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“I don’t know why the media have to hound me. I’m sick and tired of them intruding in my life,” he said, loosening his tie. He walked over to the sideboard and poured himself a Scotch on the rocks.
“There’s nothing wrong with being a hero, Tyler,” she said gently.
“Mom, please, not you, too.” He took a swallow of the fiery liquid.
“You saved Kristen Kellar’s life. At least that’s what she says.”
He grimaced. “Of course she would sensationalize everything. She’s one of the media. A reporter. And you and I both know they feel that title gives them the right to invade everyone else’s privacy. Have you forgotten what happened after Susan died?” He made a sound of disgust. “They were at the cemetery with their cameras.”
“That was awful,” she agreed solemnly, “but Kristen Kellar isn’t a reporter. She’s a news anchor,” his mother added. “And a darn good one. She reports the news accurately and with sensitivity.”
Again he made a sound, this time of disbelief.
“Well, she’s told the world that without you she wouldn’t be alive. I guess that makes you a hero.”
“I think the eight people who died on that flight would disagree.”
“You can’t possibly think you’re responsible for their deaths?” She looked at him with a look of horror. “Tyler, the plane split in two. There was no way you could’ve saved their lives.”
He took another swig of the Scotch. “Since you weren’t there, I don’t think you know what I could or couldn’t have done.”
He set his glass down with a bit more force than necessary. Again, he knew he’d been sharper with her than he’d meant to be. What was wrong with him anyway? Lately, he seemed to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.
“I’m sorry, Mom. Maybe we ought to change the subject. There’s no point in arguing over something that’s in the past. I’ve been living out of a suitcase for the past four days and I need a shower.”
“And you’re tired, aren’t you?” His mother became all maternal once again, fussing over him as though he were a child instead of a thirty-five-year-old businessman. “There’s plenty of time for you to rest before dinner, if you like. I’m going upstairs to finish Brittany’s costume and leave you to unwind on your own.” She gave his arm a gentle touch, then headed for the stairway. She stopped in midstride. “Oh, by the way, your mail is on the console in the hallway, and I left your phone messages on your desk.”
Tyler nodded and watched his mother climb the steps to the second story. Then he walked over to the console where several days of mail had accumulated. He flipped through the pile until he came to a pale pink envelope. His name and address were handwritten and there was no return address.
He opened the envelope and found a single sheet of pale pink stationery. At the top printed in gray ink was the name Kristen Kellar, her address and phone number.
Dear Mr. Brant,
Please forgive me for taking so long to contact you, but as you are probably aware, I’ve been in the hospital until very recently. I wanted to speak to you before I was moved from the Hibbing hospital, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible. Since I was told that you suffered only minor injuries and that you were discharged after a few days, I assume that you are in good health and have returned to work.
The purpose of this letter is to express my gratitude, although the words “Thank you” seem inadequate for expressing what’s in my heart. I don’t want to think about what the outcome might have been if you hadn’t been on that flight. The value of your strength and determination cannot be measured. Please know that I will always remember the help you gave me.
Sincerely,
Kristen Kellar
Tyler stared at the feminine handwriting until he no longer saw words, but images. An engine on fire. Panic among the passengers. A plane torn in two. His heart began to race, his palms to sweat. He remembered the look on Kristen’s face as she had frantically struggled to free herself from the twisted wreckage of the plane.
With a grimace, he crumpled her letter in his fist. He turned his attention to the other mail, determined to forget the crash.
He would forget. He had taught himself a long time ago to block out those images that had the power to play games with his emotions. And the memory of that plane crash was one of those images. He was a survivor. Always had been, always would be.
So for the rest of the evening, Tyler didn’t once think about Kristen Kellar or the crash. He played a board game with Brittany, sat with her while she watched The Little Mermaid video for the umpteenth time and then, despite his mother’s warning, let her eat a giant chocolate bar while he read her a bedtime story.
After she’d fallen asleep, he went into his office and worked until midnight. When he finally crawled between the covers, he was weary, but it was a welcome weariness. He’d have no trouble falling asleep tonight.
And he didn’t. Only it wasn’t a peaceful sleep. No matter how exhausted he was, he couldn’t prevent the dream.
He was in the broken half of the plane.
“I can’t get free,” a woman cried out to him, blood streaming down her face. “The seat belt is stuck.”
