“What about your dad?”

  Heather smiled, even though the guys couldn’t see it. “My dad is just my dad. He talked to me about adoption when I brought it up, but he never brought it up. I’m his daughter in his eyes, end of story. My mom knew I needed more than that, so she gave it to me. My dad has always been there for me, but he’s not really into that whole ‘talking about your feelings’ stuff. Something happens, you deal with it, you move on. I think the way they handled it was perfect. My mom taught me how to deal with crap. My dad taught me that sometimes you just live your life and don’t sweat the small stuff.”

  “I wouldn’t call being adopted part of the small stuff.”

  “No, but it’s also not something that…” Crap, how to explain it to a psychiatrist? “Think of it in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy. It’s pretty far down on the list of importance when it comes to real life, right? It isn’t a small thing, but once I was adopted and part of the family, all those safety issues were taken care of. If you treat adoption in the past tense, so I was adopted and now I am a part of a family, then the issues only need to be as big as you make them.”

  “Some adoptees want to have their own kids sooner rather than later, because they want to have someone in their life who’s genetically related to them.”

  Heather wasn’t fooled by the change in topic. No doubt, Marcus would return to the other conversation later. She’d had too much experience with mental health practitioners to trust they’d put any of this to bed.

  But, even though he’d said it as a statement, rather than as a question, if she sidestepped the unasked question, he’d give the whole topic more weight, so she told him, “I won’t purposefully get pregnant unless I know what genetic minefields I might be passing on. I don’t know if I’m prone to heart disease, if any of the women in my family have breast cancer, if I should be worried about Alzheimer’s. I don’t know any of that. I can live with it okay when it comes to my own future, but I don’t want to give birth to a child and then discover I’m a carrier for something I’d never want to pass onto an innocent.”

  “So you want to find your biological family?”

  “No. I just won’t have a child unless I do.”

  “So you don’t plan to have kids?”

  “I didn’t say that either, Marcus.” She realized she’d snapped at him, so she carefully modulated her voice back to normal and tried to explain. “Look, it’s not all cut and dried, okay? If I ever decide I want to have kids, I’ll make those decisions then. Maybe my husband won’t be able to have kids, so it’ll be a moot point and we’ll adopt. Maybe he’ll want bio kids, in which case I’ll hire someone to find my bio family and get their medical histories. I can’t even see that bridge yet, and I don’t have to make any decisions until I’m ready to cross it.”

  “But if you decide to find them, you’ll do it as a business transaction? Hire someone to get the information for you, so you keep everything at arm’s length?”

  Heather stopped walking and spun to look at him, but just saw curiosity and not judgment, so she turned and continued down the trail. Kyle reached for her hand and then tugged her to a stop, and she turned back to them.

  Kyle wrapped his arms around her as if to protect her from Marcus’s questions, but that wasn’t right either. She met Marcus’s gaze and told him, “I have wonderful parents. My original family chose to not raise me, but I’m not angry with them over it. I mean, sure, I’ve had periods of being angry, but I’m old enough now to know that it wasn’t anything I did. My records say I came into the orphanage at less than a week old, based on the condition of my umbilical cord. One-week-old babies can’t piss someone off enough to make them angry, so it couldn’t have been me personally that they were rejecting. It was circumstances. Either my bio-mom was single and couldn’t raise a child, or my bio-parents were poor and couldn’t afford to raise a child, or... who knows? Whatever the circumstances, they made the decision to not raise me, and someone else did. There are times I think that, if I were to discover siblings, I might want to talk to them, meet them, but I don’t know how to speak Korean, and the odds are that they can’t speak English. There couldn’t be a relationship. There’s an entire cottage industry around people who search for birthparents, so if I ever decided to search, then yes, I’ll pay someone else to do it, and my primary reason will be to get a medical history. I wouldn’t mind hearing the circumstances of why they didn’t raise me, but it’s not important for me to find out.”

  She gently pulled herself from Kyle’s arms and turned to walk back down the trail while holding his hand. Luckily the trail was wide enough for two people, but they’d soon be back to single file.

  Marcus was quiet for several long moments before saying, “Knowing you as I do, I believe you’ve dealt with your beginnings and you’re telling me how you truly feel. However, I can understand the other professionals who’d doubt you could be in such a good place and not have shit to work through. Honestly, so many of the adoptees who have adoption issues have them because their parents curtailed any discussion of their feelings about being adopted. Or, they’ve gone the other direction and gone overboard and created issues. It sounds like your mom and dad found a nice balance. Kudos to both of them.”

  They’d reached a point in the trail where they could run the rest of the way, so Heather took off and assumed they would either follow her or use their words to tell her to stop.

  Miles later, when they made it back to Rainbow Lake, Heather scaled a dump-truck-sized boulder and sat on it. Kyle sat on a three-foot tall rock near the trail, and Marcus stood and looked up at her.

