Love in the Air: Lopez Island Series #2

by Jamie E. Matthews

  Brooke shook her head, gave Jan a loving glance. “Silly. I saw Jan, beat up gardener gloves, battered cap, a smear of dirt on her cheek and I knew. Bam. There she is. The one I’ve been waiting for.”

  Nell joined in the chorus of “awws” but as the conversation moved on, she was reminded she had no story to contribute. How many more times would it be like this over the years? Weddings, babies, and the constant “we did this and we did that” that came with coupledom.

  It was better this way, she thought as she helped clear away the debris from lunch. After all, look at Brent. A hot guy with amazing chemistry, that she had tons in common with including her profession, and poof, one day, no more tingles, no more chemistry. Adrian would be the same some day, she realized, as she wandered off to check out the view. It wouldn’t hurt when he moved on. It never did.

  Instead of consoling her, the thought just made her sadder. Listening to the chatter behind her about last minute wedding details, mixed in with ideas for Amy’s baby shower, she leaned her head against the window and stared out at the bay. And, in a room full of people, felt deeply alone.

  Chapter 16

  Adrian dreamed of Nell, her hot mouth fastened over his penis, sliding up and down, licking and sucking until he thought he might lose his mind. Then he woke up and realized it was no dream. He felt her smile against him when his body jerked awake.

  “Oh, good, you’re up. So to speak.” She purred, while his brain tried to catch up.

  But, as her talented tongue swirled around him, Adrian gave up, closed his eyes still heavy with sleep and just savored the feel of her mouth. When she stopped, he levered up on his arms to watch her. She was a shadow in the dim light of dawn creeping in through the window, but he could still see the gleam of her eyes and the graceful silhouette of her body as she reached over to the nightstand to grab a condom.

  After covering him, she lifted up and guided him inside her. He groaned. She moaned as well, her eyes on his in the darkness. Nell rocked back and forth while he thrust up into her. She flung her head back while she rode him and he was utterly lost in the feel of her, the cascade of sensations as she slid across his length. He thrust up hard against her, and she grabbed her breasts as the orgasm washed over her. The tight, hot feel of her contracting around him sent him over the edge.

  She collapsed on top of him, breath heaving. Adrian wrapped his arms around her, savoring the feel of her smooth skin under his hands, the warmth of her body pressed against his. He cupped her butt, pressing her tight against him, not wanting to let go of that intimate connection just yet.

  “Good morning,” he murmured in her ear.

  She stretched in his arms. “Breakfast of champions.”

  He laughed and thought it was no wonder that, after a few months, he still delighted in waking up with her in his arms.

  “Gotta go to work.” Nell rolled off him.

  Adrian watched her, the light now bright enough to make the view of her ass as she shimmied into her underwear quite lovely indeed. They’d fallen into a routine of sorts the last few weeks where she stayed most nights at his place, since hers had less privacy. In the mornings, she rose at dawn and did the walk of shame back home to dress and shower, unless he could talk her into shower sex. He’d suggested a few days ago that she leave some things at his place, but she’d shied away, and he hadn’t pressed.

  “Going back to sleep?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the bed and leaning in to give him a kiss.

  Adrian sighed. “Probably not. Why do you have to get up so damn early?”

  “It’s good for you. Builds your character. And, hey.” She stood up, pointed at him. “My signs still aren’t in. I’m firing that guy today.”

  Adrian shook his head. “I’m sorry, Nell. He’s usually super reliable. Hey, let me talk to him today. I feel responsible, and the least I can do is take this off your plate. If he can’t get them delivered to you this week, I’ll tell him you’re going to another shop.”

  “I don’t mind firing people,” she pointed out, then shrugged. “But yeah, I’m busy today. Gotta take a cargo load into Seattle. So if you want to call him, knock yourself out. I expect a discount since it’s taken so damn long.”

  “Can I make it up to you in the shower?” He wiggled his brows at her.

  She laughed. “Another day. Thanks for the orgasms.”

  “Anytime,” he called after her.

