by Jessa James
I heard the crackle of her smile, the brush of her cheek against the phone, and knew it was time to say goodbye.
“We’ll talk soon, princess. Good luck with the job. I wish you nothing but the best,” I told her in my best impersonation of a man whose heart wasn’t actually in shards on the floor.
Again, I heard her tiny intake of breath, a small sob, before she laughed and said, “Talk to you soon, City Boy.” We hung up and I walked back outside, down to the dock, and I stared out onto the water.
The lake, the trees, the mountains in the distance; they all seemed like a prison now. I felt the expanse of the space in front of me, felt the emptiness of the place beside me. I knew, even before my call with Anna, that my time in Alaska had ended. She had forced me back to life, woken up parts of me that had been dormant and hurting for too long. What I now understood was that I was in love with a tough-as-nails, independent, frustrating woman who was hell bent on living her dream. I loved Anna, I realized, because she followed her dreams out of Alaska, despite my best efforts to keep her here.
She had crafted her own life and stuck to it despite the obstacles in her path. What had I done when faced with obstacles? I had retreated into myself, to this place. I had hidden from reality, while Anna had run towards it. I turned my focus back to the cabin and decided that, while it had been a refuge for a while, it was not my reality any longer. My reality was Anna. The way her strawberry blonde hair smelled, the sound of her giggle against my neck, the fire in her eyes when we argued and talked trash. And her dreams and aspirations. All of those things were now part of my reality. I took a deep cleansing breath and stepped inside my cabin looking around, really seeing, for the first time.
Hell, there wasn’t even anything here worth the time to pack.
Chapter Eight
Anna
Two Months Later
I sat in the cockpit and attempted to organize the flight plan my copilot had just handed me. I noted that the flight was fairly short, just a quick jaunt over to Vancouver Island and back. The lights on the dashboard blinked comfortingly; a cockpit had always felt like home and this rig was no different. It was much nicer than my dad’s old floatplane, though. The joystick didn’t fall off when you pulled up, for starters. Just then, the air traffic controller crackled over my headphones and informed me that my cargo—two passengers and their luggage—were headed my way on the tarmac. We’d be all systems go in ten minutes or less.
Since I started my new job in Seattle, I had flown people, not cargo, to Vancouver Island, the San Juan Islands, and even more remote spots in Washington. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, but it was an amazing start.
I tallied up my flight count in my head. It wasn’t as demanding as “Anna Air” was back in Alaska. I no longer loaded and unloaded cargo all day. The plane I flew was only three years old, the seats were still soft leather and the vents didn’t rattle. My apartment was brand new, not a fifty year old house, complete with an indoor swimming pool, workout gym, and social events for singles on Friday nights. I bought a new car, too. She was small and cherry red. Nothing too wild, but she was all mine. I had several thousand in savings, and if this job worked out, I planned on flying to Europe the first vacation I could take. I wanted to go to France, see Paris and the Eiffel Tower and eat a croissant that melted on my tongue like flakes of butter.
I smiled at my own whimsy. I missed Jack. And when the other singles milled about down by the park, I surfed the travel websites and made my plans. It was the only way I could push down the ache in my heart caused by missing him.
After one last check of the command console, I stood in my crisp white shirt and pleated pants, hair pinned back behind my airline cap as I stared straight ahead in preparation, ready to greet my passengers.
As the first passenger came into view, I felt my heart as it thumped in my chest. The woman was tall, slender, with platinum white hair and a classic beauty about her. She smiled widely as she saw me, handed her bag to the ground crew, and reached over to hug me.
“Anna, my darling, you look just amazing!” she cooed as she pulled back to take me all in.
“M-Mrs. Simms, what are you doing here?” I finally managed to stutter out, jarred by the presence of Jack’s mother. I had only met her one other time, in Anchorage when she assigned me Jack’s delivery, but she was unmistakable. She had Jack’s Grecian features and his no-bullshit stare.
I knew I was being rude, especially as her pilot, but my brain couldn’t connect the dots. “Are you flying with us today?” I asked dumbly and immediately wanted to hit myself over the head.
