Flight Risk (Antiques in Flight) (29 page)

He wished he could be excited about the fly-in. It had been years since he’d been to one, and he’d never been on the other side, working, helping out. He’d always been a bystander. Now, he’d be in the thick of things, and he’d be miserable because somehow he’d let Callie make him that way.

No more. Nope. She wasn’t ready to get over all her insecurities, well, he’d done all he could. He’d stuck, and she just… It didn’t matter. Not anymore.

Before he could sit down and settle in with a baseball game, a knock sounded on the door.

Every other time this week a knock had sounded, he’d been so sure it was Callie. Each and every time he had been disappointed. Mail lady, salesperson, neighbor kid. It never was the one person he wanted to see.

It seemed appropriate the one time he didn’t expect Callie on the other side of the door, that’s exactly who would be standing there.

She held up a hand in an awkward wave. “Hi.”

Though hope was the first emotion, it was quickly tempered by anger and irritation. “Hi.” She didn’t say anything else. He didn’t say anything else. They stood staring at each other.

“Can I come in?”

Trevor crossed his arms over his chest, leaned against the side of the door, blocking entrance. “Depends.”

“On?” There was no snap or spark to her response, which was a little unsettling.

“What you what to talk about when you come in.”

She looked down at her tennis shoes. “Um, well, the fly-in starts tomorrow.”

“Wrong answer.” He stepped back and slammed the door in her face. Maybe it was childish to feel some satisfaction in the action, but after everything that had happened between them she didn’t have the right to come in and pretend she wanted to talk about the damned fly-in.

Satisfaction quickly melted into doubt, because she didn’t knock again. He stood staring at the door as seconds ticked by in a dark, oppressive silence. Trevor shoved his hands into his pockets, hoping the physical action would prevent him from giving into the impulse to open the damn door back up.

He didn’t believe she would walk away. He didn’t believe she had really come to talk about the fly-in either. There was no way one slammed door in her face would make her turn around, give up, and walk away. The Callie he knew was a hell of a lot stronger than that.

Except she hadn’t looked it, standing on the porch all unsure and uncomfortable. There’d been no battle light in her expression, no glimpse of what core strength she relied on.

He was not going to give in to guilt. Not over this. He had nothing to feel guilty about. If Callie was messed up, that was not his fault. He’d fought, he’d pushed, he’d put it all out on the line, and she’d thrown it in his face. No way he’d crumble now.

Except he hadn’t put it
all
out on the line. He hadn’t told her he’d quit the FBI or talked to Sheriff Burns. He hadn’t told her no matter what happened between them, Pilot’s Point was his home again.

She’d find out soon enough. It really didn’t have any bearing on what they were fighting about anyway.

Trevor’s fingers tapped in his pockets. Maybe he should open the door to see if she’d left. If she hadn’t, he could just close it again. Or yell at her to leave. Or pull her into his arms and—

Nope. No safe way to go down that road. He was going to walk right over to the couch and watch the ballgame and ignore she’d ever showed up on his doorstep.

Except before he could manage the action of moving away from the door, a knock sounded on it. No, not a knock. An insistent, hard banging that practically shook the front of the house.

He reached out, opened the door, working up his best look of detached calm. “What?”

“Slamming the door in my face was completely unnecessary and a dick move to boot.” Her hands were clenched into fists, and her eyes squinted in frustrated anger. There was the battle light, the core strength.

The image warmed his heart. “Yeah, well, maybe I feel like getting in a few dick moves.”

Without hesitation, she pushed past him into the house. “I’m coming in and we’re going to talk.”

Trevor slammed the door, this time with Callie on the inside. “Oh, we’re going to talk?”

“Yes.”

“About what? AIF? The weather? Maybe you’d like to discuss politics.”

“I… We…” She stopped, flustered enough some of the anger left her face and confusion took over. “It’s…” She shook her head, straightened, lifted her chin and looked him directly in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

Like hell she was getting off that easy. “For what?”

She kept eye contact, but he noticed that her hands shook briefly before she clasped them together.

“For the other night.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”

She took a deep breath, but her eyebrows slanted farther down, her frown slashing deeper lines in her face. “When I broke things off. When I told you I couldn’t do this.” She shook her head, looked miserable. “I was wrong.”

Even though sympathy was threatening to take over, Trevor held on to the icy calm. “Why were you wrong?”

“Because…” This time her voice shook along with her hands, and she dropped her eyes to the floor. “Because I love you.” She looked up at him, brown eyes reflecting both fear and hope, and a part of him nearly gave into the need to cross over to her, kiss her, and tell her he loved her too.

Not yet. There was still work to be done, things to be sorted out. “I already knew that.”

It obviously wasn’t the answer she was expecting because her brows bunched together and she looked down at her clutching hands. “Okay.”

“Give me something more.”

She nodded and met his gaze again. Even though tears shone in her eyes, she didn’t shed them. Instead, she squared her shoulders, clutched her hands hard, and stared right at him. “I want you to stay.”

That wasn’t the response he’d been expecting. After all the time she’d spent talking about how he belonged in Seattle, about how he couldn’t be happy in Pilot’s Point, even now in the midst of her apology he hadn’t expected such simple powerful words. He didn’t have a comment, negative or otherwise. He simply stared.

“You probably already made your decision, and I’ll support any of them.” Her voice cracked a little, but she didn’t look away and the tears didn’t fall. “But, if you want to know what I want. I
want
you to stay. Even though it scares the hell out of me.”

There it was, the words he’d wanted to hear. The words that would soothe every last doubt in the corners of his mind. She wanted him to stay.
Wanted
it. “I am staying. I made all the arrangements. Quit the FBI, got my stuff in Seattle settled away. I start back at county in October.” Though he said it mechanically, the emotion was there in his face.

