18. The Risk
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Risk
O wen awoke sometime later to a banging on his door that echoed in his head. He shook himself awake, painfully aware of the early hour and how he’d spent the last bit of time before he’d crashed. His back ached, and his fingertips burned from scouring the dishes and every other surface of his house. At least he’d stopped drinking when Alan left.
Still, who the hell thought it was okay to tear down his door when the sun was barely above the ridgeline?
He threw on boxers and yelled, “Jesus. Hold your frickin’ horses. I’m coming.” He finished off with mumbling under his breath that if what they came to tell him was anything less than an emergency he’d have their hides. Christ, he could barely keep his eyes open.
Throwing open the door ready to give hell, he was momentarily shocked into submission.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone? You idiot!” Owen scratched his head, trying to do the math equation that put Aurelie on his doorstep barely after dawn screaming at him.
“What the…”
“She’s gone, Ow-en,” Aurelie shouted, her hands waving wildly in the air.
“Who’s gone?” Somewhere in his clouded mind, though, his alarm registered.
“Paige, you idiot,” she repeated, like somehow that would make things any better. “Paige is gone.”
“But she doesn’t leave until tonight,” he said, half to himself. Had he misheard Aurelie when she’d told him the time? He didn’t think so. She said something about going out to dinner on their way to the airport.
“She took an earlier flight. Standby. I’ve been calling you since four…”
“Shit. Shit. Okay, so I know I’m an idiot,” he said. She’d really done it. She’d left without saying goodbye. “What the hell happens now?”
“Now? Now you get dressed, you brush your teeth and you drive like the devil, that’s what. Her flight leaves Helena in one hour.”
“No. I’ll get dressed and meet you out here, but you drive. There’s no way I’ll make it if I have to park.”
Shit, shit, shit.
Aurelie nodded and ran back to her apartment. She’d gone practical and had on tennis shoes for maybe the first time since he’d met her. Thank God. It would do them good this morning. He ran through the house, picking up clothes, throwing them on, all while running a toothbrush over teeth that had just been brushed three hours earlier.
He was fully awake now.
Awake and scared he’d screwed up by going to bed and turning off his ringer.
By making sure his house was clean instead of going to sleep hours earlier.
By not going to her house the minute the guys had all left.
A million moments presented themselves over the past week where Owen could have asked her not to go, told her point blank how he felt, but he’d been so damn stubborn, so wrapped up in his own feelings he hadn’t stopped to think about hers.
Well, all that would change if he was on time, or rather when he was on time—there wasn’t another option that would be okay with him. Hell, he’d get on the next flight to Turks if he had to and bring her back with him. With that in mind he sprinted to the office on his way out the door and packed his passport just in case he really did have to buy a ticket.
No plan was off the table.
He locked the door and ran towards Marge’s car, Aury behind the wheel. He had his phone out, already dialing Paige’s number.
“How’d she get to the airport this morning?” he whispered as he got in. The line on the other end rang and then went to voicemail.
“Uber,” Aury whispered back, revving the engine and putting the pedal to the floor. Gravel spewed from beneath the tires, digging the small trenches Paige’d started herself a week prior. This time, though, Owen couldn’t have cared less. All his energy focused on willing Marge’s old beater to go faster.
He left a message to call him if she got the message before she took off, then shoved his phone into his pocket. Dammit, he needed to talk to her. Needed to stop her from getting on the plane.
“What are you going to tell her?” Aurelie asked him. The day broke around them, the rays of light shooting out of the mountains to the east breathtaking. He couldn’t appreciate the majestic scene, though. He took a deep breath and turned back to Aury.
“I’m not sure. I know I’ll tell her how much I love her, and the rest I figure I’ll make up as I go along.” Aury smiled, her eyes never leaving the road. The car lurched forward as they left the winding country roads and farmland behind.
“That will do quite nicely, I believe,” Aury said.
