Heath began to stir as the plane hit another patchy spot. And when they dropped, huge, he jerked into consciousness with a wide, wild-eyed look.
Not questioning the instincts that drove her to do it, Lyric rested a hand lightly on his knee. “It’s okay,” she murmured soothingly. “Just a little storm.” She started to say more, but Tre chose that moment to turn on the plane’s loudspeaker.
“Okay, people, here’s the deal. The storm’s getting worse by the second, and its center is hanging right over the airport. DFW is rolling up the red carpet for the next few hours, and we’re being diverted. I’m not sure to where, but you’ll know when I know. So, no questions. Just relax. This drink’s on me, as long as you like tequila, because we’re out of everything else.”
A collective groan echoed through the plane, but Lyric was too horrified to make a sound. They were being diverted? It could be to anywhere, hours and hours away from her father. And the only airport in the country that flew into San Angelo was DFW.
Goddamn SETI and Goddamn Hawaii. What the hell good was living on an island in the middle of the Pacific if you were thousands of miles away from everyone you cared about when something bad went down?
She had to get to San Angelo. She had to see her father before—
Her breathing was coming faster now, and the plane around her started to spin. She clutched at her chest, clawed at it. It felt like she was having a heart attack.
“Come on, Lyric. Take a deep breath.”
Heath’s voice came from far away. She could barely hear it over the pounding of her own heart, let alone focus on it. But suddenly his face was there, inches from her own. “You’re hyperventilating,” he told her. “You need to slow your breathing down.”
When she didn’t answer—or in any way acknowledge what he was saying—he took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Come on, Lyric. Breathe with me. Like this.” He took another breath, let it out in a measured, unhurried stream.
Deep inside, she knew he was right, but it was hard to do what he said when it felt like the whole world was crashing down around her. With her life falling apart in all directions, she was helpless. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to or one she wanted to show the world. She’d worked too hard to cultivate the tough outer shell she wore like armor. Letting it slip away was unacceptable … and, like so much else about her life right now, completely out of her control.
# # #
Heath leaned forward in his seat, trying to get Lyric to focus on him. She was about one step away from hysteria, and while many a lady had fallen at his feet through the years, having one pass out due to lack of oxygen did nothing to stroke his ego.
Too bad he didn’t have a clue how to snap her out of the panic attack. God knew his attempts to comfort her were failing, her breathing becoming more and more erratic as her eyes glassed over. When she started pulling frantically at the top of the duct-tape dress as if breaking free of the confinement would let in more air, he knew he had to do something. Fast.
“Tell me something cool. Right now.” With limited options, he once again went back to childhood and pulled out the one order he knew would reach her. “You’ve got a million useless pieces of information rattling around that gigantic brain of yours. Wow me with one of them.”
For long seconds, it didn’t look like she’d even heard him. Her eyes were unfocused and her breathing was growing more rapid and shallow with every moment that passed. Not knowing what else to do, he grabbed onto her shoulders and shook her a little. “Damn it, Lyric. Focus. Statistics. Now.”
It worked. Her gaze snapped to his, and words started pouring out of her mouth. “Approximately one hundred million tons of meteors strike the earth every day.” The tension in her shoulders eased. “Most are nothing but cosmic debris, but even a speck of dust at the right velocity can be devastating. Take air travel. While it has never been definitively proven that a meteor was responsible for the crashing of a plane, three thousand meteors with the requisite mass strike earth every day. Think of the probability.”
Was it his imagination or had her breathing evened out? “Well, that’s good to know. Meteorites have always been a worry of mine. What with them falling from the sky and all.” Heath shot her his twelve-million-dollar smile as the tension in his stomach slowly relaxed. As a kid, she’d used facts and statistics to self-soothe all the time. It was nice to see that one thing about her hadn’t changed.
“Me, too.” She nodded.
“Tell me something else,” he prompted when she started twisting her fingers in her lap.
“I find it fascinating that dust particles traveling anywhere from twenty-five thousand to one hundred sixty miles per hour rain down on us every day. With eighteen million flights a year and the thousands of meteorites hurtling toward earth, it’s amazing they’ve never collided before.” Her voice went into geeky lecturer mode as she recited the statistics she’d read a few years ago in Discover magazine. “For example, if we take a twenty-year period—let’s say from between 1989 to 2009, there are 720 million hours of flight time. If there are 3,500 planes in the air at any given moment, we would cover approximately two-billionths of the earth’s surface. Scientists put the surface of the earth at five-by-ten to the fourteenth meters square, which means that a commercial airliner actually has a target of 291 meters squared. Multiply that times 3,500 and then by 3,000 and you’ve got a one in twenty chance that a plane will be struck by a meteor.” She looked at him, brows raised. “Right? Do the math. It’s actually a recipe for disaster. We’re living on borrowed time.”
He nodded like he had any idea what she was talking about. She might as well have been speaking Chinese. Although, one thing she’d said did get through.
He shifted slightly and glanced out the window, hoping to God no meteors were currently on a trajectory for the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Who the hell could have guessed that incoming meteors were actually a flight risk? And why did Lyric sound so happy about it?
