Free Wings by Danielle Steel

blowing in the wind, his eyes were the same color as the summer sky, and there were lines around his eyes from where he squinted into the sunlight.
    “I said… thank you!…” She shouted back at him, her eyes so filled with joy that it touched his heart. He squeezed her shoulder gently, and she turned forward again, and put her hands on the controls. But there was no question this time as to who was flying the plane. Nick was.
    He pushed the throttle forward evenly, and used the rudder pedals. And a moment later, they lifted smoothly off the runway and rose easily into the air, and as they did, Cassie felt her heart soar with the old Jenny. She felt the same thrill she always did when she left the ground. She was flying!
    He started a gentle turn to move away from the small airstrip, and then rolled the wings to level off, and touched Cassie on the shoulder. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and he pointed at her, indicating to her to take the controls now. She nodded, and as though by instinct, Cassie took over. She knew what she needed to do, and they flew easily through the bright blue sky, as though she had been flying all her life. And in some ways she had. He was amazed at her skill, and her natural instincts. She had picked up a lot of his own and her father's tricks, just by watching them, and she seemed to have a style of her own, which was surprisingly smooth and easy. She seemed totally at ease at the controls of the small plane, and Nick decided to see how much she could do on their first lesson.
    He had her do turns and banks in different directions, first moving left and then right; he was going to tell her to keep the nose up, to maintain altitude, but she seemed to know automatically that the plane would fall during turns, and she kept the nose up without his telling her anything. Her natural sense for the plane was uncanny. She kept back pressure on the stick with a steady hand, and the nose stayed up in response to her movements.
    He had her do S turns then, using a small dirt road as a guide, and he noticed as she did them, that she controlled her altitude easily. She seldom seemed to look at the instruments yet she knew when she needed to compensate, or rise higher in the sky. She seemed to fly primarily by feel and sight, which was a sure sign of a natural pilot. It was rare to see one like her, and he knew he had seen damn few in his lifetime.
    He had her fly circles for a while, around a silo they spotted on a distant farm, and she complained at how boring it was, but he had wanted to check her precision. She was careful and precise, and astonishingly accurate, particularly for someone who had scarcely flown. And then finally, he let her try a loop, and the double loop she had wanted to terrify her brother with. But after that, he taught her how to recover from a stall, which was far more important. But she seemed to know that by instinct too. Her total calm going into the stall impressed him, as the Jenny began to fall nose down with alternate wings dipping. But within seconds, she released the pressure on the stick that had created the stall in the first place and in a totally fearless move, she allowed the dive to increase their airspeed. He had explained how to do it at first, but she seemed to have no trouble at all figuring it out, and no lack of courage in following the procedure. Most young pilots were terrified at the drop and the sudden zero gravity. Cassie was awed by none of it, as the Jenny plummeted briefly, and when the jenny had gained just enough speed, she pushed the throttle, gave it power, and leveled out like a baby eagle, soaring gently back to where she wanted to be, without a murmur.
    Nick had never been so impressed by anything he'd seen. And he made her do it again, to see if she could maintain the same cool hands and cool head, and quick reactions, or if it had just been beginner's luck. But the second stall and recovery were even smoother than the first, and she