Page 4 of Born for Starlight

“We’ll go together,” Marty said as he took the blanket from Hank.

Milo nodded. “We need something to stake it down, so it doesn’t just blow away.”

“You can take the tie-down kit out of the luggage compartment.” Hank pointed toward the tail. “Stakes and rope, for parking overnight on strips without a hangar. Ground’s soft enough out here, they should hold.”

Milo headed that way, and soon came back with the kit, then he and Marty picked their way out of the plane.

My watch was killing me on my swollen wrist, and I struggled to take it off. Hank saw me.

“Let me.”

He got it off. I held it in my hand and watched the minutes tick by as Milo and Marty were gone. I stayed where I was, Grant’s hand in mine, his breathing slow and even now, the hydrocodone starting to soften the tight lines around his eyes. I kept talking to him anyway, quiet and steady.

It was forty-five minutes before they were back.

“Mission accomplished,” Milo grinned. He still had eye shadow all over his face, and I started to giggle.

“What?” He grumbled.

“You should see yourself.”

He frowned at me. “What are you talking about?”

We heard it before we saw it, a low, distant thud of rotors that made all of us go still and tip our faces to the sky at the same time. It was stupid, because all we could see was the ceiling of the plane.

Hank, Milo and Marty went outside. I wanted to, but Grant’s grip tightened.

“It’s a rescue crew!” Milo shouted.

Thank God.

It took them a while to land, then they had to get to us. After what seemed like an eternity, they got Grant out of the plane and onto a stretcher and pulled him up and out of the canyon. It took them an hour and another helicopter to get all of us out. By then what Hank called a “news bird” had started circling. It had a camera mounted in the open door, and somewhere down in Santa Barbara or Los Angeles or wherever the feed went, some anchor was probably already saying my name into a microphone.

Dammit!

Sometimes I hated my life. Not because of the crash. We’d lived, thank you, Jesus.

No, I hated it because I already knew exactly how this was going to go. Movie Star Survives Terror in the Sky, or some shit headline like that. Paparazzi getting big time bonuses for a picture with me in a cast, or better yet, me bruised up. Maybe even reporters contacting my mom to find out how she felt when she first heard about the crash. I just hoped that wasn’t how she’d find out—through a reporter asking intrusive questions.

God, my head still hurt, and thinking about these assholes sure wasn’t helping. But by God, this time I was going to spike their guns. I was not going to be their victim. I was going to be proactive. I would turn this whole thing on its head.

Chapter Two

Three weeks after the crash, my wrist was still in a cast, my ribs still twinged if I laughed too hard, but it didn’t matter because I was standing in a jewelry store in Nashville holding up a ring with a stone the size of a walnut.

“Adam. Look at this one.”

He didn’t look up from the case in front of him. “No.”

“You haven’t even seen it.”

“I don’t need to see it. The answer’s no.”

I held it up anyway, angling it so it caught the light and threw little rainbows across the ceiling. “It’s got a bird on it. A whole bird, Adam. Sapphire wings and everything.”

“Zoe would leave me at the altar.”

“Probably,” I agreed.