Fly Away, page 15
part #5 of Baxter Boys Series
He dropped his arms and backed away. She couldn’t mean it. She couldn’t be that calloused. Face that fear? Like his fear of flying was a phobia based on an overactive imagination?
“You don’t understand. Did you not see my legs? Did you not hear me? I cut off my girlfriend’s arm while she was burning to death and screaming in my ear, in a plane that could have exploded at any second. And I still didn’t save her.” He didn’t realize he was yelling until Dusty stepped back.
He shoved a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry.”
Dusty stood looking at him, like she was expecting him to change his mind.
“No.” He shook his head. “No.”
Her blue eyes held his. He couldn’t look away, but he also couldn’t give her the answer she wanted. “No. Why are you asking me to do the one thing I can’t?”
He realized she didn’t look surprised at all when he turned on his heel and walked away.
Chapter 20
Dusty watched Roland walk away. She should have expected it.
She pushed that thought away. Roland had been scarred by what had happened to him. That didn’t mean he was walking away from her.
But it probably meant she’d have to decide between being a pilot and being with Roland.
She snorted. She loved flying. It was as close to racing as she could come, but she loved Roland more. He was already halfway back to the building. She ran after him.
Before she reached him, he stopped, putting a hand to his head. She slowed to a walk. What was he doing?
Slowly, he turned. His eyes widened when he saw her just ten feet away. His eyes held pain and disillusionment, but there was hope there too, and that hope spurred her back into a run. He held his arms out, and she jumped into them. “I told you I loved you, and I meant it. If that means I don’t fly, then I don’t fly.”
He shook his head. There were tears on his face, and she brushed them off, holding his cheeks in her hands. “No. The fear is real. But as I was walking away, the fear of losing you overshadowed everything else.” He looked over her head to the airplane that waited for them. “I don’t know if I can get on it today.” His eyes seized hers. “But I will. I’m not going to allow fear to run my life. Not now. Not ever. I will fly with you. I promise.”
Whiff came over. A gust of wind blew them sideways. He waited for it to pass before he spoke. “That storm’s too close. I think we better stay on the ground for today.”
“That’s fine,” Dusty said.
“Maybe we could go over and look at the airplane,” Roland said.
Dusty’s gaze snapped to him.
“Sure.” Whiff shrugged.
“Maybe we could sit in it?” Roland said.
Dusty smiled.
“It’s not locked.” Whiff got a sly grin on his face. “Maybe you’re going to want to take lessons.”
Roland looked down at Dusty. Her blond hair blew in the wind. She put a hand up to hold it out of her face. He put his hand up to cover hers. “No,” he said. “I think I’ll be content to fly away with Dusty.”
Epilogue
Tucker Burns looked around. This was the simplest wedding he’d ever been to. It was also the most fun. Someone’s big front yard had been transformed into a beautiful fairy tale. Tables ringed a carpeted square where a string quartet played classical favorites as well as more upbeat, contemporary songs. Strings of lights hung between poles, giving the place an ethereal feel now that the sun had almost set.
Directly at the foot of the square, his aunt, Dusty, and her new husband, Roland, sat at a table, laughing and talking to each other.
As he watched, they rose, Roland taking her hand, and walked to the grassy area beside the carpeted square. Dusty barely limped. Amazing that it wasn’t that long ago that she’d broken her back. But now she was only a couple hundred hours away from being a licensed pilot. Although he’d heard she’d been busy helping her fiancé, now husband, start his own therapy practice.
Tucker had taken Abigail out and made sure that Roland hadn’t gotten fired, but Roland hadn’t spent much more time at that practice before he’d gone out on his own. With Dusty. She’d designed his logo and his signs. She’d also made his website, which, in Tucker’s opinion, was the best website he’d ever visited. In his research for Roland’s loan application, Tucker had combed through everything.
In the end, the loan had been easy to approve. On Roland’s merits, not because of Dusty.
He’d always admired her, not that he’d seen her that much in person. He’d followed her on the motocross circuit. With occasional visits on holidays. She had fire and sass, but it was tempered by grace and class.
His mother had the class. He looked over at where his parents sat, their backs pointed to each other. But it was calibrated by snobbishness and a short temper.
He lifted the pulled pork sandwich and took a bite, careful not to get any on his suit. After working in the banking industry for the last four years, his suit felt like a second skin. It was great camouflage.
“Tucker, honey. Get me some more punch.” Abigail blinked and pouted her lips.
He took her glass and rose dutifully. Abigail was a woman very similar to his mother, and he knew how to handle her. Roland hadn’t known it when he’d asked Tucker for the favor of taking her out.
Tucker had been happy to do whatever it took to help Dusty and Roland get together. If there was ever a couple meant to be, it was them. He looked at them again as they swayed together. Perfect for each other.
There were a lot of tough dudes at this wedding. Tucker was in the minority with his suit. A few of them wore dress pants, but most of them wore jeans and a button-down shirt. Maybe cowboy boots in lieu of dress shoes. One man even had a tie paired with his jeans. Another fellow had a handgun strapped to his side.
