He wasn’t far behind. “Tell me something,” he said.
She looked at him. “What?”
“Anything. Distract me.”
“You want me to distract you?” A ghost of a smile. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be calm in a crisis.”
“I am calm. But I think better when I’m listening.”
“Okay.” She thought for a moment, then, “I already told you I was an Army brat. Grew up all over the world.”
“Cool. That accounts for your travel bug.”
She grinned, and oh, her eyes just lit up gold when she smiled. “But what I didn’t tell you is that I can speak three languages. Not well, but still. Mostly, I can ask where the bathroom is and where to buy coffee.”
“Seriously?”
“Korean, a little Arabic, and I’m almost fluent in German.”
“Okay, I’m impressed.”
She grinned. “I’m very useful.”
“Indeed. Do you have siblings?”
“A sister. She died. You?”
So matter-of-fact. “Two sisters. One older, one younger.”
The plane shuddered. Dropped. She gripped the armrest harder. “Back in South Dakota?”
“No. Yes. One in Minneapolis, the other in Sioux Falls.”
“Are your parents back on the ranch?”
“Mom is. She grew up there. Dad died.”
Her mouth tightened. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, I was twelve.” He hadn’t meant to admit that. “My grandfather helped me through it. But yeah, it was tough.”
The turbulence intensified. The plane was fighting through something—weather, mechanical issues, he couldn’t tell. But the drops came more frequently, harder, and around them, fear crept across passengers’ faces.
“My grandfather had a fishing cabin on the border of Minnesota,” Dakota said. “On a lake so still you could see every tree reflected in it.”
“What was it like?” Jayden’s voice was tight, but she was listening. Focusing on his words instead of the turbulence.
“Quiet.” He kept his tone steady, conversational. “We’d go out at sunrise. The mist would rise off the water, and everything would be still. Just us and the fish and the sound of the line cutting through the air.”
The plane shuddered. She flinched but didn’t look away from him.
“He taught me to tie flies,” Dakota continued. “Said fly-fishing was about patience. About waiting for the right moment and trusting your instincts.”
“Did you catch anything?”
“Sometimes. But that wasn’t really the point.”
She nodded. “What was the point?”
