One warm July morning in the summer that Warren Blackwood turned four, his father took a rare day off from farming, packed the family into their dusty station wagon and took them to an air show in nearby Milborough. There was an astonishing array of airplanes there, from gliders to an antique bi-plane to a monster Hercules big enough to hold a whole fleet of trucks. Little Warren was thrilled with them. He and his older brother David raced joyously around the display field, clambered in and out of the machines that were open for viewing and squealed with delight as they watched aircraft of all sizes and shapes being put through their paces.

When the Snowbirds, the Canadian Air Force's elite aerial acrobatics team, thundered into the air for their breath-taking ballet among the clouds, Warren fell into awe-struck silence. His parents joked later that they had never known that their hyperactive younger son could remain still for so long and they were worried that his eyes were going to pop right out of his head. When it was done, he burst into tears.

For the rest of the summer, Warren could talk of nothing but airplanes.



Even after the first fervour eased, the love affair remained strong. By the time he left high school, Warren had enough model airplanes hanging from the ceiling of his bed room to hide every inch of it. His father shook his head, no longer amused by his son's obsession. He especially begrudged the time that Warren spent hanging around the local airfield, cadging rides and helping the mechanics, when he should have been helping with work on the farm.

Warren's mother was more tolerant. "He takes after my side of the family, I'm afraid. Restless. The kind who need to be taking risks to feel alive. My Dad loved his volunteer fire-fighting. My brothers are obsessed with stock car racing. There's no point fretting that Warren isn't the boy you'd like him to be. You'll just have to be satisfied with having one son who loves the farm. The other," she smiled with mingled pride and worry, "well, Warren is just never going to be earth-bound."

Warren knew it must have been his mother's influence that won him the graduation present he had been pleading for - the money to train for his pilot's license. From all the years of begging for rides at the airfield, he already knew how to fly a small plane better than many adult pilots. It didn't take long for him to get his papers.

By the time he turned 20, Warren had upgraded to a commercial pilot's license. He left farming behind without a backward glance. For the next five years, he spent his summers in the exhilarating, high-risk business of aerial spraying and his winters flying freight up north in ski-equipped bush planes. Every landing and take-off was a new white-knuckle adventure on the wind-swept frozen lakes that served as runways for the isolated northern villages and geological survey camps into which he flew. It was a tough, cold, dirty life and a dangerous one. He loved it dearly.

Early in the spring of 2002, Warren was idling around the air base when a call came in from one of the survey camps for an emergency medical evacuation. One of the men had been careless with a chainsaw and needed to be flown out for surgery, fast. Warren was up in a heart-beat and dragging on his flight jacket before the radio call ended. His boss waved him back to his chair.

"Sorry, kid, this one isn't for you. It's the camp on Pickerel River. The ice is already breaking up. There's no way you can risk landing this time of year. We'll have to send a chopper instead."

It was galling. He had been eager for the challenge. But Warren recognized a good decision. "At least I can go along to help. The way this wind is shifting, another set of hands might be useful if they can't land and have to use the basket."

"Suit yourself. Just don't blame me if you end up with a broken neck. I've seen the terrain out there. This'll be a tricky pick-up at best."

It was hair-raising. With nowhere to land, the chopper had to hover dangerously low over a rocky, forested hilltop in a treacherously gusting wind, drop the basket safely for loading, then snag it again to lift the injured man out. Warren's heart was in his throat and the sweat rolled off his brow as the big machine bucked and twisted. He and the crew fought to get the swinging line in place. The helicopter pilot didn't seem fazed at all. He handled his controls with a cool concentration that left Warren in awe.

With the mission accomplished and their patient safely delivered to hospital, Warren glued himself to the pilot's side and pumped him for two solid hours. The chopper intrigued him and so did the life.

Warren didn't go home for the summer that year. He stayed in the north and spent every minute of free time hanging out at the helicopter base. By August, his mind was made up.

He quit his job and slipped home for a weekend with his parents who, after his brother's marriage, had retired to a small house in Milborough. There was just time for one quick trip to the farm for supper with David and his wife and a brief but enjoyable play with their two-year old son. Early the next morning he said his good-byes and headed for the bus station to buy his ticket to North Bay, where he had enrolled to start training as a helicopter pilot.

As he shouldered his backpack through the bus station, Warren gazed around him with pleasure at the university girls among the travellers there. The far north was a great place to work, but it had one serious disadvantage - a shortage of women. He was looking forward to breaking the year-long drought in his love life during his time in a less remote area.

His luck was in. He wasn't even on the bus yet when fate handed him an opportunity too good to be missed.



Liz Patterson was her name, and she was not only good-looking, but cheerful, funny and bright. They talked all the way to North Bay as if they'd known each other forever. By the time they arrived, Warren was eager to stake his claim for the next six months.

