Denali Dreams (23 page)

‘Course, it might take a few years at that rate of progress.

Or lack thereof.

Then again, dying might just solve that.

“Okay, folks. Hop out, snap some pictures, and enjoy this gift.”

The steady vibration that rumbled through the hull slowed … then stopped. Logan removed his headset as the others disembarked. Outside, he returned the headset to Deline, who received an abundance of excited thanks from the others before they trudged off to check out the camp and the views.

Logan stood over Deline. She seemed frail, as if needing protection. But saying that to her would only get him punched. Or worse. He stuffed his sweaty hands into his jeans pockets. Shouldered in toward her to hide their conversation in case someone happened by. “You okay?”

Surprise winged up her eyebrows. “Me?” She looked at him, the sun hitting her beautiful brown eyes. “I’m fine. My Otter’s not. Need to radio back to TFAT and get a replacement plane and some tools.”

“What happened?”

She brushed her hair from her face. “Not sure. The oil gauge dropped. Must’ve had a leak or something. We wouldn’t have made it back to TFAT.” Then she eyed him a little longer. “You okay, Logan? You look a little pale.”

He swallowed. Stepped back. “Yeah.” She’d never understand. “Just worried …” He let the rest of the sentence die on his lips.

She clapped a hand on his bicep. “Well, fear not. I got us down safely.” She looked around then climbed back into the pilot’s seat and lifted the radio.

Stooge. He was a complete stooge. How did one express concern and care for a woman who could do everything on her own? She’d never need him.

I
t’s dangerous up there, Deline. Wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

Roger Bender’s words earlier in the café sailed through her mind and pounded against her chest. Surely, he … it couldn’t be …

“What do you mean, you’re out?”

Snapped back to the phone, Deline let out a breath. Should she tell Curt her suspicion? “If I said what I thought, you’d call me crazy.” Deline squinted, watching her passengers taking pictures, changing angles, and taking more. No, better not say anything. What could she prove? Nothing. She’d have to check the oil lines. “I need tools, some oil to get me back, and a plane to pick up my passengers.”

“Deline …” The tone in Curt’s voice wasn’t anger, but it wasn’t far from it. “Every plane is booked.”

“Curt, I did preflight. Everything was just as it should be.” Had the gauge been a little low? Had she just overlooked it? “I know this is a pain and I know this messes things up. I’m sorry. I have no other options save crashing on my way back.” She didn’t mean to get testy, but for cryin’ out loud. It wasn’t negligence that caused this, and that was exactly what hung at the back of his mind.

“Easy, Deline. I’m not accusing you. I wouldn’t be willing to hand over my baby if you weren’t dependable. I just …” He sighed. “Let me figure out—okay, wait.”

Swiping a hand over her face, she wanted to scream, punch something. What else could go wrong today?

She really shouldn’t ask that question—this high up, this close to heaven, God just might answer. He’d been pretty much silent over the last two years. Or maybe it was Deline who’d been silent. He’d taken her mom. And now He was trying to snatch her father from her.

“Doing okay?” the soft, firm voice beside Deline pried her eyes open. She tilted her head to the side and looked out at Logan. Stalwart and steady. “Yeah.” She lifted the radio. “Waiting on—”

“Deline?”

She smiled. “Speak of the devil.” She pressed the lever. “Go ahead, Curt.”

“Mason’s on his way up to deliver a crew to Base Camp for climbing. He’ll have what you need.”

Eyes on the High One, she smiled. “Perfect. Thanks, Curt.”

“Yeah … and … I guess we need to talk when you get back. TFAT out.”

Deline drew back and started at the radio as if it’d spit at her. Talk? What did he want to talk about? And why didn’t he leave her time to reply? It seemed too much like he wanted to back out of their agreement. Or maybe something had gone wrong while she’d been up here. She’d better not find out that Roger Bender had visited with Curt. Told lies or defamed her. She wouldn’t put it past that coyote.

“You okay?”

Frustration exploded through her chest. “If you ask me that one more time—”

“Okay, okay.” Logan held up his hands and stepped away. Shoulders caved, head down, he slunk toward the rangers’ tent.

