from the carrier. He stared at Hart, wanted to put a fist through his pretty boy face. “How the hell did she know how to contact you? And why?” Fuck all that, and just tell me what she said.
“Unlike you, I gave her a way to contact me. Since I knew you’d screw it up, I figured Jenny was fair game. I plan on seeing her when we return.”
“Like hell you will.” Two weeks ago Jared had sent Paul an address; he still hadn’t received the papers. He knew it would take some time for them to reach him, and Jared was both dreading and waiting for that day. Until he signed the documents that relinquished any hold he had on Blue Sky, he was still a part of her life. A small part, but it was better than nothing. He’d take whatever he could get.
“Sorry, Charlie. But since you gave her up, you don’t get a say.”
Jared wanted to punch Hart all over again. Then again, he wanted to smack himself. The second night he’d returned, he’d gotten good and drunk. And Hart had been right there, listening to every whiny word Jared had been unable to stop himself from saying.
“So,” Hart prodded. “What do you want me to tell her?”
There were a million things he wanted to say to her. But none of them would change anything, and even if they would, he sure as hell wouldn’t use pretty boy as his messenger. This time when Jared turned and walked away, Hart couldn’t stop him.
Jared reached his jet and threw himself into the task at hand. He had a job to do, and he’d better get his head on straight and do it. He went through the preflight check then climbed into the cockpit. But as he put on his helmet and connected his oxygen hose, he couldn’t stop the memory of when Jenny had picked up his helmet, held it in her hands, and looked at him with those sky blue eyes that tore straight through to his soul.
The Ghost, I know.
She didn’t. No one did. He made damn sure of that. If she knew how mixed up he really was, she’d run as fast and as far from him as she could. Instead, he’d protected her by getting the hell away from her.
He motored down the canopy and brought the engine up to speed then completed his primary/secondary and emergency power unit checks, punched in the coordinates, tested the flight-control, brake, and air-refueling system. He cleared his crew chief off the headset and began to taxi. The jet accelerated rapidly, and Jared was airborne in a matter of seconds. As he climbed into the blue sky, he waited for the rush of adrenaline to hit him like it always did. This was it. This was where his magic began.
But this time, there was no adrenaline. No magic.
My nana always told me this lake was magical. This water could heal almost anything.
The roaring in his head grew louder, and his hand slipped on the stick.
Jenny.
Her grandmother had been wrong. It wasn’t the lake that held the magic, it was Jenny.
Somehow, with that wondrous heart of hers that was as big and open as the sky before him, she’d shown him that he could put down roots. That he could fit. That he could love. And she did know him. He thought back to all the talks they’d shared—all the things he’d shared about himself.
He loved her.
The truth had been before him all the time.
God, what an utter fool he’d been. He could face an enemy head-on, but one look at Jenny’s smile, and he had run away. He’d let the stain of his past muddy his future. And even when Jenny had given him her love, he’d thrown it back in her face, the coward that he was. For so long he’d been running, but she’d seen through every barrier he erected. She tried to show him . . . to tell him . . . but he’d been too stupid to see. He was a guy who could stick—he just hadn’t found the right reason . . . the right person, until Jenny. It had taken him getting back into the cockpit and climbing thirty thousand feet for him to see clearly what he’d missed on the ground.
Jared rolled into a thirty-degree bank. For the first time he didn’t want to look up; he wanted to look down.
Jenny frowned at the vegetable platter in her hands.