Soon enough, we reach altitude and head in the direction of our first location, a seismic station in the Talkeetna Foothills. Thirty minutes after take-off, Rhys is bringing the chopper down in a big clear field near some campgrounds.
“Where to from here?” Jude asks, carrying a backpack over each shoulder as we walk away from the chopper toward the USGS marked pickup truck that’s parked up waiting for us.
Once we’re packed up inside the truck, I drive us to the highway that heads north. “In five miles, there’ll be an access road on the right-hand side. That’ll take us up the ridge where the monitorin’ station is. We’ll only be able to drive halfway up, then we’ll need to hike the rest of the way. It usually takes about twenty minutes to get to the summit.”
“Lucky you’ve got me to carry the gear then.”
“You know you don’t have to do that.”
He pins me with a look that leaves no room for argument. It’s a look Dad used to give my mom all the time. “OK. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me for doin’ what any decent human bein’ would do. Especially what thishusbandwants to do for hiswife.”
“You’re not just any decent human bein’ though. You’re mine.”
The only things in my life that have ever been mine and mine alone are my house, my SUV, and my job. And now, Jude.
His mouth drops open before heat fills his eyes and a wry grin curves his lips. “You know that means you’re mine too.”
“I better be. I don’t just takeanyoneon my helicopter flights,” I tease.
We park up at the end of the mountain access road when we get there and use my handheld GPS unit to hike up the slightly overgrown trail that winds its way through the woods to the top of the ridge where the remote monitoring station is.
“No wonder they’re called remote. It feels like we're in the middle of nowhere,” he says as I put my backpack on the ground and grab what I need to get started. There’s my tablet to run diagnostics and download data and my curated fix-it tool bag that I’ve been adding to for over five years now. I’ve got cables, tools, spare storage cards and drives, a radio telemetry tester, a multimeter, my trusty headlamp, and a multitude of other things in there that have helped before.
When I straighten and turn around, I’m surprised to find Jude watching me instead of the amazing view. “What?”
“Never knew seein’ my wife in her element on top of an Alaskan mountain would do it for me.”
I bark out a startled laugh. “You’re crazy, hubby.”
“Crazy about you, maybe,” he mutters under his breath.
I toy with letting it go but decide that honesty has—and always will be—the best policy. Especially when it comes to the two of us.Start the way you intend to continue, Em. “Glad the feelin’s mutual.”
Jude tilts his head to the side, his sexy half-lidded gaze roaming over my face. When his eyes drop to my lips, I know I need to delay the inevitable—despite wanting it just as much as he does—otherwise I’llneverget my work done.
“Right. I better get started.” I shake my tool bag. “Did you want to stand back and watch? Or are you more of a hands-on kind of guy?”
That earns me a pointed look. “Definitely the second one.” His voice is low and deep, and just this side of rough and sexy.
“Great,” I reply quickly, hurriedly. Mostly to distract myself. “Do you want to be my assistant? Promise I won’t boss you aroundtoomuch.”
That’s when he leans in so that his breath is washing over my cheek. “Do your worst, wifey,” he rasps before brushing his lips over my jaw.
Torture. This is going to be torture.
After the first stop, Rhys takes us 50 minutes south-west this time, landing the chopper in a clearing close to the slopes of Mount Spurr. This time there was no driving required, just a thirty-minute hike halfway up the side of the mountain.
I knew this site would need more repairs than the last one, so planned accordingly to give us the most time here. This also needed me to download a week’s worth of data that hadn’t been transmitted to the satellite. Having set that up to start, Jude helps me pack everything up so we can leave when the backup is completed.
“This one looked trickier than the last one,” Jude says, closing the zip on the large backpack.
While he does that, I set out the packed lunch I brought for us on a picnic blanket. It’s my favorite one, and not just because I stole it from home before I left Timber Falls for college.
“Sometimes I can check one and it just has a loose connection or a screw that needs tightenin’.”
“Or straighten an antenna that has been knocked over by a wild animal,” he says, like what he had to do at our first stop.