Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [65]
The left side door slammed, followed by the rolling slide of the rear ones into place. Deering looked back to make sure the passengers were secure, then checked the person in the front seat.
Clare’s white face stared at him, her eyes stark. She said something he couldn’t hear and he gestured toward the headset.
She put it on as he performed instinctive motions with his feet and hands, the intricate dance that propelled the aircraft into the sky.
“Will this thing fly?” She gripped his forearm, creamy bone showing beneath the skin of her knuckles. He’d have a bruise.
Rolling turbulence in front of the fire lifted the helicopter and then let it fall four feet. He concentrated on keeping from crashing. Finally, he got it under control, lifted off and headed toward the drop-off. Clare did not let go.
Deering clenched his teeth at the mess he’d gotten himself into. He’d maneuvered Clare into that tent for the thrill of it, and for revenge on his wife for denying his love of flying.
He should be weak with relief that they’d been interrupted before anything more happened.
He wasn’t.
Clare’s touch reminded him how complicated this was. He should be ashamed of himself and he was, but when he’d held her, she’d changed from a cheap thrill or instrument of vengeance. He was suddenly, acutely aware of her as a human being, as though she’d been made of mist and had taken form.
As they flew along Howell Creek, into the gradually deepening darkness, he knew she deserved the truth. “There’s nothing wrong with the chopper,” he said grimly. “I lied.”
“It’s kind of you to let me wait,” Georgia Deering told Demetrios Karrabotsos as he handed her another Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee. At two-thirty a.m., it was dark and quiet in the control tower of West Yellowstone Airport.
“It’s no trouble,” the owner of Island Park Helicopters replied. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait at my house? You could let Deering wake you when he gets in.”
“I’ve had too much coffee to sleep,” she lied.
She studied Karrabotsos’s scarred face and wondered how he had been burned. Deep lines around his eyes said he was maybe sixty, old enough to be a veteran of more than one war. He’d been gruff at first, but swiftly offered kindness. She couldn’t tell if he knew things were bad between her and Deering, or if he merely offered the chance to pretend.
Likely, he didn’t know anything. He hadn’t even seemed to recognize her name when she’d shown up at the Island Park Trailer around eight, just in time to find out Deering was overdue. It had given her a chill she was still vainly trying to shake.
One thing she could tell was that Karrabotsos was worried, too, the lateral grooves in his broad forehead deepening as the hours passed.
Georgia tried not to think about that cute EMT that Deering had his arm around in the newspaper photo. She’d always considered flying to be his mistress. Did she have to worry now about other women?
Controller Jack Owen was pulling night duty, occasionally speaking in reassuring tones to one of the pilots still flying on instruments. Outside the control tower, the north-south runway was a sparkling bracelet of diamonds, surrounded by the sapphire lights of the taxiways.
“I can’t imagine what’s got Deering off the air unless his radio is out.” Karrabotsos repeated the litany he’d chanted for hours. “He flew to the Mink Creek spike camp this afternoon with their dinners. The winds must have kicked up bad to make him stay over.”
Georgia smiled. She’d only met Karrabotsos this evening, but she already believed him a solid man that independent Deering would be okay working for if he couldn’t operate his own machine.
The thought of flying brought her up against what she’d been trying to avoid all evening. Chatting with Karrabotsos had almost kept her mind off it, but it was getting so late and Deering had been off the air so many hours. If she were alone, she wouldn’t be able to beat back tears.
Jack Owen sat up straight and listened intently. He ran a hand through his brown hair, aggravating his already prominent cowlick.