Angel's Peak Read Free Page A

“I think you’ve probably said enough on that subject.”
    “Franci, what the fuck?” he asked, confused and a little angry by her immediate rebuff. “God, can’t we have a conversation? We were together for two years! It was good, me and you. We never had anyone else, either one of us, and—”
    “And you said it wasn’t going any further.” She stiffened her back. “In fact, that was one of the nicer things you said. I’m glad you’re doing fine—you look just the same, happy as can be. Say hello to your mother and brothers. And really, don’t push this. We decided. We’re over.”
    “Come on. I don’t believe you mean that,” he said.
    “Believe it,” she shot back. “You made a decision—you didn’t want a commitment to me. And here you are—you don’t have one. Bye. Take care.”
    She got in her car and slammed the door. He took two giant steps forward and heard the door locks click into place. She backed out of her parking space quickly and drove away. He memorized the license number, but the most important thing he noticed was that it was a California plate. She might not live in Arcata, but she lived close enough to drive over for dinner.
    Now that he’d seen her, he knew what he’d long suspected. He was far from over her.

    Franci’s hands trembled so much, she found it hard to drive. She always knew there was a chance she would bump into him someday, though she carefully avoided the most obvious places where that could happen. But she had never, never expected him to want to talk about it, to talk about them!
    And when she thought of the months she had prayed for that talk to happen, it caused her vision to blur with gathering tears. Angry tears! She pursed her lips and thought, No! She’d cried enough over him; he wouldn’t get the benefit of one more tear.
    Franci left Phoenix after their breakup and went home to Santa Rosa to work as a civilian nurse in a hospital. She had lived with her mother. Almost a year later, she got a good job that fed her addiction to adrenaline—a flight nurse position with a helicopter transport unit. Less demanding work hours, good benefits, more opportunities—but it meant a move. Because she had her bachelor of science in nursing, she was able to teach a couple of courses at Humboldt U in Arcata, perhaps building a future in academia.
    Her mom, a family-medicine physician’s assistant, had been ready for a change. Vivian found a position in a family-medicine clinic in Eureka. An excellent position. Vivian’s hours were more demanding—full-time, in fact. So the two of them moved north together, closer to Vivian’s job than Franci’s, and twice a week, Franci drove over the mountains to Redding to pull a twenty-four-hour shift as a flight nurse. Most of her flights were routine patient transport via helicopter—getting a heart or C-section patient out of a small-town hospital to a larger facility where special surgery could be performed. But occasionally she was on board for an emergency—victims of a wildfire, car accidents in isolated parts of the mountain terrain, injuries requiring emergency surgery. She had loved in-flight nursing in the air force and had missed it. This new job fit the bill. She bought a cute little house on the outskirts of Eureka in the kind of quiet, lovely neighborhood she most enjoyed and, until tonight, she thought her life was nearly perfect.
    Looked for her, had he? Not very hard. Once six months had passed, she thought she’d come to terms with the fact that they were not meant to be. They wanted different things from life; he wanted to play and have fun till he was a grizzled old man and she wanted to put down roots and grow a family.
    What wasn’t fair about it was that she’d been attracted to the very thing that seemed to prevent him from wanting to settle down. He was handsome and daring and reckless, as good at snow and water skiing as he was at snuggling up on the couch to watch a movie. Of course, it