WILDERNESS PERIL

When the plane Lauren Carter is traveling in crash-lands near an abandoned mining town, pilot Kent Garland is convinced the charter jet was sabotaged. And one of the other injured passengers may be responsible. Struggling to keep their group safe, Lauren and Kent fight the elements—and the ill-timed feelings they are developing for each other. But as a string of “accidents” pit survivors against each other, exposing a deadly traitor means looking beyond appearances. Who can be trusted? With someone determined to kill off all the plane’s passengers, they must catch the murderer in their midst if they hope to leave this town alive.

The fuel was gone. His Challenger 350 had bled out in mere minutes.

He could just barely buy that something might go wrong with one of the engines. But both of them at once? Something was seriously bent about this flight emergency. There was nothing normal about it.

Somehow he had to radio in a mayday. But there was no way he could release the stick with even one hand in order to use the radio. Unless... He glanced sideways at the passenger in the copilot seat. Her torso quivered, and her gaze was fixed straight ahead, but at least she wasn’t hysterical.

“Any chance you know how to operate a two-way radio?”

“Y-yes. W-we use one in the hospital for medevac emergencies.”

“Put out a distress call. Frequency one-two-one-point-five.”

She did as he asked. She performed the mayday drill once...twice...three times. Dead air met every attempt. A spasm visibly gripped her throat. “The radio is dead.”

Kent clenched his jaw. “This has to be sabotage, pure and simple,” he muttered. But who? Why? Did someone want to kill one of his passengers badly enough to take the life of everyone aboard?

Dear Reader,

How deeply does it affect us when someone intimately close abandons us? Does such abandonment plant seeds of rejection and bitterness deep within our hearts? How could it not? Even many who have faith in God struggle with the tragic legacy of abandonment.

Broken families—fathers or mothers walking away from their responsibilities as parents—is an epidemic in our society. We need look no further than today’s news, the neighbors down the street, or perhaps our own households to see the consequences in terms of unhappy lives, inability to trust in others or God, or even a myriad of addictions or criminal behaviors.

In this story, Lauren needs to work through serious abandonment and trust issues that have deeply affected her. It wouldn’t be truthful to say that she’s figured it all out and all wounds are healed by the end of the story, but she’s headed in a healthy direction.

Health and wholeness, my friends, is God’s will for each of us—if we will put our trust in Him. The alternative is to become in some fashion like Rolly and Ray (Neil/Marlin). I pray that you experience God’s faithfulness and walk the healing road.

I enjoy hearing from readers so feel free to contact me through my website at www.jillelizabethnelson.com. You can also connect with me on Facebook at Facebook.com/JillElizabethNelson.Author.

Abundant Blessings,

Jill Elizabeth Nelson

JILL ELIZABETH NELSON writes what she likes to read—faith-based tales of adventure seasoned with romance. Parts of the year find her and her husband on the international mission field. Other parts find them at home in rural Minnesota, surrounded by the woods and prairie and four grown children and young grandchildren. More about Jill and her books can be found at jillelizabethnelson.com or Facebook.com/JillElizabethNelson.Author.

Rocky Mountain Sabotage

Jill Elizabeth Nelson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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A father of the fatherless and a judge for the widows,

is God in His holy habitation.

—Psalms 68:5

For all who suffer the pains of rejection and abandonment. May you find your healing in the One who will never leave or forsake you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

ONE

Lauren Carter ground her teeth together as she glared down at rugged Rocky Mountain scenery. Her breath formed patches of milky condensation on the window of the charter jet she’d boarded a little over three hours ago in New York. Thousands of feet below, cloud-wreathed peaks stabbed toward the plane’s belly. A little lower, snow-whitened troughs outlined with black ridges resembled an enormous, raggedly striped quilt. Quite breathtaking. She might actually start enjoying this impromptu fall vacation trip to California if not for her mother’s annoying question rattling around her brain like a rogue ping-pong ball.

What do you think of our handsome pilot? Why couldn’t the two of them have a relaxing getaway—try to rebuild some of the closeness they once shared—without Mom angling to set her up with any male old enough to shave but not yet eligible for a midlife crisis?

Fortunately, that criteria left out the other five passengers on the plane. The executives from three different investment corporations were transportation-pooling to some convention in San Francisco. All of them appeared old enough to be the father Lauren had barely known. One even looked old enough to be her grandfather. And since the copilot, who doubled as cabin attendant, was a female of about Lauren’s age of thirty-one, that left Kent Garland on Mother’s list—the pilot with sun-streaked brown hair, a chin like one of these rocky ridges, and a gray gaze as cool as one of the snowy peaks. Handsome? Sure, if a woman liked the rugged type.

Something small and hard jabbed Lauren’s knee. Mom’s fingernail, of course. If she had to lean across the space between their facing seats in order to gain Lauren’s attention, the woman was serious about getting an answer.

“Did you hear what I asked, dear?” Mom uttered her words in that quiet, refined-sugar tone she reserved for “discreet” conversation.

Lauren met her mother’s stare. “If I had a nickel for every time you’ve asked something like that, my school loans would be paid off.”

Mom’s full mouth puckered and long lashes lowered over true-blue eyes, but not in time to disguise irritation. The brightening pink tinge across her mother’s high cheekbones betrayed embarrassment at the volume of her daughter’s voice. Lauren’s face heated as several executives, two seated on the nearby couch and the elder statesman in a leather-bound seat kitty-corner across the aisle, looked up from laptops or Wall Street magazines.

She heaved an internal sigh. Face it, girl. Your mama is the quintessential Georgia peach, soft and sweet on the outside, but all hard-core on the inside. And you are and always have been a steel safe on the outside and a hot mess on the inside.

From old photographs and fuzzy, small-child memories, Lauren had long ago become aware that she’d inherited her auburn hair, green eyes, height and build from her AWOL father—which made her something of an Amazon around most other women and many guys. She must have also inherited from him her tendency to erect ironclad walls around her heart. Or maybe that was just how she protected herself from experiencing that kind of abandonment again. At least she wasn’t the sort who ran out on family and responsibilities when the going got a little rocky. She assured herself of that fact often, but the balm of self-righteousness did little to soothe the stupid, nagging ache in her core.

Lauren pressed her lips together. You’d think she’d be over her father’s desertion by now. Was it something a person could get past? She desperately wanted to feel whole. Even the church-going faith she’d grown up with hadn’t yet completely healed the wound.

Mom lowered her head and smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of her beige pants. A smattering of tiny age spots on the back of her slim hand tattled on her fiftysomething age. “If you’d just let Marlin take care of those loans for you, you’d have a clean slate already. Just the other day, he said to me, ‘Nina, talk to that proud girl of yours. I’d like to help her—’”

“We’re not going there, either, Mom.” Lauren worked at keeping her voice low, but she couldn’t hide the ferocity. “He arranged and paid for this plane trip, and I’m grateful, but he’s not buying shares in my life. I’m glad you found someone and that you love him, but—”

Her mother’s intake of breath and wide gaze shot a pang through Lauren. She cleared her throat. That “oh, honey, you just tracked mud into the house” mannerism worked every time.

“Sorry for snapping at you.” Lauren heaved out a breath. “But seriously, the whole idea of this beach getaway is for it to be just you and me—girl time. No husband-hunting.”

Mom’s gaze returned to hers, a gentle smile flitting across her lips. “I can appreciate that, dear, but what if you happen to run across Mr. Right?”

In spite of herself, Lauren chuckled. Mom was incorrigible. “At this point in my life, I’d have to run over Mr. Right in order for him to get my attention. My practice is just getting off the ground. I’ve got to put in long hours. That’s why these few stolen days away with you are so precious to me. I don’t want to spend them anywhere but in your company.”

