I wasn’t 100 percent happy about it. I was used to sitting firmly on my axis. Feeling so strongly pulled in her direction? The sensation was strange, off-kilter. I didn’t exactly know what to do with it.
But then it was Saturday and I didn’t have to worry about that any more because I met her in Oregon. My driver pulled up in front of her house and I half expected her to tell me she wasn’t coming after all. But when I rang the bell, she was there in her kitchen with two packed bags. Plus, her pouty sister.
“Hello, Zoe,” I greeted her. She glared at me. “I’ll be sure to have Caroline send you a photo or two.”
“Her name is Carrie,” she responded, sourly. What was her deal? Was she jealous? Angry that Caroline was getting this opportunity? With company like that, Caroline wouldn’t get anywhere. They’d keep clipping her wings so she couldn’t fly.
“Hi Colt!” Caroline seemed breathless, a look I liked on her.
“You ready?”
“About.” She patted her pockets, seeming to think through her packing list.
“You don’t need much,” I reminded her. No panties, I’d been specific on that count. She seemed to remember my instructions because she blushed and looked away.
“When will you be back again?” Zoe whined. I’d offered to cover the costs of a meal delivery service for Zoe, but Caroline had dismissed the idea.
“Rubbish,” she’d told me, showing some welcome backbone. She’d certainly had no problem standing up to me and telling me to piss off. With her sister, though, it had seemed as if she let her take full advantage. Until she said, “It’ll be good for Zoe to figure out how to feed herself for a week.”
“Ten days,” I reminded them both, putting a protective arm around Caroline’s waist. I didn’t like seeing her guilt-tripped.
“Fiji’s a long way away.” Zoe sounded more wistful. “Are you sure it’s safe?”
“Absolutely,” I assured her. “Been there countless times.” At least four.
“Wasn’t there a tsunami there?” she asked, not sounding convinced.
“Listen, right now there’s someone in Fiji asking about earthquakes along the West Coast of the US. There’s always some danger of natural disaster no matter where you go.”
“I’ll be fine,” Caroline assured her, giving me a look. What, telling her the truth wasn’t helping? “I’ll call you when we land,” She gave Zoe a hug. “And when you have a minute, can you check on Shelly? I’m not sure—”
“She’ll be fine,” I jumped in. “The store will be fine.” Getting away would be good for Caroline. Business owners needed to know how to delegate. It only led to exhausted breakdowns if you tried to do everything yourself.
We took a short flight down to LAX, then started the long leg of our journey. The flight to Fiji took about ten hours. We had movies, magazines, and, of course, each other, though, technically I was the co-pilot on the flight so I knew I shouldn’t get too occupied with other business. Not that I expected I’d need to do anything, but still, it always helped to stay alert. My pilot’s license had come in handy many times, though never because I’d actually had to take over the controls. What it did was open up the possibility of a last-minute trip to a destination like this. It was a lot easier if you only had to find and book one pilot instead of two.
Caroline fell fast asleep on the plane. It made me chuckle. She’d probably been working herself to the bone to get everything set up for our vacation. She needed one. I planned on making sure she got a good and proper break. She wouldn’t need to lift a finger the whole time we were there. Unless she wanted to.
She woke after a while. We ate a meal and flipped around between a few movies, but before long she dozed off again, snuggled against me. She felt so good there, the soft weight of her resting against my shoulder. With the rise and fall of her breathing, the caress of her curls against my chest, I eventually dozed off, too.
I woke when the plane gave a jerk.
“What’s that?” Caroline asked, sleepy and confused.
“I’ll go see.” I should have stayed awake. I climbed into the cockpit and instantly saw that the pilot didn’t look so hot. He was sweating profusely and grimacing.
“How’re you doing?” I asked, remaining calm. The sun was rising above the horizon, but even in the rosy morning light he looked pale and ashen. “Everything all right up here?”
He didn’t answer, coughing and pounding his chest with his fist. I sat down in the copilot’s chair and buckled my seatbelt. “You all right?” I gave him a close look and didn’t like what I saw.
He groaned and grit his teeth, the neck of his shirt drenched in sweat. “Fine,” he managed. “Heartburn.”
“Get your seatbelt on back there,” I called to Caroline. I didn’t want her to panic, but it sure didn’t look like heartburn to me. I had a feeling shit was about to get real.
“Is everything OK?” she asked, sounding alarmed.
“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” I assured her, not exactly lying. Everything was not OK, but I would make sure nothing bad happened to her.
I familiarized myself with the control panel, checking our progress, putting on the extra headset so I could check in with the airport on the main island in Fiji. At first glance, everything looked all right. We were headed where we needed to go, no signs of distress and only about 400 miles away.
The pilot rubbed his chest with his fist. Taking his left hand off of the controls, he flexed it and stretched his arm out with a pain-filled groan.
“You relax,” I told him. “Take some deep breaths. I’m going to take over for a while.” I kept my voice level, even and authoritative as I assessed the situation.
He nodded, groaning and rubbing his left shoulder. Sweat dripped down his cheeks. His breathing sounded labored and shallow. The man was having a heart attack.
Cursing under my breath, I radioed the control tower. I needed to let them know we were coming in for a landing and would need emergency medical attention immediately upon arrival.
Then I noticed the yellow light in the corner. Low fuel. How the fuck were we low on fuel? Hadn’t the pilot made sure we were full before we left? Had something gone wrong during our flight?
“Everything all right?” Caroline called out. She sounded anxious. She should be. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t want you to worry,” I said, calmly, “but the pilot is sick and I’m going to need to land the plane.”
“What?” Her voice rose an octave.
“Make sure your seat belt is on,” I repeated. “And why don’t you put on a life jacket just in case?”
“A life jacket?!” she yelled.
“Don’t panic,” I reminded her and myself as I turned to the pilot and saw he now had both of his eyes closed and his head tilted to the side. But his hand came back to rest on the control yoke. When he lurched forward, he forced it along with him.
The plane plunged straight down. I heard Caroline scream as I struggled to wrestle us out of our nose dive.
“Hang on!” I yelled back. We plunged fast through the clouds, hurtling through to the clear sky beneath. I was finally able to right us, but not before I could see way too much detail in that blue ocean below. I steered us into a steady, straight flight pattern, but the gauges on the control panel were going haywire. The pressure and quantity of hydraulic fluid was falling lower and lower, and now the gas gauge flashed red. We must have a leak, or some kind of failure the pilot hadn’t handled due to his own medical distress. All while I’d been snuggling up with Caroline in back. Fuck!
I radioed into the control tower at the largest airport in the chain of islands. We hadn’t been planning on heading there, but now we were coming in for an emergency landing. But we were still about 350 miles away. The plane might not make it that far.
A voice came over the headset, briefing me on the weather, barometric pressure and a compass heading to fly to, but the plane began to shake. We lurched again and I struggled to correct the pitc
h and get us level. The second the engine failure indicators came on, I knew. I was going to have to make a water landing.
“Life jackets!” I yelled to Caroline, now not concealing the urgency in my voice. Rushing into the cockpit, she slipped one over my head and fastened it around my chest and waist with shaking fingers.
“Oh fuck, fuck,” she repeated, moving over to the motionless pilot slumped to the side. “What happened?” She fastened a jacket on him as well, though he remained completely, horrifyingly limp.
“Heart attack,” I explained, keeping my focus. The pilot needed medical attention, but we needed to prepare for a crash landing. “Now get in your seat. Buckle. And put your head between your legs.”