by Grey, Helen
While I had to accept the fact that, to some degree at least, I was envious of his lifestyle, I was at the same time realistic enough to know that I’d better not start thinking like that or I would get into trouble. I’d always been perfectly content with my life. Yes, I had aspirations, but life was more than just money. Money made things a lot easier, no doubt about it, but as in Blake’s case, it could also make a person’s life miserable. Never knowing who to trust, always thinking that people liked you for what you could do for them, always hitting you up for favors… I had read horror stories of lottery winners and the way some of their lives fell apart after they won big. Friends and family coming out of the woodwork, expecting a handout, a favor, a business partnership. If I ever won a lottery, I would do my best to keep it secret.
Fat chance of that. I didn’t buy lottery tickets. I had better things to do with my money than throw it away. With a sigh, I leaned my head back against the buttery soft seat and watched silently from the passenger compartment as Blake completed his checklist. I admired his skills, felt a twinge in my belly as I watched his strong fingers adjust that dial, flip that switch, and move a lever. Every time he moved, his thigh muscles bunched. Every time he reached forward to adjust a knob, I watched the play of muscles in his back. Even the way his hair draped against the back of his neck was sexy. Was there anything about him that wasn’t?
Finally, I pushed off my shoes, curled my legs up onto the soft leather seat, and leaned against the side of the chopper, my head resting on the sweatshirt I shoved between the bulkhead and my skull. I continued to watch Blake prepare for the flight as the blades started to whir faster and faster. Several minutes later, my eyes half-closed, I felt us lift off of the ground, this time straight up. Just as the chopper climbed above the treetops, we shot forward.
This time, I wasn’t nearly as frightened. This time, I actually thrilled to the speed, the feeling that rushed through me. I should appreciate the opportunities I was enjoying in Blake’s company. I doubted I would ever have the opportunity to travel in a luxury high tech chopper again, so I might as well appreciate the experience. I wished I had a camera so I could take pictures of the interior of the cabin. Melanie would be so jealous—
What was the matter with me? I didn’t want my friend to be jealous or envious. Why would I think such a thing? I shook foolish thoughts out of my head and watched Blake, focused on his flying. I had no doubt that things were well under control and resolved to relax. I trusted him.
I trusted him.
That gave me something to think about. As my gaze skimmed over the miles and miles of forest below, the brightness of the sun rising ahead of them, my eyes grew heavy again. I closed them, and faster than I would have thought possible, the rhythmic whomp whomp of the rotors, the smooth flight, and the soft leather cushions beneath lulled me back to sleep.
*
I dimly heard the sound of a deep voice close by.
“Misty, wake up. We’re here.” Pause. “Misty.”
I slowly opened my eyes, at first confused. Where was I? Then I saw Blake. He had turned to look over his shoulder at me from the front seat of the helicopter. We had stopped. I didn’t hear the sound of the rotor blades and realized we were on the ground. I quickly sat up, pulling my feet from the soft leather cushions and placing them on the floor as I brushed my hand through my hair.
“Are we refueling?”
He shook his head. “No. Already did that. We’re in Jackson Hole.”
“We are?” I asked, looking out the window, surprised that I had slept during the entire flight, even his landing to refuel and take off again.
“You were tired,” he grinned. “Ready to have some fun?”
I carefully swept my fingers through my hair again, stalling. “What kind of fun are you talking about?”
He pointed upward and I frowned. “We’re taking off again?”
“Yes and no,” he said, then gestured for me to pick up my belongings. He turned to exit the craft. By the time I gathered my satchel, flung the strap over my shoulder, and picked up the jeans and sweatshirt in my arms, he had the passenger door open. My muscles were just a little stiff, not like they had been before, but I moved slowly as I climbed out of the helicopter, one of his strong hands supporting my elbow.
I looked around. It looked like an airstrip, but I didn’t see any planes. “This is an airport? Where are the planes?”
“It’s a regional air field. Mostly used by business corporations and shipping companies.” He grinned down at me. “And helicopters.”
