Lost in Her

by Sandra Owens

  “That I was a cop—did the bonding thing. Then I told him your girl was one of the stunt pilots and you were supposed to be her passenger. I didn’t want to tell him the truth and have a hundred cops swarming the place, scaring off our bad guys. Those people are going down today if I have anything to say about it.”

  Ryan was in complete agreement. He fished his cell phone from his pocket, scrolled to the file he had saved, and showed his dad and Patrick pictures of Charlie, Ashley, Haydon, and the ex-boyfriend.

  “Who’s that?” Patrick asked of the last photo.

  “The stepfather. He’s in prison, so don’t be looking for him. We need to split up. I’ll find where all the planes are staged. Patrick, you start searching the crowds for any one of those people, and Dad, you . . . hell, I don’t know. Do whatever you think best.”

  His father bumped shoulders with him. “Go find your girl, son. I know what to do.”

  To Ryan’s left was a large hangar, and as he headed for it, he heard a plane taking off. Heart in his throat, Ryan ran faster. He had to get to her before she left the ground. As the plane lifted off, he glanced over at it, breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn’t hers.

  Then he heard another engine revving from the direction of the runway. The plane barreled down the asphalt, and when it was even with him, the world revolving around him stopped as the crowd of people and their voices faded away to nothing.

  Charlie!

  The red Citabria passed by, wheels leaving the ground. As he stood, watching her take to the sky, he’d never felt so helpless in his life. Land, Charlie. Please land.

  “Have you ever seen her perform before? She’s amazing.”

  Ryan jerked his head toward the man standing next to him. “Haydon, I have one question, and you’d better tell me the truth because if I find out you lied to me, I will kill you. That’s not a threat. It’s a fact.”

  The man’s eyebrows shot up. “Huh?”

  “Are you the one who’s been messing with her plane?” Ryan stepped close to him, crowding him.

  Haydon threw his hands out as he backed up. “Hell no, man. What’s going on?”

  Another plane took to the air, and Ryan followed its progress, stalling a moment. He hadn’t seen any guilt or fear on the man’s face. His gut said it wasn’t Haydon, so Ryan decided to risk laying it all out to see if he could add anything. As quickly and efficiently as he could, he told Haydon everything.

  “And I was on her list? Man, Charlie’s my best instructor. No way I’d risk the money she brings in.” His cheeks flushed and he glanced away. “About putting her picture up as my girlfriend, I guess that was stupid.”

  “Yes, it was and if you ever do anything like that again, I will hurt you.” No concern there for his best instructor, just the money mattered. Ryan was tempted to put the man’s ass on the ground on general principle. “We need to radio her, tell her to land.”

  “We can do that in the tower.” As Ryan followed him, Haydon said, “Charlie’s ex-boyfriend came by not too long ago. There was a woman waiting in the car for him. Asked him if that was his new squeeze. Sure as hell didn’t know he was married, so maybe it was his wife.”

  Ryan got his phone back out and brought up Ashley’s photo. “Was it her?” He turned the screen so the man could see it.

  Haydon squinted, studying the picture. “Not sure, but it could be. The hair looks the same, but I wasn’t close enough to get a good look at her face.”

  Ryan was no longer operating on instinct. He knew down to his bones that it was Ashley and Charlie’s ex. As they climbed the steps to the tower, he radioed his dad and Patrick, telling them the two were definitely who they were looking for.

  After a brief conversation with the air show controller, the man tried to call Charlie. She didn’t answer. “We’ve lost contact with her,” the man said.

  Ryan knew then that he had failed her. He blindly stumbled out of the tower and down the steps, only stopping when his father’s arms wrapped around him.

  “I’ve lost her,” he said, choking out the words.

  Charlie circled as she waited for her turn to fly by the grandstand. She should be hearing chatter on the radio, but there was nothing but dead silence. “Jackson Field tower, this is Citabria November Three One Golf Hotel.”

