Cassie shook her head and picked at the frayed edge of the sofa cushion. “Not quite.”
“Spill it, missy,” her father demanded.
She lifted her chin and met his eyes. “We grew attached to each other, Dad. There was something good between us, and we made the decision to have a real relationship.”
“But now you’re here telling me it’s over. Why?”
“We don’t belong together. He’s from a different world,” she said sadly.
“Huh,” her dad grunted. “Sounds to me you don’t think you’re good enough to be in his world. Did he tell you that?”
“No! He’d never say something like that.”
“So, this is your own insecurity about fitting in.”
“It was exciting to be a part of that sphere, but I didn’t belong there. I was acting out a fairy tale.” And it was some of the best weeks of her life.
“You were never a believer in them,” he said.
“We live in the real world, Dad.”
“You think in the real world we don’t get happy endings? I had one with your mother.”
“It was short lived.”
“And it’s given me a lifetime of good memories with no regrets. When something as wonderful as love comes into your life, you have to grab on to it with both hands and never let go.”
“Not this time.”
Her dad shook his head. “Then I’m sorry I didn’t teach you well enough.”
“No, Dad. It’s me,” she insisted. “I’m not good enough for him.”
“Hell, girl!” He nearly exploded out of his chair. Leaning toward her, he said in a quiet, but firm voice, “I don’t ever want to hear those words come from your lips. If that man ever made you think that, then he doesn’t deserve you.”
Cassie swiped at a tear that had escaped down her cheek. “It wasn’t him,” she repeated.
“Then who made you doubt yourself so badly? Because I’m itching to give them a piece of my mind.”
A laugh slipped out as she shook her head. “You can’t fight this battle for me, Dad.” Picturing her father in full Navy mode confronting the three loud-spoken women in the bathroom made her laugh again. “But you’re right. I shouldn’t have let someone else’s comments determine my self-worth.”
“That’s my girl. Now what are you going to do to fix things with Evan?”
“I’m not. That ship has sailed, and I’m not going to fly after him.”
“You’re giving up that easy?”
She shrugged. “He and I built a relationship on a foundation of lies. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Of everything you’ve said today, that last bit has to be what peeves me off the most. You obviously have strong feelings for him, and you’re letting him go.”
She glanced up at him. “I have to move on with my life.”
“Without Evan, huh?” He studied her. “I think you’re making a big mistake, but I stopped being able to make your decisions for you when you turned eighteen and joined the Army.”
“And that turned out okay for me.”
“More than okay, Cassie. It turned you into a damn fine helicopter pilot and a remarkable woman.” He stood and held open his arms. “Come here, girl, and give your old man some love.”
Cassie choked back a sob and launched herself into his embrace. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you too, sweetheart,” he whispered against the top of her head. “No matter what boneheaded choices you make in your life, I love you. I’m sorry if you didn’t get that message when you decided to join the Army.”
They were the words she’d waited nine long years for him to say, except… “Boneheaded, huh?”
“Well, that one turned out good for you, but I still think your decision to let go of Evan is a big whopping mistake.”
“I don’t know how it could ever have worked out for us.” She sniffed into his shirt.
“Fate has a way of doing things for us that we never thought possible.” Her dad patted her back. “We’ll just have to wait and see what she has in store for you.”
But Cassie wasn’t going to hold her breath. She didn’t expect to ever cross paths with Evan again; therefore, fate would have little chance at working out the impossible and getting her and Evan back together in a relationship.
Chapter Sixteen
Cassie sat in the pilot’s seat and checked her watch again as she waited on the tarmac for her last passenger. In another sixty minutes, she would be done with her workday.
First week of a new job…complete. Just a lifetime of weeks left without a real sense of purpose.
She’d only been unemployed a few days when she’d received a call from Stanford Supplies with a job offer to fly their executives between the corporate office in the city and the manufacturing plant in upstate New York. Since Stanford was a subsidiary of Mitchell Industries, it was obvious the recommendation had come from Evan, but she’d didn’t let that interfere with her decision to get on with her life.
She’d landed on her skids this time, but her heart had crashed and burned. She’d been a fool, yet again, to let her emotions lead her into an entanglement with a man who’d never professed to love her. So, why did she torture herself by keeping the infinity necklace in the chest pocket of her shirt? It was a painful reminder of the lost pleasure of his dominance and her submission, but she couldn’t make herself stop carrying it.
Blocking out the constant ache in her chest, Cassie listened to the weather report as she studied the thick clouds rolling in from the west. A light rain had started, and some nastier weather was moving in. She needed to get her bird off the ground soon, or they weren’t going to beat the worst of it.
This last flight of the day would take her home to her apartment in the city. Her copilot lived out here near the plant, so she was flying into the city alone…well, in addition to her passenger.
They had to get airborne soon. She’d hate to be stuck spending the night on the cot in her little office space here at the manufacturing plant. Her nightmares had gotten worse since breaking up with Evan, and she could just picture herself tossing out of bed, shrieking, as the night watchman watched on the security cam. Yeah, that would make a good impression in her first week at a new job.
