Page 50 of Chocolate Cherry Cabin

“Nope. It’s not the same as your loving-life smile.” He turned to walk back to his house. “I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.” He checked the sky. The clouds were moving along, leaving clear sky to the north. It would be beautiful up there.

“You’re going to fly by and I’ll jump in?”

He gave her a dry look. “Usually I’m the one being difficult, but maybe we should switch. You do it really well.”

She was looking at the sky herself, frowning doubtfully.

“Are you scared?” he asked.

She didn’t answer.

“Don’t you deserve to have some fun and adventures of your own while the kids are away?”

He could see her softening, considering. He touched her elbow and said, “And if you’re scared, you should know that as a pilot, I’ve never had a crash I couldn’t walk away from.”

She gave him a dark look. “You’re impossible, and you make everything around you impossible. You’re like Midas, except when you touch things they become complicated, just like you! But you know what? I’m taking you up on that plane ride, Mr. Adventure.” She jabbed a finger in his direction. “But you have to pack our lunch, and I’m not paying for fuel.”

He acted affronted. “It wouldn’t be a very good date if I asked you to do that. Meet back here in ten or less.”

Before she could protest that it wasn’t a date, Louis cut across her yard into his own. He jogged up the steps and turned back to her with a wide grin before letting himself into the house.

There were no two ways about it. He was determined to secure a place in her inner circle whether she held the door open for him or he had to break it down himself.

7

“This is not a date,” Hannah said, as Louis’s plane lifted off the Sweetheart Creek airstrip. It was nothing more than a smooth pasture with a windsock, a few hangars that looked more like tractor sheds, and a barbed wire fence at the end of the runway to keep grazing cattle away.

She peered at the ground, which was growing farther and farther away. Flying in a plane this small—just four seats—was well outside her comfort zone. As was the implication that this flight might be a date. Was she so out of the loop that she didn’t understand what dating was like beyond high school? Was dinner no longer a thing?

“You have to turn on your microphone,” Louis said, flicking a lever so they could talk through their bulky headsets.

Hannah stayed silent.

“What was it you said?” he asked, as they rose farther into the air, the big machine tipping in a gust of wind. There seemed to be a storm off to their right, the clouds tall and dark. Louis banked the opposite way, toward clear sky. She could feel him glance at her a time or two, but said nothing until they were above Cassandra’s place.

He pointed down at Peppermint Lodge. “Looks like Cass is almost sold out of Christmas trees.”

Hannah nodded and clung to the edge of her seat, refusing to look down at her friend’s corral of live trees. What was she doing up here? She was a mom. She had children. She hadn’t even verified that Louis had an actual license.

She ventured a peek through the side window, to find the ground racing away as they climbed toward the fluffy clouds and expanse of blue above. This was not natural. Humans should not fly. She pried her hands from the seat and clenched them into fists as she reminded herself to breathe.

Then suddenly they were zipping above the rolling slopes of Hill Country, not so close to the ground that she worried about hitting trees or disturbing wildlife, but high enough that it felt a bit scary.

She ordered herself to relax.

She ordered herself again.

“You’d better not crash,” she said, her voice embarrassingly tight.

“Don’t worry, I got my license to fly out of a cereal box.” Louis winked at Hannah in a way that made her heart give a little flip and her cheeks warm. Despite their past, and despite their fights, she liked him. The problem was that she wasn’t one to date casually—especially with her boys around—and with Louis it would never be anything but casual.

As they flew over a meadow, Hannah spotted a herd of deer pawing at the dried grass.

“Look!” she said, feeling the start of a smile. Hazy beams of sunlight shining down through the clouds made the meadow appear almost magical.

They rose higher. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Do you always stress out when someone else is driving?”

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