  No response. She tried again and still got nothing back. Dang radio. Now what? She knew she should land, but she was up next. “We’ll just do this first one, then I’ll take you down, baby” she said. Disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to show the crowd what her plane could do, she rolled from a wingover into an inverted position, flying by the grandstand upside down. Once past, she made a slow roll to bring herself upright. Because she’d been flying so close to the ground, she accelerated to gain altitude. Flying in her aerobatic plane never ceased to thrill her—whether for herself or in front of a crowd—and as she pointed the nose up, she laughed as adrenaline surged through her.

  “If only Ryan could see us now, baby, wouldn’t he be impressed?” She patted the dash. The Citabria rewarded her affection with a cough. Then a sputter. Then the engine quit.

  “Oh God, not again.”

  She tried everything she’d learned from her training to start the engine.

  “Shit,” she yelled at the stupid plane when it decided to fall to earth. The one thing she was thankful for was that she wasn’t taking a nosedive into the crowd. That would’ve haunted her through all eternity.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ryan held on to his father, needing his dad’s support as Charlie’s plane plummeted nose down toward the ground. “I never told her I loved her.” His father held him in strong arms that had always been there for him.

  “She knew, son. She knew it.”

  His mother and sister were suddenly there, wrapping themselves tightly around him and his dad. Unable to watch his cherub’s plane crash, he lost himself in the arms of his family’s love.

  “Look! Ryan, look!”

  He couldn’t look. Why was Megan even asking that of him?

  “She parachuted. Wow, my future sister-in-law is floating to the ground like she has wings.”

  What??? He dared to lift his gaze to the sky and there she was, steering her parachute away from the burning wreckage of her beloved plane. He pushed away from all the arms wrapped around him and started running, his only intention to catch her. And when he did, he would tell her what he thought of her scaring thirty years off his life.

  Static crackled over his radio, then Patrick said, “I’ve got the assholes messing with your girlfriend. It was the ex and her stepsister. Hardly had to threaten them before Ashley was pointing her finger at the boyfriend, and Aaron pointing his right back at her.”

  Ryan couldn’t care less. “Hand them over to dad,” he answered, then turned off the handheld.

  He didn’t catch Charlie. She touched the ground before he could get to her. But when he did, he swept her off her feet, pulled her up against him, and swung them in a circle. The parachute wrapped around them, tripping him. On the ground, entangled in red-and-white nylon, he rolled on top of her.

  “Cherub, my rabbit misses you but not as much as me.” He kissed her then, long and hard, and then some more.

  “You’re here,” she said, with wonder in her voice.

  “Silly girl. Where else did you think I’d be when my girlfriend has trouble?”

  Someone tugged on the parachute, then lifted it, exposing him and Charlie to curious eyes. He glanced up, saw his family peering down at them with too much interest. “Go away nosy people,” he said, laughing. When the nylon fell back down around them, he went back to kissing his girl.

  “My plane crashed,” she said when they came up for air, tears pooling in her beautiful eyes.

  Ryan kissed her nose. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

  Charlie stood next to Ryan, watching the interrogation of her stepsister through the one-way mirror. He wrapped his arm around her, tucking her tightly against him the way he
liked to have her.

  “The bitch deserved to die,” Ashley said, defiant even in the face of an attempted murder charge. “She ruined my life when she told her lies about my father.”

  As she listened, Charlie was surprised that she felt only pity for Ashley. Her stepsister could have had it all if she hadn’t let bitterness consume her life. Although still beautiful, there was now a hardness in the lines around Ashley’s mouth, and the hatred shining in her eyes put Charlie in mind of someone possessed. Maybe she was.

  Ryan gave a grunt of what sounded like disgust. “My dad recently said hatred could devour a person. I’d say that’s what happened to her. Didn’t take long to show her true colors, did it?”

  No, it hadn’t. For the first thirty minutes of the interrogation, Ashley had tried to blame Aaron for everything, but the officer questioning her had pushed the right buttons, and she lost her temper. Charlie didn’t think Ashley even realized the hole she was digging for herself.

