PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF CHANEL CLEETON
“A sexy fighter pilot hero? Yes, please. For anyone who’s ever had a Top Gun fantasy, Fly with Me is for you.”
—Roni Loren, New York Times bestselling author
“A sexy hero, strong heroine, delicious romance, sizzling tension, and plenty of breathtaking scandal. I loved this book!”
—Monica Murphy, New York Times bestselling author
“A sassy, steamy, and sometimes sweet read that had me racing to the next page.”
—Chelsea M. Cameron, New York Times bestselling author
“Sexy, funny, and heart-wrenching!”
—Laura Kaye, New York Times bestselling author
“Scorching hot and wicked smart, Flirting with Scandal had me hooked from page one! Sizzling with sexual tension and political intrigue, Cleeton weaves a story that is as complex as it is sexy. Thank God this is a series because I need more!”
—Rachel Harris, New York Times bestselling author
“Sexy, intelligent, and intriguing. Chanel Cleeton makes politics scandal-icious.”
—Tiffany King, USA Today bestselling author
“Fun, sexy, and kept me completely absorbed.”
—Katie McGarry, author of Chasing Impossible
Titles by Chanel Cleeton
Capital Confessions
FLIRTING WITH SCANDAL
PLAYING WITH TROUBLE
FALLING FOR DANGER
Wild Aces
FLY WITH ME
INTO THE BLUE
ON BROKEN WINGS
BERKLEY SENSATION
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2016 by Chanel Cleeton
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY and BERKLEY SENSATION are registered trademarks and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN: 9781101987018
First Edition: January 2017
Cover art by Claudio Dogar-Marinesco
Cover design by Danielle Mazzella di Bosco
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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To the brave men and women who serve in uniform and the families who stand beside them
Thank you so much to everyone who has read this series and supported the Wild Aces family. Your emails and messages mean the world to me. Thanks to my agent Kevan Lyon and editor Kate Seaver for making my dreams come true. I am so grateful to work with such a fabulous team at Penguin—my lovely publicist Ryanne Probst, Jessica Brock, Kim Burns, Katherine Pelz, and the wonderful art department. Thank you to my writing family, especially Lia Riley, Jennifer Blackwood, and A.J. Pine for their friendship and support. And as always, thanks to my family and friends, especially my amazing husband whose love and support makes all things possible.
CONTENTS
Praise for the Novels of Chanel Cleeton
Titles by Chanel Cleeton
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Excerpt from Fly with Me
About the Author
PROLOGUE
DANI
We sat next to each other on the sofa—me and Jordan—our cell phones clutched in our hands, our gazes glued to the headline running across the TV screen, willing it to change, to disappear, for this to be a nightmare we would wake from. A five-hour-long nightmare.
F-16 Crashes in Alaska.
I’d called the family members on the pilots’ emergency contact sheets, letting everyone know we’d had an incident involving the Wild Aces and were awaiting more information, waiting for the Air Force to go through the official notification process. I delivered the message in a calm tone, pushing back the tremors, the tears, the terror that crashed into me every time those words ran through my head.
F-16 Crashes in Alaska.
My husband was flying tonight.
We’d spoken on the phone this afternoon, our last words him telling me he was getting ready to step to his jet and that he loved me.
He’d said the words out of habit, his mind already on the mission ahead, ending the call the same way we’d ended every single call since we’d first said “I love you” nine years ago. It had been a short phone call—now, my mind foggy with fear, I struggled to remember what we’d talked about, the memory everything as I clung to those words.
I’d told him the dryer was broken. He’d complained about scheduling issues in the squadron he commanded. I’d been irritated about the dryer, cranky because he’d been gone for weeks and I’d just wanted him home. The call had been fine; there hadn’t been a fight or anything, but now that those words scrolled across the screen in front of me, I wished I hadn’t said a word about the dryer, that the scheduling shop hadn’t screwed up, that we’d spent the night on the phone laughing.
What if I never hear his laugh again?
I called him after I first saw the news alert, dialed his number with trembling fingers and the kind of fear in my heart that filled my body with ice. The ring-ring of the phone beat in time with my heart. I prayed over and over again for him to answer so I could hear his voice, even as I knew in a situation like this, none of the guys would pick up; all communication would be cut off until they notified the pilot’s family. And still, I called. My heart, my love, my life was somewhere out there, and I couldn’t rest until I knew he was safe.
Finally, I heard the sound of his voice, the hint of an accent that came from a childhood in New England, my heart lurching at the sound.
