The Daughter Dilemma

“I know that,” Addy said in a put-upon voice. “Now leave us alone. You’re making me nervous. And you’ve got to promise to be civil when we get down. No yelling.”

“I want you to check in with me every minute until you touch down. Base to Nine-Zero-One-Bravo. Out.”

Inside the copter cabin and over the dull whipping of the rotor blades, there was nothing but dead silence for a few moments. Kari’s ears were tingling in her headset, but Addy still seemed unfazed. Maybe she was used to going toe-to-toe with her brother. Kari, on the other hand, had a feeling that if she ever did get to Elk Creek Canyon, it would be another flight service that would take her there.

Addy sighed. “Nice to know he cares.”

“I notice he didn’t make any promises about not yelling.”

The helicopter started to drift and rock as the weather worsened. It seemed to be at the mercy of a giant’s swinging hand, picked up and pushed sideways, then dropped and pulled back in the other direction. Kari began to feel slightly queasy, but Addy seemed determined and calm.

Rain was falling in silver sheets. Kari’s eyes were riveted by the sight of it sliding down the windscreen, where it was violently flung away by the wind. They both became silent, tense. Addy was concentrating and Kari was simply too nervous to speak.

In the next moment lightning zigzagged across the front of the helicopter. There was a sizzling crack, so loud and close that Kari couldn’t hold back a small yelp of surprise and fear. The aircraft bucked and took such a swooping dive that Kari felt her rear end come up off the seat.

“Son of a—” Addy muttered, both hands moving on the controls to correct their descent. “I think we just took a hit!”

She jerked her chin toward the top of the cabin. Over Kari’s head was a small paned opening, like a car sunroof. “Look up there and tell me if you see anything. Sparks. Fire. Anything.”

Kari rose as much as her seat belt would allow. At first she saw nothing but darkness. Then a stray flicker of light from one of the exterior lights revealed that the blades were still turning. Surely that was a good sign. “Nothing,” she said.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Are we going to crash?”

“Not if I can help it.”

The wind seemed stronger, rising and moaning eerily. Kari watched the sure movements of Addy D’Angelo’s pale hands. Up. Down. Back again. Correcting constantly.

A heart-deep fear rose in her. Please. I don’t want to die.

And then the engine failed.

It lasted only a moment or two. Like a misfire in an automobile. But it was enough to send the helicopter plummeting further still, sinking like a bird dropped out of the sky by a hunter’s rifle.

Addy was on the radio instantly, shouting through the headphones. “Base, come in. Springs Flight Service, come in. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Nine-Zero-One-Bravo. We have engine failure from a lightning strike. Two on board. I think we can make Columbine Meadow. I repeat…”

There was no answer. Was the radio dead?

Kari was numb with fear now. She squeezed her eyes tight for a moment, listening to her own rattled breathing and the woman beside her, who muttered and cursed and talked herself through every movement.

“Autorotate, Addy…. Not enough airspeed and height, but you know how to compensate. Easy. Easy. Nose up. Glide in, glide in. You can do it.”

Kari gripped her own hands hard. A flicker of lightning lit up the cabin. In that one brief moment Addy’s face looked both beautiful and terrible.

It couldn’t end like this. Not like this, Kari thought in anguish.

Father. I’m so sorry. Now I’ll never know…

Addy swung her head to look at her. “Columbine Meadow’s less than five miles from Angel Air. We can make it.”

The helicopter shook as though it was coming apart. Although she couldn’t see anything out the front windscreen, Kari knew the ground was coming up fast in spite of all Addy’s best efforts. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God.”

“Hang on,” Addy warned her. “Hang on.” She had pushed back in her seat, bracing, both hands tight on the controls. “Flatten the glide path, Addy. Raise your collective. Keep your nose up, damn it!”

The earth rushed toward them.

Addy shouted at her through the headset. “If we hit hard enough to split the skids, then our bodies are going to take the force of the impact. Get ready.”

The helicopter landed suddenly.

Nothing could have prepared Kari for how crushing it was, how loud, how completely terrifying. Her spine jolted. Her teeth came down hard and cut into her lip, filling her mouth with blood. Something struck her against the right temple. Beside her, Addy D’Angelo gave a short yelp of pain. Above them, the rotor blades still turned, but things banged. Rattled. Screeched in protest.

