“Okay, wind, don’t play with my dress, please,” Foster spoke nonchalantly, like she was asking Sabine if she’d stop tapping her fingernails on the table.
Tate was wondering what she was up to when she lifted her hand from her dress and gracefully floated around so that she was facing him. Smiling a little shyly, Foster felt along his right arm until she found his invisible hand. She wove her fingers with his, and he breathed even easier as his right hand filled with warmth and became visible.
“Whew, that’s good. I can see both your hands now. How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Amazing. I think. Maybe a little light-headed, but better. A lot better with you up here, too.” Tate glanced down. “Uh, any idea what we should do now?”
“Well, maybe. It’s just a guess, but how about we think about drifting slowly, real slowly, back to the ground?” Foster said. “Like to the tempo of a lullaby, um…” she paused, thinking, then a quick grin turned up the corners of her lips. ‘Moon River’! Cora used to sing it to me at bedtime. Do you know it?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“No worries. It’s from one of Cora’s favorite old movies, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s a sweet, sleepy little song. I’ll sing. You just think about the melody and drifting slowly down with it.”
“Okay, I can do that, but don’t let go of my hands,” he said.
“I’ve got you. Promise.” She gave his hands a reassuring squeeze and drifted a little closer to him as she started singing a sweet, soft lullaby.
“Moon river, wider than a mile
I’m crossing you in style some day.”
Foster’s voice wrapped around him and the warm, gentle breeze picked up the melody of the lullaby, making the air glow in wisps of peach and tangerine. Tate knew he was supposed to be thinking about drifting with the song, but all he could think about was how close she was, and how beautiful she was, and how much he wanted to kiss Foster.
Kiss her again, that is.
And again.
And again.
Without conscious thought, Tate guided Foster into his arms, wrapping her in his embrace. He bent, holding her carefully, gently, like the precious gift she was, and he kissed her—long, and deep, and like he never, ever wanted to stop kissing her.
Their feet touched the ground together. They didn’t move apart. Foster’s arms lifted, wrapping around his shoulders, and she kissed him back with a passion that had his head feeling dizzy again.
“Oh. My. Freaking. God! We think they’re dead, and what are they doing? Making out!” Sabine sputtered as she and Finn rushed around the barn and almost ran into them.
Foster reluctantly broke the kiss. Her eyes smiled up at Tate and she whispered, “I think we need to train our minions better.”
19
TATE
The night was perfectly clear. Perfectly warm. Perfectly starry. Tate, Foster, Finn, and Sabine had taken up seats that were rapidly becoming “their” places around the Strawberry Fields fire pit while Foster stuck fat, cloudlike marshmallows through the ends of shish-kebab sticks. On a platter next to her were graham crackers and flat hunks of dark chocolate.
Foster sighed and held two sticks near the fire, turning them so they didn’t burn. Finally, she said to Sabine, “Okay, now ask your zillions of questions.”
“Jesus! It’s about time. So, let’s see if I have this straight, and I realize this is an oversimplification, but basically you and Tate serenaded a gigantic, descending tornado—”
“It’s called a funnel cloud until it touches the ground,” Tate interrupted Sabine.
Sabine narrowed her dark eyes at him. “Semantics are not important at this moment.”
“Be careful,” Finn said in an exaggerated whisper. “She’s getting the crazy eye. When she gets the crazy eye, you’re in trouble.”
“Finn, do you truly want to see crazy?” Sabine’s voice was entirely too innocent.
“Oh, no no no no. I do not. Been there. Don’t want to return.”
“Here, have a s’more,” Foster passed Sabine a warm, gooey, cracker mess on a paper plate.
“The peace offering of your people?” Sabine’s eyes sparkled mischievously.
“You have an excellent memory,” Foster said. “Dark chocolate makes everything better.”
“I hear ya on that,” Sabine agreed. She nibbled at one very hot edge before continuing. “Where was I? Oh, yeah. You serenaded a funnel cloud with a Sinatra song.”
“Not just any Sinatra song—“Luck Be a Lady,” Tate said.
“Is what song they sang important?” Finn asked.
“Actually, I’m starting to think it might be,” Sabine said. “So, you sang to it and the funnel cloud went back up with the rest of the wall clouds. But then you somehow stopped the rain and made all of the clouds disappear. I mean, look up there.” Sabine pointed at the star-dusted sky. “Not one cloud. Did you sing another song for that?”
“Nope, we just—uh…” Tate began and then his words trailed away as he turned to Foster. “How the hell did we do it?”
Foster lifted her slim shoulder. “I’m not sure, because we really just asked it to go. I said something about wishing the rain would go away—to Seattle, I think. I mean, after the air music stopped and the funnel cloud was gone, the rest was pretty easy.”
“Yeah, and then I pretended like I was wiping off a whiteboard while I asked the clouds to go away,” Tate said.
“No singing, so the song’s not what’s important. Do you think it’s the—what do you call it—air music that’s important?” Finn said, taking a s’more from Foster.
“I think the air music is something that happens when we’re doing the right thing,” Foster said.
“Yeah, once the music starts and we can see the air currents that’s when everything seems to fall into place.”
“Wait, you can hear music in the air?” Sabine asked, s’more paused halfway to her mouth.
“Yep, we can hear and see it,” Tate said.