A long, slow, deep silence.
“Do you understand?” she asks, her voice a rough whisper.
I nod. Swallow hard. “Yeah, Jo. I understand.”
“So.” She brushes my lips with both of her thumbs. “I need you to make me one tiny little promise.”
I pull her against me, hold her waist. “And that would be what?”
She blinks hard. Swallows. “After…after I…”
I shake my head, and it’s my turn to shush her with my finger over her lips. “Nope, nope, nope. We’re not going there, we’re not talking about after anything. Absolutely not. I will make no promises, and we’re not discussing it. We’re going to enjoy today. This moment. You’re here, you’re okay, you’re alive and we’re together and we’re going to have an amazing, magical, romantic day together.”
“But Wes—” she protests.
“No!” I snap, my voice a harsher growl than I’d intended. “We are not having that conversation.”
She nods. Eyes closed, breathing in deeply, slowly. “Okay—okay. Yeah, you’re right.”
I pull her close and sigh. “I’m sorry. That was—that came out harsher than I intended.”
She nuzzles against my chest. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“So, what we’re going to do now is, you’re going to kiss me and we’re going to put all that shit out of our minds. All that matters is you and me, and this day. That’s it. So, Jolene Park, kiss me like you mean it.”
Her lips curve in a smile and she lifts up on her toes and nuzzles my lips with hers, teasing, toying, touching. And then…our mouths fuse, and it’s not me kissing her or her kissing me, but a mutual meeting, desire matching desire. I give her my breath, take her tongue. Her fingers bury in my hair and clutch me, fierce and strong, and her body presses against mine and I feel her desperation, her hunger, her need, her intensity.
How long do we kiss there, like that? An eternity? Mere moments?
Not long enough.
I could kiss her forever, never stop, never need to breathe or pause or move, only her, only this kiss.
Alas, it ends, eventually.
We pull away at the same time, and our eyes open, and she’s smiling, glowing, lit by the late afternoon sun.
I lift her into the helicopter, and fasten the five-point harness, teasing and flirting with touches, “accidentally” brushing her inner thighs and her breasts more than is strictly necessary.
She bites her lip and sits still for it.
I give her a headset and help her adjust it, then buckle myself in and fit my own headset on. Give the pilot the thumbs-up.
A few minutes of preflight checklist and the engine warming up and the rotors getting up to speed, and she’s gripping my hand and watching everything at once—or trying to.
Her grin is ear to ear.
Joy radiates from her. It’s infectious, pushing warmth into me from skin inward, like sunlight melting through my flesh and heating my bones and filling my veins with light—this is Jolene: joy, life, and light.
I take mental snapshots of her smile as we lift off.
Memorize the excited glee in her laughter as she peers out the window at the ground now hundreds and then thousands of feet down as we tilt forward and pick up speed.
I burn into my soul the feel of her hand in mine, fingers twined. Her eyes lit up like the sun on the rippling green sea. Jade and grass and leaves, sunlit—the color of her eyes.
Skin: pale cream dappled with freckles.
Her hair: Copper and sunset red.
All of her: beautiful. Alive. Vital, and pure.
This One Magical Day
Jolene
The landscape whips beneath us in a blur of greenery and rolling hills and forests and seascape. We follow the shoreline north until wide beaches give way to towering cliff faces, against which the sea throws itself with white-spraying violence.
We fly north for over an hour.
Eventually, we slow and the nose flares up and we settle gently to the earth. We’re at an airfield…sort of. It’s not an airport by any measure of the term. There’s a handful of half-barrel hangars lining a long strip of close-shorn grass, with pylons marking distance and outlining the landing strip. And…that’s it. The sea is in the distance, visible only as that subtle shift in the skyline, a sense of the earth falling away from the sky. The rotors slow and the roar of the engine mutes and fades, and the pilot exits and opens the passenger door. Wes hops down and then his hands grasp me by the waist and he lifts me down easily, setting me on my feet and brushing his lips against mine, almost accidentally.
There’s no one here, just our helicopter, and the pilot, who heads without a word or backward glance for one of the hangars.
I glance at Wes. “Now what?”
He just grins and doesn’t answer.
After a moment, the answer is made clear: an enormous horse trots into view, pulling a carriage. The horse is absolutely mammoth, even from a distance. It’s mostly black, with a few splotches of white on its flanks; its feet from the hocks down are booted in a thick billowing mane of white hair as voluminous as its actual mane…which is, in a word, fabulous.
“Oh my god, that horse!” I gasp. “It’s incredible. Do you know what kind it is?”
Wes shrugs, laughing. “Nope, but we can ask.”
The carriage is ornate, white with a plush red leather interior. The driver is a burly middle-aged man with boulder-like shoulders and a shaggy brown beard, wearing a flat cap and, I swear to god, an actual briar pipe clenched in his teeth.
As he approaches Wes and me, he tugs one-handed on the reins. “Whoa, fella. Whoa.” The carriage halts precisely beside us, the opening aligned exactly in front of us; the driver tips his hat, pulling his pipe from his teeth with a brilliant, welcoming smile. “Evenin’, sir, madam.” He has a faint Irish accent. How perfect can this be? “My name is Michael, and this fine, fancy fella is Magnus.”
I’m in awe of the horse. He—and it is, very visibly, a he—is gargantuan. His shoulders are nearly at my head height, and he’s thick with muscle, broad and hard. His coat is silky and glistening, glossy black with those two splotches milky white on either flank and the white boots of thick fur at each hoof.
I glance at the driver. “What kind of horse is he? Can I pet him?”
The driver smiles at me kindly. “He’s a Gypsy Vanner, and of course you can. Just let him smell your hand, first. He’ll nuzzle you to tell you it’s all right after that.”
I shuffle closer to Magnus, and his big dark eye regards me sidelong. His head bobs, and he turns to look at me straight on. I extend my hand, palm out, and his wide nostrils flare, blowing hot breath on my hands. I smell hay on his breath. He bobs his head again and whickers, a low mutter. His nose is velvet against my hand when he nuzzles me, and I rub his nose, and then pet the white blaze running up between his perky, swiveling ears.
“There’s nothin’ he likes more than to have his ears scratched,” Michael says. “Unless it’s a carrot.” And with that, he reaches beside himself and tosses me a carrot.
I catch it and show it to Magnus. His thick lips curl back and he shows me huge flat whitish-yellow teeth, and I let him take the carrot from me—he snaps off half, and I keep the part I’m holding. He crunches noisily, and I scratch his ears while he chews. His eye is fixed on me, liquid and dark brown and wise and deep. He nudges me, lips wiggling as he snuffles my shirt and my cheek with whiskery lips, hunting for the rest of the carrot he knows I have. I give it to him, and it vanishes into his mouth with a loud snap and grinding crunches. I scratch his ears again, and he wiggles his head side to side, as if to get me to scratch higher and then lower, this way and that.