“But you don’t give up on even those, do you?”
She paused for a long time, contemplating the disgust she’d had for T.J. after his cruelty to Jason. Would she turn him away if he came back to the center? No, probably not. “I’m tempted sometimes. You don’t know how tempted. But if they’re willing to at least meet me halfway, I’ll try…”
“I wonder if they know how lucky they are to have you,” Addison asked in a quiet voice.
“I’m not the only one. There are lots of other volunteers.” She swallowed and met his dark emerald eyes, holding her with a touch of awe…and more than a touch of intention.
Footsteps on the gravel behind them startled them both, shattering the moment.
“Two burgers, no onions, two large fries, two large Cokes, and a Butterfinger Blizzard?” the girl asked in a nasal twang, while she popped her gum.
“That’s us,” Addison answered.
When the girl was on her way and the food was laid out in an awe-inspiring spread, Erin and Addison ate and teased about each other’s appetites. After the food was gone, they cleared the table and sat back down, neither anxious to end the closeness that seemed to exist apart from time, the closeness that had no context in their lives or their problems.
Darkness had fallen without warning, and the breeze rustled the palm trees skirting the picnic area as they sat on the tabletop. The other scattered diners had left.
And they were alone.
Something about that was comforting to Erin, and those objections that tried to surface in her heart grew vague…distant.
Their shoulders brushed as they sat side by side, speaking in softer tones, comfortable yet maddeningly tense. Addison seemed to get closer each moment…his voice grew softer.
He’s going to kiss me,
she thought, her heart setting a sprint-rate rhythm.
But he didn’t. Not yet.
“I probably shouldn’t say this,” Addison said in a low voice, watching her lips as he spoke, “because I realize that it isn’t entirely professional…or sophisticated…or even particularly smooth.”
“Say it,” she whispered.
“I just…I like being with you, Erin. You make me feel good, and…well, I just hope you won’t let my investigation keep me from seeing you…like this…again.”
She gazed at him in the darkness and watched him slowly wet his lips. Her fingers gripped the edge of the table. Slowly, he moved his head toward her, watching her mouth with enchantment. His lips grazed hers lightly, then withdrew. Her knuckles ached as she squeezed the table harder.
Their lips touched again, lingering longer this time, and he shifted slightly and slid one rough, shaky hand up her arm. The touch sent her heart careening, and her hand released its hold on the table and rose tentatively to feather through his soft black hair.
He moved both arms around her, crushing her against him as he deepened the kiss. Birds tittered in the trees and Erin’s heart. Wind whistled through the leaves and Addison’s head. Crickets sang, toads called, and Erin and Addison fell a little bit in love.
The kiss broke after a small eternity, but it was too soon for either of them. They gazed at each other, stricken, without breaking their embrace.
Addison stroked her cheek with his knuckles. “You’re beautiful, Erin.”
She felt more heat warming her cheeks and opened her mouth to speak, but no words emerged. Instead, Erin dropped her head. He pressed his lips against her forehead.
“Come on,” he whispered. “I’ll take you home.”
T
he drive home was as quiet as it had been the day before, but this time their thoughts were far from airlines or flying or the tragic specters that plagued them both.
He pulled into the driveway outside her house, turned off the engine, and sat quietly for a moment.
Erin saw the light on in her window and noticed Lois’s car parked in the carport. “Lois is home,” she said quietly.
“Come on,” Addison said. “I’ll walk you to the door.”
He held his arm around her as they walked, then suddenly stopped. Before she could say good night, he cupped her paint-smudged chin and lifted her face to his. “Hate me when I’m questioning you,” he whispered, “and fight me if you want. But when I ask to see you…apart from the investigation…don’t say no.”
She didn’t have to answer, for the way she met his lips halfway and responded to his embrace and reacted to his kiss, told him she would be there.
She didn’t invite him in, which was just as well, he thought. It would be excruciating to make small talk with Lois when all he could think of was the way he was beginning to feel about Erin.
Someday she might feel the same, he thought…if he didn’t make her hate him in the process.
