She gave him that look again, the one that told him she was about to start another harangue. "I expected-"

"The truck's in the lot," Joe said, interrupting her before she had another chance to start talking. He grabbed her arm again and pulled her along. Damn if he wasn't beginning to like Perrie Kincaid better when she had her mouth shut.

They made it to the hangar without further argument, Perrie choosing to sit silently beside him, her eyes fixed on the road. To Joe's relief, the plane was fueled and ready to go when he pulled up. He parked the truck, then ran around the front to open Perrie's door, but she'd already jumped out and was dragging her bag from the back on her own.

Satisfied that she could take care of herself, he tugged his hat down and ran over to Tanner O'Neill, who was standing by the hangar door. "What's the weather look like?" Joe asked. "Are they going to let us go?"

Tanner shouted against the frigid Arctic wind. "If you get off the ground in the next fifteen minutes, you should be all right. You'll be ahead of the storm all the way to Muleshoe. I put the mail sack in back and there's a crate of fresh mushrooms that Burdy ordered for the spaghetti feed at the fire hall Saturday night. There's a load of lumber in the cabin, I've tied it all down. Tell Hawk to unload it and put it in the shed for now."

Joe nodded. He hadn't seen Tanner in more than a week. He and Julia had been married in Muleshoe the weekend before last and had decided on a family honeymoon at Disney World with Julia's nine-year-old son, Sammy. They'd returned and decided to stay in Fairbanks and look for an apartment, where they'd live during the winter months while Sam was in school.