“Oh, hell, Rachel.” He knew how important this exhibition was to her. “Does that mean they aren’t going to let you…?”
“They’ve voted to kick me out, can you believe it?” She looked up sharply, her eyes liquid, angry. “They thought they might be able to get folks past some case that happened back East. But Marfa’s a very small town, and some people are up in arms, thinking I might’ve had a hand in my grandmother’s death.”
“But Harlan Castillo’s come straight out and said there’s no evidence to support such a stupid idea.” Zeke respected the sheriff’s attempts to corral the wild rumor. “Besides, anyone who knows you—”
“The thing is,” Rachel said, “a lot of people don’t. All they’ve heard about me is that I shot some TV woman’s kid in Philadelphia. That I seduced my student.”
“But it was proven that you didn’t. You were never with him.”
For a long while she said nothing, though he had the distinct impression there was something she wanted, needed, to say to him. As he wondered what it could be, his gut tightened with foreboding.
Finally, she managed, “People believe what they see. And those pictures—”
“Lies,” he reminded her. “You proved they were all lies.”
Once more, she fell silent.
He tried waiting her out, hoping she’d explain herself, but she turned her face from him. “Listen, Zeke, I appreciate the way you’ve stood by me since Grandma’s death, but one night together doesn’t obligate you. There’s no reason you need to waste your time on someone who can’t—”
“Do I look like the kind of man who hangs around because he feels ‘obligated’? Do I act like a man who thinks he’s wasting his time?” His frustration rose, as did his volume. “Hell, Rachel, that’s insulting. I’m not just trying to do right by you. I’m here because I—because I can’t remember how to be anywhere else, with anyone else—even my own self. And that’s not something I say lightly, not something I do—ever. So I don’t appreciate you acting like I’m some loser to be blown off without any kind of explanation. You owe me that much.”
“Oh, that’s rich,” she said dryly, “the person who won’t tell me a damned thing about himself demanding that I come clean. Come on, Zeke. You have to admit you don’t have much of a leg to stand on.”
“So I’m a hypocrite,” he admitted. “Too damned bad. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t do you good to tell me.”
She shook her head, lips pressed together in a thin line. When she finally spoke, pinpricks of anger pierced her words. “Why, Zeke? Why are you here? For God’s sake, I killed somebody, half the perverts on the planet think they’ve seen me naked, and I’m getting my ass sued. Don’t you have sense enough to keep away from something marked ‘high voltage’ when you see it?”
He managed a smile. “I’m still here.”
“Why?” she pressed, a little more of the lioness resurfacing in her eyes. “I’ve already told you that the sex is over. Finished. And you’re not going to change my mind.”
It hurt to think that he might never touch her again, but he’d be damned if he would let her push him away so easily. “You listen to me, woman. There’s nothing—not a damned thing—you could say about your past, nothing you can tell me that would change the way I feel about you. Because I…”
He swallowed back the words, instinct warning that he had no right to say them. That he might offer her acceptance, but it was the best he could ever do.
She knotted her hands together and stared out at some point beyond them. “Last week after the funeral, I spoke with my attorney. The one defending me against this civil suit.”
But Zeke’s ears were still ringing with those words he hadn’t spoken. Because I love you, Rachel. Could he really have been about to say something so damned idiotic? Fantasies were one thing, as was the warmth he felt that Rachel’s father and even Patsy had begun to accept his presence. But to say those words aloud, to give voice to how much he wanted to belong to someone, after he’d been on his own so many years…It was beyond stupid. He should go home before he completely lost it, dropped down on his knees, and started promising forever.
Rachel went on, despite his silence. “She told me the lawsuit may be dropped. New evidence has come up—”
Her voice broke, refocusing his attention.
“But isn’t that good news?” he asked. “Won’t that mean everything’s all over and you can get on with your life?”
She gave a tight nod, yet her expression all but screamed that she hadn’t yet gotten to the point. But before he could find the words to prize that truth out of her, Rachel stood abruptly.
“I promised you a flight.” She smiled, though it looked forced, and pulled a thin cell phone from her pocket. “It’s too late to take up a sailplane, but we could take a little joyride in Dad’s Cessna. It’s all gassed up and ready. I’ll just let him know what we’re up to. He gets a little freaked out if I light out without asking.”
Without waiting for his answer, she walked off, keeping her back to him, animated as he hadn’t seen her since her grandmother’s death. Instead of reassuring him, the suddenness of the change concerned him. He decided not to argue, though, since she wouldn’t be able to brush him off easily if the two of them were in a plane together.
Besides, he was itching to finally get his chance to go aloft. And the sooner the better, he thought, while there was still sufficient light to see.
Rachel wasted no time before taking him out to the small plane, a turquoise-and-white two-seater with a single propeller on the nose. After checking it over, she showed him how to climb into the seat beside hers and hook up his safety harness.
“Do you get airsick?” she asked once she had strapped herself in.
He shrugged, feeling both anxious and embarrassed to be nervous about a thing she took for granted. “Guess we’ll find out.”
Her brows rose, and she smiled. “So you’re a virgin?”
He managed a grin. “You’ll be gentle with me, won’t you?”
