by Linda Kage
The only sound that followed was the free wind, whistling through the cracks of the aircraft.
His eyes went wide. “Oh, my God.”
“No, it’s okay,” she assured, her voice calm as she held the throttle, nice and steady. “It’s okay. I’ve got it. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. We’re still going to make it.”
He managed a nod but looked green around the gills. Not that she blamed him. He probably wouldn’t believe her until they actually touched ground.
It wasn’t the smoothest landing she’d ever made, but with shaking hands and no help from her plane, she thought she did damn fine. By the time they stopped skipping down the runway and were slowed to a stop, Grady had his seatbelt off and looked like he was going to leap from the plane and kiss the tarmac. But he stayed rooted to his seat, both hands wrapped firmly around the edge of his thighs as if they might have to be surgically removed.
B.J. tugged off her headphones and undid her safety harness. “You okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah. You?”
“I’m good,” she said, then let out a whoop of triumph. “God damn!” She leapt across the cockpit and right into his lap. Grady jerked in surprise as she threw her arms around his neck and gave him a brief but hard victory kiss on the mouth.
When she pulled away, she grinned and let out a breath. “Was that great, or what? Oh yeah! It feels good to be alive.”
Ignoring the stunned look on his face, she shimmied off him and threw open the door, already hopping out.
Her father and all three brothers barreled toward her. As soon as her two feet hit the runway, she hurried to meet them, aiming straight for Leroy.
“You could’ve gotten us killed, you jackass,” she snarled, her fists already clenching.
“What?” he said. “You landed just fine.”
Growling, she wound her arm back and decked him full in the mouth, causing his head to snap back.
He cursed and covered his face with both hands. Red immediately seeped through the cracks between his fingers.
Feeling no remorse, B.J. raged, “Next time you’re not going to do something I ask you to, tell me so I can goddamn do it myself.”
“Next time, just do it yourself.” Leroy muttered, wiping blood out of his nose. He took a step toward her, his own hand balling. B.J. widened her stance and braced herself, in the mood to fight.
But Rudy caught her around the waist and pulled her away just as Buck put a hand on Leroy’s chest and stopped him midstep.
“Cut it out, you two,” Pop bellowed.
“She hit me first,” Leroy said, scowling around Buck’s shoulder at her.
“And you deserved it,” Pop stated, getting a defiant sneer for his comment.
B.J. was about to smart back something else to set Leroy off even more when she finally noticed Grady exiting the plane with his bag in tow.
She paused and turned. Still pale as all get out, he hobbled past them. Her innards lurched with guilt.
“You sure you’re okay?” she said, moving toward him.
“I’m fine,” he said and held up a hand as if to ward her off.
“Grady.” Pop stepped forward, yanking off his ball cap and holding it to his chest. “On behalf of the Gilmore plane service, I apologize for all this trouble. If you’ll just follow me to the hangar, I’ll write you out a refund right now.”
B.J. gulped, suddenly remembering he was a customer, and she’d just gravely mistreated her customer. Damn, he could sue her if he wanted, and not just for almost getting him killed, but probably for sexual harassment too. Shit.
But Grady shook his head. “No. . .just. . .just send it through the mail.”
He began to turn away when Leroy opened his dumb mouth. “Hey, you ain’t going to sue us now, are you?”
B.J. tensed and held her breath. She noticed her brothers and father doing the same.
Grady glanced around to glare at Leroy, and she was sure that was it. They were going out of business from one lawsuit. But Grady’s eyes flickered her way, silently studying her. “No, I’m not going to sue you. I just want to be left alone.”
He pivoted and strode away. Still feeling crappy for the way she’d treated him, B.J.’s shoulders deflated. This just wasn’t his week. And it was all her fault. Realizing the best thing she could do for him was leave him alone, she stood back helplessly and watched him leave.
Chapter Six
Grady waited two weeks after that near-fatal flight home before he visited the cemetery. With him, he brought a handful of Amy’s favorite flowers.
