Going Gone. Sharon Sala

I’m sorry, but she can’t sit in your lap. You have—”

      Cameron interrupted. “Either you find a belt extender and buckle us up together, or she has an emotional meltdown and starts screaming. It’s not going to help in this rough weather for everyone on this plane to hear a bloodcurdling scream and you know it.”

      The flight attendant spun and dashed toward the galley. She came back moments later with two belt extenders, fastened them together and then belted both of them in.

      Cameron nodded. “Thank you. If I can have some water, I’ll get her to take some more meds. As soon as she’s calm, I’ll buckle her back into her own seat. I promise.”

      Once again the attendant headed back to the galley while Cameron managed to slip his hand into his pants pocket. Laura had wrapped her arms around his neck so tightly it was hard to breathe, but he wouldn’t have pushed her away, even if it meant giving up his last breath. The moment he got the pill bottle out of his pocket, it slipped out of his hand and rolled backward down the aisle and into coach seating.

      “Damn it,” he muttered.

      “I’ve got it,” he heard someone say, and moments later footsteps came up behind him. “Here you go.”

      Cameron looked up into the bluest eyes he’d ever seen set in a face wreathed with wrinkles and framed with short curly hair in flyaway gray.

      “Thank you so much, ma’am,” he said.

      “You’re welcome,” the little woman said, then patted Laura on the shoulder. “Sugar, the only thing you have to fear sitting in this pretty man’s lap is that he might put you down. If I was thirty years younger, I’d give you a run for your money.”

      Cameron chuckled, and Laura felt the rumble beneath her ear. That was a happy sound. No one would be happy if they were going to crash.

      Cameron shook two pills out into his hand just as the attendant came back with the water, and set it in the cup holder near his elbow.

      “Please, get her back in her seat as soon as possible,” the attendant said.

      Cameron understood she was doing her job, but so, by God, was he.

      “Laura, honey...look at me. You need to take your pills.”

      Laura shuddered, so afraid that, if she opened her eyes, she would wake up back in that plane in her nest and hear wolves digging outside in the snow.

      “Are you sure the wolves aren’t here?” she whispered.

      Cameron sighed. “No, honey. No wolves.”

      The woman across the aisle from them was purposefully staring at the magazine in her lap, but it was obvious from the tears rolling down her cheeks that she was locked in to their ongoing drama.

      The man in the seat in front of them turned around and gave Cameron a quick sympathetic look. Even the flight attendant came back with a different attitude as she put a blanket across Laura’s shoulders.

      “I’m so sorry,” she said as she tucked it around her and then moved down the aisle, checking to make sure the other passengers had fastened their seat belts.

      It was the warmth of the blanket and Cameron’s reassuring voice that finally pulled Laura back into reality.

      “I did it, didn’t I? I freaked. Oh, my God, I am so sorry.”

      Cameron shook his head. “No apology needed, darlin’. Just take these pills for me, okay?”

      She put them in her mouth and took a big drink before leaning back in his arms. She didn’t talk. There wasn’t anything she could say that would make this choking horror go away.

      He pulled the blanket closer around her and then rested his chin on the top of her head, waiting for the moment when the tension left her body. By the time her panic had disappeared, the flight had also smoothed out.

      He gave her a quick hug. “You ready to get back in your seat?”

      “After I go to the washroom,” she whispered.

      “Absolutely,” he said, and undid the seat belt.

      She slid off his lap, then stepped over his legs and limped up the aisle with her head down, too embarrassed to look up.

      Cameron tucked the belt extenders into the seat pocket in front of him and waited for her to come back.

      The door to the bathroom opened, and when Laura emerged he could tell she’d been crying and was heartsick for how hard this was for her.

      But then something happened as she started up the aisle.

      The woman across the aisle began to clap her hands.

      “Bravo to you, honey,” she said.

      Then the man in front of them joined in, and then the couple behind them, and by the time Laura got back to her seat the whole front of the plane had joined in the applause.

      Cameron stood up and then slipped into the aisle to give her room to get in. Instead, she walked into his arms and hugged him.

      “Once again you came to my rescue when I needed you most. Thank you forever,” she said.

      He hugged her back and then scooted her in.

      “Buckle up before we both get in trouble all over again,” he said.

      “We got in trouble?”

      He grinned. “It’s a long story best told over a bottle of wine.”

      “And in front of a fire, please. I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.”

      Cameron leaned over and kissed Laura squarely on the lips.

      “You are the best,” he whispered.

      “My mouth feels weird. I could barely feel that kiss,” she said.

      He cupped her cheek. “It’s the pills. Go to sleep, baby. I’ll wake you up when we land.”

      She pulled the blanket up over her shoulders, reclined her seat and passed out.

      The next thing she knew they were landing.