“I just don’t like you,” she lied.
Jett’s smile disappeared as though he she’d slapped him. After a few strained heartbeats, his lips bloomed wider than the before. “Liar.”
The man’s response was so incredible-so unexpected, that Sydney’s laughter burst out before she had a chance to contain it.
Jett pushed off from his car and moved closer to her. “Please tell me that you like a man who makes you laugh.”
“You don’t give up, do you?” she asked, still amused. He moved so close that the day’s slight breeze flapped her dress against his pants legs.
“Tell me you find a man who goes after what he wants a complete turn on.”
Sydney’s amusement evaporated and those alarm warnings came in loud and clear.
“Tell me you like a man who seeks only to pleaseboth body and soul.”
Jett’s last word blew like a breeze across her cheek and her knees weakened. “You’re good,” she whispered. “Cheesy but good.”
Jett’s brows arched. “You’re not half bad yourself.”
She wanted to sidestep him or push him back to allow herself more breathing room; but both options would require that she touch him, and judging by her body’s warning system, that was not an option.
“You want to go up?” he asked, snapping her out of her trance.
“Up?”
“A trip up into the great blue wonder.” He tilted his head up to the sky. “I’m a pretty good pilot. I promise to keep you safe.”
The man’s beautiful eyes were having a vertigo effect on her. It was the only way to describe the sensation of falling.
“What do you say?” he continued. “Are you up for the challenge?”
Sydney swallowed and gained control of her fast-beating heart through the steel discipline of her military training. When she felt like herself again, she met his leveled gaze. “Challenge accepted.”
Chapter 4
Sydney slid into the leather seats of a brand new ‘99 Cessna Piper N226T and resisted the urge to run her hand over the controls.
“Make sure you buckle up.” Jett said, entering through the pilot’s door and winking. “I have to protect the precious cargo.”
Sydney smiled, shook her head, and reached for the seatbelt. It was a good thing this guy was good looking, because he was growing cheesier by the moment.
“It seems I have a knack for putting a smile on your face,” he commented, shutting his door.
“That, you do,” she admitted.
“Seems to me it’s as good a reason as any to tell me your name.”
Her gaze swept up to his mesmerizing stare and she tried to deny his crooked smile had anything to do with the knots looping in her stomach. “Syd,” she croaked, and then cleared her throat. “Sydney Garrett.”
“Sydney,” he tried the name out and rolled his eyes as if he was pondering some great theological quagmire. “Sydney,” he repeated.
The strange thing was she sort of liked how his seductive timbre caressed her name while he weighed his decision.
Finally, he turned to her and nodded. “I like it.”
“I’ll make sure I tell my mother.”
Laughing, Jett placed the headphones over his ears and spoke with the control tower.
Sydney turned her head, but her gaze remained locked on the handsome pilot while she enjoyed the light fluttering in her stomach. A voice in her head questioned what she was doing, several times in fact, but damn if she had an answer—and damn if she could pull her eyes away from Jett.
As if sensing her gaze, Jett glanced back at her and winked without stopping the flow of conversation with control tower. “Roger that,” he said into the headset and started the plane. The plane’s propellers twirled to life and the loud hum of the engine filled her veins with that familiar anxious anticipation she loved.
“Nervous?” Jett asked, misreading her expression.
“Hardly,” she responded unable to keep her smile from spreading wider across her face.
His expression turned curious but instead of questioning her, he taxied the aircraft toward the runway.
Sydney’s heart raced as they headed down the long cemented strip and then it soared at take off.
“That’s my girl,” Jett crooned under his breath and then cast a sly glance in her direction. “A good plane is like a good woman.” He winked.
“Oh, really?” Her brows corked at the international line male pilots used to hook unsuspecting women.
“Really.” Jett pulled back on the steering and the plane climbed higher in the clouds. “If you respect them and take good care of them, they’ll respond to your slightest touch.” He gently pushed the throttle and the plane leveled off.
She had hoped to keep a straight face through the cheesy line, however, the task proved impossible and her head rocked as laughter burst from her lungs.
“What?” he asked with a knowing smile curling his lips.
“What did you do, memorize a book of campy pick-up lines?” she asked not bothering to rein in her amusement.
“That wasn’t a line.”
“Right. And neither is-‘My friends call me ‘Jett’ because I like anything fast.’” She shook her head. “I think I would have liked you better if you came up to me, scratched your balls, clubbed me on the back of the head, and dragged me back to your cave.”
Sidney kept her nose high in the air while she folded her arms; but as their gazes held, Sydney worried about the growing amusement in Jett’s eyes. Finally when his lips curled upward, he switched to autopilot and started to move out of his chair.
“Where are you going?” Syd asked unconcerned about the plane; but suspicious about the pilot.
“To search to see whether I have a club somewhere.”
His boy’s scout expression and answer wrangled a laugh from her and she shook her head. “Point, match, game.”
