clashed with Rogan’s in the mirror. “Can’t we take the horses with us?”
“Do you think that’s fair? The farm is their home. Besides…” Rogan played another angle, one that garnered a smidgen of guilt. “They’re animals. They’ll get confused in a new place.”
He had turned down Main Street before the boy’s reply drifted from the rear seat. “Okay, we can stay. I don’t want them to feel lost.”
A stone hit Rogan’s gut. Danny transposed his own emotions onto the mare and foal. Reaching back, he patted the boy’s knee. “Everything’s going to work out, buddy. You’ll see.”
But after he dropped Danny at Mrs. Huddleston’s house, the pledge spun like a merry-go-round through his mind as he drove toward Lee Tait’s pier.
She was shoving a box into the cargo hold of the seaplane, and the morning sun forged her thick ponytail into coils of copper.
“Good morning,” she called when he climbed from his truck.
“’Morning.” Pocketing his keys, he remembered how, twelve hours before, she’d appeared out of the night like a forest sprite. Jeez, Rogan. What the hell’s got into you? He strode down the wooden dock as she lifted a box of packages. “Let me get those.”
“Thanks, but I’ve done this a time or two, Mr. Matteo.”
“Not while I’ve been in the vicinity.” Setting down his briefcase, he stepped beside her on the pontoon, and pushed the box onto the plane.
Planting her hands on hips nicely encased in a pair of black slacks, she canted an icy green gaze up at him.
“Okay,” she said and the sexy look of those aviator sunglasses perched on her head zapped through his veins. “Let’s get one thing straight here and now. I am not a helpless female in need of rescue. I’ve logged over ten thousand flying hours in fifteen years, and in that time I’ve transported luggage, snow and ski gear, fishing and hunting gear, vehicle and engine parts, medical supplies, animals in cages—you get the picture?”
Despite his woozy belly at the thought of getting into a plane for the first time since the crash, he chuckled. “Yes, ma’am. You are quite capable of loading your plane. Alone.”
“Thank you. Now, why don’t you leave your briefcase here with me and climb aboard.” She gestured to the cockpit. “We’ll be taking off in five minutes.”
A lump bounced into his windpipe. The seat appeared narrow, constricted…sized for a ten-year-old. “You want me to…”
“Settle yourself into the co-pilot’s chair. Unless you’d rather sit behind me in the passenger seat.”
Somehow the thought of her not beside him made his mouth go dry. He needed to see her face, the astuteness in her eyes, the calm she would offer when he no doubt lost it a mile up in the clouds.
A small crease staged itself between her fine auburn brows. Was she assessing him, wondering if she should fly him after all? Come on. Get in the damn plane before she figures out you’re a candy-ass flier.
With epic effort, he stepped toward the door. His shoes felt bulky as cement, his legs as if they were chained to the dock’s planks.
“Rogan.” She touched the sleeve of his suit coat. Her eyes held compassion. “Have you flown in a small plane before?”
He swallowed. “Not recently.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is this your first time up?”
“I’ve flown in commercial jets.” Where there were center seats, broad aisles and hundreds of passengers. “I’m fine,” he said when her hand dropped away. Biting his tongue, he climbed into the plane, squeezed his big body between the front seats, and landed on the co-pilot’s cushioned chair.
The front windshield exposed a propeller, and dual bands of blue: one of sky, the other of ocean. Sweat popped from his pores.
The plane swayed and rocked gently on the water as Lee finished loading her cargo; then she scrambled into the pilot’s chair and pulled the door shut.
Her brows knitted. “Need something to settle your stomach?”
“Took it with breakfast.”
“Good. Put on the headset,” she instructed, back to business. “That way we can talk to each other.”
“I’m not much of a conversationalist when I’m in a plane.”
He glanced over, tried to smile. She had a modesty he rarely saw in women. A modesty that had nothing to do with her green eyes and kinky ponytail or her freckled hands on the controls, all of which seemed at odds with the white V of blouse between the panels of her black flight jacket. A modesty that went hand-in-hand with her practical demeanor.
The entire package attracted the hell out of him.
She pushed the headset into his hands. “Put it on anyway.”
“Do you mind if I close my eyes?” Yeah. That’s what he’d do. And then he’d contemplate all Lee Tait’s assets, including that wild red hair and those slim hips and—The plane’s engine roared to life.
“You can do anything you want.” Her voice glided along his senses. “Long as you remain buckled, and don’t touch the controls.”
“Got it.” Touching the controls? God forbid. Pinching his eyes shut, he folded his arms, tried not to clutch the fabric of his suit coat.
Perspiration dampened his forehead. His stomach whirled.
Nothing will happen. Danny won’t be left behind. But the image of his family wavered behind his eyes.
He tried not to think of what they had gone through when their plane crashed into the mountain forest, breaking branches and small tree trunks, swathing a path of demolition and death.
He tried not to think of his little boy alone in the world, crying for him. Or of Johnny attempting to console Danny. Raising Danny….
“I’m right beside you,” Lee said into the headphones when the plane began to move.
He listened to her voice while she ran through a list of checks—rudders, flaps, fuel gage—and gave their coordinates to the Renton tower before the plane skimmed the ocean, lifted, buzzed into the sky.
He heard the tone of her words more than their meaning. That assured tone. The quiet, steady tone.
And when he bit the inside of his cheek, he felt her fingers curve around his forearm. “You’ll be okay with me,” she promised.
And, in that moment, he believed her. He really did.
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