My Substitute Wife Is Not on the Return Manifest novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Grounded

Nobody in the lobby moved.

Dane looked at the faces around him and then, deliberately, at Signe.

She gave him the smallest nod.

"She's right," he said to the room. "I can't hear well. I haven't been able to for five years."

A ripple went through the crowd and settled.

"I failed my screening as a lieutenant and kept it quiet. Brooke's father found out and covered for me, and he took my slot on a medevac while I sat grounded. That's why he was in that seat." He took a breath. "If anyone has to answer for it, it's me."

"Dane," the captain said. "My office. Now."

Brooke did not wait to be dismissed.

She walked out through the middle of the crowd with her chin high, and the people closest to her stepped aside.

At the door she turned her head and said clearly, "I'll still be here, you know."

Then she was gone.

The captain's door closed behind Dane for nearly an hour.

When it opened again he came out without the gold wings on his chest.

He walked past the crowd and past Signe and straight out the hangar door into the rain.

She followed him.

He was standing on the flight line beside the big orange helicopter, with one hand flat against its side.

The rain ran off his dress blues and soaked his collar.

"They grounded me," he said, without turning. "Pending the board. After that I don't know."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was coming." He pressed his palm against the metal. "It's only that I thought I'd get to choose the last flight."

She came and stood beside him.

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