Airman to the Rescue

by Heatherly Bell

  Matt rarely wound up on the flight schedule on a Saturday, and so he and Hunter had finished the fence. Considering the sweltering heat and the fact that Matt had barely made it up in time himself, he would consider it a win. He and Hunter had painted side by side in relative silence, and Matt later took Hunter for ice cream in a lame attempt to connect with the kid. Matt had tentatively started the talk about weekends, and Hunter, while in relative denial about his level of maturity, didn’t seem to hate the idea completely. Matt had dropped Hunter off at Joanne’s around lunchtime.

  His arms were killing him, and not just from the painting. These arms had wrapped around Sarah all night long. Why, again, had he done that to himself? Oh yeah, because she’d refused to take his bed instead of the couch and both of them were too pigheaded to give in. Which made them both idiots.

  This morning, when he’d disentangled himself from her long legs gently so as not to wake her, she’d mumbled something in her sleep which he couldn’t make out so he had moved closer. Big mistake. Her long dark hair had fallen in waves around her face, a few strands stuck over her lips. It was beautiful and wild, like a lion’s mane. She wore it up in a bun all the time, so it was a little like seeing her naked for the first time. He’d been...not at all disappointed. He’d brushed the hairs aside, and it’d turned out she’d had a tiny smile there, her face relaxed and empty of the stress lines he’d seen there over the past few weeks.

  She’s so beautiful.

  A no-longer-so-small part of him wanted to put the smile on her face. And a whole lot more than a smile. He wanted to see her gasping and writhing beneath him. Or on top of him.

  But reality hit him front and center. Love was not on the menu. It wasn’t for Sarah, and it shouldn’t be for him. He had his hands full with Hunter. Unfortunately, his son was at that awkward shift between little monster and fledging human being. Matt saw the promise in him, and wasn’t about to give up, but he couldn’t expect that from Sarah.

  When he got back to Sarah’s in the afternoon, he planned on fixing what he feared could be a serious electrical problem. Last night, he and Stone had discovered at least two generations of wiring behind the walls. They’d both wondered how the entire place hadn’t burned down before this. It was why he hadn’t wanted Sarah sleeping in the bedroom and why he’d slept fitfully and on semialert status all night long. That, and Sarah being up close and personal with his favorite organ.

  Sarah’s car was in the driveway, but inside, his only greeting was from Shackles, who jumped on his hind legs and acted like Matt had been gone for a year. No. A decade.

  “Calm down.” Matt picked up the scruffy guy, who immediately licked his ear. “Okay, a little too intimate for me.”

  He set Shackles down and let him out in the yard, where he noticed the garden shed’s doors were open. Shackles trotted to the shed, stopping once to look back as if to say This way, idiot. Matt followed Shackles into the shed and was rewarded with a beautiful sight. Sarah stood at an easel, her back to him, presumably so involved in her sketching that she didn’t hear him come up behind her. Then he realized she had earbuds in and couldn’t hear him. He had a few minutes to enjoy the moment, listening to her hum slightly off-key to “Beautiful Day” by U2.

  She wore an old worn pair of jeans with paint smeared on...interesting places. Her hair was back up in that bun again, though wisps of it fell out, reminding Matt far too much of last night. Her hand moved over the canvas, shading a charcoal sketch of a hill he recognized. El Toro, the fourteen-hundred-foot-tall hill rated as a moderate to expert hike. A few of the personal things he knew about Sarah—she liked to hike and draw.

  He had a feeling there was a lot more for him to discover about her, like why she gave him the uncanny feeling she could see right through him. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t want to know.

  As if she’d heard his thoughts, she turned to him and jumped. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  He nodded at the sketch. “I like it.”

  She took her earbuds out and stood in front of the sketch like she wanted to block his view. “It’s nothing. Just something I fool around with when I’m bored.”

  “Is that El Toro?” he asked.

  She turned to glance at it again. “Yes.”

