“Oh, no. I mean, yes, we left—my mother, me and my stepfather, Mike Brenner. I got his last name because he was in the Air Force, and the benefits were better if we were actually family.”

He glanced at the control panel, then back at Merry. She seemed a bit less tense now. “So, you left and came back?”

“I left because I had to, and I came back because I wanted to.”

“Why did you want to?”

“We were constantly uprooted. The air force reassigned my stepfather to lots and lots of places in this country and Europe,” she explained. “A year here, a year there, and no real home.” She grimaced slightly. “I hated it. Some people would love to roam the world, but all I wanted was some place to call home.”

His choice would have been the roaming, going where he wanted to, exactly as he did with his business. “So, you returned to Wolf Lake?”

“Yes. When I graduated with a degree in Child Psychology, I did some clinical work, and met a lady who had a clinic in Arizona for Native children. It fascinated me, really making a difference and not being in an office setting.”

She hadn’t glanced out the front window for a few minutes, and Gage saw that as a positive step in keeping her calm. Especially since the clouds were starting to show signs of high wind, and he could feel the tugging at the plane.

“I’m certified to work with developmentally delayed children, and put in for several grants. Fate stepped in and I got an offer from The Family Center to work with the Native children and anyone else local in Wolf Lake.”

“So you took the grant offer?” Gage asked a bit distractedly as he felt another tug at the plane and he checked the control panel. The sky around them was steel gray and darkening while the wind was gaining speed and changing direction. He flipped off the autopilot and took control again just as snow began to show up in the wind that was driving at them.

“Yes, I did, and moved back to town about six months ago.”

“I was there when they put in The Family Center,” he murmured, keeping a close eye on the sky in front of them. He flipped on the radio, got an update through his earpiece, and felt a bit uneasy when he heard that the storm, predicted to curve to the east and go south, had changed course to the west, almost curling around to get ahead of them in their flight path.

“Moses told me that when I arrived, he supervises the grant, as I told you before. I’m there for two years to study the effects of certain therapies that are being developed. There are about ten kids right now in the program and...”

Gage adjusted their speed and banked slightly away from the wind. He didn’t realize that Merry had stopped speaking and was staring at him until she touched his arm.

“What’s wrong?” she asked tightly.

CHAPTER THREE

GAGE FELT THE pressure from her fingers through the denim of his jacket. “Nothing, it’s just a shift in the wind.”

“What does that mean?” she demanded.

He glanced at her fingers on his jacket sleeve, then over to her green eyes growing wide with concern. “The wind shifts in direction, and that’s what’s happened. I have to compensate for it.”

“And?”

“I’m compensating for it,” he repeated, feeling her touch disappear from his arm.

“Didn’t they tell you this could happen at the airport?”

“I was more worried about my plane,” he admitted and immediately regretted that statement.

“What was—or is—wrong with it?” she asked, her low voice belying her growing panic. She laced her fingers tightly in her lap, but never took her eyes off of him.

“I had to check a few things,” he said evasively. He wasn’t about to tell her about the minor electrical problem that had been corrected. He could only imagine what she’d do if she heard that right now.

“What things?”

The plane was flying smoothly now, more at ease with the wind, but the clouds were getting thicker toward the south, and the heavy darkness that warned about coming snow, was ominous. “It was an easy fix. I was only down for a few hours.”

She didn’t respond, just wrapped her arms around herself again and closed her eyes. The counting started again.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you something...”

The counting stopped and then she opened her eyes and turned toward him. “What is it?”

“Well, I was wondering why you keep counting the bubbles when it doesn’t seem to be working for you?”

“Because I never mastered yoga or meditation. A therapist I trained with used it in therapy, and suggested it to me. Plain old diversion.” She was rocking a bit now. “Count something that is beautiful and gentle and calming to you, and match the counting to your breathing, and...” She sighed. “It’s supposed to work. It did work on the commercial flight today, but...it did work, it can work, but it’s not working now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, having no idea what it would be like to be scared of something as incredible as flying.