  “She really does believe I lied about her father, which I guess justifies in her mind what she tried to do to me.”

  “There is no excuse for what she tried to do.” He turned her to face him. “Don’t go feeling sorry for her, cherub. If she’d had her way, I would have lost you.”

  “I don’t.” But she did a little. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her as if he needed reassurance that she was safe and in his arms. Charlie hugged him back, pressing herself against his big body. They had come close to losing each other, both from Ashley’s nasty game and from Ryan’s inability to let go of the past. Although he had yet to say he loved her, she had heard the catch in his voice when he’d said he almost lost her, and maybe it was wishful thinking, but she thought she had seen love in his eyes when he had tangled them up in her parachute.

  Although anxious to leave so she and Ryan could be alone, they stayed to hear Aaron’s interrogation. Aaron confessed to breaking into her apartment with Ashley, their aim to find the diamond ring Charlie’s father had given her mother. After her father’s death, her mom—when she was still everything a mother was supposed to be—had slipped the ring off her finger one day and given it to Charlie. Because a three-carat diamond was valuable, Charlie kept it in a safe-deposit box. The only thing they ended up taking was the picture Aaron had once asked about.

  During his interrogation, he’d put all the blame for sabotaging Charlie’s plane on Ashley, even though it had been his hands doing the dirty work. He confessed to making a copy of Charlie’s house key and to stealing a key to the hangar.

  “It was just a game,” he told the officer. “Ashley was really pushing me to do it, but I never did anything to Charlie’s plane that would make her crash. Just little things to give her a scare.”

  Next to her, Ryan’s hands fisted at his sides. Charlie slipped her fingers around his and felt the tension in his arm ease. She wasn’t sure it was normal for victims to be able to listen to interrogations, but apparently, Logan Kincaid had made a phone call at Ryan’s request, and now here she was, listening to her ex-boyfriend make light of sabotaging her plane. At first she hadn’t wanted to, but Ryan had told her it would give her closure. Although it made her sick to listen to the two of them try to justify what they had done, Ryan was right. After she walked out of this place, she would never think of the two pathetic people again.

  “I was intrigued enough with the woman in the photo to search her out,” Aaron admitted to the detective when asked how he had met Ashley. Yes, Aaron had felt sorry for poor Ashley after he’d learned how Charlie had ruined her life. According to him, Ashley had convinced him that Charlie deserved to suffer because of the lies that had sent Ashley’s father to prison. Along with his supposed sympathy for poor Ashley, he’d been promised the ring and anything else of value they could find when they broke into her apartment.

  That made Charlie laugh since, other than her plane, her car, and the ring, she owned nothing of value. The joke was on him, the asshole. He admitted to the detective that having a wife and daughter, along with several girlfriends, was damned expensive, and he needed the money. That there had been girlfriends plural made Charlie sick that she’d been one of them.

  “You never told him your side of the story, what Ashley’s father did and the repercussions?” Ryan asked.

  “No. I’m not sure why. Maybe without realizing it, I didn’t trust him?”

  He peered at her, one brow lifted. “Are you asking me?”

  She didn’t know if she was asking or telling. No, she did know. “You were the first person I trusted enough to tell. You, Ryan.”

  His gaze caught hers, and he brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Thank you.”

  “I went to her house and tried to warn her not to fly in the show, but she didn’t want to listen,” Aaron said, his voice an unwelcome intrusion as far as Charlie was concerned. She didn’t much care anymore what he had to say.

  The same cop who had questioned Ashley said, “When you went to see Charlene, were you hoping to get back together with her?”

  Aaron looked into the one-way glass as if he knew Charlie was watching. “Yeah, I guess I was. She’s a hotshot aerobatic pilot and it was good for me to be around her. I broke up with her because my wife found a picture on the Internet of me with my arm around Charlie at an air show, and I panicked. Once things calmed down at home . . .” He leaned forward as if getting closer to the mirror. “I missed Charlie. I thought she would be glad to have me back, but when I went to see her, she attacked me. That was too bad, because I was going to tell her what Ashley was up to, but after that, I figured she deserved what Ashley had planned for her.” He shifted his gaze to the officer. “I want to file an assault charge against Charlie.”

