So sometime during her solitary week, she'd gotten the idea to come and talk to the mysterious Andrew Vari. He would be able to answer a few questions for her. He would be able to tell her Darius's last name and how she could contact him. She had a few things to return to him, like his crutches. He might even be able to tell her what Darius's personal business had been that morning, and why he hadn't said good-bye.

Deep down, though, she was hoping that Darius would be with Vari, and she would get to see him one last time.

Ariel got out of the car. The ache in her ankle was deeper than she wanted it to be. She was never very good at healing. Healing required patience. She had probably done the most damage to her rotator cuff by trying to use her shoulder too soon after the injury. The doctors had yelled at her, then.

This time, she was trying to be careful, but it was hard. She hated being restricted. The fact that the drive caused her leg to ache irritated her. She wanted to snap her fingers and heal the bone, but that wasn't possible.

And if there was anything she hated, it was the impossible.

A wind blew across her face. It was damp and smelled of rain. She glanced at the clouds. They were darker than she had originally thought, and they looked ominous. In the distance, she thought she saw lightning.

Storms in the mountains were never pretty. They were violent and strong and dangerous. Mountain folk always prayed for rain with the storms because lightning was dangerous. Summers were dry up here, and when lightning struck, the wilderness burned. Wildfires destroyed hundreds of acres every summer and sometimes threatened remote towns like McCall and Donnelly.

She shielded her eyes with her hand while clutching the crutches to her sides for balance. Against the clouds she made out a tiny shape.

It looked like a plane, but she couldn't hear the engine.

Thunder rumbled overhead and lightning flared, illuminating the shape. Sure enough, it was a small plane flying just ahead of the storm.

Ariel shuddered. Flying with Duke had been a bad experience on a clear sunny day. She couldn't imagine what it would be like in the wind, with a storm on the plane's tail.

The plane pitched and dove, tilting first to one side and then to the other. Big fat drops of rain suddenly pelted Ariel, and she hobbled toward the building. As she did, a gust of wind came up, blowing dirt and gravel across the parking lot.

The plane pitched even more.

Her stomach twisted. These were the worst conditions in which to fly a small plane. She hoped Duke's skills were up to the landing.

She made it to the shelter of the building's back wall. Evelyn was standing there, hand shielding her face, much as Ariel had earlier, a look of strain on her face.

"Thought I might see you," Evelyn said, not taking her gaze off the plane. "Figured you'd want to meet Vari."

Ariel had told her the entire story on the way to the hospital. "I owe him."

Evelyn nodded, her expression tight. The rain was coming down in sheets now, and the plane looked like it was in trouble.

Ariel leaned against the building, trying to stay dry. She couldn't take her gaze off the airplane, tilting and rising on the wind. Lightning flared behind it again, and then a flash seemed to come from inside the plane itself.

She almost thought she heard a nasal voice utter a curse just before that last lightning flare. The voice sounded like it had come over a loudspeaker, but she didn't see any, and Evelyn acted as if she hadn't heard a thing.

But the plane leveled out. In fact, it didn't even seem to be getting wet any longer. Ariel could have sworn that the water was bouncing off an invisible barrier about three feet above the plane--like someone had raised a clear plastic umbrella over the entire area.

She didn't like that a.n.a.logy. Umbrellas attracted lightning.

The plane positioned itself over the runway. Evelyn bit her lower lip. Ariel clutched her crutches tighter. A gust of wind pelted her with rain. The drops weren't big and fat anymore. They were thin and sharp and hurt as they slashed her skin.

But the plane didn't seem as if it were affected by the rain at all. It came down smoothly. In fact, the landing was a hundred times smoother than the one Duke had managed with her inside--on that clear, windless day.

Ariel frowned. No one flew better in dismal weather.

Evelyn ran toward the plane, her umbrella over her head. She slid the tiny stepladder up to the plane's door as she had when Ariel had been on board, and then she stepped back.

The plane's door opened, and Ariel's breath caught in her throat. She watched as a small leg, clad in pristine white, found the step.

The man who followed was tiny, just as Duke had said, and he did look something like a Disney character--or, more accurately, Edward G. Robinson from his more famous gangster movies shrunk down to half his normal size.

