Lightning Lingers

by Barbara Freethy

  "How do you feel?" she asked.

  "Like I just hit a tree," he said with a wince.

  "Good guess."

  "Not really a guess." He tipped his head toward the branches coming through the cockpit windows.

  "We're alive. That's the important thing. I can't quite believe it."

  "I never had any doubt."

  The cocky light in his eyes reassured her. "I'm sure you didn't. Is there a first-aid kit on board? You cut your head."

  "It's in the cabin. Are you all right, Katherine?" His gaze swept her face. "You've got some cuts, too."

  "Nothing bad. I'm more worried about you. You might have a concussion. Let me ask you a few questions."

  "Not necessary. I know who I am. I know who you are and what happened. Does that cover it?"

  "Okay." She let out a breath of relief. "Do you also know what we're going to do now?"

  "I'm still working on that." He reached for the radio, but it was as dead as the rest of the instrument panel. He pulled out his phone. "No signal."

  She scrambled around the seat to grab her bag. Her phone was intact but also showing no signal. "Mine isn't working, either. Do you have any idea where we are, Jake?"

  "We're in a heavily wooded area somewhere in Mexico."

  "I can look out the window, too."

  He shrugged. "Everything went off when the lightning hit the plane. I have no idea how far we were blown off course. But we're on the ground, and we're alive, so I'm going to count this as a hard landing and not a crash."

  "A hard landing? The wing came off."

  "Not all the way." He got out of his seat and entered the main cabin. She followed close behind, curious to see the damage.

  The cabin was fairly intact. A couple of the windows had blown out, and there was glass and debris from the storage area, but at least they had some shelter while they figured out what to do next. "Do we need to worry about fire?" she asked, taking a sniff.

  "I don't smell any smoke, and it's raining pretty good out there, so I think we're all right."

  "Okay, good. I want to fix that cut on your head," she said, spying the first-aid kit.

  "I'd rather get outside and see where we are before it gets dark."

  She caught him by the arm. "First I clean your wound and put a bandage on your head."

  "All right, Doc, if you insist."

  "I do." She pushed him into the front seat and then opened the first-aid kit, happy to see everything she needed. She cleaned his wound and bandaged it, noting that the skin around his eye was turning purple. "You're going to have a shiner."

  "It won't be the first time."

  No, it wouldn't, she thought, remembering the black eyes he'd sported during football season. Jake had always been an athlete, and he'd pushed himself to the limit, no matter the activity or the safety factor.

  "Done," she said, as she closed the kit. "You also might end up with a little scar."

  "That will just get me more girls, right?"

  "Probably," she admitted.

  He smiled and stood up. "Let's see where we are."

  It took him a few minutes to get the plane door open and then he jumped down to the ground, a distance of about four feet since they had somehow ended up caught between a couple of trees.

  "I'm going to take a walk," he said. "I want to see if I can get a signal if I can get away from all these trees."

  "Wait," she said quickly. "I'm coming with you. The rain is letting up. It's not that bad anymore."

  "Why don't you stay here and wait for me? You're going to get wet."

  "I have a coat and boots on. I'll be fine. I want to see where we are, too." She grabbed her bag with her phone in it and then jumped down to the ground.

  They walked for about ten minutes, but the terrain didn't change. They appeared to have landed in a forest. "I thought I saw a clearing right before we set down," she said to Jake. "Was I crazy?"

  "No, that's what I headed for. It must have been the other way. I guess we got turned around when we came down."

  As he finished speaking, thunder rumbled the air and lightning flashed over the tall trees. In the distance, she could see even taller mountains. "Did you see that?" she asked Jake. "We're near a mountain range."

  "There are several that run down the center of the country, including one close to the airport in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, but considering the time left in our flight, I'd say we're at least a couple hundred miles from there."

  She hoped he was wrong. "We need to get out of these trees and see if we can find some distinctive landmarks."

  The rain suddenly increased, as if a cloud had burst over their heads.

  "That's not going to happen now," Jake added. "Let's go back to the plane."

  They ran through the trees and rain until they got to the plane. Jake helped her up, and she was more than happy to get inside. He pulled the door shut, but there was still rain coming in through two broken windows.

  "We should cover those," she said.

  He nodded, looking around. Then he turned over two of the seats and pulled out flattened life vests. He grabbed tape and she helped him cover the windows.

  "That should work," she said, "but now it's pretty dark in here." There was still some dim light coming in through the cockpit window but when night came it would be pitch black.

  "I've got a battery-operated lantern," he said, returning to the closet. He pulled it out and set it on the floor. "We should probably wait to turn it on until we really need it."

  She nodded, crossing her arms in front of her chest as shivers ran through her.

  "You should change, Katherine—get dry." He walked over to another compartment and pulled out her suitcase and another small black travel bag that apparently belonged to him.

  "You packed a case—when did you do that?" she asked in surprise.

  "I have a go-bag I keep at the airport. I tossed it in before we left, just in case..."

  "Just in case you decided to take me to your great-grandmother's house?" she challenged.

