Return by Air (Glacier Adventure Series Book 1)

by Tracey Jerald

Even though I know Kara and I are the reason we got here.

  Kara

  We’re at a barbecue at Brad and Rainey’s. All of the adults minus Maris are lounging around the picnic table watching Kevin teach the younger kids how to play soccer. Just as Meadow’s daughter is about to take a tumble, he swoops her up.

  Jennings presses his chin against my shoulder, resting his cold drink against my thigh. “Every day,” he murmurs, telling me with those two words he just keeps falling for both me and Kevin. “It’s the little things like this, the everyday things.”

  I twist my head and shiver. His arms tighten, even as his focus remains on our son lining up the kids for drills. His dark hair is wind ruffled, begging me to sink my hands into it, eyes covered by aviator glasses. This—I lean back, letting him take my weight—is heavenly.

  Obviously, the gods don’t agree.

  A ripple under my bare foot causes me to snap to attention. My hand braces on the table, and my heart lurches in my chest as I shout, “Kevin!”

  “Mom? What’s happening?” He drops to the ground, pulling the others down to sit next to him.

  “Earthquake,” I call back. “It’s not unusual here. Just stay where you are. It will be…”

  But Jennings is halfway across the yard at a sprint. God, how many times is it possible to fall in love with one man? I wonder as we all wait for a second rumble.

  Long minutes pass before Brad calls, “All clear!”

  Jennings brings the kids over to the table, which has barely been disturbed. Kevin immediately announces, “I’ll take hurricane season over that,” which causes laughter all around.

  Jennings grins as he throws an arm around him. “They have them up here all year round,” he adds helpfully.

  “Alaska’s a definite no on my future places to live,” Kevin declares definitively.

  Thinking back to everything I gained from living here, I counter, “Never say never, sweetheart.”

  Jennings leans down and brushes a kiss on top of my head in response.

  “Hey, Kara, you used to be good at guessing the strength and epicenter. Want to give it a shot?” Brad teases.

  I groan, just as Maris comes outside frowning down at her phone. “You do realize it’s been sixteen years?”

  Kevin’s giving me a look like he just found out I’m a cyborg. “For fun?” he shouts. “No, it’s beautiful here and I love all of you, but you don’t have Zaxby’s and now this? Mom—”

  One of the benefits of parenthood is freaking out your child. Calmly, I say to Brad, “No more than a 2.0. If I had to guess range, about twelve miles away.”

  Brad whistles, holding out his phone. “Not bad, Malone.”

  “A 1.6, nine miles away.” My voice is only mildly petulant. “I’m out of practice.”

  Kevin yells, “Let’s not practice, Mom!”

  And we all break up laughing. Jennings grins at our son. “Kid, this isn’t anything. I bet Maris will tell us not a single thing crashed inside the house. Did it, Mar?”

  But Maris is looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Umm, Kara? Can I talk with you for a moment? Privately,” she tacks on just as Jennings is about to stand.

  My heart is so full, I don’t notice the warning on her face. “What is it, Mar? We’re all family here.”

  Her face twists. It’s then I notice the phone clenched in her hand. I wonder briefly if she got a message from Nick, when what she tells me is so much worse. “An updated email came in about your flight home. The airline is asking you to call them as soon as possible.” Her voice is riddled with pain.

  But it doesn’t equate to the devastation on Jennings’s face.

  “Home?” he chokes out. “But, what about…never mind.” Shoving to his feet, he strides away from our beautiful family to go God only knows where.

  I don’t follow him because I feel a trembling hand land on my shoulder before a sweaty body drops down behind me. “Mom?” Kevin’s voice is filled with the fear I haven’t heard in weeks.

  “Damn you,” I whisper aloud, but I don’t know who I’m cursing. Is it Maris with her piss-poor timing or Jennings?

  I shoot a glare at Maris, who merely shrugs. Internally cursing everything, especially wretched timing, I conclude Jennings has to find a way on his own to come to grips with the fact my love for him is strong enough to last across a continent. So is his son’s.

