Lost in Flight
Page 1
Lost in Flight
Neeny Boucher
(2013)
* * *
Rating: ****
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Women's Fiction, Contemporary Women, Romance, Contemporary, Contemporary Fiction, Romantic Comedy
Recommended for audiences over the age of 18
If you like your characters quirky, socially awkward, and badly behaved, this is the book for you. What if you got another chance with the love of your life, even when you didn’t want one? Would you grab the opportunity, or run as fast as you could in the opposite direction?
Christina Martin, lawyer, ex high school grunge queen, teenage bride, divorcee, and once a suspected killer, is confronted by a past that she has spent the last eight years carefully avoiding. Drawn back to her hated hometown, with her family under the worst of circumstances, matters are complicated when she finds the love of her life, ex-husband and nemesis, Nicholas Riley, also in residence.
Riley, a man with secrets, who has a penchant for psychological games, made wary by life and with one weakness, his ex-wife. Christina is the woman that brings out all his protective instincts and others less noble. All it takes is one fateful night, where these two collide, opening a door both thought slammed shut and locked forever.
From the past to the present, Christina and Riley show that true love doesn’t always run smoothly, it might not conquer all, and most importantly, love is complicated.
“Lost in Flight” is book one in the “Complicated Love Series.”
Lost in Flight (Book One)
The Complicated Love Series
By
Neeny Boucher
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents, and places are products of the author’s imagination and as such, are not to be misconstrued as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events are entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Text copyright © 2013 Neeny Boucher
All Rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written consent from the publisher, except in the instance of quotes for reviews. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, or distributed via the Internet without the publisher’s permission and is a violation of the International copyright law, which subjects the violator to severe fines and imprisonment.
This book is licensed for personal enjoyment. Ebook copies may not be resold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Cover © Damonza.com
Edited by T.X. Witika and Stephanie Inglesby
Formatted by C.J McMurtrie
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my wonderful family and friends. A special mention and kiss goes out to the real iron vaginas, a truly wonderful group of women. You know who you are. Here’s to the pursuit of joy, passion and people behaving badly.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my wonderful husband and children who encouraged me to write this even when it meant I was sometimes present, but absent in the landscape of my fiction. To my husband, in particular, who ‘suffered’ through my reading out loud of plot lines in the work and using you as a ‘touch-stone’ to see if it would fly or not.
A special thank you to my family and friends who allowed me to rave on about people that, technically, weren’t ‘real’ to anyone else, but myself.
Thanks to T.X Witika for the editing, providing great feedback and visual aids for my characters, and for being as nocturnal as I am, allowing me a chance to chat.
Thanks also to my husband with the technical skills and know-how in getting this work formatted. I love technology, but it fries my brain – not so for you my dear. You have always loved a challenge, whether it is mechanical or human.
A heartfelt thank you to all my wonderful beta readers: Kristina Amit, Gabby Barnett, Ladina Gilly, Stephanie Inglesby, Rosie Malec-Mastropieri, Dee Marie, Sam Miller and S.H. Pratt. Your wonderful feedback, comments, insights and encouragement really helped push this project forward.
Thank you to the wonderful writers and people in the industry for their encouragement and advice in helping a novice. In particular: Kendall Grey, Luisa Hansen, Carey Heywood, Stefanie Pratt, Jennifer Short Benson and Trevlyn Tuitt.
I’d also like to acknowledge the ARC readers, many of whom are busy women as well as bloggers: Special mentions go to: Kellie Donaldson (A.K.A The Book Harlots Review), Jennifer Foster, (Cherry0Blossom), Liz Gumprecht, Miranda Howard, Stephanie Ingelsby (First Class Books), Monica Martinez (If These Boobs Could Talk), Serena Prather Knautz, Jennifer Stiltner, Robin Segnitz, Robin Stranahan, Caitlin Ryckert Zabec, (I heart books) and Krystle Zion (K&M’s Book Haven).
And lastly, a thank you to ‘you’: the readers. Thank you for taking the time to join the characters on their journey and I hope you enjoy reading this work as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Prologue: Stopovers
Chapter One – Runway
Chapter Two – Lost and Found
Chapter Three – Departures
Chapter Four – Arrivals
Chapter Five – May Day
Chapter Six – The home route
Chapter Seven – Check-in
Chapter Eight – Dirty, dirty up
Chapter Nine – Connecting flights
Chapter Ten – Unaccompanied minor
Chapter Eleven – Transits
Chapter Twelve – Flight paths
Chapter Thirteen – Boarding passes
Chapter Fourteen – In flight Safety
Chapter Fifteen – Wake turbulence
Chapter Sixteen – Traffic control
Chapter Seventeen – Re-positioning
Chapter Eighteen – Return flights
Chapter Nineteen – Cabin Crew
Chapter Twenty – Fire in the hole
Chapter Twenty-one – In-flight entertainment
Chapter Twenty-two – Layovers
Chapter Twenty-three – Cabin Pressure
About the author
Prologue: Stopovers
Christina, The Present, Saturday 6 October 2012
Christina woke up with eyes that felt like lead, a drill going off in her head and a thirst that would take a lake to quench it. It took her a moment to realize that she knew this room, but hadn’t been here in a long, long time. Turning over slowly, she also realized she wasn’t alone. Curled into her shoulder with an arm around her waist was her ex-husband, ex-love of her life and persona non grata, Nicholas Riley.
