Chapter 31
GRADY
I double-checked the address Cece had texted me.
It didn’t make sense. It was an airfield.
Not like an airport but a private airfield.
There was nothing around but sunbaked pavement, a line of hangars, and two runways slicing through flat fields.
I pulled up the text message to make sure I had input the right address.
It was right. When she sent me the message, she said very little. I wasn’t even sure why I showed up. That was bullshit. I knew why. I wanted to see her.
It had been a couple of days since we established our truce.
Lina, Cece, and I had gone to lunch together yesterday.
It had been cordial if not a little stiff.
But it was a test and we both passed. And by passed I mean I didn’t throw her on the table and have my way with her.
When I got home, my right hand and I had a nice date.
I was going to need to invest in some lotion to get through the semester or my dick was going to be left raw.
Last night, she sent the message and asked me to meet her at the address.
There was no point in denying I had gotten just a little hopeful.
I was up for a secret tryst in the middle of nowhere.
If she was willing, I wasn’t going to deny her—or me.
I was a selfish bastard when it came to Cece.
I wasn’t going to deny myself the chance to bury myself inside her.
My hopes were quickly dashed when I realized I was at an airfield. Unless she planned on banging in one of those hangars. Fuck it. I could get down with that. My eyes scanned the area and I finally spotted her. She waved me over.
I slowly drove and parked. There was a small propeller plane sitting on the tarmac, polished and low-winged. Cece stood near the cockpit talking to an older woman. Fuck, just seeing her sent a shiver of excitement running through me.
When she saw me, she stepped away from the woman and walked over to me. “You came,” she said with a smile.
“I did.”
“Meet my family.”
I almost choked. Shit.
“What?”
I stayed by my Jeep, trying to process what she’d just said. Family? Here? At an airfield? What the hell was happening?
“Damn, okay,” I muttered under my breath, then straightened up and walked toward them.
The older woman had her chestnut hair pulled back in a practical ponytail and wore jeans and a bomber jacket despite the heat. She looked like she could handle herself.
“Mom, this is Professor Grady Stone,” Cece said.
“Hi,” I said, extending my hand to the woman.
“Maggie Monroe,” she replied with a firm handshake and a knowing smile. “Cece’s mother.”
“Nice to meet you.” I glanced between them, still confused about why we were all standing next to a plane.
A little girl with red hair that pretty much screamed she was Cece’s bounced over. “Hi. Are you Mommy’s friend?”
I had no idea how to answer that. “Yes. And you are?”
“Sophie.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Sophie. I’m Grady.”
“I know,” she said.
“How old are you, Sophie?”
“Five.”
I smiled again. “I bet you’re in kindergarten.”
Her eyes lit up, clearly appreciating the attention. “Yep I just started.”
“Come with me,” Cece said. She gestured toward the side of the hangar, away from her daughter and mother’s hearing.
I followed her, eager for an explanation. Once we were out of earshot, I turned to face her.
“Talk about not getting any warning,” I said, crossing my arms. “What the hell, Cece?”
A slow smile spread across her face, and there was something almost predatory about it. “Yeah, it’s not fun, right? Being ambushed without any heads-up?”
She was giving me a taste of my own medicine. The meeting with Dean Carver. I couldn’t stop the laugh that came out. “Fine. Lesson learned. But what are we doing here? What am I doing here?”
She flashed another sexy smile that felt like her hand was stroking me. “Flying.”
I tilted my head. “Flying.”
“Yes. In an airplane.”
“Well I’ve seen you naked and I know you don’t have wings.”
She let out a soft giggle. “Stop. No talking about being naked together. That makes things… difficult.”
I knew exactly what she was saying. Difficult. She’d get wet and that would be that. I was going to be the guy sporting blue balls. That was difficult.
“I told you my mom’s a pilot,” Cece said.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“She’s been flying for twenty-five years. Started when I was Sophie’s age.”
I glanced back at Maggie, who was now doing some kind of pre-flight check on the small aircraft. “Okay.”
I still had no idea what this little exercise was.
“I want you to understand something,” Cece said, stepping closer. The heat radiating off her body made my pulse quicken despite the serious conversation we were having. “You think I’m reckless because I have a daughter. That I should wrap myself in bubble wrap and never take any chances.”
“That’s not?—”
“Let me finish.” Her blue eyes flashed with determination. “My mother took risks her whole life. She flew cargo planes, charter flights, even did some stunt work for movies. She never stopped living because she had a kid. And you know what that taught me?”
I waited, sensing this was important.
“It taught me that being a mother doesn’t mean disappearing.
It means showing your child what it looks like to be brave, to pursue your dreams, to not let fear control every decision you make.
