“Get in here,” she snapped.
“Hey!” Bobby yelled. “He can’t go in there!”
“I ain’t going no place,” Jack yelled back.
“You get in here, right now!” Cassie shouted. “Or you’re going to be as bald as a cue ball.”
“Cassie, I—”
Her strong fingers twisted in his hair and he could see that it would be better to get in the basket and talk. It was a little difficult climbing in with her hand tangled in his hair but Merrill men never backed down from a challenge.
“Send him back out, Cassie,” Adam said. “This is something for us men to settle.”
“Shut up,” Cassie retorted. Then she turned toward Jack. “Now, as for you—”
“Cassie,” Jack said. “I love you.”
“This is not the place for that kind of discussion,” she snapped.
“You’re right,” he replied. “That’s why I agreed to this balloon caper.”
Her mouth opened but quickly closed. Uncertainty flittered about at the back of her eyes. Jack knew that it was now or never.
“I wanted to cut you free, Cassie. I wanted to be able to take you someplace where your fears wouldn’t be able to follow you.”
It was hard to tell if the uncertainty was fading, but he thought he saw her chocolate-brown eyes softening.
“We both have a lot of baggage,” Jack said. “My stupid pride is keeping me from being happy. And you’re afraid that love won’t last. That I’ll leave you like Ron and your father did.”
Now he could definitely see the softening. In fact, her eyes were swimming.
“I wanted us to be alone someplace,” he murmured. “Someplace where we could just talk. The two of us.”
“There he goes with that ‘talk’ business again,” Bobby said.
“I think I’ll just get out and go home,” Cassie said.
“If you do, they’ll let go,” Jack said. “And I’ll float out over Lake Michigan and disappear, never to be found again.”
“The wind will take you in the other direction.”
“We’re just going to thump him a little, Cassie,” Larry said. “Nothing serious.”
“All right, I’ll go east. I’ll disappear in the Atlantic Ocean. Never to be found again.”
“You’ll run out of propane fuel before you get anywhere close to the ocean.”
“Fine.” Jack threw up his arms. “Then I’ll crash in some cornfield in Ohio someplace. Are you willing to face our son and tell him that you sent his father to his death?”
Her eyes rolled up toward the balloon above them. “It could be a girl, you know.”
“And probably as ornery as you.” He put his hands on her arms. “Cassie, I love it that you’re pregnant, but my feelings would be the same if you weren’t. I realized I loved you when you slammed the door in my face and all I could think of was how to win you back. Not worrying about if I’d look foolish.”
He could almost feel her leaning forward. One step and he could put his arms around her.
“Cassie.” It was Bobby’s deep voice. “Send him out here. We want to put a few bruises on his body and some sense in his head.”
“Turn that knob counterclockwise,” Cassie said, pointing to a large black knob. “Now, Jack.”
Without any hesitation, he turned the knob. The apparatus above them burst into an ungodly racket and shot a long blue flame up into the innards of the balloon.
“Hey!” Larry yelled. “Turn that off.”
“Let go, you bums!” Cassie shouted and whacked at Bobby’s hands “Let go or I’ll break your arms.”
“Cassie!”
“Hey!”
But they all let go and the balloon glided slowly up into the sky.
“You better be married to my sister when you come back, Steeplejack!” It was Bobby yelling. “Otherwise you’re gonna wind up more like a Quonset hut.”
Jack was still pondering the Quonset-hut statement, when Cassie leaned over the side and shouted, “How are we going to find a preacher up here, you dummies?”
“You better be engaged, then.”
The balloon rose slowly—above the housetops, then above the treetops. Jack swallowed hard and tried to keep his eyes on Cassie. She glanced over at a meter and turned the burners off. It was blessedly silent all of a sudden. His gaze wandered and he saw even the treetops were far down. Oh, dear Lord.
“They’re really sweet guys. You just have to know how to talk to them.” She leaned forward, her arms on the edge of the basket, and took a deep breath. “Isn’t it beautiful up here? It makes a person feel so free.”
He tried not to clutch the sides too obviously. Above him was air. Air caught in a flimsy piece of nylon with Velcro holding everything together. He closed his eyes for a moment, just to try to remember what it felt like to be on solid ground.
“So now that you’ve got me up here, what have—” Cassie stopped. “Jack? Jack, are you all right?”
He opened his eyes and forced a nonchalant smile. “Sure. This is great.”
“You’re white as a ghost.” She pushed on his shoulders, and his unresisting knees gave way so he was sitting on the floor of the basket.
“This is humiliating.”
His eyes drifted half-closed. Jack felt, more than saw, Cassie fooling around with a little bag hanging on the edge of the basket. Then, as she leaned close to him, he took a deep breath, trying to take a piece of her with him to his death.
“Oh, damn.” He jerked his head back and hit it on the side of the basket. His eyes popped open and he could feel his sinuses clearing. Smelling salts.
“Better?” She stood again, glancing every few seconds at the instruments and over the edge.
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say. As long as you don’t put that thing near my nose again.”
“What’d you do, skip breakfast?” She reached up and turned the burners on for a long moment.