I grew more alert with every passing second. It all came back to me in a rush. The next property. The Camp Robber Resort. I followed wordlessly as he led the way toward a hangar. With every step I took, I felt better, more rested. Invigorated. A colorful blue-and-white emblem of an air balloon emblazoned on the side of the building caught my attention. We weren’t going up in an air balloon, were we? My heart jumped. We rounded the corner of the hanger near two large open doors.
Outside of the hangar sat a small plane, not a Cessna, but not a jet either. A large opening in the side of the aircraft gave me a brief view of the interior. Heavy plastic bucket seats lined up against one wall. A system of ropes and pulleys overhead. A pilot was inside, a clipboard in hand. Working a check sheet. He saw movement, then lifted a hand in a brief wave. Blake waved back. I didn’t have time to ask questions before Blake entered the hangar.
“Blake!” The voice came from the rear of the hangar. “‘Bout time you got here!”
Blake laughed and raised a hand in greeting. “I told you I’d be here early in the afternoon. Actually, I’m ahead of schedule.”
“No worries,” the man with a blond crew cut remarked as he strode toward Blake and gave him one of those man hugs followed by a clap or two on the back. “We’ll be ready in just a few minutes. I had a feeling you’d be ahead of schedule, so I moved everything up.”
Blake laughed. “Good thinking. I left at dawn this morning.”
He turned to me as I glanced between the two. Old friends?
“Jacob, I’d like you to meet Misty… Misty Rankin,” he said. He turned to me and gestured toward the man. “Misty, this is Jacob Sizemore. He runs this little operation with his older sister.” He glanced around. “Where’s Maggie?”
Jacob rolled his eyes. “Who knows? She was here a few minutes ago. If she misses you, she’s going to be upset.”
What operation? I glanced around, my gaze skimming the items hanging from dozens of hooks screwed into the walls on all three sides of the hanger. Lots of harnesses, flight suits or jumpsuits, or something like it. Big bundles packaged tightly laying side by side on a table on the other side of the space.
“Welcome to Air Extremes,” Jacob smiled politely, extending a hand toward me.
I took his hand and returned a firm handshake, though I did give Blake a curious glance. I gathered that this was one of the venues that he was talking about, one of the perks available to guests staying at the Camp Robber.
“Go ahead and grab a suit from over there,” Jacob gestured.
I glanced at the wall where the gear was located, saw a dozen or so blue coveralls hanging from more hooks on the wall. Blake immediately headed for it. I followed. “You have to put on a jumpsuit to go up in a hot air balloon?”
He glanced over his shoulder and grinned down at me. “Rules are rules,” he said, gesturing. “Grab one.” He paused, gave me a body check, and then cleared his throat. “I don’t mean to pry, Misty, and please don’t take this the wrong way, but you weigh what, about one-fifty?”
For a moment, I stared up at him in shock. What the hell? Before I could stop myself, I retorted. “One-forty-two if you must know, which is definitely within the normal range for a woman of my height.”
He chuckled. “Don’t get your feathers all ruffled,” he said. “I’m only asking because there’s a weight limit.”
“A weight limit for what?” He didn’t answer, but reached up and g
rabbed two sets of blue coveralls off the hooks. He thrust one at me and then slipped off his shoes. The coveralls were one-piece. You know, the kind that you put on the legs first, then up and over the shoulders. A long zipper closed up the front. He gestured for me to start pulling mine on.
“Don’t dawdle now,” he said. “The pilot will be ready to go in just a few minutes.”
One hand tightly clutching the coveralls, the other still clutching my satchel with the borrowed jeans and sweatshirt drooping over my arm, I glanced over my shoulder, outside the hangar door and toward the airplane with the opening in the side. “The pilot? Go? Where?”
Blake didn’t answer, but quickly stepped into the coveralls, pulled them up over his shoulders, shoved his arms through the sleeves, and then zipped the thing up. In seconds, he was donning his shoes and re-lacing the ties.