  Ryan growled. “Tell me you’ve heard enough, cherub.”

  Charlie wished they’d let her in the room so she could punch Aaron in the nose. “More than enough. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Then let’s go home before I break this glass so I can get my hands around that bastard’s throat.”

  He kept her tucked next to him, only letting her go when they reached the car. “Tomorrow we’re spending with my family, but tonight, you’re mine,” he said as he held the door open. She was his long past tonight, though. For a lifetime, if she would have him.

  On the way, they stopped at Maria’s and picked up Mr. Bunny. When they got home and let the rabbit out of his carrier, the animal zoomed around the living room like a race car on an oval track, pausing only long enough to touch one or the other of them with his twitching nose before taking off again.

  “He’s crazy,” Charlie said, laughing.

  “Not as crazy as me.” Ryan scooped her up and carried her to his bed. “Do you know why?” he asked after he lowered her down, then fell on top of her, catching his weight on his arms.

  “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, hard at first, then gentling the kiss to feathery brushes over her lips.

  “And tell you I will. I’m crazy in love with you, Charlene Morgan. You and only you.”

  As Charlie stared into those beautiful eyes that had the ability to captivate her, she put her hand on his cheek. “You are?”

  “Oh yeah, girlfriend, I am.” He smiled then, the orange streaks in his eyes light and bright. “I forgave them both. My brother and Kathleen. That’s what you said you needed from me, and I wanted to do it for you. But the funny thing is, when all was said and done, I did it for me.”

  “Oh, Ryan.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close. She hadn’t been sure he could let go of his hurt, and she hadn’t dared to hope. That he’d understood it was what he needed to do for himself, not her, brought tears to her eyes.

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  “I’m so happy for you.”

  “And?”

  The orange streaks flared darker as his eyes pierced her in what seemed like annoyance. It hit her what he want
ed her to say, and unable to resist, she toyed with him. “And I think Mr. Bunny wants on the bed.” The rabbit was stretched up on his hind legs, paws on the comforter, peering at them.

  “Charlene!”

  The man gave good growl. Grinning, she relented. “And, I love you.”

  “Damn, that was like pulling teeth to get that out of you.” He returned her grin. “We’ve gone steady long enough, don’t you think? How about we try an engagement next?”

  Charlie wondered if her heart could withstand its fierce pounding without splitting in two. Up to the day he had appeared at the air show, kissing her like he couldn’t live without her, she hadn’t dared to hope for a happily ever after for them.

  At her hesitation, he narrowed his eyes, and she couldn’t resist teasing him. “Do I get a new ring if I say yes?”

  “You do. One I’ll make just for you, A mhuirnín.”

  “Then yes, I’ll get engaged to you.” She wondered if her heart would ever stop fluttering when he grinned at her like that. She hoped not.

  “Does that mean I get phone sex for real now?”

  “Sheesh, Hot Guy, you really do have a one-track mind.”

  “I keep telling you that, Charlie.”

  He made love to her then as if she were a priceless work of art, cherishing her body until she was begging, another thing he seemed to like. Much later, she fell asleep with a heart full of love and Ryan wrapped around her, and her last thought was that she had soared and touched the stars.

  Agitated, Charlie twisted around her finger the sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring Ryan had made for her. Refusing to tell her where they were going, Ryan had taken her on a commercial flight that ended up in Orlando, Florida. A limo had been waiting for them when they walked out of the airport, and after a thirty-minute ride, they’d ended up at a Citabria dealer in Sanford.

  The brand-new, cherry-red aerobatic plane sitting on the runway in front of her was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. “I can’t let you do this, Ryan.” Oh God, to own that beauty.