Tyler hurried to her side only to discover the seat belt wasn’t preventing her escape. Her right leg was trapped. With a strength he didn’t know he possessed, he managed to bend the metal bar pinning her leg.
“We have to get out of here,” she urged. “Look.” Her eyes widened as she stared at the open end of the plane. The aircraft was slipping into the water.
“It’s all right. We’ll be okay,” he assured her as water seeped into his shoes.
They were jostled as the plane sank lower. “I can’t swim!” she cried as water rose around them.
Tyler reached for her. “Just hang on to my back,” he instructed.
He felt two arms around his neck, but they soon lost their hold. He tried to reach her hands, but she was swept away by the strong current.
“Help me! Please, help me!”
He swam after her, but every time he thought he’d reached her, she slipped from his grasp. Over and over he tried to grab her hand until she was finally sucked under.
Gasping for breath, Tyler awoke with a start to find Brittany at his bedside.
“Daddy?”
He gulped in deep breaths, trying to calm his unsteady limbs as he swung his legs over the side.
“Daddy, will you help me find Tudie?”
For a moment, he was too shaken to speak. Finally, he asked, “Is he lost?” relieved that the cries for help were over a teddy bear and not a human being.
“I had him when I went to bed, but he’s not there now,” Brittany said in a tiny voice. “And I get scared when Tudie isn’t sleeping with me.”
“There’s no need to be scared,” Tyler said reassuringly, pulling her into his arms. “Daddy will help you find him, then I’ll tuck you both in real tight so he doesn’t get lost again, okay?”
Tyler thought how ironic it was that he was telling her not to be scared when he was the one who was trembling. He carried Brittany back to her room, turned on the light and set her down beside the bed.
“Sweetheart, it’s no wonder Tudie disappeared. There’s no room for him here,” he told her as he pushed aside a collection of stuffed animals and dolls.
A quick look behind the bed proved his suspicions were correct. Tudie lay suspended between the mattress and the wall. Tyler fished him up over the brass headboard to the delight of his daughter.
“Thank you, Daddy.” She welcomed the bear with open arms, kissed her father on the cheek and climbed back up onto the bed.
Tyler tucked her in, kissed her forehead, then turned out the light. As he crawled back into his own bed, he smiled to himself as he thought about his daughter and her beloved bear.
However, it wasn’t Brittany occupying his thoughts as he fell back to sleep. It was the beautiful but bleeding face of the news anchor. Dark lashes framed frightened blue eyes, the once flawless skin now badly lacerated. He had tried to stop the bleeding, but pieces of glass and metal were embedded in her skin. He still shuddered when he thought about it.
He had done his best to forget that face. Done his best to put the plane crash behind him. He had put it behind him. It was others who wouldn’t let him forget. His mother. Kristen Kellar. If she hadn’t sent him the letter, he wouldn’t have had her image haunting him tonight.
Well, he would tuck the memories away in a remote corner of his mind again. The crash was in the past. He had survived. She had survived. End of story.
He was not a hero. Not even close to being one.
THE DOORBELL RANG and for one brief moment Kristen Kellar wished she had the time to wash her hair, change out of her sweats and apply some makeup before answering it. Then the moment passed.
She had spent too much of her life fussing about her appearance. In the past three weeks, she’d discovered that it was hard to worry about her outward appearance when she felt so awful.
She struggled to her feet, reaching for the crutches propped against the sofa, and hobbled over to the intercom to hear her fiancé’s voice say, “It’s me.”
Good grief! What was Keith doing at her apartment in the middle of the day? She should have washed her hair. Or at least changed her clothes. Keith always looked as if he’d stepped off the pages of GQ.
“Kristen, are you there?”
“Yes.” She buzzed the lobby door open, then smoothed her hand down the front of her gray sweatshirt. When she heard a knock at the door, she checked through the peephole before releasing the dead bolt.
Standing on the other side with not a hair out of place, looking every bit as polished as he did on television each night, was the man voted the Twin Cities’ number-one news anchor, Keith Jaxson. In his arms were flowers, lots of flowers.
Ever since the crash, he’d seemed distant and a bit impatient with what he considered her slow recovery. She knew he’d been disappointed by her request for a leave of absence from work. But now here he was bearing flowers, and she pushed such thoughts aside.
