Chapter 31
“Give the lady a break, bro. She just landed a freaking plane on ice. Let her at least catch her breath,” Spencer teased.
Jett laughed at Spence’s audacity, but quickly hopped out of her plane, going around to the back to pull out a collapsable gurney she had stored away.
Yup. She owned one.
Trask would, no doubt, give her endless shit about having a Mary Poppins Cessna, but Jett found it always paid to be prepared.
She also grabbed an armful of blankets while she was at it. They’d be useful in making a painless transfer, and in keeping Richard warm.
Leaving the loading doors open for quick egress in a few minutes, Jett scrambled and slipped across the ice, arriving just as Trask threw open the shack door.
He grabbed her around the waist and before she could so much as blink, he pulled her in tightly for a quick, aggressive kiss. Then, as if he hadn’t just rocked Jett’s world, he stepped away and took the stretcher from her hands; just as abruptly turning and walking back to the patient.
“Okay, Richard. Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said comfortingly as he knelt next to the prone man. Jett followed on his heels, shaking off that whirlwind of a kiss.
She bent down to cover the patient in blankets while Trask took back his coat and put it on. Jett also laid a thick comforter down beside Richard as Trask unfolded the gurney.
Trask continued to talk softly and slowly. “We’re going to roll you to one side, Richard, then the other while we slip a blanket underneath you. Then we’ll use it to lift you onto the gurney, and you’re not going to try to help at all. You got that?”
Richard gave a barely perceptible nod.
“Good man,” Trask praised.
Jett really liked this caring side of Trask. It was something he didn’t often show, but she’d already known it was who he really was beneath the skin.
They swiftly got to work, and in less than a minute, Richard was cocooned and ready for transport.
“You ready?” Trask asked both her and Richard as he got to his feet.
There was no response from Richard this time, but Jett readied herself.
“As always.” Jett gave a nod.
“Okay. On three. One, two…”
They both lifted, and as if they’d done it a hundred times before, they easily synchronized their way out the door and headed for the plane.
“Some info for you,” Spence broke the silence, speaking in their ears as they made their way carefully across the expanse of ice. “These are the coordinates to the nearest airport. It should be an easy ten-minute flight.”
He rattled off the numbers, and Jett committed them to memory.
“I’ve already got an ambulance on route there to pick Richard up and transport him to a hospital,” Spence continued, “and I’ve contacted home base. Tabitha is driving Eloise north to that medical facility while Sheila holds down the fort and stays with the dogs.”
Jett gave a sigh of relief. She’d been turning over in her head what the next steps should be. Thank God for Spence. Now it was all covered.
The Diver Downeast task force certainly made a great team.
“Thanks Spence,” Trask replied. “Uh, I’m going dark for a minute. I need to have a few private words with Jett.”
“Trask! Old buddy, old pal,” Spence cried. “Don’t shut us out now. Things are just getting interesting.”
“Suck it, little bro,” Trask responded with a chuckle, and tapped off his device, dipping his chin to tell Jett she should do the same.
Jett gave an amused sigh.
“Fine,” she said, clicking off. “No witnesses.”
Richard wasn’t listening. He was still breathing, but troublingly, no longer rousable.
Jett verbally poked at Trask. “Just know that if you kill me, there’s nobody here to fly you out, and the clock is obviously ticking on Richard,” she added seriously.
“This won’t take long,” Trask told her as they fed the gurney in through the open doors of her plane. Trask hopped in, right behind. He turned to grab the door handle, and before he closed it, he completely blew her mind.
“I love you too,” he stated, then slammed the door behind him.
“Wha…?”
Jett’s mouth hung open. She knew it did, because her tongue was suddenly cold. She snapped it shut and skidded her way around the fuselage to open the cockpit door and hoist herself up into the pilot seat, buckling herself in.
“Hell of a time to tell me that,” Jett scolded, but only half-heartedly, because she was so freaking elated. She’d take those words from him, any day, any time, even if they were dangling on a parapet, seconds away from plunging to their deaths.
“I’m sorry I was so abrupt, but I had to get them out,” Trask said, securing both himself and the stretcher for takeoff. “Just in case. You know?”
The fool actually sounded elated, when most people would be terrified at the thought of lifting off from an ice-runway when the odds were stacked so highly against them.
But not on Jett’s watch.
“Uh, uh. There’s no ‘just in case’ about it,” Jett assured him.
Her nerves hardened like steel now that she was behind the yoke.
Yes, it was going to be tricky, getting her plane up off the ice. But she’d managed in far more unfavorable conditions than these.
She’d accomplished it under heavy enemy fire. She’d done it with not enough runway for any sane person to contemplate, and she’d gutted it out after sustaining a head injury that would have grounded a lesser person.