  He has to come to the conclusion I have—that love can be felt no matter where you are. All that matters are the people who love you, I think fiercely.

  Pressing my lips against Kevin’s sweaty head, I just hope he does it before it undoes a summer’s worth of bonding between father and son. As for me, I’ve already accepted nothing will change my feelings for Jennings in this lifetime. Not ever again.

  Hours later, Jennings comes to the house. I’m drinking wine in the solarium when I hear Maris let him in. I don’t call out, despite the increase of my heartbeat. It started raining not long after Jennings ran off, effectively ruining the rest of the afternoon for everyone, not just for me and Kevin.

  Because I knew Kevin ate so much at Brad and Rainey’s, I’m not overly concerned he said no to food when Maris asked if he was hungry, mumbling, “I think I just want to go online and game for a bit, if that’s okay, Mom?”

  I gave him a swift hug. “Your dad will be back soon,” I promised him. I prayed I wasn’t lying.

  Now, it seems I wasn’t.

  Jennings makes his way toward me. I hold up a hand to keep him at bay. “I don’t care where you went, but your son very much does.”

  “Kara,” he starts, but I shake my head, still not facing him.

  “I lived through his first heartbeats, fear, doubt, and worry every single day wondering if I was going to be enough for that child. We lived and we loved, but it’s different with you.”

  “I know that,” he chokes out.

  “Do you?” I whirl around. He’s drenched and his expression is haggard. Somehow I can’t find it in me to care, not when I’ve spent the last few hours worrying about both of the men in my life. “You’re his father, Jennings. I told you when this started he has to come first. Whatever’s going through your mind—”

  “Is my own insecurity about being left again,” he says quietly, shocking me to the core. “Kara, I never told you how I started Northern Star Flights.”

  “Why does this matter now?” I ask, frustrated. “How can this matter more than what happened today?”

  Ignoring me, he continues. “Because I sold my aunt and uncle’s farm to do it. I relished doing it. I wanted no memories of that place. After all”—my jaw falls open as he gives me this piece of himself he’s held back—“I was abandoned there by parents who didn’t want me and raised by two people who essentially treated me like I was free labor.”

  Even as angry as I am, my heart can’t hold itself apart from this knowledge. “Jennings, I knew you weren’t happy at home. But this?” I put my glass down and step forward with my hand outstretched. He grabs onto it like it’s everything. “Why didn’t you say anything?” I ask.

  “Because each time I’d see what you gave Kevin as a single mother with nothing, I wanted to kick my own ass over the fact you should have had everything.” A lone tear trickles down his cheek before he rasps out, “And I kept trying to figure out a way to give it all to you. Time and again, you kept showing me all you wanted was me. And now, you’re leaving.”

  I can’t keep myself back away from him any longer. I crash into him at the same time as he gathers me into his arms. Harsh sobs have his shoulders shaking under my hands. “I’ve got you,” I whisper.

  “Don’t let me go,” he pleads. “No matter what. I can’t bear if you let me go.”

  “I didn’t plan on it,” I whisper. “That’s not how love works, Jennings. We’re going to argue, but we will never let go.”

  He nods, unable to speak, while I hold him, flabbergasted. When he stormed out of Brad and Rainey’s, I expected to rip into him for letting us
down, and now this? I send up a prayer for help, but as usual, there’s no answer except the persistent drops of rain as the storm passes over the house.

  I pull back just enough so I can press a kiss to Jennings’s ravaged face. Resting my forehead against his lips, each breath links us together in a way distance will never separate. But even as I assimilate all I learned, I realize something else about tonight. Energy takes the form of gravity, motion, light, and so many others. But I don’t know why scholars don’t account for the most beautiful and harmful force in the world when they write about it.

  Love.

  Long moments later, Jennings presses his lips against my forehead before pulling away. “I’m sorry, Kara. I love you and I let you down. Can you forgive me for panicking?” His voice is wrecked due to his unshed tears.