They drove the rest of the way in silence, Owen not sure what to say that wouldn’t be overshadowed by the fact that he was on the verge of losing the love of his life. His hands shook with nerves. He couldn’t lose her, he just couldn’t.
Not half an hour later they pulled into the Helena airport, Aury taking her foot off the gas for the first time since they left. Owen unbuckled as they pulled into departures, fumbled for his wallet and passport and hopped out as soon as it was safe. He blew Aury a kiss and ran, shouting a “thank you” from over his shoulder. He heard her call back to him just before the automatic doors closed behind him.
“Bring back our girl!”
“I will, or I’ll die trying,” he whispered to himself.
Owen had been working hard on the farm all summer, getting in trail runs when he could. It all led up to that moment, where every ounce of his strength was tested as he wove through the growing crowds with their coffee cups and carry-ons dragging behind them. They looked happy, content to be going somewhere, but lacking all the urgency he needed them to have as he made his way to the line of people waiting to get bags checked and boarding passes printed through the ticketing agent.
“Shit,” he muttered. He’d never get through if he waited for all these people to check in. Looking around, he saw an opportunity and before his mind could talk him out of it, he leapt on the base of a large art sculpture, shouting over the crowd.
“Excuse me!” he called out, but only a few people stopped and turned his way. Unfortunately, so did a few TSA employees, so he had to work fast. He whistled the way his staff sergeant had taught him to on deployment. That had the desired effect as the airport came to a standstill. He didn’t miss a beat.
“I’m trying to catch the woman I love before she takes off in the next twenty minutes. Hell, she’s probably already on the plane. Will you let me through so I can ask her to come back, to be my bride?”
A few hoots and hollers rang out, some women gasping and awing with their hands over their hearts as a salute.
“You need to get the hell down from there right now before we have you arrested,” a TSA agent said, sliding up next to Owen with his hand on his side piece. Owen nodded, jumped off the platform, but looked to the crowd. They parted for him. He laughed, made a whoop of his own and ran as far as he could through the line, his fellow passengers cheering him on. He made it to the front of the line and a ticket agent waved him over, a broad smile on her face.
“You just made my day, sir,” she told him.
“Thanks. Can I get a ticket to Turks and Caicos?”
She shook her head. “International flights need an hour out to book,” she told him, her smile fading.
“That’s fine,” he told her, “just get me anywhere close to her gate.” That was all it took for her to start clicking away on her keyboard.
“My lousy boyfriend. Bought me a pack of gum the other day, said he was thinking about me. Wait till I tell him this story,” she muttered half to herself, half to Owen. He smiled politely, but his foot tapped with all the energy he wanted to spend chasing down Paige.
Finally, she handed over his ticket.
“Good luck,” she called after him. He waved back at her, his luck turning for the better when the line for security was a quarter what it was at the ticket counter. Even that line must have known him from his speech because he was met with “Good luck” and “Go get her” as folks let him pass.
He thanked them as he ran up to the TSA agent, flashing his boarding pass that he only just noticed was going to Topeka, Kansas.
Ha. Not if he could help it.
With barely enough time to realize it, Owen was through the last obstacle between him and Paige. All the pent-up worry and energy flooded his system and he took off in a dead sprint towards her gate—A22, according to the ticketing agent. He pulled up to the gate just as they announced final boarding to Turks and Caicos.
“I need to talk to someone on that flight,” he said, breathless with beads of sweat on his brow.
“Do you have a ticket?”
He could only shake his head and show her the ticket he did have.
“I bought this so I could come back here, ask the woman of my dreams not to leave. Please. I need to talk to her.” His voice cracked, and the rest of his veneer almost did too when she told him she was sorry, there wasn’t anything she could do, and would he please move to the side, a passenger was heading towards them.
He shook his head, refusing to admit defeat.
It couldn’t end this way, it couldn’t. He’d go to customer service, change his flight to the next one out to Turks, but how would he find her when he got there? His heart started to crack at all the broken places. He and Paige had gone through so much to get them to this point, and now because of a technicality it was over?
