Kisses to Remember (6 page)

Shielding her face with her sweatshirt again, Johanna ran to the forward section of the craft. The door to the cockpit was off its hinges, and she tossed it aside. She stifled a scream when she looked at the pilot to her right, the one who
hadn’t
banged his fist on the window. The one who would never bang a fist on anything ever again.

That pilot’s body had slid under the instrumental panel, and the crash had sent the panel into his thighs like a metal jaw nearly severing off his legs. Blood still flowed from his wounds, and Johanna somehow found the strength to push two fingers against the man’s neck.

Nothing.

She focused her attention on the pilot to her left. His face was still turned toward the window, and Johanna got a good view of the gash in his head. It oozed fresh blood, and suddenly the smell of burning was replaced with the metallic aroma of human blood. Lots of it.

Swallowing around the lump in her throat, Johanna turned the man’s face to her. His eyes opened as he let out a groan. He blinked and finally managed to focus his gaze on her. Those Caribbean-blue eyes pleaded with her again, captured her. His mouth opened, and a few stray mumbles emanated, but nothing Johanna could understand.

“I’m going to get you out of here, okay?” Johanna glanced at the rest of the pilot. He didn’t appear to be bleeding from anywhere else besides his head, but that wound was significant.

The pilot grunted, and Johanna took that to mean he wanted out of the cockpit as much as she did. “This may hurt, but we’ll get you some help on the outside.”

After unhooking his seatbelt, she slid her left arm behind the pilot and hooked her hand under his arm. With a gentle tug, she moved his torso so it rested against her chest. Slipping her right arm under his right arm, Johanna pulled the man from his seat. His body lay in one long line as she dragged him through the cockpit door and down the aisle of the cabin. He didn’t say a word, and Johanna began to think he couldn’t. His eyes were still open, and his muscles tightened as he tried to help her move him along, but all he uttered were incomprehensible murmurs.

How bad is this head wound?
Johanna risked a glance to the wound and wished she hadn’t. It was right there at her chin. In fact, some of the pilot’s blood must have been on her chin, because she could feel a slickness on her skin. She willed her mind not to think about it as she neared the still open hatch.

“Ease him out, but quickly,” Ted said. “The smell of gasoline is awful out here. If it lights, we’re all toast.”

“What was that you said the other day about this field being big enough to land a space shuttle in?” Awkwardly, Johanna passed the pilot to Ted who then waited for her on the wing. Together they got the man to the ground and about twenty yards away from the crash site.

“I had meant that figuratively. Hate when things get literal.” Ted looked back at the plane and shook his head.

“The other one’s dead.” Johanna sat in the grass with this pilot’s head in her lap while Ted stood over them both. Sirens grew louder back near the house.

“This one looks like he’s dead too.”

“He’s not. His eyes were open on the plane. He helped me pull him out.”

Ted was right though. The pilot in her lap did look very much dead at the moment. A shadow of a beard surrounded purpling lips, and his skin was gray except for the places where blood had smeared. His dark hair was thick, but matted down and his eyes were closed.

“C’mon. Show me those beautiful eyes again, mister.”

He didn’t open his eyes, but his body stiffened then relaxed against her. The muscles in his face—a wonderful face with solid cheekbones, a square jaw, and a devilish arch to his eyebrows—smoothed as if he had found some contentment in her lap.

Johanna glanced at the rest of the body in her hold. Long legs stretched into the tall grass ending in a pair of black workboots. The white polo shirt he wore appeared to hide a fit torso. Well, the shirt had been white at some point. Now it was covered in sooty black streaks and spattered with blood. The only other color on the shirt was at the stitched logo.

Leaning forward and angling her head, Johanna peered closer at the logo. “Hey, he’s from Donovan Electronics.”

“How do you know?” Ted asked as he waved his hands at the firefighters and EMTs headed toward them.

“I designed this logo.”                

