Stranded Page 3

  “I think our time before the blitz is about up,” he said as the doorbell chimed. He could hear voices coming from outside and more knocks seemed to rattle the windows. “Continue with what you were saying,” he urged.

  “Not now, not like this,” she said with a shake of her head. She pushed a few strands of hair away from her face and smiled. “Later, okay? I’ll go stick these clothes in the bedroom. Will you answer the door?”

  “Might as well get it over with,” he said as he got to his feet. But for a second he stood there watching Jessica hurry into the kitchen with the basket on her hip. He knew she would take the back stairs up to their bedroom.

  What he didn’t know was what she was trying to tell him.

  Chapter Two

  Jessica’s laptop sat on her desk. With barely a pause, she set the laundry basket aside and opened the computer. Within a few seconds, she was at her Facebook page where she spent several minutes deleting a post she’d made almost two months earlier and which she hoped and prayed Alex would never know existed.

  What she’d written had seemed reasonable at the time, like turning over every rock, but now in light of what she knew, it seemed the very essence of double-crossing on her part.

  She deleted all pertinent comments from friends and family and closed the laptop, able to really take a breath for the first time in an hour. Then she moved to the window and pulled aside the drape. From this vantage point, she could see all the media trucks parked outside. Several neighbors had wandered over, apparently curious about what was going on. Alex, a lone, weathered-looking figure, stood on the front lawn facing the crowd, his back to Jessica. After months of solitude, what must this day be like for him?

  She hurried down the stairs, pausing to take a deep breath before going outside. They’d been a team once upon a time, like right after their marriage when no life-altering disappointments had pushed them apart. Could they be a team again?

  Well, one thing was for sure. There was far too much at stake not to at least try. It was time to join Alex.

  She stood to the side as he skirted questions, explaining how he’d survived and how he’d finally been able to get home. But reporters asking him about his plane and what went wrong got vague answers and he flatly refused to comment on the possibility of sabotage. He said it was too soon to talk like that, he needed more information.

  Jessica was proud of the way he handled himself but not surprised. He could be a very articulate and commanding man when he wanted to be. Those qualities had drawn her to him in the first place and as she listened to him now, she once again wondered how they had grown so far apart.

  When he saw her standing near, he extended his arm to welcome her to stand beside him and she did. Flashbulbs popped at the reunited, happy couple and she smiled as best she could.

  Much later that night, she woke up in the middle of a dream whose details vanished upon opening her eyes. She reached across the sheets as she had done so many times before, knowing this time, finally, she would find Alex. When her fingers met nothing but rumpled sheets and blanket, she sat up and switched on the light.

  For one blinding moment, she thought she’d dreamed Alex coming home. No, there on the chair was the corduroy shirt he’d borrowed from Duke Booker.

  She got out of bed and shrugged on her robe, then went looking for him. The house was dark and silent and though she switched on enough lights to see where she was going, she couldn’t find him anywhere. The garage still held his truck, which had been sitting in the same spot since she’d reclaimed it from the airport parking lot a few days after he vanished. That left only one place she could think of.

  She didn’t turn on the outside light. Closing the glass patio door behind her, she called his name into the dark and he responded at once. “Over here,” he said, his voice coming from way back in the yard where it was deeply shadowed despite the moon overhead. However, she’d spent the past several restless weeks wandering around the garden at all times of the day and night and had no trouble finding her way.

  Moonlight shone off the white roses that had just started to bloom. Some of the lilacs were still in flower, as well, and they added a deep, rich perfume to the night air.

  Even though it was late May, temperatures dropped at night in Blunt Falls, and Jessica shivered in her thin robe. She used his voice as a guide until her vision adjusted to the dark, and then she could see him sitting on the rock wall that surrounded the pond where every spring, mallards raised their families.

  “What are you doing out here at 3:00 a.m.?” she asked, but she knew. All evening she’d watched him pace the living room, turning away from his image on the television news, perusing the bookcase without touching a book, staring out the windows like a trapped animal. He’d taken a long walk after a supper he barely touched and, though he hadn’t asked her not to come, she could tell he wanted to be alone. She’d determined to come clean with him right after the news conference, but his remote demeanor had kept her lips sealed.

  She knew all the revelations she’d had to tell him in such a hurry weighed heavily on his mind, especially when he hadn’t been able to reach Nate. But what else could she do? He had to know what had happened in his absence and it wasn’t as if the rest of the world would give him a chance to recover from his ordeal before telling him all the gory details. After switching the phone back on, their evening had consisted of one call after the other until they finally turned it off again.

  She’d gone to bed before him, worn-out from the day and exhausted trying to figure out where they went from here. He’d changed so much over the years and the horrible thing was that she wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened. It was easy to blame their problems on not being able to have a child, but plenty of marriages thrived through much worse.

