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Now that her instructor had closed the door for the plane to ascend another six thousand feet or so, it was possible to hear each other without having to shout so loudly over the engines or the wind.
‘The tandem’s easier than the static line, and I’ll run you through the basics, but you’ll need to change harness.’
And then Kaspar was addressing her, for the first time in fifteen years. She stared at him intently, as though willing up some spark of recognition, even if it was only to realise she was the kid sister who’d bugged him and Robbie. The one who had tried to get her brother to let her in when Robbie had far rather push her out. The one who had taught her little words in Persian, and chastised Robbie when he’d taught her swear words.
She gazed and, for a moment, she thought he stared back. Holding eye contact that fraction longer than necessary. It was as though the very blood was stilling in her veins, her body hanging for a split second. Everything seemed to tilt, to change colour.
But then he looked away, searching for the right harness, and she realised that moment had only existed in her own head. She could only watch in silence as Kaspar busied himself with the kit, slipping them both into the adult equivalent of a forward-facing baby carrier then sitting, with her perched on his lap, like the other tandem jumpers left in the plane.
It felt surreal. Nothing about this moment remotely resembled the hundreds of na?ve fantasies she’d nurtured—for longer than she cared to admit—about how a conversation with him would go if she ever saw him again.
She’d envisaged beautiful clothes, perfect hair and make-up, and her sexiest smile. She’d imagined making Kaspar gasp at what he’d failed to see, right under his nose, all those years ago. She’d dreamed about making him chase her, just a little, before inevitably giving in to some all-consuming desire. Her innocent, wholly unrequited teenage crush finally blossoming into some movie-perfect moment.
She had not imagined being in an aircraft in the most unflattering, unshapely skydiving suit, which bunched around the crotch thanks to her heavy harness, and, to cap it all off, too frightened to even make her jump.
Well, she’d be damned if she was going to bottle this one, too. She had to make this jump. From ten thousand feet. With Kaspar.
She absolutely was not thinking about how close they were going to be, strapped together in a harness, her back pressed against his front.
Her blood was absolutely not racing away in her body, leaving her feeling decidedly light-headed and clammy.
She was going to concentrate on the jump and be grateful for the second chance. She had to do this well.
For charity.
For her father.
For herself.
And not because Kaspar was going to be with her for every single spine-tingling nanosecond of it. Truly.
Abruptly, everything faded to a blur, from Kaspar sorting out her gear to going through rigorous checks that would ordinarily have been completed on the ground. And then they were ready. Waiting. Her back glued to his chest.
Somehow that inability to face him lent her confidence.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked suddenly, surprising even herself.
Kaspar frowned.
‘Sorry?’
Despite the relative quiet of the plane now the hatch door was closed, one still had to speak loudly and clearly to be heard and her murmur hadn’t been nearly loud enough.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she repeated, grateful that no one else would stand a chance of hearing.
‘Why am I doing this?’ Kaspar repeated slowly, as if checking he’d heard right.
But she knew that cadence. Realised it meant he was choosing his words carefully. It felt like a tiny victory. She still knew him. Or a part of him anyway.
‘Like a lot of people up here today, I’m doing it in memory of someone.’
‘Who?’ The question was out before she could swallow it back.
She could picture his face tightened, his jaw locked. So familiar even after all these years. The unexpectedness of it knotted in Archie’s stomach and stopped her heart for a beat.
‘We’ll be at altitude soon.’ He jerked his head to the door, clearly sidestepping her question, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t explain why but suddenly she needed to know.
‘Who?’ she insisted.
His jaw spasmed but, presumably because it was meant to be a charity jump and people had been sharing stories all day, he schooled his features into a neutral expression.
‘His name was Peter. I knew him...a long time ago.’
He stopped curtly, as though it was more than he had intended to say. But it was more than enough for Archie.
Peter? Her father?
Archie shook her head, her lungs burning with the effort of continuing to breathe. He was doing this in memory of her own father? An odd sense of pride surged through her that even now, five years after his death, her big-hearted father still touched lives. And yet a sickening welling of emotion quickly snuffed out the pride. Kaspar clearly had absolutely no idea who she was. Despite all her earlier reasoning, that feeling of hurt, of rejection, coursed through her with all the power of a tsunami. She couldn’t possibly hope to stop it, as illogical as she knew her reaction might be.
She opened her mouth, trying to find a way to tell him who she was. But at that moment the hatch door had reopened and her words were sucked out and into the ether before Kaspar had heard them. And as she sat there, her body feeling like lead, she was semi-aware of the other skydivers making their jumps even as her eyes blurred to everything around her.
The next thing she knew, Kaspar was hauling her to her feet, carrying out the final procedures, and then they were moving to the door, exiting the plane, dropping for what seemed like for ever but was probably no more than thirty seconds or so.
And without warning every thought, every emotion seemed to fall from Archie’s mind, leaving her strangely numb.
