Even though Sylvie didn’t ask, Will told her anyway. “You can call me Will. I’m Will Pierson.”
And with the pronouncement he felt the slightest hitch in his plane, a very unfamiliar sensation that had nothing at all to do with turbulence.
THREE
“Will. I like that name.” She squeezed her eyes shut again, forcing her mind on anything but the bouncing plane. She was powerless against the jarring movement that barraged her with images of a rodeo cowboy riding a disgruntled bull. Her stomach roiling, she prayed she’d last more than the required eight seconds before being thrown.
Tossing a quick glance at Will, she hoped he hadn’t noticed her distress, though it was not likely he would have missed it. His black hair was neatly trimmed beneath his Mountain Cove Air ball cap. It looked as if he was trying to grow a beard, or he hadn’t shaved in a few days. Though he looked barely thirty—late twenties even—he had an edge to him, an aura of experience about him that made him seem older. Despite his jacket, she could tell he was strong and fit.
“If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I don’t know what I would have done. My options had run out. But in helping me, you might have gotten yourself wrapped up in my troubles.”
“And what are your troubles?”
“You know as much as I do. I don’t know why someone would want to kill me.” Sylvie wished she hadn’t said the words out loud. They disturbed her. She quickly changed the subject. Riding in the death trap of a plane was enough to handle at the moment. “Where’re you from, Will?”
“Mountain Cove.”
Sylvie couldn’t help the shiver that ran across her shoulders. Her mother would have snarled at the mention of Mountain Cove. From all she’d told Sylvie, Mountain Cove was nothing but a bunch of backwater, back-stabbing gossipers. Her mother had reason enough to feel that way, Sylvie supposed, considering she’d had a secret affair with an already married pillar of the community and the man had ended his relationship with her. Pregnant, Sylvie’s mother had been ashamed and fled Mountain Cove.
Sylvie kept to herself the fact that her father was from Mountain Cove. She’d never met him, though that would be impossible now that he was deceased. But her half siblings lived there, too. A surreal desperation flooded her—she wanted to meet the Warren siblings—her half siblings. See what they were made of. Come to her own conclusions about them, and what her real father was like and the people of Mountain Cove.
Despite all Sylvie’s mother’s negative talk about the town, she’d been on her way back to Mountain Cove for reasons unknown to Sylvie when she’d taken that last, fatal flight. But Sylvie didn’t want to share any of this with Will. She didn’t know a thing about him except that he’d saved her today.
The plane lurched to the right and Sylvie’s stomach went with it. She released a telling groan.
“It gets rough through here. Sorry.”
“So far it’s been a walk in the meadow.” Sylvie regretted her sarcasm. Will didn’t deserve it.
But he laughed. He had a sense of humor, which was more than Sylvie could say for herself. Somehow the thick timbre of his mirth relaxed her.
“You never did say where you’re from, by the way.”
No, she hadn’t. He hadn’t asked, but normal conversation would have required she reciprocate when he’d told her he was from Mountain Cove.
“The Seattle area. I teach scuba diving for commercial divers and I volunteer for search-and-rescue dive operations.”
The man next to her shifted in his seat and seemed uneasy. “My dad died in a diving accident. I haven’t gone diving since.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. My mother died in a plane crash.” She regretted her tone. She hadn’t meant it to sound as though she was in a competition.
The plane jerked with his reaction, subtle though it was. “Well, we have something in common, after all. My mother died in a plane crash, too.”
Oh, why had she revealed so much? She wasn’t sure what more she should tell him, if anything. He didn’t deserve to get mixed up in her problems. But what if he already was? Had the men who tried to kill her today paid attention to Will and his plane? Would they track him down and exact some sort of killing revenge?
She should have realized this from the beginning. The attack on her today must have to do with her mother’s plane crash. She was close to finding the crash and someone didn’t want her there. What else could it be? Or was she exhibiting the crazy imagination of someone suffering through mild hypothermia and the bends all at the same time?
A snippet of her mother’s voice mail raced across her mind.
I’m flying to Mountain Cove on a bush plane. I know what you’re thinking, but I’ll tell you more when I get there. It’s Damon... Oh... I’ve gotta go...
A rattling din—something entirely new—rose above the whir of the propellers, and a tremor joined the rattle. Was this normal? She squeezed the armrests again because there wasn’t anything else to grab. Sylvie’s warnings to her mother about flying came rushing back, swirling with images of her mother. Her relationship with Sylvie’s stepfather, Damon Masters, and the endless arguments.
Secrets.
Was her life flashing before her eyes like she’d so often heard would happen in the last few moments of life?
“What’s happening?”
When Will didn’t answer, she risked opening her eyes. His features were tight.
Okay, well, that doesn’t look good. “If I survive this, I’m never flying again. I wouldn’t be on this plane now
