Page 7 of Love at First Flight

Chapter Three

Selah yawned whilegetting out of her truck, grabbing her hot coffee because May mornings were still sometimes frosty. She zipped her fleece jacket and adjusted the baseball hat on her head, keeping her hair from getting into her face. The ground crunched beneath her feet as she made her way across the field to the launch spot, a more remote area on the Moreno farmland. The rose gold hue of the morning sky kissed what remained of the night away. It was a little later than she liked to start flight days, but her mom had texted, informing her the passengers were running late this morning.

Her sister, twenty-five-year-old Naomi, called a greeting, her caramel-brown hair loosely pulled into a clip. She, like Hailey, had ended up with the taller, more willowy genes of the family, unlike Selah, who had hoarded all the short, curvier ones. If her sisters were sleek, elegant show horses, Selah was a solid workhorse in comparison, her body more practical and compact. But it served her well.

“Mom said you’re doing a proposal flight today?” her sister asked with simmering excitement from where she stood in another truck bed as she pushed a large black nylon bag to the lowered tailgate. One of their father’s upgrades was outfitting his truck with a tailgate that worked as a lift and made it easier to transport the gondola and the enormous envelope bag to the ground.

“Yeah.” This was all Selah wanted to say about it to the great disappointment of her sister, the romantic member of the family. “How’s the set up going?”

“You know, half fine and half annoying.” Naomi jerked her head toward Boone, who casually sat on the already unloaded gondola that was resting on its side on the ground. For some reason, he wasn’t cold like the rest of them, sporting a gray T-shirt with his arms casually crossed and his long legs stretched out before him as he squinted into the horizon. The morning sun’s rays highlighted the tan he got from spending a lot of time outdoors, his brown hair feathering on a breeze. He always looked like he was about to appear in a men’s cologne commercial and had always seemed a little too smooth for both Selah and Naomi—but he was also dependable, which was all Selah cared about.

“Come on, love, don’t be like that. I was just trying to be friendly-like and have a pleasant conversation with you,” he said in a thick English accent, which was odd, because the guy was from Bakersfield and, most of the time, had an accent to match. It also was not so unusual because it was Boone, and there was something about him that always hinted at mischief maker.

While Selah could see why someone like Boone would aggravate her normally easygoing, genuinely honest middle sister, it didn’t bother her as much as it did Naomi, who had taken some personal offense over it. As long as Boone continued showing up, did the work, and didn’t complain much, Selah didn’t care about him or how he liked to rile her sister up. Of course, she’d never admit this to Naomi, nor confess how much she found their antagonistic relationship funny.

“Go on then. Tell your sister what a good match this will be between Miss Featherweight and Lord Muttonchop Dicklespot the Fourth. Do you think there’s already talk among the ton?” Boone continued.

“Oh my God. Will you shut up?” Naomi hollered over her shoulder before turning back to Selah. “Ihatethat man. We need to fire him. I’m willing to donate whatever share I get from the business to hire anyone else, someone who won’t ruin my love of historical romances.”

Ah, okay, so Boone had found out about that, which explained the weird accent—not that Naomi’s love of swoony period movies and books was much of a secret. But the guy had a knack for finding out about everything, especially where Naomi was concerned, like it was his second job.

“Yeah, well, that’s going to be really hard, since your share of the business is still the same as mine, which is barely enough to live on.”

“Whatever,” Naomi said as she lowered the lift. As Boone got up and dragged the black envelope bag across the ground, her sister went to retrieve a few items from the truck cab. “Here.” She handed Selah a helium balloon and a small white gift bag.

Selah took a quick peek into the bag before giving her sister a pointed look. “Are you kidding me? Rose petals?”

“Tell your sister your other romantic ideas, love.”

The women ignored Boone. Selah also studied the balloon her sister handed her. The latex surface was printed with an embarrassing amount of hearts. “Seriously? No one is going to see this balloon. Just buy a regular one. And I don’t need rose petals when mulch from the farm is free. Stop being extra.” Extra was a great way to describe Naomi.

“Yeah, but see, I was thinking. How many times did Dad get a proposal flight? Lots, right? And we should be doing more to be playing that up... make it a whole experience. Bring in champagne and roses and candles—”

“Candles? On a hot-air balloon?” Selah asked flatly.

“Okay, well, maybe not candles, but I was doing the math, and if we offered a special rate for these kinds of flights instead of the normal standard ones—”

“Look, Naomi, can we talk about this later? I really need to get this done before the passengers show up.” It’s not that Naomi didn’t have good ideas, but it was hard to discuss doing things differently when Selah was trying to get a handle on doing things the standard, boring way.

She slipped the small gift bag containing the petals under one arm and released the balloon, acting as her pi-ball, into the air. Selah studied its ascent, how it interacted with the wind, while sipping her coffee. It was something she’d done many times with her dad before on launch mornings. Back then, she had so much confidence, more than she realized. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what she was doing. She did. Flying a hot-air balloon was a lot less technical than flying a plane, but without having her captain as a backup, to confirm her observations and flight plans, for all judgment to be on her alone, it left her less secure.

She was so absorbed in the study of the pi-ball, she almost jumped in surprise when discovering a man standing beside her. He also peered upward with his hands on his hips, as though observing the sky with her.

“Holy mother of God,” she said, barely managing to keep her coffee in hand. “Where’d you come from?”

The man jerked a thumb behind him to where her mother was gathering her things and getting out of the company van used to meet passengers at the farm and drive them to the launch area. It was supposed to be Hailey’s job, but once again, her mother was covering for her sister.

“Hey,” the man said. “We’re the passengers for this morning’s flight. Sorry we’re late. I’m Dex. Captain Selah, I hope?” He offered her a hand and a warm smile. He was taller than she had expected. Smile lines fanned from the corners of his eyes, giving the impression of an easy manner about him, like he had a good disposition.

He was left to awkwardly hold his hand out as she stared at him like a starstruck goof, leaving him hanging. “Oh, yes! It’s just Selah,” she managed to say, realizing that the appropriate hand to shake his with still held a cup of coffee. Instead of switching the cup to the other hand, she placed her left hand over the top of his as though she was a high society lady in one of Naomi’s stories and expected him to pay his respects by kissing her knuckles. Rather than coming off as elegant or professional, the whole thing was clumsy. She was flustered and embarrassed and worried she’d come across as some weird, nervous person instead of a calm, competent pilot.

He, at least, didn’t act as if this introduction was anything out of the ordinary as he continued smiling and lightly shook her fingertips, his grip warming her chilled skin, doing a better job than the hot coffee ever could. His gaze remained steady, giving her the desire to dive right into the hazel depths of his eyes.

“Selah,” Dex said. “It’s nice to finally meet you.” He then caught himself holding onto her hand longer than intended, and dropped it quickly, as though snapping himself back to reality. Switching to a crossed-arm stance, he cleared his throat and returned his focus to the pi-ball. “What’s with the balloon?”

With this question, Selah flipped into professional pilot and educator mode. “Before launch, we release a pi-ball to get things like wind speed and direction. We get this from weather reports as well, but this allows me to gauge in real time not only speed but at what elevation. Hot-air balloons don’t have any kind of motor or navigation. The burners merely allow us to get airborne and provide upward mobility.”

“So how do you control where we go, or do you not have any control?”

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