The trouble was, even though Liz was obviously attracted to him too, she was just coming off a bad break-up and was skittish about dating again. He managed to talk her into going along on a few group outings to movies and campus events, but she evaded all his attempts to arrange anything more intimate. The harder he tried, the firmer she was in refusing.

Warren shrugged off his disappointment and started hitting a few dances to check out other prospects. There was no shortage of single girls around, and he knew he wasn't exactly repulsive. There was no point wasting his year mooning over one elusive female.

It didn't take long to find attractive women willing to go out with him. He kept it casual, though, making sure he stayed available just in case Liz finally caved. He couldn't get her out of his mind. They would be good together, he was sure of it. There was a warm, generous nature somewhere behind that frost shields she hid behind, and a spirit of adventure that meshed well with his. Heck, she had even told him she wanted to go farther north to teach some day. They could hardly have been better suited. Sooner or later, she had to figure that out. He intended to be ready and waiting when she did.

By mid-term break, Warren was beginning to get worried. The year was two-thirds over and no progress made. He had a discreet chat with Liz' roommate and found out when she was heading home to Milborough for the break, and when she was coming back. He had a flight test the day she was leaving, which made it impossible to link up with her then. But on the way back to North Bay, he made sure he was on the same bus.



It didn't take long to figure out that she was wavering. Heartened, Warren put together his strategy to win her over completely. She'd been fascinated to hear he was training to be a helicopter pilot. It was time to work that angle a whole lot more.

As he had hoped, she couldn't resist his invitation for a tour of the training centre and, if he could swing it, a ride with him in his training copter.



It took some time and talking to persuade his instructor, Colin, to let him take Liz for a ride. The prospect of the adventure helped to improve things between him and Liz in the meantime. As long as he didn't treat their time together too much like "dates", she was happy to be with him. At times, she relaxed enough to allow a few kisses and hugs, sweet moments of intimacy that left him wanting more.

When the helicopter ride finally happened, it was worth every bit of the effort he had made. Liz was thrilled. She came out of it starry-eyed and more than a little in love with him, although she would never have admitted it. He had landed the deal.



Too bad the year was almost over and they would soon be going their separate ways. There wasn't time to take the relationship any further. Still, at least he had managed to crack through her shell. That had to be enough to satisfy him for now.

With graduation looming, Warren's career was the bigger concern on his mind. The training had been tougher than he had expected. His past experience had helped, but piloting a helicopter was very different from flying bush planes. It took until the end of April before he finally clocked the hours he needed, passed his tests and had his license in hand. A couple of weeks of intensive job-hunting, and he landed a probationary short-term contract flying for a big mining outfit which had sites all across north-western Canada. Then it was good-bye to North Bay, the friends he had made among the other students, and Liz. He caught the bus for Winnipeg and was in the air four hours later.

The job was OK at first, but soon became a little boring. Tacking back and forth doing geological surveys wasn't the kind of excitement he had hoped for when he signed up for helicopter school. The mine managers seemed pleased with his work and there would almost certainly be another contract offered, but he wasn't sure he would take it.

One cold fall afternoon, he was watching some maintenance being done on his chopper when he spotted a helicopter coming in that seemed to be in serious trouble. It shimmied and dipped and swung in dizzying whirls as it beat its way toward the air strip. He was on the brink of running to alert the rescue crew when one of the mechanics came over to stand, hands in pockets, watching the sky.

"So Colley's back. Must be delivering that new Ranger the boss ordered. Quite the show-off, isn't he?"

Warren stared at him. "What, the guy's doing that on purpose? He's not in trouble?"

The older man chuckled. "Dray Colley wouldn't be happy unless he was in trouble. But no, he's just waltzing the chopper in to let us know it's him doing the drop." At Warren's blank stare, his grin widened. "You know, Waltzing Matilda. Colley's an Aussie." He watched the antics in the sky with amusement. "Good thing he isn't from Argentina. He'd be getting the darn thing to Tango. Probably could, too."

Warren watched, entranced, as the gleaming machine straightened out at the last possible minute and settled neatly onto the tarmac. When the pilot emerged a few minutes later, he couldn't believe how young the man was. He couldn't have been more than a couple of years older than Warren.

Warren went over to greet him. "Hi. Dray? I'm Warren Blackwood- "

"And you got an ice-cold grog ready for me, right? Crikey, I'm ready to hit the piss after that bloody long run. You blokes are right back of Bourke up here." The pilot grinned at him. "Well, come on then, mate. Let's get on it."

Six beer later, they were well on the way to becoming good buddies. By the ninth, Dray had him convinced there was no better job in the world than to be a ferry pilot, delivering choppers to clients for a living.

