The Winding Road Home

by Sally John

  “But that doesn’t mean—”

  “It happened outside of Columbus. That might have been their destination.”

  “Here comes an official-looking woman. I think it’s the manager I’m waiting for. Maybe she knows what a press ID is. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Kate!”

  “What?”

  “My friend’s calling me back as soon as he has more information. I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks.” She pushed the off button and stuck her right hand toward an approaching woman wearing a black suit. “Hi, I’m Kate Kilpatrick with the Valley Oaks Times.”

  “Haley Weckel.” She shook Kate’s hand. “How do you do. Security tells me you’re giving them fits.” Her dark eyes lit up in silent laughter as if she doubted it.

  “I have been.”

  The woman’s eyebrows rose.

  “A small plane went down outside of Columbus, Ohio. A Beechcraft Bonanza, chartered, coming from Maryland. Was it headed here?”

  “I can’t answer that question.”

  “Do you know the answer?”

  “No comment.” The woman was digging in her heels.

  “The people have a right to know.”

  “I agree. Certain people. Family, for instance, and they don’t need to hear about it from the news media.”

  Kate’s bravado faltered. “What if I’m family? Or very nearly so?”

  “How near is nearly so?”

  Good question. She was under the impression he didn’t have much to do with his family. She knew for a fact that he spent more time with her, as if she were family or, at the least, a close friend. “We’re close.” Her throat was tight, choking the words. “Tanner Carlucci. He’s piloting a chartered plane from Baltimore, Maryland. I don’t know what time he was due in tonight.” She covered her mouth with a hand before a sob escaped.

  Haley Weckel’s demeanor softened. “Let me see what I can find out. Wait right here.”

  As she walked away down the brightly lit open area, Kate sank onto a chair near one of the front doors.

  “Oh, Lord. Please keep him safe.”

  Her pleading hadn’t ceased since Chelsea relayed the news. Nor had the biting of fingernails. She removed her thumb from her mouth. Maybe she should wear the mittens. Two mittens. She still had two of them.

  Kate dug again into the pockets and pulled them out. At the sight of the red fuzzy things with leather padded palms, she started crying. She removed her glasses and pressed the mittens to her eyes.

  Fiddlesticks. She was a nervous wreck. No two ways about it. What was wrong? She reminded herself of Beth when her husband was out of town on business. Or her mother when her dad was grouchy about work. Or her little sister already idolizing boys.

  Kate Kilpatrick was never a nervous wreck. She was excitable, true, emotional…even hyper at times…but never high-strung over the safety of a guy. That was in God’s hands. She was doing all she could by praying. For goodness’ sake! It was only an unconfirmed news report that might concern a new friend she hardly knew in a town she was leaving in a few weeks!

  She chewed on the end of a mitten and sniffed.

  Tanner was a friend.

  All right. Admit it. He was a guy. A good-looking guy who bought her extravagant gifts and made her laugh and was incredibly easy to hang out with.

  Too good-looking to be interested in her that way. So? She was leaving in a few weeks.

  Whose faith was wobbly at best. Oh, Jesus, please don’t let him die until he knows You.

  It seemed to take hours before Haley Weckel stood before her again. Kate flew to her feet, grabbing her glasses as they sailed from her lap. She stuck them back on.

  “He’s landing in two minutes.”

  Kate whooped and threw her arms around the stranger. “Thank you!”

  She laughed. “He must be one special guy. Do you know where private aircraft park?”

  Kate shook her head, and Haley quickly gave her directions, walking her to the exit. Before the automatic door had swooshed completely open, Kate was through it, racing across to the parking lot. It would take at least five minutes to drive out of the lot and pay the attendant. From there she had to drive down one highway parallel to the runway, down another highway around the end of it, and turn onto another road that would take her to a flight school building she didn’t know existed and into its parking lot.

  “Oh, Lord, please start Helen on the first try!”

