Page 46 of Falling for the Playboy Pilot

“Hey!” She laughed as well. “I was a kid. Maybe a little fantastical.”

“I bet you liked fairies.”

“Of course.”

“Okay, so you were born to fly.”

“We moved from base to base like clockwork growing up. I learned to fly before I learned to drive. Always thought I’d go into the Air Force as well and be a fighter pilot. But…”

I looked her up and down. “Too short?”

She rolled her eyes. “No.” She let out a long sigh. “I’ve got asthma. It’s not bad anymore, but it disqualified me from flying jets. My career as a fighter pilot was over before it started. Just like that.”

“Damn. That sucks.”

She laughed, but it was bitter. “I told myself it didn’t matter. That I could still fly commercial or do search and rescue or something else. But in that moment, it felt like I let everyone down.”

“Why?” I asked with confusion.

Her face crumpled a little, and I could see the pain there, raw and real. “Because it was the family business, you know? It was what we did. What we were. And suddenly I couldn’t be part of it anymore.”

I could tell it really hurt her. I didn’t know why I cared but I stood there and let her talk. It felt like she needed to vent.

“My dad tried to make me feel better,” she said with a shrug. “Told me there were other ways to serve, other ways to fly. But I could see it in his eyes. I saw the disappointment he tried to hide. Not in me, exactly, but in the situation. In the unfairness of it all. We always talked about all of us being fighter pilots. And then one day, a doctor said my allergies weren’t going to be cured with Claritin.”

“That’s bullshit,” I said, surprising myself with how angry I felt on her behalf. “You didn’t choose to have asthma.”

“I know that. Logically, I know that.” She looked at me and I could see the sadness in her eyes. She was trying to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, but it was. “But it didn’t stop me from feeling like I’d failed them. Like I’d broken some sacred family tradition. My brothers got to carry on the legacy, and I got to watch from the sidelines.”

I wanted to say something, anything, to make that look disappear from her face. But I wasn’t good with words. So, I did what I always did. I ran from my feelings.

Technically, not my feelings and we weren’t running.

“Walk with me?” I asked.

She blinked, surprised, then shrugged. “Sure.”

We stepped outside into the afternoon heat, but there was a decent breeze cutting through the warmth. I found myself walking slower than usual, matching her shorter stride.

“So that’s why you ended up here,” I said, more statement than question.

“Part of it.” She kicked at a loose piece of gravel. “I spent a few years doing charter flights in Alaska. Good money, beautiful scenery. But it felt empty. I was just moving people from point A to point B. Rich tourists who wanted to see glaciers, businessmen who were too important to drive. Nothing wrong with that work or anything. I mean, someone needs to do it. But it wasn’t what I wanted for the long term.”

We walked past the fuel depot, the smell of it sharp in the air. I could hear the distant hum of a plane engine being tested in one of the hangars.

“Does that mean you don’t want to go into the commercial field?”

She snorted. “No. Definitely not.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said.

“I want to fly for a purpose,” she continued. The hint of sadness I heard earlier was gone. She was back. I liked her saucy and defiant. “When I’m up there, I want to know that what I’m doing matters. That maybe I’m helping save someone’s home, or their life, or their livelihood. I wanted to be in the Air Force so I could be a part of something bigger. Fighting fires feels like the next best thing.”

I laughed, and she stopped walking.

“What’s your fucking problem?” she snapped, her blue eyes flashing with irritation.

“No, I’m not laughing at you,” I said quickly, holding up a hand. “It’s just funny because I remember feeling exactly like that when I got into this. It started as a summer gig. A change of pace. Maybe a little excitement. The last thing you want when flying commercial is an interesting flight. But once I got started it was like things clicked into place. This was where I belonged. Then summers weren’t enough. It felt like I spent all year waiting to get back to it.”