“Oh, darling, did Jack not tell you? We’re headed to Vancouver Island to check up on one of his father’s investments. I assumed you knew when we had booked your airline! Silly Jack,” she whispered conspiratorially as she winked at me. Mrs. Simms walked to her seat ten feet away and sat down, clearly smug and satisfied with herself.
Just then, I heard heavier steps on the plank way just outside of view. Shit. I just knew it was Jack. I was tempted to hide in the cockpit before he boarded, and it was only my pain-in-the-ass copilot blocking the way that stopped me. I took a deep breath and gritted my teeth. I also smoothed my hair and the front of my blouse.
My heartbeat sped to an alarming rate as Jack’s shadow breached the hull of the plane and then he stepped into my line of sight. He was even more handsome now, in a beautifully cut suit with a briefcase in his masculine, rough hands. His hair had been trimmed but there was still an unmistakable, boyish wave. His brown eyes grazed up my body, then met mine.
We both stilled entirely; my face registered shock as his morphed into smug pleasure.
Jack took a step closer to me. In the small hull of the aircraft, he towered over me and blocked the aisle behind him.
“Hello, princess. Fancy seeing you here,” he drawled, and his smile broke free.
His megawatt smile hit me like a ton of bricks and I couldn’t help it; I smiled back. His brown eyes dropped to my smile, my lips, and then lower, to my breasts that had stood at attention the second he came through the door. Jack’s eyebrows quirked up in appreciation.
I rolled my eyes but before I could slap him, Jack took both my hands in his and brought them gently to his lips. “Anna, you look… amazing. Bush pilot looked good on you, but this…” he dropped off and gestured at the full length of me, appreciating my fitted shirt, slacks, and made-up face. I blushed and dipped my head down for a moment before the steel returned to my spine, and I asked, “What are you doing here?”
The copilot called to me and I was the first to glance away.
“Thanks for coming aboard, Mr. Simms. If you’ll take your seat, we can take off soon.”
I turned numbly towards the cockpit, unsure of my ability to fly a plane while dazed and Jack-drunk.
But Jack wouldn’t have it; his hands found my shoulders and he turned me to face him once again. “Anna, I didn’t come here to fly with you. I came here to see you. To tell you that I miss you, and that I’m back in Seattle,” he said, and he looked down at me with such intense emotion that my own eyes misted.
“What? I—” I started, but he cut me off.
“Just let me say this and then you can kick me off your plane,” he pleaded. He took my lack of response as permission and continued, “The day you left the cabin, I wanted to come after you. I should have come after you. But I assumed you’d come back. And you didn’t.” Here, I tried to interject but again, he silenced me. “Shh, princess, let me finish. I assumed you’d come back, but I was wrong. I assumed that you’d stay for me, but that was idiotic of me. I was selfish and thought that you’d change your whole life for me if we wanted things to work out. I didn’t give you enough credit,” he finished with a huge, heart-stopping grin, an apology etched all over his face.
“What do you mean?” I asked, totally perplexed. Credit for what?
Jack kissed the inside of my palm and moved a step closer to me before he said, “I thought yo
u didn’t mean it when you said you’d leave. I didn’t want to believe it. I hid in that cabin the second things got tough, but you fought for what you wanted and you went for it, even when you had a chance to take the easy way out.”
The blush returned full force as his praise warmed me from head-to-toe. Not even my dad telling me I was a great pilot made me feel so capable, so strong. I coughed as tears threatened the back of my throat; I would not cry on my own damn plane.
“Damn it, Jack, a phone call wouldn’t suffice?” I bit out as I blinked away moisture. My co-pilot shifted where he stood behind me, obviously listening, but I ignored him. This wasn’t about him, he could just wait.
Jack’s low chuckle rumbled in his chest as he stepped forward to fully embrace me. The second our chests met, the moment my head nestled under his, we both sighed. It was a contented, happy sound.
“When you left me at the cabin, I felt so alone. Like I didn’t know what to do or where to go, but I knew I didn’t belong there anymore. You lit a fire under my ass, princess. I worked the past couple of months on that startup I told you about, but I still felt lost. Like I didn’t have a place of refuge anymore, a place to call home. That’s why I left Seattle in the first place; it stopped feeling like home. But then I met you,” he finished and kissed the top if my pilot’s cap. He started kissing my forehead, my cheeks, and closed in on my mouth, as if that was the end of the conversation. I pulled back, confused.
