Chapter 42

 

RENEE WAS QUIET as we pulled into the Blue Ash Airport in Cincinnati. She stared out of the window as Aunt Bess drove. I watched her taking in the light planes dotted around the hanger. I could feel her poignant mood. 

“Tell me,” I whispered to her.

Renee smiled a dreamy smile. “One of my earliest memories is of visiting dad on base. I assume we were living there but it was the first time I remembered seeing him around airplanes.”

I peered out the window, trying to imagine the mini-Renee seeing all the planes. I had no doubt it would have been love at first sight for her. “Did he fly them ’cause of the military?”

Aunt Bess pulled the car into the parking lot and Renee turned to me. “I think he’d flown them since he was a boy. I know my granddad was a commercial pilot.” 

“I gotta go find a ladies.” Aunt Bess shot a grin over her shoulder and left us alone.

Renee got out. Was she going too?

“My mother hates them,” she said, getting into the driver’s side. She ran a wipe over the wheel and started to press buttons on the console. Instead of the cool map and things that were on there, now it just looked like the dash in any car.

“Planes?” I got out, feeling my legs wobble and went to the passenger side. I pulled the things out of the dash, wondering when I’d learned I had to.

“Too noisy.” Renee shrugged, still running her hands over the dash. She had hardworking hands. Somehow they looked strong, agile like she could hang off a mountain with them or perform some kind of intricate detail. Her nails were neatly cut but with grazes from our scrape in the warehouse.

She met my eyes, raising her eyebrow.

I cleared my throat. Why’d I feel like I’d been up to something? I concentrated on wiping down the door handle, anything not to look at her. “Ain’t half as noisy as bugs.”

“You mean choppers?” Her voice held a curiosity.

My cheeks heated up. “Uh huh, the things you fly are just big bugs.” I wagged my finger. No way was I meeting her eyes. 

“Now you sound like Urs.” She poked me in the shoulder and got out. “Next you’ll be competing about which is better, four wheels or two.”

I followed her around to the trunk. She had a case that looked like she travelled a lot, stickers and stuff all covering the sides. If I didn’t know there were guns, vests, and all manner of things inside, I’d think it was.

“Competing is your thing with her.” She cocked her head at me and I shrugged. “I guess there’s some things between you that ain’t for me to tread on.”

“Tread?” Renee raised an eyebrow as I took the case off her.

I did the heavy lifting. “Yeah.”

We headed toward some small building to the left of the hanger. Aunt Bess stretched out her back and bent over to examine some flower growing at the side of the wall. Was she gonna take a picture of it?

“You know . . . sharing . . . well . . . the sharing stuff,” I mumbled. I didn’t get why she just couldn’t tell me.

Renee stopped. 

I tensed.

Looked around for the danger. “What?”

I gripped the flaps on the case. Ready to wrench it open. Ready to run. Had they followed us here?

“You think Urs and I are . . . ?” She put her hands on her hips. Her frown wrinkled up her nose. “How and . . . how . . . did you get that idea?”

What? I glanced around. No pursuers?

Renee glared at me.

I breathed a sigh of relief, peeling my white fingertips off the clasp of the suitcase. “You said you loved her.”

“I do.” She stared up at me. Fiery, stormy gray.

I didn’t get how I’d irritated her so much. I rubbed the back of my neck. “She’s beautiful and you’re beautiful.” Guess I sucked at being supportive. “You’re both awesome and, well . . . awesome.”

Renee’s frown smoothed and her eyes twinkled. She smiled up at me. Her shoulders relaxed and she sighed. “I got defensive again, didn’t I?”

“Kinda.” Defensive? I thought she was gonna hurl me over her shoulder for a second.

“Urs is like a sister to me. I love her. I’m not in love with her. Sorry I reacted that way.” She rubbed my biceps. I glanced at Aunt Bess who looked like she was taking a picture of the flower with her fingers now. Guess I wasn’t the only crazy Lorelei.  

Renee started to turn toward the office.

I let out a growl.

She turned back around, raising her eyebrows.

She knew full well what she was doing. Man, I wanted to shake her sometimes. “So tell me already, will you?”

She cocked her head—bemused, wrinkled up mouth, twinkle in her eyes. “Why?”

I slammed the case on the ground and pulled myself up to glare down at her. “’Cause, you’re gonna go live some place with them.” I wagged my finger at her. “If you don’t tell me nothin’, how can I visit?”

“What makes you think you’ll need to visit?” She bumped my arm with her shoulder, a teasing twinkle in her eyes. “Maybe I have a thing for Mrs. Stein?”

I knew my face twisted all shapes as Renee burst into laughter.

“No?”

“I’d drive you to Serenity myself.” I shuddered a few times, then picked up the case, headed to the door, and hit the buzzer. “I’ll miss you is all and . . . well . . . I don’t know how I can figure that.”

I made no sense to myself. I was pretty sure Renee would be lost. I was crazy. She knew I was crazy. Aunt Bess looked like she was sketching the flower on her palm now. Crazy and in good company. 

“What if I did stay in Oppidum, theoretically, when we’ve retired and I’m bearing more natural highlights than I am now?” She met my eyes, glitter filled hers.

“Think I’d miss you even if you weren’t in the cabin.” I shrugged, not knowing why the whole situation gave me stomach ache. Renee was entitled to happiness wasn’t she? “I don’t get it.”

“I’m starting to.” Renee smiled at me.

My cheeks were getting warmer and I didn’t know why so I pressed the buzzer again. “You are?” I was glad one of us was. “’Cause to me it sounds kinda weird.”

Renee held my gaze, soft, gentle. “You think it’s weird to want to live with me?”

Uh oh.

She’d sock me one if I got this wrong. “No, I think it’s weird that . . . well . . . I’d miss you so much. I mean, I love Frankenfrei, I love my parents but I ain’t fixing to have them under my feet.”

“Makes you feel awkward?” Renee stopped me from pressing the buzzer again and held my hand in hers. “Makes you feel a bit . . . different?”

Where was the guy? Why was he taking so long and why did my cheeks and neck feel like they were on fire? I weren’t looking at her, I weren’t gonna get sucked into her eyes. Nope. It was some shrink thing. It was some condition—to add to institutionalized. Maybe it was change? Lots of folks didn’t like change. 

“Aeron?”

I sighed. “Yeah, makes me feel like I got a screw loose.”

Renee leaned up and kissed me on the cheek.

“What was that for?” I stared at her. How’d me being crazy make her so happy that her aura was shooting sparks all over the place?  

She beamed up at me with a smile so warm that she gave me an energy hug with it. “Maybe Nan has it right.”

A guy appeared the other side of the door, fumbling with his keys.

“She did?” Nan was normally right about things. I got that. She was probably right about whatever Renee was talking about. “Why, what she say?”

Renee smiled up at me as the guy fiddled with the locks. Her smile warm, her eyes gentle, her aura firing off its lightshow. “There’s hope for you yet, Lorelei, there’s hope for you yet.”