Cupping her right hand while Teddy filled it, she replied, "Thanks. I'll get us some coffee when we stop for gas."
"What time do we have to be out there again?"
"By nine to interview the owner. And then I jump at ten."
"Got it. I've got to track down the instructor that's going to film your jump as soon as I get there so I can figure out how to get my hands on his footage. I think his name is Ron…something." She dug through her bag and pulled out a notepad. "Carew. Ron Carew."
Teddy's comment went unacknowledged. Instead, Aubrey asked, "Do me a favor?"
"Of course. What?"
"If anything happens out there, I need you to take care of Nana."
"What kind of thing is that to say? Nothing is going to happen. I read just the other day that you're more likely to be hit by lightning than die in a sky diving accident."
Aubrey just threw her car in drive and wrapped her hands around the steering wheel. "Whatever. Let's go."
After filling up her tank, they passed tollbooth after tollbooth in uncomfortable silence until Teddy finally burst, "I think you should at least hear his side of the story."
Aubrey drew in a deep breath through her nostrils. "I was a bet, Ted. The whole thing was a sham. There is no other side to the story."
"Uh, excuse me, but what about how he helped you get over Max? That wasn't part of the bet."
"I don't care."
"OK, what about your nana? Getting her to like him wasn't part of the bet."
"No. He just used my dead husband and my elderly grandmother to get to me. How sick is that?"
"Aubrey." The low, disappointed tone is Teddy's voice prompted Aubrey to give her a quick look.
"What?"
"What about the coffee shop?"
"What about it?"
"You told me you knew he was the one for you when you met him there. And didn't he tell you the same thing when he proposed?"
"Yeah. So what?"
Forcing herself to keep her eyes dry, Aubrey's nasal cavity started to feel as if she'd just jumped into a pool and had gotten water up her nose.
"So, he met you before he made that stupid bet. He never took it seriously."
Aubrey's eyes left the road for a split second as she considered that her friend had a point.
"How do you know all of this?"
"I was at Chessy's Monday night. I heard the guys talking about it, so I went over and played reporter. That guy who made the bet, Cruz, he felt awful that he broke you guys up."
The blare of a semi truck's horn brought Aubrey's attention back to the road.
She jerked the car back into their lane. "Sorry."
After a quiet minute, Teddy asked, "Have you heard from him since…you know, Monday?"
Blinking back an irritating onslaught of moisture in her eyes, Aubrey shrugged. "He left a couple of messages."
"Yeah? How many?"
"Ten or twenty."
"See?" Teddy exclaimed. "And what did he say?"
"That he made the bet after he met me and that it didn't mean anything," Aubrey muttered. Then, nodding at the entrance sign, she announced, "We're here."
After pulling into a space, she waited for Teddy to gather her gear before they got out and headed to the hangar. Given that it was midweek, the facility was not nearly as crowded as it had been on the weekend. The weather, too, played a factor. Where Sunday afternoon had been warm and sunny, it was now cool and cloudy.
She scanned the faces, looking for Gary Revets. When she didn't see him, she approached one of the other instructors.
"Oh, Gary couldn't make it in today. Mac will be taking you up."
"Mac?" Aubrey did a quick survey of the other people in the hangar. "Which one is he?"
"He's on his way. I'll let him know you're here when he arrives. In the meantime, I think you were supposed to talk to Phil Rogers, the owner. Is that right?"
Is that right?
Aubrey's breath hitched at the sound of a phrase John was fond of using.
When she nodded, he offered, "I'll go get him. Wait here."
After Aubrey interviewed the boisterous middle-aged owner, and Teddy snapped a couple of shots, Phil gave the two women a tour of the facility he had owned and operated for over a decade. The entire time, he told story after story of memorable first timers, like the grown man who cried like a baby when he was about to do a tandem jump or, his favorite, the seasoned jumper who decided to surprise his girlfriend, also an experienced jumper, with an engagement ring during their descent. When he dropped it, Phil's crew suspended operations for three hours so they could scour the drop zone.
