Worth the Risk

  Precious seconds tick by as I jog my knee and wait. This hits way too goddamn close to home.

  Holy shit.

  C’mon.

  Tick.

  C’mon.

  Tick.

  C’mon.

  Tick.

  I get the all clear, and with a deep breath, lift the bird up into the swirling wind. We’re jolted violently to the left by a pocket of air when we clear the trees, and Alyssa yelps in reflex, but there’s fear in her tone.

  “Hold on,” I murmur to myself, with a quiet will to make this flight as quick and safe as possible to give Reese the biggest chance of survival.

  I think to our interaction over the years. Elementary school with her hair in pigtails. Middle school with braces on her teeth. High school when she was suspended for helping steal our rival’s mascot. Hanging out at the mall. Birthday parties. She was a part of my memories growing up, even if she wasn’t front and center. A child of privilege and little responsibility but good, nonetheless.

  The sounds of vitals and the determination of my flight crew sound off in my headset, spiking my adrenaline so high my hands start to shake.

  She doesn’t have time.

  Reese and her date, part of my circle of friends in the limo on the way to prom.

  The ride is rough. We’re pitched every which way as my copilot and I battle for an equilibrium of sorts.

  Reese strutting her stuff in her cheer uniform during a pep rally.

  We pass over the highway. We skirt around a small aircraft that has even less business being out in this weather than we do.

  Reese showing up to see if she could do anything to help me after Claire up and left. My pushing her the hell away because I didn’t need anything or anyone. I was too scared. Too angry. Too everything.

  “She’s coding. Christ. Levi, grab it tighter!” I hear from the back, and I can only assume Levi is the paramedic whose fingers are currently somewhere in Reese’s leg, pinching her artery closed.

  She’s just a patient. A faceless patient.

  But she isn’t. She’s Reese.

  I’m too damn close.

  “She needs Melville,” I hear one of them shout to the other, referring to the only Level-I trauma unit in our area.

  “Heads-up, Malone.” I look over at Charles, my copilot, and then track to where he’s pointing to the transponder and then back up to something I can barely make out through the storm. It looks like another small aircraft is directly in our flight path and near Sunnyville General.

  “C’mon, Reese. Stay with us,” my flight nurse urges her.

  “She needs MT,” I murmur to myself as I eye the small aircraft again and know that’s going to delay us when we have no time to waste.

  “Dispatch, this is Spiderman in Mercy 445.”

  “Mercy 445 this is dispatch, go ahead.”

  “Change of plans. We’re headed to Melville.”

  “Mercy 445, Sunnyville General is waiting for you.”

  “No go. She needs a trauma unit.”

  “Understood, but General is closer.”

  “By ten minutes. Ten minutes where they’ll decide she should have gone to Melville because they don’t have the equipment to handle her injuries.”

  “Mercy 445, dispatch is in disagreement.”

  The radio crackles. The squelch squawks.

  “Malone, this is Cochran. Your route is for Sunnyville General. Do not deviate from the plan. I need that bird and my crew on the ground ASAP. That is a direct order.”

  I glance over to Charles, but he keeps his eyes straight ahead without saying a word. The muscle in his jaw pulses. I check the transponder and see the blip representing the small aircraft is no longer there, giving us a clear shot to Sunnyville.

  I clear my throat. “Dispatch, there is a small aircraft in the flight pattern. It’s preventing us from having a swift delivery to General. We’re rerouting to Melville Trauma. Please inform them of our impending arrival.”

  “Goddammit, Malone! Land that chopper.”

  In my periphery, I see Charles do a double take my way, but I give him the same response he gave me. The less I acknowledge or involve him the better.

  She needs the trauma unit.

  That’s her only chance.

  “Daddy.” Charles is tapping my shoulder.

  “That’s an order, Malone!” It’s Cochran barking at me again.

  “Daddy.” Another tap I choose to ignore. “Daddy.”

  I startle awake.

  The moon lightens the room—clear sky, not rain, and I’m in my bed, not in the cockpit.

  “Luke? You okay, buddy?”

  I scrub a hand over my face and try to clear the dream from my mind as he rubs his eyes and nods.

  “I had a bad dream.” His voice is soft, almost embarrassed that he’s in here when he’s a whole eight years old.

  I pull back the covers and pat beside me. “C’mon in. I was having one, too. Thank you for waking me up from it.” Too bad I can’t wake up from the reality of its aftereffects.

  It takes him a second to climb onto the mattress beside me. He takes his time setting himself up in his favorite sleeping position—head atop of my bicep so my arm can curl around him with my hand on his belly and both of his feet propped up on my thigh.

  “You good?” I murmur and press a kiss to the top of his head. Somehow, he can push away everything that bugs me, just like that. “Wanna tell me about your dream?”

  He gives a soft shake of his head. “Too scary.” His voice is drugged with sleep.

  “Okay, then think of the one thing that would make you the happiest in the world and focus on that.”

  “If all the superheroes in the world could bring me a new mommy . . .”

  Cue a knife going straight into my heart and twisting. Over. And over.

