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I look away before the urge to cry overwhelms my ability to hold it off.

That’s when I catch Scout swiping quickly under one eye.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” I nudge her shoulder with my knee. “If I can hold back tears during this clusterfuck, so can you.”

She ducks her head and suddenly becomes very interested in her phone. “What are you talking about? There are no tears.”

“So you didn’t just wipe your eye?”

“It itched.” She sniffs, which really doesn’t help her case, then peeks up at me. “Maybe I have sympathy pregnancy hormones.”

I press my lips together. “You can’t catch hormones.”

Tatum snorts and shoves Scout. “Please. You were crying at that dog commercial long before Goldie got pregnant.”

Scout twists around to glare at her. “Whose side are you on?”

“Goldie’s.”

“You bitch.”

That gets a laugh out of me, which immediately makes Scout grin.

“There. You’re welcome.”

I roll my eyes at her. “You’re ridiculous.”

“For free, too.”

My smile is still there when Trace adjusts the laptop on his thighs. He reloads the feed, then starts clicking through the same screens he’s been staring at all night. I watch the trail stay frozen in place while whatever’s left of my smile slowly disappears.

When he goes back to the time attached to the last observation, his jaw tightens.

It’s been way too long.

I know Trace said gaps happen. I know the feed going down doesn’t mean something happened to the plane. I know there are a dozen reasons we’re not getting updates.

None of that makes going through it any easier.

Come on, Maverick.

Come back to me.

CHAPTER 37

SUMNER

By the time we turn toward Ruth for the third pass, I’m grinning almost as big as Colston.

The first two were rough, and this one already looks like it’s going to be worse, but it’s the rush of a lifetime.

Rain races across the windshield faster than the wipers can clear it, lightning keeps flashing somewhere inside the clouds ahead of us, and the turbulence has been getting steadily rougher since we turned back toward the center.

I feel every bit of it through the seat and the controls. The yoke trembles under my hands, the rudder pedals vibrate beneath my feet, and every hard bump pulls the harness tight across my chest before dropping my weight back into the seat again. My pulse is up, my palms are starting to sweat, and my forearms stay tense from the constant little corrections it takes to keep the airplane where I want it.

I fucking love it.

This is what I’ve spent my entire career training for.