Out on a Limb

“In your stupid, old pecan grove,” she snapped, clicking her phone shut and shoving it back into her pocket. She hated to admit it, but Cutch had a point. She couldn’t explain to him where the incident had happened, and he knew the land better than anyone. Before she could direct the sheriff to the spot, she’d need to find out a little more information.

Cutch continued. “My stupid, old pecan grove happens to cover over six-hundred acres. And you can’t see something stuck in the trees from one tree to the next, let alone one acre to the next. I’d love to catch whoever was shooting at you, but I doubt they’re going to stick around and wave their hands in the air for us to find them. So if you want to direct the sheriff to a crime scene, maybe you ought to figure out where that is first. ’Cause he’s a busy man, and I doubt he’ll want to tromp around in the woods all day.”

“Fine.” Elise stomped across the cut-grass parking area toward the lookout tower. “Let’s see what we can see from here.”

She climbed the sturdy wooden steps with Cutch right behind her, furious with how self-conscious he made her feel. In the eight years since their ill-fated relationship, she’d managed to avoid him almost completely, though that was tough to do in a county of fewer than ten-thousand people.

Once, a few years ago, he’d shown up at one of her glider tutorials at the Holyoake County Fair, and she’d taught him the basics of power gliding in front of a crowd of people. He was clearly a natural at flying and had performed well, but she’d ended up going home that night and crying into her pillow. That was the kind of effect he had on her. And she didn’t need that kind of complication when she was trying to sort out who’d shot down her glider.

Elise reached the top of the scenic tower and leaned on the western rail. The land spread out before her in a jagged, tree-covered expanse, the hills jutting up at steep angles, the valleys dipping down in deep shadows. The Loess Hills were beautiful in their own way, though the sandy soil and harsh terrain made farming them all-but-impossible. Everyone who’d tried to make a living off the hills had ended up impoverished. They were nice to look at—that was all.

A haze of late-summer heat made the air shimmer on the horizon. “Where’s your pecan grove?” she asked as Cutch joined her by the rail. “My stupid, old pecan grove?” His icy-blue eyes swept over her, chilling her. “It’s over there.”

Elise tried to look where he pointed. Trees. Trees. More trees. Hills with trees on them and more trees. Nothing that screamed pecan grove.

“Where?” she asked impatiently.

His arm extended, his finger still pointing westward, Cutch stepped closer to her, his body fitting neatly against hers like a bird tucking its young under its wing. A warm rush flooded through her as he settled his other hand on her shoulder and aligned his face with hers.

“See where I’m pointing?” His gentle breath joined the breeze as it cooled her cheek.

“Uh-huh.” Elise could see nothing. She was aware of Cutch and his closeness and how much she wanted to just let those strong arms wrap around her and hold her after the scare she’d had in the air. But thoughts like that would only get her into trouble. Cutch had sweet-talked his way into her heart before, though he’d only done it to make a fool out of her. She could do without a repeat of that lesson. She blinked and tried to focus. “Do you see anything?” She licked her lips and tried to restore some moisture to her mouth, but her throat had gone completely dry.

“Pecan trees.”

Elise sighed. “No sign of my glider?”

“Nope. Just trees.” Cutch stepped away from her and lowered his hand to the wooden railing.

Finally able to breathe again, Elise kept her eyes on the distant trees, not trusting herself to look at him while she spoke. “I think I should call the sheriff. Even if we don’t know exactly where my glider went down, and even if those guys are long gone, I’ll feel a lot better once I report what happened.” Or at least she hoped she’d feel better.

She turned and saw the hesitation in his eyes, and when he first opened his mouth, she thought for sure a protest was on his lips. Instead, he worked his face into a grimace and pinched his eyes shut. “Fine. Call the sheriff. I’ll do whatever I can to cooperate with an investigation.”

Though his obvious struggle made her curious, Elise didn’t give Cutch an opportunity to change his mind. She pulled her phone back out and started to dial.

“I’m going back down,” Cutch said quietly, then turned and headed for the stairs.

“Wait,” she called after him, her finger hesitating over the Send button. “You’re not going to leave me out here all alone, are you?” She didn’t know who had been shooting at her or where they were now. The last thing she wanted was to be left alone where they might catch up to her.