Mom beamed at her, and Lauren’s heart lightened. Since her mother had married Wall Street mega shark Marlin Barrington two years ago, the closeness she and her mom used to share had all but evaporated. The fact that the guy endorsed his wife’s passion for charity work with generous donations should have endeared him with Lauren, but it only made her feel guilty for her resentment of him.

Marlin was the founder and CEO of Peerless One, a billion-dollar investment firm. He schmoozed with movers and shakers all over the planet, and Lauren’s elegant mother Nina fit right in. What with participating in charity functions, or hosting gala events at Marlin’s Long Island estate, or appearing on her husband’s elbow at Broadway shows or exclusive luncheons, Mom seldom had time for Lauren anymore. Except for this long weekend away that Marlin had facilitated.

She and her mom would have an awesome time pampering themselves at the hotel spa, taking long walks on the beach, enjoying leisurely lunches, shopping at Union Square, exploring Ghirardelli Square and whatever else they felt like doing. No schedule. No expectations. Seriously, after having kept her nose to the grindstone for all these years to become a physician’s assistant, she craved a tiny taste of downtime. This trip was going to be okay. Everything was going to be all—

An explosion like the father of all firecrackers sounded somewhere underneath the fuselage, and the plane heaved. If Lauren hadn’t been strapped in, her head would have hit the ceiling. The elder executive, who hadn’t been wearing his seat belt, was flung forward and landed on all fours with the top of his bushy gray head mashed against the side of her mother’s seat. He crouched there, quivering, while Mom squeaked like her windpipe was pinched.

Lauren gazed around as cries of alarm united in an indistinct chorus of questions and exclamations. Thumps toward the back of the plane indicated that others had been thrown from their seats also. Shooting a gaze over her shoulder, she found that one of the passengers lay half way in and half way out of the lavatory, but he was already picking himself up.

She swallowed hard against a suddenly dry throat. What just happened?

The plane lurched again, and from the cockpit area a yelp ended in a heavy thud. Uh-oh, had something happened to one of the pilots? She was facing the cockpit, but she couldn’t make out anything from around her mother’s seat.

Lauren gripped the arms of her chair as the steady engine rumble morphed into a staccato whine. The cabin began to shake like they were racing over endless speed bumps. The “fasten seat belt” lights blazed red.

Ya think? Lauren’s heart hammered as she tightened her own seat belt then checked her mother’s. The executive that had been flung out of his seat suddenly lunged upright, shaking his head like a dazed creature.

“Sit down, sir,” Lauren called, but the man registered no response to her voice.

Mom’s eyes were round as quarters, staring at Lauren. The whites rimmed the blue irises. “God help us.” She exhaled a soft moan.

“He will, Mom.” Lauren packed all the assurance she could muster into her tone.

Oxygen masks popped down from the ceiling. Her mother grabbed the mask in front of her. As Lauren reached for hers that grandfather-aged executive staggered up the aisle in a direction away from his seat. His teeth-bared expression was wild and disoriented.

With an exclamation, Lauren ripped her seat belt apart and thrust herself into the executive’s path. Mom’s high-pitched squeal followed her. The elderly executive swatted at her as she reached for him. Panic must be driving him. The guy was clearly not rational. She just needed to shove him into his place and—

The plane delivered a fresh heave. With a howl, the executive staggered and toppled backward. A distinct thunk announced his head connecting with the edge of an extended guest table on the way down. Lauren lost her footing and tumbled down atop him. His doughy middle softened her fall, but her nose was buried in his bony chest. Senses heightened, conflicting odors assailed her—a hint of lavender laundry detergent and an exotic bergamot and tropical fruit cologne. An expensive brand, if she was not mistaken.

That rapid speed bump sensation continued as Lauren struggled to her knees. “Help me get him into his seat,” she cried to the other executives.

They stared at her, shaking their heads. A pair of dainty hands intruded into her line of vision. Mom. Together they fought for balance and wrestled the older man’s limp body into his chair, fastened his belt and put the gas mask around his face. He was alive, Lauren knew that much, but she had no time to assess him medically.

She grabbed her mother’s slender arm and propelled her toward their places. Mom plopped into hers and began buckling herself in, her entire body shivering. Lauren lifted her foot to return to her seat, but the plane took a plunge downward, and she landed hard on her behind in the aisle. Her belly leaped into her throat.

The plane continued to dive, and Lauren slid down the plush carpeting toward the cockpit. Then her hind end hit something that halted her. Bracing herself with a grip on the cabinetry of the galley, she swiveled her head. A pair of feet sticking out into the aisle had halted her slide. Her gaze followed the legs attached to the feet until she found the bloodied face of the copilot where she slumped, unconscious—or worse—up against the exit door behind the galley.

The plane bucked and shuddered, leveling off at a more or less horizontal angle. Lauren rose to her hands and knees. Her face was practically in the cockpit, where she noted the pilot remained firmly in his chair. At least someone was still trying to control this plane, but the utter blackness of the instrument panel was less than reassuring.

“I can hold ’er steady for maybe thirty seconds,” Kent Garland’s deep voice boomed, muffled slightly by an air mask. “Can you get Mags buckled into a seat in the passenger area?”

“Ma-a-ags?” The word quavered between Lauren’s lips. Oh, the copilot. “I—I’ll try.”

“Good girl.”

Girl! I’ll girl him.

Anger sent fuel to her limbs. Lauren grabbed the copilot’s shoulders and wrestled her into a vacant seat. She had no idea if the woman was alive, but on the off chance they survived the next minutes, she tightened the buckle around the copilot’s waist and fitted the mask around her bloodied face. With shaking hands, Lauren pulled the bright-colored scarf from around the woman’s neck and bound it tightly around her head, covering the gash near the woman’s temple. That was the best she could do at this moment.

“Holler at everyone to get their heads down between their knees.” Garland’s bellow barely carried above the intensifying whine of struggling engines and the screams of terrified passengers. “Then take Mags’s place beside me in the cockpit. Hurry!”

Gripping the seatback in front of her, Lauren yelled the pilot’s instructions then turned and flung herself into the copilot’s spot. She fastened the seat belt and jerked the mask tight around her face. Oxygen filled her lungs and cleared all clutter from her mind.

Silence suddenly flooded the cockpit as engine noise ceased. Even the passenger cabin had gone eerily quiet, as if every person aboard were holding their breaths. The side of a mountain filled the front window, racing toward them at breakneck speed.

“Lord Jesus,” Lauren whispered, “ready or not, here I come.”

* * *

Kent’s muscles ached and his head pounded as he fought to keep the plane’s nose up against the battering of powerful air currents. If they went into a nosedive, they’d implode onto the side of that mountain. In order to maintain any semblance of control, he had to hold the plane’s glide even as he lost altitude. The best he could do was keep her level while the thermals bucked them around like a bee-stung bronco.

The fuel was gone. Whatever took out the avionics and wounded the engines had also damaged the fuel lines. His Challenger 350 had bled out in mere minutes. He could just barely buy that something might go wrong with one of the engines—some tiny little something overlooked. But both of them at once? Uh-uh! Not a snowball’s chance in Hawaii. He took better care of this baby than that.

Kent’s gaze darted toward his instruments, but the panel remained dark and dead, even though the RAT—ram air turbine—must have kicked in as an alternate source of electricity. Something was seriously bent about this flight emergency. There was nothing within normal range about it.

At least it was daylight so he had visual on where they were headed. If he could spot a valley with a decent stretch of level ground and navigate toward it, they stood a slight chance of actually landing without becoming a pile of wreckage—a nonsurvivable pile, anyway.

Somehow, he had to radio in a mayday. Get their position out to someone who could send rescue. But there was no way he could release the stick with even one hand in order to use the radio. Unless... He glanced sideways.