"It's ace, ferrying choppers. You get to fly some of the best and see a good bit of country along the way. Lots of time to chat up the sheilas, too, between drops." He chuckled. "It's not only sailors can have one in every port."

As soon as Warren's contract was up, he caught a flight to Edmonton to meet Dray and ride along with him for a while. One of their first runs was to the Hibernia oil fields offshore of Newfoundland. When he saw where Dray was supposed to land- a miniscule landing pad on an oil rig anchored in the icy North Atlantic - he held his breath and took firm hold of his life jacket. It was like trying to land on a penny in a wind, and the ocean looked far too cold and inhospitable to make the idea of a sudden dunk appealing.

He needn't have worried. The Australian set the machine down with pin-point precision and without a pause in the long and outrageous story he was telling.

Warren was impressed, and envious. There was no doubt about it, ferry piloting was a great way to avoid boredom. When they flew back to Edmonton, he signed up.

The job was all that Dray had said it would be. Warren travelled all across Canada and now and then into the US to pick up and drop off helicopters. He saw every corner of the continent, ate in all types of restaurants, and met new people every day. Whenever he and Dray went together on a job, they always hit up whichever local bar looked most interesting at the end of the day, and got their kicks out of trying to pick up the best-looking women there. Sometimes they succeeded, more often they didn't. Occasionally they had to fight their way out of the trouble that resulted. It was always fun trying.

There were a few downsides to the job that his new friend hadn't mentioned, though. One was the long stretches of hop-scotching around the country on serial assignments, dropping one chopper off, picking another up, then off to get the next. There were weeks on end when he never saw his apartment or even slept in the same bed twice.

When he did catch a few days break, it always seemed to be halfway across the continent and he wasted a day or more of his precious free time just getting back to his own space.

The vagabond lifestyle didn't make it easy to get home to Milborough for family occasions, or to make friends. The closest he had to a long-term relationship was his ongoing e-mail conversation with Liz. He looked forward to her messages more than ever now that he had lost touch with his family and so many of his friends.

Liz was as funny and interesting in her correspondence as she was in real life, and they had some great talks online. At times, he found himself deeply regretting that things hadn't worked out for them. When the long stretches of travel started to get to him, he would lie in his hotel bed daydreaming that she was waiting for him somewhere, would always be there, warm and loving and eager to welcome him home.

Dray mocked him mercilessly when he made the mistake of mentioning it. "Man, you're talking like a whacka. With all the sheilas in the world, you want to tie yourself down to just one?" He gave a long rude whistle. Warren made a sheepish attempt to defend himself, demanding to know if Dray didn't sometimes wish he had a steady girl.

The other man laughed. "No way, mate. I'm not such a dill as to let any woman tie me down. A man does that, next thing he knows, he's saddled with the standard-issue ball and chain and two-point-four ankle-biters." He brushed the idea away with a smirk. "Plenty of time later for settling down, old son. Heaps of time!"

Still, as winter warmed into spring, the urge to see Liz again tugged at Warren frequently. When a job took him to Sault Ste. Marie, only a brief hop from North Bay, he gave her a quick call to tell her he might be (literally) dropping in at her place on the way. It didn't work out. He was left with only the small compensation of reading disappointment between the lines of her next e-mail. No doubt about it, she still had feelings for him.

When Liz mentioned, a week before her graduation from university, that she didn't have a date, Warren saw a chance too good to miss. It dismayed him when his boss wouldn't give him the time off. An older man with four daughters and a serious disposition, the boss had never cared much for his young employees' carefree attitudes. When Warren pleaded, his boss gave him a stiff lecture about respect and responsibility.

Frustrated and resentful, Warren poured out his grievances to Dray.

"Crikey, you're not going to sit still for it while that old ratbag does you down?" The Australian shook his head in mock sorrow. "Shameful, lad. You lack ingenuity."

Pressed for something more helpful than insults, he shrugged. "Doesn't take a bloody genius to figure out the fix. You and me trade runs. I'll take the drop you're supposed to make into the States, you take that little chopper I'm scheduled to ferry to Montreal to be refitted up for some rich guy's toy. You just adjust your route a little to go over North Bay, drop in on your girlie, and you're golden."

Warren was delighted to have his dilemma solved so easily. When one of the mechanics warned him that the customer was in a hurry to get the chopper back and it might not be wise to loiter on the way, he refused to listen. It would be easy enough to come up with some excuse to justify stopping in North Bay. A strange noise in the motor that had to be checked out, maybe. All that mattered was the chance to give Liz the thrill of her life.



Her reaction was all he had hoped. She couldn't have been happier to see him. He was surprised at how moved he was, too. The pull between them was so strong, they spent the whole Grad party wrapped up in one another, hardly speaking to anyone else. It felt like they could never get tired of dancing together or run out of things to say.



