A Wing And A Prayer: Truly Yours Digital Edition (Truly Yours Digital Editions)

by Tracie Peterson

  Hours later he dialed the now-familiar number. “Honey, I’m home,” he said in a teasing, singsong voice.

  “Brad?” CJ said in a questioning tone.

  “Who else would call you honey?” Brad asked earnestly. “There isn’t anyone else, is there?”

  CJ smiled. “Now why would I tell you if there were?”

  Brad sobered a bit, realizing that it was suddenly very important to him that he be the only man in CJ’s life. “What happened to being straightforward? There isn’t anyone else, is there?” His voice took on a pleading note.

  A strange sensation overcame CJ. “No, you know there isn’t.” Her voice was completely serious.

  Brad exhaled in relief. “Good. Now, let’s keep it that way.”

  “Sounds kind of possessive,” CJ replied.

  “I feel very possessive when it comes to you. I think I’m only coming to realize how important you are to me. I kept thinking about you all the time I was in Jackson, and I couldn’t keep my mind on what I was doing.”

  “Now that sounds dangerous. I hope you were concentrating on the plane when you were flying back home.”

  Brad laughed. “Well, most of the time. Say, can you come over?”

  CJ glanced at the clock. “Right now?”

  “Sure. Come on out and I’ll fix my famous Chicken à la Brad and we can have a nice cozy fire. Maybe we could watch some mushy, romantic movie and I could tell you how wonderful you are and you could tell me—”

  “How wonderful you are,” CJ filled in. “All right. You talked me into it. Can I bring anything?”

  “Just yourself. That’s really all I want.” Brad’s words sent out a clear message.

  CJ rang the bell and waited for Brad to open the door. She was grateful for the wool coat she’d thought to wear and hugged it close against the unseasonably cold breezes. Was it more than the wind that made her tremble? Seeing Brad again was more than a little exciting. She wondered nervously if she’d be able to act reasonably.

  It’s only been two days, she chided herself. But, for some reason, it had been two very important days. Deep down, CJ had come to realize she cared quite deeply for Brad.

  Brad opened the door, wearing a broad smile. “How good of you to come, Miss O’Sullivan.” He bowed low and stepped back.

  “Good of you to have me, Mr. Aldersson.”

  Brad took her coat and hung it up. When he turned back around, he pulled CJ into his arms. With a sigh, she melted against him. She lifted her face to his and let her arms travel up his, until her hands met behind his neck. For the first time, CJ initiated their kiss, pulling his face down to meet hers. Brad didn’t hesitate for a moment.

  “I love you so very much, CJ O’Sullivan,” Brad whispered against her ear.

  CJ smiled and put her head against his sweatered chest. She wanted to return his words, but the image Roger had concocted of Brad, flying away, came back to haunt her. She was suddenly afraid and pulled back rather quickly.

  “What’s wrong?” Brad asked, fearing that he’d done something to offend her.

  “Nothing. Honestly, nothing at all,” CJ protested, knowing she sounded startled. Before Brad could press her further, CJ threw up her hands. “It’s just my insecurities. Please, bear with me.”

  Brad reached out and pulled her back to him. “Come on, I have a nice fire crackling away on the grate and no one to enjoy it with.”

  They sat and talked for hours, and at one point Brad served them dinner on a checkered tablecloth on the floor in front of the fireplace.

  CJ kicked off her boots and relaxed against the coffee table, while Brad cleared away the dishes. It was nice to be cared for in such a completely giving way. In the back of her mind, however, a thought struck CJ. Brad was doing all the giving, and she, in her needy way, was taking all that he offered.

  Feeling guilty, CJ patted the space beside her when Brad returned with coffee. “I’m afraid I should apologize,” she began. “You’ve done so much for me this evening, and I’ve done very little for you.”

  Brad smiled provocatively and put the coffee on the table behind CJ. “I can think of many ways you could repay me,” he whispered, kneeling beside her.

  CJ smiled. “So can I, but most of them are totally inappropriate, and I think maybe I should go home.”