Something in Deline’s chest tightened. He looked like a scolded puppy and it was her fault. She wasn’t anything sweet like Maggie. Instead she was every bit her Athabascan-Aleutian ancestry, their dogged determination, their hardy work ethic …

“Stubborn bullheadedness.” Deline sighed. Which was why at age twenty-five she was still single. She had this innate ability to snap off heads without meaning to. Thank goodness her friends knew she wasn’t trying to be mean. She just wanted to get things done. And she had to get her Otter out of the way before Mason showed up. She cranked the engine. It sputtered but sprang to life. She gave it some thrust and guided it to the side. Even as she positioned it so she wouldn’t be in the way the engine sputtered. Then croaked. Deline groaned.

Was God punishing her? For what? She hadn’t done anything.

Maybe for the silent treatment.

A glint in the sky pulled her gaze upward. A Beaver angled in, headed for the glaciers. Mason. She smiled and relaxed. So perhaps she’d jumped the gun on that whole God-punishing-her thing.

She hopped out of the Otter, closed the door, and headed toward the rangers’ tent, determined to make sure Logan knew she meant no harm. Why it was so important to her, she had no idea, but he didn’t deserve the way she’d unleashed her frustration. The small ten-by-twelve space felt crowded with the last-minute supplies of granola, waste bags, and two oversized rangers staring back at her.

Zack Taylor nodded. “Having some trouble, eh?”

“Just a leak. I’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

“Not a problem, though Mason’s about to make a drop.”

“Yeah, already talked to Curt.” She shifted her gaze to the blue-green eyes that looked more like the Mediterranean Sea than the sky. “Hey.” Her courage dumped as she shifted nervously on her feet. Jamming her fists in her TFAT jacket, she hunched her shoulders. “Say. Logan.” Ugh! Why was it so hard? “Sorry about what I said. It … I …”

He came toward her and handed her a thermos. “No worries.” He smiled at the silver canister. “Hot cocoa. Not David’s special recipe, but palatable.”

She smiled and the tingling warmth of chocolate wafted up at her. Why was he always so nice to her? “I …” She flipped her gaze to him. “I’m sorry, Logan. Really.”

The smile almost went full throttle. “Deline.” He craned his neck toward her. “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t mean to hover. Just could tell this really was eating at you.”

“How?”

Logan shrugged. “I could see it in your eyes.”

Eyes … Mediterranean blue … bet if he wore blue they were more azure and if he wore green, they were more that color.

Logan angled toward the open flap. “Plane landed.” A scowl gouged into his features, his gaze on the open flap.

“What is he doing here?” Zack thrust down his jacket and stomped past them. “He doesn’t have clearance.”

Confusion twisted her mind as she turned around. “Mason doesn’t have—”

“Bender! You can’t be here. I’ve got TFAT doing a drop.”

Bender? Roger Bender?

“Relax, Zack. Just wanted to make sure Deline was okay.”

Deline shoved into the open. “Make sure I was okay? How’d you even know anything was up?”

“Guess it came over the wave.” Bender, a semibalding man, smirked. “Curt must’ve said something on the open channel. Just wanted to see if there was anything I could do.”

“Like what? Run me out of business? Take over the merger? Or make sure your plan worked?”

“Deline,” Logan’s soft, stern voice snaked around her outrage. Hauled her back a mental step.

She flung off Logan’s touch on her arm.

“Hey, now. No call to get ugly,” Bender said.

Deline bit back the retort singeing her tongue as Logan faced her, his shoulder partially blocking her view. She took her cue from him, to relax, turn her back—figuratively—on this coward.

“I don’t care what concern you had, I need you and your plane off the glacier,” Zack said.

Scruffy and a bit haggard, Roger held her gaze. Challenged her with his eyes and his very presence. Deline made no move to back down. But she also kept her sharp tongue inside her mouth and siphoned from the courage and strength of the man standing less than twelve inches away.

“Now, Bender!” Zack roared, his anger darkening his already tanned face.

“All right, Ranger Taylor. Don’t get your hackles up.” Bender shifted to conciliatory. “Now that I know a fellow pilot is okay …”

Baloney! That guy didn’t care about anyone but himself and getting what he wanted. She watched Bender climb into the pilot’s seat and start the engine, his passenger still pent up in the plane.

The plane sailed into the sky. A good pilot. She couldn’t deny that. But a lousy person.

“There’s Mason!” Zack shouted.

Deline turned to see the relief plane, hand shielding her eyes.

“Going to drink that cocoa?” Logan said, next to her.

