Hot Point (19 page)

“No!” She tried to stop him, but once Huey was on a roll, such efforts were pointless. He turned to Vern and ignored her.

“—the day she threw over Tom Cruise.” He waggled his bushy, gray eyebrows at Vern.

“She didn't!” The men were grinning at each other. Denise wanted to bury her head in shame.

“When she was eleven or twelve, I'd find her sitting in the cockpit of whatever our hottest jet was on the floor. A picture of Tom from
Top
Gun
would be in the copilot's seat, and they'd fly together for hours.”

Maybe if she pulled a fire alarm, she'd be able to get out of this conversation.

But Huey was implacable. “Then it happened!” He slapped his hands together with a boom as loud as the hammer on steel of someone below presently driving a shaft punch into the French Fouga Magister training jet.

“What?” Vern sounded way too eager.

“Why,
The
Aviator
came out. Whatever else Howard Hughes was, he was a crazy-good mechanic. Overnight, Cruise disappeared, and Leonardo DiCaprio was her only copilot after that.”

All of the men laughed. It was good-natured and totally embarrassing. All of the men… She glanced at her father. She hadn't heard him laugh in so many years that it was alarming when he did. Was it something Vern had done?

“Though I must say it looks like poor Leo has finally been thrown over after so many years.” He offered a broad wink at Vern.

Denise wanted to shake her head, but it was too confusing to explain. She wasn't casting aside Leonardo. It was that she'd never let a real man in. She'd set aside teenage fantasies, and no one had stepped up in their place until she'd begun to think no one would.

Vern was in her heart, further than anyone had ever been, but that didn't mean she was in love with him…

But she had said that she was, hadn't she? That meant…that she was an unholy mess.

She really needed some fresh air. Some quiet time working on an engine and giving her head time to clear. People were too confusing. They kept—

“Got something serious to talk to you about, girlie.” Huey sobered as much as he ever did. “Reason your dad brought you here. I asked him to next time you were home.”

Not trusting her voice yet, she nodded for him to continue.

“I'm retiring in six months.”

“No, you can't!” It burst out of her. Denise couldn't imagine the Restoration Center without Huey. He'd been a fixture here since her first memory.

“I'm past seventy now, and I can. Promised the wife I would so that we could do some traveling while we're still healthy. Don't worry your head, girl. I'll still be around to bother you as a pesky volunteer whenever we're in town. I'd miss the planes too much.”

“My head?” It was spinning. What would it be like without him here? This is where she'd learned more about airframes and engines than any class or certification course she'd gathered along the way. By the time she'd signed on with MHA, she'd known the heart and soul of every aircraft on the lot from the 727 out back down to the small Letov LF-107 Lunák glider she could see still hanging from the rafters.

“Your head. I've talked to your dad and the board. They'd like to offer you the job. Restoration Center curator. It's what you always wanted.”

It was. It had been. It was. Wasn't it?

Dad and Huey were beaming at her.

She looked to Vern. His face was very carefully neutral.

She tried to swallow but couldn't. Her throat was too tight. Her stomach too clenched. “I—” Her first attempt to speak was a total failure.

“Stunned her speechless with that one, didn't I?” Huey sounded pretty pleased with himself.

Denise tried to speak again, but was afraid to unclench her jaw for fear she might be sick. No one to help her. Unless… She knew it was horribly unfair. It would tear them apart if she accepted. But she couldn't turn it down. But—

She turned a pleading look on Vern.

He met her gaze.

She couldn't read a thing there. Not hope that she'd turn down the offer. Not fear that she'd take it. Nothing. He'd never been shut off to her before, but now he was a million miles away.

Unable to look any longer, Denise closed her eyes.

Then, after she'd given up all hope, she felt an arm slide around her shoulders, one she'd come to know so well in such a short time. She collapsed against him, hiding her face in his chest.

Then she felt him speak, his deep voice vibrating his chest against her cheek. “How long, Hubert? How long before you need an answer?”