There was a moment of absolute stunned silence as both of them realized that they hadn’t been instantly killed. That they might even survive this.

Then Addy moaned.

“Addy,” Kari said, reaching out to touch the woman’s arm. “Are you all right?”

Addy jerked away from that contact with a gasp. “Got to shut down. Get us cooled off.” She sounded disoriented and when she reached for the switches, she moaned again. “Oh damn, I think my arm’s broken. Maybe both of them.”

“Tell me what to do.”

“Get out. Leg it out of here.”

“No!” Kari told her. “Tell me what to do.”

With her chin, Addy motioned toward the floor on Kari’s side. “The fire extinguisher. By your right foot. Do you know how to use one?”

Kari reached for it immediately. It looked no bigger than a bottle of shaving cream. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I’ll shut down what I can up here. Can you move? Get out and go to the back of the fuselage. The engine’s below. Don’t touch it. Just spray the hell out of it until the canister’s empty. Understand?”

Quickly, Kari unfastened her seat belt and slipped the helicopter’s door latch. The ground wasn’t flat and it took a moment for her to find her feet. The craft sat slightly cock-eyed on a scattered field of rocks, but at least it seemed to be in one piece. From what Kari could see, in spite of what Addy had feared, the landing struts hadn’t separated from the fuselage.

It was still raining lightly and Kari shivered with cold. Or maybe it was shock. She realized her hands were shaking, too. So badly she could hardly pull the pin out of the extinguisher. Setting her teeth, she did as Addy had told her. Yellow chemicals sprayed out to cover the engine. When the can finally emptied with a dribbling hiss, she tossed it away. By the time she managed to stumble back inside the cabin, her hands weren’t the only part of her that trembled.

She slid into her seat, hearing the quick rise and fall of her own shallow breaths as they competed with the pounding of her heart. “I did it. Now what?” she asked, though she hoped the answer required no more than the strength she possessed right now.

“Good,” Addy said. “Just give me a minute.”

Kari looked at her companion. She held both her arms against her body like a surgeon who’d just scrubbed for surgery. Her face was pale, but there was no blood anywhere, thank God.

Twisting in her seat, Kari leaned closer. “Let me help you.” Addy’s left arm looked normal, but there was a good-size knot just past the wrist of her right one. “Do you really think they’re broken?” Kari asked with a grimace.

“I don’t know.” Addy frowned at her. “Your forehead is bleeding.”

Gingerly, Kari touched her temple. She could feel a lump forming—it hurt like hell—but when she brought her hand away, there was only a little watery blood on her fingertips.

“I’ll survive,” she said. “Looks like we both will.”

“I can’t believe we crashed.” Addy’s voice sounded sketchy and a little wild. “And that we didn’t die. Although we might as well have. Nick’s going to kill me.”

“After what we just went through, we can deal with him.”

Kari leaned across the back of the seat, trying to ignore the throb of pain that suddenly stabbed along her spine. Her camping equipment lay all over the rear seats. She unzipped her pack and dug into the contents, pushing through nylon and tin and packages of freeze-dried food.

“What are you doing?” Addy asked.

When Kari finally found what she wanted, she settled back in her seat. She held up the tent stakes and masking tape she’d rescued from her gear. “I think we should try to splint your arms. Okay?”

Addy gave her a faint smile and nodded.

As gently as she could, Kari placed a tent stake against Addy’s right forearm, then wound the tape around it to hold the metal in place. The woman was a trooper. She set her jaw and didn’t make a sound except for one hiss of pain that escaped her dry, pale lips.

“So now what do we do?” Kari asked as she worked. “Do you think your brother heard you?”

“Even if he didn’t, the airport would have heard the Mayday. Assuming that the radio was still working. It’s definitely not now.”

“So we’ll just sit and wait to be rescued,” Kari said, trying for a lighter tone that might keep Addy’s mind off the pain in her arms.

The woman closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the seat. She suddenly looked so much younger, smaller. The cabin seemed to swallow her up.

“I’m so sorry, Kari,” she said in a thin, quavering voice. “My fault. Not rechecking the weather service was such a stupid mistake. It’s basic.”

