Hot on the Trail

by Vicki Tharp

  Maybe he was too upset to text her. Still processing the unbelievable.

  As much as she loved him, as hard as it was being apart, she didn’t want him to fail. So, she’d come. To celebrate with him if he succeeded, to support him if he hadn’t. Either way, she was there for him.

  The arm of the barricade lifted, and a lowrider El Camino rumbled through, windows down, music blasting. Jenna glanced away, her foot tapping to the beat. The car’s tires locked up on the asphalt, and she smelled the burning rubber. A man in fatigues rolled out of the passenger seat and—

  No, not a man. Quinn.

  Jenna scrambled off the roof of the truck and ran over to him, wrapping him up in a bear hug as he swung her around, his laugh infectious. He set her down and cupped her cheeks and kissed her. Long and deep, and a few seconds later all she wanted was this man alone for five minutes. Okay, longer than five minutes. But alone would be good, because catcalls from the passersby might get annoying.

  He broke the kiss. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  By the way he couldn’t take his eyes off her, by the way they drank her in—her eyes and cheeks and lips—it was a good surprise. He brushed a finger over her face where the brick had skinned her cheek. “Healed up nicely.”

  “A few small scars, but I’ll take it.”

  “I’ve missed you.” He leaned in for another kiss, his lips lightly brushing against hers as he pulled her into a tight embrace. He smelled like fresh air and sweat and a hint of jet fuel, his heart thumping hard and strong beneath her ear, a sound she’d never tire of hearing.

  “I’ve missed you, too.” She pulled away. Unable to take the suspense any longer. “Well, how did the flight go?”

  The smile slipped from his face, and her stomach took a nosedive. “We need to talk about that.”

  He led her over to the trailer, as a lump of apprehension clogged her throat. He boosted himself up, and she stepped between his legs. “Your arm looks better. Hair’s growing back around the grafts.”

  “The arm’s good.”

  She traced her finger over the divot, the scars. To her, they proved what an amazing, determined man Quinn was. But for some reason, she couldn’t look at him. Afraid to see the hurt, the disappointment, in his eyes.

  He reached a finger under her chin and didn’t give her a choice. “I passed,” he said. “I got my wings back.”

  “Wait.” Her voice quavered, but that didn’t matter. He’d passed! Her heart kicked wildly, doing some sort of somersault maneuver that made her head spin and her eyes water. She covered her nose and mouth with her hands. She had expected this, had made contingency plans, but to hear that he’d done it made her soul soar. “Oh my God, I’m so proud of you!”

  She hugged him tight, then pulled back. “Congratulations!” It might change a few things, but it didn’t change the way she felt about him. Didn’t change what she wanted for their futures. They’d get there. Just in a different way.

  His face got a little blotchy, and she didn’t think it was from the sun. He cleared his throat. “You mean that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. I love you. I want you to be happy.” She took a step back. Was this the time to tell him? Was it too much of a presumption?

  “What is it? What’s with the serious face?” he asked.

  “I didn’t come down here just to bring you the car.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I kind of have a job interview. Well, not an interview, but a partnership opportunity.”

  He jumped off the trailer. “What are you talking about? You’d said the state was on track for granting your license.”

  “They are. I just…” Spit it out, chicken. Say it fast. Get it out there and then deal with the fallout. If he could fight for his wings, you could fight for him. “I never doubted you. So, I contacted a veteran program about thirty miles east of here. They’re just starting out, but they liked the idea of incorporating horse therapy into their program. I’m going to check them out, and if all goes well, we’re going to partner up.”

  He didn’t smile.

  He looked confused.

  Jenna couldn’t breathe.

  “I thought you had veterans lined up for Healing Horses.”

  “I do, but we’ve worked it out. If the partnership goes through, they’ll transfer here.”

  “But all your hard work, your dreams…” He planted his hands on his hips and took a step back. “Mac and Boomer are a part of it. You can’t leave.”