Deline felt the tension drain from her. Let out a soft sigh as she lifted the thermos and took a sip. She looked at him, expecting censure or disappointment. Instead, she found calm and steadfast strength.

“Hey,” Zack said as he slapped Logan on the back. “Trying to steal the only Aleutian beauty in Talkeetna, huh?” He kept moving.

Deline laughed. She hated when guys teased her like that. “He’s annoying.”

Logan’s face flushed red. Neon red. He tucked his chin, swiping a hand down the back of his neck.

“Aw, don’t take him seriously. Zack’s only teasing. Besides, he’s just mad because I wouldn’t go out with him.”

Nodding, Logan looked around the camp, still red. “I’ll see if Mason needs help or something.” He darted her a glance before he trudged across the snow.

D
ude, that was your opening.”

Two weeks later as Logan sat in the ranger station, he peered up through knotted brows at David. “It wasn’t an opening. It was a closing. A sealed-shut closing, at that.” He tossed his napkin onto the table and slumped back. “I can tame that mountain, save my friend from a crevasse, but I can’t figure out how to talk to Deline, tell her what I feel.”

“Gotta admit,” David said as he stood and walked to the fridge at the ranger station, “I was wondering about that, too. Never seen you so … jittery.”

“That’s just it. I’m not jittery.” Logan cleared his spot and leaned back against the counter, his arms folded. “I just …” Shut down. As if someone walked into his brain and turned out the lights. Navigating time around Deline Tsosie was like trying to walk through the piney forest without a flashlight.

But it wasn’t just that. She had this way of looking at him that made Logan feel like he had already failed.

“Hey, don’t get me wrong,” David said as he returned to the table with a bottled water. “Deline’s one of the most intimidating women I’ve ever met.”

“Exactly!” Logan slipped into a chair next to David. “She has her own business, runs her father’s café, she’s an expert pilot, she’s completely unshakable.”

“Until Roger Bender enters the picture.”

“No kidding. He showed up at Base Camp when she went in for that emergency landing.”

“I bet he just did. Flying down to check out the competition, see if she’d been wiped out.”

“The fury in her face … I pray she never aims that at me.”

David laughed. “You’ve got her pretty well pegged.” He took another swig, his gaze probing as he stared at Logan.

“What?”

“You really like her.”

Denying it would be futile because David would persist until he had Logan on his proverbial knees. Arguing it would only elicit David’s certainty. Best bet was straightforward. “Why’d you think I do the tours?”

A shrug. “You like flying like the rest of us.”

“Not this country boy,” he said with a halfhearted laugh. “If God meant us to fly, He’d have given us wings and self-deploying parachutes.”

Another chortle from David. “That’s what the wings are.”

“I’m glad for the backup in case the wings fail.”

“You’re seriously afraid of flying?”

Logan felt like a kid again, admitting he hadn’t yet learned to swim.

David pitched his bottle at the recycle bin. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you. Going after Deline is like trying to scale Wickersham Wall—without gear and in a whiteout.” He snorted and stood. “Trust me, you’re safer in her plane than going after her heart, which is protected by more ice than Ruth’s Glacier.”

Put like that … “Not trying to win her heart.” Wow, he was a bad liar. “Just want to get to know her.”

David paused in the doorway. “To what end?”

To win her over. Logan hung his head.

David laughed.

On his feet, Logan trudged around him. “Don’t we have some climbers to rescue?”

More laughter.

Deanna pointed to the reception area. “You’re up, Logan.” She offered a sad smile that said she’d heard everything.

“Don’t say a word,” Logan muttered as he entered the room that sported leather chairs and a massive fireplace. Plastering a smile on his face did nothing to mask the ache in his chest. David was right. Getting Deline to notice him, to realize he liked her, to have her like him back—it’d never happen.

“Morning, folks,” he said to the waiting climbers. “My name is Ranger Logan Knox.” Launching into the familiar routine and spiel of his ranger duties afforded him some time to separate the heartache of knowing Deline Tsosie would never be interested in him from the undeniable draw she held over him. It wasn’t just about her looks, though she definitely had that in spades. It was her tough exterior. The one that hid the soft side of her, the one he could tell she didn’t want anyone to see. The side that took care of her father and covered at the café, though Logan knew the hours there combined with the flying were taking their toll on her.