by Susan Ward
“You really doing this?” he asked. “Moving to the sticks with some guy?”
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” A thought occurred to me, and I frowned. “Do you know what’s up with Cody? Why he didn’t come to say goodbye to me?”
Brayden shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you anything beyond he’s been taken off the Black Star schedule at the house.”
“Off the schedule?” I tensed. “Are you saying he quit?”
“Don’t know, Khloe. I don’t ask questions.” And he lumbered off, carrying my parcels to the plane.
I leaned against the car, and alarm shot through me, sending my heart into a fast beat. Cody just wouldn’t up and quit without telling me. It wasn’t possible. True, he’d not have much of a job without me being at the house…but to quit!
I pulled out my cell. There wasn’t a new text in our chat string. No missed calls. Nothing. I hit the call icon, and it went straight to voice mail. In dismay, I stared at my cell. Something wasn’t right. I was sure of it.
Worried, I hurried across the tarmac. One of the guys supervising the loading of the plane was Cody’s dad, Dillon. He’d worked for my dad since before I was born. He would know why I couldn’t reach his son by phone.
“Mr. Warrick,” I called out anxiously. “Do you know where Cody is? He hasn’t been at the house for days, and he didn’t show up this morning to say goodbye to me.”
Dillon whirled toward me, looking surprised. “He took off with Gideon two weeks ago. Didn’t he tell you?”
“No.” My stomach sank. How could he leave like that without a goodbye? “Where did they go?”
With a thumb and forefinger, Dillon ruefully rubbed his chin. “Gideon was offered a new position to run his own cardiac unit, a terrific advancement for a young heart surgeon just finished with his residency like him. He’s left the hospital. It’s a big promotion for Gid and an opportunity to participate in important research. He had to start ASAP, and they left the next day.”
The next day? Cody had been gone two weeks and hadn’t mentioned it once by text. It was exactly as it had been when Gideon had flown off with Doctors Without Borders, and Cody hadn’t wanted me to know he’d followed him. It’d been awful. How could Cody do that again? He had to know how important he was to me, how much I depended on our friendship.
Tears threatened my eyes, and for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why Dillon was so calm about this. “I can’t believe he moved and didn’t say goodbye. Do you know where they’re living now?”
“Not exactly sure. Cody’s never good with the details. Bullet points and then off. You know how he is.”
“But…” I didn’t know what to say.
Dillon draped an arm around me. “It’ll be all right, Khloe. If I know anything about my son, he’ll pop up when you least expect him. Cody never goes missing and radio-silent for long. Once he and Gideon are settled in, I’m sure you’re the first person he’s going to run to tell everything to. And you’ll have exciting news of your own: your move to Wyoming.”
I nodded, certain Dillon was right, that Cody would call soon to fill me in on this change, but as I watched Mr. Warrick return to the loading of the shipping containers, everything still felt off to me. It was odd how casual he’d been about the abrupt change and my distress over it.
“We can board the plane now, KK. We’re good to go,” I heard Damon announce, and as I turned in his direction, his expression fell from whatever he saw on my face. “What’s wrong?”
The sight of him brought a measure of calm to me and reminded me that this was a big day for us. I fought to contain what I was feeling over my best friend’s unexpected thoughtlessness; I didn’t want to mar Damon’s happiness with the hurt I was feeling over Cody. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just…we’re really doing this.”
His brows lifted. “Yes, we’re really doing this.” He slipped his arms around me. “No backing out now. I’ve got all your possessions locked on the plane and you in my arms. Too late to run.”
I tilted my face up toward his. “I don’t want to run.”
“It wouldn’t matter if you did. I’d follow you.”
His amber eyes blocked out the world around me. “Nope. This time I’m following you,” I corrected him.
“Wrong. You’re leading even now,” he chided, startling me as he swept me up into his arms.
I laughed as he trotted up the steps to the plane with me in his arms. “Hmm, I don’t think this counts as me leading. You’re carrying me.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re moving me in the direction you want.”
