Chapter 30
Jett chuckled, and a lightness overtook Trask. The minute he’d admitted his folly, he knew she was going to forgive him.
“I’d love to dig into this, Trask,” Jett responded sincerely, “but the lake and the ice shack are just up ahead, so we need to put this discussion on hold.”
Trask raised his head and gazed out the window nearest him.
Sure enough, Jett had brought them down low enough that he could see the ice-hut. But there was no human activity anywhere around it.
Trask immediately became focused.
“Are you able to buzz the shack a couple times to see if we can rouse Richard if he’s inside?”
“Can do,” Jett assured him.
She more than capably brought them around for two passes, both of which also included a flyover of the cabin just visible on the shore.
They got no response from inside either structure.
“Well, crap.” Jett eventually gained altitude again. “That means he’s either in the shack in trouble, in the cabin unresponsive, or somewhere in the woods, possibly lost. Because home base hasn’t called to tell us that the tracker on his truck has relocated.”
“Which also means I’m about to de-plane,” Trask told her, feeling much more upbeat about where they were at, despite the gravity of their mission.
Trask immediately began performing his pre-jump, gear check, making sure all straps and handles were secured, then gave one more look at his main and reserve chutes to see that they were on properly.
His clothing was another matter altogether, he thought, as he pulled on gloves.
The weather was chilly, and it would be a cold jump.
Given the time he’d had, he’d dressed as warmly as possible in extra layers that Jett had packed in her plane, and he felt he was as ready to roll as he ever would be.
“Take the first aid kit. You might need it,” Jett told him. “I’m not sure how much help it will be if there’s a huge emergency with Richard, but it’s better than nothing. It’s inside the compartment to your left.”
Trask fished it out and tucked it into a zippered bag that lay among all the other equipment Jett had amassed, then attached it to the front of his suit with a clip.
Trask hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.
“Ready?” Jett asked a few minutes later. “We’re approaching thirty-five hundred feet,” she told him.
A low altitude jump, but nothing he hadn’t done many times before.
“Twenty seconds.” She gave the warning, and he heard her slow her airspeed.
Trask pulled open the door and waited for Jett’s go, positioning himself partway out the door, facing forward with his left hand on the strut and his foot on the step.
“Okay. Geronimo,” she called out.
Laughing at her choice of words, and pumped up with the adrenaline that always accompanied a jump, Trask pushed off.
Freefall.
There was nothing like it.
He quickly oriented himself, flaring out his arched body and locating his target, now three thousand feet below.
Damn. It was cold. His face was already going numb.
Checking his watch-altimeter, Trask waited until he reached twenty-five hundred feet, then pulled his ripcord. His chute deployed, and using his steering lines as he slowly descended, Trask directed himself to within twenty feet of the shack.
And now, the tricky part was almost upon him.
If he’d been touching down in a field, he’d be landing on his feet, or he’d execute a tuck and roll if the ground was uneven.
But this situation was neither.
He’d never landed on ice before. When discussing it with Jett as they’d first taken off, she’d suggested he do a “butt landing”, and described the process.
It sounded fairly undignified, but who was he to argue? She was the PJ, after all.
So he did exactly as she’d suggested.
Lifting his legs at the last moment to form an L with his body, his backside hit the ice a little more aggressively than he would have liked.
“Ouch,” he yelped.
Damn, that burned.
He slid, and slid, until his momentum finally gave out, then ignoring the sting on his posterior, he quickly detached himself from his chute, and bundled it up against the slightly blowing wind, so he wouldn’t have to go chasing it around half the lake.
“Looks like you made it,” Jett said amusedly in his ear.
“Yup. And remind me not to go down ass-first, ever again.”
“Oh, do yaw widdow cheeks huwt?” she snickered. “Welcome to my world, sir, when my ass is beneath your very strict hand.”
She laughed and laughed.
Trask winced. “Don’t sound so pleased that I’m getting a little of my own medicine,” he grunted. “And don’t get too cocky. Payback’s a bitch.”
