The Mile High Club Read Free

spite of them, I needed that passion now.
    I’d be back in the States soon, where I could execute my elaborate plan to win Friederike back. Deep down I was realistic, but that didn’t stop my formulating my plot with the same precision as that with which I’d charted the flight plan.
    “Sorry I’m late.” The voice was smoky, feminine, with a hint of a soft English accent.

    Max Travis was a tall, athletic woman. Her skin was a warm, deep tan color, and her cheeks were dotted with large freckles. Her chestnut hair was gathered into a short ponytail. Her nose hooked downward to slender nostrils which she flared as I studied her. Full pink lips curled into a friendly smile. “I had to break every bloody speed limit.”
    “No problem.”
    Max peered over my shoulder, then circled around to the copilot’s seat. “I’m Max.” She reached across the pedestal and I gripped her hand. Heat emanated like a steam radiator in January.
    “Dane Leonard.”
    “Dane? Lovely name.” She joined in the preparations with a sense of authority—rapid economical movements to catch up with me. She nodded. “Sorry about the divorce.”
    “Pardon?”
    “Sorry about the divorce.”
    “What makes you think—”
    “Tan line on your wedding finger. That was one thick band!”
    Her corneas were vibrant brown with sparkles like mica in a riverbed. There was not a trace of makeup on her face. “What makes you so sure I didn’t just recently lose weight and need it resized?”
    She lifted her brow.
    I turned back to the instrument panel and tapped one of the displays. “Or that I lost it yodeling through the Alps?”
    She smiled to reveal slightly uneven front teeth. She laughed softly.
    “Or that my wife passed away?”
    Her face fell serious. She angled her torso so her face was in my line of sight. “Are you telling me you didn’t recently divorce?”
    “Well, no.”

    She sat back in her seat. “It seems it was difficult for you.” “Mmm.” I continued preparations.
    After we lifted off from Munich, the sun lay low in the sky. We’d be chasing sunset all night.
    “I love flying east to west in the evening.” Max stared out over the nose of the jet.
    “Me, too.” I recalled how Friederike and I used to sit together to watch the sunset, and how I’d tell her that the sunset could open out below while I lingered at its edge, its descent suspended when I was traveling to the west. I recalled further how Friederike’s interest in my stories of flying faded as the years wore on.
    “So, how did you know I was divorced?”
    “I know that look.” Max tilted her head.
    The lazy sun glowed a gentle orange, casting needle strips on organized waves that prepared their assault on the continent as we penetrated the coastline.
    “She split with you.” Not a question: a declaration.
    “No.”
    Max leaned forward and forced her face into my line of sight. My jaw tightened. I couldn’t restrain a nervous smile.
    “You split with her?”
    I paused then shook my head softly. “Well, no. She split with me.”
    “As you were ‘never home?’”
    “What, are you a head shrink?”
    “Hardly.” Max scanned the instruments.
    I looked at her left hand. “Well, I don’t see a tan line on your finger.”
    Max turned her head just enough that her left eye could catch me in its periphery. “The wounds will heal nicely if you’ll let them. They don’t all turn to scar.”

    Max tried to engage me in conversation from time to time. I feigned interest and gave noncommittal grunts. I got some of what she was saying. She’d lived all over, but considered Manchester, England, to be the home of her youth. She was the daughter of a distinguished pilot in the RAF and had been flying since she was a teenager. She’d fallen for and married an American soldier—ironically, an Air Traffic Controller. She did not say how it ended, just that it had and she remained in the States, a naturalized citizen. Just like Friederike, whose face I now