by Jill Shalvis
And he had a plane full of people waiting on him. “But I—”
Another compressor joined the first. More hammering. And a new whine of a power tool upped the volume to beyond loud.
“Yes?” She smiled at him, an angelic, sexy smile in complete contrast with their annoying, overwhelming surroundings.
Tell her. “I…” Tell her now, that her first instincts were right, he wasn’t Mr. Perfect, and never would be. He wasn’t a man she could bank on, didn’t want to be a man she could bank on.
“Bryan?” she yelled.
Oh, that sweet smile. “I…”
“You…” she shouted encouragingly.
“Katie…I…” Damn. “I love you,” he yelled at the top of his lungs, just as by a twist of fate, maybe his own Christmas curse, the compressors and all the banging abruptly stopped.
So did his heart as those three huge terrifying words rang out in the silent, stunned, amused, filled hangar.
Applause rang out. So did whistles and catcalls.
“Woo-hoo!”
“You go, boy!”
“Bryan and Katie sitting in a tree,” sang a group of mechanics. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”
Bryan stood there, rooted by shock.
He dared a peek at Katie, prepared to face her laughter, as well. But she wasn’t laughing, she was staring at him, agog, as if she’d swallowed a toad.
Given the blockage in his own windpipe, he knew the feeling.
“You…what?” she whispered.
Oh, sure, now they could whisper. “Nothing,” he said quickly. “I didn’t say anything.”
She didn’t believe him, of course. And then she walked away, and with each step she took, his poor overwrought heart constricted.
12
WHEN KATIE TURNED on her heel and walked across the hangar toward the only chair she could see, she wasn’t exactly thinking. She couldn’t. The ringing in her ears and the pounding of her pulse took over.
Driven by a need to sit before she fell, she sank to the seat and closed her eyes.
“Katie.”
He had the most wonderful voice, it should be illegal to have a voice like that. He also had the most wonderful scent, a warm, sexy male sort of scent.
That should be illegal, too.
“Hey! Are there going to be wedding bells?” one of the men called out. “Because I think we could do the wedding right here, right in the hangar.”
“Yeah! We could part the planes to make an aisle,” someone else called out.
“And we could throw O-rings instead of rice!” came yet another brilliant suggestion.
“Touching,” Holly said. “Every girl’s dream, right Katie?”
Bryan groaned, and Katie opened her eyes. Yep, his expression matched the misery in his voice.
Because of their audience, she wondered, or because he’d blurted out something he hadn’t meant to?
Both, most likely.
The intercom system crackled again, making Katie jump. Mrs. Giddeon’s voice echoed through the hangar, calling for Bryan to come charter his flight.
Clearly annoyed enough to forget they had clients and passengers listening, the woman threatened to personally hunt Bryan down if he didn’t get his “fine-looking behind” to the front, and pronto.
“Would you look at that timing,” Holly said with a tsk. “Can’t leave passengers waiting, and you certainly wouldn’t want Mrs. Giddeon hunting you down. No telling what she’d do to that ‘fine-looking behind.”’
“I’m sorry,” Bryan mouthed to Katie.
“No biggie,” she said, shrugging, as if men mistakenly told her they loved her all the time.
Hey, she’d at least have a memory to keep her warm at night.
“No biggie?” he repeated, looking upset. “I—”
“Bryan,” droned Mrs. Giddeon. Unhappily. “You have a mutiny brewing here.”
“You’d better go,” Katie said.
“But—”
“Oh, please,” Holly moaned. “It’s just a flight. You’ll be separated for what? Maybe four hours? Cripes, children, hold it together, would you? Some of us would like to keep our breakfast down.”
Then he was gone, and Katie was still sitting. Had to be sitting, since her watery legs refused to hold her. Around her the staff fell blessedly silent. Out of respect, she figured, grateful.
That’s when she was hit with a shower of O-rings.
