LS02 - Lightning Lingers (8 page)

"When was that?"

"I went right after we broke up. So, I guess it's been about ten years. I needed to get away, and I'd been meaning to take Mamich something of my dad's since she couldn't come to the funeral."

"What did you take her?" she asked curiously.

"A very old pocket watch that belonged to my great-grandfather. When she saw that watch, she started to cry. It had been fifty years since she'd held it in her hands."

"Tell me their story again. How did they meet?"

"Mamich was seventeen years old when she met my great-grandfather, Howard Monroe. He was a twenty-three-year-old engineer, and he'd gone to the Yucatan to build a bridge. They met at a carnival in Cancun. Mamich had gone there for the weekend with her friends. I guess she wasn't always so happy to stay in her remote village. They both said they fell in love immediately. They got married and pregnant really fast, and they had one daughter, my grandmother Elisa."

"But the marriage didn't last, right?"

"No. Within a few years, it became quite clear that the cultural differences between them were too great. Mamich's parents were old. They needed her to come back to the village to take care of them. So they split up. Mamich took Elisa back to the village with her. When Elisa grew up, she also married an American man. They had my father Wyatt. My grandparents' marriage had problems, too. I think they were close to splitting up when my grandmother died unexpectedly. My grandfather and my dad ended up moving back to the states when my dad was about ten years old. Falling for the wrong woman seems to be a Monroe family trait."

"Your parents stayed together."

"Until my dad died. I wonder if they would be together now if he hadn't passed away. They didn't always get along very well."

"I remember," she murmured.

He looked over at her, and as their gazes met, the years in between seemed to drift away. She wasn't a hard-edged, ambitious, driven doctor—she was just Kat, beautiful, smart, and in love with him. She was the girl he told his problems to, the one he let all the way into his heart. His breath caught in his chest, and he forced himself to look away. Because she wasn't Kat anymore, and she certainly wasn't in love with him.

He wasn't in love with her, either, he reminded himself.

"You need to take me to your great-grandmother's village, Jake," Katherine said. "You know the way, and you know your great-grandmother. She might be able to help me, but she's not going to want to talk to me. I'm a stranger. You're not."

"I have a job, Katherine."

"I'll pay you for your time."

"I don't want your money."

"What do you want?"

That was a loaded question. A few really inappropriate ideas came to mind, but thankfully he had the good sense not to say them aloud.

"Just think about it," Katherine said when he remained silent. "Think about TJ. You always liked him, and he idolized you."

"Fine, I'll think about it." He couldn't take any more of her pleas right now. He was too close to saying yes and turning his entire life upside down to help the woman who'd broken his heart.

"Good. Can I turn on my computer now?"

"Go for it." He turned on the Wi-Fi in the plane, happy not to be talking anymore.

Katherine pulled out her laptop and got on the Internet. She was quiet for a few moments, her fingers flying over the keys. Then she said, "I found Brenda Hooper on social media. She lists her job title as Human Resources Manager at MDT, so that checks out. I also looked up Jasmine Portillo."

"Who's that?"

"She told me she's TJ's girlfriend. She came by my mother's house this morning. She told me she was worried about him because she couldn't get him on the phone, and he'd missed his flight."

"Did you believe she was his girlfriend?"

"She was his age, pretty, and she seemed genuine. She asked me questions about my life and my mother that suggested TJ had told her about us." Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she spoke. "Here she is on social media." She turned the computer so he could look at the photo.

"She is pretty," he agreed.

"It says she works in corporate communications for MDT, which is what she told me. Her profile is private, so I can't see her photos or anything. I'm not getting very far, am I?" She yawned and closed her computer. "I'll look for more information later. Do you mind if I close my eyes for a few minutes? I drove all night. I can't remember the last time I slept."

"Why did you drive all night?"

"My last shift ended at eleven, and TJ called me shortly after that. I hopped in the car and drove home."

"Your last shift—that sounds final."

