The room had been booked in Dash’s name, his real name, the one on his platinum card. That could be advantageous if anyone were to canvass local hotels in search of a Rye Mallett or Brynn O’Neal.

It was a chain hotel near the airport. Rye had to show the checkin clerk his photo ID, but the harried young man gave it only a cursory glance, which he wasn’t likely to remember. He was overrun with demanding complainers who had set up camp in his lobby while waiting for either a room to become available or for the airlines to put them on a flight, whichever came first.

Rye wouldn’t have been all that surprised if Brynn had pulled a vanishing act while he was checking in, but she was waiting for him at the elevator bank as agreed. They rode up in silence and got out on the seventh floor, which was blessedly quiet compared to the mob scene in the lobby.

They went into the room. Rye flipped the bolt. She switched on a lamp on the nightstand, then faced him, bristling. “Was it really necessary to throw my phone away?”

On the drive from downtown, he had asked to see her phone. Without asking why, she’d handed it over. Then before she could stop him, he removed the SIM card and tossed the phone out the car window.

“You want Goliad and Timmy coming after you again?”

“Their company might be preferable.”

He tapped his chest. “I’m the one who has the right to be angry. You don’t get to be mad till I’m finished.”

“Then get on with it.”

He tossed his coat onto the bed. “Your SIM card is intact. You’ve got all your data. You can buy a new phone tomorrow.”

“In the meantime a patient could have an emergency.”

“So check in with your answering service periodically. I’ll lend you my phone to call them.”

She simmered, and he let her. Then she asked, “How did you get my number to text me?”

“I asked Marlene for it. Told her I would let you know when I’d be going back up there to take Brady flying.”

“Have you gotten an update on him from her?”

“No. You?”

She shook her head. “I suppose it was she who told you about my dad?”

“I had assumed he was a cop. Ha!”

“You heard he was a thief, and thought ‘like father, like daughter.’”

“Prove me wrong, Brynn.”

“I don’t have to prove a damn thing to you.”

In angry strides, he walked toward her. “Aren’t I entitled to know what you dragged me into?”

“It’s irrelevant now.”

“Is it?”

“Nate has the box, doesn’t he?”

“What excuse did you give him for cutting out? Did you tell him you were meeting me?”

“No. I lied.”

“You’re good at that.”

Rather than taking offense as he expected, she looked chagrined and actually backed up to sit on the foot of the bed, shoulders slumped, head drooping. “Obviously not all that good,” she said ruefully. “You saw through me from the start.”

“Well, I was looking close.”

Her head came up. Their eyes met. Though neither moved, the space between them seemed to shrink. The atmosphere became weighty, teeming with the memory of one kiss.

“You had signed off,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Free to go. Why did you come back?”

He approached her slowly and, when he reached her, pushed the fingers of his right hand up through her hair and tilted her head back. “You know one reason.” He looked into her eyes in a way she couldn’t possibly mistake.

“You haven’t acted on it,” she whispered.

His body was demanding that he do. He wanted to immerse himself in the passion promised by her uninhibited kiss, longed to lose himself in her, seek and find a few minutes of oblivion and peace. It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to resist the temptation.

“And I won’t.” He let go of her hair and withdrew his hand. “If somebody fucks with my freedom to fly airplanes, they’re fucking with my life, because flying is all I’ve got. You put it in jeopardy, Brynn.”

“Not intentionally.”

“Not at first, maybe. But you haven’t told me the whole of it.”

“I have,” she protested, her voice wavering. “You know what’s in the box, and why I went to extremes to safeguard it.”

“The drug.”

“Yes.”

“Meant for Hunt.”

“Yes.”

“But you tried to steal it. Why?” He planted his fists on either side of her hips and leaned over her. “Black market?”

“I’m not a criminal!”

“You and your old man—”

“No!”

“Then tell me, dammit. Why were you trying to keep it from Lambert? Professional jealousy? To prevent him from getting the glory?”

“No.”