“What does meeting me have to do with finding a home?” I asked as I leaned back and met his gaze full-on.
Jack smiled sweetly at me, color flushed his face. “You are my home, Anna. Wherever you are, that’s home.”
I stopped breathing as tears flooded my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. “I thought you didn’t want anything serious, I thought we were just—” I broke off and buried my face in his chest.
“Anna, no, we weren’t just anything. I was an idiot and, honestly, so were you,” he added with a laugh and managed to dodge my sucker punch. “But we were destined to be more, don’t you think?”
The raw look in his eyes as his forehead met mine undid me. I kissed him for all I was worth and forgot for a moment that I was a pilot on a plane, that the air traffic controller was talking in my headset.
I just kissed the man I loved with all I was worth... and it felt like home.
Epilogue
Anna
Four Years Later
We sat on the edge of the lawn in our freshly-stained Adirondack chairs as the sun set behind the tree line. We roasted marshmallows, one for Julianne and one for Aaron, both of whom were too small to handle the fiery sticks themselves. Soon, we were all covered in the sticky goo from our S’mores and we laughed as Aaron, who was two and half, smeared chocolate into his hair. Jack sat on the chair with me in his lap, one of his arms banded about my waist.
The summer ended too fast, it seemed, and we were headed back to Seattle in the morning. After we got married and had Julianne, we started spending time at Jack’s old cabin south of Anchorage. I flew us there, of course. Once Aaron came along, we spent full summers at the cabin and soaked up the Alaskan wilderness with our two crazy kids. Jack and I, rejuvenated by memories of our first weekend together, had tried for a third child during our stays. So far no luck, but we both agreed it was good practice.
After we wiped small fingers clean of marshmallow and cracker crumbs, the kids ran off to the porch and grabbed their moth nets. While they tried and failed to catch the moths that flew around the lampposts, Jack and I kissed each other gently in the firelight. The heat and passion of those first days had yet to dwindle with the passing years, and the cabin always stirred those embers up again. As one of Jack’s hands grazed the curve of my ass and the other reached to caress my nipple, I giggled against his lips.
“Jack, the kids…” I admonished.
He turned to face the kids and shouted, “Hey kids, I’m going to kiss Mommy so don’t come over here, okay?”
My jaw dropped but the kids, unfazed, just shrieked, “Ew! Gross!” and continued to play their game.
“Jack, you can’t do th—” I tried to yell, but he just kissed me harder and I stopped talking. His kiss could always shut me up and he knew it. Even after the past four years, he still turned me on and drove me crazy.
Jack broke our kiss abruptly and asked, “Can we go to bed now, princess?”
I knew he didn’t mean to sleep, so I nodded and bit my lip. We held hands as we walked up to the cabin, the kids entranced by the flying moths.
“Time for bed,” Jack directed and they both whined, as kids do. But they trundled into the house, down the hall, and into their bunk beds, which now took up the space that was once Jack’s study. We kissed our children goodnight, and Jack’s hand grazed my back sensually as I bent to tuck Aaron in tighter.
With the light turned down, we closed the door and padded to our master bedroom, Jack’s hands already roaming under my shirt. I leaned against him as we shut the door, excited for a final night together in our cabin.
“I love you, princess,” Jack whispered against the curve of my neck, and I moaned in appreciation.
“I love you, too, City Boy,” I responded and was rewarded with his low belly laugh.
We fell into bed together, laughter on our lips and so much love between us.
Books by Jessa James
The Buchanan Billionaires
Lip Service: A Bad Boy Romance
Lumberjacked
Rock Star Romance
Rock Me
About the Author
Jessa James grew up on the East Coast but always suffered a severe case of wanderlust. She’s lived in six states, had a variety of jobs and always comes back to her first true love – writing. Jessa works full time as a writer, eats too much dark chocolate, has an iced-coffee and Cheetos addiction, and can’t get enough of sexy alpha males who know exactly what they want – and aren’t afraid to say it. Dominant, alpha-male insta-luv is her favorite to read (and write).
Sign up HERE for Jessa’s Newsletter
http://bit.ly/JessaJames