Page 16 of Falling for the Playboy Pilot

JANNA

A fter my crying jag yesterday, I felt remarkably lighter. It was long overdue. I just wished it wouldn’t have happened at such an inopportune time. It would have been better if I could have made it back to our room to lose my shit, but that was what happened when you held back for too long.

“Ready?” Cheryl asked as she stepped out of the bathroom.

“Yep.”

We were off for the day. Unless there was a fire and we got called in. Cheryl was taking me into town for a girls’ day, which was nothing more than lunch, shopping for basic toiletries, and Cheryl wanted to get her haircut.

“Lunch first,” Cheryl said. “I’m starving.”

Martha’s Diner was a little greasy spoon serving all the basics on the menu. Pictures of deer, bears, and forests covered the walls. The smell of French fries and burgers filled the space and my stomach rumbled in excitement.

“What’s good?” I asked.

Cheryl looked around. “Anything except for the gravy.”

“The gravy?”

“Shh,” she whispered. “It’s lumpy and salty, but everything else is good.”

I laughed. “Noted.”

A waitress appeared and we both ordered burgers. I got mushrooms on mine while Cheryl got avocado and tomato. Our sodas were delivered soon after.

“I can’t believe I’m even hungry,” Cheryl said with a laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to share a living space with a bunch of pigs. I would have devoured those cookies myself. My hips do not need twenty-four cookies. My plane will need extra fuel.”

I chuckled, taking a sip of my soda. “When I’m stressed, I bake. When I’m happy, I bake. Basically, I like to bake. And when I mean bake, I mean cookies. I’m not much of a baker of cakes and pies, but I love cookies.”

“Me too, and judging by the crumbs left behind, everyone else loved them too,” she said.

After a bit, our burgers arrived and we dug in. I moaned and nodded. “Perfection.”

We were halfway through our meals when a woman appeared.

“Martha!” Cheryl jumped up and hugged the woman. “I hoped you would be here.”

“Can I join you ladies?” Martha asked. She was carrying her own basket of fries.

“Please,” Cheryl said.

“And who’s this lovely young woman with you today?”

“This is Janna,” Cheryl said. “She’s new with the squad. Fresh off the boat.”

I smiled and offered my hand, which Martha took with both of hers. Her long hair, brown with plenty of gray streaking its way through, was in a braid draped over one shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed and she wore no makeup. I guessed her to be in her fifties, maybe a little older.

She was wearing an apron with “Martha’s Diner” emblazoned on the front. It clicked she must be the owner.

Martha was a little round but not overweight. Curvy. That was what my mom would say. A woman who enjoyed her cooking.

“You’re one of our new guardian angels, then?” Martha said.

I looked at Cheryl with some confusion.

“Martha calls us her guardian angels,” Cheryl said. “Because of what we do.”

“Oh.” I smiled. “That’s very sweet.”

“We are so thankful for what you do, sweetheart. You and your team are the reason I can sleep at night when fire season rolls around.”

“Thank you,” I said, a little thrown by her sincerity. “I’m just learning the ropes right now.”

“She’s picking it up fast,” Cheryl added. “Really fast.”

“Well, if you ever need a hot meal and a cool place to sit, you know where to come. This place has fed half of Reddington Rescue over the years. Sometimes more than once a day. I’m very willing to feed the people that take care of us here in town. We’ve dealt with way too many close calls.”

I nodded with understanding. “I bet.”

“So, where did you come from, Janna?”

“Alaska,” I answered.

“Alaska,” Martha repeated, her eyes lighting up with interest. “Now that’s a place I’ve always wanted to visit. What brought you all the way down here?”

“I’m not from there originally,” I said. “I was working as a bush pilot but my goal was always to get a job doing something more. Something helpful.”

Martha nodded thoughtfully. “Well, we’re lucky to have you. The mountains are beautiful, but I’m always so nervous every summer. It’s like tornadoes in the Midwest. There is no rhyme or reason. Fire strikes anywhere no matter how rich or poor a place is. It’s devastating.”

“I’ve seen it,” I said. “So sad.”

“How long have you been flying?” Martha asked me.

I grinned. “I think since I was a toddler. My dad used to take me up when he did crop dusting on the side. He’s military but he grew up on a farm and was always eager to help out when he was home. When I got old enough, I used to help out some of the farmers.”

“You know, I have an old crop duster out at the farm,” she said casually. “It hasn’t flown in years. We stopped growing wheat and haven’t had any reason to use it. That poor plane has just been sitting in a barn collecting dust. I wonder if it still runs.”

My head perked up. “You’ve got a plane?”

“Sure do. We’ve been thinking about selling it but it’s just one of those things we’ve never gotten around to.”

“Do you think I could see it sometime?” I asked. “I could come out and check the engine for you.”

Martha beamed. “Come by anytime, sugar. Farm’s about fifteen minutes west, just past the big red barn with the windmill.”

“I will absolutely be out there as soon as we have another day off,” I said.

“Martha! The oven is acting up again!”

