And Then You Fly Read online

  They decided earlier in the day about who all would go to the National Rodeo Finals next week. They agreed it would take the whole crew to represent Flying R Ranch properly. They wouldn’t have rough stock in the finals this year, but they were optimistic that next year they would. The trip to Las Vegas this year would be more about seeing and being seen.

  “What’s it like?”

  “NFR? Crazy,” he sighed. “A big damn party.”

  “Is it always in Las Vegas?”

  There’d been talk the year before about moving it to Florida, but eventually a deal had been reached to keep it in Las Vegas a few more years. Jace couldn’t imagine it anywhere else. “Sure is. Where it belongs too.”

  “You’re looking forward to it?”

  “Part of me is. Part of me isn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “That life…I’m gettin’ a little too old for. Come here girl.” He gently moved her so her back rested against him. He shifted, turning enough that his legs were on the on the sofa, and she was nestled in front of him. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer, and tucked a pillow under her head.

  He looked over and saw her water bottle was empty. He should have thought of that before he’d gotten them both so comfortable. She needed to rehydrate, especially at this altitude.

  When he saw Blythe peek around the corner, he caught her eye and pointed toward the bottle sitting on the coffee table. She understood and brought two bottles in and set them down.

  “She’s out,” she whispered.

  He already knew she was. He’d spent more than one night close enough to her to know the way her breathing evened out when she fell asleep. He longed to slide his hand under her sweatshirt and feel her warm skin, but he stopped himself. He shifted, so if she woke, she wouldn’t feel what being that close to her was doing to him. He closed his eyes and willed sleep to come to him too. It didn’t take long before it did.

  “Shh,” followed by a giggle woke him. He opened his eyes and saw Liv tiptoeing past them, warning Ben to keep quiet. She saw his eyes open and waved. Ben waved too, mimicking his wife. He put his finger in front of his lips, as if to say they’d be quiet.

  Jace tried to move his arm from around Bree’s waist, but she clung to him. He leaned down and kissed her shoulder through her thick sweatshirt.

  “Jace?”

  “Yes sweetheart?” He hadn’t realized she was awake.

  “Do you think anyone would mind if you came downstairs with me?”

  “No darlin’, no one will mind at all.” Least of all me.

  ***

  Why did she keep doing this to herself? Here she was in bed with Jace, again. She’d asked him to sleep with her last night after they’d fallen asleep together on the sofa, again. She’d lost count of how many times they’d done this.

  He shifted, and pulled her closer to him. She closed her eyes, knowing she wouldn’t be able to fall back to sleep, not with him pressed against her. So many nights she’d fallen asleep imagining he was holding her as he was now. She’d let her mind drift, imagining his hands on her body, his lips always followed…in her dreams.

  His arm was draped over her, his hand close enough that she could run her lips over the fingers she so often imagined bringing her body pleasure. She couldn’t resist. She kissed his hand, and then brushed her lips over the back of it.

  Before she knew it, she was under him. He urged her legs open with his knee, holding himself over her with his powerful arms. He leaned down and ran his lips over the pulse points in her neck, murmuring her name as he made his way lower.

  Her arms went around him, urging him closer than he was. She wanted him as close to her as he could be. She wanted them to be one.

  Instead, he continued moving further down her body, soft lingering kisses made a trail lower, and lower. Her body arched against him. Yes, this had been part of her dream too. Jace loving her with his lips, his tongue. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on how it felt to have Jace take her to a place she’d never been, not even with Zack.

  “Bree,” he breathed. “Baby, I need you. Do you know how much I need you?”

  “I need you too.”

  This is the last place he’d expected to be, and more, the last thing he expected to be doing. He rolled away from her. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Bree, darlin’, I, uh, don’t have anything with me sweetheart.”

  “You don’t?”

  Her voice was so soft, so sweet, he could just eat her up. “I’m sorry sweet girl.”

  She sighed. If he didn’t know better, he might’ve thought it sounded more like a huff than a sigh.

  He raised himself up on his elbow so he could look at her face. Sure enough, she was pouting. He leaned over and kissed the down-turned corners of her mouth.

  “I could see if I can find some.”

  “What? No. God Jace, please tell me you’re joking.”

  “Okay I’m joking. Sort of.”

  “It’s bad enough that everyone knows you slept with me. They don’t need to know youslept with me.”

  “Almost slept with you baby.”

  She nudged against him, until he was on his back. She rested her head on his chest.

  “Jace?”

  He recognized the lilt of her voice, the insecurity. “Yes Bree.”

  “Is it bad that we always do this?”

  “No honey. It isn’t bad. Nothing this perfect could ever be called bad.”

  “But—”

  “No, no buts. I love sleepin’ next to you. I love making love to you. And I’m not going to let you tarnish it by labeling it with the word ‘bad.’” He raised up and turned so he was on his side, facing her, and she was facing him.

  “Bree, I care about you. It’s more than that, and I think you know it. We do this because it feels right. I’ve never once regretted waking up with you in my arms. Never once.”

