Flying Home

by T. R. McClure

  “No thanks,” Matt gazed down at Wendy’s sincere face. He realized then Wendy was a bit of a ham. “I’ll wait.”

  Wendy stretched up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “If you need me, just call.” She tilted her head toward the bartender, who stood leaning against the bar. “Tony’s giving me a tour of the winery. He’ll bring me home.” She winked and left.

  ****

  You’re a natural, you’re a natural. If Colleen heard those words one more time, she would scream. She stared into the oval mirror over the sink in the ladies room. The face staring back at her looked worried. The forehead was smooth, but if she leaned closer to the mirror, she detected tiny lines extending out from the corners of her eyes.

  Too late now to worry about the effects of the sun on her skin from years of participating in outdoor sports. She sighed, glad to be away from all the questions.

  She loved seeing how comfortable Matt was with Becky and Ryan. Everyone was right—he was a natural. He would make a wonderful father.

  What were the chances she could get pregnant? No way to know without trying. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to have a child. She had long considered hiking the Appalachian Trail. Could she leave a baby for a summer? Should she? And who would she leave it with? Wendy? Ha…like that would ever happen.

  She couldn’t do that. He deserved better. She straightened and squared her shoulders. Difficult decisions faced her many times over the years. She’d made them and then lived with the consequences. This time was no different.

  ****

  Matt sprawled in a deck chair, watching a pair of white swans glide across the pond below. He turned when Colleen pulled a chair across the floor. She sat, facing him, her expression somber. Matt pointed to the swans. “Did you know they mate for life?”

  Colleen contemplated the swans a minute before turning her green eyes on Matt. “I doubt they wait ‘til they’re the swan equivalent of forty-three years old before they marry.”

  He didn’t like the tone of her voice. Matt leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “They do if the girl swan is busy doing the equivalent of saving the world.”

  Colleen snorted. “Matt, you’re an idealist. Sitting in your ivory tower, thinking everything will turn out all right if you just believe.”

  Puzzled at the sudden change in Colleen’s mood and annoyed at the direction the conversation was taking, Matt leaned back in the chair. He thought the evening with the two families had been a success. “I’m an idealist? I’m part of a two hundred acre farm struggling to stay alive in this economy and you call me an idealist?” He jumped up and strode to the end of the patio then turned and fixed his gaze on Colleen. “I think you’re looking for an excuse, Colleen McLachlan. I think you’re still afraid.”

  “Afraid?” Colleen jumped up, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. “Are you kidding me? Twenty-five years in a male-dominated organization and you’re calling me afraid?”

  Matt strode back across the patio. He glared into luminous green eyes, inches from his own. “You can go bungee-jumping, climb mountains…” He waved an arm in the air. “…hot air ballooning, for all I know—”

  “I’ve never gone hot air ballooning!” Colleen shouted back.

  “Whatever!” Matt grimaced. “No, you’re not afraid…of physical danger. What you’re afraid of, Colleen…” He looked into eyes that had gone from blazing to glistening and for a second wondered if he was going too far. After taking a deep breath, he lowered his voice. “What you’re afraid of, Colleen, is letting go. Letting go of your heart, losing control of the situation…taking a chance on love.”

  Two bright red spots appeared in Colleen’s cheeks before she wheeled and marched to the table to retrieve her jacket. She stood for a moment with her back to Matt, her shoulders stiff. When she finally turned, a small smile graced her face. “Matt, you are a wonderful man and I…” She hesitated. “I like you a lot, but I don’t think you have taken everything into consideration.”

  Taking slow steps, Matt walked toward her and reached for her hands. She tried to pull away but he refused to let go. “It’s the kids thing, isn’t it?” He searched her face as he waited for an answer, desperate to find the closeness that just hours before defined their relationship.

  Colleen’s head tilted as she studied him. Her hair swept against her cheek.

  As if of its own accord, his hand brushed the silky strands away from her face.

  “It’s a pretty big thing, Matt. Whether or not you have a child is a big decision.”

