There was another trademark of the man. He took life as it came to him, rather than fighting it every step of the way. She wondered what he'd look like when he was truly angry, and was actually a little relieved that she had missed that. It had certainly left an impression on Nonna though.

"I was near the end of my first tour with the 10th of the 10th-10th Combat Aviation Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division-when it blew. I was due to muster out halfway through my rehab. But I couldn't."

"You don't make SOAR just because you're stubborn as one of your mules."

"We don't have mules, but I can think of a few of our horses that make your point. No, I was a different kind of flier after the attack. Discovered that I was just as careful, more so, but all that naive c.r.a.p about somehow being the one in control was stripped away. You ride a bronc and think you're the one in control, the next thing you know he's putting you into the fence. Same with a Chinook. I learned to work with the helo, not merely be some urban cowboy dude flying a machine."

Kara wished she knew how it all tied together, but couldn't find the pieces. There were so many of them.

Justin waited with all the patience in the world. He'd never yelled at her, not even when she slammed his face into the counter. Instead, he'd gathered her up in his powerful arms and sat her down.

"I think your patience is one of your problems."

His smile quirked, but it was a sad one.

"Seriously, if you'd shouted at me, you might have gotten some message through my thick skull."

"What message should I have shouted?"

"That you're crazy in love with me and that I'm going to have to figure out how to deal with that."

Justin sighed. "No. This is my problem to deal with."

"Cowboy!" she shouted at him and clambered to her feet.

He rose to face her.

She strode up and poked him in the center of his chest. "I'm the object of you being crazy in love with someone. I think that makes me pretty involved."

"Yes, ma'am." He snapped her a salute that she instinctively returned. "What are you planning to do about it, ma'am?"

There was a laugh. "h.e.l.l if I know, Cowboy."

Justin didn't know if he was pleased or disappointed that Kara didn't try to join him in the shower. It was better that she didn't, but he didn't want her any less for all of what was going on.

She had remained exactly where he'd left her, sitting by the twentieth-floor hotel window staring out at the Brooklyn Bridge and the city beyond.

"What do you see?"

She startled and turned toward him, then her smile came to life. "I see something very delectable."

He should have taken fresh clothes into the bathroom with him. When he began to dress, she offered a pout, but turned back to the window before he even shed the towel from around his waist.

"I was just thinking about you being here with me rather than going to see your family. With how close you are, that means something. Means a lot."

"Why are you more impressed that I'm not seeing my family to be with you, than that I'm here to be with you?"

"Family matters."

"And you don't?"

"Cut that out, Justin. You can't keep making me face things I don't want to. I'll go crazy."

"You mean crazier?"

It earned him the scowl he'd been hoping for. Her emotions were right on the surface, and he loved watching them cross over her features.

He picked up the phone. "Have you eaten?"

"You're not ordering room service."

"Why? Their menu looks good."

"So not! You're in Brooklyn, the land of amazing food. Come on, we'll get a bagel and coffee."

"I thought you were Italian."

"I'm from Brooklyn. Sue me."

They didn't hold hands, but he liked how close she stayed as they walked to what she claimed was the best bagel shop this side, or any other, of some place called Ratner's.

She relaxed more and more throughout the morning as she toured him about the city, came more to life as time pa.s.sed. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

Chapter 19.

"This is your idea of outdoors?"

"Yeah. What of it?" Kara watched Justin as he surveyed the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He'd complained of feeling claustrophobic in the city. Weird thing was they'd been standing on the Brooklyn Heights promenade at that moment, up on the cliff overlooking the East River with Manhattan as a backdrop-one of the best vistas in all of New York.

The Botanic Garden was fifty acres of woods, a tropical hothouse, and a wide selection of planned gardens. There were several places where you couldn't see the surrounding city buildings at all. At the moment they were on a path deep in the bluebell woods. Shade trees of oak, birch, and beech shadowed over an acre of bluebell flowers in riotous bloom. A light vagrant breeze kept them stirred into constant motion.

"Sorry. Other than a couple of camping cabins, we don't have much past the barn on ten thousand acres. And our ranch backs onto the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area. You can ride back into the hill-and-canyon country for a couple days and not see a soul. I'm in mind of a hundred acres or so that are so thick with bluebonnets in the spring that the b.u.mblebees are stumble-drunk on the nectar and can barely fly."

Right. She'd forgotten what Rudi had said about Justin's family being wealthy. It was hard to remember when it was just him sitting there in the shade of his fool cowboy hat.

"How is it you seem so normal?"

"Man, do I have you hornswoggled. You should ask Ma about that when you see her tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Kara stumbled to a halt on the path.

"Sure, she's coming to New York."

"Your mother?" She reached for a park bench.

"Yes."

"Coming to New York?" She sat.

"Yep," Justin agreed far too amiably and settled beside her, stretching out his long legs as if there wasn't a thing the matter in the world.

"Tomorrow?" Kara managed to gasp out. The field of bright bluebells now waved back and forth like an ocean until she felt vaguely seasick.

"Seems I might have already said something about that."

