LS02 - Lightning Lingers (10 page)

"Like this tree we landed in?" she asked dryly.

Jake smiled. "Not the tree exactly." He set his glass down on the table between them and rested his arms on his knees as he leaned forward. "Maybe the lightning wanted to stop us in our tracks, give us time to think about what we're doing; it certainly did that."

"You're making a weather event sound like a person."

"My great-grandmother believes lightning is a god."

"You don't believe that, though."

"I didn't used to, but I have to admit a lot of crazy shit has happened over the years, all having to do with lightning."

"You can find coincidence wherever you look. You can spin anything to make it seem meaningful."

"That's true."

His speculative gaze made her want to fidget. "You're staring at me, Jake."

"Well, it's been a long time since I've seen you."

"You've been looking at me all day."

"Actually, I've been trying
not
to look at you all day. I kept thinking you'd be gone in a few hours, and that would be the end of it, but that's definitely not going to happen now. You and I are going to be here for a while, all night at least."

"I need some more wine," she said, pushing her empty glass toward the bottle.

"Me, too," he said, as he poured two more glasses.

"The wine takes the chill off," she said.

"There are some blankets in the closet. I can get them."

"I don't need them yet. Are we really going to be here all night?"

"Since we haven't seen anyone yet, I'm guessing no one nearby on the ground witnessed the crash, or they would have been here by now."

"Maybe not if they were far away."

"True, but far away means it will take them awhile to actually find us."

She sighed. "You're right."

"Nice of you to admit that I can occasionally be right."

She stared back at him, seeing a mix of complicated emotions in his eyes. It would be a long night if every sentence they spoke was filled with undercurrents. She couldn't go on ignoring the tension between them. "Okay, Jake, let's do it."

"Do what?" he asked warily.

"Have it out," she said, meeting his gaze. "We can keep trying to tiptoe around the elephant in the room, but it's not working, so let's talk. Let's put our cards on the table."

As soon as she made the suggestion, she regretted it. But it was too late to back down, and maybe she shouldn't. It was a risky choice she was making, but she couldn't stand the little digs he was dishing out, and if she'd learned anything in medical school, it was that she couldn't fix a problem if she didn't look at it.

"Are you sure you want to do this? Because there's nowhere to run if you don't like the way the conversation goes," he said.

"Nowhere for you to go, either."

"I'm not the one who runs; that's you, Katherine."

"I'm not running now." She squared her shoulders, preparing for what would surely be a painful assault. "You start, Jake. Say what you've been trying not to say since you saw me at the airport this morning."

Six

Jake gave her a long look and then slowly shook his head. "I don't think so. You want to talk. You start. This is your show, after all."

"My show? I'd hardly call it that."

"I'm your employee. You hired me. That makes you the boss."

"Fine," she said, irritated by his attitude. "You hate me. How's that for a beginning?"

"It's not very good. Why don't you start with your own feelings instead of guessing at mine?"

He had a point. "All right. I feel…" She searched for the right words. "Angry and sad."

"Because…"

"Sad because I hurt you and angry because you put me in that position."

"Are you saying I made you hurt me?" he challenged. "That's a hell of an apology. I knew you'd make everything my fault. I don't think we need to talk, because clearly there's nothing new to say."

"We're not stopping now just because you don't like what you're hearing. You were in a bad place after your father died, Jake. Maybe you don't remember or you've rewritten history in your head, but you were drinking too much, skipping classes, and staying out until five in the morning with your friends."

"I was blowing off steam. Most people understood that."

"I tried to understand it. I tried to keep up with you, so you wouldn't be alone, but my grades started to suffer. I couldn't handle the late nights and the early morning classes. I missed a test. I fell asleep in the middle of a midterm."

"You're exaggerating."

"I'm really not. I told you all this before."

"I don't remember."

"Because you weren't listening to me back then. The school told me I was going to end up on probation if I didn't turn things around fast. I couldn't let that happen. I had to get good grades to get into medical school. I wanted to be a good girlfriend, but I didn't know how to help you." She paused, drawing his gaze to hers with her silence. "You were drowning, Jake. You were like one of those guys in the ocean who's flailing his arms and trying to swim, but he can't get anywhere, and when someone tries to save him, he starts fighting, and eventually both people go down. I couldn't let that happen."

"So you cut me loose. Hell of a choice for someone who allegedly loved me." Anger blazed through his eyes.

Maybe she had been ruthless, but she honestly hadn't known what else to do.

"You knew I was ripped up about my dad," Jake continued. "You knew my family was falling apart. My mom, my sisters—they were basket cases. They were crying every day. Everyone needed me, but I needed
you.
And you knew that. It wasn't going to be forever, but you couldn't give me a few weeks."

"It wasn't a few weeks; it was months. You were not yourself that year. You'd snap at the littlest thing I'd say. Every time I told you I needed to study, you made it sound like I didn't care about you. You think I cut you loose without warning, but the truth is, you were pushing me away for weeks."

He jumped to his feet. "That's not true." He paced around the small cabin. "How could I push you away when you were already gone? You didn't swim out to help the drowning man. You looked at him from the shore. You called one of his friends to help, and then thinking you'd done your duty, you bailed."

She winced at the way he'd twisted her analogy. "I called Will that night because I thought you'd listen to him when clearly you weren't listening to me. You wanted to break into the university pool and skinny-dip in the middle of January. You were drunk, and I was afraid you'd dive into the shallow end and break your neck or do something equally stupid and dangerous."

"I was looking for a little fun with my girlfriend. That's it."

"We could have gotten kicked out of school."

"You worried too much."

