Extreme

by Lark O'Neal

  Lovers. My heart starts to bleed.

  Funny that I gave Kaitlin that big speech about soulmates. It was just that everything felt so right, so true, and if the universe gives you something like that, then surely there’s a way.

  But there isn’t. I wanted to force it.

  A new flight must have landed because a fresh crowd of people is pouring through the opening. I watch people greet each other, mothers and children, husbands and wives, business associates.

  And there is a woman with hair the color of a copper pot striding through the crowd, a backpack flung over her shoulder. It’s the same walk that snared my attention so completely the first time I saw it, in another airport. Athletic, graceful, gorgeous, filled with a rare confidence.

  For one long second, I stare at her in astonishment. Kaitlin, my Kaitlin, walking through the wide open lobby of the Denver airport, right before my eyes.

  What are the chances?

  That I would be sitting right here?

  That I happened to be standing where I was when I saw her in Reykjavik, that she came with me to the Blue Lagoon, that I missed my flight, that all these things happened—

  I stand up and lean over the railing and call her name. “Kaitlin!”

  She doesn’t break stride. I try again, yelling as loud as I can, attracting the frowns of other diners, “Kaitlin!”

  For a minute, she pauses, looks around. Waits a minute, and I yell again, but an announcement comes on the speakers at exactly that moment and drowns me out.

  Digging in my pocket, I find a handful of bills and fling them on the table, grab my pack, and start to run. I slam up the stairs to the main level, look over the rail to check if I can still see her, and run through the tangled crowds as if I am running for a medal. She slips out of sight as I hit the escalator, running past people in a travel daze, “Sorry, excuse me, sorry,” and bolt in the direction I saw her disappear.

  Nothing.

  I look both ways but there’s no copper bright head in the crowd.

  She’s gone.

  Standing there with my dead phone, my heart breaking in a thousand ways all over again, I have no idea what my next step should be.

  And then, on the overhead speakers, I hear Abba begin to sing, “Take a Chance.”

  She can’t be far. I have to find her.

  Chapter TWENTY SEVEN

  My coach is supposed to be waiting for me in the arrivals area, but he’s nowhere to be found when I deplane. My mood is sinking again, or rather, it’s sunk all the way to my toes because Gabe hasn’t responded to my voicemail or text. I have restrained myself from texting again because I’m the one who said we shouldn’t do this.

  But I paid for WIFI on the plane, hoping, even though I need to be watching my budget. I looked up the news from Iceland, wondering if there were more volcano problems that kept him working, or some natural disaster that prevented communications.

  Okay, I know. It’s a reach. But—

  By the time I hit the arrivals hall, my heart is aching like it’s been torn to shreds like a cat with a ball of paper. I’m here to get back to work. People are waiting for me. There’s fresh snow. My injuries are mostly healed. I force myself to picture how it will feel to fly into the wild blue of the Colorado sky, and it feels slightly better.

  But not really.

  Crossing the giant room, I swear I hear someone calling my name, but I stop and look around and can’t see who it is. I wonder where my coach is when a text comes in. My heart leaps. Maybe this time—

  But it’s only my coach. Crazy traffic. Running behind. Wait outside?

  Irked, I text back, Fine.

  So I head for the doors, striding because I’m pissed and he does this a lot, leaves me waiting for ten minutes or twenty, when he should have just left earlier. It’s only consideration.

  Honestly, though, the thickness in my throat has nothing to do with him. It’s just that real life is crashing in around me, the announcements on the speakers and the irritable crowds and the drunk boys headed for the slopes.

  Welcome home, Bouvier.

  In my irritation I’ve headed for the wrong level, the west side where the shuttles leave, not the place where Coach picks me up. I turn so abruptly, I bang hard into a woman pulling a shiny red suitcase and nearly knock her down. “Hey!” she cries.

  “I’m so sorry, ma’am. Really. Are you okay?”

  “Just watch where you’re going.”

  “Sorry.” I brush at her sleeve and head for the escalators. On the overhead speakers, Take a Chance begins to play, and it stops me cold. A welter of emotion, all high and hot and intense, burns through my gut, up to my throat, and I can’t even move.

