Mentally, he sighed. What excellent timing for this particular bear to come out of hibernation now, at the most improbable of provocations. High-maintenance women weren’t his type, and everything about Isabelle Marcano, Esq. screamed high-maintenance, from her fitted suit and impractical shoes, right down to that absurdly sexy scent filling his cockpit.
He banked the plane a few degrees westward, so Captivity Air filled his windshield. Beyond the dock, where they embarked and disembarked for water or ice landings, stretched the tidy Y-shaped runways, the red-shingled terminal capped by its distinctive crow’s nest, and metal hangars of the air and freight company his great-grandparents had founded almost eighty years ago.
Every inch of the operation was as familiar as the back of his hand, but after last fall, most of the pride and joy of this family legacy had vanished for him. Worse, he doubted he’d ever get it back. He wanted out. Bridget just wanted to fly. Getting her to complete the bare minimum of paperwork associated with those flights pretty much exhausted both their stores of patience. The less administrative burdens of running the company that landed on her, the happier she’d be.
He thought.
But she was just twenty-five to his thirty. In five years, she might be more amenable to spending some portion of her time behind a desk, doing boss-type stuff. Only problem? He didn’t have five more years of doing boss-type stuff in him. Ultimate responsibility for the safety and well-being of every pilot and passenger in his care sat too heavily on his shoulders.
Unqualified shoulders, as it turned out. Last fall had proven as much, decisively and permanently. Nobody needed a broken-down burnout helming the company. Especially not a broken-down burnout who might be losing his mind. Sane people didn’t suddenly take up sleepwalking at thirty. They didn’t wander into the kitchen at three in the morning to find a brother they’d just buried sitting at the island, grinning like he’d stumbled in from a lucky night out. They sure as shit didn’t imagine hearing his voice, bell-clear, lingering like an echo as the dream, hallucination, or whatever the hell, faded.
Right. Sane people didn’t do that.
This sale represented the best solution for everyone. They just didn’t know it yet. Done properly, he would keep Bridget flying, keep his team employed, and keep the air service the townspeople both wanted and needed, right there in Captivity.
The runways were all his at this time of evening, he knew, but nonetheless decided to check with Mad Dog, who was holding down the fort with Wyatt “Wingnut” Jensen. Right about now, he wished he’d told them to just leave the lights on and head home, or to their favorite table at the Goose, or anywhere else in the world that would eliminate the need to come up with an explanation for the obviously-not-a-tourist occupying his cockpit. But considering her true purpose for being there, the need to run the airfield strictly by the books took on new precedence.
“Captivity Air, this is Beaver N2326G, 2 miles southwest, 800 feet, inbound for landing on A. Over.”
“Beaver N2326G? Awfully formal tonight, Shanahan. Are we on a first date?”
Trace mentally counted to ten. “The correct reply is ‘clear’ or ‘not clear.’ And say, ‘over,’ at the end of your communication, Mad. Over.”
“Okay, stud. You’re all clear. Over.”
He stifled a long-suffering sigh. “Roger. Any wind or weather conditions I should know about? Maybe give me the ground temperature? Over.”
“Jesus. Now he wants foreplay.” Wingnut’s appreciation of Mad’s sense of humor carried audibly across the open comm. “Blizzard’s coming in behind you, which you already know,” Mad went on. “Crosswind down here is providing occasional gusts up to 20mph, just to keep things interesting. Ground temp is…uh…a balmy 28 degrees. Baby, it’s all good down there.” In the background, he heard K’eyush bark what sounded exactly like “Over.” Apparently Mad thought so too, because, as if prompted, he added, “Over.”
“Roger. Over and out.”
He shot a look at his passenger, who leaned forward now, her sunglasses perched atop her head, squinting at the airfield. Thank God she was an attorney and not an inspector from the FAA.
Opting for some levity of his own, he turned to her. “Ladies and gentlemen, please return your seatbacks and tray tables to their full upright positions.”
She didn’t look away from the airfield. Didn’t smile. Didn’t so much as blink. “Hey,” she whispered. “Does that runway seem kind of…short?”
Not an uncommon first reaction, for the uninitiated. “The craft is designed for short takeoffs and landings. We’ve got 3,000 feet of runway, but I’m only going to need 1,000 of them.”
She turned now, too. Round, glassy eyes slowly focused on him. “Huh?”
Maybe there were more nerves fraying beneath her seamless exterior than he’d picked up on. Shame on him. Just because he hadn’t expected someone so polished and emphatically urban didn’t mean she was as impervious as she appeared. “Don’t worry. It’s big enough to get the job done.”
She laughed—a little frantic, to his ears—and shook her head. “That’s what they all say.”
Well, not all of them, he begged to differ. His equipment might be slightly rusty, but it had never generated any complaints. Her joke, however, had blood rushing to his groin for the first time in…a while. His mind raced back to his initial glimpse of her coming down the airport escalator, and he endured a quick fantasy involving stripping that tight, tailored suit off her tight, curvy body and showing her precisely how well he could get the job done. Even her underwear would be fancy. Silky or lacy, he imagined, and, somehow, that only added to the appeal.
The entirely unlikely scenario, bolstered by her dick-torturing scent, kept his imagination busy and his cock highly entertained through the landing. His passenger sucked in one sharp breath when they kangarooed off a wind gust just before touchdown, but he wove the uncensored little noise into the fantasy, which probably made him a sick perv in addition to an inconsiderate ass, but also proved his imagination didn’t take orders from his conscience.
Once they’d taxied close to the terminal and come to a complete stop, he powered the plane down and released his seat belt. She didn’t immediately reach for hers, just sagged in her seat, taking quick, shallow sips of air, so he reached over and undid her belt as well. Overly familiar of him? Maybe, but perhaps his imaginary exchange of orgasms with her during their landing left him feeling overly familiar.
She offered him a belated, “Thank you,” and then, “How do I…?”
“You wait for me,” he told her, and reached behind him to the empty seats where two more passengers normally sat, found her coat, and held it for her. “First, put this on. It’s freezing out there.” Working her arms into her coat sleeves took more effort than the chore normally required and suggested to him that despite her silence during the flight, the rough ride had taken a toll on her. A choppy flight in a small plane could reduce an experienced adventure flyer to a minimally functional zombie. Given the circumstances, he tried not to wonder what the nape of her neck would taste like if he ran his tongue over the tempting line of smooth, bare skin visible over the collar of her suit. The thought had him wishing he could open the door a crack. It suddenly felt too hot in the cockpit.