Branch was a Texan, and Dixie couldn’t help but have a soft spot for the Longhorns. He commuted from San Antonio and had all but moved in with her in Phoenix when he came to town to fly. Every week, more and more of his belongings appeared in her closet and bathroom. She was senior enough to hold just about any flying line she wanted, and tried to bid his schedule so she could spend the night with him on layovers. The drawback was that he wasn’t senior, and the lines he was awarded were usually awful—short hops, crappy layovers, working weekends. Branch was a retired air force colonel and had only been flying commercially for three years; he was still a first officer and not even a senior one. Dixie ended up working a lot harder than she had to just be able to spend time with him.
Fortunately tonight was a rarity—a long New York City layover. A nice birthday present in itself.
There was one minor complication—Branch wasn’t divorced yet. He was separated, though, and when the divorce was complete, which he had warned her wouldn’t be real fast, he wasn’t going to relocate to Phoenix for a few years. There were still a couple of kids at home. So it wasn’t perfect, but it was damn close.
Nikki was worried. “I don’t know, Dixie. He’s got that look. Like he’s been around.”
“Well, darlin’, he’s not the only one,” Dixie had replied with a laugh.
“It’s different with you,” Nikki said.
Dixie didn’t have to ask why. Nikki knew as well as she did that she never left a man she’d slept with. She was completely devoted. Completely naive, too. She fell fast, hard and completely.
So why hadn’t she married at nineteen? It was all she’d ever wanted. From her first real date, Dixie had never stopped thinking church bells and altar. But time and the number of men she’d been through had too often left her brokenhearted and lonely. There was always a guy, even when she wished there wasn’t. Men rushed to date her, to get her into bed, to take her on trips and buy her nice things. And then, whoosh—they were gone as fast as they appeared. She was thirty-five years old, had eleven tennis bracelets of varying value, when all she’d really like to have was a husband and baby.
“Maybe if you wouldn’t jump into bed with them so fast…” Carlisle had suggested as gently as possible.
“I try to wait,” Dixie told him. “But I fall in love, they swear it’s forever, and then—”
“Well, at least you’ve gotten some nice jewelry out of it.”
But she’d so much rather have a husband. Well, she’d been with Branch for six months, which was a bit of a record for Dixie.
He could have been put off by the number of men who had come before him, but he accepted her as she was. “How can I expect a woman as beautiful as you to be a virgin till she’s thirty-five? So long as you’re mine now, I’ve got no real complaint.”
“I’m yours,” she was quick to assure him. And it wasn’t just pillow talk—she was.
She checked the inbound flights on the screen and saw that the one she was waiting for had finally landed. Pulling her cell phone out of her purse, she pecked off some numbers.
“Well, darlin’, you gettin’ tired of waiting for me?” he drawled.
“There’s a rumor floatin’ around that it’s some tall Texan’s birthday today.”
He chuckled. “You got somethin’ for me, ma’am?”
“I might be able to rustle something up,” she said. “Tonight. In New York.”
“Mmm, that sounds delicious, darlin’. See you on the plane.”
Branch had had a layover the previous night and Dixie was hooking up with his trip here in Phoenix. Cockpit crews and cabin crews rarely flew full schedules together. The cabin crew that had been on this trip since yesterday was getting off in Phoenix, and a new set of flight attendants would go with the pilots to New York.
At least it was New York for Branch’s birthday and not somewhere like Buffalo or Des Moines. Dixie wanted to be able to take him to a posh five-star restaurant later…if he’d let her out of bed long enough to go eat.
They weren’t ridiculously secretive about their relationship, but they did play it cool at work. Branch was right—there was no point in having everyone talking. “It’s your reputation I’m worried about, not mine,” he had said. “Even though my marriage has been over for years, I’m still officially married.”
She had dated so many pilots, there would be more than the usual amount of chatter when she let the cat out of the bag that she was dating yet another. Her coworkers were pretty quick to catch on, though. They knew the look, the glance, the little mating dance. If a very junior pilot and a very senior flight attendant always flew together…how discreet was that?