Arms slung around each other, her so-called friends and staff came forward humming—off-key—the wedding march song.
“I SUPPOSE you’re going to pretend you don’t want to talk about it,” Julie said sometime later.
Katie feigned disinterest. “It being…what?”
“Helllooo…this morning’s declaration? By the wild and hereto uncommitted Bryan Morgan?”
“Oh, that it.”
Julie grinned. “How totally romantic was that! He declared his love in front of everyone.”
“Yeah. Romantic.” She was still pulling O-rings out of her hair. Obviously no one had heard him tell her he’d said nothing.
“Come on,” Julie encouraged. “Tell me how Mr. Risk came to announce his love for Ms. Security.”
Was she that easy to read? And anyway, it was no longer a matter of risk versus security. Yes, she’d probably always hesitate before taking a risk, but suddenly—or maybe not so suddenly at all—she didn’t want to settle for status quo, either.
Bryan had claimed to love her.
Good Lord, the most wonderful, exciting, thrilling, fascinating man on the planet had thought for that one brief shining moment that he loved her.
Julie grinned because she’d spoken out loud. “And now back to our regularly scheduled programming, which apparently you’re just tuning into. Do you love him back?”
Oh, yeah. “No.”
Julie grinned. “Your dreamy smile answered differently.”
“It’s lust, not love,” Katie said, frowning down at her clenched hands. She’d seen the horror on Bryan’s face, she knew he wished the words back. “Lust.”
“Well, either one of them works as a hell of a bed partner on a cold winter night.”
Maybe. For a while anyway. But lust wasn’t ever going to be enough for Katie, there had to be more.
Bryan was what he was. She knew and accepted that. Maybe he wasn’t flying stunts at the moment, but he would be soon, and that was scary, but okay. His sense of wonder at life, his love of excitement and adventure, it had all led her to this point. For that alone she loved him.
And he must never know.
She’d learned a lot about herself in these past weeks. She’d learned that being grown-up and mature is fine, but there had to be room for fun, too, that fun was okay. She’d certainly learned that maybe risk is part of what makes life so worthwhile.
Loving Bryan was certainly the mother of all risks. But she’d get over it. Maybe even try again someday.
And yet…she had the need to prove to herself that she wouldn’t lose her nerve, that she would indeed risk again.
In light of that, filled with determination, she marched into the mechanic’s hangar. After all, it didn’t have to be her heart she put on the line, right?
At the sight of her, everything and everyone went momentarily silent. “No show this time, guys,” she announced.
“Bryan loves Katie, Bryan loves Katie,” came a singsong voice from the back of the hangar, and trying to maintain her calm, she headed toward it, knowing it was Steve, their head mechanic and also part-time flight instructor.
“Unfortunately,” she said in the face of his wide grin. “It’s you I want to talk to. I want flying lessons.” Behind her, everyone gasped.
Katie ignored them. This was her risk and she was sticking to it.
Because, really, Bryan had nailed it. All her life she’d been both fascinated and terrified by planes. Getting a job in an airport, however small, had been a step in the right direction. Learning to let a man like Bryan into her life had bee
n another. “I want to start right now,” she said quickly, before she lost her nerve. “You have a problem with that?”
“No, ma’am.” He grinned. “Does Bryan know you’re doing this? Because he might want to be the one to teach you…”
“Can you go right now or not?” She was in a huge hurry to do this now, to prove to herself she could. Without Bryan.
“Well…” Steve took off his hat and scratched his head.
“I’ll pay double the going rate,” she said rashly, and Steve lifted his brow, nodded and off they went. Just like that, with everyone left gaping in her dust.
Beat that, Katie thought with giddy wonder. It felt great. Better than great. It was almost as good as—
No, nothing was as good as making love, not now that she had Bryan to use as a scale.
But this was indeed a close second.
BRYAN HADN’T EVEN set his feet onto the ground when Julie came flying out onto the tarmac, her shirt flying up to alarming heights in the sharp wind.
