Page 7 of Stranded with the Billionaire
“Move the stick!” Sterling motioned with her hands. The plane took a dive. “Not that fast!”
“Would you like to drive?” he groused as he pulled back slowly on the steering mechanism.
“I thought you were flying, grammar man,” Sterling decided to try chest compressions. Maybe they might dislodge the mint since she couldn’t manage to get it out with her finger. She mumbled a few lines from an old song of the Bee Gees.
“Are you singing Staying Alive?” Jake turned and looked at her in utter surprise.
“Watch where you’re going!” Sterling huffed as she pumped Richard’s chest. “It’s to keep time. Otherwise I could sing Another One Bites The Dust by Queen.”
“You’re demented,” Jake said as he swung back to look out the window.
“The beat of the song is the optimum rhythm for CPR,” Sterling shot back. It was one of the few things she remembered from first aid other than wrapping her dummy up like a mummy with her group. They’d wasted forty-two rolls of gauze in the effort and scribbled all over the guy in permanent marker, declaring it a body cast and calling him Dummy Mummy Meets Tree On Ski Hill.
The teacher hadn’t been amused.
“It’s all right, it’s okay, the ambulance is on the way. It’s all right, it’s okay, EMS will save the day,” Sterling sang under her breath. “You got a mint stuck in your throat but don’t take note cuz I’m keeping you alive, keeping you alive…”
“What are you doing?” Jake demanded.
“I don’t remember the words so I’m making up new ones!” Sterling was starting to sweat and run out of breath. This was hard work. “Can you figure out where the radio is and call in a Mayday?”
“Isn’t that your job?”
“I’m a little busy,” Sterling puffed. Wrinkling her face, she swiped her finger down his throat again, hoping to find the candy loose so that she could just grab it.
No luck.
“Mayday, mayday,” Jake said into what looked like an old CB set. Nothing happened.
“Did you press the button?” Sterling asked. She remembered her brother used to have a set of walkie-talkies where you had to press the button to speak.
“Yes!” Jake grabbed the steering stick suddenly with both hands as a bad patch of turbulence hit. The three of them bounced around the cockpit. “I don’t think I should be doing both things at one time. It’s like distracted driving.”
“Not like anyone is going to give you a ticket fifteen thousand feet in the air!” Sterling grabbed Jake’s seatbelt and began belting him in.
“What are you doing?” Jake twitched away from her.
“We’re putting on our seatbelts before either one of us is seriously injured,” Sterling leaned close to clip the belt. A fissure of awareness went through her and she put it down to their situation. Everyone knew senses were heightened during an adrenaline rush. Right now, she could smell Jake’s cologne and it was heavenly. “I thought I told you not to go into the clouds.”
“Cuz there was a choice, right?” Jake growled. “What about the pilot?”
She pushed away from him and got into the co-pilot seat as another round of turbulence hit. Clutching her seatbelt, Sterling quickly fastened it. “Richard’s dead.”
“How do you know that? You can’t just give up on him,” Jake was white knuckling the stick as it bucked in his hands and the plane jumped up and down.
“He is and I did,” Sterling said shortly. She grabbed the radio thingie and pressed the button. “Mayday, mayday.”
Nothing happened.
“See?” Jake said triumphantly.
Sterling rolled her eyes. She fiddled with the dials on the radio and it emitted a burst of static. “Mayday, mayday.”
This time they heard static and nothing else. Sterling repeated the call then fiddled with the dials again. Wasn’t there a frequency they should be on? “Is there a book on your side?”
Sterling rifled through the co-pilot area, looking for any sort of manual that might tell her what frequency to set the radio at.
“I don’t have time to look for a book,” Jake stated firmly. “Nor is it time to be reading something since we have a plane to fly.”
