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time when she made the gesture, he copied it fairly accurately.
    â€œWhat does it mean?”
    â€œIt means everything is okay. It comes from American Sign Language.”
    He leaned back against the just-repaired panel, crossed his arms, and made it clear he wasn’t leaving until she explained. Irritating man.
    â€œFine. You know how to make an ‘I love you’ sign?”
    â€œSure. Everyone knows that.” He held up his palm facing her with index finger and pinkie raised, the middle two fingers folded down, and his thumb to the side. Then he realized he was aiming it at her and jerked his hand down so quickly that he rapped his elbow sharply against the chopper and winced.
    â€œIf”—she spoke to cover her smile—“you turn that palm down and jab it forward twice, you have the sign for an airplane. Dad turned it sideways, thumb up. When he swings his hand to the side and up, it indicates an airplane repair is done and the plane is ready to fly.”
    Vern did the gesture that way. Then inspected his hand. “No. You did something different.”
    â€œDo you have to be so damned observant?”
    He simply grinned down at her. “Mom’s wanted me to be an artist. I was terrible, but I must have picked up something. Now give.”
    She sighed, seeing no way out other than telling him to go jump. “Fine! I add the middle finger tight beside the index finger, which makes the letter H for helicopter. It says everything’s okay in my ‘happy helicopter land.’ Ugh! Please tell me I didn’t say that aloud.”
    â€œYou did.”
    No condescension that she could detect, but a grin worthy of Dennis Quaid it was so big.
    â€œOr are you telling your helicopter that you love it? They like that, you know. It makes them want to fluff their little rotors.”
    She shook her head to bring her hair forward and mask the heat rising to her cheeks. Denise could feel him grinning down at her. “So?” She knew she sounded like a petulant child.
    â€œSo,” Vern drawled out easily, “you love your helicopters. That’s a good thing.”
    A glance up at him showed that he wasn’t teasing her, or not much. If he was, it was kindly. He understood. No one, not even her dad, had understood that about her.
    Then Vern stood up and nodded toward the tables, which were rapidly filling up with people cramming down calories before the morning flights took off at thirty minutes after sunrise. As simple as that, he invited her to eat with him and they fell in together to head for the chow line.
    She usually ate with her team and discussed upcoming maintenance or the latest FAA service bulletins. Or by herself.
    She had a sudden urge that she couldn’t explain to herself to make her “all okay in happy helicopter land” sign.
    * * *
    Vern knew he was being utterly ridiculous as he hovered over Brewer Reservoir east of Madras, Oregon. He was a dozen feet above the water, and the downwash of his Firehawk’s rotors was tearing the water white with an outward-expanding wave of sparkling ripples. The hot midday sun that had baked the semiarid desert especially dry this season was also beautiful to watch as it lit the water. This was one of those moments that his mother would love to come and paint—that mixture of beauty and powerful change.
    He lowered the Hawk’s twenty feet of six-inch siphon hose into the water and hit the pumps. Forty seconds to take on a thousand gallons. And he was counting the gallons by the hundreds in a singsong voice that sounded silly even to him. MC Hammer had probably never in his life rapped about gallons of water loading into a helicopter. Good thing he was alone so that someone didn’t lock him up for foolishness.
    He often whistled or hummed while he flew. The beat of music lent itself well to the pulse and rhythm of flying. In the little MD500, he was more likely to whistle something quick and