Tucker didn’t feel as out of place as one would expect.
This was the world that she came from.
It wasn’t hard to find her. He’d been fighting himself to keep his eyes from tracking her movements all afternoon. She wore a dress and low heels. There was no cleavage, and her knees were covered, but in Tucker’s eyes, she was the sexiest woman here.
She looked delicate and feminine with small diamonds in her ears and her hair piled on her head, her elegant neck encircled by a gold chain. Camouflage.
He’d seen her with grease on her face, wearing slim blue jeans, and driving a forty-ton truck. He loved the dichotomy. It pulled him. She pulled him.
She turned her face as she talked to a blond woman, and the light hit her cheek, exposing the small scar, freshly healed, just below her eye.
Tucker’s heart beat hard and fast in his chest, and he took a deep, calming breath. She hadn’t looked in his direction all day. No wonder, since the last time he’d seen her, he’d looked like a clumsy teenager and had given her that scar.
Plus, he was with someone.
She wasn’t.
There was intelligence burning in her deep blue eyes. Fire, too. And enough rebelliousness that he knew she wouldn’t be following any rules that she didn’t agree with. There was a woman who was going to forge her own path. Tucker was drawn to her with a force he could hardly fight.
But he did.
Picking up the punch, he set his feet toward Abigail. Unlike Eve, she was perfect for everything that he needed to accomplish in his life. Since he’d turned fifteen and decided the path for his life, there wasn’t one time when he’d done what he wanted over what was necessary.
Eve would not be his exception.
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Chapter 1
“So, Ames, you gonna go shooting with me?” Palmer Olson asked, hooking a thumb in the front pocket of his jeans, his eyes shielded by his cowboy hat.
Ames Hanson flashed a quick grin, her mind whirling. “We racing?” she asked.
“Of course,” he replied with the corners of his mouth tilted up and a glance at the four-wheelers he had out and ready.
She needed a head start. His machine was bigger than hers, although her aim was better. It had been eighteen months since she’d seen her best friend. He might fall for the oldest trick in the book.
She gasped. “Holy smokes! Look at that!” She pointed at the sky behind him. “Is that a Bald Eagle?”
She chuckled as he turned, falling for her ruse. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Not a bird, either.
As soon as he turned, she spun and raced to the four-wheelers. He already had their rifles on the racks, the ammo strapped down beside them. She started it and gunned the motor.
Behind her she could hear him shouting. Something about not being fair, or some such nonsense.
What wasn’t fair was that he had more power under his seat than she did. That’s what wasn’t fair. But it was his ranch, his machines. He’d had the same one since before they graduated from high school eleven years ago. She’d actually had the same one as well. His old machine.
She couldn’t complain. Not every girl was blessed with a best friend whose family owned a thousand acre ranch in North Dakota. Actually, in all her world travels, she’d never met anyone else with that benefit. Palmer was a one-of-a-kind guy and she regretted all the time she’d taken their friendship for granted.
He hadn’t caught up to her by the time she hit the bend in the road where it cut behind the corral and angled up between two hundred-acre fields.
The four-wheeler cornered the turn on two wheels. Ames hunkered down, lowering the center of gravity and leaning her body into the turn. The wide, blue North Dakota sky soared above her as she came out of the curve, the road straightening and arrowing off into the flat distance. The ATV bounced back down. She pressed the throttle wide open. After a one-second lag time, the motor screamed and the four-wheeler jumped ahead. Flat rows of flax and a deep green carpet of wheat flew by as she raced up the middle.
Tempted to turn and look to see if Palmer was catching her, she kept her gaze straight ahead. As fast as she was going, a little tilt of the wheel could make her spin out of control. Part of going this fast was knowing what boundaries she could push.
The wind whipped through her hair and she couldn’t keep the happy smile off of her face. LA was great. Hiking in the Himalayas was fabulous, and winning two Olympic gold medals was awesome, but nothing compared to being home.
She heard Palmer before she saw him. He might have a bigger machine, but he was heavier. Actually, now that she thought about it, it looked like he’d gained weight. Not around the middle, but his shoulders were much broader than she remembered. His biceps bigger. She always thought of him as this skinny guy from high school, but as she’d been living her dreams out in the world, he’d been here on the ranch, running it with his brother and sister, and obviously doing enough physical labor in the process to add a pile of muscle to his lanky frame.
The screaming of his machine grew louder, and he crept into her peripheral vision. The road was straight, the ground flat, but at the speeds they were going now, it would be foolish for her to turn her head to see how close he was. Focusing on keeping the handlebars steady, she pressed the accelerator with her thumb, ignoring the burning in the side of her hand. The competitor in her couldn’t give up.
He was beside her now on the dirt road. She didn’t have to turn her head to know what his face looked like. He’d be smiling, of course. But there would also be that little furrow between his brows. The one that he always had when they competed. She’d practiced for hundreds of hours to win gold at the Olympics, but there was absolutely no question that Palmer was the main reason she stood on the top podium. His face was the one she saw as the flag had been raised and she’d had her hand over heart as the anthem of her country played. He never gave quarter.