  Suddenly, coming toward me at a jog, is a guy who looks just like Gabe. Just like him. His hair, his long legged lope, his beautiful Renaissance face with that kissable mouth. Even his parka, that parka that’s ready for Antarctica.

  Or Iceland winters.

  My mouth opens and the song is chanting overhead and I start to run toward him, seeing that he is not an illusion, but actually Gabriel, my Gabe, right here in the Denver airport. I slam into him and he wraps me up in a hug, hard, lifting me off my feet and swinging me around, and my face is buried in his neck, smelling his hair, his skin.

  “Oh my God,” I say, and all of a sudden, the hot tears that have been threatening for an hour spill down my face, and for once I don’t care. We’re suspended there, hanging between moments, melded, holding each other so tightly that I can barely breathe.

  I kiss his neck, his cheek, and he lets me down slowly. We kiss, tenderly, and then more deeply, and then I look up at him. “What…how…” I shake my head. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “You have no idea.” He leans his forehead against mine. “I flew here to meet you and then you flew to New York.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “My phone is dead, and we missed each other over and over, and I started thinking that maybe you were right—”

  “But I talked to my sister and I realized that you —”

  “And then you were standing there in the arrivals area and it had to be a sign—”

  “I heard Take a Chance—”

  “Me, too.” He raises his head. “I have something for you.” He pulls away and reaches into his pack and takes out a little stuffed dog. “This is Enzo,” he says, the name of the dog in The Art of Racing in the Rain. “I’ve been thinking hard about this, and maybe I have a sort of solution.”

  “Yes,” I say, kissing the dog.

  “You haven’t even heard.”

  “Whatever it is, I say yes. Whatever it is. Whatever we can do, I’m all in. This is real. I believe that.”

  “Me, too.”

  I smile. “Me, too.”

  “Let me tell you the plan.”

  “Okay. I’ll just stand here and look at you.”

  He grins. “I can apply to the University of Oregon for my doctorate, and I don’t want to be egotistical, but it’s a fairly sure thing I’ll get in. I’ll get an apartment in Portland, and you can easily fly in and out from there. When we have to be apart, we’ll Skype and talk sexy. I’ll get a dog to make a fuss over you when you come home.”

  “And we can learn to cook.”

  “Yeah.” His hands are on my face, his thumbs touch my lips. “It’s not perfect. No matter what, it’s not the easiest start.”

  “But it’s good.” I cover his hands. “I can buy a real couch.”

  He laughs. “Sure.”

  “Let’s take a chance.”

  He smiles, that rich, happy, sexy smile. “Let’s.”

  We kiss, and it’s a promise. Not to live happily ever after, maybe, but to see what happiness we might find if we take the leap. Believe in each other.

  “Can you stay for a day or two?”

  “I have two days, no more, and only because it’s the weekend.”

  “Plenty of time,” I say, and lace my fingers through his. “I can’t wait to introduce you
to everybody. Let’s go. My coach is waiting.”

  “Let’s go.” He bends and kisses me one more time. “I love you, and I don’t care if it’s too soon to say so.”

  I swing our hands between us. “Me, too.”

  “Say it.”

  I stop and seriously look up at him. “I love you.”

  “Me, too.”

  ###

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  FIERCE

  (Excerpt)

  Lark O’Neal

  Going the Distance II - YOLO

  Copyright © 2015 Barbara Samuel

  Chelsea

  I’m drinking beer and playing gin rummy with my travel buddy Madeline when the train grinds to a halt. We’re parked by the big windows of the bar car, but it’s been snowing insanely all afternoon and all I can see is a big pillow fight of a snowstorm.

  Madeline makes a glare-block with her cupped hands and peers into the dim flurry. It’s nearly sunset, leaving the world blue and purple and white, without detail like a painting of snow in a kid’s book. “I’m pretty sure there’s no town,” she says. “Just a valley.”

  Alec, one of the guys we met in Iceland, is sprawled across the aisle, arms crossed over his chest, earphones trailing from his pocket to his ears. He stirs, lazily, and says in his thick Scottish accent, “It’s the snow. Nothing to worry about.”

