Page 1 of Flyboy

Chapter 1

Colton, call signFlyboy, returned home to Texas on a rare break from his Top Flight pilot teams to check on his dad. He’d had a little scare when his dad went in for testing after strange bloodwork, but the strong eighty-year-old man had been cleared of any serious issues. Colton would spend a couple more days with his parents and his brothers, who’d come into town for the rodeo, then he was off on the next assignment.

He urged his horse to a gallop. He and Pepper flew across his parents’ back pasture. Not quite like an F-16, but there was still something about being up on a horse that brought most things in his life back into neat little lines where they belonged. He wasn’t usually appreciative of neat little lines, and he avoided labels and boxes. He had barely made it through the military with an honorable discharge, but not because he was trouble. He’d served well and had medals to prove it, but they sat in his top drawer here at home at his parents’ house. He steered his horse toward their favorite jump over a half-broken fence at the edge of the creek toward the back of the property. Maybe it was still there.

Pepper seemed to know where they were going, and Colton let the horse have his head. They took off even faster. He smiled so long his teeth hurt, and then they flew over the fence, cleared the creek, and kept racing out across the field on the other side. His horse leaped over smaller logs and rocks, anything in their way. Colton rose up in his saddle and put his arms out. The horse hit the steep upward climb on the hill in front of them as if it was nothing. They hadn’t been up to the top in over a year.

As soon as they reached the top, Colton felt his phone vibrating in his chest pocket. It was the Top Flight phone. Calls on that phone tended to be important, or if not that, urgent at the least. He dismounted and let Pepper wander.

“Ace,” he said into the phone with a smile.

“Fly. Good to hear your voice, man. It’s been a while.” It was his friend and the reason he sat on a board of four people who ran the Top Flight training programs.

They’d been doing most of their meetings over Zoom, but those had been nothing but business. “Yeah, yours too. Where are you right now?”

“Amazon Rainforest. But I’m coming home to Virginia so I can gear up and run my next group.”

“Amazon, huh? Did you get a good look at anything I’m going to be seeing while we’re down there?”

“No, nothing like that. These villages, dude. They’re like nothing even I’ve ever seen.”

“You figuring it out?”

“Yeah. So far.”

Ace spent half the year working on Top Flight assignments and the other half doing humanitarian work for underprivileged children. If Colton had to guess, the village he’d just left now had a well for clean water and the new workings of a school.

“That’s awesome, man. So, I’m glad you called. I have some questions about my assignment.”

“So do I.”

Colton walked to the edge of the ridge to look out over the whole valley in front. “Shoot.”

“So while I was down there, I made some phone calls, and Brazil only has two planes.”

“What?”

“Right. And a team of fifteen pilots to train.”

Colton frowned. “I could do that by myself.”

“Or maybe with just one other from Top Flight.”

“Right.” Colton shook his head. “Should we talk about it at our board meeting?”

“Yep, but before I brought it up there, I thought I’d mention it to you . . . you know, give you a heads up so you could think about it.”

“Thanks, man.” He knew who he wanted on his team. Ivy Hatfield. But why did he want her? That was the question that had him out here pounding the miles around his parents’ home. Was she qualified? Certainly. Would he enjoy working with her? That wasn’t the question that most concerned him. Something about her getting under his skin in an uncomfortable, itchy-but-good way, hung around in his head. And then there was the question about whether or not he should scratch the itch.

But as they began their Zoom meeting a few days later, Ace surprised him by not saying anything about the missions at the beginning like he usually did. Colton liked their board meetings. He was always reminded what a cool thing they’d all started. A pilot training program. Skills and consulting offered all over the world.

“Ridley! How are things with you? How’s the little squirt?” Ace grinned.

“We’re doing great,” Ridley answered. “She’s such a trooper about all this, really. But what about you? It’s been a long time. How’s the jungle?”

“It’s amazing. We’ve got the village all squared away. We have three new wells drilled and a school up and working, as well as education on newborn resuscitation and basic sanitation.”

Just as Colton had thought. Of course he’d taken care of all of that. How would it be to be Ace? Colton was good at things too, just one thing at a time.

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