  She had the sense he was about to accuse her of climbing so high to get away from them, so she started talking again, to finish the conversation she’d run away from.

  “My mom became an expert on sensory issues, attachment issues, and adoption issues. She knows more than some of the experts out there. At different times in my life it’s annoyed the hell out of me, but all in all, I’m really glad we ended up together. I wish I could be more honest with her now — she thinks I can’t have a relationship that lasts very long because of some attachment issue somewhere she missed, and I’ve never been able to tell her it’s sensory stuff, not attachment related.”

  Heather looked around to make sure they were alone before adding, “My mom’s one big hang-up is that she’s a prude. Sex is simply not talked about. With kids who live with their bio parents, they can be sure their parents have done it at least once. I have my doubts about my parents. I mean, my dad, sure, I can see that — but my mom? No way can I see her letting loose enough to...”

  Heather jumped from her boulder to a smaller one, climbed down to a small shelf ten feet above the trail, grabbed a tree branch with her right hand, and used it to swing down off the boulder and land on a soft part of the trail. “If she knew I was saying this, she’d die of embarrassment.”

  “Did you ever use sex to try to rebel against her?”

  “Of course I did. I was a sensory-seeking teenager. Unfortunately, it never did anything for me. I thought it was gross, but I couldn’t talk to my mom about it, and my friends all thought sex was just the greatest thing. It took me a while to realize it was a sensory thing — that I didn’t enjoy sex because I couldn’t feel enough for it to do anything for me.”

  “And now you know that part of you, the sexual part, is in there, it just takes a little more to awaken it. Hopefully after you’ve read some of what I send you, things will make even more sense.”

  They cut up and joked with each other the rest of the way back to the car. Kyle opened the passenger door for her to get in, but Heather shook her head. “I rode up front on the way up the mountain, so I’ll ride in the back for the trip down.”

  “I don’t really want to see where we’re going. I’ll be much happier in the back. Trust me.”

  Heather grinned. “Then that settles it — you’re riding up front. It’s safe, there’s a guardrail, and you’re inside the vehicle. It’s not like you’re going to fall out of the front seat but not the back seat. Perfect opportunity to start getting your senses used to this kind of thing.”

  She urged him into the seat and got into the back as Marcus was starting the engine. “She’s got your number, Richardson. I’ll go slow. It’ll be fine.”

  Chapter 14

  Heather lined up with the runway of the New Orleans airport in the pouring rain. Her body was always calm and on alert during takeoffs and landings, and today was no different. Visibility sucked so she was landing purely by instruments, and it was only in the final few seconds she took in the rush of the ground coming up to meet the plane. The wheels touched at the perfect angle, and she brought them in for a beautiful landing on an ugly, stormy day.

  The contractors offered to let her come with them and tour the jobsite to see what they were building, but she declined, telling them she had some reading to get caught up on.

  She was flying their company plane today — a nice cushy ride she loved piloting, and the recliners in the passenger compartment would be the perfect spot to curl up with a good book while mother nature stormed all around her.

  Once they were all off the plane, Heather sent a quick text to Kyle letting him know she was on the ground safely, she went through the refueling process, parked, grabbed her snacks and something to drink, walked back to one of the passenger recliners, and settled in with one of the fiction books.

  Marcus had given her three books. Actual paper books. He’d said one was Fem Domme and male sub, one was Male Dom and fem sub, and one was a gay couple consisting of Male Dom and male sub. He felt she might better be able to define the emotions of a D/s relationship without confusing gender by reading the one with the gay couple. Still, she decided to read the Fem Domme one first, because she wanted to learn how to give Kyle what he needed.

  She finished the first book in just under two hours and sat to think about the characters. The man hadn’t been a weakling, and had actually been kind of a protector. The book had given her a sense of what motivated a submissive, and she felt she had a good idea of what Kyle needed.

  No, that wasn’t right. Marcus had said each submissive has different needs, so maybe she just had an idea of what this particular fictional submissive wanted. Needed. Whatever. She got up to stretch her legs, and grabbed her sandwich.

  After some deliberation, Heather reached for the fem sub book next. She had a harder time reading this one, since her mind wanted her to identify with the woman in the story, but she couldn’t relate. Something she’d noted in both books though, was that the Dom had spent time submitting, so they’d be a better Dom. The first book, the woman had subbed under a man as kind of an apprentice program. In the second book the man had bottomed under a woman, but hadn’t submitted to her.

  When she finished the second book she went straight to the third, and immediately became so engrossed in the story she didn’t note the passage of time. This novel was an emotional love story, with two people who had to make sacrifices in order to be with the person they loved. One person happened to be Dom, the other happened to be sub. In the end, the Dom had to trust in the sub just as much as the other way around. This book also had a theme of the Dom having to submit to someone, in this case he wanted to join an exclusive club and he had to submit to three men and be approved by them, as well as show knowledge of various safety issues, before he could be eligible to be a Master at this club.