H
is eyes are darker than Grandpa’s pond, but lighter than the weeping willow that droops all over his lawn.
Southeast 34 cleared for takeoff.
You’ll be fine, Erin. You’re doing fine.
Eyes like summer. Like warmth. Like peace.
What if I can’t do it? What if I can’t?
Erin, don’t say no…You’re beautiful…beautiful…
The tape…I need to know what happened…
Southeast 34 cleared for takeoff.
His kiss is as soft and restless as the wind before a storm.
I can’t breathe…I can’t fly…
Erin, you’re doing fine…Erin…Erin…
“Erin? Erin, are you all right?”
The words, both real and dreamed, merged together in Erin’s mind, cutting her senses with sharp edges.
“Erin, wake up! You’re dreaming! Wake up!”
Erin struggled to the surface of her sleep and sat up, disoriented. Perspiration had gathered on her upper lip and in her hair, and her body trembled as if she’d lived the nightmare.
“Erin, calm down. It was just a dream.” Madeline sat beside her on the bed, a cool glass of water in her hand. “Here,” she whispered. “Drink this.”
Erin tried to catch her breath and grabbed the glass with both hands, struggling not to spill it as she drank. “Thank you,” she said. She lay back down and shoved her bangs back from her damp forehead. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“You knocked over this vase,” Madeline said, referring to the ornament on Erin’s bedside table. “I came to see what happened, and you were thrashing around and crying…” Madeline’s voice trailed off, and she touched Erin’s arm. Her face held that maternal, best-friend-in-the-world look. “Do you want to talk about it, Erin?”
Erin didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure.
“Was it about your flight this morning? Are you still scared?” she asked quietly.
Erin’s eyes filled with hot tears, and her mouth contorted in pain. She covered her eyes with her hand and nodded silently.
“Then don’t do it,” Madeline said.
Erin wiped her eyes and looked at her friend. More tears rolled down her face. “I thought you were all for it.”
“What do I know?” Madeline asked.
“I have to do it,” Erin whispered, the weight of her fear flattening her words. “I have to get over this, and I don’t know any other way than just to do it.”
Madeline took Erin’s hand and nested it in both her own. “Things have a way of working out, Erin. They always do.”
“For you, maybe.”
“Oh, right. That’s why I got abducted and held captive a few months ago. Don’t forget how we met.”
Erin hadn’t forgotten. She had been hired to fly Madeline, her friend Sherry, and their captors to safety. It seemed like so long ago. “Even then, it all worked out, Madeline.”
“Even now, it’s going to work out for you, too,” Madeline returned. “Take last night, for instance. That major hunk fell out of the sky and landed at the youth center. I mean, is that coincidence or what?”
Erin offered her friend a knowing smile, recognizing her attempt to change the subject. “I wouldn’t use that word, exactly.”
“Well, whatever works,” Madeline said without regret. “I took one look at that guy and decided I couldn’t send him on his way. He’s almost as good-looking as Sam. Does he sing?”
Erin grinned. Sam was known for his crazy, off-key singing during most of his waking moments. “I don’t know,” she said, slowly forgetting the terror in the dream, only to remember the soft, peace-invoking thoughts of Addison. “But I’ll find out.”
Madeline grinned her approval, and Erin reached for the glass again. “By the way,” she whispered before she drank. “Did you notice the color of his eyes?”
T
hat morning, Erin tried to keep thinking of the color of Addison’s eyes as she prepared for her flight. She donned the uniform with the wings she had worked so hard to earn years ago when female pilots weren’t common, especially at Southeast Airlines. She tied the white bow around her collar and set the black hat upon her head, never once letting herself dwell on the fear that lurked behind every shady corner in her heart.
For Mick
, she thought.
I’ll do this for Mick. He wouldn’t want me to quit flying…
Her hands began to tremble again, and she felt slightly faint.
Perfect love drives out fear.
Addison had reminded her of that.
Addison,
she thought.