The passenger in the copilot seat gripped her chair arms in clawed fists. Her torso quivered, and her gaze was fixed straight ahead, but at least she wasn’t hysterical. Not hardly. She’d kept her cool and managed to get Mags buckled into a seat under terrifying conditions.

“Any chance you know how to operate a two-way radio?” His voice came out strong but muffled by the oxygen mask.

Seconds ticked past. Was she frozen in shock? Then she slowly turned her head his way. Brilliant green eyes, clear and sharp as a cat’s, fixed on him.

“Y-yes. W-we use one in the hospital for medivac emergencies.”

“Put out a distress call. Frequency, one-two-one-point-five.”

She did as he had asked. Her hands, her whole being, seemed to center and go steady as she set the frequency and put out the call. Evidently, she was the kind that calmed when given a task in an emergency. Good characteristic. She performed the mayday drill once...twice...three times. Dead air met every attempt. Those green eyes sought him again.

“I—I don’t think the radio...” A spasm visibly gripped her throat. “The radio is dead.” The sentence came out in a high squeak.

Kent’s jaw clenched. “This has to be sabotage, pure and simple,” he muttered fiercely between his teeth.

But who? Why? Terrorism? Unlikely on a small plane in the middle of nowhere. Terrorists wanted to make a big statement, spread as much fear and death as possible with a highly public act of chaos. What then? Did someone want to kill one of his passengers badly enough to take the life of everyone aboard?

Fury surged through Kent, shooting adrenaline to the taxed muscles laboring to control an out-of-control airplane. He and his passengers were going to survive, if only to give him the chance to throttle whoever was trying to kill them.

Responding to his iron grip, the plane steadied even as a promising furrow in the mountainside appeared off to his left. He followed his instinct and turned her nose for what could be a navigable valley.

“Hallelujah!” His outburst drew a startled stare from Jade Eyes.

A long, semi-flat stretch of ground appeared in the near distance. Scattered pine trees set up potential hazards, but he’d just have to do his best to miss them. They were coming in too fast, but this was the most optimal valley for landing that he’d spotted since the crisis erupted. It was either bring her down now or crash in harsh terrain with no chance of survival.

There would be nothing graceful about this landing. With no engine power, he had no reverse thrust or flaps to help slow them down. Getting on the ground without flipping over or hitting anything major would have to be enough. Now it remained to be seen if they’d have to come in on their bare belly. If electrical failure were absolute, they’d have no wheels.

Kent barked orders to his unofficial copilot, instructing her how to let down the landing gear. A welcome rumble under the plane’s belly answered her tentative responses to his instructions. The instrument panel was not receiving any of the auxiliary electricity, but the landing gear was. Another anomaly that suggested sabotage focused on his engines and his instrumentation.

Kent hauled in a deep breath and let it out as the ground loomed up at them. “Get your head down, Jade Eyes!”

“What did you call me?” Those brilliant eyes flashed, and her nostrils flared.

“Get! Down!”

The woman bowed her back and hugged her knees as the wheels kissed the earth. The plane rebounded into the air like a gazelle, then slammed down again. Up. Down. Up. Down. The odor of burning rubber invaded the cockpit. Stretched and strained metal screeched like a dying thing, competing with the terrified screams from human throats.

All the peripherals faded as Kent’s consciousness melded with his tortured plane. Any chance of survival depended on his skills and instincts as a former Special Forces pilot and the grace of Almighty God.

If the former failed, in about 30 seconds they’d all be meeting the Lord face-to-face.

TWO

A long groan hauled Lauren to consciousness. Who made that sound? A moan passed between her lips. Oh, she’d made that sound. No, the first groan had been in a male timbre.

Lauren lifted her head, and pain sparkled through her muscles. A spot on the top of her head throbbed. What had happened? Bits of something skittered out of her hair. Glass? Twigs? Needles? Maybe all three. A shredded pine branch drooped forlornly in front of her face, nearly tickling her chin.

She drew in a deep, pine-laden breath and examined herself. Glass littered her short-sleeved, pullover top and jeans, and glinted in the sunlight beating through the shattered windshield. Scratches on the bare forearms that had protected her head oozed small beads of blood, but the injuries weren’t serious.

Lauren shivered. The sun had power, and yet she was chilled. If she had to guess, the temperature was somewhere in the fifties Fahrenheit. A stiff breeze whimpered through the cockpit.

Cockpit!

She stiffened, muscles grumbling at the sudden movement. She’d been in an airplane crash. Where were they? Clearly, on the ground somewhere in the mountains. Dusty greenish landscape stretched in front of her, punctuated by some brown, man-made looking structures in the distance. The whole vista was framed by dark cliff walls.

Had they crashed near a town? Was help on the way? Watery haze coated her vision, but she blinked it away. Nothing approaching human life or technology, like a car or ambulance or fire engine, raced toward them from the structures. Except for the tick of cooling machinery somewhere in the plane’s bowels and the lonely keen of the wind, silence reigned.

Was she the only survivor? Mom! A shudder ran through Lauren as her hands fumbled for the clip of the seat belt. The masculine groan came again. Gingerly, she turned her head to find Kent Garland slumped in his seat. Blood trickled from somewhere beneath the sable-brown hair just above his ear, but his eyes were open.

Amazement flooded her. Somehow this man had landed the plane. She had no recollection of the event, but that was not surprising in cases where someone was knocked unconscious.

“Help!” a male voice called weakly from the passenger area. Other voices began making unintelligible noises that communicated fear and pain. They all sounded masculine. Was her mother all right?

Garland grunted and lifted his head. His gaze clashed with Lauren’s. She sucked in a breath. A woman could float away in those cloud-gray depths.

“We’re down.” His lips stretched in a grimace. “Time for evac and damage assessment. You up to helping, Jade Eyes?”

His words were spoken with a teasing lilt, but a sharp pang streaked through Lauren, trampled quickly by anger. She swallowed the knee-jerk response. This man couldn’t know what he had said.

“Don’t call me that, Mr. Garland. My name is Lauren Carter.” She couldn’t help it if her tone was frosty.

“Okay, Lauren.” A smile twitched one side of the pilot’s mouth, but his gaze remained grave. “Call me Kent. Are you all right?”

“I—I think so.” She cleared her throat. “I’m a physician’s assistant. If you have a first-aid kit, I’ll do what I can to treat the injured.”

The pilot’s eyes widened. “That’s the first good news I’ve heard since...well, a while.” The barest hint of private pain flickered across his face, and then his expression went flat. “Let’s get to it.”

He threw off his seat belt and wriggled free of the forward control panel that had crumpled inward significantly, but not enough to trap him. “I seem to be in working order.” He stood tall and lifted one slacks-clad leg and then the other.

Lauren levered herself to her feet. Other than adrenaline-withdrawal tremors flowing through her body and perhaps bruises she would feel more intensely later on, she seemed to be in working order as well. Except maybe for that bump on her head. She touched her fingertips to a throbbing goose egg on the crown of her head. The skin didn’t appear to be broken. Judging from the momentary loss of consciousness, she probably had some level of concussion. Hopefully mild. She needed to be able to function.

“Mom!” she called out. No answer and no tawny-gray head popped up anywhere above the seats.

Lauren pressed forward, but the pilot stepped in front of her just as a bulky executive lunged to his feet and lumbered toward them, head down like a charging rhino.

“We’ve got to get out of here.” Hysteria edged the man’s tone. “We’re going to blow up!”

More passengers began struggling to their feet, echoing the terrified thought.

“Hold it!” Kent’s authoritative voice sliced through the panic. “We are down safe, and we are not going to blow up. Stay in your seats. When it comes to evacuation, we’ll do it together. Let’s get our bearings first.”

The panicked rhino plunged to a stop, chest heaving.

“How do you know we’re not going to explode?” cried another passenger, voice high and tight.

