The Orchid Sister by LeClaire Anne D

Author:LeClaire, Anne D.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

MADISON

She survived the flights. Four words. She. Survived. The. Flights. An encyclopedia of meaning.

She endured the panic. The hyperventilating. The dizziness that made her stumble when she walked down the Jetway to the plane. The leg from Boston to Miami had been the hardest. Before they boarded, Jack had said, “Think of this as a desensitizing exercise. By the time we land in Cancún, you’ll feel like an experienced flier.”

“I doubt it,” she had said. Did desensitizing even work? If so, would being next to Jack for hours on end work on numbing her feelings for him, the electric and persistent jolt she continued to feel at the sight of him, his touch, his smell? Could it quell those? She refused to allow herself to dwell on the what-ifs. If he were older. If she were younger. If she could be the woman he thought she was. If he were anything but a pilot. If she would ever be capable of trust. All the things that she’d known from the beginning would prevent a lasting relationship.

He had talked nonstop from the moment of liftoff on the flight from Logan to Miami. He told her about the first fight he had ever been in—kindergarten—and all the male rites of passage. He told her about the house he had grown up in and his favorite hiding places.

“Would you please be quiet,” she had said at one point.

“Why? Does my talking bother you?”

“Yes,” she’d said.

“Why?”

She’d thought for a minute. “It’s distracting.”

“That’s kind of the point,” he’d said.

In spite of herself, Maddie had to laugh. He joined her. The flight attendant smiled at them. “Let me guess,” she said. “Honeymoon, right?”

There was an awkward pause and Jack spoke first. “Not yet,” he said.

Maddie shifted in her seat, creating distance between them.

Jack continued to chatter. Once, before landing, they hit a pocket of turbulence, and she gripped the armrest and white-knuckled it through.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” she managed.

“Good girl,” he said.

The flight from Miami to Cancún was easier. She had a stirring of anxiety as she went aboard, but she experienced no dizziness or sweats of panic. She didn’t know whether the drugs were kicking in or if it was Jack’s desensitizing theory at work.

“Well, look at you,” Jack said, grinning. “You’re getting to be an old hand at this.”

“Does that mean on this flight you won’t continue to walk and talk me through every day of your life?” she teased. But she felt a quiet, green sprout of pride. She was doing it! She was actually flying. She wouldn’t have believed it possible.

As they drew closer to their destination, Jack asked her what her plan was once they arrived.

“Get to the hotel,” she said. “I guess take it from there. And check in with the local police. I know they’ve been alerted about Kat.”

The bus drive down the coast from Cancún was long, and two women occupying the seats behind them talked incessantly. “Well, will you look at that,” one was saying. “Look, May.

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