“Although,” she continued, “meteors are only a small problem in the grand scheme of things. Fifty-four percent of plane crashes are due to pilot error, and twenty-four percent are mechanical failure, while only eight percent are due to weather. For that matter, nine percent of place crashes are due to sabotage. The statistics are in our favor.” She shrugged. “Unless someone has been messing with our plane, our pilot is an idiot, or we’re on an old, not-well-maintained aircraft, I think we’ll be fine.”
“How old do you think this airplane is?” He surveyed the aging plane.
She looked around. “I’d say it’s older than us. Maybe we should demand to see the maintenance log.”
Slowly his head turned to her. “Right, because filing a complaint with the FAA posthumously is a great idea.”
“Who could have guessed that turbulence would make you snarky?” Lyric turned her head to face front.
The plane dropped about five feet, and more than a couple people on board let loose with startled screams. More than a little disturbed himself now, he reached for Lyric’s hand and squeezed it tightly.
“Lay a few more statistics on me,” he told her when she looked at him, surprised. “I can take it.”
“Canadian geese are responsible for forty-three percent of aircraft disasters involving birds.” She patted his hand with her free one. “True fact.”
His eyes jerked up to meet hers, and he felt her body relax—just a little—under his touch.
The plane dropped again, and the windows rattled against the storm. This time several passengers turned in their seats to stare at her. She didn’t notice, but Heath did, and he glared at all of them. To hell with their peace of mind. Lyric needed to forget her troubles, and if tormenting him with nightmarish statistics did it for her, he was more than happy to play along.
In a louder voice, she said, “Since we’re flying on American Airlines—one of the top thirty airlines in the world—our chances of dying on a flight are one in twenty-nine point four million.” She pa
used for a moment, thinking. “Surely American Airlines is one of the top thirty airlines.”
“Surely it is.” Heath smiled. “But maybe we should demand to check the maintenance log.”
“You think?” She returned his smile as the plane shook. “It might be the straw that breaks Tre’s back.”
“More and more reason to do it.”
Lightning crackled in the distance, and the plane vibrated with the aftershock. Lyric glanced out the window. “Now, lightning could be a problem. It doesn’t even have to hit the plane to cause equipment malfunction. In fact—”
She broke off as Tre, in total defiance of the captain’s order for flight attendants to be seated, stomped down the aisle with a roll of duct tape in one hand and a champagne bottle in the other. “Wonder Woman, you have a choice. I can either smack you in the head with this bottle or duct tape your mouth, but one way or the other, you will stop talking. Most of the folks in front of you are ready to jump out of this plane.”
“What?” She looked around at all of the angry faces. “What did I do?”
“Is that a rhetorical question? What haven’t you done since you entered my life eight and a half hours ago?” He waggled the champagne and duct tape. “Now, clobber to the head or tape to the mouth?”
“I’ll be quiet.” She held up her hands. “I promise.”
Tre gave her one last warning glare before turning on his shiny loafers and stalking back up the aisle.
“Don’t worry about him.”
“I was just trying to make you feel better.” She was back to picking at her dress.
If she needed to think Heath had a problem, he’d let her.
“I know. They just don’t know you like I do.” He patted her hand. “Are you okay?”
“It’s just turbulence—”
“I’m not talking about the turbulence.”
* * *
Chapter 6
* * *
Lyric knew he wasn’t, but focusing on the tangible had always been easier for her to do than focusing on the emotional. Especially when she didn’t want to think about the rest, let alone talk about it. Not until she’d spoken to her mother and found out exactly what she was walking into. And maybe not even then.
Shifting in her seat, she once again tried to ignore the fact that all that straight-up Vodka she’d downed hours before was making her bladder feel like Lake Michigan. In the middle of a flood.
Neither of them talked as the plane shimmied and shook its way through the storm and onto the runway. As they touched down, Tre came over the loudspeaker and said, “Hallelujah. The good news is we made it, but the bad news is we’re in Austin. Please see me if you need recommendations for bars on Sixth Street.”
He cleared his throat before continuing. “Once you deplane, there will be ticket agents on both sides of the jetway. You can talk to them about rescheduling your flight. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but here at American Airlines, we’re all about safety first. I’d like to leave you with a parting thought—for those of you who wish to ink a certain man’s name across your chests, I strongly urge you to screen your tattoo artist thoroughly. Dyslexia can turn you into a Hells Angle before you know it.”
Lyric laughed with the rest of the plane, even as she nervously tapped her feet. Austin. Okay, that was better than Houston. It was only a three-and-a-half-hour drive from here to San Angelo, barely longer than her layover and subsequent flight from DFW would have taken. She’d just rent a car and get on the road.
She shivered as thunder rumbled outside the plane—she was a lot more freaked out about the storm now that she was on the ground than she’d been in the air. Ever since she was sixteen and ran her car off the road and into a ditch while driving in a thunderstorm, she hadn’t liked driving in the rain. It wasn’t logical, because only twenty-four percent of car crashes happened during inclement weather, but the older she got, the more she realized how illogical the world really was.
Heavy rain pelted the airplane as they waited for the all clear, which seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time. Or maybe it was just her dire need to pee that made everything seem so much longer than usual. And hearing the rain slamming against the plane just made everything worse.
