Читать книгу A Match Made In Alaska - Belle Calhoune - Страница 11

Chapter One

“Welcome to O’Rourke Charters. Thank you for choosing to fly with us today. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable for the flight, Miss Murray?” Pilot Declan O’Rourke waved Annie Murray toward her seat on the small plane. As she walked past him, he looked down at her leopard pajama pants and slightly shook his head, unable to hide his grin.

“Thank you,” Annie said in her cheeriest voice, determined to be positive. “I’m happy to be here.” She took a good look at him, hoping he didn’t consider her perusal staring. This Alaskan pilot was a very impressive-looking man. She hadn’t expected him to be quite so rugged and handsome.

He was tall, hovering at six foot three or so, she imagined, with an athletic, lean build. He was wearing a beat-up leather aviator jacket and a pair of jeans. His face was the real standout. Cheekbones for days and a perfectly symmetrical face. He had sea-blue eyes and a head of blond hair. A strong jaw completed the picture.

“Don’t forget your headset,” he reminded her, holding out one for her.

Annie settled into her seat on the seaplane and let out a tremendous sigh as she looked around her. She hadn’t imagined being the sole passenger on the flight, although the plane wasn’t big enough to accommodate more than a few people. Really teeny-tiny, she realized. Why hadn’t she thought about her tendency toward claustrophobia? She wasn’t afraid of flying, but up till this point in time, the planes had always been normal-size ones.

Keep your eye on the prize. Gram’s voice buzzed in her ears. A little discomfort was worth it if she found her one true love.

At the moment she was thankful for small blessings. Her earlier flight from Bangor, Maine, had been almost two hours late landing at the Anchorage International Airport. In order to make her connecting flight to the small fishing village, she had raced from one terminal all the way to the farthest part of the airport. Declan O’Rourke had been impatiently waiting for her arrival at the terminal. As owner of O’Rourke Charters, he was the pilot she had hired, sight unseen, to fly her to Love.

As the plane took off and began to climb gradually in altitude, Annie closed her Leslie Lemon mystery novel and peered out the window at the stunning Alaskan landscape. It was awe inspiring. She grinned at the sight of snow-dusted mountains looming in the distance. It felt like a whole new world, light-years away from her life in New England. She was now on her way to her final destination—Love, Alaska. The plane was soaring somewhere above Anchorage, and in less than an hour they would arrive in Love.

Love, Alaska, was a town filled with hot bachelors looking for love. And thankfully for her, there was a shortage of single women in the fishing village. It was leaps and bounds away from the situation she was leaving behind in Maine. Whimsy was filled with senior citizens. Eligible men were as elusive in her hometown as a Bigfoot sighting. Her chances of being struck by lightning were far greater than being in a serious relationship in her hometown. Words couldn’t express how much she wanted to find that special someone and walk down the aisle. So now she was headed to Love in order to find her own happily-ever-after. The cherry on top was that she had been hired as head librarian for the newly restored Free Library of Love.

And, although she hadn’t confided in a single person about her quest, she was hoping to find the missing pieces of her family puzzle in the Alaskan hamlet. Discovering the identity of her grandfather was high on her agenda. Maybe if she was able to locate her long-lost family members, she would find peace and welcoming arms. Life had been pretty lonely lately.

“How’s everything back there?” The pilot’s voice came through the headset. Loud rumblings from the cockpit would have made it impossible for them to communicate without the gear. Annie was aware that pilots also wore headphones to spare themselves from hearing loss.

“Everything is fine,” she answered. “I’m enjoying the beautiful scenery.”

She swung her gaze toward the cockpit, where the impossibly handsome pilot was handling the controls with an authoritative air. Prior to hiring Mr. O’Rourke, she had looked into his background and discovered that he was a seasoned pilot who had earned rave reviews for his expertise and skill. However, her extensive research hadn’t prepared her for coming face-to-face with the most eye-catching man she had ever laid eyes on.

It sort of made sense. She’d seen photos in a magazine of some of the men from this lovelorn town. They weren’t as handsome as Declan O’Rourke, but they were cut from the same cloth. Good-looking, Alaskan eye candy. It was a major selling point for Operation Love, a program that matched up single women across the United States with the bachelors in Love. And women from all around the United States seemed to be paying attention.

Despite his jaw-dropping looks, he wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. His first glance in her direction had been comprised of a raised eyebrow and a frown. Humph! Hadn’t he ever seen a person in fuzzy leopard pants before? She’d worn the pajama pants so she could be comfortable during the seven-and-a-half-hour flight from Maine. Due to unexpected turbulence, she hadn’t been able to change out of her comfy pants as she’d planned. So, instead of looking sophisticated and sharp, she looked downright peculiar.

