Flight to Love

by Curry, Edna

  Picking her up, he carried her upstairs to her bedroom. Her perfume surrounded them as he set her on her feet beside the bed, his lips claiming hers hungrily. He pulled back the pink spread and comforter to reveal snow white sheets, then turned back to finish undressing her.

  He kissed each firm bud as he uncovered it, making her squirm in pleasure as he slipped her sweater over her head.

  Lisa’s hands returned the compliment, impatiently unbuttoning his shirt and sliding her fingers eagerly along the firm muscles of his chest. The zipper on his jeans went down next. Then she had only to slide off his blue bikini shorts to reveal how ready he was. She smiled in satisfaction at the sight.

  He grinned back and again covered her mouth with hungry kisses. She slid her hand down to touch his readiness. With a groan, he slid off her silk panties, so that at last they were naked. Their clothes lay together on the soft blue carpet in a tangled pile.

  They moved to the bed, their arms and legs tangling in happy reunion. They teased and tasted until nothing would satisfy but total union. The age old rhythm took over, almost without orders from their minds, until both soared to sweet satisfaction.

  Exhausted and satisfied, they lay back against the soft pillows, damp and rumpled, but happy, bodies still entwined.

  Despite earlier embarrassment, their nakedness seemed right and natural. The strain between them had disappeared.

  Lisa pulled up the pink floral comforter, and happily closed her eyes. The lack of sleep the night before and her day of strenuous activity quickly overcame her now relaxed body. In a minute she was asleep.

  Trace smiled at the sight of her closed eyes and curled himself around her. Before long, he too, was asleep.

  ***

  Hours later, he awoke to the sound of screams. He sat up in alarm. Lisa was thrashing about beside him, eyes staring straight ahead and her mouth wide.

  “Lisa, wake up! Wake up!” He caught her thrashing arms and held her tightly against him.

  She quieted and stared at him, recognition of him now showing in her dark eyes. “Oh! Oh! Trace,” she said her voice hoarse.

  “It’s okay. I’m here, Lisa. Were you having a nightmare?”

  She drew a deep breath. “Yes. Yes, I guess it was only a dream. I’m sorry to wake you.” She slid back down under the covers, still shivering.

  Trace slipped down under the covers beside her and cuddled her close. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine, Trace. Really. I just want to go back to sleep.” Closing her eyes, she lay quietly in his arms, until her breathing slowed and she was again asleep.

  Trace, on the other hand, lay awake watching her. Something was definitely troubling her, but if she didn’t want to tell him about it, he couldn’t make her. Did it have anything to do with the secrets she was keeping from him? God, she was beautiful, even asleep. She looked so vulnerable this way, he wanted to protect her and take care of her. Her skin was so soft and white, such a contrast with her curly dark hair that was now strewn across the pillow. He didn’t dare wake her now but he could feel himself growing hard again, just looking at her lying beside him.

  A tender smile lit his face, as he watched her sleep. He ran a fingertip around a dark stray curl where it lay on the embroidered pillowcase beside him. The soft glow of the lamp she’d left on sent shadows across the room. Her signature perfume hung in the air.

  He’d better get home. Reluctantly he sat up.

  Then he frowned, really noticing the room for the first time. When he’d brought her here, he had been too aroused and wrapped up in Lisa to pay attention to his surroundings.

  Now he noticed that her bedroom looked like a showroom display. He ran a hand over the headboard he was leaning against. Expensive Ethan Allan. Solid cherry wood or he missed his guess, a matching dresser and chest of drawers. Also the intricately carved matching cedar chest.

  She’d had new carpets installed, and the expensive drapes matched the unusual shade of pink in the handmade comforter under his hand.

  What the hell?

  She was obviously spending money faster than his ex ever had. Sandra would have been proud to own stuff this nice.

  He remembered how she’d just written a check for the whole price of the new computer, and all the extras. She hadn’t even haggled with Luke over the price; in fact, he couldn’t remember her even asking how much anything cost.

