Chapter 14
Tuesday morning, while Miss Higgs was home with Tara and while Kaci could’ve been in her lab running numbers, she booked her airplane ticket to Germany.
Her stomach knotted so hard she almost had to bend over, but it was done.
She was going to Stuttgart. She’d present her research and subsequent hypotheses to some of the world’s most brilliant minds. The stuffy old billy goats who had run the Physics Department here at James Robert for decades wouldn’t be able to keep her out.
Because after she did Stuttgart, she’d apply to go to other conferences. She’d put on her professor face, and she’d show them all that she could do it.
And no one else would ever have to know she’d been afraid to get on an airplane.
She was still perspiring, though, when someone knocked on her office door. She fanned her blouse and took a slow, even breath. “It’s open,” she called.
And dang if Ron Kelly himself didn’t walk in.
She barely kept herself from rolling her eyes. “Dr. Kelly.”
“Great news,” he said. “I’m going with you to Stuttgart.”
“The hell you say.”
“My department chair saw your planned topic, and he thought it would be good for me to be there in case you need backup.”
She didn’t realize she’d risen to her feet until her chair crashed into the metal blinds on the window behind her desk. “I. Do. Not. Need. Backup.”
He held his hands out. “Support,” he amended. “For your first conference. And since we’re both working on efficient combustion—”
“Out.” She should’ve let Lance fire him out of that potato gun last night. “Get. Out.”
“Kaci, if you’ll think about it a minute, you’ll understand that this is good for—”
“You,” she spat. “This is good for you.”
“The benefits of the combination of physical and chemical combustion—”
“Is covered in six research papers I’ve had published in Physics Today and is a concept I fully support.
I will find a chemist to work with, and when I do, Dr. Kelly, it will be a chemist selected for his or her knowledge, intelligence, and capability to fit within my team.
” She pointed so hard, her knuckle throbbed.
“Once more, Dr. Kelly, remove yourself from my office.”
He ran a hand over his graying hair. “I don’t know what I’ve done to offend you—”
“Dr. Kelly,” a smooth voice interjected from the hallway, “I believe you’re keeping Dr. Boudreaux from her work.”
Dr. Kwami, her dean, folded his arms over his massive chest and stared down his nose at Ron.
Ron gave her one last glance, then muttered something to himself while he left her office.
Letting a man tell him to leave when Kaci herself telling him to leave hadn’t worked.
“My research belongs here,” she said to her dean.
Dr. Kwami settled into the plastic chair on the other side of her desk and pushed the door closed. He propped a dress shoe over one knee. “You’ve been having troubles.”
She pinched her lips together.
“I can’t fix issues if I’m unaware of them.”
“With all due respect, neither of us can turn me into a man, and I wouldn’t let you even if you could.”
A glimmer of a smile turned his lips up, but his dark eyes stayed serious. “I agree. Your research needs to stay here in our department.”
Her fingers slowly uncurled.
He tugged at the black tie over his crisp white shirt. “A student reported overhearing another professor making derogatory comments about you. Has someone from our department been harassing you?”
“Dr. Kwami, I’ve lived in this world so long, I wouldn’t recognize harassment if it walked up behind me and licked my ass.” And if he wanted to fire her for saying ass, so be it.
She’d build a shack out in the woods and sell potato guns out of her garage.
“I don’t tolerate harassment, Kaci. Nor do I tolerate my professors undermining one another, especially to the students. You belong here. You’re making a difference. If you have issues, give them to me. We need you inspiring these kids and working in your lab. Understood?”
“I didn’t get where I am by being a tattletale.”
“My daughter wants to be an astronaut, Dr. Boudreaux. I’d like to think she’ll have a safe place to learn, but that starts with us. With you and me. We can’t fix a problem if we don’t address it.”
“And not every problem has a solution. Not when people get involved.”
“Let me try.” He stood. “I’ll have a talk with the dean of the chemistry department. Dr. Kelly won’t be an issue anymore.”
Right.
Because Ron’s dean would respond to a man, whereas Kaci would just be a hysterical woman who wasn’t mature enough to handle working with her ex-husband.
“This is my job as your boss, Kaci. Let me handle the people. You handle the physics.” He flashed a rare smile, white teeth glinting against his dark face. “And knock ’em dead in Stuttgart.”
“I don’t want Dr. Kelly going to Stuttgart. He’s going to try to claim my research as his own or at least take credit for some of it.”
And there she went, whining to her boss about her ex-husband.
“I won’t let that happen. Keep up the good work, Dr. Boudreaux.”
She sank back into her chair, hopeful relief making her limbs weary.
