LS02 - Lightning Lingers (12 page)

He tipped his head in concession. "Fair point. What do you want?"

"If I win, I get the chocolate bar."

"You and chocolate—your greatest love affair outside of medicine," he said dryly.

"Your turn. What do you want?"

He thought for a moment. "If I win, you let me decide which way to go tomorrow. You have faith in me to lead us in the right direction. You give me the power to choose our path."

Her lips tightened. "Don't you think we should work together?"

"We should work together, but that will go better if you agree to let me lead. Otherwise, we'll spend half the morning arguing and debating the merits of each possible path."

"It's important to consider ahead of time what you're getting into."

"I promise to consider it."

"You could let me lead, and then we wouldn't have any problems."

"Too late. You already asked for chocolate as your prize."

She let out a sigh. "Fine. You're not going to win anyway, so I won't worry about it."

"That would be a first."

She made a face at him. "We're not just playing one game. It's five out of seven. That will prove the true winner."

He was fine with that. They had a lot of time to kill. "All right."

"Deal the cards," she said, a fighting light in her eyes. "And prepare to lose. Wait a second—never mind that, you don't prepare for anything. What was I thinking?"

"Insults are not going to distract me, but nice try, babe."

"And calling me your babe isn't going to annoy me enough not to concentrate," she returned as he dealt the cards.

"Calling you
babe
is a sign of affection."

"You don't have affection for me, Jake. I think we've clearly established that."

He shrugged, thinking that he wished they'd clearly established that fact, but for some reason he liked her better now than he had in a very long time.

As his mind went down that road, he lost his focus, and the first game was hers.

After that, it was all about the cards.

For the next three and a half hours, they jockeyed back and forth between winning games until they were tied at three-three. The dim light in the cabin had turned to black, and they finished their next two games by the light of the emergency lantern.

Tied again at four-four, they had one more game to go for the prize.

As Jake watched Katherine focus on her cards with absolute and complete focus, he felt both admiration and annoyance. He didn't like to lose and Katherine was good at cards. She wasn't just good; she also seemed to be lucky, getting the cards she needed at exactly the right time.

She smiled as she looked up from her hand. "You're going down, Jake."

"Second time today," he said dryly. "I used up my good luck when I was able to land without killing us."

"So that was luck and not skill?" she challenged, a teasing light in her eyes.

He laughed. "You got me there. So what's your play?"

She spread her cards face up on the table. "Gin."

"Damn."

"I win, Jake. That's five."

"Maybe we should go eight out of ten."

"Can't change the rules now."

"Then it looks like you get the chocolate bar."

"I'll save it for the morning," she said, settling back in her seat. "It will give me a good start to the day."

"Want to finish off the wine?" He lifted up the bottle. "There's at least one glass left."

"Let's split it," she said.

"Very generous of you."

"I've always been a good winner."

He smiled as he poured her wine. "Maybe in your head."

"How can you say that?"

"Because I've been on the losing side of your wins a few times. Your ego gets a little big."

"Not true. And if I'm a bad winner, then you're worse."

"Let's agree we both don't like to lose." He filled both of their glasses about half-full.

"I can drink to that," she said, picking up her glass. "That was fun. I got to forget for a while where we are and what's looming outside this plane."

"I'm glad."

Katherine glanced at her watch. "It's only ten. We still have a lot of hours to go until morning."

"Time will pass; it always does."

"That's true." She absentmindedly played with the necklace around her neck. He was surprised to see it was her locket from a very long time ago.

"You still wear that," he murmured.

Her hand abruptly fell to her lap, and she looked uncomfortable with his observation. "Not usually, but I put it on yesterday. It was my last shift, and I thought Hailey should be there with me. She was the one who inspired me to be a doctor."

"Can I see it?"

"You've already seen it."

"A long time ago. Come on, show me."

She hesitated, then unclasped the necklace and handed it to him. He opened the locket and saw Hailey's cute freckled face and toothy smile. "Cute girl." He looked back at Katherine. "Tell me about her again."

"Why?"

"Because it's only ten o'clock, and we have hours to go until morning," he reminded her.

"All right. We were best friends from the first day of kindergarten. Hailey came up to me at recess and put her hand in mine and said we're best friends now. That was it. We were inseparable. She was an only child, and I didn't have a sister, so we decided we'd be sisters. We did everything together: played soccer; sold Girl Scout cookies; took Irish dancing lessons—which I was not very good at; gymnastics—which I was better at; and we would make up imaginary games to play after school and on the weekends. She had an amazing imagination. I never knew what she was going to come up with."

He liked the way Katherine's voice and eyes softened when she spoke about Hailey. He'd heard about her childhood friend before, but back then there had been more pain in her voice as she'd been closer to the loss.

"Hailey was good for me, probably better than I was for her."

"I doubt she saw it that way."

"She shouldn't have died so young. It was so wrong."

Now the pain came back into her voice, and he frowned. "You weren't to blame, Katherine."

"It was my fault she got hit. I tripped on my costume. She had already crossed the street, but she came back toward me—to help me. That's the reason she was in the street when the car flew around the corner."

"It was a drunk teenager, wasn't it?"

She nodded. "He was seventeen years old. He didn't even stop. I ran to Hailey, and I screamed for help, but no one was around. It was five minutes before another car came down that road. Hailey was awake the whole time. She was so scared. I held her hand, and I told her it would be all right. I promised her that we'd be eating our candy in a few hours."

"That's good. You made her feel better."

"I lied to her. I think I knew it even as I said it. There was so much blood around her and the nearest hospital was thirty minutes away. She died ten minutes after we got there. They were still looking for a doctor to treat her when her heart stopped. It was a rural medical center and the only physician on duty had no experience with pediatric trauma. They had to call someone to come in. I remember the nurses running around trying to get someone on the phone." She paused. "By that time, I was in the waiting room all by myself. The police had called my parents, but they were at a Halloween party, and they hadn't answered the call. By the time they got there, Hailey was dead."