She nodded, blinked a few times. “Okay. That’s good.”

Trevor had to laugh, even if it felt a little hollow. “You sound less than enthusiastic.”

“I.” She bit down on her lip, looked to the ceiling. “Did it ever occur to you I couldn’t be what you want me to be? That I’m not capable of doing this, this us thing?”

“No.” Never. No matter how many times she’d hinted around that idea, he’d never been able to really believe it. Maybe he should have known her well enough to know underneath all that strength was a crushing sense of self-doubt, and even if it hadn’t occurred to him, it had occurred to her. “You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. You seem to focus only on where you falter, but there are a million ways you don’t.”

He stepped forward. “You were there for Shelby’s graduation, even when I fell apart. That day you made me take a nap in Fred’s office. A million ways, Callie, where you’ve been the strength I needed and couldn’t muster on my own.”

She swallowed again. “Em said basically the same thing.” She cleared her throat. “Without the specific examples.”

“At what point are you going to start listening to us?”

“I’m trying.” The first tear fell and it about broke his heart, but he didn’t move. If he touched her now, he’d have to kiss her. And he wouldn’t want to stop.

“It’s just you,” she said in a squeaky voice. “There’s a part of me that always wanted this, and I don’t know how to make that any less scary. In my life, I very rarely have gotten what I truly wanted. I’m sorry it’s so hard to believe it when it’s right in front of me.”

The last remains of bitterness fell away. When he took the last step toward her, more tears began to fall onto her cheeks. He reached out, brushed them away, framed her face with his hands.

“Believe me, Callie. Believe in us.” He pressed his mouth to hers, tried to make it a promise she could believe in. “I love you.”

Her hands clung to his arms and she met his eyes. “I love you too.”

She buried her face into his shoulder, wrapped her arms around him and held on. “I’m still going to be scared sometimes,” she said into his shirt. “You’ll have to bear with me and not get pissed when I do.”

“Then you’ll have to trust me enough to tell me you’re scared. And not try to push me away so I have to get pissed at you.”

She sniffled. “I guess that’s fair.”

“And you have to believe in promises.” He pulled her back, studied her tear-streaked face. “And a future.”

“Okay, but then you have to…” She trailed off, frowning. “Damn it, I can’t come up with anything else.”

He laughed, a real, happy laugh, and then captured her mouth with his, losing himself in the kiss.

Epilogue

Callie had never been so ready for a fly-in to end. Between the normal sleep deprivation that came with putting on a weeklong annual event and spending a little too much time in Trevor’s bed, Trevor’s shower, and maybe they’d finally managed it up against the cabin front door, she was bone-deep exhausted.

When she went to check on the Stearman only to find the For Sale sign missing again, what she really wanted to do was crawl into the plane and sleep and worry about selling the damn thing another day.

Until she saw Trevor standing on the other side of the plane, deep in conversation with one of AIF’s longtime members. Something that resembled a For Sale sign folded in half was shoved into his back pocket.

She might love the man, but he was about to get in some very deep shit if he didn’t have a decent explanation.

She marched toward the pair, and the minute Trevor saw her he angled his body so his back was out of sight.
Yeah, too late buddy.

Callie sidled next to Trevor and gave a bright smile to George. “How’s it going, George? You have a good fly-in this year?”

“I tell ya’ what, you should have brought Lawson home years ago. This is the best fly-in you guys have put on since Fred passed.”

She fought to keep her smile in place and ignore the slight. A lot of the old guard seemed to think AIF had needed a man at the helm for it to get back on track. That was great for donations and all, but it meant Callie had spent a lot of the fly-in biting her tongue.

Trevor’s arm came around her waist. “Lawson’s a great addition to AIF, but Callie and Em did most of the work this year. Lawson couldn’t get away from California until mid-summer.”

George nodded, but his attention was already elsewhere.

“Well, it’s a shame you’re not selling the Stearman, Callie. You do good work and I sure wouldn’t mind getting my hands on this one.” George looked at the plane wistfully, and just as Callie was about to open her mouth and say that it
was
for sale, Trevor’s hand clamped on her shoulder and began leading her away.

“We’ll see you later, George,” he offered, turning her around.

“Trevor, am I going to have to kill you? I’d hate to have it end that way, but you seem to be messing with my livelihood here.”

“Your livelihood is fine. Em told me that the fly-in will put you even and AIF doesn’t need
the money from selling it this year. She admitted it might be nice to do some expanding, but it’s not necessary.”

She stopped in her tracks and shrugged Trevor’s hand off her shoulder. “Are you nuts? What business is it of yours to go behind my back and talk to Em about this?”

“Well.” Trevor rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “It’s just, I’ve been thinking.”

She had to remind herself that she loved the guy or she was going to give him a black eye. “You better start making some sense.”

“I want to have kids with you.”

“You
what?”
She wasn’t sure he could have said anything else more confusing and more out of the blue.

“Hold on a sec.” He dashed away, and Callie thought maybe the exhaustion was finally getting to her. This was some kind of waking dream, a hallucination. Trevor went over to where Shelby and Dan were working a drink stand and consulted with the pair.

Across the short distance Callie couldn’t hear their conversation, but she could see Shelby break out in a wide grin and dash off around the building toward the parking lot.

Trevor walked back, but he did so slowly. Callie tried to remember she was pretty sure she was hallucinating, or she was going to scream.

“I’m about seventy-five percent sure I can fight you off, but I’d rather not take the chance. Please don’t try to beat me up.”