For the first time, perhaps... ever, he took a meaningful step back from me. “You’re having a laugh if you think I’m getting in that thing.”
That thingwas one of the fastest civilian helicopters in existence.
I told him as much.
He retreated another step. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”
I frowned. “Why?”
Ranger darted a glance around the vertiport. It had still been dark when we’d arrived, but dawn was beginning to shine a light on the rows of gleaming aircraft around us, and he stared as if he’d opened his eyes to hell on earth. “What is this place?”
“What does it look like?” I had already opened the door to the H155 I flew most often, allowing Lida to check it the way she had been trained before I ever knew her. “Is an airfield.”
“Whose airfield?”
“Mine.”
Ranger rubbed his lips with the back of his hand, his brow glistening with sweat despite the cool of the early morning. “You’re the helicopter friend...fuck.”
“I am what?”
He didn’t answer. Just shook his head as Lida hopped out of the aircraft, already carrying her ear-defenders.
That’s my girl.
I tossed her a treat and turned back to Ranger. He had not run, but he possessed the air of a man caught between the urge to get as far from this place as possible or drop to his knees and vomit.
The image of him on his knees affected me. For reasons I did not have room to contemplate if I wanted to get in the air today.
I pushed it out of my mind, tossed the bag I’d brought into the cabin of the aircraft, and approached him, hands out, as if he was a rabid animal. “I was a helicopter pilot in the Russian navy before I deserted back to my employer. I have flown since I was much younger than this. You are safe with me, I promise.”
Ranger set his jaw. “I have no idea how old you are. And for the record, I’m safe on the ground, thanks.”
He meant it, I could tell, and I considered my options. Leaving without him was the most obvious. If Ranger would not board the aircraft, it would be the simplest thing to leave him behind. But I knew this man. Even if he would not fly, he was stubborn enough to stand in front of the chopper and dare me to cut him down.
Because he wasbrave. It was not like him to be nervous. “Is no different to the airplane you flew here on.”
Ranger’s glare deepened. “I didn’t fly here. I rode, like a sane person. Or did you think my heap-of-shit hog had fucking wings?”
I had assumed he had taken a three-hour flight and Jake had shipped his bike to the island as part of whatever deal they had made to babysit me. It had not occurred to me that Ranger had spent thirty-six hours on the road to reach my side. “You must be very attached to yourheap of shitto go to so much trouble.”
His dark gaze flickered. “Don’t say shit. It’s fucking weird when you swear.”
“I curse all the time.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. Just not in English. It is not how I learned.”
A retort opened Ranger’s sinful mouth, but he was distracted by the chopper behind me and genuine distress cut through his belligerence.
He is afraid.An emotion I understood, but never about this.
I glanced around the heliport, searching for a solution to a problem I had not anticipated. “Maybe that one instead?”
Ranger followed my gaze to a lighter aircraft, and if anything, his expression fractured more.“The bubble machine that looks like it’s powered by chewing gum and lollipop sticks? Yeah, I’ll pass.”
I laughed, and it felt good. Not that he was upset, but that for once, I could reassure him that everything was okay and mean it. “It is small,” I conceded. “But powerful. You understand that a helicopter is designed to stay in the air, no? They do not fall from the sky unless they malfunction. Like any vehicle can. Like your bike.”