Laughing, she started the engine and promised, “Okay, then. No aerobatics this time. But only because it’s so revolting, hosing puke out of the cockpit.”
He watched her drop into a practiced routine as she flipped switches and started the propeller spinning, then taxied the little plane onto the runway’s edge. He wanted to ask her about the confusing array of controls and dials, to explain each step she was taking, but the loud thrum of the engine convinced him to save his questions for another time.
Besides, he wanted to remember every detail of what could easily be his first and last flight. He wasn’t sure his ID could pass a commercial airline’s scrutiny, especially with recent security precautions. And if he ever again traveled, he’d want to leave no record of his destination.
“Ready?” she asked as the engine grew louder, higher pitched, as if it, too, felt Zeke’s anticipation.
At Zeke’s nod, they started rolling, their speed mounting as they bumped along the runway. Though he had watched a thousand takeoffs, though he’d seen Rachel fly successfully since her one, ill-fated solo, his heart pounded out a warning that this was impossible; they’d never do it; they’d run out of runway before they…
He became aware that they were rising as he caught sight of the gleaming sun’s edge, still visible from their increased height. Releasing the breath he hadn’t known he was holding, he looked over the tops of hangars and The Roost, the fuel pumps and the aircraft and a small herd of pronghorn antelope grazing near the Border Patrol training area behind the airport.
Soon, the tops of the green houses of the huge hydroponics farm came into view, immense, dark rectangles that hid a jungle of tomato vines, with plump, red-orange fruits. Rachel tapped him before pointing to a spot across the highway and down a long, dirt road, where he spotted his old candelilla factory-home, its outbuildings like miniatures, the corral. He could even make out the figures of his mule and horses, living lives as far removed as the citizens
of humming insect kingdoms.
His stomach rose, then dropped at the whim of unseen breezes.
“Sorry it’s a little bumpy,” she said, loudly enough to be heard above the engine. “We’ll get to smoother air in just a minute.”
As the plane gained altitude, they leveled out, and Zeke relaxed enough to look to the south, at the buildings and the lights of Marfa, so small and tenuous against the high plain. The land was wrinkled with a surprising number of undulations and bordered by the brown and violet shapes of mountains—Mount Livermore in the Davis Mountains to the north, the Chisos Mountains to the southeast, and the low line of the Chinati range to the southwest.
For the first time, he appreciated the vastness of the land he’d chosen as a hiding place so many years before—and the rugged loneliness with which he had surrounded himself. Only the most fragile, necessary bonds existed between himself and other people, only a few of whom had ever used his name.
And he’d been happy with his life, or at least resigned until the woman sitting next to him, piloting this plane so ably, had walked into his life seeking the same escape that he had.
“Look at that,” she said.
The sun had finally given up its fight and was sinking in a blaze of glory that painted a cloud on the horizon in vibrant plums and scarlet.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” she asked. “Kind of makes you forget all the people, all the tough times—everything that’s come before this. Up here, we can leave it all behind us, leave all the reasons two people like us could never…”
The engine noise drowned out the rest of her words, but Zeke didn’t want to hear them. Didn’t want to dwell on impossibilities.
“So what do you think?” she asked him.
Because he couldn’t find words, he found her hand and squeezed it. She flashed a smile his way, comprehension lighting her eyes.
Before them, the first, bright stars put in an appearance, heralding a vast darkness that would overtake them all too soon. But he couldn’t let that happen without trying to find answers. Couldn’t let her distract him from her pain with simple beauty.
“So what else did that lawyer tell you?” he asked, over the rumble of the engine. Swiftly, before he lost his nerve. He pressed on, acting more on hunch than reason. “Was there something else you wanted to tell me about those pictures?”
There was no answer save the droning buzz of the engine and the spreading darkness. Rachel kept her attention fastened to the dials and controls, the dimming land below them—everywhere but on him.
“How ’bout we circle town, then head back?” she asked before turning southward.
“You’re not going to scare me off,” he said. “Whatever it is, I’m not bailing on you.”
“Good plan, considering our altitude.” The smile she shot his way looked haunted.
“Don’t you understand?” he blurted out. “It doesn’t matter to me that you killed some son of a bitch who had it coming. It doesn’t matter if you’re sued for all the money in the world. It doesn’t even matter to me, Rachel, that I’ve got no business falling for a woman. Just that I have.”
She wheeled the plane back toward the airport so abruptly that his stomach lurched.
“I have,” he repeated, feeling reckless with emotion, for finally, he understood that being with Rachel had shattered his contentment with living a half-life in safety. He wanted more, much more, and he wanted at least a shot at it with Rachel.
Even if he knew that hope would burn to cinders within seconds, once he told her who—or what—he was. As he must, no matter how much it cost him.
“You can’t possibly mean that.” Rachel’s voice was muffled by the buzzing. “I can’t—not with…This is crazy. We hardly know each—”
“I know enough.”
“You don’t know.”
“So tell me, Rachel.”
As he waited for her answer, he saw more stars, by the hundreds. He felt strange hurtling through space just beneath them, disconnected from the reality below. Or from his better judgment. As the seconds ticked away, doubt crept in, then regret.
