If You Loved Me (13 page)

She hadn't realized planes had windshield wipers until Gray's began sweeping the window in front of her. As thousands of raindrops exploded on the windshield, the world shuddered. Emma had nothing to hang onto, so she dug her fingers into her own legs. She could see only gray clouds through the windshield.

Gray muttered a curse and his hands moved on the controls. The engine whined in protest. In her headphones, he muttered something about no damned visibility. They must have dropped down, but she hadn't realized because blackness had poured out of the western sky and filled the world.

It felt as if they were skimming the white-streaked water below. She couldn't see land. The rain had come in so fast, and with it the air had thickened, obscuring both trees and mountains.

The plane strained and shuddered as if fighting an overwhelming force.

"Are you going to land?"

She hadn't meant to ask, not now, when she could see intense concentration on Gray's face and knew the last thing he needed was distractions.

"Too rough," he growled, the words barely distinguishable over the sounds of wind, rain, and the plane's engine.

She squinted through the windshield and realized that those white streaks on the water were waves stirred up by the sudden wind. The water had been gray and mostly smooth when they took off only a half hour ago. Now it was wild and white. They must be higher than she'd thought, because she couldn't actually distinguish the waves, only their white tops where the surf broke in the wind.

"Chart our location," he yelled. "I need to know exactly where we are."

She pulled out the chart and quickly located the longitude and latitude showing on the GPS.

"Half a mile off the eastern shore of Grenville Channel," she shouted. "Fifteen miles north of the entrance to Klewnugget Inlet."

"We need a quiet piece of water! Look for—"

"Klewnugget Inlet! We can go back—"

"No, it's blowing like hell from the southeast. We can't fight that wind, and Klewnugget is too big. The water will be a mess in a southeaster. Find me something smaller without a southerly opening. There should be an inlet just north of us." Then she thought he said, "Sin gale. A few miles north."

She found it then, an unpronounceable bay named Kxngeal Inlet.

"There!" she shouted, holding the chart up for him to see, her finger marking the little bay. The airplane dropped suddenly, driving her seat belt into her hips. Emma gasped and clutched at the chart as the air threw the plane back up.

Air pockets, just air pockets. Turbulence.

"There's a rock near the entrance to that bay," he shouted. "Find it on the chart. I need to know how much water is over it right now. There'll be an X on the chart, and numbers beside it What does it say?"

She was trying to make out details on the chart, but the heaving motion of the seaplane made it almost impossible.

"Keep track of where we are," shouted Gray. "We could lose the shoreline at any moment."

The world was shrinking as he spoke, narrowing to gray walls. She thought she could see darkness where the trees might be, but she wasn't sure.

The little plane lurched again, wind or air pockets sending it shuddering, throwing her against the seat belt, moving her world and making it nearly impossible to find the small mark on the chart.

"I see the number
one!"
she shouted. "And a
two,
in smaller print, just beside it."

"OK, that's over a meter at low tide. How much tide have we got?"

She pulled out the little tidal chart from the pocket beside her, glad she'd paid close attention earlier when he'd taught her how to calculate tides.

"High tide's three hours away. So we should have"—she did a quick calculation from the numbers in the book—"right now, about eight feet of tide."

"Good enough. We can forget about the rock." He grinned at her then, a dangerous slash of his mouth that reminded her of the boy she'd met all those years ago. "We'll need luck on the water. We can't stay up here or we'll be flying blind." His hand covered hers. "I'm not planning to crash, but when I tell you, I want you to put your head down and wrap your arms around your knees. It could be rough."

"All right," she said. "I'm not afraid."

He shook his head as if he knew her words for a lie, but he nodded and commanded, "Call out our position every thirty seconds. I want to know how far off the shore we are, and our distance to the lighthouse on that point."

It reminded her of surgery, the anesthetist calling out blood pressure and heart rate when things got dicey. She realized she'd told Gray the truth. She wasn't frightened. Her heart was probably pounding faster than normal, though she couldn't tell amid the buffeting vibration of weather attacking the plane, but she could feel the blood zinging in her veins.

