Page 5 of Falling for the Playboy Pilot

DALTON

I did what Laser suggested. I went and got myself a cold drink. Not a beer, even though that sounded amazing right about then. But there would be no booze. Not while I was on call.

I didn’t know why the woman pissed me off so badly.

It wasn’t even that she pissed me off. It was the fact she poked at me when I was in the worst mood.

She had no idea what she was saying. She was some bright-eyed young thing that didn’t know shit about shit.

As if I was the bad guy for wanting things to work right.

Was it too much to ask for people to just do their damn job? Today’s mission was training but that didn’t mean there weren’t actual flames. Just because it was small and there was a ground crew in the area training didn’t make it any less important.

I snatched one of the protein bars from the small breakroom in the building that housed the simulator.

The building included a classroom that often doubled as a briefing room.

Right then, the place was cleared out, but soon, there would be maps covering the walls.

There would be tables set up with bottles of water and high protein snacks.

When we got into the peak of fire season, the room would also house any wildland fire fighters that needed a place to crash.

I liked that about fire season. Everyone came together.

We all had one goal—beat back the orange beast.

It had been ten minutes. I went into the simulation room and loaded the program. There were no windows in the room. Just four high-resolution screens mounted in a rough semicircle around a mock cockpit that looked close enough to the real thing to make a person feel like they were actually flying.

Chief had rigged the place with speakers and I had added one of those heaters meant for a shop.

It blasted heat. That was the thing people didn’t realize about flying one of the planes.

It was fucking hot. There wasn’t AC that kept things nice and cool.

It would be hot and uncomfortable. There would be days we’d be up in the air for hours.

The sweating never stopped. It was miserable.

It wasn’t like it was the flames that cooked us. It was the lack of ventilation. The heat of the day. And yes, a forest fire was fucking hot and I often felt like I was a rotisserie chicken.

And because I was in a shitty mood and the sexy little blonde pissed me off, she was going to get the full experience. I turned on the heater just as the door was pulled open.

“Oh, come on,” Laser said with a groan. “The heater?”

“What heater?” Janna asked.

“He’s in a mood,” Laser muttered.

“Would you prefer to run the show?” I asked.

Laser nodded. “Yes, but Chief needs me to fly in a bit.”

“Come on,” I told Janna. “Let’s get this done. I have shit to do.” I gestured to the seat in front of the controls.

“Good luck,” Laser murmured.

She leaned against the back wall while Janna had the decency to look a little nervous.

She got in the seat and looked up with defiance in her eyes.

Her hair was blowing around her face with the force of the breeze from the heater.

She reached into her pocket, pulled out a rubber band thing, and quickly piled her hair on top of her head.

“Let’s do this,” she said.

“Lights,” I said.

Laser turned off the lights, plunging the room into darkness. I had the small controller in my hand and pushed the button for the screens. The program loaded, running through the usual startup.

Janna grabbed the yoke like she was born in that seat. Confident, like someone with a thousand hours logged and something to prove. We were about to see what she could do. I had seen guys wash out in the simulator. It was realistic and allowed no room for error.

The screens flickered, then filled with images of a mountain range to the west. It was all pretty and beautiful with a lake cutting through the range. A park on one side and lots of forest land. It was nature in its most pristine condition.

And then I pushed another button. Black smoke covered the screens. Artificial sunlight bled through yellow haze. The trees were torches. The mountains were hidden from sight. It was very similar to what it was like in an actual fire.

I hit another button that turned on the sound.

The chaos of a wildfire in full swing consumed the room.

Flames licked at the edges of the forest, and thick plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, obscuring visibility.

Janna’s hands tightened on the yoke as she adjusted her grip, her eyes darting between the screens.

The heater was already doing its job. In the soft light, I could see beads of sweat on her forehead.

“Alright,” I said, my voice flat. “You’ve got a fire line to mark. Smoke’s thick, wind’s unpredictable, and there’s a crew on the ground waiting for your call. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

She nodded and began maneuvering the simulated plane through the smoke.

At first, she did fine but that was when she was on the outskirts of the fire.

Her hands were steady. But then I introduced the first complication: a sudden gust of wind that sent the plane lurching to the side.

Her grip tightened, and she overcorrected, sending the nose dipping too low.

“Watch your altitude,” I said sharply. “You’re too close to the tree line.”

She pulled up quickly, but not before the simulated warning system blared in her ears. The sound was jarring. She flinched slightly but kept her focus. I could see her lips moving as she muttered something under her breath. I almost laughed because I was pretty sure she was cursing me out. Good.

Laser had stepped forward and was standing just a couple feet behind the chair.

She shot me a dirty look. I knew what she was thinking.

I had tossed Janna right into the deep end.

Usually, there would be some time for the person in the simulator to get a feel for things.

I would ease them into the program. But Janna’s overconfidence made me give her a real test of her skills.

With a smile at Laser, I clicked another button.

Heat turbulence. The screens flickered with waves of distortion as if the air itself was rippling from the heat.

The plane jolted violently, and Janna’s knuckles whitened as she fought to keep it steady.