Today’s take off was no joke. But Jett was good at this. Damned good.
And she wasn’t letting anything happen to any of them, especially now that Trask had declared his love.
She wanted that love, and she wanted it for a very long time.
“Clear,” she yelled out of habit, even though there wasn’t another soul within shouting distance except maybe a moose or two.
She brought the plane around and pointed its nose into the wind, doing a quick run-up of the engine before…
“Hang on,” she said, and eased the throttle forward.
It took a hot second for her to check all her instruments, but when she was satisfied, Jett increased her power slowly and smoothly, using the rudder to counteract the confounding, right-hand pull of the aircraft.
The surface beneath the wheels wasn’t ideal by any means as her craft picked up speed, but the teeth-rattling only lasted a few seconds before…
They were airborne.
“I knew you could do it,” Trask praised, and she felt those words all the way down to her toes.
“Thanks. That means a lot,” Jett responded.
He’d turned his comm back on, and she’d done the same.
“You’re one hell of a pilot. But,” he qualified, “it still doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for pulling that landing stunt earlier,” he added gruffly. “It was both reckless and ballsy.”
Jett laughed. “Ballsy, I’ll give you,” she agreed. “But reckless? Nope. I knew exactly what I was doing at every moment.”
“You knew what you were doing, but what about the lake’s surface, huh? The elements might not have gotten the message that you kicked ass,” he scolded roughly. “Admit it. You had no clue what was under that snow-cover, and whether or not your wheels would send you into a trench to…”
She heard him choke up.
Clearly, he couldn’t finish.
“Hey. Don’t borrow trouble,” Jett told him gently. “It’s over. It worked. The end.”
Trask snorted, regaining some of his aplomb. “Uh, somebody’s ‘end’ will pay dearly for scaring the crap out of me,” he warned. “And that’s a promise.”
“Mmm. I can’t wait,” Jett giggled. “I just love it when you go all bossy on my ass.”
“Hey. I call no fairsies.” Buck’s voice sounded in Jett’s ear. “I can hear your half of the conversation but not Trask’s. He must have connected only to you, but you’ve got all of us, and we’re on tenterhooks.” His tone was gleeful. “What, exactly, is our bossy brother going to do to your ass?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Jett taunted.
“Who… Who are you talking to?” Trask’s confused voice entered the fray.
“Buck,” Jett let him know. “Apparently you went for a solo convo, but I hit group, so your brothers aren’t hearing what you’re saying, but they’re certainly privy to my responses.”
Trask growled. “Assholes.”
“He says you’re assholes,” Jett apprised Buck and Spence.
She got an earful of laughter.
“We heard,” Spence finally choked out. “He added us to the loop for that one. And just saying, Trask, it’s so much fun to rattle your cage.”
“Hah, hah,” he responded snarkily. “And now we’re done with that.”
“And if we aren’t?” Spence asked irreverently. Jett could almost see the man batting his eyelashes. “Will you make our asses pay, too?”
“Enough,” Trask ordered, using his best commanding voice, but unlike the dogs, his brothers ignored him.
“Oooh. I’m so scared that I’m trembling in my boots,” Buck snickered.
“Me too,” Spence cackled. “I’m going to go hide under my bed.”
“Umm, all joking aside now, gentlemen,” Jett interjected with a bit of seriousness. “I have eyes on the airport.”
She switched to her VHF communications.
“Control tower, this is Cessna 1297-Lima-Peru, requesting emergency landing.”
She’d already spotted the ambulance and a few other vehicles with lights flashing, below.
“Roger that, Lima-Peru,” the tower responded. “We’ve been apprised of the situation and you’re already cleared for landing.”
The air traffic controller named the proper runway she was to use, and within minutes she was on final approach.
This time Jett didn’t have to worry about ground conditions. The airstrip would have been treated for ice.
Sure enough, she made a picture-perfect landing.
She taxied as close to the emergency vehicles as was safe, and cut the engine. Seconds later, Trask had the door open and EMS surrounded Richard. They immediately strapped an oxygen mask over his face, performed a number of other life-saving procedures, and carted him off in the ambulance.
Jett heaved out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. She and Trask had done what they could do, and now it was up to the professionals.
Trask came around to her door as she opened it, and she swiveled in her seat, toward him.
He pulled his earpiece out and put it in his pocket, then did the same with hers.
“Nice job, Jett.”
She grinned as he placed his hands on her waist and lifted her down.
“You, too,” she told him.
“Me?” he joshed. “I was just along for the ride.”
“Well, buckle up,” she quipped. “Because there’s plenty more where that came from, and it looks like you’ve finally volunteered to put up with all of me.”
“I have, indeed,” he replied.
The kiss they shared, under the cold, afternoon sun, was nothing short of epic.