“What are you talking about?” Kari reproached her. “You were magnificent. We’d never have survived this if you hadn’t been so calm and in control. Besides, it’s really my fault. I’m the one who took advantage of your kindness.”

Addy gave her a faint smile. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“No, I’m to blame here. My father was the most spontaneous man you’d ever want to meet, but even he used to complain about how impulsive I am, how disorganized. I could have planned this whole trip so much better. I could have come up here when I had more time to devote to it.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Because…” Kari hesitated, then decided to tell the truth. After what she and Addy had just been through, the woman deserved nothing less. “Because today is the two-year anniversary of the day my father hiked into Elk Creek Canyon. I wanted to experience the same set of circumstances he did. Know exactly what he saw. It just seemed important somehow. A way to help me understand…how he could have died there.”

“I’m sorry,” Addy said again, sounding a little woozy.

“It’s all right,” Kari reassured her. Lightly she pressed the final piece of tape around her splint. “This is the best I can do under the circumstances. Let’s just rest now. There’s no point in beating ourselves up for what’s already done.”

That seemed to help a little. They settled back in their seats. Addy kept her eyes closed. Kari just kept staring out the front of the helicopter. Her temple throbbed. Muscles in her back began to protest. The only sounds were the soft exhalations of their own breaths, calmer now, no longer quick and charged with panic. They were cocooned in a puddle of light inside the aircraft, but outside everything looked as black as a deep well. At least the rain had let up.

Help will be here soon. Just rest. Wait for it.

A few minutes passed. Kari dozed.

The next thing she knew, the helicopter seemed to be shaking again. Her eyes flew open. She felt disoriented. In the darkness beyond the helicopter there seemed to be bright lights everywhere. For a moment she thought the lightning was back. Then she realized that the lights were the twin white beams of car headlights.

Shouts. Movement. We’ve been rescued.

Someone tugged on the door next to Addy. It held stubbornly for a moment, then gave with a squeal of protesting metal. Kari squinted, trying to give features to their rescuer’s face, but all she could make out was the silhouette of a man.

Please, please let it be a policeman, she thought. A paramedic. A fireman. Anyone but—

“Addy, talk to me!” Nick D’Angelo demanded. His tone was tart, frantic.

No such luck. Big brother Nick had found them.

Kari had a feeling the crash was only the beginning of her problems.

CHAPTER FOUR

“JUST TELL ME you’re not mad,” Addy pleaded around another sniffling sob.

“I’m not mad,” Nick repeated for the third time.

Addy’s face crumpled and she bit her lip. “I don’t believe you.”

Oh, brother. Somebody get me out of here.

Addy looked pale and miserable against the stark white environment of the emergency examining room. Nick hadn’t left her side since the ambulance had brought both women into the small hospital. His fear for his sister’s injuries had subsided and his heart no longer beat as if he’d been running. But his nerves—his nerves were still jangling.

He almost wished the doctor would order him out of the room and back to the anonymous safety of the waiting area. Not much chance of that. The fresh-faced resident looked pretty meek, no older than Tessa’s biology partner in school.

His sister, usually relentlessly upbeat, was an emotional mess. She didn’t seem to mind the pain of a broken left arm and a sprained right wrist. She hardly looked at the nurse slipping an Ace bandage over her fingers. But she’d been crying off and on for five minutes—five long minutes—and nothing Nick said seemed to help. Frankly, he was running out of reassuring words and sympathetic looks.

This is all that Churchill woman’s fault.

The doctor had told him that the woman was going to be fine. Lucky lady, the doc had said. No more than a small bump on the head.

I ought to go down to the end of the hall and throttle the life out of her.

He wouldn’t do it, of course. How could he when his own guilt was eating away at him like battery acid? Because when it came right down to it, he was the one responsible for this latest disaster.

He should have known his headstrong sister would be looking for any excuse to take up one of the Ravens. All it had taken was a little friendly persuasion from a smoothie like Kari Churchill to push her into defying him.

He should have brought Addy along faster in the business. He should have made her understand that all the “ground school” flying time in the world didn’t mean diddily if she couldn’t read the sky, didn’t know how to smell a stormfront just by sniffing the air. Her instincts needed to be honed until they were razor-sharp.