  Adrian lay there for a while, tried to doze back off, then let out a sigh of exasperation. Before long, this woman was going to turn him into a morning person. Grumbling a little, he showered, slipped on a pair of faded jeans and a t-shirt, then padded barefoot into the kitchen. He’d suggested that if Nell was going to leave so early, she could at least make coffee before she left, but she’d just laughed at him.

  Over breakfast, he mulled over his plans for the day, adjusted based on Nell’s impatience for her signs. He could put in a solid three hours on pieces for the show; box up a few of the finished pieces for transport to San Juan. Considering this, he added in another hour for staging photographs, uploading them, toning them in Photoshop, then sending over to Marcelo. Then a two or three hours on Nell’s signs, and, knowing she planned on doing the cargo run at the end of the day, he could meet her at the airport with them when she returned from Seattle.

  Nell remained on his mind in the studio, since one of the sculptures he was finishing was the one of her head thrown back in ecstasy. Now that the pieces for the show were nearly done, he could move on to a new one of her, he mused. He could think of piece after piece he wanted to do about her—those strong, competent hands as she steered the plane in for a landing; her smart-ass grin; her nude figure rising above him like she had this morning…Smoothing the last piece of the metal, he switched off the torch and studied the sculpture with a dispassionate eye. Sexy, powerful yet vulnerable, the metal glowed warmly in the morning sun. And, while he’d learned to let go of his pieces, to accept the pang when they were sold and left him, there was no way in hell anyone else was walking off with this one.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this wrapped up in a woman.

  Adrian frowned, then put that thought aside for later. For the next few hours, he focused on fine tuning the sculptures, then polishing them to a sheen, setting them up to be photographed under various lights. Once done, he packed them carefully in the padded wooden crates to transport them to San Juan.

  Then it was back to the house and up to his rarely used office space and to the dreaded Photoshop. He disliked working with photos on the computer, because it felt so flat after the tactile warmth of metal. Still, he was too much of a perfectionist to turn the job over to anyone else. After painstakingly editing the photos to his liking, he uploaded them and sent Marcelo the link to a downloadable gallery.

  Adrian grabbed a quick lunch, then headed back to the studio, excited to finish up Nell’s signs. He pulled them down from the shelf where he’d hidden them, unwrapped them. There were four in all. One for the airport here on Lopez, a tall, vertical burnished copper sign to install outside next to the main entrance. He knew that Anna Sue planned to plant some fun, vibrant flowers in what was currently just a strip of dirt outside the office. She could even trail some sweet pea vines over the sign to add an organic look. The other three were for San Juan—the same tall, vertical sign for the main road at the turnoff to the airport as well as down at the dock, and the last sign a long rectangle that could be mounted over the door.

  The design was deceptively simple, but he’d spent quite a bit of time etching out the letters to spell “Nell’s.” The “N” and the “E” were solid, sturdy and plain. The edges of the letters began to soften with the first “l”, then begin to curve a bit at the edges with the second “l.” The “s” was a strong and graceful swoop, with a long tail curving back around the edge of the name, then up to the top of the sign, the very tail of the letter forming a small airplane. He thought it embodied the strong foundation of practical
ity and common sense at the heart of her business, with a nod towards her adventurous spirit—but he worried it might be too simple.

  Adrian began adding details to the airplane, windows, doors, a tiny version of Nell’s etched into the side. While too small to see from the road, he liked the idea of a visitor finding the details up close—his version of an Easter egg. He mulled over that idea, enjoying the intricacy of the work. So often he focused on the big and grand that the close work presented a new challenge. He began to think of ideas for his next series of work, embedding hidden designs or words into a larger sculpture, one massive piece with intricacy after intricacy built in. Marcelo would hate how long it would take him to create, but the more he thought about it, the more he loved the idea of a piece that people could stand in front of for ages, trying to puzzle out the various layers of design.

  He itched to start right away, but he refrained from grabbing his sketch pad, knowing if he got started, he’d never make it to the airport in time. Instead, he polished up the signs. He checked his phone for the time and headed out to the airport, nervous anticipation feathering through his stomach. He could fix it if she didn’t like it, he consoled himself. And, he’d know right away if it was right—it’s not as if she was shy about hiding her feelings.

