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shipped, and if we don't meet the deadline we could lose a two-hundred-thousand-a-year

contract.'

Kirstie swung around in her swivel-chair and rubbed tired eyes. 'I'll take it.'

An unusual silence met her offer. She looked up as it registered, found Paul watching

her with doubt. 'Are you sure you're up to it?' he asked, and the gentle concern was so

weakening that she gripped the arms of her seat until the bones in her hands showed

stark.

'I'm up to it.'

He didn't give it up. 'The latest reports say that the weather is going to worsen. There'll

be no room for sloppy flying.'

That brought the first real sign of emotion from her: anger. 'You know better than that. I

have never flown a sloppy flight in my life,' she gritted, eyes flashing.

'I know,' he replied softly. 'You're one of the best pilots I've got. But I've never seen you

look the way you do today, and I don't want there to be a first time for you. You know

the schedule as well as I. There's no other available pilot. But I'd rather sacrifice the

contract than have you at any risk.'

It brought her up short, as it was meant to. She considered her own resources again,

running through the length and demands of the flight with a new objectivity, while Paul

sat and waited. At the end she shook her head and gave him a brief, pale smile. 'I'm

down but I'm not foolish. My flying won't be a risk.'

'Fine,' he said, with an encouraging nod, and turned back to his work. 'Be ready to leave

at two o'clock.'

Kirstie stood. 'Who'll stay tonight to see me in?'

'I will.' Paul didn't look up.

She hesitated, something niggling at her memory. 'I thought you had Carol's parents

coming tonight?'

Her brother glanced at her from under raised eyebrows. 'I'll stay to see you in, Kirstie.' It

could have been a rebuff. Paul was capable of it, if he felt his authority was being

challenged. But they both knew she hadn't meant the question to be a challenge, and the

warm, caring smile he gave her was an altogether different message.

Paul, too, had his share of family loyalty.

She quietly shut the door behind her. At her emergence, his secretary told her, 'I've

another message for you, Kirstie.'

It was the second one that day. Kirstie didn't want to talk to anyone and replied, 'I'm still

not in. Whoever it is can wait until Monday.'

Routine was soothing. She checked her flight path and the cargo, already loaded,

initialled the inventory list, and listened to another weather report with Paul before

setting off. Thunderstorms were due to eclipse New Jersey in the early hours of the

morning. Briefly, to cover all contingencies, they discussed the possibility of her staying

overnight in Cincinnati and decided it wasn't necessary. She would have a gusty return,

but she should be touching down well before the storm would break. On that note, she

took her leave.

The day seemed so unreal. After a month of unrelieved heat the grey sky felt strange,

and the distant place inside where she had hidden her real self had nothing to do with

lifting the plane off the runway, or with taxiing into the large hangar at Cincinnati so that

the ground crew there could unload the cargo sheltered from lashing sheets of rain.

She waited patiently while everything that could go wrong did, from an accident with a

forklift to a miscount on the inventory so that everything had to be checked again.

Kirstie didn't mind, because it didn't touch her. It was all surface noise, a comforting

distraction, and when business had been concluded, hours behind schedule, she made the

decision to continue home late that evening without regret, for to stop at that point meant

she might fall victim to wounding reflection.

She hadn't known at that time that the storm was moving in much faster than had

previously been indicated, nor that the head-winds would give her lightened aircraft a

constant buffeting, making the autopilot useless and scoring tension along her wrists and

shoulders. She was more than halfway home before she hit the worst of it, and by then

turning back was no longer an option.

Reaction she had been fleeing from struck her at the darkest point, when the violent

wind was her only companion. She was lonely, so lonely, she was tired and aching and

utterly discouraged. She couldn't remember why she should want to return, ever, her

lack of direction was total, and the silent sobs clenched her chest as she mechanically

refused to let tears destroy her vision.

It was approaching midnight by the time she could contact Paul through the interference

to tell him she was over the Appalachian Mountains and in the home stretch. For a

moment she thought she had lost him again, but then he said, eloquent with feeling, 'My

God. There you are.'

She heard it, and understood, for her enforced radio silence had stretched to over an hour

in which, to Paul and the skeletal ground crew waiting helpless at the airstrip, anything

could have happened. Out of the modicum of pity left in her destitute emotions, she sent

him, briefly, the only reassurance she could. 'Not long now, Paul. I'll see you soon.'

It was fifteen minutes later, as she was bringing the plane down through the storm by

sheer determination to the lighted runway, that it happened. The wicked, capricious wind

hurled itself at the light plane just a few feet from touching ground, and she knew, as she

fought savagely for control, that nothing—Paul's earlier concern, a fresher pilot—could

have prevented it. The right wheels connected with the drenched asphalt and screamed a

protest for over a hundred hair-raising yards, the sole support for the weight of the

careening plane as she did all that she could to keep it from turning on its side.

There was so much noise, but inside there was nothing, just the shudder of the aircraft

and one second of immense relief as at last it obeyed her commands and righted itself.

She was still braking as hard as she dared when the overstressed right side of the

landing-gear collapsed.

Kirstie felt a violent jerk as her seat fell out from underneath her. She watched the black

wet ground come up to meet her. The underside of the plane impacted with the landing-

strip with an awesome roar, and skidded, slewed sideways over the lighted boundary.

One heartbeat, a crashing thud, loudest of all. Two heartbeats. When would the plane

stop?

Now. Blessed cessation.

It stopped just now.

Hanging sideways in her seat-straps, numb all over with shock, Kirstie closed her eyes

and bowed her head forward, and found herself apologising with heartbreaking

dejection, 'Oh, Paul. I'm so sorry.'

