Jasper climbed to a higher altitude, then eased the biplane into a slow, spiraling roll to the left. The crowd gasped. Rosemary covered her mouth with her hand, afraid to look and yet unable to close her eyes.
When Louise had leveled out, Jasper executed the same maneuver in the other direction and the crowd let out an approving roar.
And then the unimaginable happened. Halfway through the roll, while the airplane was upside down, a black dot separated from the plane’s wing and tumbled through the sky, end over end.
Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, God!
Zane had fallen.
Chapter 5
UH-OH.” Kyle, one of Zane’s mechanics, stood to Rosemary’s right, his hands jingling change in the pocket of his coveralls.
The second mechanic, Jimmie stood on her other side in a similar position. “Looks bad for the Z-man.”
Oh, God. This couldn’t be happening. She hadn’t been called. If Zane was going to die now, she had to be there.
She bent her head and started to run, but strong hands on her arms held her back. “Let me go!” She slapped at the mechanics.
“Wait for it,” Kyle said, watching Zane’s body tumble headlong toward a horrific death.
Jimmie cracked his gum.
A moment later something fluttered alongside Zane’s falling form, then a rainbow of color exploded above his head with an audible phhhhhhummpf.
A parachute. Oh, thank God.
Rosemary doubled over and pressed a fist to her chest.
“Ah, disaster averted once again,” Kyle said dryly.
Jimmie cracked his gum again.
Realization setting in, she straightened and turned her head from one man to the other. Flames rushed up her neck to her cheeks. “You knew. You knew and you didn’t tell me!”
Jimmie hunched his shoulders. “Well, what’d be the fun in that?”
“Fun! You think that was fun?”
Kyle and Jimmie shared a look.
“You know, I think I’ve got a carburetor to clean,” Kyle said.
“And I—” Jimmie bit his lip. “I’m sure I got something to do. Must be somethin’,” he mumbled as the two of them turned tail and ran.
Chickens. They shouldn’t have bothered. They weren’t the ones in danger.
Zane Halvorson, on the other hand, was in serious trouble. Unresolved issues or not, when he got back here, she was going to kill him.
“Thanks for the ride, Mac.” Zane grabbed his gear bag and swung his legs out of the ATV that had been sent out to the field to pick him up.
“Anytime, man,” Mac called, but Zane didn’t turn to acknowledge him.
He was frozen in place by an icy green stare. Rosemary’s body language screamed furious. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her hips cocked out to one side and she was tapping her foot.
“What?” he asked.
“Did you think that was funny, Zane? Was it a big joke—make the gullible reporter think you really fell? And could you have mentioned that you wear a parachute when you do this little stunt?”
He sighed and started toward her, albeit with a little less swagger to his gait. “It’s the shock value that sells the gag.”
“You about shocked me into a heart attack!”
He dropped his bag in front of her and shook his head. “Look, I honestly just didn’t think to tell you I was going to take a dive for the tourists. Everybody around here knows the routine. Besides, I told the guys to stick close to you. Surely you saw that they weren’t too upset.”
“‘The guys’? By that you mean your little junior birdmen? They were having too much fun watching me nearly pass out to clue me in.”
Zane rolled his head back and shot an exasperated look at the two young mechanics watching them through the office window. When they scurried away, he turned back to Rosie, reached out and took both of her arms and slid his hands down to hers. She stiffened at his touch, but didn’t pull away. Hopefully that was a good sign.
“I’m sorry I scared you. But hey—” He winked at her. “I had my guardian angel looking out for me, right?”
Her eyes narrowed dangerously. He sighed and let go of her hands. “I know what I’m doing out there, Rosie. You’ve got to trust me.”
“Trust you? Helloooooooo! Pulled you out of the lake. Mouth-to-mouth, remember?”
“You are never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“No.”
He hung his head for a moment, and then looked up at her, trying to figure a way out of the hole he’d dug himself. Her dark curls were even more tousled than normal, as if she’d run her hands through them. Repeatedly. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were pressed into a straight line with little crinkles at the corners.
Damn, she was cute when she was angry. So cute that his own annoyance faded, and he chuckled, then laughed outright. “Okay, I guess I deserve that.”
Behind him he heard Louise taxiing into the hangar. He cocked his head toward the bird and told Rosemary, “Come on, I got just the thing to help you put the whole ordeal behind you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“Come fly with me.” He called up to the cockpit, “Leave her running, Jasper.”
“You taking her out?” the pilot called.
“Yes.”
“No, I don’t think so.” She backpedaled as Jasper climbed out of the front seat and Zane rolled the staircase up to the second seat for her.
“Come on, it’ll be fun. Just you, me, Louise and the open sky. We’ve still got plenty of daylight left. I bet you’ve never seen the desert from three thousand feet, have you?”
“No, I haven’t.”
He held his hand out to her. “Let’s go, then. I know just the spot I want to show you, where the dirt turns red as—”
She finally relaxed her uncrossed arms, and instead wrung her hands in front of her.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I—I’ve never flown in an airplane before.”
