Horizons

by Catherine Hart

“Where do you two plan to live?” Ryan inquired.

  “We haven’t decided that yet, Mr. Kennedy. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration, Becky’s school, for one.”

  “I could always relocate one of the clubs to Seattle,” Kelly proposed. “I’m just not sure how I’d like that climate year-round. I’m rather used to more sunshine, but I suppose I’d adjust.”

  “If you could adjust to that island, you could do it anywhere,” Alita put in from across the way. She changed the subject by indicating the buffet table. “Can you believe they put seafood on the menu? Caramba! As if we haven’t seen enough of it in the past months to last us a lifetime!”

  “At least this is shrimp and lobster,” Blair pointed out.

  Gavin wrinkled his nose. “Still smells fishy to me.”

  “How did your talk with the President go, Zach?” Kelly inquired. “Did you wind up apologizing for my presumptuous behavior?”

  Zach chuckled. “No. In fact, I took your lead and asked him about the island. As it happens, it’s U.S. owned, and he’s going to have someone get back with me on the possibility of purchasing it.”

  This set off a whole new exchange of ideas and comments about possible uses for the land and the improvements which might have to be made—everything from a helipad to a runway, even trenching out a channel deep enough for cruise ships to dock.

  By the time the evening ended, everyone had become comfortably acquainted. It all went very well, so well that had Sydney not been nodding off in her high chair and Kelly about to do likewise, Kelly would have enjoyed prolonging it. After hiding several yawns, however, she gave it up.

  Again, Zach saw her to her room, checking to make sure she didn’t have another unwelcome visitor, namely Brad. Assured the room was empty, he lingered over their parting kiss. “Sleep light,” he whispered. “I’ll be back later, after Becky’s asleep, to tuck you in.”

  Kelly gave a drowsy chuckle. “I don’t know if it will be worth your effort, unless you have a thing for making love to zombies.”

  He grinned. “Didn’t I tell you? They’re my favorite fiends. Besides, I love more than just your body, sweetheart, and I’ve become so accustomed to snuggling up with you I’m not sure I can sleep alone anymore. I’d miss having you sprawled all over me, and I probably couldn’t breathe properly without a big wad of your hair in my mouth.”

  “I’ll get it cut first thing in the morning,” she pledged, just to see his reaction.

  “Oh, no you don’t! I like it just the way it is.”

  “What about that line you just fed me about not loving me for my body alone?” she taunted.

  “True,” he vowed, “but I really do adore your hair. In fact, I have this fantasy that if you grow it long enough, we can use it as an escape ladder in case of a fire,” he teased. “Sort of like Rapunzel.”

  She gave him a shove toward the door. “Goodnight, sweet prince.”

  “Does that mean you don’t want me to come back later?”

  She reached into her jacket pocket, withdrew her key card, and pressed it into his palm. “Wake me gently, love, or I might mistake you for Brad and bean you with the bed lamp.”

  Chapter 28

  Monday morning, they parted at the airport. Zach, Becky, and family were booked on a direct flight to Seattle, while Kelly was headed for Phoenix with Sydney. Single-handedly coping with the toddler, while attending to the multitude of problems facing her, was going to prove quite a challenge. But Kelly was determined to give it all she had, despite her qualms and Zach’s.

  “Sweetheart, I can take Syd. Mom and Dad would be tickled to help babysit, and it would give Becky a chance to get used to her. You don’t have a crib, or highchair, or any of the million and one things you’ll need. Becky’s old stuff is packed up in the attic, just collecting dust.”

  “I’ve already got a plan for that,” Kelly informed him. “Mom and Dad are going to bring me some of the twins’ things, and Mom intends to hit the garage sales for anything else we need.”

  “They’re going to haul all that from Texas to Phoenix? What will you do in the meantime?”

  “The same thing I’ve been doing, love. Punting. Playing it by ear. Making do with what I’ve got and relying on my creative genius. Face it, Zach. Syd’s been free-wheeling it for so long that she’d go nuts cooped up in a playpen, and she’ll probably be just as thrilled with a set of pots and pans and a pile of Tupperware as she would with a fortune’s worth of toys.”

