Page 34 of Shame the Devil
“I’ll think of you every time I use them,” he promised, then put a hand at her waist and kissed her cheek, and this time, shedidhold his shoulder. His lips were warm despite the freezing morning, his clean scent filled her head, and his shoulder was so solid. He lifted his head, smiled into her eyes, and said, “I think I know which one of us is a good person. Let’s go.”
She climbed into the middle seat with him, because Dyma was already in the back with Owen. Jennifer would have turned around to talk to her, but Dyma would have said something. Something adult and cautionary, possibly, which was a role reversal Jennifer did not need right now. So she just sat there as the driver pulled out and Dyma said, “They’d better have coffee at this airport.”
“We’ll get some on the plane, anyway,” Owen said.
“Ha,” Dyma said. “In about two hours. I’ve been on a plane twice in my life before this trip down here. Well, four times, there and back. The mechanical part of it was good to see, but the rest of the experience wasn’t very impressive.”
“Twice?” Owen said.
“To LA,” Dyma said. “And Boston. Mom and I went to look at schools last year.”
“Which ones?” Owen asked.
“MIT. Cal Tech. UCLA. Those were the main ones. I applied to more, but we didn’t get a chance to visit them.”
“Which one are you ending up at?”
“None. University of Washington gave me the best package, they have in-state tuition for Idaho residents, and Mom can drive me there. That made the decision pretty easy. Plus, Boeing’s in Seattle, so—internship, right? I really wanted MIT, because it’s the best, but we couldn’t swing it. I figure, MIT for grad school, after I get a few more years to build up my credentials and impress them. Stretch goals are important. They keep you motivated.”
“They sure do,” Owen said. “Nothing good comes easy. Good to have it paid for, too.”
“Well, it’s not exactlypaidfor,” Dyma said. “They cover all the fees, though, and a little more, too. Mom’s paying half the rest, and I’m doing loans for the other half, and getting a job. Another job. Fortunately, I have excellent credentials in the food-service industry, and Washington’s minimum wage is higher than Idaho’s. Do you know how much MIT would have been? Seventy-three thousand dollars a year, and they were only offering forty-five thousand. Good thing my school offers so many AP classes, huh? I’m planning to get my BS in three years, which will mean only about thirty thousand in loans. And then I go for my master’s.”
Kris glanced at Jennifer, and she looked out of the window. Yep. That was an airport out there, all right. She tried not to think about Dyma telling them all this, or about the gap between her grandpa’s Social Security and his living expenses, now that her mom’s Social Security disability wasn’t part of the picture, her own imminent lack of a job, or the fact that she was going to be moving in with her grandpa or moving to Portland and trying the Mary Tyler Moore thing. Except that she was older than Mary. And more desperate.
Face facts. She was going to have to do Blake’s Portland thing whether it was scary or not. Otherwise, she was going to run out of money to help Dyma, even if she moved in with her grandpa. Jobs in Wild Horse just didn’t pay enough.
Dyma would be fine. She’d get a good job after that master’s, and she’d pay those loans back. Shehadto be fine. Dyma was doing this.
Kris said quietly, “That’s some responsibility.”
She nodded, but she didn’t look at him. “It’s my choice,” she said. “It’s always been my choice.”
“Right,” he said. “It can still be a responsibility.”
She glanced at him, then back out the window. “Hey. We just missed the turn for the terminal. We’re going to have to go around again.”
“Ah,” he said. “Actually, no. There’s something I need to tell you.”
15
Many Revelations
The driver turnedonto an unmarked road that led to a small building with a half-dozen small jets perched beyond it like sleek little falcons, and Jennifer said, “You chartered ajetto get to this party? OK, now you’vereallygone the extra mile, because that’s almost two thousand dollars an hour for the most bare-bones extra-light, and if you’re planning on using it to fly back, that’s a lot of hours. I’ve got news for you. Unless the money to pay for it comes from your family, you don’t have to worry about your dad, because it’s already clear how far you’ve come. You don’t have to say a word. Surely you realize that.”
Kris looked startled. “How do you know what it costs? Also, two thousand? What, I’m flying you in some tin can? We’re sitting on fold-down seats? I’m offended.”
She sighed. “That’s ridiculous. Obviously,Idon’t fly this way. Am I supposed to turn up my nose at the non-rosewood paneling? Guess how Dyma and I flew to Boston? Coach all the way, and we didn’t check any bags, either. If there’d been a fold-down-seat option, those would have been our tickets. I told you, though, I make arrangements for a living.”
“Oh. I guess I didn’t realize what kind of arrangements.” The SUV pulled to a stop next to a non-tiny, streamlined white jet that had definitely cost more to charter than two thousand an hour, the driver climbed out and opened the doors, and Kris said, “Well, let’s go, then. Dyma needs her coffee.” He got out of the high vehicle with the same muscular, loose-limbed grace Jennifer had been watching for the past two days, and she followed, taking his hand for the step down and feeling way too much like Anne Elliot inPersuasion,no matter what she’d just said. Putting her gloved hand into Captain Wentworth’s much larger one to be handed into a carriage, unable to breathe at the contact, the care he was taking of her, and the intensity in his eyes. Not that she’d watched the BBC version of that movie approximately fifty-three times or anything. But now, it felt likeherstory.
Which it wasn’t. This was really not a big deal. He either sold a lot of farm equipment—he owned a dealership, maybe, though that seemed like a stretch, if he was turning thirty-one, just like Owen owning a ranch at whatever-age-he-was. Or, more likely, hewasfrom a wealthy family, and he and Owen had met at boarding school.
Well, no. Owen at some fancy Eastern boarding school? Andover Academy, maybe? Playing lacrosse? The thought of Owen lumbering down the field with a lacrosse stick in his oversized mitt of a hand made her laugh. Scratch that one.
If Kris’s last name was “Deere,” though, she definitely got it. All of it, including the alcoholic, judgmental father. A wealthy, dysfunctional family? That fit. Whatever the answer, though, it wasn’t actually her business, and it wasdefinitelynothing for her to get excited about. Everything was still exactly the same as before. They’d go to North Dakota for the day, she’d help him all she could, and then she and Dyma would go home feeling like they’d had an adventure. And, just maybe, she’d feel empowered.
Instead of like she’d lost something else. Like, maybe … a possibility.