The moment of earsplitting noise gave him time to search for an excuse. A manly excuse. But the silence came back too soon.
“You might as well know all my faults,” he said. “I’m tonedeaf. I need glasses to read and I’m scared to death of heights.”
“What the hell are you doing up here, then?” she asked.
“Convincing you to marry me.” He heard an airplane in the not-too-distant distance. “Are we going to be hit by that plane?”
She shook her head. “We have the right-of-way.”
“Do they know that?”
“Don’t change the subject. You could have asked me to marry you on the ground.”
“I did that once and you hit me.” He paused. The noise of the plane seemed to be fading. Maybe it wasn’t going to crash into them. “No, you slammed the door in my face and threatened to shoot me.”
“I was upset.”
“You hang up on me when I call you.” His voice sounded annoyingly weak. He wanted to be impressive, not pitiful. “You haven’t responded to all the notes with my flowers.”
“Yeah, I did.” The world’s most beautiful little smile played on her lips. “I tore them up and mailed them back to you. Maybe they haven’t arrived yet.”
“You know, this conversation isn’t going the way I planned.” He took another deep breath. “I’m supposed to be upright, coherent and persuasive. You’re supposed to be charmed by my wit and passion, and fall into my arms.”
“I see.”
The burners went on again and Jack took the time to take deep breaths that he was sure would conquer his fear. By the time she turned the burners off, he would be able to stand and look her in the face. He could sweep her into his arms. The burners went off.
He pushed himself up to his feet—a bit wobbly, but upright. He looked only at her. At those eyes so full of fire and passion. At those lips that could drive him wild with hunger. At those arms in which he wanted just to rest forever.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Merrill men don’t
faint. And we propose on our feet.” He paused, having a sudden thought. “No, on our knees. You’d prefer me to get down on one knee, wouldn’t you? That’s a hell of a lot more romantic.”
“I’d prefer you didn’t pass out,” she said.
“You know, women really aren’t romantic.”
“Well, the romanticism of you keeling over and cracking your head open on a propane tank does escape me at the moment.”
“If it wasn’t for us men, there’d be no romance in this world.”
“Sit down before you fall over again.”
“I am not going to be the first Merrill man to let romance die on my watch.”
“I’m not going to be the first Scott woman to have a man die of fright on her watch.”
Ignoring her words, Jack went down on one knee—his reconstructed knee, which issued only a mild protest.
“Cassie, I love you more than life itself. I want you to be my wife. To walk side by side with me on this earth until the end of our days.”
She sighed and looked down into his eyes for the longest time. Eons passed. Epochs, even. But she only turned to lean her arms on the basket edge again, and looked out over the hazy world below them.
“You just don’t understand,” she said slowly. Her voice was trembly and soft. It was full of tears. “I don’t love.”
He staggered to his feet and reached over for her hand, turning her to face him. Slow tears—like a knife twisting in his chest—were gliding down her cheeks. He wiped them away.
“No, you don’t understand,” he told her softly. “You love everything wildly and without restraint—your dog, your family, those swans.”
He pulled her into his arms, where she lay unresisting against his chest. “You just don’t believe that anything really loves you back,” he whispered into her hair. “Well, Ollie does. Your family does, including your crazy brothers who I’m not too anxious to meet again. I do. I love you like no one’s ever been loved before and I will never leave you. Not while there’s breath in my body.”
She started to cry again, sobs shaking her slender frame until he thought his own heart would break with her pain. “It’s not that simple. You’ll leave,” she said. “They all leave. And I just couldn’t bear it.”
“It is that simple,” he told her. “It’s the simplest thing in the world. I don’t want to live my life without you. I will never, ever leave you. I want to tell our grandchildren about you slugging me. I want to see you grow old beside me and know that you’ll still care about me when I lose my hair. I want to know that I can make the bravest, most stubborn woman in the whole world happy.”
“Jack—”
“Quiet.” He placed a finger over her lips. “You’re thinking too much. You have to feel. Just feel.”
He just held her, taking a deep breath at the joy of having her there. He felt her breathing against him, felt her tears slow and stop. He felt the wonder and hungers of being so close to her again. Then gently, ever so gently, he let his lips touch her hair. He wasn’t afraid of being so high anymore. The only fear he had now was that this was all a dream and he would awaken to be alone again.
She moved in his arms, but not to leave—to turn so that her face was looking into his. So her lips could reach up and touch his. He kissed her slowly, then slowly once more, willing all his love to flow into her and show her just how much they needed each other. She needed to see how much he loved her. How, without rhyme or reason, he would always be there because their souls were joined in some inexplicable way.
They pulled apart slightly and his gaze was snagged by a sight they were drifting near. He turned her slightly. “Look down there,” he said.
She looked below and saw what he saw—Clements Lake with Romeo and Juliet gliding over its surface. The edges of the water were shadowed and blurry, but right in the middle, caught in the glow of the rising sun, were the two majestic birds.
“They’re there because of the promise,” he told her. “They’re there to give you the strength to reach for love ”
“That’s crazy,” she said, although her voice seemed to waver.