“Here, give me your satchel and your clothes,” he said. Without waiting for me to hand him the items, he grabbed them, placing them onto a foldout table shoved against the wall near the coveralls.
Not quite understanding, and still a little groggy from my extended nap in the helicopter followed by this sudden whir of activity, I pulled on the coveralls the same way Blake had, except I didn’t have to remove my flats. I’d never been on a hot air balloon ride and didn’t make the connection between the emblem on the side of the hanger and the pilot waiting in the aircraft. Maybe that was for something else. The moment I zipped up my coveralls, Blake reached for my arm and gently led me over to another part of the wall where harnesses hung from hooks, just as the coveralls had. He pulled down a harness and handed it to me. I held it uncertainly while he reached up and grabbed another.
“Watch me,” he said.
I did. He stepped into two loops of the harness and pulled the straps up his legs to his groin. The straps accentuated his crotch, and I had to focus my concentration on what he was doing and not how his…
“Now you do it.”
The upper portion of the harness straps were red with black padding. A belt section that wrapped around the waist and the upper thighs was black, with open gold rivets. Buckles, back and side D-rings provided surprisingly light construction that nevertheless felt durable and strong.
He waited and watched as I stepped into the leg loops of the harness as instructed and then worked it up my legs. Then he continued with his harness. Then it was my turn again. I watched, repeated, watched, and then repeated again until the harness was on, the straps enveloping my groin, settling against the base of my ass. He checked the straps over my shoulders. Each of the straps buckled into a solid clasp in front of my stomach and locked shut with a turning-like lock.
“You have to wear a harness to go into a hot air balloon?” I asked nervously. I didn’t wait for him to answer. “I’m not sure I want to do this.” He didn’t seem to be listening, checking his harness, then mine again. “Did you hear what I said, Blake? I don’t want to go on a hot air balloon ride!”
“We’re not,” he said, gesturing for me to follow him to the other side of the hangar where more foldout tables were covered with a number of nylon bundles. While I certainly wasn’t an expert, they looked like parachutes. I hesitated and he grabbed my hand, giving it a squeeze as he urged me along.
“Are those what I think they are?” I asked, pulling back as I stared at the objects on the table. “Are those parachutes?”
Blake glanced down at me and nodded. “You betcha.”
“You’re going skydiving?” I gasped, choking back a sudden wave of fear. “And you want me to go up in the airplane with you?” My voice cracked. I couldn’t help it. I shook my head as I glanced over my shoulder and stared at the small aircraft. He was lucky he had gotten me into his sleek helicopter, but if he thought I was going to climb into an airplane with the entire side exposed to the open air…
“Yes, I’m going skydiving,” he said. “And yes, I want you to go up into the airplane with me.”
“But why?” I gasped, my voice ending in high-pitched alarm. I shook my head, trying to pull my hand out of his grasp. “Are you crazy? I don’t want to go up in that little plane… I had enough trouble just dealing with the helicopter ride!” I glanced again at the plane. “I might fall out!”
“Come on, Misty, it’ll be fun,” he cajoled. “Besides, that’s what the harness is for. You won’t fall out. If you go out of that plane, it will be to skydive.”
I shook my head again, vehemently. “Maybe for you it’ll be fun, but I don’t like flying, remember?”
“It won’t take that long,” he promised. “About ten minutes to get up to the proper altitude, about eleven or twelve thousand feet, and then maybe five minutes tops to get back down to the ground. Total time in the air? About fifteen minutes, and then you’ll have your feet back down on the ground.” He smiled encouragingly at me. “You can do that, can’t you?”
I continued to shake my head. My heart was pounding, my palms clammy. I felt the blood drain from my face. “Blake, I really don’t want to,” I stammered. “I can watch you from down here.”
“You remember me telling you that if you came along with me on this tour, I’d answer a personal question or two?”
I scowled. “So you’re going to blackmail me into going up in an open-sided plane while you skydive? Because you think I’m desperate enough to get information for my article, I’ll agree to this?”