But he’d been dragging his feet. All the annoying little problems he’d had to deal with lately, plucking at him like greedy children. Zapping his time and energy. It had been easy enough to fall into the comfortable pattern of treating Addy more like a secretary than a fellow pilot. No surprise that she’d gotten tired of waiting and jumped at the first opportunity that presented itself.

With nearly tragic results.

“I know you’re mad,” Addy croaked. “That’s why you look that way.”

“What way?”

“Like you’ve been sucking lemons.”

Nick blew air through his cheeks. He rolled his eyes in the doctor’s direction, but the man just gave him a sympathetic smile and continued scribbling on Addy’s chart.

“All right,” Nick said in a firm voice. “I am mad. Don’t think you’re getting away with this stunt. You and I are going to have a long, serious conversation about who’s in charge at Angel Air.” He softened his words by running the back of a quick, affectionate finger down her flushed cheek. “But not right now. Not until you’re healed and feeling yourself again.”

Sobering momentarily, Addy nodded. “I understand. I take full responsibility for what happened, Nick.”

“Oh, believe me, there’s plenty of blame to go around.”

“You mean Kari?” his sister protested. “She’s not at fault here. It was my idea. After we were up and saw the first signs of rough weather, she even suggested we turn around and come back.”

Addy had misunderstood just who he really blamed, but right now, it was easier to find fault with their customer’s pushy approach than to admit his own part in tonight’s near-catastrophic events. “I’ll bet she did.”

“I’ve ruined everything,” Addy said, looking very young and vulnerable again. Like a child, she ducked her head to wipe her nose against the shoulder of her hospital gown.

The doctor caught Nick’s eye and gave him a reassuring smile. “The meds will kick in soon.”

Thank God.

He leaned closer, taking Addy’s face in his hands and turning her head to make her meet his eyes. Beneath his hands, her bones felt small and fragile. He realized once again how incredibly lucky they were that she hadn’t been seriously hurt. A warm tear slipped beneath his fingers and he wiped it away as gently as he could. “Come on, Addy. Quit crying. You know I can’t take weepy women. Everything’s going to be all right. Mom and Pop will be here soon.”

“I can’t seem to help it. You know how your whole life is supposed to flash before your eyes when things like this happen?”

“Yours didn’t?”

“It did.” She grimaced. “And it was so boring, Nick. My life has been one big snooze fest. I’ve made one bad choice after another. I’m nothing but a small-town girl with small-town ideas, and I’m destined to live and die a small-town life. David was right.”

“David who?”

“McKay,” Addy said with a put-upon voice. “Who else would I mean?”

“Your old boyfriend from high school?” Nick frowned. God, if she was going to dredge up ancient history from ten years ago, they were going to be here forever. “I thought you hated him.”

Addy started to sob again. In an effort to sidetrack her, he touched the edge of her bandaged arm. Her fingers stuck out from the end like undercooked sausages.

“I don’t know why you’re crying,” he said in a lighter voice. “This is going to keep you out of work at the lodge for a few weeks. We’ll all be waiting on you hand and foot.”

“I must have been bracing too hard for the crash. How bad is the damage to Raven One? Tell me the truth. Did I split the skids?”

“Harry’s going to tow it over to the airframe techs tonight. I’ll get a better look in the morning.”

“What are you going to do about the rest of the week’s tours? Me out of commission, and down one chopper?”

“Let’s not worry about it right now.”

She shook her head. “Why did I think I could actually fly your birds? Maybe flying isn’t my forte. Maybe I don’t even have a forte.”

“Of course you do. If you’re going to criticize your ability to fly, then you’re criticizing my judgment to take you on as a partner.” He reached out to flick a stray tear off the end of her nose, giving her a smile. “And I’m never wrong about things like that, am I?”

“No.”

“You’d have been fine if you hadn’t taken that lightning strike. I was listening on the radio, remember? You were outrunning it. Doing great.”

“I did have everything under control up until then…”

That was more like it. The old Addy was returning. Nick ran a hand over the top of her head. Her hair was a tangled mess. “What you haven’t got under control is your ability to keep people from taking advantage of you. I know that sob-sister played on your sympathy to get you up there.”