No. He wouldn’t accept it.
“Excuse me,” he heard from behind him.
There it was.
The voice that he’d ran all this way to hear. He turned and looked down at Paige, standing there, looking frustrated as she dug through her bag. His pulse slowed; his breathing regulated. A rogue tear fell on his cheek.
“I know it’s in here,” she mumbled. “Maybe I left it in the bathroom?” She sighed, then looked up and gasped. “Owen,” she whispered, dropping her whole bag to the ground.
“Miss, we need to finish the boarding process,” the gate agent said.
Both Owen and Paige’s hands shot up in a way that would have made Marge proud. They laughed.
“What are you—” she began.
“I wanted to tell you—” he started at the same time. He gestured to her to continue.
“What are you doing here, Owen?”
“This,” he answered, grabbing her cheeks in his palms and bringing his head down to hers. His lips found hers willing and open, and as soon as he tasted her, tears came rolling down his cheeks. She pulled away and dabbed at them. “I love you, Paige, and I don’t want you to go,” he told her, drying his eyes with one sleeve, the other hand unable to move from Paige’s skin.
“I love you, too, Owen, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I would hate staying, but what if I did? How could I tell you goodbye again?”
He laughed, choking out a sob at the end.
“I told your dad you’d wonder that.”
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, tears of her own forming in the corners of her eyes. “And what did he tell you?”
“That I should ask you what you want and give it to you. So here I am, asking. I’ll give you anything you want, Paige. Just say you love me and that you’ll give us a try.”
She looked at him, her teeth worrying her bottom lip in such a way that made him want to take her right then and there.
But he let her have the time to think. It was the least he could do. Both of them ignored the desk agent as she cleared her throat loudly behind them.
“I love you,” she started, and he couldn’t help the smile that broke through. “But I won’t go home with you,” she finished, wiping the stupid grin right off his face.
“Oh—” he said. His chin dropped to his chest.
“Until you get on this plane with me. One week away from all the drama, all the tragedy, all the past. Can you give me that? If you can, Owen Johnson, I’m all yours.”
He stared at her, incredulous. Could he get on a plane with her for a week of sun and making love and walking on stone-white sand only to take the woman he loved home to Banberry home with him?
“Yes,” he replied, his voice a whisper. He coughed. “Yes, I can do that.”
Paige squealed and threw her hands around his neck. His hands wrapped tighter around her waist. He would never give her up, never again.
“And one more thing, Owen.” He looked down in her eyes, lost in his future. “You have to tell me everything. About your parents, your uncle. You have to trust me, let me in.”
“I will. Starting now, on this plane. But, I have one condition of my own, Paige,” he whispered in her ear, kissing her lobe gently, feeling her purr against him.
She nodded. “Anything.”
“Marry me. I want to travel the world with you, Paige, but I want to always have a home to come back to in Banberry, and I want that home to be ours.”
Paige pulled back, her cheeks moist with salt water. She nodded and bit her lip again. He squeezed her so tightly he thought he might break her, but he didn’t want to let her go.
“So, does that mean I can let Aury have the apartment?” she asked, giggling.
“Damn straight. Call her from the plane and let her know she can keep the decorations up—you’re coming home with me.” As he said those words, his heart pumped as wildly as it ever had, sure he was about to have an adventure that rivaled any other he’d ever had. He was ready for whatever came their way.
“You’ll have to unpack, you know,” he said, wrapping his arm around her.
“I think I can manage that.” To the agent she said, “Any way we can add another person to our flight? I’d like my fiancé to join me on this trip.”
At this, the gate agent beamed at them.
“Congratulations. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Take me away, cowboy,” Paige said and kissed him.
Owen didn’t hear, see, or feel anything after that, after hearing Paige call him her fiancé. He kissed her deeply, and with that kiss, everything bad that had led him to Banberry, all the trauma he ran from, melted away.
He was holding tightly to his future. As the agent passed him his new ticket, he knew it was a future that he could finally look forward to.
The End