“I can’t wait,” she responded with a chortle. “Now stop making me hot, and go check on our man.”
It was amazing how Jett could beguile him away from business. Normally, he’d never be susceptible to distraction, but here he was.
She’d pay for that, too.
“On my way,” he told her.
Attempting to keep his feet underneath him, he carefully crossed the ice toward the shack which looked…abandoned.
Normally, there would be some wavering fumes emerging from the chimney from a propane powered heater inside, but Trask spotted nothing.
He picked up his pace and finally made it to his destination without taking a tumble.
For that he was grateful.
“Richard,” he called out.
Getting no reply, he pushed his way in, to—
“Man down. Man down,” Trask barked into his comm, going immediately to his knees beside the prone Richard, ripping off his coat and covering the man to give him extra warmth. Trask’s gloves were also thrown aside in order to feel for a pulse at the man’s neck.
Jett responded. “Is he…?”
Trask let out a relieved breath. “He’s alive, but his pulse is weak and thready.”
Richard stirred beneath Trask’s touch.
“Richard. Can you hear me?” Trask asked. He needed to find out what had happened to the man, if that was possible.
“Jaw. Hurt,” the man responded from between blue lips. “Left arm. Thinking…heart attack.”
“It sure sounds like it,” Trask told him solemnly.
“Coughed. Breathed deep. Internet tricks,” the man weakly chuckled.
“Good job,” Trask praised, even though he knew those methods were bullshit. They’d been widely debunked by the medical community, and could even make things worse.
Trask reconnected to his brothers as well as to Jett.
“Possible heart attack, here,” he barked out. “Spence, Buck, are you anywhere close?”
“An hour before we get to the parking area,” Spence told him. “Then we still have to hike in.”
“That’s not good,” Trask rapped. “We need to get Richard out of here, immediately. I think the cold has actually helped him stay alive, but I’m, uh, not sure if time is still on our side.”
He turned his attention to Richard, who had closed his eyes again.
“Rest easy, Richard.” Trask tried to keep the man calm, which was the right thing to do. If Richard stopped breathing, he’d also start CPR. “We’ll have you out of here in no time,” he assured him. Which was a lie, but what—?
“I’m coming in,” Jett clipped over her mic.
“You…? What do you mean you’re coming in?” Trask snapped. “No. Not a good idea. We have no clue if the ice is thick enough to hold your plane, and even if it is, you can’t know what the surface conditions are like under the snow-cover.”
“He’s right, Jett,” Buck interjected. “That’s crazy talk.”
Good. Even Buck, who was known to take risks, was calling her out.
“I understand what you’re both saying,” she responded patiently.
Trask heard the whine of her plane circling above.
“But crazy or not, I have no choice. A life is hanging in the balance here.”
“And what?” Trask’s voice rose. “You’re willing to trade your life for a shot at saving his?” Everything inside of Trask was screaming for her to stop. “Do. Not. Land. I forbid it, Jett. Do you hear me? We’ll figure out something else.”
“Do you want to help, or hinder?” Jett returned snarkily, completely ignoring his words and his orders. “If you want to do something other than whine, tell me how thick the ice is while I do a go-around and check out the conditions for landing.”
“Jett. Please.” Trask wasn’t beyond begging. The foolish woman was risking life and limb before he’d even gotten a chance to admit…
Fuck.
That he loved her.
This was love he was feeling. He knew the instant he pictured her plane crashing into the lake. There was not a shadow of a doubt in his mind.
Briefly imagining his life without her, even as adversaries, was completely beyond his comprehension.
Never to see her smiling face again?
Never to hold her warm body next to his?
Never to hear her sass him for being a jerk?
Hell no. He couldn’t do this without her.
Trask tried again.
“Please Jett. Buck and Spence will be here soon.” His voice sounded broken.
“We will, Jett,” Buck chimed in, adding his weight to the conversation.
Trask kept on, even knowing it would do no good. “I promise I’ll keep Richard comfortable and—”
“And what, Trask?” Jett interrupted sharply. “Carry the man miles through the woods to the parking area? Come on. Be real. You know that will be too late.” She dragged in a breath. “But if I land, we can fly him to the nearest hospital, and he’ll at least have a fighting chance.”