Keep up the good work? She’d do her darnedest.
She always did.
Kaci’s plans for Saturday morning had been to let Lance think he was going to give her another hour of flight-prep training, but seduce him in her living room instead while Tara was working the day shift.
But Lance’s plans for Saturday morning turned out to be something different.
“Come with me,” he said from her doorway.
He had a pair of aviator sunglasses on top of his head and a brown leather jacket over a white thermal T-shirt.
She wanted to yank him inside and not even bother with the pretense of doing flight-prep training, but he wouldn’t budge.
“We’re on a timeline. We have to go. Now. ”
Curiosity got the better of her. “Can Miss Higgs come?”
“Absolutely not.”
Since that was his grown-up pilot jock voice, she didn’t argue. “How long are we out for?”
“Back by noon.”
She arranged an impromptu playdate for Miss Higgs with the Hamms across the hall and squeezed the cat extra tight before she left. Miss Higgs gave her a frosted eye roll, as if to say Chill, lady. I’m not dying while you’re gone today.
Kaci certainly hoped the cat was telling the truth.
And she owed the Hamms a nice gift certificate to their favorite Southern buffet.
“Where are we going?” she asked while she followed Lance to the parking lot. “Do I need my spud launcher?”
He flipped his glasses over his eyes and gave her an ovary-exploding smile. “Trust me.”
“You get a watermelon cannon?” she asked.
He laughed. “No.”
“We shooting bottle rockets?”
“Nope.”
“Goin’ muddin’?”
“I didn’t say you were going to like it,” he said with a cocky grin.
She thought he was kidding.
But ten minutes later, he pulled in front of a metal-sided shed before a tarmac lined with propeller planes.
“Oh, no,” she started.
“Trust me?”
“You still owe me another hour on that game thingie.”
“You’re ready, Kaci.” He squeezed her knee. “You can do this.”
Her frozen lungs didn’t agree.
Neither did the piston firing in her chest.
“It’s like a Band-Aid,” he said. “Just rip it off.”
She was going to hurl.
This wasn’t a Band-Aid she was ready to rip off. She needed mental preparation time. She needed a paper bag. She needed a happy pill.
Lance pulled her door open. “Where’s that badass pumpkin chucker I know? Come on. It’ll be fun.”
Somehow she got out of the truck.
Her legs wobbled, but he had a firm grip on her hand.
And he didn’t even comment on how ice-cold her fingers were.
“If I die, you damn well better take care of my cat,” she forced out.
“You got it, Pixie-lou.”
He pushed her into the meatlocker that doubled as the office for the private runway. A dude in a Hawaiian shirt greeted Lance by name, then passed over a clipboard. He didn’t seem to notice how frigid the room was. Nor did Lance. Not a goose bump or shiver from either of them.
She sank onto a blue-and-red pinstriped couch that had seen better days and springier cushions. If Lance noticed her head hanging between her knees, he didn’t comment.
She didn’t think.
She couldn’t entirely hear over the roar in her ears.
“C’mon, Kace. We’re ready.” His hand was hot on the back of her neck. His thumb rubbed into her hairline, and despite herself, a longing pull pulsed deep in her center. His breath tickled her ear. “Got a big reward for anyone brave enough to get in a plane with me today.”
“Evil,” she gasped out.
“You’re going to Germany. We’re not letting those fuckers win.”
That did it.
She was still light-headed, but she shoved to her feet and snapped her spine straight. “Don’t make me hate you for this.”
He looped an arm around her waist and steered her toward the back door. “You’re going to love me for this.”
Their plane was a single-propeller Cessna with room for four passengers. It smelled like old sweat and burnt jet fuel. He swung open the passenger-side door, a thin sheet of metal with a flimsy latch.
“Sweet baby jalapeno,” she whispered.
He slapped a white paper bag on the blue leather seats covered in sheepskin. “Barf bag,” he said. “Just in case. You want to walk around it with me, or you gonna stand here?”
“Stand.” Maybe drop to the ground and hug it and ask it not to let her leave. Pray to the flight gods.
Squeeze her eyes shut and pretend her daddy was here to reassure her.
He’d loved flying. Loved being in the air.
Her memories had gotten hazier as she’d gotten older, but she still remembered the unique scent of his flight suit, a combination of cotton, grease, and gasoline.
The way his smile would light up the whole house when he came in from flying a day mission.
The stories he’d tell about bending the laws of physics in his fighter jet.
Too soon, two arms encircled her and pulled her against warm leather. “All good on the outside.” Lance pressed a kiss to the top of her hair. “Climb on up. I’ll talk you through everything.”