Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 84(@200wpm)___ 67(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 84(@200wpm)___ 67(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Flying in a floatplane to a tiny town in nowhere, Alaska, was definitely wild. At least, for me. I was a Florida boy, born and raised. But when the website I worked for tasked me with writing an article about something I’d never done before, my stupid mouth had blurted, “I’ve never been to Alaska!”
But when I land on a pristine blue lake and don’t die, I can’t help but fall a little bit in love with the breathtaking place. And… okay… maybe I fall a little bit in love with the grumpy pilot too. If only I could convince him to set aside his mistrust of outsiders and give me a chance…
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
JONAH
This was the stupidest thing I’d ever done. “Take an adventure,” they said. “Do something wild,” they said.
Flying in a floatplane to a tiny town in nowhere, Alaska, was definitely wild. At least, for me. I was a Florida boy, born and raised. Getting the job at Heart2Heart corporate in Miami had been a dream come true. Creating digital content and traveling around the country to cover local Heart2Heart events in various cities was both exciting and exhausting.
But lately, it had become more exhausting than exciting, and I wasn’t sure I was up for this “adventure” in Alaska.
The assignment was to write about something I’d never done before. The company was kicking off an event with a “Never Have I Ever” theme, and they wanted us to create content to support the launch. When my boss had asked me what was on my “never have I ever” list, I’d blurted out one of my lifetime goals.
Never have I ever been to Alaska.
Now that I was on an ancient toy airplane bumping across the Chugach and Talkeetna Mountains to the Alaska Range, I was beginning to think not having ever ventured here was a good thing.
The grumpy pilot had only said two words to me when he’d picked me up on the water in Juneau. “Buckle up.”
Now that we were in the air, I realized how silly it must seem to him that I needed a ride from Juneau instead of Anchorage. I tried explaining. “There was a misunderstanding with the travel department,” I shouted into the headset. Since I was the only passenger on his plane, I sat in the co-pilot’s seat. I kept my hands balled together in a tight clasp in my lap to keep from accidentally steering us to our deaths with my very own steering wheel yoke thing.
“Don’t care,” he said back in a too-calm voice, considering the plane felt like it was going to break apart and drop us from the sky at any minute. “A fare’s a fare.”
“Nice,” I muttered. “Great. Good. Awesome.”
I tried not to look over at him, but I couldn’t help it. When he’d hopped out of the little plane on the wooden dock in Juneau, I’d noticed his muscular thighs displayed perfectly in snug jeans and the soft, worn T-shirt lovingly gripping his toned chest.
He was a sexy grump. My Kryptonite. Fuck.
“What’s your name?” I asked, out of nerves more than anything. I’d hired a company called Knockwood Aviation for the interior flight, which should have clued me in about the quality of the equipment they used, but the pilot himself wore a T-shirt with a faded Valentine Air Taxi logo on it.
“Pete.”
I nodded stupidly. “Pilot Pete. Got it.”
He turned narrowed eyes at me, and I noticed sexy little crow’s feet probably caused by the sun. “Just Pete.”
“Just Pete,” I muttered with a sigh.
The silence fell again, only, it wasn’t silent so much as horrifically loud like a gargantuan rattling buzz saw right in my ear.
“I’m Jonah,” I said after a few more minutes. I couldn’t keep quiet.
“Yeah.”
“I’m here to write an article about trying new things. Things I’ve never done before. Like… I don’t even know. Fly fishing? Or…” I looked around the death trap I was in. “Dying in a fiery plane crash.”
No response.
I threw up my hands in frustration and knocked the yoke steering wheel thing. Pete’s hand shot out and grabbed my wrist in a firm grip, but his words remained as calm as ever. “Don’t do that.”
I bit my top lip to keep from laughing or crying. My stomach hurt. My head hurt. I hadn’t slept in two days because of deadlines and travel stress. All I wanted was to land and pour myself into a bed for at least twenty-four hours.
“Sorry,” I said quickly, trying to clasp my hands back in my lap again. Pete’s grip stayed firm on my wrist, and I could have sworn his thumb slid the slightest bit over the back of my hand as he finally pulled his arm back.
My stomach flipped over, and I almost vomited. Instead, I gagged a little, and Grumpy Pete noticed. He shoved an air-sickness bag at my chest.
“Don’t fuck with my baby.”
I looked around at the cabin that looked like it had been made in a Pinewood Derby contest in the 1800s. Pete should have been wearing leather goggles to drive the damned thing. There was more duct tape than actual metal.
“Your baby is more like a geriatric patient on his last legs, Pilot Pete,” I informed him. “Not sure I trust the old guy to get us down safely.”
The corner of his lip curved up the slightest bit, even though it was hard to see from this angle. “She’ll get us there.”
“She? Sorry I misgendered her.”
“Edwina.”
I stared at him until he repeated it. “Her name is Edwina. From the Lily Tomlin movie.”