“You’re that far along in the process?”
“Don’t want to let this one get away. Not often we’d get someone with these kinds of skills. Damned impressive.”
“Hmm.” She stretched the note of speculation before asking, “So you’ve checked his credentials? Verified his resume?”
A faint creak reached her over the phone line, as if the sheriff had shifted in his old-fashioned wooden desk chair.
“Can’t say we’ve done that yet. ’Course we’re not as formal as some places. We can go with our gut reaction, and my gut says this fella’s the real McCoy.”
“Of course, Sheriff Johnson. Although, with this person training volunteers, I’m sure your department would want to be certain you weren’t dealing with anyone who had something to hide.”
“S’pose not.”
“So, should I tell my editor we’re likely to have that news release in time for tomorrow’s deadline, Sheriff?”
“Better hold off, Kendra. Let me do some checking.”
“Of course, Sheriff.”
Kendra hung up, trying to ignore the roiling in her stomach. She’d had no choice. For Matthew’s sake. For hers. Maybe even for Daniel’s. Now she had to do something much, much harder.
*
“Daniel?”
He turned from the map-strewn desk set into the window alcove with no attempt to hide his surprise.
The white-haired man who’d introduced himself as Rufus Trent had told her Daniel was in his room, and to go on up. Her heart beat much harder than the climb up the stairs could explain. Some of it was dread. Some if it was simply seeing Daniel.
“Kendra.” A frown chased the surprise. “Is everything okay? Matthew–”
“He’s fine. It’s–we need to talk.”
“Okay.” He surveyed the room. Besides the desk and chair, there was a double bed with the head pushed against an end wall, a wardrobe, dresser and two bookcases under the slope of the roof.
He gestured for her to sit on the end of the quilt-covered bed. When she hesitated, he gave her a knowing look, picked up the desk chair, set it squarely facing her and sat. His patient silence gave her the floor.
“Yesterday . . . Well, it caught me by surprise.”
“What did, Kendra?”
“All of it,” she said a little impatiently. “What I was feeling, what happened–no, maybe not what happened.” She’d sworn to herself she would be totally honest. “But certainly the news about that search and rescue job. And I didn’t say some things I need to say. Some things I’ve thought through.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s like what you said when I said the storm drugged me–that drugs were one way to get people to reveal a truth that came out no other way.” She glanced up and he nodded. “You’re right. I wouldn’t have expressed my feelings without that storm. But you do it, too. You use the danger. That’s your drug.”
“That’s–”
“Just like a drug, Daniel.” She spoke over him, not letting him deny it. “It brings out the truth for you. Because that’s the only time you feel you’ve earned the right to have survived.”
He bent forward, his hands dropped between his knees, forearms resting across his thighs. He’d sat this way that first day he’d been in her house. Then he’d been watching Matthew with great intensity. Now his eyes seemed to be trained on his own hands. He didn’t lift his head when he spoke.
“Remember what you told me your professor said about what you would want to be doing on the last day of your life?”
“Yes.”
“Well, this is it for me, Kendra. Flying and helping people. That’s what I want to do.”
“It’s more important to you to save strangers–”
He raised his head, and she couldn’t finish.
“You’re who I want to spend all my days with–you and Matthew. But this is what I need to do. It’s not a means to an end. It’s who I am. I’m not saying you’re wrong about why that is. I don’t know. And I’m not saying it might not change. Some of it already has. It used to be I only knew about raising hell. Flying changed that. Then Taumaturgio changed me more.”
He took her hand, opening the clenched fingers and stroking it. “I love you, Kendra.” Her heart jolted at the words. “I think you love me. And part of me is the need to do this.”
“I know.” A strange feeling washed over her. A mixture of sadness, empathy, perhaps even a little shame. But it did not erode her determination. “That’s why you’ll be leaving here soon.”
His hands stilled. “What have you done, Kendra?”
“I asked pointed questions about the new search and rescue trainer’s credentials. They’ll check, and they’ll hit the same deadends my sources did. They’ll wonder what you’re hiding.”
“So you think you’ve killed my chance at this job.”
“Yes, I do.”
“And my chance of helping people.”
“Yes.”
“I won’t give up.”
“I know that.” Her voice trembled. She took in a steadying breath. “But you’ll take your risks somewhere else. Matthew won’t have to watch you. I won’t have to watch you.”
“I’m not a daredevil, Kendra. My defiance has been of regulations and red-tape, not of the laws of nature. I have a healthy respect for nature, and for the limits of machinery and man. I don’t push myself or my equipment beyond them.”
“I wish I could believe that. Or that believing would be enough.”
“Do you fear for Matthew?”
“Of course I do. But I didn’t have a choice whether to love Matthew or not. With you I have a choice.”
“Do you, Kendra? I didn’t. I had no choice at all. Not from those first hours during Aretha, when you were so damned determined to be brave. When you feared for someone else’s life and fought so hard to ease his pain. I had no choice at all about loving you.”
He leaned forward until his knees enclosed hers and took her face between his hands. She gave no resistance as he drew her forward so their mouths met. The kiss was soft and sad. With no warning, it shifted to hard and hungry.
It ended only when they parted enough to gulp in air.
“Dammit,