"It is. I'm done with my residency. It's still a little difficult to believe, not that I've had any time to celebrate." She settled back in her seat. "It's been a long, rough road, so much harder than I ever imagined. There were days I wasn't sure I could make it."

"I can't believe you ever had doubts."

He glanced over at her when she didn't reply and realized she was already asleep. She really had been exhausted.

A knot clenched his stomach as his gaze ran over her face. For the first time since she'd suddenly reappeared in his life, he had the chance to really look at her.

She had a heart-shaped face, creamy skin that turned honey gold in the sun, soft, full lips that she tortured with her teeth when she was nervous or stressed or filled with reckless desire. He could remember in vivid detail watching her bite down on that soft bottom lip the first time he asked her if she wanted to have sex.

They'd been seventeen years old, and she'd wanted him as much as he wanted her, but Katherine always had to answer a million questions in her own head before she could ever say yes. That's when she'd worried her lip, and he'd finally swooped in and stolen a kiss and made love to her the way he wanted to—the way she'd wanted him to—but hadn't had the guts to say.

They'd been good together back then. She'd been the one for him. He couldn't go five minutes without thinking about her, wanting to kiss her, touch her, discover a world of passion with her. Because once Katherine had let go, she'd surprised both of them.

Damn. The memories stabbed him like a knife.

He let out a heavy sigh, wishing he could stop the assault of images running through his head like an endless slide show: watching scary movies with Katherine at her parents' house, laughing when she covered her eyes every other second because it was just too terrifying; sharing the triple decker banana split at Conroy's Ice Cream Parlor; walking barefoot on the beach; studying in the university library and then making out in between the dusty shelves; staying up all night just talking…

His chest tightened even more.

He needed to stop thinking about the good times. He needed to remember the end: the pain of her leaving, the harsh horrible words she'd uttered, the way he'd felt when she was gone. He needed the anger to keep the barriers up, and he also needed to get her to Mexico fast, so he could go back to his life and forget about her again.

But was he going to be able to leave her at the airport?

He wanted to think so, but could he really let her make that trip alone? Would she be able to make it on her own?

On the other hand, if he and Katherine spent that much time together, they might kill each other.

The plane jerked, and he suddenly realized that the weather had changed drastically. The blue sky had disappeared behind angry, mile-high clouds. How long had he been daydreaming about Katherine?

He changed altitudes and checked the weather. A huge storm cell was suddenly in front of him and all around him.

The plane hit a bump, and Katherine woke up with a jerk.

She rubbed her eyes as the plane dropped again. "What's going on?"

"A little storm," he said, downplaying the danger. He didn't know how the storm cell had grown so large or moved so quickly into his path. Radar hadn't shown anything this big.

The plane took another hard bounce, and Katherine put her hand on his arm. "Jake, are we going to be okay?"

"Sure, it's just a little weather."

"Can you go around it?"

"I'm trying to do that. It's a huge cell. It came out of nowhere."

She took her hand off his arm, only to put it back on when the plane took another dive. "Jake," she said, panic in her voice.

"It's going to be okay," he reassured her, but he was beginning to have a few doubts of his own.

A jagged streak of lightning lit up the black clouds they were flying through. It was an eerie reminder of their very recent conversation about lightning, and a chill ran down his spine.

He changed course again, but the plane was bouncing around like a small ball being kicked by the clouds.

Another streak of lightning flashed bright right in front of them. The instrument panel crackled. Alarm bells went off. He reached for the radio to check in, but he couldn't get a signal or a response. Every screen in front of him went black.

A roar of thunder, then three jagged lines of lightning came straight at the plane.

He was blinded by the light. Instinctively, he wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn't, because in the now lit sky he could see another man—a man who looked like his father.

His dad waved to him, as if saying:
follow me
.

And then the plane spiraled out of control.

Jake battled to stay in the air, but the plane fought his every move.

"Jake?" Katherine asked, terror in her eyes.

