Expect the Sunrise (22 page)

She had another urge to apologize for Brody’s death. Instead she looked away. “I always wished I had a brother or sister. That’s how Sarah feels to me. Once when we were in college, I came home really late after a volleyball match. I’d gone out with friends and was a little … pickled. She locked me out of the dorm room until I promised to straighten up. Sarah was the one who got me going to church and in the end pointed me toward Christ. She knows me better than anyone.”

“Then she knows you’re doing everything you can to help her,” Mac said.

Andee shrugged, but his words felt like a balm on her ragged nerves. “She’s got a boyfriend. Hank will be beside himself when he finds out we’ve gone down.”

“And your boyfriend—how will he feel?” Mac’s voice sounded strained. It occurred to Andee that he might be having the same panicked feeling as she. He scooted away from her.

She cleared her throat. “How do you know I’m not married?”

She thought she saw him cringe. “I’m not married, Mac. If I was, I wouldn’t have let you … ah, well, thanks for being there when I …”

“Cried?”

She made a face, aware that she probably looked a mess, with puffy cheeks and swollen eyes. Hopefully the darkness masked her. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.” He crossed his chest in a childlike gesture.

“It’s just stress. I’m sure we’ll be fine. I’ve been on dozens of search-and-rescue operations that were far worse, with internal bleeding or people trapped on Denali, and we made it out.”

“You’re pretty adventurous. And you never answered my question about the boyfriend.”

She met his eyes, saw in them something dark and curious. “No. No boyfriend. I can’t see a man giving up his dreams for mine.”

“What if your dreams and his are the same?”

Andee laughed. “I highly doubt some man is going to be happy with me flying all over Alaska in the summer and living in the Lower 48 in the winter. It’s not conducive to settling down and raising a family.”

He caught a strand of hair blowing into her face. “And you want to do that? raise a family?”

How did this conversation turn so invasive? She looked away at the river, watching the water gurgle over the rocks, listening to it carve its way south. “Maybe. Yes. I guess. I don’t know. With my history I’m not sure that it would be the best thing.”

“Because your parents were divorced?” He said it so quietly that she thought maybe it had been only in her thoughts. But, no, as evidenced by the way he took her chin, drew her face to his.

“They’re separated. For fourteen years now, but they won’t get divorced.”

“Why not?” He took his hand away.

She sighed. “I don’t know. I think in some ways they still love each other. They just … can’t live together. I don’t know why. When I was sixteen, my parents had a huge fight. I know it had to do with my dad’s job and my mother’s dreams for me.”

As she gazed into the sky at the unfolding of boreal lights, time reversed. She was back in her parents’ cabin, eating her chocolate birthday cake out of a bowl, her spoon halfway to her mouth as her mother walked out of the bedroom, her suitcase in her hand. Gerard’s spoon clanked into his bowl, and in that moment Andee saw everything she’d hoped and prayed for dissolve in the expression of anguish on his face.

“I need you to fly Andee and me back to Fairbanks,” Mary had said, her voice tight, as if holding back a wave of pain.

Once reality sank in, Andee had begged, cried, pleaded to stay with her father. When she and her mother and father had finally stood on the tarmac beside the Cessna 185, the summer wind turning cold on her ears, disbelief had turned to fury.

“I told her I wouldn’t go,” Andee told Mac, “that I wanted us to be a family. That she couldn’t leave, not when she loved him.”

Mac had folded his hands between his knees, leaning into her story.

“She told me that sometimes love wasn’t enough. That we had to live with the decisions we’d made, and I had to think about my future. Then she looked at my father, tears spilling down her face, and told me to choose.”

“She asked you to choose? Between your father and her?”

Andee nodded, aware that her throat had tightened, that maybe she might not be able to speak. Especially when Mac reached out and threaded a finger through her closed grip.

“You chose your mother.”

She shook her head. “I just stood there. Frozen. I couldn’t choose. So my father chose for me. He got in his plane and flew away.”

Mac said nothing, just swallowed, staring at her.

Andee pursed her lips. “I didn’t see him again until my sophomore year in college. Sarah came with me, sorta to cushion the blow. We spent the summer here, flying. He was still ferrying hunters and working undercover.”

Mac frowned.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? Yeah, my dad—he was FBI.”

“Is that some sort of crime?” Mac asked. The fact that Emma said it with such disgust made sense, but it also felt like a knife right in the center of his chest.

Her expression clouded. “Oh, well, no. Not really. I mean, of course not. Except my father worked undercover. My mother and I thought he was a mail pilot or was flying hunters, because he was gone so much. My mother hated it, worrying all the time, accusing him of putting his job before his family. Then one day she found out that he was really FBI. It was right before I nearly crashed a plane, and I think my adventurous spirit, along with his job, caused her to snap. She came home, packed my bags, and we left, just like that.”

“Your dad didn’t try to stop her?”

“Nope,” she said. “He never wrote or called, didn’t come and see me. I could only guess why, and the answers weren’t pretty.”

Sitting beside this incredible woman, watching the wind blow the hair on her hatless head, tears glistening in her beautiful eyes, he wondered how anyone could leave her and fly out of her life.

“I was sixteen,” she continued softly. “My mother and I moved to Iowa, and she finished medical school. Looking back, I think it was a mutual decision—that my dad had a part in sending us away. My parents still write to each other, and they’ve never gotten divorced in all these years. For a long time, I’ve thought they would reconcile, but something holds them back. I think I need to face the truth that I’ve just been kidding myself.”

