by Sharon Sala
He glanced toward his bedroom. A sheet of rain splattered itself against the sliding glass doors that led onto the deck. His belly tied itself in a knot and he frowned, trying once again to focus on the weather man’s report.
“The line runs from…”
Ryder groaned. On the map, the line of storms was virtually from the top to bottom of the state and moving eastward at a very fast pace. What was even more disturbing, the front extended across a large portion of the northern states, including Illinois. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t heard anything. Maybe her flight had been delayed and she was waiting for new information before she called.
No sooner had he thought it than the phone rang right near his hand. He jumped and then grabbed it before it had time to ring again.”
“Hello?”
“Ryder! It’s me! I’m in a cab on the way to the airport. Traffic is a mess, but I’ll make my flight. I should get into Ruban Crossing around three. Can you pick me up?”
“What’s the weather like up there?”
“Ummm, it’s raining a little, but no big deal.”
No big deal. “It’s raining like crazy here. Why don’t you just take a later flight, or better yet, take the first one out tomorrow?”
She laughed. “Now I know I’ve been gone too long. You are already making excuses as to why I shouldn’t come back.”
He got up and walked to the sliding glass doors and then jumped when a stroke of lightning tore across the sky right above his head.
“Did you hear that?” he asked, as the phone cracked in his ear. “A storm front is moving through. Today is not a good day to fly.”
There was laughter in her voice. “It will be fine. You know they won’t take off if there’s any danger. Besides, the pilots usually just fly above the storms and land behind them.”
He felt sick. Something inside kept telling him this was wrong—so wrong. “Casey, don’t. I know what I’m talking about. Please, for God’s sake, don’t get on that plane.”
The underlying fear in his voice was about to make her nervous. She decided to change the subject. “You didn’t even ask me if the deal went through!”
He sighed and shifted the phone to the other ear. “Okay, I’ll bite. How did the meetings go?”
She hugged herself, resisting the urge to giggle. She was pretty sure that CEOs did not giggle. “We got it!” she crowed.
“It’s a done deal. I swear, Delaney is probably rolling over in his grave as we speak.”
“Don’t be talking about graves.”
She laughed. “Just be at the airport. I can’t wait to get home.”
Their connection began to break up. “Remember,” Casey said. “Flight 209. Three o’clock.”
“Dammit, Casey, I don’t want you to—”
The line was dead. Ryder hung up with a curse and sat back down, staring at the television as if it were the lifeline between himself and sanity.
* * *
Ryder heard someone groan. That’s when he looked up at the airport monitor, watching as the On Time notice of Flight 209 from Chicago was changed to Delayed.
His gut hitched itself into a knot. It figured. While it wasn’t raining at the moment, the sky was black and the intermittent flashes of cloud-to-ground lightning could be seen for miles. It was an all too familiar scene. One right out of his nightmares.
He stood and walked to the observation point overlooking the runway. A couple of planes were waiting to take off, another was off-loading. Except for the weather, nothing seemed out of sync.
I’m just borrowing trouble.
Fifteen minutes passed, and then Flight 209 was a half hour late and before he knew it, an hour overdue. And, the information on the monitor hadn’t changed.
He’d been up and down the terminal a dozen times, walking, trying to pass the time and ease the nervous tension that kept growing within him. Now he was back at the arrival gate, standing at the windows and watching the skies.
Suddenly, the skin crawled on the back of his neck and he turned. Nearby, a child was crying. A teenager was on a cell phone. A weary traveler had given in to exhaustion and was sound asleep, his head lolling, his mouth slack as every now and then a slight snore escaped. The attendant at the check-in desk was on the phone. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to warrant the gut-wrenching instinct he’d had that he was about to be attacked.
He glanced up at the monitor and sighed, then out of curiosity, back at the attendant. But when her expression suddenly froze and he saw her look up in fright, the same sensation came over him again, this time pulling a kink in the knot already present in his belly.
Easy. It doesn’t mean a thing.
Down the broad walkway, a small hom honked three times in succession. “Coming through. Coming through.”
His focus shifted to the electric cart coming down the terminal. It stopped in front of the attendant’s desk as she ran out from behind the counter. When she handed the driver a computer printout, the other man grimaced and wiped a hand across his face. Ryder stared as they scanned the list together. When the driver lifted his head and began to scan the waiting area, Ryder knew. He didn’t know how, but he knew.
He started walking—past the crying child, past the teenager on the cell phone, past the sleeping traveler. He came to a halt directly in front of the cart and didn’t wait for permission to interrupt.
“What happened?”
Both men looked up at him at once. But it was the glance they shared before one of them spoke that nearly sent Ryder to his knees. He’d been right. Something was worse than wrong.
“I’m sorry, sir? Were you speaking to us?” the driver asked.
Ryder leaned forward and pointed to the readout. “Don’t play games.”
Before either one of them could answer, an announcement came over the loudspeaker.
“All those waiting for information regarding the arrival of Flight 209 out of Chicago, please go to the VIP lounge in the west wing.”
