Flying Home

by Mary Anne Wilson

  “Good,” he managed again, and meant it when he could feel the hint of heat filling the air. It only made him shiver more as the temperature shifted slowly from cold to almost bearable.

  “I did it,” she said as her hand caressed his cheek again.

  “Th...th...thanks,” he managed to get out.

  Merry put a hand on his shoulder. “Now, take off your clothes.”

  He was shaking, but he almost laughed at what she’d said. Almost. Although, that didn’t mean that the pain wracking his body could stop him from smiling. That didn’t hurt. “You...know, it’s b...b...been a while since a w...w...woman said anything like that t...to me.”

  Despite his inability to speak smoothly, he was glad to see a slight tilt of her lips “Really? From the reputation that precedes you and your brothers, I’d suspect that it’s happened more than you’re admitting to.” He felt pressure on his arm through the soggy jacket. “Come on, you need to get this off.”

  He glanced back over the seat and frowned. He was too tall to move around much where he was, despite the seat being on the incline. “I kn...knew I sh...sh...should have gone for the bigger model,” he muttered.

  Without saying anything, Merry shifted toward him, leaning over the console, and started to methodically undo the buttons on his heavy jacket. She was so close he thought he could see the hint of gold in her green eyes as she worked intently and got the jacket open. There was a bit more warmth in the cabin, but he wondered how much of it was her body heat and how much came from the heater that had to be held on low to conserve energy.

  “Okay,” she said on a rush of exhaled air. “This is a good start.”

  His shivering was letting up, and he could actually speak without too much stammering. “You are a f...f...forward woman, aren’t you?”

  She hesitated, and then said, “Get over yourself. It’s just a wet coat...” She bit her bottom lip. “But, if you prefer to do it yourself—”

  “No, sorry, I can’t,” he admitted through clenched teeth.

  “Oh, no, it’s your ribs, isn’t it?”

  He exhaled. “You got me.”

  “You should have told me right from the start,” she said, and even in the dim light, he could tell she was annoyed. It didn’t stop her from reaching for his jacket cuff and pulling at it so his arm straightened in her direction. She kept up the tension, allowing him to slowly work his arm free at his own pace.

  He had to twist a bit to get out his other arm, but the pill must have begun kicking in. The pain seemed a bit muffled and he managed to get free of the sodden garment without too much more discomfort. Afterward, Merry reached behind him, tugged the garment off of the seat, and held it up in her hand. “Where should it go?”

  He considered that as he relished the touch of light heat on his bare arms. His first reaction was to throw the jacket outside, but that wasn’t a wise one. “Hang it on the back of your seat and it might have a chance of drying out.”

  Once that task was done, Merry sat back, looking at him in the dimness. She flicked her gaze over him, and he didn’t miss her grimace when she saw his shirt was covered with blood around the collar. He’d carefully felt for the lever and very slowly raised it to a partial sitting position. At any other time, he wouldn’t think twice about crossing his arms, grabbing the bottom hem of the shirt and pulling it up and over his head to get it off. But that move would be impossible with his ribs.

  As if she’d read his mind, Merry went to the first-aid kit, rummaged through it, then turned to him with the world’s smallest scissors in her hand. “You do have clothes back in storage, don’t you?” When he nodded, she said, “Let’s get that shirt off. It’s ruined anyway.”

  “You sure do cut right to the chase,” he said. “Pun intended.”

  Her expression softened, but no smile came. “Military training, do anything fast and right, without too much loss,” she muttered as she reached for the hem of his shirt with the scissors.

  “You were in the army?” he asked as she started to cut, the back of her hand holding the material away from his body, but in the process brushing along his abdomen.

  “Not me. My stepdad. He’s in the air force, over in Germany until May. Then they’re going to be sent to Portugal for some mysterious reason.” While she spoke, she neatly cut the shirt from the bottom to within inches of his throat. Pausing, she hooked one finger in the neck and pulled it back a safe distance before making the final cut. “Don’t worry...I’m good with scissors,” she assured him as she sat back and let the split shirt fall open on his naked chest. “I hardly ever draw blood.”

  “Good to know,” he quipped. “And I’m not worried.”

  “Sure, you’re not,” she said, and a smile started to emerge.

  But before he could see the full expression, her face darkened with concern as she leaned toward him. Involuntarily, he gasped when she touched his bare skin at his shoulder. “Wow, you’re going to have some wicked bruises,” she mused as she slowly outlined something on the area with the tip of her finger. “No wonder your ribs hurt.”

  He wasn’t breathing now, and didn’t until she drew back. She met his gaze, before quickly looking away. He could only guess at what she’d seen in his face. “Just bruises,” he reiterated.

  She came closer to cut the sleeves up to the collar on both sides, and then easily tugged at the ruined shirt to free it from behind his back. Without asking, she dropped it on the floor between his feet. “Oh, shoot, I should have asked if we can get to the luggage before destroying your shirt.”

  “We can,” he said. “At least, I think you can.” Then he went on to explain about the double backseat, how each side reclined and the luggage area could be partially accessed from there. “There’s a duffel,” he said. “Navy blue, with the company logo on it.”

