When a gentleman expresses himself to a woman, he must do so with absolute sincerity.
PEARL CHAMBERS, The Gentlewoman’s Guide to Love and Courtship
Wyatt stood abruptly and tucked the letter back into his inside jacket pocket. He reached out for Abby’s hand, which she offered tentatively. The memory of how well her tiny hand fit into his resonated in his soul. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
He felt the fear in her eyes to his soul.
“I owe you an explanation.” He shouted to the owner, “Natalie, I’d like to take Abby for a ride to show her something. Will you vouch for me?”
“Abby, I’d trust Wyatt with my daughter,” Natalie shouted from across the room.
Abby collected her handbag. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“You said I made you nervous.” His mind reeled with how awkward he’d made this for her. He exited hastily, and she followed him out of the coffee shop. They turned north on Main Street. He led her to his SUV, which was parked along the curb, unlocked the door, and opened it for her. “My lady.”
“We’re going in your car?” She paused on the sidewalk as if he were driving some kind of windowless white van.
“I think that will help me describe the contents of the letter better. A visual aid, if you will.”
She stepped up into his SUV, and he startled at the sight of her there. How natural she looked inside his truck, as if she belonged there beside him. His eyes lingered on the big, black shoes she wore, and he wondered why such a tiny sprite of a woman wanted to dress like a dowager. Was there safety in her get-up? Did she think it would throw men off of her stunning brown eyes that melted him like warmed honey?
Once on their way, Abby looked out the window, and he struggled for a way to make the time less awkward.
They headed toward Sugarcreek Mountain, which in the summer season was used for mountain bike riding and other seasonal activities. As the town grew farther in the distance, she finally spoke. “Will I be back in time for work?”
“I promise,” he said.
He passed the Sugarcreek Ski Resort parking lot, and he watched her reaction. She rarely spoke, but he knew there was so much going on inside that pretty little head of hers. He wanted to be the man she shared her secrets with, the one who knew what ran beneath those still waters.
They came to the green river valley beyond the ski lodge, and he pulled off the road onto the gravel shoulder. He hopped out of the truck, rushed around to the passenger door, and opened it for her. He lifted his hand to her and helped her down, resisting the urge to grasp her waist to do so. “The gravel is loose here. Why don’t you take my hand?”
“I have my walking shoes on,” she said.
“Do it for me.” His arm tingled with electricity as he enveloped her hand. Her gaze rose up to meet his and held. She clasped his hand and time stopped. A sense of satisfaction filled him. He walked her to the lower path, gripping her tighter so she wouldn’t slip on the gravel. He pointed to the sky. “Do you see that?”
She shielded her eyes and looked up. He whisked out his sunglasses from his pocket and handed them to her. “Here,” he said.
She unfolded the glasses and put them on. “Is that a hang glider?”
He nodded.
“Who would do that? Latch themselves to a human-sized kite and trust the wind to carry them?”
“I’m hoping that you will.”
She pulled the aviators off and thrust them toward him. “Then you’ve got a lot more faith in me than I do. I’m ready to get back to town now, but I appreciate the personalized tour.”
“Wait a minute!” He grasped her hand as she turned to leave. “This isn’t some random tour of outer Smitten, Abby. It has to do with your father’s letter.”
She ignored his comment. “Have you done that before?” she asked, pointing at the sky.
“Hang glide? I do it all the time. I help your friend Molly out when she’s got too many tourists. It’s one of the hobbies I’m developing software for, so that people can practice the controls before they get out on the hill.”
“Isn’t that like the landing-the-plane app? I mean, it’s not really worth anything in the real world, is it?”
He was taken aback. “Actually, it’s very effective. It teaches people how to work the controls to deal with different situations that might come up so that it’s more instinctive when you get the actual controls in your hands. It’s like training your brain to react correctly in times of crisis. That’s how I started working on the app for vertigo. After Casey told me about your mother.”
Abby’s brow lifted and she changed the subject. “This is crazy.” She arched her neck and looked to the sky. “You realize I’m not going to fly on a kite.”
“It will be tandem. I’ll have all the controls. All you have to do is enjoy the rush and the view.”
The sharp winds danced and blew her hair, freeing some of it from the tight bun that she always wore. Even though she had on giant granny shoes and a skirt that seemed two sizes too big for her, she couldn’t hide her curvy figure or the brightness that lit her eyes from within. Her joyful spirit, in its quiet, reserved manner, had captivated him from the very first time he laid eyes upon her. He’d done his level best to garner an invitation from her dad to meet her, but Mr. Gray never made the offer. He’d wondered if her father disapproved of him.