Laughing along with her, Jett leaned back in his seat and removed his headphones. “Well, Ms. Garrett, how are you enjoying your flight so far?”
More knots looped in her stomach while she languished beneath Jett’s magnetic gaze. No way was she going to fall for his mile-high Casanova move like, undoubtedly, so many women before her had succumbed.
“It’s not a difficult question,” Jett said with more than a fair dose of amusement.
Her smile returned. “So far, so good.” She faced him again, mainly because he fascinated her. “At best I can say you’re a fairly competent pilot.”
His eyebrows crept to the center of his forehead. “You know about flying?”
“I know a little sumpthin’ sumpthin’. There are a few pilots in my family. The blue skies are like my second home.”
She could tell her answer surprised him and she noticed for the first time the lone dimple on his right cheek when he smiled.
“Maybe we should start over,” he said, lifting a hand. “James Colton.”
Sydney hesitated and then slid her hand into his massive one. Nothing could prepare her for the volts of electricity his touch charged into her, but she could feel every atom in her body respond to him. Judging by his expression, he knew his affect and reveled in it.
Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, the plane jerked once, twice, and then one propeller slowed—and then the other.
“Damn,” Jett turned around in his seat and jerked his headphones back onto his head. “Not now.”
“Not now? This has happened before?” she asked, and then gripped the sides of her seat when the plane dived forward.
“The engine stalled,” he said as casually as giving her the time.
The commentary wasn’t necessary. Sydney knew exactly what was going on; she just wanted to know what he was going to do about it.
Jett tried to restart the engine, but each time, his efforts were met with an eerie silence. “C’mon, baby. C’mon, baby,” he cooed and coerced the plane.
“Here, let me try,” Sydney offered, already reaching for her seat buckl
e.
“I got it. I got it,” he answered without sparing a glance in her direction. Meanwhile, the plane continued to plummet like a stone.
Sydney ignored him and unlocked her seatbelt, completely prepared to shove Jett out of the pilot seat if need be. However, the moment she pulled out of her seat, the plane’s engine roared to life. The aircraft jerked violently in reaction and pitched Sydney to the back of the plane.
She hit the back wall headfirst and literally had to blink stars from her eyes.
Jett glanced over his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Sydney opened her mouth to respond, but instead a large wave of laughter rolled out her mouth.
He stole another look over his shoulder; his eyebrows floated high in the center of his forehead.
Despite reading genuine concern in his expression and knowing there was nothing funny about their mini emergency, Sydney couldn’t cork her laughter.
“Should I have ground control have the paramedics on hand when we land?” he questioned.
She shook her head and wiped a few errant tears from her eyes. “I-I’m fine,” she lied. Her head hurt like hell and she was convinced regaining any sort of equilibrium would qualify as a miracle. However, her laughter kept rolling as she stumbled back toward the front of the plane.
“Maybe I should have the local psyche ward meet us with a straight jacket?”
His eyes twinkled again while his lone dimple made another dramatic appearance and Sydney’s stomach found room for one more knot to loop. “I may agree to that seeing how I let you talk me onto this flying death trap.”
She plopped unceremoniously back into her seat and strapped on her seatbelt.
Jett’s head rocked back with a hearty laugh and its sounds caused goose bumps to pimple her body.
“What do you say I make it up to you?”
“How do you make up for almost killing someone?”
His shoulders hiked while his smile spread wide. “Dinner?”
Sydney shook her head and emitted a soft chuckle. She struggled to be casual because dating had never been one of her strong suits. Men generally thought she was too rigid and too serious, which was probably true since all she ever talked about was the military and, of course, flying.
“Come on, I promise I won’t bite.”
She glanced over and had an idea of the temptation Eve endured in the Garden of Eden. Like her great foremother, Sydney felt herself weakening beneath his golden gaze.
“Of course if you’re afraid-”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
The intensity of Jett’s eyes nearly melted the clothes off her body. “No boyfriend. No husband. What’s wrong with you then?”
The question caught her off guard and she instantly grew defensive. “What makes you think there something wrong with me?”
“It’s obvious.” He chuckled with another hike to his shoulders. “A beautiful, intelligent woman like you should have easily hooked a husband by now. The only reason I can think this hasn’t happened is because you’re some kind of black widow.”
Sydney’s brows shot up on that one.
“You know, the kind that kills their prey.” Jett’s jiggled his eyebrows.
The plane jerked again.
“You should talk.”
The runway came into view and Jett informed the tower of their approach for landing. “So was that a ‘yes’,” he asked Sydney.
She hesitated again still uncertain and uncomfortable with her body’s mutinous response to him. As a military airman-or airwoman, she was unaccustomed to this feeling of being out of control. It scared...and thrilled her at the same time.
“You, me-dinner? What do you say?”