  Nor had she suggested waiting to decide until she’d checked out prices at other shops. He remembered how quickly she’d rejected his suggestion that she buy a used computer. She’d just told Luke she wanted everything new, and written a check for it. She hadn’t even used a charge card so she could make payments.

  Good Lord! Why hadn’t that sunk in at the time? He had been too enthralled with her, that’s why, like a lovesick calf.

  Here he was, getting mixed up with another free spending woman. Would he never learn?

  He quietly slipped out of bed, his toes sinking into the thick blue carpet, and put on his clothes. He walked downstairs and through the living room, noticing for the first time just how expensive most of her furniture was. No longer new, of course, but it shouted designer furniture stores with a capital D. Brass lamps. Lead crystal vases and candy dishes. Silver candlesticks. He stopped in front of the glass-fronted china cupboard. Matched lead crystal glasses in a half-dozen sizes. Good Grief! They were Old English Waterford, he was sure. He’d learned to identify genuine antique from junk in his college years, when he’d spent two summers working at an antique shop downtown.

  Why hadn’t he noticed before? Most of the boxes he’d moved around had been unopened, of course. And he hadn’t asked, but obviously she was well off.

  Wake up, Trace, he told himself wryly. There’s a lot more than Renee separating you and Lisa.

  ***

  Trace slept fitfully, then was rudely awakened by the ringing of the telephone.

  Half awake, he reached for it, but instead knocked it off his bedside table. Before he’d sat up and retrieved it, he could hear his ex-wife’s near hysterical voice asking, “Trace? Are you there?”

  With a groan, he looked at his alarm clock. The hands read 4:17 a.m. He shook his head to wake himself up and replied, “Yes, Sandra. Do you know what time it is?”

  “I don’t care what time it is, Trace. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you since early yesterday.”

  Fear slid down his back like a snowball. Sandra sounded desperate. He suddenly realized that he hadn’t even gone into his office when he’d come home last night to check his answering machine. His mind had been totally on Lisa, without a care for anyone else. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Renee. She’s in the hospital. She’s going into surgery, and I’m going crazy here all alone. Please come, Trace, I need you.”

  His mind attempted to function, to make sense out of what she’d told him. He ran a trembling hand through his hair, and said, “But, I thought Renee went to Vail, skiing. Are you there in Colorado with her?”

  ”No, Trace, we’re here in Chicago. She never left. She and her friends had a car accident on the way to the airport yesterday morning.”

  Good Lord! He swallowed and his fingers tightened around the telephone. “How...” His voice came out in a croak, and he cleared his throat and tried again. “How bad is it?”

  He could hear Sandra draw a long, shaky breath. “I don’t know, but bad enough, Trace. She just lays there, so white and still. The doctor thinks there may be some internal injuries they can fix with surgery. I don’t know the answers to the medical insurance questions or anything, ‘cause she’s still covered under your insurance, you know. Oh, Trace, I’m scared.” Her voice dropped into a strangled sob.

  “Calm down, Sandra, and give me directions to the hospital. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Grabbing the pen and pad off his nightstand, he wrote down her directions, then asked, “Is the hospital closer to Midway Airport or O’Hare?”

>   “Midway. Will you fly? I mean, you’re always so tight with money and all—”

  Trace’s eyebrows dipped angrily at her remark. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, whichever way is fastest,” he snapped and hung up.

  Then he looked for the phone book to call the airline until he remembered that he didn’t keep a telephone book in his bedroom.

  Grabbing his robe, he ran barefooted downstairs to his office, spun his Rolodex and dialed the airport. But there was no commuter flight to the Minneapolis airport until 6:35 a.m. Damn, that was almost two hours. Would it be faster to drive? No, he’d traveled to Chicago with Sandra several times while they were married to visit her parents, so most of the route was familiar. He knew it would take hours longer to drive. He called the Minneapolis airport, and found a flight leaving for Chicago only 40 minutes after the commuter flight would arrive. Even if he missed that one, there was a flight every hour between Minneapolis and Chicago. Yes, flying was fastest.

