Lost in Her (3 page)

A girl wearing her school uniform of a green-and-black plaid skirt, white blouse, and knee-high white socks entered the corner of his vision. He eased his head a little to the right to see her better. A long braid of hair almost reached her waist, and the color reminded him of the candied apples his mom always made for the school fair. Her eyes were a darker green than his, and they were trying to blink away her tears.

Right then, he hated Sister Mary Rose for making the girl cry. During recess, he approached Kathleen Donavan and told her he was sorry she’d had to stand in the hallway and say the Hail Mary so many times. It was the start of a friendship that led to being inseparable best friends, then boyfriend and girlfriend, then lovers, and finally husband and wife. It was the start of something he’d once believed would never end.

Ryan turned onto the street leading to his apartment. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember why she’d been in trouble that day. He should remember, shouldn’t he, the thing that brought them together? Already, memories were slipping away; how it felt when he held her, the lilt of her voice, the way her eyes sparkled with amusement when she teased him.

“Why, Kathleen? Just tell me that much.”

Halfway up the sidewalk leading to his door, he stopped and put his hands on his knees, inhaling air into his lungs. It was probably time he broke the habit of talking to her, but she’d been a part of his life for so long that not talking to her seemed wrong. He’d loved her for what seemed like forever. He didn’t know if he even knew how to love someone else.

Straightening, he did a few stretches before heading inside. With a
foot on his bottom step, he stopped and stared. A champagne-colored,
nose-twitching, floppy-eared rabbit stared back at him. The creature turned toward the door as if waiting for it to open.

“Not happening. Off with you, bunny.” The rabbit didn’t shy away when he moved beside it and nudged it toward the steps with his foot. It just hopped right back and pressed its nose against the wood.

Heaving a sigh, he opened his door. Mr. Bunny hopped in as if he lived there. The thing looked as if it had been kept groomed and well fed, and was obviously someone’s lost pet. Ryan put a bowl of water down, then rummaged around in his refrigerator, finding two wilted carrots and a head of lettuce he’d forgotten was in there.

Mr. Bunny ate the carrots, then some lettuce, and finished off his meal with a long drink of water. Nose still twitching he—she?—plopped down on the tile floor, and after watching Ryan start the coffeemaker, lowered his chin to his paws, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

A much-needed cup of coffee in hand, Ryan took a picture of the snoozing rabbit with his phone, and then headed for his computer. Once he’d made a dozen posters, he checked on his guest.

“You stay out all night, Mr. Bunny?” he asked the still-sleeping
rabbit
. Getting no response, he took his posters with him to the gar
age, grabbed a hammer and some nails, and spent the next thirty minutes tacking them to trees and light poles around the neighborhood.

Confident he’d soon be getting a phone call from a relieved pet owner, he returned home, showered, and dressed for work while his houseguest slept on. After a bit of deliberation, he decided the bathroom would be the best place to leave his temporary friend. Mr. Bunny barely stirred during the moving process, and Ryan left him, the bowl of water, and the remainder of the lettuce on a large towel he’d placed on the floor.

As he drove to K2 Special Services, he thought about Charlie. Was that even her real name? Not that it mattered since he would never see her again.

CHAPTER THREE

T
he Citabria’s left wing dipped as Charlie angled her plane toward the Gulf of Mexico and the rising sun. It was her favorite time to fly, and over the gulf was her favorite place to practice her aerobatic maneuvers. As one hundred percent concentration was a must, she cleared her mind of all her problems.

Once there was nothing below her except sparkling emerald-green water and nothing above but endless blue sky, she checked her altitude and speed. Satisfied, she searched for a fishing vessel, usually an easy thing to find in the early mornings. Spying a slow-moving trawler, she positioned her plane at a ninety-degree angle to the boat. To warm up herself and her aircraft, she always began with an easy wingover maneuver.

Approaching at a right angle to the trawler, she lowered the plane’s nose to allow for acceleration, then pulled up into a climb until the nose was twenty degrees above the horizon. After an eye scan of the area around her to be certain there were no birds or other planes nearby, she focused on the trawler. She rolled the Citabria to a ninety-degree angle, but before she could complete the maneuver, her oil-pressure light came on.

“Damn,” she muttered, tapping on the glass. The pressure continued to fall, and she darted her gaze to the oil temperature, which was rising, a clear indication of imminent engine failure. That wasn’t good. Not good at all.

“What’s wrong with you, baby?” Adrenaline raced through her veins, and she took several calming breaths. Although she’d trained for such a catastrophe, she’d never thought it would happen to her.