"That's the kind of people we have working here," Phil explained. "Hearts of gold."
Aubrey, her mind filled with the beautiful ring she tossed high in the air after John's proposal, couldn't bring herself to ask if the crew ever found it.
Thankfully, Teddy asked for her.
"They did," Phil beamed. "We popped a lot of champagne that night."
Depositing them back in the hangar, he said, "It was a pleasure meeting you ladies. Come out and see us again sometime."
After they said their thank-yous and good-byes, Phil pointed behind them. "Looks like Mac is ready for you, Aubrey."
Oh, right.
She had nearly forgotten that she herself would be jumping. While she wasn't nervous, her heart was not in it. Before turning around to greet her instructor, Aubrey leaned over to Teddy and asked, "So, what you're saying is you think I overreacted?"
"No, I don't think so."
Aubrey frowned at her friend whose lips hadn't moved. In fact, they were smushed, along with the rest of her face, into an apologetic contortion as her eyes signaled for Aubrey to turn around.
John.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"You can't blame gravity for falling in love." —Albert Einstein
Dressed in a jumpsuit, all geared up like he had been on Sunday, John stood before her.
"What are you doing here?" Trying to sound angry when all she wanted to do was leap into his arms was made that much more difficult by the way he looked. The words ruined and decimated sprang to mind.
He spoke quickly, urgently, his voice hushed. "Aubrey. Please believe me when I tell you that you've had my heart from the second you blew by me in the coffee shop to get in line. That bet"—his face twisted with disdain—"was just some stupid wager a friend of mine made when we got to work that morning. I thought it was a joke. I never took it seriously."
Her pulse quickened when he took a step closer and lowered his voice.
"Nothing, and I mean nothing I did or said last weekend was motivated by the desire to win a wager."
Noting the moisture in his eyes, Aubrey held her breath.
"Please forgive me."
He was nearly on top of her now. As she looked into his face that was etched with all manner of regret, Aubrey had an epiphany.
Max had never asked for forgiveness. Hell, he never even acknowledged that he did anything wrong.
A little voice urged Stop being so hard on him. That said little voice had a Mexican accent reminded her that Teddy was standing right behind her.
Aubrey wanted to raise a hand to his cheek, stroke his beard with her thumb, and say, "I'm sorry too."
She really did.
But she couldn't. Not yet.
Instead, she lowered her eyes to his name tag and rasped, "Mac?"
His whole countenance deflated.
"Yeah."
She hiked both eyebrows up and waited.
"When we were waiting in line at that coffee shop, I overheard you telling Claire and Sara about the time your nana read your tea leaves."
Aubrey narrowed her eyes. "Go on."
He took a breath and blew out, "How your soul mate's initials are supposed to be M.D."
"So you had a name tag made up…?"
The ghost of a grin slipped across his face before he hung his head. "No."
Then, he looked into her eyes.
"My real name is MacLyn."
There was something in the way he said it that made her feel shaky, like she'd had too much coffee to drink. "That's M.T., not M.D."
"Trelawney is my gran's maiden name."
Aubrey couldn't bring herself to ask what his real last name was. Thankfully, he offered it anyway. "Delaney. My real last name is Delaney."
"Why didn't you tell me?" she heard herself whisper.
He lifted an eyebrow. "How would you have reacted to a guy standing behind you in line telling you he had the same initials as your soul mate?"
She breathed in through her nose. He had a point.
When I heard a couple of the guys call you "Mac" on Sunday, I assumed it was a nickname, like "dude" or "bud."
John just looked at her, his thin lips pressed together.
Not ready to deal with John or Mac—whatever his name was—she decided to focus on the reason she was there. Knowing she still had to complete the jump to keep her job and earn that promotion, she asked, "So, are you going up with me today or what?"
