Chapter 24
Jenna wasn’t sure what she expected when they rounded the bend of the remote airstrip ten miles outside Hope Falls and the hangar appeared, floodlit and crisp against the powder-blue morning, but what she saw took her breath away.
The jet that waited on the apron with a posture that said it belonged everywhere and nowhere in particular, all swept wings and silvering fuselage, looked like a futuristic bird of prey poised to hunt the horizon.
The captain—early forties, military jawline, eyes that missed nothing—stood beside the plane in full regalia, like a man with an entire day’s schedule mapped out to the minute. She felt like she was in a movie.
Deacon put the SUV in park but didn’t immediately kill the engine. Instead, he turned in the driver’s seat and locked eyes with her. The usual veneer of confidence was there, but it felt thinner, stretched taut over something urgent and unnameable.
“It’s the fastest way to travel,” he said, hands flexing once on the steering wheel. “And I just need to get back to Tabby.”
She smiled and lifted her hands in mock-surrender. “Today is a judgement-free day. Honestly, I thought you were going to Christian Grey it and fly us there yourself, so, hey, at least you don’t have a pilot’s license.”
Deacon’s poker face had never been particularly strong, and now he looked like a man balancing on the edge of a secret.
Her hand clamped over her mouth. “Oh my god, you do. You have your pilot’s license.”
His eyes narrowed slightly as the corners of his lips curled. “What happened to today being judgment-free?”
She made a zipper gesture across her lips and locked it but then unlocked and unzipped it. “It’s not judgment, it’s…reaction.” Her jaw dropped, then she shook her head. “Of course you do. That was a reaction. Today is not a reaction-free day.”
He exhaled, a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.”
Just like in the hospital a week ago, the vulnerability in him was almost radioactive—palpable, humming, demanding to be fixed or at least acknowledged.
Jenna had always been the type to reach for a toolbox when confronted with a problem, be it a crying baby or a leaking faucet or a man whose heart was a tangle of wires and code.
She instantly reached out and touched his forearm in a friendly manner, the way friends support each other. “Hey, it’s gonna be fine. Whatever happens, you’re gonna be fine. What mom wouldn’t want a rich, hot, honest, generous, kind, funny, hardworking, amazing father as a son?”
He studied her, the way a safebreaker studies a lock, not for the flaws but for the elegant machinery inside. Then his lips twitched into a pure, unguarded smile. “You actually complimented me.”
She felt her nose twitch and tried to school her features into something more neutral, but she could sense the betrayal in her own face, so she tried to play it off. “Just call me Dionne Warwick, because that’s what friends are for, baby.”
His smile grew, and she knew she’d been caught. The blip would not repeat. She made a silent vow, this road trip, or air trip, or whatever the hell it was, would remain platonic, even if it killed her.
He opened his door, and she waited in the passenger seat as he came around because even as a “friend,” he still insisted on being a gentleman, and she couldn’t be mad at him about that.
They crossed the tarmac together, greeted by the pilot, who introduced himself as Captain Morse and gave them a quick, thorough rundown of the flight plan with the efficiency of someone who’d spent a lifetime condensing complex information for nervous millionaires.
The inside of the jet was even more surreal than the outside, all soft expensive leather and walnut trim with a subtle, omnipresent lemon verbena scent that was probably a thousand dollars a bottle.
Jenna tried to play it cool, but as she slid into the seat opposite Deacon, she couldn’t resist running her fingers over the stitching.
She wasn’t a member of the mile high club but had always felt the pang of curiosity.
If she were ever going to join, this would be the place to do it, not in a Southwest bathroom but in a private flying penthouse.
Platonic. Platonic. Platonic.
The jet’s engines fired up with a roar that pressed her into the seat. She looked to see if Deacon was showing any signs of in-flight panic. He stared down at his phone, face stony, scrolling with the same intensity as a surgeon counting sponges mid-operation. She’d never seen him like that before.
She cleared her throat. “Are you a nervous flyer?”
He didn’t look up. “No, not at all…it’s just.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Jenna bit her tongue, feeling like an idiot. Of course, he was on edge, this trip was about crossing an emotional state line, not a geographical one.