  “Have you hiked it yet?”

  “Not yet. I wanted to, but I missed the citywide hike last month.”

  Because the land was partially on private property, the city hosted a sanctioned hike once a year. The Boy Scouts hung ropes for those who couldn’t make the climb without assistance. And if you made it to the top and back down again, you could get a certificate from the city of Fortune saying you’d climbed El Toro. With the kind of mountains they had in Colorado, he was surprised Sarah hadn’t poked fun at the size of the hills in their valley.

  “I’ll take you. I know another way.”

  “A secret way?” She smiled, and while it didn’t look as relaxed and honest as the one he’d seen on her this morning, he’d take it.

  “The local’s way.” He stepped closer to the easel and she moved aside.

  “I’ve been experimenting with landscapes, but I don’t know. Something’s missing.”

  “People?”

  She hit his shoulder and laughed. “Then it wouldn’t be a true landscape.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know that much about art.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. You’re an engineer.”

  “But I can appreciate beautiful things. I’ve got twenty-twenty vision.” He slid her a look full of obvious. She was the beautiful thing to him. Hello, lame. “What if you put some people here at the bottom, ready to go up the hill?”

  She sighed. “But then—”

  “I know. It wouldn’t be a landscape. It would be something else.”

  “Maybe I got tired of people.”

  “I’ll try hard not to take that personally.”

  “Drawing people. And I’m only tired of criminals. Not...not you.” Her hand went back to the sketch and she shaded in more at the bottom of the hill.

  “Good to know. Think you can sketch me? I’d be your model any day of the week. But not naked. I’m shy.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Of course you are. But I don’t do nudes. Particularly not you. I wouldn’t get any sketching done.”

  “No, I agree. Don’t get me wrong, I support the arts, but it would be a damn waste to spend your time sketching me nude. Wouldn’t want to tease you.” He grinned, thinking he was doing exactly that. Teasing, when he’d been the one to shut her down.

  Stop it.

  She looked at the ground. “Matt. About last night...”

  “Yeah?”

  “You were right.”

  He nodded. “You should have let me have the couch.”

  “Maybe. Okay, fine. But that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry if I was a little too direct. It’s just... I know what I want. Just because I don’t believe in love doesn’t mean I can’t have a little fun.”

  His phone buzzed in his pocket and he ignored it. “You’ll have to find your fun with someone else. I’m not playing.”

  “That’s interesting. Because the way you look at me makes me feel like you’re very much interested in playing.”

  “True enough. I’m human.” His phone buzzed again. “Not a saint.”

  He withdrew it, spotted Joanne’s caller ID and decided he’d deal with her later. Realizing he and Sarah stood a little too close for two people who were apparently not in any imminent danger of getting it on, he stepped back.

  “You’re definitely no saint. I could feel that this morning.” She smiled and caught his gaze, then looked away.

  For once glad his body had spoken for him, Matt fought a grin. “I can see why it would be hard not to notice that. Very hard.”

  She laughed. “You’re g
ood at that, you know?”

  “Getting hard? Yes, thank you. I am.”

  “Verbal foreplay.” She threw her pencil down and passed him on the way out of the shed.

  “You’re no slouch in that department.” He followed her out.

  In the yard, Shackles sniffed around a peach tree, then barked and chased after the bird that flew out of it.

  Sarah locked up the shed. “I’ll try to do better.”

  “We can do this. Even if we’re both physically attracted to each other, we can live here together without getting intimate.”

  “Sure we can.”

  He would have to stop wanting her. Stop flirting with her. He’d forget that almost-kiss and the way she looked in his arms with her hair down. Her lips parted. Waiting.

  She turned to him and her palm pressed against his chest. “We’re good. I’m good. Are you good?”

  “I’m good,” he lied.