He looked at her for a few seconds more before responding. If he was still hoping for her forgiveness, he was going to have to wait. For how long, she had no idea.
With a nod, he said, "Yeah. Go suit up. I'll meet you at the plane."
A few minutes later, they were boarding. It wasn't until Aubrey felt him attaching his harness to hers that she grabbed his thighs as she had on Sunday. When she felt him lean forward and say with his voice low, "Don't worry. I've got you," she swallowed hard on the lump lodged in her throat.
"For today's jump," he started as the plane began taxiing down the runway, "we're going to 14,000 feet. That means sixty seconds in freefall. And don't forget—"
"To breathe. I remember."
When he didn't respond, Aubrey took a step down from her high horse and gave his thighs a gentle squeeze.
As soon as they reached altitude, everyone scooted forward and took turns exiting the plane. Reaching the edge of the opened door, Aubrey grasped the harness at her neck, cradled her head back against John's right shoulder, and dropped with him into the wild blue yonder.
Controlling her breathing, she was amazed at how different the experience was minus the fear factor. Even though they were in freefall, it felt like slow motion.
Really windy slow motion.
She could see Rob with a video camera strapped to his head hovering a few yards away. When he waved at her, she grinned and gave him two thumbs up.
Not long after, John cautioned, "Get ready."
She braced herself for the lurch, but nothing happened. They were still falling at 120 miles per hour.
When she saw Rob's chute deploy, he drifted above her line of vision. That's when anxiety started to nip at her insides. "Is everything OK?" she shouted.
John didn't respond immediately.
She strained to look up. What she saw made her stomach lurch.
While their chute had deployed, it was flapping haplessly over their heads, useless.
Focusing back on the horizon, Aubrey felt John stretch his arm up and yank down hard on something.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see their failed parachute falling away from them. And they started to spin.
But still, she didn't feel afraid. She knew he'd do everything in his power to get her safely to the ground.
As if reading her mind, she heard his voice in her ear. "Don't worry."
After a couple more rotations, Aubrey closed her eyes to keep herself from vomiting and seeing just how fast the things on the ground were approaching.
"Get ready," he shouted again, and she heard the reserve chute swish out of his pack.
While they slowed, it wasn't nearly as much as they had on Sunday. And they were already much closer to the ground.
Aubrey could see that he had steered them over a freshly plowed field.
More cushion.
"This is gonna be a rough landing," John shouted. "Don't be afraid. I've got you."
She wasn't sure how high up they were, but she could make out Teddy with a camera covering her face already maneuvering to where they'd land. All Aubrey could think about was how she so did not want her last moments on this earth to be captured on film.
Her life started flashing before her eyes. Happy memories of her mom, childhood parties, trips to the zoo, the beach, her nana's riveting bedtime stories.
"John," she shouted as loud as she could. "I'm very sorry for being so hard on you. And for throwing your great-grandma's beautiful ring away."
He didn't respond. Instead, he yelled, his voice angry, "Aubrey, pull your legs up. Now." Unnerved, she did as she was told.
Behind her, John pulled down hard on the two canopy lines to try to slow their descent. At the same time, he kicked his own legs up, maneuvering them both so she would land on top of him.
The impact was louder than she expected.
When she opened her eyes, all she saw was blue sky. In the distance, she could hear Teddy screaming her name. The terror in her voice was the only indicator that something really bad had just happened.
No sound came from beneath her. Nor could she feel any movement.
Aubrey tried plucking at the buckles on her harness so she could get off of John, but her fingers were shaking too much to unlatch them.
Sobs choking her throat, she tried asking, "John, are you OK?"
Teddy's voice was closer now, and all Aubrey could do was holler as loud as her breathless lungs would allow, "Hurry up."
Before Teddy could reach them, several other instructors were on the scene, already unlatching her and carefully lifting her off of John's body, all the while assessing her for injuries. As soon as she was freed, Teddy locked her in a ferocious hug.
"You are never sky diving again," she moaned.
