A Match Made in Alaska Read Online Free PDF Page B

of missing out on life. He didn’t want to insult Annie, but he needed to set her straight.
    “That’s impressive, but starting a fire isn’t really something a person can learn from how-to books. Experience is the best way to gain wilderness skills.” There was something incongruous about seeing Annie with a pocket knife. “You really did come prepared. Although you really should be careful with that knife. You can hurt yourself if you’re not careful.”
    “In preparation for this voyage, I read a very interesting book about Alaska. It’s called How to Survive and Thrive in the Alaskan Wilderness . Fascinating stuff,” she explained with an enthusiastic nod of her head. “And the first chapter detailed how to start a fire with your cell phone battery.”
    Declan resisted the impulse to roll his eyes. Thousands of books had been written about the Alaskan wilderness by so-called experts in the field. Not one of them, he would guess, had ever lived in Alaska or knew the first thing about surviving a plane crash. Not a single one would know how to land a malfunctioning seaplane safely. Yet they peddled books about survival to the public.
    Annie crouched down next to him and placed the battery on the rock’s surface. She scraped the knife against the top of the battery. Then she poked the battery with the knife.
    She looked up and met his gaze. “When the lithium is exposed to oxygen, it ignites.”
    Huh? Book or not, it was pretty impressive. He wasn’t sure the everyday, run-of-the-mill librarian knew how to start a fire with a cell phone battery. Annie was a librarian extraordinaire. He swung his gaze toward the battery, which was now smoking. Annie quickly tossed the battery into the tinder pile. Within seconds, smoke began to plume from the tinder. Declan’s jaw dropped as he watched a fire burst to life right before their eyes.
    “Well, shut my mouth,” Declan drawled. “You did it!”
    “I did, didn’t I?” Annie asked. She was smiling so hard, he thought her cheeks might break. “I feel so invigorated.”
    He looked down at his twigs and threw them into the fire. “So much for the old-fashioned way,” he grumbled. It burned a little to know that Annie had been able to do what he had failed at. Ever since he was a kid, he had hated to have egg on his face. It didn’t feel any better as an adult.
    Declan felt completely off-kilter. He considered himself an outdoorsman. He fished, mountain climbed and could live off the land if the need arose. Annie was a sheltered librarian from Maine. Up until today, she’d never stepped foot in Alaska. Yet here she was building fires and serving the role of provider with her stash of snacks. Their roles had been flipped. He was the native Alaskan. It was his job as owner of O’Rourke Charters to care for his client, not the other way around.
    “Don’t feel bad about not being able to start the fire,” Annie said in a chirpy voice. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the battery. And you gathered up all the tinder and made it possible.”
    Annie was being kind. Her sweet nature radiated off her in waves. He shrugged off his wounded pride and allowed gratitude to wash over him. He was fortunate to have a smart, resourceful woman by his side during this crisis. Survival wasn’t a contest. It was a collaborative effort. So far, they had made it through a crash landing, gathered food and water for sustenance and built a fire for warmth. Making sure a rescue plane could spot them from the air was the next important step in their survival plan. It could make the difference between life and death.
    He needed to kick things into high gear. His mind had suddenly shifted toward rescue. He needed to do everything possible to make sure that they were rescued tomorrow. At almost eleven thousand square miles, the Chugach National Forest was too large for them to attempt to find rescue on foot. Their food supply wouldn’t last much longer, and he was worried