“What does your heart say?” he asked. “Not your head, but your heart.”
“My heart doesn’t do decisions,” she said. “I never let it.”
“You never admit to it,” he corrected gently. “Your head would never have led you into the water to save the swans. Your head would never have let you offer to fix a stranger’s sink. Your head would never have had me turn on the burners to get us away from your brothers.”
“Oh, Jack.” She sighed and fell back into his arms. “I’m just so scared.”
“Actually, so am I.”
Her wide eyes looked up at him.
“I’m afraid that once I let go of you, I’ll fall overboard.”
She started to laugh and he knew he’d won. “You aren’t leaving, buddy, even if I have to tie you to the basket to keep you in.”
“So you’re admitting it. You do love me.”
“Shut up,” she murmured.
He frowned at her, and cupped his ear. “What did you say?”
“That’s the problem with you lawyers,” she said, her voice suddenly growing hoarse. “You always talk too much.”
Cassie came back into his arms and touched her lips to his. It was a quick kiss, a kiss that promised much but that also still held her fears. She pulled away from him slightly.
“You promise?” she demanded, her eyes searching his. “I can’t lose you. I just can’t.”
He just smiled at her. “On our fiftieth wedding anniversary, we’ll go to The Royal House for dinner. Then on our seventyfifth, we’ll try Tippecanoe Place.”
“What?”
“I still owe you two paybacks for fixing the faucet,” he said. “They’ll be them. Merrill men aren’t welchers. I can’t leave until I pay my debts.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” she said.
“Just hold me to your heart,” he said. “That’s the only place I want to be.”
Epilogue
“Hello, little mama,” Jack said, an excited Ollie at his side.
Cassie turned from painting the garage door and smiled at him. “Hi, big daddy,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
He scratched Ollie’s head for a minute, then tossed a tennis ball that lay near the garage. The big dog raced off. “Checking up on you. Are you sure that you ought to be painting?”
She finished painting one panel before putting her brush down. “What’s this? You copying the boys ‘pregnant woman’ weirdness?”
“I just thought paint was dangerous.”
“That’s lead-based. This is latex.” She pulled off her gloves, then gave him a kiss for being so sweet. “Want some lemonade?”
“Sure.” He followed her into the kitchen. “Going to be sorry to sell this place?”
She looked around at the kitchen she’d repainted and retiled in sunny, warm colors. The best thing about it, though—outside of the man standing next to her—were the flowers adorning the table and the counters. Jack’s flower-sending had slowed slightly but hadn’t stopped.
“No, it was never really a home. Just another house I lived in.”
“We don’t have to live in my place, you know,” he told her. “We can look for something together if you’d rather.”
“We’ve been through all this before.” She poured two glasses of lemonade and handed him one. “I love your house. It’s great.”
“I’m not sure it needs much work, though. And if you enjoy this…”
“I’ll work on the garage apartment that Aunt Hattie wants.”
They went out to sit at the picnic table in the backyard. The sunlight captured the fire in her diamond so that it sparkled and glowed. She could hardly believe that it was only two weeks since that weird-and-wonderful balloon ride. Two weeks since she and Jack got engaged. And only two months until their wedding.
“I brought you a present,” he said, breaking into her tho
ughts.
She frowned at him. “You don’t have to keep doing that, you know.”
“This one’s special,” he said, and handed her a small book.
She picked it up. It was slightly worn, with the comforting feel of an old friend. She opened it up—a book of Indian tales and legends. Her eyes lifted to Jack’s.
“Look where it’s marked,” he said.
She turned to a page in the middle of the book. The story of the Warrior Princess. “Jack?”
“Read it.”
Her hands trembling slightly, she read the little story about a beautiful young princess who loved a tall, brave warrior. They were wed and lived very happily until one day when their little village was attacked. The tall warrior fought bravely to keep the attackers from crossing the river, but he was killed and his body slipped beneath the waters. Although she was brokenhearted, the princess fought in his place, turning back their foes when it got dark. She mourned the whole night, crying for her love. The next morning the attackers returned, but a fiercely beautiful white swan was on the river and fought whenever they came near. No arrows could touch the swan and the attackers finally went away in defeat. For years, the fierce white swan stayed near the village, protecting it. The princess would feed the bird and talk to him, and when she grew old and died, the other villagers buried her near the river. The next morning, a young female swan appeared. Together the two birds swam down the river and were never seen again.
Cassie closed the little book slowly, not certain if she could speak with all the emotions churning in her heart. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Jack took her hand. “You’ve got to believe now,” he said. “Not only did the tall warrior’s love last after his human death, but mine will, too. As did your father’s.”
She looked up at him.
“He gave you this story long ago, but you didn’t know what it meant. Somehow his love has been here all along, trying to reach you, to tell you to love.”
“And he found my line busy, so he talked to you instead?” she asked with a smile.
“You would have found the book eventually,” he said. “It was in a box of old books in the apartment above the garage.”
She stared at him, then down at the book. The strangest feeling was coming over her, a feeling of things being meant to happen. A sense of being watched over. A sense of peace. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but just grinned at him.
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