  Since he still had to buy his ticket, he’d better get a move on. But first he had to find someone to cover his classes. He made a quick cup of instant coffee then phoned his department chair, explaining the emergency. Luckily, the chairman understood and agreed to find a substitute teacher. He hadn’t even sounded too angry at being woken up at this ungodly hour, Trace thought gratefully.

  He dressed quickly and threw several changes of clothes into a suitcase, then hunted up his seldom used credit cards. After Sandra had abused those bits of plastic so badly during their marriage, he’d been tempted to cancel them all. Now he was thankful common sense had prevailed, and they were still in force. The Good Lord only knew how long he would be gone, or how much this all would cost. Thank goodness for Jenny to take care of his house for him. He wrote her a quick note and left it beside the coffee-pot, which was their usual way of communicating.

  As he locked his house and ran out to his old Buick, he glanced at Lisa’s dark house one last time. He should have left her a note, too. He’d call her instead.

  It seemed impossible that only a few hours ago he’d been over there making love. It made him feel very guilty to think Renee had been hurt and needing him, while he was enjoying himself with Lisa. What kind of father was he?

  The motor turned over at the first try. His car might be old, but it still ran great. He parked it at the airport. Before seven o’clock he was in Minneapolis. He made his connection by a hair, and before nine, the plane had touched down at Midway in Chicago.

  Trace considered renting a car, but since he was unfamiliar with Chicago, he decided it would be faster relying on taxi drivers.

  It was pouring rain, and the airport’s roof was leaking near the snack bar. A burly young man was moving buckets around, trying to catch the drips, and then mopping the puddles on the tile floor. Trace stepped around him and huddled in the doorway as he waited for a taxi. The dreary day suited his mood perfectly.

  The cabby recommended a hotel near the hospital, and when they arrived, Trace told him to wait while he went in to register. He tipped a bellboy to take his luggage to the room and dashed back out to the cab.

  The hospital was huge and smelled like all hospitals, a mixture of disinfectant and cleaning supplies. A bored, gray haired woman at the front desk looked up Renee’s name in her computer, then directed him to the seventh floor and pointed out the way to the elevators. On seventh, a nurse told him Renee hadn’t yet been brought up from surgery, but Sandra was in the waiting room down the hall.

  When he walked into the hospital waiting room, Sandra was overjoyed to see him. She came forward to meet him. She even gave him a hug, which was more enthusiasm than she’d shown for his presence in years. “Thanks for coming so fast, Trace. It was sweet of you to spend the money to fly.”

  He frowned at her snide comment. What kind of man did she think he was, anyway? Did she really think he’d put saving money ahead of his daughter? “I told you I’d be here as soon as I could.”

  “Yes. You didn’t shave, Trace,” she said, running a neatly manicured hand over the stubble on his jaw seductively.

  He pushed her hand away impatiently. “I guess not. I didn’t take time. How is she?”

  “Renee’s still in recovery,” she said, dropping her hand and pouting a bit at his rejection. “A nurse said she would let me know as soon as she wakes up, and the doctor would stop to talk to us. She told me there’s another waiting room down on second floor near the recovery room, but I was afraid I’d miss you. We can go down there, now, if you’d like.”

  They went back to the desk to ask for directions, and then spent another hour pacing the smaller waiting room.

  The doctor stopped by and assured them the surgery had gone well and Renee would be fine. A woman brought a clipboard of forms for Trace to fill out for his medical insurance, since Renee was still his dependent.

  Finally, they were allowed to see their pale and sleepy daughter for a few minutes before she was wheeled into an elevator for the trip to her room on the seventh floor.

  He and Sandra followed on another elevator. They waited while the nurses settled Renee into bed and fussed with all of the tubes and IV bottles, then sat with Renee. Trace hated to see her this way, all pale and drawn instead of her normal bright and bouncy self.

  He remembered their last conversation had been bitter words over Renee’s treatment of Lisa. If anything happened to Renee, he’d never forgive himself.