That took him by surprise. “You weren’t kidding when you said you’d led a sheltered life, were you?”
“No. Actually sometimes I feel like I haven’t lived at all.” She gave the airplane a long look, and then tipped her chin up. “Maybe it’s time to change that.”
Rosemary had to admit, Zane had been right. Once her initial bout of nerves had worn off, she’d loved every minute of her flight over the desert, even the few minutes when he’d switched off the engines and they’d glided, nothing but the air currents beneath them holding them aloft.
The sunset was indescribable. So many colors, so vivid. Vibrant, like the man who had talked her into taking that magic carpet ride.
She watched him now from her table at the Oasis where she sat with a spiral notebook in front of her, purportedly scribbling notes for her newspaper article. He was kicked back against a windowsill, long legs stretched out in front of him and a beer bottle in his hand, watching his crew, who were caught up in some game she didn’t fully understand, but that seemed to involve playing pool with blindfolds on and drinking shots every time the other team hit one of their balls into a pocket. He laughed at something one of them said, and winced as Jimmie and Kyle each downed their third shot in under fifteen minutes. Thankfully, the table was clear of balls and, judging by the handing off of blindfolds, it was time to switch teams.
Zane strolled over to her table, turned a chair around and straddled the seat, hooking his arms over the back and resting his chin on his forearms. He took a swig of the beer he’d been nursing all night and nodded toward her notebook. “Making any progress?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not really. The guys look like they’re having fun.”
“They can afford to let their hair down a little. Tomorrow’s our off day.”
“No stunts?”
“No. Air show runs Sunday through Saturday, with Wednesday off to give everyone a chance to rest up and maintenance their equipment.”
Inwardly she breathed a sigh o
f relief that he wouldn’t be performing tomorrow. Zane Halvorson was the most alive man she’d ever seen. Knowing that life would be over soon, and that she’d have some part in its end, even if it was only to carry his soul on to a new plane of existence, wasn’t sitting with her the way it once had.
Until Zane, she’d always believed that life on Earth was a mostly painful and unhappy experience. Sure, there were moments of joy, sometimes even true love, but she never doubted she was taking them to a better place. She never understood why some of them clung so tenaciously to their lives here. Why they grieved for each other so when a soul moved on.
Finally, maybe, she was beginning to understand.
Zane took another sip of his beer and she realized she was staring at him. And he was staring right back. Awareness left tingly little tracks up her arms and all the way down to her toes, an odd sensation, but not altogether unpleasant. In fact, she rather liked it.
“You had a good time in the air today,” he said.
“I already told you three times that I did.”
“Just making sure. Because I’ve got some really big fun planned for us tomorrow.”
She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. “What kind of fun?”
“Today you flew with me. Tomorrow you jump with me.”
She jerked as if she’d stuck her finger in a light socket. “Oh, no. Hell, no.”
“Hell, yes. Tandem jump. You’ll be strapped to me, and I’ll do all the work. You’ll just be along for the ride.”
“Not going to happen, flyboy.”
“I’ll give you a lesson in the morning, we’ll jump in the afternoon. You’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Lak—”
He held up one finger to silence her. “Don’t say it. We’ll land squarely on terra firma. I promise. You’ll love it. It’s the closest thing there is to heaven on Earth.”
She drew a shaky breath, her resistance fading. This was crazy, but it was also exhilarating. Her stomach was already in knots just thinking about jumping out of an airplane. But she was the one who’d decided to give this living thing a try as long as she was stuck in human form. It was like once she’d begun to sense and to feel, a door had been flung open, and that door couldn’t be closed again. She craved new experiences.
Did he say she’d be strapped to him?
Who knew? This jumping thing might have all kinds of possibilities.
“I’ll think about it,” she said.
He grinned and before it turned into a gloat, she plucked the beer bottle from his hand and took a swig.
The alcohol tried to come back up as fast as it went down. She coughed and waved her hand in front of her open mouth to cool her burning throat.
“Let me guess,” he drawled. “Never drank beer before, either.”
Her composure regained, she spun on her heel with a haughty “Hmpf,” and went off to see about joining the boys in a game of blindfold pool.
There were lots of things she’d never done before, but before this week was up she just might try every one of them.
Chapter 6
WHATin heaven’s name had she been thinking?
The wind from the open door of the plane buffeted her. The vibration of the engines only added to the shaking her body was doing on its own. She was holding on to the strap riveted into the wall beside the door so tightly that she would probably need pliers to pry her fingers off.
Zane straightened up from where he’d been checking every buckle, clip, strap and carabiner on their combined gear for the third—no, fourth—time. “You ready?”
“No.” Was that her voice? It sounded like a Saturday morning cartoon character.
“Come ’ere.” His arms circled her waist and drew her flush against him.
They were strapped together, her back to his chest. She could feel the slow beat of his heart between her shoulder blades. His hips against her backside. The hard muscles of his thighs against her legs. She let herself sag against him, increasing the contact until there was no part of them that wasn’t touching. Molding to the other’s shape.