“Of course not. I just thought you might appreciate some privacy. I’ll wait on the ground for you to finish your call.” He looked slightly injured that she might have thought he’d abandon her.

Elise felt chastised and realized she was infringing on his time. “You don’t have somewhere else you need to be?”

“Nothing so important that I’d leave you out here.”

The look in his eyes addled her brain. She couldn’t decide if he looked resentful or hurt or honestly as though he cared about her. Though she knew that last one couldn’t be it, she couldn’t deny the gentle compassion that fueled his words. Not willing to think about why he’d speak to her like that, she pressed Send and held the phone to her ear.

Cutch headed down the stairs of the lookout tower, and Elise watched him go, her heart still hammering hard, though the fear and the long run through the woods was now twenty minutes or more behind her. No, she was pretty sure the reason her heart was hammering was Henry McCutcheon IV.

Cutch slowly walked to his truck, listening to the sound of Elise’s voice over the birdsong in the woods around them. He couldn’t clearly make out any of her words any more than he could sort out how his morning had taken such an about-face turn in one startled moment.

When he’d headed out to clear trees that morning, he’d promised his mother he’d be back to the house in time for his dad’s exam. That was the whole reason they’d scheduled it for a Saturday—so he could be there. The home-visit nurse was set to arrive in less than ten minutes. There was absolutely no way he could make it there in time—not unless he abandoned Elise. He pulled out his phone and called his mother, letting her know he’d stopped to help a friend and wouldn’t be back in time for the appointment.

As much as Cutch wanted to be there to support his parents through the most difficult parts of his father’s hospice treatment, he knew ultimately there wasn’t any tangible reason for him to be there. No matter what he did, his father was going to die. He’d accepted the inevitable, though it tore at him.

After placing the call, Cutch shoved his phone back into his pocket and leaned on the truck. On the lookout tower above him, he could still hear Elise talking. He closed his eyes and listened to the feminine cadence of her voice carrying on the late summer breeze.

Elise. Falling in love with her eight years before had been too easy. Getting over her—well, the only way he’d figured out to cope with that was to pretend she didn’t exist. He’d long ago given up trying to sort out a way to make a relationship between them work. McCutcheons and McAlisters were destined to hate each other. He’d endured enough heartache the last time he’d tried to defy that truth.

Though he tried to cut off his feelings toward her, his heart squeezed thinking about how frightened she’d been when she’d jumped into his truck. Who would have been on his property that morning? No one was supposed to have been out there, certainly not with a gun. He had No Trespassing and No Hunting signs posted all around the property’s perimeter. His land was a tranquil retreat—not a place for a young woman to be shot out of the sky and left running for her life.

Could it have been an accident? From what he’d seen of her crash from his truck, she’d gone down pretty fast. In fact, he’d slowed down and been watching the woods when she’d burst out of the bushes in front of him. Though he didn’t know of anyone else in Holyoake County who owned a powered hang glider, he was still shocked to see her frightened face when he’d opened the door of his truck.

But why would someone want to hurt Elise? Other than the McCutcheons, who’d held a grudge against the McAlisters for far too long in his opinion, there wasn’t anyone in town who didn’t like Elise—at least not that he knew of. She was a sweet, spunky girl whose soft side showed through a little more than she’d like. He smiled just thinking about her.

At the sound of footsteps, Cutch looked up and watched Elise trotting lightly down the steps. She appeared to be in better spirits and certainly looked less shaken. Relief coursed through him. He hadn’t liked seeing her so distraught.

“Did you get in touch with the sheriff?” he asked.

“Yes.” She offered him a smile. “I spoke with Sheriff Bromley. He agreed there probably wasn’t much sense in him driving out here when we don’t have a crime scene for him to look at. But he took down all the details I could remember.”

“And you’re all right with that?” Cutch pressed.

Elise looked sheepish. “I guess I feel a little silly asking him to come out here and poke around when there probably isn’t much for him to find.”

“But if someone tried to kill you—”

“We don’t know for a fact that’s what they were doing.”