  Chapter 11

  Renee tossed and turned, slipping in an out of a restless sleep. She awakened once to murmur her gratitude to her father for coming, and apologized for being so much trouble. Trace was surprised and touched at that, since Renee so seldom apologized about anything. He squeezed her hand, careful not to disturb the IV needle, and kissed her cheek, smoothing her long blond hair back from her bruised forehead. A long row of stitches along the left side of her jaw seemed to worry her the most.

  “Am I going to have an ugly scar, Daddy?” she asked, looking at him with imploring blue eyes.

  He patted her hand to reassure her. “I don’t know yet, Sugar, but if you do, I’m sure we can get it fixed again later with plastic surgery.”

  “But will your insurance cover that? It’ll probably cost a lot!”

  “I don’t know, but if you need it, we’ll do it anyway. Just rest now, and don’t worry about it. I love you.”

  “You, too, Daddy.” She sighed and fell back to sleep.

  Sandra raised her eyebrows. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” she said with a laugh. “You actually agreed to an expensive procedure, without even asking the price or anything? Is this the same Trace who drives a beat-up old Buick, and walks around the house in a raggedy old bathrobe or somebody new?”

  “Same old Trace. You haven’t changed, either, Sandra. Your tongue is still as sharp as ever. I’ve always spent the money for important things.”

  “I suppose the trip I wanted to take to Europe with my parents a couple of years ago wasn’t important?”

  “So that’s why you made the crack about the plane. You’re still mad because I wouldn’t buy your tickets for that jaunt. You know why I wouldn’t.” He’d found out who else was spending time at the same hotel in London. He’d been furious that she would ask him to foot the bill for her infidelity.

  “Oh.” A rosy flush spread across her face.

  So, she didn’t know I’d found out about him. She actually thought she was fooling me.

  A stiff silence ensued. They were each deep in their unhappy memories of the past. Renee’s uneven breathing was the only sound in the room.

  Finally Sandra asked, “Want something to eat?” They went down to the cafeteria, ate a quick lunch in strained silence then returned to sit with Renee again through the long afternoon.

  Renee slept most of the time. Occasionally a nurse checked on her, taking vital signs and bringing more chipped ice for her dry mouth.

  Renee looked very ill to Trace, and he watched her every move with nervous eyes. Sandr
a seemed sincerely concerned also, but was more relaxed than he was.

  He and Sandra had little to talk about these days, so Trace found sitting for hours in the same room with her very nerve wracking.

  In the evening Sandra’s parents arrived for a visit.

  Her father, elegant in a business suit, and heavier than ever, looked at Trace with more than his usual distaste. “Trace,” he said stiffly, taking Trace’s offered hand in a stiff, quick imitation of a handshake.

  “Harvey.” Trace returned politely. “How are you?”

  Sandra’s mother, Alexandra, dressed in a black designer cocktail dress, greeted him no more graciously. “We just came from having cocktails at the Ludwig’s,” she said, in apology for their flashy clothes. “How is she?” She went over to the bed and cooed over Renee, giving her the beautifully wrapped package she carried. When Renee only smiled weakly, her grandmother opened it for her, revealing a lovely pink satin bed jacket. She draped it over the chair next to the bed then talked to Sandra, totally ignoring Trace’s presence.

  Her gift made Trace painfully aware that he had been in such a rush to see Renee and make sure she was okay, that he hadn’t thought about bringing her anything. Trust Sandra’s parents to remember a present.

  Trace’s relationship with them had never been close, but had grown decidedly worse after he and Sandra had divorced, because they had taken Sandra’s side in everything, even making excuses for her infidelities. Teaching at a small Midwestern college was not their idea of a prestige occupation for their son-in-law.

  Renee soon went back to sleep, and the conversation grew strained. Sandra finally took pity on him. “You look exhausted, Trace. You’d better go get some rest.”

  Trace tossed her a grateful glance and took his leave. Sandra was acting almost human, he thought. He took the elevator down to the street level, and called a cab.

  Back in his room at the hotel, he fell onto the bed without even bothering to take off his clothes.