The next morning, the Pattersons invited him to breakfast at their hotel. He knew he should be on his way, but couldn't resist the chance to get to know Liz's family. After a leisurely brunch, he stole a few private moments with her for a sweet farewell. It was noon by the time the Pattersons dropped him off at the airport and drove off toward Milborough. He followed them for a few miles with the chopper before finally, regretfully, veering away onto his flight path for Montreal.

The happy glow of his rekindled romance kept him warm all the way to Montreal. It didn't last ten minutes after touch-down. There was a message waiting for him to call his boss as soon as he arrived.

Their conversation was short, unpleasant and to the point. At the end of it, Warren was unemployed.

It took three stressful weeks before he found another job flying choppers for a forest fire fighting crew in BC. It was hard work, with erratic hours and often dangerous conditions, but it had its compensations too. The best part was working with a team again. Dray might love the life of a ferry pilot, but it was too solitary for Warren.

He still e-mailed Liz regularly, but somehow the rapture of their one perfect evening together had faded fast. It was unfair to blame her for his impulsive decision to come to her Grad and the resulting disaster, but he couldn't help feeling she'd somehow lured him into trouble. At the very least, their relationship seemed to be jinxed.

He never told Liz about being fired and hoped she never found out. She still talked of his dropping out of the sky to accompany her to Grad as a wonderful, romantic gesture. He recalled it very differently. It still made him cringe to remember the humiliation of the blistering dismissal that had followed.

As the fire season intensified, Warren had little time or energy to think about problems of the past. He threw all his energy into the job at hand. When an opportunity to train in "dunk and dump" came up (hauling water and fire retardant to the fire line with the chopper) he was glad to take it. Flying a big chopper with a bucket full of water through blinding smoke over a landscape that looked like paintings of Hell was a heart-in-mouth experience. But he loved the challenge of it.

He fell more than a little in love with one of the women on the fire-fighting crew. The harrowing trials they experienced on the front lines drew them together, and it wasn't long before they were romantically involved. Still, they kept it light, knowing that both would be moving on at the end of the summer.

Late in the fall, the fire-fighting job ended. Warren was glad to accept a short-term contract with an environmental company based out of Vancouver Island. He spent the winter flying up and down the west coast, checking on oil spills and photographing whale pods. When that ended, he scraped up enough free-lance jobs to get through the spring, then went back to BC and fire-fighting for the summer.

To his delight, his crush from the year before was back again too. There were fewer forest fires, but the heat between them made up for it. Warren began to think they had the potential for a longer-term relationship. His summer love, it turned out, thought differently. When September came, she was gone.

Warren stayed on in BC, picking up work where he could. After the tight teamwork and close camaraderie of fire-fighting, it was lonely being on his own again. He found himself thinking more and more about Liz, and wondering if he had made a mistake in letting her go. They still e-mailed occasionally. He knew she was dating other guys, but there didn't seem to be anyone serious. He began to play with the idea of calling her, seeing if they could try again. Of course, it would be a nuisance being so far away, only able to get together once in a while. Maybe it wasn't worth the bother...

Shortly before Christmas, an e-card from Liz pinged into his in-box. The message in it sent Warren into a tailspin. It sounded like she might be getting serious about some guy she'd met up north. If he wanted to get back together with her, he had to move fast.

He had recently turned down a job offer to ferry a chopper to Ontario and pick up another one for the return run. Muttering curses, he grabbed the phone to find out if the company had hired a pilot yet.

It was a huge relief when they jumped at his offer to do the run before Christmas. With all the arrangements made, he called Liz.



She hesitated, but he could tell she was interested. He hoped it was for his sake, not just the thrill of riding in a chopper again. But when she met him at the airfield in White River, there was another man with her. She introduced him as Paul Wright, the policeman she had mentioned in her e-card. The way the other guy stared Warren down - and kissed Liz a long, hot goodbye - sent an unmistakable 'hands-off' message.



That didn't worry Warren as much as Liz' attitude. He did his best on the trip to Toronto to persuade her that what they had together had been too good to lose, that they should try again. She just kept throwing his long absences in his face. He had no choice but to accept hard reality - he had blown his chances out of plain dumb neglect.

He took a couple of days off between his ferry jobs and went home to Milborough for Christmas, hoping for a distraction from his disappointment. But seeing his brother David looking about as happy as a man could be with his settled life, his wife and two cute kids, just deepened the gloom. As soon as the holiday was over, Warren headed back to Vancouver.

In the middle of January, he ran into Dray Colley again during a run into northern Ontario. Over a beer, he poured out his woes.

"A close call, mate." Dray shook his head in stern disapproval. "Oh, I agree she sounds like a corker, your Liz, but you're a mug to be moping after her. You're young and free, lad. Make the most of it! There's plenty of time yet to think about settling down." He waved to the bartender for another beer, shoved it into Warren's hand and looked appreciatively around at the women in the bar. "You an me, we're gonna make the most of that time while we got it."

