Fall (VIP 3)
Her cheeks flush as she smooths a hand over the edge of a wing. “Yep.”
“And you own this plane?”
“I’m one-tenth owner,” she says with a self-effacing smile. “The rest is Hank’s. He let me buy in so I don’t feel like a total mooch when I want to fly it.” There’s a fondness in her voice when she speaks of Hank that makes me, well, not jealous exactly, but …
“Who is Hank?”
“He’s an instructor and owner of the flight school. Back when I was sixteen, my dad spent the summer here as a mechanic. I was hanging around and Hank offered to teach me. In exchange, I worked at his wife’s bakery down by the shore. It was an easy decision for me.” A frown works over her smooth brow. “Then my dad cut out as he does when he’s tired of something, but Hank kept to our agreement, even though Dad owed him money.”
That rat bastard cut out on Stella too. I clear my throat, pushing away the fantasy of hunting down her derelict father and kicking his sorry ass. “Hank sounds like a good guy.”
“He’s golden,” she says. “I’ve taken lessons from him for years.”
“You must be close to him.”
She shrugs and runs a finger over a smudge on the plane’s smooth, white paint. “Hank isn’t exactly the type. He’s more of the cantankerous get off my lawn old man with a soft spot for awkward teens with idle hands. We get along fine but we don’t exchange Christmas cards or anything.”
Yet another person in her life who’s kept her at arm’s length. “If you could see your dad again, would you want to?”
Her mouth twists like she’s tasting something off. “Why would you ask?”
Shit. Tell her. But I can’t. Not when she’s making a face as if she’s seeing a foul ghost because I mentioned her dad. Not when everything about her posture shouts pain and defensiveness.
I try to shrug, but my shoulders are too tight. “We’re talking about Hank who kind of seems like a father figure.”
There’s a bitter sound to her laugh. “Father figures are overrated. I don’t need one in Hank.” She moves to the tail of the plane. “As for my dad? No, I don’t want to see him again. It would hurt too much, I think. That, or I’d kill him and have to face jail time.”
A small frown pulls at her soft mouth. And like that, I want to kiss her. So I do.
She hums against my mouth, then steps away, her cheeks nicely flushed. “You distract me like that and we’ll never fly.”
“Do your thing, captain.” I shove my hands in my pockets. “I’ll be good.”
“Debatable.” Stella has a clipboard and goes over the plane with the same intense inspection I give my guitars before a show. Yeah, I have a roadie take care of them during, and put them away after, but I tune my own equipment and it has to be exact.
Seeing Stella put the same care into something is a surprising turn-on. I never thought I’d want to jump a woman just from watching her check the flaps on a plane wing, but there you go; I’m hard and shifting my feet as she pulls out a small glass tube and fills it with gas from the wing.
“I had them fill the plane up before we came,” she tells me. “But you still have to check for sediments and make sure it’s the right type of gas.”
“Right type?”
“Yeah.” She moves closer to me, holding up the vial to the light. “There are different mixes. Kind of like the type of gas you pick at the station. We’re looking for a pale blue color. Not red or clear.”
Goddamn, she’s sexy. I barely resist pressing my nose into her hair and breathing her in.
By the time she finishes her exterior preflight inspection, which includes checking out the engine and asking me how much I weigh so she can factor the payload, I’m hard as oak and hot under my collar. But I don’t say a word. This is her show, and I’m going to let it play out the way she wants. No distractions.
Stella opens the door to the plane and tucks the clipboard away before facing me. “Okay, a few things. You might be wondering how a person who has issues with numbers can be a pilot.”
“It hadn’t occurred to me, actually.” A tiny flicker of self-preservation runs through me, and I glance at the plane. “I’m guessing you have it covered.”
She squints in the sunlight. “I’ve passed medical and have been certified. To counteract any possible mishaps, I write certain things down. I am hypervigilant. And I will never, ever put myself or my passengers in danger. If there’s even a hint I’m not feeling it, I land. Pride has no business being up there.”