“I’ve been looking for her since she left. I hired five private investigators, but this is the first one who’s had any success. I can’t believe he actually found her.”
“Where is Owen?”
“He lives in Texas. As do my adopted brothers and one sister. My youngest sister lives in New York.”
“You said that before.” She took an egg from a bowl and held it up. “Scrambled?”
He nodded. She broke the eggs and used a whisk to scramble them.
“Owen and I have the same parents. We lived in Dallas. We were poor, living in one-room apartments and moving often. Owen and I rarely had time to make friends and we went to more elementary schools than I can remember. My mother worked at whatever she could get.”
“What about your father?”
He shrugged. “He left right after I was born. Neither Owen nor I can remember him, and my mother never talked about him. She had a job working at a hotel as a night maid. When we got up for school she would be there. One day she wasn’t. And she never came back.”
“What happened to you two?” Brad heard the surprise in her voice.
Mallory set plates of food on the table. Brad buttered the toast and poured coffee.
“We stayed in the apartment until the police came. Then we ran away and stayed in abandoned buildings.” Brad thought of the twelve-year-old and Detective Ryan saying he’d found her and taken her to the shelter. It was the same with Owen and him. They’d been found and taken to foster care.
Mallory listened without interrupting. She ate her meal and drank her coffee while he continued. “We were lucky. We found a couple who loved children and treated us as if we were theirs. Eventually we were all adopted.”
“By the same couple?”
He nodded. “Our foster father died and we were adopted by our mother. She took all six of us. We became a family.”
“You were lucky,” Mallory said.
He nodded. “I know that.”
“What do you plan to do with the information you have about your mother?”
Brad suddenly felt claustrophobic. He got up and carried his plate to the stainless steel sink. He set it down and turned back. Mallory swiveled in her chair to look at him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I always thought I would rush right to her and start asking questions. But now that I know where she is I’m…”
“Terrified?” Mallory finished the sentence for him. “It’s like that question you don’t want to ask because you’re afraid of the answer.”
Brad was amazed at how quickly she understood. He didn’t know what to do about Sharon Yarborough. She didn’t even have the same name, and Simon had said she was ill.
“You should wait,” Mallory said. Again Brad had the feeling she could read his mind. “The report said she’s ill, but with nothing life threatening. You don’t want to rush into anything. If you don’t have rational thought on your side, you could make matters worse.”
“You think there could be a rational explanation for her abandoning us and never finding us in twenty-one years?”
“I know it sounds unlikely, but there is always the chance.” Her voice was soft, wistful almost, as if she was speaking from experience.
“I’ve waited a long time. More than half my life.”
Mallory stood up and carried her own plate to the sink. Brad moved aside to give her space. She put the plate down and looked up at him. “It won’t hurt to wait a little longer. You have everything you need to know. If she moves, she can be easily found again.”
For someone on the outside, Mallory was extremely perceptive. They were standing next to each other. She faced the windows and he faced the room, but both were looking into the other’s eyes. Brad remembered the gown she’d had on. Memories of running his hands over her last night came back to him. His body heated suddenly and her eyes seemed to darken, as if she’d taken a cue from him.
He wanted her, but he remembered what she’d told him. A professional relationship only. And so far he’d broken that rule. “You’d better walk me to the door,” he told her.
She moved away and he followed. He picked up his jacket and the folder.
“Thank you,” he said in the entranceway. “For more than just breakfast.”
She smiled. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. Brad felt her stiffen. He straightened, but ran a finger down her cheek.
“I owe you,” he said. “You can sleep on my couch anytime you want.”
He went down the steps. His car was parked directly in front of the house.
“Brad,” she called as he stepped off the curb. He turned back. “What are you doing tomorrow morning at 4:00 a.m.?”
“Nothing important.”
“Meet me here.”
Mallory pulled the truck into the parking area of the Flemington Fairgrounds in New Jersey before sunrise. Brad had showed up promptly at four o’clock with breakfast in hand. They’d left immediately, eating on the way. Still, her pickup took one of the last parking spaces. Quickly they got out and Mallory opened the back of the truck. Some balloons were already being blown up. She could hear the burners blowing hot air into the gaping cavities.
Mallory reached inside the truck to pull out the bag with her own folded balloon. Brad climbed inside the bed and tried to lift the basket and burner. “This thing must weigh a ton,” he said.
“Six hundred pounds,” a voice behind him said. “Morning, Doc.”
“Hi, Keith. Greg,” Mallory said, turning. They all climbed aboard and the four of them hoisted the heavy basket to the custom lift Mallory had had built onto the truck. It lowered the basket to the ground, where they slid it off.
“Hard to believe hot air can lift that thing,” Brad said when they’d finished.
“This is Dr. Bradley Clayton.” Mallory introduced him to the men he’d just worked with. “He’s my crew for today.”
The men shook hands and nodded to each other. “Keith and Greg work the ground for a lot of the pilots and crew members. They help me with the heavy work of loading and unloading the basket and burners and inflating the balloon. They also drive the chase car that picks me up and drives me back to my truck.”
“Ever been ballooning before?” Keith asked Brad.