It didn’t matter what other people thought about her. Or at least, it shouldn’t. Part of this grand adventure meant ridding herself of old insecurities and doubts. Traveling to Love as part of Mayor Jasper Prescott’s Operation Love campaign meant that after so many years of having her nose stuck in a book, she was finally taking steps toward living the life she’d always imagined.

As the plane flew across the Alaskan tundra, Annie surveyed the vast landscape stretched out before her. Goose bumps rose on her arms. She had always dreamed of seeing Alaska in person rather than reading about it in travel books and encyclopedias. Fat clouds resembled cotton candy as the sun bounced off them. The ground below was powdered with white snow. It almost resembled spun sugar, like the cupcakes at Mabel’s Cupcake Haven back home. She felt a stab of homesickness. Mabel’s cupcakes had always been Gram’s favorite.

Just thinking about her sweet Gram caused a lump to form in her throat. She was the only person in her life who had ever shown her unconditional love and acceptance. And now that she had passed away, Annie felt as if she needed to do something in memory of Aurelia Alice Murray, the woman who had raised her and taught her everything she knew about life and love and faith. The ache of loss never truly went away. It had lessened with time, but it was still there—a painful reminder that a huge chunk of her heart was now missing.

“We should be arriving in Love right on schedule. Sit back and enjoy the flight, Miss Murray,” Mr. O’Rourke announced, turning around and flashing her a megawatt smile that did funny things to her stomach. A host of butterflies was now fluttering low in her belly. Her pulse was racing.

Men like him were used to charming women like her. He had charisma. One smile was probably all it took, she surmised. He could be as grumpy as a bear and then, as long as he turned on his pearly smile, all would be forgiven. She let out a sigh. Gorgeous men like Declan O’Rourke were ones she intended to steer clear of in her quest for romance. She knew from Gram, her mother and her own experiences with love that good-looking charmers led women on a path straight to heartache.

A short while later, her thoughts were interrupted by another comment from the pilot. “If you look out the left side of the plane, you can see a glacier,” he called out. “It’s pretty famous in these parts. We Alaskans think it’s pretty spectacular.”

Annie sucked in a breath at the sight of the glacier. It was breathtaking even from this distance. “It’s gorgeous!” she said, feeling awestruck by the rivers of ice below.

Anticipation was beginning to build up inside her as the minutes passed. A quick glance at her watch revealed that they were almost halfway through the flight. Love, Alaska, was within reach. For so long now, Gram’s stories had fueled her curiosity about the Alaskan hamlet where her grandmother had been born and raised. As a child, she had often fantasized about how amazing it would have been if they had lived in the small fishing village. All of these years, she’d had to be content with imagining the town of Love. Now she would actually be able to live in it. She couldn’t wait to become a part of the tight-knit community and to walk along the same steps Gram had traveled.

No one is ever a stranger for long in Love. Gram’s voice surrounded her, providing all the comfort of one of her knitted blankets. Her grandmother had always taken such pride in her knitting. Each project had been made with love. Tears pricked her eyes as memories washed over her like a strong tide. The loss was still a sharp wound in her heart. Grief was like an ocean, ebbing and flowing and rising up without warning. She swiped away her tears with the back of her hand, reminding herself that Gram would have been thrilled by Annie’s decision to relocate to her beloved hometown. They had often talked about one day taking a trip to the place of Gram’s birth. The car accident that had ended her grandmother’s life short-circuited those plans. Annie would always regret not having made the trip to Love with the woman who had raised her.

“Is this your first time in Alaska?” The rich timbre of Mr. O’Rourke’s voice trickled through the headset. “If so, you’re in for a treat. There’s no finer state than the last frontier.”

“Yes. I’m a first-timer,” she answered. “But it’s something I’ve dreamed of doing my whole life.”

“Well, I’m happy to be able to help you check something off your bucket list.” His voice was infused with merriment. She wasn’t certain if he was laughing with her or at her.

Through the headset, she could hear him singing a song that had been really popular a few years ago about love gone wrong. His voice wasn’t half-bad, Annie thought. It took a confident man to sing like that at the top of his lungs.