****

“I just want to know if he’s okay? Is he awake?” Johanna stomped across her living room floor, Miles following her back and forth. She’d given her name and phone number to the rescue workers, but because she wasn’t direct family to the injured pilot, they wouldn’t allow her to ride in the ambulance with him. She’d driven to the hospital in her own car, leaving Kam with Ted, but the same deal held for visiting there—no relation, no entry.

That’d been two days ago, but something about that pilot being all alone when he woke up in the hospital bothered her.
If
he woke up. God, that bothered her even more. All she had was a name. One the EMT found in the pilot’s wallet. Holden Lancaster. It sounded like a soap opera character name. Sexy, a little mysterious.

“I understand I’m not his family, but can you tell me something? One little kernel that would put my mind at ease. It’s not everyday a man falls from the sky in the middle of a Nebraskan field.
My
field.”
Thank God.

She let out an aggravated grumble when the nurse answered with a firm, “I can’t tell you anything.”

“Well, thanks for nothing.”

Johanna wished she wasn’t on a cordless phone so she could slam the receiver down like they did in the old days. Instead she tossed the phone onto the couch where it bounced silently on the cushions. So
not
the same effect.

She threw herself onto the couch beside the phone as Kam came into the living room. He sat beside Johanna and snuggled up next to her, making her feel better as only Kam could simply with his presence. She slid her arms around her son and squeezed.

Was the pilot’s mother wondering where her son was? Did she expect Holden back at a certain time? Would she worry when he didn’t call her to check in?

Did Holden have a wife? God, were there little Lancasters waiting for him?

“Is he okay, Mom?” Kam raised his head to look at Johanna, then let Miles lick his bare toes.

“I don’t know, honey. No one will tell me anything.” She dropped a kiss on Kam’s head and gave him another squeeze.

“What about his company? Pep said you designed the logo on his shirt.”

Johanna snapped her fingers and pointed to Kam. “This is why I keep you around, my little genius.”

She picked up the phone and pulled Kam toward her office. Miles barked after them, but didn’t vacate his position on the living room floor.

After waking her laptop, Johanna searched for the contact information for Donovan Electronics. She had worked directly with the CEO when designing DE’s logo. Staring at the name now, Sabrina Donovan, the long meetings and three—yes, that’s right, three—trips out to Texas for in-person meetings all came back to Johanna. She had admired Sabrina’s ambition, but the bitchiness…well, that she could have done without. Even so, scoring that account was a big achievement. She’d been able to put new windows on the house, pay the airfare for the three trips to Fort Worth, repair her barn, and save for Kam’s college tuition with that single paycheck.

Kam sat on Johanna’s filing cabinet, his bare heels thudding against the metal. The image of some little boy or girl, maybe both, sitting around a house in Texas waiting for their pilot daddy to come home twisted Johanna’s heart. Nothing worse than expecting family members to come home…and then they don’t.

Blinking back tears and tickling one of Kam’s feet until he giggled, Johanna dialed Sabrina’s number.

“Sabrina Donovan’s office. Aaron speaking. How may I help you?” a lispy, male voice answered.

“Hello. This is Johanna Ware. I worked for Ms. Donovan on the company’s logo a few years back. Is she available?”

“Is this in regards to the logo? I don’t think we need any updating just yet.”

“No.” Johanna cleared her throat. How did one deliver this news?
Your pilots crashed your corporate plane in my field. One is dead and the other might be seriously injured.
“I wanted to speak to her about her corporate pilots.”

“Please hold.”

A short commercial explaining the innovation at Donovan Electronics filled Johanna’s ear as she waited. The ad’s music was techno-ish with hisses, beeps, and other electronic noises keeping the beat. Johanna pulled up the company’s logo on her laptop. The design was one of her best. The subtle shading on the globe made it look 3D, and the lettering was blocky and futuristic. The little zig-zags of electricity shooting out from the black antennae atop the globe added some power, some zap to the entire design.

