“You’re sure about this?” I asked, looking at the small, single-engine sea plane. The damn thing looked like something out of a National Geographic documentary. “No offense, but it looks like it shouldn’t even get to the end of the runway, let alone take us three hundred miles north.”

“I know, but I’ve used these guys before. They have a top-flight reputation, and while the plane doesn’t look like a lot, it’s as mechanically sound as anything in the skies today. They’re a good outfit. You did a good job this past week preparing, by the way—you’ll be just fine.” Wes seemed very sure of himself, and I trusted him more than my gut. Still . . . I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy riding in this damn thing. I loved to fly, but I was used to riding in first-class luxury.

I looked down at my backpack, an unwieldy looking, external frame rig that Wes insisted was light and nimble. I had worn it around for about an hour the day before, fully packed and ready for the trip. I knew I was strong enough to carry it; after all, I did go to the gym often enough. I didn’t have a lot of strength, but I was in pretty decent shape. It didn’t really matter though, the pack still seemed strange and uncomfortable regardless of the weight.

I couldn’t complain, however, looking at Wesley’s pack. His was twice the size of mine, and he also had packed two cases of military rations that was being stored in the cargo space in the pontoons of the plane. While the twenty-four meals wouldn’t be our entire diet for the week, it gave us a very large cushion in case I scared away all the fish or we couldn’t find foraging foods.

God, I really have no idea what I’m getting myself into, I thought. I never cared to camp out in the back yard, much less out in the damn forest.

I knew that Wesley was carrying almost all of the shared items, and even my own sleeping bag was slung on top. I was able to lift his backpack, but I doubt I could’ve carried it for more than a dozen steps without stumbling. It had to weigh over a hundred pounds. “If you say so. You promise I don’t look ridiculous?”

I looked down at my clothing, gray military trousers with thermal underwear. Up top I had three layers on, a light silk undershirt, followed by a polypropylene thermal top, followed by a military field jacket. I felt like a weekend warrior going off to play Rambo. At least Wesley had insisted on my purchasing normal hiking boots.

“You won’t have time to break in a set of combat boots, and I don’t want you dealing with blisters all week,” he had explained in the store. “These civilian boots are almost as tough, but they break in a lot easier.”

“So why are you wearing your old boots?” I had asked him, indicating the insulated boots he was wearing. He had been wearing them for the entire day they had gone shopping, getting used to them again. Thankfully, he wore his normal jeans, and they didn’t look too out of place, with most of them hidden under the denim.

“They’re an old set,” Wesley had explained, looking down at the black scuffed leather. “They’re broken in well, and I know I could go a month in them if I needed to. They have plenty of miles left in them.”

Heaving my backpack onto my shoulder and heading toward the seaplane, I thought of the past few days, and how great it was to just hang out with Wesley, all the stress in my life seemingly taken away. Even in the unfamiliar realm of the Army Navy store, I had felt comfortable, amazed again and again as Wes expertly asked the store owner about the equipment he had available. He hadn’t patronized me either, explaining for me each of the options at length. By the end, I felt as prepared as I ever could be.

Stepping onto the seaplane, I let Wesley tie my bag down in the cargo racks next to his own before taking my seat. At six foot four, he took the single seat on the right side, his long legs stretching out into the open space of the aisle. I chose the window seat on the other side of the plane, wanting to be able to see the landscape as it rolled by. It was my first time in Canada, and I wondered if the Rocky Mountains looked different compared to Colorado, where we had taken vacations twice before.

“Hey folks, if you all will strap in, we can take off anytime,” the pilot said. He looked like he was in his mid-forties, and kind of looked like a younger Harrison Ford, just about twenty pounds heavier. “Flight time is going to be about two hours, more or less. The weather report says we may have some clouds in about an hour, but the campsite should be clear. I hope you guys packed plenty of warm blankets though, it’s supposed to be dipping into the single digits at night.”

“We’re prepared, thanks,” Wesley said. I shivered at the thought and glanced nervously over at my stepbrother, who smiled reassuringly as the pilot went up to the cockpit, closing the door behind him.