Tightening up her Kegels for all she was worth, she rocked back and forth and concentrated on not losing control of her bladder. It was harder than one might expect.
“It’s okay, Lyric. I promise, we’ll get you to San Angelo.”
Clearly he’d mistaken her imminent bladder burst for fear. Thunder cracked as the wind roared around them. She shifted again. Bathroom emergency first, and then she’d worry about the thunderstorm.
Heath looked down at her hand, which was gripping the armrest so tightly it was amazing the thing didn’t break off. “You don’t have to worry about driving in the storm. I’ll take you there myself.”
She studied him, surprise banishing her pee-related agony—for a moment at least. He was thoughtful. She hadn’t remembered him being thoughtful and wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Before she could analyze it, however, a bladder spasm akin to the first rumblings of Mount St. Helens before it blew its top rocked through her.
Shit. If Tre didn’t let her off this plane in the next two minutes she was going to spring a leak. A big one.
Tightening her muscles even further, she focused on one of her favorite songs, Beyoncé’s “Put a Ring on It.” Except her inner Beyoncé kept substituting the lyrics, When ya gotta go … really, really go … clamp your legs together for the real words. When she got to the chorus, it was If ya gotta go now … put a hold on it … If ya gotta go now … put a hold on it.
Her inner Beyoncé faded with the end of the chorus, and she struggled to focus on the bigger problem. Heath would drive her. She nodded. Yes. Finding logical, workable solutions to problems was her area of expertise. It was what she’d built her whole professional reputation on—staying calm in a crisis, working the problem, coming up with the solution. The fact that she’d lost it so completely over something as simple as a delayed plane worried her a little. Almost as much as the fact that Heath—a man who threw footballs and signed women’s breasts for a living—was the one who had figured things out for her.
It was her turn to take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. “I can drive myself,” she said, though it came out sounding more like a question. That damn Beyoncé was breaking through. If ya gotta go now … put a hold on it … If ya gotta go now … put a hold on it. Lyric tried to cross her legs, but her left leg did little more than smack against her right, making the pressure worse.
“No, I’ll rent a car.” He massaged his injured knee. “We’ll go together.”
“You don’t have to do that—”
“Yes, I do.” His firm tone brooked no argument as the plane slid neatly into its slot at the gate. “I’ve been meaning to go out to my father’s ranch and make sure the house and barns are still standing anyway.”
She inched this way and then that, trying to find a position to lessen nature’s call. Nothing worked. And Beyoncé kept at it.
“Stop fidgeting. I’ll take care of everything.” Heath’s voice was so reassuring, she wanted to tell him the truth—that at the moment, Beyoncé Bladder outweighed paternal concern, but there was no delicate way to spill the beans.
She twisted again. If ya gotta go now …
Focus on Heath. To her knowledge, he hadn’t been back to San Angelo since he’d left for college. Not that she’d spent much time there either, but then, Fort Worth was a hell of a lot closer than Honolulu.
“Why would you do that?” Not that she didn’t like the chivalrous Heath, but she’d spent lots of years hating him. It was hard to justify that level of loathing in the face of this nice guy.
“Because you would do it for me.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Lyric locked her knees together and prayed the deplaning process was swift. She took another deep breath and tuned back into Heath. She couldn?
??t help going over how rude she’d been to him since she’d found him sitting next to her, and all the terrible thoughts she’d had about him through the years.
The fasten seat belt sign blinked off, and in one motion she unbuckled and shot out of the seat. Her dress protested the abrupt movement, and another chorus of the Beyoncé Bladder song hit so hard Lyric’s knees almost buckled. Determined to stay upright, and dry, she pressed her knees together and stood very still.
Heath stood up and nudged her gently into the aisle. “I am,” he said as he grabbed his overnight bag from the overhead compartment.
He placed a soft hand on the small of her back and began guiding her up the aisle. She was shocked at how comforting it felt. And even more at how he didn’t lift that hand once, even after they’d made it off the airplane and down the gangplank into the terminal. If she didn’t have to pee so badly, she wouldn’t mind staying just like that for as long as he was willing.
# # #
The second they stepped into Austin Bergstrom Airport, Lyric took off in a knees-together, Gangnam-style trot. He didn’t know where in the hell she was going, but she sure was in a hurry.
“Lyric?” Heath ran after her, his bad knee turning his own run into a shuffling gallop.
“I gotta pee now …” she sing-songed and picked up the pace. “And I can’t put a hold on it.”
“But how are you going to—” He watched her disappear into the women’s bathroom. “—get out of that dress?”
It didn’t take long for him to figure out that she was going to be right back out. She might not have been thinking about the mechanics of stripping off that damn dress, but he’d spent entirely too much of his adult life getting women out of their clothes to know that it was going to be a problem. A serious problem.
He glanced around, saw a small station of plastic flatware a few feet away near the restaurants. He wasn’t sure what good a plastic knife was going to do against tightly wrapped duct tape, but he was willing to give it the old Wrangler try. But when he got up to the institutional silverware holder, the only things left were a bunch of sporks and one sorry looking plastic knife.