She gazed out the window and allowed herself to daydream for a moment. Nottingham Woods. Deer Run Lake. The shops on Jarvis Street. Kachemak Bay. Pretty soon Annie would be seeing all of these local landmarks for herself. And she would enjoy every moment of exploring her new world. All in loving memory of Gram, the woman who had shown her unconditional love and encouraged her to fly like an eagle. Although she was proud of her profession as a librarian, life in Whimsy hadn’t really allowed her to soar.

“Oh, c’mon, Lucy. Please, pretty baby, don’t give up on me now.” The pilot’s raised voice radiated an urgency she couldn’t ignore. It made her sit up straight in her seat and tilt to the side so she could see what was happening up in the cockpit. Who in the world was Lucy? And what had she done to make him so upset?

The plane began to shudder violently, and a rattling sound rose up underneath her seat. The window began to shake. She leaned forward in her seat. “Mr. O’Rourke. Is everything all right up there?” she asked, swallowing past her fear to broach the question.

For a moment, her question was met with silence. Just as she was about to ask him again, she heard his deep voice responding to her. “No, Miss Murray. Everything is not all right. We are in a very serious predicament.” She watched as he pushed a button and began speaking into the headset. “Air traffic control. This is pilot Declan O’Rourke. November, six, two, four, eight, Sierra. Forty miles Southeast of Anchorage Airport. Mayday. Mayday.”

Mayday? That sounded like a distress call. Her heart thundered in her chest as the reality of the situation began to sink in.

“Can you read me? Air traffic control,” he cried out again before tapping the headset. “Of all the times to lose communication,” he shouted.

Annie bit her lip. She wasn’t a woman prone to panic, and she knew nothing about the mechanical aspects of aviation, but something felt terribly wrong. The plane was now bucking up and down as if it couldn’t be controlled. Declan O’Rourke’s voice had sounded strained and filled with alarm. He was frantically working the controls.

“Are we almost there?” she asked. “What seems to be the problem?” she cried out as the plane suddenly dropped.

“Almost isn’t going to cut it. We’re still a good distance from our destination and too far away from the airport to turn back. I need to land Lucy right now,” he said in a tense, raised voice.

He was letting her know in his cut-and-dried manner that they were in the midst of a serious, potentially life-threatening situation. Clearly Lucy was the name of his plane, one that was suffering some sort of dire malfunction.

Oh no! They weren’t anywhere near an airport or the town of Love. They were in the middle of nowhere. To confirm that fact, Annie peered out the window. All she saw were trees. Lots and lots of Alaskan trees. Sitka spruce trees. Birch trees. Pine trees. All dusted with pretty white snow. She had researched them all. And now the plane was hurtling toward them at lightning-fast speed. Terror gripped her by the throat. Instead of living out her dreams, she was caught up in a nightmare scenario. Impending doom. All she could think of at the moment was that she didn’t want to die in obscurity in the Alaskan wilderness. She had always imagined that she would die peacefully at home at the ripe old age of one hundred.

“Assume the crash position. Prepare for an emergency landing,” O’Rourke called out.

Annie’s heart dropped to her belly as she bent forward over her knees and placed her hands on the back of her head. A crash landing? Is this how her grand adventure was going to end? All she had wanted to do in making this voyage was to chase after her dreams. Instead she was going to plummet to her death in a rinky-dink toy plane. Maybe she should never have left Whimsy in the first place. At least there she might have had an opportunity to die of old age in her bed.

Dear Lord, please don’t let this be the end. Even though things have been a little rough lately, I love being alive. And I have so much more living to do. I want to fall in love. I want to become a mother. I want to make a difference in this world. And I want to change people’s lives with the gift of books. Mercy, Lord. Above all else, mercy.

She shut her eyes tightly as the plane continued to drop out of the sky. Her stomach lurched as she felt the seaplane nose-dive toward the snow-covered ground at an alarming speed. If these were her last moments on earth and God was calling her home, she would handle it with grace and courage. She would accept His will.

The plane hit the ground with a thunderous bang, then veered to the right before skidding for an agonizing amount of time. It finally came to a grinding halt. They had crash-landed! As the plane seemed to crumple all around her, Annie let out a blood-curdling scream that she felt certain could be heard all the way back in Maine.

* * *

Declan O’Rourke had been flying planes since he was fourteen years old. He knew them inside and out. It was pretty much the only legacy his old man had ever handed down to him. His father had also been a pilot until he had thrown it all away and become a felon. His grandfather had given him a vast knowledge of the inner workings of planes and how to be a first-class pilot. He had given Declan something in his life to be proud of achieving. He’d flown in snowstorms, rainstorms and through ice and hail, thunder, lightning and dense fog. On one occasion he had guided his plane without the use of instruments when they had failed him. Not once had he ever been faced with an emergency crash landing. There had been instances when things had gotten dicey, but nothing like this moment in which he had landed the plane with white knuckles gripping the controls.