“See that lighted runway? We’ll be landing in a moment.”
“Rachel…” Maybe he should let it go, allow her to pretend that what he’d said didn’t matter, that words spoken in the air were weightless, unimportant. That he was.
“So what did you think about your first flight?”
“Thought I was going to like it.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “But it didn’t turn out that way.”
“Zeke, I’m—I’m sorry. What the—” By the light of the instruments’ glow, he saw her pointing at the airport, where something outside the glider hangar was ablaze.
“It’s your van,” he shouted, “It’s burning.”
“Just wonderful,” growled Rachel. “The cherry on the icing on a real crap-cake of a day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Only the worm of conscience consorts with the owl. Sinners and evil spirits shun the light.
—Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller,
Intrigue and Love, V, I
Distracted during her initial approach, Rachel brought the plane around and made a second attempt at landing. Zeke was relieved when she brought them to a safe stop on the runway.
He warned, “I know you’re upset—I’m upset. But let me check this out first, make sure it’s safe—”
“That’s my van somebody’s lit up—”
“Somebody who would probably rather burn you,” Zeke reminded her.
Without waiting for an answer, he unstrapped himself and jumped out of the plane, then lit out in the direction of the vehicle. It was totally engulfed, its dark bulk disappearing inside the twisting, roaring monster of a conflagration. He hoped like hell that the arsonist was still close—and that it wouldn’t be Rachel’s female caller. Because he couldn’t strike a woman—any woman, for any reason—and he badly wanted to cram some asshole’s teeth down his throat.
Zeke stopped short, pressed back by blistering heat. It could have been an accident, he realized, some electrical malfunction. But quickly, he dismissed the thought. There had been too many “accidents” in Rachel’s life—including the one that had killed her grandmother.
The flames were shooting twenty feet or more above his head and lighting the night sky by the time Rachel ran up beside him, a fire extinguisher in her hands.
“Oh, hell.” Gazing upward at the flames, she panted out her despair. “This won’t be any use.”
There was a popping noise from Rachel’s van, followed by a hissing sizzle. Jumping back, she tugged at his arm. “Move back, Zeke. We’ll get burned here. And the smoke—”
He retreated until they coughed their lungs clear in the cooler, cleaner air. Then he looked hopelessly around the airport. Though he’d already concluded that whoever had torched the van was long gone, he spotted no help, either. As it often was this time of day, the tiny airport was abandoned.
While he cursed in frustration, Rachel was pulling her cell phone from a pocket in her jeans. “I’ll call for—oh.”
Following her gaze, he spotted the flashing red lights coming their way. Someone passing by must have spotted the flames and called the fire department.
A Presidio County deputy, the jowly, middle-aged Leo Varajas, was first to arrive. The moment he spotted the two of them, he peered unhappily through his wire-rimmed glasses. “You again. I should’ve known. You both all right?”
When they assured him they were unhurt, he listened to their brief explanation of how they had spotted the fire from the air. With a nod of understanding, he said, “Sheriff Castillo’ll have my hide if I don’t call him out to investigate this personally.”
The deputy folded his thick frame back into his SUV to make the call.
A half hour later, Zeke was with Rachel in her father’s office, where Harlan Castillo plied them with questions as he sat behind Walter’s desk. The door stood partly open, allowing Zeke to see the volunteer fire
fighters hanging around the puddle that surrounded the smoldering wreckage. One hawked and spat to clear his head and another nodded approval at the job they’d done, while a third had the fervent look of a man praying for one final flare-up to extinguish.
Castillo reached up with one short arm to scratch at a five o’clock shadow flecked with silver. His hat sat on the desk between them, where he’d laid it when they came inside. “So you’re sure you saw no one? What about before you took off?”
Rachel shook her head. “No. Like I told you, I was the only one around before Zeke pulled up. And we didn’t see another soul. Not before. Not after.”
The sheriff’s mouth thinned, and he darted a speculative look in Zeke’s direction. “So what brought you here to see her? I know you eat at The Roost most days, but you’re always home by this time, aren’t you?”
Zeke’s heart stumbled as he heard something in the question, some discordant note warning him that for the first time in all these years, he’d captured the interest of local law enforcement. “Rachel’s dad asked me to keep an eye on her. Since I live so close by.”
Castillo glanced in the direction of Zeke’s place. “You’ve got power back there, don’t you? I know I’ve seen a line of poles leading down your road.”
“I have electricity.” Zeke shrugged an answer. “Man’s gotta keep a cold fridge for his longnecks. But what the hell does that have to do with whoever set this fire?”
Castillo shook his head. “Just satisfying my curiosity, that’s all. You don’t get the Internet, do you?”
Rachel gave the sheriff a puzzled look. “What’s the point of this, Harlan? You think Zeke’s been ordering remote-control incendiary devices off the Web? He didn’t start that fire. He was with me, in the air.”
Not daring to move a muscle, Zeke kept his eyes on the lawman’s steady, blue gaze. “I care about Rachel. And I’d like to consider myself a family friend.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Rachel nodding, a simple, affirming gesture that filled him with gratitude.
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