by Dana Corbit
Good thing he didn’t believe in silly romantic clichés or he might have had a saccharine thought that her hand had been made to fit his. Even if Alex did believe in such things, God was probably too busy to ever make fitted pieces like that.
Dinah was looking down as she said she shouldn’t, but like him, she was staring at their joined hands that he’d settled on the bench seat between them. She must have looked past their hands to the point beneath the car door where she could see their dangling feet because she winced.
Either he hadn’t noticed the regular progression of movement or the ride was suddenly filled to its operator’s liking because this time when the ride jerked into movement, it didn’t stop. They traveled backward down one side of the circle, past the entrance and exit at the bottom, forward up the other side and right over the peak before repeating the whole sequence again.
Dinah was still holding on to the safety bar with her left hand, and her grip had tightened on his hand until it was uncomfortable, but otherwise, she held her composure.
“You see, it is fun.” He smiled at her as the wind caught some of the strands that had come loose from her ponytail and sent them flying across her nose.
She used the hand that had been holding on to the bar to brush them out of her face. “It doesn’t stink, anyway, even if it is freezing out here.”
“Come on. This is great. The wind, the speed, the weightlessness in the pit of your stomach as you drift up one side and down the other.”
“Oh, I thought that was nausea.”
“You’re not sick, are you?”
She shook her head but turned to him and grinned. “Why? Would you care if I were?”
Alex looked from one side of their car to the other. “In a cramped place like this, I pretty much have to care.”
She chuckled. “Really, I’m fine. Much better than I thought I’d be.”
“It’s probably the company.”
“Must be.”
He squeezed her hand that had finally relaxed in his.
They didn’t say more; they didn’t have to. Yet Alex found himself not wanting the ride to end even if the wind was blowing right through his layers of clothing. He and Dinah had other places that they needed to be later, but he wanted to stay here with Dinah, just holding hands.
The rightness of the moment terrified him in a way that an out-of-control fire never could, and yet he didn’t feel the need to retreat from the flames. Maybe he should be questioning his survival instinct, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to enjoy the serenity of the moment as their car passed the highest point in the ride.
The serenity that ended with a jolt and a metal-grating screech.
For several seconds, they sat stock-still as their car rocked slightly in what felt like an aftershock. Around them about a third of those clear bulbs that had flashed in the night were either blinking or had gone dark. The murmur of voices, both from those in the other cars and others on the ground, filtered through the air.
Releasing Dinah’s hand, Alex leaned over the side of their car to get a look at the others below. Several riders were fidgeting in their seats, which was the only movement he could see because this ride wasn’t going anywhere.
Dinah cleared her throat, drawing his attention back inside their car.
“I take it this wasn’t part of the whole Ferris wheel experience you were telling me about.”
“Now don’t panic. It’s probably just a minor breakdown. I’m sure they’ll have it fixed in no time.” At least, that’s what he hoped. He suspected the situation wouldn’t be tied up so easily.
“Me? Panicking?” She shook her head hard enough to rock the car again. “No. Not at all. Not yet.”
“So we have a few minutes at least until we jump for safety?”
Dinah glanced down between their knees to where their sneaker-clad feet dangled toward the ground. When she shivered again, Alex was positive it wasn’t from the cold.
“At least a few minutes.” She swallowed. “For right now at least, I think I’m safer up here.”
“Ya think?”
“Okay, Mr. Firefighter, you know what to do in an emergency. How are you going to get us down from here?”
“Sorry, sweetie. If I’d known ahead of time, I could have brought a hose and an ax with me, but it wouldn’t help to have the people on the ground spray the hose all the way up here, and I doubt you want me to hack our way down.”
“Remind me to bring someone with a parachute next time.”
“Duly noted. You know—” he paused until she looked over at him “—it really is kind of nice up here.”
“I guess as cold, windy nights when you’re stuck up in the middle of the sky go, it’s not so bad.”
One of those loose tendrils at her cheek blew across her nose again, and this time Alex brushed it back from her face. “Come on, Dinah. Since when are you a glass-half-empty gal? Look out there. It really is like the top of the world. Of Chestnut Grove, anyway. From this vantage point, you can look down on all of God’s creation.”
“You mean in the daylight, right?”
At least she was starting to get her good humor back.
“Guess you’ll just have to imagine it right now.”
She turned her head toward him, looking suddenly serious. “How long do you think we’ll be up here? Really? Because it’s going to get really cold.”
“It’s hard to say. The fact that so many lights are out isn’t a good sign, and that screech didn’t sound promising, either. If we’re stuck too long, the fire department will have to bring the ladder truck to get us.”
Even the shadows couldn’t hide the worry on her face as she pondered those things.
“What happened to that teacher who got a kick out of the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment?”
She turned to look back at him. “How do you know about that?”
“You were so excited about it that you mentioned it that first day on the phone. I knew you were an adventurer before I ever met you.”
“An adventurer with a fear of heights,” she said with a sardonic laugh. “Go figure.”
“We’re all afraid of something, Dinah.”
“Even you? You go rushing into fires when everyone else is running out.”