Aubrey kissed her on the cheek and then pulled out of her grasp. Turning, she knelt at John's head. His eyes were closed.
"Come on, baby, wake up. You've got to wake up."
"He's breathing," she heard one of the instructors say.
Oh, thank God.
Afraid to touch him, she pressed her lips to his forehead and rasped, "I love you so. Please don't leave me."
After an agonizing minute had passed, someone saw his hand twitch. Then a foot. Then they all heard him groan.
Like they were in some sort of animated fairy tale, she watched as one eye fluttered open and then the other. Then he lifted a knee and, ever so slowly, tried raising himself into a sitting position as an instructor's voice sounded a warning. "Easy man. That was a hell of a landing."
"Shut up, and help me," he wheezed.
An ambulance siren sounded in the background.
The instructor laughed and eased John upright before pulling him into a standing position. "You sure you're all right? Nothing broken?"
By way of an answer, he looked directly at Aubrey, waiting to regain enough of a breath to ask, "You love me?"
"I do. More than anything," she cried through a messy mix of laughter and tears.
His relief was unmistakable. Taking her in his arms, he tried lifting her but aborted that mission with a grunt. Instead, he held her as if he'd never let go.
"I love you so much," he breathed into her neck.
Accepting a clean bandana someone offered, Aubrey wiped her eyes and nose. Then, taking his face in her hands, she planted a soft kiss on his lips.
"It's my turn to apologize."
John cocked his head and whispered, "For what?"
"Your great-grandmother's ring." She put her hands to her face. "I'm so sorry I threw it in the air like that." With a wince she eeked out, "I hope you were able to get it back."
With a sleepy, seductive grin, John dug a hand into the front chest pocket of his jumpsuit while telling her, "Yeah, some guy in the crowd caught it, but he didn't get far." As he slipped it back on her finger, he added, "The guys I work with may make stupid bets, but I'm really glad they're in my corner."
"I
t fits perfectly," she said through a tear-filled grin.
John lifted her hand and kissed it. "Because this is where it belongs."
Aubrey wrapped her arms around him and didn't let go until the paramedics arrived and pried them apart.
After getting an all clear from the EMTs, Aubrey made Teddy swear an oath that she would not share the post-landing bits of the tape with anyone in the newsroom or share the news of their engagement with any of their mutual friends.
"Cross my heart and hope to—" Teddy stopped before choking out, "Don't ever scare me like that again."
More hugging ensued, after which Aubrey handed her the keys to her Volvo.
"Dang, Aubs, I know you feel bad, but you don't have to give me your car."
"Consider it a loaner. I don't think John's up to driving all the way back to the city."
Teddy glanced at him. He looked happy but weary and was leaning heavily on her best friend.
"Go ahead, and drive it straight home tonight," Aubrey instructed. "I can come pick it up tomorrow."
"Nah, I'll drop it off at your nana's. I want to get down to the office and work on this," Teddy replied as she shook her camera bag at them.
Reaching up, she gave John a kiss on the cheek. "Thanks for getting my girl back to the ground in one piece. You're her guardian angel."
He hugged her in return. "Nice meeting you, Ted."
"Same here, Mac."
After watching Teddy dump her bag into the Volvo's trunk, Aubrey waved good-bye.
Cinching an arm around his waist, she started walking her fiancé down the row of cars parked on a big patch of gravel in a field on the opposite side of the hangar. "That's going to take some getting used to."
"What?"
"Calling you Mac."
He pulled her close. "You've got a lifetime to practice."
Sigh…
Looking out over the rows of cars, she asked, "Which one is yours?"
He dug the key fob out of his pocket and handed it to her. When she pressed the lock button, she heard a bleeping sound come from her right. She did it again as they walked towards it.
The lights of a little white Chevy flicked on.
"Seriously?" Aubrey asked with a chuckle. It was so small she expected a pack of clowns to jump out as they approached.
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