  “You’re right there,” he conceded. “But I was thinking about you and all your legal tangles with Brad. You’ll be stretching yourself pretty thin, trying to manage everything at once. I don’t want you wearing yourself out, darling. You have to take special care right now, for your health and our baby’s. I don’t want anything happening to any of you.”

  “I’ll be careful, Dr. Goldstein,” she pledged teasingly. “I’ll drink all my milk, and take my vitamins faithfully, and I’ll schedule an appointment with an obstetrician the minute the plane lands. I promise.”

  “And call me, every day. Reverse the charges.”

  “I will not. I’ll dial direct. It’s cheaper.”

  He laughed. “Mom would be proud of you. We’ll alternate, every other day. I’ll call you this evening.”

  They were announcing her flight. Zach pulled her into his arms for a quick, last-minute hug. “I’m going to miss you like the devil.”

  “Me, too,” she vowed, blinking back her tears. “It won’t be for long.”

  Zach kissed her and Sydney, and waved them on their way. Suddenly, Kelly swiveled around and headed back toward him, her face as white as school paste. “I can’t do this!” she gasped. “I thought I could, but I can’t.”

  “What? What can’t you do?” he asked worriedly. His heart nearly stopped for fear she was about to tell him she couldn’t marry him.

  “Fly,” she squeaked out. “I’m scared out of my mind to get on that plane. I know the odds of crashing twice running are probably astronomical, but I’ve turned into a quivering coward.”

  “That makes two of us,” he confessed. “I’m dreading the flight home, and praying I won’t make a complete fool of myself in front of my daughter by having an attack of the screaming meemies.”

  “Maybe we can hop a ship home, instead,” she proposed.

  “Honey, they book those things months in advance, and it would take you days to get home, rather than a few hours. And isn’t that liaison from the Attorney General’s office going to contact you this afternoon?”

  “I know! I know!” she wailed.

  They announced her flight number again, the final boarding call. Gently, he turned her around and urged toward the gate. “You’ve got to go, sweetheart. You can do it. I know you can. Would it help if I walk you to your seat?”

  “Not really. The only thing that might help would be to have you beside me, holding my hand the whole way.”

  “Syd will hold your hand, and I’ll be there in spirit,” he told her. “Be brave. You don’t want to scare Sydney or the other passengers, do you?”

  They’d made it to the gate, where the attendant quickly checked her ticket. “You’re the last to board, Ms. Kennedy. You’ll be in seat 22B. Have a nice flight.”

  Kelly paled, and Zach feared she might faint on the spot. “Oh, God!” she exclaimed, “That’s the same seat I was in before, when the plane crashed!”

  “Your lucky number,” Zach comforted, with an over-bright smile. “You survived then, and you’ll do even better this time.”

  The attendant’s eyebrows rose, and it was clear she sensed Kelly was very close to full-fledged panic. “Maybe you could see her onto the plane, sir, and alert the stewardess to her… uh… extreme anxiety.”

  Kelly was a trembling mass of jelly by the time Zach helped buckle her and Sydney into their seats. “You’ll be fine. I know it. I’ll call you tonight.” He kissed her forehead and left her with a final word of advice. “Think of this as the alte
rnative to root canal, only quicker.”

  Kelly didn’t open her eyes or release her death-grip on the armrest until well after take-off. Fortunately, Sydney didn’t appear to be experiencing the same residual fears, and didn’t seem affected by Kelly’s. She was jabbering a mile a minute, to Kelly and the new dolly Alita had bought her, as content as a well-fed kitten. Gradually, Kelly’s nerves calmed to the point where she didn’t think she’d have to resort to the airbag. But she remained tense for the remainder of the trip, grateful only that this was a direct flight, and she wouldn’t have to transfer to another plane and go through all this again just to get home.

