Kate Hoffmann - Dodging Cupid's Arrow

"The story is yours, Kincaid. You have to write it."

She stood up. "No, I don't. Right now, I have to go back to Alaska. I have to find out if Joe Brennan really loves me."

"Joe Brennan loves you? My Joe Brennan?"

Perrie laughed. "He was your Joe Brennan, but now he's my Joe Brennan." She grabbed the phone from the corner of the desk. "I have to call him and tell him I'm coming." She snatched her hand away. "No, maybe I should just fly up there and talk to him." She shook her head. "I'll call Julia. I'll let her know I'm coming. She can pick me up at the airstrip."

Perrie rummaged through the bag Milt held, searching for her day planner before she realized she didn't have the number for the lodge. "I need the phone number. Get me the phone number, Milt. Never mind, I'll get it."

She sprang out of her chair and hurried toward Milt's office. His phone file was on his desk and she riffled through it until she found the card for the Bachelor Creek Lodge. Grabbing Milt's chair, she pulled it up to the desk and sat down, then dialed the phone.

Her heart pounded in her chest and she prayed that Joe wouldn't answer. When she finally spoke to him again, she wanted to be standing face-to-face. She wanted to be able to look into his eyes and see the truth there.

The phone was answered on the first ring. "Joe?" said a feminine voice.

"Julia?"

"Who is this?"

Perrie cleared her throat. "It's Perrie Kincaid."

"Oh, Perrie. Thank goodness you called. Has Joe contacted you?"

Perrie frowned. "No, he hasn't. Isn't he there?"

A long silence met her question. Then Julia finally spoke. "Perrie, I have some bad news. Joe was ferrying supplies to a town near the Arctic Circle and he never showed up. He filed a flight plan and he radioed ahead so they were expecting him before dark. He took the Cub. At first we thought he might have flown down to see you."

"Me?"

"Tanner said he seemed pretty upset after you left. We thought he might have flown down to Seattle to straighten things out."

"He-he isn't here," Perrie said. "He didn't call."

"Hawk says that Joe would never deliberately deviate from his flight plan. That's why we're worried."

"He's a good pilot," Perrie murmured. "The best. He'd never…" Her heart turned to ice and her breath froze in her chest as the true meaning of Julia's words sank in. Joe's plane had gone down in the wilderness and they didn't know where he was.

She brought her fingers to her mouth to stop a cry of fear, then blinked back the sudden flood of tears pressing at the cornets of her eyes.

"I'm flying up mere," Perrie said, her voice surprisingly calm. "I'll get a flight out as soon as I can. I may have to fly into Anchorage and then on to Fairbanks, but I'll get mere by morning. I promise."

"Perrie, you don't have to-"

"I want to be there, Julia. I belong in Muleshoe."

"All right. Call the lodge before you leave Fairbanks and I'll send Hawk out to the airstrip to pick you up."

"I'll be mere as soon as I can. And, Julia?"

"Yes?"

"If they find him before I get there, would you tell him that I love him? And that everything will work out?"

The tiny airstrip at Muleshoe appeared in the distance just as the sun was rising. Perrie stared out the window of the bush plane, shielding her eyes against the glare, hoping she might see the red wings of Joe's Super Cub. But as the pilot descended, her heart fell, as well. There was no sign of the plane.

She said a silent prayer, hoping that Joe had turned up at another airstrip, hoping that he was safe in some other bush town. She'd been in the air all night, flying from Seattle to Anchorage to Fairbanks. And then she had struggled to find a bush pilot in the early hours of the morning.

They'd left Fairbanks before dawn, and as they came into Muleshoe, she realized that she hadn't slept in more than two days, since the last night she and Joe had spent together at her cabin. Her thoughts skipped back to that night, and then to the night after, when they'd made love.

She couldn't allow herself to believe that they would never see each other again. Joe had to be alive and safe. He flew in the wilderness all the time and he had bragged that he could put the Cub down anywhere he pleased. If he'd had trouble, perhaps he'd safely landed the plane and was just waiting to be found.

"Looks like there's someone down there," the pilot shouted, pointing to the far end of the runway.

Perrie squinted against the rising sun and saw the Blazer parked near the row of planes. As the pilot circled the landing strip, she caught sight of Hawk, staring up into the sky. She had talked to him by phone right before she'd left Fairbanks and there had been no news of Joe.

Now, two hours later, she wondered if anything had changed.

The plane landed on the smooth snow and slid to a stop. Perrie shoved the door open and hopped out, then ran across the snow toward Hawk. She threw herself into his arms and he hugged her tight, picking her up off the ground. Then he set her down and stepped back. "I'm glad you came."

"Has there been any news?"

Hawk shook his head. "They're sending out search planes right now. We'll find him."

"What about his radio? Hasn't he tried to contact anyone?"

"Maybe his radio is out."

"But how could the radio just go out, unless-" Perrie stopped short, not wanting to complete the thought. Unless the plane was damaged. Unless Joe had crashed somewhere in the wilderness.

"There are lots of reasons he could have lost radio contact," Hawk assured her. "If he put down in a valley, the mountains might block the signal."

"You know the route he was flying, don't you? So the search teams can find him more quickly?"

"He was flying up to Fort Yukon. He never-"

"Fort Yukon?" Perrie asked. "He was going to Fort Yukon?"

"He was taking supplies up there. He has survival gear in the plane. Sleeping bags and dried food. So if he had to put her down, he would be able to wait for us to find him."

A sudden thought came to Perrie's mind when Hawk mentioned sleeping bags. "I think I might know where he is," she said. "What if he put the plane down for a reason, then couldn't take off again?"

"Why would he put the plane down?"

"Maybe he stopped to see Romeo and Juliet," Perrie replied.

"The play?"

"No, the wolves," she cried. "You know, the family of wolves that he watches up at the Yukon Flats. He took me to see them."

"Joe visits a family of wolves?" Hawk seemed completely taken aback by the revelation. "Can you remember where you landed up there?"

"We were at the Gebhardts' cabin."

"On Van Hatten Creek?"

Perrie nodded. "And then we flew west, I think. I didn't notice at first, but then the landscape looked so different from Muleshoe. There was a huge mountain out the left window and I remember the sun was shining off the snow. There were no trees on it."

"That was probably Snowy Peak."

"Then I think we turned north again, out of the sun. There were lots of trees below and mountains. But then the landscape kind of cleared and there was a wide area that was just snow. It was really flat, like a river covered in white. And that's where Joe put the plane down. He said we were on the southern edge of the wildlife refuge."

"Was there another peak? You should have seen it to the east. Bear Mountain."

Perrie bit her lower lip and tried to remember, but once they'd landed, she had lost her sense of direction. Her attention had been focused on the wolves and on Joe, not on the surrounding mountains. "I don't know," she said in a shaky voice. "Maybe there was. I'd know the landscape if I saw it. I remember that peak."

The pilot from the bush plane walked over toward them, Perrie's bags in his arms. "Here are your things, ma'am."