  “I haven’t regretted it either Jace. That isn’t what I meant. Not really. It’s just that we aren’t together, yet we always end uptogether.”

  Why weren’t they together? Why couldn’t they be together? Whenever he thought they could be, she pushed him away. Each time she did it, his first instinct was to push back. He assumed she didn’t want him, not the way he wanted her, but what if he was wrong?

  “How much longer until the academy is on break?”

  “What? Oh, for the holidays? Uh, another two weeks, not quite two weeks actually. We’re back a week, and then there are finals. I’ll be done by the middle of the following week.”

  She’d be finished right before the end of the rodeo finals in Las Vegas. He’d have a break then too, until the beginning of January. He took a deep breath, and prayed she’d give him the answer he was looking for.

  “I’d like to spend Christmas with you this year.”

  “Oh.” Bree’s eyes looked everywhere but at him. He watched her struggle with what to say. He was so close to pulling away from her, when she answered.

  “Where will you be?”

  “Wherever you want me to be.”

  “In Palmer Lake?”

  He closed his eyes tight and willed himself not to let the joy that was building inside his chest escape. He was as happy as any time he’d ever been in his life.

  When he opened his eyes, she was watching him.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He smiled. “I’ve never been better.”

  “I don’t want to miss Christmas with Cochran.”

  “We’ll figure it out when I get back from Las Vegas. Okay?”

  “Uh, okay.”

  “And Bree?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re gonna have to break things off with Officer Friendly.”

  “Who is Officer Friendly? Oh. Wait. Oh God. Kaleb.”

  “Yeah, Kaleb.”

  “I don’t have to break things off with him. I mean there’s nothing to break off. It was just, you know, dinner.”

 
Jace pulled her closer to him. “I don’t want him to arrest me when I go into town later to buy condoms.”

  She blushed and looked down, hiding her face from him. “Jace,” she breathed.

  “Don’t hide from me Bree.”

  Chapter 17

  Bree unlocked the door to her office, and put the coat back on that she’d taken off when she entered the building. The office was cold from sitting empty for a week. She reached down and turned on the space heater she saw under the desk before she left for Thanksgiving break.

  She sat down at the desk and put her Common Access Card, or CAC, in the card reader of the computer. She waited while it powered up and the screen came on asking for her password. Her security level at the Air Force Academy was relatively low, but everyone who worked there needed some level of clearance.

  She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair while she waited. The rest of Thanksgiving weekend with Jace was like a dream. It reminded her of their time together in Idaho, when things were comfortable and easy between them.

  No one said anything about Jace and her sharing a bedroom, not that they weren’t consenting adults. She expected her dad would, he was usually the one who said what everyone else was thinking. He seemed preoccupied though, and not his usual self. If there was inappropriate humor to be made, her dad was all for making it. Not so this weekend.

  Bree wondered if he was worried about her, and spared her his usual torment. It wouldn’t really be his style, but maybe he was one more person for her to add to the list of pitiers.

  She decided to call him, and invite him to dinner, just the two of them. She’d let him know she missed his incessant teasing, as hard as it would be to say those words out loud. But she did. When she was little, her mother told her and her sisters that their dad teased them because he loved them. She didn’t doubt her father’s love for her, she wouldn’t mind him acting more like himself with her.

  The ringing office phone startled her. “This is Bree Fox,” she answered. Often phone calls coming in were from people who didn’t realize the permanent professor was on leave.

  “Ma’am,” the voice on the phone began. “We have a package for you in the mail area. Would you like us to deliver it now?”

  A package, for her? “For Bree Fox. You’re certain?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Would you like me to come get it?”

  “No ma’am, as I said, we can deliver it now.”

  Bree agreed that would be fine. She didn’t have any classes today, and planned to catch up on paperwork. She’d be in the office most of the day, she told the young man on the other end of the line. Part of her still doubted the package was for her, but she’d see when it arrived. Perhaps it was training materials she didn’t realize were on the way to her.

  “Come in,” she said when she heard the knock on the door. When it didn’t open, she realized that perhaps the airman making the delivery had his or her hands full, so she got up and opened the door.

  “Hello ma’am,” the airman said. “Where would you like me to put this?”

  “On the table over there,” she said pointing. She hadn’t been able to get a good look at the return address, so she remained baffled.

  “Thank you,” she said to the man, who nodded his head and went back out the way he came in.

  Bree took a closer look. It was from an APO, a military address.

  She reached for a letter opener, and then a pair of scissors to get the well-taped package open. She removed the tissue paper covering the contents and found several manila envelopes. There was nothing written on the outside of any of them.

  She opened the first, gasped, and reached for her chair to sit down. She pulled the papers out. They were letters from Zack. There must have been a dozen in this envelope alone. Were all the envelopes filled with the same thing?

  Bree pulled the second envelope out of the package and opened it. Inside was a notebook. Skimming through the pages, it looked as though it was full of notes, also in Zack’s handwriting.

