The Billionaire Cowboy's Proposition, page 6
“Oh, honey.” He tipped an imaginary cowboy hat and drawled like the most country of country boys. “It ain’t real American, ya know. That Shakespeare fella musta been a few pickles short of a barrel. And if that ain’t a fact, God’s a possum.”
She snorted. “Hardly. Y’all are all hat and no cattle.”
He stalked closer. “And y’all got some snap in y’all’s garters, but you could start an argument in an empty house.”
She was struggling to get the words out through laughter. “Y’all are two sandwiches short of a picnic. A few pickles short of a barrel. You shoot off your mouth so much you must eat bullets for breakfast.”
“Well, um . . .” Cody was running out of country sayings. He should’ve known better than to go up against an English teacher with a quick mind. “Y’all got me as confused as a goat on Astroturf. What was the original question?”
“Whether you’d be able to run through one of our scenes from back in the day.” She grinned at him. “But I think we’d better offer the stage to the young’uns who have actually been practicing recently.”
She invited people to take turns on stage to entertain the workers. The theater kids performed some of the skits they were developing for the variety show. Other people sang, alone or in small groups. Brad had a couple of raunchy limericks memorized. Some performers were better than others, but everyone was entertaining one way or another, and the afternoon passed more quickly.
Mallory sent Cody to work on the balcony. It had been closed off to the audience years ago and turned into a control room for the movie projector. They were going to keep the middle section as a control room, which they hoped would eventually include sound and light boards as well as a digital projector, if they could ever afford them. To one side of that enclosed room, a big window would look down at the stage, so parents of crying babies could watch performances without disturbing the audiences. The other side would have a dozen chairs and an open view of the stage. Cody helped a couple of older guys who worked competently and said little as they got the new structures framed in.
By the time Mallory hollered up that it was time to quit for the day, some people had already finished their tasks and headed out, while others had collapsed in the old seats, sweaty and dusty and exhausted. Cody headed down in time to notice the stiffness in Mallory’s back when she said goodbye to Garrett and Brad.
He stood beside her. “We got a lot done today.”
She gave a murmur of agreement.
He almost said, “You should be proud,” but he always thought that sounded condescending. She knew what she’d done, and he didn’t get to tell her how she should feel about it.
Instead, he asked, “Are you pleased, or at least satisfied?”
She took in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “With the work done, yes, absolutely. But there’s still so much to do, and too much of it is skilled labor at this point.”
“Let me pay them to work for a week or two.”
She turned toward him with her jaw set and her eyes glittering.
He held up his hands. “Hang on, I do get what you’ve said about the community and the teens working on the fundraising and doing the labor. But frankly, professionals shouldn’t be expected to donate more than a day or two of their time. It’s one thing if everyone comes in to paint or clean, but electricians and plumbers and masons are providing valuable expert services. They can’t do that for free for every good cause in the region.”
“Mm.” Mallory gave a slight smile. “I get asked to direct Christmas plays at churches where I don’t even go.”
“But you feel comfortable saying no, right?” When she didn’t immediately answer, he gave her a stern look. “Right?”
Mallory blew out a breath. “Okay, so I need to be better about maintaining my boundaries. I see your point about skilled workers. If I had to do that kind of labor all week, I’d want to rest on the weekends. But I don’t want to set a precedent with taking your money. It becomes too easy.”
“How about this—let me front you some of the money so you can get things moving. You’ll need to buy supplies as well as pay the workers.”
She hesitated. Why was it so hard for her to accept help?
“Consider it a loan, if you must,” he said. “If you get the grants you’ve applied for, you can pay back the money to the family fund.” Or maybe he could convince her to take a grant from the Tomlinson family charity. It was pure stubbornness that she saw their money as different from any other funding organization.
“All right.” Given her level of enthusiasm, you’d think he’d asked her to clean the theater bathrooms with her toothbrush.
“Then you’ll let me put some money in the theater renovation bank account?”
“Yes. Fine.”
Cody wanted to dance a little jig. Funny how overcoming her reluctance and persuading her to take his money made him feel like he won something, not a battle with her, but a prize. He kept that reaction inside. “Careful, or you’ll overwhelm me with your gratitude.”
She swatted his chest with the back of her hand.
He laughed and grabbed her hand. “Did I tell you? I bought a small plane. A real little beauty, two seats. Let me take you up for a ride.”
She pulled her hand away. “It’s dark out.”
“So? I can fly in the dark. That’s what instruments are for. We can make a loop around Austin and San Antonio and look at the lights.”
He thought it was a great idea, a way to celebrate a successful day for both of them. A way to get her to relax for an hour and enjoy herself.
She hesitated. “I need to update all my files and figure out the agenda for tomorrow.”
“You need to enjoy life as well. But if you prefer, we could go tomorrow.”
“We’ll be working tomorrow, or at least I will.”
“The work party doesn’t start until after the churches let out. We could go up early. See the sunrise from the air. Come on.” He took her hand again. This time she let him hold onto it. “Boundaries, remember. You need to take some time for yourself.”