  She knew things had gone downhill after the mall shooting in Shatterhorn where he and Nate had been involved in trying to stop a teenage gunman. He’d come home shaken to the core but he wouldn’t talk to her about it. She’d seen the pictures in the newspaper, though—the broken glass, the blood spatters, the candlelight vigils.... No one came away from something like that without scars. But it had hurt her that he couldn’t trust her with his feelings. Impatient with him, she’d allowed him to retreat even further into his work and his world.

  But maybe it was even before that, even before the fertility doctors had told them to set their sights on something besides a big family unless they were open to adoption. Alex had refused to even entertain the thought of adoption and that had cut her as deep as her body’s inability to conceive a child.

  With nothing to say to one another and with each nursing their own disappointments, it had been easier to let go than hold on. There had been times while he was missing that she felt almost at peace with things and that now shamed her down to her toes.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he said softly.

  She sat down on the rocks beside him, brushing aside the tulips and the forsythia. “It’s hard being back, isn’t it?”

  He laughed under his breath. “It’s all I wanted for months, to escape the snow and the outdoors and quiet—things I now miss in some ways.” He put his hand over hers. “But don’t think I’d rather be there than here. You know that, right?”

  “Right,” she said softly.

  “We’ll work things out,” he said as if he’d been thinking about the same things she’d been thinking about.

  “I hope we can,” she said.

  There was a moment of silence as they both folded their hands in their own laps and stared into the night. “You’ve really kept the yard up nice,” he finally said.

  “You can see it in the dark?” she teased.

  “Almost. It seems to glow. But really, I noticed it earlier today. I’ve never seen anything like it. How did you manage it all by yourself?

  “I didn’t,” she a
dmitted. “Do you remember Billy Summers?”

  “The kid who does odd jobs at the airfield? What about him?”

  “After you...didn’t come home...he showed up on the doorstep. I hadn’t seen him since he graduated from high school and that has to be at least three years ago now. He’d heard about your plane disappearing and he wanted to know if he could help me. I refused at first, but he kept coming back and offering. I started giving him odd jobs. He proved to be very reliable, especially when it came to the yard.”

  “I would never have guessed that of Billy Summers.”

  “I know. He was a surprise. I told him about how I always bought flowers for the veterans’ graves on Memorial Day and he offered to plant some if I would tell him how. He brought me some little index cards and I wrote the directions down for him in simple words. I saw him checking the instructions all the time, but I don’t really think they were necessary. He seems to have a way with plants. Anyway, we owe the flowers to Billy.”

  “And we’ll be able to skip the last-minute dash to the big-box store to order flowers for Memorial Day,” Alex said.

  She nodded and bit her lip. She’d been about to tell Alex that all last week she’d planned to honor his memory and years of service, as well. He didn’t need to hear that. “Alex, I have something to tell you,” she said.

  “Your tone of voice worries me.”

  “It’s nothing bad. It’s about that ‘virus’ I was fighting in February.” She took another deep breath. “Do you remember that big fight we had in January?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “I do. I can’t remember what it was about, though.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” she said, but she could have enlightened him. He’d been working extra shifts, coming home late and grumpy. Talk about water under the bridge. “What’s important is how we made up the next day,” she added.

  She could feel him staring at her. Was he remembering that night? They’d made love with a vengeance, downstairs in front of a blazing fire and slept there all night. “I’ve been trying to tell you this since you got home,” she said. “I was wrong about the cause of my nausea. Brace yourself. I’m about four months pregnant.”

  She could see the whites of his eyes widen. “Say that again,” he whispered.

  “We’re going to have a baby,” she said, wishing she had waited until morning to tell him so she could see the expression on his face.

  “I can’t believe this,” he said, springing to his feet. “Four months? Are you okay, shouldn’t you be lying down or something?”

  “No. The doctor said if it’s going to stick, it’s going to stick.”

  “You shouldn’t be working every day, should you?” he asked, and she could hear the panic in his voice. She understood how he felt, how amazing this must seem to him. It was the same to her, the difference being that she’d had months to get used to the idea, she’d spoken to the doctor, she knew what was going on.

  “Summer vacation is coming and then the baby is due in October and with you home, I won’t go back to work right away. Really, Alex, everything is fine. What I wanted to explain is that I found out about it a week or two after you disappeared. And that’s why I got on Facebook. See—”

  He interrupted her by pulling her to her feet and crushing her in his arms. “This is absolutely wonderful! I can hardly believe it. I promise you I’ll do everything I can to make you happy. I love you.”

  She closed her eyes and held on to him. In a way, it was like he’d finally come home.

  * * *

  AFTER LAYING AWAKE for what seemed like hours, Alex got up quietly the next morning. He’d been rising with the sun and it felt unnatural to lie there when he could see daylight filtering through the curtains.

  Besides, there was a lot on his mind.

  Mentally he made a list. Call Nate. Make sure he still had a job on the Blunt Falls police force. Get checked out by the doctor.

  He looked down at Jessica’s slumbering face and added the most important thing of all: win back his wife before his baby was born.

