by Becca Van
“Have you got someone covering you?” Dusty asked.
“Yes.”
“Does anyone know about Roxy?” Booker questioned.
“I don’t ever talk about her at work or with anyone else for that matter, but it wouldn’t be too hard to find out about her. All it would take is to look up the public records and find my birth certificate.”
“Fucking hell!” Booker, Dusty, and Stefan snapped simultaneously.
Booker glanced around to make sure no one was taking any notice of them before he whispered, “What the hell have you been working on?”
“I’ve been tracking another group of radical Muslim fanatics’ intent on doing something similar to 9/11. Plus a drug boss and his accountant.”
“Shit!” Dusty moved closer to the table. “Are these people stationed in the US?”
“Yes. Houston to be exact.”
* * * *
Dread filled Booker’s gut when he realized what was close to Houston. He realized that his brothers were on the same track when both of them spoke at the same time. “NASA.”
Fear for Roxy permeated his body to his heart and soul.
Booker glared at Drew. “What the hell have you gotten into?”
Chapter Four
Roxy hurried through the shower after a nearly sleepless night, brushed her teeth and hair. When she was dressed she filled her travel mug with coffee. After she closed and locked her apartment door, she hurried out to her car.
Every time she closed her eyes last night all she could see were the Milan brothers. No matter how hard she’d tried to push them from her mind, she found her thoughts wandering back to them again and again and again. The way Dusty and Booker had touched her thighs and how they had caressed her through her jeans. She’d been horny around them before but never like she had last night when their hands were on her. She hadn’t even been naked and they hadn’t even been touching her in a sexual way.
The thought of their hands running over her skin while she was naked was enough to have her panting. A car horn blared from behind and she glanced at the traffic lights to see it had turned green. She waved a hand in apology to the person behind and moved her thoughts to the long day ahead. She was going to need to keep her head in the game today, especially since she was copiloting with Captain Dickhead.
That man made her so angry sometimes that she literally shook with fury. A few times she’d had to leave the cockpit and go to the restroom to splash water on her face to calm down. Hopefully this would be her last flight with the asshole.
She knew the prick was married and wondered how his wife put up with him. Maybe he only made derogatory remarks to her and not his wife, but she couldn’t see how he could hide his sexist traits from his partner. Then she thought that maybe wifey poo was a doormat. She mentally chuckled. Some women liked to be told what to do but Roxy definitely wasn’t one of them.
She’d met Michelle briefly at some function or other and thought she was really nice if a bit quiet. She supposed being married to that bastard would make anyone become a little introverted. Even at that do he’d been loud and obnoxious and hadn’t even bothered to try and hide the way he’d eyed the younger women in the room. He was a lecherous, cantankerous, supercilious old man and she couldn’t wait to see the back of him.
After parking her car and finishing off her coffee, she took a few deep fortifying breaths and got out. It was time to do the rest of her hours and get her license. That was all that mattered right now. She was going to get her commercial wings and no one was going to stand in her way. Not even a chauvinistic misogynist.
Roxy hurried through security and then made her way toward the pilot’s lounge. She walked over to the freshly brewed coffee, poured more into her travel mug, and set it aside ready to pick up before she boarded, and headed toward the ladies room. She spied Captain Dickhead in her periphery but ignored him as she continued on. After using the facilities, washing her hands, and checking her appearance in the mirror, she headed back out to the lounge.
She snagged her coffee and was about head for the ramp and nearly burst out laughing when Alexa, one of the air hostesses, gave the captain the finger behind his back. Shelley, the hostess talking to the asshole, smirked slightly but then gave a slight roll of her eyes. Roxy was glad she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stand the prick. She smiled at both the women, nodded her head in agreement, and then rushed to board the plane. She was hoping to have the pre-flight check over and done with while Miller continued to rattle his own cage, big note himself, to the other women and work in peace. That peace wasn’t going to last long and she was going to savor it while she had it.