“You’re not going to believe this,” she said, huffing and puffing. “But—”
A plane buzzed them, and Bryan scowled. “Idiot. That was too damn close.”
“Yeah, about that—”
“Hey.” His frown deepened as he gazed upward, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. “That’s Steve’s plane. Is he teaching some idiot to fly like that?”
“Maybe you should come with me,” Julie suggested with a tight smile. “To the control room.”
“Why?”
“Because that idiot? It’s Katie.”
BRYAN PACED the small control room like a caged tiger. He alternatively swore at the controls, swore at the sky, swore at the plane as it occasionally came into his view.
All the while Holly, who apparently had nothing to do except torture him, laughed, unperturbed when he turned on her with fire in his eyes.
“Oh, relax, ace. She’s only taking a flying lesson.”
“Yeah.”
“And anyway, you probably have work to do.” She smiled. “Why don’t you vacate?”
He wasn’t going anywhere until Katie was down.
“You’re sweating, Bryan.”
“Holly?”
“Hmm?”
“Shut up.”
She only grinned. “Don’t you see the irony of this? All these years you’ve been flying with reckless abandon, never worrying about what it did to the people who care about you.”
Bryan stared at her. God. How could she be so right? “Well, waiting really stinks.”
“Bingo.” And she softened. “You know, whoever said all men are stupid wasn’t quite accurate. You’re not stupid, just slow.”
Bryan shook his head and grabbed the radio headset. “Katie,” he barked. “Come down. Now.”
“That’s not proper radio protocol,” Holly pointed out.
As if he cared. “Please,” he added into the headset while Holly just laughed at him.
KATIE WAS HAVING the time of her life when Bryan’s command came over the radio. She leaned back from where she’d had her nose pressed to the window, practically giddy with the thrill, and looked at Steve.
“Was that…a command?” she asked, shocked. “Was he commanding me to come back down?”
“I don’t think a command includes the word please.”
“He demanded, Steve.”
“But he said please. I heard him.”
She’d heard something else, too—an inexplicable quaver in that deep, familiar voice, one that instincts told her was fear.
For her.
“Steve, would you say I did well for my first lesson?”
“Well…”
“Okay, forget about that little tower problem on the takeoff.”
“We nearly hit it. Twice,” Steve reminded her. “I wouldn’t call that a little problem.”
“Other than that, how did I do?”
Steve’s lips quirked. “I suppose I should forget about that little dipping problem, as well.”
“Hey, nothing wrong with a little roll.”
“On your first lesson?”
Katie couldn’t help it, she laughed. She felt so incredible, so excited, and she was flying. Flying. Up in the air, with the wind beneath her wings, and loving every second.
“Katie.” It was Bryan again. “Now.”
She borrowed the headset from Steve. “No,” she said succinctly.
“We need to talk,” Bryan said in his sternest voice.
She wasn’t sure she liked his tone. “I don’t think so.”
“Yes, we do. Now, as a matter of fact.”
Katie sighed. “Look, you said something you didn’t mean. You said sorry. I accepted. If I can get over it, so can you.”
Total radio silence.
Then he spoke again, his voice not nearly as calm, “Come down, now.”
“You know, Katie, I really like you,” Steve said. “But I really, really like living, so…”
“Bryan wouldn’t hurt you! Well, probably not,” she amended.
“Steve.” Bryan again. Voice carefully controlled. Very tense. “Get her down here or—”
Steve flicked off the radio, but shot Katie a reluctant grin. “It’s time, sweetcakes, let’s take it home.”
Yeah, it was time, she’d done what she’d wanted. She’d proved to herself that there was more to life than fear. That she could indeed put it all on the line and take a risk.
But now there was a man down below, waiting for her, and he was the biggest risk of all. One she wanted with all her heart and could never have.
“Let’s go,” she said, determined not to let anything ruin her happiness.
