Since that day two months ago, Will had flown a thousand times over the area where her plane should have gone down. He tried to trust God to give him the peace he longed for, but his need to know what had happened drove him crazy. Surely he owed her that much—a decent burial and a clear understanding of what had caused her death.
She’d taught him to survive. Alaska was about survival of the fittest. She’d taught him to spread his wings and fly above the storms of life like an eagle. In this way, they had survived his father’s brutal scuba-diving death and built a solid life for the two of them that had lasted until the day she’d gone to pick up a surprise package she’d said was going to shake things up. Well, things had been shaken all right, and his mother was dead and gone.
She was a skilled pilot. Something must have gone wrong with the plane. Equipment failure? Or worse. Had one of the packages been a bomb?
The thought made Will edgy with every trip he took. Every package he picked up or delivered. He didn’t want any surprise packages. He just wanted answers.
His Champ hit a rough spot, a pothole in the air as he liked to call it.
And that was when he saw someone running.
She was not out for a jog wearing a diving suit. That much he could tell. She looked as if she was running for her life. Will flew in close, sweeping the area, and searched. Was she running from a bear? The woods were thick around the meadow where she ran. Where was she heading? She was too focused on her escape to glance at his plane swooping low. He didn’t have to get any closer to see she had terror written all over her face.
And then Will saw him.
A man with a rifle. Will took a dive, letting the guy know he should back off. Between the trees, the man appeared to gaze through his scope at Will. He backed away, lifted higher and out of range. But not fast enough. He heard the ping of a bullet against the fuselage.
Will tried to radio for help, but to no avail, which was just as he’d expect out in this part of southeast Alaska. No one on the other end of his radio call answered to help this woman, so that meant he would have to do. Even if he had reached someone for help, what were the chances they would arrive in time? Zero.
He was on his own.
But how could he help her? He swung around the small island to come back and find the best place to land on the water, hoping she would see him. Hoping the rifleman wouldn’t.
Right. That was going to work.
Will sucked in a breath and veered wide and plunged low, coming around to find the woman. He’d seen a boat anchored nearby. Was that hers? Or the rifleman’s? Somehow he had to intervene and get her out before the man got to her. Flying low over the thick trees, he couldn’t see either one of them.
But he needed to keep his distance, too. Bad enough the man was shooting at someone—and Will wouldn’t stand idly by and let that happen without a fight—but if his plane was badly damaged then both Will and the woman would have nowhere to turn, no way to escape.
How could he let her know he was friendly and not with the hunter? And how could he find her at all? She’d dropped completely out of sight. Had she found a place to hide in the woods? Or...was she headed for the water? She wore a diving suit, after all.
He prayed this would all end well as he made for the water somewhere near the direction she’d been headed. Then he could offer her a ride home.
Will maneuvered his floatplane onto the water. This was cutting things close.
The pontoons touching down, he proceeded forward, watching the rough edges and sandy beaches where the land met water and the rocky outcroppings, searching for the woman and the rifleman. Both of them could be heading away from him for all he knew. Or they could be moving straight for him through the island rainforest of the Tongass National Forest. As he steered closer, Will found his weapon and placed it on the passenger seat.
Closing in on the island, he slowed the plane. A slow burn worked its way up his gut as he took the plane right up to a small section of sand, remaining wary of the thick forest hidden with danger. Which one of them would he see first?
The woman, running for her life?
Or the man with his rifle, aiming to kill?
TWO
Fear drove her past the pain of her injuries, through the shock of it all. Sylvie pushed her body because her life depended on it. Grateful for the diving boots she’d worn under her fins to protect her feet, she ran from another madman, this one holding a high-powered rifle instead of a diver’s knife.
If she could just make it to the water.
Again.
Hard to believe she’d escaped the crazy diver beneath the surface only to face off with another dangerous man. This wasn’t some random meeting, but an elaborate plan to assure her death.
She could almost laugh at their efforts—how hard had they believed she would be to kill?
Her legs screamed, and she stopped to lean against a Sitka spruce, catching her breath. The dry suit hadn’t been designed for running.
At first she’d thought the plane was just another part of the plan. A diver. A man with a rifle. Why not a floatplane to attack her in some other, horrible way? But then the man who’d been there to give her an unfriendly welcome as she