  When they finally touched down in Phoenix, Kelly could have kissed the tarmac. With undue haste, she and Sydney exited the craft, wound their way through the airport, and flagged down a taxi. Halfway home, she burst into laughter, which immediately turned to tears. She’d forgotten about her car, which was still parked at a valet parking site adjacent to the airport, unless they’d had it towed away by now. Either way, she was going to owe one whopper of a bill!

  Zach was handling his own trauma only slightly better than Kelly. Despite his own advice, his jaw was clenched so tightly it was a wonder his teeth didn’t crumble under the pressure. The thought crossed his mind that if he didn’t ease up a bit, in addition to having to suffer this torment, he might just have to endure a root canal as well.

  In a situation where he, as the adult, should have been reassuring his daughter, she had assumed that role and was now comforting him. “It’s okay, Daddy,” she said, patting his clenched fist. “Try to remember how much fun flying is.” Then, on a streak of generosity, she offered, “Would you like to trade seats with me, so you can look out the window?”

  Zach swallowed hard, and gave her hand a quick squeeze. “No, thanks, sweetie. You enjoy the view. Daddy’s seen it before.” Silently, he added, Up close and all too personal!

  Thankfully, the flight ended before he could start to hyperventilate or otherwise humiliate himself. Still, he was glad to leave the driving to his brother-in-law. He was much too shaky to trust himself behind the wheel of a car.

  After being closed up for so long, Kelly’s apartment over the boutique was musty, and hot as an blast furnace. Her first move was to flip on the air conditioner, only to find that the electricity had been shut off. So had the water, and the phone.

  “Crap and corruption!” she cursed. “This returning from the dead certainly has its drawbacks!”

  Leaving her bags there, she collected Sydney and they both trotted downstairs to the closed health club, only to find the same there. Which meant she had to go next door, to the drug store to use the phone.

  Upon seeing her, the elderly proprietor nearly dropped his dentures. “My God! It’s you! We thought you were dead!”

  “Join the club, Mr. Handel. I suspect you haven’t watched the news in the past couple of days. We were finally rescued from the island where the plane went down.”

  “I hope you’re going to sue that airline to its last rivet,” he declared.

  “No, but I’m going to sue my husband for ripping me off while I was gone,” she informed him. “First, however, I’ve got to see about getting my utilities restored. I guess they figured I wouldn’t need a phone where I was going.”

  Mr. Handel reached under the counter and produced the store phone and the directory. “Here, use this instead of the pay phone.”

  Kelly sat Sydney on the counter, while she looked up the numbers.

  “Who’s this little one?” Mr. Handel inquired, clucking Sydney under the chin.

  “We call her Sydney. She’s from Australia. Her parents died in the crash, and we’ve sort of adopted her. If her family can’t be found or don’t want her, I intend to adopt her for real.”

  Mr. Handel scooped Syd off the counter. “I’ll watch her while you make your calls,” he volunteered. “Bet she’d like a lollypop, wouldn’t you, Sydney?”

  Getting her utilities reinstated was a bit tricky. The fellow at the phone company had seen the news on TV, which was the only reason he promised to send someone out within the hour to restore service. After a few minutes of impatient debate, the lady at the water department decided to give Kelly the benefit of the doubt. But the woman who answered at the electric company was a different kettle of fish altogether. She adamantly insisted, despite Kelly’s arguments to the contrary, that Ms. Kennedy was dead.

  “I am not dead,” Kelly contended. “I wouldn’t be speaking to you if I were, at least not over the phone.”

  “I’m sorry, but our records show…”

  “Listen up, dearie. I am not dead, deceased, or decaying, and I want my electricity turned back on!”

  “That’s quite impossible, Miss…”

  “Kennedy!” Kelly supplied in a shout. “Kelly Maura Kennedy!”

  “As I was saying,” the woman went on in her irritatingly polite way, “it’s quite impossible to reinstate that service and that particular account. Now, if you’d care to come up to the office, pay the connection fee, and initiate a new account, we’d be happy to assist you.”

  “I don’t have the time, or the patience for this tripe!” Kelly growled. “I’m telling you, I had an account with you, I always paid my bill on time, and I want my power back. Now!”