  At the airport, he checked with Anna Sue, who told him Nell’s flight would arrive in fifteen minutes.

  “Are you done with the signs yet, sugar?” she asked him. “She is pissed. I kept trying to take the project from her, but she’s like a dog with a bone on this one.”

  “They’re in the car,” he assured her with a smile. “I thought I’d show them to her.”

  Anna Sue clapped her hands together, beamed at him. “Well, let’s take a look!”

  “Yeah.” Adrian nodded, led the way to his car. “Why didn’t I ask you to look them over earlier? You could have told me if I’m on the right track.”

  Anna Sue pursed her lips when she saw the packages in the car. “Honey, you need to unwrap at least one and put it up. Go for the full effect. Don’t show them to her out of the back of your car like you’re some salesman, for heaven’s sake.”

  Before he could argue, she was hefting out one of the vertical bundles. “This one?”

  “Jesus.” Adrian wrestled it away from her, surprised at it hadn’t toppled her tiny frame over. “You’re surprisingly strong.”

  She winked at him. “I’m full of surprises.”

  Anna Sue kept up her harmless flirting back to the entrance, then helped him unwrap the sign. She studied it for a long moment, and Adrian found himself clenching his hands while he waited for her response.

  “Sugar,” she said finally. “This is fucking amazing.” She threw her arms around him, hugged him tight, then let go and jumped up and down. “I’m so excited! When can we rip that ugly thing down?” She pointed at the plain white sign with black typeface next to the door.

  “Let’s wait till the boss signs off, but it can’t come off a moment too soon as far as I’m concerned.” Adrian propped the vertical sign next to the doorway.

  “Code orange, code orange,” came Nell’s voice from the hanger, and Adrian realized she was speaking on the intercom, which Anna Sue must have turned to speaker when she left her desk.

  “Oh, shit.” Anna Sue raced into the hanger, Adrian on her heels. Pete dropped his tools and bounded over to the computer.

  “Boss, I got you. Status?” Pete picked up the headset, situated himself at the computer, pulling up Nell’s flight path.

  “Incoming five minutes.” Nell’s calm voice cut in and out through static. “Computer—don’t know—not stabilizing.”

  “Nell, you’re cutting in and out. Do you hear me?”

  “Think it’s—” A hard burst of static drowned out her words, then silence.

  “Nell? Come in, Nell. Can you hear me?” Pete kept repeating the words, until shaking his head. “Anna Sue, get the—”

  But, she was already racing to the back of the hanger. “On it. Activating code orange procedures. Call the Fire—”

  “On it.” Pete was dialing. “Hey, Frank, we’ve got some trouble at Nell’s Airport. Code orange. Can’t get communication from Nell, sounds like she has computer issues and equipment malfunction, possible emergency landing. She’s about five minutes out.”

  Adrian looked back to see Anna Sue dragging heavy spiked strips, and he rushed over to give her a hand.

  “What’s code orange?”

  “Our procedures for an emergency landing. One step under code red, or as Nell says, Code Completely Fucked.”

  Adrian followed Anna Sue, joined her in laying down the strips on the runway, which were, he assumed to slow Nell down. He listened with one ear to Anna Sue’s instructions to lay them out, to Pete in the background notifying the police department to block off the surrounding roads in case Nell came in low, and all the while he forced his breath to go in and out when it wanted to just stop, as his whole body went cold at the thought of the plane crashing into the ground, flames eating through twisted metal.

  Anna Sue motioned him off the runway and into the safety of the hanger, just as sirens screamed down the lane. The fire engine kept well back from the runway, and firefighters hopped out to uncoil hoses. The ambulance followed, and parked next to the fire truck. Two paramedics got out, opened up the back doors. When the distant drone of an engine filled their ears, they all looked up as one to the sky. Adrian, Anna Sue and Pete rushed out to peer up at the sight of Nell’s plane, a tiny speck in the distance.