  "I wouldn't go that far. You can change first. I'll go into the cockpit, give you some privacy."

  She waited for him to close the door between the cabin and the cockpit before reaching for her suitcase. She quickly changed, happy to put on dry jeans, thick socks and a sweater. When she was done, she called to Jake. "Your turn."

  He came back into the cabin with a map in his hand. "I think we might be here, Katherine." He turned his cell phone light on the map so she could take a look.

  She saw a lot of tall mountains, wide swaths of rainforest and very few cities. The airport closest to his great-grandmother's village looked very far away. Her heart sank. "You really don't think we're closer?"

  "I won't know for sure until we can get outside in sunshine and daylight and take a better look around, but this is my best guess. First thing tomorrow, we need to find a village or a phone signal and find help."

  She didn't like the serious note in Jake's voice. He'd been so calm and confident she hadn't felt too worried about their predicament—until now. "How soon will anyone start looking for us?"

  "I'm not sure, probably soon. But they may not know where to look. We were blown off course, and the storm isn't going to make things easier." His jaw tightened as he shook his head. "I hate the thought of my mom getting that call again. It will remind her of the last time someone from the airport called to tell her that my dad was missing."

  She hadn't even considered that someone back home would be notified that the plane was missing, but in her case her brother wouldn't be found and her mother probably wouldn’t understand. At least her mom's illness would save her from worrying about her, but the reminder that she had no one who would really care that she was missing was depressing.

  Jake folded up the map. "We'll take this with us tomorrow."

  "I have guidebooks and maps in my bag, too. I picked them up at the airport. Maybe they'll give us more information."

  He nodded.


  She saw the shadows in his gaze and felt bad. No one would worry about her, but he was right; his mom would be devastated. "I'm sorry, Jake."

  He met her gaze. "For what?"

  His question made her realize how many things she had to be sorry for, but she settled for the easiest and the most current. "That your mom and your sisters will be worried about you. But we're okay, and eventually they'll know that. Hopefully, we'll be found before too much time passes."

  "We'll see. I don't think we should leave the plane tonight." He glanced at the watch on his wrist. "It's already four o'clock. Even if the storm lets up, we'll lose light in another hour and a half. We need to stay put until morning."

  She hated every word that came out of his mouth. She didn't want to spend the night with him, not in this isolated plane in the middle of nowhere, not when TJ's life was in danger, not when there would be no choice but to talk to Jake, but she couldn't argue against his logical reasoning. They could hardly wander around the Mexican wilderness in the middle of the night.

  "It won't be bad," Jake continued. "We're dry. We're safe. We have some light. We have food and water on board, enough to last us for a day or two, so we'll be all right."

  "You should change, too. I'll wait in the cockpit."

  "You don't have to leave. It's not like you haven't seen me before," he said, a dark edge behind his teasing words.

  She had seen him before. She'd explored his body with great eagerness, and that body had gotten even better with age. Her heart flipped over in her chest, and she knew she'd hesitated one second too long, because Jake gave her a slanted, speculative look.

  "Katherine?"

  Turning quickly, she bolted into the cockpit, closing the door on his question. She drew in a breath and let it out, trying to calm her racing pulse. She told herself it was the adrenaline from the crash that had her unsettled, but she also knew it had a lot to do with Jake.

  How the hell was she going to spend all night with him in this plane?

  She reminded herself that they were alive, and that was the important thing. Tomorrow, they would hike to the nearest village and get help. She just wished she knew how far away civilization was. At the moment, she couldn't see anything.

  Rain splashed through the cockpit window in an endless sheet of water. It was a lot colder in here, too. She was glad she'd put on a heavier sweater underneath her jacket.

  Jake knocked on the door a moment later and said, "All done."

  She took her computer bag into the cabin where it was warmer and sat down on one of the leather seats while Jake rummaged through the galley and closets.

  "This wasn't an ordinary charter, so it wasn't stocked the way we normally do for executives," he said. "But we do have some food." He came back with two snack boxes filled with cheese, salami, and crackers. "Not much, but they're still cold. Might as well eat them now."

  While she opened up the box, he went back to the galley, returning with bags of pretzels and chips and two bottles of red wine.

  He gave her a proud smile. "It's going to be a party, Kat."

  She reluctantly smiled at his words. She appreciated the fact that he was trying to make the best of a bad situation, but it was almost harder to be with him when he was being nice to her, because that just reminded her of the good times they'd had together.

  Jake had always been lighthearted and easygoing. She'd been the one who was too serious, too worried about everything and for a while they'd complemented each other. She'd encouraged him to be more ambitious, to have bigger, long-term goals, and Jake had encouraged her to relax, let down her guard and have fun.

  But Jake had changed with his dad's death, and she hadn't been able to handle his new personality—one that was angry and bitter and far too reckless. He'd scared her, and she'd run. He thought she'd abandoned him at the worst time in his life. Maybe she had. But she'd convinced herself that it was her or him and that if she stayed with him, she was going to lose herself. She chose to lose him instead.

  She'd had regrets, more than a few, but she'd been too busy to allow herself to dwell on the past. Now, it was all coming back in bright, vivid colors, and she wasn't ready to handle it.