The jet began its slow taxi. She looked out the window, the world outside shrinking until the hanger was a blur, and she let the silence stretch until it almost hurt.
When they were airborne and cruising, she tried again. “If you want to talk about anything, I’m here,” she offered, her tone soft, not pushy. “We’ve got ninety minutes and no place to hide.”
Deacon set the phone face-down on the tray, his fingers drumming a nervous tattoo against the wood. For a minute she wondered if he was going to change his mind, have Captain Morse turn the plane around, fake a stomach bug, or claim he’d left the iron on at home.
Instead, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and spoke with the unblinking honesty of someone who hated lies more than he feared pain.
“I just don’t understand what the point was of lying to me. What did they gain? And since they lied to me originally, why not keep it up? Why tell me half the truth, or a quarter of the truth?” He stared out the small window. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Jenna pretended to consider the view out her window.
She could see the fringe of the Sierra Nevadas, the landscape below as remote as the conversation she was not having.
The temptation to say something, to fix it, ran so hot it made her teeth itch.
This was not her monkey or her circus. It was not a thread she needed to pull on, which she had a very bad habit of doing.
She couldn’t count the number of accidental affairs she’d exposed by pointing out inconsistencies in stories from the women and men seated in her chair.
Yet to her own husband, her own best friend, she was as blind as a bat with glaucoma.
She bit the inside of her cheek. She would not, could not, play detective with Deacon’s life. Not unless he asked her to.
But Deacon was watching her now, his gaze sharp despite the exhaustion softening the set of his mouth. “What?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head.
He didn’t blink. “Tell me.”
It was unnerving how tuned into her Deacon was.
Nothing she did went unnoticed by him. She could have huffed, puffed, and blown the house down, and James wouldn’t’ have noticed she was having an asthma attack.
If she slightly moved in her chair, Deacon would know her underwear had crawled up her butt.
It was seriously as if from the moment their eyes met, when he came through those western doors at that bar, they were on the exact same frequency and their souls knew it.
“What happened to your parents again?” she questioned, already knowing the answer.
“It was a car accident.”
She nodded. She’d looked it up during the past week wanting to find out more information on the people who had kept such a huge secret from him.
It was a strange accident. There was no other vehicle involved.
Supposedly there were no drugs or alcohol, and the driving conditions were fine.
It was night, but it wasn’t raining or snowing.
They hit a tree, and based on her online research, which she knew was not entirely reliable, there were supposedly no skid marks to indicate Mr. St. Claire tried to brake. And several witness statements, which were later reportedly retracted, stated he had accelerated.
The reason she’d asked Deacon was to see if he thought there was anything fishy without her putting ideas in his head. From his expression, it looked as if he was accepting the crash at face value.
“Who told you about your mom, your birth mom, being dead?”
“My parents,” he responded automatically.
“Both of them?”
He hesitated, then said, “Yeah, both.”
The jet engine thrummed under their feet, a constant, low vibration like a distant heartbeat. Jenna watched him as he stared at his hands, at the way he picked at a loose thread on his dark gray thermal shirt.
He let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Actually, no, not both. Not at first. I guess it was my mom. She was the one who said it. My dad wasn’t home.
When he came in, it was like…He looked like he’d seen a ghost. He didn’t even say anything.
He just... stood there. Watching.” Deacon’s voice stretched, the words coming tougher.
“I always thought he was just shocked. But now, I don’t know. Maybe he was scared.”
Jenna wanted to ask—scared of what?—but she let the silence widen. Sometimes, it was better to let people ask themselves questions.
“And then the crash was six months later.”
“Yes. Why?”
“Nothing. I was just… I was just wondering about the timing. Why then? What did they have to gain? Or lose? Or why did they feel compelled to tell you? I don’t know…
my brain always goes soap opera or Real Housewives.
It’s what happens when you spend twelve hours a day, six days a week, listening to your clients’ deepest, darkest secrets. ”
Jenna could see that she’d made him think. She just wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“You don’t have to do this.” Jenna reached out and touched his arm—a small, grounding gesture, but his skin went tight over bone.