  “I can’t say it’s something I gave a lot of thought to before, Colleen. I really enjoy the time I spend with my niece and nephew, but they’re eighteen and fourteen. We have some great conversations.” He lifted a shoulder and shook his head. “But I must admit I’m kind of glad when they go back to Seattle and I can get back to my books.”

  “You’re only thirty-two years old, Matt. You could change your mind.”

  “Don’t make me sound like a kid.” He cupped her face in both hands. “So are you saying you don’t want to have children?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m saying. I never gave it much thought because I never…” Colleen wrapped her hands around his and pulled them away from her face. “That’s not the point. The point is by marrying me you limit your chance to experience fatherhood. Not only am I not sure if I want to have a child, but fertility is much lower at my age.”

  “You make yourself sound like an old lady and you are hardly—” he put his arm around her waist and pulled her close “—an old lady. Let’s not talk about this now.” He kissed the nape of her neck.

  Colleen drew back, her expression sad. “Just take me home, Matt. Please.”

  Chapter Twelve

  With a heavy heart, Colleen tucked her carry-on into the overhead compartment and settled into the window seat. Under protest, Wendy drove her to San Jose International early the next morning. Colleen lucked out and snagged a ticket to Panama City, Florida by way of Chicago and Atlanta.

  When Matt dropped her off the night before, he had to have known she meant goodbye. Hadn’t he? Their goodnight kiss had been brief and perfunctory. Colleen stared out the window at the baggage handlers. Running away was out of character…but so was falling in love.

  She sank back against the seat and closed her eyes, trying in vain to sleep. No sooner were they in the air, been served a drink and a snack before they landed, and she had to run to transfer planes.

  By the time she got to Panama City, she was exhausted. She took a taxi to a hotel near the bay. In the morning she would pick up her car, and head for San Antonio. Although she had friends in Panama City, the thought of seeing them depressed her. She was in no mood to answer questions about retired life. How could she? She had no answers.

  After picking up the jaunty red sports car the next morning, she drove straight through to San Antonio, stopping only for gas and food. If her mother knew, she would have had a fit. Every hour or so her cell phone rang, but Colleen left it buried in the bottom of her purse. Her family was accustomed to being unable to contact Colleen for long periods of time, and Colleen wasn’t interested in talking to anyone—especially Matt.

  Thirteen hours later, she pulled up in front of Sophia Litton’s small log home just outside of San Antonio. Sophia, long retired, was an attorney in the Panama City office where Colleen worked years earlier. The two women formed a lasting friendship.

  Colleen parked in the gravel drive and walked up the steps of the long wooden porch. In the west, the sun had set, leaving a gorgeous sky of red and yellow. Baskets of red petunias hung from the rafters. She stopped to admire a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower. A horse whinnied in the distance.

  Just as Colleen reached for the horseshoe-shaped knocker Sophia appeared from around the corner of the house, clad in a pink flannel shirt, jeans and boots, and followed by a large, black and white dog.

  She bounded up the steps. “Colleen, how good to see you!”

>   Colleen wrapped her arms around the large woman. “Good to see you too. You haven’t changed a bit.”

  Sophia whipped her cowgirl hat off her head and whacked it against her knee, dispelling a cloud of dust. “Just my clothes, just my clothes. Come in, girl, you look a mite peaked.” She nodded toward the dog. “That’s Juno, by the way. He’s a stray showed up here last year and never left.”

  The dog sniffing at her heels, Colleen followed the older woman into a neat hallway. She bent and scratched the mutt’s ears.

  Sophia tossed her hat on an antique hall tree. “Come on into the kitchen and we’ll have some tea. Did you eat? Here, have a seat.”

  Muscles protesting at the long hours spent behind the wheel, Colleen sank into a kitchen chair.

  Sophia prattled on as she puttered about the bright yellow kitchen, crammed with modern appliances. The round oak table was soon covered with rolls, luncheon meat, chips, cookies, and fruit salad. She settled into the chair across from Colleen. “I haven’t even given you a minute to talk, have I, Colleen? How are you? How’s retirement?” She paused, her shrewd eyes searching Colleen’s face.

