“Trent’s minions have been spying on me. They reported my recent transactions.”
No wonder her brother hated her. But she’d deal with that later. “Back to Dad and that day.”
“What sent your father off that afternoon was me. Me.” Jacqui’s voice cracked. “I asked him to give up, to admit defeat. I did so, not because of the money, but because I was afraid for him. He kept pushing that airplane harder and harder, trying to prove the engineer wrong. And then Kirk admitted he couldn’t afford to quit. He needed to sell and patent the plane’s design to cover his debts.”
Light-headed, Lauren gripped the back of a chair. Her father had known the plane was faulty and chosen to risk his life anyway. For money. Did everything always come down to money?
“Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“Because if I hadn’t encouraged him, he’d still be alive. Don’t hate me, Lauren. I did what I did because I loved him. I wanted him to be happy.”
Lauren shook her head in disbelief. “You funded a suicide mission. That’s a strange way to show your love.”
A mixture of anger and grief toward this woman and toward her father churned in her belly. “It’s likely that he turned to you because he’d already borrowed as much as he possibly could against Falcon Air. We’re maxed out. And with the economic downturn of the past few years, business has decreased. We’ve been struggling to make the payments on his loans.
“If the life insurance company finds out he flew against the engineer’s recommendation, they might call his death an act of willful negligence and refuse to pay. And then Falcon will be in deep trouble. We’ll have to file bankruptcy or find a buyer.”
“I’ll give you whatever you need.”
The idea repulsed her. “I don’t want your money, Jacqui. I’ve never wanted your money. And what I want now, you can’t give me.”
“Tell me what it is and I’ll find a way,” Jacqui pleaded.
“I want my father back.”
Lauren had never been one to run away from her problems, but at the moment she ached to be in the cockpit of her Cirrus high above the clouds or racing down the highway on her Harley with the wind tearing at her hair.
She knew better than to operate either machine with her concentration shattered, which was why she was sitting on the side of the road in her pickup staring at the streetlight and trying to gather her composure.
With hindsight, she wished she hadn’t pulled over to answer her cell phone when Lou had returned her call because she was too angry to be tactful.
“You knew,” she choked out.
Silence stretched through the airwaves. “Yeah, I knew,” Lou finally responded.
It was bad enough that her father and mother had selfishly pursued a death wish, but Lou, too? And they’d all kept the engineer’s report from her. Hurt and betrayal burned through her.
“Lauren, your dad was a genius with airplanes. I believed Kirk could find a way to reduce the stress on the wing and fix the problem. If anyone could, he could.”
Lauren’s hands shook so badly she nearly dropped the phone. “But the expert said it wasn’t fixable.”
“And we both know what your daddy did when somebody told him he couldn’t do something. He set out to prove ’em wrong. Same as you’d do. You may be the spittin’ image of your momma, but you’re your daddy’s girl through and through. You got his grit, his flying skills and you sure as hell got his mule-headed stubbornness.”
She made a face at the phone. It wasn’t the first time she’d been accused of being…persistent. But she didn’t see that as a fault. “I would never die just to prove a point.”
“He didn’t do it on purpose, Lauren.”
Her father’s death seemed like a senseless waste, an avoidable accident. “Didn’t anybody care what I thought about him risking his life?”
“He didn’t think it was a risk. He’d already logged a hundred hours on that plane before he had the engineer look at it.”
“Turns out he was wrong. Lou, I gotta go.” Before she did something stupid like bawl her eyes out.
Pilots don’t cry.
Heart aching, Lauren disconnected. She couldn’t go back to her empty apartment, and she couldn’t keep driving aimlessly around Knoxville.
Gage. Gage would help her put this into perspective.
To hell with what her siblings thought. If her father’s life insurance refused to pay up, Falcon’s financial woes would be in the airline news soon anyway when its assets went on the auction block.
Gage’s muscles ached with fatigue, and his eyes felt as if someone had dumped a bag of sand into them. Spending the past thirty-six hours without sleep by his father’s side had left him wanting food, a hot shower and a comfortable bed.
He considered ignoring whoever was ringing his doorbell, but he still had a business to run. He’d been incommunicado since his cell phone battery died two days ago, and he’d forgotten to check the message machine when he’d dragged himself into the house.
The smell of the hospital still clung to him, but he reached into the glass cubicle of his shower and shut off the inviting steamy spray. He dragged on a bathrobe and slowly descended the stairs to his foyer. Who would be visiting at almost midnight? He checked the peephole.
Lauren. His heart jolted into a faster rhythm. He hadn’t spoken to her since Trent had greeted him at the airport with news of his father’s hospitalization. Afterward, while his father had lain in intensive care hovering between life and death, calling anyone had never crossed his mind.