Before I knew it, we were in the jet’s cabin, and I’d left everything I considered home without even realizing it.
DAMON WHISKED ME THROUGH the cabin and closed the sleeping compartment door behind him. I had a brief view of his boyish grin flashing on his face before his mouth descended to mine. I held back before he could claim my lips, reveling in how he looked at me.
“You’re behaving quite ridiculously, Damon,” I chided with faux indignation. “Carrying me up the steps in front of everybody, hardly letting me get a ‘hello’ out to the pilots, and now—”
The leap of his pulse beneath his sweater caused me to halt. He arched a brow. “And now what? Not even waiting until we’re in the air to make love to you?”
“Something like that,” I whispered, lightly tracing the strong and beautiful line of his cheek.
His lust-filled eyes fixed on mine. “I’m rather over the top when it comes to you. I can’t help myself. Are you sorry?”
“No.” I sank into him as he moved us to the bed. I watched as he slowly lowered me then stood above me, gazing down. It was so easy to become bedazzled by Damon, by how remarkable he was, that I often failed to remember his heart was as invested as my own. “I don’t care what anyone thinks of us, Damon. I should have told you that. I’m in love with you and all that you are.”
He set a knee near me on the bed. “I don’t care either. I’m in love with you and all that you are.”
He was on both his knees and coming over me. My back bowed as he began to kiss my neck and unbutton my top. Once I was naked, he stripped off his boots and sat back on his haunches, holding me in his tigerlike gaze as he pulled off his heavy sweater. It was dropped on the bed with my clothes, and anxiousness leapt in my veins with my coursing blood.
“There’s only us now, Khloe. You and me. And what we make of each day,” he whispered, stretching over me.
He pressed forward and lifted me up into his body. With everything we had to fear—the fickleness of my illness, the burden of his birth, the paparazzi storm one misstep by us could unleash—how we loved was the one thing totally ours and perfect.
It was enough.
It was all there was for us.
It was everything.
HALFWAY ACROSS THE SKY from California to Wyoming, we fell asleep on the bed, wrapped up in each other’s limbs. I floated in and out of sleep, roused by the sound of Damon’s peaceful breathing and, other times, by the noises made by the jet. I was awake enough to feel the motion of both the flight and his body.
Careful not to wake him, I stretched out an arm and hit the button on the panel to lift one of the window covers. The sky beyond was a swirl of color—grays, oranges, and blues. I didn’t know which state we were above or how much longer it would be until we reached Wyoming.
My mind and senses were only alert enough to feel the sensation of him and where we were. Relaxing back into him, my thoughts wandered unrestrained, and in my memory came something I’d read in one of my mother’s journals from the year when she first fell in love with Dad: I can’t see the earth, and I can’t see the sun, and I can’t see the journey ahead of me.
Damon’s heart was slowly pounding beneath my cheek, and our skin was covered by a mist of passion sweat. Somehow, I knew nothing would ever feel as perfect to me as my first short flight into the future with Damon, and I wondered: Wh
en my mother wrote that journal entry, did she feel like this?
Chapter Ten
Khloe
The Past
MY EYES WERE GLUED on the view outside the window as we landed early in the afternoon on an airstrip in what looked like the middle of nowhere. I’d assumed we’d land at the private aviation area of Jackson Hole Airport, a place I was familiar with, but this was most unexpected. It reminded me there was quite a bit about how Damon lived that I still didn’t fully grasp and how scant of detail I was on the adventure he was leading me into.
The plane made two gentle bounces before fully resting on the earth, and I spared a fast glance to find Damon still asleep. He’d slept through our landing—unbelievable. Then my cheeks heated in memory of our minutes in the air, how he’d drawn out making love to me, bringing me to the edge, pulling me back, and consuming me again. He’d outdone himself with the slow torture and pleasuring of my body, and remembering this, it was no longer unbelievable to me that he hadn’t stirred.