Roxy sighed with relief as she ticked off the last item on the checklist and relaxed back in her seat, but her muscles tensed when she smelt the overly potent aftershave or deodorant Miller wore just before she heard his heavy footfalls.
He didn’t even bother looking at her, speaking to her, or acknowledging her in any way except to snatch the clipboard from her hands before throwing himself into the captain’s chair. She didn’t look at him but watched the workers scurrying around as they readied the plane for takeoff.
The guy who climbed into the small tow truck already attached to the front wheel of the 747 looked up, smiled, and waved at her as he gave her a thumbs-up. Roxy smiled and waved back. She’d met him in the staff cafeteria one day and had started chatting. He was a nice man, married with two kids. He’d been a little on edge when she’d first met him because child number two was close to being born and his wife had had pre-eclampsia. She’d been glad to find out a couple of weeks later that the birth had gone well and the mother and baby were doing fine.
Roxy was a little envious of other people in loving relationships. The only person who loved her or who showed her any affection was her brother, but because he spent so much time working she saw him less and less. She thought about her nana and hoped that she was happy wherever she was. That woman had been so hard and cold, she often wondered if something bad had happened to make her that way. Of course losing her daughter would have been hard to take but there hadn’t been an ounce of affection in that woman. At least not any Roxy had ever seen.
Roxy pushed her thoughts aside, grabbed her headset, and placed it over her head. After contacting the tower and confirming the appropriate runway, she listened as Miller addressed the passengers. He sounded so nice and calm when he spoke to the public. Pity he never treated her the same way. With a mental shrug of her shoulders, Roxy got down to work.
The flight to New York had been the longest flight she’d ever endured. It had been uneventful for the first few hours, but once Miller had started speaking, every word he spoke had been to put her down and deprecating her femininity. She’d wanted to shove her fist into his mouth with enough force to knock out a few teeth, but of course she’d refrained. She spent her break taking a nap and then she’d gone to the cafeteria to get some food and drink in preparation for the return flight home. She felt fresh after her shower and changing into a clean uniform, but had no doubt she would feel like a limp dishrag by the time they got back to San Angelo.
Roxy wondered if Miller and his wife had had a fight because today he seemed angrier than normal. He’d spent three hours picking at her hair, her clothes, and her career choice. At first she hadn’t responded but eventually she turned to stare at him and told him to get the stick shoved up his ass out before he hurt something vital. She’d had great satisfaction in seeing his reaction. He’d been so angry his face had turned red, the veins on his forehead had popped out, and then the red had darkened to a purple color. She’d been worried he was about to pop.
She’d turned back to the instrument panel, gone over the checklist, and ignored him. Miller had stormed off out of the cockpit and hadn’t returned for half an hour. When he had come back she’d smelled the alcohol on his breath and was a little worried he was intoxicated, but kept her mouth shut. It didn’t matter if he was under the influence of alcohol since the
controls were hers all day, but she decided she couldn’t ignore his behavior anymore. First thing in the morning she was going to the board and reporting him. He was putting innocent people’s lives in danger by drinking while on the job and that was a huge no-no.
Roxy glanced at her watch, gathered up her stuff, and made her way to the plane. Miller was already in the pilot’s seat and was going over the checklist. When he glanced at her, she kept her mouth shut but nodded in acknowledgement. He just glared at her before turning away again. She hoped he kept silent for the long journey home because she wasn’t sure if she could continue to keep quiet. It was really hard to bite her tongue, literally and figuratively, and not tell him to fuck off, but if she did that she could see him reporting her to their superiors. She was so damn close to getting her license she could practically feel the paper in her hands already.
She watched him from the corner of his eye to make sure he did everything correctly. There had been a couple of other times she’d flown with the dickhead and he’d skipped a few things on the list. She’d furtively done her own checks over the things he’d missed because there was no way she wanted to end up in trouble or dying because of a lazy sexist pig.
