Trickster Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 2)
Page 31
“So what is it about a meteor that requires a Ranger and a NASA muckety-muck, not to mention a ‘consultant’, to retrieve?”
“Oho, someone told you, eh?”
He looked back at Paul, who blushed slightly. “All I said was that it was an unusual meteor.”
Gabi raised her eyebrow. “I don’t believe that for a minute. Why would they have hauled you out of mothballs to hunt down a rock in the bush? I don’t expect you to tell me, though, I understand need-to-know.”
“Why not?” he shrugged. “A UFO crashed out there.”
She looked hard at him, banking absent-mindedly into her heading for Tok. He met her gaze seriously, his mouth hard. She saw that he believed it, and it unsettled him. She looked at him for a moment, drinking in the familiar features - The aquiline nose, the gentle lips, the mobile eyebrows - all of which she knew by heart, had learned by braille in their dark bedroom, as well as in the light across the breakfast table. His dark hair was graying rapidly, she noted with a pang, but his lean body must be in the same fighting fit shape it had always been, if he were still going out on remote missions. She looked at her instruments and then out the windshield. The changeless, featureless forest spread out below them. It was dotted here and there with lakes, or stretches of muskeg where the permafrost was so close to the surface it stunted the spruce growing on it until they were not much taller than a man. On this inhospitable footing the trees were spaced widely, with dwarf birch, alders, willows, and blueberries making a tangled mat of vegetation between them.
She saw Jed out of the corner of her eye, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. Her heart softened at his obvious weariness, and she thought about their relationship. They had married almost eight years before, when they were both still in the military, and they were almost immediately stationed across the world from one another. When they did end up in the same place, she felt like she did not know him, and she chose not to reenlist, but Jed was not ready to leave the Service.
They had argued, she wanting him close, he feeling guilty for not being near, but wanting to live his life. She had felt confined, living on base, and felt like she had to become something she was not, to further his career. This was worsened by her problems at work. Finally she could no longer bear it, and she fled. She had stormed out of their home, where they had spent only one year out of the two they had spent together, and had flown to Alaska. Once there, she deeply regretted running from him, but her pride would not allow her to return to him. She had written him, letting him know where she was, and that she planned to stay. As the years passed, she found herself lonely. He had visited her, letting her know that he would not pressure her into a life that would make her unhappy. He told her that he only wanted her happy, and that she would always be his wife, whenever she wanted to see him, or perhaps even live with him again. They had met a few times, after that, for a week or two. Like little honeymoons, but always she returned to Alaska, and always he sat with his head in his hands after she was gone and wondered how many more times he could withstand this heart wrenching, and if she would ever consent to be his again.
It had been six months since the last time they had met, in Seattle. They had barely gotten into the hotel room before tearing one another’s clothes off, and they each knew, falling in to bed together, that the other was still faithful to them. At the end of their long weekend together, Gabi had woken up before he had, and leaned on her elbow, watching him sleep. He looked so young, at rest, and her heart smote her, for she guessed at his pain every time she left. But she remembered the past, and her unhappiness, and steeled herself to leave him yet again.
At the airport he had held her for a long time, gently kissing her eyes, face, and lips. Finally he had cradled her in his arms for a moment, and she saw tears in his eyes.
“Gabi,” he began, huskily “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t say goodbye to you anymore. I thought I could - could just let you be free. But I need you.” he put a finger on her lips, stopping her reply. “I’m not asking you to do anything. Just telling you that the next time I need you to come to me. I...” his voice broke, and he stopped, tears on his cheeks now. She looked mutely up at him, dumb in the face of his emotion.
They heard her flight called. Her dropped his arms, freeing her. She stood still for a minute, her heart in her throat. Then she whispered, “I’m afraid.”
They had another hour to go. Gabi stretched in her seat, flexing stiff neck and shoulders. Paul and the major were both asleep, she saw, and Jed was silently watching her.
He smiled when he met her eyes and murmured “ma cherie, j’taime beaucoup.”
“J’taime aussi,” she replied, and her heart was in her eyes.
He caught his breath and sat up. “Gabi...”
She shook her head, looking back at her sleeping passengers.
“So are you going home after you deliver your package?” she asked.
A flame leaped up in his eyes, hope renewed. “Yes.”
“Mind company? I’ll need a couple of weeks to wrap it up here, but I’ve just finished training my replacement...”
He laughed, a low, joyful sound.
“Gabi.” his voice was almost a growl, caressing, and she shivered with the emotion. “Girl...” he was reaching out his hand to her when there was a bang, and her vision went black.
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