Ryder stared into the eyes of the man behind the wheel and felt the ground coming up to hit him in the face. He leaned forward, steadying himself on the cart.
“Are you all right?” the man asked.
Ryder took a deep breath and lifted his head. “Should I be?”
The man looked away.
Ryder’s voice died on a prayer. “Oh, God… no.”
“Sir, you need to go to the VIP lounge in—”
“I heard,” he said shortly, and walked away, following the small crowd of people who were making their way down the terminal. A few looked nervous, aware that the request was unorthodox. Some merely followed directions—like cattle on their way to a slaughter.
An official from the airline was waiting for them inside the door. And Ryder stood with the crowd, listening to the end of his world and wondering how a man was supposed to live with so damned much regret.
“We’re sorry to inform you that Flight 209 has crashed in a cornfield just outside the Illinois border.”
A few started to cry. Others stood, like Ryder, waiting for the miracle that would pronounce their loved ones okay.
“At this point, we don’t know why this has happened, but there have been eyewitness reports that lead us to believe the plane might have been struck by lightning. We do know it was on fire when it went down.”
Someone’s perfume was too strong. The cloying scent drifted up Ryder’s nostrils. From this day on, he would hate the smell of musk. A woman shrieked and sank to the floor while a man somewhere behind Ryder started to curse.
“On behalf of our airline, I am very sorry to have to tell you…”
Ryder tilted his chin and closed his eyes, waiting for the blow.
“…there were no survivors.”
The wail that spread across the room began as a joint groan of disbelief. Ryder covered his face and then wished he’d covered his ears, instead. Maybe if he hadn’t heard it, it wouldn’t be true.
They were saying something about a passenger
list and a verification of names, but he couldn’t stand still. He knew if he didn’t get out, he was going to come undone. He burst out of the lounge, even as someone was calling him back, and started the long walk back down the terminal.
One step at a time. That’s how he would get out of the airport. But how would he get home? How could he face that apartment without Casey?
But as far as he walked, he knew he couldn’t run away from the truth. He’d spent the last seven months trying to forget what he’d done to his father and now this? How far, he wondered, would he have to run to get away from Casey’s ghost? And with every step that he took, the thing that hurt worst was knowing he’d never said, I love you.
* * *
Casey kept glancing at her watch, then out the window of the plane. Neither hastened the arrival time of her flight. She was going to be at least an hour late getting home. Poor Ryder. He would no sooner get back to the apartment and hear her message on the machine than he’d have to come right back to the airport again.
She leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes, weary from the grueling three-day set of negotiations. But it was done! She’d proven her mettle in more ways than one. She’d been thrust into Delaney Ruban’s shoes far earlier than she’d ever envisioned, and while she’d known what to do, it was the doing she’d accomplished that made her feel proud. Delaney had worked all his life to create his empire. She couldn’t have lived with herself if she’d been the cause of its ruin.
Yet the glow she had expected to feel from her success was dim in comparison to the anticipation she felt in just getting home to the man who was her husband. She kept remembering their first meeting in Sonny’s Bar, of how he’d come out of the shadows and into her life. Now she couldn’t imagine what her life would be like without him.
Half an hour into the flight, the plane lurched, and she grabbed at her seat belt, testing the lock that was firmly in place. A few seconds later, it leveled back off and she relaxed. Ryder had been right. This wasn’t a good day to fly. Intermittent turbulence had been nonstop since takeoff, and she told herself she should have seen it coming.
Right after she’d talked to Ryder, her cab had come to a complete halt on the freeway. Traffic had snarled itself into a knot that only time had been unable to unravel. She’d known then that unless a miracle occurred, she was going to miss her flight.
For Casey, the miracle did occur, but not in the way she’d envisioned. She arrived at the airport forty-five minutes late. Not only had she missed her flight, she’d missed her lunch and her mood was not getting better. Just when she thought she was going to have to spend another night in Chicago after all, an airline with a later flight into Ruban Crossing had a cancellation. At last she was on her way home.
* * *
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be arriving in Ruban Crossing in about five minutes. Please turn off all electronic and computer devices and prepare for landing.”
Casey did so with anticipation. If Ryder hadn’t already received her call about the change in flights, she would call home as soon as she got to a phone. By the time she collected her luggage, he would be picking her up.
And then the plane touched down and taxied down the runway, then up to the gate to unload. It was one of the few times in her life she wasn’t flying first class, but she didn’t even mind having to sit toward the back of the plane, or being one of the last to get off. She was home.
* * *
Ryder moved aside out of instinct as a fresh swarm of passengers began to come out of the hallway to his right. His hands started to shake as he watched a man laugh and wave to a woman and child who were just arriving.
It isn’t fair. That damned plane got here in one piece. Why not hers?
Twice he tried to move through the crowd and was unsuccessful each time, so he stood against the wall, waiting as face after smiling face moved past. Finally the flow was down to single file and he stepped away from the wall.
“Ryder!”