Her smile faded, however, the moment he spoke. The flowers weren’t from him.
“Mailman.” He grinned as if he’d said something witty. “Bob was going to have a messenger bring these over, but I said I was coming to see you and I might as well take them. I thought that the gifts and flowers would have stopped after a couple of weeks, but they just keep coming.”
He didn’t drop a kiss on her mouth as he stepped into the apartment but simply marched past her and headed for the dining-room table. Actually, he hadn’t kissed her since before the crash... unless one counted the light brushing of his lips across her forehead he had given her in the hospital.
“Bob says he’s never seen anyone get so many get-well wishes. You are one popular lady.” He set the flowers and a large shopping bag filled with cards and packages on the table. “It’s a good thing my ego’s healthy, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t it, though,” she murmured, wondering how she had never noticed just how self-centered he was. As he passed the mirror in the dining room, he smoothed his perfect hair.
“There are two more bags in my car. I can get them now or when I leave. Which do you prefer?” He didn’t look at her, but rather past her, as if there were a roomful of people behind her.
“It doesn’t matter,” she answered as she hobbled toward the sofa.
“Then I’ll get them later.”
“Fine.” She eased herself down onto the sofa.
Instead of coming to sit beside her, he stood at the edge of the glass-topped table, his hands in his pockets. “So how are you feeling?”
“Okay.”
“Good.” There was an awkward silence, then he tugged on his ear, saying, “I suppose the leg’s starting to itch under that cast.”
She ignored his comment. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”
He shifted from foot to foot before finally settling on the chair across from her. He unzipped his black suede jacket but didn’t take it off.
“I’m supposed to say hi from everyone at the station and tell you they miss you,” he said with the same smile he used during his newscasts. The one that made women’s hearts skip a beat. Kristen knew how easily that smile came to his lips and didn’t return it.
“I’m sure Janey doesn’t miss me. She’s been wanting more air time.” It was no secret around the station that Janey Samuels’s goal was to be one of the evening anchors, and Kristen knew Janey would make the most of every minute of her absence.
“The less time she’s in your chair, the less chance viewers will have to grow fond of her,” Keith continued.
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“You said the doctor’s given you a clean bill of health. Maybe you should think about coming back to work.”
“My leg’s in a cast! What do you suggest I do? Sit sideways on the set and stick it out behind the desk?”
“You wouldn’t have to do the entire thirty minutes on the set. You could sit in the newsroom and have the camera shoot a head shot. No one needs to see your cast.”
“And what about this?” She pulled her hair away from her face and turned her head so that her puffy, discolored cheek was in full view.
He didn’t try to hide his discomfort. “Makeup will take care of that,” he said weakly.
Her laugh was without humor. “I doubt it.”
“How do you know if you won’t try? Bob told me he sent a makeup artist to the hospital and you refused to talk to her.”
“What’s the point? I told you I’m not ready to go back to work. That’s why I asked for a leave of absence.”
“Eventually, you’ll be going back. Wouldn’t it make sense to have a professional come here and show you how to apply the makeup? That way, you can practice so by the time you’re ready to return, you’ll feel comfortable.”
From the way he was staring at her, Kristin couldn’t help but wonder if the practicing-at-home part wasn’t for his benefit. Did he want her to wear the makeup so he wouldn’t have to look at her scars? Not for the first time she had the feeling that he was repulsed by her swollen and bruised face.
She let the hair fall back across her cheek and angled her head to hide the scars. “Why are you pressuring me about this?”
“I’m not pressuring you,” he denied. “It’s just that I miss you at work, and in the hospital you told me you wanted to get back to the newsroom as soon as possible.”
That was before the bandages had been removed from her face and she had seen the damage.
“I’ve changed my mind. I need more time to get my strength back.”
“You told me a few minutes ago that you were feeling fins.”
“I am. I’m just not ready to return to work.”
“Your viewers will be disappointed.” Then he gave her his heart-stopping grin and said, “I’ll be disappointed.”
It didn’t stop Kristen’s heart for even a moment.
“Have you read KC’s column lately? Even she misses you,” he added.
KC was a gossip reporter who had followed their romance with a fervent passion, never missing an opportunity to mock the two of them in her biweekly newspaper column under a special subheading—“Amorous Anchors.”
“What she’s really missing are the opportunities to make fun of us,” Kristen said cynically.