“There are things I’m afraid of.”
“Such as?”
Not knowing who I am. He wanted to say it, but he’d already stepped out of his comfort zone by admitting that anything scared him. Would it really help anyone to admit aloud the one thing that frightened him most of all?
“Trusting, probably,” he said finally. It was a cop-out, and he knew it, but what he’d said was also true. He wasn’t ready, wasn’t sure he ever would be to face the skeletons he hadn’t even known were in his family’s closet.
“I sure know that one,” she said with a chuckle. “I trusted you to take me on this thing, and look what happened.”
As if she only realized after her witty comeback that he might be serious, she turned back to him. “Oh. Sorry.”
“No need to be sorry.”
Below them, a crowd had started to gather as carnival volunteers and guests realized the Ferris wheel was taking more than a lengthy break. Brandon and Chelsea weren’t among them as far as Alex could tell, which was just as well since he didn’t want to worry them. They had enough things to be worried about lately.
“Are you still cold?” Even as he asked it, he scooted close to her, wrapped an arm around her shoulder and drew her close to his side. “For shared-warmth purposes only.”
“Of course.” The way the side of her mouth lifted suggested she wasn’t buying his story, yet she still relaxed against his side.
Turning his head, he closed his eyes and breathed in the honeyed scent of her hair, letting it filter through his senses and create a memory. “You know, I’m not in any hurry for them to bring us down from here.”
For a second, he thought he heard her murmured agreement, but then she made a skeptical sound
in her throat. “Next time you need a captive audience, particularly if it’s me, would you mind making your stage on the ground?”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Absently, he traced his fingers along the curve of her shoulder again and again. “I’ve waited all week to be alone with you, but every night there’s been a crowd everywhere we turned,” he admitted. “Way up here, though, it finally feels like we’re alone.”
Dinah stiffened next to him, her nervousness and innocence sweet. “Why?” She stopped and cleared her throat. “Why did you want to be alone with me?”
Because of her beauty that emanated from the inside out. Because of her appealing faith, intellect and wit. Because of the connection between them he no longer could deny. He wanted to be with her for all those reasons and more, but he only said, “For this.”
With the arm he had around her shoulders, he turned her toward him. His free hand went to her cheekbone, and he traced it with the side of his thumb. At first her eyes were wide, but she leaned into his hand, just as she’d allowed herself to sink into the protection of his arm. He might have been able to back away until then, but this newest act of trust propelled him forward.
Slowly, giving her plenty of time to pull away if she wished it, Alex leaned in and touched his lips to hers. It was the briefest of kisses, and yet with it, everything between them had changed. Alex swallowed, sensing that truth with a surety he hadn’t felt about anything for a long time.
He should have known. If simply meeting her had reopened a dark place in his heart and if getting to know her had tempted him to trust when he’d believed the ability in him was dead, then he should have known that she would taste of sweetness, honesty and purity. He should have understood that after kissing someone like Dinah Fraser, he would never be the same.
As he sat facing her with mere inches separating him from her lovely mouth, Dinah startled, and her eyelids fluttered open. Questions danced in her dark gaze, none of which he could answer yet, so he touched his mouth to hers once more, sinking into the pillowy softness of her lips.
Could she feel it, too? Did she feel the promises his heart made through touch when his thoughts weren’t even ready to wrap around them yet? He didn’t want to think just yet, didn’t want to analyze the unexplainable. He only knew that if given the chance he could go on kissing Dinah Fraser like this forever.
A thunderous bang, though, made forever a very short time. It shook the Ferris wheel and reverberated in his ears. The pair jerked away from each other so quickly that their backs hit opposite sides of the car with matching thuds.
“What was that?” Dinah exclaimed, her eyes wide.
Alex shook his head, waiting for an aftershock that would send the wheel spinning off its axis, but above them, the sky exploded into thousands of lights. Thousands of red and green lights.
“The fireworks,” they exclaimed in unison, both laughing so hard that tears shone in their eyes.
“I can’t believe I forgot,” she said.
Alex just shook his head. They must have discussed the fireworks display half a dozen times in the last week, particularly since the fire department had to be on standby for all public displays. A few minutes alone with Dinah, and he was forgetting his good sense and plenty of other things he knew to be true.
With that first pyrotechnic masterpiece dripping in ashes toward the ground, he heard a distant pop-pop-pop, and again the sky was alight with color. Only this time, the booms and the flashes of light just kept coming. It was egocentric to even think it, but still he couldn’t help believing that the showers of light were there for the two of them.
During a pause in the noise, Dinah leaned close to his ear. “Now I’ve heard people say that they see fireworks at times like these, but who can say they actually started fireworks with…well…you know.”
“No one accused us of being normal.” But he didn’t want to begin another round of the verbal banter they used to cut the tension between them, so he didn’t say more. He only slipped his arm around Dinah’s shoulders again and leaned his head on the back of the car so they could both watch the light show from this bird’s-eye view.