The hair stood up on the back of his neck and he stopped, but couldn’t bring himself to turn. He had to be hearing things. Just for a moment, he thought he’d heard Casey calling his name.
He took a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and started moving again.
“Ryder! Wait!”
He groaned. God! He hadn’t even been this bad after Micah was killed.
Someone grabbed his arm and he turned.
Casey dropped her briefcase and threw her arms around his neck. “I can’t believe you’re still here! This is fabulous luck! I thought I would have to—”
When her arms went around his neck, he started to shake. And when he felt her breath on his face, and her laughter rumble across his senses, he lifted her off her feet.
“My God… my God.” It was all he could say as he buried his face against her neck, turning them both in a small, tight circle in the middle of the crowd.
His grip was almost painful, but Casey laughed as her feet dangled off the floor. This was definitely the way to be welcomed home.
“Maybe I should have stayed that extra day after all,” she said. “If absence makes the—”
“You’re alive.”
The laugh died in her voice. “Of course I’m alive.”
He set her down on the floor, then cupped her face in his hands, and the tears in his eyes were impossible to miss.
“You missed your plane, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “You wouldn’t believe the traffic jam my cab got in. I missed my flight, my lunch, my—”
“The plane crashed. There were no survivors. I thought you were dead.”
She paled and then clutched at his arm, fixing her gaze on the shape of his mouth and the words coming out. She shook her head, finding it difficult to believe what he was telling her, but he was too distraught to ignore. Goose bumps broke out on her skin as the impact began to sink in.
“When my cab got stuck in traffic, the first thing I thought was if I missed my plane, I wouldn’t get to go home, and if I didn’t get home, I would have to spend another night away from you.”
Ryder’s heart skipped a beat. “I missed you, too,” he said softly.
“No, you don’t quite understand,” Casey said. “I did something selfish, very selfish, as I sat in that cab. I prayed for a miracle so I could get home. When I missed my plane, I was certain my prayer had not been answered.” Tears filled her eyes. “Oh Ryder, why me? Why was I spared when so many others had to die?”
He crushed her to him. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. All I know is. five minutes ago I was trying to find a reason to take another damned breath and now…” Unable to finish, he held her close as a shudder swept through his body.
Suddenly, Casey felt like crying. “Ryder?”
He eased up, but was unable to quit touching her and began brushing the hair from her face. “What is it, honey?”
“Will you take me home?”
He held out his hand.
CHAPTER 11
Casey kept trying to focus on the familiarity of the countryside through which they were driving, but all she kept seeing was the look on Ryder’s face when he’d turned around at the airport and seen her. It hadn’t been filled with concern, it had been torn by devastation. To her, that meant only one thing. He cared for her as much as she had learned to care for him. Oh God, please don’t let me be setting myself up for a fall, she thought.
“I’m going to let you out at the big house,” Ryder said. “You need to let your family know that you’re safe—just in case they’ve heard broadcasts about the crash.”
Casey couldn’t quit trembling. For some reason, her life had been spared and she didn’t understand why. Ryder’s presence was solid, unwavering; she felt a need to stay within the sound of his voice. “Where will you be?”
Just for a second he took his eyes off the road. “Right where I’ve been for the last three days. Waiting for you to come home.”
She looked out the window and started to
cry. “Oh Ryder, why? All those people. They’ll never come home.”
He saw Micah’s face in his mind and as he did, suddenly realized that the pain of the last few months wasn’t as sharp as it had been. Ever conscious of the woman in the seat beside him, he had to face the fact that if it hadn’t been for a tragedy, he and Casey would never have met. He tried to imagine his life without her and couldn’t. Something inside him clicked.
“I don’t know, but I’m beginning to accept that everything that happens to us in life happens for a reason.”
Her voice was shaking. “What could possibly be the reason for so many deaths?”
His voice was gruff as he turned off the highway. “Damned if I know. Maybe it was just their time to go.”
Moments later, the gray slate roof of the main house appeared over the tops of the trees, and soon afterward, the house itself was visible.
“You’re home,” Ryder said.
Casey’s gaze moved from the mansion to the small, unobtrusive apartment over the garage. “Yes, so I am.”
* * *
It was the red blinking light on the answering machine that drew him into the apartment. He knew what it said, but he played it anyway, reliving his joy as he waited for the sound of Casey’s voice to fill the room.
“Ryder, it’s me, again. This day couldn’t get much worse. I missed my flight.”
He closed his eyes, listening to the rest of the message and feeling awed by the twist fate had taken on their behalf. When it was over he put her suitcase on her bed, then looked around. Some changes had taken place since he’d left to pick her up.
The apartment was clean. Bea had probably seen to that. A fresh bouquet of flowers was on her bedside table, more than likely thanks to Eudora. She was big on flowers. He walked out of the room and into the kitchen. There was a note on the refrigerator door. Thanks to Tilly, there was food inside, ready to be eaten.
He turned on the faucet and let the water run until it was cool, then filled a glass and drank it dry; filled it again, and did the same. When he put it down empty, his hand was shaking. He walked into his bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed.
