Therefore, the corporate jet option with only forty-five minutes of actual flight time seemed like a natural fit.
Except.
The whole hating to fly thing. She didn’t have a fear of flying, per se. She just happened to hate doing it because it was scary. Call that whatever you’d like.
She took in Travis. He dressed remarkably fancy for the flight. Her mouth went dry.
Had she ever seen him in pressed slacks before? Truly, she couldn’t say she had. And a button-up white shirt? Travis knew how to do buttons. That was good to know.
He looked…okay, well, the first word that came to mind was yummy. But she nixed that thought and went with professional. He looked professional.
“I’m a great pilot.” Travis cracked a smile, the charming one that stretched his lips and showed a pop of teeth and probably got most women in his vicinity to drop to their knees and start unbuckling his pressed slacks for him.
Gah, she was not allowed to think things like that. Bad Rachel.
Also…wait.
“You’re not the pilot,” she declared.
Travis was not a pilot. He didn’t even play one on television, as far as she knew. Unless he had some secret life she didn’t know about.
That was totally possible.
“I am a pilot, and I’m today’s pilot,” he said with the confidence of an actual pilot.
Rachel started to step backward but stopped herself, instead turning toward Travis the pilot. “I didn’t agree to this.”
“Rach, it’s fine. I fly this bird all the time.” He gestured to the aircraft.
Oh, hell no. Not Travis. Anyone but Travis. She preferred her pilots to understand the significance of flight in a metal box.
“Why didn’t I know you’re a p-pilot?” she asked…stammered…whatever.
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know,” he said, and his words sounded remorseful.
She wasn’t going to evaluate that remorse further than the basic acknowledgment of its existence.
“I have no doubt,” she said. He could be the bestest best pilot in the world, but it didn’t change the way her lungs seemed to fill with fluid at the thought of being in the air with him at the helm.
There was something about knowing the pilot of the plane you were going up in, several tens of thousands of feet in the air, had stopped attending his college classes because he preferred taking body shots off co-eds at the campus pub.
“Hey.” He stepped forward, studying her face. “If you’d prefer to drive, we can take the boys and the dogs and meet you there.”
Her boys? On this plane? Without her?
Hell. No.
His assurance did nothing to assuage the plummeting feeling in her body about the fact that Travis was piloting this beast of a plane.
“The boys can’t go up without me.” And just like that she got lightheaded again.
“They’ll arrive in one piece,” Travis had the creases between his eyebrows again. This time, though, his gaze was soft. Like a caress. Like he cared.
Ugh. This was Travis. Travis did not get to stroke her with a gaze.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.” She swallowed. That was mostly the truth. She trusted him to drive her kids to the park or take them to Empower Field at Mile High. “It’s just that I prefer the pilot in command of my children’s futures not be—”
Him.
“Me?” he asked.
She said nothing. Sometimes it was the best choice.
“I decided somethin’,” he said. Well, mostly, he drawled.
“What’s that?”
“You’re going to be my copilot.” Travis nudged her arm with his own.
Not freaking likely. That was a no from her.
She stared at the plane—a metal flying box of anxiety made only of sheet metal, bolts, and jet fuel.
Travis stared at it with that caressing gaze, like it was to be cared for and revered. Cherished. Polished.
“No,” she said. “And please tell me you have a copilot with the appropriate credentials.”
He didn’t respond. He just asked, instead, “Can I tell you the best thing about you being my copilot?”
She didn’t really think he was asking, though. More like he was going to do what he wanted.
“We both know you’re going to say it, so you might as well get it over with,” she mumbled. He was like his mother that way.
“If you’re my copilot, then I’ll be your copilot,” he said, turning that gaze back on her, letting it lightly graze over her skin, the fine hairs along her arm seeming to stand right up and take notice. Sheesh, it was like her body thought he’d brought her margaritas again.
Maybe Molly was right. Maybe Rachel needed to get laid. Good God, not by Travis and his caressy-caress looks, because that would apparently rip the seam of the family structure irrevocably, but there had to be a male in the Twin Lakes region of Colorado who might be interested in a booty call.
She’d figure out a strategy if they landed. Once. Once they landed.
Like a good pilot, a one-night stand should be someone you didn’t know outside of the situation.
Although…in rolling that thought around her brain…the last time she’d done that she’d ended up with a set of twins and a man who had a penchant for disappearing from his fatherly duties more often than not.
“Let’s just let the licensed pilot fly the plane.” Forcing her feet one in front of the other, she stepped up the staircase and into the cabin.
Two balls of fur barreled into her.
“Crates,” she said, the word shrill. “They have to stay in their crates on the flight.”
“They don’t like their crates.” Kellan caught Pete around his neck and lifted him against his chest. “Meemaw said it’s fine.”
Rachel chanced a glance at their grandmother. Evelyn raised a thin, penciled eyebrow at her. It didn’t raise very much because of the filler she used in her forehead creases.