” Her voice softened slightly. “My mom taking those risks, following her passion—that’s what inspired me to become an archeologist. To be a diver. To not settle for a safe, boring life.”
The pieces started clicking together. “So this is about the dive.”
“Partly.” She glanced back at the plane. “And I thought you might like to see the world from up here. Ever been in a Cessna?”
“Yes. I fly into areas that are off the beaten path.”
“Well, this is a different experience.”
“You two want to hop in?” Maggie called out from where she sat in the cockpit.
I looked at Cece. She offered me a half-smile. “Come on.”
I climbed up into the back seat. Sophie twisted around in the co-pilot seat and grinned. Cece sat beside me in the small space. Our knees were touching. Even in jeans and a tee, she looked absolutely gorgeous and irresistible.
I took a breath, knowing it was a bad idea to have any physical contact with her. It would make things too hard. Literally. My dick was stirring at the contact. And I didn’t think it was a good idea to sport a hard-on with her mother and daughter two feet away.
Maggie fired up the engine, and the propeller spun to life. She ran through her checklist with the practiced efficiency of someone who’d done this thousands of times, her voice calm and professional as she spoke into the headset.
“Everyone buckled in back there?” she called over the engine noise.
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, clicking my seatbelt into place. Cece’s thigh pressed against mine as she adjusted her own belt. I looked out the window to focus on something other than the woman I couldn’t have.
The plane taxied toward the runway, bouncing slightly. Sophie was practically vibrating with excitement in the co-pilot seat, her little hands pressed against the window as she watched the ground crew wave us past.
Sophie twisted around to face me, her eyes bright with enthusiasm. “We go up all the time. Granny loves flying.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Wow, that’s a pretty cool granny.”
The older woman shot me a look over her shoulder. “The kid can call me Granny. You call me Maggie, got it?”
“Roger that,” I said, nodding.
The plane accelerated down the runway. We lifted off the ground and I felt the familiar rush.
But this time was different. Instead of being focused on getting to some remote site, I found myself actually enjoying the experience.
The South Carolina coastline spread out below us.
It was all golden beaches and blue water stretching to the horizon.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Cece murmured beside me, her voice soft with wonder even though she’d clearly seen this view many times before.
“Incredible,” I admitted, watching the waves crash against the shore in perfect white lines. “I usually fly commercial or charter, straight to wherever I’m going. Never really took the time to appreciate the scenery.”
“That’s the difference between traveling and exploring,” Maggie said, banking the plane slightly so we could get a better view of the coastline. “Cece gets that from me. We don’t just go places—we experience them.”
Sophie pressed her nose against the side window. “Look, you can see the pier!”
I leaned forward to look where she was pointing, and sure enough, the Myrtle Beach pier stretched out into the Atlantic like a wooden finger. From up here, the people on it looked like ants, and the Ferris wheel was just a colorful smudge.
“That’s where we went last week,” Sophie continued, her words tumbling over each other in excitement. “We ate funnel cake, and I got to pick out some really big seashells.”
I was used to getting my thrills in faraway jungles but this was a different high.
I looked over at Cece. She was smiling as her daughter rambled on about a box and seashells.
I was too busy watching her. Yes, I was disappointed when I realized we weren’t going to be alone and getting dirty, but it wasn’t so bad. Hell, it was actually fun.
Cece caught me staring wide eyed and smiled. Her hand rested on the seat between us. I inched mine toward it, expecting her to pull away. But she didn’t. I rested my hand on hers. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to.
Something strange flooded through me. It was a warmth that had nothing to do with lust or adrenaline. It was a feeling of belonging. Sitting there in that small plane, surrounded by Cece’s family, I realized how completely fucking wrong I’d been about everything.
For years, I’d convinced myself that attachments were anchors.
That caring about people, especially kids, would clip my wings and chain me to a life of suburban mediocrity.
I’d built my entire adult existence around the idea that freedom meant being alone, that adventure required solitude.
I had avoided relationships because women eventually always wanted to settle down.
They wanted me home for dinner and available to pick up the phone whenever they called.
But watching Sophie’s face light up as she pointed out landmarks below and having Cece’s hand in mine wasn’t weighing me down. It was lifting me up.
“There’s the university,” Cece said softly, pointing to the familiar cluster of buildings, so small beneath us. “Looks different from up here, doesn’t it?”
I squeezed her hand gently. “Everything looks different from up here. It certainly puts things into perspective.”
We turned inland, over marshy grass and cattle pastures. Granny told Sophie how the trees changed in the winter.
“Beautiful,” I said softly.
Cece nodded. “Yeah.”
I hesitated. “Thank you for letting me share this with you all.”
“You’re welcome.”