Under Alaskan Skies (3 page)

For a moment in the doctor’s office he’d had the feeling she would have kidnapped him if he hadn’t agreed to go with her. She was that determined. The idea of being kidnapped by her was intriguing and led to all kinds of imaginary scenarios. He hadn’t indulged
in fantasies since he could remember. He’d been focused on his work for years. By leaving the ship and land behind, he felt as if he’d left another life behind him.

As they taxied out beyond the breakwater, she gunned the engine and the beating of the propeller was so strong the windows and doors rattled. The plane felt so sluggish and heavy in the water he thought they would never get up into the air. But with an even louder roar it began to climb slowly. Slowly but surely they rose into the gray sky. She turned and gave him a dazzling smile and a thumbs-up.

He grinned at her, and their eyes met and held for a long moment. In that moment he knew why people flew small planes. In that space between earth and sky he felt his whole body take off and with a powerful thrust he defied the laws of gravity and became lighter than air. He knew too that if he achieved nothing else this trip, he’d won another smile from Carrie Porter—angel, pilot, goddess, whoever she was.

“Just so you know, I’ve been flying since I was sixteen,” she shouted over the sound of the engine. “In all kinds of weather.”

“Then I’m in good hands,” he said.

She smiled modestly. “I don’t mean to brag, I just didn’t want you to worry.”

“I’m not worried. I’m impressed. Where are we going exactly?” he asked. Since the engine blocked his view from the windshield, he turned to look out the side window.

“Mystic is fifty miles from here,” she said. “Due northwest. It’s not much. Just a dot on the map. But
it’s home. I’ve lived there most of my life, except for when I went away to school.”

His brain was buzzing with questions. Who do you live with, how did you happen to be here, why did you come to Alaska in the first place and what do you do there? And most of all, are you married? Why did he care? After today, he’d never see her again. But he did care. He glanced casually at her left hand on the throttle. No ring. That didn’t mean a thing. He’d learned a few things from the lectures on board the cruise ship. The bush was a rough and wild place. Not as rough as it was during the Gold Rush, where the men carried pick axes and the women followed them to the gold camps where they became dancehall girls and prostitutes, but it was still not a place for weaklings. He suspected Carrie Porter was not a weakling. He also suspected not many women lived alone in the Alaska bush. If they did, they didn’t look like her.

He couldn’t help it. He had to know. “You live alone?” he asked casually.

“Now I do,” she said without looking at him. She stared straight ahead, her chin at a stubborn angle, her profile outlined against the gray sky outside her window. “Ever since my dad died over a year ago.”

He nodded sympathetically. He didn’t know how much longer his own father would be around, but he knew what a gap his death would leave in his life.

“It must be lonely,” he said.

“You’re wrong,” she said with a flash of irritation, as if she’d been told that before. “I like living alone. It’s not lonely at all. Mystic is known as the friendliest village in Alaska. For good reason. People there
take care of each other. Even if you’re only there for an hour, you’ll see.”

He shot her a curious glance and wondered if she didn’t protest a little too much about not being lonely.

“I’ll take your word for it,” he assured her.

“We’re coming up on the eagle nests,” she said, abruptly changing the subject. “I’ll bank to the right so you can look down on the cliffs. November and December are the best months for viewing, but there should be a few early birds around looking for salmon in the river. They make their nests in little crevices in the rocks.”

“Yes, I think I just saw one. There’s another. Amazing,” he said. He took his camera out of his bag and leaned against the window to snap picture after picture. “This is beautiful country,” he said, taking in the snow-capped mountains in the distance and the rushing river below. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I can’t believe I’m still in America.”

Carrie smiled to herself. She’d heard it all before. The gasps, the exclamations. For the wonder at the size of the fiftieth state, the wilderness and the stunning scenery. But this time it meant more. For some reason it was very important to her that this man appreciate her home state.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve flown over it hundreds of times, from Nome to Barrow to Juneau with freight and people and it still blows me away. I never get over it.”

“This is your job then?”