  Brad laughed. “Relax; you’re safe with me. I honor the same values and principles you do, remember?”

  “Yes,” CJ mused, “but it’s difficult at times like this to remember just what all those principles are.”

  “Good point,” Brad said solemnly. “I think our relationship is coming to the place where we need to make some important decisions.”

  CJ lowered her head. “I don’t know if I can.”

  Brad reached out and ran a finger along CJ’s jaw. It came to rest under her chin, lifting her face to meet his. “I’m not asking you to marry me, at least not just yet. But I would like a commitment between us. Something I can count on as solid and trustworthy.”

  “I thought we already had that,” CJ whispered.

  “In a sense, but I just want to know that you belong to me. Does that sound terribly chauvinistic?”

  “Terribly,” CJ said with a slow, sweet smile. “But I like it, and you can count on it, as far as I’m concerned. There’s no one else I’m interested in, nor do I desire to be this close to anyone but you.”

  Friday night, Brad called to tell CJ to bring an overnight bag for their flight the following morning.

  “What do you have planned?” CJ questioned. “We’ve never gone flying anywhere that would require we stay over. I’m not sure I’m up to the distance and—”

  “Nonsense,” Brad interrupted. “I have to go up to Jackson, and I want you to come with me. It will be the perfect time for you to put your fears to rest, once and for all. We’ll have fun, CJ, and we can stay at the resort and go swimming or sightseeing…whatever you want to do.”

  “I don’t know,” CJ said apprehensively.

  “Well, I do and, if I have to, I’ll come pack you myself.

  Now, take warm clothes and meet me at the hangar at six.”

  “Okay,” she said, getting her courage up. “I’ll go.”

  “You promise?”

  “Promise.”

  CJ faced her decision with a great deal of turmoil. It shouldn’t bother her so much, but it did. When morning came, she got up before the sun, wrote out a note for Cheryl, who hadn’t returned the night before, and took off for the airport.

  “Please, Father,” she prayed as she drove up to park beside Brad’s Jeep. “Please give me the strength and courage I need for this day. Amen.”

  When she looked up, Brad stood in the doorway of the hangar. For a moment, all CJ could do was stare. He was gorgeous. He is everything a man should be, she thought. Tall and tanned. Brown hair glinting gold from the sun, blowing in the light breeze. Passionate, intense eyes that seemed to stare through to her soul. He wore insulated flight coveralls, and a ball cap with “O&F Aviation” written across it was in his hands. It was the company CJ’s father had co-owned with Cheryl’s.

  Shyly she stepped out of the car, thinking the scene looked like something out of the movies. As if sensing his effect on her, a lopsided grin broke the serious expression on his face.

  “Welcome to Aldersson Airlines. I have insulated coveralls for you inside. I’m going to finish the preflight check,” he said, taking her bag. “I’m on the backside of the hangar. Just come on around when you’re dressed.”

  CJ nodded and did as she was told, grateful for the extra warmth of the one-piece suit. Brad had just completed his inspection when she came around the corner and spotted the plane. CJ froze. It was a rep-lica of her parents’ plane—the same one that had taken them from her.

  She felt the color drain from her face. The blue-and-white

  Cessna greeted her like an apparition from the past.

  “I thought if you were going to put this behind you once and for all, we m
ight as well put you in the same kind of plane. I know I should have told you, but honestly, CJ, it’s no different than the Travel Air. It’s just an airplane,” Brad said firmly.

  CJ stared at the Cessna as though she expected her parents to wave back from the cockpit. “I can’t do this,” she said and turned to leave.

  “Yes, you can,” Brad insisted, and his arm shot out to stop her flight. “It’s just a bad memory. That’s all it is. Your parents are in heaven, safe and happy. You have to put this to rest. You have to let go of that accident.”

  CJ leaned her back against Brad’s chest and took a deep breath. Dread overwhelmed her in a tidal wave of emotion. Trembling and weak-kneed, she nodded. “I know you’re right. I want to let go. I truly do.”

