Her stomach clenched. Residual nerves, no doubt. She tapped the On button. "Yes?"
Silence stretched for a second too long. Her nerves flamed. She started to hang up and sprint back inside when a cleared throat on the other end stopped her.
"Nikki?"
Carson.
But he'd only just left. Standing, she scanned outside, past the swimming pool and found him three stories down in the parking lot, against the closed tailgate on his truck. She rested her elbows along the wooden rail, phone pressed to her ear as firmly as her eyes stayed locked on his tall, lean body.
"Did you forget something?" She'd returned his jacket, although she did still have his handkerchief.
"I seem to have overlooked doing one mighty damn important thing for too long."
The weight of his words seeped through the telephone. Did he intend for there to be a deeper meaning? Could he be referencing their night together after all these months? That evening she'd thought finally he'd noticed her only to have him leave the next morning and pretend the whole night never happened.
She wished she could erase that night from her memory as easily as she'd forgotten the one prior. "At least one of us has good recall today."
"I'm not talking about today."
"I know." How silly to speak on the phone while they looked at each other, but with a swimming pool between them and three stories of height, they were safe from touching.
Could he be as affected by her as she was by him? The disturbing and tempting thought spread soothing warmth through her on an oh-so-cold day. "Maybe we shouldn't talk right now with everything so jumbled—"
"I'm sorry for the way I behaved that night and the next morning."
An apology months too late.
She wouldn't be drawn in again. She couldn't bring herself to believe he was total scum, but something was messed up in that head of his and she didn't want any part of the fallout again.
Best to shoo him away fast before she did something reckless like ask him to come back up and inside. "You're forgiven."
"I don't deserve your forgiveness, but thank you."
She didn't want his gratitude. She wasn't sure what she wanted—okay, she knew she'd always wanted Carson—but more than that she wanted to safeguard her heart so she wouldn't spend the next two decades mooning over a man as her mama had done.
"Thank you for your help today. I really need to go now. Goodbye."
She hung up fast, a clean break, as she should have done the first time Carson had smiled a hello at a squadron picnic years ago. Better yet, she turned away, back into her apartment. She wasn't a twenty-year-old hero worshipping the new guy on her father's crew anymore.
God, had she really had a thing for Carson for nearly three years?
Nikki angled through the half-open sliding door and dragged it closed, phone still clutched in her hand. Time to finally place that call to her mother. She punched in her parents' number and waited through ring, ring, ring.
"Hello?"
Chris. Her brother.
Her hands shook with adrenaline letdown along with the need to talk to somebody, and her brother was so the only person she could hang with right now. They'd forged a tight bond during all their family moves and their parents' marital troubles. She didn't care why Chris was back early from his New Year's road trip with college friends, but thank God he was.
She shouldn't drive anywhere because of the drug and nerves. Her brother could come over and pick her up. She couldn't stall telling her family any longer.
"Hey, runt. It's me. Could you come over? I've had a really crummy day."
* * *
His crappy day—hell, week—was finally about to end.
Carson gripped the stick on the C-17 and hurtled the craft through the sky closer to his home base. Only a couple more hours left until landing with the squadron representatives who'd flown out to Omaha for Owens's funeral.