  “Okay, no problem,” she replied and didn’t hesitate getting over the console into the back the way she had to get the first-aid kit. She finally figured out how to get the seat forward to expose the luggage area, and in less than a few minutes, she had his duffel on the other backseat. “What do you want out of this?” she asked from behind him.

  “Jeans, a flannel shirt, socks and there’s thermals in there, two sets. Get them both out.”

  She rummaged around, and then climbed into the front and onto the pilot’s seat with the clothes in her hands. Laying them on the console on top of the first-aid box, she looked at him. “What’s first?”

  The shirt, so I’m not sitting here half naked with a woman with tiny scissors close by, he thought, half wondering if he had a bit of concussion or not. He obviously wasn’t thinking clearly, and he didn’t believe it was because of Merry being there. Not at all. A mild concussion made more sense. Out loud he simply said, “The thermal top, then the flannel.”

  She held the thermal out to him. “You can do this?”

  “With a bit of help,” he said, and she came closer, leaning over the console.

  “Sit up just a bit,” she instructed and when he lifted his head, she slipped the thermal over his head. “Any ideas how to do the rest without you passing out from pain?”

  “Just do it,” he said and as slowly and easily as he could, he pulled the shirt down, wiggled his hand to get to the armhole, then, gritting his teeth, pushed his hand into the sleeve. He repeated it for the other side, then Merry tugged it down over his chest.

  Gage sank back, breathing a bit harder than he had been, but it had worked. The flannel was easier to put on. He sat forward and with Merry’s assistance was able to get his arms in the holes without too much problem. As he settled back again, she reached over to button up the front of the shirt.

  She exhaled softly and studied him. “It’s your call on the rest.”

  He glanced down where she was flicking her gaze, at his soaked jeans and boots. He could feel his fee
t squishing in his socks, and the chill was achingly persistent. After trying to heel and toe himself out of one boot, he finally gave up. No way he could bend forward enough to do it, and there was no room to lift his foot to pull the boots off. “This shouldn’t be this hard,” he muttered as he sank back in his seat. Merry hadn’t moved. “What’s that old saying? ‘Life’s hard, then you—’”

  “Not funny,” she retorted.

  “I was going to say, ‘Life’s hard, then you get smart,’” he improvised.

  Her smile came a bit reluctantly, and he had a stunning thought—that despite everything that had happened and what they were going through, she looked almost happy. He couldn’t figure that out. A joke was a joke, but being stranded like this, didn’t even come close to funny, despite his silly attempts at humor.

  “Sure you were,” she said, shaking her head in wry disbelief.

  He honestly wanted to laugh himself, and wished he could, but he could still grin. Then Gage looked at her and knew that no concussion could make him think what came next. She was beautiful. At the airport terminal, he’d thought she was attractive in a quiet sort of way, but right then, things shifted. Her dark auburn hair had escaped from the ponytail in wisps that framed her face and brushed against her neck. Her eyes seemed incredibly green, the lashes luxurious, and her skin was almost translucent.

  He muttered, “Oh, boy,” and closed his eyes for a moment. One thing he knew was that, pretty or not, he found himself very grateful that he had Merry Brenner right there with him.

  * * *

  MERRY WATCHED GAGE as his expression morphed from a smile into a contemplative frown that stole that single dimple away. She had no idea what brought about that change, but she didn’t like it. It tightened her stomach and made the sounds of the unrelenting storm seem more overwhelming.

  Gage motioned vaguely behind them. “I need to get back there,” he said. “We both do.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re going to have to shut the heat off in a bit. We can’t risk getting too low on power, and it will stay a bit warmer now. Hopefully, the doors aren’t damaged and leaking air. We don’t need that. And I admit...” He lifted one booted foot a bit off the floor. “These boots are soaked.”

  They did look distorted from all the moisture they’d absorbed. “How will you get the boots off? I mean, you’re in pain and getting in back to do it will be a bit tricky.”

  He didn’t say anything as he slowly lowered the back of his chair again, until it was almost horizontal to the floor. He twisted just enough to look at the seat he needed to get to, before his dark gaze met hers. “I think I can slip back there without too much trouble. I have to push as much as I can and figure out how to move onto the seat.”

  “Okay,” she said, stretching to grab her bag she’d pulled out of storage along with his, realizing how much bigger it was than his duffel. She pulled it into her lap and he was clear to try to maneuver.

  She watched Gage, desperate to help him but knowing there wasn’t anything she could do. When he was half on the backseat, half on the front seat, she dumped her bag onto the floor on top of the bloodied shirt and said, “Stop.”

  He looked at her, and she knew he was in pain from the slightly hazy, narrowed eyes that didn’t appear to be able to focus right then. “Why?” he said in a low, rough voice. “I’ve almost made it.”

  She shifted toward his feet and grabbed a foot. “I can help you now, to get your boots off, so you can relax better when we get back there.”

  She heard him take a shuddering breath and exhale sharply. “Okay, just do it,” he said.