He’d played the Houston trip over in his mind a thousand times. There were so many things he could’ve done differently, should’ve done differently. He wasn’t proud of himself, and he wasn’t satisfied with how things had turned out. B.J. might’ve pressured him into doing something he hadn’t felt ready for, but he’d done it under his own free will and even instigated a good portion of it. He didn’t need to feel any kind of anger toward her for that.
But he did.
Then she’d turned around and saved his life the next morning, keeping her head under pressure and landing them safely. If she’d kissed him a second longer after landing, he would’ve overcome his shock and kissed her back. Hell, he probably would’ve taken her right there in the cockpit. And it wouldn’t have had anything to do with gratitude either.
“I guess you already know what I did,” he said without preamble, setting the irises at the base of his wife’s marker and kneeling down to sit on the grass beside the bouquet.
He gave a small laugh as he looked at his hands. “Yeah, you always knew what I did, usually before I was even going to do it.” Grinning, he lifted his face and stared at the name of his wife on the gravestone. “Remember when I proposed? You were holding out your hand for the ring before I’d even gotten down on one knee.”
Grady smiled for a good three seconds before his face fell and his muscles tensed in misery. Dropping his gaze from the name that always caused him heartache, he caught sight of a weed and pulled it up. Amy didn’t deserve weeds growing over her dead body.
“The funny thing is,” he confessed as he reached for another, “I didn’t feel guilty. Not during, anyway.”
Tossing the weed away from Amy’s plot, he lifted his face toward the bright day and squinted at the sunlight. For some reason, he wondered if B.J. was up there somewhere, cruising through the clouds in that death trap of hers. God, he hoped she’d fixed the fuel line.
Jerking his gaze guiltily from the sky, he turned back to Amy’s name.
“I always thought it’d feel different than this. I thought, I don’t know. . .I just assumed I’d think of you the whole time. . .that’d I have to close my eyes and pretend it was your lips I was kissing, your body I was touching.”
He shook his head and lowered his gaze, ashamed. “But I didn’t even remember you. Not till afterward.” Letting out a long sigh, he closed his eyes and confessed, “And that’s when the guilt finally came.
“I know I didn’t betray you,” he said after a moment of silence. “You’d want me to move on. And I know you’d even approve of the woman. You always liked. . .” He couldn’t say her name aloud, so he settled with, “her. But, God, I don’t know, Amy.”
Pausing, he wondered why he was confessing all this to someone who couldn’t hear him. Probably because she couldn’t hear him, he decided.
“I feel bad because I didn’t picture you at all through any of it. I didn’t think of how you—hell, I wasn’t thinking at all. And that’s not me. You know that’s not me. As soon as she touched me, my mind just shut down. I lost control of myself like I’d never lost control before. I just. . .I had to have her. . .right then.”
He winced when he whispered, “That never happened with you. I think that’s what bothers me most. I experienced something strong and intense with someone else and. . .it should’ve been you.”
He cradled his head in his hands. “I’m not sure what I’m trying
to say. I guess, I’m sorry. I’m all tore up because I felt something. . .something amazing, and it wasn’t because of you. You had nothing to do with it. Well, okay, it all started because we were fighting about you, but. . .as soon as the clothes came off, you were completely erased from my mind. I was so mad and desperate I would’ve done anything to get inside her. And I can’t even say it was just about sex. It was her.
“I hate to admit this, but if you’d walked into the room at that moment, I still would’ve wanted her.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “That’s what has me feeling so crappy. I wanted a person. . .a specific woman, not just some warm body to fill the space you left. For the first time in two and half years, it wasn’t about you.
“Yeah. If you were here now, you’d be giving me a lecture, I know. You’d be happy I made a big step with moving on. . .and you’d be mad because I haven’t called her.”
He shut his eyes and rested his back against the gravestone. “I know I should call or go see her. . .or something. I’m not a one-night stand kind of person, and I’m not going to be. But damn it, Amy, I’m scared to death. That woman intimidates me. She makes me want things, feel things. . .things I never felt or wanted with you. I lose my head when I’m around her, and I don’t know how to deal with that. You always let me be my logical self, go my slow, methodical pace. She doesn’t. I can’t talk to her or look at her. I’m just. . .I’m not ready yet.”
