Chapter 14 #2
Her toes felt as though they were lead bricks, but she let him boost her into the seat. There was a space-age steering wheel sticking out of her side of the dash identical to the one in front of Lance’s seat.
She also had pedals at her feet.
He closed her in, and she was suddenly ridiculously aware of how little space there was inside the aircraft.
She was within two inches of being outside.
Which meant she’d be within two inches of being outside once they were airborne.
“Breathe, Kaci,” she whispered to herself while she clutched the white barf bag.
The whole aircraft shuddered when Lance climbed inside. He tossed his jacket in the backseat and grinned at her.
She blew another breath out her nose and closed her eyes.
This thing was supposed to survive flying through the air.
Another shudder went through the plane.
He’d turned on the engine.
She was in an airplane. About to leave the ground.
“Here.” He passed her a set of headphones with a slender microphone. “Any questions, just ask. And trust me—this will be fun.”
Fun.
Right.
She forced a practiced beauty queen smile. She could do this. She could be brave.
He wouldn’t take her up in the air in a plane that wasn’t airworthy. He wouldn’t put her in danger. He wouldn’t push her if she couldn’t do this.
She could do this.
His lips spread in that heart-stopping grin. “That’s my girl.”
She clapped the headphones over her ears.
Too few minutes later, after he’d made a thousand notations in a notebook and flipped a half dozen switches and checked every last readout and gauge on the dash—telling her exactly what he was doing each time—they rolled away from the building and across the postage stamp-sized parking area to the edge of the runway.
She was going to be fine. Lance knew what he was doing. They’d both survive.
But her breath rushed in and out too shallow and that pinch in her forehead was spreading into her brain and her fingertips were numb.
“With me, Kaci?” his voice said through the headphones.
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
“Hey.”
Black dots danced in her vision.
No. No, she wouldn’t hyperventilate and pass out. Not again.
She was doing this, dammit.
Her nails sliced into her palms.
A solid, steady hand cupped the back of her head.
But instead of pushing her forward, head between her knees in a classic get-over-yourself pose, he pulled her in to his waiting lips and devoured her mouth.
Warmth flooded back into her fingertips. Her breathing evened out, then went ragged again, but this was a good ragged. His tongue slid against hers, his fingers kneaded her scalp, and she melted into him.
His rumble of approval sent a jolt of heat straight to her core.
But when she grabbed onto the corded steel of his forearms, he pulled back from the kiss. “That’s my girl,” he murmured. “Ready?”
She lifted his sunglasses so she could see the smile dancing in his eyes too. “Yes.”
“Good.”
He gave her seatbelt a tug, adjusted his pants, and clicked a button. He said something into his headpiece that she didn’t hear, and a minute later, they were rolling down the runway.
Picking up speed.
Faster.
And faster.
And faster.
Until—
“Oh, my sweet baby Jar Jar Binks, are we flying?”
“You bet your sweet ass we are,” came Lance’s cocky response.
The plane shuddered and dipped, but he kept smiling.
And the green patch of ground and houses beneath them kept getting farther and farther away.
“Breathe through it, Kace. Don’t want you to miss this beautiful view.”
Despite the panic dancing at the edges of her brain, she couldn’t deny he was right about the view.
She could see so much of the earth from here. Treetops. Roofs. Half the base. “Is that the golf course?”
“Yep. You play?”
“Nah, but I’ve modified a club or two.”
His chuckle chased away the lingering panic.
She was flying. Soaring above the ground. With physics keeping them aloft in a plane Lance had declared airworthy.
“Do all pilots check their planes like you do?”
“Hell yes.”
The plane dipped again.
So did Kaci’s stomach.
“Normal turbulence,” he said. “Like being on a roller coaster.”
He was right.
Despite the dips and the way the plane seemed to sway from side to side occasionally, it kept flying straight. He made adjustments with the pedals and the wheel thingie, and soon they were flying over the national forest where Lance had launched his rings, headed toward mostly harvested farmland.