It surprised Warren to discover that Dray was flying for a mining company. The Aussie had sneered at that sort of steady job as dull work the first time they met. Dray shrugged off Warren's questions. "Ah, it's a bit of a yawn, most days. But the pay is bonzer and my weekends are free." He grinned and winked. "They're looking for more pilots, if you think you're up for a spot of the good life again."

It was easy enough to slip back into a carefree bachelor existence with Dray. Warren signed up with the mining company, moved into the spare room of Dray's apartment in Timmins, and willingly joined the other pilot in his efforts to pack the maximum amount of adventure into every weekend. Now and then Warren caught a glimpse of an odd dark mood in his friend, and wondered if Dray's footloose lifestyle was beginning to wear thin even for him. But the other man laughed uproariously when he asked.

"Plenty of time for that." It was a standard answer whenever anyone mentioned settling down. "Heaps of time for the dull married life when we're cranky old foggers."

Their work took them all across northern Ontario. In the sparsely populated region, it was easy to make friends and get to know a bit of what was going on in each community. Warren was amused to discover that Dray had an insatiable interest in gossip. The Aussie was always delighted to hear stories of scandal, skullduggery or sleazy shenanigans, whether or not he knew any of the people involved.

Warren had his own ear to the ground on one particular topic. The 'bush telegraph' told him within days of Liz' decision that she was leaving her teaching job in Mtigwaki to move back to southern Ontario. He also knew that her boyfriend Paul, the policeman, had asked for a transfer and was expected to follow her. But it was Dray who brought him the most startling piece of news, one day late in November.

"Double-dipping, her copper is." Dray grinned as he popped the cap off another beer. "He's a right downy one, that lad! Got your Liz mooning after him down south, thinking he's the one and only and there's wedding bells going to chime. Meantime he's busy sucking face with another sheila in Mtigwaki."

Warren was riveted. "You're sure? This is solid?"

"Damn straight, mate. Young Paul bunks in with that beaut of a new teacher whenever he's in the village, and he's in the village a lot. That's the rock solid word."

"There's more, too." Dray smirked. "He's nailed himself a transfer, all right. But it isn't to anywhere near sweet Liz. He's lobbed off the other direction. Up north to Spruce Narrows."

"And Liz doesn't know yet?" Warren dragged in a deep breath. "Man, I have to tell her this. She'll drop that jerk like a stone."

Dray made a noise that was pure insult. "Don't be daft. You go dobbing on Paul to her, you'll be the one who's the loser. Patience, lad. Bide your time. She's got mates in Mtigwaki, right? Sooner or later, one of them will let slip and she'll twig to the truth. Then you slide on in, slick as butter, and pick up the pieces."

It was good advice, but Warren had trouble taking it. He was impatient for the bomb to drop and blow Liz loose of Paul and into single status again. He intended to be close at hand when the explosion went off, ready and eager to catch her on the rebound.

In the mood he was in, it was impossible to resist temptation when he was sent with the chopper to Milborough to pick up a government official for a visit to one of the mine sites. This time, he didn't risk calling ahead. Any part he played in exposing Paul had to look totally innocent. And Liz was no fool.



It went just as he hoped. Liz agreed to go with him. He dropped her off at the village without a word said that could rouse her suspicions. For three days he fretted, wondering what Liz was doing and whether Paul had managed to weasel his way out of trouble. Then he headed back, every nerve on edge, to pick her up for the return flight.



He knew the minute Liz turned on him that he'd blown it. If he'd just kept quiet, waited for her to tell him about Paul's betrayal, she would never have known that he had set up the whole humiliating incident. Now, just as Dray had warned him, she was almost as furious with him as she was with Paul. It was so unfair, he could have screamed.

It wasn't as though he had done anything really wrong. Lots of people would have said that he had done her a favour, showing her the truth. Liz just wasn't that reasonable.

Maddening as it was, he was determined to hang in there, keep on trying to smooth things over, and wait for her anger to work itself out.

It was disconcerting to find out that his dream girl could hold onto a grudge for a very long time. Despite all his best efforts, a month passed before Liz would speak to him without ice dripping from every syllable. It was another month before she was willing to admit, reluctantly, that there was some justification for what he had done.

He was alternately annoyed and amused that Dray developed a lively interest in his troubled love life and offered joking advice in terms more suited to a sports match than romance. After a while, Warren's sense of humour took over. He began to think of it almost as a game himself.

It was late in March before the big break-through finally came. Liz called him up and invited him to a party being held to honour her brother's success as a writer. He accepted with pleasure - then had to cuff Dray for shouting "He's lined up for the goal posts! Will he shoot? Can he scoooore?"

