Laura would have loved the human touch as much as Emma. But she knew it would only hurt Emma more in the long run. The skylight room, however, was a different story.
They snuggled together among the pillows.
“Can you find Hercules?” Laura asked.
Emma pointed toward the constellation.
“And how about Cygnus?”
Emma pointed.
“And what was Cygnus?” Laura waited for an answer she didn’t expect to come. “Cygnus was a swan,” she said, answering the question herself. “Do you remember that?”
Emma did not even bother to nod. She closed her eyes and rested her head on Laura’s shoulder, and Laura was suddenly reminded of all the nights she’d watched the sky with her father. He would quiz her on what she saw. Where was Andromeda? Triangulum? What was the brightest star in Perseus? She’d felt tension during those nighttime quizzes, as though her father’s love for her was linked to her correct answers. She wasn’t doing that to Emma, was she? She ran her hand over Emma’s satiny hair. Her daughter was every bit as alone in the world as she had been, with only one nerdy, head-in-the-clouds parent. And on top of that, she’d had a poor relationship with the man she’d thought of as her father.
Men yell. Men kill themselves.
Heather was right. Laura owed it to Emma to see if Dylan Geer might be worthy of playing a part in her life.
10
DYLAN TRIGGERED THE BLAST VALVE TO MAINTAIN THE balloon’s altitude. They were off course. Not terribly so, but enough that his usual landing sites were out of the question.
“I’ve never seen such a beautiful sunset,” the woman said to her husband. The couple was flying with him to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and the woman had lost her nervousness sometime during the last hour and was no longer clinging to the leather rim of the wicker basket. Soon, though, Dylan would have to ask her to hang on again.
“Look over there,” the husband said. He pointed toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the pink of the sunset gave way to blue-violet as darkness approached.
They’re oblivious to the problem, Dylan thought, even though they’d heard him radio the crew that the wind had picked up and the balloon was flying north of the landing site. Just as well. Let them enjoy the end of their trip.
He was running out of daylight, and they needed to land soon. There was a cornfield not far ahead of them, but landing there would be messy. The crew would have to get permission from the farmer, the process of landing would destroy some of the corn, and his passengers would have to fight their way through the cornstalks to reach the crew’s vehicles. He remembered the woman saying something about arthritis in her knees. No, the cornfield wouldn’t do.
He spoke into the aircraft radio. “Come in, Alex.”
“Yo, balloon.” Alex’s voice was clear, the only sound other than the occasional roar of the flame above their heads.
“I’m going to have to aim for the median strip again,” Dylan said. He saw the couple turn away from the sunset to look at him, then at each other. He smiled at them and winked, but he wasn’t sure they could see his expression of reassurance in the fading light.
“Cool,” Alex said. “About the same spot as last time?” He’d had to land on the median strip a month or so ago.
“Right. Think you guys can get there in time to assist?”
“If we fly, man. Don’t worry, we’ll be there.”
“Okay, then,” Dylan said. “See you on the ground.”
He slipped the radio onto his belt and checked the altimeter.
“Is there a problem?” the man asked.
“Very minor,” Dylan said. “Remember before we boarded I explained that an unexpected gust of wind might blow us off course?”
They nodded. He had their complete attention, the sunset forgotten.
“That’s what happened. So, we missed our usual landing site. I’m going to land on the median strip of one of the main roads.” He intentionally avoided saying try to land. They didn’t need to hear uncertainty in his voice.
“You’re what?” the woman said. “What about the traffic?”
“It won’t be a problem,” Dylan said. “You’ll see.” His voice was so calm that they seemed to relax a bit. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he continued. “See that line of trees up ahead?”
The tops of the trees glowed a surreal pink from the sunset. The couple nodded.
“I’m going to brush over the tops of them with the basket,” Dylan said. “That’ll slow us down a bit. On the other side of the trees is the highway and the median strip. Do you remember what I told you about a high-wind landing?”
“Face the direction we’re landing in,” said the man.
“Right,” Dylan said. “And bend your knees and hold on to the rope handles. And we’re going to be fine.”
The woman looked at him with doubt in her eyes.
“Honest,” he said.
He let some air out of the balloon as they approached the trees, enough to allow the basket to coast across the treetops. Twigs snapped and leaves brushed against the wicker. He loved the sound, but the woman gripped the rope handle tighter.
“You doing okay?” he asked the couple.
“Doesn’t matter how we’re doing,” the man said. “You’re the one we’re worried about.”
Dylan laughed. He lowered the balloon on the other side of the trees, flying above the two lanes of traffic. They were close enough to the cars that, had it been lighter, the surprised looks on the faces of the drivers would have been visible.
The crew had not made it in time, but he hadn’t expected them to.
“Bend your knees,” he said to his passengers. “And hold on.”
Down they went, the balloon touching the ground and being carried only a few feet across the grass by the wind before stopping. Good landing, given the circumstances. His jelly-kneed passengers hugged each other, laughing in apparent relief.
A few cars stopped along the median strip, their drivers and passengers getting out for a closer look. Dylan spotted Alex’s truck as it pulled in behind the line of cars. Brian’s van was right behind him.
“Here come our rescuers,” he said to the couple.
Once on the median strip, Brian grabbed the drop line, and Alex produced the stepladder to allow the couple to disembark.
“Don’t know what you need us for,” Brian said, acknowledging Dylan’s safe solo landing.
“I wonder about that myself sometimes,” Dylan joked as he helped his passengers from the basket.
Once safely out of the basket, they celebrated the successful flight with the requisite champagne toast. The passersby kept a respectful distance from them, and Dylan knew that some of them would call him for their own balloon rides over the next few days.
The couple got into Brian’s van for the ride back to Dylan’s barn, where their own car was parked.
Dylan and Alex dismantled the balloon in the near darkness, Dylan glancing at his watch from time to time. He had a date tonight. It was not with Bethany, he was sure of that, but damned if he could remember exactly who it was with.
No big deal, he thought as he helped Alex load the basket into the truck. He would know when she showed up at his door.