Page 114 of Well Aware

“He’s like an overexcited child when it comes to that plane. He doesn’t get to go out in it as often anymore, thanks to his so-called sister forcing his hand with the Cowgirls. Make sure that you get him out in it as much as you can. He misses flying.”

“He flew?”

“In the Marines.”

I wanted to kick myself for not knowing that about him.

Sure, I’d known he was a Marine, but I’d never known that he’d flown planes for them.

To be completely honest, I hadn’t realized that the Marines even flew planes.

I thought they were all ground transport…

“I’ll talk to him about it all the way back,” I promised. “Thanks again, Apollo.”

He jerked his chin up and said, “Happy flying.”

I was more than happy to get in the back.

It gave me an uninterrupted view of him as he did all the pre-flight and then takeoff things.

Things that I had no clue what he was talking about, but they sounded crazy sexy anyway coming out of his mouth.

As he took off, he explained exactly what he was doing to not only me, but Iris as well.

Iris who was freakin’ obsessed. She had so many questions and it had me smiling huge the entire time from the back seat.

“Beau,” I said into the headset that was covering my head.

“Yeah, darlin’?” he asked, flicking his eyes back to me for a few seconds before returning it to the sky.

“What did you used to fly in the Marines?”

The grin that stretched the side of his face that I could see was nothing short of beautiful.

“Used to fly the KC-130J Hercules.” He smiled.

Apollo was right. He loved talking about flying.

He talked for the next hour about what he did in the Marines, and I could’ve hit myself for not asking him before. I felt like this was an integral part of him that I’d never known about. A part of him that I should’ve known about.

“How long will this flight be?” I asked.

“Well.” He winced. “It’ll take us a bit to get back. I’ll have to stop three times, maybe four depending on the weather. But probably closer to eleven hours.”

“Whoa,” I said. “That’s a long time.”

It proved to be a longer trip, but not by much.

Twelve and a half hours later, we touched down in Montana.

It was the best flight I’d ever taken.

Beau flew us over the Rockies, and he flew us around them to show them off at all angles. Then he flew to all the spots that Iris pointed out along the way. When we stopped first in Kansas, he took us to a small diner to grab a bite to eat while they refueled the plane. The next stop just in the base of Wyoming, he took us to a milkshake hut where we stuffed ourselves with sweets.

The final stop was home.

Or, where the plane called home.