Nothing answered his troubled report but a light breeze that sifted through his hair. He smiled lightly, keeping his eyes closed, and imagined it was Amy’s fingers. But then he frowned. He couldn’t remember what his wife’s touch felt like. Instead, he remembered a brown-haired wildcat who cursed like a sailor when she came apart in his arms. Frowning, he fisted his hands in the grass and wished for things that could never happen.
He wanted his wife back. He wanted his safe, comfortable, predictable Amy. He wanted to shred her tombstone with his bare hands and dig out her body so he could grab her by the shoulders and shake her back to life if for no other reason than to just talk to her.
He and Amy had been inseparable since their freshman year of high school when they’d first started dating. Not only had the woman become his wife and lover, but she was the best friend he’d ever had. They’d talked about and shared everything.
If Amy were here, she’d know what to do concerning B.J. She’d be honest and tell him how to handle everything. But then, if Amy were here and still alive, there’d be no issue with the tomboy to resolve.
That thought caused his breath to hitch in his chest.
As much as he regretted ever being with smart-mouthed B.J. Gilmore, he still relished those few minutes they’d shared in her hotel room. At the twinge of guilt rippling through him, he lifted his hand to the center of his chest and rubbed, because the pain was actually physical. The agony ate at him, and he couldn’t deny the truth.
No matter how much he missed his wife and wanted her back, deep down, he was secretly glad she’d been out of the way so he could experience a taste of B.J., because nothing had ever been as good as sliding inside her. Those few minutes she’d wrapped her legs around him had been hotter than all the years he’d spent with Amy.
Lowering his head, he buried his face in his hands and shuddered. “I’m so sorry.”
****
Three weeks after sleeping with Grady, B.J. still felt awful about what she’d done. She figured she should do something to show her regret, make it up to him somehow. But she’d already apologized, and that was a record for her. Besides, she never saw the man much anyway. Maybe she should just leave it alone and forget it had happened. . .except she would dream about their time together and wake in the middle of the night, aching.
She’d flop on her back and curse at the ceiling. There definitely had to be something wrong with her if she got off on making good men like Grady Rawlings suffer.
So, she tried to ignore the situation and act like it wasn’t happening. That didn’t work either. Though they lived in the same small community, they usually didn’t spot hide nor hair of each other for months at a time. But B.J. knew she was cursed when she saw him three times in that third week. The first instance, she’d seen him retreating as she’d stepped from the post office. He’d hightailed it out of there like he’d seen her inside and was escaping before they could cross paths.
Since he was trying the whole evade-and-ignore remedy, she did the identical thing back to him the second time around. She’d been about to go into the hardware store to order new parts for her airplane when she saw him standing at the checkout counter, getting something for his oil rigs, no doubt. Screeching to a halt, she immediately changed course and darted around a corner, lurking there until she saw him leave the store and cross the street.
The third time, however, she wasn’t so lucky and couldn’t avoid a. . .collision of sorts. She was in the diner, chowing down on some breakfast, when she caught sight of him through the window striding toward the entrance. Eyes going wide, she deserted her bacon and eggs and flew out of her stall. He was almost to the café, and there was no way she could leave without bumping into him, so she ducked around the corner, fully intent on hiding in the hallway to the bathrooms until he left.
She knew exactly when he entered, because the air in the building changed. Not only did the bell above the door ding announcing a new arrival, but all talk fell dead, and even the clinking of silverware paused.
Sal, the waitress, was finally kind enough to say, “Well, howdy there, Grady. What can I get you today?”
B.J. made a growling face, wanting to defend him. No wonder the poor guy had reverted into himself, turning all quiet and solitary. Everyone treated him like a freak. Don’t go near that Grady Rawlings. Widowhood might be contagious.
She frowned and then clenched her teeth when she heard him go and order a full meal. Damn, she mouthed. She’d have to hide until he was done. Sal would probably clear her breakfast away and complain about her dining and dashing.
