The pilot who stole my heart

*CHAPTER 1: The Girl Who Wanted To Fly - Mia Carter was 24 years old and she had failed at love, failed at saving money, and was currently failing at not crying in Terminal 4 of JFK Airport. But she was very good at one thing: pretending everything was fine. "Welcome to Skyline Airlines, enjoy your flight!" she said with a bright smile to passenger after passenger, even though her feet were bleeding inside her cheap uniform shoes. She had been a flight attendant for exactly 87 days. Junior. Lowest seniority. That meant she got the worst flights, the worst hours, and the worst passengers. The 5 AM red-eye from New York to Chicago that no one wanted. "Miss, my coffee is cold!" a woman in first class snapped. "I'm so sorry, ma'am, let me get you a fresh one right away," Mia said, her voice sweet, even though the woman had let the coffee sit for 20 minutes while talking on her phone. In the galley, Mia's best friend and senior crew member, Lisa, whispered, "Don't let her get to you, honey. First class passengers think they own the plane." Mia laughed weakly. "I thought becoming flight attendant would be glamorous. Travel the world, meet handsome pilots..." "Oh you meet pilots alright," Lisa winked. "Just don't fall for them. Especially not the captains. They break hearts faster than they break the sound barrier." Mia had no plans to fall for anyone. She had a boyfriend. Daniel. Well, she _had_ a boyfriend until three days ago, when he sent that text saying she was never home and her dream was stupid. Her dream was not stupid. Since she was 6 years old, sitting on the rusted fence at the edge of her small town's tiny airfield in Ohio, watching crop dusters take off, she knew she wanted to fly. Not serve coffee. Fly. She wanted four stripes on her shoulders. Captain's stripes. But flight school cost $80,000. And flight attendants made $28,000 a year. Math was not on her side. The flight landed in Chicago. 40-minute turnaround, then back to New York. Mia had 15 minutes to buy a stale sandwich and sit alone. She sat in the crew lounge, eating, when the schedule board updated. Her name flashed. _CREW REASSIGNMENT - FLIGHT SKY 88 JFK-LAX - REPORT GATE B12 IMMEDIATELY - CAPTAIN A. HAYES_ LAX? That was a 6-hour transcontinental flight. She had never done that route. And Captain A. Hayes? She had heard the name. Lisa gasped when she saw it. "Mia! You got Hayes! Captain Alex Hayes!" "Is he bad?" Mia asked, scared. "Bad? Honey, he is the most wanted captain at Skyline! 32, ex-Air Force fighter pilot, handsome like a Greek god, never makes a hard landing, but..." Lisa lowered her voice. "He is cold. Like, ice cold. He doesn't talk to crew. He doesn't date. He got divorced two years ago from a model and since then, nothing. He is a flying robot. And he NEVER takes junior crew. He always requests senior. How did you get on his flight?" Mia had no idea. She grabbed her bag and ran to Gate B12. Gate B12 was chaos. Flight to Los Angeles, fully booked, 200 passengers, delayed by one hour because of a maintenance check. Angry passengers yelled at the gate agents. Mia rushed to the jet bridge where the crew was gathering. Three flight attendants, one purser, and two pilots. And there he was. Captain Alex Hayes. He was taller than she imagined from photos. At least 6'3. His uniform was perfect, no wrinkles, cap tucked under his arm. Dark brown hair, cut short like military, but a little longer on top. And his eyes... grey-blue, like the sky before a storm. Cold eyes. He was looking at an iPad with the flight plan, his jaw tight. His co-pilot, a friendly-looking guy named Jake, was chatting, but Alex didn't seem to listen. "Crew, listen up," the purser said. "We have a full flight, many angry connecting passengers, and turbulence expected over Rockies. Let's be fast and professional. Captain?" Alex looked up. His eyes swept over the crew, landed on Mia for one second, then moved on. "Weather is bad over Colorado. I will try to avoid. Cabin crew, expect choppy air for 45 minutes after departure. Be seated early. Any questions?" His voice was deep, calm, authoritative. The kind of voice that made passengers stop being scared. No one had questions. "Let's go," he said. Boarding was a nightmare. Mia was in economy, helping people stuff huge bags into overhead bins. A man yelled at her because his bag didn't fit. A baby screamed. A teenager spilled orange juice on her skirt. Mia kept smiling. Rule One: Never let them see you tired. Finally, doors closed. Mia strapped into her jump seat for takeoff. The engines roared. The plane raced down the runway. New York disappeared below. Mia looked out the small window from her jump seat. She loved this moment. The moment the wheels leave the ground. The moment she is closer to the sky. To her dream. What she didn't know was that in the cockpit, Captain Alex Hayes was also thinking about her. Because Mia Carter was not a stranger to him. Three months ago, before she even started flying, Alex was in the flight school library at Skyline Training Center. He was an instructor there part-time. He saw a girl in the back corner, wearing a second-hand flight attendant uniform, studying an advanced aerodynamics textbook that was way above her level. She had a notebook filled with hand-drawn airplanes and notes in tiny, careful handwriting. She fell asleep at the table, exhausted. Her textbook was open to a page about stall recovery. Alex had stood there for a long time watching her. He didn't wake her. He took off his own pilot jacket and gently placed it over her shoulders so she wouldn't be cold. He left a note: _Keep studying. You will be a great pilot one day._ When she woke up, he was gone. She never saw who left the jacket. But he saw her. And he remembered her name from her training badge: M. Carter, Trainee FA. Since then, he had quietly watched the new roster. Waiting to see when M. Carter would be assigned. And today, he saw his chance. He called scheduling and said, "I need one more junior FA for SKY 88. Anyone available?" They gave him Mia Carter. Fate, or so he would call it. But it was choice. Now, at 35,000 feet, Mia's voice came over the intercom for the first time on his flight. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mia from the cabin crew. We are now at cruising altitude..." Alex smiled. For the first time in two years, Captain Ice-Cold smiled in the cockpit. Jake, his co-pilot, saw it and almost dropped his coffee. "Whoa. Did you just smile, man? Who is that FA?" Alex's smile disappeared, back to ice. "No one. Focus on fuel numbers." But his hand reached into his flight bag and touched a small, worn piece of paper. It was the old library due-date card from that aerodynamics textbook. He had taken it that day. On the back, in her handwriting, it said: _Mia Carter - Future Captain - Never Give Up!_ He had kept it for three months. And now, she was on his plane. The flight to Los Angeles had just begun. So had something else neither of them expected. Mia thought she was just serving coffee on a long flight to LAX. Alex knew he was flying with the girl who had been in his head for three months. And somewhere over Kansas, as turbulence started to shake the plane, their story would really begin.