Chapter 20
That night with the girls had given me a lot to think about. And while I was eager to ask Charles about some of the things I’d learned, I needed to find the right moment. Today, after breakfast service, he found me brainstorming in the kitchen for the Thanksgiving Throwdown.
“Don’t suppose I can tempt you back out on the slopes?” he asked, decked out in ski gear while he watched me sketch at the kitchen island.
“Not today.” I hunched over my notebook. “I have to come up with an amazing gingerbread design, or else I’m going to completely embarrass myself.”
He peered over my shoulder at the numerous evolving ideas jotted down in pencil. “The locals do take their pastry contests seriously. Generational feuds have been born. Blood spilled.”
“Blood, huh?”
“Well, maybe it was raspberry jelly,” he laughed. “Who’s to say?”
“No one warned me there were so many rules and requirements,” I told him, unfolding the four-page contest regulations from my notebook. “I’m starting to think I’ve gotten in over my head.”
The contest was in just three days and already I felt behind the eight ball.
“You know, there is such a thing as too much preparation.” Charles pulled the pencil from my hand. “Maybe I can help.”
I reached for the pencil but he held it away from me, teasing. “I don’t see how flirting is going to help me beat a guy wearing a film-accurate Storm Trooper uniform made of gingerbread.”
Charles stopped short. “Wait, really?”
I shrugged. “That’s the rumor.”
“But what does that have to do with the town or the holidays?” he scoffed.
“I don’t know. But it would be pretty impressive.”
“No.” He tossed my pencil at the countertop. “Unacceptable. The Thanksgiving Throwdown is about the season and celebrating Maplewood Creek. We can’t let some hokey pop-culture pandering take the top prize.”
“We?” I arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re really bothered by this, huh?”
“Damn right,” he said, face scrunched in a determined grimace. “You’re going to win this thing. And you’re going to do it the Maplewood Creek way.”
“Yeah?” I said, skeptically amused by his sudden enthusiasm. “And how am I going to do that?”
A plan formed behind his brown eyes. “What you need is a little inspiration.”
I should have known better than to trust that smirk, but when Charles canceled his ski day to coax me out on a field trip, I couldn’t say no to another afternoon in his company.
“So, you want to tell me where we’re going?” I asked from the passenger seat of his Land Rover, while we bypassed the road to town and instead headed to the other side of the valley.
“If I did, you’d probably try to jump out of the car.” Charles shot a mischievous glance my way.
“You know, that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. What could you possibly have planned that would make me want to do a tuck-and-roll?” I said, searching the snow-covered scenery for any hint of what he had in store for me.
“Trust me, you’ll love it. It’s just the thing you need to get a new perspective on your project.”
There was nothing but trees and sloping rock faces all around us until a sign crept out of the ground:
Maplewood Creek Executive Airfield
I glanced over at Charles. “I’m not sure we have time to fly to Bavaria and back before I have to start dinner service.”
He smiled to himself. “Don’t worry. I was thinking something a little closer by.”
Through a gate and inside the chain-link fence, Charles drove us past several hangars before driving right onto the tarmac.
“You can’t be serious.”
Looming in front of us on two skids was a blue and white helicopter.
“I never joke about flying.”
Charles jumped out of the Land Rover and walked right up to the pilot standing beside the aerial death machine.
He left me sitting in the SUV while they shook hands and chatted, walking around the aircraft like he was on a car lot.
My eyes immediately went to the center console, but he’d taken the keys with him.
Ugh. This man was seriously annoying sometimes.
So, I took a deep breath and plastered on my best unbothered expression before I hopped out of the Rover and threw the door shut behind me. A gust of wind blew across the tarmac, whipping my hair around my face. It was a clear day, if a little blustery. Not a cloud in the sky.
“Elle, come meet Jason,” Charles said, grinning cheekily. “Jason, this is my friend Elle. She’s new to town and I thought we better give her the grand tour.”
Jason was a stocky man in aviator sunglasses and a blue flight jumpsuit, like he’d just stepped off the set of Top Gun .
“I think we can handle that,” Jason answered. “Hop on in and we’ll get going.”
While Jason disconnected the fuel line and jumped in the pilot’s seat, Charles grabbed my hand to squeeze gently.
“Excited?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“I sort of hate you right now,” I told him.
