“Sorry, no. Those are nicknames that sort of stuck. Vel is Amy and Ty is Cathy.”
“So how did those nicknames come about? Are they short for something?”
“Yeah,” he admitted sheepishly. “Remnants of my Jurassic period. Vel is short for Veloci-sister. She’s small and cute like a velociraptor, until she tries to bite your head off. Ty is short for Tyranno-sister Rex. She’s the older, more frightening one.”
Emily laughed out loud, as he’d hoped she would.
“You don’t really call them that, do you?” He was enchanted by the laughter in her expression and if they hadn’t been in the middle of a dress shop, he’d have taken her in his arms and kissed the life out of her right then and there.
“Believe me, that’s better than some of the other things I called them when we were growing up. It’s gotten to the point they kind of expect nicknames from me and get suspicious when I call them by name.”
“So . . . a birthday and a birth.” Emily moved farther into the store, tapping her chin with a slender finger while she examined all the colorful items on display. “Can you tell me more about your sisters? Besides which dinosaurs they resemble, I mean. Do you know either one’s favorite color?”
“Amy likes pink. Cath’s more into oranges, reds, and burgundies.”
“Tall or short?”
“They’re both about your height. Maybe an inch or two taller in Cathy’s case. Both thin, though Cathy’s supposed to be ballooning in a couple of months.”
Emily shot him a dirty look that said she didn’t appreciate his comment. He liked that she’d stick up for his sister—a woman she’d never met. It said something good about Emily’s sense of fairness.
“How far along is she?”
“Four months. She only told the family last week. She and her husband were keeping it quiet until they were sure everything was going to be okay.” His voice grew more serious. “She’s had two miscarriages.”
Emily’s eyes filled with compassion. “How about this?”
She swept a hanger off the rack and swirled the swath of brightly colored fabric over her arm. It was a dress that didn’t have much of a waist. It would work really well for a pregnant woman. The fabric floated downward from an ornate neckline and was light as a feather. Some sort of gauzy cotton fabric that was dyed with bold orange and red flower patterns.
“I think we have a winner.” He picked up the dress and folded it over his arm.
He hadn’t intended to mix personal shopping with business but he figured he was killing two birds with one stone. He really did need presents for his sisters and if helping him shop drew him closer to Emily, it would help his mission considerably.
Plus the smile on Emily’s face made his guts clench in a mix of pleasure and dread. He was falling fast for the pretty pilot. That hadn’t been part of the program but he would have to deal with things as they came at him. He’d always been quick on his feet. He’d just have to figure a way to handle the attraction that sparked between them whenever they were together.
“How about this for Amy?” Emily lifted a delicate pink shawl from one of the tables and held it out in front of him, displaying the fabric. It was thicker than the dress and even softer.
“What’s it made of?”
“Raw silk.”
“Fancy.” He took the shawl out of her hands and added it to the growing pile on his arm. “She’ll like that. Now, what do you want as a reward for helping me? How about that blue number over there? You’d look killer in it.” His gaze moved to a form fitting Chinese brocade dress displayed on a mannequin, then back to her. He’d noted the way she eyed the silk dress when they’d walked in.
“No, I don’t want anything for helping you.”
“At least let me buy you lunch.”
“We’re on an expense account. The company is paying for our lunch.” She rolled her eyes at him.
“Can’t blame a guy for trying. Come on, I saw the way you were looking at that blue dress.”
“It wasn’t the blue dress,” she caved in, moving toward the rack of dresses like a bear to honey. “Though the blue one is pretty.” She looked through the hangers checking sizes until she found the one she wanted. “This is the one I was looking at.” She pulled it from the rack and held it in front of her as she looked into the mirror a few feet away. She was totally entranced by the floaty black dress.
It was the typical little black dress most women wore but with a Bohemian twist. The skirt was short and flirty, made of whisper thin fabric and the top part would hug Emily’s curves like a lover.
Damn. Sam wanted to see her in that dress. He wanted it bad.
And then he wanted to see her out of it. Doing the things he’d done with her in his dreams last night. All of them. All night long.
Sam cleared his throat around the lump that had formed there, moving the bundle of fabric over his arm so that it hid his rather blatant reaction to those provocative thoughts. Luckily Emily was still totally absorbed by the dress, looking at it with longing in the mirror.
Then she glanced at the price tag and her expression fell.
“Well, there goes that. Too rich for my pocketbook.” She put it back on the rack, but not before Sam peeked at the size. She seemed to lose interest in the store then, a sad little crinkle at the corners of her eyes.
He didn’t quite understand. If she was the sole heir to her mother’s stock in the airline, why didn’t she have enough money to buy a dress? Furthermore, she was a fully employed pilot with years of seniority in an airline her mother had founded. Where was her cash? Was she just thrifty or was there some other reason?
Suddenly, he wanted to shower her in gifts. He wanted to spend some of the money he had socked away for a rainy day on her. It didn’t make sense, but there it was.
“Why don’t you go on ahead while I pay for these,” he suggested. “Snag me a couple of those shepherd’s pies you were telling me about. Extra onions.”
She seemed grateful for the excuse to leave the store. Sam was glad too. He gave in to impulse and added two more items to his purchases before he brought them to the counter to pay. When the saleslady asked if he wanted them gift wrapped, he decided to go for it. He’d never have time or the supplies to wrap his sisters’ gifts otherwise and the festively colored paper might keep a certain lady pilot from looking too closely.
Whether or not she’d ever get a chance to open that particular box was still up in the air but Sam was a man who liked to be prepared for all contingencies. An impulse had driven him to buy those things but that didn’t mean he had to give in all the way. He’d hold the package in reserve and see where events led him.