  He was completely screwed.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHILE MATT WORKED on the electrical the rest of the afternoon, Sarah busied herself with the second spare bedroom. Matt had already framed the windows in there and all she had to do was paint. This was her sweet spot anyway. She’d chosen a dull shade of brown because the Realtor had advised to paint in neutral shades. For boring people, she guessed. While she hated the thought of a boring person buying her father’s house, those were the breaks. Point being, she supposed, beige and every shade of brown in the color wheel matched everything.

  Sarah would have chosen green had she been making her own choices. But she’d keep the bright colors on her easel. Today’s project had been charcoal sketches, but Sarah had recently issued herself a challenge. It was time, long past time, to paint in colors again. Sure, the charcoal pencil sketches were what she’d become accustomed to in her line of work. But she’d never improve her craft if she didn’t branch back into acrylics. Oils. Watercolors.

  Her cell phone rang with Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”. Mom again, and why not? Sarah hadn’t spoken to her since this morning, an entire six hours ago.

  “Hey, Mom.” Sarah picked up on the third ring.

  “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “No bother.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m painting the spare bedroom.” She tried to sound upbeat, cheery. Sarah found that her mother was easily influenced by tone of voice.

  “Wonderful. Progress. How much longer do you think?”

  “Before I’m back home, you mean.”

  “In Colorado where you belong.”

  Yes, after all, Mom had decided that Colorado would be her home many years ago when she’d entered into the ridiculous custody arrangement with Sarah’s father. Her family had lived there, and so she’d hauled Sarah thousands of miles away from her father, not even considering how difficult that would make it to ever see him. But neither one of her parents had asked where she wanted to live, or with whom.

  Sarah pushed the roll down the wall with a respectable amount of force. “It won’t be long now.” Naturally, Sarah couldn’t tell Mom about the latest development, as that would only upset her.

  Mom sighed deeply. “If I had a nickel.”

  “It’s an old house. It needs some repairs.”

  “Yes, I saw that when I visited. I think you should have listened to your brother and sold as-is. You could still buy two houses in Fort Collins for the price of that one.”

  Sarah was painfully aware of that fact and so was her bank account. She rolled some more of the dull beige paint on the roll. “We already talked about this.”

  “I’m sorry. I hate to sound like a broken record. Oh, I do have some news. I saw Hank last week. He asked about you.”

  Sarah’s stomach dropped at the memory of one of the most painful and difficult times in her life. Hank had been the one guy, a good friend, who’d done his best to protect her.

  “Far be it from me to say, honey, but you didn’t have to go from one extreme to the other. Men aren’t all bad. We have some of the best ones here in Colorado. It’s the mountain air.” Mom paused for a breath. “And maybe you can’t be picky at your age.”

  Sarah ignored that, because hell yes, she could. She could be extremely picky and choosy if she wanted to be. Sarah rolled the paint down the wall so hard that it drooled out the sides of the roller. Great. She took her rag and wiped it up.

  “Because of the eggs,” Mom said.

  Here we go. Sooner or later, it always came down to the eggs. “Mom, please. For the love of—”

  “They have a short shelf life, honey. It’s not my fault. Blame science. If you want children, you need to get started soon. You’ve got a few more good years while the eggs are ripe and ready. Before they rot inside of you.”

  Sarah closed her eyes. What a beautiful, lovely image. Exactly what Sarah needed right now. This is what she’d been missing all these months: a picture of eggs rotting inside of her body.

  “Thanks, Mom. I could have gone all year without hearing that.”

  “You have time! They’re not rotting yet.”

  Gah! “Good to know.”

  Far be it from Sarah to break it to Mom and start that ball rolling, but she’d thought for some time now that maybe adoption would be a good idea. She didn’t want her fabulous Mcallister genes propagating the world right now. But telling Mom that right now would be akin to elder abuse. Besides, maybe someday Sarah would change her mind. She wouldn’t rule it out. And as long as her eggs hadn’t rotted inside of her by then, maybe she’d have a baby one day. She wasn’t going to rush it.

