And he had the money.

  “It was horrifying to her, being so far away when she heard about what happened. She was quite beside herself, I can tell you—”

  He nodded. “I know. And...thanks for the dinners. They will be very appreciated.” He meant every word. The sisters could cook almost as well as his mother.

  Glancing toward the dining room, through which Bunny had disappeared, Birdie asked, “Did your mother tell you I have a plan to get Bunny back with Stew Redmond?”

  She hadn’t, in fact, but Greg knew about the saga of Bunny’s relationship, from the surprising reveal that Bunny had an online boyfriend to the amazement everyone had felt when Bunny had left town to go traveling with him in an RV and all the way to the shocking return of Bunny not so long ago, noticeably without her beau. The whole thing had everyone riveted, like it was a soap opera.

  Of course, the whole town loved Bunny and Birdie—they were Spring Forest institutions and two of the kindest women in the world—but the fact that they were such institutions and that they’d been fully focused on running the Furever Paws Animal Rescue together for so many years meant that no one had expected anything about their lives to ever change. Bunny’s romance with Stew had been entirely unexpected, just like Birdie’s own romance with the town’s retired vet, Doc J. Everyone was rooting for both of those relationships to succeed.

  Which was why everyone was so sad that both relationships were currently on the rocks. Bunny had returned without Stew, and Birdie and Doc J. had had a fight that ended in the doctor heading off to Florida alone when Birdie refused to leave with him. Greg hoped they were able to work things out. And he really, really hoped that they were able to do that while leaving him out of it. He had no desire to poke around in anyone’s love life. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, after all.

  Keeping his face serious as Birdie repeated her question, Greg shook his head a second time.

  “Well, I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to make it work, but—” Birdie said, looking excited. But before she could divulge more, Bunny was back.

  And when Birdie excused herself to the facilities, Bunny gave him her version of questions, checking up on him, wanting to know how scared he’d been, up in the storm, when he’d known his plane was going down. And how he’d been sleeping.

  She was a little harder to fend off, claiming she could clearly see that he hadn’t been sleeping much. He had no argument for that since it was true. He’d actively avoided sleep as a way to stave off the nightmares that were attacking in full force, but he managed to distract her with praises for her liniment, letting her know how much he’d been using it over the past few days.

  She preened a bit. And then, glancing toward the dining room, said, “Did your mom tell you I have a plan to get Birdie and Doc J. back together?”

  He gave her the truth. “She didn’t.”

  “Well, I’m going to...” Her words dropped off abruptly as sounds of Birdie’s return reached them.

  He thought about offering to make coffee—something his mother had always done when she’d had ladies over—but his phone rang before he got the words out.

  Wendy.

  He hadn’t heard from her since he’d left her home early Saturday morning.

  Glancing from the screen back to the sisters, as he sent Wendy’s call to voice mail, he told them that the call was business and that he needed to get back to work.

  Thanks to his inheritance, he didn’t have a regular day job, but on top of watching over his own investments, he managed a few nonprofits, which required hours in his home office pretty much every day. And while Pets for Vets and Pilots for Paws weren’t charities, or programs he managed, he also treated his volunteer time with both as seriously as he would any job.

  It took another ten minutes to get the ladies out the front door—they each mentioned, again, that he really should have a pet or two—and he, again, explained that his flying often took him away for long hours, sometimes overnight, which wouldn’t be fair to any pet. Eventually, they said their goodbyes.

  Their car wasn’t even out of sight before he was listening to Wendy’s voice mail. “Hey, it’s Wendy Alvarez. Call me.”

  The brief message told him nothing. Was her call about business? Pleasure?

  Did he want to know?

  Turned out, he did.

  He called her while he waited at his hangar for his plane to arrive. The aircraft’s safe-flight inspection was due to begin that afternoon, with a three-man crew, and he was eager to have the twenty-to fifty-hour process done. To know that he was free to fly once more.

  “How are you?” she asked, right off.

  “Fine.”

  “No residual effects from Friday night?”

  “None.” An honest answer. The intensity of his debilitating nightmares the past night or two had probably been partially triggered by the near crash he’d had, but the storm-induced emergency landing had certainly not been the cause of them.

  He’d had one the night before he’d gone up on Friday, too.

  “I’m not sure I believe you, but I’m glad to hear it,” she said, a note of warmth translating over the wire to him. Whether she’d actually sent it or he’d heard it in there of his own accord, he didn’t know.

  “I have a potential flight coming up, Wednesday morning,” she said, “and fully understand if you’re not ready yet, but I didn’t want to call anyone else without checking with you first.”

  This was normal protocol—her giving him the first shot at any flights Pets for Vets needed. Him working for free could be one of the reasons she did so, but he liked to think it was more than that. Regardless, he’d been grateful for the flight hours he logged helping her out. It was much more satisfying accomplishing something good and useful for another veteran than just going up and flying aimlessly to get his hours in. Plus, he liked being someone she could turn to.