“Now, can I ask you a question?” she said almost in a whisper.

“Go ahead.”

“Why did you buy such a small plane when you’ve obviously got money and could get one of those big silver corporate jets?”

He wanted to laugh at her question, but he bit it back, instinctively knowing that really wouldn’t go over well with her at that moment. “It’s what I wanted,” he said, not about to start discussing runway length and the fact that he liked it smaller so he could fly alone as much as possible.

“Why?”

He stared at her. “It’s green. My favorite color,” he said, referring to the panel again. The storm was approaching faster than he’d anticipated, but worse than that, he could feel a catch in the rhythm of the plane. A blip of some sort.

The plane shook against resistance then, and she exhaled on a long sigh. “I feel a bit green myself,” she muttered, eyes shut again, and he just bet those bubbles were being counted, too.

“Listen, I’ve flown this route many times with no trouble. I know it so well I could close my eyes and land us safely at the landing strip on the ranch. I’ve done it before.”

“You what?”

“I’m kidding,” he said quickly. “It’s just a joke. I’m wide awake, always am when I’m flying, and we’ll be in Wolf Lake before you know it.” Platitudes, he admitted to himself, but he was at a loss to figure out anything he could say that would put her at ease. That didn’t mean that he’d stop trying, however. “We have radar, a flight tracker, GPS.” He tapped the screen in front of him. “Every gadget we need to get there is in this panel and on this plane, so don’t worry. It’s all good.”

The wind buffeted the plane to one side and she gasped, “What about that?” She pointed an unsteady finger at the storm clearly gathering in the distance. “That looks horrible.”

He scanned the screen and said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice, “It’s not pretty, but it won’t get to us before we get to where we want to be. If worse comes to worst, we’ll fly around it and take a bit more time to get home, or if it gets sloppy and spreads out, we’ll climb high enough to go over it.”

She was trembling slightly, he noticed, and he was flooded with a foreign feeling of protectiveness. He didn’t like that at all. He didn’t want to be totally responsible for her safety. He went through a lot on his own, answering to no one but himself, but this would be different.

Everything he’d have to do from here on out would be done for both of them, not just him. The usual rush he got from danger, or uncertainty, was gone since it wasn’t only his life at stake anymore. Not by a long shot. One glance at Merry and his stomach clenched. He turned away from the sight of her before he gave in to an overwhelming need to touch her and say, “We’ll make it.” He wasn’t a good liar, and he couldn’t say those words with any conviction right then.

So Gage did what he knew, and got on the radio, trying to make contact with the nearest tower to give them his coordinates. How he wished he’d never listened to Merry in the terminal and never said he’d bring her back home to Wolf Lake....

When he heard a report from the tower through the static about the changing direction and speed of the winds, and the mess they were heading right into, he knew he had to think fast.

“What are we going to do?” Merry asked in an unsteady voice.

If she hadn’t been with him, he would have made an immediate decision and never second guessed himself. Never. But with her, he was going back and forth, contemplating about going up or heading off to the side. He hated uncertainty, knowing that his slightest hesitation could mess things up for them. “We’ll go up,” he said with more conviction than he felt.

“Good,” he thought he heard Merry say as he spoke into the radio, telling the nearest tower what he’d do and asking for wind speed and direction. As he listened, he readjusted the controls and the plane started to climb. With the tower voice in the background, he could feel the small aircraft respond perfectly, and that gave him a sense of relief. It was a great plane. Then he felt the beginning of a drag, a sense of lost direction, right when Merry spoke again.

“Why are we climbing so slowly?”

The radio contact was breaking up, and he ignored it to check the radar. Because the wind is so strong, it’s pushing us back and down, he told himself, but instead said, “The weather.”

He had to concentrate, but was finding it harder than it should have been with Merry so close. He never should have let her get on board. Never. He didn’t need this. It was why he had no wish to be in any long term relationship because he didn’t want the responsibility or pressure. His job and his family were his only responsibilities, and business had been the main focus of his life since he’d started the company.