Charlie took a deep breath and did nothing because that was what she had been taught to do. She brought to mind the instructor who taught her to fly.

“Pay close attention to this part, Charlie, and you might be one of the lucky ones who lives to see another day,” Captain Shafer had said. Even after they’d become friends, he had been Captain Shafer to her. “If you ever have an emergency, you will want to panic. By all means, do that. Yell, scream, curse. Whatever. You can take three seconds to do that. Then do nothing.”

“Nothing?” She remembered thinking at the time that maybe she had a stupid instructor.

“Nothing. But only for another few seconds. You’re in trouble. You’re going to crash and die. But you just might survive if you listen to me.”

He had drilled those deceptively lazy brown eyes into hers. He had
flown a fighter jet in the Iraq war, the first one—Desert Storm. Since maybe he knew what he was talking about, she had paid attention.

“I’m listening.”

“Smart girl. Okay. You’ve taken the first three seconds to express your rage by yelling words that would make your mother wash out your mouth with soap. Then you’ve done nothing but take a few calming breaths. Both those done, you’re gonna get that emergency checklist you have at the ready, because if you don’t, I’ll refuse to admit I taught you on the day I read your obit. Got that?”

She’d got it, and two years later when she had attended his funeral after he’d lost his fight against the cancer that had killed him, she’d grieved for the loss of a man who had become a dear friend.

“Emergency checklist, Charlie,” his long-gone, smoker’s voice rasped in her ear.

“Get a grip,” she commanded herself as she grabbed the clipboard. Although she had it memorized, she had been trained to follow the written list so that, in a panic, she didn’t forget to do something.

Straightening her spine, she edged up on her seat. Regulations notwithstanding, like any aerobatic pilot with a lick of sense, she wore a parachute, but she refused to ditch her plane unless it was a last resort. She’d worked too hard to own it to see it disappear at the bottom of the gulf.

Throughout her training to become a pilot, it had been drilled into her head that in case of emergency to first aviate, then navigate, and lastly, communicate. She reduced power and then turned the plane toward the airport before radioing the control tower at Pensacola International.

“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. Pensacola Center. November Three One Golf Hotel declaring an emergency.”

“November Three One Golf Hotel, Pensacola Center. State position and emergency,” a calm voice answered.

“Center, I’m two point three miles southeast of Santa Rosa Sound. Losing oil pressure and engine temperature’s rising. Request you call Pensacola Aviation Center to advise I will be making an emergency landing.” There was a pause before the controller responded. She could have called her FBO herself, but it was faster to contact Air Traffic Control than to dial up the frequency for her fixed-base operator—her home base—and she didn’t want to divert her attention from what was going on with her plane.

“November Three One Golf Hotel, Pensacola Aviation Center notified. You are cleared for a direct approach.”

“Thank you. November Three One Golf Hotel, over and out.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks,” she whispered. A part of her wanted to keep talking, to keep contact with the voice on the other end of the radio, but getting her plane home would require all her attention.

“You can do this, Charlie. Swear to God you can.” She patted the Citabria’s dash. “Come on, baby, let’s get you back to the barn and see what ails you.”

After a quick scan of the next item on the list, she lowered the nose slightly to increase airspeed. The oil-pressure gauge needle was almost flat now, and she knew she had to land on her first try. She breathed a sigh of relief when she sighted the runway. The operations manager, David, stood outside, watching her through binoculars. A fire truck and the line crew guys were positioned alongside the runway. She hoped to God the fire truck wouldn’t be needed but she was glad to see it there. As she aligned the nose of the plane with the middle of the runway, the engine quit.

“Shit!” Yelling and panicking wouldn’t get her safely on the ground, so she shut everything out of her mind but the feel of her plane and the runway in front of her. An icy calm settled over her as she ticked off the remaining emergency landing procedures.

She raised her flaps to increase her glide range, then flipped off all the switches. Estimating her airspeed and the distance to the runway, her heart almost seized. She wasn’t going to make it to the asphalt.

“You don’t mind a nice, soft grass landing, do you, baby?” Slightly lifting the nose to get some wind under her, Charlie willed the Citabria to do the impossible. As she’d done everything she could except land, she pulled her seat harness tight, then visualized herself bringing the aircraft down on the field in front of the runway. If she hit any holes or ruts, it was entirely possible the plane would cartwheel, definitely not how she wanted to start her morning.

The next few minutes seemed like forever, but each time her mind tried to examine her life and the mistakes she’d made, she shut it down. Not the time to dwell on regrets.