The party was a lot of fun, with some interesting people present and plenty of good conversation. Warren enjoyed it all. But the best part came after the party was over and he walked Liz home.



He really meant it at the time, that he wanted them to be together again. Once he was back in Timmins, though, some of the excitement faded. He had been focused for so long on winning Liz back, he wasn't quite sure what to do with her now that he had her. They were still a long way apart, and he wasn't ready to give up flying.

"Game, set and match," Dray pointed out with a yawn. "Time to move on, mate." He flipped a playing card face-up on the table and frowned at it. "For you and me both."

It didn't surprise Warren that his friend was getting restless. Spring did that to him too, made him want to shake free of old ruts and chase the promise of fresh adventures. After a year of steady, relatively safe flying, he was hungry for the adrenalin rush of danger again.

When Dray announced that he was chucking his job to fly for a company doing climate change research into the remotest and most barren regions of the far Arctic, Warren leapt at the chance to go with him. Two days later, they were in Yellowknife chatting up the researchers and checking out their new machines.

Warren settled into life in the far north with pleasure. He loved the frontier spirit of Yellowknife, its youthful population and slightly eccentric boom-town enthusiasm. Flying the Arctic had a spice of danger, enough to keep a pilot sharp but not so much that it wore him down to raw nerves. He found the science of the project fascinating, and never missed a chance to quiz the researchers about their work.

One of the university profs was particularly interesting. A small, bright-eyed woman with a delightful southern American accent, Kathleen Williams looked as fragile as dandelion fluff but proved herself tough as old leather when it came to getting the job done. She could swear like a Marine, too, which Dray found hugely entertaining. Warren had a bit of a crush on her - every man on the project did - but Dray fell hard. She was obviously interested in the handsome Australian, too.

But when the short Arctic summer ended and she went back to her university in the south for the new term, Dray stayed in Yellowknife.

"Some day, maybe." The Australian looked unusually serious when Warren quizzed him. "She'd do me fine, and I'd be one lucky bloke if she'd have me." Then his usual cocky grin flashed. "But that's down the road, mate, a long way yet. Plenty of time for settling later. I still got some living to do."

The two men took on work in Yellowknife through the winter, flying supplies to remote diamond mines during the brief daylight hours. They also kept in touch with the research project, intending to join up with it again come summer. The scientists weren't due to arrive until April, but there were monitoring flights to be done in the meantime to photograph the winter changes to the landscape and gather numbers on snow cover and wildlife densities.

Dray was moody and on edge all through January. He grumbled daily about the frigid weather and talked constantly about the summer to come. Never a big fan of computers, he made a point of checking his e-mail every evening. Now and then, he casually mentioned something that Kathleen had said. And he did the research flights with a dedication and seriousness that seemed completely out of character.

Warren was amused. For the first time since he had known him, his friend was talking about one real and particular woman instead of the dozens of hypothetical ones yet to be won. It seemed that even this wariest of bachelors might be weakening.

February arrived in a stretch of bone-achingly, bitterly cold weather. Most flights were grounded due to the danger of motors freezing up. The research runs had to be cancelled. Dray was furious. He fretted around the apartment, cursing the cold, until Warren could have hit him. It was two long weeks before the frigid weather finally eased.

"Get your sorry arse in gear." Dray slapped open the door of Warren's room early one morning. "We're cleared for the run north. The chopper's warming up and ready to go. "

Warren groaned and dragged his aching head off the pillow just enough to glower at his roommate. "In case you hadn't noticed, Oz, I'm dying here. You want to go take pretty pictures of the tundra, you're on your own."

"G'wan." Dray gave him a painful prod in the ribs. "Don't tell me some piddling flu bug has a big boy like you knackered. Up 'n at 'em, mate! You'll feel right as rain once you're moving."

"Moving is the last thing I'm doing. And you'd regret it if I did." Warren snatched back the covers Dray was trying to drag off him. "Honestly, man, I'm no good today. I'd be puking all over the cockpit if I flew. Go find Jason, he likes doing photography."

"Lazy bludger." Dray shook his head at him. "Fine, its' your loss. She's a beaut of a day out there, it'll be a cracking good run."

Warren glanced out the window. "It's twenty below with a stiff north wind blowing."

"Like I said. A beaut of a day." With a mocking salute, the Australian was gone. Warren burrowed deep under the covers and sank gratefully back into sleep.

He slept on and off through most of the day, only staggering out of bed to nuke a cup of soup or replenish his bedside supply of water and tissues. As the short arctic day began to slide toward dark, he dragged himself into the living room and settled on the couch. Dray would wake him anyway as soon as he came in, and demand an audience for the stories of the day. He might as well be awake for it. There was less danger that way of a rude awakening with a handful of snow down his back.