“Simple. It takes fuel to fire an explosion. We don’t have any.”

Lauren bit her lower lip. That explained the necessity of a crash landing, but not what blew up and caused the fuel dump and the instrument/radio failure. That was something she wanted an answer for ASAP, but not while people were teetering on the verge of hysteria.

At the rear of the plane, a blistering tirade of profanity burst from one of the three Peerless One brokers. He was standing tall, holding his cell phone toward the ceiling, shaking it and cursing it.

“What seems to be the problem, sir?” Kent asked briskly.

“No cell service, that’s what.” The pit-bull-faced man scowled like a juicy steak had just been ripped from his jaws. “I was meeting with an important client tonight, and now I can’t let him know our incompetent pilot has crashed this tin can you call a plane. I’ll lose the account!”

“Get a grip, Dirk,” said one of the other Peerless One executives. “It’s amazing that we’re alive.”

Still scowling, the man named Dirk plopped back into his seat and silence fell, except for a few sniffles and groans.

Lauren gazed around Kent’s shoulders, searching for her mother. Anxious faces stared back at her above freshly rumpled three-piece suits. The elder statesman of the group was stirring and coming around to consciousness. But the spot where her mother had sat appeared to be empty. Of course, a seatback largely blocked her view.

Lauren’s heart sought to pump out of her chest. “Where’s my mother?”

Kent began moving up the aisle, nudging personal items under seats with his foot. “I’ll look for her. Not much room to go very far. Would you please check on my copilot?”

Lauren’s breath snagged. She’d forgotten about the critically injured woman. What kind of a physician’s assistant was she? Apparently, the kind that was a daughter first.

She stepped into the first set of seats, bent over the slumped woman and felt for a pulse. It was there, ragged and faint, but at least Mags was alive. Gently, Lauren lowered the seat back as far as it would go and padded each side of the woman’s head with one of those little airliner pillows. That should give the injured woman some support for her back and neck. Moving her could be tricky if she had a spinal injury.

“What is Mags’s status?” Kent’s voice called back to her.

“I would say concussion—probably severe—but the bleeding on the external head wound appears to have stopped. I’ll take a closer look in the near future and suture the cut, if necessary, but that’s about the extent of what I can do without expert diagnostic equipment. If she has a subdural hematoma—a brain bleed—she will need surgery, and I can’t... I’m not...”

Lauren inhaled sharply against a surge of frustration. A subdural hematoma was life-threatening. There certainly was no X-ray machine or other diagnostic equipment around here, much less any surgical tools with which to perform a craniotomy, even if she were qualified to perform one, which a PA-C was not. They needed expert help. Fast!

“Just do your best,” Kent responded. “That’s all any of us can do. Your mom’s right here!”

Kent’s call brought Lauren’s head up. Her mother’s pixie face peeped around her seat, pale but composed.

Mom flapped a hand. “Sorry, dear. I guess I passed out.”

Lauren grabbed for the support of a seatback. Now she could testify it was no cliché that knees did go weak when major relief hit. “It’s okay, Mom. Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Just my pride...I think. Well, no. I’m pretty sure that seat belt gave the old college try at cutting me in half. My tummy hurts, but I’m sure it will pass.”

Lauren didn’t like the sound of that. Mom could have anything from a ruptured spleen to kidney damage. Or maybe just some bruising and tissue abrasions, but that was best-case scenario. And again, there didn’t seem to be any emergency facilities nearby. Perhaps no life at all. She gazed over her shoulder through the shattered windshield and scanned the barren landscape beyond. If that was a town out there, it appeared to be deserted. Hopefully, appearances were deceiving.

She turned toward Kent, who eyed her from the rear of the plane. “Are we going to get people as comfortable as possible here, or could some help be available in that nearby town?”

Garland exhaled a brief chuckle. “I’m fairly certain no one is home in whatever is left of that old mining burg, but I’m going to go check it out. If there’s decent shelter or any kind of supplies, we might move in there until help arrives.”

Voices streamed questions about who might be coming to rescue them and when and how, but the pilot lifted a silencing hand. “All unknowns at this point. I’ll go check out the town while you allow our resident PA to check out your injuries.” He nodded toward Lauren. “The first-aid kit is in the galley.”

“What about your head wound?” Lauren asked. “I should look at that before you go hiking.”

Striding up the aisle toward her, Kent shrugged a shoulder. “Just a nick from flying glass. Look after these fine folks first.” He brushed past her, opened a bin, and pulled out a leather bomber jacket that looked like it had seen better days.

Lauren pressed her lips together. Stubborn macho man. So not her type. Then why did her pulse speed up as he shrugged the coat over broad shoulders?

Frowning, he turned his attention to the main exit behind the cockpit. The door panel looked like an accordion. Fat chance it would open. Lauren’s insides curdled. The way the body of the plane was twisted and bent, how stable was it? Could something give way at any time?

Kent sent her a sidelong look, as if he’d heard her thoughts, and headed back down the aisle. “I’m going to use the emergency exit over the wing.”

With practiced movements, he pulled out the panel and leaned it up against a sidewall.

“One of you fit this back in after I hop out.”

Kent glanced around the cabin, gaze lighting briefly on Lauren. His face was an impassive mask, but in his eyes lurked a grim shadow. Then he hauled himself through the opening.

A chill wind blew through the cabin, and a couple of the executives hopped up and hastily stuffed the door panel back into the opening. The pilot’s disappearance triggered a burst of complaints from the passengers about the cold and demands that Lauren take a look at them immediately. Everyone claimed to have one pitiful condition or another.

“I’ll get to all of you,” Lauren said firmly, “but first I’m going to do a little triage and see who is most critically injured, other than the copilot, who is as comfortable as I can make her at the moment.”

The only executive not trying to whine himself to the head of the line was the elderly one who had finally come fully awake. He gazed around quietly, rubbing the back of his head, and looking thoroughly unhappy.

Her mother smiled and shrugged. “You can see me last, dear. I’m all right.”

The others might be high-powered wheeler-dealers who lived each day on the rush of stock trades and business deals, but actual physical danger or discomfort rendered them dependent children. Sighing, Lauren hunted up the first-aid kit.

What was that pilot not telling them? He had said nothing about contacting the outside world. He sure hadn’t indicated rescue was imminent. His instrument panel was dead. The radio, too. Surely, he’d filed a flight plan before they’d taken off. When the aircraft didn’t arrive at its destination, search parties would look for them. Right? They would be found. Lauren’s gut tightened. But what if they weren’t?

* * *

Insides hollow, Kent stood on the ground and surveyed the remains of his business jet. This narrow valley was sure no landing strip. As soon as he’d hit ground, rocks and potholes and the odd pine sapling that he couldn’t avoid had begun doing things to his plane that never should be done to fine machinery.

He’d slewed once so badly that his left wing gouged the earth, and they’d done a doughnut before finally straightening out. A good chunk of wing tip remained embedded in the ground somewhere along his landing path. And the landing gear was chewed up but good. The forward wheel was missing entirely, and the rear two were in shreds. The twisted body of the plane rested mostly on bare metal struts. Those were only the most obvious structural issues.

His jaw clenched against a sting in the back of his eyes. His jet was less than a year old. A real beaut! His pride and joy. Every nickel he had in the world was tied up in his baby, and now look at her!

Kent cleared his throat and inhaled a deep breath. At least he and his passengers had survived the crazy descent and landing. He should be thanking God, not wallowing in angst. Besides which, he had a mystery to solve. What happened to bring them down in the first place?

“I’d like to be the first to thank you for getting us on the ground safely.”

