In all her life, no one else had ever figured out that she was frightened to be airborne. But she was. Deathly terrified, to be blunt about it.
There weren’t any answers for why her daddy’s plane had gone down in the first Gulf War. Pilot error, enemy fire, or a mechanical malfunction—the government had neverbeen able to give Momma a definitive cause. Probably because Daddy had crashed into the Persian Gulf, and all of the pieces of his plane had never been fully recovered. Kaci had been old enough when Daddy died to lie in bed at night and wonder if he’d known his plane was going down. If he’d seen the water rising up to meet him. If he’d tried to eject.
If he’d thought about her and Momma in his last moments.
She’d been old enough to have nightmares, but young enough to be unable to separate the nightmares from reality.
Old enough to understand that what went up had to come down.
Old enough to decide she’d never, ever voluntarily put herself at the mercy of an airplane.
Even Momma wouldn’t fly, and Momma wasn’t afraid of anything. She was going onsixty, and she hadn’t been on an airplane since before Daddy died. If ever.
So why was the idea of confessing all this to Lance even more terrifying than the idea of flying?
“Why do you kiss women in bars and then run away?” she blurted.
Best she could do.
“I don’t make a habit of kissing women when I don’t know their names,” he said. “It was a bad day.”
She didn’t say anything.
Because she’d had a bad day that day too.
“Can’t say I’m sorry I met you though, which probably makes me crazier than you are,” he continued. “And speaking of you, it’s not uncommon to be afraid to fly. People aren’t born with wings. Weren’t meant to fly. Course, neither were pumpkins. Or BCGs.”
Kaci stifled a groan.
She’d forgotten about Ron’s military-issue glasses. Lance had probably found the medal too. And possibly the sock.
“Or don’t you want to go wherever it is you’re supposed to fly to?” he said.
“I want to go.”
She wanted to go to Stuttgart badly enough to get on an airplane, didn’t she? She wanted to rub elbows with famous physicists. She wanted to see the wind tunnels at the university. She wanted to stand up and present her research as the featured keynote guest and make connections with people who were brilliant and creative and driven.
She wanted to prove she was every bit as smart as every man who had ever taught in the James Robert Physics Department.
As the first female professor in the history of the department, she had a lot to prove.
Lance dangled his hands off his knees. “Where?”
“Germany. I was invited to speak at asymposium in Germany.”
He tilted his head toward her vacated seat. “Then let’s go to Germany.”
She’d been showing her crazy since the moment they met, but here he was, offering to stay by her side and help her overcome her fears.
And for what?
To spendmoretime in her company.
Was it possible he was simply one of the good guys? That he’d simply had an off day the day they met, and this was his way of making up for it?
He pulled himself out of his seat, and once more he put his hands on her shoulders to steer her. Except this time, he guided her away from the couch, then pulled her to the floor. He sat behind her, straddling her, and wrapped his arms around her front, game controller firmly in hand.
“One more time,” he said, his breath hoton her ear.