He was fast asleep, breathing heavily with one leg out of the covers, and a peaceful look on his face. Her stomach dropped to the “no, no, no” level and she closed her eyes, counted to ten, but nothing changed. When she opened her eyes, she still felt awful and he was still there.
As quietly as a hung over - still possibly drunk - unsteady on her feet person could, Christina tried to extract herself from the situation. Moving Riley’s arm from her waist, she slid over the side of the bed to try and get her bearings. At this particular point in time, she didn’t have much recollection of last night, but it was pretty obvious what it involved.
Looking around the room for her clothes, she spotted her little blue dress on the f
loor at the end of the bed. As she searched hurriedly for any other belongings, she noticed her panties on the mirror of the dressing table. They were draped at an odd angle - like someone had sling shot them onto the mirror.
Oh dear god.
Christina couldn’t see her bra, shoes or handbag anywhere. Bras and shoes she could do without, but the handbag? That-was-a-problem.
Naked, she grabbed her dress, crouched on the floor and started hauling it on as quietly as she could. This was going to be the fastest exit of shame in the history of exits of shame. Christina crawled as silently as possible to the dressing table to retrieve her panties, but as soon as she got them, she also got a good look at herself in the mirror. The sight actually made her recoil.
There was mascara streaked down her face and lipstick all over the place. She even had some lipstick on her teeth and down by her chin. Her dark brown eyes were accentuated by smeared mascara and it looked like she’d gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson.
Then, there was her hair. It looked like she’d been ridden hard and hung out to dry. Years ago, this wouldn’t have bothered her. In those days, she was known as ‘Dina’, the high school grunge queen. By today’s standards: Christina Martin, lawyer; she looked a complete mess.
Dragging her fingers through her hair and wiping as much of last night’s make-up off her face as possible, Christina pulled on her panties with a hop and a bump. She started to creep toward the bedroom door thinking ‘so far, so good’ and was confident she could recover from this.
All Christina needed to do was get out of there - desperately and before Riley woke up. If she could do that, then she could use the lawyers trick of deny, avoid, defer, engage, and if necessary, settle. She also needed to drink something and go to the bathroom: badly, on both counts.
Christina had her hand on the bedroom door handle and for a moment she thought she was going to escape until she heard a voice behind her say, “Good morning.”
At the sound of Riley’s voice, Christina stiffened and it took all her will power to turn around. They hadn’t laid eyes on each other for years and for good reason. In fact they’d spent the last five years avoiding each other like the plague, now here she was trying to sneak out of his bedroom.
She turned slowly around until she was facing him. Riley was sitting up in bed with his chest and abs exposed, and a smile on his face. Christina noticed he had some tribal tattoo that extended across his shoulder blades and down his right arm. She’d never seen it before and it made him look dangerous – as if it was some kind of statement. He didn’t need to look dangerous, because he was, especially to her.
Christina had never really been into tattoos, but wasn’t opposed to them either. Her brother, Johnny, lead singer in the band Collective Pitch, was heavily tattooed. It just wasn’t something she imagined she’d ever want to do herself: not for any moral or judgmental reasons. It was more about notions of permanency and her very real lack of commitment to anything specific enough to have it inked on her body.
Even though Riley was the ultimate man-child in the history of man-child douche baggery, she could appreciate that he really was a good-looking man. He was tall and muscular with broad shoulders, narrow hips and waist. His eyes were green, he had dark brown hair, with olive skin that had a hint of a golden tint, and he had a killer smile. Right now, that killer smile was trained on her.
Regardless of his hotness and everything else, she was still a damn fool-idiot to have married him. She inwardly cursed herself for being here and in close proximity to him. The sheet was only just covering Riley’s waist, and he looked not only pleased with himself, but also amused by the whole situation.
Damn him.
The way he was looking at Christina was offensive. The way he was looking was doubly offensive. No one should look that good when they just woke up. Christina knew she didn’t.
There was a glint in Riley’s green eyes and a half-smile on his face. His hair was tousled in a way that looked seductive rather than frightening - like hers did. This-was-so-not-fair.
Christina knew she shouldn’t be, but she was furious with him and defaulted to the habit of their relationship: open combat. Some patterns are hard to break and as she rounded on him she noticed the smile drop off his face. She blurted in the highest and mightiest tone she could summon.