Lauren’s voice drew his attention, and he lifted his head. She stood framed in the broken window of the cockpit, hugging the first-aid kit to her chest. Kent’s pulse rate skipped into overdrive. She looked vulnerable and tense, but calm and determined and...well, flat gorgeous. Wavy strands of auburn hair had come loose from her thick ponytail and framed a heart-shaped face. The strong chin and elegant, aquiline nose suggested the courage she’d already displayed, but the soft curves of her full mouth and delicately shaped eyebrows lent appealing femininity.

“Earth to Kent.” Her small, teasing smile sent a pleasant shiver down his spine.

He blinked and threw off the fascination. What was the matter with him, anyway? Must be the stress of the emergency landing.

“You’re most welcome,” he said. “Life or death is a great motivator.”

“That’s for sure.” Her gaze darkened. “I see you’re studying the plane. Any clues as to what brought us down?”

He shook his head. “Too soon to say.”

“So, you’re not certain it was sabotage?”

Kent narrowed his eyes. That was all he needed to ramp up the hysteria among the passengers—the suggestion that someone was out to get them. Even if someone might be. “Who mentioned anything like that?”

“You did.”

“No, I—” Kent shut his jaw and hauled a crisp, pine-rich breath through his nose. Maybe he had mumbled his thoughts out loud in the heat of the moment. “Look, let’s get everyone to whatever shelter we can find before we start assigning blame.”

“I’m not interested in blame.” Her tone had sharpened. “I’m interested in truth, and everyone on this aircraft has a right to know why we crash-landed in the Rockies instead of touching down smoothly in San Francisco.”

“I’m as interested in those answers as you are, but first things first.”

She offered him a cool nod. “But you’ll tell us when you know, right?”

“I’ll tell you what I find as soon as I find it as soon as I think it’s wise for everyone to know.”

“That’s too convoluted for me.” Her eyes shot green fire.

He waved and tromped toward the old mining town. Jade Eyes wasn’t happy with his non-answer, but there was no use promising something he wasn’t sure he could deliver. It was possible that he might not be able to nail down the cause by simply eyeballing the damage. Professional examination with diagnostic tools might be necessary. Then again, he might know in a heartbeat as soon as he got to the source of the damage. But even then, there might be facts he’d be prudent to keep under his hat until he could talk to the proper authorities.

Stuffing his hands into the pockets of his bomber jacket, Kent hunched his shoulders against the bite of the wind sideswiping him. The jacket did a nice job of keeping his torso warm, but his neck and ears stung with the cold.

How was he going to transport eight people, some of them injured, the quarter mile or so from the plane to the dubious shelter of these old mining structures? But as sure as they were all still in the land of the living that was what would have to be done. Sooner, rather than later. The perforated metal tube that remained of his aircraft would turn mighty cold, mighty fast, especially when night fell, and the temps were likely to be in the forties or even the thirties. They were below the perpetual snowline here, and by the green yet showing in certain vegetation, a hard frost had not yet hit, but winter was closing in like a wolf after a rabbit.

Kent shuddered. He didn’t want to think about being stuck here in this barren patch of the Rockies long enough for winter to pounce. At least in town, they would have the option of lighting a fire—maybe they’d even find a potbellied stove to hunker around. The plane had skimmed over the top of a sparkling stream during their landing, and the water was likely potable; what they’d eat was another question. The rations aboard the plane weren’t all that plentiful—leftover chicken salad croissants and Caesar salad from the onboard lunch Mags had served, water, soft drinks and assorted bags of snacks. Yup. They’d eat well...until tomorrow.

At least he could be thankful for a medical practitioner among the passengers. Lauren Carter was sure a surprise—in more ways than one. Gutsy to the point of foolhardy. A bit prickly about certain things, like her proper name and direct answers when she asked a question, but if Mags survived, she’d owe Lauren big-time.

Magdalena Haven, a flight crew member from his US Air Force days, had been Kent’s copilot for the last six months. She was energetic and skilled. Not always the most upbeat person, but life couldn’t be easy for her, coping with her medical bills from last year’s car accident, not to mention her recent bitter divorce. And now his comrade-in-arms was injured again. He shook his head and said a prayer.

Trudging onward, Kent pushed away the image of Mags’s bloodied face. Lauren’s image sharpened in its place, and his gut twisted. Why did the woman have to be so attractive? Not just physically, but the courage and dependability she’d shown was...well, a lot more than he’d ever seen in Elspeth.

Elspeth with a p and most definitely not Elizabeth. His almost-mother-in-law’s lofty tones slithered through his mind, and Kent shuddered with an entirely different kind of cold than atmospheric conditions could produce. No, thank you. If Lauren was under the thumb of a domineering mother, any attraction he felt for her would never be explored.

What had Mrs. Barrington murmured to him as she boarded? Oh, yeah.

Marlin speaks highly of you, young man. You may notice that I am traveling with a very attractive, single daughter. We’ll be staying at the Ritz-Carlton.

Kent snorted. What a whopper! Marlin Barrington had his own personal jet that he flew around in. Only occasionally did the man’s firm charter additional transportation, and the senior executive was certainly not involved in the transaction. That sort of thing was done by an administrative assistant. Besides, Mags had taken the reservation. A Wall Street tycoon like Marlin Barrington wouldn’t know him from Adam, so how could he have an opinion about Kent’s character? If Mrs. Barrington was fishing that desperately for a catch for her daughter, there was no way he was going to rise to the bait. No matter how appealing that bait might be.

He slowed his stride as he reached the scattering of wooden structures. The first building was set a short way out from the others and had the look of a livery stable in the barn-like structure and the broken-down remains of a corral attached to one side. Maybe, just maybe, some type of wheeled vehicle might be found inside. Even a wheelbarrow would be better than nothing.

“Don’t hold your breath,” he muttered to himself as he pulled on the handle of one side of the stable’s double doors.

The handle came off in his hand. No! The entire door was coming down. With a yelp, Kent dodged the falling slab of wood. The door whumped to the ground, sending a puff of dirt into the windy air.

He coughed and shook his head. “Well, that’s one way to get a look inside.”

Kent stepped over the threshold into twilight. The air smelled musty, and dust motes danced in shafts of light squeezing through cleaner patches in dirt-coated window panes. It was significantly warmer in here than outside.

He moved further into the building. Rotting leather tack dangled from hooks here and there. Empty box stalls lined two sides of a wide aisle. Any hay or straw that was left behind had long since turned into piles of dust that swirled around on the residue of wind that invaded the place through the open door. A sneeze racked his body. If any of his passengers had allergies, this would not be the place for them to stay. He’d better check out some of the other buildings before he went back to the plane.

What was the bulky object in the far corner?

Kent hurried past the stalls. Here, a larger area must have housed buggies or wagons. Only one remained—an enclosed boxy contraption, narrow, with a high seat for the driver out front, but no doors in the sides. He walked around the wagon, pulling on each iron-shod wheel as he went. They seemed solid enough. Two lines of faded lettering graced each long side, but it was too dim inside the stable to read what they said. The entrance door to the interior of the carriage was in the back. Some kind of prison wagon? If so, where were the bars?

Shaking his head, he hefted the wooden beam to which a team of horses or oxen would have been attached and pulled. The axles let out a high screech but the wheels began to turn.

Kent’s heart lightened. He wouldn’t be able to transport everyone in the same load. Not enough room. Besides, he was strong, but he was no horse. Still, it shouldn’t take more than a few trips to get the people, as well as blankets, pillows, food, beverages and other useful items into town. Hopefully, his battered passengers would take comfort in small mercies.

Kent managed with little trouble to get the strange carriage out into the sunlight. He stood back to take a better look at his prize. Now he could easily read the words painted on the sides, faded as they were. His pulse stalled as their meaning slapped him in the jaw.

Property of Undertaker.

Trouble Creek, Nevada.

This wagon was going to be no comfort to anyone. No comfort at all.