  Madeline, her shiny black hair swinging exactly at her shoulders, gives him a half-smile. “Would you just run narration on my life, dude?

  He doesn’t bother with so much as a smile, just tucks himself back into his hoodie and leans against the window. Unflappable Alec, who moves at his own pace, deliberately and without hurry, as if he’s a lion and the world is his jungle. He takes up a lot of space when he’s sprawled, too, powerful shoulders and legs filling up both seats. I realize that I’m eyeing his thighs, wondering idly what he might look like naked.

  I pluck the rubber band on my wrist to remind me of my resolve to stop sleeping with guys for the hell of it, using them like a sleeping pill, a way to block the things I can’t stand to think about. In Peru, I kind of broke a guy’s heart, like really broke it, and although I fell off the wagon in Iceland, I’m back on.

  “Your turn,” I say to Madeline, but she’s frowning at something over my shoulder.

  “What?” I turn around to look. Coming down the aisle are three burly policemen, armed as the police are here with automatic weapons and helmets and serious war-level gear. It makes my chest ache and I’m already shrinking into my seat as they approach.

  “Le passporte,” one says, stopping in front of us.

  My hands start to shake so much that I can’t hold the cards. I’m not looking at the gun even as I’m looking at it, that long black barrel, the trigger. My breath disappears and the edges of my vision start to go black—

  Alec is suddenly with us. “She’s an American,” he says with a wry smile. “She’s afraid of guns.” He reaches for the inside zippered pocket of my coat, where it is true I keep my passport, though I didn’t realize he knew that. He hands it to the police. “Can you blame her?”

  The policeman does not smile. “Merci,” he says brusquely, handing it back, looking over Madeline’s, moving on to the next group.

  I take in a deep breath, remember to find a focal point, and hold my passport like a talisman. Alec stands beside the table, his fingertips resting on the surface. They’re right in front of me, a neutral point of attention. Trying to breathe in an even pattern, one, two three, one two three, I notice that his hands are as enormous as the rest of him, the nails clean ovals. Three freckles dot the index finger just above his knuckle, and on his inner wrist is a stylistic tattoo, maybe Celtic, with knots and words. It’s elegantly rendered, with touches of color, and without thinking, I reach for his hand, turning it so that I can get a better look.

  He allows it, looking down at me without speaking as I brush my fingertips over it.

  I look up. His hair is thick and falls down around his face, touching his high prominent cheekbones, his eyes in shadow. Around his mouth are unshaved whiskers, blond and red and black, all catching the light. “ ‘Remember,’” he says, the Rs rolling like water over rocks.

  I drop his hand. “Mine would say ‘forget.’”

  “Aye.” His smile is sad. “Never as easy as we’d like.”

  A sudden blast slams into the car and I’m knocked backward into the window, knocking my temple hard into the glass. The cards fly into the air, and Alec is knocked over, his body slammed into mine before he catches himself on the glass. I taste his hoodie, and his knee lands hard on my thigh. Somebody screams.

  And I’m blacking out.

  A hand on my arm, hard. “Stay with me, lass,” he shouts, and he gives me a shake. “Stay with me.” His hand is hot on my face, so huge it covers the whole of my jaw, my cheek, my temple. “Look at me, Chelsea.”

  Around the edges of my ears is a strange, sucking noise and I want to retreat into darkness, into the comfort of nothingness, but I look up and our eyes tangle. His are a vivid blue, the iris ringed with a black line. His lashes are the same mix of ginger and black and blond as his beard, as his hair. Behind the colors, I see something I recognize—a sense of lostness, desperation, nothing to lose.

  “We need to get off the train. Now,” he says, and tugs me to my feet. Madeline scrambles up next to me, pulling on her parka.

  Alex takes my hand, pushing Maddie in front of him. “Move.”

  ~~ end of excerpt~~

  You can find all of Lark's books at LarkONeal.com

  About Lark O’Neal

  Lark O’Neal loves books, travel, and romance, so it’s only natural that they should all come together in a series of books. She lives with her British partner in Colorado, where she writes from a studio overlooking the mountains. She has won many awards for her books, and loves to hear from readers at larkoneal@gmail.com.