Page 101 of Sexy as Sin
“Will we fly over the water? I was hoping to whale-watch.”
“We could do,” he said, “if you wanted to swim home. Not many landing spots once you’re out in the Pacific.”
“Oh.” It made sense, but she couldn’t feel stupid. She laughed instead. “I could’ve sussed that out with a bit of thinking.”
“No worries,” he said. “Almost everybody does expect a return journey. Nobody thinks about aerodynamics. I’m aiming to put us down south of Ballina. We can fly lower if we’re not going over the towns. Low as we like, in fact. Better for filming.”
“Perfect.” If Brett had followed them, she could have climbed straight into the car and been driven to his house. She wanted to tell him about this, preferably while she was wrapped around him somehow. His leg was, he said, “seventy-five percent.” Which, unfortunately, ruled out her leaping into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders, and waiting for him to back her up against the wall.
Future goals. You had to ride that high, once you found it. The best waves were the ones that lasted.
She was drifting with it, half an hour later, thinking about her wedding menu and that she could take photos and put them on the site as a sample. Four or five different ideas, from the rack of lamb anniversary dinner to the non-beach barbie... Which somehow became Brett taking her back to his perfect house in the hinterland after this, and the way she’d cook breakfast for him there, wondering the whole time if he were thinking about making love half as much as she was. Ahead of her, the coastline was coming closer, the golden strip of sand growing, the white line of foam on breaking waves edging ripples of turquoise, when something brought her out of her thoughts and made her look around. Andy was frowning, and they were descending faster. Over a town, which wasn’t what he’d said they’d do.
“What?” she asked.
He was staring at something. The gauges, she realized, above the fuel tank. “Change of plan,” he said. “We’ll come down on the beach.”
“What is it?” she asked. The others weren’t looking, other than the cameraman, who had his lens firmly fixed on them.
“Wind’s shifted. We’ll come down early to be sure.”
He was lying. She could feel it in the jagged prickles of awareness down her forearms, her calves.
“That’s Suffolk Park down there,” she said. “And those are power lines.”
“Yeah. I know.” He was manipulating the burner, and the balloon was dropping. They weren’t skimming tin rooftops, but they weren’t far up, and therewerepower lines below, deadly, thin black snakes that could tangle a balloon, wooden spikes that could pierce it.
“You should tell me,” she said. “In case I need to help.” A kind of hyper-alertness was taking the place of the prickles. She was aware of the rough texture beneath her hand as she clutched the edge of the basket, the sensation of descent in her stomach like riding down in a lift, and the furrows on Andy’s forehead.
His gaze went from the ascending ground beneath them to the dials, then up into the balloon. He said, “We’re losing pressure in the tank.”
It wasn’t good, that was obvious. “Why does that happen?”
He looked at her. No more grumpiness. Nothing but calm in his eyes. “If there’s a leak between the hose and the fitting, most likely.” He raised his voice. “Time to get in the brace position, everybody. We’ll be landing shortly.”
“What?” Amanda looked at her watch. “It’s been forty minutes. I thought you said an hour.”
“Brace position,” he said.
Willow was about to drop to her bum when she saw the silver glint ahead. She said, “Transmission tower,” and Andy said, “I see it. Get down.”
The balloon wasn’t descending anymore. It was going up, and fast. Her stomach was telling her so, even though she couldn’t see anymore. Ahead of her, between Andy’s braced, jeans-clad legs, she could see Amanda’s face. It was pale, her lips moving.
Amanda had to say it twice before Willow heard it. “Something’s wrong.”
Willow nodded, and Amanda shut her eyes. Her fingers went to her pendant as if it were a cross, and at that moment, Willow felt a rush of pity so strong, it nearly swamped her. Fear could make you do all sorts of things. Fear of failing, of losing. And if you couldn’t let anybody see? That just made it worse.
The balloon was going down again, and it was going fast. She couldn’t see where they were anymore, and she tensed, waiting for the jolt she was sure was coming.
They were still north of Broken Head, and that was a series of cliffs, with only small scallops of beach. A strip of land between the town and the headland, but a balloon couldn’t land in the trees. Or on a cliff. Or in the sea.
Well, itcould.You just weren’t likely to get out of it well.
It reminded her of something, like she’d had this experience in a dream. She could see them coming down, hitting the trees, the bodies falling to the ground, as if it had already happened.
Beside her, Jamie reached out his hand, and she took it. He wasn’t a pirate anymore. He was scared. He was only twenty-five, and he’d thought he’d live forever.
It was seconds, or it was minutes. She had no idea. Andy shouted, “Brace!” They did, and it was a good thing, because the basket was tipping. It had hit on one edge, and Willow was grabbing hold to keep from sliding straight into Andy’s legs. Another jolt, and the cameraman, whose name Willow still didn’t know, jumped up, Andy reached for him, the basket tipped farther, and their legs disappeared.