THREE

“Young lady, my head is harder than most bowling balls.” The older executive glared up at Lauren from his cushy seat, age-spotted hands folded over his modest paunch. “I don’t need to be poked and prodded.”

“Sir, a concussion is all about the softness of your brain slamming around inside that bowling ball.” She frowned down at him. “I do need to perform some basic assessment.”

The edges of the curmudgeon’s lips curved upward. “Deftly done, young lady. I am put in my place.” The smile grew, revealing even rows of gleaming, white teeth. Dentures, no doubt, since his speech carried the slight slur that sometimes came with that territory. “Very well, you may shine your little flashlight into my pupils and confirm that they are equal in size and reactive.”

Lauren lifted her eyebrows. “You have medical training?”

“No, I just watched a lot of Dr. Kildare in my younger years.”

“Who?”

“Never mind, well before your time.” He removed thick-lensed glasses and stared up at her with shrewd, brown eyes.

Lauren scanned his pupils with the penlight she had found in the medical kit. “At least as far as this symptom of concussion, you have a clean bill of health, Mr... Ah.”

“Gleason. But you may call me Neil.”

“Are you related to Jackie?”

Neil Gleason let out a raspy chuckle. “Not at all. You may not be familiar with my favorite TV doc, but I see you’re not out of the loop on all prehistoric television personalities.”

Lauren smiled. “My grandmother loved The Honeymooners. I watched a few reruns with her when I was little. And you may call me Lauren, rather than young lady.”

“It’s a deal. Now feel free to assess someone needier that I. Your mother, perhaps?”

“Thank you. I’ll do that.”

She began packing up her kit. It was actually amazing that she wasn’t dealing with a whole gamut of major medical problems, instead of an abundance of minor ones. She’d examined every passenger except her mom, and doctored cuts and contusions from flying objects. While one of her patients had a broken finger from trying to protect his head from said objects, thankfully no one was bleeding profusely from a slice through a vein or an artery. As for more serious injuries, she suspected kneecap fracture or dislocation in Richard, the next oldest to Neil, but the best she could do in the confines of the jet was wrap the limb and apply an ice pack.

Lauren found her mother hugging herself, frowning and staring out the window.

“Are you in pain?” Lauren bent over her.

“Not really.” She dredged up a faint smile. “I’m starting to feel cold, though. With the cockpit windshield gone and my jacket packed away in the stowed luggage, there’s not much between us and the great outdoors. Looks pretty barren out there. No snow yet in this valley, but it’s coming soon. I can feel it.”

“I’ll grab one of those airplane blankets for you after I palpate your abdomen.”

“You’re going to do what?”

Lauren chuckled. “I’m going to press on your tummy in different spots to see if you hurt somewhere specific.”

“Whew! At least you’re not contemplating surgery.” Mom winked up at her.

Lauren’s heart squeezed in upon itself. What if her mother did have an internal injury that required surgery? What if some of her other patients had something like that going on, and the issue hadn’t yet been identified? For sure, Mags needed to be hospitalized immediately. There was so little Lauren could do out in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a first-aid kit.

Mom squeezed her arm. “I’m fine, dear.”

The warm touch pumped encouragement into Lauren’s bloodstream. “Go ahead and put your seat all the way back while I check you out.”

Her mother complied, and Lauren swiftly determined that the ache was general across the length of abdomen where the seat belt had fastened, and no point of pressure elicited a sharp pain. Good signs that the damage was muscle strain and bruising, not damage to an internal organ. Still, she’d keep her mother under close observation.

“I think you may live,” Lauren concluded with a wink, and her mother laughed. “Now, about that blanket,” she swiveled on her heels, “I’ll—Oops!” She halted barely in time to keep from bumping into one of the executives.

The man’s angular face sported a butterfly bandage closing a long, shallow cut on his cheek and a purple goose egg on his jaw, which Lauren believed was not broken, only bruised. The tall, raw-boned man held a small stack of blankets.

“Take one of these,” he said. “I was just going to start passing them out. None of us brought our outdoor jackets on board. They’re all packed away with the luggage.”

“Mr. Yancy, isn’t it?” Lauren accepted the blanket. “Thank you for thinking of this.”

He offered a small smile. “Call me Cliff. Now that the edge is off the hysteria, I think we can start functioning like intelligent human beings who are grateful to be alive.”

“Here he comes!” Mom called out, angling her head toward the outside.

“Who’s coming?” a passenger demanded sharply from farther back in the plane. “Are we being rescued?”

“It’s our hero pilot, who has already rescued us from sudden death, so let’s see what new and amazing trick he’s pulled out of his hat.” Mom pointed out the window.

“All I want to know is when a chopper will be arriving to get us back to civilization,” a surly voice grumbled.

Lauren identified it as coming from Dirk Dixon, the man with the broken finger and the foul mouth. She felt the same way about being rescued as soon as possible, but a male diva attitude wasn’t going to help make it happen.

She leaned across a vacant seat toward a window and gaped at her mother’s freshly anointed hero and whatever strange vehicle he was dragging behind him. Not that everyone aboard didn’t owe Kent Garland a world of gratitude and no little admiration for his skill as a pilot, but if Mom thought she could put stars in Lauren’s eyes about this guy or any other, she was doomed to disappointment.

The pilot brought the contraption to a stop next to the wing, and Lauren got a look at the words painted on the side. What? He’d found a hearse? She shivered. The cold must be getting to her, because she was in no way superstitious about a dusty old wagon.

She turned and smacked her palms together. “All right, people. I believe our chariot has arrived.”

“I’m getting out of here.” The man with the broken finger jumped to his feet.

“Mr. Dixon, we will evacuate the most seriously injured first.”

The man smirked and held up his bandaged hand.

A pop announced the emergency exit panel turning loose, and Kent stuck his head through the opening.

“That means my copilot, Magdalena Haven,” he said firmly, “as well as Ms. Carter to watch over her, and then the rest of you will go in whatever order her triage assessment dictates.”

His icy stare toward Dixon brooked no argument. The executive scowled and sat down.

“Next after Mags and me should be Richard Engle,” Lauren said. “His leg needs more attention than I can give it in here. Both of those patients will need to lie flat, so I think that’s all for the first load. Phil Blount and Dirk Dixon will be for the next load in order of triage. Then I want Neil Gleason, Cliff Yancy and my mother.” She nodded toward Kent.

“I’ll help do the mule thing.” A tentative hand went up from Cliff.

“And I can walk. So they won’t have to pull me,” said Phil, the bulky man who’d given way to panic in the first moments after landing. “That way, Neil and Mrs. Barrington can go in the second load, too.”

The man had been sheepish ever since his display of terror. Lauren sent him a smile, and he drew himself up tall, dignity restored.

“Sounds like a plan,” said Kent. “First, round up as many of the blankets and pillows as you can. Keep whatever you need for yourselves for the trip, but send the rest in the first load. We’re also going to harvest the seat cushions. Grab some of those now for the most injured to lie on.”

Healthy activity began in the cabin of what was once a luxury aircraft. With something constructive to do, the tension in the passengers seemed to ease. If only Lauren could say the same for herself. She’d never looked after patients under such primitive conditions. The prognosis for the copilot was not good if help didn’t reach them soon. And who knew what complications might develop in her other patients?

Shoving her jitters to the back of her mind, Lauren threw herself into aiding people and organizing supplies. Moving Mags was the most delicate operation. They formed a makeshift sling out of blankets and somehow managed to get her limp form out the egress window. Cliff and Phil had already gone outside to help Kent, and the three of them easily slid her onto a set of cushions in the back of the black ambulance. Lauren refused to think of it as a hearse.

