Heart's Refuge by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman [Buchman, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

Chapter 8

Is that what she’d always done? Run away? Maybe it was. Unable to face his choices, his hidden sorrow, his eyes that hid so few of his thoughts now that she knew how to look.

Yet she had kept coming back. Now she truly knew why.

Whatever Brody had done, he’d done with a single reason and a single passion more pure than she’d imagined possible. Certainly better than any of her own motivations had ever been.

“I was thinking about the Night Stalkers.”

“I like my job just fine. Same answer I gave you after flight school, Karina. Lift Rescue,” and again she saw the sadness in his eyes. But it was different from the sadness she’d seen in the Ariane’s capsule. That had been about the Lifters who hadn’t survived their dream; this was personal.

“I know that, Brody. You’d be less than who you are if you did anything other than LR. I get that now.”

“So, why are you thinking about the Night Stalkers? If you’re suddenly talking about leaving them, I’ll never speak to you again.”

“You’re not getting off that easy.” But actually, she had thought about that for a big piece of the flight back. What it would be like to fly with Brody? There was an immediacy to what he did. He saw the deaths, but she could still see the damp places where the men and women who he had saved had wept their thanks onto his shoulders. Lives he had changed, including his own.

“Then…what?”

“I thought about the similarities of what we do. There are a lot of soldiers who are alive because of what I do.”

“Damn glad you see that.”

“I’m not stupid, Brody.”

“Nope,” he still leaned back against the Mod18. No qualifications, just simple agreement. As if he simply knew things about her that she sometimes doubted so deeply.

“So, here’s the deal.”

“There’s a deal? Like I said, if you’re thinking of leaving the—”

“Shut up, Brody.”

He harrumphed and shut up.

“The deal is: you ever need a backup pilot, I’m your first call. I’m going to talk to my commanders and make sure they know. I’m also going to take a couple weeks leave until Felice’s arm heals. After that, unless I’m on an active mission, I’m your Number One call. Clear?”

He studied her for a long moment, then hit her with one of those big smiles of his.

She didn’t know how a man who’d seen so much could smile like that, but she’d like to find out. Very much.

“That’s huge, Karina. Do you have any idea how huge?” In his excitement, he grabbed her hands, squeezed, let them go, grabbed them again. “You were always the best pilot I ever flew with. And I can’t afford a permanent backup. Every time any of my team gets so much as a stubbed toe I break out in a cold sweat. It’s such important work. I can’t let anything—”

“I know,” she freed a hand and rested it on his arm to stop him. “I know.” She liked the way it felt to touch him.

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