“To prevent Hunt from getting the drug?”

Her lips parted, but nothing came out.

He reacted with a start, and said again, “To prevent Hunt from getting the drug?”

Her eyes misted.

“Brynn? Why didn’t you want him to get it?”

On a sob, she said, “Because I wanted it for someone else.”

Violet

My name is Violet Griffin, and I have cancer.”

I practiced saying it a lot of times before I stood in front of my kindergarten class and told all the kids at one time.

The reason was because I had come back to school after getting chemo and my hair had come out. My doctor—not Dr. O’Neal, because I didn’t know her yet. My first doctor told me I would lose my hair, so it wasn’t a surprise. But I cried anyway. So did Mom. Not when she was brushing my hair and big wads of it got stuck in my brush. But after, when she and my dad went to bed, I heard her crying. She had told me over and over that I was beautiful and that hair doesn’t matter.

But it sorta does. Especially when it’s all gone and you have to go back to school and make a speech about it in front of the class.

Miss Wheeler, my teacher, patted my arm and told me, “Embrace it, Violet.” I wasn’t sure what embrace meant, but when she said, “Own it,” I knew she meant that none of the kids at school would make fun of my bald head if they knew I was sick.

I didn’t want to be the only kid in my school with cancer, but I was.

When you’ve got cancer, people talk to you different. Sometimes they whisper. I want to tell them that cancer doesn’t hurt my ears, and that it’s okay for them to talk normal.

Since I got cancer, my brothers have turned all weird, too. I think Daddy had a talk with them. They used to hide my dolls, and throw the ball too high for me to catch, and laugh when I did a ballet twirl and fell down, but now they don’t do any of that stuff. I wish they still did. I don’t want them to be nice to me just because they think I’ll die before them.

That day I had to tell the kids at school that I had cancer was two years ago. I’m in second grade now. Only I can’t go to school these days. If I get well, I’ll have a lot to catch up on.

I was thinking about that day in kindergarten because today is Thanksgiving, and Mom said we should count our blessings, and the main one, she said, is that we’re here in Atlanta so I can get well. We missed having turkey with my brothers and Daddy, though. They’re at home. Mom and I FaceTimed with them, then she went out in the hall with the phone and talked to Daddy by herself, and when she came back in, she smiled the way she does when she’s sad and doesn’t want me to know it. But I know it anyway.

She laid down with me, and pulled me close to her, and we watched the parade on TV. I wish I could go to that parade and see the Rockettes. Mom said we will next Thanksgiving. But I don’t think we will because Dr. O’Neal would have to kill my cancer first.

She’s a special doctor for my kind of cancer. There are all different kinds, you know. Mine is in my bones and blood, and it’s a bad kind to have.

But Dr. O’Neal can kick its butt. That’s what Daddy told me when I left to come to the hospital here. He winked at me. Probably because he said “butt.”

When Dr. O’Neal and Mom talk about my cancer, they go outside my room in the hall. Sometimes Dr. O’Neal puts her hand on Mom’s back and rubs it and looks sad. That’s when I know the news isn’t good. Not as successful as we’d hoped. That’s how the doctors say that the cancer is getting worse.

My treatments cost a lot of money. One day, I heard Dr. O’Neal tell Mom not to worry about that right now. She really wants to kill this cancer.

Dr. O’Neal is my best friend even if she is old. She likes me. Sometimes she tells Mom to take a break, and even if Mom says no, Dr. O’Neal shoos her out and stays with me for a while. We talk about a lot of stuff. Everything but my cancer. I think she doesn’t want me to know how bad it is, but if it wasn’t bad, I wouldn’t be here, would I?

We talk about how being a ballerina must be the best thing in the world to be.

She brought me a coloring book with just ballerinas in it. We’ve colored nearly all the pages, but she said that when that book is full, she’ll get me another one. She painted my toenails pink, the color of ballet slippers. She says someday I’ll be a famous ballerina, and she’ll come to see my show and wave to me from the audience.