Kara glared up at him. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Can't see why I shouldn't. I was on the phone to her when you put my face into the kitchen counter."

"You were? Sorry 'bout that. I seem to recall that I was upset."

"I may have noticed that myself. You seem less upset now."

"Other than your mother coming."

"Other than that."

Kara let out a scream of frustration that sent the pigeons that had been sidling up to beg for crumbs running for cover. They scowled back at her as they went. And with their deep pigeon brains running at full speed, it was barely five seconds before they were turning back to beg for more crumbs despite her hands being empty.

Justin reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out one of the bagels he had stowed there. He unwrapped it and tossed some bits of bread.

"No! Don't!"

"What? You are filled with a whole lot of commands, Captain Moretti."

She simply waved her hand to indicate the walkway in front of them. Where there had been four pigeons a moment before, there were now forty. More were flapping in from other less-promising tourists.

Justin kept tossing out bits and crumbles until the birds' cooing was so loud she couldn't even think.

"Your mother?" was all she could manage.

"Flying in tomorrow. I'd like you to meet her, if you're over hating me." His easy smile softened any protest she might have construed from his words. "If you still despise me or feel yourself p.r.o.ne to making jokes about our hats, I'll leave it up to you to reconsider."

"I don't hate you. I just-"

"Don't know what to do with me. I know. I think we have trampled that ground sufficiently for the time being."

"Is she flying here to...meet me?"

"How much would it scare you if I said yes?"

She elbowed him sharply in the ribs in answer, causing him to bobble his next set of bread crumbs all over his sneakers. The pigeons descended, pecking for every crumb that might have slipped between shoelaces.

"Hey, guys! Cut that out. It tickles and these are brand-new."

Kara was...dating, she could handle "dating" for a descriptor...a cowboy who talked to pigeons.

"Ma is by pure coincidence flying in to speak at the next New York Quarter Horse a.s.sociation meeting. She's coming out a day early to see me and, if it doesn't make your brain explode or some equally New York Italian event, would very much like to meet you."

"Did you tell her that..." Kara couldn't say it.

"That I love you? Dang!" He tipped his hat back on his head and looked winded. "Don't think I've said that part before. Whoo-ee but that changes a man's view of the world, saying it aloud. I didn't have to say it in so many words as it was pretty obvious. Still, takes a man's breath clean away. Sorry it just sorta slid out into public like that, but you heard it first from me."

"Actually"-Kara covered her face-"I heard it from Nonna first."

Justin nodded soberly as he tossed the last of his bagel out to the eager flock, now a veritable sea at their feet. "She's a smart woman. I like her a lot."

Kara loved her. But that didn't mean she wasn't going to kill her grandmother for stirring up everything this morning. It was a real problem; Nonna was still sharp as all h.e.l.l, but now that she'd retired from the shop she'd founded, she had far too much time to meddle.

Kara and Justin waited on the edge of the parking ap.r.o.n in a corner of the Teterboro Airport-a forty-five-minute taxi ride from Brooklyn. Small planes zipped down the runway every sixty seconds or so. Inbound and outbound, its two runways felt far busier and more alive than LaGuardia or JFK, though both had three times the traffic, all of it monstrous jets.

Kara liked this airport; it felt more personal that all the gla.s.s and steel of the big terminals. She and Justin had taken a taxi, walked through a gate, and were standing among the parked and tied-down planes waiting for...oh G.o.d, Justin's mom.

Every third or fourth takeoff was a little business jet similar to the one rolling to a stop on the ap.r.o.n in front of her.

The neat Citation M2 jet looked as if it had been branded with a giant hot iron, "RQR." Below that were the words "Roberts Quarter Horse Ranch."

Kara did her best to not cower before the tall, blond woman who climbed off the plane-she had apparently piloted from Texas to New York on her own.

Kara didn't know what she'd expected, but "mothers" in her neighborhood all came in variations on her own. Even the Jews and the Greeks tended toward moderate statures, raised voices, and waistlines that showed visible signs of a pa.s.sion for food.

Annie Roberts was none of those, which made her even more surprising. She was only a few inches shy of Justin's towering height. Light skinned and slender. The same wheat-blond hair that Kara had so come to appreciate on Justin slid in a wide, wavy cascade over the woman's shoulders. The blouse and slacks weren't "country"-Kara recognized high-end designer elegant when she saw it. And the toes of her cowboy boots were st.i.tched works of art that Kara deeply craved even though she'd never been much of a shoe person.

"Kara, this Annie Roberts. Ma, this is Captain Kara Moretti. She's the Air Mission Command for my company."

"Which means what in English?" Her accent was even thicker than Justin's, but it fit her and her lighter voice well.

"It means," Kara answered for him, "that when he's in the air, he has to do what I say."

"And on the ground?" Annie asked in a way that had Kara grinning despite her nerves.

"That's still a matter of some negotiation, Ms. Roberts."

Annie's laugh was as bright and sunny as her son's as she turned and flicked a finger against Justin's hat brim. "Y'all are in the city now, Son."

Kara cheered and sent a told-you-so smirk to Justin.