At some point, it had to have been quite quickly, Kaspar tapped her shoulder to remind her to spread out her arms and legs in the freefall position as they rushed towards the ground, although it was as though the ground was rushing to them, her back pressed to his solid, reassuring chest. There was no chance for conversation up here, they could shout and yell and the other one would never hear them, and to Archie there was something freeing in that. For all intents and purposes she was alone, even if she could feel Kaspar’s rock-like mass securing her. As the adrenalin coursed through her veins, pumping along like nothing could hold it back, it was as though the wind not only blew away the stiffness from her body but the fog that had clouded her mind for so long.
Too long.
Kaspar opened the chute at what Archie knew would have been around five thousand feet, the loud crack ripping through her entire being as they were yanked up into a more upright position, as if breaking her open and allowing the first hints of fear and anger and regret to seep out.
And then absolute silence.
Peace.
Her heart, her whole chest swelled with emotion.
They were still descending but, with the parachute above them now slowing their rate of descent, if she didn’t look at the ground, it almost felt as though they were floating. Suddenly time seemed to stand still.
Another thrill rippled through her.
She remembered what it had felt like on that first jump with her father. The life she’d intended to have. The strength of character that used to be hers. And for a moment she felt that again. Free of any responsibility for opening the parachute, steering them to the landing zone, or even having to land safely, she felt her body relax for the first time in years. And the more her body let go of some of the tension it had bottled inside for too long, the more her mind also opened up.
Lost in her thoughts, she was almost startled when a thumb appeared in front of her.
‘Okay?’ he yelled, his mouth by her ear.
Instinctively, she thrust both her hands out in a double thumbs-up, nodding her head as vigorously as she could, and then he was offering her the paddles to try controlling the chute for herself for a moment.
She was about to shake her head when something stopped her. For a split second she could almost hear her father’s voice in her head encouraging her to do it. Tentatively, she reached up and took hold, changing direction slowly at first, surprised at just how comfortable and natural it felt. Even six years on, it was as though her muscles had retained the training her father had given her.
‘Were you really going to do tandem jumps today?’ She twisted her head so he could hear her easier.
Kaspar nodded. ‘I was subbing for another instructor friend of mine who’s unwell today. Originally, though, I was going to sky surf. Peter would have loved that.’
He stopped again, clearly catching himself.
Archie thought back to the surfboards she’d seen in the hangar on the ground and smiled into the expanse of blue. Of course a simple skydive wouldn’t be enough for adrenalin junkie Kaspar, but he was right, her dad would have loved it.
Bolstered, she tried a slightly trickier turn, surprised and delighted at how comfortable and natural it felt, things that her father had taught her coming back quicker than she might have anticipated. Again and again she steered the chute, going further, trying things out, wishing she had the skill to really push her boundaries. All too soon it was time to release the paddles back to Kaspar.
Almost as though he could read her mind, Kaspar steered them into a high-speed turn, a gurgle of laughter that she hadn’t heard from herself in years rumbling through her and spilling into the silent sky. She revelled in the sound as Kaspar led them both into a series of high-speed manoeuvres that thrilled her beyond anything she’d hoped for.
They held such echoes of what she’d loved until recently. For a moment it was as though she could almost reach in and touch the spirited, strong girl she’d once been.
It was transitory. Archie knew that. Soon Kaspar would have to stop and once they landed this moment, this connection to her old self, would be lost.
But this jump had done the one thing she’d desperately wanted it to do. It had finally reminded her of the girl she’d once been and—however deeply buried that part of her may be—today had helped her to begin her journey back to the old Archie.
The biggest shock of all was that it wouldn’t have happened but for Kaspar Athari.
He might have no idea who she was, and once this jump was done he’d be out of her life again. Maybe for another fifteen years. Probably for good. But she was grateful to him nonetheless. Part of her longed to reveal her identity to him, but part of her was afraid of ruining the moment.
She was still gazing at the scenery spread out beneath them like the most vivid green screen image, trying to decide, when a small explosion by a truck in a layby below them snagged her attention. They were still a little too high up to see much detail but a dark shape lay on the ground. Archie opened her mouth to speak but Kaspar was already steering the parachute around for a better look.
‘Is that a person?’ she asked tentatively after a few moments. ‘Or bins? Or bags?’
‘I can’t be sure. Possibly a person.’
His grim tone only confirmed her fears. If it was a body, they would likely have been caught in the blast.
‘They have ambulance crews on the ground at the fete,’ she shouted.
‘That’s true but the fete’s some way away, they won’t have seen the blast we saw. And I know that stretch of road, it’s on the route from the hospital and Rick’s Food Truck is parked in that layby six days a week, popular with both weekday truckers and with weekend walkers, all looking for a hot bacon and egg bap. For me, Rick’s sausage and tomato toasties are more than welcome after a long night shift.’
‘So what’s the plan?’ she asked, knowing neither she nor Kaspar would have mobile phones on the jump.
The decisive note in her tone was something she hadn’t heard in all too long.