"And you didn't worry enough, especially after your dad died. It was like you were daring the universe to throw more bad stuff at you. So I called Will, hoping he could make you see reason. But instead you talked him into going with you."

"It was fine. Nothing happened. We didn't get caught. It was all good."

"That time. I couldn't stick around to see when your dares would have consequences."

A frown turned down his mouth and there was anger in his green eyes. "I wasn't doing anything that bad, Katherine."

"You got arrested for fighting a week after the pool incident," she returned.

"That guy in the bar said something negative about my father. He called him
lightning man
."

"A lot of people called your dad that. He didn't care that people thought he was a little crazy for talking about lightning all the time. He told me plenty of stories."

"You don't know that he didn't care. He just didn't let on that the jokes bothered him." Jake paused. "My father was a Navy hero. I couldn't stand by and let someone make fun of him, not when he couldn't defend himself. And that fight was one punch. It was nothing, and I wasn't arrested; I was just sent home from the bar."

"By the police. You were scaring me, Jake. Maybe I could have handled what you were going through better if I'd been older, but I wasn't."

"So you split."

"I thought it was the best thing for both of us."

"You thought it was the best thing for you."

"It wasn't easy for me, Jake. I was in love with you. You were breaking my heart."

"That's not what you told me. You said, 'I don't love you anymore. It's over. We're finished. Don't call me again.' Did I leave something out?"

Her heart ached with the pain of that memory. "I think that was pretty much it."

"Did you have to be that cold, Katherine?"

"I had to say something so you wouldn't come after me, because if you had, I might not have been able to say no. I know I hurt you, Jake. And I probably could have done it better, but I didn't. I gave you a really good reason to hate me, which is where this conversation started. I thought ten years might have faded the pain, but when you saw me this morning, you looked at me with the same disgust I saw in your eyes the last time we spoke. Nothing had changed."

He didn't say anything for a moment, then sat back down across from her. "That's not completely true."

"It's not?" she asked in disbelief.

"No. A lot has changed. It's been a long time, Katherine. It's not like I've been pining for you for a decade."

"I never thought you would," she said, although the idea of Jake and other women had always been one she hadn't wanted to contemplate. "There have been other men in my life, too," she said, unable to resist making it clear that she'd also moved on.

"I have no doubt. I'm sure they're all very ambitious, successful, wealthy men, too."

"I'm not a snob, Jake."

"You've always valued achievement over everything else."

"I like when people follow their passion; it doesn't have to be about money. I respected your desire to be a pilot. But after your dad died, you didn't want to be anything. You were on the road to nowhere. I hoped you would get back to your dreams, but I didn't know if it would ever happen."

"You don't just get back to normal in one second after your father dies."

"It wasn't one second. You keep making it sound like you were grieving for a minute. It was months. You told me you didn't think you'd ever fly again, remember that?"

"Vaguely."

"Obviously that changed. How long did it take for you to get back into a plane?"

"About six months after you left. It was after I went to see Mamich. She told me that my father had loved flying and that I should honor his memory by flying for him. When I got back, I went down to the airport and I got into a plane. I was shaky as hell when I took off that day, but once I got up in the sky, everything shifted back into place."

She was glad he'd conquered a fear that would have prevented him from doing what he'd been born to do, but she couldn't help feeling a little sad that he hadn't been able to shift his perspective before their relationship fell apart. "I'm happy that you got back into flying, that you made it your career. It's what you always wanted."

"And you always wanted to be a doctor. Everything turned out the way it was supposed to."

She'd always thought she'd be a doctor
and
married to Jake. But she probably wouldn't have made it through medical school if she'd stayed with him. She might not have made it if she'd had a long-term relationship with anyone. She wasn't the kind of person who juggled well. When she wanted something, she went all in, and she didn't know how to balance things out. She didn't know how to do well at more than one thing at a time.

"Don't you agree?" Jake prodded.

"I guess."

"You don't sound as sure as you did a minute ago. Is it possible that your memories aren't as black-and-white as you'd like to think they are?"

"What does that mean?"

"I don't think you panicked back in college just because I was encouraging you to have some fun," he said. "You were struggling in your pre-med classes long before my dad died. You were questioning whether or not you could get through chemistry and biology, much less medical school. But after my dad's death, after I went a little nuts, you blamed it all on me."

"At least you admit you went a little nuts."

"Can you admit that you were floundering?"

She let out a breath. "The pre-med classes were difficult. I was struggling, yes; a lot of people were. That's why I knew I had to stay focused. I couldn't blow off classes to party with you. You were a big distraction for me."

"And when you got rid of me—of your distraction—what happened? Did you suddenly soar?"

"No. It was still hard. But I did better. I could focus on classes and not feel guilty about staying in the library until midnight, because then I wasn't being a good girlfriend. I could put all my attention on my work."

"You make me sound like a selfish, demanding asshole."

"At times you were," she said, meeting his gaze.

"And you've always been perfect?"

"I didn't say that."

"Good, because from what I can see, you've neglected your family the past few years. Did they become too big of a distraction, too? Was your mom's illness blurring your focus? Was that why you stayed away?"

She sucked in a breath as his words stabbed her like a knife. "That was mean, Jake."

His jaw tightened. "I just don't understand why it has to be only one thing for you. Why can't you be good at school and work and still have friends and family and relationships? I know you said there have been other men, but really? Because I can't imagine that any other guy wouldn't have been just as big of a distraction."

"I dated other medical students. They were as busy as I was. They knew there could be nothing more serious than a casual relationship. And I didn't abandon my family. I offered to come home after my dad died, but my mom wouldn't hear of it. She wanted me to finish. She said it was important to her and to my father. I was doing it for them as much as I was doing it for me."

"Bullshit. That's just what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night."