Rachel didn’t judge; she had every intention of Botoxing the shit out of her face once her wrinkles got deep enough. Though, Kaiya’s products were helping to delay the process.
“The dogs won’t hurt anything,” Evelyn assured.
Except, they’d probably defecate on the pristine leather chairs, chew the armrests, run into the cockpit and force the plane into an emergency landing. An emergency landing of the hard variety that might even involve flames. Which meant…
“They need to go in their crates, please and thank you.” Rachel leveled Kellan with her don’t-mess-with-me-about-it stare. He took note, working with his brother to get the dogs back in their cages.
Dave secured the cabin as Travis made his way to the cockpit, a small metal clipboard in his hand, aviator sunglasses wrecking his otherwise perfect black hair. Even though the guy was definitely not a superhero, he had a bit of the Clark Kent vibe right then.
“What do you think, boys? I’m trying to convince your mom to copilot.” He focused on her boys, doing an abbreviated round of roughhousing with them that did nothing to allay her worry over the flight. She closed her eyes and mentally checked the list of items she’d needed to pack, ticking each off one by one in her head.
If this didn’t work, she’d grab her phone and earbuds for the meditation app April recommended. Rachel used it sometimes when she got really nervous. Fine. She used it once. There wasn’t a lot of time for meditation apps lately, what with the full-time parenting, impromptu family vacation for the summer, and a full client load.
“Mom, you have to do it.” Kellan pulled her eyelids open with his thumbs and absolutely no regard for her personal space or mental stability.
“As I explained to your uncle, I want to make it to Twin Lakes in one piece,” she said. “I went to business school, not flight school.”
C
ome to think of it, she was pretty sure Travis had gone to business school, too. That thought made bile rise up a little in her throat because he was going to be piloting the aircraft, it seemed. Although, no one else questioned his credentials.
“It’ll be so cool,” Brady announced. “Then we can tell Dad you aren’t scared of flying anymore.”
The cabin went silent. Too silent.
“You’re scared of flying?” Evelyn asked. “Gavin never told me that.”
“I don’t think Gavin tells you a lot of things.” Rachel forced herself to smile but it felt weak. “Let’s leave the piloting to those with training. My experience with playing X-Plane with the boys never ends well for my virtual passengers.”
“You play X-Plane?” Travis asked.
“She’s super bad at it,” Brady announced, substantially louder than necessary.
Could the seat just open up and swallow her until they got to the lake house?
“Sometimes being a copilot is rewarding,” Travis said, but it felt like he was talking about a lot more than the flight to Twin Lakes.
He could just go on talking about rewards and she’d just go on pretending that she didn’t know him.
Kellan somehow managed to wear his seat belt and still get up on his knees in the seat beside her. Rachel immediately adjusted the strap to prevent so much freedom.
“I know myself,” she said. “Therefore, I do not trust myself to fly anything larger than a kite.”
The edges of Travis’s mouth twitched. “Fair enough.”
“That’s it?” Rachel asked.
Because with Travis that was never it.
Travis shrugged. “I’m not going to force you to do somethin’ you don’t want to do. I’ll just give you a little crap about it and move on.”
“I wanna sit in the cockpit.” Brady bounced in his seat, raising his hand like he was volunteering for the first round of chocolate cake instead of sitting in one of the first seats to go down in a crash.
Absolutely not. She opened her mouth to figure out a way to say that without breaking the kid’s heart. “I don’t—”
“He loves airplanes,” Kellan declared. “He never stalls on X-Plane like you do.”
“This plane is a Gulfstream G550,” Brady said, still bouncing even though the seat belt remained clipped across his lap. “It has dual Rolls-Royce engines, but not the Tays. Those were phased out after the g-four.”
Airplanes? For real? That was going to be his thing?
No. This was a phase. That’s it.
He could just like soccer or join the math club. A hobby that wouldn’t kill him. Fractions never killed anyone.
Rachel’s mouth parted as her son continued—
“This plane can go up to fifty-one thousand feet, but we won’t go that high, since we’re not going too far. Twin Lakes is close.” He leaned back in the chair, kicking his feet against the edge. “I hope Uncle Travis will take me someplace farther someday, so we can go higher.”
Rachel glanced at Bob and Evelyn, whose expressions of shock must’ve mirrored her own because, apparently, her son was an aviation savant and she never—literally never—suspected it.
Yes, he loved flight simulators, but they were video games, and he seemed to be an equal opportunity video game enthusiast.
She flipped through the memories she had of his games, searching for whatever she’d missed.
“What else do you know about airplanes?” Travis asked, resting his arm against the back of Brady’s chair. Nonchalant, like this was not a big deal.
“I know lots.” Brady shrugged, still kicking his feet against the edge of the chair. “What do you want to know?”
“What else do you have in your noggin’ about the trip today?” Travis asked.
“The airport we’re landing at is the highest commercial airport in North America,” Brady replied immediately. “The approach is one of the hardest to manage, but you did it last year without any problem, so I think we’ll be fine.”
Hold the phone, Travis flew them last year and Gavin knew about it? He’d have had to because he was on the plane.
