Tempting the New Boss(28)

Mason didn’t have much hope, but he pulled out his cell phone.

“No service, sir,” a pilot said. “We already checked.”

“Right.” He slipped it back into his pocket. “I guess we’ll have to walk out if you say the radio is down.”

“Park itself is in the center of Nova Scotia, but considerably to the west,” the other pilot said, tapping the map. “And there’s a town to the north, Caladonia. Might make sense for us to split up, two of us go west, the other two go north.”

“Nova Scotia’s an island province of Canada, right?” Camilla directed her question to the clean-cut, military-looking pilots in their wet white uniform shirts, stripes on their shoulders, with an attention that Mason didn’t like for some reason. “Will anyone be searching for us?”

“It’s an island, miss, but a big one. And couldn’t say if anyone’s looking for us yet. With the radio out, we couldn’t send a message that we intended to change course. For all we know, the last airport that was tracking us won’t even have picked up the distress signal. And the airport we were originally heading to, Heathrow, won’t notice until we fail to show up at arrival time. By then, everybody might think we went down.”

Camilla shivered. “My family.”

She must be troubled about a call going to her parents, all those siblings, the worry she would be putting them through.

All he had to be concerned about was Marcia. And hell, she wouldn’t worry. She’d just mount an all-out search for the plane, convinced she could rescue him wherever he was, even if that was three miles down in the depths of the ocean. He smiled. She probably could, too.

“We might run into a ranger’s station, even before a town, where we could get a message through that we’re safe,” Mason suggested. “Maybe even before they know we’re missing.”

“God, I hope so,” she said in a small voice.

A pilot went to one of the closets and pulled out two leather jackets, trimmed with sheep’s fleece, throwing one to his co-pilot as they both shrugged into them. “I would suggest Ray go with one of you, and I’ll go with the other.”

Camilla nodded, waiting for Mason to get up so she could get by and they could pair off.

“Okay. I’m all for walking out of here,” she said.

Mason looked down at her spikey heels. “Not in those shoes, you’re not.” He turned to the pilots. “Maybe she should wait with the plane, in case someone spots it.”

“I don’t want to sit here all alone.” She glared at him. “I have flats in my bag.”

“It could be a long walk, miss, and in this rain there’ll be a lot of mud. We trained for this kind of thing in the Air Force. You let us handle it.”

“Right. These men trained for this, Camilla. Let them do their jobs. You stay here in case someone locates the plane. And whoever gets somewhere first will send help back, and if instead someone finds the plane, you can get help to us. How’s that?”

She clenched her jaw and shook her head.

The pilots opened the metal container of edible supplies, passing up the drawer with the small bottles of liquor for the one with water and energy drinks. They filled two backpacks, adding some trail mix and other snacks, not weighing in further as to whether Camilla should be joining one of them or not. From a closet they retrieved boots. “What size are you, Mr. Talbot?”

“Twelve,” he answered. “Now listen, Camilla, what if someone comes upon the empty plane? They’ll think we’re all dead. Then what kind of message will get to your family?”

“Without bodies, they will not. They’ll think we did what we did, which was walk to civilization. They’ll probably even see our tracks from the plane heading out.”

“Not in this rain they won’t. The mud will wash the tracks away. And bodies can be flung a great distance from a crash, for your information.”

“Too bad,” a pilot said. “We have an extra pair but it’s a size nine. And Ray and I are tens, so you couldn’t use ours.”

“I’m fine,” he said, glancing at his sneakers.

“Maybe you should stay, too,” suggested the other guy—in his defense, they looked very similar in their crew cuts and uniforms and now the bomber jackets.

Mason stood up in the aisle. “No, I’m going.”

“Then I’m going, too,” Camilla insisted, pushing him out of the way so she could get to the overhead.

“She can go with the captain,” the man who’d made the suggestion he stay said. “And you can come with me, sir. Boyd will take good care of her, won’t you?”