Chapter 4 #2
“Ah, Dakota! Wonderful to see you again.” Gerald was already pulling out field guides. “I’ve been thinking about the birds we might see in Cairns. Absolutely spectacular this time of year. Riflebirds, cassowaries if we’re lucky, and of course the rainbow bee-eaters . . .”
Dakota nodded, hummed a response, and let Gerald’s enthusiasm wash over him while his attention kept drifting forward.
Five rows up. Aisle seat.
He could see the back of her head. Hair loose around her shoulders. She was sitting next to an older woman—silver hair, but that’s all he could see.
The plane taxied. Lifted off. Fiji fell away below them.
Gerald launched into a detailed explanation of bird migration patterns. Dakota listened with half his attention, made comments when appropriate, but his mind was elsewhere.
On last night. On her voice, yanking him from the darkness.
On the smile that had exploded light through him this morning.
Shoot, he was actually going to miss her.
“—and that’s when I spotted the eclectus parrot in full breeding plumage, which was quite remarkable considering—Dakota? You all right, son?”
“Yeah.” He pulled his attention back to Gerald. “Sorry. Just tired from last night.”
“That storm was quite something.” Gerald shook his head. “I half thought the whole place would blow away.” He paused. “You seemed to handle it well though. I saw you at breakfast with that young lady. The one who was sitting next to you on the flight yesterday.”
“Jayden.”
“Pretty girl. Sharp too. I can always tell.” Gerald smiled, winked. “You two make a nice pair.” Gerald tapped his field guide. “My wife and I met on a birding expedition in Costa Rica. She passed away a couple years ago. It would have been thirty-seven years ago this August.”
“Sorry for your loss,” Dakota said.
“Thanks.” Gerald took a breath. “Now I’m . . . doing all the things we dreamed about doing together.” He launched into his study on Australian avifauna.
Dakota glanced forward again. Caught Jayden looking back.
Their eyes met for just a second before she turned away.
And there went the heat again, all the way to his mitochondria. Yeah, she’d gotten to him.
Gerald was still talking about bee-eaters. The plane droned through tropical sky. And Dakota sat there, five rows away from a woman he barely knew, wondering how she’d managed to become the safest place he’d found in years.
She had sort of hoped that they’d be seated together.
Okay, stop.
This was for the best. Because Dakota was right—she needed to ditch the tour as soon as they touched down in Cairns and flee to Sydney.
Absolutely not spend six days touring Australia with Mr. South Dakota.
Even if she could feel his gaze on the back of her head at that moment.
And liked it.
The plane leveled off at cruising altitude. The seatbelt sign dinged off. Around them, passengers settled in—some reading, some sleeping. She glanced back.
Gerald was still gesturing animatedly at Dakota five rows back.
“He seems like a good man,” Mags said quietly.
Jayden blinked. Pulled her attention away from row twelve. “I’m sorry?”
“Your young man.” The older woman had introduced herself when Jayden buckled in.
Maggie—“call me Mags”—Winston. She now set aside her military-history book and glanced at Jayden.
Maybe mid-seventies, she wore her silver hair pulled back in a neat bun, tortoiseshell frames perched on her nose. “Dakota, was it?”
“He’s not—” Jayden stopped herself. Started again. “Yes. Dakota.”
“Special Forces, if I had to guess.” Mags adjusted her glasses. “The way he moves. My husband was the same. Never quite left the service, even after thirty years out.”
Jayden chose her words carefully. “He was military. A long time ago.”
“And now?”
“Security consultant.”
“Mmm.” Mags smiled slightly, a knowing expression that suggested she’d heard that cover story before. “That’s what my husband told people too, toward the end. Easier than explaining the rest.”
Jayden didn’t ask what “the rest” was.
They sat in silence for a moment. The plane hummed. Flight attendants moved up the aisle with drink carts.
“When you find the right one, you just know,” Mag said.
“Know what?”
“That you’ve found someone who sees you.
Really sees you. Past all the armor you wear.
” Mags’s expression softened. “My husband used to have nightmares. Terrible ones. For years, he wouldn’t let me close when they happened.
Thought he might hurt me.” She paused. “The first time let me wake him up and talk him through it—that’s when I knew we’d make it.
That he trusted me enough to be vulnerable. ”
Jayden’s throat tightened.
Last night. The nightmare. The way Dakota had looked at her when he woke—wild and lost and then, gradually, safe.
“We’re only going as far as Cairns,” Jayden said. She didn’t know why she was telling this stranger the truth. “The flight, I mean. After we land, I have . . . work. Things I need to do. He has his own plans.”
“So you’re not going on the tour?”
“No.” Oddly, she had to sort of push the word out. What? She didn’t seriously consider . . . No. And yes, she still felt his gaze on her. She refused to look back, find herself caught in his blue eyes.
Mags was quiet for a long moment. She folded her hands in her lap, and Jayden noticed the worn gold band on her left hand—thin from years of wear, probably never taken off.
“My husband’s work took him away for months at a time.
Sometimes I didn’t know where he was, and I didn’t even know if he was alive.
” Her voice stayed steady, matter-of-fact.
“But I always knew that when he came back, he’d find me. And I’d be waiting.”
Jayden leaned her head back, closed her eyes.
Thought about Dakota’s hand wrapped around hers during the landing yesterday.
About the way he’d talked about his grandfather, voice soft with grief and love.
About making tea at midnight while he sat on a bed, head in his hands, trying to come back from a nightmare.
About this morning. That smile. The saved chair. For her. As if they were a team.
Behind her, five rows back, Dakota laughed at something Gerald said. The sound carried over the drone of the engines—warm and genuine and alive.
She’d known him for thirty-six hours.
In two more hours, she’d walk off this plane. He’d go his way. She’d go hers. They’d become a story she’d tell herself late at night—about a storm and an emergency landing and a brief moment when two people who probably shouldn’t have met had somehow found each other anyway.
Shoot. The thought made her chest ache.
“For what it’s worth,” Mags said quietly, “ Thirty years from now, you won’t regret the chances you took. You’ll regret the ones you didn’t.”
Jayden didn’t respond.
She just sat there, eyes on the seatback in front of her, the hum of the engines filling the silence.
The flight attendant stopped at their row. “Anything to drink?”
“Just water,” Jayden said.
The Australian coast appeared on the horizon. Gold and green and impossibly blue.
She didn’t look back at row twelve again.
Couldn’t.
Because if she saw him smile one more time, she might do something stupid. Like text him first. Like suggest they stay in touch. Like admit that the thought of never seeing him again left a wound on the terrain of her heart.
And she couldn’t afford to be wounded. Not now. Not with Alan Martin still out there. Not with a mission waiting.
So she kept her eyes forward. And told herself that two days with Dakota Rivers were enough.
But yes, she’d remember this time. Treasure it. Keep it as proof that she was still human.
At least, Jayden Pierce was. Lynx was a different matter altogether.