Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (10 page)

“Dad, let’s not make this more complicated than it needs to be,” Sam reasoned. “We bought the tickets to London ages ago. It’s a direct flight to Heathrow.”

“In economy,” Rob Wyatt pointed out. “If I’d known you two wanted to run around Europe for a few weeks, I would have given you that for your graduation gifts.”

“Oh, hell no,” Rita protested, gripping the new watch on her wrist. “I’m keeping my watch, thank you very much. It’s my favorite thing
ever
.”

Rob looked amused, though Sam didn’t doubt that he realized the Cartier she’d picked out for Rita’s gift was probably the nicest thing her friend had ever gotten. Rita didn’t come from much, but under all that hot sauce and sass, she had the biggest heart.

“It’s not necessary, Dad,” Sam insisted, pulling the drawstring cord to cinch up her backpack.

“Neither is waking up at the ass-crack of dawn just to get herded into cattle class, darlin’,” he replied easily. “Quit bein’ so damn stubborn, Sammy.”

“Wonder where I get it from,” Sam replied. “Dad, stop getting Rita all worked up. You’re just trying to tempt her, to get your way, and you know it.”

“Rita’s got good sense, honey. I’m just playing to it,” Rob Wyatt drawled. When Sam didn’t budge, he threw up his hands. “Fine, have it your way. Just make sure you take that satellite phone I got you.”

“But it’s the size of a brick!” Sam protested, holding up the electronic monstrosity.

“That is kind of ridiculous, Mr. Wyatt,” Rita agreed. “Besides, it’s not like we can’t take care of ourselves,” she pointed out. “Sam’s practically a ninja, and I’m a Southside badass if I do say so myself.”

“Don’t care,” he replied, pushing off the jamb. “You’re gonna carry it and like it. I don’t want you wandering God knows where doing God knows what when I can’t get ahold of you.” He gripped Sam’s shoulders. “Look, I know you can shoot and fight just like any of the boys, but you’re still two pretty girls traveling around by yourselves, and I don’t want either of you to be inviting trouble,” he finished, looking pointedly between her and Rita.

“Wes will be with us,” Sam reminded him.

Her father, who had never really cottoned to Wes in all the years they’d been dating, looked distinctly unimpressed.

“Like I said—don’t go inviting any trouble, or I’m coming to get you girls,” her father told them.

“Are you serious?” Rita laughed.

He lifted a heavy brow. “As serious as the business end of a .45, young lady.”

“Dad, what the hell are you going to do when I’m out on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean somewhere?” She lifted the brick of a Motorola sat phone. “I can’t carry this into battle.”

“Then I’ll call the State Department,” he replied. Sam could tell by his expression he wasn’t kidding either. He glanced at his watch. “I better head out if I’m going to make it back to the ranch by a reasonable time tonight.”

“You helping Uncle Grant with the round-up tomorrow?” she asked, briefly wistful. Since college, she hadn’t been able to spend much time at Wyatt Ranch with her family and little brother. She always missed it this time of year, taking the steers to market before summer blanched the plains in raw heat. The roundup was hard, satisfying work, but one of the few quality days she’d spent with her father while growing up.

“Got a trip out to the Middle East Sunday so I want to help before I have to leave,” her dad answered. “Grant always fusses and says he doesn’t need the help, but you know he likes it,” he added with a wink.

“I’ll be back in a jiff,” Sam promised. “You tell Ry I’ll come and spend a few days at the ranch before I leave for duty, okay?”

“He’ll like that.” Her father smiled down at her, pride in his dark eyes. When she’d joined the Navy her junior year, following a Wyatt family tradition like her father and granddaddy before her, she’d seen the same look in his eye.

“Take care of yourself, Sammy girl. You call me if you need anything.” He pointed a blunt finger at Rita. “And you just try to stay outta trouble, young lady.”

Rita gave him a wide-eyed
Who me?
look, and Rob laughed as he stepped away, giving them both a little wave before disappearing.

“You’re like the only person I know who acts the opposite of rich,” Rita pointed out as she plopped down beside Sam. “If I had your cake,
jaina
, I’d be rolling in a red Lamborghini,
and
my plane would match. Trust.”