Always having the smaller ATV had caused her to become a better shooter. Flat-out racing had improved her concentration and ability to handle her rifle despite the adrenaline coursing through her body.
What Palmer and she did here on the ranch in the summer wasn’t close to an actual biathlon race where she skied, although she and Palmer did race on skis when she was home in the winter. They didn’t do the shooting the same either. But it didn’t matter. Her competitions with Palmer had given her the grit she needed to win.
Their make-shift shooting range was just ahead. She crouched behind the handlebars trying to wring out every ounce of aerodynamics she could.
She didn’t give quarter when he locked the tires and fish-tailed the rear end, stopping right in front of the range. She slid around to a stop right beside him, and was only a second behind him grabbing her rifle and ammo off the rack.
They always shot this one in the prone position, wrists not touching the ground. On a good day she could load her single-shot, lever action .22 in 4.3 seconds. Palmer was about two seconds slower.
Drawing herself in, calming her muscles and heart, she steadied her breath. At the Olympics, she was never the fastest skier on the course. This is where she made up her time. She could calm her body, and she never missed a shot, loading her rifle faster and shooting more accurately than anyone else.
She gently squeezed the trigger on the first shot. Fifty meters downrange, in the middle of the green wheat field, her first 4.5 cm target disappeared.
Four more shots downed the other four targets. This wasn’t an Olympic race, and as she rose to her feet and raced to her four-wheeler, she gloated at Palmer, “Ha! Eat dust, Cowboy.”
Hooking her rifle on, she stared her four-wheeler and gunned it toward the next make-shift shooting range.
Again, Palmer caught her just before the range, and again, she outshot him, this time from a standing position. The targets were slightly bigger, but it never mattered to her. She could hit anything she could see. The first time.
The road followed the rectangular field and she took the last corner on two wheels, heading back toward the barn. Half-way between the corner and the barn, she skidded to a stop at the last homemade shooting range. This time she’d beaten Palmer there, and that almost guaranteed her win.
She kept her concentration, though, as she yanked her rifle out and jumped off the four-wheeler. Palmer skidded to a stop beside her. Close. So close she thought he was going to hit her and she committed the cardinal sin: she looked at him.
Normally, in any professional race, she wouldn’t even acknowledge that she had competitors. She raced like she had blinders on.
However, the competitors skied, or a few times she’d competed in the summer equivalent of a biathlon where the competitors jogged. She’d never had to worry about an over-eager competitor hitting her with his ATV.
Palmer didn’t hit her, but the damage was done. It wasn’t that she looked at him, per se. It was more about what he looked like. His plain white t shirt clung lovingly to shoulders as wide as cross members on electric wires. His biceps bulged as he grabbed his rifle. His long, jean clad legs flexed with power and strength as he leapt off the four-wheeler and raced to get in position.
He threw himself on the ground, stretched out, rifle ready. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist, and his boots, worn and scuffed, pointed back toward her. He’d long since lost his cowboy hat and his hair was only slightly longer than the stubble on his face.
In those two seconds she looked at him, it hit her for the first time in her life. Palmer was rugged. Tough. Handsome.
Attractive.
That thought is what made her stumble.
It was a rogue. There was no way she could think like that. Palmer was her best friend.
She flung herself down on the ground beside him, lifting her rifle. It would take him seven shots to hit the five targets. That meant she had nine seconds on him, since she would hit all of hers, and he’d waste those nine seconds reloading twice more than she would have to.
Except...she missed.
Frustration rocked through her. She missed maybe five percent of her shots. Maybe. On a day she had the flu. Today, with the sun shining down and in perfect health, she couldn’t believe it.
It only took her a second to set her jaw and adjust her grip on the rifle. She didn’t miss again, but Palmer must not have either, because he rose when she did, his targets all shot down, and raced to his machine.
They took off together, side-by-side, and flew wide open the last short distance to the far corral gate, which was always their unofficial finish line.
It wasn’t enough for him to pull completely ahead of her. His body was even with her front tire. So, still holding the throttle wide open, she took her other hand off the handlebars and stretched out over her rifle, leaning forward as far as she could. Her fingertips just passed his handlebars as the gate flew closer.
She yelled, “I’m first, Cowboy!” as they flew by it, her fingertips just inching past him.
He turned at the sound of her voice. His eyes widened at her position. She probably looked like a bird on a death dive, but it didn’t matter, because her fingers had crossed the line before any of his body parts.
She straightened on her ATV and punched her fist in the air. “Ya Hoo!” she cried.
Whatever little glitch she’d had at the last range was gone, and she turned brilliant eyes to Palmer. His shining blue eyes smiled back at her, even as he shook his head.
They hit the breaks and their machines fishtailed in different directions, coming to a stop facing each other. How many hundreds of times over the years had they done this together? Maybe thousands since she’d decided in high school she wanted to compete in an Olympic biathlon.
Palmer had never wanted to be anything but a rancher on his grandparents’ spread, but he’d been more than happy to help her get better.
