But the plane didn’t have to make noise for her to know.
They were in serious trouble.
15
Millions of cubic feet of airspace, hundreds of planes in the air, and that fucking buzzard picked Lance’s flight path for its suicide run.
Today.
When he had a jumpy passenger.
He could land a Cessna with one eye closed, but landing a Cessna on God only knew what kind of terrain with an engine that kept going out took a bit more concentration.
Hell if he’d let Kaci hear him talking to the nearest air traffic controller about an emergency landing.
He was still two hundred feet up when hissuggested makeshift landing strip came into view. The plane was pitching and pulling, dipping and groaning, but he held steady, talking to the machine, manipulating the tail and ailerons and flaps to compensate for the sputtering engine.
The Aero Club guys would never let him live this down.
Hell, neither would anyone in his squadron.
Nice aim, Thumper. Most people just buy a Thanksgiving turkey at the store.
Damn bird had been half as big as a turkey. Couldn’t have been a sparrow or a robin.
Had to be a fucking vulture.
It was a fucking miracle the bird hadn’t taken out the whole engine. Must’ve just clipped its wing.
But they weren’t on the ground yet.
He pulled back on the throttle, breathing a sigh of relief when the damaged propellergave him all she had. Nose up. Attitude good. Airspeed questionable. Altitude perfect.
Passenger hyperventilating.
Where was a good bottle of Jack when a guy needed one?
Two minutes later, they were on the ground. The plane bounced, but it stayed down, shuddering and jiggling over the uneven plowed dirt until it came to a full stop.
As soon as Lance unbuckled his seatbelt, Kaci lunged for the door.
It didn’t open.
She banged on it.
“Kaci.”
“Let. Me. Out.”
He reached across her and flipped the lock. She tumbled out onto the ground, where she promptly fell face-first into the dirt.
He followed her out her side of the plane, because it was faster than walking aroundthe damn thing. “Kaci,” he said again.
She lifted an arm. “Sugar, sometime later, I’m gonna thank you for me being alive. Might be a day, might be a couple weeks. But right now, you need to back off and let me and this ground get reacquainted.”
He needed to walk away.
Give her some space. Let her cope.
