“I know. I’ll make dinner when I get home.”

“I can put one of Larke’s casseroles in the oven. It’s a long trip out there.”

“I remember.” Dodge loaded the updated plan into his tablet and his watch and looked out the window. He’d fly VFR—visual flight rules—but sometimes the best navigation came from his gut.

Clear skies, the ceiling still high. He’d get over to the Farleys’ with their load of supplies and back before his window of sunshine failed him.

“I’ll put some coffee in a thermos,” his father said.

Whatever. Dodge grabbed his jacket. “I’m going to load up.” He tucked his chin into his collar as he headed out to the Quonset hangar that housed their Bell 429 chopper—mostly Larke’s baby—and his beautiful Piper PA-14 Family Cruiser. It was over thirty years old, but he’d gotten a deal, and at seventeen, owning his own plane would have just been the start of an empire he hoped to build.

Today, it housed memories that awakened as he did his preflight check. He turned on his master switches and checked his fuel gauges. The fuel pump hummed to life, and in the darkness of the hangar, the lights flashed. He checked his flaps, the connections, the ailerons, and gave the wings a good shake.

“You won’t hurt it, son. It’s made to withstand turbulence.”

He shook his father’s voice away, and finished with a tap on the wing, listening for loose rivets. He checked the prop, then the stall tab, and finally the tail cone for any critters who might have crawled inside, trying to keep warm. Outside, the dawn had started to slide over the runway, a deep amber that lit the gravel on fire.

He checked the air pressure on the tundra wheels, hearing his father’s laughter echo in his head—“Those are the silliest things I’ve ever seen on a plane”—yeah, whatever, but the oversized wheels allowed him to land on ice, snow, and any manner of gravel beach.

He checked his fuel mix, his oil, his spark plugs and magneto. He tapped his finger on the brake fluid reservoir, listening for the fluid level.

Then he closed up the engine compartment and loaded in the supplies Spike and Nola Farley had ordered from town. The shipment from Gigi’s Grocery had arrived yesterday during his trip to town with Larke, which meant he managed to duck out of Gigi’s reconnaissance questions—How long have you been home? What’s your brother Ranger up to? Of course. And the big one . . . Are you staying?

Nope.

By the time he returned to the house, the gear packed, his father had filled a thermos and handed him a backpack of food. “Just in case.”