Although harsh elements she didn't understand were waging war, it wasn't fear she felt. Tension, yes, and the same alert readiness she felt when she held a scalpel in the operating room, knowing she had skill and willingness, knowing also that fate could raise the stakes in a moment, taking control of the surgery and demanding that everything she had, everything she was, be thrown into the battle for health and life.

In the same way, fate had taken control of this flight from Gray. His hands were steady on the controls, just as hers would have been steady in the O.R.; his eyes narrowed and intent on the little that could be seen through his windshield.

If it was possible to land safely, he would manage it.

Please, God, let Chris and Jordy be all right.

Gray got on the radio, telling the Coast Guard their position, explaining his plan to land in Kxngeal Inlet.

"One mile to the light," she shouted. "Half a mile offshore."

"Good." His voice was strong and steady in her headphones. "I can see the light now. Tell me when we're a quarter mile past it."

When she did, he shouted, "Hang on! This'll be rough."

The engine changed tone, then suddenly the plane was caught in a vortex, shuddering against the wind. She was pressed hard against the seat, and then the plane that was her world seemed to fight back against the wind. She could see only the GPS readout and gray everywhere.

She fought to hold the chart still enough to see.

"You're in the mouth of the inlet, but, Gray, I can't tell—"

"Get your head down. I'm going to try it."

She pushed the chart out of her way and bent over, assuming the crash position with her head against her knees and her arms wrapped around her legs. Her headphones pressed into her ear but she wouldn't take them off. If she did, she couldn't hear Gray if he spoke.

Her mind told her this might be the end of their lives, that they could die together here. Her heart replied it couldn't happen like this, not now, with Gray at her side and Chris lost in the wilderness.

She turned toward Gray, the headphone earpiece pressing into her knee and her face. The vibration of the plane came through her body. She couldn't see Gray's face, only his knees and sometimes his hands as he held the rudder, then moved his right hand to the stick.

She didn't understand the controls, had only a vague idea. Tomorrow, when the weather improved... if the weather improved... she'd ask him how the controls worked. Exercising her brain would help her cope with the stress of worrying, searching.

She found herself praying.
God, if something happens, please look after Chris.

She knew a lot about stress, about waiting when you had little control. She'd seen the panic and helplessness in the faces of others who waited for her to come and tell them their children were safe, that bones would mend and legs develop the strength to run and play ball again.

But almost everything she knew of helplessness and stress was from the other side. She was accustomed to being in charge, to wielding the scalpel that cut through fate. When Chris didn't call Wednesday night or Thursday morning, she'd known she had to search for him herself. Now fate was threatening to take that option from her, to ground Gray and Emma with a storm, leaving them no way to search, nothing to do but wait, just as the parents of her children waited for her to come out of the operating room.

Gray turned the shuddering plane, the metal cage fighting the weather's whim. She lost track of which sound was wind and which the roaring engine. Her world became Gray's hands moving, the flex of muscle in his wrist, the tension in his leg as it shifted only inches from her face.

Suddenly, the plane gave a mighty shudder and a jerk. Silence took her unawares. It seemed as if the wind had stopped, as if the world's pulse ceased beating. Panic rose up and Emma knew they were going to die, that they would crash into the trees or into that rock because somehow she'd read the depth of water over it wrong or she'd got the tidal information backward.

The seaplane's engine had stopped.

No. No, it hadn't. It was purring now, and she heard something else. What was that sound? Flaps? Was Gray putting on the flaps, preparing to land?

The wind was gone. How could that be?

She saw the tension in Gray's hands, the relaxed angle of his thigh inches from her face, the stance of a skilled man who had things under control, but was alert for signs of danger. Through the window beside him, she saw... trees.

They'd dropped below the treetops and the trees must be blanking out the wind.

His hand moved as she felt the flutter of pontoons grasping the water, skimming over the highest waves. This was her fifth seaplane landing and she recognized the sensation, although this time it was tangled with a vibration like driving over an unevenly graded gravel road.