Her jaw clenched, but she didn’t panic. Instead, she adjusted the throttle and banked slightly to the left, her movements deliberate and controlled.

She shot me a quick glare but I saw cockiness in that look. Oh, she thinks she’s won.

I added another layer of difficulty. I was going to throw everything at her. It was the simulation of a sudden downdraft that forced the plane to drop sharply. The warning system blared again, louder this time, and the simulated ground rushed up alarmingly fast.

“Pull up!” Laser shouted, unable to stay silent.

Janna yanked back on the yoke. The plane leveled out just in time, skimming dangerously close to the treetops.

“Nice save,” Laser said, sounding impressed. “That was close.”

I didn’t comment. Instead, I hit another button, introducing a new challenge: a wall of smoke so thick it obscured everything in front of her. Janna leaned forward, squinting at the screens as if she could will herself to see through it.

“What’s your move?” I asked.

“How can anyone fly through this soup?” she muttered, eyes narrowed and brow furrowed.

“This is the job,” I said.

“But I can’t see,” she murmured.

“Low visibility,” I continued. “Low altitude. Heat columns, shifting wind, terrain that wants to kill you. If that makes you nervous, you can always go back to flying puddle jumpers in Moose-fuck, Alaska.”

She turned her head just enough to shoot me a glare over her shoulder. “Wow. Do you charm everyone like this, or am I just lucky?”

“If you want to save lives, pay attention. That haze out there? That’s where people are dying.

If we can’t get tankers through to drop water or fire retardant, those flames eat neighborhoods.

You don’t just fly. You chart. You listen to your spotter.

You find safe routes and you paint targets with smoke so someone else doesn’t die trying to guess. ”

“I can do that.”

“In this scenario, you’re the pilot. I’m the spotter. The goal is to get up above the smoke layer without getting yourself killed. Then I’ll give you coordinates for a smoke drop.”

“I got this,” she said. “Watch and learn. Moose-fuck Alaska isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.”

I snorted, stepped back to give her room, and hit start on the sim.

It was a similar scenario. The first time, she didn’t do great. But now she seemed to know what to expect. She pulled back on the yoke and started her climb.

Too fast.

“Watch your angle,” I said.

“Relax. I know what I’m doing.”

She flew into the smoke. For a second, I thought she might actually pull it off. Then she slammed into the mountain.

There wasn’t even a warning beep before the screen went black and a red CRASH message plastered itself across the middle.

She let out a frustrated sound and spun in her seat. “There wasn’t a mountain there !”

“I’ll have that engraved on your tombstone.” I reset the sim. “Again.”

“Seriously?” she asked. “I clipped it by a hair.”

“You exploded,” I said. “I’d call that more than a hair .”

She turned back, grumbling.

Second run, she took it wider, slower. Not bad until another plane came into view from the right. Another spotter aircraft, just like hers. She froze. Overcorrected. Zigged when she should have zagged.

Onscreen, the planes collided midair in a sickening crunch of wings and flame.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered.

“You’re not alone up there,” I said. “Keep your head on a swivel. When things get bad, we all have to work as a team.”

A phone ringing cut through the sound of the simulated radio. I turned to glare at Laser.

“Sorry!” Laser grabbed her phone and rushed out of the room. She knew the rules. Phones were supposed to be on silent in here.

With the interruption over, I started the next sim run and gave Janna the coordinates. She punched the button.

The smoke bomb deployed and landed a half mile off target. I stayed silent, just folded my arms tighter and let her stew.

She growled. “You going to say something, or just hover like a judgy ghost?”

I loaded another sim to see if she would give up.

I was putting her through the hardest simulations but she needed to get a reality check.

She was young and cocky. I had seen pilots like her die because they thought they knew everything already.

Being young made people feel invincible. It didn’t mean they actually were.

She tried again and again and again. She overcompensated, second-guessed, stalled once, and cursed every time I corrected her. I pushed her harder with each attempt. She needed to feel the pressure. That split-second window between too early and too late was everything in the sky.

Then on the sixth run, she nailed it. The smoke bomb landed exactly where it should have. Janna froze, like she was waiting for me to tell her all the things she did wrong. I didn’t get the pleasure of saying any such thing because the simulator screens turned green.

She whooped , leaping up out of the chair like she’d just landed on the moon. “Yes! Finally!”

Her eyes met mine in the darkness, tinged with green from the screens. Her grin stretched from ear to ear, and for a second I forgot who I was. Forgot who she was. Our eyes locked. Her lips parted just slightly, the laughter dying away in a flash.

Fuck me, has she been this gorgeous the whole time?

I wanted to kiss her. Hell, I wanted to do a whole lot more than that.

I wanted to push her up against the wall and kiss the smugness off her mouth.

There was something burning between us. I knew she wanted the kiss.

I wasn’t a saint. I knew women. And the hot little thing standing in front of me was practically begging for it.

Sanity returned like a slap to the face.

I cleared my throat and took a step back. “You’ve still got a lot to learn. Don’t celebrate too much.”

Her grin dropped and I saw the moment her own sanity returned.

I turned and walked out of the simulator room before I did something really, really stupid.