  She climbed in, turned the key, and the engine popped off. One prayer answered.

  No…two prayers answered.

  “Thank You for keeping him safe!”

  She turned into a parking lot in front of a low building closed up for the night. A discreet sign posted alongside the walk indicated she was in the right place. She parked and climbed out. From here she needed to walk. There were rows and rows of hangars behind it. Haley told her it was best not to go driving around. She wouldn’t miss the small jet taxiing or her friend’s car.

  As she jogged along the driveway, she noted everything was deserted. Lights were dim with long passages of dark space between them. She heard distant voices and walked toward them. As she rounded the corner of one row of hangars, she saw Tanner and a group of people.

  She stopped. It felt as if her bones had liquified.

  There he was, laughing and talking with the others. The plane was already parked inside the oversized garage. He appeared to be inspecting it as he moved around it.

  They were all behaving so normally. Didn’t they know they had almost crashed? Of course not, because they hadn’t. That was her interpretation.

  What was she doing here anyway? She slunk back around the corner, into deeper shadows.

  The lights went out, the big doors were rolled shut. Goodbyes were called out. Tanner climbed into his SUV as the others got into a second car. Both drove away, not passing near Kate.

  She waited a few moments, and then she found her way back to Helen. By then the other cars were gone.

  As she got in, the cell phone rang. She dug it out from underneath a mitten.

  “Hello?”

  “Kate, he’s on his way.”

  She smiled. “Thanks, Graham. He just landed.”

  “He just landed!” Graham’s voice was muffled. Loud cheers reached her ears.

  “Your source is a little slow,” she teased.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No problem. Hey, will you tell Adele I’m staying in town tonight at my folks?”

  “Sure. Bye.”

  Kate ended the call and turned off the phone’s power. She was done for the evening. She felt sapped of all energy and wanted nothing but to climb into her old bed.

  Tonight’s events made no sense, and that made her very, very tired.

  Twenty-Seven

  Kate didn’t turn down her mother’s offer of bacon, pancakes, and eggs. By 6:30 a.m. her appetite had returned, and she remembered she hadn’t eaten dinner the night before.

  Her dad left for work, taking a bacon-and-egg sandwich with him. Her brother and sister passed through the kitchen, stopping long enough to down a pancake before heading out the door to school. Kate finished her last bite as her mother joined her with two mugs of coffee.

  “Thanks, Mom. Wow. I’m thirty years old and you’re still doing this.”

  She smiled. “Waiting on all of you is my favorite thing.” She took a sip. “How’s Tanner?”

  Kate’s swig of coffee tangoed with a gulp for air, sending her into a coughing fit.

  Her mother handed her a napkin. “Is that what the problem is?”

  “What—” she coughed, “problem?”

  “Katelyn, you drop in unannounced to spend the night, which is not unusual. Going right to bed without talking is unusual. Do you want to talk now?”

  “You’re still doing that too.”

  “What?”

  “Seeing beneath the surface. Yes, it is Tanner. I think I’m developing a crush on him. Mom, thi
rty-year-old women do not have crushes. This is so ridiculous.”

  “How do you know thirty-year-old women don’t have crushes?”

  “Because it’s time to work and get on with your life or else wham!” She brought her hands together in one loud clap. “Love at first sight. Meet the right guy, and you know he’s the one because he’s everything you’ve ever wanted.”

  “I didn’t know you had a checklist.”

  “I don’t. Not consciously, but I know he’ll be involved with journalism and probably older because guys my age are inane. Tanner’s just a friend.”

  “But?”

  “But last night a charter plane coming from Baltimore crashed. I thought it was his and I went bananas. I was a basket case. Look at my nails.” She held out her hands. “There’s nothing left to chew.”

  “But it wasn’t Tanner?”

  “No.” Should she tell her the rest? She needed to confide in someone. Maybe that was why she came home. “I saw him at the airport. He didn’t see me, and I didn’t go over to him. I was so thankful to see him, but I couldn’t talk to him.”

