Page 12 of Falling for the Playboy Pilot

With a smile at Laser, I clicked another button. Heat turbulence. The screens flickered with waves of distortion as if the air itself was rippling from the heat. The plane jolted violently, and Janna’s knuckles whitened as she fought to keep it steady. Her jaw clenched, but she didn’t panic. Instead, she adjusted the throttle and banked slightly to the left, her movements deliberate and controlled.

She shot me a quick glare but I saw cockiness in that look. Oh, she thinks she’s won.

I added another layer of difficulty. I was going to throw everything at her. It was the simulation of a sudden downdraft that forced the plane to drop sharply. The warning system blared again, louder this time, and the simulated ground rushed up alarmingly fast.

“Pull up!” Laser shouted, unable to stay silent.

Janna yanked back on the yoke. The plane leveled out just in time, skimming dangerously close to the treetops.

“Nice save,” Laser said, sounding impressed. “That was close.”

I didn’t comment. Instead, I hit another button, introducing a new challenge: a wall of smoke so thick it obscured everything in front of her. Janna leaned forward, squinting at the screens as if she could will herself to see through it.

“What’s your move?” I asked.

“How can anyone fly through this soup?” she muttered, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed.

“This is the job,” I said.

“But I can’t see,” she murmured.

“Low visibility,” I continued. “Low altitude. Heat columns, shifting wind, terrain that wants to kill you. If that makes you nervous, you can always go back to flying puddle jumpers in Moose-fuck, Alaska.”

She turned her head just enough to shoot me a glare over her shoulder. “Wow. Do you charm everyone like this, or am I just lucky?”

“If you want to save lives, pay attention. That haze out there? That’s where people are dying. If we can’t get tankers through to drop water or fire retardant, those flames eat neighborhoods. You don’t just fly. You chart. You listen to your spotter. You find safe routes and you paint targets with smoke so someone else doesn’t die trying to guess.”

“I can do that.”

“In this scenario, you’re the pilot. I’m the spotter. The goal is to get up above the smoke layer without getting yourself killed. Then I’ll give you coordinates for a smoke drop.”

“I got this,” she said. “Watch and learn. Moose-fuck Alaska isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.”

I snorted, stepped back to give her room, and hit start on the sim.

It was a similar scenario. The first time, she didn’t do great. But now she seemed to know what to expect. She pulled back on the yoke and started her climb.

Too fast.

“Watch your angle,” I said.

“Relax. I know what I’m doing.”

She flew into the smoke. For a second, I thought she might actually pull it off. Then she slammed into the mountain.

There wasn’t even a warning beep before the screen went black and a red CRASH message plastered itself across the middle.

She let out a frustrated sound and spun in her seat. “There wasn’t a mountain there!”

“I’ll have that engraved on your tombstone.” I reset the sim. “Again.”

“Seriously?” she asked. “I clipped it by a hair.”

“You exploded,” I said. “I’d call that more than a hair.”

She turned back, grumbling.

Second run, she took it wider, slower. Not bad until another plane came into view from the right. Another spotter aircraft, just like hers. She froze. Overcorrected. Zigged when she should have zagged.