“It’s not my money—it’s my dad’s,” Sam corrected as she picked up the heavy sat phone, distracted.

But Sam was already dialing Wes’s number—or the number she had for his makeshift Reuters desk in Brussels—Wes’s base since the end of the Kosovo War the previous year. He was rarely there, preferring to be in the field, chasing stories, but she was hoping she’d get lucky. She listened to the phone ring a few times before his voicemail picked up.

“Hey, it’s me,” Sam started, wishing he’d answered the phone. “Rita and I should be landing in London tomorrow evening—just wanted to make sure you were still planning to meet us there. Can’t wait to see you, baby,” she added in a low voice.

Rita leaned back on her elbows. “You going to tell me why you look worried?” she asked.

“I’m not worried.”

“Bullshit. Worry’s written all over your face,
jaina
,” Rita countered blithely. “Whenever you think about Wes, you get this look like you don’t know what the hell is going on between the two of you. And that’s a weird look for you—self-doubt isn’t exactly your jam, you know?”

Sam chewed on the inside of her lip, not bothering to argue, because Rita wasn’t wrong. Things had been growing increasingly strained in her infrequent communications with Wes. They’d missed their one chance to see each other over Christmas, and their calls and emails were starting to feel like messages in a bottle. She’d been hoping this trip to London would provide them with the chance to reconnect, but the truth was, the distance between them was beginning to feel like an unbridgeable divide. They were both traveling fast down parallel paths; sometimes Sam worried they’d never really intersect again.

“We haven’t been talking much,” she admitted after a moment, pushing her bag off the bed to sit down beside Rita. “And when we do, it’s like—you know when you’re on a couple-second delay and you can’t quite get the rhythm of the conversation?”

“Literally or figuratively?”

Sam rubbed the back of her neck. “Both, I suppose. We just haven’t been on the same page. The first few months were okay. But we’re coming on a year apart, and I just don’t know how this will all work once you and I go into active duty.” Sam looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse over the magnificent view of Houston spread out beneath them. Evening had descended on the city in a deep violet hue, tinged with the melting orange of the fading sun.

“You’ve just been apart for too long,” Rita told her sagely. “Once you’re together again, it’ll be just like before. You just have to be in the same space again.”

Sam recalled the few times she’d spent in this room with Wes. Laughing and making love, talking late into the night. She wished she could still feel the way she did when his fingertips ran across the soft skin on her nape, the way she could feel him smile against her skin. But those memories were fading too fast, lost to time and her own disquiet. A secret sadness welled up in her, her heart’s doubt forming a shape for the first time as it came out of her mouth.

“What does it mean when you both live your dreams thousands of miles apart?” She looked at Rita, squeezing her hand as she admitted her worry for the first time out loud. “Wes’s career is starting to take off. And you and I are just about to deploy. We’ve got at least four years in the Navy, probably stationed abroad—”

“
Jaina
, just spit it out.”

“I’m saying he’s following his heart and I’m following mine, and the distance between those two paths are only traveling farther and farther apart.” Sam stopped, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I’m saying I honestly don’t know if we’ll make it—” Her breath caught. It felt like betrayal. To say it out loud, it felt as if she were betraying Wes and her feelings for him.

“Hey, hey it’s gonna be okay.” Rita pulled her in for a hug. “
Mirar
, you’ve got to get out of your head. I don’t know what’s going to happen with you and Wes, but you don’t either.” Rita looked her square in the eye with that no-nonsense way she had. “You’re over-thinking this. Too much time apart does that to anyone—so just calm the hell down,” she quipped, shaking Sam gently. “Besides, you’ll be seeing each other in less than twenty-four hours, and once you’re face-to-face, it’ll be alright again. Bet you twenty bucks,” she added with a grin.

“My love life and future happiness is only worth twenty bucks to you?” Sam answered with a watery laugh.

“Well, for one, I don’t know anybody who’s love life is a source of happiness, and for two—twenty bucks is all I got on me,” Rita responded with a lazy grin. “So let’s go spend that money on some shots and dinner, huh?”