The small man--Vari, apparently--was wearing a white suit and a summer hat. In fact, he looked as if he had just left the 'Casablanca' movie set. His clothes were pressed and extremely neat, considering the plane he'd just been in. They didn't seem disturbed by the weather either.

A spate of rain hit her face again, and she wiped the water off with one hand. Vari had stopped on the stairs. His gaze met hers, and there was something very familiar about it. In fact, she had underestimated his looks a moment earlier. She felt drawn to him, as if beneath those mushed features and oft-broken nose lurked the kindest man she had ever seen.

She had met him before. She was sure of it.

And completely unsure of it.

If she had met him before, she would have remembered him. She had never seen a man who looked that remarkable in her life.

Still, her heart was pounding as if he were as handsome as Darius. Perhaps she felt this way because she a.s.sociated him with Darius--because she had been expecting Darius to get out of that plane as well.

Evelyn reached inside the plane and tugged on something behind the seat. Duke came around, head bent against the rain, and tried to help her.

Vari continued to stare at Ariel as if she were the first woman he had ever seen.

She stared back, unable to tear her gaze away from his.

He walked toward her, and she resisted the urge to hurry to his side.

It took all her strength to stay exactly where she was.

He hadn't expected her.

Darius had been concentrating too hard on the landing to pay attention to the people on the ground. Duke was a marginal pilot at best--used to the mountains, yes, but careless in the plane--and when the storm hit, it had taken all of Darius's magical powers to keep them from being killed in midair.

So he had sat for a moment after they stopped, gathering himself, pretending nonchalance and trying not to shake. Usually he was out of the plane and gone long before Evelyn could approach, but somehow she managed to get the ladder in place (making him feel smaller than he actually was) and the door open before he completely realized that he was safe.

Then he climbed out, trying to maintain what dignity he could, and he saw her, Ariel, standing next to the building as if she had been there all night.

Her skin was no longer ghost-white. The pallor was gone and so were the pain circles under her eyes. Even though her beautiful hair was wet from the rain, she looked prettier than she had at the house--and she had been stunning then.

She was watching him, her expression unreadable. It almost felt as if she knew who he was. But that was impossible. No one knew. His closest friends had never recognized him like this.

And she didn't dare either. How would he explain it? How could he? His job now was to stay away from her until he finished his sentence, so that he wouldn't have to help her find the person she was destined for.

He couldn't be polite. He couldn't give her any hint that he was the man who'd kissed her in the mountains.

He would have to be the Andrew Vari everyone knew and despised.

Darius swallowed hard. Usually it wasn't difficult to play the curmudgeon. In the early years, the dyspeptic att.i.tude hadn't been made up at all. That had been his mood--angry, bitter, and caustic. Later, it became a shield, one that worked well for him.

He'd been doing it so long that it took no effort at all.

Except today. Today it would take all the energy he had left.

He walked across the parking lot, the wind whipping around him but not mussing him, the rain missing him too. He'd forgotten to remove the shield spell from himself and it was too late now. She'd notice.

She hadn't stopped watching him. She seemed to record each movement, as if she were trying to memorize it. He even got the sense that she was nervous.

What was she doing here? He had sent her away. He'd hoped that she would be back wherever she had come from, long gone, the episode in the mountains forgotten--at least by her.

He doubted he would ever forget.

He had almost reached her when he realized he didn't have the appropriate insult. In fact, he didn't have any prepared insult at all. He wanted to compliment her, to tell her she looked a lot better, to tell her he missed her.

To kiss her again.

If he could borrow Evelyn's stepstool.

That last thought sent a bolt of anger through him. d.a.m.n his sentence. d.a.m.n the punishment that made him small and ugly, looking on his best days like a lawn gnome and on his worst like some sort of hideous doll from a "Twilight Zone" episode.

No insult and feeling insecure. Wonderful. His plan to drive her away was failing even before he opened his mouth.

He'd have to play it somewhat safe then. He'd try to get past her without any conversation at all. And since she was waiting for her precious, gorgeous Darius, all six feet of him, she probably wouldn't even notice the troll walking past her.