  Adrian found himself clenching his hands so hard it hurt, while the plane seemed to inch forward. Slowly, the plane grew larger and larger, a trail of black smoke fanning out behind her, wings wobbling.

  “Clear the runway, clear the runway,” yelled one of the firefighters, and Adrian realized he was still standing, watching the incoming unsteady flight, even as she drew near enough that he could make out the letters “Nell’s” on the side of the plane.

  Anna Sue drew him back in the hanger, and clutched his arm. They watched in tense silence as the roar of the plane’s engine grew louder, sounding, even to Adrian’s untrained ear, off somehow.

  “Shit,” muttered Pete, eyes fixed on the plane.

  “What’s the issue?” asked Adrian, keeping his gaze on the plane. “Can she land safely?”

  But Pete didn’t seem to hear him, and so Adrian just watched, helpless, as the plane, rattling and listing from one side to another, careened closer and closer. He held his breath as it lined up with the runway and hurtled toward them. The plane wasn’t level when it touched down on the runway with a jolt, and it rocked from one side to the other, tires screaming. It hit the first set of spikes, then the next, but to Adrian’s panicked eye, they didn’t seem to be making a difference at all.

  The plane kept speeding down the runway, a horrendous screech rending the air, smoke filling the runway and hanger. Coughing, Adrian ran out of the hanger in the plane’s wake, the screeching sound even louder as the plane rolled away. Through the haze, he made out the firefighters running towards the plane, hoses at the ready. The plane slid partly off the runway, front tires kissing the grass, before jolting to a halt. For a moment, the engine roared on, before cutting out, and Adrian’s ears rang in the silence.

  He ran flat out towards the plane, ignoring the shouts from the first responders, Anna Sue and Pete hot on his heels. As the wind blew the smoke away, he saw Nell hop out of the cockpit, pump her fist in the air.

  “Son of a bitch! Nailed it!” She ignored the firefighters trying to drag her away from the plane, instead squirming by them to stand, hand on her hips, watching the other firefighters hose down the plane, smothering the smoke.

  Adrian stopped where he was, his legs suddenly wobbly with relief, while Anna Sue and Pete raced forward. Anna Sue threw her arms around Nell, who hugged her tightly and patted her consolingly on the back, saying something Adrian couldn’t hear. Then Pete elbowed her aside, giving her a hard, one-armed hug
. They walked closer to the firefighters, Nell tipping her head to Pete’s, leaping right into shop talk that Adrian couldn’t follow about the plane’s failure.

  “That’s enough guys, you got it,” she admonished the the firefighters. “Don’t destroy my plane.” And, with that, she tugged Pete toward the cockpit, explaining the error message she’d seen pop up, and hypothesizing about the cause.

  Adrian nearly sat down right there on the runway, the breath knocked out of him at the sight of Nell alive, vibrant, and tough as nails. The woman had what sure as hell looked to him like a near death experience and then bounced right into fixing her damn plane.

  Dazed, he held on by the tiniest of threads and prevented himself from launching across the runway and pulling her into his arms, babbling how much he loved her. Because damn it all to hell, he did. In the space of the longest five minutes of his life, he’d faced the unbearable thought of her broken, bleeding and lifeless body hauled out of a flaming wreckage of a plane. He’d thought about never hearing that deep, throaty laugh, feeling her jump into his arms and wrapping her legs around his waist as she did when she was feeling particularly affectionate, seeing her brows draw together and her eyes spark with anger when he pissed her off. And in that five minutes, while he watched her plane practically tumble out of the sky, he realized: she was it. The end. Search over.

  It was too damn bad for him that the knowledge of this would send her screaming in the opposite direction.

  Something in his face must have shown, because Anna Sue took one look at him and tugged on Nell’s arm, tilting her head to indicate Adrian’s presence. Nell grinned, waved.

  “Did you enjoy the show?” she called.

  Try as he might, he couldn’t match her casual tone, couldn’t uproot himself from where he stood. She raised her eyebrows, then murmured a quick word to Pete and made her way over to him, her long legs eating up the pavement.