From Out Of The Blue

“Oh? And what does a woman know she has to do, naturally?” Kate felt herself instantly bristling at his words, the same way she’d bristled her way through ten years of Navy life.

“She knows she has to nurture and comfort and create. A woman is the heart of any home, and a man needs a woman to motivate him to build that home.

“That’s a crock, McCray. I didn’t join the service to nurture, comfort and create, and I don’t feel obliged to motivate any man to do anything.”

“No, of course not, I’m not saying you did or do or should…. I guess I’m just trying to say that the major difference between a man and a woman… That is to say, one of the major differences is…” He paused and gave her a cautious look. “I’d better go check the fire again.”

Kate held up the bowl of vegetables. “Grilling basket?”

“Look under the counter. You might find something useful, but I’ve never grilled vegetables before. I usually just wrap them in foil and lay them in the coals.”

“Nurture, comfort and create?” She couldn’t resist another jab at his chauvinism.

“I take it all back, every last word, and forget I ever mentioned motivation.”

“I suppose you’re the type who prefers their women pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen?”

He escaped out the door and was gone long enough for her to conclude there was nothing like a grilling basket in the kitchen. She did find the aluminum foil, however, and made do with that, carrying both the foil-wrapped vegetables and her glass of wine out onto the porch. Mitch was standing over the grill with a long-handled fork, poking occasionally at the coals. “No grilling basket, I see,” he said.

“This’ll work if you like soggy vegetables.”

“Soggy vegetables are my favorite.” He took them from her and laid the packet on the edge of the grill.

Kate leaned against the porch railing with a grudging smile. “So tell me what happened after you got out of the air force.”

He narrowed his eyes, thinking back. “That’d be about three years ago. I took a job flying for a commercial carrier. Turned out to be boring as hell—passenger jet service between Anchorage and Seattle. Like driving a bus on the same route every day. I lasted only a year at that. I might have held out longer, but Wally looked me up and convinced me it was time to make the switch.” He nudged the foil packet closer to the coals and it started to hiss. “After the Mad Dog burned, he held on to the insurance money, but rather than rebuild it he decided to start up an air charter service near Denali to ferry mountain climbers, hunters and sightseers around. At first I turned him down because flying for the airlines gave me a steady paycheck, but the second time he asked I jumped at the chance and here I am, borderline broke.”

“But happy?”

“Oh, hell, yes. My long-term plan is to buy Wally out when he gets ready to retire and change the name of the charter to Arctic Air, but that’ll only happen if we can keep the business alive, and that’ll only happen if he goes along with buying this plane I have my eye on. It’s a Pilatus/Fairchild Porter. Hot plane. Expensive.” He turned to her. “So what was in all the letters you never sent me over the past four years?”

“There’s not much to tell that wasn’t in that article,” Kate responded with an offhand shrug. “I was offered permanent shore duty when my son was born, I got promoted, did a lot of recruiting PR with the colleges, then got lucky and landed an instructor pilot position at the Navy Fighter Weapons School.”

“Lady, in case you didn’t know it, that wasn’t luck. Only the best of the best end up there. The flying must’ve been great.”

Kate took a small sip of wine, surprised that the idea of never flying like that again was still so painful to her after everything else she’d been through. “It was,” she admitted. “I got to play bad guy in the air with some of the hottest young pilots in the fleet, but even better than that, I changed a lot of old-fashioned attitudes toward women in the military every time I worked with a new class.”

“That had to have been the hardest lesson for them to learn.”

“That women can do more than nurture, comfort and create?”

He raised both his hands in a mute gesture of surrender. “I’ll get the steak. The coals are just about ready and it doesn’t take long for the veggies to cook.” He disappeared inside and reappeared carrying the platter with the marinating steak, Thor padding at his heels, his yellow gaze never wavering from the prize. “How do you like yours cooked?”

“Medium rare, but it looks like Thor would take his just the way it is.”

“The only way he’ll taste this steak is in his dreams.” The meat went onto the grill with a loud hiss and savory plume of smoke. “This’ll attract every bear in Alaska, but don’t worry. Thor won’t let ’em within a mile of the porch.”

Kate glanced around, reasonably sure he was kidding, though she wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to see a grizzly hulking through the thick willows along the riverbank. She was glad Thor was with them, standing guard.

“Must’ve been tough for you, raising a kid and flying at the top of the curve,” Mitch said, turning the packet of vegetables.

“It would’ve been, if I hadn’t found Rosa,” Kate admitted. “She was taking care of my neighbor’s three kids, and when he got his transfer orders, Rosa wouldn’t go with them. She didn’t want to leave California. I’d just taken two months of maternity leave and wanted to get back in the swing of things, so the timing was great for both of us. I lucked out and so did Hayden. She’s been wonderful with him.”

