A speck against the jagged silhouette. It grows larger, resolving into the battered yellow and blue shape of Hank's De Havilland Beaver.
It's an ugly, reliable beast of a plane, and right now it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
My heart does a slow, heavy roll.
The plane banks and drops toward the harbor ice—Hank's signature approach, designed to minimize flight time and maximize passenger nausea. The skis touch down with a spray of dry powder, a white cloud erupting around the landing gear.
The machine settles, taxiing toward the dock, the engine popping and growling as Hank feathers the throttle.
I walk down to the end of the pier. My hands are sweating inside my gloves.
The engine cuts. The propeller spins down, turning from a blur into individual blades, and then halts with a metallic clank.
The passenger door flies open before the plane has even fully stopped moving.
Aris appears.
She isn't waiting for assistance. She steps out onto the ski, balancing easily on the slick metal surface that would send a rookie sprawling.
She's wearing the same city trench she left in, still losing its argument with Alaska. But underneath it, I can see the collar of a flannel shirt.
She looks at the dock. She spots me.
Then her grin breaks loose—crooked, relieved, half terrified—and I know I'll be remembering it for the rest of my life.
"Nash!" she yells.
She jumps from the ski to the dock, clearing the gap with a leap that would make a mountain goat proud. She lands, catches herself on the frost, and runs.
She runs straight at me.
I catch her. I don't have a choice. She hits me with the force of a small avalanche, wrapping her arms around my neck and burying her face in the crook of my shoulder.
"You're here," she whispers against my coat.
"Where else would I be?" I say, wrapping my arms around her waist and lifting her off her feet. I hold her tight, needing to feel that she's real, that she's solid, that she isn't a ghost I conjured out of loneliness.
She smells like expensive shampoo and airfield coffee and Aris.
"I tried," she says, pulling back to look at me. Her eyes are shining. "I tried to stay. I checked into the hotel. I ordered a salad. It was terrible, Nash. It all tasted like water."
"Tragic," I say, smoothing a stray hair back from her face.
"It was. And the walls were beige. Everything was beige. And I—" She stops, expression going serious. "I don't fit there anymore."
"No?"
"No. I fit here." She rests her forehead against mine. "With the cold. And the snow. And the stubborn, grumpy guide who thinks he knows everything."
"I do know everything," I whisper.
"You knew I'd come back?"
"I hoped," I admit. "I hoped really hard. I even cleared out the spare room."
She goes very still. "The spare room."
"For your data drives. Your monitors. I moved the boxes."
