Turbulence (19 page)

“Now, darlin’,” he drawled. “I’m hoping for more than a few minutes.”

She nibbled on his ear lobe, pleased to hear his grunt of pleasure as she took him inside her. “Then we should take this slow and easy?”

He closed his eyes and groaned as she demonstrated. “Yeah. Just like that.”

“Ah, so you like my plan of action?”

He caressed her body until she thought she’d spontaneously combust. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

M
ICKY WATCHED
D
ANA
as she and Florence inventoried their stock of medical supplies. It had only been a few hours since they’d dragged themselves away from his house.

When they’d arrived at the station, they were relieved to discover that Jesse Boone and Amy Sherwood had shown up shortly after Micky left with Dana. Dana had felt guilty about being gone so long, but when they learned that Amy had been called back to Courage Bay for a family emergency, Micky assured her she’d be doing the work of two now.

Dana had replaced her torn and wilted uniform for a clean one, and looking at her across the room now sent a fresh wave of desire bursting through Micky. He’d never felt this way about anyone before, not even Jillian, and he’d been close to marrying her. In the light of day, the strength of his desire for Dana was almost frightening, but he couldn’t deny it.

As a man who thrived on adventure, Micky loved charting new territory. Once he had, he appreciated the results of his efforts, but the rewards simply didn’t hold the same fascination as the quest.

This time, it was different.

Dana
was different.

He’d suspected a fire would blaze between them, but he’d thought it would burn brightly for a while and then gradually die. Never had he imagined that his need for her would grow
stronger with each encounter. When he hadn’t been making love to her, he’d been dreaming about it. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any better, it had.

It worried him that he felt this way about her until he realized that their circumstances had played a huge role in their hunger for each other. They’d barely been out of each other’s sight since Tuesday morning, and together they’d survived life threatening situations. But Micky knew that once life settled back into its normal routine again, the bond they’d forged would gradually weaken and they would drift apart.

No other woman would ever compare to Dana, but the best thing to do was to enjoy the days they had, then move on. He couldn’t lose sight of the fact or forget that this was nothing more than one of those idyllic weeks that he would remember for the rest of his life.

You really don’t believe that, do you?

No, he admitted. The best thing wouldn’t be to simply enjoy the time they had left together. The best thing would be if Dana stayed for longer than a few days, because he hated the thought of her leaving.

“Good news, people.” Mitch stood in the doorway of the first-aid station, his face wreathed in a giant smile. “For those of you who don’t know, I heard from Cheryl Tierney last night. She’s fine.”

Micky saw Dana’s relief. “Did she say what happened?” Dana asked.

“Details were sketchy because we didn’t have a good connection, but apparently our local vet, Noah Arkin, saved her.”

“Thank God,” she breathed as she grabbed Micky in her excitement to hug him. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

If Mitch had raised his eyebrows over her reaction, Micky didn’t notice. He only had eyes for Dana. “Fantastic,” he said.

“What about Nate?” she asked.

Mitch managed a grin. “My gut says he and Jolene are okay. He’d better be, otherwise Dan will have my hide.”

Dana laughed. “He will at that.” After giving Micky a smile that raised his blood pressure, she returned to help Flo with the inventory.

Micky felt Mitch’s gaze rake over him. “It appears you two worked out your differences,” the older man commented.

“You could say that.”

“I doubt if I can justify keeping her here past Saturday. Sunday at the latest, depending on the flights out of Corpus.”

Today was Thursday. He had two or three days to work Dana out of his system. Somehow, he didn’t think forty-eight to seventy-two hours would be long enough.

“Her chief’s already threatened me with bodily injury if I steal any of his people away from him.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Mitch nodded. “But then I think I could take him on. To have Dana in the county would be worth it, wouldn’t you agree?”

Micky couldn’t ask her to stay for him, but if Mitch did…“Absolutely.”

“Then again, a woman like her isn’t the sort who’d relocate on a whim.”

“No, she isn’t,” Micky agreed.

“She’d need a job. Not much call for a full-time fireman in Turning Point, though.” Mitch stroked his chin. “Although there are towns nearby that might have openings. Do you think she’d be interested in making a permanent change?”

“You’d have to ask her,” Micky said. He and Dana hadn’t actually talked a lot last night, but he didn’t intend to share that with the fire chief.