"Hold on, babe."

"You have to get us down. You have to."

He sure as hell wanted to set them down, but he was caught up in a monster storm in a plane that wasn't responding to anything he was trying. They were losing altitude fast, and he had no idea what was below—water, mountains, rain forest…

He couldn't give up—not until the bitter end. And that wasn't now.

"I'm going to set us down," he said as the clouds parted, and he caught his first glimpse of land.

"Where?" she asked, her blue eyes wide with fear.

"Wherever I can," he said grimly.

Her hand tightened on his arm. "You can do it, Jake. I know you can. I believe in you."

Words he'd wanted to hear for a very long time. But not like this.

The ground got closer way too fast. He clipped the tops of some trees, aiming for what looked like a clearing in a thickly forested area. He was almost there, but a tree branch took off the right wing tip.

He had the terrible and shocking feeling that this might actually be the end after all...

Five

Katherine woke up with a jolt, disoriented and shaken. Where the hell was she? She wasn't in her apartment in Houston. She wasn't in the lounge at the hospital where she sometimes caught a nap in between shifts.

It was the seat belt cutting into her chest that made her realize she was in a plane—Jake's plane. She hadn't been dreaming. The nightmare was real. The cockpit window was smashed, the branches of a tree coming through the jagged glass. She saw cuts on her arms and hands, and her face stung, but she was breathing, and her heart was still beating in what seemed like a miraculous way.

She turned her head and her joy at being alive vanished as she saw Jake slumped in his seat. He was knocked unconscious, blood dripping down his face.

Her brain immediately jumped into doctor mode. She fought her way out of her seat belt and unhooked Jake's belt. "Jake," she said, putting her hand on his neck. He had a pulse, thank God.

She gently pushed back the hair on his forehead to see a gash. It wasn't too bad. He could probably use a stitch. What she needed to do now was stop the bleeding. She pulled the scarf off her neck and wiped the blood from his face, applying pressure to the wound.

Jake stirred, groaning as he came back to consciousness. He swatted away the scarf, and she paused in her efforts as he opened his eyes. Seeing his amazing green eyes focus on her filled her with relief. "Jake."

"Kat," he murmured.

The shortened version of her name on his lips had always been sexy, seductive and tender—at least before they'd broken up—which was probably why it brought a pang of yearning to her heart now.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Like I just hit a tree," he said with a wince.

"Good guess."

"Not really a guess." He tipped his head toward the branches coming through the cockpit windows.

"We're alive. That's the important thing. I can't quite believe it."

"I never had any doubt."

The cocky light in his eyes reassured her. "I'm sure you didn't. Is there a first-aid kit on board? You cut your head."

"It's in the cabin. Are you all right, Katherine?" His gaze swept her face. "You've got some cuts, too."

"Nothing bad. I'm more worried about you. You might have a concussion. Let me ask you a few questions."

"Not necessary. I know who I am. I know who you are and what happened. Does that cover it?"

"Okay." She let out a breath of relief. "Do you also know what we're going to do now?"

"I'm still working on that." He reached for the radio, but it was as dead as the rest of the instrument panel. He pulled out his phone. "No signal."

She scrambled around the seat to grab her bag. Her phone was intact but also showing no signal. "Mine isn't working, either. Do you have any idea where we are, Jake?"

"We're in a heavily wooded area somewhere in Mexico."

"I can look out the window, too."

He shrugged. "Everything went off when the lightning hit the plane. I have no idea how far we were blown off course. But we're on the ground, and we're alive, so I'm going to count this as a hard landing and not a crash."

"A hard landing? The wing came off."

"Not all the way." He got out of his seat and entered the main cabin. She followed close behind, curious to see the damage.

The cabin was fairly intact. A couple of the windows had blown out, and there was glass and debris from the storage area, but at least they had some shelter while they figured out what to do next. "Do we need to worry about fire?" she asked, taking a sniff.