She checked her watch again. Damn, what was keeping the guy? She’d been scheduled to take off thirty minutes ago.
Finally, the rear door of the plant opened and a tall, broad-shouldered man hurried across the parking lot to where she sat on the helicopter pad. With his trench coat up around his ears and his head dropped low against the rain, it was hard to see his features, but her gut told her she knew this man…intimately.
Her heart stuttered, and she had to remind herself to keep breathing. It had only been two weeks since their breakup, much too little time for her to prepare herself to see him again. Not only did she have her emotions to battle, but also her dad’s words kept echoing in her skull.
When something as wonderful as love comes into your life, you have to grab on to it with both hands and never let go.
Had she let go too easily? Should she have fought harder to make a place for herself in his world? Had Evan even felt the same strong emotions for her? She’d never had the nerve to bring up the subject after she’d thought she’d heard him whisper the words to her, and she’d certainly never said the words to him.
As he got nearer, she jumped out into the rain and ran around the front of the bird to open the back door for him.
He glanced at her and stopped in his tracks, doing a double take. “Cassie?”
“It’s me.” She gestured to the open door. “If you’ll board, Sir, we can beat this storm into the city.”
He seemed to startle at her use of the word Sir, but he didn’t comment as he settled into the seat behind the empty co-pilot’s chair.
She checked over her shoulder toward the building. “Where’s your assistant?”
“Dan’s not with me. His daughter’s getting married tomorro
w. I made sure he took today off.”
She nodded, wondering if Evan had ever got a satisfactory answer to who leaked the information to the tabloids about their trip to San Miguel. If Evan had found out it was Mr. Jacobs, she knew there was no way the man would still be working for Evan.
She secured his door and hustled back around to her side. Once in her seat, she turned and handed him the communications headset.
“Cassie—” he started as he took the headset.
“Sorry, Mr. Mitchell. If you want to get back to the city this evening, we don’t have time for a chat until I get us airborne.” And hopefully, he would avoid any personal talk for the duration of the flight.
Her insides were fluttering enough just being this close to him. She didn’t want to have to handle the rough weather, her desire for him, and a serious conversation all at one time. She’d be likely to divulge something he could use to convince her to come back to him…if he actually wanted her back. Maybe he’d already moved on with his personal life. The thought made it difficult to catch her breath as jealousy squeezed the air out of her lungs.
She finished the pre-flight checklist on autopilot, barely attending to the process she knew so well. Then, a lift on the collective lever with her left hand and an adjustment to the yaw with the left pedal had them lifting off the helipad into the splattering rain.
Sixty minutes. Sixty minutes. She repeated in her mind as she headed for the city. She could do sixty minutes with him in her back seat. She was a professional.
“Is it okay to talk now?” His deep voice sounded too intimate in her headphones.
She wanted to say no and keep whatever distance she could between them, but she found herself saying, “Yes, it’s fine to talk.”
“I’ve missed you,” he said with tenderness.
Oh damn, she didn’t know how she was going to do this. It was hard enough breaking up with him the first time. How could she sit here and listen to him practically whispering sweet words in her ear?
She lacked any proper response to his statement and remained silent.
“I’m glad to see you working,” he continued.
“I assumed you gave them my name. Thank you,” she said, grateful for the safe topic as she navigated to a higher altitude, trying to fly free of the low lying fog that had rolled in. The air had to clear before she reached the city. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to take them in, since she hadn’t filed an instrument rated flight plan and was flying under visual flight rules.
“You’re welcome, but you earned it. You’re a fine pilot.”
“Thank you,” she repeated, as she found clear sky between the layer of fog below her and the cloud ceiling above her.
“I had to hire a new pilot and a co-pilot after you left.”
“What happened to Ron?” she asked, as she checked her heading and kept a close eye on both the clouds and the fog. It was risky flying between them like this because the layers could sandwich her. Then she’d be flying blind.
“My investigator discovered Ron was the one who sold the financial details of our arrangement to the tabloids. I guess he was looking to feather his retirement nest.”
“Damn,” she cursed quietly. “I’m sorry, Evan. That must have been a blow. He’d been with your family’s company for a long time.”
“I’m just glad that Dan was completely exonerated.” Which would have been far more painful for him, she knew, because of Dan’s history with Evan’s father.
It made sense that Ron might take advantage of the knowledge he’d acquired by observing Mr. Jacobs’ invitation to have Cassie join Evan for dinner back in Boston. Then the next day, she’d flown down to San Miguel with Evan, but one piece of the mystery was missing. “How did Ron know the dollar amount of our agreement?”
“Want to guess which bank his sister-in-law works for?” Evan asked.
“First Federal? I didn’t realize New York was such a small town.” She kept an eye on the fog below them, monitoring it for thin spots, in case she lost her clear air space.
“Speaking of New York, now that you’re flying for Stanford, are you planning to keep your city apartment?”