Taking advantage of the few remaining minutes I had on my own, I rapidly scanned the vignette beyond the plane. There were trees and wide-open spaces everywhere. It was January, but the snow wasn’t deep, and the sky was a vibrant blue speckled with cotton-ball-looking, fluffy white clouds. Damon had said winter was mild thus far in the Tetons, but I took that to mean no freezing blizzard conditions, merely snow and cold like it was in the early spring when I used to come here with my wandering circus.
From the air, I hadn’t been able to see the house or pick out any detail that denoted we were on Damon’s land. Landmarks, like the city itself, had come and gone too quickly for me to orient myself to precisely where we were. At the base of the Teton mountain range was all I knew for sure. And on the east side of the valley, if I was correct on where I thought the sun was.
I’d left California on a beautiful sunny day and was greeted by an equally remarkable day in Wyoming. That had to be a good sign, right? I took it as such because, now that I was here, nervousness mingled with my excitement.
“Damon.” I wriggled around, my agitated movements not waking him, and I gave him a hard nudge in the shoulders.
His body jerked powerfully up, shaking me as he sprang fully alert to sit. “What? Is there something wrong with the plane?”
“We’re in Wyoming,” I told him loudly, and sprayed silly kisses over his warm face, feeling my love for him banish my worries and doubts. “You missed the landing. Our first landing together. You slept right through it. Chop-chop. Get dressed. I’m ready to see what you’ve gotten me into.”
He laughed over how spunky I was, rubbing his face with a palm to pull clear of his grogginess. “God, I’ve never seen anyone so excited about being in Wyoming. It’s not going anywhere, love. We don’t have to rush.”
“Hey.” I crossed my arms and pushed my face close to his. “We don’t have a lot of daylight left today. I don’t want to miss it. I want to see everything. But first off, tell me where we landed.”
His shoulders shook with silent humor. “There’s a runway on my property. Mum had it built so the press wouldn’t know when she was here. She was very private about her visits to Wyoming. Good for us. There’s not even a tower or a traffic controller to alert the paparazzi of our comings and goings. We, my dear, are completely off the grid here.”
“Yikes.” Smiling, I sprang from the blankets and tried to figure out where my clothes had landed. They’d been pushed off the bed during our very physical and creative lovemaking. I could feel the lingering warm tingle between my legs from Damon’s earlier possession of me, reminding me of something I’d somehow forgotten, and I paused in picking up my panties to grin at him. “You are very good in the air, Your Highness, and I’ve finally christened my plane and joined the mile-high club. My first ‘first’ today! Damon Saxe, you’re a dangerous man for me.”
He grinned wickedly over the ‘dangerous man’ part. “Our first ‘first’ today,” he corrected, richly amused. He turned somber. “You’ve never been with a man on this plane before?”
My cheeks heated from the question, and I couldn’t figure out where it’d come from. “No. How could you ask me that? I’ve already told you, you’re the only man I’ve ever let into the circle I’ve put around me. And the only man ever to fly on this jet with me is Cody, and he’s spoken for. You are all my first ‘firsts,’ Damon. Saying I love you. Being proposed to. Having my own guy with me at my parents’ house. Traveling on this plane with me. Making love a mile high. I never thought I’d have any of these things with a man. I couldn’t even imagine it before you.”
“I never dreamed of those things for me, Khloe. I couldn’t imagine there was someone as perfect for me out there as you. And I promise, it won’t be the last first ‘first’ we share.”
“The last today or the last ever?” I wanted to instantly kick myself for the joke out of my mouth before I could stop it, for stepping on my wonderful moment with Damon.
“Both.” He dropped a kiss on my lips, then went for his pants. “I’ve been thinking of this day for so long, KK. You should be very fearful of leaving the plane with me.”
My heart soared—Damon made a joke, and I knew then no matter what lay ahead, we’d always move in delicious harmony.
“Blah-blah. Promises, promises. I can handle anything you bring my way.”
“Good. I’m bringing a lot your way. More than I’m sure you think.”
“So conceited, Damon.” I tossed my hairbrush at him—I was so happy I’d taken it from my tote without thinking—and darted away as he reached for me.