But if they came to work in the same car after Branch had spent the night at her house, Dixie would drop him at the terminal first and then go park. When they checked into a hotel on a layover, they went to their individual rooms and met in hers later. They never went to dinner together on layovers unless it was with the entire crew. Tonight they might just break that rule, though, since it was such a special occasion.
When Dixie got to the plane, Branch was doing a walk around out on the ramp, so she started checking meals and liquor in the galley.
Every flight was a little like a stage play, with a different cast of more than two-hundred-fifty every time. You never knew what would be in the script, and that was one of the things Dixie loved about her work.
She was the senior flight attendant on this trip and chose to work in the back cabin. Their Boeing 767 would be nearly full and they had four crew members in the back. The flight had a stop in Denver and they were getting a late start.
When Branch finished his walk around outside and returned to the plane, he found Dixie in the forward galley. He looked around. The captain’s back was to the door, there were no connecting passengers in first class, and there didn’t seem to be any flight attendants nearby. He grabbed her and gave her a nice, long kiss, his large hand planted on her butt. “Missed you,” he said against her lips.
The lav door opened and Bea, another crew member, stepped out. Smiling, she said, “Ha! I saw that.”
Dixie put a finger to her lips to shush her and said to Branch, “Get to work.” But Dixie was not upset. The truth was she’d be happy if people found out about them, because Branch was handsome, successful and sweet. What could be bad about finally falling in love with a great guy? So what if it complicated the work thing? They’d downplay it a little. But how long were they supposed to continue this ridiculous game of pretending not to know each other? Dixie was sure it showed all over her face every time she heard Branch’s name.
Moments later the passengers started to stream aboard, and once everyone was safely seated, the plane pushed back and nosed toward the runway. Dixie and Bea sat in the first-class jump seat for takeoff. Bea was young, just a kid. Twenty-five and engaged. “So?” she asked Dixie. “How long has that been going on?”
“Shh. No reason to make a big deal out of it in the workplace. But we’ve been seeing each other for about six months.”
“Is it serious?”
“Very. He doesn’t want anyone to make a fuss over him, but today is his birthday. That’s one reason I made sure to get this trip.” She winked. “I have a little birthday party planned for F.O. Darnell.”
“You’re a bad, bad girl,” Bea laughed. “You think there will be a little something to announce soon?”
“Marriage? Well, now, I don’t like to count my chickens, but I was born and raised in Texas, and I know these Texas men. Kind of old-fashioned about their women. They like taking them off the market.”
The flight went fast, dipping into Denver before Dixie knew it. Some passengers deplaned to catch connecting flights while others boarded for New York. Soon Dixie was serving dinner. The sun was going down and it was dark outside, even though her watch still said 3:00 p.m.
It was an hour prior to landing before the back-end crew could take a break, eat some leftover salads, exchange a little company gossip an
d sit down. Bea ventured back to the aft galley and poked her head through the blue curtain that separated them from the passengers. “Dixie? Do you have a second to help me with something?”
“Don’t worry,” Karen said, “I’ll go.”
“I really need Dixie,” Bea said nervously.
At the distressed sound of her voice, Dixie abandoned the salad she’d been picking at. She was senior on the flight, after all. “Sure,” she said, and followed Bea to first class.
In the first-class galley, Bea whispered, “The lady in 4A, she’s on my manifest as Mrs. Darnell.”
Dixie frowned. She poked her head out of the blue curtain and looked at the seat Bea indicated. The woman there was attractive, with soft brown hair that fell gracefully to her shoulders. She was reading, head down, so Dixie couldn’t see her face. She withdrew back into the galley. “So?” she asked Bea.
“She said the copilot is her husband.”
“I reckon that could be Branch’s wife. They have two teenagers. They haven’t lived together for a long time, like a couple of years, and I think they’re just waitin’ on another Christmas before they—”
Bea was shaking her head. “She says it’s her husband’s birthday and she’s flying to New York to surprise him. She told me she has reservations at the Four Seasons for nine o’clock and wanted to know if we’d get there in plenty of time.”