  She was so beautiful with her hair spilling over her pillow like a billowing russet-colored cloud, her lashes sweeping her cheeks, her peachy lips soft and yielding. No wonder she glowed. She was having a baby, his baby, after eight years of trying. He knew what it meant to her, he knew what it meant to him. And the urge to protect her at all costs surged through his body.

  He had to pull himself together. Just as he’d planned for and worked toward walking out of the mountains every single day of his exile, he now had to put that behind him and work at moving forward in his marriage, in his job, in his life. What’s done was done. He couldn’t erase the past, but he could learn from it.

  His reflection in the mirror wasn’t particularly inspiring. The healed gashes across his cheek and forehead caused by the Cessna’s broken windshield hadn’t healed perfectly. But inside he knew he was stronger and more focused than he’d ever been and it was time to put all that energy to work.

  The first thing he did was call Nate in Arizona. Again. The phone switched immediately to message and he wasn’t sure if there was any point in leaving one. Nate had a habit of disappearing into the wild with his horse and a dog or two for days on end, fishing and camping, no phone, no interruptions.

  On the other hand, Alex knew his best friend would appreciate knowing he was back from the dead, so he left a message. Then he went downstairs to start a pot of coffee for Jessica, something he’d dreamed about doing over and over again, only this time it was for real. He found the bag of coffee beans where they’d always been, but they were labeled as decaf, he supposed in deference to her pregnancy. Still, the freshly ground beans smelled like heaven on earth and even the familiar perking sounds were like music. He didn’t like to drink the stuff, but he used to make her a cup and carry it upstairs to her bed every morning when they were first married. He wasn’t sure when that had stopped.

  For himself, he dared hope he might find one of his favorite drinks in the back of the fridge where he left it months ago. Unless Jessica had thrown it out, of course. He opened the refrigerator quickly, wondering how long it would be before things like electricity would stop amazing him, dug behind a giant jar of pickles and came up with an icy bottle of Vita-Drink.

  Happy days. It tasted great.

  A light rapping on the glass kitchen door finally got through to him. Only friends and family came around the back like this and he braced himself for another homecoming as he went to see who it was.

  He opened the door when he saw his partner on the police force, Detective Dylan Hobart. At the sight of Alex, Dylan’s rugged face split into a giant grin. He wasn’t wearing his usual jeans and T-shirt covered with an old military-looking vest adorned with patches and badges he’d earned as a former marine. Instead he wore a tight T-shirt and a leather jacket that fit him like a glove. He might be approaching forty-five, but he wasn’t going without a struggle.

  “If you aren’t a sight for sore eyes,” Dylan cried as he wrapped Alex in a one-armed bear hug. Then he pushed him away and stared at his face. “Holy cow, what happened to you? Damn, man, you’ve lost weight!”

  Alex laughed. “You try eating nothing but fish for three months straight and see if you maintain all that mass.” Dylan lived and breathed to lift weights and work out and he had the physique to prove it.

  Dylan now produced the morning newspaper from where he’d apparently folded it into his rear pocket. “You’re all over the place, man,” he said, tapping the newsprint where Alex glimpsed a picture of himself and Jessica standing on the front lawn. He’d still had the beard when the picture was taken though he’d shaved it off later last night. He touched his smooth jaw and felt a little naked.

  “I tried calling,” Dylan said, “and then I thought, what the hell, I’m going over there and see that loser with my own e
yes. I can’t believe you walked out of those mountains. Are you really okay?”

  Alex assured him he was fine. But Dylan’s next question was more difficult to answer.

  “What happened? I mean, I imagine you are sick to death of being asked this question, but did you drive your plane into a mountain or something? The article didn’t really say.”

  “I made some coffee for Jess,” Alex said, pouring his partner a mug. “Warning—it’s decaf.” They sat opposite each other at the counter. Alex drank the last of his water, and sighed. “I’m not sure what happened,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “A lot went down all at once. The oil leaked out of the engine somehow and then the engine froze and I’d been flying all over hell and breakfast trying to skirt a weather front. I landed on a lake and the plane sank. I was hurt, and so that confused the issue, too. Pretty much end of story.”

  “Pretty much beginning of story you mean,” Dylan said with a knowing look in his light blue eyes.

  “Whatever, the point is I survived.”

  “Have you spoken with the FAA about it? Given what happened to your buddies in Shatterhorn, we had our share of speculation around here after you went missing. There were some who thought your plane was rigged to crash. It seems kind of far-fetched to me, though.”

  “I just don’t know,” Alex said. “I made a few calls last night. Someone named Struthers from the FBI is coming today. I’ll listen to what he has to say.”

  “Well,” Dylan added, “I guess the important thing is you’re home.”

  “No kidding,” Alex said with feeling. “Especially now. I found out last night that Jess is going to have a baby.”

  Dylan’s lips curled into a smile. “That’s great news. Are you and she...well, I know things were rocky—”

  “We’re going to work things out,” Alex said with no equivocation in his voice. He would do what he had to do. He would figure out how to show Jessica she was the center of his universe.