She scoffed. “Which means getting up early enough to see the sunrise when I could be sleeping in.”
He squeezed her hand and leaned close. “I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
Her eyes widened. She blinked a couple of times. Then she narrowed her gaze and said, “Fine. You’d better. Now let’s get out of here.”
Cody grinned. He did enjoy a challenge.
Chapter Seven
Mallory arrived at the little airport outside of town before dawn. No commercial planes flew into Last Stand, but the airport had a dozen hangars for private planes, a single long runway, and a landing pad for emergency helicopters.
She studied the small plane sitting in front of Cody’s hangar. A truly small plane, maybe twenty feet long. The two seats were one in front and one behind. The plane wasn’t wide enough for side-by-side seats.
“I’ve already done all the prep and check work,” Cody said. “You’ll be in the back seat. I’ll show you where you can step and grab to get in without damaging the airplane.”
Mallory reared back. “What do you mean, damaging the airplane? I don’t want to get in anything that could be damaged by my touching it!”
He laughed, the jerk. “You probably wouldn’t hurt it anyway, but there are places where the metal could bend if someone pulled hard or put their weight on it. It wouldn’t keep the plane from flying, but I’d have to do repairs.”
Oh, that was comforting.
He studied her. “Are you afraid of flying? I should’ve thought to ask sooner.”
How would she know? She’d never traveled farther than she could drive. She grew up in Last Stand and went to college in Austin an hour away. She’d had to travel for some continuing ed and teaching conferences, but she could find enough of those within Texas. Even Houston and Dallas were only a few hours away, so it made more sense to drive, especially if she could find another teacher or two to share the gas costs.
She met his gaze and said, “No.”
She hadn’t been afraid of flying before, anyway. Mostly people complained about air travel being tedious and annoying rather than scary. She’d thought it would be simpler flying in a small plane with a pilot she knew and no destination she needed to reach. But a big, impersonal plane probably made it easier to pretend you weren’t thousands of feet above the ground in a metal canister. At least her seat was behind his, so he wouldn’t notice if she closed her eyes and covered her face the whole time.
“How about motion sickness?” he asked.
“You know, you’re really not selling this experience very well.”
He grinned. “I just want to make sure it’s as comfortable as possible for you. If I know about any potential problems, we can address them.”
She hesitated. “I can’t really think of any time I’ve gotten motion sickness unless I’m in the back seat of a car with the vents closed so there’s no airflow. But now that we’re talking about it, I feel a little queasy already. That might just be the coffee on an empty stomach.” She’d skipped breakfast, figuring she’d have more time to eat later.
“Okay. You’ll have a vent for plenty of airflow.” He pulled something from his pocket. “This wristband sends electrical pulses to an acupressure point.”
She blinked.
“Hey, it works for a lot of people, and I assume you don’t want to take pills that might make you drowsy all day.” He reached for her hand and drew it toward himself. He fastened the wristband, which looked a little like a watch, around her wrist. When he switched it on, something buzzed gently against her inner wrist. “The pulses disrupt nausea signals.”
The warmth of his fingers on her sensitive skin was disrupting something.
“You might want to take off your jacket,” he said. “I know it’s chilly now, but you won’t be able to take it off once we’re in the air without unbuckling your seat belt. I’ll turn the heat on once we get going.”
She stripped off her jacket. She was feeling overheated at the moment anyway. Cody set her jacket and his own inside the hangar. She climbed up into the plane, stepping and touching only where he indicated, and lowered herself into a space big enough for the seat and herself and not much more. The seat was comfortable enough, with plenty of padding. He strapped her into a seat belt with straps over each shoulder, around her waist, and up between her legs. It seemed much sturdier than the average car seat belt, which might be comforting, except the average car didn’t plummet out of the air in an accident.
She peeked over the other seat to the controls in front. Cody would face a dizzying array of electronic screens and buttons. She had a couple of buttons, including one marked “reading light” of all things. Maybe she should have brought a book.
A bar with a handgrip poked up between her knees. “What’s this?” Mallory asked.
“A control stick, so the passenger can take over for a while if you want.”
Her breathing sped up. “I don’t want! You’re supposed to be doing the flying.”
He chuckled. “I said if you want. You don’t have to. This time, just relax and enjoy the view. We can save any attempt at flying for future flights.”
She gave him what her friends called her death glare. It worked on everyone. Unruly students, their parents who wanted to fuss about why their darlings weren’t getting the grades the parents thought they deserved despite their poor work, even the administration. The vice principal flinched and changed direction when he saw her in the hallway now.
Cody simply stood and grinned at her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the death glare not working on him. It wasn’t as if she wanted to go up with a pilot who lacked confidence, but she preferred it when other people were apprehensive, not her.
“I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do,” he said. “Put on this headset so we can communicate.” He showed her how to adjust the fit and volume.
