Love’s Landing Zone – Chapter 2
Ruby had survived the salmon-slick chaos of Driftwood Cabin’s welcome party, dodged a drone crash, and fended off Beau’s livestream ambush with only minimal trauma. She’d even somewhat filleted fish without launching any internal organs across the yard.
But now she stood on the helipad, helmet in hand, trying very hard not to hyperventilate.
Audit Day One.
Hope-Three’s first field eval by the Alaska Department of Health & EMS. As in the ADHEMS.
As in, the people who could revoke their $2 million grant. She adjusted her mic and inhaled.
“You okay?” Tommy’s voice crackled through their channel, low and soft in her headset. “Your forehead’s doing that little twitchy thing it does when you’re about to throw a clipboard.”
Ruby sighed. “That’s my ‘trying not to puke on government officials’ look.”
Tommy chuckled from the cockpit where he was pre-flighting their bird. “Well, you look radiant.”
“In my flight suit?”
“In anything.” He coughed like the words had snuck out.
She blinked, heat rising up her neck. “Smooth, LaRoche.”
“Working on it.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
Across the pad, the ADHEMS observer—Marisol Vega—stood with a clipboard and the expression of someone who’d rather be auditing a root canal. She hadn’t cracked a single smile since arrival.
Ruby tried to focus on the task. The drill was simple. Confined-area landing, load a mock patient, execute lift-off with minimal rotor wash disturbance. Clean, controlled, by the numbers.
What could possibly go wrong?
“Engines good. Nav green. Cabin prepped,” Tommy reported. “Ready for liftoff on your word.”
Ruby gave the hand signal, her heart thudding.
Tommy lifted off smooth as ever, the rotor wash billowing across the gravel. He brought the helicopter down into the designated circle within inches of the perimeter flags. A textbook landing.
Until Ruby gave the “cut power” signal with a quick X of her wand and Tommy didn’t react.
She signaled again. Still nothing.
Instead of powering down, Tommy began a slow hover maneuver as if she were waving him into reposition.
Marisol scribbled something. Ruby’s stomach dropped.
“Tommy, cut power,” she barked into comms. “That was a stop signal.”
“What? Sorry. I thought that was a reposition cue. The wand flash—”
“Laser wand was static. No flash. Repeating: cut power.”
A beat. The whine of the rotors slowed, the bird touching down with a last sigh of hydraulics.
Ruby exhaled through her nose and stepped back from the skids.
Tommy climbed out, helmet under one arm, eyes sheepish. “I didn’t see the X. I—uh—thought you were doing the loop.”
Ruby lifted a brow. “Do I look like I’m in a figure skating routine?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. “You look like you might throw a rotor blade at me.”
“Only if you keep calling my forehead twitch ‘radiant.’”
Marisol approached, all clipboard and clinical judgment. “Noted one minor signal miscommunication during confined-area approach. Otherwise, acceptable performance.”
Tommy nodded. Ruby resisted the urge to apologize for something she hadn’t done.
Instead, she switched gears. “Would you like a tour of the cabin comms array, Ms. Vega?”
Marisol gave her a polite but pointed look. “After I debrief the pilot.”
Ruby turned away, biting back frustration. She caught Tommy’s eye. He gave her a small shrug and a half-smile.
Somehow, they made it through the rest of Day One with no further hiccups—clean lift-offs, crisp comms, perfect landings. By the time the last audit drill of the day wrapped, Ruby was restless to the point of anxiety.
When the final “acceptable performance” left Marisol Vega’s lips in the monotone that always sounded a beat away from disappointment, Ruby ran to punch the clock.
She had never been so relieved to peel out of a flight suit and retreat to the fish camp.
After dinner, after dishes, after Aunt Sylvie’s formidable “You will not help with cleanup; you will go rest that brilliant brain of yours” decree, Ruby slipped out to the porch. The sky was shifting into its late-summer blush.
Stars were beginning to stitch themselves into the not-quite-dark sky. The air smelled of woodsmoke, spruce, and the river beyond.
She sank into the porch swing with a sigh that came from somewhere behind her sternum.
“Mind some company?”
Tommy’s voice was soft, careful, as if he wasn’t sure she wanted company at all.
She looked up. He stood in the open doorway, backlit by the cheerful kitchen light, holding two mugs. There was something about the way he hovered, like a question half-asked, that made her unclench.
“Sure, why not.” She moved over to make room.
“That’s the spirit.“ The door creaked shut behind him.
Ruby huffed a small laugh.
He handed her a mug with a flourish. “Fireweed tea. Aunt Sylvie’s special blend. Guaranteed to rewire your nervous system and restore your faith in humanity.”
Ruby took a sip. The tea hit her tongue like wildflower honey and then lit her throat on fire. She coughed. “Pretty sure there’s more fire than fireweed in this.”
“Fireweed makes excellent moonshine,” Tommy deadpanned, slipping onto the porch swing beside her.
Despite herself, Ruby giggled. “You’re both dangerous and suspiciously prepared.”
He tilted his mug in a mock-toast. “It’s a gift.”
They sat together, the porch swing creaking beneath their weight, swaying in sync.
Ruby wrapped both hands tighter around her mug, the ceramic warm against her fingers, anchoring her. The fireweed tea had mellowed, its initial burn softening into something floral and calming.
She could feel the heat of Tommy beside her, not touching but close enough that her shoulder tingled from the nearness. His arm brushed hers as he shifted, and the accidental contact made her breath catch.
A soft thump interrupted the quiet. A raven, probably Greg, landed with imperious nonchalance on the porch railing. He cocked his head at them, beak gleaming in the moonlight, then gave a gravelly croak that sounded judgmental.