Wes could tell I was still a little unsure. “Seriously, don’t worry. The sleeping bags are rated for sub-zero, and we’re going to have a fire every night. I packed three hot water bottles, and we can fill them every night and heat them up. With those and the tent sealed up, you’re going to be just fine. Trust me.”

Trust me, he said. If it was anyone else, I’d never have agreed to this in the first place. But with Wesley, when he said trust me, I did just that.

The sound of the engine cut off my reply, and I sat back while the sea plane taxied. The wheels attached to the plane’s pontoons allowed it to use regular runways as well, although it was a noisy takeoff. Despite the thrill of the adventure, I knew I’d prefer flying in a Dreamliner any day over a seaplane.

Reading my thoughts, Wesley raised his voice over the engine. “This is nothing,” he said, grinning as the ground dropped away and they were airborne. “You should try riding in the back of a C-130 sometime. You spend most of the time wondering if your teeth are going to rattle out of your head or not. And don’t even get me started on what passes for passenger airliners in Eastern Europe these days. Tupolev might make decent bombers for the Russians, but their idea of insulation sucks. You’d think a company that makes airplanes designed for Siberia would be a bit better on the insulation than they are.”

I laughed and shook my head. “This week, you’re going to have to fill me in on some of these details. I feel like there’s so much of your past four or five years that you haven’t told me about.”

“Tell you what, you tell me about what you’ve been up to, and I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to,” Wesley said. “Since we finished high school, it’s always felt like we’re going in separate directions. I sometimes wish we were back in those days, when I was sneaking looks at you in your bikini out by the pool in the summer.”

“I don’t think sneaking is the word I would use,” I laughed, thinking back. “You were flat out ogling me. I’m surprised Mom didn’t throw a bucket of water on you more than once or chase you off with a broom.”

“Well, it was a lot to ogle,” Wesley replied, his eyes traveling up and down my five-foot-ten-inch frame. I’ll be honest, it felt good, because I knew that Wes liked my mind as much as my body. “What I never understood is why you’ve never been able to hang onto a guy.”

“What do you mean?” I replied defensively, scooting over into the aisle seat so as not to yell. “It’s not like I’m some sort of tramp.”

Wesley shook his head. “No, not at all, I know that. You’re not exactly on Taylor Swift’s level, but you’ve gone through a few men.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I can’t help it. I guess I just have bad taste in boyfriends. I keep picking the assholes who want to jump into bed with me and then won’t commit.”

“You mean you have a tendency to pick bad boys and try and rehabilitate them,” Wesley replied with a smirk. “Mother showed me pictures of one or two of them from when I was gone. Jeez, Robin, could you have picked a scruffier bunch of dweebs?”

“Hey, Tom was an asshole, but he was no dweeb,” I replied. “I met him coming out of the gym, where he’d been in the boxing class. I actually saw him fight once, he’s good.”

“You know, I don’t think you should pick your boyfriends by how good their jab is, Robin,” Wesley said as he stretched his arms over his head. “Besides, you know there’s a lot more to being a badass than just boxing anyway.”

I guffawed and looked Wes up and down. “You know, speaking of rehabilitated bad asses, you seem to have done pretty well for yourself. I remember you getting into quite a few scuffles yourself.”

“You mean like the time I rammed Franky Timmons’ head into the back of his Escalade?” Wes said. “Father wasn’t too happy about that one.”

“Well, you did earn yourself a week’s suspension, and Frank ended up with twenty stitches in his scalp,” I replied. “And to top it off, doing it a week before he took his senior portraits? He looked like Frankenstein in the yearbook with that thing.”

“He called you a slut, he deserved it,” Wes said simply.

“And how do you know I’m not?” I asked, intrigued. Wesley would often tease, and he often said things to me that had an innuendo to them that I knew he put in intentionally, but he was rarely open and honest in his thoughts. “Maybe I’m a slut at heart.”