He said I was beautiful. He wants to see me again. Addison, with the jade green eyes…
The turn of thoughts calmed Erin’s fears and made the task before her more approachable. She’d get through it, and when it was over, she wouldn’t be afraid. She’d have her confidence back…
She drove to the airport, reminding herself that there was no rain and it was daylight and the sky was clear. It was a perfect day to fly…a perfect day…
Wary faces watched her as she approached her gate at the airport, and she knew what the crew was thinking. Would she make it this time? Would she be able to go through with it?
Jack, her captain, waited by the door to the ramp. His smile lacked apprehension, and she wondered where he found his faith in her. “You okay, Erin?”
Fine! I’m fine!
she wanted to scream. Instead, she nodded and smiled tightly. “Yes. Great.”
“Good,” he said. “It’s a beautiful day.”
“Beautiful,” she agreed absently.
She stepped to the window and watched the luggage being loaded onto her aircraft. It
was
a beautiful day, she thought. So why did she feel only the invisible forces somewhere in that sky, the forces that had foiled Mick’s flight and sent 151 people to their deaths?
A
ddison saw Erin the moment he rounded the curve that led to Southeast Gate 14, and mutely he nodded at whatever the chief pilot was telling him. She was dressed in the pilot’s uniform she’d had on the first time he saw her, and again she was staring out that window, hugging her arms, with suppressed terror in her eyes.
“We’ll get you a representative for your board, to answer questions about policy…,” Jackson, Erin’s chief pilot, who was even superior to Frank, was saying.
Without meaning to ignore him, Addison stopped and gaped at Erin. Surely she wasn’t flying. Not when she’d already expressed her fear to go up, not when she was shaking so badly now.
“I think that should make your job…”
Addison raised a hand to stop Jackson’s rambling, without taking his eyes off Erin’s back. “Excuse me, Bill. I was just…” He turned back to the chief pilot, frown lines distorting his expression. “Is Erin Russell scheduled to fly today?”
Jackson lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know. I suppose she is, or she wouldn’t be here.”
Addison’s frown alerted Jackson that there was a problem. “Are you aware of her condition?”
“She’s been under some stress since the crash,” Jackson acknowledged without concern, “but Frank assured me that she just needed some time. Why? Is there something I don’t know?”
“Yeah,” Addison said. But, before he was asked to expound, he left the chief pilot and wove through the waiting area toward Erin.
Erin jumped slightly when Addison touched her back. She turned around, and her first instinct upon seeing him was to smile.
But Addison’s authoritative look stopped her. “You’re not going up today, are you?”
“Well…yes. I feel fine,” she said. “I’m ready now.”
His expression disputed her words. Roughly, he took her hand, raised it, revealing its trembling. “A pilot with complete confidence doesn’t shake like a terrified child.”
Anger flashed in her eyes, and she jerked her hand away. She saw Jackson coming up behind him and shot Addison a warning look. “You’re out of line, Addison. This is none of your business.”
“It’s my business when I see a pilot putting an airplane full of passengers in danger.”
“I’m not putting them in danger! I’m a good pilot!”
“Then how can you even consider going up today?”
“I have to, Addison. It’s my job. You do yours, I’ll do mine.”
“Mine happens to be making sure that crashes don’t recur.”
“You don’t have the authority to ground me!” she bit out. She turned to her boss, her feelings wavering between hysteria and terror. “Does he, Bill?”
Bill Jackson stepped between them, a frown graphing his usually preoccupied features. “Wait a minute, Addison. What’s going on here?”
“She isn’t ready to fly yet,” Addison said. “She’s terrified. She hasn’t come to terms with things yet.”
“You don’t know
what
I’ve come to terms with! You don’t know anything about me!”
“She’s being pressured to fly, because of the takeover,” Addison continued. “Three days ago I
heard
her telling Frank that making her go up now would be—and this is an exact quote—dangerous and irresponsible. Is that what happened, Erin? Are they
making
you go up?”
Flames of rage colored her eyes. “How dare you!” she seethed. “You have no right—”
“
Is
someone pressuring you to fly, Erin?” Jackson cut in quietly.
“No! I’m ready. I am.”