Once he finished with the procedure, Miller contacted the tower and it wasn’t long before they were racing down the runway. Roxy loved to feel the power of the engines as they left the tarmac and launched up into the sky. She loved everything about flying. Seeing stars twinkling in the dark night sky was amazing. Even though she wasn’t a religious person, she felt as if she was closer to God when they were high in the air.
She loved watching and making shapes out of the wispy and thick clouds and loved the challenge of keeping away from storms and as much turbulence as possible. Of course she wasn’t always able to keep away from the latter because she couldn’t see where warm and cold air mixed but she always made sure to keep an eye on the radar and weather.
Dickhead didn’t seem to give a shit one way or the other. In fact he seemed to relish pushing the plane into bumpy air. She wondered if he was a masochist as well as a dick. Maybe he was just an asshole who loved to make other people’s lives a living hell. He certainly seemed to take great joy in annoying her and making her angry.
Roxy leveled out at thirty-five thousand feet and settled back to enjoy the flight and the dark night sky. They wouldn’t get back to San Angelo until nearly 3:00 a.m. but that didn’t matter. She was just glad she had the next day off and would be able to recover from the long day by sleeping in.
A few hours later Miller left the cockpit and didn’t come back for thirty minutes. Roxy wondered if he was drinking again. She hoped not, but if so, she wasn’t going to put up with his shit any longer. She was going to send an email of complaint to the manager of the airline when she awoke first thing tomorrow, and she didn’t care that dickhead and the boss-man were friends.
She smelt him before she saw him. From the odor coming off of him, he smelled like he’d downed a whole bottle of scotch. She turned to look at him and saw that he was unsteady on his feet.
Great. Just what I fucking need.
“Crowe, you’ve got some hair loose, you’d better go fix it,” Miller slurred.
Roxy scowled at him but then turned back to the instrument panel and tried to ignore him.
“You’d better get your ass out there with the other hostesses. They may need help with their make-up.”
“Shut up!” Roxy snapped and then cursed under her breath for her lapse in control.
“There’s no room in the cockpit for a purse, Crowe. You’d better leave.”
Fuck off, you dickwad.
“You’re a fucking bitch, Crowe. You probably screwed the instructors. You’re nothing but a glorified hostess.”
“Pull your head out of your ass, Captain Dickhead.”
“Ooh, we’re a bit touchy feely aren’t we? Is it that time of the month?”
“You’re an old fucking woman who still lives in the dark ages,” Roxy snarled angrily.
“I’m going to see the managers first thing and I am going to tell them you fucked your way through the ranks, you slut. There’s no way in hell you’ll ever get your full flight captain pilot’s license,” Miller yelled, his face turning a blotchy red. Sweat formed on his brow and upper lip.
Roxy had had more than enough. “You’re just jealous because I whipped your ass on all the tests, written and practical. I think you should quit, Miller, senility is setting in. No, wait! Maybe you’ve got dementia. You’re a drunken dickhead.”
Miller growled low in his throat. Roxy was a little concerned about how red his face was and how much he was sweating but put it down to the alcohol he’d consumed. All of a sudden he clutched at his head and his face turned purple and then it looked like all the blood drained from his face.
Fear gripped her heart that he was having a stroke or a heart attack. She released her seat belt and knelt down next him to try to help. The asshole must have seen her coming and one of his hands waved in the air, clocking her in the side of the face. It wasn’t a light tap either. Pain radiated from her cheek to her ear and into her head but she pushed it aside, more worried about Miller.
He continued to struggle, trying to push her away as she felt for his pulse but then he slumped in his chair and just stared at her, blinking occasionally. It was only when she scrutinized his whole face and saw the left side of his mouth dropping that she realized it did indeed look like he’d had a stroke.