  I nod, because it seems love will forgive anything. Including, it dawns on me, mistakes made sixteen years ago by a girl who was so wounded she did all she could to survive. “Love forgives many things, Jennings.”

  He sags in relief. I continue. “But it doesn’t change the fact we have to go.” Jennings jerks back, his eyes frightened. I rise up and press my lips against his. “I’m not leaving you,” I swear to him.

  “Kara—” he starts.

  But I interrupt. “I have to go because my entire life has revolved around giving that boy downstairs love. And that means giving him everything. I love you, but he represents us. And I love us more.”

  Jennings shudders in my arms as he pulls me close. “How much time do we have left?”

  I don’t want to answer, but I have to. “A little over three weeks.”

  There’s so much silence between us, I’m afraid he’s not going to say anything else. I should have known what he says is perfect. “Then, let’s go get our son and see if he wants Subway. When I drove by earlier, they were still open.”

  He tangles his fingers in mine. Together we make our way toward the kitchen. I swallow hard before yelling, “Kevin! Your father wants to know if you want Subway for dinner. If you do, get a move on.”

  Thunderous footsteps follow my announcement. The basement door is flung open and there’s Kevin, whose eyes are rimmed with red. “Dad?” His voice quavers.

  Jennings drops my hand and strides over to his son, yanking him tightly against him. “I’m sorry, son. I’m so, so sorry.”

  And if science were to allow me to live for eternity, my heart would still shatter every time I recall the memory of my son breaking down in his father’s arms upon realizing our leaving is going to devastate us all.

  Jennings

  “What do you think of Seattle? Do you think Kevin would like it?” I ask her.

  “Jennings, we have a life to get back to,” she reminds me. “We can’t pick up and move.”

  Yes, you can. We can do anything together. I want to say that, but she continues on before I get the chance. “Kevin starts school in two weeks; I have to be back a few days before that. Our flights were arranged for us to return…”

  “Stop talking,” I bite out harshly. “Doesn’t this, us, change anything? Don’t you want to want to hold on to what we found between the three of us?”

  “More than anything.” I want to roar my triumph aloud, but her next words stop me cold. “But I have responsibilities, enormous ones. And the biggest one has three years of school to finish before he goes off to college.” Her eyes well with tears. “Do you think it’s easy to walk away from the only man I’ve ever loved?”

  The gravity of what Kara’s saying slams into me. “I’m going to eliminate all the barriers between us to merge our lives,” I choke out. It’s a promise, a vow.

  One I intend on keeping.

  “It’s not going to be easy.” Her voice is ridiculously low, but with her body pressed up next to mine, there’s no way I can’t hear her words. They’re like tiny arrows piercing my heart. I don’t know of any way to reassure her yet until I’m back in Seattle taking the steps necessary to prove to her I’m serious.

  In the meanwhile, I pull her closer and murmur, “There’s only air between us, my love. And haven’t I proven I know how to navigate that?”

  Twining her arms and legs around me, Kara pulls me closer. I rest my weight down on her as she pleads, “Don’t leave. Come back to the house with me. Stay with us until we have to go. Maris said she doesn’t mind.” The desperation in her voice pulls at me.

  I slant my head and take her lips in a kiss so thorough Kara’s eyes are dilated when they flutter open afterward. “It’s a good thing you asked, because I was planning on doing just that.”

  Relief is chased away by love as she slides her hand into my hair to tug my lips back down to hers. “I wish none of us ever had to,” she admits, right before her tongue strokes out to brush against my lower lip. And for a good long while, neither of us are thinking about leaving or our impending goodbye.

  Much later, when Kara’s sated next to me, I replay our conversation over and over along with a million others I’ve had in my head. I’ve spent the last week arguing about this only to come up against a brick wall. Kara’s not moving; she won’t even entertain the idea. She made a commitment to Kevin when he entered high school she wouldn’t move, “unlike all those kids who get yanked around. God it would suck to have to make friends again,” Kevin admitted as we munched on cheeseburgers the other night.

