a little thing for him, too. Who wouldn’t? With that unruly curly black hair and those wide shoulders, Chet had a reined-in recklessness about him that could whisk her breath from her. Probably, it only nudged her own tendency to live on the edge.
Still, she couldn’t forget their one and only kiss, nearly a week after Gracie’s birthday party over a year ago, right before he disappeared to Taiwan and another overseas assignment. She could still feel the press of his strong hands against her lower back. She could see the smile that had emerged, ever so briefly, from his dark blue hooded eyes.
A year of corresponding—especially when he’d been recuperating from the gunshot wound he’d received while on mission in Taiwan—had revealed a man devoted to his country. To his friends. To a life that she wanted, too. No, a life she needed.
She had no illusions—not really—that this thing between them might flourish into anything lasting. Not with her traumatic history and his tendency to throw himself in front of gunfire. But she did hope he’d see beyond that to her skills.
No, more than hoped.
Prayed for it with all she had in her.
Please, God, he had to say yes. Had to hire her as his new chopper pilot.
Because the alternative just might slowly suck the last of the marrow out of her already depleted life.
ONE
Times like this, Mae Lund thought she might actually hate Chet Stryker.
Mae stared at herself in the dingy mirror of the one-stall hangar bathroom, grimacing at the splotch of vomit-scented wetness that stained her jumpsuit. How she loved it when her scenic air tour passengers didn’t follow instructions.
She should be flying C-130s for Chet Stryker’s international security team. His voice still rang in her head. I just don’t want you to get hurt Mae—
A pounding at the bathroom door made her jump. “Mae?” It was Darrin, her new, grumpy boss, annoyance in his tone that she’d stalked away from her nauseous tourists.
“Just a second!” She chucked another handful of paper towels into the trash and stripped off the jumpsuit. Still, her skin reeked of sickly-sweet, soap-imbued vomit. If her boss wanted her to go up again—
“Mae, get out here!”
“Hold your horses, I’ll be right there!” She tugged on a pair of clean overalls over her tank top and pulled them up over her shoulders, then slipped on flip-flops. Scraping the edge off her voice, she reached for the door. “I just had to change. I can’t believe that kid urped all over me. Can’t his mother read the direc—”
Uh-oh.
Darrin stood before her, flanked by the dangerous urper and his mother. She gripped the kid around the waist as he sagged against her.
“They need to use the bathroom,” Darrin said tightly.
They moved past her, the mother uttering a word that Mae would have edited for the kid’s sake. The door clicked shut behind them, and Mae winced as she heard the splatter of another round of lunch.
“I’m not cleaning that up.” Mae stared at Darrin—or, rather, stared down at Darrin and his bald spot. His furious little beady eyes made him appear more angry mole than former bush pilot.
“Rough ride?” Darrin took her by the elbow, pulling her away from the door. Mae glanced down at his hand and shot him a dark look.
“Not especially.”
“She said that he wouldn’t have gotten sick if you hadn’t descended so quickly. And apparently there was also a steep climb—”
“Are you serious? It’s a small plane, Darrin, not a jumbo jet. Airsickness is a probability, not just a remote possibility. You can’t climb—or descend, for that matter—without feeling a little queasy. Why not ask them about the stop-off at McDonald’s on the way to the airstrip? And, by the way, I didn’t hear any complaints when I was buzzing them around the south crater.”
So maybe…well, okay, she had been a little quick on the stick as they’d slid in and out of Olympic National Park, a favorite on the Seattle Air Scenic Tours schedule. But she’d wanted to give them a great view of the Carbon Glacier. Some people paid extra for that kind of flying.
Some people considered that kind of flying a talent. A work of art.
“This is the third complaint this month, Mae.” Darrin pulled out a well-worn gimme cap from his back pocket and shoved it over his bald spot. He looked up at her and pursed his lips. “You’re a good pilot, but you take too many risks—”
“What?” Risks? A risk was liberating a learjet from a serial killer and abandoning ship a second before it turned into fire and ash. Or hijacking a clunker chopper and flying under the radar into the icy winds of Siberia to save a buddy from execution. Okay, that one had cost her a thriving career with the military. “But really, I didn’t risk anything—”
“You’re risking my business. My livelihood.” Darrin nodded to the mechanic wheeling the mop bucket out to the plane. “And I’m not the only one. Shall we count how many companies you’ve flown for in the past couple years?”
She looked over his head, through the hangar, out to where the sky was just purpling with the end of the day. She refused to wince as he listed them, one after another, in the nastiest tone he could muster. “You’re out of options, lady. You either start flying smart, or you stop flying.”
Stop flying. That was what it had come down to, hadn’t it? Get a job serving coffee, or perhaps teaching—although she doubted any flight school would take her on, thanks to the closed ranks of the air charter services in Seattle.
She swallowed past the dread in her throat. “Sorry, Darrin.”
“Now I gotta write up a refund. Go help clean up the plane.” He turned and stalked back to his office.
Perfect. She’d gone from decorated rescue pilot to cleaning crew.
That was what she got for putting her dreams into the hands of Chet Stryker.
She met the mechanic rolling his mop bucket back inside. “All cleaned, Mae.”
“Thanks.” Time for a quick escape. She jogged out to her ten-year-old Montero, which felt like a sauna after sitting in the summer sun all day, and rolled down the windows. The stereo came on full blast, and she twisted the knob to Off before Darrin could hear her fleeing.
Pulling out, she spotted him emerging from the hangar and ignored his frantic waving. She angled her elbow out the window as she exited the airfield, noticing a beautiful Piper Cub from the local aviation school touching down. And beyond that a gleaming helicopter sat on the pad. Most pilots weren’t rated on both aircraft and helicopters, but she’d taken her chopper exam for her stint in ocean rescue.
Frankly, she didn’t care what she flew. Just as long as she could escape into the heavens. She slammed her hand on the steering wheel, then turned on the radio. Screamer music. Loud. Pulsing. Perfectly impossible to think at this decibel.
Nearly impossible, also, to hear her cell phone nestled in the cup holder between her seats. Had she not glanced down at the stoplight and seen it vibrating inside its silver skin, she would have missed the call altogether.
She turned the radio down and grabbed the cell, flipping it open. “Mae here.”
Oh, why hadn’t she checked the display? “Mae Lund, you turn your car around this second or don’t bother showing up here again.” Mae shut her phone. Nope, no job tomorrow.
The phone vibrated again in her grip, and this time she checked the display.
Lissa.
What now? She flipped the phone open and didn’t bother to check her tone. “What, Lissa?”
“Mae?” The voice on the other