Night settled in fully, and still no sign of his roommate. Uneasiness prickled at him. He shoved it away. The day had been fine, by Yellowknife standards, and there was no better pilot on the planet than Dray. No way could he be in trouble. The two men must have gone for supper and a drink after getting back in, and lost track of the time.

It was after nine when the phone finally rang.

The search parties went out at first light the next morning. After three days, the weather closed in again and the search had to be suspended. By the time it started again, it was no longer a rescue mission. Retrieving the bodies, and perhaps some of the research equipment, was the best anyone hoped for.

They found nothing at all. There was no trace of the chopper or its occupants. They had vanished into the arctic wastelands as completely as if they had never existed.

The shock of it left Warren shattered. He couldn't sleep or eat. Every flight he took, he had to force himself into the cockpit with the cold sweat running off him. When the search was called off, he suffered nightmares that woke him in a heart-pounding panic two and three times a night.

The worst of it was calling Dray's family in Australia, and then Kathleen. Both phone calls were heart-breaking. Dray's sisters hadn't seen him for years. They were stricken to hear that they would never see him again. Kathleen could only repeat over and over in agonized grief that if Dray had only come to the States with her as she had asked, he would still be alive.

It was enough to break Warren completely. He chucked his job, threw some clothes into a bag and took the next flight out of Yellowknife. He didn't think he could ever fly again. He had no idea what he could do. All he wanted was to get back to Milborough to see his family and Liz. The horror of the past weeks had hammered it home that life was too uncertain to neglect those he loved. There wasn't always "plenty of time" left.

David and his wife had no room for him, with a third baby in the house, and his parents were away south for the winter and had rented out their home. Feeling miserably alone, he called up the only other person he could think of who might take him in, his best friend from high school. His old buddy hardly recognized his voice. It hurt to realize this was another good relationship he had neglected to death. In the end, he did get a half-hearted offer of a spare bed. He took it with gratitude, hoping he wouldn't need it. The last time he had spoken to Liz, late in the fall, she had been missing him badly. She would surely be delighted to see him and more than willing to take him in. He didn't take a chance on phoning, just grabbed a cab to her place. It would be easier to say all that he needed to say in person. With luck, he wouldn't have to say much at all.



It didn't work out the way he hoped. Liz was stiff and cold, cynical about his assurances that he loved her, and not inclined to believe a word he said.



Her rejection frightened him. There didn't seem to be anyone in the world who cared about him any more. Fear made him pushy, and clumsy enough to annoy her.

He knew he was behaving stupidly, but couldn't seem to get a grip on himself. When the phone rang beside him, he grabbed it up without thinking.



Liz' horrified reaction jerked him back to his senses. Barging into her apartment late at night, babbling like an idiot, trying to hassle her into loving him again - he was acting so weird it amazed him that she'd been so decent about it. Annoyed as she was, she had made him coffee, let him talk. Now he'd repaid her by messing things up with the man she did care about.

Feeling like a total jerk, he tried to reassure the guy on the other end of the phone, then assured Liz that his intentions had been good and he loved her. It just upset her more. He gave up, said an awkward good-bye, and got out.

The streets were dark and quiet, with a chill breeze sifting down them to rustle the debris of rotting leaves and garbage left behind by the melting snow. He had never felt so alone in his life. His family had no room for him, his girlfriend had rejected him. Even the high school buddy who had taken him in had rather pointedly introduced his girlfriend and said that she was just in town for the weekend. And his best friend had disappeared off the face of the earth and was probably lying dead in some lonely place with the arctic wind hissing in icy indifference around him.

He made his way to a little motel he knew on the edge of the suburbs, and stood outside staring at the lit window of the office. What kind of loser had to rent a room in his own hometown? The thought made him physically ill. He turned away and started walking.

The whole night through, he walked. He had nowhere to go, couldn't have slept in any case. It seemed to help ease the bitter burn in his chest to keep moving.

As the first hint of light began to lift the darkness, the sleeping city began to waken. He saw lights in windows, cars coming to life in driveways, men with lunch kits standing huddled at bus stops. Everyone seemed to be have a purpose, to be going somewhere, except him. Glancing at the houses across the street, he saw a man step out his front door, turn back and give the woman standing in the doorway a quick hard kiss, then run lightly down the stairs.

Sudden exhaustion hit so hard that he staggered and almost fell into the stone wall of the building he was passing. Shivering, he stumbled toward a brightly lit cafe at the end of the street.

"Just coming off night shift?" The middle-aged waitress poured him a large cup of coffee without bothering to ask if he wanted it. "Looks like it was a rough one."

"Yeah." Warren's voice had gone rusty. He tried again. "Yeah, you could say so."

"What kinda work do you do?"

"I - " He hesitated. "I - uh - I'm a pilot. I fly helicopters."

