night, to dodge Aloha, he called and got a date with Amanda McMullen. They went to dinner and a movie called Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Amanda was a bright woman, very attractive and seemed to like him more than as a friend or acquaintance. When he dropped her off just before midnight, they kissed long and hard in the hall in front of her apartment door. He got the feeling that if he wanted, things could go further. But while it was arousing, he found no spark for Amanda that night. There was no clinging urgency, mental and physical, between them. Not like that which he shared with Aloha.
But he made another date with Amanda anyway.
Thirty minutes later he drove into his driveway. He looked around. No Aloha. He squelched an involuntary disappointment.
Dogged in his determination, he set his alarm for a change, and rose at four. Groggy, he made it out of the house in twenty minutes. As he drove off, he saw Aloha on the first intersecting street skipping like a little girl. He pretended he did not see her. Maybe she wouldn’t recognize his car. It struck him that she cared enough to come to him at four thirty in the morning. He suppressed his guilt feelings.
At the Tallahassee airport, he went to the SIXGUN AIR hangar, went right to his office, and collapsed on his couch and was asleep in five minutes.
It was a Saturday, so the receptionist and mechanics were not at work. His partner, Ward Zekowski, was to fly donated relief supplies to Haiti for a church sponsored organization. When Zeke came, they loaded his aircraft and he flew off to the south. The relief flights were something they’d decided to do, it cost them only fuel and time on their aircraft. They usually performed this volunteer service on weekends or when they were free and sufficient supplies had accumulated.
So Rudd was alone and asleep in his office.
At high noon, Aloha Bonnie Blaze walked into his office.
Rudd swung himself up, still groggy with sleep. His hangar was part of the security perimeter and the doors from the office to the hangar were locked on the inside in accordance with security. But not the main, public access door into the office. But he thought that Zeke would have locked it.
“How’d you get in?”
“I got off the bus over at the terminal and this nice guy gave me a ride on his fuel truck.” She preened.
“You vixen.”
“You rat.”
He knew what she was talking about. He went to a refrigerator and got both of them Cokes. “You broke security? You were on the flight line?”
“It was the shortest way.”
“You have talent, Aloha.” And a smile to steal hearts with and a body to beguile.
“You’ve been dodgin’ me,” she accused. Her hip jutted out. She was alluring in cutoff jeans, an FSU SEMINOLES shirt, and her denim vest helped conceal the obvious fact she wore no bra.
“I’ve been working long hours.”
“All of a sudden?”
“Yes, dammit.” He drained his Coke. “I don’t have to explain my work hours to you.”
She dropped her head. “I’m sorreee. I don’t want you mad at me.” She looked up from under her dark brows and those eyes chopped him to pieces. Some women twenty years older than she couldn’t do that. It wasn’t a feminine technique, it was a natural gesture.
He responded gutturally and she melted into his arms.
He was finding that when she was near him, his gut ached and the anticipation and desire melded into a warm and comfortable and fuzzy feeling. And, he recognized unable to do anything about it, and that was really dangerous.
When she came up for air, she said, “When do I get my airplane ride?”
“How about right now?”
“You’re on, flyboy.”
They went into the main office. He picked up the hotline to the tower. “Sammy? Yeah, this is Rudd. Listen. I’m gonna take the Beech Baron up for a check flight. Maybe a couple of hours, out over the Gulf and back. No, I’m not going to file a flight plan. Just wanted you to know.” It had to be a two-engine aircraft. No way he’d trust her to a single engine. He got two headsets and they went out through the hangar to the flight line.
“This is a Beech Baron,” he told her. “It’s the stretched version, Model 58. Twin engine, cruises two ten, two twenty....”
He went through the preflight checklist religiously. Fuel level. Fuel sumps and filters. Oil. He removed the chocks and they climbed aboard.
The Beech had the pilot and copilot’s seat up front and, instead of the seats behind those two, had a carpeted interior configuration for the next scheduled cargo flight Monday. If necessary, the seats could be installed quickly.
He strapped them in, ran up the engines, performed his checks, saw the radio was correctly set to 121.9 MHZ—Ground Control. He keyed the mike. “Hello tower, this is SIXGUN AIR Beech seven five six requesting taxi.” He was using the radio’s speaker instead of headsets so he could talk to Aloha.
“Go ahead seven five six, there’s no other traffic. Just you and your passenger. Use runway 36. Winds 340 at ten knots. Altimeter three zero zero five.” Rudd set the altimeter.
Aloha glanced her query at Rudd.
“Likely he has nothing to do up there, so he had his glasses on us.” Rudd laughed. “Sammy wouldn’t have said anything except he wanted me to know that he knows I’ve got a good-looking female on board.”
She made a dimple. “Thank you, sir.”
When they reached the end of runway three six, the tinny voice came from the tower, “You’re cleared for takeoff whenever you want, seven five six.”
“Roger.” Procedure was lax on weekends.
Rudd did his final checks, ran the engines up and released the brakes. As they lumbered along, he said, “Nothing to it. When you get going fast enough, pull the stick or yoke back and up you go. They call it rotation.” He did so and they were airborne.
“Have fun,” said Sammy in the tower. “Turn left to zero nine zero heading then contact Departure Control. Ground control out.”
Rudd set the radio to 132.15.
Tallahassee is only about thirty-five miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
He stayed low and when they hit the Gulf, turned northwest and flew up the coast to Panama City under the control of Miami Center. They flew far out from the starkly white beaches. “You have to pay more attention around here—Tyndall Air Force Base and you never can tell what those hotshots’ll do.”
He banked and headed directly out over the Gulf, gaining altitude quickly. In a few minutes they were over ten thousand feet.
Aloha was leaning forward, eyes darting about, eager anticipation on her face.
“Want to fly her?”
