“I really don’t want to play bridge anyway. Not today. I want to fool with my kettle.”
“Then I’ll help you…”
There was a little silence, in which she could almost hear the echo of her own voice protesting too much. She did not want to go anywhere with Kern. She knew it and he knew it, but to this point she had the excuse of keeping a careful and continual eye on Julia’s health. The lady whose darting eyes surveyed both of them now denied that need, a fresh bloom of color in her cheeks, the shine of rest and renewed health in her eyes… Trisha turned from them both and heard Kern’s chair scrape back as he rose.
She bent to set the tray in the dishwasher, and when she stood back up Kern was there. His wrists rested loosely on her shoulders, pinning her at arm’s length. His shoulders were wide enough to effectively block out Julia, kitchen, everything but Kern in front of her. One finger reached up to lazily smooth the hair from her cheek. “Trisha just wants to make sure you’re happy, Mother. That’s all Tish is interested in. You’ll have to convince her you wouldn’t feel deserted if she left you for a couple of hours.”
The teasing tone was boyish; the look in his eyes was strictly a man’s. There was seduction in his eyes, and when she stooped down below his arms to escape from him, there was Julia again. Keeping the lady happy was how she justified being here.
“I would
Trisha sighed and gave her mother-in-law a smile. “Well, then-of course I’ll go,” she managed to say finally, before turning back to Kern in defeat.
Matthew Redding landed on an open stretch of land near Kern’s camp. A thin, well-weathered man in his forties, he wore coveralls and a smile that didn’t know how to quit. “Mr. Lowery, you didn’t mention we were taking a passenger!”
So much for Kern’s plans for ever taking Julia. “I’m Trisha, Matt,” she said, extending her hand. “Let’s keep it on informal terms.”
“And we sure will do that, honey. We’re going to be on close terms real quick. The old bird’s set up for two- three in a pinch. And a pinch is what I call first-name terms!”
Laughing, Trisha vaulted up into the bubblelike cubicle, eyeing the control panel with an amateur’s enthusiastic interest. Kern folded in on her right as Matt settled in at the controls, the pilot turning to her with an impish grin. “You really don’t mind it cozy?”
“No problem. I love these things!”
“No nerves about flying in one of them?”
“No.” Trisha shook her head exuberantly. “I’ve clocked in a few hours in a little single-engine Cessna, but never a copter. I’m really curious to know the difference.”
“You
It was a delight to shock those all-knowing gray eyes for once. Kern’s arm stretched across the back of the seat to make more room for all of them, also making it all but impossible for her to settle anywhere comfortably but in the curve of his shoulder. Which she did, facing Matt. Her annoyance at being roped into the venture had all but disappeared. “It was nothing, really. Instead of a vacation last year, I spent the money on a few flying lessons. Didn’t get enough for a pilot’s license by any means, just got a taste-or should I say a tease? I’ve always wanted to fly,” she admitted wistfully.
“Good,” Kern murmured next to her ear. “You can finish your lessons here and take over the copter. Then I can send this old reprobate back to Detroit where he belongs.”
“This is yours?”
Kern nodded, motioning impatiently to his wrist, as if to say that the temporary impairment had forced him into hiring the pilot in the interim. The noise of the whirling propellers promptly deafened all other sounds. They were off the ground in a moment, heading directly over the treetops. Matthew handled the controls as if the bird were a well-loved toy that thrived on being played with, his turns sharply angled and his ups and downs deliberate. Trisha found herself laughing at the sudden roller-coaster sensations in her stomach, and Matt’s grin was sheer showing off.
But it was not a sightseeing trip they were on, regardless of what Kern had said, and it didn’t take long for Trisha to realize it. It was a swift pace to one spot, a hover, and then a repeat of the same. The men attempted no verbal communication over the rhythmical whirr of the helicopter blades.
Once they were off Kern’s land, Trisha lost track of landmarks, and distances were deceivingly different by air than by road. The day was cloudy, the sun occasionally casting a lemony haze on stretches of forest as they passed. From the miles of lush green forest there was suddenly a narrow patch of barrenness illuminated by sunlight, where a few stalky pine trunks were bleakly standing. There the earth was grayish rather than the rich brown that would have been natural. Ash. Trisha felt a lurch of horror at the fire’s devastation, but already they were moving on.
More of the lush fairy-tale green appeared, and the crystal of a stream one could see winding for miles. The splash of a waterfall was half hidden in trees, and just beyond was a heath, thick with flowers-purple-white, then the flame of azalea; perhaps a hundred acres of rhododendron alone. And then the barrenness again-a long ragged oblong patch this time. The fire had been a season ago, she was told, and now green was trying to make its way through the odd-colored soil in erratic patterns of new life.
“You want to see what happened ten days ago?” Matt shouted to Kern. “It’s down to your right.”
Unconsciously she pressed closer to Kern to see. She felt his hand smoothing back her hair and raised stricken eyes to his. This had been their land, once. Kern’s eyes met hers, inducing an unconscious tremor that pulsed through her body. His hand stopped its stroking and his fingers rested at the nape of her neck as they both looked out where Matt was hovering.
The bleak scene below was not large, a tribute to how rapidly the forest rangers reacted to a fire. Thousands of acres that might have been affected were not. Still, all Trisha could think of was a match being set on Kern’s land and what the land meant to him.
Matt headed back. “Fraser firs sure lookin’ better on your side of the ridge than on the Smokies side,” he called over her to Kern.
“Too soon to tell. The agriculture people will be here next week. We’ll see what they say,” Kern answered.
“There hasn’t been a fire for over a week.”
“Yes, but it’s too damned dry.”
“When are you going to take your turn at the controls, Trisha?” Matt turned to her with a teasing grin.
“As long as you’ve got crash helmets to put on…”
When they landed, Trisha wandered off to the Jeep to wait while the men talked for a few more minutes. The whirring sound of the propellers was still in her ears, and she felt a strange mixture of exhilaration and disquiet from the ride. It was not easy to forget what she’d seen.
Kern finally strode from behind her, patting her fanny as if to tell her to get a move on and get in. She moved so quickly to get into the Jeep that he laughed at her. “Well, bright eyes. Bringing up secrets from the deep, are we? Looking for a pilot’s job in the mountains?”
“Certainly,” she quipped back as he started the engine. “Barring a minor matter of a license and experience, of course.”
“Of course. Once upon a time I piloted a single-engine Cessna myself, but the license doesn’t extend to copters, and it seems I just haven’t found the time to go after it. But-fires, this aphid thing in the Fraser firs, marauding bears and wild boars, a missing camper on occasion-it occurred to me last winter that a copter’s a fast way of keeping control-”
“And a most intriguing little toy,” Trisha suggested innocently. “As Julia would say, the only difference between a man and a boy is the price of his toys.”
“Now don’t get sassy.” His eyes flickered over her, a grin slashed above the ebony beard. “If you’re nice to me, I might just sign you up for lessons.”
“Talk, talk, talk.” The wind was whirling her hair so helter-skelter in the open Jeep that she put both hands up impatiently, capturing a tousled knot at the top of her head.
He braked the Jeep and they both climbed out. “Hold it.” Kern leaned folded arms over the side of the vehicle,