He gazed down at me for several seconds. “Aren’t you?”
Dammit. Was the article worth all this? Still, I decided that going up in a plane for a few minutes might be worth it to get Blake to respond to even one of my questions about his dad. It might be worth the effort, but it was going to be one hell of a question. And when I got back to San Francisco, I would demand a raise from Angela. Despite my terror, and as I looked up into his encouraging face, at that sexy grin of his, I had an overwhelming urge to please him. To show him that I wasn’t afraid of anything. I could swallow my fear for that long, couldn’t I?
“Damn you,” I muttered.
All the while, Jacob stood nearby, observing the two of us, first in curiosity, then in amusement. He watched as Blake stepped to the table with the parachutes and then helped him strap one onto his harness. He gazed between me and Blake. I saw the look that Jacob gave Blake, almost a questioning expression. What was that about?
I decided I didn’t want to know. I was scared. I wasn’t afraid to admit that to myself. My stomach was one big fat knot of trepidation. My hands began to shake. I just hoped I wouldn’t throw up in the plane. I hoped they had barf bags in there, just in case.
“Just for the record, Blake, I don’t want to do this,” I said once more, just to make sure my hesitance was on the record. “You get that, right?”
He couldn’t keep that damned grin off his face. “I get it, Misty, but believe me, you’ll have the thrill of your life.”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and realized I had to just suck it up. If this was what was involved in becoming an investigative journalist, I supposed I might as well just get used to it. Though I doubted that in the future I would ever meet and interview a man as challenging and as difficult as this one. I didn’t quite know why I allowed him to talk me into this, but I didn’t want him to think I was a coward. Nevertheless, my fear of flying, especially in that small little plane out there, waiting for us to board, was more than slightly beyond my comfort zone.
My heart skipped a beat when he handed me a helmet and took one for himself. I grasped it, eyes wide as I looked up at him. “Why do I have to wear a helmet?”
“It’s the rules,” he said and handed me a pair of goggles too.
With another sigh, and feeling more than queasy now, I placed the helmet on my head, pulled the strap under my chin, and fastened it. Blake double-checked to make sure I had done it correctly. Did the same for the wide goggles.
“Ready?”
“No,” I said. But then he was grasping my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine. His grip was fi
rm and I felt comforted as he gave my hand a slight squeeze. Then he headed out of the hangar, walking toward the small craft.
“Have a good jump!” Jacobs shouted.
Blake didn’t answer. He just lifted his free hand in a wordless wave as he walked toward the plane. He climbed up into the opening first, then turned to help me inside. He pointed to one of the hard plastic bucket seats and I sat down.
Blake said something to the pilot, who nodded as Blake took his seat beside me. I could tell by the expression on his face that he was enjoying this. The plane jolted forward and then began to cruise faster and faster down the runway. The wind whipped into the opening in the side of the plane, rushing against my face. Despite my trepidation and the knots in my stomach, I experienced a visceral thrill. I tried to appreciate the experience. Though scared to death, I nevertheless forced myself to absorb every sensation I felt. My pulse pounded. My breath was heavy. I focused on trying to ignore the fear and just feel.
Once again, Blake reached his hand toward mine and clasped it, gave it a squeeze, and grinned down at me.
“Live in the moment, Misty!” He shouted over the sound of the wind whipping into the craft, bouncing it gently from side to side. “Savor it!”
His excitement was palpable. Damn him for being so ruggedly handsome! Never in my life would I have thought I could be talked into taking a helicopter ride let alone flying in a plane to witness someone skydiving. But I had a feeling that when it came to Blake Masters, he could probably talk the quills off a porcupine.
The plane left the asphalt runway and soared up into the air. I grasped onto the hard plastic seat with one hand and tightened my grip on Blake’s hand with the other as we soared upward.
“It’s a beautiful day!” Blake shouted above the wind rushing into the opening. “Isn’t it thrilling?”