29
29
ON THE FLY
M y dream was in color. And it was the color of blood. It was everywhere—sticky and metallic smelling. Lots of it. Dripping over white tile, out of a stuffed lion’s mouth, running in rivulets down bare necks, smeared across sheets, dripping from fragrant rotting rosebuds. These unpleasant images were interrupted by the screaming of a siren, and of my husband. I envisioned flashing lights careening down a mountain while the occupant in the back fought with paramedics in Spanglish about his “missing esposa.”
Now the blood was dripping from me. I was injured. Where was my ambulance? It was gushing between my legs. A sharp pain in my chest alerted me to the fact a galvanized knife was sticking out of it. Ugh! I yanked it out so hard I lost control of it and stabbed my husband in the back.
Should I remove it? Somehow, I didn’t want to. That would be worse. He might bleed to death. Better to leave it in. I was gushing blood from my heart wound. I cried out in pain. Real pain—not conjured in my brain, but lower. A sharp ache was coming from the back of my neck.
“Kate! Can you feel t his?” A muttered oath. Inexplicably, I instantly felt better. That voice. I pried one eye open. He was coming at me with another needle. Somehow that alarmed me, although I wasn’t afraid of him. My personal siren was going off.
“No,” I whined.
“Kate.” The most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen found mine. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t give you quite enough. I was afraid of overdoing it. I’ll give you a little more to put you back under and some more numbing at the incision site before I begin again. I promise . . . you won’t feel a thing.”
“Hmmmm?” I was so tired.
A hand stroked my head. My eyes rolled back. “That’s right,” he crooned. “Just go back to sleep, honey.” The velvet voice wasn’t helping me focus.
I let my eyes droop closed, wondering why I felt like that was a wrong move when it felt so right. I drifted back to the vision of the bloody crime scene. Ranger. I had to do something. What was it?
“Pete,” I moaned.
“You’re okay, Kate.” Arm caressing. “Everything is fine. Just relax.”
“No ‘snot . . . my necklace.” I tried to raise my head but couldn’t move. I tried to pry my eyelids open. That was a little easier. I saw him filling a syringe with some liquid. “No,” I whispered so low I knew it wouldn’t be taken seriously. “Please, Pete,” I mumbled, trying to convey the anguish I felt. Couldn’t he hear it?
A hand on my face, smoothing back my hair. He brought his face up close to mine. “What is it, Katie-Kat?” He breathed his sweet breath on me. “We gotta get this show on the road.”
I struggled to focus on his eyes. “Neck-lace.”
He huffed out a small laugh. “Boy, do you have a one-track mind. I already told you. I know it was your mother’s. You don’t have to worry. You’re wearing it . . . can’t say the same about your ring. I hope you’ll forgive me for accidentally-on-purpose forgetting it.” His words slipped out one corner of his mouth.
My lips pulled up a fraction. I loved this guy; I really did. My brow furrowed. “No, Ranger . . .”
A frown replaced his smile. He sighed. “I already told you, he’s going to be fine. He’s probably en route to the hospital as we speak, so like I said . . . we gotta get this show on the road.” He came at me with the needle again.
Oh crap. I’d botched this by staring at his mouth. Typical. I could never concentrate on anything when he was around. I tried desperately, one last time, as I felt another prick. “No necklace Ranger.” I know I garbled it, but I wasn’t worried, oblivion overtook my dark thoughts.
Oblivion didn’t last as long as it should’ve. “Kate! Kate!” Light slapping on my face. Why , oh why, did he always do that? “Kate! God! Wake up! Please. Listen to me. Focus.”
“Hmph?” I couldn’t be bothered to be roused from the dead. Even by him.
I felt myself being forced to prop up, but, like a lifeless doll, I slumped back over. Continued bapping happened, aimed mostly at my face. This followed by a short span of nothing, and then a rude rush of cold blasted over me. I gasped. Gah! Why’d he have to go and do that? I tried to complain but couldn’t form words. I heard cursing and fooling around with my neck. What’s goin’ on ? I was too out of it to wonder.
I don’t know how much later, but all I know is I was brought round by the best smelling salt in the world. Pete held me in his arms, my face pressed to his solid chest. I slit one eye open and glimpsed his determined face. He was walking us through the middle of some kind of field, only this one sprouted a long strip of pavement. I heard a loud whining sound of an engine. Weird. I must still be dreaming.
Rapid fire Spanish was being exchanged. I was set down carefully in the back of one of those scary small rickety planes you only ever see dusting crops in New Mexico. Pete hastily fastened my seatbelt around me, then disappeared.
No! I tried to protest. The love of my life was walking away, and all I could produce was a whimper. A middle-aged Latino man stuck his head out the cockpit to peer at me curiously. He seemed as unsure about me as I was of him. I closed my eyes against his scrutiny, wondering where Pete had got off to. I wanted to ask but couldn’t seem to move my mouth right.
The next thing I knew more Spanish was exchanged, followed by money. Pete stuffed leather luggage, I recognized as my own, between my seat and the cockpit, along with an ordinary gray duffel, I didn’t recognize. He came back to sit down in the seat next to mine. He glanced at me fighting to keep my head up and his serious face softened. My eyes remained open long enough to witness his lips quirk up. Unconcerned by my apparent paralysis, he reached over to run a warm, soothing hand over my shoulder.
We took off, shaking and rattling, down the runway. Too bad I couldn’t move my hand to cross myself. I closed my eyes, not daring to see if there was sufficient enough pavement left for takeoff. I felt our fragile metal cage gradually lift into the air, fighting to defy gravity. I tried to orient myself to my new surroundings. It seemed like dawn, or dusk, because thin streaks of golden light were fingering their way through the pinkening sky. But it was hard to tell because my head was foggier than the clouds we were flying through.
My face was splayed against the hard surface of the plane, but I didn’t even realize I was uncomfortable until Pete repositioned me onto his lap. I felt an immediate sense of relief and safety. The whirring flow of air, the buzzing of the little plane’s engine, fighting its way through tunnels of air, and the rhythmic stroking of his hand, running from the top of my head to the bottom of my back, was lulling me back to slumber.
But before I fell back into the kind of sleep that elicits bliss, I realized the last time I was on a plane . . . I’d fallen asleep in someone else’s lap.