Unbound [Actor Celebrity Romance] - Olivia Leighton Page 0,47

things were possible outside of cosmetics and Hollywood.

“You okay?” Mac asked.

“Fine. Sort of sliding into a zone, I think. Not as nervous as I thought I would be.”

“Good.”

She was looking out of the window and appeared to be deep in thought about something. I wondered if she was thinking about her family. She had given at least a few clues just before boarding the plane to leave the Queen Charlotte Islands that made me wonder what sort of painful history she might have.

“Your grandfather... he's Native American?” It was the most innocent family question I could think of.

“He is. Full-blooded Haida.”

I nodded. “So that makes you...?”

Mac smiled at me. “I'm just a quarter. Grandmother was white and so was Mom.”

“That must be pretty interesting though?”

She shrugged. “I suppose it is, but it's what I'm used to.”

“Me, I'm pretty white bread, so I can't imagine that.”

Mac laughed and turned back to the window.

I couldn’t help but grin. This whole day—hell, the last few days in getting to know her and living through the ordeal with the plane—would make a great movie. And I think I’d be able to fit the part of the male lead perfectly.

Mac was an interesting character. I had already determined that the anger she felt towards me wasn’t as deep-rooted as she wanted me to believe it was. I also thought that Mac, deep down, always wanted to please everyone…and that was something that was hard to do when you were busy faking an intense hatred for someone.

“Any thoughts on our first excursion?” I asked her.

“It went really well. Thanks for your willingness to help me with the order. It meant a lot to him. And to me, too.”

“Of course. Still pissed at me?”

She shrugged. I could see something resembling a smile working at the corners of her mouth. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll be honest with you, Jack. I don’t even know why—,”

She was interrupted by a loud banging noise, followed by a tremendous jostling of the entire airplane. Mac yelped and I went rigid at the controls as the plane dipped hard to the left. An alarm started going off overhead, a whining beeping noise accompanied by a small orange flashing light.

“What happened?” Mac asked, clearly, and understandably panicked.

I had been fortunate enough to have never experienced any sort of mechanical troubles during my time in the sky. I had logged in nearly one hundred and fifty hours, so that was saying something. I made use of my army training and shoved my panic of an unfamiliar situation to the back of my head, looking up to the alarm as I righted the dip. The plane fought against me and I could hear a peculiar grating noise coming from the left side of the plane.

“Uh, what’s happening?”

She was close to tears now, sitting back in her seat so far that I thought she might snap the back of the chair straight off.

“One of the engines has gone down,” I said. Once I voiced it, I was surprisingly calm. I knew that it was very possible to fly a plane that was down one engine. Of course, I had never done it before. And, worse than that, I knew that I needed to land right away. The problem was that it was dark as hell below us and we were flying across the sea. I could cruise to the east, towards the coast, but I wasn’t sure if that would be pushing my luck.

The plane shuddered and jerked. Mac let out another yelp. “Can we make it?”

“Yeah. I just need to land. Quickly.”

“Do you know where we are?”

“Not close enough to make it home,” I said. “We’re looking at a water landing. Which, because this is a float plane, shouldn’t be an issue. It might be a bit rough, though.”

“So we aren’t going to crash?”

“Not unless something else goes wr—,”

The plane jolted and dropped suddenly. I felt my stomach lurch as we dropped at least fifty feet before the plane righted itself.

“What was that?” Mac shrieked, nearly climbing up her seat like a frightened cat.

I had no idea what it was, but didn’t dare tell her that. Instead, I lied and said, “That’s normal for engine failure. But I need to land right now. You ready?”

She shook her head for a moment and then sighed. She closed her eyes, wiping a tear off of her cheek.

“We’ll be okay,” I said, pretty sure it was the case.

I still had control of the plane, although I was