Maybe that’s why he’d never pressed too hard . . . the fear of rejection was too great.
“I’m not an adventure tourist by any means,” Abby said. “I do plan to visit Hawaii someday. It’s been my dream. But getting airborne on a kite, not so much.”
“Hawaii. Really?” Wyatt asked. The thought of Abby in paradise sent shivers down his spine. He wanted to take Abby to Hawaii. The very thought of another man seeing her in a swimsuit and flip-flops instead of those giant shoes made him raw with jealousy.
“I hope so. The girls and I have talked about it. We read a book set there once, and I think it stirred all of our imaginations to think of a world without Vermont winters.”
He took solace in hearing her speak so easily. For the moment he didn’t fear her jumping in the truck and taking off, leaving him alone at the windy fields.
“Why would anyone do that?” she asked. “Jump off a mountain and risk life and limb just for an adrenaline rush? God only gives you one life. Why play with it?”
Wyatt smiled down at her. He took a loose tendril of her hair and pushed it behind her ear. She reached for it, but didn’t make any motion to step away from him.
“I mean, that’s crazy. One gust of wind and you’re dead. Who wants to go that way?” She gazed at the couple hovering overhead.
“They’re not going anywhere, trust me. They’re having the thrill of what it’s like to have wings. They’re flying.”
“That’s not flying. That’s falling with brakes. Brakes that can easily fail.”
He laughed. “Not all of us can be Buzz Lightyear. I assure you, it makes you feel absolutely alive—and when you land, you will still be absolutely alive. And you don’t jump off a mountain. You see that glider plane in front of them? That’s called a tug. It lifts you up.”
“It lifts you up. I’m staying put with my feet on the ground. There are other adventures to be had that don’t involve testing gravity. Is that why you brought me out here? To prove to me that I’m unworthy of a Captain Wentworth and his sense of adventure?”
“On the contrary. I brought you out here to prove the opposite.” Wyatt pulled the envelope out and handed it to her. “Read it,” he said.
She touched the script under her fingers, and a pool of tears formed in her eyes.
Abby turned so her back was against the wind. As she pulled out the contents of the envelope, he watched the tickets flutter to the ground. He swooped them up and gripped them while she read the letter. Her eyes devoured the words, which he now knew by heart.
Here are the tickets I promised. Abby will take warming up to the idea. Please let her know it’s for me. It’s for her own good, and once she’s broken out, it will offer me peace of mind. I need to know that she will not sacrifice her dreams to her duties.
God bless you.
Matthias Gray
“I hardly see how my dreams and hang gliding are related. Did you forge this?” But it was her father’s writing, and her father always had a reason for anything he did. “My father knows that I couldn’t even drive a stick shift. Do you expect me to believe he’d put me behind the controls of a flying machine?”
She knew it was exactly what her father meant. That was the problem.
Wyatt clasped the letter from her. “Your father wanted you to have adventures. He worried that having older parents stole that from you, and he knew he didn’t have the time left to offer it to you. He asked, and I considered the idea a privilege.”
She handed him the contents. “Maybe I was just meant to be boring. Did you ever think of that? Born that way?”
“Maybe hang gliding is too much—your father said that. He thought we could start slowly. Fishing.”
“Fishing? That doesn’t sound much more adrenaline-inducing than reading. How about if you fish and I’ll bring a book along?”
“Mountain climbing?”
“Fishing would be great,” she said. “I assure you, I never missed out on anything. I can’t believe Daddy would suggest I jump from space like Felix Baumgartner to right that wrong. It’s not even a wrong. It’s just the way life is.”
“That might be true, but it doesn’t address his desire for you to get outside of the box. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t honor his last wishes?”
“I like my box, and it really doesn’t concern you.”
He grimaced. “Except that it does, because we in your father’s men’s group made him a promise. But all right, fishing it is. I’m picking you up on Saturday morning at ten. We’re going to have an adventure.”
“My mother—”
“Will be fine for one morning. Your father said so.”
“It took you a year. My mother isn’t as healthy as she was then. Why now?”
He didn’t dare tell her the truth. If she thought he was nuts for hang gliding, she would have found him certifiable if he told her that someday she’d be his wife.