“Look at Old Sam Dementieff,” he told the gas tank. “He must be a hundred and three, and he still scuttles down to Alaganik Bay and gets it on with Mary Balashoff every chance he gets. And that’s only when she doesn’t send word via Park Air to meet her in Anchorage first. He looks perfectly happy to me.”

The gas tank remained blandly nonresponsive.

The cab stopped on the tarmac and Kate got out. Mutt trotted over to greet Jim, who was on a stepladder, topping off the gas tank in the left wing.

Kate remembered Max’s words. “There’s almost always tomorrow.”

He was right. Tomorrow always came, and there was only one time when you didn’t see it. William, Eugene, and Charlotte were dead. Emaa was dead. Her parents were dead.

Jack was dead.

But all that was yesterday, and yesterday was past praying for. She was alive.

She looked over at the Cessna, at Jim Chopin in glorious blue and gold, checking something beneath the cowling.

Jim was alive.

Mutt gave a distinctly feminine little yip, front paws as high as she could get on the ladder, begging for attention, and Jim dropped an absent hand to pull on her ears. Kate smiled, a long, slow, anticipatory smile.

Mutt was right. So was Max. Much better to focus on today.

She saw Jim spot her, and her smile widened at his expression.

Today, there was a chance of joining the Mile High Club.

Dana Stabenow