Blue Skies by Robyn Carr Read Free Book Online Page A

little on the side.
    The passengers poured out of the plane, but Mrs. Darnell lingered. When the pilots came out of the cockpit, Branch second, he saw Dixie in the forward galley alone. “Well, angel, you have a good flight?”
    â€œI did, cowboy. And there’s a little birthday surprise for you in 4A.”
    He grinned stupidly, confused, and looked down the aisle. Dixie couldn’t see his face, but she heard him. “Darlin’, what in thunder you doin’ here?”
    Dixie peeked out. Mrs. Darnell was so happy, grinning from ear to ear, eyes sparkling, arms outstretched as she embraced her husband and kissed him. And he returned the favor.
    Except for a sheepish glance over his shoulder to see if Dixie had drawn a bead on the back of his head, Branch made no attempt to communicate with her. FirstOfficer and Mrs. Darnell took a cab to the hotel rather than ride with the rest of the crew in the hotel van. F.O. Darnell must have been a tish nervous about the prospect of his wife and girlfriend getting to know each other better.
    The captain and five flight attendants stood curbside, waiting for the van, when Dixie came up behind them. She heard Karen say, “Well, what the hell does she expect? God, she’s such a ditz.”
    â€œKaren!” Bea warned, looking over her shoulder at Dixie, who stood there frozen.
    â€œOh. Sorry, Dixie. But, you know…” She shrugged lamely.
    Dixie said nothing. She did know.
    Unwilling to face her coworkers’ curiosity and censure, Dixie skipped dinner, which she shouldn’t have done. She opened the very good bottle of wine she’d brought with her and sat cross-legged on the bed and drank. She couldn’t afford to have a good cry; her eyes would be all puffy and everyone would know the extent of her misery, including Branch, who would be on tomorrow’s flight. She’d be damned if he would find out she’d cried over him.
    It was about eleven when a knock sounded at her door. Discreet tapping. No surprise there. Empty bottle in hand and wearing only navy blue panty hose and her striped uniform shirt, she opened the door. There he stood, pilot shirt open at the neck, ice bucket in hand—his obvious excuse to leave his wife in their room—and a lame expression on his stupid face. He lifted his arms in helplessness. “Well, darlin’,” he drawled. “You coulda knocked me over with a feather. What can I say?”
    She stared at him for a minute, stricken by the factthat even under these circumstances, she was tempted to embrace him, draw him to her and love every long, tall inch of him. How humiliating! Before she could reconsider, she rammed the empty wine bottle bottom first into his gut. “Ugh,” he grunted, bending over in pain and grabbing the bottle as he did so. She backed into her room and slammed the door on him. There was a loud thud, which, she acknowledged with a wince, must have been his head.
    Well, she thought, you could’ve knocked him over with a feather…or whatever.

Three
    D ixie sat in the airport with the rest of her crew. She lazily filed one of her perfect red nails when her cell phone chirped from inside her purse. She pulled it out, identified Nikki’s number on the caller ID, and answered, “Yes, Captain.”
    â€œHey. Where are you?”
    â€œWe’re sitting in Kennedy. How about you?”
    â€œChicago. About to push back. I heard the craziest thing. Did you guys have a pilot fall down the stairs and crack his head open?”
    â€œWe did hear that,” Dixie said, “but I don’t think anyone’s talked to him. It was supposedly the first officer—Darnell. Do you know him?”
    There was a moment of stunned silence. “Oh, shit, Dixie.”
    â€œI guess he was after a bucket of ice, slipped on the stairs and whacked his head. He couldn’t remember exactly what happened so his wife called a cab and took him to the