“Not conceited. Besotted with you. Captivated by you.” He caught me around my middle and brought me up against him. I loved him all the more for the silly things he said and did, when I was pretty sure he’d done neither before me. “Hopelessly enchanted by you.”
“Hopelessly devoted to you,” I sang, then my voice faded, breathy. “Me, too.”
I felt him relax, sinking down on the bed and bringing me with him. “If you weren’t so impatient to head out, I’d spread you out on the bed and make you come again and again so you’d never forget this day. We can do that, you know. We have nowhere we have to be. No one waiting. No one threatening to interrupt us. All the time in the world now to love each other however, whenever we want to.”
“I’m already never going to forget this day,” I murmured, feeling the change in his body. He’d been serious and was even more joyful after having said that. “And what you describe sounds like heaven to me. It’s what I want most, Damon.”
“Good…” He drew out the single word like a caress. “Because it’s the only thing I have to give you that you don’t already have. Me and how much I love you.”
I lay my palm on his cheek. “That’s all I have to give you. I hope that’s all you need as well.”
“All I’ll ever need.” He kissed my wrist. “Now, let’s get you home.”
Home—my heart sang from the word. My own home. It was near unimaginable.
Submerged in the lush feeling that swirled between us, we were quiet as we finished dressing. Of course, I took longer than Damon, and he sat in one of the plush leather seats watching me as I finished.
“Do you have the wool cap in your tote, or did you ditch it once my back was turned?” he asked, smiling.
I marched over to my bag and pulled out the offending garment. “There. Happy now?”
“No. I’ll be happy when it’s on your head. Don’t let the blue sky deceive you. It’s freezing out there, Khloe. Put on your gloves as well.”
“Is this how it’s going to be? You being bossy, even about my wardrobe?”
“You haven’t been through winter here yet and, yes, very bossy. The temperature here is nothing to make light of.”
“It’s warm in the plane.”
“It’ll be freezing outside. Bundle up, for me, will you?”
I made a face and yanked on the cap over my short-short
hair. “This is not my best look, Damon. It wasn’t even before the chemo. I shine much better in a warm-water port.”
“You’re stunning no matter what.”
I crinkled my nose at him. “You’re just saying that because you want to get your way.”
“I’m saying it because it’s true,” he argued with a growl. I started gathering up my things, and he stopped me. “Leave the bags, Khloe. I’m not so impoverished that I haven’t someone to carry your things.”
I pouted. “You’re not impoverished at all.”
“Compared to you, I am.” His brows jetted up as his gaze darted around the sleeping compartment. “We’ve started our life together leaving California on your plane.”
He turned toward the cabin door.
“Wait,” I ordered, rummaging through my bag as Damon turned back toward me. “Come over here.”
“What’s wrong?”
I chided him with a lift of my brows. I really needed to find a way to nip in the bud his worry over Khloe overreacting at the drop of a hat.
I held up my cell to him. “If we’re going to look like his-and-hers lumberjacks, I want to get a selfie. I want to send it to my family so they know we arrived safely. But I’ll do it through Snapchat so that it disappears forever. No one other than me is ever having proof that I wore this hideous hat because I love you.”
Damon was laughing as I looped an arm around him and brought his face close to mine. Flash. Flash. Then I huddled over my phone, sending our landing photo off as Damon pulled me off the plane with him.
Chapter Eleven
Khloe
The Past
WE REACHED THE OPEN CABIN door, and I paused on the top step as a blast of chilly air hit my face. Damon had been right. It was very cold despite the sun and clear blue sky I’d seen from inside the plane, but the crispness of the air was richly scented with delicious smells unlike those at home.
All around me was forest—lodgepole pine, spruce, and aspen—and I thought of my mom’s stories of years living in a house on the side of a mountain before marrying Dad, and how she described the world there as one of comfortable quiet. I hadn’t understood it before, how the absence of all sound could evoke a physical sensation, and my senses leapt as for the first time I experienced exactly what she’d felt.