“I guess sluts do have their use, but you’re not one of them,” Wesley said. “I’d never be attracted to a slut for more than a night.” Startled at his seemingly unintended words, he turned his eyes away from me and looked out the window. I could feel a blush creep up my neck and I turned away as well, both of us losing ourselves in inner dialogue as the mountains rolled by.

The Canadian terrain was pretty awesome as it rolled underneath us, rugged and untamed. I had to admit, the pilot was giving us our money’s worth, staying low enough that I could easily see individual trees and other details. I watched as hills and mountains unfurled beneath us, and could see the frost and snow on the higher elevations.

The intercom crackled on and the pilot came over the cabin speakers. “Hope you two are enjoying the flight. This baby doesn’t have autopilot, so I regret to say we have no in-flight service. However, if you look under the seats of the front row, I did put away a cooler of snacks. Nothing too fancy, just some Cokes and sandwiches, which my wife made for you. If you like pastrami on rye or roast beef on cracked wheat, dig in. If not, no offense taken, I’ll be happy to eat them on the flight back. We should be landing in about an hour or so.”

The intercom clicked off, and I looked over at Wesley. “I hate rye.”

“Me too.”

“Split the roast beef with you then?”

All traces of our uncomfortableness disappeared, and Wesley’s easy smile reappeared on his face. “Yeah, I’ll do that. You want a Coke? Trust me, don’t worry about the calories, you’ll burn plenty over the next week out here.”

“All right. I thought you computer guys were addicted to the stuff though, sure you want to share with me?”

Wesley chuckled. “Of course. We’re not all the same, you know. I mean, I don’t have a single Hello Kitty item in my entire home, and my Guy Fawkes mask is never worn.”

I laughed and nodded. I’ve collaborated with plenty of computer programmers with my work in robotics, and had gotten used to the coders with their own little quirks. “And I know you’re never going to be caught dead wearing an Evangelion t-shirt.”

“Never. I can at least appreciate that those types of programmers are at least following their hearts and not worrying about society’s rules, though,” Wesley said, getting the snacks and handing me the cold bottle of soda. He tore the sandwich in half and handed me my portion, still wrapped in the plastic. “I sometimes wish I could do that too.”

“What rules have you wanted to break that you haven’t already?” I said with a smirk as I took a bite of the delicious food. While the pilot’s wife wasn’t on the level of sophistication of Chef, she knew how to put together a good roast beef sandwich. “You planning on robbing a bank sometime soon or something?”

“No, but . . . ” Wesley said, before his eyes shot to the front of the plane. “What the hell?”

I tilted my head questioningly before I felt it too. The plane, which had been flying levelly for most of the flight, was descending, even though by my watch we were still at least forty minutes from our destination. Wesley got out of his seat to go up to the front when suddenly the plane descended more steeply, and he had to catch himself on the seat in front of him. “Strap in,” he said, looking out the window. “We’re going in.”

I hurriedly tightened my lap belt, staying where I was near the window. The trees came closer, and I could see the birds wheeling out of the way. A sharp crack from the cabin caused me to scream, and the plane tilted, pitching to the right in a slow turn. I felt Wes sit down in the seat next to me, quickly pulling the belt tight before wrapping his arms around my shoulders and pulling me into his chest protectively. “It’s okay, Robin,” he whispered in my ear as we heard the pontoons scrape against the tops of the trees. “We’ll make it. I love you.”

Before I could say anything, the cabin was filled with the shriek of pine boughs on the skin of the airplane, like a million fingernails on chalkboards. I could feel myself screaming but couldn’t actually hear myself as the sound got louder and louder. When the first crunching sound filled the cabin, I was sure I was going to die.

Lost in the cacophony, I could still feel Wesley’s arms around me, giving me at least the thinnest of hopes we would survive. In that moment, I realized that I never wanted any other man’s arms around me. It was like a light went on, and everything was clear now. All the boyfriends I’d gone through had been because I couldn’t admit to myself that I wanted my stepbrother. A river of emotions came flooding through me, and I could feel tears in my eyes as I hugged him tighter, thinking that if I was going to die, at least I’d go in his arms.