Martha sighed and shook her head. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Janna. Cheryl, bring her around more often. We’ll put some meat on those bones.”

“I will,” Cheryl said and Martha disappeared into the back.

“I love her,” I said and took a drink of my soda.

“Yeah, Martha’s the town’s honorary mom,” Cheryl said.

“She knows all our birthdays, bakes pies for the retirees, and chews out anyone who mistreats a waitress. She’s a legend.

And most importantly, she takes care of us.

Our crew. She loves to feel useful and her way of being useful is cooking for us. ”

“That works for me,” I said. “Plus, she thinks I’m skinny, which makes her my favorite.”

Cheryl wiped her mouth and leaned back. “So. How you feeling? After yesterday? The first time can be intense.”

I paused. The words didn’t come immediately. Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I wasn’t sure which parts of it to share. And how much she already knew.

Honesty was the best policy. And the airfield was basically a small summer camp. There was no way people didn’t notice my puffy eyes yesterday.

“Intense is the right word for it,” I said. “In the moment, I was scared but it wasn’t paralyzing or anything. It just kind of floated beside me while I did the job. I was totally focused, calm, and everything felt like it was happening in slow motion. I didn’t feel rushed or panicked.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s how you know you’re built for this. The fear’s never going to go away. But if you can fly right through it without losing your shit, that’s the job.”

I took another drink and mulled over my next statement.

“I felt it all after, though,” I said with embarrassment coloring my voice. “I cried. Like a lot.”

Cheryl raised a brow. “In front of everyone?”

“No. I made it into the bathroom before I lost my shit.”

She nodded. “Well done.”

“I don’t think it was about fear,” I said. “I think it was just everything hitting me all at once. It’s been a wild few weeks. Like my body didn’t know how else to let it all out.”

“That’s pretty normal,” she said, nonchalant. “Happens to the best of us. I once sobbed in a porta-potty for fifteen minutes after a rescue chopper went down. Not my proudest memory. But hell, if you’re not feeling it, you shouldn’t be doing this job.”

I smiled, and then, before I could second-guess telling her the most important part of the story, I just blurted it out, “Dalton found me in the bathroom.”

Laser blinked. “Dalton? Herc?”

“Yeah. He brought me water. Sat on the bathroom floor with me while I bawled like a little girl.”

“Excuse me?” Cheryl sat up straighter, eyes wide.

“Yep.”

“Seriously?” She was clearly incredulous, which confirmed what I suspected. Dalton was not the comforting type. Yesterday was not a normal thing for him.

“Yeah, I think he was freaked out,” I said.

“Why?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “The poor man was so uncomfortable. He didn’t know what to say, but he did pretty well. I didn’t really need him to comfort me. I just had to cry it out.”

“I get it,” she said. “Been there, done that. A good cry makes me feel better.”

“And then we baked cookies,” I said, grinning. “He helped me make all those cookies. He asked what he could to help, and I said bake cookies. He agreed.”

“Stop it.”

“I’m serious.”

“With Herc? ”

“Yep. I cried, he panicked, then we made cookies.”

She threw her napkin in the air. “Okay, what the hell is going on? Did he hit his head?”

I couldn’t help laughing. “It was weird. But nice. Like, really nice. He wasn’t his usual asshole self. We just talked and baked. He was different. I wouldn’t say kind, but not the guy riding my ass in the simulator.”

“I’ve known that man for years,” she said. “He doesn’t bake cookies. He doesn’t sit with people. He doesn’t talk. You sure it wasn’t a cardboard cutout?”

“I think he’s just a little nicer than he lets on.”

She gave me a look. “Are you falling for him?”

I nearly choked on my burger. “What? No. No. Definitely not.”

“I’m going to be real with you, baby girl—Dalton doesn’t do feelings. Or relationships. He’s a six-foot wall of muscle and emotional repression. He’s a hit-it-and-quit-it guy. A one-hit wonder. Love ‘em and leave ‘em.”

“I’m not falling for him,” I said again. “It was just… a moment.”

“You say that now, but I’ve seen it happen. You get one tiny glimpse of his softer side and suddenly you’re halfway to making him a Spotify playlist.”

“Actually, now that you mention it, he does have quite the taste in music,” I said. “He was the DJ in the kitchen. I even caught him humming along to ‘Pink Skies’ by Zach Bryan. He told me he has a playlist when he’s flying.”

She nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard that.”

I was regretting telling her about my moment with Dalton. Maybe I should have kept that to myself. Now she was going to think I was lusting after Dalton. I wasn’t. Not really.

Cheryl leaned in like she had a big secret. “Look, by all means—hook up with him if you want. I mean, it’ll be hot. You’ll probably need a fire extinguisher. But if you start feeling things, you better put a helmet on, because that crash is gonna hurt.”

“I hear you.”

“Good. I like you, Janna. And I don’t want to see you heartbroken because you get hit in another Herc drive-by.”

I smiled and did my best to look confident. And casual. Was it really so bad to fall for someone like Dalton?