“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.