It wasn’t a logo that should have blood on it.

“Hello, Ms. Ware.” Sabrina’s voice held all the silk Johanna remembered. “Nice to hear from you. I hope business is going well.”

“Yes, it is. Thank you.”

“What can I do for you? Aaron said something about my corporate pilots.”

“There’s no easy way to say this. Your pilots crashed in my field in Nebraska. I’m afraid one didn’t survive the crash, and the other is in the hospital.”

“Oh, dear.” Sabrina gasped. “Zachary and Robert were such wonderful pilots.”

Johanna paused.
Zachary and Robert?
She didn’t know the name of the deceased pilot, but at least one of those names should have been Holden.

“Zachary and Robert?” Johanna asked. “The man in the hospital is named Holden Lancaster as far as I know.” Perhaps Zachary or Robert was Holden’s middle name. Maybe he didn’t go by Holden. That’d be a shame. She rather liked the unique sound of Holden.

“Lancaster? I don’t know anyone named Holden Lancaster. My pilots are Zachary Jenner and Robert Mansfield. They’ve been with me for years. Perhaps it wasn’t a DE plane that went down,” Sabrina said.

“The man I pulled out of the wrecked plane definitely had a white DE polo shirt on. As if it were his uniform.” Johanna stared at the logo on her computer screen. She wasn’t crazy. She’d seen that logo. So had Ted.

“Hold on a second.” The DE commercial came on again, and Johanna stood. She paced the length of her small office, Kam’s dark eyes following her movements.

“What’s she saying, Mom?”

Johanna held a finger to her lips as the techno music cut off and Sabrina came back on the line.

“Ms. Ware, I had my assistant check, and my pilots haven’t had a scheduled flight in a week and a half. DE’s corporate plane is safely in its hangar right now. I don’t have time for this nonsense.” The CEO’s curt manner caught Johanna by surprise.

“Then why is there a DE plane in my field, Ms. Donovan?” She could be bitchy right on back.

“I don’t know what you think you saw, but no one named Holden Lancaster works here. Now I have work to do. I’m running a huge corporation, not a little logo-making business. Maybe you have time to waste, but I certainly do not. Good day, Ms. Ware.”

Sabrina hung up, and Johanna was jealous of the bang the CEO had achieved with her receiver. The finality was deafening. Johanna lowered the cordless phone from her ear, staring at it in disbelief.

“What happened?” Kam slid off the filing cabinet and stood in front of Johanna.

“I’m…I’m not sure.” 

Holden opened his eyes and winced at the bright overhead lights assaulting his retinas. He snapped his eyes shut, hoping to stop his brain from pulsating in his skull.

Why do you feel like shit?
his brain asked him.

Don’t know,
he replied.

We should probably find out.

Good idea.

There’s a reason I’m in charge.

Slightly worried about having a conversation with his brain, Holden opened his eyes again and scanned the room. The word
hospital
flashed into his head, and he immediately looked down at his body, fearing what had landed him in the uncomfortable bed.

After a moment of study, he let out a breath. Nothing was missing that he could see. All his parts had answered his mental roll call. A couple of nasty gashes cut across his right forearm, black stitches puckering the skin, but they didn’t hurt. The only thing that throbbed was his head. Raising a hand, Holden felt around in his hair. When he got to the crown of his head, he pulled his fingers away at the small shaved patch he found there.

“What the hell…”

Holden’s attention darted to the door as it opened and a short man in a white coat walked in. He carried a slim laptop, a stethoscope draped around his neck like Christmas tree tinsel. His dark skin contrasted with the sterile white of his coat, and thick lenses magnified equally dark eyes.

“You’re awake.” The man’s nametag said
Dr. Abraham Sakala, Valley Falls Hospital
.

“Am I?” Holden’s fingers went back to examining his head while the words
Valley Falls
bounced around his mind. Where the hell was Valley Falls?