The Single Dad's Guarded Heart

“Mick’s planes are equipped for night flying.”

“The plane, yes, but it’s the pilot who takes off and lands.”

“About that…not to brag, but I can probably count on one hand the number of times my landings haven’t been glass-smooth.”

There was a smile in Wylie’s response. “No need to be defensive. We all make mistakes.”

“I’m not defensive.” She slapped the Caddy key down on the counter so hard the young clerk, deep in his novel, nearly fell off his stool.

Wylie stifled his muffled laughter when Marlee growled, “I’m hanging up. Do me a favor—wear a red shirt tomorrow when you chase that bull. On second thought, don’t. With my luck, Cloud Chasers would get another call from Angel Fleet.” She hung up and shut off the ringer, then shoved the phone in her back pocket while she strapped Jo Beth in the plane.

“Who were you yelling at, Mama?”

“I wasn’t yelling.”

“Grandmother Rose would call it yelling.”

Marlee clipped her own harness and put on her earphones. And felt an insistent throb against her butt. Thinking Mick or Pappy might be trying to reach her, she dug out the cell. “’Lo.”

“Call me after you land at home.”

“You know, Ranger, it’s been years since anyone’s asked me to check in.”

“Huh. That attitude could be why your husband took a powder. He did, I presume.”

“My husband died, you insensitive jerk.” She jammed her phone into her pocket, unaware of how every nerve in her body trembled until it took her three tries to contact the tower for permission to take off. All the while, she felt every quiver of her cell phone’s insistent bleat, which she flatly ignored.

Her wings wobbled on takeoff. Damn the man to hell and back. Whoever was handling the tower would think she was a novice flyer, for heaven’s sake.

The phone stopped pulsing. Marlee rolled her tight shoulders, and trimmed the wings. She probably shouldn’t have snapped his head off.

Casting a glance in Jo Beth’s direction, Marlee wondered what her daughter would say about that last outburst. The girl’s soot-dark lashes had drifted down. Moonlight glittering through the side window splashed shadows across her baby’s cheek.

The phone danced yet again. Marlee touched the metal case through the material of her jacket, then just as quickly withdrew her fingers, too tempted to take the call.

She massaged a pain lodged beneath her breastbone. Heartburn. Marlee was no stranger to it. In five years she’d been treated twice for peptic ulcers. The flight surgeon said she needed yoga or some other relaxation technique to combat what he diagnosed as increasing anxiety, resulting from Cole’s worsening condition.

The phone finally fell silent. She expected the vibrations to start again. They didn’t. Well, he gave up easily. She ought to ask herself why she cared that Wylie Ames thought her enough of a bitch for a man to divorce her.

Up here, alone with nothing but the night sky, a person tended to see too clearly. It hit Marlee like a wrecking ball. She’d lied to Mick earlier when she insisted his friend rubbed her the wrong way. She’d lied to herself. The real truth—Wylie rubbed her the right way. So right, she felt disloyal to Cole. “There you have it, Mr. Moon,” she whispered. Of all the men she’d met in the year since Cole’s death, it made no sense that the first one to waken her dormant emotions had to be the most unsuitable.

The reflectors of Mick’s runway twinkled below. Bringing a bird safely home always sparked a joy that would be impossible to describe to anyone who wasn’t a pilot. Home could be anywhere—the deck of a carrier, a military runway in a foreign land, or this slab of asphalt with its moth-eaten wind sock blowing in the wind. The sense of a mission accomplished was always the same the instant the plane’s wheels down.

The fact that Jo Beth slept on as Marlee taxied the Arrow into the empty hangar Pappy had left lit made her homecoming sweeter.

Her first day on a new job was now officially behind her. Marlee tucked the clipboard with the daily log under her arm. When the propeller stopped spinning, she opened her door and dropped to the ground. Before she rounded the tail to wake Jo Beth, the cell phone in her pocket began to convulse against Marlee’s waist. She smiled for no reason as she eased it out of her pocket. “Yes, I’m home,” she said softly instead of berating her caller.

“About damned time,” the gravelly voice said. “Now maybe Dean’ll quit fretting and go to sleep.”

“Dean’s still up? Jo Beth dozed off ages ago.”

She heard the man’s tight breath. “Actually, Dean’s fast asleep, too. Listen, about my earlier comment. I shouldn’t have assumed…” His words trailed off.

Marlee knew he wanted her to relieve his guilty conscience.

She didn’t.

He cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I didn’t want to leave what I said hanging between us, Marlee. I’m sorry, now I’ve apologized. There’s no reason to mention it again. Uh…so long.”

Like that, he ended the call. Marlee stared at the phone in exasperation. On a scale of one to ten, as apologies went, she’d rate his a two. Maybe a three. Hell, she’d be generous and give him five, she thought, juggling her clipboard while trying to remove Jo Beth’s deadweight from the seat.

She whacked an elbow on the door casing as she stumbled into the dark house. That time the sound leaving her lips roused her daughter.

“Grandmother Rose? Why is it so dark? Is Daddy sick again?” The sob in the child’s half-asleep voice ripped at Marlee’s heart.

“Mama has you, hon. Everything’s fine. We’ve been flying. Remember? Now we’re at Uncle Mick’s.” Marlee rubbed her cheek over Jo Beth’s hair. “Pappy Jack didn’t leave a light on inside. Shh, we don’t want to wake him.”

She made it down the hall and into her old room. After growing up in this house, she could navigate it blindfolded. Marlee located the twin bed with its mountain of stuffed animals.

“I don’t wanna be at Uncle Mick’s,” Jo Beth sobbed. “I wanna go home. I wa…ant Grandmother Rose!” The child flailed her arms and legs.

Few things hurt Marlee as much as that did. With shaking hands she found the lamp with its night-light base. She hoped the soft, rosy glow would comfort Jo Beth and help her fall back asleep. Ac cording to the pediatric psychologist Marlee had consulted, time and distance were all that would get rid of these bouts she said were caused by worry and Marlee’s absence.