  She got a grip on the left boot and warned him she was going to pull. Even without looking at him, she knew it was painful for him. But the boot came off and the other soon followed. Quickly she stripped off the cold, wet cotton socks and threw them after the boots. She got his clean socks on him, and then glanced up at Gage. She forced herself not to react too much when she saw the fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. “I’m sorry if that was painful,” she said softly. When he didn’t move or open his eyes, she asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Sure,” he mumbled.

  “You’re lying again, aren’t you?” She reached for the package of pain pills. “You can have more medication. I think you need the second pill.”

  He started to shake his head, but relented. “Okay.”

  She shook out the pill, handed it to him and before she could get him the last of the water in the bottle, he dry swallowed the medication. Keeping his eyes closed, he resumed what he’d started. Inching slowly and carefully, he got onto the backseat faster than she’d thought possible. With a shuddering sigh, he moved gingerly into the area behind the pilot’s seat, and settled himself on the leather.

  Merry got onto the seat he’d just vacated, and watched him. He didn’t have bruised ribs. They were most likely fractured or fully broken. Pain was in the fan of lines at his eyes, and the brackets at the sides of his mouth. She didn’t miss how he clenched and unclenched his jaw. She was getting scared.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MERRY SPOKE SOFTLY. “You would have been better if you’d stayed in this seat. It goes all the way down. Now you’re in the middle of the seat with nowhere to rest your legs.”

  “Ah, not so,” he murmured. “Lower the pilot seat as far as it can go.”

  “What about your jacket?” she asked.

  He frowned. “Put it on the floor up there.”

  She did so and slid off the seat, bent over the pilot’s chair and found the lever. She lowered the seat, the headrest met the seat in the back, and she saw where he was going with this. “There,” she said. “Can you shift enough to get on it?”

  “Watch and learn,” Gage said, then slowly moved to his left until he could stretch his legs out on the back of the now prone front seat for support. He sank back, fumbled with the adjustment on his seat and lowered the back enough to make something akin to a large chaise lounge. “This works for me.”

  She settled on the front seat. “Very nice,” she agreed.

  Merry watched him close his eyes, not moving, except for his chest rising and falling with each breath he took. She waited, letting him set the pace for whatever they were going to do. She worked at not jumping every time the plane shook from the wind. She had so many questions, but she knew she had to wait until he was up to answering them. Better that he dealt with the pain right then, than for her to rush anything.

  She averted her eyes from the bandage, unable to look at the blood that had soaked through it. She thought the bleeding had stopped, but she wasn’t going to check right then. Maybe when the pain pills really kicked in, she’d try to change the dressing.

  A cut and some cracked ribs. Not good, but much better than it could have been. Then a thought struck her that made her breath hitch in her chest. What if he had a concussion? What if it wasn’t just a cut? She remembered something about not sleeping; keeping the patient awake for...she couldn’t remember the time limit. If he had a brain injury, he had to stay awake.

  She leaned toward him and spoke quietly, “Gage?” When he didn’t respond, she touched his knee and shook it gently. “Gage?”

  His eyes fluttered, eventually his gaze held hers. He looked less tense, his eyes heavy. “Sorry. It’s just...” He shifted to sit up a bit more, but stopped and sagged against the seat. “Sorry.”

  “I had a thought,” she said. When he started to close his eyes again, she spoke quickly. “No, don’t do that. You have to stay awake.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of your head. I was just thinking, how do we know you don’t have a concussion?”

  He was quiet for several seconds. “How do we know I do?”

  “That’s my point. If you do, you can’t sleep. If you don’t, you need to sleep.”

  “Catch 22?
”

  “Yes, exactly. I remember that no sleeping rule applies to a concussion. I just don’t remember if one of the symptoms is dilated pupils, or constricted pupils. Nausea, I know that, dizziness, I know that, pain, too.”

  “Check.”

  “What?”

  He opened his eyes wider. “Check my eyes.”

  “Oh, sure,” she said, and shifted closer to him. His eyes were so dark in the dim light that it was difficult to see the pupils. When she managed to see them, they were dilated, but then again, there was no brightness in the plane, either, so it seemed obvious that the dark brown was little more than a thin circling of the pupil. “Shoot,” she whispered.

  “Well, am I going to live?”

  That wasn’t any funnier than his, “Life’s hard...” quip. “They’re dilated...a lot.”

  “And that means?”

  “I don’t know. There’s only a little light in here, so they’d be dilated anyway.” She moved on. “How do you feel right now?”

  He seemed to be really considering the question, then said, “Cold, tired and bruised.”

  “Are you nauseated or dizzy?”

  “No, just hungry.”

  She frowned. “I sure wish I could talk to Dr. Blackstone, but...” That brought a thought and she felt a jolt of excitement in her chest. “Of course, Dr. Blackstone.” Her cell phone was dead, but she’d seen Gage on his cell phone in the terminal. “You have a cell phone with you, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, then all but crushed her hopes. “If you’re thinking of making a call to Moses, then forget it. No service at all.”

  “How do you know?”

  He shifted and she noticed he didn’t really wince at the movement. Progress? “My cell’s in the side pocket, by my seat up there. Check it yourself.”