It still would be if the calls hadn’t come, one after the other over the past month. Calls about mundane things from friends and family in Wolf Lake. But beyond all the banter, he knew their real purpose. His older brother, Jack, needed him and he hadn’t been around.

Initially, Gage had planned on flying back for a day or two closer to summer. Then the request for a full bid on an entertainment complex southeast of Wolf Lake near the Rez had come from the town council, so he had made arrangements to travel there sooner rather than later.

Penciling in a week’s stay in Wolf Lake, he’d pacified his obligations business wise and his own conscience. However, he never thought he’d be in this plane, with a beautiful, confounding woman, flying straight into a storm. When the plane shuddered again, he tried to feather it into the wind to get clear and the action didn’t get any response from Merry. No gasp, no sobs, no petrified screams, so he chanced a look at her.

She was bent forward, her face hidden in her hands, and her back rising and falling rapidly. She was going to hyperventilate if she didn’t stop. He tried to push away that growing sense of protectiveness and that effort made his words sound short and abrupt. “Sit back and stop breathing so fast. You’re going to pass out.”

Her hands dropped just a bit and he could see her green eyes flash angrily at him. “Thanks,” she muttered, but did sit back and drop her hands to her lap.

He dismissed any apology he’d thought he should make, satisfied that she’d stopped counting bubbles and looking so terrified. “Make sure your belts are fastened and tight.”

“You, too,” she said, fiddling with her restraints.

He ignored her curt tone, and went on. “We’re going to have to fight to get to the west,” he told her, focusing on the panel in front of him. “That means jerking and possible dropping, but none of that means that we’re putting down. Do you understand that?”

He heard one word as he kept scanning the screens. “Yes.” She didn’t ask any questions.

“Ready?”

Another single word answer. “Yes.”

He didn’t have to look to know her eyes were shut. “Okay, here we go,” he said and began a painfully slow descent to the west. At first he felt it was working, despite two drops in altitude, and a jerk that snapped his head back. “It’s okay,” he said as much for his own benefit as it was for Merry’s.

“Good,” she replied, but he knew he’d spoken too soon. Things weren’t okay. They were losing altitude at about the same speed he was losing control of the plane. The angry winds knocked them, the snow finally growing into thin flakes that were more like needles being driven at them. Visibility was failing and the compass was nudging toward the south, not the west.

“No,” he murmured, trying to get control. The direction they were heading in was bringing them toward the mountain range that he flew over to get to Wolf Lake.

Now they were twisting in the air, icing on the outside direction adjusters made his control next to nonexistent. He heard Merry saying something, but the static of the radio in his ear drowned it out. He hit the button and heard more static. He felt a rush that came when he got in a tight spot, and he adjusted channels again, trying to get some clear connection between them and the nearest tower.

He gave his call identification, thought he heard someone say, “Roger, where—?” Then abrupt static was all he detected, along with the sounds of the wind beating against the plane, the whine of the engines and his own heart rattling against his ribs. He darted a look at Merry and was surprised to see she wasn’t doing her bubble counting. She was gripping the sides of the seat, but her eyes were on him, filled with what looked like disbelief.

“What?” he asked when she didn’t speak.

With a shake of her head, she rasped, “You’re crazy.”

He didn’t know where that came from. “You won’t be the first to call me that, or the last.”

“I bet,” she managed before biting her lip hard when the plane shuddered from the wind.

“How did you come to that diagnosis, Dr. Brenner?”

“All I had to do was see that excitement in your eyes,” she said. “You’re actually enjoying this!”

He wouldn’t deny that, at least for now, and he hit her with his own question as the plane seemed to settle a bit. “Why exactly are you here?”

Very slowly, they were gaining ground on a southerly direction. “You know why,” she responded.