  “This is still my dream. It’ll be here, not at the S. Here with you.” He shook his head and blew out a breath. Had he changed his mind? Did he not love her? Did he not want them to be together? Why wasn’t he sweeping her into his arms and smiling and laughing? Her heart flatlined. Where was that AED when you needed it? “I love you, Quinn. I know it was presumptuous, but I want to be here. With you.”

  “You can’t do that.” His face shifted, softened. No dimples, but there might have been a smile lurking there somewhere.

  “You got another girl?” She’d said it as a joke, but then…

  “What? No,” he said. “One is plenty.”

  “Then, what?”

  He reached into one of his many pockets, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to her.

  “What’s this?” She was almost afraid to take it.

  “Open it.”

  The outside of the envelope was blank, the flap unsealed. She pulled out the folded sheets of paper. The last page was a form filled out, with his signature at the bottom, signed and dated that day. “I still don’t know what this is.”

  “DD 214,” he said, as a dimple emerged. “Separation papers.”

  “We’re not even married,” she deadpanned.

  He smiled then. “Separation papers from the United States Marine Corps. The government is slow. And it will take a little time for all my paperwork to go through, but basically, I resigned my commission.”

  “You quit?” Jenna didn’t know what to think, what to feel. “But you want to fly.”

  He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers, touching her like a promise. Light, but at the same time unbreakable. “I do. But I want you—us—more.”

  She was afraid to hope, to believe. “I don’t want you quitting because of me.”

  “I’m quitting because it’s what I want to do. I can still fly. I can still serve my community, my country. But I can do it with you.”

  “How?”

  “The task force is looking for a pilot. Someone’s gotta keep those cartel bastards in line. And I’m staying in the Reserves. Keep my training up.” He reached out and pulled her up against him. “And be on the S, with you.”

  “Why?” She knew. She saw it in the way he looked at her. The way he kissed her. The way he’d made love to her. But she needed him to say it.

  He ran his fingers up her arms, his fingers gliding over her bare skin, leaving goose bumps in their wake. He stopped at her shoulders, his thumb tracing the pounding pulse point at the base of her neck. “I love you, Jenn. More than you will ever know.”

  Then his hand rubbed the flat of her belly. “So, we’re in the clear?”

  She offered him a smile, but it trembled at the edges. What was wrong with her? The fact that their tryst in the hospital storage room hadn’t ended with a pregnancy should have been a relief. After all, now wasn’t exactly the perfect time in their lives to add a baby to the mix.

  Is there ever a perfect time?

  “I guess we got lucky,” she said.

  “Why don’t you sound pleased?” He spanned his hand across her belly, and she imagined it rounded with Quinn’s baby kicking at his hand.

  “Aren’t you?”

  He shrugged and didn’t say any more, but when he looked at her with t
hose brown eyes filled with quiet intent, she knew: The question hadn’t been rhetorical. He wanted an answer as to why she didn’t sound pleased.

  “I grew up with this little chip on my shoulder—”

  “Little?” But he smiled when he said it.

  She nudged him with her elbow. “Okay, this great big, honking chip on my shoulder, thinking I was this terrible mistake that had ruined my parents’ lives. Maybe for my mom, that’s still true. But those few weeks of uncertainty after we’d made love, I imagined a different outcome. I imagined a baby growing, and laughing and learning and loving.”

  “With your eyes, and your heart.”

  The love she felt for this man spread throughout her chest. “And I’m not going to lie. I had a few brief moments of panic. But then when I found out for sure that I wasn’t pregnant, I was relieved, but in a way, I was also disappointed.

  “I realized that even if I had been pregnant, even if for whatever reason we didn’t end up together, I would love that baby. That baby, our baby, wouldn’t be a mistake. Our baby would be a miracle.

  “And then…and then—” Her throat constricted and her eyes stung.

  Quinn wiped a thumb across Jenna’s cheek and dried the tears that gathered there. “Hey, hey now.”

  “A-And then, I realized my dad and my grandparents had been telling me the truth my whole life. That just because I hadn’t been planned didn’t mean I wasn’t wanted. Didn’t mean I wasn’t loved.”