"I'm sorry. That must have been rough."

"It felt surreal at the time, and to be honest, it still does."

Katherine held out her hand, and he gave her back the locket.

She put it around her neck and added, "I hated how helpless I felt that night. I thought if I'd known what to do, maybe I could have saved her."

"I know you've always felt that way, but now that you're a doctor, do you still believe that?"

"No," she admitted. "I don't believe that I, as a twelve-year-old girl, could have saved Hailey's life, but if there had been a doctor closer, if we'd gotten to the hospital faster, if there had been a pediatric ER physician, maybe she would have made it. I don't know for sure. Her injuries might have been too severe." She sighed and then took another sip of wine.

"You have to find a way to forgive yourself, Katherine."

She stared back at him with pain in her eyes. "You told me that before."

"More than once," he agreed. "But you still hold yourself responsible."

"It was my fault."

"It was an accident."

"Intellectually, I know that. And since I've become a doctor, I know it even more. Life can change in a second. I've seen a lot of accident victims. I've seen a lot of broken-hearted families. But when it's your own personal history, it's different."

"Does knowing that you're helping other families avoid the same tragedy help you?"

"Yes, a little," she admitted. "I always wanted to be a doctor, even before that night, but after that, I knew that was my destiny. I just didn't know how difficult it would be, but Hailey's memory got me through."

"Do you still hate Halloween?"

She nodded. "With a passion."

"I remember when you used to hide in the library on Halloween."

"I couldn't stand to see all those kids in costumes. It was just too hard. Even though we moved away from the town where Hailey died, the Halloween memories followed me."

"Do you think Hailey would be proud of you now?"

"Yes," she said with a smile. "When we were little, we used to talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up. She wanted to be a dancer; I wanted to be a scientist."

"You two obviously had different personalities."

"Very different. She was so outgoing and friendly, and she embraced life. She was fearless. In some ways, you reminded me of her."

"Wait, did you just compliment me?" he asked abruptly.

"I told you that before. Both you and Hailey brought me out of my shell."

"What about now? Are you out of the shell, or did you tuck yourself back in after we split up?"

"I don't know. I haven't had time to analyze myself."

As she finished speaking, she yawned, and even in the shadowy light he could see the exhaustion in her eyes. She'd only caught a short nap in the plane before the lightning storm had struck, and apparently she hadn't slept at all the night before.

"You should close your eyes," he said.

"It's way too early," she mumbled, another yawn following her words. "Let's keep talking—but not about me or our past."

"What does that leave us?"

"A lot. What do you do for fun these days?"

"I fly airplanes."

"That's your job."

"It's also the most fun I've ever had."

"What else?"

"I play in a basketball league in the winter and a softball team in the summer. I picked up the guitar about four years ago, and I jam with friends once or twice a month."

"Really? You always said you wanted to play the guitar—that musicians got all the girls. I thought you were doing fine, even without being able to play an instrument."

"It's more about the music now than the women," he said with a small smile. "Maybe if we played somewhere other than Jeffrey Danforth's garage, I'd be able to tell a different story. Not a lot of women hanging out back there."

"You're still friends with Jeffrey?"

"I am." He'd been friends with Jeffrey since he was ten years old, and while Jeff had gone wild and crazy in college, he'd settled down since then.

"I thought Jeff was bad news," Katherine said. "He was very happy to point you in the wrong direction."

"He's changed. He's an accountant now, married with a kid, and boring as hell."

"That's surprising. I can't believe he even graduated from college."

"It took him six years, but in the end he got his act together, and so did I."

He realized now that Katherine really had seen the worst of him. He hadn't thought of it that way before. He'd always focused on her leaving him when he needed her, but he certainly hadn't been bringing a lot to their relationship at that point.

"Let's get back to the present," Katherine said. "Are you seeing anyone? Are you in a relationship?"

"There's no one serious at the moment," he admitted. "What about you?"

"Same."

He couldn't imagine that there weren't men who wanted her. Katherine was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen. She was also a woman who had never really known how pretty she was. She did have a wall around her heart, a cool air, and a hands-off kind of vibe that probably scared a few men off. He'd gotten past those walls a long time ago, but it would be impossible to do that now.

Not that he wanted to scale her walls. He already had enough scars from Katherine Barrett; he didn't need any more. He just wished they hadn't talked about Hailey, hadn't played cards the way they used to, because in the past few hours he'd seen the girl he'd fallen in love with a long time ago.

Katherine wrapped her arms around her waist and shivered.

"Time for the blanket?"

"Maybe."

"Close enough." He got up and retrieved the blanket, then handed it to her. Instead of sitting across from her, he took the seat next to her. "For body heat," he said, seeing her questioning look. He thought she'd probably be willing to freeze to death before using him for body heat. "Don't worry. I'll keep a safe distance," he added.

"Maybe you should take the blanket."

"Not a chance. You need it more than me. You're always colder than I am."

"All right," she said, throwing the blanket over her lap. "It does help."

"Good." He paused. "I'm going to turn off the light. Save what battery we have left."

"Okay."

They sat quietly in the dark for the next several minutes. Then Katherine said, "Do you think we're going to be okay, Jake?"

"I do," he said firmly.

"I feel so out of my depth. I don't know where we are, what's around us, or what we'll be facing when we leave the plane. I like to be prepared, but I don't know how to prepare for what's coming."

"We'll face whatever comes when we have to. We'll think on our feet. You're pretty good at that. I'm sure as a doctor you run into the unexpected."