Brad shook his head. The two men looked at each other and walked away. “I’ll check your parachute top,” Greg said.
“I must look like a greenhorn,” Brad commented wryly.
Mallory looked at him, and green was not the color she would choose to describe him. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It only takes one ride to change that.”
“What’s the parachute for?” Brad questioned.
“It’s not the kind you jump out of planes with.” She wondered if he was sorry he’d agreed to this. “A parachute is a sealed panel at the top of the balloon. It’s used to help deflate the balloon, so we can land where we want to and not crash the basket.”
Mallory had opened the huge balloon and was pulling it so it lay flat. The men at the other end helped her. Brad could see several others had joined them. This effort took a team. Brad grabbed a section near the opening and followed suit. They laid it out on the huge open space.
“How’d you get started doing this?” he asked when they finished.
“My father taught me. He used to take me up before he died. He was the pilot and I was his crew.” She missed her dad. She thought of him every time she went up, wondering what he would think of her now.
“When you were what…nine or ten he took you ballooning?”
“Earlier than that. I was three the first time. We didn’t go regularly until I turned seven. But I wasn’t the only crew. It takes several people to launch a balloon.” She looked around. “There’s a fan in the truck. It’s huge and yellow. Would you get it?”
Brad jumped up onto the flatbed of the pickup and came back carrying the fan.
“I love ballooning,” Mallory said. “If you stick to the rules, it’s relatively safe. Today shoul
d be a wonderful day for the air.”
Brad checked the morning sky. The sun was banishing the darkness at the horizon. “Am I your crew today?” he asked.
“You’re still in therapy,” she said with a smile. “I’m taking you up to give your mind something else to dwell on.”
“Would that be my life?”
She meant him finding his mother, and knew his comment was a shield to hide his true feelings.
“It will be what you want it to be.” Mallory hadn’t intended for her voice to sound seductive, but in the early morning light, with the dew still clinging to the grass, it had that quality. Brad must have noticed it, too. His eyes narrowed in keen observance.
Mallory turned away and resumed her work. “The envelope needs filling,” she told him. “Bring the fan over and we’ll fill it.”
“Envelope?”
Mallory pointed to the large, rounded portion of the balloon laying flat on the ground. “This is called the envelope. We use the fan to pump cold air into it to blow it up. When it gets to a certain level, we’ll switch the frames on and the hot air will force it to rise off the ground.”
They worked quickly, filling the balloon with cold air. In minutes the eighty-story nylon circle was billowing like a huge multicolored blanket. Keith and Greg returned for the ignition. Mallory took hold of Brad’s arm and pulled him a safe distance away. She gave him a crown line and told him to hold the balloon to prevent it from inflating too fast. Returning, Greg tipped the basket as the two of them turned on the burners. The flames shot thirty feet into the air and the whooshing noise prevented conversation.
Mallory continued heating the air for some time. Then she gave control to Greg and went back to where Brad pulled on his crown line.
“How long does it take to fully inflate?” he shouted into her ear.
“Twenty to thirty minutes,” she screamed back.
As the sun began to rise the two of them got in the basket. Mallory took over working the burner, blasting hot air into the envelope’s cavity, while Greg got out. The balloon began to rise.
“We’ll be airborne in a few minutes.”
Mallory glanced at Brad. He looked nervous. She turned her head so he couldn’t see her smiling.
Brad smiled and nodded. “Why do people like to do this?” Brad asked, between blasts of hot air.
“Why do people swim or play pick-up basketball?” she countered.
Holding on to one of the secured posts that held up the burner, he looked at her.
“Everyone in the hospital talks, Doctor,” Mallory explained. “It’s no secret that you like to play basketball.”
“Do they know you do this?” He waved a hand, encompassing the balloon and the air around them.
She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s come up in conversation. And until now I haven’t had much time for it.” She gave him a knowing look. “But people like the freedom of the air. In a plane, it’s not the same. From the beginning man has wanted to soar with the birds. Ballooning satisfies that need. It frees the body from the earth and the mind from things that worry it.”
“So you brought me for my therapy?”
“Only partly.” She looked at him seriously. “The other part is for the sheer beauty of the flight. Look.” She pointed at the horizon. Brad followed her finger. The mountains, emerald-green in the morning sun provided a magnificent backdrop for the multicolored balloons rising all around them. No two had the same pattern or combination of hues. Mallory’s balloon had slanted stripes ranging from lavender to deep purple, which from the ground made the balloon look as if it was spinning in the air. Nearby a giant red-and-silver one was shaped like a Hershey’s Kiss, and another huge yellow one was shaped like a lion with a golden mane.
Mallory noticed Brad hadn’t moved from the spot he’d claimed when he climbed onboard. Ballooning took some getting used to. It was like being at sea for the first time. You had to adjust to the swaying of the basket and the fact that the ground beneath your feet moved. She wondered if he was afraid of heights.
“I never knew so many people did this. I’ve only seen an isolated balloon now and then,” Brad commented in wonder.
“This is a small number. Everyone else is in Albuquerque.”
“Albuquerque?”