She was flying.
He grinned at her. “Fun, isn’t it?”
“If you like defying death,” she said.
One eyebrow arched over his sunglasses, and she laughed.
“How fast are we going?”
“Little over a hundred knots.”
She did some fast math in her head. “So if we hit something, we’d die.”
“We’re not going to hit anything.”
“You know how to land this?”
His eyebrow was significantly less amused this time, but she felt her own smile growing bigger.
She was freaking flying.
And he was right. It was fun. An adrenaline rush she hadn’t expected, with the bonus of being personally chauffeured by a capable, highly trained, sexy-as-sin pilot.
He pointed out her window. “You look down, you’ll see the Flint River.”
Light danced and sparkled off a thin strip of black cutting through the patches of square and round fields.
“And straight ahead is Pickleberry Springs.”
She leaned forward and peered at the cluster of buildings and roads on the horizon. “Why do I know that town?”
“Billy Brenton’s hometown.”
“The hot country music Billy Brenton?”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Why do you know about Billy Brenton’s hometown?”
“I was engaged to his biggest fan.”
A voice interrupted their conversation, and Lance talked to another pilot over the radio for a few minutes about the weather and some rough air over in Alabama.
When he was done, he glanced at her again. “Got more than enough fuel to get us to the Gulf and back. Want to see the beach?”
Her fingers twitched.
Daddy had gone down in water.
But, oh, the view from the air would be amazing.
She shook her head. “I’m good.”
He squeezed her thigh. “Doing real good.”
“Hands on the controls, please.” But when they landed, his hands would be hers the rest of the day.
The plane banked, and she yelped.
“Just turning,” he said. “Let’s go tour south Georgia.”
Flying was amazing. Lance was right—nothing to be afraid of. The plane was shaky, but if it hadn’t come apart yet, Kaci could trust it would make it back to the airfield where they’d started. And her redneck heart had come out of hiding and was enjoying the thrill of it.
She would absolutely get on that airplane and go to Germany. And she wouldn’t be afraid, and she wouldn’t hyperventilate, and she wouldn’t cause any international incidents by melting down in any airports. She had her passport, her tickets, and her schedule. Everything would be—
Crunch.
The plane swerved and dipped. Feathers plastered the windshield. She gripped her own legs, because there wasn’t an armrest. “What was that?”
Lance didn’t grin.
Nor did he answer.
One of the readouts on the dash blinked red, and another was flashing something.
“What was that?” she repeated.
He flipped a switch, then tugged at the wheel. “Bird,” he said shortly.
“A bird? A bird as in—wooo.”
The plane dipped again, but this time, it pitched her sideways toward Lance.
“Kaci,” he said, his voice clipped but steady and forceful, “sit still. And trust me.”
Oh, god. Sweet baby Jesus and Jehoshaphat and Jim-Bob.
They were going to crash.
A beeping came through her headphones. Lance hit the button to silence her comms, and all she could hear was the irregular whir-sputter-whir of the engine.
The plane tilted sideways.
Lance’s lips were set in a straight line. He kept one hand on the wheel, his feet doing something with the pedals, his other hand flipping various knobs and switches. He was talking, but she couldn’t hear him.
“Lance?” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“Lance!”
He flipped the switch to turn her headphones back on. “We hit a bird, and it damaged the propeller,” he said.
“Oh, my God.”
“Kaci, listen. Are you listening?”
She thought she nodded, but she wasn’t sure. The ground was getting closer. Not fast, not like in the video game, but still closer.
“We’re going to land on a strip of farmland a little ways up the road, but I need you to keep calm and trust me.”
He was using that I am god of the air voice. The cocky voice. The I’m an invincible pilot voice.
Her daddy had used that voice.
She whimpered.
“Hold tight, Pixie-lou. We’re just fine.”
All went silent again.
But the plane didn’t have to make noise for her to know.
They were in serious trouble.