  Kara didn’t say “I told you so,” but her look sure did. And that commitment to our son is one of the things I love most about her.

  But with each second I feel the beat of Kara’s heart knock against mine, I realize I wasted too many years blaming a past I couldn’t control, leaving behind everything that could matter except for my friends, who knew better than to dig where their interference wouldn’t be appreciated.

  All except Jed.

  He knew I was missing the something I’d waited my whole damn life for—a love so consuming I searched the land and the sky for it. And it wasn’t until I came back to where they seemed to meet each other in one incredibly perfect land did I find both.

  Now that I have it, I have to figure out a way to make the adjustments necessary to keep us all level. As the early-morning sun lightens my room, ideas are floating through my head. And as her warm body stirs next to mine, I hope I can make them work without losing a damn thing.

  Least of all, the woman curled at my side.

  The next week passes in a blur. I spend every moment with Kara and Kevin, storing up memory on top of memory for the time when we’re going to be apart. Even if I intend on it only being temporary.

  “Dad, you promise you’re going to be able to make it out for Labor Day?” Kevin asks anxiously as he folds clothes and shoves them haphazardly into his suitcase. “Maybe we can go to the beach one of the days I’m off of school?”

  Placing my hand on the center of my universe that a few months ago I didn’t know existed, I assure him, “I’ll be there, son.”

  The relief that crosses his face is quickly overcome by laughter. “Good. I don’t know how you and Mom are going to manage to go that long without locking lips,” he teases.

  I wince as heartache again tears through me. “Sit down with me, Kevin.” I gesture to the open space on the bed. “I want to talk with you about something important.”

  Anxiously, he drops down on the bed. Curling a leg up, I do the same. “Things are going to be difficult for your mother when she gets back home.”

  “If you mean with chores and stuff—” I hold up my hand to interrupt him.

  “I mean because the last time she left Alaska, she was pregnant with you and, other than your Uncle Dean, no one was there for her. This time, the situation between us is different. My heart, my soul, are completely hers, just like they’re yours. But you know her; she’s going to overanalyze things that are completely unnecessary when there’s nothing for her to be worried about.”

  Kevin bites his lip. “I do that too,” he admits.

  “I know. And I’m going to tell you b
oth the same thing: no matter what time day or night, pick up the phone and call me,” I tell my son firmly. “Don’t let worries fester. This, us, is so much more than we can navigate on our own. Together we can weather any storms, and I promise you, Kevin—” I grab his hand and squeeze it hard. I’m grateful when he returns the pressure just as tightly. “—I’m not going to let either of you down.”

  “Okay,” he says shakily. Then he throws his body across the space between us and wraps his arms around me.

  We’re holding on to each other when Kara’s voice washes over us both. “Come on, guys. I made dinner.”

  “I’m not feeling very hungry, Mom,” Kevin admits from the shelter of my arms.

  Neither am I, but I don’t say it aloud. I know Kara’s doing what she has to not only in order to nurture us both now, but to prepare Kevin for what’s to come next week.

  Her scent envelops me as she sits on the bed pressed to Kevin. But I feel one of her hands grope for mine when she reminds our son, “It isn’t forever, sweetheart.”

  “Sure feels like it,” he grumbles, shoving himself to his feet away from both of us.

  Kara’s face is awash with hurt as Kevin stomps into the bathroom to wash up. “I made him a promise,” she whispers. Torment is stamped on every feature and in every line of her body.

  I lift her free hand to my lips. “I know. You’ll drive yourself crazy if you don’t think I understand that.”

  “Then why does it hurt so much?” Her face contorts with the aching pain that she’s not the only one feeling.

  “Maybe because last time you were scared.” Leaning close, I brush my lips against hers softly. “This time, you’re carrying both of our hearts with you. It’s not your burden, but you’re also taking all my air with you. I’m not going to be able to breathe the same way until we’re back together.”

  “Jesus, Jennings. Make it harder, why don’t you?” Her head nestles in the crook of my shoulder.

  “If I could figure out a way to make this not happen, I’d make it impossible.”