“No, I don’t know.” Make her talk. Keep her occupied. “You’re terrified of flying, yet spent a hundred dollars to get on this ‘small, fragile plane’—your words, not mine—just so you could get home a day earlier than if you waited for a commercial flight.” He read and reread the altimeter. “Now, don’t you think that unless there’s some certifiably pressing reason behind all of this, you might be a bit crazy to inflict torture on yourself by flying with me?”

When she didn’t answer, he chanced a glance away from the screens to her. She was staring straight ahead, her teeth busy worrying her full bottom lip. “I just want to get home.”

He’d blown it. All that anger was gone, and she looked as if she was on the verge of tears. He could kick himself for whatever he’d said that did this to her. “Okay, you’re just in a hurry.”

She was still silent and Gage felt the plane slide slightly as the altitude decreased enough for him to feel it. He hoped Merry wouldn’t feel it, too. Wrong again. “What was that?” she asked abruptly.

“Just an adjustment,” he replied, then tried the radio again. While he sent out his ID, it was met by the incoming contact. He went through a check, felt positive, and told the tower that they had stabilized and were now heading west. After giving their coordinates once again, he said he’d contact them at a designated time for an update and signed off.

While he settled back, letting the plane do the work now that circumstances were more normal, he had a thought, but didn’t know where it had come from. Merry was doing anything to get home and the logical reason was someone was waiting for her in Wolf Lake, someone she was willing to risk everything to get to.

He kept a check on the information, but wondered why the conclusion he’d drawn, almost annoyed him. After all, what did he care what her reasons for returning home were? He’d known her for an hour at the most, and she was a “client.” That brought a slight smile at the ridiculous way she’d managed to become a client.

“I told you, you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she demanded. “You’re almost smiling.”

He wasn’t about to tell her why he almost smiled, that was for sure. So he went for sarcasm that usually served him well. “Yeah, I just love being in the middle of a storm with ice on the wings and a compass that can’t figure out which way we’re going.”

Wrong thing to say again. “We’re lost?” she blurted, his smile long forgotten now.

“No,” he reassured her. “We’re doing just fine right now. We’ll be out of this mess in a bit, and home in Wolf Lake soon after that.”

* * *

“GREAT,” MERRY SAID on a shuddering sigh, her relief a heady thing. That was why he was smiling. They were in the clear, despite the growing storm, and he had it all under control. She’d been wrong to say he was crazy, since she was crazier than him. She should have waited at the airport. “I’m sorry,” she muttered to him, trying to block out the noise outside. “Obviously you’re in control.” She closed her eyes tightly to stop the sight of the ominous grayness that surrounded them.

“We had a problem,” he said evenly. “But we got through it. So, just sit back and count your bubbles.”

She opened her eyes to glance at him at the same time he turned to her. Her heart lurched when she was met by a smile that crinkled the corners of his dark eyes and exposed a single dimple to the right of his mouth. For that moment, she forgot all about the storm and the wind and the plane. It all came back when the plane bucked, the action so abrupt that she felt as if her heart was in her mouth.

Gage quickly got the plane under control. “Merely fine tuning,” he said, as the plane evened out again.

“You...you’re doing fine,” she breathed, needing that encouragement as much as she thought he probably did.

“Thanks,” he said, flashing another grin in her direction. “I like that assessment better than the crazy one.”

She wasn’t sure if there was sarcasm or not in his response. “I trust you, I really do.” And she meant it.

That brought a look her way that was dead sober, the dark eyes considering her before glancing away. There was no response from him, only a soft whistling of a tune she couldn’t recognize. She reasoned if he could joke about their situation, then that meant things had to be okay.

She exhaled, speaking to herself as much as to him. “You know, I’m the crazy one. I’m going back when I should have been patient. I should have called and let—”

She bolted upright. She hadn’t called Marsala back! Since she hadn’t heard anything from her, the receptionist probably figured Merry was still in Pueblo waiting for the morning flight out. She tugged her cell phone out of her jacket pocket and hit the power button. Her heart sank when she saw the battery was low and that no signal was available.

