Sarah Varland - Tundra Threat

She felt chilled through when she thought about boarding a plane with Chris again. Hadn’t she felt uneasy around him yesterday, felt as if he was watching her reactions more than he needed to? One thing she was sure of—law enforcement officers of any kind were supposed to trust their gut instincts. And hers said that there was more to that pilot than met the eye.

That could spell disaster for her.

On the other hand, the extra time with Will might be difficult. The last thing she wanted was to fall into some childish attraction to him again and embarrass herself. Surely she was past all that, though. As adults, their personalities were far from compatible. Will’s being comfortable with changing plans last minute and flying her around proved that. He’d always been easygoing, ready to take life as it came. And McKenna liked to have a plan. A relationship between them wouldn’t work, so surely she could remember that and keep from humiliating herself in front of him. And if nothing else, accepting his offer would give her a chance to prove to him once and for all that she was a strong woman, capable of taking care of herself. If he got the message, he might even convince her brother to knock off the overprotectiveness. Okay, that wasn’t very likely—but she could still hope. There was a lot she didn’t like about this promotion, but maybe it would give her that longed-for chance to show the people in her life what she was capable of. It was worth a shot.

McKenna took a deep breath. Nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

And as another brilliant grin split Will’s face, her stomach simultaneously danced and churned as she wondered what she’d gotten herself into.

THREE

McKenna eyed the plane in front of her and then looked back at Will. “You seriously know how to fly this thing?”

He just laughed and continued his preflight checklist. “Would I have offered to help if I didn’t?”

She shrugged.

Will brushed off his hands and stood from where he’d been bent looking under the plane. “All set, I think.”

“You think?”

He laughed again. “We’re all set. I’m sure of it. I always check everything before I go.” His face sobered. “Better to be safe than sorry and all that. I’m extra careful because a buddy I took lessons with crashed his plane a year or so ago and didn’t make it. Neither did his passenger.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.... Especially right before I climb into that thing with you.”

“I’m always careful, that’s what I’m telling you. Besides, I’d never let anything hurt you, McKenna.”

Years ago, in the throes of her ridiculous crush, she’d have seen those words as some sweeping romantic promise. Now she knew better—it was just more evidence that he saw her as someone to be protected. She bit back the urge to remind him that she was the one with training and an actual mandate to serve and protect and she didn’t need him to treat her like a fragile, sheltered princess. But there was no need to start the day with an argument, no matter how frustrated his attitude made her.

They climbed into the plane and Will taxied down the runway, easing the nose of the small aircraft into the air seamlessly. McKenna let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“All right. So we’re headed south.”

“Yeah, southeast.” She gave him the coordinates for where they’d found the bodies.

“And all that’s your territory? That’s a pretty far range for one person to cover.”

McKenna nodded. “Yeah. I guess that’s why this was technically a promotion, because it’s more responsibility.”

“Where’s the closest trooper besides you?”

“Kotzebue.” She named a town on the western coast of Alaska, hundreds of miles away and not connected to Barrow by anything resembling a road.

“Not exactly close.”

She shook her head. “Not at all.”

“What if this situation escalates?”

McKenna shrugged. “I work harder, I guess.”

“So you’re on your own then.”

“I can handle it.”

“I never meant to say you couldn’t.”

Conversation lulled then. Not a comfortable pause, but an awkward silence where McKenna could feel Will weighing his words and deciding what was safe to say. So maybe she’d overreacted, but it had seemed as if he was implying she couldn’t handle things on her own.

The bodies she’d seen the day before flashed before her eyes, and terror rose for a brief moment in her throat, but she shoved it down. She could handle this. She could.

“What are we looking for when we get there?” Will had apparently decided to go with a change of subject, which McKenna thought was smart of him. He’d apparently learned something about women in the years he’d been married.

“I...I don’t know,” she admitted. “I talked to Captain Wilkins yesterday and he told me he’d sent in paramedics to handle the scene. There’s no medical examiner in Barrow, so paramedics take care of it.”

“You didn’t have to stay until they got there or anything? Make sure the crime scene wasn’t tampered with or corrupted?”

Wilkins had asked the same thing of her yesterday—why she didn’t stay. She’d stuttered out an explanation for him, telling him how shocked she’d been and how she hadn’t known what to do, but it had only sort of satisfied him.

“You were supposed to,” Will said with understanding after reading her silence. How could he do that? Was she that transparent, or could he still read her thoughts well after all those years? They’d been close the summer after his senior year, had spent long hours talking by the water as the midnight sun shone down on them. Then he’d left, taking McKenna’s heart with him. No, scratch that. She’d tried to offer him her heart, attempted to awkwardly confess her crush to him, but either he hadn’t understood what she’d been trying to say or he hadn’t felt the same. When he left, he left her, her bruised ego and her heart behind.

“Yeah.” She exhaled. “I was supposed to.”

“It’s not normal for your job, though, having to deal with all this.”

She didn’t like the fact that he was now privy to one of her failures. “It doesn’t matter. I should have known. I’ve had the training.”

He said nothing in reply, just kept piloting them across the vast wilderness. It was beautiful out there, down below their tiny airplane. Braided rivers rushed across the green and gold of the tall tundra grass, and the fireweed, which had bloomed almost all the way up, indicating that summer was over and winter would arrive soon, provided a stunning dark pink contrast. Taking her cue from Will, McKenna sat in silence, enjoying the view and sorting through case details in her head.

“Is this it?”

McKenna confirmed the coordinates with him and noticed details of the landscape that looked familiar from yesterday.

Will landed the plane smoothly, allaying her fears about his flying abilities, at least for today. After he’d finished his post-flight duties, McKenna led the way. “It’s about...probably half a mile this way,” she told him as they started to walk.

“Why didn’t we land there?”

She stopped in her tracks. “You know what? I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

“This really isn’t what you’re used to, is it, city girl?”

Maybe it was the “city girl” comment. Or maybe it was the compassion in his tone. McKenna wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she’d messed up again, in front of one of the people she’d most like to prove her competency to. “I can handle it fine, Will,” she ground out between clenched teeth. “I messed up a couple of times. But I won’t again.” She prayed it would be true and silently begged Will not to contact any of the people he must know to tell them she wasn’t up to this job. People’s recommendations went a long way up here in the middle of nowhere.