  * * * *

  Quinn climbed into the task force’s helo, and snapped on his harness, this time in the pilot’s seat. Jenna went to climb in the back with Kurt’s mother and Crystal, but Lieutenant Sterling said to her, “You get in the front. Until Quinn’s hiring paperwork is finalized, I have to be onboard, but since he’s now certified to fly this beast, I don’t have to be in the cockpit.”

  Jenna smiled that smile that always made Quinn’s chest light when she aimed it at him. “Thank you.” She maneuvered into the cockpit, strapped in, and put on her headset.

  Sterling put on her own headset and made sure Kurt’s mother and Crystal were fitted with their own and linked in on the comms, as well. Quinn still couldn’t believe the change in Crystal from the picture on his phone. She looked ten years younger. She no longer wore the heavy makeup or bleached her hair. In place of the skintight clothes, she wore jeans and boots and a western-style shirt. She’d changed since her rescue. For the better, it seemed. Even Catherine looked better. She’d regained some of the weight she’d lost, and her eyes didn’t seem so utterly hopeless.

  Quinn finished his preflight checklist and started the engines. A spurt of adrenaline, that thrill he always got when the rotors spooled up. But this time, sadness, regret, and still, a bit of guilt tempered the adrenaline spike of Kurt’s last flight.

  Quinn glanced behind him at the wood box on Catherine’s lap. Crystal reached over, rubbed her hand over the smooth surface. Her eyes bright, but rimmed in red.

  They lifted off, out of the yard in front of the big house. The horses scattered across the pasture as the rotors bit into the cool air and they climbed.

  A few white clouds spotted the ridgeline of the Rockies, but otherwise, the sky was clear, the wind mild. If Kurt was disappointed that his last flight wouldn’t be a knuckle biter, he didn’t complain.

  At the top of the highest nearby peak, Sterling attached a tether to herself as well as the harness Catherine wore and opened the side door of the helo. Catherine got into position, sitting on the deck of the helo, her legs dangling out the side.

  Before Catherine released her son’s ashes, Crystal’s voice cracked over the intercom. “Can I say something?”

  “I think Kurt would have liked that,” Catherine said.

  “I-I’m not good at these things. I don’t know what to say. But I wanted to let him know how much I appreciate what he did for me. He was an exceptional man. Because of him, I’m now sober forty-two days. For the first time in a long time, my mind is clear, and I’m starting to recognize what I think he saw all along—a person. A person who is worth knowing. A person who is worth caring about. A person who can do anything she sets her mind to do. He saw through the alcohol, through the drugs and self-pity. And he saw me. Saw that I was someone worth fighting for. And if he thought that, why can’t I? Because of him, I fight for me every day. To be better and stronger and braver. It’s not easy, but as he told me once before, nothing worth doing ever is.”

  Jenna tried to wipe her eyes, but the visor got in her way. Someone blew their nose.

  Crystal cleared her throat. “I hope that was okay.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better,” Catherine said. “It makes my heart full to know he made a difference in someone else’s life.”

  “Hear, hear,” Quinn said, not caring that his voice sounded rougher than an engine on cheap fuel. “To the best copilot a man could ask for.”

  Quinn glanced back as Catherine released Kurt’s ashes. The ashes swirled and dipped and settled out into the clouds.

  “He’s back on top of the world, where he belongs. Semper fi, buddy.” Quinn’s voice cracked. “Semper fi.”

  * * * *

  As soon as the helicopter landed, the party celebrating Kurt’s life kicked into full swing. Everyone from the Lazy S was there, eating Lottie’s barbecue, enjoying the campfire, and drinking beer. Except for Boomer and Crystal, because they no longer drank, or Lieutenant Sterling, who had stayed but couldn’t drink and fly, and of course, Mac, because of Jenna’s soon-to-be baby brother or sister.

  Up above, the moon hung high in the sky, lazing around on a thick blanket of twinkling stars lighting up the night. Jenna couldn’t have asked for a more perfect evening. Then, over the voices and the laughter came the sound of a truck engine, and Jenna glanced over and saw headlights approaching.

  “You expecting anyone?” Dale asked her.

  “Not until later.”

