“You’re up for this, right?” he asked, confirming that Ellie was there to jump.
She looked at Blake. “Tell me again why I’m doing this.”
Chase answered before Blake had a chance to. “Everyone who participates is backed by several corporations across the West. Many of them donate over a thousand dollars per participant. Last year we raised half a million dollars. We stand to break that record today.”
Ellie smiled. “Good luck.”
“Blake tells me you work for a foundation that raises money for girls,” Chase said.
“That’s the gist of it,” Ellie said, nodding. “We do a lot more than raise the money.”
“How many people are participating today?” Blake asked.
“Including the two last-minute entrants—” he shot glances between him and Ellie “—the count is six hundred.”
“There are six hundred people going up today?” Ellie’s voice showed surprise.
“Not all at once,” Chase said. “The event goes on all day and into the night. It’s beautiful at night. I hope you guys are planning to make a day of it.”
Blake’s look to Ellie was questioning. She gave him no clue to her desires. He’d brought her for the jump, not to spend the entire day and night together. He supposed this was one of the times that playing things by ear was the appropriate action.
“Well, let’s get dressed. Our ride is ready and waiting,” Chase said.
Blake moved with Ellie toward the airfield behind the building. If this was to be their last date, it was certainly going to be memorable.
Chapter 6
They didn’t immediately dress and walk to a plane, although the day had already started. There were planes taking off and parachutists going up. Ellie had to take a short class before the jump, and she wanted to find out what to expect before it happened. An hour later, Chase strapped the two of them into the harnesses. He wore a parachute, but Ellie didn’t. He also put on a helmet.
“Don’t I get a helmet?” she asked. Her stomach was already feeling the strong pressure of fear.
“You don’t wear one for the tandem jump,” Chase explained.
“If you did,” Blake said, coming up behind her and standing so close that his body heat merged with hers, and the heated air between them could not escape. He put his arm around her upper shoulders and pulled her back. Her head tapped his chin. “If you were wearing a helmet, you could knock the pilot out and both of you would free-fall.”
He didn’t say free-fall into the ground, but Ellie understood that would be the result. She also understood that Blake was again pressed so close to her that there was little if any separation between them. He released her after his demonstration, and she took in a long breath. Her heart thudded so hard, she was sure it could be seen in the rising and falling of her chest.
“The ride is going to be thrilling,” Chase was saying when her world righted itself and the rushing hum in her ears subsided to normal decibel levels.
Ellie said nothing as the three of them joined a group of thirteen others heading for a plane sitting on the tarmac.
“How many people are doing this?” she shouted over the noise of the wind and engines.
“On our plane, sixteen. It’s a Cessna C208B Grand Caravan—perfect skydiving plane. On other planes there are more, some less. Depends on how many are ready.”
Ready or not, Ellie thought, she was heading for the sky. The event she’d taken Blake to might have had him twist an ankle or fall from a horse. There were dangers in just getting out of bed in the morning, but skydiving held a greater amount of risk than anything else she could think of, short of falling in love.
Ellie coughed at the thought. Where had that come from? she wondered.
She tried to send the thought back.
Chase got in front of her and boarded. She followed and found two bench seats on either side of the plane. He straddled the seat and motioned for her to sit with her back to him in the same straddled fashion. Blake sat in front of her. The aircraft quickly filled with skydivers, all of them seated toward the back of the plane, the way she was. Even though it took fifteen minutes for the four-ton plane to reach the skydiving height of thirteen thousand feet, it seemed faster than that.
Chase connected her straps to his, and soon they were scooting along the seat. At the huge open door, she saw Blake fall out. Her heart shuddered. Then it was their turn. The wind caught her as she looked out on nothing but air.
“Here we go,” Chase said. He grabbed her head and pulled it back. “Scream,” he said and they fell out into space.
Ellie didn’t need prompting. She screamed, and then she was falling and floating. The wind whipped her hair back. Her arms spread and her legs were pushed up, bent at the knees, by the currents. Wow, she thought. It was amazing. She loved the rush of air, the speed of the wind on her skin.
Several planeloads of skydivers were at various levels below her. She searched for Blake, wondering whether she could find him in the colorful array of floating suits. Chase must have understood what she was doing. He pointed to a flyer to their right, and she saw Blake below them. Chase spun her around and did a complete circle in the air. Ellie gave him the two-thumbs-up signal, since speaking in the wind was out of the question.
At her acceptance, he went through several other arcs before the one-minute mark had been reached. Then he reached for the “hackey,” or what most people think of as the rip cord, and deployed the chute. Ellie had never felt so free. They were floating. She looked at the landscape below, seeing it from an angle that resembled a photograph, but there was nothing like the real deal.
Five minutes later, Chase brought them safely and smoothly to the ground. He released her tether, and she pulled her goggles off.