Don’t do it. “All right.” She drew a deep breath and gagged the little voice in her head. “It’s a date.”
Chapter 5
The excitement about his date with the very lovely Sydney Garrett waned the moment Jett turned down the street toward his childhood home. In its place a jittering anxiety thinned his breath and his hand tightened on the steering wheel.
He grew up in Atlanta but he never thought of the place as home. With no memory of his mother, his alcoholic and abusive father, Jett’s only small refuge was in his older brother, Xavier.
His brother couldn’t always save him, seeing he was also hailed as his father’s favorite. What Gerald Colton hadn’t counted on was that the moment his golden child turned eighteen, he would leave Georgia and never look back.
Jett, on the other hand, found himself returning frequently for more abuse. In the beginning, he came to prove to his father that he’d been wrong about him. That he wasn’t worthless. The plan never worked. Now, he didn’t know why he kept returning.
He was a successful and decorated fighter pilot after his tour ended in Iraq, he made sure that a third of his check was sent home-despite his suspicions that his father just drank through the money. No appreciation. No gratitude. No nothing.
And here he was ready for more abuse.
Jett drove up the cracked cemented driveway and cut off his car’s engine. Yet, he didn’t immediately climb out of the vehicle. Instead he continued to prepare himself for what awaited him this time.
Bethany Garrett opened her front door and gasped in surprise at seeing her daughter. “Sydney,” she squealed as she threw her arms out wide and embraced her youngest child. Her joy heightened at the rarity of seeing Sydney wearing a dress.
“Let me take a good look at you.” Bethany stepped back and fluttered a hand over her heart. More often than not, it seemed she and her late husband had two boys as opposed to a boy and a girl.
Sydney smiled as she performed a perfect pirouette. “I thought you might like this.” When she finished, she ran a hand through her roller-curled locks to point out that her hair was not swept back into its usual tight bun.
Her mother’s eyes glossed with tears. “Oh, my. How pretty you look. I’m almost afraid to ask what’s the occasion.”
“No occasion. I just wanted to surprise and invite you on a girl’s day out.”
Her mother’s eyes grew wider as she clapped her hands together. “Shopping? You’re actually going to go shopping with me?”
To Sydney, she looked like a little child who just been granted a Christmas wish. “Yeah, mom. I’m a woman for a day.” She placed a finger against her lips. “Shh. Don’t tell anybody.”
“Excuse me. Coming through,” Steven announced, shouldering his way into the house with Sydney’s bags.
“You knew that she was coming and kept it from me?” Bethany playfully slapped her son’s arm.
“Had to. I was threatened with bodily harm.” He leaned over and planted a kiss on his mother’s upturned cheek.
“In that case, I forgive you.”
Steven’s smile beamed before he bounded up the stairs to deliver Sydney’s luggage to her old bedroom.
Bethany laughed then grabbed hold of Sydney for another hug. “Ooh, why didn’t you call and tell me?” She pulled back and she removed her enormously large, floppy sunhat. “I’ve been digging out in the garden. I’ll need to shower, change and call your uncle-”
“Uncle Billy?” Sydney frowned, and then tried to remember when the last time she had actually spoken to her uncle. “Why do you have to call him?”
“He’s in town, too. On leave, he said.” Her mother rushed up the staircase with her hand still locked on Sydney’s wrist. It was almost as if she feared that if she let go, Sydney would vanish.
“If you already have other plans-”
“No plans.” Her mother tossed over her shoulder. “He and some pilot friend of his are gallivanting through town and I was actually in the middle of trying to beg them to come over for dinner-maybe catch the fireworks downtown. You know your uncle-he’s always too busy.”
Sydney smiled though she detected hurt in her mother’s voice. She also suspected that her Uncle Billy avoided the family for other reasons. Like he didn’t want to be around peopl
e who reminded him of his beloved brother—of what he lost.
“Well, we’re going have a great time shopping,” Sydney proclaimed though usually she found such outings a bore; but seeing how she had impulsively agreed to a date without having packed for such of an occasion, she needed to go.
“What we need to do is mark this day in history,” Steven said, coming out of her room. “You agreeing to date someone you haven’t performed a ten-point inspection on. It’s a miracle.
“A date?” Her mother perked and clapped her hands together. “I’m so...” She searched for a long time before coming up with the word, “proud.”
Sydney’s eyebrows clashed together. “Proud?”
Steven reeled with laughter.
“Shut up, Steven.”
Her mother shook her head and then slid an arm around Sydney’s shoulders. “Well, I’m just saying that you—you know, you don’t go on too many of those. Dates, I mean.”
Sydney patiently folded her arms. “For your information, Afghanistan isn’t exactly a single’s hotspot.”
“Yes, yes. You’re right dear.” Bethany stole another hug. “I’m sorry, baby. C’mon on in here while I get ready and you can tell me all about your new boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Blue Skies Page 3