For now, he had lunch to eat and a plane to catch, in that order.
The flight from Portland to Denver was uneventful. Another high-powered corporate client wanted some files hand delivered to their representative who met the jet at the airport in Denver. From there it was a quick hop back to Wichita.
The sky was cloudless and dark outside the cockpit, lit only by pinpoints of stars and a sliver of reflective moon as the jet cut through the air speeding toward its destination. This kind of quiet peace, above the clouds and close to the stars, always made Emily introspective.
“I once heard about a ceremony overseen every year by the Dali Lama where a group of Buddhist monks spend days and days creating an intricate design out of sand. They lay the pattern grain by grain in painstaking detail. It’s a gorgeous artwork in a circular design they call a mandala.”
“I’ve seen it,” Sam replied mysteriously.
She didn’t want to question his wording but it made her wonder about him. Did he mean he’d seen it
in person
? It sure sounded that way. But maybe he meant he’d seen it on television, the way she had. She was a fan of documentaries and had watched an hour-long program about Tibet that had included footage of the ceremony. She chalked his response up to that and let it pass. The moment was too solemn and the mood too intimate to break by questioning his choice of words.
“At the end of the ceremony, when the mandala is finished, they sweep it away. Destroy it deliberately.” She paused, letting the silence be filled with that thought for a moment. “I never understood how they could spend so much time creating a thing of such beauty and then demolish it.” Dismay filled her voice.
“It’s all about the impermanence of life,” Sam said quietly.
She looked at him, surprised by his quick grasp of the concept it had taken tragedy for her to understand. Perhaps he’d learned it the same way. Perhaps he’d lost someone dear to him. She couldn’t tell much from the firm set of his jaw as he stared out the cockpit window, but the tense set of his broad shoulders made her think maybe she was right.
“Yeah, I get that now.”
“You lost someone.” It wasn’t a question. He turned his head to meet her gaze as he spoke, pinning her in place with compassion etched into his handsomely weathered face. He knew. He understood.
“My mother.” It was her turn to look away. To hide her pain as she stared at the infinite sky in front of them. “She was my best friend. My role model. The only person in my life I could truly trust.”
She paused, gathering herself. She hadn’t been this close to tears in a long time and it shocked her that she was able to open up to this man—this new person in her life—so readily. She wasn’t normally so willing to expose her secrets to anyone, much less someone she’d really only just met. But something about Sam seemed innately trustworthy and it felt good in a bittersweet way to remember and talk about her mother.
“She was a pilot. A trailblazer in this profession dominated by men.” Yeah, her mom had been one in a million. It was freeing to remember and to be able to share the memory with another pilot who might understand. “She taught me how to fly when I was in high school.”
“Cessnas?” he asked, naming a common brand of prop planes that many people learned to fly in.
“Piper J-3 cub,” she corrected his assumption.
“A tail dragger.” He used the nickname applied to planes with landing gear near the tail that required a special technique to land. “Those cubbies are too small for me. I flew one for a while when I was a kid, but I shudder to think about squeezing into that tiny cockpit now.”
She laughed with him. The man was big with a capital B and the cockpit on the two-seater cub was small. He seemed to take up more space in the jet too. He wasn’t fat—not by any stretch of the imagination. He was all muscle from what she could see. The seams of his uniform shirt strained against his biceps and deltoids as he flipped overhead switches and moved around the cramped quarters of the jet. She couldn’t help but notice. A girl would have to be dead not to notice Sam Archer.
Of course, she knew too much about pilots to get involved with one. Most of them had a girl in every city and weren’t good prospects for a woman who demanded fidelity. They lived on the edge, and while she could understand that, she also expected faithfulness in any relationship she engaged in, whether it was a simple business deal or a more personal relationship.
Maybe that’s why she had so few friends lately. People had let her down more than she cared to admit and she’d grown a tough exterior, unwilling to let anyone near enough to hurt her again.
There was something about Sam that made her want to break her own unwritten rules. He’d already made her lower her guard enough to talk about her beloved mom. She didn’t do that easily or readily and was a little surprised she’d brought up the topic at all. His quiet acceptance and calm understanding made her want to share her deepest thoughts with him and she found herself almost unable to resist.
Realizing that made her cautious but something inside her felt relief at finally being able to talk to someone. That part of her overruled the skeptic—at least for now. In the background, her saner, more logical side would be on guard in case he proved unworthy of her trust.
“How about your dad?” Sam broke the short silence that had fallen. “Was he a pilot too?”
“Good Lord, no.” She laughed at the thought. “He’s a math professor at Princeton.”
“No kidding.” Sam’s reaction was a lower key version of the usual response she got from that revelation.
“Dad’s too smart for his own good. He’s great with the abstract world of advanced mathematics but not so good with everyday life. Still, he means well.” She shrugged. “Mom was the nurturer and the adventurer. Poor dad was just along for the ride most of the time, but he loved her with all his heart. They had what I consider the perfect marriage. A true partnership. When mom died, it broke his heart and he’s never fully recovered, though he’s found solace in his work—and taken on the task of keeping me and my brothers in line. I think we drive him a little crazy. Except for Leo, he doesn’t understand any of us at all.”
“Leo?”
“Sorry. Leopold is what they named my baby brother. He’s working on his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. Dad
gets
him. He doesn’t really understand why I’d want to be a charter pilot or why Shotgun opted for the Air Force Academy out of all the choices he had. Shotgun is my twin brother’s nickname. His real name is Henry but we were always fighting over the shotgun seat in our high school driver’s ed class, so I started calling him that and it stuck.”