“Breathe slow and deep,” he murmured in her ear just loud enough to be heard over the wind and engines. “In and out.”
While her respiration gradually evened out, he tucked his chin in the crook of her neck and kept talking. “You’re going to be fine. I’ve done this hundreds of times. Maybe thousands.”
“Really?” There, she didn’t squeak quite as bad that time.
“Twelve years Army Airborne. Seven of them as a jumpmaster. I’ve taught more people how to hurl themselves out of airplanes than you’ll find in most small cities.”
She groaned. Did he have to use the word hurl?
Breathe. In. Out.
A light went on over the cockpit door.
“What’s that?” she asked, tensing again.
“Drop zone.” Still holding her around the waist with one arm, he stroked the curve of her waist and her hip with the other. “Are you ready now?”
“Just do it already,” she answered, squeezing her eyes shut. “Because if you’re waiting for me to say ‘yes,’ it’s not going to happen.”
“Okay, here we go.” She let him scoot her closer to the open door. “Just remember what I showed you in the classroom. Relax and let me do all the work.”
She nodded, her eyes still closed, but unable to shut out the image in her mind of the patchwork landscape and tiny buildings so far below. Too far below.
Teetering on the brink of the doorway, Zane stopped them once more. With a hand on her chin he turned her head and she opened her eyes to meet his gaze.
“One more thing,” he said. “Don’t forget to breathe.”
With that last word he pitched forward, tipping her out of the plane and into the most terrifying moment of her life.
The initial blast of the wind was almost bruising in its force. She wanted to curl up in a ball to escape it, but Zane’s instructions echoed in her mind. Extend your arms and your legs. Arch your back a little. Keep your head up.
Moving jerkily, sometimes flailing against the air currents, she worked to find the position, while her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest.
“Don’t fight it.”
She jolted at the sound of Zane’s voice in her ears. She’d forgotten there were radio headsets in their helmets.
“Don’t try to control it. Don’t try to hold on to the air,” he said. “Let the air hold you.”
She tried, willing her muscles to relax, and gradually the ride smoothed out. Her initial panic faded and she opened her eyes.
“Oh, my. It’s beautiful!” Falling through clear blue sky, totally unencumbered. Totally free.
“I told you you’d love it.”
“How fast are we going?”
“You sure you want to know?”
“No.” Laughter bubbled up in her chest, borne of sheer joy. “It’s…amazing.”
“You’ve got about fifteen more seconds to enjoy it. Then we’re going to deploy canopy. I’ll give you a three count, and you’ll feel a sharp pull. Remember not to brace against it. Just go with the motion.”
She gave Zane a thumbs-up, content to spend her last few seconds of free fall in silence, memorizing the feeling so that she would never forget.
“Three. Two. One. Deploying canopy.”
As he’d warned, their direction changed suddenly, but Rosemary hardly even blinked. She was too busy smiling to be afraid.
Their mad dash toward the ground became a leisurely excursion. She felt like a child on a playground swing set, floating this way and then that. Back and forth and ever downward.
It was over far too soon. Zane guided them to the ground so softly they could have been stepping off a curb instead of hitting the ground from thousands of feet in the air. They could easily have walked right out of the landing, but Zane’s arms snaked around her waist and pulled her to the grass in a gentle roll anyway.
When she found herself on her back, on top of hi
m, with his hands not so tightly wrapped around her any longer, but roaming restlessly over her stomach, her rib cage, and occasionally grazing higher, she began to suspect his motives. When a pair of moist lips nipped at the back of her neck, she knew exactly what his motives were.
“Hey, no fair,” she said. She couldn’t reach much of him in this position.
He chuckled and pulled his hands away long enough to make quick work of the rat’s nest of straps and buckles and cords entangling them, then flipped her over so that they lay chest to chest.
That was better, she thought, pulling her helmet off and pressing her lips to the hollow of his throat. Much better.
He let her explore for a while. Pulling the neck of his jumpsuit aside, she pressed kisses down the length of his collarbone, then up the tendons on top of his shoulder, up his neck to the underside of his jaw. All the while his mouth was on an expedition of its own, plundering the side of her neck and the sensitive spot behind her ear.
“God, you taste so good,” he murmured, and her pulse leaped at the scrape of breath and lips and teeth over her carotid.
Eventually their meanderings brought them face-to-face, and their mouths danced at first, searching for the right position, the perfect angle, then their lips fused, sealed in a bond of give and take, conquest and surrender, then a melding of two into one. A communion.
The kiss evolved as they shifted restlessly against each other. It changed. It advanced and retreated and surrendered only when their need for oxygen became greater than the desire to tease and touch and taste.
Rosemary sagged against Zane, panting. He shifted one of his legs between hers, raising his knee until his thigh pressed against her intimately.
She moaned, the friction between her legs adding one more ache to the long list of demands her body was making—all of which could only be met by the man lying beneath her.
Carefully she levered herself up on her elbows and laid her hands on either side of his head. His chest heaved against her breasts, setting off another delicious tingle. “Zane?”
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