He held out his hands in front of him. They were shaking uncontrollably.

Once he’d collected himself, he took a moment to utter a prayer of thanks to the big guy upstairs. God had shown him mercy in a terrifying situation. In those moments of stark fear, God had been at his side, guiding him to safety. He quickly got up from his seat and left the cockpit. On his way out, he grabbed the emergency kit he had stashed nearby. He didn’t have a moment to spare. Even though he was still in shock, he needed to assume control of the situation. As the pilot of this aircraft, he was responsible for Miss Murray. He needed to ensure that she made it safely out of the plane. And judging by the way she’d just screamed, she was alive and kicking.

When he reached the back of the plane, he noticed his passenger was sitting in her seat with her eyes pressed closed. Part of the infrastructure of the plane had collapsed around her. He leaned down so that his face was near hers. “Miss Murray. Are you all right?”

“Are we alive?” Annie’s eyelids didn’t even flutter. She was sitting in her seat, ramrod straight, her hands clutching the armrest. She wasn’t moving a muscle. But he did a quick perusal of her and thought she hadn’t sustained any injuries.

Despite the grave circumstances, her question made him want to laugh. “I can assure you that we are very much alive, Miss Murray.”

“Thank You, Lord,” she whispered. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life living up to Your faith in me.”

A protective instinct rose up inside him. He squashed the urge to put his arm around her and tell her everything was going to be all right. For starters, he had never been in a plane crash, and he had no idea whether they were going to make it through this ordeal. The one thing he did know for certain was that they needed to exit the plane quickly. He could smell smoke, although he couldn’t see any flames yet.

“Miss Murray, we need to get off the plane in case there’s an explosion from the fuel.”

Her eyes flew open upon hearing his words. They were a pretty brown with caramel flecks. Without her oversize glasses weighing her down, she was actually pretty cute. She had a button nose and shoulder-length glossy hair. A few freckles were scattered across the bridge of her nose.

Her glasses? They were no longer on her face. Had they flown off in the crash? He looked around for a moment, feeling a stab of dismay when he spotted them on the floor next to her seat, smashed to smithereens. Declan picked them up and brushed them off against his jacket. He poked out the remaining bits of glass, leaving just the frame intact. It was better than nothing, he supposed, although he surmised the glasses were a total loss.

“I hate to tell you, but your glasses are shattered.” Declan reluctantly held out the broken eyeglasses.

She reached for them, her expression shuttered. She shrugged. “It’s okay. They’re fake.”

Fake? Why would she be wearing fake glasses? He felt himself gaping at her. She was an odd woman, he realized. Eccentric. The fuzzy leopard pants had spoken volumes. The granny-style cloak harkened back to another era. The fake glasses were just another piece of the puzzle.

Declan sniffed the air around him.

“I’d love to hear all about it, but we really need to move. Quickly! I smell smoke.” He tugged insistently at her wrist and pulled her to a standing position.

“My purse!” she cried out, reaching down and yanking it up from the floor.

He fought back against a rising tide of impatience. Her purse was a luxury at this critical juncture. It certainly wasn’t worth either of their lives. “Let’s get a move on,” he said as he took Miss Murray by the hand and led her toward the exit. He let go of her hand as he worked to disengage the door lock, praying that it hadn’t gotten jammed during the crash landing. If so, things might get dicey before he could find another way out of the plane. He uttered a sigh of relief as the door opened up and he caught a glimpse of the great outdoors.

Declan raised his hand to protect himself from the harsh glare of the midday sun. The brightness of the snow made him blink rapidly a few times. He jumped out of the plane, then turned around to help his passenger down. He reached for either side of her waist and lifted her down to the ground. Suddenly she wrapped her arms around his neck as if her life depended on it. He sputtered as her grip on him tightened. Declan hadn’t expected her to treat him like her personal life preserver.

“I think you can let go of me now,” he said in a strangled voice. She was gripping him so fiercely, she was cutting off his air supply. Although she was as light as a feather, her choke hold on his neck made it hard for him to breathe.

“I’m so sorry. I think it was all the adrenaline rushing through me,” she said as she released her grip on his neck. He set her down on the snow-covered ground. She looked up at him with big brown eyes that were full of apology.

