Chapter 9
While Kaci’s wardrobe was equipped for everything from fancy galas to tromping through the mud, she wasn’t sure which outfit would handle it best if she tossed her cookies because of her new agreement with Lance.
She settled for jeans and her favorite Ole Miss T-shirt. For courage, she told herself. Not to provoke Mr. Alabama.
And even though she would’ve liked a shot or two of vodka, she settled for picking up a cup of tea from Jimmy Beans on her way to Lance’s place Saturday morning.
Probably a good thing Tara had gone to visit her folks in north Georgia this weekend.
Because if she’d known where Kaci was headed, there would’ve been questions.
And advice.
And probably too much overthinking what to wear.
She’d overthought enough as it was.
When Lance opened his door, she decided the man himself was more terrifying than the flight training he’d promised to give her.
He had a five o’clock shadow going on at nine in the morning, jeans that looked buttery soft over his long, lean legs, and all kinds of delicious mischief written in the curve of his smile. “You made it.”
“Didn’t think I’d chicken out, did you?”
“Not you.” He pulled the door wider, and she stepped past him.
The living room was dark.
Blinds down, sheets-over-the-windows dark.
Kaci’s steps faltered. “We doing some kind of trust exercise, or are you about to go axe murderer on me?”
He pointed to the TV with a remote, and it flashed on. “Somewhere in between.”
“We closer to the trust side or the axe-murderer side?”
“Takes all the fun out of it if I tell you.” He took her by the shoulders and nudged her toward the couch. “Sit. Get comfy. I have to go find my axe. And don’t worry—I made my roommate disappear so he won’t hear your screams.”
“That young buck’s really your roommate?”
“He rents a room. I keep him out of trouble.”
“That what you’re doing with me too?”
“There’s not a force strong enough in the world to keep you out of trouble.”
He had a point. She sipped her tea while he snagged two video game controllers from beneath the nearest end table.
He sat beside her, his hard thigh and arm lined up against hers. “Here. This one’s for you.”
“A video game? Sugar, you done lost your mind.”
“Deal’s a deal. Sit back down, Dr. Boudreaux. We’re just getting started.” He grinned again, but it was the dare lurking in his dark eyes that gave her pause.
Chicken, that look said.
I knew you couldn’t do it, it said.
No skin off my back, Dr. Boudreaux. I’m not the one afraid to fly, it said.
She slowly lowered herself back to the couch.
With a full cushion-width between her and Captain Wheeler.
Because there was also some you can trust me lingering in his authoritative gaze.
She set her tea aside and gripped the controller with both hands. “How old are you?”
“How old should I be?”
Huh. Good question. “Old enough to know you can’t just pick how old you get to be.”
The TV screen flickered again. Her stomach hit the pavement.
“Ah, good. Here we go,” he said.
A simulated but highly realistic-looking cockpit appeared on the screen, with windshields looking out over a runway.
Her pulse roared through her veins, and her fingers went tingly again. She knew it was a game, but the graphics were incredible, and her brain kept tripping at the idea that she was actually sitting in a real airplane.
“What’s this supposed to do?” she scoffed.
Or tried to.
Lance leaned over, his head angled against her shoulder, while he pointed to the controller. “This is your throttle. It’s going to make the engine go faster or slower if you pull it this way or that way. Control your rudders here and here, and the aileron here. Stabilizers here. Brakes here.”
She nodded as if she had half a clue what he was talking about.
He lifted his head and grinned at her. “Won’t work in flight though. You’re copiloting, so anything you mess up, I’ll fix.”
A sexy woman’s voice announced they were cleared for takeoff.
“Ready?” he said.
Ready?
Hell no, she wasn’t ready.
“Great,” he said. “Let’s go fly.”
This wasn’t real.
It was just a game.
She was safe on the ground, letting her mind think it was rolling down a runway in an airplane.
Huh. Maybe this was a good idea.
“Wanna give her some power?” he said.
She licked her lips. “Which way do I push the thingie?”
“My thingie, or the thingie?”
“That date isn’t until after I see your catapult, Captain. And even then, I’m not making any promises about touching your thingie.”
“We both know you won’t be able to keep your hands off.” His skin brushed hers while she breathed in the scent of shampoo and coffee.
The man was right.
He’d have to beat her off with a stick.
“This one,” he said. “Push the throttle up.”
Kaci thumbed the controller forward, but her hands wobbled.
He was so close. So relaxed. So confident.
