By the time the landing strip came into view, beads of cold sweat had traced their way down his spine, dampening his shirt beneath the battered leather jacket. After a brief conversation with the tower, he made his approach, dropping the landing gear, adjusting the flaps as he dropped Diana toward the ground. She bucked a bit, but settled on the runway with a single skip. Slowing her pace, he taxied to where he’d been ordered and parked.
“Welcome to Houston.” Nash patted the instrument panel. “Good girl. I’m gonna let you suck down some more juice, pick up our passenger, and we’re gonna head straight back home.”
The weather on the ground was no more hospitable than the sky. Rain lashed the tarmac in gusts that were almost horizontal. Sane people weren’t flying in this shit. But there was a reason he’d been dubbed Loco during his years in the Navy. He preferred to think of himself as having balls of steel.
He turned his phone back on and sent a quick text to Rowan. Just touched down. You here yet?
Her answer came back immediately. In the terminal.
Nash: Gotta refuel. Liftoff in twenty.
He took care of gassing Diana up and navigated her toward the main terminal. With the weather being what it was, he didn’t have to fight for space. He’d go in to get Rowan, help with her luggage. The wind tried to tear the cockpit door out of his hand. Nash fought it back in place and wished he’d packed rain gear. He was soaked in seconds. Resigned, he trudged toward the small, glass-front building.
One of the doors swung open and a woman stepped into the storm, a large duffel thrown over her shoulder. Even at this distance, he recognized that fall of dark brown hair. As he should. He’d spent plenty of time itching to run his hands through it during her last visit. He hurried forward to meet her.
“You’d think one of us would’ve had the sense to pack an umbrella.” He shouted to be heard over the roar of the wind.
“Wasn’t a priority.” Her lush mouth was set in a grim line.
Nash saw in an instant that she’d lost weight since September, and the dark circles under her sky blue eyes were deeper than she’d have simply from the shock and worry over her uncle. What had happened to her in the last few months? Had she been ill?
“Has there been any news since I took off?”
“He’s in surgery now. They said it could take up to six hours.”
“Then we may be back before he’s out.”
“Are we ready to go?” she asked.
“Soon as we get on board. Here, let me take your bag.”
“I’ve got it.” Rowan brushed past him, hoofing it toward the plane.
Well okay then. Nash followed. She did have to give it over so he could stow it for the flight. He helped her inside. “You want to ride up front with me?” Not that the little four-seater offered a lot of options.
“Front’s fine.”
They settled in. Nash cleared takeoff with the tower, turning all his attention on his instrument panel and the stretch of runway in front of him.
“Hold on to your butt. This may be a bit of a bumpy takeoff.”
Rowan said nothing, but he caught the whitening of her knuckles on the armrest of her seat as they left the ground and wobbled. “C’mon, baby. Settle down.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not you, the plane.”
“Is it safe to fly in this storm?”
Nash gave her props for the conversational tone. “I’ve flown in worse. Don’t worry. I’ll get you back to Lawley all in one piece.”
Rowan lapsed into silence again. Half an hour into the flight, he managed to climb above the worst of the storm to some calmer air. Beside him, Rowan exhaled. “That’s better.”
“This storm is a slow moving bastard. In another twenty minutes or so, we’ll be out of it entirely.”
“It always rains the day a good man dies.”
Startled, he glanced over at her. “What?”
“Somebody I knew said that once. Seems like he’s usually right.” Her blue eyes were haunted as she said it, and Nash wondered who she’d lost. Was grief what had winnowed her down since he’d seen her last?
“Robert’s not gonna die.” He didn’t know that, not for sure. But the alternative wasn’t something Nash could contemplate right this second.
“He might.”
“They’ve got one of the best cardiac surgeons in the state working on him. It was a bad attack, but bypass surgery is commonly done. There’s every reason to believe he’s going to pull through.”
“I just don’t understand what happened. He was in good shape when I left him in September. He was following doctor’s orders, getting rest, easing back into exercise.” Rowan fixed her gaze on him. “You’ve been there with him. Has he been eating right? Overdoing it?”
“Well, I haven’t been policing his food, but I haven’t seen him shoveling in chili cheese fries and double cheeseburgers. As to whether he’s overdoing it...I don’t know. He’s been feeling good. Restless, but that’s to be expected. He didn’t want to retire.”
“No, he didn’t. A cop who’s not a cop doesn’t know how to behave.”
There was something in her tone that had him glancing over, but Rowan wasn’t looking at him.
“What the hell is a man like him supposed to do with retirement?” she demanded. “He’s not even sixty.”
“I don’t know. Heal up from this, for starters.” But Nash knew as well as she did that Robert Curry was not a man who tended toward idleness. He’d been bored during his recovery. Nash had tried to look out for him, but there was every possibility he’d done something he shouldn’t have when nobody was watching.
Nash squelched the trickle of guilt. “Look, you’re worried. So am I. But Robert is a tough old bastard. He’s not going down without a fight.”
Please, dear God, don’t let him make a liar out of me.
Chapter 2
He’s out of surgery.
The text hit Rowan’s phone as soon as she turned it back on in Lawley. Some of the tension that had dogged her since her mother called leeched out of her shoulders. “Thank God. He’s out.”
Nash shot her a smile. “See there. I told you he’d be fine.”
Surviving bypass surgery was probably a long way from fine, but she appreciated his optimism. He’d kept her calm on the harrowing flight from Houston, just like he had in the hospital a couple months ago. “I appreciate you coming to get me.”
“No problem. Let me just get Diana squared away in the hangar, and we’ll get on to the hospital.”
“Diana?”
“The plane. That’s her name. After Wonder Woman.”
Rowan looked over at him. “You named your plane after a superhero?”
His grin was a quick flash of white against the dark, close-cropped beard. “Damn straight.”
“Why her instead of, like, Superman or something?”
“First, planes are female. As are cars, boats, and most other forms of machinery.”
“Everyone knows that.”
“Yeah, well, even if they weren’t, I’d still have chosen Diana because she kicks all their asses and is a symbol for optimism. When you’re in the middle of dicey conditions, you want that optimism as a pilot.”