Crash Landing by Lori Wilde Page B

clacked together. Had they hit the ground or something else? Hell, he had his eyes squeezed closed and every muscle in his body was coiled tight as new box springs.
    The plane jolted, shuddered, stopped.
    “We’re okay,” Sophia said.
    Gibb wiped his sweaty palms over his knees and pried his eyes open.
    The plane was tilting to the left. The late-afternoon sun shining through the windshield illuminated drifting dust motes on a shaft of light. Everything was
eerily silent.
    Then the back end of the plane dropped a few inches.
    They both jumped. Laughed nervously.
    “Best crash landing I’ve ever had,” he said.
    “How many crash landings have you had?”
    “First one.”
    “So you’re really experienced.”
    He shouldn’t be smiling in this situation, or teasing, but he couldn’t help it. “Seen it all.”
    “Aren’t I lucky to be with the most experienced passenger in the world.”
    Hey, she was teasing back. Why not? “How about you?” he asked. “How many times have you crash landed?”
    Her cute little chin hardened. “I’m not in the habit of crashing planes if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
    Oops, he’d gone too far. He raised both palms and surrendered. “I wasn’t taking potshots at your flying abilities.”
    “It sounded like you were.”
    “Now your mechanic’s abilities...” He shrugged, gave her a deadpan expression. “Maybe.”
    She looked as if she’d just bitten into a lemon when she was expecting an orange. “I’m my own mechanic.”
    Great. Open mouth insert foot yet again. “Joke. I was joking.”
    “I overhauled the engine this year in mechanic school. With the teacher’s supervision, I might add.”
    “You just finished mechanic school?” Ouch. He had to stop stepping on her toes.
    “I’m a good mechanic,” she bristled. “Top in my class.”
    “I’m sure you were.”
    “I was the only woman in the class.”
    Anything he said at this point was bound to backfire. Go with an honest compliment. “Really, that landing was amazing.”
    “You’re just trying to placate me.”
    He was. “Look, I have a tendency to spout stuff off the top of my head. Ignore me.”
    “I did a thorough flight check before we took off and two weeks ago I did routine maintenance, changed the oil and spark plugs. Sometimes things just happen in spite of excellent maintenance.”
    “You’re feeling guilty. Don’t feel guilty. I was joking. You’re easygoing. I thought you would get the joke.”
    “Easygoing about life, not about my plane.”
    “Duly noted. No more plane jokes.”
    “But what if it’s my fault?” she fretted. “What if I didn’t tighten a loose wire or—”
    “Listen, if it was your fault, then you can feel guilty, but even if the malfunction was somehow your fault, you did land us safely. You get props for that.” This was odd. He was the customer. He should be the one obsessing about the crash, not trying to make her feel better. But the poor woman looked so woebegone.
    “I should have known ahead of time about that stack of cumulus clouds. I should have—”
    “Spilled milk,” he said. “Let it go. No point wringing your hands over something that’s already happened. Let’s just get a towel and mop up that milk.”
    Problem solver. That was his M.O. If you could fix a problem, then just fix it. If not, figure out how to move on. No point wallowing in recrimination or pointing fingers. Deal with the situation as it was. The plan had worked for him so far.
    “I’m so sorry.”
    Gibb unbuckled his seat belt. “Don’t apologize. Find out what happened to the plane and repair it so we can be on our way again.”
    “That sounds good,” she said. “And of course I will try to do that, but it might not be as easy as it sounds. Complications have a way of arising.”
    “We find a complication, we’ll deal with it.”
    She unbuckled her own seat belt, looked around at the debris littering the cockpit and sighed deeply. “Like the majority of