A commotion down the hallway drew his attention. To his surprise, Sam’s mother and a man Micky didn’t recognize stormed toward him—Crystal’s current love interest, Micky
suspected. The fury on her face was directed at Micky, although he couldn’t understand why.

“You.” Crystal pointed her finger at him, eyes blazing. “What have you done with my son?”

“O
H, DEAR
.” Flo shook her head as she stared at the group standing near the door.

“Who is she?” Dana asked, studying the blonde in tight-fitting capri pants and a spandex top that revealed every voluptuous curve.

“Sam Brewster’s mother, Crystal. She’s one of those women who’s always chasing after a dream, except Sam’s the one who suffers when things don’t pan out.” Flo shook her head. “It’s a blessing she only has one child, but between you, me and the fence post, she doesn’t deserve him. From the looks of things, you’d better get over there to help Mitch keep Micky from blowing a gasket.”

It was obvious as Dana hurried to obey that Micky indeed was boiling inside and struggling to contain himself. Micky and Crystal were too deep in their discussion to notice she’d joined them.

“I don’t know where you got the idea that I had anything to do with Sam’s disappearance,” he said.

“You must have,” Crystal insisted. “Sam’s always talking about you. How Micky says this or Micky says that. You’re the reason why he doesn’t want to leave Turning Point. Didn’t he say anything to you last night?”

“I haven’t seen him since before supper,” Micky said. “He didn’t act like he had anything on his mind then.”

“I told about our plans around eight. When he didn’t come back to the gym to sleep at ten, I assumed he was with you.” She glared at him. “Again.”

“What’s wrong?” Dana asked.

Micky faced her. “Sam’s disappeared.”

“Oh, no. How?”

“He ran off,” Crystal snapped. “That’s how. And it’s all because that child refuses to leave town. I finally got my lucky break to sing in Nashville and Sam is digging in his heels. It’s okay with me if he doesn’t want to go, but he also refuses to live with my aunt.”

It all made sense. “So he ran away.”

“He’s just hiding to aggravate me,” Crystal retorted. “And I’m sure that Micky knows exactly where he is.”

“I do not.” Dana could almost hear Micky grind his teeth as he spoke.

“Did you check with his friends?” Mitch asked.

“Of course I did. No one’s seen him.”

“And he isn’t at home.”

Crystal rolled her mascara-rimmed eyes. “I’ve already gone through the place. When I find him, he’s going to be in big trouble. George, here—” she smiled at the fellow beside her “—wants to be on the road by five o’clock, and if I miss this opportunity…”

Dana looked at George. A short, stocky man in a cowboy hat with a rhinestone belt buckle and beady black eyes in an otherwise striking face, he didn’t appear particularly concerned by the eleven-year-old’s disappearance. Dana would almost bet that the opportunity he had waiting for Crystal wasn’t the lucky break she was expecting.

Crystal turned to Mitch. “I want you to send out a search party.”

“That’s a job for the police, not the fire department,” Mitch answered calmly. “Have you reported him missing?”

“I thought he was with Micky,” she reminded him. “If he’s not here, then he’s probably at Micky’s hangar.”

“It’s locked,” Micky told her. “He couldn’t get in.”

For the first time since she’d stormed into the room, Crystal appeared uncertain. “He couldn’t?”

Micky shook his head. “Everything’s padlocked and I have the only key.”

“He could climb the fence.”

“Not with barbed wire at the top.”

Crystal burst into tears, although Dana didn’t know if she wept over the possible loss of her son or her singing opportunity. “Then where is he? I was so sure he was with you or that you knew where he went.”

Micky exchanged a worried glance with Dana. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know he was missing. And when I spoke to him early last night, he didn’t say a word about going anywhere other than the school.”

Crystal took the white handkerchief that George pressed into her hand and dabbed her eyes. “Why can’t he understand that all I want is to make a better life for the both of us?”

Dead silence fell. Either words failed everyone, or no one believed her. Dana suspected it was the latter.

“Maybe you should talk to the police,” she interjected. “I’m sure Mitch will let Micky look for him.” She raised a brow at Mitch, who nodded.

Crystal blew her nose loudly. “All right.” She sniffled. “I’ll talk to the cops. If you find Sam, I’ll be at home.”