“Oooh. Aaah,” they repeated a few times to keep the tradition of fireworks displays. Strange how the tradition seemed superfluous when paired with a show that wasn’t like any other he’d seen. From this point on, he would never be able to see another fireworks display without thinking about tonight and the lovely woman who’d shared the pictures in the sky with him.
The bangs continued, as did the popping of flowers, stars and geometric-shaped beings, born only to collapse toward the ground after their coming-out party. Alex peeked over the side of the car, catching sight of the crowd below that had grown larger. Whether they were worried relatives and friends of the thirty or so people on the Ferris wheel or fireworks enthusiasts trying to watch the show he couldn’t tell.
The angle of their car prevented him from seeing what really interested him: work on the ride’s engine area. If they didn’t do something soon, the riders would still be in the air until Sunday-morning services.
“I thought I heard drilling or something below us. Maybe they’re going to fix this thing.” Dinah peeked over her own side but then jerked back, likely remembering her own warning about not looking down. Instead, she settled her head back against Alex’s side, letting him wrap his arm around her.
“Let’s hope so.” He hadn’t heard the sounds, wasn’t sure why any drilling would be necessary to fix this machine, but he hoped she was right that the technicians were finally working on it.
After several minutes in which the pauses between fireworks stretched longer than the displays themselves, the grand finale began in shooting white streams of light that exploded, one on top of the other, leaving a blanket of color and shapes before they faded to the earth.
“That was amazing.” Dinah sighed, still looking up where stars continued to brighten the clear sky.
“The view from here is still just as beautiful.” With his gaze, he traced her profile from her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, over the delicate ridges of her lips and over her chin.
She cleared her throat, obviously realizing that the beauty he spoke of was hers. Still she added, “God’s version of pyrotechnics beats man’s idea any day.”
Only after they’d both become quiet did Alex hear the first siren. It didn’t make sense. Both Squad Four and Engine Four were already near the church on standby because of the fireworks display.
Not only did he think it was overkill for dispatch to send a second squad and engine, or even a ladder truck, he’d hoped that it wouldn’t be necessary for the department to have to respond at all. After the humiliation of Chelsea pulling the alarm, it was all he needed to have to be rescued by his coworkers.
Dinah slipped from beneath the curve of his arm and turned in the direction the siren seemed to be approaching from. “It must be a new experience for you being the rescuee instead of the rescuer.”
“One I’d hoped never to experience,” he mumbled.
“So I’m the one who’s afraid to try new things?”
For some reason, the rescue vehicles that had seemed to be approaching the church didn’t arrive at the carnival as quickly as Alex would have expected. In fact, their sirens stopped before they ever reached the church parking lot.
“Do you think they’re lost?” Dinah asked.
Alex shook his head. “Something’s not right, though, or they’d be here.”
“Good thing this isn’t a fire.”
Great. Now the fire department he was proud of seemed to be taking a Sunday drive when this Saturday-night crowd was stuck on a thrill-ride that wouldn’t end. His fellow firefighters might as well have been the proverbial cops in a doughnut shop.
“I just wish they’d get here already.”
Alex didn’t get his wish. The engine and squad didn’t show, and no more sirens blared to suggest they ever would. But even without the help, the Ferris wheel lurched for
ward, and their adventure came to an end.
Chapter Eleven
D etective Zach Fletcher pulled up behind Officer Steve Merritt’s squad car, which had its flashers blinking and its engine running. He’d almost made it home for a peaceful night with Pilar and the kids. So close. Okay, it probably wouldn’t have been all that peaceful, anyway, since Adriana and Eduardo were so hyped on cotton candy and postcarnival adrenaline that their bedtime routine would be anything but routine.
This, though—investigating unusual circumstances involving the staff of Tiny Blessings Adoption Agency and their families—was becoming downright habitual for him over the last two years. If he wasn’t investigating Barnaby Harcourt’s suspicious death or the abandoned baby Pilar had found on the agency doorstep or even the fire at the agency office, he was trying to track down the writers of threatening notes to agency officials or to the local newspaper reporting on the agency scandal.
Tonight was no different. Officer Merritt could easily have handled taking this report alone. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a standard report of vandalism: a shattered windshield. The identity of the victims—Ross and Kelly Van Zandt—made the case less than normal, and the presence of another threatening letter kept it from being standard.
Zach climbed out and trudged toward the squad car, where an open door lit the interior. Kelly sat sideways in the backseat with her feet still touching the street outside the door.
Her hands resting on her rounded abdomen, Kelly looked up as he approached. “They insisted that I sit down for a few minutes. Junior here starts doing aerobics whenever I get stressed.”
“There’s been a lot of stress lately.” Zach didn’t bother posing it as a question. He knew all about the stresses this mother-to-be had been facing for more than two years now.
“Somebody wants to make sure that Ross drops his investigation into this newest batch of doctored birth records.” Kelly moved one of her hands to her hair, worrying a few of the blond and brown strands with her fingers.
Zach followed Kelly’s gaze back to her husband’s SUV with a windshield that looked as if it had been on the wrong end of a baseball bat. She had to wonder to what lengths the suspect in this crime would go to prevent certain information from coming to light. Zach knew he was wondering, and he didn’t like his suspicions.