Zach shrugged off the thought. Different matter altogether. "Glad to hear she's working out."
Settling into the comfort of routine and silence broken only by the occasional radio call buzzing over the headset, Zach flew. Just flew. Nothing like it—him, his plane and miles of sky.
Flying across the Pacific provided an extra thrill of isolation. With Atlantic flights, a landing site could always be found within two hours. Other planes crowded the Atlantic airways. Not so over the broader Pacific. The wide expanse of ocean offered complete freedom from the rest of the world.
Zach inched the stick left, nipping the plane closer to the clouds flicking past. Tighter, he slipped alongside a cloud.
Hugging a cloud allowed him to gauge visually how fast he flew, optimizing the awesome effect of hurtling through the sky. One of his favorite flying games.
God, he loved his plane. Not many people had a hundred-and-twenty-five-million-dollar toy to take for a spin, complete with all the latest bells and whistles. He'd come a long way from his teenage years scavenging rides off anything with wings to log flight hours.
Gliders. Crop dusters. Even hiring out to make runs for the local coroner.
Anything to touch the clouds.
Closer. Closer. Closer he inched until his wingtip disappeared into the nimbus.
"Colonel." Bronco's voice slid through the headset and Zach's concentration. "Could we switch back to private interphone?"
Commander instincts overriding, Zach nodded, tapping the button on his stick. "Done.
Speak to me, Bronco."
"I received a call this week from an accident review board."
Zach forced his grip to stay loose on the stick. "And?"
"When did they re-open the investigation into Lance's crash?"
"About six weeks ago." Six weeks and three days ago, to be exact. Patrick Sinclair's birthday. "What did they want to know?"
"His state of mind at the time of the crash. His performance during the months leading up to the crash. All sorts of questions I sure as hell never wanted tossed my way. We scheduled a time to talk when I get back." Bronco shifted in his seat, his restlessness impossible to miss in the confined cockpit. "Sir, what am I supposed to say?"
Zach kept his eyes trained forward. "The truth."
"That he was one of the best pilots I've ever flown with, but yeah, his concentration was shaky? That his marriage was on the rocks, so maybe he wasn't up to speed?"
Zach's fingers clenched around the stick. At least the plane didn't bobble. All the same, he had to rein himself in. He'd never been one for emotional displays. A waste of time.
Relaxing's never a waste of time, Colonel.
Julia's voice drifted through his mind like one of those whispery clouds keeping pace alongside.
Tucking the plane's nose, Zach dipped below the clouds and abandoned games. He would leave emotional displays and front-porch relaxing to free spirits like Julia. He understood what he needed to do to keep his life in order. "If that's the way it happened with Lance, then that's what you tell them."
"Even at half speed, Lance could fly circles around most of the squadron. Except I know how those boards work and they won't hear that part."
Hell, Julia wouldn't want him hearing the part about her shaky marriage. But it was his job and as Pam would have bitterly reminded him, he always did his job. "What part will they want to hear?'
"That his wife was considering walking because he'd been seeing someone else. No way in hell do I condone the mess Lance made out of his personal life, but in the air...I know in my gut that crash wasn't his fault."
Zach's gut agreed with Bronco's.
At least he thought it did. Doubts didn't come often to Zach, but he couldn't help questioning his objectivity on this one because of his attraction to a sexy pair of legs, sparkling toenails—and winsome green eyes.
"Well, Colonel? What should I say?"
The pilot in him wanted to advise Bronco to blow off the board. The commander in him knew he couldn't.