She turned and walked out with George.

“That woman,” Micky fumed. “The best thing for Sam would be to run away.”

Dana watched the pair disappear down the hallway. “I think she’s sincere about bettering her life—” Micky scoffed, but she continued as if he hadn’t interrupted, “But she obviously doesn’t show good judgment.”

“It doesn’t matter how sincere she is,” Micky stated firmly. “Sam is gone and I have to find him.”

Dana wondered if he realized how telling it was for him to insist on locating the boy himself. Whether Micky admitted it or not, Sam meant a great deal to him.

Flo joined their small circle. “Dana should go, too. Sam isn’t the type of kid to just disappear. He might have needed a cooling-off period once his mother told him about packing up for Nashville, but he wouldn’t stay away all night unless he was in trouble.”

Micky nodded. “I agree. Sam probably went somewhere to think, but to not come home last night or this morning…” His voice trailed off.

Dana glanced at Mitch for his approval. “Go ahead,” he told her. “Flo should be able to handle things here until you get back. Otherwise, I’ll call you.”

Minutes later, Dana climbed into Micky’s truck with the medical kit that she and Flo had restocked from their supplies. “Any ideas on where he might have gone?”

“The most logical place is my hangar,” he admitted as he started the engine.

“But you said he couldn’t get in.”

“Not any way that I know of. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, though. Sam’s a pretty resourceful kid.”

Dana covertly watched Micky as they sped the few miles toward the airport. Micky’s concern couldn’t have been more obvious. “You’re really worried about him, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Does it show?”

“A little.” She paused. “He’s not just some pesky kid who hangs around your business, is he?”

It took him a full minute to answer. “No, he’s not.”

“What makes him so special?” she asked, curious about the boy who’d grabbed a corner of Micky’s heart.

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “He loves airplanes. Sam’s
like a sponge when it comes to flying. I only have to tell him something once and he can recite it from memory.”

“You’ve taught him a lot.”

He grinned. “It’s hard not to. I suppose he reminds me of myself at that age.”

“How so?”

“He has that look in his eye.”

“What look?”

He shrugged. “Can’t explain it. It’s a look of wonder, I guess you could say, when he stares at the horizon. As if he’s just itching to see what’s out there and won’t be satisfied until he does. Whenever he’s flown with me…. He seems happiest in the air.”

It was obvious to Dana that Micky and Sam were kindred spirits. It was equally obvious that Micky was more than a man who’d simply allowed a kid to hang around his business and absorb a few flying tips. He might refuse to take responsibility for anyone other than himself, but he had become Sam’s mentor.

At the airport, Micky unlocked the gate in the chain-link fence surrounding his hangar, then drove through. As soon as he parked, he opened the huge door just enough for the two of them to slip inside.

Dana stood still while he located the switch box, then flooded the gloomy interior with light.

“The airport has its own generator,” he explained before she could ask why they had electricity and very few other places did. “Sam?” he hollered.

His voice echoed through the steel building, but there wasn’t an answering shout.

“Let’s check the office.” Micky led the way, but there were no telltale signs of a visitor, which meant that Sam hadn’t been there.

A quick search of the entire place from top to bottom showed nothing disturbed.

“We’ll drive back to town,” Micky decided. “Surely someone saw him this morning. Turning Point isn’t that big and everyone knows everybody else. He couldn’t have gone unnoticed for long.”

Unfortunately it took them all morning and most of the afternoon to piece together a picture that was as worrisome as it was promising.

The clerk at the convenience store reported seeing Sam late the previous night stocking up on candy bars. One of the Red Cross volunteers said she’d given him a sackful of sandwiches and several bottles of water. Frank Pyle, the owner of the gas station, reported that Sam had filled up his bike tires shortly before dark.

The police officer they spoke to, the one who’d interviewed the volunteers at the school gym, didn’t offer any suggestions other than what was glaringly apparent. “He’s gone to ground. The question is, where?”

Micky followed Dana to his Explorer. “Where would he go?” he mused aloud.

Dana thought for a minute. “Does he have a private place? A place that’s his when he wants to think about things? Alex had a tree house in the backyard that was his oasis. I used it myself on several occasions. Maybe Sam has a spot like that.”

“Not that I know of.” He hesitated. “Although…”