She didn't hear his reply but could feel the disappointed tone. The greatest gift anyone had ever given her, and she felt as if she were trapped in a fire whorl as brutal as the one that had almost killed Vern.

Vern nodded at whatever Huey said.

For now that would have to be answer enough.

Vern had done his best to cover for Denise. He'd chatted with Hubert. Made small talk with her dad through the flight back to Boeing Field. Done his best to hide his own shock, keeping it buried even after they were back on Vashon.

Still Denise had spoken barely a word.

It was the perfect job for her. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime offer, proven by the fact that Hubert had held the position for twenty of his forty years there.

What did he have to offer in return?

Shit! None of it was making any sense. So he shoved it aside as well as he could. Once they'd stowed the chopper back at the hangar and he'd left a note for Gary to drain the oil and the couple gallons of gas that were left, he tucked her into the passenger seat of his Vette.

They stopped at ZuZu's and got ice cream cones, then he drove her down to the lighthouse. He led her back to the beach log he'd been perched on before.

A fifty-foot sailboat with a bright blue hull and red sails moseyed along beneath light winds. The crowd aboard appeared to be enjoying themselves, no hurry to be anywhere other than where they were.

“This is where I always came to sit when something was troubling me. It's the best thinking spot I've got, Denise. Maybe it will help you too.”

She still hadn't spoken by the time they finished their cones.

So he broke the silence. “Why didn't you say yes?”

“I don't know.”

“Was it because of me, of us?”

She shook her head no, then whispered, “Not only.”

It had been the first thought to slam into him. Just that fast, he could lose her. Three little letters, one word, and their service together at MHA would be history. He didn't know how he felt about that. It was the best job he'd ever had, even better than the Coast Guard—very few drug runners shooting at your chopper in MHA. Very few people dying a hundred yards from the beach because they were too dumb to heed the riptide warning signs.

“How soon do I have to decide?”

“Hubert told you.”

“Well, I didn't hear him. I was too busy being shocked. Dad laughing, actually laughing. Huey retiring. The job offer. It's been a busy day for me.”

“Don't forget some awesome helicopter sex.”

She looked up at him for the first time since she'd silently begged for his help at the Restoration Center. Her green eyes were soft, bright with unshed tears, but soft. “That,” she said quietly and brushed a hand down his arm, “in your arms in the helo, is the only moment that has made sense today. And even that is overwhelming the daylights out of me.”

“Still tracking,” he noted.

“What?”

“That's two of us who are overwhelmed by it. The only thing I know for sure is that it was absolutely fantastic. Sex with you is consistently mind-bogglingly and totally fantastic. How you do that to me, I have no idea, but I'm sure not going to file a complaint.”

“Who would you file it with?”

He could never tell if she was being really funny or dead serious—and often only realized afterward that she was being funny. “The Relationship Police are out; their mandate doesn't cover carnal matters. The Sex Patrol is usually too busy enjoying itself to interfere. Yet another reason not to file a complaint with them.”

She squinted her eyes at his response, perhaps questioning his sanity. So he'd answer her straight.

“I love making love to you, Denise. But I'm hoping that we're not the issue here, at least not the main one.”

“How long?”

“Huey said he's retiring in six months. I got him aside, and he said he did have a backup, so he'd need only a month's notice. You don't have to decide until we're done with the Honduras contract.”

“Oh thank God.” She rubbed at her face with both hands as if waking up.

He had another question he had to ask, and he figured this was as good a time as any. “Can I ask about your dad?”

“What about him?”

“Is there a reason you two don't hug?”

“Most men don't. You're a bit weird that way. Take that as encouragement, not complaint. But have you ever seen Mark and Emily hug?”

He had, a few times, and felt like a voyeur because it completely changed them into much softer people. “Fathers hug their daughters. Especially when they care about them as much as he obviously does.”

“Not my dad.”

“But…” His own father hugged him more than that. Slap on the back and all that, but still a good, solid—

“I look like my mother.”