“Yeah, but you sort of love me, too.” He took me by the waist, threatening a kiss while Jason sat in the bird doing his pre-flight checklist.
“Pfft. I haven’t totally decided not to push you out the door of this thing.”
Charles pressed a brief kiss to my temple. “Like I said, you’re going to love it.”
The helicopter’s engine whirred to life, the blades slowly rotating while Charles helped me into the rear passenger seat. He pulled the harness seatbelt over my shoulders and clicked it into place, then pulled a headset down from overhead and fit it over my ears.
“So we can talk to each other,” he said.
“Yeah, I figured that part out for myself.”
He just grinned, enjoying my malcontent. “Relax. It isn’t scary at all.”
“That’s how I know you’re lying.”
Then, instead of climbing into the back beside me, Charles took a seat beside the pilot.
“What’s the matter?” I said into the headset’s microphone while the blades outside grew louder. “Afraid to sit next to me?”
“I wouldn’t want to obstruct your view.”
As a kid, I’d reluctantly let my best friend peer pressure me onto a rollercoaster once. I spent the entire ride looking straight down at my feet and digging my nails into his arm. I guess Charles knew better than to let me draw blood.
“Everybody comfy?” Jason asked.
“Nope,” I answered.
“Alright. Then here we go.”
With a little jostle, the ground suddenly fell away and that awful weightless feeling churned my stomach.
Even in planes, takeoff was always the worst part.
My knee bounced relentlessly, so vigorously that I thought I might shake the whole chopper as we climbed higher, over the trees and through the valley.
“Come on,” Charles’s voice said through my headphones. “You have to see this view. It’s incredible. We’re coming up on the town.”
Before I knew it, we were far above the heart of Maplewood Creek. The giant Christmas tree. The skating rink. All the people and decorations evident from above, like looking down on a huge snow globe.
“I can see The Snowdrift,” I said. “And Pops’s inflatable reindeer. Hey, and there’s the Grover’s Hardware yeti.”
From up here, it looked like a tiny toy village.
We soared over the ski resort and traced the curve of the slopes.
The lift looked much less daunting from up here.
Then we circled around toward the chalet and all the immaculate mansions nestled in the snowy pines.
I pressed my face against the window to peer down at the frozen lake, the hot springs hidden deep in the forest. I was so fascinated with the landscape that I completely forgot to be scared.
Until I heard Jason speak his next terrifying words.
“Ready to take the stick?”
“I’ve got the stick,” Charles answered.
“The bird is yours.”
“You’re not seriously letting him fly this thing?!” I screeched.
Charles laughed. “I slipped him a little extra to let me take it for a spin.”
“That’s not funny!”
“Don’t worry. I got my license years ago. Just keeping up with my hours to stay current.”
“He’s really not a half-bad pilot,” Jason said.
“I don’t want a pilot that’s only half-good,” I shot back.
The boys just laughed, thoroughly amused at my discomfort while Charles circled us smoothly around Maplewood Creek and over the mountain peaks.
We watched intrepid snowboarders slalom down the fresh powder from the highest rocky ridges, and spotted backcountry skiers traipsing through secluded trails.
“Keep your eyes out for polar bears,” Charles joked.
“Ha-ha.”
Once Charles had had his fun, Jason thankfully took over the controls again, and brought us back to solid ground. I couldn’t wait to climb out of that thing and feel the tarmac under my feet again while the boys said goodbye.
“See? You loved it a little,” Charles said, after we climbed back into the Land Rover and cranked up the heat.
“Not sure I would have signed up for that if I knew I was putting my life in your hands,” I said, rolling my eyes with a smirk.
Honestly, it was sort of hot he could fly a helicopter. I don’t know. Maybe it appealed to the lizard part of my brain that thought it would make him useful in an apocalypse. Women dig guys who can be handy in an emergency.
“Admit it, you had fun.”
“I had half-fun,” I told him.
His self-assured smile pulled wider across his face. “I’ll take it.”
He reached over to cover my hand with his and held it the rest of the way home.
It turned out he was right. Seeing Maplewood Creek from a new perspective did give me a spark of inspiration for the contest. I spent the night after dinner service at the dining table in my cottage, furiously sketching out a plan. Now, I just had to pull it off.