  “Why not?”

  “There were other people around and I…I knew I’d just start bawling.”

  “Oh, honey.”

  She was crying now. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s a crush.”

  She pulled off her glasses and wiped her eyes with the napkin. “No?”

  “No. My guess is…” Now Carol’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s way beyond crush. I think you’re in love.”

  “Oh, Mom! I can’t be! Not with Tanner Carlucci!”

  “Why not? He seems like such a nice young man. And now he has his own business—”

  “Mom! Do you remember what he looks like? The girls in Valley Oaks and their mothers refer to him as Adonis. He’s built like a Greek god. Or maybe Roman, in his case.”

  “He is handsome, but so what?”

  “Mom, this is me, Kate, not our beautiful Sara. This guy could have any girl who walks by. Actress, model, Miss America.”

  “Katelyn.” She smiled and touched her daughter’s hand. “You’re the one who received a laptop and plane tickets from him.”

  “But we just met!”

  Carol laughed and smartly clapped her hands together once. “Wham!”

  Using the hair pick on her wet curls, Adele studied her reflection in the bathroom mirror. The image staring back at her begged for sleep. Crows’ feet were pronounced, the skin drying from lack of attention before bed. Again. The eyelids drooped above puffy bags. Proof of another short night.

  Toe curling was serious business.

  She opened the medicine cabinet, pulled out her facial lotion, and went to work.

  I’m behaving like a fool. From last night’s conversation, I know he’s carrying around secrets.

  So he knew high-level people in government. So what? So…maybe he used to work for the government. There were years and years worth of unknown information between them. It took time to really get to know another person. That was the purpose of a lifetime together.

  But he wouldn’t even talk about it. And he wouldn’t explain what Rand had to do with Tanner flying to Baltimore.

  “Father, please help me figure this out. Am I just a totally naïve idiot? Should I stop seeing him? Why doesn’t he stop seeing me if he has to keep secrets?”

  Because…he’s falling in love with me.

  “Mom!” Chelsea rapped on the door. “Tara needs the bathroom!”

  “Coming.” She put away her lotion and opened the door. She and Tara squeezed past each other. The girl quickly slammed the door shut. “Morning, Tara,” Adele said to herself and went to her room to dress. Tara had stopped by to pick up Chelsea for school.

  Enough introspection. She was already behind schedule having slept late, a highly unusual occurrence…until recently, at any rate.

  She paused in her doorway. She could hear Tara being sick. The poor girl. A flu was going around the school. It sounded as if she’d better go home for the day.

  A few minutes later, as she was zipping her skirt, Chelsea came in and dove onto the bed.

  “Chels, I can take you to school— Are you feeling all right?” She went over and placed the back of a hand on her daughter’s pale forehead.

  “I’m not sick.”

  “Are you sure? You and Tara usually share colds and—”

  “We’re not sharing this.”

  Red warning flags waved before Adele’s eyes. She sat on the bed and breathed a silent prayer. Chelsea had been touchy lately, more standoffish than usual. Would she accept a mother’s prying?

  “Honey.” She smoothed the long tendrils of hair down her back. “What’s wrong with Tara?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? She’s barfing.”

  Adele pressed her lips together and waited for her huffy response mode to fade. “That could mean a number of things…but something you can’t catch? Something not contagious. Like…food poisoning.”

  No response.

  “Or bulimia.”

  Chelsea buried her face in the chenille bedspread.

  Tara walked in then, her face a white sheet against disarrayed black hair.

  Adele met her eyes. Tara had been a part of their lives since the girls started school and became fast friends the second day of kindergarten. She was like another daughter.

  “Honey, what’s wrong?” She held out an arm and drew Tara down beside her.

  “Nothing.” Her lower lip trembled.

  Adele hugged her. “This is me. You know I’m not taking that for an answer.”

