pulled his leather gloves off and slapped them against his thigh. “Great day for it!”
“That’s what I thought,” Bryan said with a grin, tugging a reluctant Rachel nearer the balloon.
Her eyes were riveted to the narrow wicker basket even as the introductions were made. The name of Bryan’s bearded friend and the rest of the balloon crew went in one ear and out the other. She’d never been afraid of heights, she reflected, but then, she’d never been asked to go up in a balloon. She could feel her face going pale as Bryan nudged her closer.
“You’ll love it, sweetheart,” he promised as he lifted her into the gondola.
It didn’t seem as necessary to express her skepticism on that point as on the next. “Do you really know how to fly this thing?”
“No,” he admitted with a mischievous grin. He pulled on the gloves his friend handed him and swung himself gracefully into the craft. “But I’m pretty sure I can make it land. I managed to do it once near Berlin, and there were people shooting at me then, so this should be a piece of cake.”
Rachel stared at him in horror.
His friend took pity on her. “Don’t worry, Rachel, he knows more than he’s letting on. Besides, you’ll be tethered to the ground the whole time. Bryan just wanted a place where the two of you could have a nice, private picnic. Pretty romantic, huh?”
Rachel gave him a blank look, but it was too late to ask questions. Picnic? Who could think about food at a time like this, she wondered as the ground crew moved away from the gondola and the balloon above them tugged the basket up a few feet off the ground. She dug her fingernails into the dry brown wicker and watched in horrified fascination as Bryan attended the burner. Flame roared up into the fabric bag. He shot her a wink as they lifted into the air, but mainly he kept his eyes trained on the instrument panel that hung from the framework just below the burner.
He did indeed appear to know what he was doing, which left Rachel free to experience her first ascent in a montgolfier. The sensation was not unlike going up in an elevator-a wobbly elevator that swayed slightly with their movements, an elevator that had no safe, solid building around it. She braved a peek over the edge, and her stomach fluttered the same way it had on her first roller coaster ride. The crew stood on the ground below, waving happily at her, growing smaller and smaller as the balloon lifted higher and higher. Then the tether lines pulled tight, halting their flight.
“Well, what do you think?” Bryan asked.
She dragged in a deep breath, ready to tell him exactly what she thought of this irresponsible escapade of his, but the words caught in her throat as she took in the view around them. It was spectacular. She could see for miles in every direction. Golden hills, soft green pastures, dark patterns of forest. Northern California in all its rumpled wild charm lay beneath them. In the distance she could see another brightly striped balloon floating free above the countryside. To the west the ocean stretched across the horizon, a ribbon of misty blue between the coast and the fog bank. And the beauty was not only in the landscape, but in the silence-it was exquisite and absolute.
The sudden sense of peace was so startling, it brought tears to Rachel’s eyes. For days now she had been feeling worn out and beaten down. Her focus had narrowed to a kind of tunnel vision that allowed her to see only what was wrong with her life. She had been ignoring all this wondrous beauty, had shut it out of her life. And Bryan had given it back to her.
She turned to him now with a tremulous smile and said, “I think I love you.”
His wise, warm blue eyes sparkled, and he slid his arms around her and kissed her.
They stayed aloft admiring the view while enjoying a leisurely picnic lunch of fresh croissants, cheeses, grapes, and an excellent bottle of California white wine. They talked about everything they could think of that had nothing to do with Addie or Drake House or money. They stood and enjoyed the silence and the simple pleasure of being alone together. It was a wonderful treat. A perfect way to spend part of a perfect afternoon.
Sadly, Rachel knew they would have to come down to earth, both literally and figuratively. But she held the memory of their golden afternoon in her heart as they drove home. Maybe there was some merit in the occasional burst of reckless frivolity. She felt refreshed, rejuvenated. If that wasn’t magic, she didn’t know what was. Somewhere up in the sky she had left behind her guilt over abandoning Addie and their troubles for a few hours, and she didn’t miss it a bit. Now she felt ready to go back and face her financial troubles, ready to try again with Addie. And she had the man beside her to thank for it.