Mitch poked at the steak then reached for his wineglass. He took a swallow and then lowered it, trapping her with those eyes that even after more than four years still had the power to easily seduce her. She wanted to look away but couldn’t.

“Tell me why you never read my letter,” he said.

“I’d rather not talk about that right now.”

“I’m thinking whatever you were so mad about has to have something to do with that night at the saloon, and that’s also why you snuck off on me that way. No note. No nothing. You jumped in your plane and flew back to California without so much as a goodbye. So tell me what I did that was so awful.”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Kate felt her heart rate instantly double as the heat of embarrassment flushed through her. How could she explain it to him when she didn’t fully understand it herself? “It wasn’t you. I was mad at myself for going to a bar with someone I didn’t even know, and then…” Her voice faltered and she fell silent.

His gaze never wavered. “As I recall, we were properly introduced beforehand.”

“I was mad at myself for going…and at you for fixing those drinks.”

“As I recall, you polished off the first one without complaint and then asked me to mix you another.”

Kate frowned. “I did no such thing.”

“Whoa.” He set his wineglass back down, his expression wary. “Back up a step. You asked me to fix you another drink, and I did. I wasn’t trying to get you drunk so I could take advantage of you. I’ve never done that with a woman.”

“So you say.”

“Is that what this is all about? You were mad at me because I mixed you two drinks and you were mad at yourself because all of a sudden your sex drive kicked into high gear after years of being repressed by life on board an aircraft carrier? That’s why you never read my letter? Is that what you came back here to tell me?”

“Not exactly,” Kate said, but he was too worked up to listen.

“You had me half undressed before you even finished that second drink,” he said. “Remember now?”

Kate’s cheeks burned. “That’s because of the large amounts of alcohol you obviously put in my glass.”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t the alcohol that caused you to let down your hair. It was the adrenaline pumping through your system after that flight from Adak. It was the blizzard and the wind and the snow and the fire in the woodstove. It was all those things combined, but most of all, it was you and me, Kate. You and me. Call it chemistry, call it whatever you want, but you can’t deny it. We were great together.” He took a step closer and startled her by reaching out a hand to brush the hair back from the side of her face. “I can feel that chemistry even now. Can’t you?”

She closed her fingers around his wrist to still his hand, terrified that he’d discover she was wearing a wig. “Mitch, I didn’t come here to explain why I never read your letter. I came because I have something important to talk to you about.”

Rebuffed, he stepped back when she released his hand and gave her a curt nod. “So, talk.”

Kate was riveted by the intensity of his gaze. She knew it was now or never, and she felt a pressure building up within herself that made it hard to breathe. Her heart beat a painful cadence as she struggled to find the right words. So many unknowns loomed ahead of her. She could only hope this one turned out well, both for Hayden’s sake, and for hers.

“You’d better turn the steak first,” she said, taking hold of her glass of wine and damning herself for her cowardice. “This could take awhile.”

CHAPTER FOUR

MITCH REALIZED that they were standing toe-to-toe like dueling partners, which wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he planned this barbecue. The way things were going, she wouldn’t be spending the night up in his loft, and he kind of had his heart set on that scenario. He turned away from her and gave his attention to the food cooking on the grill, fuming inwardly. Damn, but she was hard to read. What was she trying to tell him that was so vital? Was she going to accuse him of putting some kind of date rape drug in her drinks? As he turned the meat, the pager on his belt sounded. He silenced it with a muttered curse.

“Sorry. That’s the boss,” he explained. “Bad timing. I better call Wally and find out what’s up.”

Kate moved to the porch railing to watch the water rush past while he went into the kitchen to retrieve the satellite phone. He carried it back out and dialed, then, while he waited for the call to go through, he poked the steak with the tongs, taking out his frustration on the expensive piece of meat until someone picked up on the other end.

“Hey, boss, what’s up?” He glanced across the creek toward the mountain range while he listened to Wally explain. Four climbers, one injured badly, winds so high on the mountain that nobody else was flying. Mitch’s initial reaction to this was disappointment, then he glanced at Kate. She was standing with her back to him, and her shoulders were set in a militant line. Whatever it was she was working herself up to tell him, it wasn’t going to be pretty. In retrospect, maybe now would be a good time for him to bail.

“We still have a couple hours of good daylight and the Stationair’s ready to rock and roll, right? That’ll be good money, especially if they want a lift into Fairbanks. We have a bank payment due on the plane and another one to buy. Radio them to hang tight, boss, I’m on my way.”

He ended the call and gave Kate what he hoped was an apologetic look. “Four climbers requesting a flight out of base camp, one needs immediate medical attention. Increasing winds are predicted on the mountain through tomorrow, so it’s now or never. A high-risk rescue means great money. It also means we can’t share supper. Sorry about that.”

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