Trask bowed his head.
What she said was true.
It hurt like hell, but he swallowed the bile that had risen in his throat, then almost blindly found a yardstick leaning up against the side of a canvas chair.
He resolutely smashed the thin layer of ice that had reformed over the fishing hole, and blinking back tears, he lowered the instrument into the water.
“Fifteen inches,” he managed to rasp out after measuring the thickness of the ice.
“Excellent news,” Jett responded evenly. “Good enough for a large pick-up truck,” she chuckled, “so plenty good enough for me.”
“But…you know it might not be as thick in other spots,” Trask reminded her, trying not to let her see the depths of his distress.
“Which is why I’m doing a low pass overhead in a minute,” she replied patiently. “To have a closer look.”
Which wouldn’t tell her much, Trask wanted to complain; certainly not the dangers that might lie within the ice; holes, stray branches.
Still, he knew there was nothing he could do to discourage her. She’d made up her mind.
He heard her plane coming in low and closed his eyes to listen intently as she buzzed by, sending up prayers he was not accustomed to making.
“It doesn’t look terrible,” she told him. “I can see some of the surface because the wind has blown a lot of the snow away. It appears rough, but not as uneven as some of the terrain I’ve landed on in the past.”
She complained for one moment. “I only wish that I’d sprung to have these damned pontoons swapped out for skis. That retrofit would have come in handy right about now.”
Trask knew that skis would have made an ice landing so much easier.
Without them…
A pontoon touchdown was out, because the wide, flat bottoms would create too much drag and send her plane cartwheeling. A terrifying picture.
Her regular landing gear remained the only option.
But that lent itself to all kids of disastrous results that had Trask’s head almost exploding; careening out of control across the lake, heading for a thin spot in the ice that would have her submerging…
“You’re going to drop your wheels, right?” Trask somehow managed, wanting to hear reassurances from her.
“You know it. It’s my best bet. My only bet,” she laughed tightly. “Now let me concentrate, okay? I have a possible ‘runway’ sighted, and I’ll be coming in using my best, soft-field techniques. I promise.”
Trask knew that meant lowering her flaps, easing off the throttle, and adjusting her pitch so she didn’t stall.
There were still so many things that could go wrong, and even though he didn’t want to distract her, she spoke directly to him, again.
“I hear your brain sizzling down there, Trask. Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”
The damned woman was going to be the death of him. She had nerves of steel, and a confidence that could lead to disaster. If she got out of this in one piece, he was going to paddle her ass until it glowed.
“Coming in,” she told him. “Flaps lowered. Reducing airspeed…”
Trask held a painful breath as she talked him through her prep.
“Uh, Trask? Just in case something goes wrong,” she postulated a little less confidently. “I…”
Trask groaned and waited.
“I…I actually need to tell you that I love your bossy, grumpy ass. And you’d damned well better fish me out of the drink if I go in head first.”
She…loved him? What the…?
Her distraction worked, because the next thing Trask knew…
“Skimming. Skimming…” she said as if she hadn’t just rocked his whole world.
He held his breath.
“Touchdown!” she shouted.
That was good, but before Trask celebrated, he wanted the plane stopped.
“Using rudders only. No brakes,” Jett added in almost a whisper to keep him in the loop. “Come on, baby,” she said to her plane. “We can do this.”
Trask knew she wasn’t out of the woods. If she kept skidding, and couldn’t keep the plane straight, she risked sliding off the ice and crashing into the tree line.
Trask waited, and waited, his chest contracting almost painfully.
“Success!” she finally squealed. “I made it.”
Trask’s whole body collapsed next to Richard, whose eyes were open and looking hopeful.
Trask patted him on the shoulder. “Your ride has arrived,” he choked out, but his next words, as he rolled to his back, were for Jett.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” he lambasted her.
Then he remembered what she’d said in the heat of the moment.
“Shit, Jett. You…really love me?”