Tina Beckett - Doctor's Mile-High Fling

Maybe someone had seen fit to enlighten him. The accident had happened four years ago, but the people in charge had laid the blame squarely in her dad’s lap. They felt he’d been reckless to attempt to fly during that storm. As did her mother. It infuriated her to no end. Most of her friends knew better than to bring up his name in her company. Then again, this man wasn’t a friend, neither was he likely to become one. And if he said one ugly word about her father, she was going to—

“Wayne helped train me. In my opinion.” His voice trailed off.

Molly’s backbone stiffened further. Was Blake aware of the circumstances of the accident?

A hand came off the yoke—how had she even remembered that word?—and touched her arm. “I think he made the right call to fly that day, for the record.”

“Y-you do?” It was chilly inside the cockpit, and the heater struggled to keep up, kicking out a lukewarm stream of air. But the touch of the pilot’s hand heated her instantly. “That’s not the prevailing opinion, from what I’ve heard.”

Not even her mother had cut her dad any slack, nagging him relentlessly to give up flying—to get a job closer to home. Her bitterness at his refusal had aged her, tilting her mouth permanently down at the corners. Once Molly had returned from medical school, her mom had focused that vast reservoir of neediness on her only daughter, urging her to live at home. Between her mother and her ex-boyfriend, those two years in Anchorage had sucked the life from her, left her feeling suffocated and alone.

Then a job had opened up in the Aleutians, and she’d leapt at it, flying or no flying. Her mother’s reaction to the news still rang in her ears: Go on and get yourself killed. Leave me all alone. You’re just like your father!

Was she?

Heavens, she hoped so. Maybe that was another reason she’d needed this job so very badly. It was not only a means of escape but a way to hang on to a little piece of her father.

She glanced out the window. The more altitude they gained, though, the more she rued her decision as an impulsive lapse in judgment. But the alternative was untenable. Staying at the hospital had been awkward at best, disastrous at worst. Besides, her father had loved his job, had said he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Maybe she just needed to make peace with that—to try to understand what had motivated him to keep making these trips.

Blake smiled at her, breaking into her thoughts. “Don’t listen to them. They’re all too happy to shift the blame to someone other than themselves.”

She had to blink a few times to realize he wasn’t talking about her mother but about those who blamed her father for the accident. “So not everyone thought my father was at fault?”

“Ask a few of the local pilots. I think you’ll be surprised at their answers.” He paused. “The weather over the islands can be unpredictable even during the summer. One minute it’s clear blue skies, and the next…”

“So why do it?” Maybe she should be asking herself that very same question. “Surely you could have been an EMT or chosen something safer than this? Alaska Regional could always use a few more paramedics.”

And not one of the single nurses—or any of the married ones, for that matter—would complain if he hung around the hospital a little more. Blake was something of a legend around that place. But from the whispered comments she’d overheard, none of the women in question had managed to worm their way past that charming smile and into his bed.

He shrugged. “As a kid, I loved watching old videos of Evel Knievel. Since I can’t rocket across Snake River Canyon, I figure I can fly from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor. All I lack is the cool jumpsuit.”

“Evel Knievel never successfully jumped that river.”

“But he tried.”

Molly shuddered. She hoped he wasn’t drawing an analogy between the famous daredevil’s doomed flight and the one she was now on. Did she really want to work with a man who seemed to be hooked on adrenaline? She didn’t have a choice, since he was considered the best of the best now that her father was gone. Accepting this position meant she’d fly with him from time to time as they medevaced patients from the islands to the hospital in Anchorage.

If she took the job .

Nothing was set in stone. In fact, she couldn’t risk jeopardizing the project, if she couldn’t get past her fear. She’d have to let someone else take her place. Except none of the other doctors had stepped up and volunteered—they all had families, and no one was anxious to leave a thriving hospital to work in a government-funded clinic.

And part of her father’s heart was still on those islands. A part she wanted desperately to understand.

She blinked, realizing the stabbing terror that had frozen her on takeoff was trickling away. She was still afraid, but the more Blake talked the more her nerves settled.

It had to be his voice. Maybe flight instructors gave lessons in hypnotism as well as voice modulation.

“What about you?” he asked. “Are you seriously thinking about taking the position? Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but you don’t seem to be in love with the idea of flying.”

Was that his way of calling her chicken? The urge to flap her wings and cluck had only happened once so far, during takeoff. “Maybe I need to understand why my dad traveled back and forth between the mainland and the islands. To make peace with where his journey led him.”

No need to tell him she was a coward in more ways than one. That sometimes it was easier to run than to stand your ground and fight.

He was silent for a minute, before he answered softly. “You can’t always make peace with it. Sometimes all you can do is accept what life dishes up and then move past it.”

Or you could always fly away from it as fast as you could.

The plane dipped for a second and so did Molly’s heart. “What was that?”

“Just a pothole.”

“Sorry?” The fear was back, stronger than ever. She licked her lips, trying not to focus on the vibrations of the plane around her but noticing every tiny shiver just the same.

“Turbulence. It’s like bumps in a road. You wouldn’t expect to have glassy-smooth highways forever, would you?”

“No, of course not.” She relaxed her grip on the shoulder harness.

He was right. It was just a pothole. Not even a very big one.

Somehow thinking of it like that made it easier. “My mom hated flying. She never went to the islands with my dad, no matter how many times he asked her to. Not even to take a vacation. She wouldn’t let me go either. And after his plane went down, she became even more…” Demanding? What exactly was she planning to say? “I just don’t want to be like that, you know?”

“Understandable. But if your mom didn’t let you fly with him, then when did you…?” He frowned. “This isn’t your first time up, is it?”

“No!” She bit her lip. “Well, not exactly. I mean, I’ve been on a plane before.”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, the dark silky locks falling neatly back into place. “Really? When was the last time you were on one?”

“A few weeks ago.” She tossed her head as if it had been nothing special.

He seemed to relax in his seat. “Where’d you go?”

“Go?”

“On your flight.”

“We, uh, didn’t exactly go anywhere.” The mumbled words sounded weird even to her.

“I don’t follow.”

She hesitated. If she didn’t tell him, he’d just ask Doug why she’d acted so whacked out during the flight once they got back to Anchorage. “The plane was part of a desensitization course.”

Something she’d needed to make sure she could survive this trip.