“That’s not the conclusion you reached earlier.”

“I’m calmer now that I’ve talked with Sheriff Bromley. He didn’t sound too concerned—”

“He didn’t sound concerned?” Cutch had to interrupt. Elise’s safety was important, even if she didn’t think so.

“Well, of course he was concerned for me. But he didn’t figure there would still be any threat now that I got away safely. Probably just some teenagers goofing around.” She shrugged.

“Teenagers? Goofing around by shooting buckshot at a person? The teenagers I know are all smarter than that.” Cutch didn’t want to upset her, but he’d rather have her upset than dead. And if she underestimated the threat against her, well, he didn’t want to consider what could happen.

Elise glared at him. “Whatever. You should be glad I’m not pressing charges against you.”

“Charges for what? Picking you up before the gunmen caught up to you?”

“No. Because I was being shot at from your land.” Her nostrils flared as she glared at him. “I need to call someone to come pick me up.”

“No, you don’t. I can give you a ride. Where are you headed?” He didn’t like the way she accused him, then dismissed him. Did she really not trust him at all?

“The airfield. But that’s really not necessary.”

“It’s no problem,” he insisted, rounding the truck to the driver’s seat.

She didn’t budge from where she stood in front of his truck. Her lips twitched, but she didn’t speak.

He met her eyes. Why did she have to be so stubborn, anyway? “Elise?”

She looked from him to the passenger seat and back again. “I don’t know.”

Folding his hands over the hood of the truck, he leaned on his arms and looked at her. “Why not? You need a ride, and the airfield is on my way. It’s no big deal.”

“If Uncle Leroy sees me with you—”

Cutch blew out an exasperated breath. He knew the McAlisters didn’t like his family, but he couldn’t imagine Elise’s father’s brother getting into that big of a fit. Still, if she was concerned… “I’ll hide,” he offered.

The little hint of a smile that peeked out at him warmed his heart, though a second later she replaced it with a scowl. “I don’t want to keep you from your busy schedule.”

Thinking of his father’s exam that he’d already missed, he shrugged. “If I say I have time to drop you off, I have time.”

Elise took a tentative step toward the passenger side of the truck, then looked back at him. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

For a moment the humid air stilled between them, and that simple courtesy seemed to shout so much more. Could thank you mean I still love you? Or I’m sorry for the past eight years? Or even I wish none of our family’s feud had ever come between us? He thought he heard those words hidden between her simple thanks, but then he’d always been a dreamer. Time to pull his head out of the clouds.

“No problem.” Cutch nodded and hopped in the driver’s side, relieved when Elise climbed in, too. “So, to the airport,” he announced, turning the key. “What are you planning to do when you get there?”

“I’m going to take my Cessna up and fly over your property. I’ve got a portable GPS unit that I can use to get the exact coordinates of my glider’s location. Then I can take the GPS with me to find the spot when I go on foot to retrieve it.”

Cutch turned the truck around and headed back out onto the gravel road. “You’re planning to retrieve your glider, hmm? Do you have permission from the property owner to be on the land?” The words were meant to be a gentle tease. He hoped they’d elicit a smile.

But instead her pretty face frowned. “You said it was your land.”

“That’s right. So are you going to ask for my permission, or are you planning to trespass illegally?”

“Cutch,” she protested. “I can’t believe you’re making an issue of this—especially after what I’ve been through today.”

Hurt that she’d taken his words the wrong way, he defended himself, still maintaining the lighthearted undertone he’d begun with, though she obviously hadn’t picked up on it. “Yeah, well, I’ve recently become aware of issues with trespassers on my land. Apparently some of them shot down a hang glider earlier, so I feel like I need to crack down.” He glanced over to gauge her reaction.

“You’re a couple hours too late to do my glider any good.”

Something in the back of his brain screamed mayday! He couldn’t let her be mad at him—couldn’t let her walk out of his life again, not with her angry like this. “Then let me make it up to you. Take me up in your plane, and I’ll help you find the spot it went down.”

“I don’t think so!” she snapped.

“Why not? I know the land better than anyone. I can help you locate your glider more quickly, and I may be able to spot signs of where your gunmen may have been when they shot at you. If we could find an empty casing or footprint, then the sheriff would have something to come out and take a look at.”