  The sheriff pulled to a stop, and the beer went sour in her mouth. Quinn put his hand on her shoulder. “What does he want?”

  “No idea,” Jenna said.

  St. John hopped out of the truck with a manila envelope in his hand. “Boomer? Sidney? I’ve got something for you.”

  Boomer’s face went slack, and his eyes glanced up in a what-now? kind of way. He clasped Sidney’s hand and held it tight. “This couldn’t wait?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” St. John’s expression gave nothing away. He must have been hanging around Agent Finn a lot these days.

  Walking over, Boomer reluctantly took the envelope from the sheriff and opened it. Turning so both he and Sidney could read it in the glare from the truck’s headlights.

  Sidney’s hand flew to her mouth, and even as much as the light washed her out, she got a shade paler. “Is this what I think it is?”

  No one spoke. No one laughed. All eyes focused on Boomer and Sidney. Dink stopped scratching to watch.

  St. John nodded, the hint of a smile breaking out on his face.

  “Don’t keep us in suspense,” Alby said. “What does it say?”

  “It’s, uh…” Boomer’s voice broke. He pinched his eyes with a thumb and forefinger and cleared his throat. “It’s…” Unable to force the words out, Sidney took the paper from him, and he wrapped his arms around her from behind, her back to his chest, tucking her under his chin.

  Sidney looked around the group and said, “It’s paperwork signed by El Verdugo, giving up his parental rights.”

  “What does that mean?” Pepita edged closer, her steps hesitant.

  A smile split Boomer’s face, white teeth behind a dark beard. “It means your adoption can go through.”

  “Holy shit!” Pepita whooped.

  “Language.” Sidney laughed.

  Pepita sprinted for Boomer and Sidney and jumped up into their arms, nearly bowling them over. Quinn
wrapped his arm around Jenna’s shoulders and kissed the side of her head. “Good for them. I didn’t think that would ever happen.”

  “I guess when you face the death penalty, reality slaps you upside the head. I’m happy he did what was right for once.”

  The celebration started up again. The sheriff declined an invitation to stay, and somewhere in all the hugging, Quinn disappeared. Jenna pulled another beer from the cooler and swiped one of the brownies off of the folding table set up under the trees.

  In the distance came the sound of hoofbeats. A slow, steady trot that grew louder and louder. Jenna glanced around for Eli, thinking Sidney had forgotten to lock him in a stall. The gelding always did like a cold beer and a good party.

  “I’m ninety percent positive he can’t escape with the new stall lock,” Sidney said.

  Over the rise by the big house, a horse came into view, backlit by the huge, bright moon, a rider on his back.

  Hank turned to her and asked, “Is that Quinn?”

  “And Vader,” Sidney said.

  The muscular build of the mustang was unmistakable in the whitewash of the moonlight, even from a distance. “What the—?” Jenna stepped away from the fire and met Quinn on the dirt road. “What are you doing?”

  “Patience,” Quinn said, giving her his full-wattage, double-dimple smile. “Can I have everyone’s attention please?”

  When everyone had quieted down, Quinn dismounted and took her hand, leading Vader and Jenna closer to everyone else. “I think by now, everyone knows how much Jenna means to me. And if you don’t, then I’ll tell you—”

  “Quinn,” Jenna whispered, the déjà vu washing over her, warm and welcome.

  He looked her in the eye and said, “I love her.” He chanced a glance over her shoulder, to where her father stood. “I know you haven’t always approved.”

  Hank shook his head, but chuckled, a self-deprecating grin on his face.

  “But I think you know I’ve always had her best interests at heart.” Then Quinn turned all his attention back to her. Jenna couldn’t breathe. Could barely think. “I love you, Jenna. You amaze me each and every day. You are kind and giving and make the world spin faster, and the sun burn hotter and the breeze blow cooler. You give unconditionally, but that only makes your heart grow wider. I want to be a part of that. I understand now what makes you you, that helping people is your calling. And if you’ll have me, I want to spend my life with you. Helping you help people. Help horses. Let’s make each day better. Together. What do you say?”