  Chelsea sat up, wiping her eyes, though the tears kept falling. “Tara, we’ve got to tell her. It’s not going to go away.”

  Her friend burst out crying and nodded.

  “Mom, she’s pregnant.”

  Now all three of them hugged as one, the girls wailing, Adele fighting back her own tears.

  When Adele could find her voice, she went to her bedside phone and called the high school and then Fox Meadow. The three of them would not be arriving anywhere on time.

  Adele straightened her skirt and cleared her throat, forcing the weeping from her voice. “Well, girls, I’ve been there and done that. First of all, Tara, let’s get some crackers in you. They’ll settle your stomach. After that you can tell me about your mysterious trip to Chicago.”

  A corner of Kate’s mind registered the bell jangling, which meant the door of the Times had opened and shut. Another corner bemoaned the fact that Alice the receptionist had sick kids keeping her at home. Every other fiber of her being was glued to the computer screen and the editorial she was writing.

  She could imagine no downside to a wildlife refuge a few miles west of town. Deer and other animals already lived there anyway. Adding a parking lot on vacant land, widening some of the existing trails, installing a small petting-zoo area, and placing signs to the site of an early settler’s house hardly seemed a detraction to Valley Oaks. There might be a little extra traffic on the weekends…which would mean oodles of business to local establishments. How cool was that?

  She erased the last sentence and saved her document.

  She leaned back away from the computer monitor and jumped. Tanner stood at the counter, resting his arms on it and watching her.

  “Sorry, Kate!” He grinned. “Didn’t mean to startle you, but from the intense look on your face, I thought I shouldn’t interrupt.”

  “Thanks. I needed to finish my scathing editorial about the zoning problem for Brady and Gina’s place.”

  “Good for you. Do you think Fred will run it?”

  She shrugged. “We’ll see. This is my first attempt at such a thing. Rusty’s material was a lot tamer.”

  “Seriously?”

  She eyed him as she walked to the counter and wondered if he was serious. Even lounging against the counter he was much taller than she was. As usual, he appeared fresh from a magazine ad for cologne…a sports car…leathe
r jackets…blue jeans… Or merely as decoration for a female modeling the latest slinky fashion. What on earth did she see in him?

  “Yeah, seriously.”

  “Oops. Did I hit a nerve?”

  “You don’t think I’m capable of scathing, do you?”

  “No, I’m sure you are. I only meant you look so much nicer than Rusty.” He wrinkled his nose and sniffed in an exaggerated way. “You smell so much nicer too.”

  His antics made her laugh. As usual.

  “I called you back.” He referred to the frenzied message she’d left for him when she’d first heard about the crash.

  “I know.” She’d listened to his voice mail message on her phone.

  “It was late last night. You must have been asleep already.”

  “Probably. I spent the night in Rockville.”

  “You sounded like you wanted something?”

  “Oh, um, no. I can’t remember anything in particular.” No way was she getting into her overdone reaction concerning his well-being. “Maybe it was about the village board meeting.”

  “I was hoping it wasn’t something we’d forgotten to do for Saturday’s grand opening. Speaking of which, my dad’s wife responded to the invitation.” He never referred to her as his stepmom. “They’re all coming.”

  “Really?” She knew it was a milestone. “Great!”

  “Yes. I was so overcome with goodwill at the news that I extended another invitation to her.” His heavy dark brows knit themselves together. “Marnie’s kids have been begging me to take them flying since the day I met them. I told her I’d take them on Sunday. I already reserved the plane. Kate, come with us. I need your moral support.”

  “Flying?” She felt her own brows shoot upward. “In a small plane?”

  “There are seats for four.”

  Her brows wouldn’t come down. “Four?”

  “Katelyn Kilpatrick, are you afraid of flying?”

  “Only the crashing part.” Her voice squeaked.

  “Birthday and flying issues. You get more interesting by the day. Now I’m insisting you come. It’s the only way to dispel the fear. How will you make it to DC?”