  “Well, if you really are Miss Kennedy, and you could provide some form of proof, I suppose we might be able to arrange something,” the woman submitted doubtfully. “But I really doubt we could do anything about your situation until tomorrow or the next day.”

  “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Baste myself in butter and broil in a sweltering apartment? Moreover, I have a two-year-old living with me, and if she succumbs to heatstroke you’ll truly think I’m the devil’s dearest daughter. I’ll come after you with a pitchfork!”

  “Now, there’s no reason to be nasty. Obviously, you are overwrought.”

  “Lady, you don’t know the half of it. I’m tired of this hassle. Put your supervisor on the line.”

  Kelly was on hold for so long, she could have walked to the office and gotten faster results. Finally, just when she was about to give up, the supervisor answered and Kelly went through the whole spiel again.

  “All right,” the lady relented. “We’ll send a man out, but this had better not be some hoax. There are laws against that, you know. And you’d better have proper identification, as well as someone to vouch for you.”

  Kelly was tempted to ask if the President of the United States would suffice, but she thought better of it. Instead, she asked Mr. Handel to be her witness, and he readily agreed.

  “My goodness!” he exclaimed. “This is a pretty pickle, isn’t it?”

  Kelly sighed. “This is just the tip of the iceberg, Mr. Handel. I have yet to haggle with the bank, my future ex-husband, the insurance companies, the realty company that’s listing my salons, and only God knows who else. It’s going to be a long, long week or more.”

  “I’ve got water, electricity, and phone service back, at least,” Kelly related to Zach that night. “My car is another story. Agent Anderson—that’s what the guy from the Attorney General’s office is called—located it for me in an impound lot, stripped to the frame. Legally, they were supposed to wait three months before ransacking it for parts, so now they have to either pay me the money or replace my car with one of equal value. They’re providing me with a free loaner in the meantime. They dropped it off earlier this evening. Boy, Zach, it sure makes a difference when you’ve got someone as powerful as the President and his cohorts behind you. They can really grease those skids!”

  Zach laughed appreciatively. “I suppose you didn’t have time to get anything started, like the divorce.”

  “Hey! We don’t mess around! Anderson and I walked into the courthouse half an hour before closing time, and once they found out who he was, those people bent over backwards to appease us. My original divorce petition has now been reinstated, and scheduled on the court docket for a m
ere three weeks from today,” she informed him in a pleased-as-punch tone. “Not only that, Anderson got an injunction to stop the sale of the salons, pending further investigation.”

  “Wow! I’m impressed! Did you manage to make an appointment with an obstetrician, by any chance?”

  “No, but I’ll do that first thing tomorrow.”

  “Don’t forget,” he told her. “Do you want me to call you in the morning to remind you?”

  “No, I’ve written myself a note. But you can call me anyway, if you want. I already miss you like crazy.”

  “I miss you more,” he contended. “I miss the sight and feel of you, the sound of your voice whispering in my ear. Hell, I even miss the smell of you, all warm and fuzzy and uniquely you.”

  “Would it help if I sent you a bottle of my favorite perfume?”

  “It wouldn’t be the same, love. Now, if you sent me a pair of your panties, that might do the trick.”

  “Lord, Zach! I hope my phone line isn’t tapped. They’ll think you’re a pervert.”

  “A horny one,” he supplied. “What are you wearing? That sexy nightie you bought in Hawaii?”

  Kelly laughed and groaned at the same time. “Actually, I’m in my rattiest terry bathrobe. I’d just stepped out of the shower when you called.”

  “Oh, God! It’s worse than I thought,” he rasped. “You’re all soft and clean, and scented like soap and shampoo. And totally naked under that raggy robe, aren’t you?”

  “As the day I was born,” she confessed softly. “And aching, Zach. Aching for you.”

  “We’ve got to stop this,” he declared. “I’m as hard as a brick. I’ll never get to sleep tonight, or if I do manage it, I’ll probably have the first wet dream I’ve had since puberty.”

  “See you in the funny papers, darling,” she crooned. “I’ll be the one dressed as Daisy Mae. Talk to you tomorrow. Meanwhile, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”