“None taken.” His voice had an edge to it. “You miss out on a lot if you don’t fly. You’ll never see the world like this, see the wonders of Alaska, if you don’t get in the air and soar with the eagles.”
“Are you saying this is normal?” Her teeth clattered along with the plane.
“You just have to roll with it if you can. But if it makes you feel any better, I know what I’m doing.”
Then the plane lurched to the left, and a sound like the crack of thunder rocked the plane, vibrated through her core. “Will, I can’t die today. I have to find my mother’s plane!”
Her words held some kind of meaning for him personally, but he couldn’t figure it out when their survival was on the line, so he tucked them inside his mind to pick apart later. He’d just reassured her he was a good pilot. He needed to live up to his word.
“You’ve been honest with me to a point, so I’ll be honest with you. I think the rifleman might have done some damage to the plane. It’s taken time to work its way through, and now we’re feeling the pain of it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m a good pilot—a great pilot—but it never hurts to say your prayers. Get your affairs in order with God.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I wouldn’t kid you about something so serious.” He hated to scare her, but neither could he hide the gravity of the situation.
As he struggled to bring the vibrating plane in, to find a body of water on which to land, he thought back to his mother. Was this how she’d felt when her plane was going down? She’d been a great pilot, too. The best. And yet his mother’s plane was missing. It had to have crashed somewhere. What had Sylvie said about needing to find her mother’s plane? He couldn’t think about that now—he had to focus on keeping them alive.
A friend lived within hiking distance of the strip of water he aimed for. Even if they landed safely, Sylvie wouldn’t survive without some place warm to wait until help arrived.
The plane kicked, a rumble spilling through the fuselage. His gut tensed.
Though he struggled to grip the vibrating yoke, he reached over and pressed his hand over Sylvie’s white knuckles that squeezed the armrest. Surprising him, she released her grip and held his hand, strong and tight. Maybe it had nothing at all to do with reality but more to do with looking death straight in the eyes, but Will had a sense of connection with Sylvie Masters—a complete stranger—which made no sense.
God, please let me save Sylvie. Save the day. Like her, I want to find my mother’s plane. Find the answers. Then he understood what his mind could not comprehend earlier.
God had to have brought them together for this same purpose. They couldn’t die today.
“We’re going to be okay, Sylvie. Just keep praying.”
Her reply came out in an indistinguishable murmur. Indistinguishable but understandable, all the same. She fought to hold herself together. He couldn’t blame her. He didn’t want to release her hand, finding a comfort in her grip that he hadn’t known he needed, but he pulled away and gripped the yoke.
“There, see the water? That’s all I need for a smooth landing.” He thought of his mother again. That was all she would have needed, too. He’d long begun to suspect her plane hadn’t crashed where they could find debris, but had gone down and sunk to the bottom of the ocean, a channel somewhere, just waiting to be discovered like a shipwreck full of treasure.
The thought sickened him. His stomach pitched with the plane. Sylvie hunched over her knees, covered her head as if she was prepared to crash. As if her efforts would save her.
Will couldn’t be sure they would land on the water or that he could keep his word. Rain pelted the windshield, and as comfortable with flying as any bush pilot could be, he had to admit—but only to himself—this had been the ride of his life.
He piloted the plane forward and tried again to radio for help, but they were still in no-man’s-land.
“Sylvie?”
She mumbled. Groaned. Kept her head down.
“Promise me something.”
Another groan.
“Promise me you will fly again.”
“Are you crazy?”
At least he’d gotten a coherent response from her. “Promise me.”
“You mean if we survive?”
“Yes. I mean if I land this broken hull of a plane and we climb out of it in one piece.”
“If I say yes will you try harder to land?”
The crack in her desperate voice sent him tumbling.
“Sylvie, I couldn’t try any harder, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to extract a promise from you. I wouldn’t want you to miss out on seeing the world the way I see it.”
Sylvie stared at him, wide-eyed. “Why would you care how I see the world?”
Will couldn’t say why it was important to him, but in that instant, facing a one-of-a-kind death, he knew it was. He opened his mouth to reply but the plane shuddered and plummeted. Water swallowed them, then everything went black.
FOUR
Water rushed into the plane that had hit too hard. Sylvie fought the panic. Sucked in air hard and fast. Must. Slow. Breathing. Hyperventilating would do her no good. Passing out wasn’t an option. One of them had to get the two of them out.
With Will unconscious that would leave Sylvie.
Forget what she’d already been through. Survive. She had to survive—to reach down and find strength she didn’t know she had.
Water poured in.
The plane was sinking.
Sinking?
Sylvie had always thought floatplanes were, well, supposed to float. But then she remembered Jacques Cousteau’s son, also a diver, who died in a floatplane that crashed and sank.
Surely the pontoons would prevent it from completely submerging. Wasn’t that the whole purpose of pontoons on a floatplane? But that didn’t mean that Will wouldn’t drown in the meantime.
A small gash in his
