Kiss Me, Katie! & Hug Me, Holly!

“Oh, please,” Holly moaned. “It’s just a flight. You’ll be separated for what? Maybe four hours? Cripes, children, hold it together, would you? Some of us would like to keep our breakfast down.”

Then he was gone, and Katie was still sitting. Had to be sitting, since her watery legs refused to hold her. Around her the staff fell blessedly silent. Out of respect, she figured, grateful.

That’s when she was hit with a shower of O-rings.

Arms slung around each other, her so-called friends and staff came forward humming-off-key-the wedding march song.

“I SUPPOSE you’re going to pretend you don’t want to talk about it,” Julie said sometime later.

Katie feigned disinterest. “It being…what?”

“Helllooo…this morning’s declaration? By the wild and hereto uncommitted Bryan Morgan?”

“Oh, that it.”

Julie grinned. “How totally romantic was that! He declared his love in front of everyone.”

“Yeah. Romantic.” She was still pulling O-rings out of her hair. Obviously no one had heard him tell her he’d said nothing.

“Come on,” Julie encouraged. “Tell me how Mr. Risk came to announce his love for Ms. Security.”

Was she that easy to read? And anyway, it was no longer a matter of risk versus security. Yes, she’d probably always hesitate before taking a risk, but suddenly-or maybe not so suddenly at all-she didn’t want to settle for status quo, either.

Bryan had claimed to love her.

Good Lord, the most wonderful, exciting, thrilling, fascinating man on the planet had thought for that one brief shining moment that he loved her.

Julie grinned because she’d spoken out loud. “And now back to our regularly scheduled programming, which apparently you’re just tuning into. Do you love him back?”

Oh, yeah. “No.”

Julie grinned. “Your dreamy smile answered differently.”

“It’s lust, not love,” Katie said, frowning down at her clenched hands. She’d seen the horror on Bryan’s face, she knew he wished the words back. “Lust.”

“Well, either one of them works as a hell of a bed partner on a cold winter night.”

Maybe. For a while anyway. But lust wasn’t ever going to be enough for Katie, there had to be more.

Bryan was what he was. She knew and accepted that. Maybe he wasn’t flying stunts at the moment, but he would be soon, and that was scary, but okay. His sense of wonder at life, his love of excitement and adventure, it had all led her to this point. For that alone she loved him.

And he must never know.

She’d learned a lot about herself in these past weeks. She’d learned that being grown-up and mature is fine, but there had to be room for fun, too, that fun was okay. She’d certainly learned that maybe risk is part of what makes life so worthwhile.

Loving Bryan was certainly the mother of all risks. But she’d get over it. Maybe even try again someday.

And yet…she had the need to prove to herself that she wouldn’t lose her nerve, that she would indeed risk again.

In light of that, filled with determination, she marched into the mechanic’s hangar. After all, it didn’t have to be her heart she put on the line, right?

At the sight of her, everything and everyone went momentarily silent. “No show this time, guys,” she announced.

“Bryan loves Katie, Bryan loves Katie,” came a singsong voice from the back of the hangar, and trying to maintain her calm, she headed toward it, knowing it was Steve, their head mechanic and also part-time flight instructor.

“Unfortunately,” she said in the face of his wide grin. “It’s you I want to talk to. I want flying lessons.” Behind her, everyone gasped.

Katie ignored them. This was her risk and she was sticking to it.

Because, really, Bryan had nailed it. All her life she’d been both fascinated and terrified by planes. Getting a job in an airport, however small, had been a step in the right direction. Learning to let a man like Bryan into her life had been another. “I want to start right now,” she said quickly, before she lost her nerve. “You have a problem with that?”

“No, ma’am.” He grinned. “Does Bryan know you’re doing this? Because he might want to be the one to teach you…”

“Can you go right now or not?” She was in a huge hurry to do this now, to prove to herself she could. Without Bryan.

“Well…” Steve took off his hat and scratched his head.

“I’ll pay double the going rate,” she said rashly, and Steve lifted his brow, nodded and off they went. Just like that, with everyone left gaping in her dust.

Beat that, Katie thought with giddy wonder. It felt great. Better than great. It was almost as good as-

No, nothing was as good as making love, not now that she had Bryan to use as a scale.

But this was indeed a close second.

BRYAN HADN’T EVEN set his feet onto the ground when Julie came flying out onto the tarmac, her shirt flying up to alarming heights in the sharp wind.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she said, huffing and puffing. “But-”

A plane buzzed them, and Bryan scowled. “Idiot. That was too damn close.”

“Yeah, about that-”

“Hey.” His frown deepened as he gazed upward, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. “That’s Steve’s plane. Is he teaching some idiot to fly like that?”

“Maybe you should come with me,” Julie suggested with a tight smile. “To the control room.”

“Why?”

“Because that idiot? It’s Katie.”

BRYAN PACED the small control room like a caged tiger. He alternatively swore at the controls, swore at the sky, swore at the plane as it occasionally came into his view.

All the while Holly, who apparently had nothing to do except torture him, laughed, unperturbed when he turned on her with fire in his eyes.

“Oh, relax, ace. She’s only taking a flying lesson.”

“Yeah.”

“And anyway, you probably have work to do.” She smiled. “Why don’t you vacate?”

He wasn’t going anywhere until Katie was down.

“You’re sweating, Bryan.”

“Holly?”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up.”

She only grinned. “Don’t you see the irony of this? All these years you’ve been flying with reckless abandon, never worrying about what it did to the people who care about you.”

Bryan stared at her. God. How could she be so right? “Well, waiting really stinks.”

“Bingo.” And she softened. “You know, whoever said all men are stupid wasn’t quite accurate. You’re not stupid, just slow.”

Bryan shook his head and grabbed the radio headset. “Katie,” he barked. “Come down. Now.”

“That’s not proper radio protocol,” Holly pointed out.

As if he cared. “Please,” he added into the headset while Holly just laughed at him.

KATIE WAS HAVING the time of her life when Bryan’s command came over the radio. She leaned back from where she’d had her nose pressed to the window, practically giddy with the thrill, and looked at Steve.