  “Then fly with me today and give it over to God. It’s only two hours and forty minutes to Jackson. You can do it, CJ. I know you can, and you know God can help you do it. Remember Philippians 4:13.”

  “I can do everything through him who gives me strength,” CJ whispered in reply.

  “That’s right. Everything…through Christ.” Brad’s words neutralized her fears. “You’ll work in Christ’s strength, CJ. Not your own.”

  Pushing Brad’s arms aside, CJ squared her shoulders and turned to face both Brad and the plane. “Everything through Christ,” she repeated. “Everything.”

  fifteen

  Even climbing into the plane caused a rush of memories to fill CJ’s mind. She eyed the cockpit knowingly. She’d flown in her father’s Cessna 180 many times. Now, here she was, in the one place she’d vowed never to be again.

  CJ could very nearly see her father in the pilot’s seat beside her. She could almost hear her mother’s laughter as they prepared to go on one of their many adventures.

  “Are you okay?” Brad’s voice broke through the madness.

  “Uh-huh,” she murmured with a slight nod of her head.

  Brad checked over a self-made list and radioed out on common frequency to begin their journey. CJ was lost again in thought. Voices from the past filled her head. It was her father making the radio announcement of takeoff, not Brad. It was his smiling face that looked over at her.

  “CJ, you look as white as a ghost. Are you going to be sick? CJ?” Brad reached over and touched her hand.

  She looked up. “I’m fine. Really. Just a lot of memories to work through.”

  Brad nodded and moved the aircraft down the runway. In a matter of seconds, they were airborne, and only then did CJ realize she’d been holding her breath the entire time. Exhaling loudly, she tried to ignore Brad’s grin.

  “You’re still alive and well,” he said, trying to lighten her spirits. “You may as well relax and enjoy the view.”

  CJ tried. The day was perfect, and the air was clear and cold. She could see for miles around her in the cloudless sky. The mountains glimmered from their new toppings of snow, and CJ reminded herself how comforting these majestic markers had always been in her life.

  “Life is like climbing those peaks,” her father had told her. “You see only your side of the mountain, and while you climb and trudge through, there is no other side. But once you get to the top, you can look down around you and see where you came from and where you’re going to. When we’re in the valleys, just climbing out and up, we can’t believe there will ever be that viewpoint. Just remember it, though, and don’t get discouraged when things get hard. Climb to the top, CJ. The view from there is fantastic!”

  She nodded to herself as though the voice had reached across the years. Her father and mother had taught her so much about living. They’d truly hate knowing that she’d spent so much of her young life focused on death. Especially their deaths.

  CJ glanced over at Brad. He was perfectly at ease doing his favorite job. He loved to fly and had told her so on many occasions. Once or twice when they’d talked about flying, CJ had allowed herself to re-member the way it felt.

  Her eyes moved from Brad to the dual control in front of her. It moved with unison rhythm as Brad maneuvered them through the air. She reached out a finger and let it ride on the control, just feeling the pulsating moves.

  Brad looked over and smiled. “You want to give it a try?”

  CJ pulled her hand back as though she’d touched a flame. “No!” she exclaimed more quickly than she’d intended. Calming her nerves, she smiled. “I was just remembering.”

  “You really ought to get your pilot’s license. You could become in-volved with your father’s enterprise again, instead of letting Curt run things by proxy.”

  “Even Curt doesn’t spend that much time with it. Cheryl’s father has everything under control. The air show business isn’t what it used to be. It’s much more complicated, and that, coupled with the way the aviation company has grown, makes me pretty useless. It’s probably best that I stay out of it. Maybe I’ll open that art gallery like Cheryl suggested.”

  “Think you could be happy, grounded?” Brad questioned. “You are Doug O’Sullivan’s daughter, after all. Five years without the things you cut your teeth on are bound to have taken their toll in more than the obvious ways. I think you love all of this as much as he did.”

  CJ recoiled a bit into the seat. Love the thing that killed her parents? “That was before,” she murmured.

  “Before the crash, you mean?”

  “Yes,” CJ answered. “I doubt my father would think too highly of this profession now.”

