A Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson (free romance novels TXT) 📗

high-wing plane, though it had been about five years. One and done, in fact.

Meanwhile, Berne was explaining that preflight checklists saved lives. Specifically, they would have saved a Gulfstream crash in 2014, and several other crashes the man rattled off because he thought talking about plane crashes would calm his passengers.

“And not just twenty-fourteen! D’you know that the NBAA7 found only partial preflight checks on fifteen percent of all flights? Fifteen percent! Even though they’ve been recommended since the thirties! It’s a bloody miracle there haven’t been more crashes.”

“Um,” Lila began, because the color was falling out of Oz’s face, making his eyes seem that much greener. Which should have been sexy but wasn’t.

“Back then, the gust locks something and then they something-something. Leave it to those buggers at Boeing, eh? And not only that, but something else and then another something else, so of course something-something. Everyone died, poor bastards. All right, buckle in, we’re cleared.”

“Oz,” she murmured, which might have been a waste of time. Did werebears have super hearing? Could Berne hear her over the engine? “Are you okay?”

“Fine. I’m totally fine. Everything’s fine.” This while he cinched his seatbelt tight enough to obstruct his breathing. “Totally, completely—hurrk!—fine.”

Sure, pal. She raised her voice in an attempt to turn the chitchat away from crashes. “So, Berne, is this a super-duper secret Shifter-only airport? I’ve never heard of it, but I’ve only lived here a couple of days.”

“No, lass, it’s a reliever airport. When MSP gets overloaded, they shift flights here. Now pipe down your chatter, they don’t have an air traffic control tower here.”

Ack! Lila instantly piped down the chatter.

“Not a very long flight,” she said quietly as they taxied. “So that’s nice.”

“Grrtt.” Oz forced that out through gritted teeth, probably “great.” Or “grate,” which made less sense and would be weird, but she shouldn’t rule out the possibility.

There were two kinds of nervous flyers: ones who liked to be talked to, and ones who absolutely hated being talked to. “So about this make-up lunch…” What could she say? In this moment, he was pitiful. So why not offer a pity lunch, which was bound to be an improvement over a decoy lunch.

“Mmmmm?”

“Maybe you know a few good places?”

“Mmm.”

“I’m pretty easy. Just don’t serve it to me in something deliberately weird, that’s all I ask.”

“Mmmm?”

“Oh, you know. Because it’s whimsical or whatever-the-hell. ‘Here’s your daiquiri in a bag!’ ‘Here’s your ice cream served on a block of ice.’ ‘Here’s your white chocolate truffles served in a flip-flop.’ ‘Here’s your appetizer served on a two-by-four and wrapped with sandpaper!’8 Just give me the damned shrimp cocktail already.”

“Ha!”

Lila jumped; she couldn’t help it. That laugh had exploded out of him. She glanced down and saw white knuckles.

“Mm fnnn.”

“Of course you’re fine. I never thought otherwise. You are radiating fine. If I were to grab a dictionary to look up ‘fine,’ your grinning mug would take up half the page.”

“Ha!”

“And since you’re totally fine with what’s happening at the moment, maybe you should buy your own plane. Berne could fly it to you. You’re rich, you could probably buy two. One to keep at the airport, and the other to annoy me by parking it in my driveway.”

“Ha!” Oz turned his head to look at her. “Well. I am. Rich, I mean. But how’d you know?”

“Seriously? Let’s count the ways. The suit. You were still in yesterday’s clothes and while you were a rumpled mess, the suit held up beautifully. So did your shoes. And now you’re wearing a different suit, and this one’s high quality, too. That’s top-notch tailoring, probably from Heimie’s. And Byredo Eleventh Hour aftershave isn’t cheap. And don’t forget your giant metallic pumpkin. And the Louis Vuitton you threw into the backseat of your giant metallic pumpkin. And the breakroom.”

“How’d you even know about the—”

“Macropi and Garsea found it gossip-worthy.” She began prying his fingers from their death-lock on the armrest, then took his hands in hers. “Here’s the thing I can’t figure: you hate flying—”

“I don’t hate it. I’m just terrified because we’re hurtling through the air in a narrow tube thousands of feet off the ground and there’s nowhere to go, and I can’t get out unless Magnus lets me out. But I’m not scared.”

“Gotcha. But this was your idea.”

“Yeah, well.” Oz was facing front again. She could see the muscles in his jaw work as he clenched his teeth, then consciously tried to stop. “I have to do everything in my power to make Sally feel safe again. And this is part of it. You like flying?”

“It’s okay. It’s better than jumping.”

“Y’mean parachuting?”

“No, I meant hurdles.” When he blinked, she added, “Sorry, sometimes I’m on auto-snark. Yes, I meant parachuting. I did it a few years ago.”

“For fun?”

“No, I lost a bet. That’s not snark. It was a real bet.”

“What was it?”

7. National Business Aviation Association.

8. Only one of those is made up. The others were actually served in restaurants. That’s the world we’re living in.

Chapter 27

It was the hot smell of plane fuel and the cold blast of wind. It was the dizzying euphoria of free fall and the surge of adrenaline that made her mouth taste like she’d been sucking on a roll of pennies. It was getting out of your seat so you could jump out of a plane while ignoring your brain’s panicked demands that you sit your ass back down. It was standing by an open plane door and intellectually knowing the static line was in place to help while your gut was positive it was a hindrance.

It was putting your trust in canvas and rope and nylon. It was feeling the greedy earth use terminal velocity to snatch you back, back, all the way down.

And then the shock in your knees when gravity reminds you: You belong to the earth again. It’s letting the big muscle groups soak up and spread out the impact, the way Kevlar soaked up bullets: you lived, but it still