Ruby snorted. “Even Greg’s auditing me tonight.”
Tommy glanced over at the bird. “He’s probably wondering why you haven’t thrown your clipboard yet.”
She gave him a sideways look. “Tempting. You were almost in range earlier.”
He chuckled, low and warm, and Ruby smiled.
Greg gave another rasping caw, fluffed his wings, and took off into the dark, vanishing into the tree line.
Ruby’s thoughts drifted, loose and unmoored in the quiet. Audit Day One was done. The drills were behind them. No one had crashed or combusted. And yet, a part of her was still braced for impact, caught somewhere between relief and residual tension.
She let her gaze slide back to Tommy. The porch light carved soft shadows across his face, highlighting the line of his jaw, the pensive set to his mouth when he thought she wasn’t looking.
He was staring out into the night, but his fingers still tapped against his mug—like his body hadn’t gotten the memo they were off duty.
“I meant it, you know,” he said, voice low. “You looked radiant today.”
Ruby blinked, pulse picking up. Her grip tightened on her mug. “Even with the forehead twitch?”
“Especially with the forehead twitch.” He turned to meet her eyes, and for a heartbeat, the swing stopped moving and everything else receded. The audit drills, grant fears, and clipboard-wielding bureaucrats floated away.
It was just them.
Ruby looked away first. Not because she wanted to, but because it was too dangerous not to.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said half-heartedly, but there was no heat behind it.
Tommy leaned back, exhaling and stretching. “So, Audit Day One. We didn’t spontaneously combust. That’s a win, right?”
“I dunno. I almost waved my partner into a tree. That’s less a ‘win’ and more ‘headline in a safety memo.’”
“I landed. No trees were maimed. And you didn’t throw up on the evaluator.”
Ruby groaned. “She wrote it down, Tommy. Like I singlehandedly invented the concept of pilot miscommunication.”
“Marisol Vega writes everything down. Zach once offered her a refill on coffee, and she logged it as a ‘potential caffeine-based bribery.’ She probably journals her thoughts in triplicate.”
That coaxed a laugh out of Ruby. The knot in her chest loosened a little more, like a rope finally giving under strain.
“I can handle her.” The words were more effort than she wanted to admit. “I just didn’t think I’d feel so… twitchy about it. Like my brain was trying to do everything at once, and I forgot how to breathe.”
“You always get twitchy before something big,” he whispered. “Then you crush it.”
She turned her head, studying him in the soft porch light.
“Can you really tell when I’m nervous?”
Tommy’s ears turned pink, and he nodded once. “Yeah. You get this crease right here—” He lifted his hand, hesitated, then reached out and traced a gentle finger just above her left brow. “And your shoulders go all tactical.”
Ruby was very aware of the warmth of his fingertip, the way his touch was light but unmistakable, and that her lungs were stingy with the oxygen.
“Tactical?” she echoed, trying for lightness and coming out breathy instead.
“Like you’re about to coordinate a six-agency mountain extraction. Or stage a coup.”
She snorted. “Only if Beau’s the first casualty.”
Tommy grinned, but his hand didn’t drop right away. Instead, he let it trail back, the moment stretching between them like taffy—sweet, fragile, and perilously close to something else. He cleared his throat and dropped his hand to his lap, tapping his fingertips against the curve of his mug.
Ruby took another sip of her tea, more for something to do than any genuine desire to taste the fireweed again. Her insides were already smoldering.
“You really think I crushed it today?” she asked after a beat.
He turned to face her more fully, expression earnest now. “I think you’re the calm in the cabin when everything goes to hell. You’re smart, steady, and so good at what you do it scares people. Including, maybe, you.”
Ruby swallowed, the words hitting somewhere deep and unguarded. “You’re not wrong,” she murmured. “About the scared part.”
“Doesn’t make you weak.” His voice was softer now. “Makes you human.”
She met his eyes again, drawn to the quiet truth in them. No teasing, no charm for show—just Tommy, steady and a little unsure, but real.
“Why do you always know what to say?” she whispered.
“I don’t.” His smile was crooked and honest. “I just say what I wish someone had said to me.”
That did something to her chest. Like her heart had to rearrange itself to make room for this version of him. The one who saw her without judgment, who carried his own quiet fears like hers but didn’t let them win.
For a long moment, they just looked at each other. The porch swing creaked beneath them, the stars spread wider overhead, and the sounds of the cabin behind them faded to a quiet hum.
Ruby reached out and touched his hand, and he turned his palm to meet hers. His fingers curled around hers as if it were instinctive.
“You’re not too bad at this comfort thing, LaRoche,” she murmured.
He gave a small, lopsided shrug. “Don’t tell Greg. He thrives on my emotional repression.”
She laughed, and he squeezed her hand once.
They sat there until the tea cooled and the last edge of daylight slipped below the trees. And in that quiet space between audits and chaos, between porch swings and maybe-somethings, Ruby let herself stay.
Not running. Not overthinking.
Just here.
With him.
And it was more than enough.
You have been reading Love's Landing Zone...
Tommy LaRoche was the best pilot Ruby had ever flown with. He was also hiding something that could get them both killed.
As a flight medic, Ruby Olsen’s career depends on control, but she’s losing it fast around her partner—a six-foot-two river cowboy with a quiet confidence that unravels her.
Living at his family’s fish camp, she finds herself drawn into his world. He sees past the competent medic to the woman underneath, and his steady support becomes the one thing she can’t live without. But the closer they get, the more she fears his carefully guarded secret is a danger to them both.
With a high-stakes government evaluation threatening to ground their program for good, Ruby must convince the man she’s falling for to trust her with his career—and his heart—before they lose their jobs, their grant, and a love that’s just beginning to take flight.