“That was wonderful.”
Blake came up behind them, dragging his chute. “I guess you liked it,” he said.
“Can we do it again?” Ellie couldn’t contain the excitement in her voice. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“It’s up to Chase,” Blake told her.
They both turned expectantly to the black-haired man. Chase smiled. “Give me a couple of hours. I have several other jumps to do.”
“We’ll get something to eat,” Blake said.
Ellie thanked Chase before they walked away. They got something from the snack bar and found seats at picnic tables that had a view of the skydivers. Watching them was a totally different experience now that Ellie knew what they were doing, seeing and feeling.
“I get that you liked the diving,” Blake said. “And are you enjoying yourself otherwise?”
“You mean now that I’m no longer scared to death?”
He smiled. “Something like that.”
“I am. Everyone is very friendly, and they all seem to be interested in donating to the cause.”
Blake nodded.
“That doesn’t include you,” she said. “Today doesn’t count as fulfilling your obligation.”
Ellie was sorry the moment she said it. Today was the end of their time together. She expected to spend the entire day with him. He’d done it at the horse farm. She had nothing else planned for the day or evening.
Her enthusiasm when she and Chase had completed the jump was overwhelming, and her request to repeat it came out before she thought about it, just as the words that this day and this event did not qualify came out without her realizing the goal she’d set for herself to finish anytime with Blake was out. She couldn’t pull it back.
“What do you mean it doesn’t count? It benefits the diabetes foundation. We raised a lot of research dollars already, and by the end of the night, they’ll be well over the set goal.”
“They, not you?” Ellie countered. She’d started down this road. She had to go on now.
“What?”
“They rai
sed money.” She pointed to the group of skydivers who’d jumped with them. “They are passionate about helping people with the disease, about finding a cure. You did it for fun.”
“I made a sizable donation.”
“That’s what you always do. You write a check, and that closes the books, so to speak.”
Blake opened his mouth, then closed it without saying anything.
* * *
The day should have ended there, Ellie thought. She’d challenged Blake’s choice, accused him of only being at the event for the fun of it. He wasn’t here to support the group as anything other than a patron. Ellie wondered why she hadn’t let it go. Her action had inadvertently set them up for another day together. Pushing the thought away, she turned to him.
“I hope I didn’t spoil the day.”
“No.” He shook his head. In an instant, he’d regrouped. “We’ll go on the next jump.” His smile was as charming and intoxicating as always. “We’ll have dinner and attend the dance afterward.”
“Dance? Dinner?”
“It was part of the deal,” he said.
“This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“You like surprises,” he said. “I could tell that by the way you invited me to the horse farm.”
“You’re still paying me back,” she said. Then she nodded. “I do like surprises, although I hope you give me enough notice to get properly dressed.”
“There will be plenty of time for that.”
He grinned and Ellie relaxed. “It was a joke,” she said.
He nodded, his smile still in place. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. I understand payback.” She said it in a manner that meant this was not over. There was more to come, and he wouldn’t see it before it blindsided him.
Ellie didn’t want to fight with Blake. She wanted their last hours to be ones she could add to her memory box, something she could take out and revisit with pleasant thoughts.
They left the table and went to watch the skydivers forming patterns in the sky. Ellie was in awe of them flying out of planes and grouping up in the sky. Her fall had been nothing like that. Chase had given them a few somersaults and a couple of twists, but it was the two of them all the way to the ground. She marveled at what she saw, taking her cell phone out many times to record the beauty of what she could only call poetry in motion.
“I can’t wait to see this at night,” she commented.
“It’ll be dark in a couple of hours.”
“When do we go up again?”
The question was like a summons for Chase. He appeared almost as soon as she finished speaking.
“We’re up in about fifteen minutes. Better suit up,” he said.
Ellie jumped up as if she were a kid about to go on a roller coaster for the fifth time. She got into her harness and looked at Blake. “Aren’t you going again?”
“I’m going to watch you from the ground. I’ll get a lot of footage as you come down. Besides, Chase has to go in tandem with you.”
“Your loss, my friend,” he said. “If you’d finished that certification, you could be in my place.”
“Don’t taunt me. I feel bad enough.”
Ellie felt herself go warm. She felt heat rise in her face at the tenderness of his words. With a short wave, she followed Chase to the waiting plane. It was the same Cessna they had flown in earlier. This time she wasn’t as frightened as she’d been before.
Her second jump was just as thrilling as the first. She looked at the landscape and felt the wind, which had changed in the passing hours. It was slightly colder, but she didn’t mind. Her hair slanted back from her face. The goggles kept her eyes from smarting as they fell through space and time. For a moment, Ellie heard nothing. She was alone with the universe, floating on the air currents, a feather pushed about by air and drawn to the surface by gravity. None of these constructs of physics entered her mind as she spread her arms and allowed the invisible lace to support and carry her.