Elise shook her head forcefully. “I can find my glider myself. Once I get a GPS lock on the location, I can find it from the ground. I don’t need your help.”

“But you need my permission to be on my land.”

“Did the gunmen have your permission?”

They were nearly to the airport by this time, and Cutch felt his hackles rising. What had started out as a hint of teasing had blown way out of proportion, but why was he surprised? Elise still knew how to push his buttons. It was a good reminder of why things hadn’t worked out between them eight years ago—why they would never work out. But he still wasn’t about to let her fly into danger alone. He’d never forgive himself if she was shot down a second time.

“The gunmen were trespassing—” he let his tone drop to a low, even rate, let the warning carry through in his words “—and if I ever find out who it was, you can believe I’ll press charges. Nobody hurts you and gets away with it.”

Elise felt a shiver run down her spine at the chilly threat behind Cutch’s words. But what made her nearly gasp was the zealous protection implied in his final statement. Didn’t he realize how much he had hurt her? Just the memory of the way he’d set her up for humiliation eight years before made her heart squeeze and the old wounds cry out in pain. Their first and only kiss, the moment she’d dreamed about since she’d first fallen in love with him, had turned out to be a trick, a stunt he’d pulled to embarrass her in front of half of Holyoake. In fact, their entire relationship had been a farce, another way for a McCutcheon to humiliate a McAlister.

Still, she figured she was mature enough to work with him without letting on to the distress he caused her heart. She’d just have to keep him at arm’s length and stomp down any tender feelings, such as those that had flooded her when he’d put his arm around her on the viewing tower. Surely she could handle that…

“I’d like to come with you. I’m sure I can help.” Cutch announced matter-of-factly as he parked the truck behind the hangar and killed the engine.

What could she say? He seemed intent on going up with her, and honestly, after the terror she’d felt that morning, it would be an enormous comfort to have along a strong man she could trust. She just wasn’t convinced Cutch was that man. But she was in a hurry to find her glider, and he was probably correct about being able to help her quickly locate it in the thick trees. She’d scrambled through the woods in such a blur that little clear memory remained to guide her.

“If I’m not imposing on your time—”

“You’re not.”

“Then let’s hurry. I still don’t want Uncle Leroy to see you.”

They ducked out of the truck and went around the hangar to the door facing the airfield. “Leroy’s probably in the office. He and Rodney are usually the only ones around on Saturdays,” Elise explained, opening the wide hangar door. “They shouldn’t see us if we use this door.”

She hurried over to her Cessna 172 Skyhawk and patted the white-with-red-stripes plane affectionately on one wing. “This is my baby,” she informed Cutch.

“Looks like your baby is older than you are.”

“She is,” Elise admitted, circling the plane as she initiated her preflight check. “But I’m saving my pennies to buy her a little sister. Aren’t I, darling?” She gave the rudder a gentle tug. “Anyway, she’s a good little bird and keeps me in the sky, which is more than I can say for my powered hang glider.”

“You don’t think there’s a chance somebody will try to shoot this girl down, do you?” Cutch looked concerned.

Elise faced him under the wing. “We should be out of the range of a shotgun. I fly my glider at a lot lower elevation than I fly my plane.”

“But when you’re dusting crops—”

“That’s different.” Elise wasn’t fond of crop dusting and wished her aerial photography business was self-sustaining enough so she could give up working for her uncle. But so far, her dreams had yet to pan out. “I’m capable of flying low, but I wouldn’t try it in those hills. Besides, this plane is a lot faster and way more maneuverable than my glider. I can get out in a hurry at the first sign of trouble.”

Cutch seemed to accept her response and stayed quiet as she finished checking the plane and climbed aboard. She reached behind his seat for the extra headset and noticed her camera still in the backseat of the four-seat plane. A thought occurred to her.

“Do you know much about taking pictures?” she asked.

He grinned back slyly. “Don’t you recall my 4-H entries?”