Addison shook his head slowly and regarded the chief pilot. “She’s right, Bill, about my not having the authority to ground her. But you do. And I have to strongly recommend that you ground her until she can prove to one of us that she’s capable of being responsible for that airplane.”
She looked beseechingly at her boss. Surely, he wouldn’t listen to Addison. He would let her go ahead with the flight, wouldn’t he? And if he did, would she let him down as soon as she got in the cockpit?
“I’m sorry, Erin,” the chief pilot said. “Addison has good instincts. I have to trust them.”
“But—”
“See me in my office in an hour,” Jackson continued. “We’ll work something out to keep you on the payroll in spite of this.”
The chief pilot left them alone, Erin gaping at Addison, Addison looking regretfully at her. The color of his eyes had changed, she thought bitterly. They were cold now, like the sharp edges of emeralds, full of purpose and reason and the intention to cut right through her if she got in his way.
Her cheeks blazed even hotter than before. “You jerk,” she whispered. “You made me trust you. You made me drop my guard. I should have known that you’d use that against me the first chance you had.”
“Erin, this has nothing to do with—”
“Save it,” she snapped. “Go find somebody else’s life to ruin.”
Before Addison could find a response, Erin had vanished from his sight.
A
ddison tried to get Erin out of his mind for the next few hours as he sat in the hangar, studying the computerized reports of instrument readings he’d gotten back from Washington that day. His team was still working, examining pieces of the plane that hadn’t been sent to headquarters. So many conclusions could be drawn from the angles of damage on the turbine blades, or whether the engines had been running, or the impact with which metal was torn. That was why they’d spent the first week and a half of the investigation with the wreckage right where it had crashed, surveying different pieces in relation to landscape and buildings, to decide exactly how the plane had hit. But there was no getting around the hard evidence he’d found. The plane had flown straight into the ground, with no apparent attempt to pull the nose up to save it.
Find somebody else’s life to ruin!
Was that what he was doing? he asked himself. Was he ruining the life that Mick had left as a memory? Was he ruining the lives of Mick’s family? And most importantly, was he ruining Erin’s?
The noon heat beat down on the metal hangar, warming him unbearably, and making his shirt stick to his body. He walked across the hangar to the table where copies of the other reports lay. He picked up the printed copy of what had been found on the flight data recorder, the metal tape that recorded statistics but no sound. When the cockpit tape was repaired, they’d match the vocal transmissions to this data, and he would know the speed, heading, altitude, vertical velocity, and elapsed time when each radio transmission was made. Until he had the tape, he couldn’t really be sure what had gone wrong. But how could he ignore the evidence until then? And how could he manage the conflict of his feelings for Erin and his feeling about his report? Sid would have a field day with the confusion he was feeling.
You made me trust you.
“Blazes,” he whispered, staring at the date before him. Why had he gotten her grounded the way he had? Why hadn’t he been more gentle? More understanding?
Because he had been so shaken up to see her even attempt it, after what she’d said in Redlo’s office, that was why. Because there hadn’t been time. Because she was under his skin, and when he thought about her, he lost his head.
Saddam Hussein will become a missionary before she’ll speak to you again,
he told himself. Erin hated him now, and he couldn’t blame her. If he hadn’t been so stricken with that sense of responsibility…
He stopped himself from wallowing in misery. The investigation was all that mattered, he told himself. He’d forget her and just do his job the best way he could. He made a difference, and if she couldn’t see that, then it wasn’t meant to be…
The other men on his team eyed him cautiously, each starting to speak in turn, then letting the subject of the day’s events drop. It was hard keeping secrets from them, when they often worked together around the clock. They had all heard Bill Jackson a little while ago, when he’d come to assure Addison that Erin was “taken care of.”
Only Hank, his closest friend on the team, dared to broach the subject. “You did what you had to do, Addison. Don’t sweat it. It’s her problem, not yours.”
The declaration bore no comfort. “Yeah, well,” he said, knowing his depression over the matter spoke volumes about his feelings for Erin, “I’m not so sure about that.”