“You’re on,” she answered, letting Rita drag her up.

Hours later, deeply asleep, Sam heard the distant sound of someone knocking on her door. Disoriented, she’d sat up in bed, shocked to see Rita standing next to Mack McDevitt, her father’s business partner and a man she’d grown up so close to, he was practically an uncle. Mack stood in front of her looking pale under his weathered skin, uncharacteristically shaken. Maybe it was the stricken look in his eyes or the slump in his shoulders, but even half-asleep, Sam knew inexplicably that something was very,
very
wrong.

“The doorbell was ringing—” Rita began, but Mack strode forward, hands trembling as he reached out for her.

“Sammy girl,” he muttered gruffly.

“What is it, Mack?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

“It’s your daddy and Ryland—” Mack’s voice broke, and he swallowed hard, looking away as tears filled his eyes. “There’s been an accident, Sammy. You need to come with me right now.”

“
What?
” Sam reared back.

“¡Oh Dios!”
Rita gasped at the same time, pressing her hand to her mouth.

“The chopper’s coming,” Mack told her, gripping her arms. “Sammy, honey, you need to get some clothes on. We’re meeting Grant at the sheriff station near the ranch.”

A cold clamminess hit her, and Samantha began shaking all over, her body registering the meaning that her mind could not accept.

“What are you saying, Mack?” she asked falteringly, her voice sounding distant as he stared at her with a pained expression. “What are you telling me?”

“Let’s get you some jeans and a sweater,
jaina
—” Rita muttered, propelled into action as Sam stood there locked in suspended disbelief.

“No, Rita—
stop
—” Sam shook her off when her friend tried to slip her arms into a thick cardigan, covering her night shirt. “What are you saying, Mack?” she repeated, feeling like the ground was tilting from beneath her. “What the hell happened?!”

Mack shook his head, a fat tear falling over the deep grooves on his cheek. “Sammy, I’m so sorry,” he shook his head, his deep voice faltering. “Aw hell, I’m so goddamn sorry to have to tell you this—”

Distantly, she heard the bass
whump whump whump
of the helicopter’s rotors as it descended onto the roof of the penthouse. She focused on the sound instead of listening to Mack as he told her what had happened.

—“There was an accident—”

—“ ’Bout an hour from the ranch—”

—“Drunk driver—”

—“Flipped over the SUV and the gas tank went—”

Numb, Sam stood still as a mannequin as Rita dressed her.

—“The coroner—”

—“Explosion—”

This isn’t happening. Dad was just here. He wanted me to take the jet. He’s just trying to get his way again… it’s just joke… a terrible, awful joke…

—“Grant called me to get you—”

Dad was just going back to help with the round-up. He had a flight to the Middle East. She promised she’d come back and spend some time with Ry before she deployed for her first tour…

—“Chopper’s here, Sammy, we’ve got to go—”

—“I’m going with you!—” Rita’s voice insistent.

—“No, Rita—”

As Mack and Rita led her out of her bedroom, Sam glanced out the window, dazed. The sky was just beginning to brighten from darkest night to a lavender dawn. They ascended the staircase to the rooftop helipad. The rotors of the Wyatt Petroleum Sikorsky whipped the humid Houston wind, thrashing about her clothes and hair, making her eyes sting.

This isn’t happening.

“We’re going to miss our flight,” Sam said dumbly. “If you leave with me, you won’t make it back in time to go to London…” her voice trailed off as she looked blankly at the chopper pilot who greeted them with a grim nod.

This isn’t happening.

“Like hell am I going anywhere but with you right now,” Rita replied, helping her fasten her seatbelt as Mack settled in the leather seat across from them. “You’re in shock,
jaina,
” she murmured gently, loping her arm over Sam’s shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere,” she reiterated firmly, though her hold was gentle.

This isn’t happening.

Then the chopper lifted, the momentary weightlessness making Sam feel even more off-kilter as it hovered in the air before propelling forward, flying swiftly over Houston’s skyscrapers toward the most debilitating sadness Sam would ever know.

*