K. Weiland - Storming

He grinned back.

Earl smacked his fist into his palm. “I mean, this is great. Forget Livingstone’s competition. This’ll rake in the dough at every hop between here and San Francisco. What an act, brother!”

Hitch helped Jael step from the bottom wing to the ground. “Except it ain’t an act.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t an act. I didn’t plan any of it. All I did was hang on. She did it all.” He raised her hand, as if introducing her to an audience.

She bit her lip, shyly, her eyes still dancing.

Earl chuckled once. Then his grin faded. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope.”

He looked at Jael. “Is he kidding me?”

She shook her head.

“Well… dadgum.” Earl started laughing again and reached to engulf her hand in both of his. “Dadgum it is, sweetheart. You’re a crazier fool than Hitch is, you know that?”

She inclined her head in a small bow. “Thank you.”

“Well, come on, this is worth celebrating.” He released her and turned to rummage through the camp supplies.

Hitch led her, limping only slightly now, to a rolled-up bedroll she could use as a seat. “We got anything worth celebrating with?”

“Not much. I think Lilla left behind some orange sodey pop. Yep.” He stood up with three of the ribbed glass bottles. With his sleeve over the heel of his hand, he snapped off the tops, then passed them around. Still standing, he raised his bottle. “Here’s to our girl, who we may or may not let go back up again, but who definitely saved our grease-stained hides today.”

Hitch tilted the spicy citrus bubbles into the back of his throat and took a long chug.

Jael sipped hers, licked her lips thoughtfully, then tipped her head back for a deep swallow.

He watched her until she came back up for air. “What made you do that?”

“You were needing help.” She licked her lips again and raised a shoulder. “And I am needing to go home.”

Yeah, right. Go home where nobody seemed to care what happened to her—except Zlo, who definitely cared that she ended up as a blob on the ground somewhere.

Finding Schturming and using the discovery to impress Livingstone was one thing. But it sure was seeming like Jael would be better off moving on from that place. She could stay here with his crew. With Rick and Lilla gone, she wouldn’t even be an extra mouth to feed.

He watched her, trying to read her. “You have any idea how lucky you are not to have fallen off?”

“What is this lucky?”

“It’s like when everything’s going right, and you just know it’s going to keep on going. Nothing can touch you.”

“I like that. You have this lucky?”

“Luck. Yeah, sometimes.” He smiled at her. “But listen, no more of this. If you’re going to work on my crew, then you have to understand I’m the boss. If I tell you not to do something, you don’t do it.”

“If you are boss, I understand this. But there is something you do not understand. If I have this feeling, inside me”—she laid her hand over her stomach—“that I must be doing something, like today, then I must be doing it.”

“Why?”

“If I do not, if I think about it, that is when luck goes away. I maybe start believing I cannot be doing it, then I have fear. And then I cannot do it.” She gave him a long look. “You understand this?”

What airman didn’t understand that? “Even so, I don’t want any more climbing out on the wing without you at least giving me a warning. Okay?”

She nodded once.

“I don’t need you falling off just yet. We’ve got a competition to win and this Schturming thing of yours to find.” Finding it would work out well for both of them. When it came time for her to think about actually going back to it, that’d have to be another discussion.

Earl clinked his bottle against Hitch’s. “Hear, hear!”

The sparkle in her eyes faded. That wrinkle surfaced in her forehead again. “About finding Schturming . Last night, there is something I was not telling you.” She traced her forefinger back and forth in the soft dirt beside her foot. “I cannot find it.”

“What do you mean?” Earl asked.

“I cannot find it. It does not stay in one spot always.”

Hitch lowered his bottle to his bent knee. “So it could be headed to Calgary now for all we know?”

She looked up. “ Schturming will not be leaving far. It will be coming again.” She fingered her pendant’s chain. “But I cannot be telling you to what time or place.”

He chewed his lip. “You know that means Zlo’s coming back too? You just want to sit here and wait for him?”

“I must get back—to stop him. And how can I be going up without—?” She pointed to the Jenny.

“Look, I never said anything about helping you stop Zlo. If he comes down and we can get him arrested, great. But all I’m wanting is to get a good look at this _Schturming_—enough to give Livingstone something to make him happy.” And satisfy his own curiosity. “I’ll take you home like I said I would, but you’re better off forgetting Zlo and moving on to where people aren’t going to go around chucking you overboard.”

The shy smile was gone from her face. She looked wan and haggard—a bit desperate maybe. “Yes,” she said. “I am having understanding.” She set her drink on the ground and stood. She walked, mostly steady on her feet, and disappeared around the far side of the plane.

Aw, shoot. He kicked himself for being an oaf. So her home was a touchy subject. He “had understanding” for that. He thumped his drink down on the ground and pushed to his feet.

Earl tugged his ear. “Where you going?”

“Where do you think?”

He eased around the nose of the plane, moving slow in case she was doing something dangerous—like crying.

But she was only leaning against the fuselage, fiddling with a sore spot on her finger. She looked at him. “Will you still give to me job?”

He huffed out a breath. As long as she stayed here, she’d be mostly out of harm’s way. It’d give him a few extra days to maybe talk her down to a more sensible plan.

“’Course I will,” he said. “Wing walkers like you don’t drop in front of my plane every day.”

That earned a grin. “I would be hoping not.”

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about all this before. And I’m sorry I didn’t take you home when we still had the chance.” That was only half a lie. “You really think we won’t see them again?”

She snorted. “Oh, we will be seeing them again. But only when it is right for Zlo and wrong for us.”

“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “You help me win this competition, and I’ll help you get home—or wherever else you may decide you want to go.” Whatever he thought, it was her choice. She’d undoubtedly get where she wanted to go one way or another anyhow. “I promise.”

She studied him. Something in her eyes said that, this time, she saw something different. She smiled. “Thank you.”

He smiled back, then found himself strangely at a loss for something else to say. He looked at her hand. The left forefinger bore a long raw spot along its side. “What happened there?”

“It is from when there was fire—when I was falling.”

From when Zlo had lit her dress on fire. “Should have told me about that before. We’ve got some salve for stuff like that.” He went back to search through the supplies for the jar, then returned.

She bit her lip, but proffered her hand without protest.

It wasn’t the hand of a lady of leisure. It wasn’t even the hand of a farmwife, like Celia’s. More like Earl’s hand. Black oil lined the short nails, and heavy calluses edged her fingertips and the pad of her palm. It was a strong hand—a proficient hand, the fingers long and nimble.