“No tricks for this one, baby, you hear?” Suddenly the airport’s windsock changed direction, indicating she had a tailwind. She made the pitch adjustment required to maintain the proper airspeed. Elation coursed through her when she realized the tailwind was just enough to push the Citabria to the edge of the runway.

“Yes, baby, yes!” She victory yelled when the wheels touched down on the asphalt. “Mama loves you.”

Once the plane rolled to a stop, Charlie sat for a moment in an attempt to calm her pounding heart. Funny how it waited until she was safe on the ground before taking off like a greyhound’s after crossing the finish line. She held her hands in front of her face and willed them to stop shaking, but they were determined to impersonate a wet dog after a bath.

The door flew open, and David poked his head in. “You okay?”

All she could do was nod as he reached in and released her harness. She grabbed his arm and climbed out of the plane, not letting go of him when her feet hit the pavement because her legs refused to support her without help.

“That was a beautiful landing, Charlie,” he said.

Since she was alive, she had to agree. The line crew surrounded them, all talking at once. Even though all she wanted was to find a quiet place to recover her equilibrium, she high-fived them back and grinned a smile she didn’t really feel.

“Back to work,” David finally said, dispersing them.

When they departed and nothing blocked her view, she saw a local news station’s reporter holding up a microphone to one of the firemen. As soon as the reporter realized Charlie wasn’t surrounded by a horde of the airport’s employees, he rushed over, thrusting the mike in her face.

“Did you think you were going to die?”

Charlie opened her mouth to tell him to get lost, but David, knowing her too well, pushed her behind him. “Did you get that landing on camera? I sure hope so because it was a thing of beauty.” He whipped out a business card from somewhere on him and handed it to the reporter. “Call me later, and I’ll set you up an interview with her. For now, leave her alone.”

She leaned her head against David’s back, grateful he’d stopped her from appearing like an ass on that night’s news. The last thing she wanted to do was an interview later, but David would insist. Since he’d just given her time to get her act together, she would do it for him.

The reporter and his cameraman climbed into their news van and followed the fire truck back to the exit. “Thanks,” Charlie said when it was just her, David, and the plane that had brought her home.

He turned and pulled her under his arm. “You’re welcome, but don’t think to get out of that interview. They already have it on film so there’s no stopping it going on the air. We’ll put the right spin on it. It’ll be good business.”

Of course it would be. She was a well-known aerobatic plane pilot, and she was also one of his flight school instructors. He would make sure that last bit of information was included in the interview, no doubt figuring he would get calls from wannabe pilots asking for her as their instructor.

“Yeah, good business,” she sighed. Her student quota had just gone up. Not that she minded. The extra money was always good, and she enjoyed teaching anyone who loved to fly.

Gary, the FBO’s head mechanic, rolled up in a tug. “You lost oil pressure?” he asked as he hooked a tow bar to the plane’s wheels.

With an affirmative nod, Charlie turned to her plane. “Yeah, then the temperature rose. She’s always been steady and reliable. I want to know why.”

“I’m on it,” Gary said, and then hauled her baby away.

If anyone could identify the problem, it was Gary. Knowing the Citabria was in good hands, Charlie slid onto the golf cart next to David. As if he understood she needed time to herself, he didn’t talk to her on their way to the FBO. She settled back onto the seat, closed her eyes, and mentally relived the flight from the moment she’d walked around her plane doing her preflight inspection.

She was a stickler for procedures, and she couldn’t see anything she’d missed that would have warned her of a malfunction. Sometimes shit happened, and that would probably turn out to be the case. Every pilot, especially one who flew aerobatics, had a scare or two in their career.

But she’d had two in a week, and that bothered her. Even though it had been in two different planes, with two different problems, what were the odds of that? Now she was being paranoid. It was just bad luck. That was all.

Too keyed up to think about almost dying, she lifted her face to the breeze and closed her eyes. Much nicer to think of a man who had danced with her under the moonlight in the parking lot of a bar. As soon as she’d arrived home that night, she had downloaded the Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow song and had listened to it every night since. Each time she played it, she would close her eyes and think of his kiss.

What had made him walk away? She’d had plenty of time since that night to think about it, and had decided it had something to do with a woman and a picture. After those lyrics played, he’d tensed, and his whole demeanor had changed. Was he married? Had a girlfriend, or broken up with one? It was useless to speculate, and the question would never be answered as she’d never see him again.

Stupid her, she’d even whispered his name late at night in the solitude of her home.
Ryan.
She was going to stop thinking about him, stop playing the song, and most of all stop saying his name just to feel it rolling across her tongue.