“What I’m doing today? Not really. Mostly I haul freight.” She nodded her head toward the space behind
the seats. “I’ve occasionally med-evaced people out before, in an emergency, but I’m not really set up for it. I don’t have the space for a gurney or anything. Besides, I was afraid to move Donny.”

“You did the right thing,” he said.

“I hope so. I just hope I’m not too late. If I hadn’t connected with you, I would have had to go farther, spent more time looking. I’m so grateful to you.”

“You say there’s no nurse in town? Not even a paramedic?”

“Mystic isn’t exactly a booming metropolis. Since the gold rush of 1898 the population has been dwindling.”

“Then why…”

“Why do I stay? It’s my home.” She couldn’t help the edge that crept into her voice. She was tired of explaining to school friends and relatives in the lower forty-eight why she stayed after her father died. Maybe because she didn’t have a good answer. Maybe because she would never admit there were times when she was unbearably lonely or that the life her father had made for them wasn’t good enough for her. If she left, it would be a repudiation of everything he stood for—independence, loyalty, persistence.

“I was going to ask why your father came. Surely not for gold.”

“He was a navy pilot. After the Korean war he came up here and flew for one of the small airlines. He found a piece of land on the peninsula near Mystic, with water on three sides, solitude and all the salmon he could eat. He thought he’d died and gone to heaven. He bought a plane, this plane, and went
into business for himself. Typical Alaskan, he never did like taking orders from anyone.”

“So it all worked out,” Matt said. “He got what he wanted.”

“All that and heaven, too. Except for my mother. He didn’t get her. An isolated ghost town a thousand miles from civilization was not her idea of heaven. She went back to California.”

“She didn’t take you with her?”

“I wouldn’t go. I’ve always had a stubborn streak. Typical Alaskan,” she said with a rueful smile. “Besides…” Never mind. No need to go into details with a stranger. Fortunately they were nearing the Mystic peninsula and she didn’t have time to think about the day her mother left. She was proud of the way she’d handled his question, the way she’d handled the many questions about her upbringing, especially about her mother. Carrie had it down pat. They’d given her the choice to stay or go. She’d made her choice and she was sticking by it. She could leave anytime, but she wouldn’t. It was time to stop talking about herself. She’d said entirely too much already.

Carrie found it was usually easier to duck questions about her personal life and her history. Everybody in Mystic either already knew the answers or knew better than to ask. But this man had an uncanny way of drawing her out. Before she knew it she was blabbing about her mother and her father and herself as if they were the most interesting people in the world.

“Fascinating,” Matt said. She felt his gaze resting on her.

“Not really,” she said. “The truth is everyone in Alaska has a story to tell. How they got here, why
they stayed and so forth. It’s a colorful land, filled with colorful people. You’ll see.” She glanced out her side window. “Here we are. Mystic is just ahead of us. Can you see that fjord down there? The town is on the spit of land. Thank God the weather’s holding. I thought maybe…”

Why burden the doctor needlessly with fears of fog or wind and rain. She just prayed she could get him back as promised. Even better, she prayed he would be able to help Donny. Because if he couldn’t…she didn’t know what she’d do. She bit her lip and turned on the radio. Static filled the cabin. She picked up the microphone.

“Joe, can you hear me? It’s Carrie. I’m almost home. About ten minutes away.”

“Carrie. Glad you got back. I heard on the TV there’s a big front coming down from the Aleutians.”

“Really?” She felt a shimmy of fear go up her spine. “I don’t see anything from up here. What’s it like down there?”

“The wind picked up about an hour ago. You better come down quick.”

“Okay. I’m bringing a doctor for Donny.”

“That’s good news. I’ll call over there and tell them.”

“If the wind’s as strong as you say, I’m going to land out a ways and taxi in to my dock. As soon as I tie up, I’ll head for town.”

She glanced at Matt. “Don’t worry. I’ve landed in much rougher weather than this.”

He nodded and smiled calmly at her as if they’d been flying together for years instead of only minutes. How did he know she’d bring him in safely? Maybe
it was the same way she knew he was a good doctor. Intuition.