  I pull him in tighter and press another kiss to the top of his head. “I know, buddy. You do have a mommy who loves you.” I perpetuate the lie I’ve always told him. “She just . . .” She was just too selfish to want to stay.

  His soft snores fill the room, saving me from having to finish the sentence.

  First my dream.

  And then his wish.

  Christ. Can I do anything right these days?

  “That’s all, everyone. Great job. I think next month’s issue is going to be a great one.” The five contributing editors of the magazine begin to shuffle immediately. Papers rap against the conference table. Murmurs break out as the managing editor asks for a quick meeting with the opinion editor. The staff outside of the conference room window behind Rissa’s back scurry to their desks like they’ve been working this whole time.

  I begin to collect my visuals—mock-ups of graphics with logos and ad copy, a detailed breakdown of the social media campaign that will begin with the next round of voting, a brainstorm of different outlets to try to channel support from as well as the ever-important numbers my contest has affected. Advertising intake and search engine statistics and website hits. All the stuff that makes my head spin but is the exact barometer of my success.

  “Your numbers are solid,” Rissa says as the last person leaves the conference room, her pseudo-praise surprising.

  “They could be better.”

  “They could be,” she says as her fingers click over the keyboard of her laptop. “I did some digging on your Grayson guy.”

  “You did?” I ask with a glance her way, wondering if she came up with the same run-of-the-mill information I did last night. And secondly, why is she digging anything up on him when he’s my task to figure out? But then again, I failed that part miserably if judged by our last interaction.

  “Mm-hmm.” She narrows her eyes and purses her lips but keeps her attention focused on her laptop.

  “And?”

  “And from the pictures I could find—Mercy-Life staff photos and whatnot . . . you know, the kind we can’t exactly use for our purposes—yeah, he’s pretty damn hot.”

  “Told you.”
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  She lifts her eyes to meet mine for the first time. “Telling me he’s hot is one thing. Telling me you convinced him to be an active participant is a whole other ball game.”

  “He’s single,” I blurt out for no other reason than to try to let her know I did in fact find out something new about him. The minute I say it though, I feel stupid, and the laugh that Rissa fights to emit tells me it sounds equally as ridiculous to her.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that, Thorton . . . like tell me he’s agreed to give you new pictures?”

  “We’re in talks.”

  This time, she can’t win the battle, and a laugh falls from her mouth, drawing heads to pop up like meerkats over the tops of cubicles to see what is so funny. “You’re in talks? That means you don’t have anything, and it most definitely means this.” Her smile widens as she reaches out to a mock-up of one of my advertisements and slides a picture of Braden over the center where I’d planned to put Grayson.

  “Uh-uh.” I shake my head. “That’s Grayson’s.”

  “Well, until you get a picture of Grayson, it’s Braden’s spot.” She winks as she throws down the challenge. “You’re pretty sure of yourself for a woman who can’t convince a man to be part of a contest.”

  I give her a sideways glance to let her know I hear her but don’t want to talk about it. Grayson made his feelings more than clear last night. Now it’s on me to eat some crow all the while figuring out what it would take to convince him to change his mind.

  “Did you know he’s known for being quite the hero around these parts?”

  “What do you mean?” I think of those kind eyes of his and try to imagine him in the role. Then I think of last night and how he stepped in and don’t doubt it for a second.

  “There was an article I found buried a few pages in when I searched his name. Do you remember that rescue in the High Sierras that hit national news earlier this year? A rough snowstorm, high altitudes, those stranded hikers missing for almost a week?”

  “I think I saw something about that on CNN. Didn’t a civilian fly into the storm to try to find them? Something about how he calculated they had gone the opposite direction the authorities thought—”

  “That’s the one.”

  “The guy who flew directly into the blizzard, found them, saved them, and flew them out. Holy shit . . .” My words trail off as realization dawns.

  “He took the risk to save them. Yeah. That’s our Grayson.” She purses her lips.

  “Then how come I didn’t find that when I looked him up?”

  “That article and others never mentioned the pilot by name, but I was curious as to why it came up in my search. It couldn’t just be because he’s a pilot. So, I dug deeper and looked at more accounts of the rescue, and one of the comments on, like, the tenth article mentioned the rescuer’s name, one Grayson Malone. Then I called a friend in the know at the airfield, and he confirmed it. He said people around here have respected Grayson’s wish for privacy and leave the subject alone. He also directed me to the only interview Grayson gave on the situation. He wasn’t identified in it, but he said him finding the hikers had been a matter of circumstances. He had access to the right equipment and had the right skills and that anyone would have stepped in to save them if they could. That he didn’t consider himself a hero, and that no thank-yous were needed because he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.”

  “Huh.”

  What is it with this man? How can he make me feel like a complete heel even when he isn’t around? No thank-yous were needed? He can risk his life flying in high altitudes to save random strangers from certain death, while I’m the asshole who was so annoyed with him and his arrogance that a simple thank you was a struggle to say.

  Mr. Stoic definitely played me.

  “It seems Mr. Malone is not fond of the spotlight or any of the accolades being a hero brings with it.”

  “So it seems.”