As he reached her side, he caught the scent of her perfume, a trace of lilacs mixed with the clean smell of soap. He clenched his right fist, willing himself to keep moving.

"Excuse me," she said.

He stepped past her.

"Sir, please," she said. "Excuse me."

"Why?" he asked, making his voice even more nasal than it usually was. "Did you fart?"

She blinked at him in complete surprise, as if no one had ever asked her that question in her life. "No, I--"

"Then you don't need to be excused." He grabbed the gla.s.s door's handle and tugged. Until that moment, he had forgotten how heavy the d.a.m.n thing was and how awkward it was to open for a person of his (current) height. He always had trouble readjusting after he changed back to Vari.

The wind made it worse. The door was nearly impossible to open. He would have to spell it too.

Ariel came up behind him and grabbed the handle. Apparently she had decided to a.s.sist him, but she couldn't get the door open either. The wind pushed on it, and she couldn't maintain her balance on her crutches and find enough force to pull the door open.

"If I wanted help," Darius said, regretting every word, "I'd ask someone competent."

She dropped the door handle as if it burned her. At that moment, Evelyn came up beside both of them and opened the door with astonishing ease.

The inside of Emerald Aviation had been the same for decades. Cheap brown paneling darkened the interior. Bad fluorescent lighting irritated his eyes. Shabby orange plastic furniture in the waiting area only made the room seem more offensive.

This morning, the entire place smelled of burned coffee. A styrofoam cup of the stuff steamed on Evelyn's metal desk, the blotter beneath it stained with rings from past coffee misadventures. A large radio set squawked in the back room, and a phone rang unanswered, as if voice mail had never been invented.

Even before Darius heard the shuffle of crutches on the cheap tile around the doors, he knew that Ariel had followed him inside. 'Please', he wished silently, 'please go away. I don't want to be forced to talk with you anymore. Not like this.'

"I'm sorry to bother you," she said, apparently having rethought the excuse-me approach.

"Then don't." He kept his back to her. Usually he was witty and mean. This time, he wasn't even witty.

"It's just that I wanted to thank you."

He hesitated for a fraction of a second. There were a dozen ways to play this one, and since he hadn't thought he'd see her again--especially with his body in this condition--he hadn't a.n.a.lyzed which one was best.

He finally decided on the path of least resistance. Easier might not be better but it was--well, easier.

Darius turned to face her. "Thank me for what?"

Her eyes were wide and green, deep and filled with life. He could still see that hint of a future soul mate floating in them. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

"Calling for the plane."

His heart leapt. So she did recognize him, in some small way. Maybe she had overheard him. Or maybe she knew.

"Lady," he said, "impossible as this may seem, you have confused me with someone else."

She swallowed visibly. "You're Andrew Vari, aren't you?"

"Yeah." He crossed his arms.

"Duke and Evelyn said you're the one who called for the plane."

So she hadn't recognized him at all. He had to work to keep the disappointment from showing on his face. "Of course I called for the plane. How the h.e.l.l do you think I'd get out of that G.o.dforsaken wilderness?"

"Not for you." She spoke carefully, as if she were afraid she wasn't being clear. "For me."

"Lady, once again you are confusing me with someone else."

"No," she said. "Duke picked me up at your house a week ago yesterday. I'd stayed there overnight, after I fell and broke my ankle. Your friend Darius rescued me. I was hoping you could tell me how to contact him."

The anger Darius had felt earlier at the door, the circ.u.mstance, his size, himself, returned. She hadn't recognized him and she was only interested in beautiful Dar. She was as shallow as the rest of them.

"I don't know anyone named Darius. I have never seen you before, and I didn't call for a plane."

"Yes, you did." Evelyn was standing near the door. He hadn't realized she was there. "When you signed off, you called me doll face like you always do."

"Really?" He made his tone cold. "I don't remember this phantom radio call."

"Duke picked her up at your place."

"A week ago yesterday," he said.

Evelyn nodded. Ariel was looking back and forth between them, confusion evident on her face.

"A week ago yesterday," he said, "I was nowhere near that house."