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He nodded. “What does that mean?”
“It means we’ll have to land somewhere without engine power. . .” Maybe like in an open field somewhere.
Though he’d already been pale enough, Grady’s face drained of the rest of its grayish tinge. “That’s possible?”
“Hell, yeah.”
He glanced toward her, his blue eyes full of hope. “And you’ve done it before?”
She swallowed. “Uh. . .no. Sorry.” Wincing, she knew she should’ve joined in when Buck and Leroy had that dead stick landing competition a few years back.
Grady’s head bobbed again. He was taking this awfully well. For all the trouble she’d caused him in the last twenty-four hours, the man should be cussing her up one side and down the other.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, feeling the apology from the bottom of her heart. “About everything.”
Sorry she’d pushed him into cheating on his dead wife and then for maybe killing him today in her plane.
Grady didn’t answer. He just looked out the window at the earth he no doubt didn’t want to crash into. “I shouldn’t have left,” he said and swung his head around slowly to pin her with an intense look. “I shouldn’t have left your room without. . .”
Good Lord, he was going to apologize to her? After all the things she’d put him through—was still putting him through—he actually thought he’d done something wrong.
Though it did B.J.’s heart good to hear him say such, it only caused her own guilt to multiply.
She shook her head and lifted her hand to shut him up. “Don’t worry about it.” She definitely didn’t want to talk about this right now. If she was going to die in a few minutes, she’d rather just take it all to the grave with her.
But Grady was obviously more into the deathbed confession thing than she. “I was wrong,” he insisted. “I was raised better than to—”
“Look,” she cut in. “We can talk about it on the ground.”
“But—”
“I’ll land us safe and sound, Slim. Don’t go thinking this is it. All right? Neither of us is going to die today.”
He didn’t answer, and she glanced over at him. “We’re not going to crash.” When she noticed he wasn’t strapped in, she scowled. “Put your damn seatbelt on.”
He blinked. “I thought you said it wouldn’t make any difference.”
B.J. sighed. “It was a joke, Rawlings. Can’t you take a joke?”
Grabbing the protective strap, he muttered under his breath, “Next time you want to tell a joke, try knock, knock or why did the chicken cross the r
oad.”
She heard him, but decided to act like she hadn’t. “If we have to make a hard landing, that harness just might save your life and keep you from being jostled around and getting the shit beat out of you.”
Grady clicked the belt into place and then tightened the straps for good measure.
“If you’d feel safer, you can get into a seat in the back,” she offered.
“What about you?”
She was about to come back with a sarcastic crack about who’d fly the plane if she cowered in the back with him, but then the engine cut out momentarily, and she clenched her teeth as the stick became harder to control.
“I’ll be fine.” She held on tight as the engine stopped, sputtered, and then roared to life again.
Grady didn’t move away from her side, and she didn’t want to think about how much that reassured her.
“How are we on gas?” he asked.