‘There’s about a mile over the fields, as the crow flies, between the truck and the fete. If we land as close as we can to the layby we can check it out. If it is a person, I’ll stay on scene while you run back and alert the medical crews at the fete. Understood?’
‘Understood,’ she confirmed, caught off guard by an unexpected flashback to a time when Robbie had come off his bike, trying to do some somersault trick, and had been lying deathly still on the ground.
She’d been beside herself, but Kaspar had taken control then much as he was now. Assessing, verifying, trying to assimilate as much pertinent information as he could. Kaspar had taught her a lot, even as a kid.
Just like her father had.
Right now, she suddenly realised, she felt more like her old self than she had for years. Who would have thought she would owe Kaspar Athari part of the credit for that?
CHAPTER TWO (#u815974e9-1c3d-5fe8-bd3e-6ecc3e768e3f)
KASPAR VAULTED OVER the hedge and through the field. A part of him was glad to be getting away from the girl—Archie, her instructor had called her—with her expression-laden eyes that seemed to see altogether too much. It made no sense and yet even through her obvious fear up there in the plane, every time she had fixed that clear gaze on him he’d been unable to shake the impression that she could see past the fa?ade he’d carefully crafted for a drooling press over the years, and read his very soul.
If he’d actually had a soul. But that had been long shattered. As much by his own terrible mistakes as anything else. Not least the one night that had altered the course of his life for ever.
And yet he couldn’t seem to shake the notion that this one girl—woman—almost knew him. As though she was almost familiar.
He told himself it was just the emotion of the day. Five years since he’d heard Peter had passed away, the closest thing he’d ever had to a real, decent father figure. Who, even as a widower trying to hold down his air force career, had been more of a father and a mother to his son and daughter than either of Kaspar’s own very much alive parents could or would ever have been.
Peter Coates had taught him that the volatile, physically terrifying marriage of his own parents wasn’t normal or right. He’d taught Kaspar to handle his emotions so that he didn’t lose control the way his own father had. The way his own mother had, for that matter.
Hearing about Peter’s death had winded him. Along with the rumour that Robbie had subsequently sold the old farmhouse and emigrated to Australia. Kaspar could understand why. With both parents dead, Robbie, only twenty-five, and with that kid sister of his to look after, it made sense to have a completely fresh start. And yet somehow, knowing the Coates family no longer lived in that cosy, old, sandstone place with its roaring open fires, it had felt like the end of an era.
‘Rick? Mate, can you hear me?’ Kaspar shook the memories off and called out with deliberate cheerfulness as he approached the figure lying on the ground, one eye half-closed and bloodied.
The extent of the blast damage made it almost impossible to recognise the man as Rick, but the man’s build and clothing fitted. There was one way to tell for certain, though. Carefully, Kaspar ripped the man’s shirt sleeve.
A clipper ship stared boldly back.
Rick. But he wasn’t conscious. Pinching the man’s side, Kaspar began a quick examination, surprised when Archie came running up not far behind him. Her intake of breath was the only acknowledgement that the dark shadow was indeed a person.
‘Is it your friend Rick?’
‘Yes. Get a medical crew,’ he instructed.
‘He might have a mobile,’ she suggested hopefully, but Kaspar shook his head.
‘He doesn’t. Claims to hate them. So you’ll just have to hoof it. Can you do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Tell them to alert the air ambulance and say we’ve got an unresponsive adult male, around fifty, with severe maxillofacial blast injury, including tissue loss of the right eye and nose and unstable maxilla. GCS three and his airway is going to need to be secured immediately.’
She recited it back clearly and competently despite the slight quake in her voice then left. Kaspar turned back to Rick. By the looks of it, the man was mercifully beginning to regain some degree of consciousness.
‘Rick? It’s Kaspar. Can you hear me?’
At least the older guy was making vague groaning noises now, even if he didn’t appear to recognise Kaspar at all. He certainly couldn’t seem to speak, although that was hardly a surprise. Keeping up light, breezy conversation, Kaspar concentrated on the injuries and the potential damage to the man’s airway. If that collapsed, things would spiral downwards pretty damned fast.
Occupied, it felt like it was only minutes later when the helicopter landed and the on-board trauma doctor came racing over.
‘Kaspar Athari.’ The doctor nodded in deference. ‘Your partner said it was you. I’m Tom. What have we got?’
‘Adult male, around fifty years old. Name is Rick.’
‘Rick the food truck guy? You’re sure?’
‘Sure enough.’ Briefly, Kaspar tapped a bold, unusual tattoo on the man’s upper arm. ‘Approximately fifteen minutes ago he was changing a gas bottle on his food truck when it exploded, no witnesses except myself and my skydiving partner but we were too far away to see clearly. He appears to have been projected by the force and hit his face and neck on something, I would guess the vehicle bracket. There’s tissue loss of the right eye and of the nose, unstable maxilla and suspected crushed larynx. Initially unresponsive, he’s now producing sounds in response to verbal stimuli. GCS was three, now four.’
