“We need to factor in everything, especially our son, before we move forward. Together.” I put an emphasis on the word just to get a reaction. Inside, I’m soaring as her little shoulders square off against me.
“We can’t change our past,” she reminds me.
“No,” I agree. “But maybe the present isn’t as locked as you think it is. Nothing is set except the stars.”
She hesitates before her precious science forces her to give me hope. “And even they’re ever changing.”
I hold out my arm to escort her to the door instead of doing what I really want to, which is fist pumping the air. When we reach the stoop, Kara turns away to open the door, before saying, “Good night, Jennings.”
I wait until the door’s almost closed in my face before I slap my forearm up against it. “Tomorrow? Let me take you and Kevin up in the air?” I ask, bringing us back to the original reason we went out to dinner alone in the first place—our son.
Her fear is palpable. “Jennings, I’m scared.”
And if I’m reading her correctly, not just about going up in my plane. My free hand reaches for her small one gripping the doorjamb. “I know I haven’t earned it, but let me show you what it’s like up there. Get to know another part of me Jed knew. Please.”
After what seems like an interminable wait, she nods. “What time should we be ready?”
Without betraying my heart pounding inside my chest, I smile down at her. “That depends. Are you going to be better if you eat something before or after?”
Her face takes on a decidedly green cast in the porch light. “After,” she says quickly.
“Then I’ll pick you up at five.”
“In the morning?” she repeats as if I’ve lost my mind.
“Well, yes.”
Her head falls back when she laughs, exposing the creamy skin of her neck. I want to bury my face there, absorbing the sounds against my lips as she’s emitting them. But it’s too soon. Instead, I satisfy myself with the joy coursing through me when she swings the door wide open and says, “That’s fine, but you can come in and tell your son the plans.”
“I’d love to,” I say honestly. As I pass by her, I whisper a finger down her cheek, delighted when she shivers in reaction. “Thank you, Kara.”
“For what?” she manages to get out. Her pupils are dilated, the black obliterating everything but a ring of amber.
“For giving me the chance to show you all of me.”
She shakes her head, as if trying to right it. “I wonder if this is going to end up being a mistake,” she tells me honestly, right before she steps in behind me. Passing me, she calls out, “Kevin, your father has something to tell you!” A thundering of footsteps just overhead tells me I was right; Kevin was in the family room watching TV.
“But you’re too intrigued not to investigate what’s still there between us,” I whisper so softly she can’t hear it as she climbs the few stairs to the main living area. “And I’m counting on that.”
After I’ve told my son what time I’ll be by to pick them up in the morning, he reacts as if I’ve betrayed unwritten vacation rules. “I’m sorry, Jennings. In the morning?” Kevin’s voice is horrified.
I nonchalantly say, “That’s the best time to see the sunrise from the plane.”
Turning to his mother, he begs, “All I ask for is coffee.”
Kara’s laughter will follow me into my dreams. As will so much about this evening: Kevin’s excitement about the flight, my emotions over what she said over dinner, and that kiss. God, that kiss.
After saying good night, I jog down to the car. Casting my eyes upward, I can practically hear Jed’s voice in my head saying, I could say I told you so, but…
“And you’d have every right.” Opening the car, I slide behind the wheel. A quick glance back at the house has my heart quickening when I see the curtains drop back in place. Kevin? Or—my pulse thrums madly—Kara?
Starting the engine, I pull away from the curb. I need to get some rest so I can show the two people who are becoming my heart where my soul lives.
In the sky.
Kara
“Did you ever really get over what you felt for Jennings?” Maris asks me.
I just told her about the kiss and my reaction to it. I feel my cheeks warm again when I recall