Declan cast a quick glance around him. They had landed smack dab in the middle of the Chugach National Forest. It was a vast area comprised of almost seven million acres of land. His heart lurched painfully inside his chest. Being in a plane crash was bad enough. But surviving in a no-man’s-land without food or supplies was another story altogether.

He wasn’t a man prone to panic, but if there was ever a moment to give in to that state of being, it was now. They were going to have to do something drastic to help themselves get rescued in this vast, thickly forested area. Although he was putting on a brave front with Annie, he couldn’t help but feel that locating them might be akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

* * *

So far, Annie’s grand adventure had been one big bust. As stressful as her delayed flight had been, it was nothing compared to being a passenger in a plane that had dropped out of the sky and crash-landed in the Alaskan wilderness. Everything had happened so quickly, as if in fast motion. She’d barely had any time to react. Shock had settled in the moment the pilot had announced the upcoming crash landing. All she had been able to do was pray. And wish she had never left the coziness of Maine.

In the moments after the plane touched down, the pilot had helped her out of her seat and toward safety, and although his manner had been a tad gruff, he’d mobilized with an urgency she respected. Clearly time had been of the essence.

As Annie exited the plane, a cold blast of November air hit her squarely in the face. Her eyes teared up. She shivered and drew her cloak tighter around her throat. It was much colder here than back in Maine. She stumbled as her booted feet slid on the snow. Before she could fall on her face, she managed to steady herself.

“Easy there,” he warned from behind her. “Watch your step.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just getting my bearings.” She looked around her as a feeling of dread coursed through her. They had crashed in the Alaskan wilderness. They were in the middle of a forested area on the last frontier. Otherwise known as the middle of nowhere. Common sense told her that rescue might not come right away. How in the world were they going to manage to make it through this? It was already freezing outside, and they had neither shelter nor a fire to keep themselves warm.

She felt her arm being tugged again. “Miss Murray. We need to stay a safe distance from the plane because it might explode. The inside is on fire.”

Explode? Her heart began to thunder in her chest as the threat of danger hung in the air. A burning scent singed her nostrils. Mr. O’Rourke didn’t seem the type who would be prone to exaggeration. He was a pilot, after all. Full of knowledge and wisdom and skill. She felt helpless as he pulled her away from the plane.

Suddenly she stopped in her tracks. “Wait! My bags are still inside. Everything of sentimental value I have in the world is in there!” she cried out.

“Things can be replaced. Our lives cannot,” he said in a stern voice that brooked no argument.

He was wrong! Gram’s diary was inside her suitcase, along with a blanket Gram had knitted for her as a sixteenth birthday present. Her most cherished keepsake—a picture of her mother cradling her in her arms as a newborn—was also in her luggage. If she lost these precious items, it would be like she’d been severed from her upbringing. She had already lost so much. This would be unbearable.

“No!” she screamed as she lunged toward the plane. For most of her life, she had sat on the sidelines without uttering a peep. She would never forgive herself if she didn’t take action in this moment.

Strong arms gripped her shoulders. “What do you think you’re doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

Annie felt the hot splash of tears on her cheeks. “I can’t stand by and watch it all go up in smoke. My whole life is in there!” She let out a plaintive howl. She saw his ice-blue eyes widen. A muscle in his jaw began to twitch. A low growl escaped his lips. He released her shoulders and pivoted around so that he was facing the plane.

Turning back toward her, he yelled out, “Get out of this area as fast as you can. Run as far as you can upwind. Now!” She watched as he rushed toward the plane, wrenched open the cargo hold and yanked her suitcases out in one fluid motion. With an amazing display of agility, he ran back toward her at breakneck speed. One look at his expression and Annie began to run in the opposite direction as fast as she could.

A thunderous noise interrupted the silence, followed by a crackling sound rending the air. Unable to stop herself, she turned around and glanced back at the plane. The sight of the fireball caused her knees to buckle. She sank to the ground, giving way to fear and anxiety and shock. If they had lingered a few minutes longer inside the plane, they might not have made it out alive. And because of her, the pilot had almost been blown to smithereens. For all she knew, he could have been injured.

Dear Lord, protect Mr. O’Rourke from harm. I didn’t mean to put him in danger. I just didn’t want my mementos to be destroyed. Under the circumstances, that might have been selfish. I promise to do better in the future.

She couldn’t look away as titian flames licked at the sides of the plane. An acrid odor filled the air. Within seconds, most of the plane had been consumed by the relentless blaze.