“What did you do to me last night? Did you put something in my drink?”
Riley kept the amused look on his face, but there was an edge to it. His response to Christina was friendly, but sharp. “I wasn’t anywhere near your drinks last night, honey.” He pointed at the bed and his body. “You got here all on your own.”
Gesticulating at the room and bed, Christina snapped. “Well, how the hell did I get here? The last I remember – before waking up – is being…” Actually, she wasn’t sure about that either.
The smile was back on Riley’s face for real now and his eyes were glinting with amusement. “I don’t know where you were. You got dropped off by Bonnie and Mandy in the early hours of the morning, and stripped naked – right there – at the end of the bed, demanding, and I, agh, quote: ‘bad mama jama sex’. So…” he shrugged, “I just obliged.”
Christina couldn’t believe this was happening, but once Riley had said it, she had a vague recollection of being at some nightclub with her friends and they’d played that stupid “Bad Mama Jama” song. Damn disco! She also had a hazy memory of smoking weed and throwing her shoes on a bar roof.
Riley looked like he was really enjoying himself and was barely concealing his laughter. He threw the covers back and stood up stark naked. He grabbed his underpants and started hauling them on, followed by his jeans. Christina knew this was the signal for her to exit and start damage control, so she pretended to be looking anywhere else except at him.
Christina turned away to let Riley get dressed in private and winced when she heard him say. “Don’t be shy. You weren’t last night and it’s not like you haven’t seen it all before, right? Now isn’t the time for propriety Ms. Martin. You were a wild insistent, bad ass last night. Ye-ah.”
Then, he actually burst out laughing. Loud guffawing laughs that went on for some time. Christina couldn’t decide what she wanted more: her to die or him.
Trying to regain some measure of dignity, Christina decided to use her best authoritative lawyer’s voice on Riley, but made it ten times worse. Mustering as much decorum as she could, she sniffed and looked down her nose at him in disdain. There was quite a height difference, which made it difficult, but she was determined to make her point.
“Look. Okay – I don’t know what happened last night. It’s all really weird and… um, unusual, because, well, I just don’t like you like that anymore.”
The laughing started again and this time, Riley doubled over placing his hands on his thighs to stop from rolling around on the floor. When he got back under control, he looked directly at her. “Really? Cause last night - when I was buried in you up to the hilt and you were screaming my name, you seemed to like me plenty.”
Christina went all shades of scarlet and grabbed the bedroom door handle, which wouldn’t open. She tried one way and then the other, but the damn thing was stuck. She even kicked it, but as she was barefoot all it did was hurt her toes.
While she was swearing and cursing, Riley came up behind her saying “easy” and with one move, opened the door. He said in her ear, which made the skin on the back of her neck tingle. “It’s a bit temperamental. You know, like ex-wives.”
She bolted through the door as fast as possible wanting to put as much distance between Riley and herself as she could. Christina wanted to sit down and cry, but that would have to wait. She’d also done enough crying about Riley over the years and the last thing she was going to do was give him the satisfaction of bursting into tears right in front of him.
Riley followed behind her out of the bedroom perfectly at ease with the situation. He wasn’t attempting to stop Christina from leaving and was relishing in her o
bvious discomfort. She supposed she couldn’t blame him. The last time she’d left him, she hadn’t been as gentle as she could have with his feelings.
Trying to maintain a polite façade, Christina asked him. “Do you know where my handbag is?”
Riley shrugged. “No, but if it turns up, I promise I’ll drop it off.”
Drop it off? Uh-uh: she did not want that. “I really don’t think that’s necessary,” Christina said hurriedly, trying to hide the horror she felt, “I mean if you find anything, you could just leave it in the mailbox.”
Riley’s smile was back now wider than ever and Christina knew he had no intention of being discreet about this. There would be some prolonged saga where he handed over her misplaced possessions, like mementos of last night’s indiscretions, and she was supposed to be grateful. She actually had horrible visions of him handing her handbag over to her brother, Johnny, and telling him she’d stayed over.
Johnny wouldn’t care, but Christina didn’t want him or anyone else to know. To try and avert disaster, Christina defaulted to an absurd polite position. She didn’t have much hope of reclaiming her dignity from this situation, but she could at least try.
In actuality, she just wanted to go somewhere and hide, or maybe die, or wake up in 20 years, like Rip van Winkle. Actually, a shower and a good scrub with detergent, and then hide. In that order, but maybe a drink first, combined with a change of clothes and sleep. That would go some way to making her feel a bit better.
Christina still wanted to use the bathroom, but that would have to wait. Escape was the top priority. At this moment, she wanted to escape from this man, this house, this situation, this town, and also, herself.
She heard Riley sigh. “Listen, we can just forget this whole thing happened – if you want. I mean it’s fine by me. No hard – I mean no loss - big deal… Okay?”