“Easy, Miller, I’m trying to help you.” Roxy tried to think what to do and calm the panic that was trying to take hold of her. She took a deep breath and released it slowly and was glad when her rapid heartbeat began to slow. She couldn’t very well leave the cockpit and leave him alone. She was going to have to call Savannah, one of the hostesses, to help her out. She rose to her feet, unlocked the cockpit door, and peeked out. She sighed with relief when she saw Savannah mixing a drink.
“Savannah, get one of the other women to take over for you. I need your help. Bring me a wet washcloth and the blood pressure kit. I also want you to grab the defibrillator and bring it to the cockpit.”
Savannah paled slightly but nodded her head. Roxy went back inside without locking the door. Moments later the hostess entered the cockpit.
“What’s going on?” Savannah asked as she put the equipment boxes on the floor.
“I think Miller’s had a stroke. Can you set the blood pressure kit? I want to take that before I call the tower. We’re going to need to have a doctor on standby for when we land.”
“Shit!” Savannah said as she began to unpack the equipment. “Do you want me to open that?” she asked, pointing to the defibrillator.
“Yes, but don’t unpack anything, yet.”
Savannah nodded. Roxy leaned over Miller and struggled to get his jacket off. By the time she had it removed she was sweating, too, but not because of the exertion of moving a larger man than her. She was scared shitless and worried sick for Miller. He needed medical care and he needed it now but there was nothing she could do. Unless…
“Do you know if we have a doctor on board?”
“No, but I can check.”
“Please, but help me with this first,” Roxy said. She loosened and removed Miller’s tie and then unbuttoned his shirt. His lips moved but he made no sound. “I’m just making sure you’re okay. I won’t hurt you. I need to do this and inform the tower of what’s going on with you. They’ll have the paramedics and doctor on standby for when we land. Okay?”
Miller blinked.
Savannah handed her the pressure cuff and Roxy hoped it would work over the thin cotton sleeves of his shirt otherwise she was going to have to try and wrestle that off of him, too.
She secured the Velcro cuff around his upper arm. She wasn’t really sure what she was doing but she needed to check to make sure his heat beat steadily. She pumped the armband up and watched the digital display until the numbers levelled out, and flashed with the reading, and memor
ized the readout. Roxy decided to keep the blood pressure band on in case she needed to use it again and scrambled back to her seat, grabbed the checklist, and wrote the numbers on the bottom of the list.
“Okay, Savannah, I want you to wash and dry his face and try to make him as comfortable as possible. I need to contact the tower.”
Savannah exhaled loudly but nodded as she moved toward Miller. She frowned and met Roxy’s eyes. “Why does he reek of alcohol? Shit, maybe he’s just drunk. Asshole.”
“He’s not just drunk, Savannah, look at his mouth.”
“Shit. Okay, sorry.”
“Don’t be. We all know how much of a bastard Miller can be.” Roxy felt bad about saying that in front of him when he couldn’t respond but she’d spoken the truth.
She reached for her headset and put it back on. “San Angelo Tower, this is flight Foxtrot Kilo 989, please respond.”
“This is air traffic controller Wilson, San Angelo Tower. Go ahead, FK989.”
“This is copilot Roxanne Crowe. I have a situation on board. Please have paramedics and a doctor on standby for landing. I suspect that Captain Gerard Miller has suffered a stroke. I measured his blood pressure. Grab a pen and I’ll tell you the readout.”
“Ready,” controller Wilson responded.
Roxy gave him the numbers.
“Roger that, Roxy. You’re due to approach runway fifteen. That’s runway one five, from the east, in ninety minutes. We’ll have medical staff ready and waiting.”
“Roger, San Angelo tower, much appreciated. See you in ninety. Flight FK989 out.”
Roxy turned to see that Savannah had finished washing Miller’s face. “How is he?”
“He seems okay, besides the obvious.” Savannah stepped back.
“Can you spend the rest of the flight riding in here? I may need you again.”
“Sure,” Savannah answered. “Just let me inform the other girls. Do you want anything while I’m out there?”
“Yeah, some water and a couple of pain killers.”