  He liked being needed.

  Contributing.

  And...she had a flight for Wednesday morning. He thought about going, expecting to feel the usual rush of happiness at the thought of being up in the air.

  But instead, fear suffused his entire system. Weakening him. Bringing out an instant sweat, escalating his pulse. He felt nauseous, his heart pounding against his chest. It was like he was suffocating. He could barely hold the phone steady to his ear.

  Then he took a breath. And another. Focused on relaxing his gut muscles, thought about Wendy’s green eyes sparkling up at him in the sunshine.

  And said, “I’m not sure the plane’s going to be ready.”

  She was understanding about it, immediately offered to find someone else to do the flight and ended the call on a friendly note.

  Greg heard her Talk to you soon even after she’d clicked off. Dropped his hand and stared out at nothingness.

  The thought of going up again, being up there...had brought a wave of panic so deep he’d almost passed out.

  What the hell?

  What the hell?

  He was afraid to fly?

  He bent at the waist as a new wave of pain hit his stomach, arms hanging down to the ground, and then squatted, before falling to his butt on the cement.

  If he lost flying...

  The one thing that made him forget the pain of living while other men had died...being up in the sky was the only time he still felt fully alive...

  And that was gone?

  Snatched away at the hands of a storm?

  A different kind of storm than the barrage of gunfire that had come out of nowhere and taken out a quarter of his unit. Left some half-alive. Robbed him of his plan for a lifelong military career.

  Was that life, then? A series of random storms that slowly took away parts of you until there was nothing left?

  Emotion tightened the back of his throat.

  Feeling desperate, he forced himself to think again about going up. Maybe it was a fluke, maybe he could push past the fear if he focused hard on what he loved. He imagined the rush as he gathered speed on the runway...and then he started to sweat, to shake.

  Took a deep breath. Shuddered.

  And buried his head between his knees.

  Chapter Five

  The second she hung up the phone, Wendy wanted to call Greg back. Something wasn’t right with him. The certainty of that was so strong within her it scared her.

  Going through the mail that had just been delivered through the slot in her office door, she tried to dismiss the sensation. While she’d known Greg for years, it wasn’t like they’d ever done more than meet at airstrips for dog pass-offs. Why would she suddenly think that she had some kind of inside track to his deeper self? That kind of insight into him was something she just didn’t have—nor was it something she wanted. Because even if the universe had taken some bizarre turn on her, she couldn’t act upon any twinges that would lead her to a deeper relationship.

  She just wasn’t that woman.

  Didn’t want to be.

  While she liked sex, she didn’t want the emotional entanglement that inevitably wormed its way into the process. She wasn’t built that way. The situation wouldn’t end well.

  Friendship was fine, but getting truly attached to and invested in someone would be setting herself up to get hurt. She’d learned that lesson from all the members of her family—from her brother and mother who were now gone, and from her father who seemed intent on running as far away from her as he could get.

  And yet, after warring with herself for a day and a half, on Tuesday evening she parked her SUV at home, walked a quarter of a mile to the small pub she frequented often enough to know the waitstaff, grabbed the private corner table, ordered a beer and...called Greg.

  She’d already finalized plans to pick up the golden retriever from a foster in the morning and deliver it to another pilot in Raleigh for a flight up north to the vet waiting for it. She didn’t have a flight to offer Greg, and yet there she was, waiting for him to pick up.

  Giving up on him after the sixth ring, she was moving her thumb to end the call rather than leave a voice mail, when he picked up.

  “Hello.” Just that. No acknowledgment that it was her on the line, though his caller ID would have told him so.

  And there she sat, only one sip of beer down, with no idea what to say to him.

  “Hi,” she offered, for lack of anything else to say. He didn’t reply, clearly waiting for her to explain why she had called.

  “How are you?” she finally asked.

  “Fine.”

  She was really starting to hate that word.

  “And the plane?”

  “Passed inspection.”

  Disappointment coursed through her. “So you could have taken tomorrow’s flight.”

  “Yeah.”

  There didn’t seem to be any regret in his tone that he’d missed out. So completely contrary to Greg’s normal eagerness to take on every flight she had to give him.

  Had she turned him off, commandeering him to stay with her? Crossed a line?

  “Are you blowing me off?”

  It might be for the best for her, personally.

  But for the rescue dogs who found purpose and homes? The vets who benefited from them?

  “No.”

  “Then, what?” They hadn’t even established that there was a what.

  “I might be getting in my own way.”

  She about dropped the phone. Paid attention to the bottle of beer she raised to her lips, holding it carefully as she drank.

  Greg was admitting something personal to her. Giving her a chance to be something for him. Part of her—the part that studiously avoided intimacy—wanted to run away from it. But another part of her—the voice inside that had made her call him—wanted to help. She’d been right. Something wasn’t right with him. Feeling certain that reaching out like this was very rare for him, she mostly wanted to be part of his support system.

