side of the plane, and Toni leaned slightly forward to peer down at the ground far below. Thick areas of trees dotted the lush green landscape and twisted streams wound around the hills, all dumping into the wide green river that resembled polished jade from this height.
“Nope. Not gonna happen,” Toni yelled over the roar of the engine. She shook her head so hard, he feared her neck would snap. “No way in hell, Logan. Nope. Nope. Nope.”
“Is your camera on?”
She nodded, touching the camera on the side of her helmet.
Without warning he wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her toes from the floor before diving sideways out of the plane and taking her with him.
The first moment of free fall always stole his breath, but then the wind caught. Flying and falling at the same time. Adrenaline surging. Heart pounding. And then the overwhelming feeling of being alive hit him. It was that feeling that kept him coming back for more.
“Oh my God!” Toni yelled. “Oh my God!”
“Did you pee your pants?” he teased.
“I’m not sure. But this is amazing!”
His heart soared. She, she was amazing.
“God, I love you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and squeezing her from behind.
“What?” she yelled. The wind rushing past their ears as they plummeted howled and made hearing difficult.
“I said, I love you!” he shouted.
She stiffened in his arms. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“I do mean it. I love you, Antonia whatever-your-middle-name-is Nichols!”
“I love you too!”
Her confession should have terrified him far more than the ground rushing toward them, but it didn’t. It thrilled him beyond any free fall he’d ever experienced. Maybe love was the adrenaline rush that had been missing from his life all these years.
“But I’m very mad that you told me now!” she yelled.
Surprised, he craned his neck to try to see her face, but it was useless in their his-front-to-her-back position. “You are?”
He thought she’d want to hear him say it.
“Yeah,” she said. “I can’t kiss you. You have no idea how much I need to kiss you right now.”
He did have an idea, actually. “Next time we’ll jump separately, so we can kiss all the way down.”
“Deal!” A few seconds later her hands clutched at the flapping fabric of his sleeves. “Logan?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Aren’t we getting rather close to the ground?”
They were. He yanked his ripcord, and there was, as always, that brief instant of terror when he wondered if the chute would come out. If it would open. If it would catch. There was something addictive about that feeling too, knowing he might be meeting his maker soon. The wind caught their chute, and their bodies jerked as their acceleration slowed abruptly.
Toni commented on the scenery as they soared back to earth. But Logan’s mind was racing.
What had he done? He’d told her that he loved her. Was he insane? They weren’t ready for this step. Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready for this step, but he definitely wasn’t prepared to love her after less than two weeks together. He had to be completely nuts. Or he’d been caught up in the excitement of the free fall. That was all.
They touched down smoothly, their yellow-and-blue-striped parachute drifting past them and settling on the grass. His hands were shaking as he unfastened her harness from his.
“Did you enjoy skydiving?” he asked.
“I loved it!” As soon as the last clip came free, she turned and threw herself into his arms. “That was so much fun. I’m so glad you forced me to jump.”
“I’m stoked that you want to go again.”
“Did you mean what you said?” she asked.
The smile dropped off his face. “Uh.” He shrugged, his heart trying to thud itself through his ribs. “I guess.”
He turned away and started pulling the chute toward himself.
Toni grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. “Say it to my face,” she demanded. “Tell me while you’re looking at me, while I can see into you and you can see into me.”
His breath caught. Surely it wouldn’t take the courage afforded by a skydiving adrenaline rush every time he told her he loved her.
“I . . .” He took a deep breath, forcing himself not to close his eyes to her. Not to close his heart. “I love you, Toni.”
Her smile could have lit the heavens. “I love you too.”