  "What? You don't like red wine anymore?" Jake asked.

  "No, I do. I was just thinking…" Her voice trailed away as she realized she did not want to tell him what she'd been thinking about.

  Apparently, he didn't want to know, because he headed back to the galley to get glasses and a bottle opener.

  A moment later they were sipping wine and snacking on cheese and crackers.

  Jake sat in the chair across from her, which she'd originally thought was better than the chair next to her, but now she had nowhere else to look but at him. And looking at Jake made her heart flutter and dance around in her chest.

  It had been so much easier to hate him and to stay away from him when he was hundreds of miles away.

  "I found eight bottles of water in the closet," he said, breaking the silence between them. "That should last us for a while."

  "We'll get help tomorrow." She hoped she was speaking the truth.

  "I'm sure."

  "How's your head feeling?"

  "It's fine. Nothing to worry about." Thunder followed his words, and then a flash of light filled the cabin, as the storm once again pummeled the plane.

  "We can't get away from the lightning," she murmured.

  "Alicia would love this. She'd be outside in the rain, taking pictures and trying to figure out what the lightning was showing her." He drained his wine glass at the end of his sentence. "I don't know how she can love lightning when my dad died in an electrical storm, and she almost lost her life in one. But it still speaks to her. I find nothing intriguing or comforting about it, especially now that it caused me to lose control of my plane."

  It was odd how much impact lightning had had on his life, especially when she looked at the big events he'd just outlined. "Are you saying we crashed because the plane was hit by lightning? I thought planes got hit all the time."

  "Not all the time and not as hard as we got hit. It short-circuited the instrument panel and did something to the steering. We lost radio contact. And the storm was too big to battle without instruments."

  "I don't understand how we got caught up in it. Don’t you have radar to help you avoid storms like that?"

  "Of course we do, but this storm wasn't on the radar. It literally came out of nowhere. One minute there was nothing but blue sky, and the next we were inside a huge, thunderous cloud."

  She'd been asleep when they'd hit the storm, so she had no idea if it was as sudden as he made it out to be.

  "When it was happening, I have to admit I thought about my father," he said. "I wondered if the same thing had happened to him, that he'd suddenly gotten caught in a storm he couldn't go around. I wondered what he'd thought when he realized the plane wasn't responding, that he was going to crash. Only he had nothing but water beneath him."

  She nodded. "What did you think, Jake—when it was happening? Were you afraid?"

  He looked into her eyes. "No. I was determined. I had to save you. I couldn't let you down—again."

  She sucked in a breath, her lips tightening at the look in his eyes, but she didn't want to talk about the past. "You’ve always been a good pilot. I knew you'd find a way."

  "I hoped I would. It's strange, but…"

  "What's strange?"

  "Nothing."

  "Come on, Jake. What?"

  "I saw my dad in the lightning. He waved his hand in my direction, and I could have sworn he said, 'follow me'. Then he was gone, and we were going down. I'm sure my mind was just playing tricks on me. We'd been talking about him and lightning, so I just imagined him, right?"

  "I would think that was the reason you saw him or thought you saw him. Unless you believe in ghosts or supernatural events."

  "I don't, but Alicia does. She would tell me that seeing my dad was a sign, that the lightning hit the plane because it wanted
to show us something."

  "Like this tree we landed in?" she asked dryly.

  Jake smiled. "Not the tree exactly." He set his glass down on the table between them and rested his arms on his knees as he leaned forward. "Maybe the lightning wanted to stop us in our tracks, give us time to think about what we're doing; it certainly did that."

  "You're making a weather event sound like a person."

  "My great-grandmother believes lightning is a god."

  "You don't believe that, though."

  "I didn't used to, but I have to admit a lot of crazy shit has happened over the years, all having to do with lightning."

  "You can find coincidence wherever you look. You can spin anything to make it seem meaningful."

  "That's true."

  His speculative gaze made her want to fidget. "You're staring at me, Jake."

  "Well, it's been a long time since I've seen you."

  "You've been looking at me all day."

  "Actually, I've been trying not to look at you all day. I kept thinking you'd be gone in a few hours, and that would be the end of it, but that's definitely not going to happen now. You and I are going to be here for a while, all night at least."

  "I need some more wine," she said, pushing her empty glass toward the bottle.

  "Me, too," he said, as he poured two more glasses.

  "The wine takes the chill off," she said.

  "There are some blankets in the closet. I can get them."

  "I don't need them yet. Are we really going to be here all night?"

  "Since we haven't seen anyone yet, I'm guessing no one nearby on the ground witnessed the crash, or they would have been here by now."

  "Maybe not if they were far away."

  "True, but far away means it will take them awhile to actually find us."

  She sighed. "You're right."

  "Nice of you to admit that I can occasionally be right."

  She stared back at him, seeing a mix of complicated emotions in his eyes. It would be a long night if every sentence they spoke was filled with undercurrents. She couldn't go on ignoring the tension between them. "Okay, Jake, let's do it."

  "Do what?" he asked warily.