  “Well, you know what they say about heroes. A real hero doesn’t save to get attention; they save because it’s the right thing to do. It seems Grayson makes a habit of taking risks, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That same friend told me Grayson’s been suspended from flying. I guess he bucked orders to ground his flight in a thunderstorm and tried to save an accident victim anyway. She grew up here. Reese Diller—”

  “Dillinger,” I correct as my heart drops and I think of the bright eyes and infectious smile of my childhood acquaintance.

  “Yes. Dillinger. Did you know her?”

  “We were more acquaintances than anything. She was a few grades below me, but yeah . . . I knew her. She was a sweet girl.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  It’s then I realize Grayson would have known her more, might have even been close with her. It must have been hard on him not being able to save her. Then it hits me. “What company does he work for again?”

  “Mercy-Life.”

  “Mercy,” I murmur. The first time I’d spoken to him, he thought I was there to try to get a story out of him. I lean back in my chair and mull over her words as his staunch rejections of this contest rattle around inside my brain and dots start to connect. I’m a Thorton. My last name is synonymous with newspapers and magazines. Exploitation for headlines. People digging for a hot story. Perhaps he thinks I’m using the contest as a means to get an interview with him about Reese. No wonder Grayson wants nothing to do with me.

  “Earth to Sidney?”

  “Sorry. Yes.” I shake my head and refocus on the here and now. “How did you manage to get all this information when I have come up with nothing?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “Your ways?”

  “Yep. I used to work for the Washington Post.”

  She could have told me she used to be an astronaut, and I would have been less shocked.

  “Are you serious?” She just looks at me with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyebrows raised. “Oh my God, you are serious.”

  “I was an investigative journalist with WaPo.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. I had a long list of sources that helped me do a lot of digging. Don’t act so surprised.”

  “I’m not. I am.” I shake my head. “Why would you ever leave that job?”

  “I got married. Had kids. Ended up moving here for a slower life for them. Then we divorced, and I had to go back to work so”—she shrugs—“I ended up here.”

  “But why not go back?”

  “When you have mouths to feed and want as much time with your kids as possible, sometimes you take less to get more out of life in other ways.” She leans back in her chair and looks out the window to the world beyond before looking my way. “Would I love to be an editor-in-chief of a big glossy magazine? Of course. Anyone in this industry strives for that . . . but, sometimes, you take what you can get, make the best of it, and figure it out from there. Right now, I’m figuring it out from there.”

  “Huh. I would have never known.”

  An awkward silence falls over our small corner of the office. I turn to my computer and stare at the screen for a beat as inadequacy washes over me. Rissa has way more experience than I do. It’s no wonder she held a bit of resentment toward me coming here.

  “So, uh, those sources. If you contacted them about this, can we make sure your ways don’t spread rumors that we’re digging up info on him? The last thing I need is for Grayson to be more pissed off at me than he already is.”

  “My source isn’t going to tell anyone. Not unless he wants to be kicked out of my bed permanently, if you know what I mean.”

  I cough out a laugh in surprise and blush, her comment so unexpected. “On that note . . .” I chuckle. “I’ll just be getting back to figuring out how to get more advertising while not thinking about you coaxing information about Grayson out of your lover.”

  “I’m good at coaxing.” She lifts her brow and shrugs without any shame. I just smile an
d shake my head as I close my laptop so I can bring all my stuff back to my desk. “You should try it . . . you never know what information you might get out of it.”

  “I’ve kept to myself for the most part since I’ve been back.” Not that I’ve been a hermit, but outside of the cautious wave and nod as I pass people, I haven’t interacted much with anyone, let alone considered . . . coaxing someone.

  See? It’s easy to lie to myself and completely dismiss all the thigh clenching I do around the man in question.

  “Girl, that’s no way to live. All work and no play. Coax, Sidney, coax.” Another smile. Another shake of her shoulders in laughter. “Something else my expert coaxing skills netted me—”

  “You’re making me want to cover my ears.” I blush and roll my eyes

  “That Grayson’s wife, girlfriend, whatever she was to him—Luke’s mom . . . up and left when he was a baby.”

  “Really?”

  “You have your heartbreak right there.” She nods for emphasis as my eyes widen and his bitterness makes maybe a little more sense. “Add his story with Braden being a widow . . . pit them against each other to win women’s hearts and—”

  “It would be a marketing gold mine,” I whisper.

  “Bingo.”

  “A healthy competition between the two highest-vote-getting contestants . . .” My words trail off as I picture the ad campaign. The graphics. The interviews. The #TeamBraden versus #TeamGrayson tweets and shares.

  “That’s the only way it’ll work. We’ve already announced the top twenty, and the other finalists are married . . .”

  “I’m sure if Grayson balks, we could handpick another person who fits the bill.”

  Her laugh carries again, but this time the sarcasm rings the loudest. “But that’s not what I asked of you, is it? I told you I want you to deliver on Grayson. I want you to prove to me you can problem-solve this and make it work.” I stare at her, afraid to tell her what happened last night. Her sigh resonates. “You want help, but don’t know how to ask, right?”

  I take her lead and run with it. “I do need help. How would you handle Grayson? A man who doesn’t like you and wants zero attention? How would you convince him to actively participate, when the last time you saw him, he all but told you to go to hell?”