  “You mean if he’d lived through the crash, as you did?”

  “Exactly.”

  Brad laughed and surprised CJ even more. “You don’t remember your father very well then. CJ, he went through a dozen near misses and minor crashes. He even experienced a pretty bad one during the war. You should know. He teetered between life and death for weeks.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” CJ replied in complete shock. “Sure, Daddy had some risky moments, but I don’t know anything about an accident like what you’re telling me about.”

  Brad shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. They must have kept it from you. It happened before you were born. My point, however, is that Doug knew the risks related to flying, and after each disaster, he got back into the cockpit and did it all over again. The last accident wouldn’t have kept Doug O’Sullivan grounded, even if it had taken the lives of those he loved. Flying was his life, and you, your mother, and brother were all a part of it.”

  CJ looked at Brad as though she couldn’t believe the words he spoke. “I know he loved flying, but I can’t imagine wanting to be a part of something that took away those you cared for so deeply.”

  Brad’s expression softened. “Ignoring the pleasures of something you love to do wouldn’t bring them back. It’s no different for you now. Just because you won’t pilot a plane, doesn’t balance out the fact that they can’t be here with you. Let them go, CJ. They aren’t far away, and you’ll see them again. Just let it all go.”

  CJ grew quiet and turned to stare out the window as if by doing so, she could block out Brad’s words. She hated the logic of it all. Why was it so hard to admit that she’d buffered herself for years behind the false assumption that her parents would have reacted the same way?

  The trip to Jackson was perfect. The winds were cooperative and turbulence was low. Even when they had to fly close to dangerous ridges and downdrafts, Brad was able to position the plane in such a way that they sailed through, high above, without difficulties.

  CJ had never been to Jackson Hole before, and she enjoyed the time she and Brad shared there. The scenery was spectacular with the rugged Teton peaks rising heavenward. Already dressed in heavy snowcaps, they looked much more rustic than CJ’s beloved mountains in Colorado.

  The view from her hotel room was impressive, and CJ enjoyed re-laxing there when Brad left for his meeting with the real estate agent. He was quite optimistic about his purchase, and CJ was happy that his plans were coming together. As she stretched out on the queen-sized bed, she daydreamed
about what it would be like if Brad’s plans and aspirations were her own.

  The thought was a pleasant one, and CJ giggled to herself in little-girl fashion, all the while contemplating what it might be like to be Mrs. Brad Aldersson. Then a cloud of frustration shadowed the fantasy. Brad would no doubt continue to fly all over the country, especially if his resorts expanded in the manner he hoped. She’d have to fly with him or be left home a great deal of the time. Maybe he’d even expect her to get her pilot’s license and help with the flying.

  Her mind raced with images of treacherous mountain blizzards and freak thunderstorms. She could imagine the tiny Cessna or twin-engine Beech being tossed mercilessly through the air. Shaking her head, CJ forced the picture from her mind.

  “Oh, Brad,” she sighed. “If I love you, will I always have to confront this thing?”

  If I love you? CJ laughed aloud. She knew full well that it was too late. She already did love Brad Aldersson; she just couldn’t find the words to tell him. Then, too, maybe she was afraid of what would happen once she made that declaration. Would he push her to marry immediately? Did she want that?

  That evening, she enjoyed his company with guarded emotions. Brad was the exuberant new owner of prime acreage in Jackson Hole. They celebrated in grand style at the finest restaurant in town, then slowly made their way back to the hotel.

  “Weather still looks good for tomorrow’s flight,” Brad stated, walking CJ to her door. “There’s a cold front moving in, but it’s dragging a bit, so we’ve got plenty of time. I’ve got someone watching the weather, and they’ll give me a call if the conditions deteriorate.”

  CJ tried to approach the subject enthusiastically. “I hope the re-turn trip is as wonderful as the one coming up.

  Everything was so pretty and—”

  Brad put a finger to her lips. “Don’t. You don’t have to pretend with me. I know you’re afraid, but I’ll take every precaution to ensure that we stay safe.”