Lori Wilde - Crash Landing

“Hot damn. Let’s go.”

“Will your companion be joining us?” Sophia asked.

“Who?” he asked, and then realized she was talking about Stacy. “No. She’s got spa treatments and whatnot to keep her occupied while I’m gone.”

“Do you have luggage?”

“No time. Don’t need any.”

“Don’t you at least want to change?” She waved at his business suit.

“I’m good. Let’s hit it.”

Sophia held out her palm. “I will require payment up front.”

He handed over a credit card, and couldn’t help noticing what pretty hands she had. Long, slender fingers, nails painted a soft salmon color. It was unusual for a petite woman to have such long fingers.

“I will be right back.” She trotted off again, headed toward the airport’s employee entrance.

His palms were unexpectedly sweaty and his knees felt slightly shaky. Was he that nervous she would turn him down? Or was he simply amped up over Scott’s crazy news? Either way, the shakiness was disconcerting. Why did he care so much about what Scott decided to do with his life?

Sophia returned a few minutes later with his credit card and a sunny smile.

He pocketed his card. “Now can we leave?”

“Almost. I must finish my flight check first.”

Gibb got into the passenger seat and impatiently drummed his fingers against the dashboard as she went through the checklist. He kept thinking of Scott and his project and how if he couldn’t talk his buddy out of marriage it was going to upend all his plans.

Sophia climbed into the cockpit, doffed her pink cowgirl hat, tossed it in the back and donned a headset. She communicated with the airport in Libera and a few minutes later they were rolling down the narrow dirt landing strip. Just when it seemed they were about to run out of road and fall off the mountain plateau, the plane was smoothly airborne and they were flying through a thick white mist.

The resort was at five thousand feet. Gibb knew small planes like this one maxed out at ten thousand feet, but Sophia didn’t even take them that high. She leveled off their ascent so they were just skimming over the cloud-shrouded mountain range.

It was a mystical sight—the smoky clouds, wafting lazily around them, parting here and there to reveal shades of deep tropical green or craggy blue-gray rock formations. The view took his breath away.

Sophia sat relaxed in the seat, her dark hair curling sexy tendrils around her face, an otherworldly smile on her full pink lips, her hands loose on the yoke. The pink-and-white V-neck quarter-length T-shirt that she wore clung snuggly to her smallish but firm breasts. Tanned, shapely legs worked pedals on the floor that controlled the rudders.

He moved his left arm at the same time she moved her right, and their elbows bumped. A staggering streak of lust shot from his elbow to his shoulder and arrowed straight down to his groin. Instantly, he jerked his arm away.

So did she.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, his heart punching hard against his chest.

The seats in a plane this small were disturbingly close. He should have sat in the back. Why hadn’t he sat in the back?

Sophia stared intently out the windshield. She had a delicate profile—a diminutive nose, gently sloped forehead, small but well-formed chin—that complimented her petite stature. Not a complex face that an artist might find a challenge to sketch, but a fun face, an open face, a happy face.

Looking at her made him smile. He did not want to smile.

There was no swelling of peppy music, no Ferris Bueller, “Oh Yeah” deep-based chorus, but the feeling that his life was about to change and change big, dug into Gibb and clung tight.

She guided the plane with what seemed to be an innate ease. Gibb had never thought of flying as anything more than a skill that anyone who put their mind to it could learn, but right now, watching her, his old belief disappeared, replaced by a deep certainty that there was such a think as a natural born pilot. She had an effortless, light touch on the controls and her sense of timing was impeccable. It was as if she’d strapped the airplane onto her, the way an old west gunslinger strapped on a holster, and the plane started to breathe with her.

Something told him he would relive this moment again in his dreams—the point where the cocky cowgirl became the consummate aviatrix and she was transformed. He felt transformed just by sitting next to her. He would be able to lie in bed at night, close his eyes and be with her again on wings of air, floating into a sweet, deep peace. If he could eat this moment, it would taste like one perfect bite of amazing amuse-bouclé—bitter, sweet, salty, sour, savory, piquant.

“I never tire of the beauty.” Sophia breathed.

“Impressive.” Gibb didn’t take his eyes off her.

She turned her head, caught him staring. Her smile deepened. “What would Blondie say?”

He blinked. “Who?”

“Your girlfriend.”

It took him a moment. “Oh, Stacy. She’d probably be texting or tweeting or something and never notice the scenery.”

“I wasn’t talking about the scenery.”

“No?”

“What would she say about the way you are staring at me?”

“I’m not staring at you. I was studying the instrument panel,” he lied smoothly, his stomach roiling and unsettled.

“Uh-huh.”

Well, damn, if she didn’t want men to look at her, she shouldn’t wear shorts like that. “You do have nice legs.”

“So does Blondie.”

He blew out his breath. “I think you must have gotten the wrong idea about Stacy and I.”

“I think I understand it pretty well.”

“We’re just…” What were they?

Sophia turned toward him, arched an eyebrow. “Friends with benefits?”

The benefit part was right, the friend part, not so much. “Could we talk about something else?”

“It is your three thousand dollars. We can talk about whatever you want.”

Silence stretched out wide as the sky. He had to fix that. He should ask Sophia something else. “How long have you been a pilot?”

“I got my pilot’s license when I was sixteen,” she said proudly.

“Wow, that’s young.”

“My father’s a pilot. This was his plane. He gave it to me when he retired.”

“Why did he retire?”

“He’s losing his sight.”

“That’s a shame.”

Sophia nodded. “Yes. Poppy is like a bird with a broken wing. It’s very sad.”

“You speak English like a native,” he said. “Much better than my Spanish.”

“I was bilingual even as a kid. I have dual citizenship. My mother was an American,” she said. “We visited her family in California every Christmas.”

“Where abouts in California?”

“Ventura.”

“Really? I have a beach house in Santa Barbara.”

“Of course you do,” she said.

“What’s that tone all about?”

“What tone?”

“The tone that says there’s something wrong with having a lot of money.”

She gave a half laugh that sounded more like a snort. “You are imagining things, Mr. Martin. I do not have a tone.”

Was he? “You don’t have anything against wealthy people?”

“Why would I have such an attitude? If it were not for the rich and powerful and famous who come to Bosque de Los Dioses, I would not have a job.”

“Because I know how some rich people can be. They can be very demanding. I’m sure you have to put up with a lot.”

A sly smile flitted across her face. “Ah.”

“Ah, what?”

She shook her head.

“What is it?”

“You are the one with the prejudice against the wealthy.”

“What! That’s crazy. I’m worth over a billion dollars.” Well, until this last investment, but he would be back up there again soon. “Why would I be prejudice against rich people? That’s like saying I’m prejudiced against myself.”