Crashes and ungodly sounds filled the cabin, and I could feel us being tossed around, shaken and rattled. Something, I wasn’t sure what, hit me in the head, and I felt the world start to spin. With a sudden, crunching stop, we came to a rest, and it took me a while to realize I wasn’t dead. The silence after the noisy descent was eerie. I could hear my heart beating in my chest, and I could hear Wesley’s heart where he’d pulled me against him. “We . . . we made it,” I stuttered unbelievingly. “What happened?”

“Are you hurt?” Wesley said in reply, slowly letting go and setting me back in my seat. “Is everything okay?”

I shivered, although I wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or the knowledge we had survived the crash, but I thought I was okay. “Yeah, no major pain. I’m going to have bruises on my hip bones from that belt though, for sure.”

“Those’ll fade,” Wes replied, unbuckling his belt. “You sure you’re okay?”

Blinking, I touched where something had hit my head. “I think so. What the hell hit me in the head?”

“I don’t know, but I know what hit me,” Wesley replied, tenderly touching his scalp. I could see a trickle of blood ooze out from his hairline, and I gasped. “Don’t worry, I don’t think I’ll be challenging Frank Timmons for head lacerations. It was just another one of the bottles from the cooler, and it only glanced off. Stay here, and I’ll go check on the pilot.”

Shivers overtook me as Wes stood up and made his way to the cabin of the plane. I didn’t understand why it seemed he was walking at an angle until I realized that we were sitting at a tilt. Looking out my window, I saw that the wing was propped against the ground, the outrigger pontoon gone and the wingtip lying on bare dirt.

The door was locked, so Wes kicked hard, snapping the lock off and sending it flying open. I couldn’t see much, just Wesley’s hips as he leaned in and examined the pilot. It took him less than five seconds before he turned around and shook his head. “Pilot’s dead. Cockpit’s destroyed.”

“What do we do?” I said, looking around the cabin. While it had survived, it was a shambles. At least our backpacks looked like they were still in place. “The pontoon on my side is gone. That was our food.”

I felt the shivers increase more, and I felt my mind start to wander. Wesley knelt next to me and looked me in the eyes. “Robin?”

“Yes?” I replied, looking at him. It was a weird feeling, like I was in some sort of dream, and Wes was talking to me from down a long hallway. I could see his lips moving, but I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. I just wanted to drift away and go to sleep.

“Robin!” Wes said sharply, taking my hands. He shook them gently, looking into my eyes the whole time. “All right. You’re going into shock, baby. I’m going to help you up, and get you lying down. If you stay warm, you’ll be fine. I’m going to check around outside, see what our situation is.”

“I’m not sleepy though,” I said nonsensically. I mean, sleep was exactly what I wanted to do. “Why do I need to take a nap?”

“You’re not going to take a nap,” Wes replied, unbuckling my belt and helping me to my feet. “You took a hit to the head, no matter how light. No sleeping. But you will lie down with your feet up some, and I’m going to cover you with some blankets. I’m just glad we brought the backpacks up here.”

Going to his pack, Wes unstrapped the sleeping mat from the top, along with my sleeping bag. Unrolling both, he angled it in the tiny area in front of the first row of seats and laid it out for me. He then helped me lay down and zipped me up, kneeling next to me after propping my legs up on the rest of his pack. Thankfully, he had tucked it under my calves and knees, which was actually pretty comfortable.

“Okay, I’m going to be gone no more than five minutes,” he said, stroking my exposed face. It felt good, I had to admit. “I’m going to leave the door closed because I want to keep what heat there is in here, but you can’t fall asleep, okay? No matter what. Promise me.”

“I promise, Wes,” I said in a little girl voice, quiet and scared. I felt like I was six years old again, and that the monster under my bed was going to get me or something. “Be safe?”

“I will,” Wesley replied, flashing a hint of his grin. Suddenly he leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “Five minutes, I promise you.”