“They have a huge balloon festival this time of year. Thousands of balloons that take off at one time. It’s a real sight.” Mallory had been there once for the races. She wished she could go back someday.
“Why Albuquerque? It’s flat and brown, nothing like this.” He looked at the evergreens blanketing the Pennsylvania mountainsides.
“It has perfect airflow. You can’t imagine the feel of the wind sweeping the balloon upward, or the warm currents carrying the basket along. The balloons whirl around like spinning tops and except for the bursts of hot air, all you hear is absolute silence.”
“You wish you were there?”
“Every flyer wishes she were there. But some of us have other obligations.”
“You’re on vacation. You could have gone.”
“It’s not that easy to leave, Brad. Just because I’m on vacation doesn’t mean I don’t have things to do.” Mallory pulled the lever and hot air lifted the balloon. She hadn’t meant to give Brad an opening into her personal life. She headed him off by rushing into speech. “It’s flat over the city, but the Rocky Mountains provide a spectacular view.”
“This is a pretty sight, too.” He was looking directly at her. Mallory felt her body heat under her clothing. There was a look on his face that could only be described as wicked.
“Dr. Clayton, you’re smiling.” She spoke despite the dryness in her throat. Brad’s smile widened even more. “Does that mean your fears of ballooning have been laid to rest?”
“Was I that obvious?”
Mallory shook her head. “Let’s just say your heartbeat was visible through your jacket.”
Brad Clayton often hid his feelings. He’d probably become so adept that he didn’t even realize he was doing so. His scowl was a perpetual expression, except with children. Mallory wondered if she could break through his mask to find the real Brad Clayton.
A pang of guilt shot through her. She had her own masks securely in place. Behind them she helped people, helped them out of their fears, brought them back from the brink of nothingness, helped them to continue living.
Though conscious and mobile, Brad was in a kind of coma. And she needed to talk him out of it as she did the sleeping coma patients. His unique situation was that he could talk back, react, explain. She could watch his body language and interpret his actions.
“It’s beautiful up here,” he said. He glanced down at the ground. “I’ve been in many airplanes, but I’ve never seen the ground from this height. This is so much better.”
“You feel freer,” Mallory stated. She pulled the burner valve, and a burst of fire shot into the balloon’s envelope. Brad had to wait for the sound to die down to speak.
“It is liberating,” he said. “I can see why you like it.”
He took over the burner then, keeping the balloon at a constant level. Mallory watched him gazing out at the hundred or so other balloons. They reminded her of confetti during a parade.
“When I was a little girl I wanted to be an airline pilot and fly every day,” she murmured. Brad turned to her. Mallory thought of her father, her time with him and their mutual love of the sky. That’s what had made her want to fly—the hours they’d spent together, just the two of them. Her sister was too young and her mother wasn’t adventurous. In the truck, the two of them—Mallory and her dad—would talk for hours on the way to parade grounds and festivals. She still had his old balloon, although it was no longer airworthy.
“What changed your mind?” Brad asked. “Why’d you decide to become a doctor?”
Mallory looked down for a moment. “This is going to sound very clichéd but I wanted to help people. Being a doctor was the best way.” She watched his features, wond
ering if he believed her.
“I became a doctor because of my adoptive father,” Brad volunteered.
“Was he a doctor?”
He shook his head. “This is going to sound clichéd, too, but he was there for me when I needed him most.”
Mallory didn’t understand what he was referring to, but hoped to learn more in the future. She partially understood, though, because someone had been there for her when she’d needed it most and been unable to ask for help.
“I know my father never amassed the riches that most people equate with success, but he was the most successful man I have ever met,” Brad stated.
“You said was.”
“He died when I was in my teens.”
“My parents died in a car accident,” Mallory volunteered. “I was seventeen.” She rarely talked about her parents. The accident still made her feel raw, mainly because so much of it was a blur in her memory.
An updraft of wind suddenly caught the balloon and pushed it and the basket upward. Mallory’s stomach dropped. Brad grabbed one of the braces holding the burners and caught Mallory in a protective hold as she stumbled across the space toward him. She breathed hard as she came up against his chest.
Mallory temporarily forgot about the balloon, something she’d never done before. She was always conscious of controlling the burners, reading the airspeed, checking her altimeter and generally keeping things on an even keel. But Brad had broken her concentration and she saw only him—his piercing dark eyes, the strong arms holding her against him. She imagined his mouth lowering to touch hers, his tongue feathering against her lips. Mallory felt her body melting. Almost instantly she was swept up in the haze that surrounded them whenever they were together. It was invisible, but as strong and confining as titanium wire.
Pushing herself away, she stood up straight and reached for the burner control. She was suddenly hot and needed something to concentrate on, something other than the tall, dark and gorgeous doctor standing two feet away from her. There had to be a hundred balloons in the air, yet she felt utterly alone with Brad.
Mallory’s heart rate returned to normal and she glanced at him, only to find his back was to her. He was looking down. She wondered if he was as affected by her presence as she was by his. The two seemed to come together at the oddest times, yet there was something between them. As much as she gave herself excuses to see him, she silently admitted that she wanted to be with him.
Love on Call Page 7