“Oh, man,” she whispered, shoving her cell back into the pocket of her jacket.

“What?” Gage asked.

“Phone’s dead, totally dead and I don’t suppose you can jump out in midair and get my duffel bag out of storage?”

He barked a short laugh at that. “No, I’m not jumping out, but as a matter of fact, I can get to the luggage area over the backseats. But no one is getting out of their restraints until we’re totally in the clear from this storm.” He touched the screen twice, then turned to her. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re agreeing that you’re crazy, too?”

“We’re both going back when we should have stayed at the airport. You knew there was a storm, but you thought you could outrun it, and I knew they’d get me on a plane at ten o’clock in the morning, and I chose to flag you down instead. We both wanted to get to Wolf Lake badly enough to risk all this.”

“Whoa, no. I’m going now because I have business meetings and I didn’t have time to cool my heels in Pueblo. I really thought, from what I was told, that the storm was far enough away and on course to sweep to the east, not southwest.” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “If I’d known, I would have stayed put, cancelled this trip and rescheduled the meetings.”

“You weren’t going home for your family?”

“It’s mostly business, but I do need to see my brother and my parents. I couldn’t get away at Christmas, and things are changing on the old homestead, so I decided to combine a business trip with a visit to the family.”

She’d heard about Adam Carson leaving with the woman he’d met at the inn in town. Something about heading to Chicago and they still weren’t back, so Adam obviously wasn’t the brother he was going to visit. “Jackson?” she asked as she leaned her head against the chair’s high backrest and watched him closely.

“Yes, Jack.”

When Gage didn’t say any more, she thought again of the mention of business in his explanation. He was going back for business? She hadn’t heard about any major construction going on, except for something about a hotel or something.

“You have business there?” she asked, thankful that the ride was fairly smooth at the moment.

He exhaled. “Yeah.”

That was that; he didn’t elaborate at all. “I would guess that since you didn’t know about your bulletin board assignment until the last minute, that your business has to be on a grander scale than something in primary colors.”

He chuckled again, a comfortable sound, despite the constant roar of the wind. “Every client is as important as any other.”

“That’s your motto?” she asked as he turned to her, smiling, that single dimple showing up again.

“Maybe it should be,” he said before he averted his gaze to look at the screens again. “So, what’s waiting for you when you get back to Wolf Lake?”

Her stomach knotted. “My kids,” she said simply.

“Your kids?”

“Yes, and I promised I’d be back tonight, before they went home.”

He looked confused. “I thought you said you weren’t married.”

“I’m not. They’re the kids at The Family Center. I told them that I would be back today. I made a calendar and put it up. Today is circled and they’re watching for me. “I can’t let them down. They’ve had too much disappointment in their lives already.”

“So that’s what’s so urgent that you had to hitchhike to get back on time?”

She almost said an automatic, “Yes, that’s why,” but something else hit her out of the blue. Something she realized she’d known all along, but hadn’t acknowledged. She simply wanted to get home as soon as possible. She needed to get back where she felt she belonged. “Partly,” she conceded, but didn’t elaborate.

“I suspect they’d be just fine if you hadn’t found a way to get back,” he said, but his tone had become almost distracted. “Kids are adaptable.”

The tension in her grew even more. “Maybe. If they hadn’t been thrown into lives that they either don’t fully understand or can’t cope with, maybe things would be different.”

“Maybe they need to learn to cope,” he said, tapping the screen right in front of him. She’d thought he was talking to keep her distracted, to make sure she didn’t freak out, but his almost absentminded comment bothered her.

“Tell them that they need to suck it up and get over it?”

The edge in her voice finally caught his attention. “No, that’s not what I’m saying,” he countered. “I just meant—”

“Your reason for going to Wolf Lake is valid, and mine isn’t?”

He held up a palm toward her. “Okay, okay, this has gotten off track. Let’s get back to what I meant, not what you heard.”

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