Page 185 of Modern Romance Collection March 2025 (1-4)

And it was as bumpy as she had feared.

They jostled around like they were on a road filled with potholes, as she pulled back and increased the altitude. The snowy mountains around them were majestic. Glorious.

She loved to fly.

She checked her radar and frowned. There was some rough weather up ahead as they headed east. But it seemed like once they cleared the mountains it settled down.

They were still climbing toward altitude, still getting jostled. She looked back at her fancy passenger. He had a sort of grim, stoic look on his handsome face.

She bet that this was a whole different way to travel than he was used to.

She snorted, and carried right on.

When they made altitude, things settled down a little bit.

She checked her instruments, and began to relax. Settled in for the flight. It was so loud in this tin can there was no making conversation. But she wasn’t regretful about that.

Picking up the passenger while she was flying cargo was one of the weirder things that had ever happened to her. But it really hadn’t made any sense to leave him behind. He had a wedding to get to.

She blinked. That was odd. A wedding. She was transporting goods for a wedding. Maybe he was attending that wedding. Of course it would attract very rich guests.

But then, he hadn’t said anything when she had commented. But she could definitely tell he was kind of a whole thing.

She didn’t have time to think about that. Or worry about it.

She just had to keep on flying.

But then suddenly, her instruments dipped, revived and dipped again.

She’d never seen that happen before. She’d heard about it, in training, of course, but she hadn’t actually experienced it. She tried to keep her cool. She looked out at the horizon, and could see nothing but white. They were socked in. She needed her instruments to tell her where she was. She couldn’t rely on sight, not in weather like this.

She swallowed hard, and tried to get a gauge for what was going on. Her altimeter was still working, and she wondered if she could navigate to a different airfield…

But then, the altimeter went out too.

“Oh, no.”

She started flipping switches. It was a catastrophic electrical failure.

And she couldn’t panic. Because she was the one in charge.

It hit her then, quite bitterly, thatthatwas the story of her life.

She supposed she could have emotions when she was dead.

Her heart hammered as she tried to clear her mind and focus on the task at hand.

She had a backup engine, but she did not have backup instruments. And the power source that was supposed to engage in case of any problems wasn’t working.

She looked down below, and her heart started to pound. There was one vaguely clear spot that she could see coming up ahead. And if she used her knowledge, and general take of the area, it was possible that she could land.

But she was afraid that if she kept on flying eventually they were going to come into regrettable contact with the mountainside. If she died, her family was doomed. Her chest locked tight, and she began to tremble. But she couldn’t lose her cool. She could not afford to. Panic filled her but she didn’t let it win. Slowly, she began to push down, maneuvering them down, steadily. She kept her eyes out the windshield, her vision their only hope, her experience their only guide.

She was twenty-five. She’d been flying planes for four years. But it was always something she felt like had been in her blood. Something innate. Her dad had done it. Before he had been deemed unfit.

Her dad.

Her chest clenched tight. She had to do this.

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