“Which means what?”

“You don't get it.” Denise looked up at him, pinning him once again with that green gaze. “I look almost exactly like my mother. Right down to…” She lifted a handful of her long hair and flapped it at him. “I've looked at the family albums. We could have been twins. Every time he sees me, he sees her. Probably sees her bleeding out in his arms. It freaks him out.”

“Shit.” Vern felt like a total heel for asking. He'd grown up with his mom hovering about, offering hugs and healing kisses. And his dad would think nothing of guiding Vern's hands with his own to teach him a new skill in sailing or boat repair. Denise had grown up without being touched by anyone.

He couldn't stand the thought of her so alone, so apart.

Shifting over the few inches that separated them, he pulled her into his embrace. She slid an arm around his waist, and they sat together a long time silently watching the drifting sailboat. The bright conversation from aboard carried gently over the quiet waters, until an evening breeze arrived to whisk the sailors on their way.

* * *

Vern parked the Corvette along the main drag of the village of Vashon. “Lucky to get a spot so close.” Then he took her hand and led her up to Bank Road and turned west.

Denise stumbled to a halt. The main drag on a Saturday morning had been busy, busier than either time they'd driven through it yesterday going to the airport and back.

Bank Road was jam-packed with people.

Vern, also pulled to a halt by their linked hands, stepped back beside her and immediately understood as he always seemed to do. “Cider Fest. Only happens once a year. A lot of tourists will be over from the mainland. Not a good day to get on the ferry, I can tell you. But it's also a locals' party. Starts with the farmers market, hard-cider tasting, tours of the fire station. Later there is a dance and locals' potluck. Mom and some buddies put together an on-again, off-again band for dancing at potlucks, and they're going to play. It'll be great. Let's go!”

Denise tried to keep up; she really did.

A lot of these people knew Vern, and he had to stop and talk to everyone. Some asked him about the Coast Guard. Some were more up to date and asked him about fighting forest fires. Men shook his hand, women hugged him. Some of the younger women eyed Denise coolly and made a real display of laying their flesh on him. She was pleased to see that he politely but quickly stepped back without grabbing a feel, which was blatantly offered—very blatantly in several cases.

As they approached a couple of women in particular, Vern made a point of taking Denise's hand and keeping her especially close. A particularly overbuilt and underdressed woman was deeply irritated when she couldn't brush Denise aside.

“I think she passed through puberty at birth,” Vern whispered as soon as they were out of earshot. “Reni has certainly been a man-hound since the crib. She's been gunning for me since third grade. More than once I've thought she should wear one of those warning labels they put on airliner engines, ‘Danger! Jet Intake!' She's like that. She didn't get me then, and she's sure not gonna now. Though I did take her sister to the prom. She was equally hot and only about a tenth as psycho.”

Denise was jealous of the sister, but glad to know he hadn't stooped to take advantage of Reni's generous assets. Her senior prom hadn't even been a consideration. That had only been for the popular kids, so she kept her mouth shut.

The fire station was having an open house. Kids were everywhere on the engines, and firemen, already showing the wear of the day, spent more time saying “Don't pull on that” than explaining how their engines worked.

Every one of them knew Vern. He was like a long-lost brother come home.

“I was a junior firefighter volunteer until I joined the Coast Guard,” he managed to get out before someone else was slapping him on the back hard enough to send him reeling in a new direction.

When Vern introduced her as the best firefighting helicopter mechanic on the planet, she was instantly in good. She was hugged and her hand shaken more times in the next five minutes than in any single year of her life…prior to the last week or so anyway.

They weren't separated out in the bustling crowds, but here in the fire station, he was gone in a moment. The station's chief mechanic wanted to show her an ongoing restoration project he'd been doing on a 1934 Ford pumper truck with a Flathead V8, a monster for its day with almost as much horsepower as her Fiat, but about an eighth of the Vette.