  Heather put all three books back into the bag and stowed it up front. It was creeping up on three o’clock and her passengers might call or text her any minute to let her know they were on the way back, but she wanted to talk to someone. She couldn’t talk to Marcus or Kyle because they’d be with patients.

  But she could talk to Eric, couldn’t she? He’d make an excellent sounding board. She decided against calling him right then, since she didn’t know for sure she had enough time for a full conversation, but she’d call him later. She’d emailed him the info to send to his uncle the night before, and perhaps his reply would give her an excuse to call him.

  Her phone rang while she was wondering if she needed to submit to Marcus to learn how to dominate Kyle. It was her passengers, letting her know they were running later than expected but would be leaving for the airport soon.

  She sent a text message to Kyle while she was thinking of it, letting him know she was still on the ground in New Orleans and it may be thirty minutes to an hour later than planned before they got away from the airport. She had to remember how worried he could get when she arrived at the airport later than expected — it was his most annoying personality quirk, but since it also meant he cared about her, she was willing to indulge him.

  * * * *

  It was nearly six o’clock before Heather dealt with handing the plane back to the Chattanooga hangar staff and filed the necessary forms. She’d texted Kyle once she was safe on the ground so he wouldn’t worry, and he’d texted her back that he’d meet her somewhere for dinner, but she wasn’t up to seeing anyone.

  She called him when she was finally pulling out of the hangar’s parking area. “Would it be okay if I got a rain check on dinner? I’d really like to just go home, take a hot bath, and crash. I haven’t done much of anything today — flew to New Orleans, read some books, flew back — but I’m wiped.”

  He was quiet long enough the silence was a little uncomfortable, but finally said, “Of course. I had three surgeries this morning and then spent the afternoon doing in-office procedures, so I could probably use an evening of vegging out, too. If you want to talk later, you know how to reach me.”

  “What’s your schedule like tomorrow?”

  “No surgeries tomorrow, just office visits, and my last appointment is at four thirty, so I should be out of there by six. Would you like to come for dinner and stay the night tomorrow night?”

  “That sounds nice. We’ll both have to be up early Wednesday, so we’ll need to make it an early night.”

  “I love you, Babe. Get lots of rest tonight so you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

  “I love you, too. See you tomorrow evening.”

  She used the steering wheel button to end the call, and turned the music to something faster for the rest of the drive home.

  Could she submit to Marcus? She didn’t feel anything like the submissives in the books. She didn’t want to get on her knees for him.

  * * * *

  Heather was in bed eating potato chips and dip, checking her email, when her phone rang. The caller ID showed Marcus. He’d texted her several times while they were planning the tandem hang-glide, but had never called her.

  “Hello?”

  “You blew Kyle off tonight.”

  Shit, was she going to have to answer to two people now? She tried hard not to sigh out loud, or to sound defensive, “I was tired.”

  “Are you eating comfort food right now?”

  Great, and one of them was a shrink. “What do you want, Marcus?”

  “I want to know if you’re eating comfort food right now.”

  “I don’t need therapy just this moment, okay? I just need some time to process everything, and I need a good night’s sleep. I’m going to Kyle’s place tomorrow night, this should not be a big deal. He’s never called you before when I begged off dinner so I could go home and veg.”

  “We had quite a weekend, and you probably did a good bit of reading today. Would you like to talk about the things you read?”

  She resisted the urge to snap at him, and took a deep breath before calmly saying, “Yes, but not tonight. I need to process what I’ve read and decide how I feel about some of it, and talking right now will just further confuse the issue. I’m going to sit here and munch on my potato chips and dip, check my email, look a few things up on the internet, and then I’m going to crash. Thank you for being concerned. Really. I appreciate it. Goodbye.”

  He laughed. “I never have to wonder what you’re thinking — I like that about you. I’m here when you’re ready to talk, and I’m probably going to bug you every other day or so until you’re ready. Sweet dreams, my sexy little Spitfire.”

  “Thanks Marcus. Good night.”

  Chapter 15

  Kyle was sitting on his front steps looking sexy as sin in jeans, a tight t-shirt, and sunglasses, the breeze ruffling his hair around his face, when Heather pulled into his driveway the next evening. By the time she’d parked and unfastened her seatbelt, he was opening her door.

  She slid out and allowed him to fold her into his arms and hold her a few moments. Just as she was ready to take a step back, he released her, reached to hold her hand, and walked her to his car.

  “We’re going out to eat?”

  “How does tapas sound?”

  Her stomach growled and they both laughed. “You know I’m addicted to their blue cheese thingies.”

  “I’ll order you a half a dozen of them as we walk in the door.”

  Because his life’s purpose when he was away from work was to make her happy.