She rested her forehead against his temple. “Yes, you did.” She lifted her head and freed an arm from his hold, draping it across his shoulder and stroking the back of his neck. His left foot began to bounce just like it had that first night they’d met.
“I will be all right on the plane. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m touched by a Goddess. Right here,” she said, pointing to the small circle of waxy skin at the hollow of her throat.
“Um hum, and just how does that kind of thing happen?” he asked, barely opening his eyes as he leaned in to kiss the mark.
Stormy looked over at the line of people boarding the plane; she had time to help him understand.
“When my mom was eight-and-a-half-months pregnant with me she had a dream, woke up in the middle of the night knowing she had to get home, herchildhoodhome, to have me. Daddy thought she’d lost her mind because she tore through the house pulling things from closets and drawers to put in her suitcase. Daddy said when he tried to stop her, she threw his department-issued gun at his head and he knew she was serious—Ma was afraid of guns back then. Anyway, Daddy took my brother across town to stay with my aunt, and when he got back home he tried to book a flight out but no airline would allow my mom on the plane two weeks from her due date. So, they packed up the El Dorado and headed down to Tarahouchy, Louisiana.”
“Nowthat’sa country-assed name.”
He didn’t know the half of it. Her father’s family had lived in the Bay Area for three generations; he was urban through and through. But her mother’s people…
“Daddy says the moment they crossed the border into Louisiana the weather turned fromcan’t-catch-a-cloud-in-the -skytoArmageddon-in-the-form-of-a-storm. For an hour there was nonstop thunder and lightning, wind so strong they felt the car pushed across the flooding road. Ma didn’t even know she was in labor until she felt a strong urge to push. Her water had broken sometime during the storm, but it was so humid and she was so afraid, she didn’t even notice.”
Lucas’s knee had calmed and there were only a handful of people left to be checked in.
“We should head to the gate.”
He held her tighter, watching her intently. “Go ’head on, woman, what happens next?”
She smiled.
“Daddy went into cop mode—his focus goes laser sharp and he’s all action. He laid my mom down on the front seat and they brought me into the world. My dad swears on a stack of Bibles, my Ma on the souls of her ancestors, that the moment I inhaled my first breath the storm dissipated, and they say my first cry sounded exactly like the wail of the storm. My mother believes the storm breathed life into me, so they named me Stormy Sinclair Redmond.”
Lucas eased her off his lap, grabbed her purse and hand, and walked them toward the gate.
“Just so I’m clear, what you’re telling me is that you were born some kind of weather witch?”
“No, what I’m trying to tell you is that I have no problem flying, I love being in the sky, even when it’s turbulent, but others, maybe not so much.”
They boarded and took their seats immediately after entering the plane. It was the first time Stormy had ever sat in first class. Sitting next to the window seat, she sank into its buttery softness, practically feeling privilege drape over her shoulders like a mantle. “Order me a double shot of bourbon, will you? It usually makes the flight easier.”
He shook his head. “Nope, I want to experience your not-afraid-to-fly terror just so I can tease you later, and when I’ve got my ammunition, I’ll get you that bourbon.”
He was so condescending. She smirked and shrugged.
“Buckle up,” he said, pointing her at her seat belt.
“Yeah, you do the same. I’m anticipating a bumpy ride.”
He looked around her and peered at the sky through the small window.
“Blue skies as far as the eye can see.” He smiled.
Big Country gripped both armrests as his stomach dropped toward his clenched asshole. The plane had to have plummeted a good twenty feet before it leveled off, swaying sickly toward the left and overcorrecting toward the right. The storm had gathered slowly as they’d ascended, clear skies darkening, gray clouds hemorrhaging water. They couldn’t seem to escape the effects of the storm despite the steady climb.
The plane dropped again, people screamed, a baby cried.
Like everyone except for the woman beside him, Big Country had his oxygen mask perched over his mouth and nose.
Stormy turned to him, her brown eyes wild and radiant.
“It’s like riding a wave of energy.”