'Jesus.
Jesus
Christ!' The radio was still operable and open, Paul a horrified witness to

the whole ghastly incident. But then she knew that. The abused metal hadn't been the

only scream to ravish her ears.

Then there was silence, and the wet-lashed darkness. She had no energy for

disentangling herself, passively waiting for the screech of tyres, the shouts, the urgent

assault upon the exterior of the crazily tilted plane. The small door to her cabin was

wrenched open almost off its hinges.

She turned her head
. Christian?
With gentle, shaking fingers her big blond brother

quickly unstrapped her. 'Oh, love, where are you hurt?' he cried.

'I—don't think I am,' she said, looking so small in the dim reflected light from the

control panel, sounding so uncertain that he wrapped both arms around her and held her

with his whole body.

He lifted her out, staggering for secure footing, and walked up the angle of the floor to

the open hatch. There Grandpa Whit waited with wiry arms outstretched to take her from

Christian and, like him, hug her close convulsively.

She was wet to the skin almost immediately. Someone shook out a blanket and wrapped

it around her torso. The rest of the ground crew raced around the plane, spraying it with

foam against the possibility of fire, the hissing sound like the release of a pressure

cooker. Christian swung lightly out of the plane to the ground. Another speeding ground

car approached the scene as she turned her head and said shakily, 'Grandpa, I can walk.'

'Are you sure, girl?' he asked as he cuddled her, but he was already lowering her legs

carefully to the ground.

At that moment the other ground car screeched to a halt and two dark figures exploded

out of it. Two men sprinting, one of whom was Paul.

The other, faster one was Francis.

Her legs were the first to go, collapsing from underneath her. With a harsh exclamation,

her grandfather clutched her as she went to her knees, a loud roar filling her ears. She

stared up at Francis with blank eyes gone as large as an owl's as he pulled his body to a

precipitate halt, his eyes stark, his face so raw, so exposed in the uneven flash of siren

lights from the ground crew's vehicles.

He opened his mouth, said nothing, and sank to his knees in front of her. With delicate

hunger, he reached out and gathered her body to him as she fell finally from all that was

inexplicable, all that hurt, into darkness.

'I couldn't,' she said, though she didn't know it. 'Paul, I couldn't help it.'

'I know,' said the man holding her, and the two words were a loving croon. 'There was

nothing you could do. We saw it all happen, love. God help us, we saw it all.'

Kirstie was conscious enough to be aware of being laid, tenderly, on to something that

felt like a couch. There were lights, shining red, on the other side of her closed lids. Her

body felt funny, thick. She opened her eyes.

And looked into emerald ones.

She just lay there staring at him, on the couch in Paul's office. Francis made a convulsive

movement towards her, and with despair she shrank into herself, for one touch from him

and she would fall into so many pieces that she would never pull together again.

He saw, in that split second. She couldn't have stopped him more effectively if she had

punched him in the stomach. He recoiled, and his eyes went dead.

Then Paul crouched in front of her with a cup of coffee. 'I've called the doctor,' he said,

with such extreme care that she knew he was holding on to the bare threads of his

common sense.

'Paul,' she said gently, clearly, for in that moment she was stronger than he, 'I don't need

a doctor. I didn't even bang my head. I fainted because I was so tired, and I had a bad

scare. Call him up and tell him not to come.'

'Are you sure?' he asked, wanting to be reassured.

'Yes.' Then, as her mouth and voice wobbled, she whispered, 'All I want to do is go h-

home.'

It pulled Paul together more efficiently than anything else could have. Suddenly he was

in control, still concerned but capable, and he touched her face. 'Then you shall,' he said

simply.

'You've got things to take care of here, and she's in no condition to drive,' said Francis in

a quiet voice. 'I'll take her.'

Kirstie's eyes flashed to him, fearful, uncomprehending of why he was here at all, but he

wasn't looking at her. He was looking instead at Paul, who nodded his relief at the

suggestion. Then, as Francis made an impersonal gesture as if he would help her rise,

she quickly struggled to her feet while pretending she hadn't seen.

Paul hugged and kissed her, then looked deep into her eyes and said, 'It wasn't your

fault. You know that, don't you? It was as if a giant hand had picked the plane up. It was

incredible you were able to bring it back to ground at all.'

God help us, we
saw
it all.
In that moment she remembered it being said, in torment, and

by whom, and she covered her eyes, overcome. Then, to spare her anything further, her

brother said gently, 'I'll call you tomorrow and come to see you on Sunday. Go get some

sleep now, hm?'

Kirstie nodded. After a hesitation, receiving silent affirmation from Francis that she

didn't see, Paul patted her shoulder and left them alone.

The storm sounded outside, a low, ominous rumble. She had let her hand fall lifelessly to

her side but still could not look up at Francis, who asked, after a moment, 'Are you

steady enough to walk to the car?'

Her control was precarious enough that another expression of concern would have

ruined her. But he spoke so matter-of-factly that she nodded again and found it true. He

matched her slow pace, and waited by the passenger door until she was settled within

before going around the other side and climbing in himself.

He didn't try to talk. He just drove sedately through the quiet neighbourhood streets,

turning on the heat to warm her, and she found in the silence room to think of all that

puzzled her about that evening, until the one question that overrode everything was,

'Why?'

'Why what?' he asked, and turned on to her street.

'Why were you there this evening?' Kirstie turned her head and looked at him.

Other than mildly raising his eyebrows, he looked tired but composed. From all that was

shown in his expression, the little scene in Paul's office might never have happened. 'For

the same reason,' he replied after a moment, and his face changed, and she knew it all