  It was Michael all over again—and so much more.

  She couldn’t mess it up.

  “How so?”

  “Coming down the other night...I panicked for a second.”

  The world stopped in place. Just held there while she processed the fact that Greg Martin had just shared a personal confidence with her.

  And she wanted more.

  “Only for a second?” she asked, somewhat cautiously. She wanted to encourage him to keep talking but not make it seem like she was steering the conversation or looking for a particular answer from him. This had to be hard for him to talk about. Her job, as she saw it, was to be quietly supportive and nonjudgmental.

  “Yeah.” He’d taken so long to answer, she’d been afraid he’d already clammed up on her.

  “Okay.” If he’d wanted her to be shocked, he was going to be disappointed.

  “I got it together after that first second. Focused.”

  “And brought the plane down expertly.” It was a fact. She felt like she should put it out there, remind him of his strength after he’d admitted a momentary weakness.

  “That time. But what about the next?” He’d nearly whispered the question, as though he couldn’t bear to hear it uttered.

  “What about it?”

  “I might be having difficulties with that.”

  Oh.

  Oh, God.

  Michael had gone away strong and sure. And come home afraid to stand in front of a window. Any window. He’d taken paths around them. Ducked beneath them.

  She’d even seen him crawling beside the window seat in the dining room once. When he’d glanced up and realized she’d seen him, he’d looked so embarrassed.

  Tough thing for a fourteen-year-old girl to witness in the big brother she idolized. She hadn’t thought less of him for having new phobias. But it had broken her heart to see his shame, to know that he’d seen his behavior as evidence of a humiliating weakness rather than proof of a wound that needed time and care to heal. She’d wanted to help. Just hadn’t known how.

  She knew a lot more at thirty-three than she had at fourteen.

  “I’m listening if you want to talk about them,” she chose her words carefully, like walking on glass, afraid that Greg would clam up again.

  It would be a lot harder to help him if she didn’t know what they were dealing with.

  “I might have had a moment or two of unease in the hangar.”

  Her heart dropped. He’d had a potentially fatal experience, after all. “Unease?” She wanted to be there with him. To understand. To help. To find out that she was imagining things to be worse than they were...

  “I got cold sweats in the cockpit.” The drop of his tone didn’t hit with nearly as much impact as what she thought he was telling her.

  “You went up?!” That had to be good. He was alive. Meant he’d made it back down, too.

  “No.”

  Oh. A vision of him sitting in his plane in the hangar, struggling, made it impossible for her to swallow the sip of beer she’d just taken.

  “I’m scared to go back up.”

  Swallowing the beer, feeling it go down like a big, painful lump, she wanted to spill platitudes and encouragement all over him. And knew she couldn’t. They weren’t what he needed.

  Oh, God. What if he couldn’t fly? She wouldn’t blame him at all. But...he loved being in the air. More than anything else she’d ever heard him talk about.

  “Just for the moment,” he added, talking faster with every word. “I’ll get through it.”

  Denial wasn’t an option—but pushing him might make him change the subject. Every word could be critical. “How do you know that?”

  “Because no matter how much I sweat, I’m going back up. I’d rather die than be grounded. And no way I can fly while putting others in danger, so...I’ll get through it. This is just another challenge. I’ve had others. And just like with those, I’ll face it. And I’ll beat it.”

  She believed him. Except that...he’d turned down a job.

  “Did you know yesterday that your plane would probably be ready for tomorrow?”

  “There was a good chance. Not a certainty.”

  “But you said no to the flight.”

  “I couldn’t leave you in the lurch. In the event something didn’t pass inspection.” The answer came out smooth and automatic—almost like he’d practiced it. Or maybe this was the excuse he’d been giving himself to justify his actions?

  He could have rented a plane. He’d done so once before, when a preflight check had shown a small repair needed on his own aircraft.

  “I have a suggestion.”

  “I don’t need any. I’ve got this. Seriously.”

  So why had he told her about it?

  “You haven’t heard my suggestion.”

  Taking his lack of response for acquiescence, she said, “You might try one of the Pets for Vets dogs. One that’s trained to deal with anxiety.”

  “I’m trained to deal with it. And I did just fine.” His tone bristled.

  She’d pissed him off. Or at least raised a strong response in him.

  “I’m only saying...it could help.”

  “I’m not into being dependent on others,” he told her, and she had a feeling the message was directed at her as much as at the as-yet imaginary dog she’d suggested. “I help myself.”

  “I help myself, too, but no one can go through life totally alone.”

  “You seem to do a pretty good job of it.”

  The jab was low. Hit hard enough that she felt it.

  “I try,” she said, heading back to her corner to reassess.

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  But...she’d called him. He’d answered. Told her he was struggling.

  “So where does that leave us?” she asked, viewing the trees and the neighborhood next to the pub. Taking a sip from her half-empty bottle of beer.