He did a few other things while she tried not to hyperventilate. Finally Cody got in the front seat and hauled on something that brought a bubble canopy forward over the two of them. They had clear plastic—hopefully very solid—overhead, extending down on each side to about shoulder level. Cody’s seat and the back of his head blocked her view to the front, but she’d have a clear view up as well as to the sides. That view might be mostly sky, though, and right now, the sky was dark.
His voice came through the headset. “All right?”
She gulped and nodded, but of course he couldn’t see her, so she had to find her voice. “All right.” She tried to make it a statement rather than a question.
The plane started to vibrate, and the padded headset didn’t entirely block the engine sound. Mallory looked for something to grab onto. She didn’t want to touch anything she wasn’t supposed to. Everything looked sturdy enough, but then she’d thought the outside of the plane looked sturdy enough that she didn’t have to worry about breaking it with a touch, and apparently that was wrong. She settled for gripping her own thighs.
The plane started moving slowly forward. It headed past the rows of hangars toward the runway. Information came over the headset. It sounded like a weather report, but with a lot more information than you’d need on the ground. When they reached the end of the runway, Cody swung the plane around so they faced the length of the runway.
This was it. She was going up in the air, surrounded by nothing but thin metal and plastic.
Mallory gasped for breath. Right, she should probably remember to breathe. That might be important.
Cody mumbled something, a string of words she didn’t understand, having to do with the type of plane and where they were going. It took her a few seconds to decide he was speaking to other aviators or a control tower, not to her.
The plane picked up speed on the ground. The noise and vibrations increased. Mallory let out a squeak. Cody didn’t respond, so he must not have heard her over the engine sounds. That was good. Maybe. She didn’t want him to hear her panic, but she wanted him to hear her if she needed to end this.
He’d stop and let her out if she asked. She wanted to ask, but then again, she didn’t.
And then the front of the tiny plane lifted up, and the sound changed in a way Mallory could not identify. Her stomach seemed to drop as they defied the pull of gravity. The shadowy hills disappeared from her peripheral vision, leaving her surrounded by darkness. She leaned slightly left to look out the window and confirm that the ground was still there, barely visible past the wing in the gray light of dawn.
Everything got smaller. The airport hangars, lit by a few streetlamps, looked like sheds, then dog houses, then dollhouses. Then they were too far back to see, as the plane headed out over the hills silhouetted by the coming dawn.
“I’m going to keep it straight and steady for a while,” Cody said. “Let me know if you want to get back right away for any reason. If you feel good, we can do a bit more on the way back.”
A bit more what?
She’d worry about that later. “Slow and steady sounds good.” Her voice almost managed to sound steady too.
Over the next few minutes, the sky lightened at the horizon. Scattered clouds caught the first rays of the sun, turning the sky pink and blue and gold. She’d seen thousands of Hill Country sunrises, but not from the air. Was it only her imagination that the horizon had a slight curve? Maybe that was an effect of the canopy. Surely she couldn’t actually see the curve of the earth.
The land spread out below them, fields with tiny ranch houses, rolling hills with dark green trees, a ribbon of river in the distance. Mallory hardly knew where to look. Cody called out a few sights. How could they already be passing San Antonio? How could a city she knew look so different from the air? Chatter on the radio blurred together as background noise, other pilots announcing their locations and plans or asking permission to enter different areas.
“I’ll make a wide turn, circling around the far side of Austin,” Cody said, his voice louder than the other chatter. “Turning can be the worst for some people. Try not to move your head much, and you shouldn’t have trouble, but let me know if you start to feel bad.”
She’d forgotten to be nervous. “Don’t remind me that I’m supposed to feel sick.”
“You’re not.” The smile came through in his voice. “You’re supposed to be enjoying the view.”
“It’s amazing.” The word hardly seemed powerful enough. She was an English teacher; she knew how to use a thesaurus, but she doubted she’d find the words to capture the feeling of seeing the world laid out below her like this. She’d seen aerial photos, of course, but they paled in comparison to the reality. The clear canopy overhead had seemed a bit silly. Why would she need to look up, when everything was down? But it meant she had a view up as well as to the sides.
They passed under a small cloud made of fluffy bits like fleece on a sheep. Without warning, she was blinking back tears. She’d looked up at clouds often enough before. The view wasn’t that different merely because she was in the air. And yet this gave her an odd feeling of being out there, soaring through the clouds.
She never flew in her dreams, but now she wished she would. In the front seat, Cody would have a clear view ahead as well, and the wings wouldn’t be in his way when he looked down. She suddenly envied him.
After a while, Cody said, “We can have some fun if you want, make a circle over the town, but only if you want to. How are you feeling, on a scale of one to ten where ten is amazing and four is get me back on the ground as quickly as possible?”
How was she feeling? Overwhelmed. Off-balance. Thrilled, but also queasy. The constant heavy vibration was getting to her. “I’m okay, but maybe only a six. I don’t think I’m ready to try anything more dramatic yet. Sorry.”
“No reason to be sorry. I’ll keep her smooth and easy back to Last Stand.”
“This is smooth?” It wasn’t any worse than driving over a dirt road that needed to be graded in a car with poor suspension. It wasn’t any better either.
