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“You haven’t acted on it,” she whispered.
His body was demanding that he do. He wanted to immerse himself in the passion promised by her uninhibited kiss, longed to lose himself in her, seek and find a few minutes of oblivion and peace. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to resist the temptation.
“And I won’t.” He let go of her hair and withdrew his hand. “If somebody fucks with my freedom to fly airplanes, they’re fucking with my life, because flying is all I’ve got. You put it in jeopardy, Brynn.”
“Not intentionally.”
“Not at first, maybe. But you haven’t told me the whole of it.”
“I have,” she protested, her voice wavering. “You know what’s in the box, and why I went to extremes to safeguard it.”
“The drug.”
“Yes.”
“Meant for Hunt.”
“Yes.”
“But you tried to steal it. Why?” He planted his fists on either side of her hips and leaned over her. “Black market?”
“I’m not a criminal!”
“You and your old man—”
“No!”
“Then tell me, dammit. Why were you trying to keep it from Lambert? Professional jealousy? To prevent him from getting the glory?”
“No.”
“To prevent Hunt from getting the drug?”
Her lips parted, but nothing came out.
He reacted with a start, and said again, “To prevent Hunt from getting the drug?”
Her eyes misted.
“Brynn? Why didn’t you want him to get it?”
On a sob, she said, “Because I wanted it for someone else.”
Violet
My name is Violet Griffin, and I have cancer.”
I practiced saying it a lot of times before I stood in front of my kindergarten class and told all the kids at one time.
The reason was because I had come back to school after getting chemo and my hair had come out. My doctor—not Dr. O’Neal, because I didn’t know her yet. My first doctor told me I would lose my hair, so it wasn’t a surprise. But I cried anyway. So did Mom. Not when she was brushing my hair and big wads of it got stuck in my brush. But after, when she and my dad went to bed, I heard her crying. She had told me over and over that I was beautiful and that hair doesn’t matter.
But it sorta does. Especially when it’s all gone and you have to go back to school and make a speech about it in front of the class.
Miss Wheeler, my teacher, patted my arm and told me, “Embrace it, Violet.” I wasn’t sure what embrace meant,
but when she said, “Own it,” I knew she meant that none of the kids at school would make fun of my bald head if they knew I was sick.
I didn’t want to be the only kid in my school with cancer, but I was.
