now.”
“Yes, ma’am. That I am.”
“Are you for real with that ‘yes, ma’am’ thing?”
“Habit. My abuela would have me over her knee if I didn’t show respect to women.” Okay, so he might be hamming it up there. His grandmother controlled the family fortune from a laptop, not a rocking chair. Why haul your grandson over your knee when a withering stare was plenty scary?
As Tia worked the controls with deft fingers and sharp eyes, a muted whine filtered through the headset and the shadow of a blade glided across the ground in front, slowly pursued by another.
“Vous parlez très bien français,” she said.
“So do you.”
“Expensive education—and that’s about all I remember. But you had an abuela?”
“My family’s from Mexico.”
“And you’re not?”
“Texas—born and raised.”
She gave a sharp laugh. “Right, so you’re a legionnaire commando from Texas.”
“Now, what have you got against Texas?”
“Nothing. It’s just that you’re not what I...” She shook her head. “It’s just one of those places that seems, I dunno, mythical.”
You’re not what I...expected? Hell, neither was she. “Says the woman who lives in Middle Earth. But go ahead and believe what you want about me. I just care that you’re a good pilot.”
The seat underneath him hummed, as if the chopper were straining with impatience. He knew the feeling.
“The best,” she said.
“Where did you learn to fly?”
She sighed, a scratch through the headset. “Would you ask me that if I was a guy?”
“Uh, yeah.”
She increased the engine speed and the blades whipped faster. “I get asked that a lot and you know what? My male counterparts don’t. I’ve checked with them. They don’t get the question.”
Shit. Was she right? Would he ask a guy that question? “Ma’am, I got total respect for all pilots—planes, helicopters, fucking hang gliders. Takes guts and brains and composure, and that’s something few people have.”
She scoffed, as if she wanted to be pissed at that but couldn’t manage it. “Nice recovery.”
The chopper lifted without a shudder and skimmed above the tarmac. He liked the way she talked. Sharp and combative but with enough humor that she didn’t cross into mean or bitter. Sparring, not landing real blows.
“You don’t mention on your website that you’re a woman. You don’t have a photo.” Because he was damn sure it would’ve given him extra incentive to book her, on top of her stellar reviews and safety record. “Was that deliberate?”
“I don’t say I’m a man, either. If people assume the wrong thing, that’s on them, not me. I don’t want my gender to help me or hold me back. I’ve had journalists wanting to make a big deal out of it. Even a publisher once, though she was more interested in...” She frowned. “I say no to everything. I don’t want to be the ‘plucky aviatrix keeping up with the big boys.’”
He got the feeling that’d happened before—and that it was the big boys who did the keeping up. They rose over a braided river, the shallow, bleached water in no hurry. The Awatapu’s lower reaches. Around him the chopper felt weightless, a mosquito next to the albatrosses he was used to.
“I guess what I’m asking,” he said, “is how a civilian pilot in probably the least gun-crazy country in the world knows her sniper rifles.”
“Nine years in the New Zealand air force.”
Ah. “Flying choppers?”
“Yep, though I started on transport craft—Orions, Hercules.”
“They’re still making those things?”
“The ones I flew were Vietnam relics. Of course I grew up with visions of racing Skyhawks, but by the time I enlisted they’d been sold.”
“You didn’t fly other jets?”
“We didn’t have any.”
