“You’ve got that right.” His jaw flexed so hard he might well crack a crown. “In case you haven’t noticed, I live in a one-room garage apartment.”
“Not for much longer hopefully.” Wait. She wanted to call back those words. She hadn’t meant them the way they sounded but backpedaling would probably only make it sound worse.
He cocked a brow. “Are you booting me out already?”
“You know better. I only mean I hope we catch the creep soon.” Where would Rick go then? Where would their relationship go?
An emotionally confusing question, especially when she still had the smell of him swirling through her senses. Why did she have to make this complicated? She really had intended this day to be special, but then he’d gone all brooding and silent on her. The confined space compacted the emotions to smothering levels until she had to speak or suffocate.
“There was a time I would have given anything to have a child.”
“Jesus, woman,” he blurted, “you don’t pull any punches, either.”
“Why should I? You’re a strong man.”
“Thanks.” Some of the anger smoothed from his angular features. “I think.”
She stared and realized what was niggling at her. His hands moved in synch with hers. “You have your civilian pilot’s license, don’t you?”
He jolted. Not hugely, just a hint, but enough for her to notice. She thought at first he wouldn’t answer. Then finally he nodded slightly. “I did, at one point. But it’s not current anymore since I haven’t been able to log airtime with an instructor this past year.”
“I’m an instructor. You can take the controls and it would be legal.”
His hands flexed. His gaze so hungry no way could she miss how much he wanted this even if he didn’t speak.
Why wouldn’t he go for it? She wouldn’t know if she didn’t ask. “Is it that hard for you to have anything to do with the past?”
“Don’t overanalyze me.” His voice, a low rumble invited no argument.
Nola stared out at the late-afternoon sky and found none of the beauty she’d enjoyed just minutes before, instead seeing more of a flattened meringue look. “I’m sorry if this wasn’t a good idea after all.”
“Ah hell.” He exhaled the curse. “Women have to make everything so complicated.”
He placed his hands on the yoke in front of him, feet on the rudders and she felt control slip away from her as he took over. And lookee there, those clouds poofed right back up, all pretty again.
Grinning, she lifted her hands away, slid her feet off and the plane continued on its path without so much as a bobble. His jaw flexed.
He didn’t look at all happy or peaceful. He looked more like the Biblical Jacob wrestling with his destiny.
The answers seemed so simple to her. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that you’re hurting your daughter with this ‘wait until I’m well’ attitude of yours.”
“Back off, Nola,” he barked without looking away from the horizon. “She’s my daughter. You don’t even know her.”
“No, I don’t.” She lounged back in her seat without once taking her eyes off the controls. “But I have a brain. I was a teenage girl.”
“So you have a few father issues of your own?”
He was far too perceptive for his own good. This flight was supposed to have been about giving him a moment of peace and here they were jabbing at each other. Maybe the flight and the call—and making love—had left them both feeling too raw for reasonable discussion.
“Okay, yeah, I’m strong enough to own up. My father walked and ignored me in lieu of his new bachelor footloose world. I was a messy loose end from his old life. He figured it was better to let me move on with my mom and her new husband, since it was a traditional family setup. Nobody ever thought to ask me. Now they’re all dead and I don’t have the chance to be with any of them.”
Much as she loved both her parents, she resented being shuffled around like a playing piece during her childhood. Could she help it if she felt a tug of empathy for Rick’s daughter?
“Nola, I’m sorry you’ve lost your family—” he offered her a nod of sympathy “—but one person can’t compare their life to another’s.”
Fair enough. She searched her mind for other possibilities for reasons for his distance. “Is your daughter some mega athlete?”
A grin tensed his jaw. “Hardly. Throw a ball her way and she puts her hands in front of her face and screams. She’s into theater and dance. She has an amazing voice. She’s more of a romantic.”