Absently his sister shook her head, then sniffled around a yawn. “She didn’t. Not really.”

They both watched the nurse work on her arm a few minutes. Finally the woman tucked the last bit of bandaging into place. “Did you know Kari is Madison Churchill’s daughter?” Addy asked.

“No, and I don’t care if she’s related to Winston Churchill.”

“She was awfully calm after we crashed. Didn’t panic. She handled the fire extinguisher when I realized I couldn’t. She even found a way to splint my arms.”

“Which wouldn’t have needed splinting if she’d taken no for an answer in the first place.”

“You should talk to her.”

“Not in the mood I’m in.”

“She’s just down the hall.”

“Good. She should stay there.”

She gave him a frowning glance. “You’re being completely unreasonable.”

Nick didn’t need Addy to tell him that. But every time he thought about trying to talk to that woman, he could feel his blood pressure take a leap. He grunted. “I get that way when people put my family in danger.”

Addy just looked at him in rueful silence. The nurse’s eyes flitted back and forth between them. He could tell that even she thought he was being unreasonable.

He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “The FAA reports I’m going to have to fill out, the cost of repairs, the lost revenue… If I don’t end up suing her sorry ass for her involvement in this, she should consider herself lucky.”

His sister ducked her head and swallowed hard. Then her dark eyes found his once more. “Have you considered the possibility that she could…that she might be the one to—”

“Sue us?” he finished for her.

Hell, somewhere in the back of his mind he hadn’t been able to think of much else. For all her youthful inexperience, Addy was an adult. An employee of Angel Air. The company had a responsibility to its passengers to keep them safe.

The Churchill woman could probably make a case if she wanted to—no telling what missteps Addy had already admitted—but he wasn’t willing to think about that right now. Addy would open a floodgate of fresh tears if she thought there might be that kind of trouble ahead for the family.

“Adriana!”

“My baby!”

“Adda-girl!”

The family had arrived. He’d hoped he and Addy could get out of here soon, but he should have known better. The D’Angelos—Mom, Pop and both aunts—surged into the room to descend on Addy like a wave. Nick stepped back. Even the nurse stepped back. You didn’t stand in the way of a D’Angelo tidal wave.

“I thought we’d never get here,” Nick’s mother cried. She pressed both her hands to her daughter’s face as though feeling for fever. Aunt Renata and Aunt Sofia were like bookends on either side of Addy, full of commiserating sounds at the sight of her bandaged arms.

Unable to get any closer because of the cluster of people and his wheelchair, Nick’s father settled for placing his hand along Addy’s blanket-covered ankle. “What happened?” Sam demanded. He touched the nurse’s arm. “Get the doctor. I want to know about my daughter’s condition.”

Nick stood back and listened while Addy briefly described the circumstances of the crash. The resident came in and explained about her injuries. The family gasped and made little worried sounds throughout it all, but were finally satisfied to hear that Addy wouldn’t even have to spend one night in the hospital. Now that the medication had taken the edge off the pain, she had stopped being so weepy, thank goodness. She would, however, find it difficult to use anything but the tips of her fingers for a few weeks.

“You’re sure it’s nothing more than that?” Sam asked the doctor, obviously making no effort to hide his frowning assessment of the younger man.

“She’ll be back up in the air before the month’s out,” Nick said for his sister’s benefit. Addy gave him a hopeful smile.

“This other woman,” his father continued. “She’s all right, too?”

It was a surprise to Nick, but evidently no one in the family seemed to find the Churchill woman’s part in the accident objectionable. “She’s fine,” he said in annoyance. “Women like that always land on their feet.”

His father’s brows shot upward. “That’s a pretty strong statement. What’s got you so wrought up?”

“None of this would have happened if she hadn’t been so pushy.” Nick turned his attention back to his sister. He nodded toward her bound forearms. “Looks like those are going to make things awkward for a while.”

“Don’t you worry,” Aunt Renata said to Addy. “We’ll feed and dress you, and even bathe you if we need to. Won’t we, Sofia?”

“Just like when you were a little baby,” Aunt Sofia told her.

At that promise, Addy threw a look of desperation Nick’s way. He just grinned and shook his head at her. She deserved it after scaring the hell out of him.