"Really?" She gave him a broad smile. "In that case, son, your breakfast is on the house today."

"What? Why?" Warren wasn't sure he'd heard right.

"Because I got a debt I owe to helicopter pilots, and it's my way to pay it. My son Ron, you see, he worked up north for a while, cutting survey lines for a mining company. Then one day, he slipped on a wet log and fell on his chainsaw. It just about cut his arm off. The doctors said he would have died if a helicopter hadn't flown in right away and got him out fast to the hospital. It wasn't an easy pick-up, I guess, being bad weather and all. He couldn't say enough about the crew of that helicopter, how they risked their own lives to get him out."

Something seemed to flip over in Warren's chest. "Was he - did this accident happen on the Pickerel River? In 2002?"

"Yeah." Her expression suddenly lit up. "Don't tell me you were the one flying that helicopter!"

"No, that was another pilot, one of the best I've ever seen. But I was part of his crew that day."

She reached down and engulfed him in a hug so tight it cut off his wind. When she let him go, he could see the gleam of tears in her eyes.

"You're getting the best breakfast in the house, young man. Steak and eggs and pancakes and hash browns and anything else you want. And don't you dare try to refuse." She wheeled and marched off toward the kitchen.

Warren sat staring after her, his coffee cup clenched tight between his chilled hands. The memory of that long-ago rescue flooded back to him with a vividness that took his breath away. It had been exciting, heart-in-mouth dangerous - and one of the best moments of his life. It had been then that he had known he had to be a chopper pilot, no matter what the costs or the risks might be.

Dray had felt the same way. The thought shook Warren badly, and for a moment his mind shied away from the bitter agony of remembering. He forced himself to look at the truth, to let it sink in, hurtful as it was. Dray had loved every minute of flying. The Australian had known the risks of the job and faced them squarely. Heck, he had taken every chance he could, living life on the knife's edge, constantly flirting with disaster. Even if he had known how it would end, it was doubtful that he would have changed a thing. There was nothing in the world like the addictivelure of adventure, and the matchless sense of freedom that came with flying.

The breakfast was huge, delicious, and perfectly cooked. Despite his dragging weariness, Warren managed to finish it all, encouraged by the beaming solicitude of the motherly waitress. His efforts to pay for it were brushed off in high indignation. With heart-felt thanks that were not just for the meal, he made his way outside.

"Where the heck have you been?" His old high school buddy was at the door at the first ring, looking both indignant and relieved. "We thought you must have landed in some kind of serous trouble when you didn't show up last night. Man, you look like crap. That must have been one major tear you went on. Come in, don't just stand there like a dork. We've got a bed ready for you and the coffee on. Which do you want first?"

He took the bed, with mumbled thanks that were brushed off with amiable rudeness.

"Heck, what are old friends for? Sleep as long as you like. We're off to visit my girl's relatives for the day, so it'll be quiet here. There's cereal in the cupboard and left over pizza in the fridge. Help yourself if we're not back before you get up."

When he finally surfaced again, the afternoon sun was blazing through the window and his cell phone ringing.

"Hey, little brother, what are you up to? The kids have been driving us crazy here ever since we told them you were in town. You'd better not be too hung over to play airplanes with them, it's all they can talk about. You're coming for supper, right? Oh, and bring your bag. Brenda has done the impossible and cleaned out her sewing room. You can bunk there if you like, as long as you're in town."

Warren stayed in Milborough for over a month. He spent it in a dedicated effort to pick up the missing pieces of his life.

He and his high school friend became good buddies again, not as joined-at-the-hip tight as in their adolescent years, but good enough to know that there would always be a bond of friendship between them. They looked up some other classmates, too, and had an impromptu reunion that turned into a very good party.

Warren spent some serious time getting to know his brother's family, as well. It was surprising to discover how much fun it was to play uncle to the two little boys and baby girl, to see how much they had changed since his last visit.

He phoned his parents in Arizona several times, and made the effort to really listen to them for the first time in his life. They were, he realized, amazing people. It was shameful that he had neglected them so long.

He was still drifting, letting the healing happen in its own way, when the phone call came at the end of April.

Up until the moment he answered, he couldn't have said whether or not he would ever fly again. By the time he snapped his cell phone shut, the question had been answered. As far as wages went, the job offer he had just received was fantastic. But it involved flying for a big oil company overseas in one of the world's political hot spots, where life could be rough and thre risks astonomical. It would take him away from his friends and family for months, possibly for years. It was the sort of job that Dray would have jumped at. The kind that Warren had sworn, when he fled from Yellowknife, never to do again.

"You're going?" David looked up at him from the tower of blocks he was building with his sons, his smile twisting a little.

"Yeah." Warren took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. He looked around him at the comfortable, homey family room, then out the window at the sky beyond. "I'm going."