  “Like you said, Sophia, the only thing changed about you is your clothes. You’re an attorney. Talking is what you do.” Colleen smiled at her friend as she lifted a mug of steaming tea to her lips.

  “I had a hard time with retirement at first, Colleen, because of that.” She reached for a cookie and dunked it in her tea. “I was at wit’s end ‘til I figured out that, yes, I am an attorney. You just can’t turn that off when you retire.”

  Colleen reached for a roll and looked over at her friend. “So what did you do?”

  “Well, I puttered around working for a couple different firms in the city…didn’t really care for it, being civilian and all.”

  Sophia went to the fridge and retrieved the mayonnaise, handing it to Colleen as she sat again. “Then I heard through the grapevine the women’s resource center needed some legal assistance. I’ve been helping out with non-profit groups ever since.”

  Her friend sounded so contented. A niggle of envy shot through her. Colleen sank her teeth into a turkey sandwich and chewed, her eyes closed in bliss. “This is so good,” she said, her mouth full. She looked across the table at her friend, who waited, quiet. “I don’t know what to do,” she said in response to Sophia’s earlier question. “My brother-in-law offered me a job at his firm. Captain Rogers in San Diego says there’s a civilian job on base, and then I…I met this guy. It’s a funny story, really—I met this guy on an almond ranch when I had to land there because of fog.”

  Colleen reached for a chip. She looked up to find Sophia studying her, one finger pressed against her lips. She grinned. “Your body language says there’s something you’re not saying.”

  Sophia dropped her hands into her lap and leaned back in her chair. “You know I think the world of you.”

  “But…” Colleen put down her sandwich and brushed the crumbs off her hands.

  “But one thing I always wondered is why you keep men at arms’ length. You’ve had some eligible men interested in you over the years.”

  With a shake of her head, Colleen snorted. Her romantic past was not a list of highlights. “Like Major Brown, now he was a catch…tall, good-looking, intelligent, worldly. Only problem was he had a wife and three kids back in Arkansas.”

  Sophia picked up the flowered teapot and refilled first Colleen’s cup, then her own. “Okay, so you got burned once, that’s no reason to give up on men entirely.”

  “Let’s not forget Senior Master Sergeant Adams in Germany. Talk about wining and dining! A girl’s head could easily be turned by that man.” She slapped a hand on the table. “But he had this small problem of embezzling funds.”

  Sophia’s shoulders shook as she laughed. “I forgot about him. You’re hopeless, Colleen. Let’s take our tea in by the fire. I’m not giving up on you yet.”

  The two women cleared the table and carried their cups and a plate of cookies into the living room, where a warm fire flickered. Juno settled onto the rug with a low groan.

  “The nights get cold here,” Sophia commented as she added a log to the fire. She sank down into the wing chair opposite Colleen and waved a hand in the air. The glow from the fire caught the gold of her wedding band. “Don’t get me wrong, Colleen. Being married to the wrong man and unhappy is much worse than being single and happy. I see a lot of that in the work I do now. Some women think they’re not complete unless they’re part of a couple.

  “On the other hand…” She glanced over at Colleen with a raised eyebrow. “When you share a unique and special love with someone, why, there’s nothing like it.” She paused, staring with an unfocused gaze into the fire. “If this man means as much to you as I suspect he does…”

  Her breath caught in her throat and she nodded. “I know. He does mean a lot to me. That’s what scares me. I never felt this way before.”

  “I guess that’s the idea. It’s a once in a lifetime feeling, twice if you’re lucky.” Sophia twirled her wedding band as she stared into the fire.

  Colleen studied the older woman, now clad in a flowered housecoat and slippers. The lines in her face seemed more prevalent.

  “I experienced it once in my life,” the attorney continued. “And I wouldn’t change things for the world, even though Len and I had such a short time together.”

