Magnolia Gods (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 2) by Thomas Hollyday

while. I’m still confused about us.”
    “The same old thing.”
    “I don’t think you’ve solved anything yet, Mike. God, I wish you had.”
    “I’m working on it.”
    “You’re still living in your father’s house. Still living in all that memory of him. Look, I came back. That’s got to be enough for now.”
    Mike took her hand and she moved toward him and gave him a hug.
    “See you in the morning,” she said.
    “We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said.
     As he drove home, he thought about Jenni. He was worried about her. He remembered when he had been afraid. Mike knew about going into harm’s way, how it could wrench a person’s guts. He remembered the fear that night when he was home from college working with his father.
    A storm, one of the worst types, had come up from North Carolina. The aircraft outside the Museum had to be tied down in case the gusts got too bad and flipped the planes. The old biplane was tugging to take off. That plane would lift up and almost fly in a summer breeze, much less an Atlantic storm.
    When he came into his father’s office from helping the mechanics tie down the planes, his father was adjusting the ship-to-shore radio. The Museum monitored distress calls along with the regular aviation traffic. In earlier days, when Mike was a boy, the airport was still landing planes. As a result the Museum had state of the art radios.
    A call came in from a fisherman in a forty-five foot trawler named the Henry B off Ocean City, Maryland. His father had been talking with an elderly retired flier, one of the volunteers, in the office. They were kidding each other about the wind skipping across the runway. When they opened the office door, the wind blew it closed. His father motioned for Mike to come in and listen to the call.
    They heard the fisherman’s distress, and they also heard the Coast Guard reply that the Guard would travel out as soon as they finished another tow. It would be about thirty minutes. The fisherman couldn’t hear the Coast Guard. Mike’s father finally went on the air trying to get the fisherman.
    “Henry B, Henry B, this is Wilmington Airport, do you read me?”
    “Wilmington, this is Henry B, we’re in distress here. Boat swamped and sinking.”
    His father looked at Mike. “We got to help this man.”
    Mike looked at him. The sky was getting darker by the minute. The squall was coming in over the ocean and would hit them within an hour. It would be treacherous going out, much less taking off, with the gusting and crosswinds.
    “Takes a real flier to handle this. You can do this one, boy. You’re checked out in all the planes in good weather. You need some storm experience. Good for you. Put some hair on your chest.”
    Then his father added, “You’re a natural pilot and as good as me, at least that’s what you like to say. Let’s see you do it.”
    Mike grinned and started out the door.
    “Be careful, boy. We don’t want to have to rescue you too. We’ll be directing you by radio.”
    Mike got to the float plane they kept for coastal flying. It had wheels built into the floats. He removed the tie downs. Inside the plane he started the engine. With luck, he would be over the trawler Henry B in less than fifteen minutes. Behind his seat was a collapsible rescue raft that he could drop for the fishermen.
    The radio crackled, “We’re proud of you, boy.”
    Then it happened. Mike could still see even so many years later the prop whirring in front of him, some flecks of rain beginning to hit hard, like bullets, the windshield.
    Suddenly, he couldn’t move the rudder with his foot pedals. His legs wouldn’t move. His arms couldn’t hold the controls. He slumped in the seat, as though he had no strength. His father was on the radio. “Let me hear from you, boy. What’s happening out there?”
    “Let me hear from you, boy, let me hear from you, boy.” The words echoed as he remembered the other fliers and mechanics pulling him out of