  Matt popped his head into the bedroom. He had a pizza in his hands and a sexy grin on his face.

  “Mom, I’ve got to go. It’s dinnertime. Say hi to Hank for me.”

  “I won’t see him for another four thousand miles. You’ll be back by then and can say hi yourself.”

  Sarah hung up with her mother and followed the glorious smells of fresh baked bread, cheese, meat and sauce into the kitchen. By the time she spotted Matt in the kitchen setting up paper plates on the table, she’d forgotten all about the shelf life of her eggs.

  “You ordered dinner. I could have cooked.” The box was from her favorite pizza place in town, Pizza My Heart.

  “Please tell me you didn’t want gluten-free.”

  “Don’t you know me at all?” She grabbed paper towels and sat down with him at the kitchen table.

  “Great, because it has extra gluten. Special request.”

  Sarah eyeballed him. “There’s no such thing.”

  He gave her a devastating grin, then glanced at his phone. The grin slid off his face. “I have to take this.”

  Sarah watched as the expression in his eyes flipped from relaxed to guarded mode. His voice sounded clipped and professional. The airport? Did Stone have a last-minute job for him? Chartered flights were an unpredictable business and the pilots were often called in if needed for a last-minute flight. If a deep-pockets client had the funds to call up a pilot for their disposal at any time of the day or night, Stone and his company did not usually turn them away.

  But that didn’t make sense, either, because suddenly Matt had moved to the front door with a scowl on his face. “You’re here? Now?”

  Sarah stayed seated, no longer enjoying the spicy taste of pepperoni and cheese lingering on her taste buds. Something was wrong, and she could feel it. It was in Matt’s suddenly rigid movements. And in the fact that in the next second, he was out the front door without a word to Sarah.

  She moved to the kitchen window that faced the house’s front lawn. A dark sedan was in her driveway, and Matt had put his phone away. This was obviously who he’d been speaking with. The petite blonde woman who got out of the driver’s side of the car
had an expression on her face dialed to angry ex-girlfriend. Uh-oh. Did Matt have an ex who wasn’t happy about his living arrangement with Sarah? She could see why it wouldn’t look good. Then again, he’d just told her over a week ago that he wasn’t seeing anyone. So either this was someone who couldn’t let go, or Matt had lied to her. Wait. Unless...

  It wasn’t long before Sarah had an answer. A tall and lanky boy climbed out of the back passenger-side seat. From here, several feet away and inside her home, he appeared to be the image of Matt. Hunter. He grabbed—was that a suitcase?—from the trunk, and a backpack. Matt waved him toward the house and Hunter moved at the pace of a glacier in that direction. Matt and the blonde—who had to be Joanne, Hunter’s mother—continued to talk animatedly. Or rather, she waved her arms around while Matt stood still enough to be made out of concrete and listened. Sarah eavesdropped for several moments, catching snatches of the conversation.

  “I’ve had it... Your turn... Be back... Mess to fix... Your son...”

  Sarah tore her gaze away from the two as she heard sounds of heavy steps on the small porch entryway.

  She met Hunter at the screen door. “Hi there. You must be Hunter.”

  He didn’t say a word, just grunted his agreement.

  From here she could see clearly that he had Matt’s brown eyes, full lips and the same dark blond hair. Hunter wore his short, crew-cut style. She thought it made him look a little older than his fifteen years. Like Matt, he was headed to be tall. As she opened the door and he stepped inside, she noticed he was already taller than her.

  “We were about to have some pizza.”

  Pizza she no longer wanted. She’d lost her appetite at this turn of events. Hunter had done something to seriously upset his mother. One didn’t have to be a psychic to see that. Sarah wondered what he could have done to upset his mother enough to drop him off here as if he would stay awhile.

  Because surely she wasn’t abandoning her son.

  Hunter didn’t say anything, but threw a look of teenage-boy longing at the pie.

  “Would you like some?” She led him toward the kitchen.