  Colleen remembered every detail of the day Sophia received the call telling her Len had died in a small plane crash in Alaska. Crushed by the news, the strong, stalwart woman had taken weeks to return to work. She nodded. “He was a great guy. You know, when I first met him, I thought you two were the oddest couple. But the more I got to know you, I realized you were perfect for each other.”

  “We balanced each other.” Sophia nodded. “I talked and he ran interference for me. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have this ranch and all the wonderful memories.”

  “Did you ever…” Colleen hesitated, wondering if her question would cause more pain then plunged forward. “Did you ever wish you had children together?”

  Sophia looked away from the fire and met Colleen’s gaze. “Len was a widower, you know. His children were eight and ten when we married.” She wiggled her eyebrows and laughed. “Now that was interesting! They’re both married now and we get together for holidays. I consider them family.”

  “But what about children of your own?” Colleen studied the picture frames crowding the mantel over the fireplace, colorful rocks and shells scattered around them.

  “Families come in all kinds of packages, Colleen. You don’t have to birth a child to be a mother. It’s different for everyone.”

  For a moment, they both stared into the fire in silence. Sophia clapped her hands together. “I could talk all night, Colleen, but you look tuckered out. Let’s get you to bed. You have another long day tomorrow.” Sophia settled Colleen in a comfy loft bedroom where she slept soundly for the first time since Ryan’s baptism.

  The next morning, fortified with a Western omelet and whole wheat toast, Colleen left for the drive to San Diego, but not before persuading her old friend to visit her wherever she ended up.

  “Good luck,” shouted the attorney as Colleen drove off.

  Just outside of Tucson, Colleen pulled off the highway and got out of the car to stretch. She leaned against the passenger door of her small car and stared at the desert. A favorite place of hers to stop, acres of discarded aircraft lay strewn across the flat sand in front of her. The sun beat down on her head. She stripped off her jacket and tossed it in the backseat. The still, dry air made the perfect climate for preserving the dismantled aircraft and preventing corrosion.

  The property contained every kind of aircraft flown since World War Two. Known as an aircraft bone yard, it belonged to the nearby Air Force base. Some of the aircraft would be sold intact, some for parts, and some for scrap metal. She noticed a compact T-33 Shooting Star underneath the wing of a B-47 Stratojet. Both were str
ipped of parts and had been added since she had last been here.

  The future of the equipment in front of her was unclear, just as her future was unclear. She stared up at the empty blue sky, then at the mountains in the distance. Maybe she was meant to stay in the same line of work. All she knew was law and military regulations...and the name of every piece of equipment within sight. So what would be the point in changing careers at this stage of her life?

  A once in a life time feeling. Sophia’s words hovered in the back of her mind.

  Colleen leaned back over the roof of the car ‘til her back cracked then stretched her fingers toward her toes. Her muscles loosened with a slight burn. She jogged around the car and got back behind the wheel.

  Late in the day, the gas gauge hovered close to empty when, in the middle of nowhere, Colleen spied a small two-pump station just off the road. She stuck the nozzle in the gas tank and reached in her purse for change. A soda machine stood at the end of the small, ramshackle building.

  She pushed the coins through and waited for the thunk of the can hitting the bottom. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash and she turned, looking for the source. She walked out into the desert, her can of soda forgotten at the sight in the sky.

  Less than a mile away, a colorful hot air balloon drifted lazily across the flat ground in the direction of Phoenix. Bursts of flame from the burner pushed the balloon higher into the bright blue sky. Broad stripes of primary colors with black accents decorated the thin material.

  The three figures in the balloon waved and Colleen waved back with a smile. The smile dimmed at the sudden wish Matt stood next to her, sharing in the beautiful sight. This was exactly what they had meant when they talked about sharing their lives…adventures…new experiences. Colleen shook her head and trudged back to retrieve her soda. Wishing he stood next to her didn’t erase an eleven-year age difference.

  After seeing the balloon in the desert, Colleen continued to drive into the night, her mind full. If she had stopped, she doubted she could sleep anyway. Her mother would have had another fit. Around noon, Colleen breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled into the parking lot of a familiar motel not far from the base.