Bumpy landing. She fought a wave of nausea that welled up in response to the heaving motion, forced it down, but the motion grew worse as they slowed and the plane's engine dropped to an idle.

Gray's hand lifted from the rudder—at least, she
thought
that was the rudder. His fingers settled gently on her hair.

"We're down. It's okay."

His hand slid to her shoulder. She twisted her head and saw that although he looked pale, he was smiling.

"Rough landing. Sorry about that."

"I didn't notice."

He laughed and squeezed her shoulder, then she felt a shaft of loss as he lifted his hand away.

"What do we do now?"

Gray seemed intent on studying the world outside the plane, although to Emma's eyes there was little to see. They were confined to undulating water ringed by the impenetrable gray that had flowed in on them with the storm, and a muddy green line of darkness to the left. She thought the darkness might be trees, knew it
must
be trees.

The water didn't have the white streaks of roughness she'd seen out in the channel, but it wasn't smooth either. Riding on the surging surface, the plane had a sickening motion.

"Gray, I need... airsickness bag?"

"Open the door. The air will help." He leaned across her and did something to the door. The back of his arm pressed into her breast, and his muscles tightened as he released the catch and let in a wave of damp air.

Nausea swept over her face in waves, as if seasickness had grabbed hold of her mind as well as her stomach. With the air came the sound of the idling engine, ebbing and flowing like water on the shore.

"I didn't expect to get seasick," she said, trying to hold reason as a weapon against the waves of nausea.

"Look at the trees, not the water."

She jerked as his fingers closed on her wrist, warm and hard.

"Push your sleeve back." He didn't wait for her to comply, but shoved her sweatshirt several inches up her arm. His fingers searched the inside of her wrist, her pulse beating against their pressure. How could it be possible to feel nausea and sensual awareness at the same time?

"Right there," he said, pressing his thumb into her wrist. "This is an acupressure point for nausea."

As his thumb probed her inner wrist, sensation radiated through her entire body.

"You're kidding," she gasped.

He pinned her eyes with his gaze, his mouth only a heartbeat away from hers. "How's that?" he asked, his breath warming her lips.

If she leaned forward the smallest bit, her mouth would brush his. With her pulse beating into his touch at her wrist, the pull felt overwhelming.

"Does it feel better?" He asked.

His husky voice confused her and her reaction must have shown in her eyes, because she felt his response as if his pulse were beating in her body. She fought for reason.

"Acupressure?" She swallowed hard, told herself to get his hands off her, but the words didn't come.

"How's the nausea?"

"It's, ah... it's gone."

His eyes widened and she knew her voice must be even more unsteady than she'd thought. "I... I, ah—I can—thanks."

She pulled her arm, but he didn't release her.

"The spot's right here," he said, turning her wrist so it lay in her lap like someone else's, as if her arm were their patient and they two doctors examining it, except she could feel her own pulse beating hard and fast. "Two fingers from the joint, just between these fine bones."

He showed her how he measured the spot and she stared at his hard brown wilderness hands on her pale city skin.

"I've got it," she said, breathless. The nausea had disappeared, either from the acupressure or as a side effect of her response to his touch on her flesh, his mouth hovering so close to hers. She tried to think of something else to say, anything to break the strain of her heartbeat and the need to know whether his mouth still tasted like a heady, masculine drug.

"It's strange that you know about this acupressure point and I don't. I mean, my being a doctor." She cleared her throat and forced her voice to steadiness. "Do I keep pressing this spot until the wind goes down? Or do I stop after ten minutes or something?"

"Keep pressing, but give me the chart first, and pull that door closed when you're ready. I'll find a spot where we can run up on shore and get out of this slop."

He found a small patch of sand surrounded by evergreen trees and ran the amphibious plane onto the bumpy beach. The surrounding trees stretched up to disappear in the fog. Emma twisted to look back, but couldn't see the water beyond a few feet.