Transferring Richard Engle was almost more difficult, because the man flinched and moaned with every jostle. Not that she blamed him. He had an excruciating injury and had behaved better about it than certain others with minor hurts. Finally, her turn came, and she climbed out the window onto the wing of the plane. She began shivering immediately, despite the blanket around her shoulders.

Standing between the wing and the open door of the ambulance, Kent reached up and took her hand, steadying her as she leaped to the ground. His grip sent a tingle up her arm, and his encouraging smile warmed her straight down to her toes. All right. Enough of that nonsense. She made herself look away and climbed into the wagon with her patients—one inert and comatose, the other gritting his teeth and stifling groans.

If only she had something stronger for pain than the limited stock of non-narcotic analgesics in the first-aid kit. The kit contained things like nitroglycerin and epinephrine designed to respond to medical emergencies in-flight, not deal with injuries due to a crash landing.

The inside of the wagon smelled stale and musty. Lauren wrinkled her nose as she settled cross-legged between her patients. Someone closed the door, and darkness swooped in. Only a few small cracks in the wood allowed slivers of dull sunlight to ease the gloom.

“How are you doing, Mr. Engle?” she asked.

“Call me Rich, please, and I’m alive. Guess that will have to be enough for now.”

“Hang in there. The emergency kit contains lidocaine for local anesthetic. Once we get to an environment where I have room to work, I’ll administer it. If your kneecap is only dislocated, I should be able to put it back in place, which will decrease your pain level, long-term. There is some risk of aggravating possible cartilage damage, but—”

Her patient wheezed a small laugh. “Anything to ease the pain sounds great to me.”

Their wagon creaked and shifted.

“Here we go.” She patted Rich’s arm.

Rocking and jouncing in a vehicle with no shock absorbers went on for a small eternity. Finally, they stopped and the door swung wide. Kent stood framed in the opening. He was puffing, and a trickle of sweat traced a path from his left brow to his chin, but the white cloud of his breath testified to the chill in the air. When the sun went down, chilly would become downright cold. They had a lot to accomplish in the few hours before sunset.

Lauren pulled her blanket tighter around her and stepped down out of the wagon. They were parked in front of a weathered clapboard structure with a sagging porch and very few intact windows. The faded sign over the building announced it as the Trouble Creek Mercantile. Whatever supplies the mercantile had stocked were bound to be long gone. Trouble Creek had been abandoned for quite a while.

“Doesn’t look like much,” Kent said with a wave toward the shabby building, “but I’ve laid down sturdy boards from the steps to the door so none of us is going to fall through on our way inside. The structure is sound, though I can’t guarantee the roof doesn’t leak. But if we can scrounge things up to cover the broken window panes, the potbellied stove in the middle of the front room should warm us up considerably. No lack of old wood for fuel around here.”

“You’ve thought of a lot of things in a little time.” Lauren beamed up at her mom’s pilot hero.

The guy certainly had a good head on those impressive shoulders. It might be interesting to get to know him better—not as a boyfriend, of course, but as a person. He probably had a thing for his copilot anyway, judging by how protective he acted toward her.

Kent’s gaze dropped toward his feet. “Just doing what I can.”

Lauren narrowed her eyes. “What is it that you don’t want to tell us you can’t do?”

His lips pulled tight beneath grim eyes. “Let’s get everyone transferred safely, and then we’ll all have a powwow.”

Simmering, Lauren barely restrained herself from stomping across the porch boards. Aggravating man. One thing Lauren had learned to hate in her early years—other people deciding when to tell her things she was entitled to know. All she wanted was straight answers to important questions...even though everything she dreaded might be in those answers.

* * *

Kent tromped toward the downed plane, empty wagon in tow. He’d left Phil and Cliff with Lauren and her patients to see if they could get that stove going, as well as find ways to cover the broken window panes.

On this next trip back to town, Dirk could walk or even help him pull. That measly broken finger didn’t qualify him for a free ride. Phil had told him they called the guy DJ at Peerless One where they worked together. The nickname drove Dirk nuts, because he thought they were referring to his brief and unstellar career as a disc jockey in the nightclubs before he made it in arbitrage. No one had ever told him the initials stood for Dirk the Jerk. Not hard to guess how he earned that name. Kent suppressed a grimace.

A half hour later, he helped Mrs. Barrington into the wagon. At her insistence, she was the last to climb aboard.

The dainty woman awarded him a large smile. “Thank you, sir,” she said, “And please call me Nina. I can see you are among the last of the true gallants. I believe you have impressed even my headstrong daughter with your courtesy and service.”

Kent shut the wagon door and shook his head. Impressed Lauren Carter? Aggravated would be more accurate. He seemed to have a gift for pushing her buttons.

He headed back toward town with the wagonload of people and supplies. Dirk Dixon plodded alongside him, wearing a scowl. Fat chance the guy would help him pull.

They arrived back at the abandoned general store to the tune of lively hammering. Was it possible the former inhabitants had left tools behind? Might there be other survival treasures lying around, too?

Kent smiled as he helped his passengers out of the wagon. Everyone—even Dirk—carried a load of food and other supplies inside the store. Kent placed himself last in line and stopped short just over the threshold.

Someone had brought order out of hodgepodge. He could about guess who. The fixed counter that sat on one side of the open area, as well as the moveable shelving, appeared to have been wiped off, though the floor remained thick with dust due to lack of a broom. The shelving had been arranged to afford both organized storage and a margin of privacy between the bulk of the room and the most critically injured passengers. He caught a glimpse of Lauren kneeling beside Mags, taking her pulse.

A fire blazed in the stove, and the building was already much warmer than when he’d left about an hour ago. Cushions were arranged on the floor around the stove to allow a little seating comfort up off the dirt on the floor.

Kent deposited his load of food and beverages on the glass-fronted shelving unit that was fixed to the floor and had probably served as the checkout counter. He gazed around at broken windows being covered with what looked like thin slabs of wood. Cliff turned from one of the windows and held up a shiny nail and a partially rusted crowbar, now serving as a hammer.

He grinned. “Found a sealed box of these.” He wagged the nail. “And some old, empty crates in the back storage room. Busted up the crates. Found this on the floor,” he lifted the crowbar, “and, voilà, wooden curtains.”

“And I found these,” Phil said, pointing to a pair of oil lamps on the counter. “No kerosene, though.” He frowned.

“Maybe we’ll run across some,” Nina said and patted his arm. “Or some candles. In the meantime, I believe we are all due a break. How about some of these peanuts and pretzels and a soft drink for everyone?”

No one turned her down, especially not Kent. But water was his preferred beverage after all the exertion, and he wasn’t done yet. One more trip today.

“We need to go get the luggage,” he said. “The stove and wooden curtains are great, but we’re still going to need our jackets and probably dress in layers to stay warm.”

Lauren came around the wall of shelving and grabbed a bottle of water. Her clothes were dusty, and dirt smudged one cheek. Weariness etched small lines around her big, green eyes. How come the disarray, brought about by trauma and compassion, emphasized her attractiveness far more than Elspeth’s haute couture ever had?

Lauren’s gaze caught his, and his heart did a stupid skippy thing. A motion with her water bottle beckoned him to follow her. She led him into her makeshift hospital. Richard Engle had his eyes closed and appeared to be lying comfortably, though his leg was raised, resting on an extra cushion, and his knee was immobilized in bulky wrappings. The blood had been washed from Mags’s face, and a towel-wrapped cold pack pressed against a spot on her head, but her complexion was waxen. She lay unnaturally still. Kent swallowed a lump in his throat.

“I managed to put Rich’s kneecap back in place,” Lauren said, “but Mags needs a doctor and a modern hospital immediately. I believe she’s hemorrhaging inside her skull, which puts life-threatening pressure on her brain. Don’t you think it’s about time we know what chance there is of rescue happening anytime soon?”