She waited until Steve landed. “Oh, I can park it!” she cried.
“No, I think—”
“Please? Let me have my crowning glory.” With careful concentration she followed Steve’s terse directions and pulled straight in, toward the hangar and its opened doors. The small figures standing there gradually came into focus. One by one she made out each of the mechanics. Then Matt. Even Holly. She saw Bryan, standing in the open hangar door, his pilot’s uniform gracing his tall, leanly muscled body. He looked right at her, and though not one of his muscles seemed to relax, she would have sworn his eyes filled with relief.
Cocky now, she waved to him.
“Katie!” Steve yelled. “Keep both hands on the—”
Too late.
On the slight incline, the plane veered to the right. Three mechanics dove out of her way. Matt stood there a moment longer, his mouth hanging open in disbelief, terror in his eyes, before Holly tackled him and pulled him down to safety.
“Katie!”
“Steve, stop hollering, you’re distracting me.”
“But—”
“Hush!”
He only groaned and ducked.
She whizzed by without killing anyone.
That was her last thought as the plane’s wing clipped the steel hangar side wall, buckling it like a cheap toy as the plane skidded to an abrupt halt ten feet short of her tie-down spot.
When the plane shuddered still, Katie opened her eyes and risked a peek at Steve.
He straightened, looked out the window and grimaced. “Hey, remember last week when you almost killed our vice president and you didn’t get fired?”
“Yeah?”
“Hope your luck is still holding.”
13
HEART IN HIS THROAT, Bryan hauled Katie out of the plane. Before her toes could even touch the ground he had her buried in his arms and he was never going to let her go.
Never.
It shocked him, scared the hell out of him, but he could no longer deny the truth.
He loved her.
Because his legs were weak, he pressed his back against the other side of the hangar, the good side, on the steel wall that wasn’t buckled like a tin can, and sank to the ground with her in his lap.
“You’re shaking,” he whispered.
“No,
that’s you,” Katie whispered back, holding him tighter. “Bryan…”
“No.” Fear and anguish and panic all rolled together into temper that overcame him now that he was sitting. “What the hell was that, Katie? What got into you?”
“Well, I—”
“What were you doing up there taking a flying lesson, and from someone else?”
“It’s—”
“Dammit, how could you risk yourself that way, in a plane that isn’t mine, and then that—that approach, though I use the term loosely! What the hell was that?”
“My life is my own, Bryan.”
“Yes, but I want in.”
“You…want in. My life?”
“I meant it,” he whispered. “I meant what I said in the hangar. I didn’t realize it, God who would have thought, but Katie, it’s true. I love you. Enough to give up stunting, enough to know that I’ll never want another woman, enough to promise forever. But please, please don’t ever fly again.”
He shouldn’t have asked it of her, he had no right to ask anything of her when she hadn’t asked anything of him. Misery and regret washed over him. “Wait. That didn’t come out right.”
“You don’t want me to ever fly again,” she repeated slowly. “Interesting.”
“Katie—”
“Whoops,” she said, covering his mouth again when he would have spoken. “Still my turn.” Ignoring the commotion around them as everyone picked themselves up and took inventory of the damage, she looked deep into his eyes. “I thought I wanted safety. Security. Stability.”
“The three S’s,” Holly said with disgust, dusting herself off. “Boring.”
Katie ignored both her and the baleful glance Matt shot her as he wiped at his filthy trousers. She looked only at Bryan. “I wanted everything I never got from my father as a child.”
When he softened with remorse, when his hands slid over her arms in a caress, she shook her head sharply and kept her hands firmly on his mouth. “Please. Let me say this, I have to get it out. I thought I wanted safe love. The quiet, reserved kind that isn’t really love at all, but just a teaser for it.” She sighed and smiled into his eyes. “I was wrong, Bryan, that’s not what I want at all. I want true, heart-pounding, butterflies-in-the-stomach, real love.”