Storm the Author's Cut Read Online Free PDF Page B

As they bumped gently against the wharf, two men caught hold of the pontoon and secured the Beaver with ropes.
    "Morning, Luke!" the older, heavy-set man shouted around his cigar. "We'll fuel her up—you get on up to the cookhouse and have a bite. Bloody awful weather for a search!" He opened the door and his massive arm reached to lift Laurie down on to the float. She landed awkwardly, then looked back to see Luke climbing out behind her.
    "Thanks, Tubby. We could use some hot food."
    She rubbed her arm as they walked up to the mess tent.
    "You might have a bruise there."
    "If he's really called Tubby, it's a misnomer! I thought he'd crush my arm when he grabbed me!"
    "He's strong, but you're a pretty tough yourself." He glanced down at her. In jeans and a heavy sheepskin jacket she didn't think there could be any female curves showing, but she felt herself flush at his look. "Small and feminine," he murmured, "but definitely not fragile."
    His eyes said that he found her attractive and when he looked at her like that, she felt an intense awareness of every female curve of her body. She thought how different his black eyes were from Ken's brown ones. Luke's eyes were deep enough to drown in.
    She looked away quickly.
    She belonged to Ken. She loved Ken.
    This crazy, momentary madness surging in her veins was—madness! The drama of the search had made her forget who she was for a minute. She had better not forget! Laurie Mather's days of wild impulses were long gone.
    "Do you think they really have hot food in there," she asked to distract herself.
    "I can guarantee you won't be hungry when we leave."
    A small, dark Italian man named Mike waved them to a long table and served plates heaped high with steak and mashed potatoes, and poured two cups of strong, black coffee.
    "I feed you good, then you find our men."
    "Drink the coffee," Luke advised. "The stuff in your thermos isn't strong enough to keep you alert."
    The monotony of staring at endless, similar bits of tree and rock and water had begun to make her sleepy. She drank the coffee obediently.
    "Luke, that passage—Darwin Sound—where it was so rough—"
    "Maybe," he said, as if he knew her thoughts without her speaking. "Visibility was poor, so he was flying low over the water. With the squall to the north, he might have flown south of Lyell Island and up through Darwin Sound. We checked it twice, and we'll check again after we eat."
    She remembered the turbulence, rocks and trees. She could have missed something in the trees. They had been bouncing around so badly, she'd had trouble keeping track of where she was looking.
    "If you were flying in those circumstances, would you have gone up that passage?"
    "Not with a Goose—the air speed is too fast, not much time to react if you're flying low. Flying north in Darwin he'd have been going with the wind. That makes it even faster, harder to control flight in the narrow passage at speed."
    Laurie sipped on the strong coffee. "You're saying you wouldn't have gone there, yet you flew thought twice searching."
    "I keep wondering why, if he was ten miles away, they didn't see him from the camp here. You can see the Hecate Strait quite well from here. Someone should have seen the plane."
    After their quick meal, the cook walked out of the building with them and stood to watch them on their way back to the seaplane.
    "That was wonderful," Laurie told Mike. "We were starving."
    "Come back when you run out of fuel this afternoon. I feed you again. My Tony is on that plane. You find him for me?"
    Luke held out his hand to the cook. "We'll do our best, Mike. Thanks for the meal."
    They walked down to the dock in silence. Luke didn't climb aboard immediately, but stood watching a Cessna seaplane circling overhead.
    "One of yours?" asked Tubby.
    "Yeah, Gary's flying it. He'll be needing fuel, too." Luke pulled out his wallet. "How much for the fuel, Tubby?"
    Tubby shook his head. "The company's paying. We appreciate what you're