Travis grinned at Brady. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Seriously, about that…
Brady scrunched his face. “I probably shouldn’t have said that in front of Mom. She gets weird about aviation.”
“I don’t get weird about it,” Rachel said before thinking. Brady raised his eyebrows at her in a move that reminded her remarkably of his uncle. She shook away the thought. “I just don’t care for flying. Like you don’t like cauliflower.”
“You don’t need cauliflower to get from one place to the next,” Kellan chimed in. “You don’t need cauliflower for anything.”
“Preach it, kid.” Dave headed toward the cockpit, and was he about to do what she thought he was about to do?
Rachel’s stomach plummeted and hit her toes like a super hard landing. “Is Dave the copilot?”
“He is,” Travis replied.
Rachel grabbed Travis’s arm. “Is he qualified?” she asked, ready to grab her kids and dogs and get off the plane altogether.
Travis extracted her fingers from his forearm. “He is.”
Rachel bit at her bottom lip. Hard. “Are you sure?”
“I signed off on his license, so I’m pretty confident in his abilities.”
“You can do that?” She gripped her purse to her chest instead of grabbing Travis again. “Sign off on other pilots? Is that a thing? One pilot just says another is good enough and on they go?”
That seemed like a remarkably bad idea.
This, right here, was why she didn’t like flying.
“I’m a flight instructor.” Travis kneeled so they were eye to eye. He spoke calmly, like she would if she was explaining to her children that cauliflower wouldn’t murder them in their sleep.
“I thought you worked at Puffle Yum,” she said.
“I do that, too.”
Oh.
“The flying is more of a hobby, but it comes in handy.” He patted her knee. Patted it. Like he touched it in front of his mother.
She was pretty sure she heard Evelyn growl.
“And you’re good?” she asked. “A good pilot and instructor and all of that?”
“So I’m told,” he replied, confident and cocky.
She swallowed the uncertainty that had wiggled its way into her throat.
“Rach?” Travis asked, tilting his head toward the front of the plane. “Can I talk to you alone for a second? About Brady?”
She nodded, standing on wobbly knees. She set her purse in her seat.
Her eyes caught Evelyn’s and Bob’s as she passed. Bob winked. The man had charm—gobs of it that each of his children had inherited.
Evelyn pursed her lips and mimed tearing a thread from her sleeve.
Rachel followed Travis to the cockpit where Dave sat in the seat to the right.
Travis set the metal clipboard on the console next to the seat on the left before turning to Rachel. They were so close. Really close. Practically touching close. Too close.
She tried to step backward, but the closed door stopped her.
Who closed the door?
Travis’s eyes dimmed at her movement. She did her best to ignore it.
“Do you mind if Brady hangs out up here with us during the flight?” Travis jerked his chin toward the jump seat.
“Yes.” She nodded. “I mean, I mind.”
She did. He was eight. What if he touched something?
He should stay in the cabin with her and the rest of the family and leave the piloting to the actual…pilots. Or whatever these guys were.
Travis’s jaw ticked, but he didn’t say anything more.
“I’ll watch out for him,” Dave said, not looking up from w
hatever he was doing with his own metal clipboard. “Once we’re in the air, Travis can handle the bird on his own.”
“I can handle the bird on my own before we’re in the air,” Travis said.
“If you’d feel more comfortable, he can come in after takeoff and go back to the cabin before we land,” Dave suggested, not acknowledging Travis’s comment. “Gotta be honest, though, those are the best parts of the flight.”
He looked up at her, then, and something in her expression made his lips turn down. “I guess that’s only if you like to fly.”
One could say that. She bit at her bottom lip, glancing between the two of them.
“Rach,” Travis said, his tone entirely too serious. “The kid clearly loves airplanes. Let him have the chance to see what it’s all about up here.”
No. Just no.
“Please,” he added, before she could say anything.
“I’m sorry, I’m not comfortable with this,” she said, her tone the one she used when she was through negotiating with her kids and it was time to move on to the next subject.
Dave and Travis shared a look that she was not going to read further into because if she did, she’d probably take her kids and their dogs and stay on the ground in Denver forever.
Instead, she turned to leave, pulling on the door.
It didn’t open.
She pulled harder.
Still didn’t open.
Harder.
Still nope.
Her heart rate was spiking, and where the fucking hell was April with her meditation app when Rachel needed it?
Before she could kick the damn thing, Travis was behind her, his chest to her back and his scent surrounding her and making her stomach do the unacceptable flippy thing it did sometimes when he was there. He reached around her shoulder and pushed the door open.
Push. Not pull.
Good to know.
Not that she’d need to know because she had no intention of coming back into the cockpit again.
“Rach,” Travis said, low enough so only she could hear.
She turned and, hoo boy, he was really right there, just ready to rip at the seams of his family structure.
She started to step back, but he beat her to it.
“I know you’re not comfortable with the plane, but I’ll keep your family safe.”
Rachel, Out of Office Page 11