Dixie was very well trained at staying cool and in control, no matter what. She had won beauty pageants, after all. And unfortunately, this was not the first time something like this had happened to her. But inside she was dying. No! This isn’t happening! Not again!
But very calmly she said to Bea, “Oh, the poor thing.”
“She says she has a negligee in her suitcase and left his mother in charge of the kids. If it weren’t for all the charity boards she sits on, she’d like to stay in New York a couple of—”
“Oh, God, Branch warned me something like this might happen. She doesn’t want the divorce even though she was the one who originally asked him to leave a couple of years ago. This is just so sad.” If she didn’t hurt so much inside, Dixie might marvel at how quickly she could make up a cover story. Who said she was a dumb blonde?
“What are you going to do?” Bea asked.
“I’d hate if there was a scene. The best thing would be if Branch took her off somewhere quiet and let her down easily.”
“She still loves him, then?”
Dixie shrugged. “Or maybe it just didn’t work out with the other man, but whatever, Branch has moved on. I should warn him so he doesn’t humiliate her…or himself…or me, for that matter. Can you, um, trade places with me? Tell the girls in the back that I’m lookin’ over your paperwork as a favor or something? And when we’re taxiing in, I’ll give Branch fair warnin’. The less anyone knows about this, the better for everyone.”
“I guess so,” she said. “You going to be all right?”
“Me?” she asked with a laugh. “This doesn’t really have anything to do with me. Just another one of those difficult divorces. When have you ever seen an easy one?”
But she didn’t warn him. She served the first-class cabin coffee and thought about striking up a conversation with Mrs. Darnell, but in the end stuck to the professional courtesies. It wasn’t necessary to gather any more information—the truth was obvious. Mrs. Darnell was very confident about her birthday surprise.
They weren’t separated. Branch was just getting a little on the side.
The passengers poured out of the plane, but Mrs. Darnell lingered. When the pilots came out of the cockpit, Branch second, he saw Dixie in the forward galley alone. “Well, angel, you have a good flight?”
“I did, cowboy. And there’s a little birthday surprise for you in 4A.”
He grinned stupidly, confused, and looked down the aisle. Dixie couldn’t see his face, but she heard him. “Darlin’, what in thunder you doin’ here?”
Dixie peeked out. Mrs. Darnell was so happy, grinning from ear to ear, eyes sparkling, arms outstretched as she embraced her husband and kissed him. And he returned the favor.
Except for a sheepish glance over his shoulder to see if Dixie had drawn a bead on the back of his head, Branch made no attempt to communicate with her. First Officer and Mrs. Darnell took a cab to the hotel rather than ride with the rest of the crew in the hotel van. F.O. Darnell must have been a tish nervous about the prospect of his wife and girlfriend getting to know each other better.
The captain and five flight attendants stood curbside, waiting for the van, when Dixie came up behind them. She heard Karen say, “Well, what the hell does she expect? God, she’s such a ditz.”
“Karen!” Bea warned, looking over her shoulder at Dixie, who stood there frozen.
“Oh. Sorry, Dixie. But, you know…” She shrugged lamely.
Dixie said nothing. She did know.
Unwilling to face her coworkers’ curiosity and censure, Dixie skipped dinner, which she shouldn’t have done. She opened the very good bottle of wine she’d brought with her and sat cross-legged on the bed and drank. She couldn’t afford to have a good cry; her eyes would be all puffy and everyone would know the extent of her misery, including Branch, who would be on tomorrow’s flight. She’d be damned if he would find out she’d cried over him.
It was about eleven when a knock sounded at her door. Discreet tapping. No surprise there. Empty bottle in hand and wearing only navy blue panty hose and her striped uniform shirt, she opened the door. There he stood, pilot shirt open at the neck, ice bucket in hand—his obvious excuse to leave his wife in their room—and a lame expression on his stupid face. He lifted his arms in helplessness. “Well, darlin’,” he drawled. “You coulda knocked me over with a feather. What can I say?”