She wouldn't be admitting anytime soon that she loved driving Vern's car. The additional four decades of engineering and deep-rooted power grabbed at her and pulled… She'd stay with Vern just so she could keep driving that machine. But how could she stay with him and take the museum job? And how—

Again, as she'd done after the beach and throughout last night, she avoided the question. Over dinner she'd talked with Vern's mom. She'd been overwhelmed by what she missed by not having a mother of her own.

Margi had suggested that if Denise didn't have the answer, then it wasn't time yet. The answer of what to do would come when it was good and ready and not a moment before. “When the solution is obvious, then you'll know you've found the right one. Until then, honey”—Margi had taken to calling her “honey,” and Denise was finding she rather enjoyed it—“try not to worry at it too much.”

So, she set aside her worries as well as she could and made suggestions on how the fire truck's original pump linkage would have been run. She could see the obvious signs of the same linkage that had been used to control the flaps in a Ford Trimotor she'd been able to study when it was still at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in Oregon. She drew a sketch based on that system, but adapted for the needs of a ground vehicle.

The poor guy offered to divorce his wife and marry her instead, he was so happy. His wife was standing right beside them as Denise drew. She winked at Denise and kissed her husband on the cheek.

Denise turned to find Vern. It wasn't hard. The department had their pumper truck pulled out into the October sunshine. He'd hooked up a hose and a fireman was running the pumper's controls. The one-and-a-half-inch hose might be small for truck-based firefighters but it was pretty standard for smokejumpers. Still, it had enough force to lift and toss a kid.

Vern stood three feet from the end, keeping the hose firmly anchored as kid after kid came up to try steering the nozzle at the storm drain.

The entire street was sparkling with ten thousand wet reflections of the sun. He'd coaxed some of the younger kids to tackle the challenge in groups of two or three. The ones who'd had their turns hung close beside him, a couple of the little ones clinging to his legs.

Vern and children.

Wow!

She knew nothing about kids. She'd grown up with the museum staff as her peers. They'd tried to coax her into helping in the Challenger Learning Center where school groups could sit at the various stations of mission control and work their way through a simulated shuttle launch. The one time she'd tried had been a total fiasco. She'd had no idea what to do with their chaotic energy even though they'd been her own age.

But Vern and children…he made it look easy. Natural. She'd never imagined having kids, had actually sworn she wouldn't. Besides, she wouldn't know what to do with one if she did. However, being the mother of Vern's children didn't seem quite so outlandish, despite the fact that it was never going to happen.

Now whose stupid brain was messing with the
M
word? And here she was compounding it with the
K
word! Granted it was only in the depths of her imagination, but the chaos in there appeared to be growing, not diminishing, as the day progressed.

* * *

It only got worse that night at the potluck. Very few mainlanders; this was clearly a locals' event.

Denise had prepared herself by imagining dinner at the MHA field when everyone was in from the field, the fires were beaten for the moment, and the mood was high. Those moments tended to overwhelm her and she always tried to get a table on the periphery, but the MHA dinners were fun to watch.

Tonight, it was coming on sunset when they roared up to the hall in Vern's bronze Vette with the top down. She could see what must be some of his old school chums groaning with envy. The crowd around the front door was already thick, and she wanted to stay in the car or retreat back to the beach.

She'd asked Vern what she should wear, and he'd been absolutely useless, claiming that it didn't matter. He'd tried to prove his point by taking off the clothes she'd had on at the time. But despite his pleas, she was not going to attend dressed as Lady Godiva; though his begging had led to other side benefits that afternoon.

Margi had echoed her son's response about her clothes not mattering: “This is the island, honey, not the mainland. We just show up.”

Denise had settled on her best jeans with no grease stains, a satiny blouse the same color as her eyes, and the leather vest that always made her feel a little “brave World War I fighting ace.” She left her hair down because it increased the options for ways she could casually disappear behind it.

Vern, on the other hand, clearly wanted to be seen with her. He'd made a point of rushing around the hood to open her door for her and giving her a hand out as if she were an arriving Hollywood star.