His exhaustion vanished. His formerly leaded limbs suddenly felt lighter. He opened the door.
With her arms wrapped around her middle, she stood shivering and pale on his porch without a coat. Her hair was disheveled and a worried pleat creased her brow. She didn’t look like she’d been resting during her days off.
She stared up at him. “I’m sorry. I know it’s late, but can I come in?”
“Of course.” Because he wanted so badly to take her into his arms, he stepped out of the way instead. She passed by, leaving a hint of flowers in the air. He closed the door. She shifted on her feet looking ill at ease. “What’s wrong, Lauren?”
“I received the accident report on my father’s crash today, and I…I need you to help me make sense of it.”
Having been through hell and back with his father in the past few days, her unusual vulnerability pulled at something familiar deep in his chest. He took her hand in his. Her fingers were as cold as ice. He led her to his den. A flick of a switch ignited the gas logs. He sat on an ottoman in front of the fireplace and pulled her down beside him.
A shudder racked her. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. The action felt eerily natural and comfortable. She pressed her face into the open V of his robe. The shock of her cold cheek against his skin contrasted with the warmth of her breath on his flesh. Thoughts of bed returned, this time not involving the eight hours of uninterrupted sleep he needed. But sex wasn’t what Lauren needed right now. And hell, as tired as he was, he wasn’t sure he was capable. A humbling thought.
He rubbed her stiff back. “What did the report say?”
“My father didn’t commit suicide. At least not intentionally.”
Unintentional suicide didn’t compute. “Explain.”
“He—we—built an experimental aircraft, my father, Lou and me. Dad planned to patent the design and sell it. But—” she inhaled shakily “—the design was flawed. Dad knew it. My mother knew it. Even my uncle knew. But Dad flew the stupid plane anyway. He pushed it beyond its limits…and it killed him.”
Her words echoed his concerns about his own father who seemed hell-bent on following a dream regardless of the costs. “Go on.”
“Gage, I spent almost as many hours working on that plane as he did. I should have seen the flaw.”
Self-blame. Another familiar refrain. He understood and had experienced the same helpless frustration numerous times. His determination to fix his father’s life had caused a rift between him and his dad that seemed unbridgeable. They’d barely spoken in the past few years.
“Lauren, the accident wasn’t your fault.”
Her eyes beseeched him, and he wanted to sweep in like a superhero and fix her problems.
“He never asked what I wanted. I would much rather have my father alive and with me than have a damned airplane named after me. I’m a better pilot. If he’d let me fly it—”
A crushing sensation settled on his chest. “Then you might be dead instead of him. My father also has an apparent death wish, and he’s more than willing to die for what he believes in. Helping others might sound like an admirable goal, but not at the risk of his personal safety.
“I realized years ago that I can’t control him. Not that I haven’t tried. But he’s not a child. What he does is not my fault. The best I can do is be around to pick up the pieces.”
She leaned back, her eyes brimming with questions. “What happened?”
He hadn’t intended to share his past with her, but he’d already shared more with Lauren than anyone else except Trent. And Trent only knew because he’d lived through some of it with Gage. An urgent need for her to know who he was and where he’d come from rose within him.
“I told you I lived in the family car for a while.” He waited for her nod. “Before that my father was a successful real estate developer. His dreams were always larger than life, and we lived the high life. Not on the Hightowers’ level, but close. By the time I turned ten he’d overextended himself, taking on more debt than he could handle. Then the real estate market tanked. He hadn’t prepared for that, and he lost everything, including our home. We lived in the family car for six months. My mother bailed after three.
“Dad never regained the drive to try again. We were in and out of public housing projects and shelters after that because he couldn’t hold a job. He wasn’t cut out for taking orders or being anyone’s subordinate. He was too used to being the boss.”
The sympathy in Lauren’s eyes almost dammed his words. “What about your mother?”
He shrugged. “I never saw her again and haven’t looked for her.”
“Not knowing you is her loss, Gage.” Her fingers squeezed his. “Is your father still alive?”
“Not for lack of trying to kill himself. Seven years ago I bought him a house, but he insists on hanging out at the local homeless shelter. He claims he’s found his true calling in helping others.
“It’s a rough inner-city crowd, and Dad doesn’t hesitate to step in when fights break out. He’s been hurt a few times, but this week—” Knowing how close he’d come to losing his father made his throat close up. “This week he tried to break up a knife fight and got sliced up. By the time I reached the hospital he’d already flat-lined once, but they’d brought him back. I’ve been there since we landed.”