When Chase deployed the chute, she looked to the ground, watching the green surfaces turn to trees and grass and houses in the distance. She searched for Blake, wondering where he was among the crowds of people no larger than ants gazing up at the falling bodies.
Ellie would never have gone skydiving, never thought of it on her own. It wasn’t something on her bucket list. Blake wasn’t on that list, either, but falling in love was.
And her free fall was bringing her closer and closer to Blake, a man she had no business even thinking of or completing a sentence that used his name and the word love together.
The moment she and Chase touched Mother Earth, Blake was there, helping them up and unharnessing her from his friend.
“Was it just as much fun?”
“Without a doubt,” she said.
“Maybe you’ll come back again,” Chase said. “Even though this event only takes place once a year, we’re here at least once a month. Maybe you can convince Blake here to finish his certification.”
She glanced at Blake. “That would be up to him, but I thought you owned this place. You look so comfortable here.”
Chase laughed.
“Chase is the CEO of an investment company,” Blake supplied. “But I met him when he was a cover model.”
Chase frowned.
“I’m intrigued,” Ellie said.
“A story for another time and after many drinks,” Chase returned. “Other than investments, I’m also very active with the diabetes foundation. Both my parents have the disease. My mother has lost her sight and my father died because of it.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
He nodded, rather than saying anything in response. “You see why I’m involved in finding a cure?”
Ellie glanced at Blake. She could tell he knew why. Chase was engaged, vested in his cause. Blake was only an observer.
* * *
The air in the Jeep on the way back to Ellie’s was heavy. The sun had set, and it was dark in the cab. The road had few lights, too, making it even more ominous. Blake didn’t know how to lighten the mood. He was the main reason for it having a size and weight of its own.
“Blake, let’s not end the day on a low note,” Ellie said in the darkness. “It was a wonderful outing. I had a great time.”
“How about we stop for some dinner?” he said without answering her.
“I’d like that.”
Her voice was soft, dissipating some of the heaviness between them.
“Any suggestions for a good place to eat?”
Ellie looked around. They had reentered the city and were driving along one of the major thoroughfares.
“Turn right at the light,” she said. “Do you like Italian food?”
“My middle name is pasta.”
She laughed and Blake felt all the heaviness depart. The tension he’d been holding in his body left him, and he relaxed. With her directions, Blake found a small independent restaurant called Mama’s Table. Inside, every seat seemed to be filled with people. The smells had his mouth watering.
“Miss Ellie, good to see you again.” A large man in a white apron opened his arms and folded Ellie inside them. They kissed on both cheeks and then he stepped back. “So good to see you.”
“You, too, Connie,” she said. “This is Blake Thorn. Blake, meet Constantine. He’s the owner and major cook.” Then she looked up at him again. “Do you have a table for us?”
“For you, I’d build a table.”
He led them to a small table for two in the back of the restaurant. It was hard to see from the entrance. Blake was surprised to find anything available.
Connie produced a lighter and lit the candle in the middle of the table. Small white lights in the ceiling above gave the area a romantic mood. Italian paintings on the walls and people enjoying their food added to the ambia
nce of the restaurant.
“You’re well-known here,” Blake stated.
“I’ve been known to eat here a time or two.”
They took seats. “What’s good tonight?” Ellie asked.
“Great lasagna. We have the fettuccini you love.”
Ellie’s smile brightened and she ordered it. Blake settled on the lasagna. After the waiter brought their drinks, Blake lifted his glass and looked directly at Ellie. He’d seen her all day, but in this amber-lit alcove, with a candle between them, the glow on her face rivaled the lights on the nighttime skydivers falling from the heavens.
* * *
Ellie raised her glass and looked at the golden liquid. “Blake,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about our charity arrangement.”
“What about it?”
“Well, it seems a little childish on my part to continue these, for want of a better word, exercises. I know I practically goaded you into accepting the challenge, but now that we’ve gone to two events, I think we should call a halt to it. You’ve got a store to run, and I’ve got programs for girls to fund and administer.”
“Are you saying that you don’t want to go on?”
“Not exactly. And you don’t have to say it like I’ll be losing a bet. This was not a bet.”
“No, it was a challenge and you held up your part. By your own words, I didn’t do mine.”
“You don’t have to. We can let it all drop. There’s no one to know we even started this but us.”
“A very important person,” he said. “I will know.”
“And you’re a man who never quits, I take it.”
“Not until I know defeat is the only ending,” he said.
Ellie had the feeling he was saying more than his words revealed. And there was an undertone of teasing present in his voice. That was all right. She could take a little cajoling. In the end, things would work out for the best.
“There’s no need for that. We can stop a process anytime we want. Isn’t that something you do in the store when a program is not working?”
Love in San Francisco ; Unconditionally Page 8