Whatever it took, John vowed, he would survive to return to her and have that talk.
* * *
After a sleepless night, Emma was up at the crack of dawn. She dressed hurriedly, splashed her face, and hurried downstairs to the bar to turn on the TV.
It was too soon to expect good news, she told herself. But the clouds were breaking up. Search planes would be in the air. She could only pray that John would be found soon, and that he would be safe.
When the regional broadcast came on, there were no surprises. The search had begun, but it was too soon to expect results. The news program moved on to other stories—the cleanup after the storm, a robbery in Wasilla, and a bear attack at a fishing resort. Still, until the time came to change for her shift, Emma stayed in front of the TV in the hope of hearing that John had been rescued. But there was no more word of the search.
Pearl came in a few minutes before the lunch shift. One look at Emma’s face told her she was still waiting for news. “Don’t worry, honey,” she said, giving Emma a hug. “With so much territory to cover, these searches can take time. They’ll find him. You’ll see.”
But will he be alive? Refusing to voice the thought, Emma fixed her face in a smile and finished setting the last table.
“Oh, I meant to tell you,” Pearl said. “David won’t be in today. His mother called to say he wasn’t feeling well.” She moved closer to Emma, lowering her voice. “Between you and me, I heard from Carl that David and Marlena had a blowup over David’s wanting to spend time with John. Things got pretty emotional. I’m guessing Marlena didn’t want him coming in today. I hope she doesn’t make him quit. David has a mind of his own and he’s becoming a man. She can’t control him forever.”
“You’re right, I’m sure,” Emma said. “But I know John wouldn’t want to cause trouble between them.”
Pearl shook her head. “Maybe not. But sometimes things happen for a reason. People change. They grow up. And there are worse things than David’s learning that his father is a good man after all.”
Around three o’clock in the afternoon, four noisy male hotel guests came into the bar to drink beer, eat snacks, and watch a pro football game on TV. That put an end to Emma’s news tracking—perhaps a good thing, she told herself. Each hour with no word about John only sank her deeper into despair. If he’d been found, and he was all r
ight, he would likely call her. But if the news was bad, she wasn’t family. Nobody would let her know. She could only wait to hear the worst.
As she worked, she felt the weight of the pistol in her pocket. All day she’d kept an eye out the window for Boone. He hadn’t appeared, but she was still nervous. As long as she could stay in the hotel with people around her or lock herself in her room, she felt safe. But she couldn’t hide from Boone forever. Sooner or later, something would have to change—and she would have to be ready for it.
Dinnertime was even busier than usual. With David gone, Emma, Pearl, and the other workers had to do his job along with their own. By closing time, when all the diners had paid and left, Emma felt dead on her feet. She cleared the last table, sank onto a bar stool, and clicked the remote through the channels in the hope of finding some news about John. But there was nothing on at this hour but sports, shopping shows, and old sitcom reruns. Giving in to strain and exhaustion, she laid her head on the bar and closed her eyes.
“Emma.” It was the voice of Andy, the night manager at the hotel desk. “Two men in the lobby want to talk to you.”
Two men. Emma’s heart dropped. Was this like the military, where they sent two uniformed men to tell families their loved one had died? Had John told them where to find her before—
Never mind. Whatever the news was, she had to face it the way John would want her to. Taking a deep breath, and feeling slightly dizzy, she forced herself to walk through the door.
Two men stood at the foot of the stairs. The shorter one was a stranger, stubble-faced and wearing a down parka.
The other man, wrapped in a survival blanket, wearing a bandage on his head, and looking like a refugee from a war zone, was John.
With a little cry, she ran to him, almost knocking him backward with her joy. He winced as her arms went around him.
“Careful,” the shorter man said. “The doc thinks he might have a cracked rib. He’s got a concussion, too. They wanted to keep him at the hospital in Sitka but he insisted on coming back here. I live here in Ketchikan, and I was flying home, so it wasn’t any trouble to bring him along. But he’ll need somebody to keep an eye on him tonight.”
“I can do that. He can stay in my room,” Emma said without a second thought. She never wanted to let this man out of her sight again.
“Clive, here, was the one who found me.” John spoke with effort. “I’d about given up when he flew over and saw me.”
“He made a signal fire by pouring gasoline over his old sheepskin coat and one of the seats from the plane,” Clive said. “If I hadn’t spotted the smoke, I never would’ve seen where he was. And that landing was a doozy! I almost cracked up myself.”
“I’d do the same for you any day,” John said. “Pray to God I’ll never have to. Meanwhile, I’ll take you and your family out for a steak dinner after I’m on my feet again.”
“I’d better help him up the stairs,” Clive said. “The doctor gave him something for the pain. He’s a little shaky.”
Emma glanced at Andy behind the desk. “No problem,” he said. “Go ahead.”
Pearl was standing in the doorway to the restaurant. Their gazes met. Call David. Emma mouthed the words and saw Pearl nod. Then she followed Clive as he steadied John on his way up the stairs.
Her mind swarmed with unasked questions. But the answers could wait. Right now nothing mattered except that John was safe and alive, and that he’d come back to her.
CHAPTER 12