The real jolt to earth came as they turned up the coast road at the edge of Anastasia and headed north, toward Drake House. On the opposite side of the road a police car and a tow truck sat with their lights flashing. Officers and other assorted folk milled around. Traffic had slowed to a crawl, allowing all passersby a clear view of the trouble.
A rusty powder-blue Volvo station wagon had taken out a roadside vendor’s cart, then mushed its nose into a stone retaining wall. There were flowers everywhere-on the road, draped across the car’s hood and roof, crushed beneath the wheels of the police car. There were roses and daisies and carnations and tiger lilies, flowers of every color. It looked almost as if someone had strewn them about to make the scene of the accident look less tragic. The vendor’s cart had been reduced to a pathetic pile of toothpicks, and the vendor, a huge woman in a Hawaiian muumuu and a tennis visor, stood beside it looking stunned.
Rachel’s eyes widened in horror as realization dawned. “Oh, my-oh, my-That’s Mother’s car!”
Bryan was already steering the Chevette to the shoulder. They abandoned the car and made their way across the road, grim and silent.
“No more gawkers!” Deputy Skreawupp commanded in his gruff monotone. He scowled at them, his jowls drooping like a truculent bulldog’s. He pointed an index finger at Bryan as if it were a loaded gun. “This is police business, bub. Now, get out of here, or I’ll flatten you like pie crust, and I can do it.”
“That’s my mother’s car!” Rachel said, pushing her way past the deputy’s pot belly.
“Humph! Batty Addie’s gone and done it this time,” he said, flipping back a page in his pocket notebook. “Driving without a license, expired tags, reckless endangerment, destruction of property-”
Rachel wasn’t listening to the litany of charges. Her heart was hammering in her ears as she stumbled to the open driver’s door of the Volvo, where Addie sat with her legs out, her garden boots planted on the gravel. She was as white as the waxy day lily that was stuck under the windshield wiper. “Mother! Mother, are you all right?”
Addie looked, her eyes wide. She was still stunned from the accident, and the confusion of its aftermath had short-circuited her brain. She stared at the young woman crouching down in front of her and tried to concentrate on the girl’s face. She was someone Addie was certain she should recognize.
“Rachel?” she murmured uncertainly. Fear shivered through her. She’d never felt so old or so frail… or frightened.
“Mother, what happened?” Rachel asked gently. She took one of Addie’s thin, cold hands between hers and held it, both to comfort her mother and to reassure herself.
“I’m… not… sure,” Addie said slowly, tilting her head this way and that, as if the movement might jar loose a memory.
“I am,” Roberta said.
Bryan’s aunt was still strapped into the passenger’s seat. Her hair stood up around her head like an abused Brillo pad. “She can’t drive worth a damn, can she? It’s a good thing we remembered our seat belts. My gosh.”
It was a good thing they had remembered their seat belts, Rachel reflected, shaking her head. Too bad neither of them had remembered Addie wasn’t supposed to get behind the wheel.
Deputies came then to take the two ladies’ statements and Rachel wandered away from the wrecked car. Hugging herself, she stood beside the retaining wall and stared out at Anastasia, nestled below, picture-postcard perfect with its Victorian buildings and boat-filled bay.
“Nobody was hurt,” Bryan said, coming up behind her. He refrained from mentioning that the flower vendor was threatening to sue. He would speak with Alaina about that. Rachel looked rattled enough as it was. “I’m afraid Aunt Roberta misunderstood me when I told her Addie couldn’t drive. She thought I meant the car was broken, so, when she looked under the hood and saw that the only thing wrong was that the coil wire wasn’t hooked up to the distributor cap, she just fixed it,” he explained apologetically. “She learned to be a mechanic in the army. She was a WAC.”
“Wacky,” Rachel muttered darkly.
“That too.”
She wheeled on him suddenly, jabbing an index finger to his sternum. “I never should have let you talk me into