“Michael. Thank God—”
“—I’m not available right now, but if you’d like to leave a message—”
The rest of his voice mail greeting disappeared beneath the sound rushing in my ears. When I heard the beep, I left a message, feeling as though my voice belonged to someone else, as though this night wasn’t real and I’d wake up and turn over, rolling into the curve of Michael’s body, pressing my lips to his skin, inhaling his scent.
I hung up the phone with a shudder, standing in the middle of our kitchen, no idea what came next.
And then Jordan called, the same fear in her voice that had taken up permanent residence in my gut
, and I invited her over, because even though I was supposed to be the strong one, the calm one, buoyed by seven years’ experience as a military wife, I couldn’t get past the fear dragging me down.
F-16 Crashes in Alaska.
We didn’t speak. At some point, Jordan reached out and grabbed my hand. I didn’t let go.
I thought of the pilots who were flying tonight. Michael. Easy. Jordan’s boyfriend, Burn. Thor. All pilots I’d grown close to, cared about. Men who I’d celebrated holidays with, who had become like brothers to me.
My husband was flying tonight.
I squeezed Jordan’s hand a bit tighter, the panic growing with each second that passed. I couldn’t sit here and pretend to be calm, as though the worry wasn’t ripping me to shreds, as if I wasn’t about to crawl out of my skin.
I needed to know he was okay. Needed to hear his voice. It was such a simple thing; how many times had I heard him speak, listened to that husky voice that always filled me with peace? Now I needed it. Needed to cling to the sound as proof he’d survived, that I hadn’t lost everything.
Please let him be okay. Please. Please.
The doorbell rang.
We both froze. I’d never thought my doorbell was ominous, but now the sound sent a chill down my spine. Good news didn’t come in the early morning, the sun just barely risen. It didn’t come wearing service dress. I didn’t know if they were here for me or for Jordan, but either way, something inside me shattered.
We both rose from the couch, our lips unmoving, our hands locked. My legs shook, my heart rattling inside my chest. My body aged decades with each step I took, with each step that took me closer to whatever nightmare faced us on the other side of the door.
They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die. And it did.
I saw myself at twenty-one, at a bar in Atlanta, laughing with my friends, my body lighting up with sparks as I made eye contact with the hot guy sitting on a barstool, desperately hoping he’d come over and talk to me. I saw myself in Michael’s arms as we kissed for the first time, heard my voice telling my friends I was going to marry him, saw the look on his face as I walked down the aisle on our wedding day. So many moments. His arms around me as we mourned the baby we’d loved and lost after my miscarriage, the way he kissed me each night before he fell asleep. Big moments, small moments, the pieces of a life we’d built together, all the love and hope that had filled me as I envisioned our future, all the things we’d do—the children I’d prayed for, the plans we’d made. My entire world wrapped up in one person.
And then the moments stopped and my mind went blank as I stared at my front door.
I reached out, my fingers grazing the knob, and some part of me wanted to pull back as I hoped, prayed, that this time if I called Michael, he’d answer, saying my name in the voice that still put a smile on my face. But I knew. I knew. Hadn’t I always known we hurtled toward this? That at some point the bill would come due, and eventually he’d go up in the air and the sky wouldn’t give him back.
The door opened with a creak. Three officers in uniform stood on our front porch.
It was as though I’d left my body, as if I was hovering above all of this, watching it play out. I couldn’t . . . I didn’t feel anything. Could barely register the words they said. Jordan, the walls around me, everything disappeared, until there was a hole inside me, around me, swallowing me up.
“Mrs. Peterson, we regret to inform you . . .”
I felt myself falling, taking Jordan down with me as I hit the floor, as I quite simply broke. She was there, her arms around me, but I couldn’t feel her.
I couldn’t feel anything anymore.
ONE
ONE YEAR LATER
DANI
“Do you want matte or gloss?”
I blinked, the paint cans blurring before me. What type of paint did you use to erase a broken dream?
No fucking clue.
My hands gripped the handle of my cart, filled with painting supplies that had taken me the better part of an hour to assemble. Every time I thought I had what I needed, I realized I’d forgotten yet another thing. Time had ceased to exist here, and I half wondered if I’d finally escape aisle twelve and discover night had fallen and I’d wasted one more day not fulfilling the task I dreaded.
The salesman sighed, running his hand through his hair. I couldn’t exactly blame him for the frustration—even with the online research I’d done, it was clear I was pretty clueless on how to repaint an almost-nursery-turned-guest-bedroom in order to make my home more likely to sell.