She appreciated his confidence, but maybe he should be concerned, because if Joe was right and the weather got any worse, he wasn’t going to make it back to the ship tonight. Would he still be smiling when he was stuck in Mystic, a one-horse town with no amenities to speak of? She knew what strangers thought of it and how eager they were to leave even after a short visit.

As she lowered her altitude she flew through layers of rain and wind and fog. So the front was already there. In spite of it, she made a decent landing, one her father would have been proud of. She could hear his voice now, “Keep your eye on the instruments, Carrie. Your life depends on them.” There were times when her intuition told her one thing and the instruments would tell her another. It was so easy to be fooled when flying at night or through gray skies. She’d only been fooled once, and that had nothing to do with flying. Taxiing in across the water was rough. Salt spray covered the windows whenever the little plane pitched forward as it skimmed the water and headed toward land.

Automatically, she reached and put her hand on Matt’s arm. “We’re almost there,” she said. “Sorry about this rough weather. It gets bumpy from time to time. It can be scary if you’re not used to it. But I’ve done this many times, so just relax.”

He grinned. “Relax? Are you kidding? This is better than a roller coaster. I’m having the time of my life.”

She gave him a quick smile in return, then concentrated
on bringing the plane in. Through the spray on the windshield she saw a small group of people on her dock. Joe must have spread the word. As she touched the dock, Matt unfastened his seat belt and opened the door to leap from the plane to the dock over a large gap of churning water. Without her saying a word of instruction he threw a rope around a post just as she’d done in Tongass. It was so much easier with two. The thought that
life
was much easier with two flitted through her mind. This was not the time to dwell on that. Not with a crowd waiting for her and a medical emergency to deal with.

When she cut the engine, Matt held out his hand to help her out. He had a firm grip that didn’t let her go until she had both feet firmly on the ground. His hand was strong and warm in hers. It was a surgeon’s hand, she thought as she turned to the worried faces of Donny’s father, his aunt and uncle and several other villagers.

“Carrie,” his father shouted as tears ran down his face. “Thank God you’re back. Come quick. Come now. It’s Donny. He’s dying.”

She staggered backward. No, it couldn’t be. She’d failed. She hadn’t been fast enough. Matt caught her around the waist and held her tightly. He held out his other hand and introduced himself to Donny’s father. He stood in the wind and the rain and exuded confidence. She heard him tell Donny’s father he’d do everything he could. And she saw the grateful look on the father’s face as he clasped the doctor’s hand between his.

Chapter Two

Carrie took a deep breath. Though she was trembling on the inside, she managed to get control of herself. She realized that Donny’s father was nearly hysterical and, as such, might not be the best judge of his son’s condition. He was clearly distraught and grateful at the same time. He told Matt he was afraid even if Donny lived he’d never walk again. He said his son was in pain, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.

Carrie ran to back her truck out of the garage. The others took off and Matt got into her truck. It was just a short ride to town and Donny’s house. She was hoping against hope it wasn’t true. He couldn’t be dying. Not yet. Not when she’d brought a doctor to save him.

Carrie felt frozen, inside and out. She turned the heat up to high in the truck but still she shivered uncontrollably. All day long her only thought had been of bringing someone to save the boy. Against all odds she’d done it, and now she feared she was too late. She couldn’t speak. She’d run out of words and out of energy. She’d used up her reserves. She was too late. Too late. The words repeated over and
over in her mind, matching the rhythm of the windshield wipers.

Matt put his hand on her shoulder. She was glad for the distraction. Glad for his company. “The father is understandably worried,” he said. “On the verge of hysteria, which can be contagious, if you let it. I did what I could to reassure him. You know you’ve done everything you could. Now let me take over. But don’t fall apart on me. I might need your help.”

She turned to face him. He was so calm, so incredibly unruffled even after a flight to the edge of the world, a bumpy landing and a case he wasn’t prepared to take on. The warmth from his hand spread to the cold, empty space beneath her ribs. She took a shaky breath and nodded.

“Sorry. I don’t know what happened to me. I’ll be fine.”

“Good girl. While you were getting the truck I told the father I’d do what I could. Make a diagnosis, confer with my experts by phone, start treatment, everything that’s humanly possible.”