“Yes,” she replied, without considering the motive behind his question.
The majority of her attention was on the situation up ahead. The cloud ceiling was definitely falling to meet the fog below. She would have to bring them down. “I hope you didn’t have dinner reservations tonight.”
“Why? Are you abducting me?” he teased.
She ignored the playfulness in his voice. She was determined to keep this strictly professional this time when she’d failed so miserably to do that over and over again in the past.
“I’m sorry, Sir.” She slipped back into formally addressing him. “I can’t fly us through this cloud coverage. I’m going to have to set us down and wait for the weather to clear.”
“Should I brace myself? Is this going to be a rough landing?” His voice telegraphed his anxiety through her earphones.
“No, not any rougher than my usual landings,” she reassured him.
“You’re so calm.”
“Really, Evan. Trust me. This is nothing compared to landing a bird in a hot zone with bullets and RPGs flying at you.”
“RPGs?”
“Rocket-propelled grenades,” she explained as she searched the fog for patchy areas.
Evan cursed under his breath, as if he didn’t want to think about her in that kind of situation. “What are you looking for?”
“I’ve got to find us a hole in the fog to fly through so I can see the ground.” Her eyes scanned the area ahead of her as they quickly approached the end of the clear skies, but the fog was unrelenting.
Damn, just one hole. That was all she needed. Moisture gathered in her armpits and sweat ran down her back as their time ran out. She was going to have to turn the bird around and look in the other direction.
“How about there? To the left? About nine o’clock.” Evan broke the silence to suggest.
She glanced over and decided it was their best shot. She darted through the opening and spotted a possible landing zone.
With only a slight bump, Cassie set them down in a farmer’s field as rain lashed the windscreen.
Evan released a heavy sigh into the mike on his headset.
“There you go, Sir. Safe and sound. I’m just sorry I can’t get you back to the city yet.” And now, she was going to have to sit in close confines with him until the storm passed. Why did her first week of a new job have to end with being alone with Evan, again?
“So, what do we do now?”
“We wait. Radar shows that it’s a small cell of intense weather moving quickly.” The sky to the west was already starting to look lighter compared to the ugly black clouds immediately overhead. “We should be able to take off again after the storm blows through in about an hour.” She hoped it was a lot sooner than that as she powered down the engines. But considering her bad luck lately, they’d probably get stuck here until nightfall and have to call to have someone come pick them up.
He tapped her shoulder. “Hey.”
Reluctantly, she turned to face him and removed her headset when she saw he’d already taken off his. “Yeah?”
“We need to talk.”
“How about the weather?” she offered weakly.
Shaking his head, he said, “I’ve given you some space the past two weeks, but it’s time for me to tell you what I think about our breakup.”
This was exactly the conversation she’d wanted to avoid having with him, but the weather gods had conspired against her. “It’s over, Evan. I don’t want to revisit it.” She tried to put a stop to it before he started.
“I’m glad you resigned from Mitchell Industries,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “and took this position with Stanford. It takes care of one of your reasons for breaking up with me.”
“What do you mean?” she asked in spite of herself.
“We no longer have a r
elationship that includes the exchanging of money for services…of any kind.” His dark gaze held her captive. “Wasn’t that one of your reasons for ending our relationship?”
“Y-yes,” she answered hesitantly, afraid of where he was going next with his argument. It would be too easy for her to forget her resolve to steer clear of Evan and his fancy life and fall back into his arms. But she had to remember the pain of losing her self-respect, and how she didn’t ever want to put herself in that position again.
“Now, you have a legit helicopter pilot position, your debts are cleared, and you have money in the bank. There are no financial circumstances forcing you to be involved with me. And no ethical or moral reasons why you couldn’t be involved with me if you desired.” He ticked the list of justifications off on his fingers.
She waited for him to continue, not willing to take a step in the field of land mines he was laying, yet still wanting to hear what his proposal would be this time.
“If I recall correctly, the other objection you had to us staying together was your concern about what other people think.” Dropping his hands, he paused and studied her. “And that really saddens me because I thought you were rebel enough—or independently thinking enough, as you like to call it—to handle what idiots might say about of us. I never thought you’d back down from a challenge.”
She nearly took the bait. He obviously wanted her to respond heatedly to his provocation, but she was determined to remain impersonal. “Some battles can’t be won,” she answered as coolly as she could manage with her skin heating as it was in his proximity.
“So, you walk away from the entire war?” he prodded.
“Are you really calling our relationship a war, now? And this is how you plan to woo me back into your arms?” Okay, that didn’t sound too impersonal or businesslike.
She definitely needed to work on her neutrality, but she was having such a hard time maintaining her opposition to him. He was just too damn attractive to her, and not only in a physical way. In fact, even back in the beginning when she hadn’t thought her physical attraction to him was reciprocated, she’d still felt as if there was something that had clicked between them ever since that plane ride down to San Miguel when they’d found out they shared similar interests and personality quirks.
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