Page 8 of Burnin' For You

Because as the plane cleared the edge of the forest, dropping toward the platinum-and-orange-lit waters of Fountain Lake, she couldn’t escape it—this feeling of triumph sluicing through her.

“Flaps thirty,” Jared said, his tone biting.

“Flaps coming to thirty.”

Gilly used all her remaining strength to keep the plane steady as they broke free of the fire’s windstorm. The sudden change in pressure dropped them ten feet, and if she hadn’t been strapped in, she might have hit the roof of the cockpit.

“Geez—flaps forty!” Jared yelled.

“Roger, forty.”

Landing a plane on water required just a bit more finesse, the attitude of the plane sharper, the speeds lower, so as not to nose into the water. She throttled back to one-thirty, slowing as they drifted down.

In the encroaching darkness, she fought to gauge the distance to the surface. Choppy and white-capped, it would be a bumpy put-down.

Please, Lord, don’t let the wing catch before we hit the water.

She nosed the aircraft up, fighting the drag of the plane, searching for something that might give her a reliable distance check.

“We’re going to cartwheel!” Jared said. “I swear, if we live through this—”

“Shut up, Jared.”

There—a streak of orange from the flames lit the dark water. She did a rough estimate, throttled back, nosed up.

She glanced at Jared. He sat in white-knuckled silence.

They hit the water with a jolt. Water sprayed against the window, off the floats of the plane. They bounced hard, skipped, and landed again. She kept forward pressure on the controls to stop the plane from bouncing along on the back of the floats.

The lower wing nicked the water, jerked the plane, and nearly nosed them down. Gilly kept the attitude up and righted them.

Still, as they settled into the water, the wing caught, whipping them around.

A wave pitched them up, threatened to flip them.

“Retract flaps!”

Jared braced his hand on the ceiling but somehow retracted the flaps. The plane slammed back onto the water.

Gilly cut the power, not wanting to encourage another near flip, her heart in the back of her throat.

“Lower water rudders.”

The addition of the rudders stabilized them, and for a second they rode the waves, rocking in the water.

Then she simply tasted her adrenaline pooling in her chest, felt the hammering of her heartbeat in the purple light of the cabin.

Silence fell like a rock between them.

Only then did she realize she couldn’t move her hands—stiff and hard, affixed to the yoke.

Finally, “I don’t know whether to hate you or kiss you,” Jared said.

Kiss her? Hardly, even if she couldn’t exactly remember the last time she’d been kissed.

Oh, wait...yes she did.

“Keep your lips to yourself.” She unwound her hands from the yoke, eased the burning from them, and looked over to shore.

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