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We linger there, staring at each other, and my fingers trace his goatee. “Rick,” I whisper because everything else I want and need to say just seems like too much.
He catches my fingers and kisses them but his hand is immediately on my face. The plane lifts off and his lips press to my ear. “I cannot lose you again.” His voice is a whisper of desperation and need that I feel clear in my soul. He’s in my soul, a part of me, the other part of me that was missing for far too long.
My hand is on his face now, my fingers curling at his temple and his mouth comes down on my mouth. At that moment, my entire existence fades into him and us, and yet somehow, I don’t lose me but rather find me for the first time in forever. In that kiss, there is the bitterness of loss and fear, the shared relief of finally finding each other again. The plane shudders and shakes around us, the way the world shudders and shakes, but right this minute, it doesn’t matter. A massive sinkhole in the sky could open up and suck us in, we wouldn’t care. Right now, there is just me and him, and him and me, and this kiss.
When our lips part, he whispers, “I love the hell out of you, woman.”
“I love the hell out of you, too, Rick Savage.”
“You’d better. Killer and all.”
“Even when you don’t,” I vow.
“Even better.” Somehow the plane has settled into a smoother ride, and he says, “Come on.” He unhooks my belt and stands, leading me down a narrow path to the back of the plane. To my surprise there’s another set of double lounge chairs, they face the rear of the plane for privacy. Even better, Rick pulls a curtain shut. A few minutes later, we’re sitting side by side eating ice cream and Doritos, of all things, and talking about the night.
“It’s no Häagen-Dazs,” he says, of the ice cream, “but in a pinch, it works.”
“I’m actually too hungry to care what is,” I assure him whilst downing a bottle of water we’re sharing.
“Walker owns a fleet of six planes and they keep them stocked with good shit most of the time. This was short notice.”
He scoops a big bite of ice cream and surprises me by going back to the topic of his father. “The bastard snuggled up to Tag. He could have gotten you killed. He probably burned that damn house down to try and distract me from killing him, too.”
“Would you have?”
“What if I say yes? I almost did it the night my mother died. Who knows how many more people I might have saved, that’s he’s killed with his ‘skills,’ by ending him then?”
“But you didn’t. And you wouldn’t.”
“What if I said yes?” he repeats
“I wouldn’t believe you.”
“You have more confidence in me than I do. Me staying away had far more to do with him than you, baby. If I’d have stayed around, he wouldn’t have been here to burn down that house.”
“If you would have stayed in Texas, I believe we would have gotten him in rehab together.”
“I’m not sure I would have been that reasonable, even for you. In many ways, Candace, I’m a better man now. Because of who I am and what I know, and how you affect those things and me.” He scrubs the stubble on his jaw. “That probably sounds ridiculous considering all I’ve done.”
“No.” I catch his hand and kiss it. “It doesn’t. And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what, baby?”
“I need to stop saying, ‘if you would have come back.’ We’re better and stronger because of who we both became and that took time, age, and experience. I want to ask questions about the years I missed and not have you feel like you have to be defensive.”
His eyes soften. “I’d like that.”
“Good.” I kiss his hand again and grab a Dorito. “Do you use this plane to fly overseas assignments?”
“First, no more of those for me. We’ll talk through what jobs I take and don’t take, but they’re stateside, with you. As for your question, we have a couple of long haul jets that have actual twin-sized beds inside them. We need our shut-eye to go and kill people.”
I smile and scoop my ice cream. “I like that.”
He arches a brow. “Like what?”
“You aren’t watching what you say to me anymore.”
“No,” he says solemnly. “No, I’m not. I can’t invite you into my life and hide things from you. I don’t want to hide things from you. And I think you’ve seen enough at this point to make a decision about what you want.”
“Ice cream and Doritos with you anytime, anywhere.”
His eyes smolder and he sets his ice cream aside and mine too, shoving away the table. He hits a button on each of our seats and the backs begin to lower while the legs raise. He raises the arm between us and in a matter of another thirty seconds, we’re laying down, facing each other, our legs entwined. “Anytime? Anywhere?”