“I’m really sorry, Emma. I can see why your mother felt betrayed. That had to hurt, not knowing who he really was.”

Her eyes widened. Then she nodded and looked away.

“He probably wanted to tell you and your mom. He must have fought with his feelings of secrecy, maybe even hated himself for it.”

She stayed silent searching Mac’s face, as if for the truth.

He shrugged. “Just a theory, but as an agent, that’s how I’d feel.” How he
did
feel, suddenly knowing he’d hidden his reasons for forcing them to hike out. Still, the truth burned the inside of his mouth, and he swallowed it back.

“It’s funny how the closest people to you can turn out to be the ones you know the least.” Emma focused on her hands clasped between her knees. “Like my friend Micah, who thought the woman he loved killed her husband and for years blamed her for John’s death. Only last year did he figure out who the real killer was. But he let the lie eat away at him for years until he was nearly numb.”

Mac avoided her eyes. “Yeah.”

“And another friend met this guy, who she first thought was a reporter. He turned out to be an undercover Homeland Security agent.”

“I guess you can never know a person,” Mac said.

“No, I think you can. If that person wants to be known and if you slow down, really care to see them. But we spend a lot of our time loving people as we want them to be. It took me years to forgive my father for flying away. For not coming after me. I finally realized that I can’t make him be a dad. I can only be the daughter I hope to be. So I’ve spent every summer here since my sophomore year in college, flying and trying to repair those years of heartache. Looking past the obvious to what I know is underneath.”

Mac was struck by Emma’s faith in this man who hadn’t proved it. She looked past the evidence to what she believed he had in his heart. Maybe that had been Mac’s problem. He couldn’t look past his suspicions—no, his
fears
—to see the truth. To see that Emma could never be a terrorist.

“Maybe you’re right,” Mac said. “Except that when I look at you, I
do
feel like what I see is what I get.”

She sighed.

“I suppose Sarah knows the real Emma, aye?”

Emma nodded. “She came to Alaska because tomorrow is my birthday. I was going to spend it with her and my dad.”

“I’m sorry you’ll miss that.”

Emma angled a look at him. “Maybe not. If we move fast we could get to Disaster by tomorrow night.”

“Funny we haven’t seen any planes overhead. I thought that with hunting season still open—”

“Most pilots don’t like to fly hunters in after the middle of September. Too dangerous with the weather shifts. I was only doing it because I was bringing in supplies my dad would need for the winter. If they do fly, they stay nearer to the Dalton Highway.”

“How far is that from here?”

“I don’t know. About five or six miles, due east.”

“Why don’t we walk that direction then, instead of following the river?” He couldn’t deny the litmus test embedded in that question. In spite of his belief that he could trust her.

“Because we’d still be twenty miles from the nearest town. We’d have to flag down a truck or a plane, and like I said, there isn’t much in the way of traffic this time of year, especially north of Wiseman. Hence, why I want to start an FBO. We need medical services to the North Slope.”

He felt a gust of relief. See, he
could
trust her.

“So, you’re thinking of sticking around?” He wasn’t sure why he’d said that, but somehow it felt very, very important. Enough to let the words settle between them and rustle the nerves down his spine.

Emma looked at him, then slowly shook her head. “I don’t have enough money yet. I have a job waiting for me in Iowa. I’ll leave with Sarah….” Her expression dimmed. “I hope.”

Mac saw the tension written on her face. He could use the radio. He’d let that thought free a few times over the course of the day but now really took a good look at it. If the two-way belonged to Flint, then Mac should be able to climb the hill they’d just descended, fire it up, and even if he couldn’t raise the North Rim Outfitters hunting lodge, he might be able to scan through the channels and find … someone.

He’d been selfish not to think of it sooner. To consider that saving the pipeline might be more important than saving Emma’s best friend. Only … was the safety of a nation worth more than one woman’s life? It felt ugly to even think it, but the question lingered, unanswered.

“You need to get some rest.” Mac brushed Emma’s hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ears. “Put on your cap; you’ll get sick.”

She smiled at him, and it made him hurt a little with its sweetness. “Aye.” She put it on, looking out into the sky. Again he realized how pretty she was. Petite, tough, feisty, but pretty in a natural, take-his-breath-away sense that did just that.

“I’m sorry I crumpled on you, Mac,” she said finally. “I usually don’t do that.”

He let those words sink in, running his mind over the past two days, how she’d galvanized them all into action, teaching the others how to survive. She’d conquered any normal fears to help them all dig deep and unearth courage. He wondered just how much coping with her heartbroken parents had taught her to hold her chin up and continue on. To protect herself and keep people at a distance, in case they found her cracks.

In fact, that was how he’d lived most of his adult life.

“You’re a real toughie,” Mac said, “but I meant it when I said you’re not hiking out of here without me.”

She gave him a sad smile. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you—not the other way around.”

He shook free of the inane urge to slip his hand around her neck and kiss her sweetly. “I don’t need you to look after me.”

She shook her head in mock disgust. “Of course not.”

He rose and held out his hand. She took it and he helped her up, catching her in his arms when she stumbled against him, then holding her away because for the first time in Mac’s life a woman had sneaked under his calluses to the soft place of his heart.