But B.J. didn’t care. She was prepared to stay right where she was for as long as it took. Until Ralphie Smardo ruined it all.
The brainless doofus opened his big trap and started talking. He’d come into the café about the same time as her, and he’d gone to sit at the counter with a couple of other bachelors. And as soon as he sat down, he immediately started complaining about his old lady.
The boy was all bent out of shape because he and Nan were having trouble in the bedroom. According to him, she was bored, claiming he wasn’t fun and adventuresome.
“Now, I can be just as adventurous as the next guy,” he whined.
From her hiding spot, B.J. rolled her eyes. If Ralphie’s form of adventuresome was grunting out, “Hold onto somethin’,” for foreplay then, sure, he was one wild boy.
“Why, just a couple years ago, B.J. and I. . .”
In the hallway, B.J. froze and felt the blood drain from her head. What the hell? Why was he mentioning her name in the middle of his sexual exploits? If he splurged a single detail about their one time together, she was going to murder him slowly and painfully.
Straining to hear what he was going to blab about her, she jumped when he hollered, “Hey, B.J.!”
She closed her eyes and then covered them for good measure.
“Where’d she go?” she heard Ralphie say. “I coulda swore she came in here the same time I did.”
B.J. shook her head sadly. Yep, she was going to kill him.
“I think she headed toward the john a few minutes ago,” Sal answered.
B.J. sank further into the shadows of the hall. But it didn’t help, because suddenly there was Ralphie poking his big, dumb head around the corner.
“Hey, B.J.,” he hollered.
“What?” she snapped and gritted her teeth as she moved out of the hallway, brushing past him and storming back to her booth where, thank God, her breakfast still sat waiting.
Grady was at the bar with a coffee
cup steaming in front of him. He turned slightly and regarded her with a shuttered gaze. She paused as their eyes met.
She wondered what he was thinking of her, realizing she’d been with Ralphie. As shame filled her, she turned away and slid into her seat. She commenced to ignore him and tried to ignore Ralphie too, but the idiotic man just kept on.
He fell into the seat across from hers. “You remember when we went skinny dipping that one night, right?”
B.J. had just picked up her fork, but at his words she stopped in her tracks, the utensil paused halfway between her mouth and plate.
“What the hell,” she said.
“Now tell me that wasn’t fun and adventurous, huh?” he encouraged with a goofy grin.
She could only gape in disbelief.
“Ralphie,” she sputtered. “You. . .you stupid oaf! Nan’s going to skin you alive if you go announcing to everyone in the goddamn diner you went skinny dipping with someone else.”
Ralphie blinked in confusion. “But. . .but that happened way before me and her got together. Hell, it was years ago.”
“So why did you even—”
She broke off, unable to believe the dumbass. How dare he announce to the entire place she’d had a weak moment and gotten kinky with him once? And with Grady present too. Not that she cared what Grady thought, but damn it, she did care. She didn’t want him to think she was. . . Lord, she didn’t care. Let him think what he wanted. It didn’t matter.
“Jesus, Ralphie,” she snapped and threw down her fork. After getting to her feet, she dug into her wallet and tossed down a load of bills. “Don’t go bragging about someone else and expect Nan to be fine with that. I don’t care if it was five years ago or five days ago.”
Ralphie looked worried now. “Y-you really think she’ll be upset?” He bumbled to his feet as well, crowding her with an anxious look.
B.J. lifted an eyebrow and set her hands on her hips. “Did you take lessons to be a moron, or does it just come naturally?”
She pushed by him and stormed angrily from the diner.
****
It only took Ralphie an hour to show up at the hangar. B.J. had her Cessna sitting out in the sun where she had a side hood lifted to expose the engine. After almost crashing, she’d been going through and checking everything. After replacing the torn gas line, she’d installed a few other items needing replaced. Stuff she’d been thinking about fixing someday was suddenly top priority, and B.J. was giving her skywagon the spit and polish overhaul.