“What will paint over blue?” I asked.
Air Force blue. Baby boy blue.
There will be another baby, Michael had promised when I’d miscarried. Let’s not change the room.
So we’d kept it—his way of clinging to hope and my attempt at supporting him.
Of course, now they were both gone, and I couldn’t walk into the room without feeling an overwhelming sense of loss.
The salesman’s gaze drifted to my left hand, to the diamond engagement ring that sat there atop a diamond eternity band. I couldn’t look at either of those things and yet, like the room, I wasn’t ready to cast them off. My husband might have died a year ago, but the memory of him still lingered.
“Ma’am, perhaps it would help if your husband came with you. He might have a better sense of what your needs are.”
He would have. He would have repainted the room on one of his free weekends and I wouldn’t have had to worry about a thing. Which was the problem. I’d always prided myself on having my shit together—being an Air Force wife allowed for nothing less considering how frequently I was alone—but now that Michael was actually gone, I kept realizing how many things I didn’t know how to do. And how much I’d grown to depend on him during the seven years we were married.
The paint cans blurred even more, my eyes filling with tears. Oh God, I was going to lose it in aisle twelve.
The thing about being a widow was that you never knew when the tears would come. You could have a string of good days, and then something would set you off—the scent of your husband’s cologne on a stranger, the sound of a jet screaming overhead, your wedding song playing on the radio. Apparently mine had come today. I took a deep breath, steadying myself, struggling to push a response out of my mouth when suddenly a large hand landed on my back, palm between my shoulder blades, fingers stroking my ratty T-shirt.
“I got this,” a voice rumbled behind me.
I whirled around and came face-to-face with Easy.
As commander of the Wild Aces F-16 squadron, my husband—call sign Joker—had been both boss and mentor to the twenty-something pilots who had flown under his leadership. I’d gotten to know all the guys and their families pretty well, but there was no doubt that out of all of them, my favorite was Alex “Easy” Rogers.
There were many things to love about Easy—the contagious smile on his face, the compassion in his eyes, the memory of how he’d comforted me when I’d miscarried and Michael had been halfway across the country, how he’d stood next to me at the podium while I delivered Michael’s eulogy, the way he’d always treated me with indulgent affection. He’d been one of my husband’s best friends, so for that alone, I’d always love him. But it wasn’t just that. He was a big kid with a wild streak ninety percent of the time, but the other ten percent of the time he was one of the best men I’d ever known. He was also one of the last people Michael had spoken to when he was alive—a voice over the radio in their formation of four jets right before Michael was lost to us forever.
I struggled to get my tears in check as Easy spoke to the salesman, and then the guy was gone and I was staring up into Easy’s blue eyes.
“You okay?”
“Just trying to pick out paint.”
“What do you need?” he asked, his expression solemn, the usual
swagger and amusement drained from his expression.
It had been a rough year for everyone.
“I’m trying to repaint the guest room.” Do not cry. “The one that was going to be the nursery.” The rest of the words came out in a whoosh of pain. “The Realtor thinks the house will be more marketable if the rooms are neutral. It’s been on the market six months now and we still haven’t gotten any interest.”
I still hadn’t gotten any interest. When you’d been a “we” for seven years, it was hard to switch back to the singular.
The days after I’d received the knock on my front door, after the casualty officers had notified me that Michael’s F-16 had crashed in Alaska—that he was gone—I’d walked through a nightmare. When the official military events had ended, I’d gone home to Georgia to grieve in private. But at thirty-one, living at my parents’ had begun to feel cramped, so now I was back in Oklahoma, waiting to sell the house I’d lived in with Michael, trying to figure out the next step.
Easy looked down at his feet, his big body hunched over, and then his gaze was on me again. “I can do it.”
“No. Thanks for offering, but it’s too much. I’m fine on my own.”
The squadron was deploying to Afghanistan in a month. No way I wanted Easy working in his final weeks before he went to war.
“I can hire someone to do it. Which I probably should have done all along,” I admitted.
Michael’s life insurance took financial worries off my plate for a few years, but thanks to seven years of moving all over the world, my résumé wasn’t exactly impressive. Luxuries like hiring someone to paint felt irresponsible until I found a job. Although if the house didn’t sell . . .
“I’ll do it.” He nudged my shoulder, positioning his big body between me and my cart, studying the items I’d collected so far.
“You have the deployment—”
“It’s no big deal,” he answered. “It’ll take a day. I can come over tomorrow and work on it, if it’s okay with you.”
On Broken Wings Page 1