Elise almost smiled back, but then she remembered the year he’d swept the purple ribbon right out from under her. She’d been nine years old, he eleven, and though she now realized the composition of his scenic Loess Hills landscape had been precociously perfect, at the time, she’d been devastated. Her father had chalked up the incident to just another example of how she couldn’t trust a McCutcheon. “Can you still use a camera?”

“Maybe not as well as you can, but well enough.”

She handed him the digital camera and explained. “It’s all set for aerial photographs, so all you’ll have to do is point and shoot. Oh, and don’t erase the stuff on my memory card—I was out with Rodney yesterday taking pictures of the Mitchum’s corn maze. I haven’t had a chance to download the pictures yet.”

Cutch accepted the camera from her. “How’s the aerial photography business going?”

Her mind focused on the preflight check, Elise murmured a distracted response. “It keeps me busy, but it doesn’t pay the bills. I have to pay a pilot to take me up since it’s impossible to fly and take pictures at the same time. That takes a big chunk out of my profit.” She toggled a switch. “So I still do crop dusting for Leroy on the side.”

“That’s too bad. You’re such a talented photographer.”

Cutch’s comment surprised Elise, and she looked up from her checklist to find him leaning across his seat toward her, his face much nearer to hers than she’d have liked inside the close quarters of the cockpit. She felt her cheeks turn red and looked nervously back down at the laminated booklet in her hands. “As I recall, you’re the one who won the purple ribbon.”

“Only once. You won it every other year.”

“But that’s the year I remember.” When she dared to glance back up at him, she found him still leaning her way, still looking at her in that unsettling way that made her heart leap inside her more violently than it did during a bad landing.

“Funny what we choose to remember,” he said, chuckling softly and turning away to adjust the headset over his ears.

Elise pulled her attention back to her preflight checklist. She had to focus. Though she’d been flying for years and knew the drill backward and forward, having Cutch in her plane was just the kind of distraction that could cause her to miss something, and today was the last day she wanted that to happen.

“Sky Belle to Big Bird, Sky Belle to Big Bird.” She radioed Uncle Leroy in the office.

“Sky Belle, this is Big Bird. What are you up to this morning?”

Elise relayed their flight plan to her uncle, who okayed her for takeoff. Fortunately, he didn’t ask any questions about why she was headed out. If she’d talked to him in person first, he certainly would have done so then, but she knew he liked to keep their radio conversations strictly professional, which was why she’d waited until she was in the plane to talk to him. Hopefully, he wouldn’t suspect anything strange was up.

With Cutch safely buckled in, Elise taxied out and lifted off, feeling more in control with her plane in the air than she had since she’d heard the first shot that morning. She was at home in the sky. It was her peaceful retreat where none of the pain in her life—not her absent mother or her struggling business or the ongoing feud with the McCutcheons—could trouble her. The invasion of her peace was just another reason why the attack that morning had disturbed her so deeply.

The airspace of southwestern Iowa was empty as usual, and the clear skies and gentle breeze made for perfect flying conditions. They quickly and uneventfully found themselves closing in on Cutch’s pecan grove. Elise aligned the plane with what she could recall of her flight path that morning.

“We’re right above where I was flying earlier,” she explained to Cutch. “We’re coming up on the spot where I heard the first shot.”

“When we get to that area, can you try to get a little closer and maybe circle around? I haven’t had the opportunity to fly over the property in years, not since my Grandpa McCutcheon used to give me flying lessons, but I’d like to think if there was something out of place I’d be able to spot it from the air.”

“Sure,” Elise agreed. “There’s a pretty wide valley about there where it’s almost level for a good stretch. I shouldn’t have any trouble coming around.” She eased the plane a little lower in the sky. “Seems like I was right around here when I heard the first shot.”

Cutch had his face nearly plastered to the window. “Right there,” he said with excitement. “I see something below us. Can you come around again?”

“Go ahead and open that window,” Elise instructed as she swung the plane in a wide arc. “I’ve taken the screw out so you can remove the pane and stick your head out. You can even use the camera outside the window. Just make sure you don’t drop it.”

Elise kept her eyes on where she was headed, focusing on maneuvering between the tree-covered hills, but she heard the air rush in as Cutch successfully removed the Plexiglas window.