Kent nodded. “Step out here. I’ll talk to all of you at the same time.”

They went back to the counter where the others were still snacking, and Kent cleared his throat. Attention was instantaneous and electric.

“I wish I could tell you that we will be rescued any minute now.”

Dirk barked a laugh. “All these housekeeping preparations pretty much told us we’re not looking for anyone today. So when is the cavalry coming? Tomorrow? Any later than that, and I can tell you it’s going to cost Peerless One, and me personally, a bundle. That’s unacceptable. We need to be—”

“Shut up!” Neil growled. “Lives are more important than the next stock trade. How many companies do we represent here? At least three. But I guarantee you, in the big picture, our no-show within the next few days will wind up a minor hiccup in the big scheme of business. I’m on the fast track toward retirement, but I’ve been digging in my heels about taking the plunge. This little adventure has convinced me that it’s time to let go of work, work, work, and enjoy life. When we return to civilization, my company will have to bid me sayonara for good.”

“Everyone, hush, please.” Lauren’s voice quivered like a plucked violin string. “Right now, our pilot is the only one who has anything to say that we need to hear.”

Kent’s heart hovered somewhere around his toes. If only he could tell them what they wanted to hear. But truth was the only commodity worth trading in at this moment.

“I’ve flown under a lot of adverse conditions, but I’ve never heard of or experienced anything like what happened up there. My instruments, including the radio, went out in the blink of an eye. Something catastrophic happened to the plane.”

“The explosion.” Cliff jabbed the air with a nail. “Accidental malfunction or—”

“A bomb!” The hysterical edge had returned to Phil’s voice. “Terrorists tried to kill us!”

“Whoa!” Kent held up a quieting hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Tomorrow I’ll go over every inch of the plane, and then I might know more.” His gaze skimmed the expectant faces. “But here’s the thing. I can fly and land a plane without instruments. Had to do it under extremely tough conditions and on challenging terrain when I was in the air force, but I cannot promise to resurrect that radio. And even if I did, I have my doubts it would be able to communicate with the outside world.”

“Why not?” Dirk demanded.

Kent pulled a small compass out of his pocket. He held it up so they could see the needle jumping all over the place. “The rocks coating the ground are taconite. I’m pretty sure this area was mined for iron. If there’s enough metal around to confuse my compass, there’s probably plenty left to scramble a radio signal. Maybe even to keep any signal from leaving this valley.”

Phil wrung pudgy hands. “What about that black box thingy we hear about on the news? Doesn’t that send a signal to a satellite when a plane crashes?”

“Same problem.”

“In plain speech,” Lauren said, tone flat, “no one knows where we are, and no one is coming to rescue us.”

The proverbial pin-drop would easily have broken the silence. A nail plummeted from Cliff’s hand and hit the floor with a noise like a sonic boom.

“Why can’t a few of us just hike out of here and send help for the rest of you?” Neil’s matter-of-fact tone breathed sanity back into the atmosphere. “This was a town. There must be a road in and out.”

Kent frowned. “Unfortunately, I got a pretty good look at that ‘road’ on my way down into the valley. It doesn’t exist anymore. Avalanche closed off the route.”

Dirk spat a foul word. “We’re in a box canyon. Trapped like rats.”

Kent lifted his hands, palms out. “It’s not a great situation, but it’s not hopeless, either. When we don’t arrive at our destination, searchers will look along the route of the flight plan we filed before we took off. Our current location is a little off that path, but not radically beyond reasonable range. One thing we can do is position chunks of glass on the stone chimneys of one or more of these buildings and along the cliff walls that will reflect the sunlight and hopefully draw the attention of airborne searchers. However, their search pattern will be lower than regular flight altitudes, so they are unlikely to fly through these mountains at night, which means we probably shouldn’t bother with setting and tending bonfires after dark.”

Lauren’s mom let out a long gust of air. “At least we have a plan. Let’s keep our hopes alive, people. And another thing we should do tomorrow is search this town top to bottom for anything we can use to make our time here easier, however short or long it may be.”

“That’s the pioneer spirit, Mom.” Lauren exchanged a fist bump with her mother.

Kent smiled as ragged laughter erupted among most of the passengers, and the atmosphere lightened. Quite a pair of admirable women, these two.

Dirk’s scowl barely dimmed. “The shorter the better.” He tromped away to hunker down on one of the cushions near the heat source.

“I’m going to make one last trip out to the plane,” Kent said. “Phil? Cliff? Are you still my main men?”

“What about me?” Dirk jumped up.

“I didn’t think you’d want to handle luggage with a broken finger.”

Dirk snickered. “You’re right. I don’t.” He turned his back and held out his hands toward the stove.

Kent gritted his teeth.

Cliff brushed past him with a sidelong look. “I’m about ready to smack the smirk off of Dirk.”

Swallowing laughter, Kent followed him and big, lumbering Phil out the door. An hour later, as the sun closed in on the horizon, they returned with a full load of luggage and one stunning item that left all humor out in the cold.

Kent hauled Mags’s wheelie and a bulky bundle into the makeshift hospital area. He stared down at his inert copilot, frost riming him from the inside out. Lauren took a look at his face and rose from her kneeling position.

“What is it?” she said. “And don’t give me a slick answer.”

Kent eyeballed the activity going on near the door where everyone was crowding around to receive their luggage. The prospect of jackets and additional clothing, as well as toiletry items, was exciting in a good way after all the excitement in a bad way. The thumping and bumping and babble of eager voices would likely cover any conversation between him and the too-insightful physician’s assistant.

“This.” He lifted the bulky pack. “It’s a parachute.”

Her eyes widened. “Isn’t that standard equipment aboard your aircraft?”

He shook his head, bereft of speech as the possibilities—no, probabilities—buzzed around in his brain.

“Someone else brought it on board?”

“There is no tag on this item, so none of our passengers checked it in. Mags oversaw the loading of the luggage. She’s the only one who could have put it there.”

“But why?”

“That’s the gazillion-dollar question, isn’t it? Unfortunately, the answer stinks to the moon and back. Who would have needed an unorthodox exit from the aircraft?”

The sharp intake of Lauren’s breath marked comprehension. “Only someone who knew an emergency was going to happen.”

“Bingo. And the layout of my plane allows access to the luggage bay from the bathroom. Just sneak back there, don the chute and out you go. Nice and neat.”

Color receded from her face. “So we have to conclude that the plane was sabotaged. Would Mags have had the know-how to rig whatever caused the explosion?”

“Oh, yeah.” Kent crossed his arms. “She was the bomb expert on our flight crew in Afghanistan.”

“She was in the air force with you? Somebody you trusted? Wow. That’s got to hurt.”

Kent’s skin tightened. She’d said a mouthful. It was hard to explain the camaraderie that developed between soldiers in the military. Such a level of betrayal bit deep, and somehow, this woman got it without explanation.

Lauren laid a hand on his arm. “We still don’t know why she tried to destroy the plane.”

“That, and which one of our passengers was in on the deal.”

“What do you mean?” Her brows knit together.

He grimaced. “This is a tandem chute. Two people dive in it. Somebody was planning to leave with her, but got stuck in the plane with us because Mags was incapacitated.”

Lauren’s jaw dropped, and she leaned in toward him. “Someone walking around in this room tried to kill us? Wow. And they could try again!”

Kent delivered a single, decisive nod. “For now, let’s keep the discovery of this parachute our secret. Her accomplice doesn’t need to be alerted that his existence has been exposed.”

“Allow him to relax, get complacent and maybe slip up somehow?”

“Exactly. And we need to pray that Mags wakes up—at least long enough to tell us his name—or we’re all the proverbial sitting ducks. Anybody with the brains and guts to devise and carry out this sabotage plan will be quick to implement a Plan B that will glean him the same results—us dead and himself home free.”

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