Telling him what she had tonight had been enough, even if her vague explanation of being in foster care wasn’t the same as the full truth.
She had no idea who she was. She’d been a Jane Doe as a toddler, unable to be reunited with her birth parents no matter how much people had tried.
All through high school, people had treated her like she was fragile because of her petite size and generally quiet and compliant disposition, but Wyatt had especially treated her like that. Instead of being one of the girls who was thought of as an adventurer, brave in her own right, people had treated Elsie like she might break. She’d spent her adult life proving that she was more capable than her size and delicate features made it seem. She knew she was capable. Strong. Tough.
But if she had to dive back into whatever had happened in her childhood, she didn’t know if she could keep being that person.
And she couldn’t stand to imagine investigating with Wyatt and maybe at some point seeing pity in his eyes. She didn’t want his pity.
Despite willing herself to go to sleep, she lay awake for hours. Anxiously wondering who could have been after her and why.
And remembering the flicker of hurt on Wyatt’s face when she’d all but sent him away when he’d only wanted to help her.
It was going to take some strong coffee for Wyatt to make it through this day on as little sleep as he’d gotten lately. He’d been overwhelmed his whole boat ride back to town, imagining Elsie alone in that little cabin, wondering who was after her and why, wishing he’d done things differently in his life so he could be the kind of man Elsie would trust.
It was basically a recipe for not sleeping when he’d gotten home and finally crawled into bed that first night. Sven hadn’t seemed to mind Wyatt’s sleeplessness. No matter how many times he rolled over, tugged the covers this way and that, the massive malamute had stayed asleep, his heavy body like the best kind of weighted blanket.
If only Wyatt had slept that well.
The next night hadn’t been much better. During the day he stayed busy enough, but when he tried to fall asleep at night he worried about Elsie. Wondered what it was that made her so hesitant to accept help from him or anyone else.
Maybe he’d text her today. He didn’t have her number, but his sister would.
Pulling his mind away from Elsie, Wyatt made his breakfast and checked his schedule for the day. He flew for a variety of people, everyone from state troopers to the post office, to other deliveries. Today was clear. Nothing to do but think of Elsie, which was the last thing he wanted to do.
As if on cue, the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Wyatt, it’s Trooper Clements. We have a missing person on a remote island, and seas that are unsuitable for taking the searchers out by boat. Are you available to transport a crew out there?”
There went his clear schedule. Relief rushed into him for a second or two until he finished processing what the trooper had said.
Searchers.
“Just let me know when and where you need me to pick them up.” Often he’d have to fly to Homer to pick up people the Troopers needed transported somewhere. It was a short flight, fifteen minutes max, and he didn’t mind.
“Thanks. A couple troopers will be in Homer waiting for you. You can get them on your way to the island where the missing person was last seen. The K-9 search team is in your town so they can ride with you to Homer and then to the island.”
Which meant Elsie. A day where he was around Elsie, filled with all the awkward of several nights ago and the continuing concern he had for her.
“Yes, sir.”
“She’ll meet you at the airport. We told her we’d have transportation waiting for her.”
The trooper filled in the rest of the details on coordinates for the island and Wyatt wrote everything down with the pencil that he kept on his small kitchen table for moments like this.
His mind kept pounding Elsie’s name as he wrote down details, though. Elsie. Elsie. Elsie.
Why was he being thrown back into her path? Did that mean something? He’d wandered from God as a teen but had really been trying to straighten up his life so that he could approach his faith again. Was this some kind of test he had to pass first, to prove that he was above this kind of temptation now? Because Wyatt wasn’t sure that he was.
Not that he had any plans to start anything with Elsie. He knew better than that. Just her flirting with him had hit him hard. Reminded him he wasn’t the kind of man who deserved her attention, and how she’d only flirted in the first place because she must have thought that was how he communicated. The whole situation had been awkward at best, and he had no idea how to approach any kind of continued interaction with her.
But there wasn’t time to worry about that. He had a job to do, and Wyatt was determined not to let people down anymore. Half the time he felt like he was one misstep away from being who he used to be and it terrified him. He couldn’t afford mistakes.
This was one more reason why he should ignore Elsie. It would be so easy to be distracted by her, and he couldn’t be distracted by a one-sided crush. Elsie had made it clear years ago he wasn’t the kind of man she’d give a second glance to and he didn’t think that had changed.
He still wished she’d listened to his concerns, but maybe she was right and the intrusion had been random. Wyatt certainly hoped so.
He ate breakfast quickly, poured coffee into a travel mug and started toward the airport, which wasn’t even a mile from his house. That was one of the perks of a town as small as Destruction Point. Besides the houses across the bay, where Elsie lived, nothing in town was far away. Growing up, he’d taken the town for granted, but as an adult he saw how special it was and how lucky he was to call it home.
He worked through his preflight routine, doing his best to keep his focus and not let himself think about the woman he had no business dwelling on. It somewhat worked.
Wyatt wouldn’t say he knew the exact moment Elsie arrived at the airport. It wasn’t like he could sense her presence or anything so cheesy, but there was a certain...awareness he felt, and when he looked over his shoulder a minute or so later, he saw Elsie.
“I thought I must be imagining things when I walked up here and it was you.”
“Because I’m actually working?” He hoped it sounded teasing instead of defensive.
“Because I didn’t know you were a pilot. Much less my pilot.”
My pilot. Her words shouldn’t sink into his heart like that, shouldn’t matter to him the way he was afraid they might.
“My transportation for the day, I mean.” She tripped over herself trying to clarify and Wyatt realized this must be awkward for her, too.
“Listen, about the other night...” He blinked, gathering himself. “I pushed you to accept my help. You wanted me to let it go and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
She looked uncomfortable for a moment. “About what I said, I didn’t mean you were evil or anything...”