She stared at him for a minute, stricken by the fact that even under these circumstances, she was tempted to embrace him, draw him to her and love every long, tall inch of him. How humiliating! Before she could reconsider, she rammed the empty wine bottle bottom first into his gut. “Ugh,” he grunted, bending over in pain and grabbing the bottle as he did so. She backed into her room and slammed the door on him. There was a loud thud, which, she acknowledged with a wince, must have been his head.
Well, she thought, you could’ve knocked him over with a feather…or whatever.
Three
Dixie sat in the airport with the rest of her crew. She lazily filed one of her perfect red nails when her cell phone chirped from inside her purse. She pulled it out, identified Nikki’s number on the caller ID, and answered, “Yes, Captain.”
“Hey. Where are you?”
“We’re sitting in Kennedy. How about you?”
“Chicago. About to push back. I heard the craziest thing. Did you guys have a pilot fall down the stairs and crack his head open?”
“We did hear that,” Dixie said, “but I don’t think anyone’s talked to him. It was supposedly the first officer—Darnell. Do you know him?”
There was a moment of stunned silence. “Oh, shit, Dixie.”
“I guess he was after a bucket of ice, slipped on the stairs and whacked his head. He couldn’t remember exactly what happened so his wife called a cab and took him to the emergency room. We hear he has a slight concussion. Nothing bad, but he spent the night in the hospital for observation and can’t fly until his flight surgeon clears him.”
“His wife?”
“Yeah, poor thing. She got on in Denver and was gonna surprise him for his birthday with a special night in New York City. I just can’t imagine their disappointment.”
Dixie could feel the eyes of her fellow crew members on her. They might not know what had really happened, but from their looks and whispers, they knew there was more to the story. So, screw ’em. Dixie was beyond caring. Karen had called it the evening before at the curb—Dixie had been a stupid fool. About a hundred times.
“Dixie…”
“Hmm?”
“Are you sure someone didn’t…push him down th
e stairs?”
“For heaven’s sake, what a thought,” she replied with the blandness of a yawn.
“When do you get back to Phoenix?” Nikki asked.
“Our flight was canceled because of the first officer’s injury, which screwed up the rest of the segment. They had to deadhead a cockpit crew out here, so we’re going to work the next flight back to Phoenix and then quit. I don’t work again until Sunday. How about you?”
“I’ll be back tomorrow night. Maybe I should swing by and see you on my way home?”
“You know you’re always welcome,” she said. “All I have planned is to clean out the closets. High time I got rid of all those old clothes just clutterin’ up the place.”
“Are you all right?” Nikki asked.
“’Course,” she replied coolly.
“And he doesn’t remember what happened?”
“Isn’t that fortunate?” Dixie cleared her throat. “I’m sure his wife’s very grateful.”
She clicked off, slipped the phone back into her purse and asked, in her very sweetest and most innocent drawl, “Can I get anyone a latte?”
“Great idea,” Bea said. “I’ll go with you.”
“Don’t get up, darlin’,” Dixie said. “My treat. Anyone else?”
There were no other takers. Dixie walked to the coffee kiosk, allowing the rest of the crew the privacy to talk about her behind her back. Lost his memory, huh? Forgot he was married for a while? How does she let herself get into these situations? All she’d have to do is make one phone call to check him out. What does she use for brains? Ah, she’s just thinking below the waist, as usual. Lots of miles on that chick. They would be quite entertained. They would also be quite accurate.
Dixie, whose given name was Helen, came from real brainy stock. Her father was a CPA with an MBA, and her mother had her doctorate and taught anatomy and physiology in a nursing college. Her older brother was a pediatric oncologist and her younger sister was in computers—the vice president of Information Systems for a large corporation. And Dixie had been the Homecoming Queen and the Fiesta Queen and the Oktoberfest Queen and Miss Temple, Texas.