  She stopped there. Bree didn’t want to see what else was in the box, at least not right then. She put the letters back in the first envelope, the notebook back in the second. She returned the envelopes to the box, and reached for her coat.

  Wine or something stronger? She couldn’t decide. The box had been sitting in the middle of the living room for two days, near the couch. She thought about putting it in a closet, and looking at the contents later, after she’d had time to prepare herself. But would there ever be a time she felt prepared?

  There was a bottle of whiskey sitting on the counter. She wasn’t much of a whiskey drinker, but she needed something stronger than a glass of wine. With the way Lyric drank coke, Bree knew there must be a stockpile of it in the refrigerator.

  She made herself a drink, sat on the sofa and stared at the box. She had been certain all of Zack’s belongings had already been sent to her. The last thing she expected was to receive another box, and certainly not one containing letters.

  “Dear Bree…” the first began. She took a deep breath, and continued reading. She’d expected it to say how much he missed her, or maybe something about them starting a family. Instead, he talked more about “the mission.” He also said he wished she understood how important this was to him. It wasn’t a job, it was his life.

  She only read one letter. She picked up the notebook, and read the first few pages. It was Zack’s journal, which she’d never known he kept. The words were his, written for him, not for anyone else to read. It was too much.

  Her eyes were swollen, and she’d already made her way through one box of tissues when she heard her cell phone ringing in the kitchen. It was a reflex to go to answer it, but when she saw it was Jace calling, she let it go to voice mail.

  A few minutes later, she made a call to someone else.

  ***

  As silly as it seemed, Jace was nervous. It wasn’t his first trip to the National Finals Rodeo, but it was the first time he had this much at stake.

  It wasn’t until they checked into the hotel that Jace found he’d be rooming with Billy. It didn’t bother him, he was just surprised that he wasn’t rooming with Tucker. Then again, Ben and Billy had never been great fans of one another.

  It stemmed back two years when Billy won National Saddle Bronc Champion at the NFR. For some reason, Ben got it into his head that Billy and Ben’s now wife, Liv, were an item. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth. Billy was in love with Liv’s daughter, Renie.

  It didn’t matter how illogical it was, Ben never had much good to say about Billy, and the feeling was mutual.

  “Don’t understand why the hell we couldn’t have had our own damn rooms,” Billy mumbled. “We got money problems nobody told me about?”

  “It wasn’t that,” Ben answered. “We were lucky to get the rooms we did. Everything was sold out months ago.”

  Tucker was off to the side, on his phone, probably talking to Blythe. Jace called Bree and left a message the day before, but hadn’t heard back from her. Maybe she hadn’t gotten it, it wasn’t like her, at least lately, not to call him back. He walked in the opposite direction of where his brother stood, and hit redial on her number. The call went straight to voice mail.

  ***

  “Well this is a surprise,” Red said when he answered Bree’s call.

  “Do you have a minute?” she asked.

  “For you, I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  “You’re always so nice to me.”

  “What can I do for you? I’m guessing you’re not calling to shoot the breeze.”

  “I’m not. I, uh, need to get away, and was wondering…”

  “The ranch is closed up tight for the season…”

  Bree was afraid of that. She doubted it would still be open, but she thought she’d take a chance.

  “But you can stay over at the lake house with me. If that wouldn’t make you feel uncomfortable.”

  “Really? I mean
, that’s so generous of you. I don’t want to impose.”

  “Bree, you should know I don’t offer if I don’t want to. I’d love to have you pay me a visit.”

  “Thanks…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Do you want to talk about it now?”

  She didn’t, she told him. It would be another ten days before she could leave due to her schedule at the Air Force Academy. And then she’d have to be back the first week of January. She wasn’t sure how long she’d stay.

  He told her she was welcome for whatever length of time worked for her. He also offered to pick her up at the airport in Hailey so she didn’t have to rent a car.

  “I need to ship something up to you, something I don’t want to bring on the plane with me.”

  “Bree, are you sure you don’t want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I can’t,” she couldn’t say anymore. If she tried, she knew she’d start to cry, and then he’d worry more than she was sure he already was.

  “Okay then, but if you change your mind and want to talk, you know where to find me.”

  “Thanks Red, I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

  Bree knew it was a lot to ask. It wasn’t as though Red was family, even though it felt as though he was. She’d never known her grandparents, they had all passed away before she was born. But she imagined the way she felt about Red would’ve been how she felt about them.

  She taped up the box of manila envelopes, and drove to the Palmer Lake post office. Once the box was gone, she’d be free of the temptation to keep reading. She hadn’t read more than she did the first day. She couldn’t bring herself to.

  When she got back to the house, she had another phone call to make. It would be more difficult than the one she made to Red.

  ***

  They were four days in and Jace was exhausted. During the day were endless meetings, and ancillary events. The competitive events began every night at seven. At ten, the after parties started, and went on until two or three in the morning.