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It took her nearly a minute to make contact, but finally her father’s voice called out, “B.J., what’s the problem?”
“I need to talk to Leroy,” she responded. “Now.”
Once again, a white-knuckled segment of time passed in uncomfortable silence. B.J. could almost see her father bustling from the tower and yelling at his brother to get his butt into gear. He knew full well she wouldn’t be contacting base yet unless there were problems. Pop was probably having a coronary right now, wondering what was wrong with her.
As they waited, the tension nearly poured off her passenger in waves. B.J. was thankful he was keeping quiet, though. She didn’t want to explain what she thought the problem was. She didn’t want to look him in the eye and tell him they might not make it home.
Finally, Leroy’s static-filled voice growled through the speakers. “What?”
“Hey, Bub,” she greeted casually. “Remember when I asked you if you changed that fuel line, because I thought it looked a little ragged?”
“Oh, yeah. Forgot.”
Her blood congealed in her veins. “You forgot? But you said you’d already switched it.”
“I was going to, but. . .”
“But what, damn it?”
Leroy only muttered a lame, “Sorry.”
B.J. clenched her teeth. “Leroy, when I get home, I’m going to kick your butt to New York and back.” If she made it home.
She glanced over and caught Grady’s face. His features had turned ashen, his upper lip beaded in sweat.
“Just sit tight,” she said in a grim voice.
“Anything I can do?”
Before she could tell him no, Jebediah Gilmore’s voice came back on the line. “B.J., what’s the situation?”
For a second, she couldn’t answer. The engine shuddered; Grady sucked in an audible breath while she cursed.
This was all wrong. There hadn’t been any puddles leaking from the plane when she’d done her pre-flight inspection this morning. No torn hoses. No sign of trouble. The line must’ve finally come loose after they’d already gone wheels up. Damn it.
“We’re leaking gas like a sieve,” she told her father after she spent a moment steadying the wings. “We were three-quarters full when we headed out of Houston, but now it’s less than three-quarters empty.”
“How far away are you?” Pop asked calmly.
B.J. glanced toward Grady. “Halfway there, maybe.”
For a minute, her dad didn’t answer. They were all doing the math in their heads, all realizing she’d be short making it home a quarter of a tank.
“Okay,” Jeb’s voice responded. “Just take ’er easy. Keep me updated.”
“Will do,” B.J. answered.
Once it was just Grady and B.J. again, he finally said, “Is there an airstrip nearby where we can land?”
She shook her head numbly. Not in this part of the state. “We can either head back or keep on toward home.”
“Which is closer?”
“Probably Houston. But it’ll take a lot of gas to get us turned back around.”
“So, we’ll keep on toward Tommy Creek,” he stated more than asked.
B.J. nodded. After a tense moment, she finally glanced over. “If worse comes to worse, we’ll run out of fuel and have to dead stick somewhere.”