“There you go,” he said. “Just like that.”
The white dashed lines on the TV screen sped by faster until, suddenly, they drifted lower. “Oh!”
“You’re flying,” he said.
Her heart was still pounding, but he was right.
She was flying.
A click sounded on the screen. “What was that? Did the wing fall off?”
“I put the landing gear up.”
“Oh. Right.” To minimize drag. She stared at the screen, watching the view of the land below shift and change. Trees faded into little green specks, and the horizon changed with a dark mass rising up before them. “What’s that? What’s going on?”
“Thunderstorm. We can go around it. You’re going to lift your right aileron—no, the aileron—”
The plane suddenly pitched forward, and she saw the ground coming to meet them. “Oh, sweet Jesus, we’re gonna die!”
“No, we’re—yep. Yep, we died.”
Orange flames overtook the screen.
She tossed her controller down and stood. “Well, that was fun. Maybe we can do it again sometime never.”
“Kaci.”
Shivers tickled her spine.
He sounded so much older when he said her name that way.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “But it’s not working.”
“It won’t if you don’t give it a chance.”
“I’m giving it a chance.”
He didn’t contradict her or try to stop her. Instead, he lounged deeper into his couch. “Why are you so afraid to fly?”
In all her life, no one else had ever figured out that she was frightened to be airborne. But she was. Deathly terrified, to be blunt about it.
There weren’t any answers for why her daddy’s plane had gone down in the first Gulf War.
Pilot error, enemy fire, or a mechanical malfunction—the government had never been able to give Momma a definitive cause.
Probably because Daddy had crashed into the Persian Gulf, and all of the pieces of his plane had never been fully recovered.
Kaci had been old enough when Daddy died to lie in bed at night and wonder if he’d known his plane was going down.
If he’d seen the water rising up to meet him. If he’d tried to eject.
If he’d thought about her and Momma in his last moments.
She’d been old enough to have nightmares, but young enough to be unable to separate the nightmares from reality.
Old enough to understand that what went up had to come down.
Old enough to decide she’d never, ever voluntarily put herself at the mercy of an airplane.
Even Momma wouldn’t fly, and Momma wasn’t afraid of anything. She was going on sixty, and she hadn’t been on an airplane since before Daddy died. If ever.
So why was the idea of confessing all this to Lance even more terrifying than the idea of flying?
“Why do you kiss women in bars and then run away?” she blurted.
Best she could do.
“I don’t make a habit of kissing women when I don’t know their names,” he said. “It was a bad day.”
She didn’t say anything.
Because she’d had a bad day that day too.
“Can’t say I’m sorry I met you though, which probably makes me crazier than you are,” he continued. “And speaking of you, it’s not uncommon to be afraid to fly. People aren’t born with wings. Weren’t meant to fly. Course, neither were pumpkins. Or BCGs.”
Kaci stifled a groan.
She’d forgotten about Ron’s military-issue glasses. Lance had probably found the medal too. And possibly the sock.
“Or don’t you want to go wherever it is you’re supposed to fly to?” he said.
“I want to go.”
She wanted to go to Stuttgart badly enough to get on an airplane, didn’t she?
She wanted to rub elbows with famous physicists.
She wanted to see the wind tunnels at the university.
She wanted to stand up and present her research as the featured keynote guest and make connections with people who were brilliant and creative and driven.
She wanted to prove she was every bit as smart as every man who had ever taught in the James Robert Physics Department.
As the first female professor in the history of the department, she had a lot to prove.
Lance dangled his hands off his knees. “Where?”
“Germany. I was invited to speak at a symposium in Germany.”
He tilted his head toward her vacated seat. “Then let’s go to Germany.”
She’d been showing her crazy since the moment they met, but here he was, offering to stay by her side and help her overcome her fears.
And for what?
To spend more time in her company.
Was it possible he was simply one of the good guys? That he’d simply had an off day the day they met, and this was his way of making up for it?
He pulled himself out of his seat, and once more he put his hands on her shoulders to steer her. Except this time, he guided her away from the couch, then pulled her to the floor. He sat behind her, straddling her, and wrapped his arms around her front, game controller firmly in hand.
“One more time,” he said, his breath hot on her ear.
He hit two buttons. The screen flashed back to the opening sequence again. Two big windows overlooking a runway, with a control panel holding more buttons and levers and displays than any single human being could possibly monitor at one time.
That sexy woman’s voice cleared them for takeoff again.