“Eight or nine hours,” he repeated gently.
She stepped back and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek. “See to it.” She turned and ran up the steps and into the plane.
Lisa was sitting on the white leather couch in the main cabin and was staring out the window. She glanced at Jane as she came through the door. “Seth came out of the cockpit and said that he’d been given permission to take off and that we should just relax and try to rest.”
“Good for him.” Jane was gazing worriedly at her pale face and taut shoulders. “Did he happen to tell you how we’re going to do that? Because I haven’t got a clue right now.”
“Seth said it would be the best thing to do.” She looked out the window again. “It’s a long flight.”
“It’s going to seem even longer if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.” She hadn’t meant to jump right into jarring Lisa out of this icy lethargy, but she couldn’t stand it. Lisa was always brimming with vitality and passion. The sight of her like this made Jane ache to reach out to her. “What’s wrong with you? How can I help?”
“You can’t.” Lisa forced a smile. “I’m fine. Everything is fine. Seth is alive. You’re alive. What could be better?”
“You tell me,” Jane said grimly. “You look as if you’re going to shatter in a million pieces if you move the wrong way. Stop pretending and let me do something for you. Talk to me.”
“I … can’t.” She moistened her lips. “I want to do it. I think I care about you more than I do anybody but Seth. You’d try, but you couldn’t—I’m sorry, Jane.”
Jane could see that. There was desperation mixed in that fragile balance that was Lisa at this moment. Whatever was bottled up inside her, she wasn’t going to be able to release right now.
But that didn’t mean that she couldn’t give Lisa the knowledge that she was here for her.
“Scoot over.” She grabbed a fur coverlet from one of the chairs and sat down on the couch beside Lisa. “You don’t have to say anything.” She pulled her close and tucked the throw over both of them. “Try to nap. If you can’t do that, just relax. That will make Caleb happy, and that’s always the number-one game plan with you.”
Lisa was still stiff. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious? When I was a kid, I wasn’t easy for Eve. I’d grown up on the streets and in a dozen foster homes. Independent. Stubborn. Afraid to let even her get too close. But sometimes when things went really wrong for me, we’d curl up together on the porch swing, and that helped. So shut up, relax, and let me pass what I learned on to you.”
Lisa’s back was straight, unyielding, but she gingerly laid her head on Jane’s shoulder. “I’m not a kid.”
“I know. Neither you nor Caleb really had the chance to be. So make up for lost time.” She was gently stroking back the hair from Lisa’s temple. “Hey, use me. And I’ll use you. It was a bad day for me, too.”
“I know.” Lisa was gradually relaxing against Jane. “A day you would never have had if I hadn’t come into your life,” she whispered. “I hated it. And I knew I couldn’t ever let Santara hurt you.…”
EDINBURGH AIRPORT
Jane opened the cockpit door the moment Caleb turned off the engine after taxiing to the hangar.
“Go back there and be with Lisa,” she said curtly. “She needs you. And don’t tell me to wait or that it’s not the time. You make it the time.” She dropped down in the copilot’s seat. “I’ll wait here for you. I did my best and it was a good best. But nothing’s going to help until you tell her how to handle this.”
Caleb’s gaze was on her face. “I knew there would be a problem. Did she talk to you?”
“Lisa? I tried to get her to talk, but she wouldn’t do it.” She met his eyes. “But I figured it out pretty quickly. She wouldn’t talk to me because she knew I couldn’t understand. No one could understand but you.” She paused. “That was the first time she’d used her blood talent to kill anyone. She’s probably filled with all kinds of confusion and emotions. Even if Santara deserved to die, killing is a terrible thing. To kill as Lisa did must be traumatic.”
“She’s known it was coming for most of her life,” Caleb said. “She was welcoming it when she thought it would protect me.” He nodded. “But, yes, the first time isn’t easy to accept.” He got to his feet. “I’ll take care of it.”
“How do you take care of something like that?”
He smiled. “I talk to her about choices and forgiving herself and then I listen and let it all come out.” He shrugged. “And maybe I tell her about what I went through my first few times. It might help her.”
It was indicative of Caleb’s feeling for Lisa that he was willing to reveal that vulnerability. “It might help her more if you can convince her not to do it again.”
He turned and opened the cockpit door. “That’s included under choices.” He closed the door behind him.
She leaned back in the seat and tried to relax. It might be a long conversation, because Caleb would take his time and not cheat Lisa of one bit of the attention she needed from him.
Choices.
So much of her life since she had met Caleb had been connected with choices. Good choices. Bad choices. Sometimes no choice at all because it was safer. She had made a lot of those decisions over the years.
And Caleb had made choices, too. One of those choices had been to come after her and save her life when he knew that it could mean losing his own.
And there had been other choices that had saved both her and Eve and Michael. Easier to sidestep those choices and ignore them because the emotional impact would have been too great to ignore otherwise.
But after today, it was time to look at all those choices and make a few more of her own.…
*
“Better?” Jane asked quietly as she walked down the airplane steps with Lisa after Jock’s car drew up in front of the hangar.
Lisa nodded. “Much better.”
Jane smiled. “I should have known that Caleb would be able to ‘fix what ailed’ you as they say in Atlanta.”
“What a peculiar saying.” Lisa smiled faintly. “And Seth told me to fix myself and he’d always be around with a Band-Aid. I told him that you’d already given me one.”
“Not nearly as effective, I’m certain.”
Lisa stopped as they reached the bottom of the steps. “No, but healing, very healing.” She gave Jane an awkward hug. “It made me feel … wanted.”
“And you are.” Her arms tightened around Lisa and then she took a step back. “Go on. Eve’s going to want to know everything that happened. Joe has already talked to her, but the main thing she’s going to want to know is that he’s safe. Make sure you tell her that this final cleanup he’s doing isn’t dangerous.”
Lisa frowned. “You’re not coming with me?”
Jane shook her head. “I have a few things I need to talk to Caleb about. Tell Jock I’ll wait until Joe flies in and return to Gaelkar with him.”
Lisa nodded. “Whatever.” She moved toward Jock’s car. “Seth didn’t mention you weren’t going with me.” She smiled mischievously at Jane over her shoulder. “But I was talking all about me, wasn’t I? He probably couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I can never imagine anything more interesting than what I’m going through.” She picked up her pace as she saw Jock wave to her. “See you later, Jane.”
Jane lifted her hand and watched Lisa get into the car. Lisa was always making flip comments about herself and her own self-absorption, but she had tried to protect Jane today at the risk of her own life. So how did that relate? She was probably as complicated in her way as her brother.
What was she thinking? No one was as complicated as Caleb. She turned and went back up the steps of the plane.