“Why?”

“Because I don’t mind convincing you that’s idiotic. Bring that glass of wine to bed.”

They walked together toward the bedroom, holding hands. Lou said, “I’m sixty, been single all my life. I’ve had a few serious crushes that I thought might turn into something, but here I am, in love for the first time. At my age.”

“Good. Stop complaining.”

“Older people can get sick, you know. You could end up caring for some old woman.”

“I pulled a speeding car over last night. A man was rushing his wife to the hospital. She’d been diagnosed with cancer, had been sick on and off for a few years and was getting worse. She was having trouble breathing, had chest pains and he thought it might be an embolism. He thought he was losing her. She was thirty-two.”

“Oh, the poor things...”

“I lit it up and escorted them to the hospital. Let’s let that age thing you’re always worrying about go, Lou. Let’s just have us some fun, now that Mac knows. All right?”

“Fun. Right.” She slid her hand up his chest to his shoulder. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving in two weeks? Will you be with your kids this year?”

“One is going skiing with friends and the other is spending the holiday with her mother and stepfather.”

“How’d you like to make your debut?”

He grinned at her. “Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

Thanksgiving Day, the weather was clear, wind moderate, temperature in the low forties on the Pacific, lower in the mountains where it was snowing. Sarah was at work until four o’clock, at which time she would head out of North Bend for Thunder Point and her boss would take over command. On holidays they tried to divide the watch. Crews of pilots, maintenance and EMTs would work the day shift, and the folks that had the day shift off would have their holiday meal early and come in later.

The station was quiet. This was a busy place Monday through Friday, when so much support staff, from clerical to maintenance, populated the place. But on nights, weekends and holidays, they operated with a slightly smaller workforce for emergencies. There were no training flights or inspections; Sarah wouldn’t fly unless there was a rescue mission. She used her time catching up on officer efficiency reports, schedules for training flights and inventory of her helicopters. The helicopters had been put through the preflight checklists, gassed and were ready to go.

She was at her desk but kept looking at her watch, more than ready to call this workday over.

“Sarah.”

She looked up and saw her ex-husband standing in the doorway. “You’re early,” she said, looking at her watch again. He wasn’t due for an hour.

“I thought I’d offer you an early out for the holiday. Do you have plans?”

“I do,” she said, putting down her pen and leaning back in her chair. “I’m having dinner with friends.”

“And Landon?”

She lifted her brows. “The same friends,” she answered.

“I guess Thunder Point is working out?” Derek asked. “You seem happier.”

She just gave a nod, but she couldn’t help thinking about how much happier than she’d been in so long. There were a couple of very dark years until now, from the time she had been forced to acknowledge Derek’s cheating, through the extended, black process of freeing herself when all she’d really wanted was for him to love her more than anything, more than anyone. When she looked at him now, she could summon that pain and disappointment. Of course, if she tried, she could find that rage and humiliation again. But it was hard now. Landon was happy with Eve, hanging out with friends and the McCain family. And she had Cooper, who was safe.

“I’ve been thinking, Sarah,” Derek said. “Maybe over the holidays, we could get together. You and me and Landon. Last year wasn’t good. It was—”

She laughed at him before he could finish. “Our divorce was final three days before Christmas. No, Derek, we’re not going to spend holidays together.” She didn’t bother to tell him it had been the worst Christmas of her life, rivaled only by the Christmas right after her parents died.

He stepped into the room. He straightened. “I’d like to see Landon.”

“He has the same cell phone number he’s had for the past two years, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that he won’t be interested.”

“I thought maybe you’d tell him I might be calling.”

“Might? Might? You seriously want me to tell Landon his long-lost brother-in-law might be calling him?”

“I didn’t want to be long and lost,” he said. “It just seemed kinder to Landon not to put him in the middle of our problems.”

“Derek, no one put him there and he was in the middle of it. You know that. When you were unfaithful to the marriage, you were unfaithful to him, too.”

“We really need to have a conversation about—”

“No,” she said. “Just no.”

“Look, I think enough time has passed for us to have a conversation, maybe mend some fences.”

“We’re not going to talk about this here. This is work.”

“Will you have dinner with me? Meet me for a drink?” he asked. “Sometime between now and Christmas?”

“Absolutely not,” she said, standing. She briefly remembered how attractive and sexy she’d once found him. He had been irresistible. If she’d known about his little problem with monogamy, she not only wouldn’t have married him, she would never have gone on a date with him. “We weren’t right for each other, we ended it as well as we could, it’s over. Landon is getting his confidence back and seems happy. Let’s just try to be professional.”

“Sarah, I heard through the grapevine that I’m getting orders. Is that your doing?”

“My doing?” she asked, stunned. Then she laughed. “Derek, if I could work a deal like that, I’d have done it a year and a half ago! Where are you going?”

“Kodiak,” he said, completely glum.

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered. He didn’t want to go. She knew he didn’t like to be cold, to sleep in daylight, to be challenged too much. She’d give just about anything to be reassigned to Kodiak, to the Bering Sea.

“I think I’ll be out of here in a few months or less. I want to be friends, to see Landon, to—”

She came around her desk. She was shaking her head. “You’re way too late, Derek. You’d have to unscrew a whole bunch of women, to start with. And you never said goodbye to Landon—he’s not feeling real brotherly toward you. In fact, he’s pretty pissed, and not just because of what you did to me. You left him, too.”

“Come on, you didn’t exactly make me feel welcome.”

“Oh, sorry,” she said sarcastically. “I’m not going to discuss this with you, especially not here. No dinner, no drink, and I don’t give a shit about your fences. You made your choice. Your fences are all beyond repair.”

“Sarah,” he said. “You have influence. People like you, respect you. Can you get me out of Kodiak?”

“I’d take it off your hands in a second if I could. But I have commitments. I’m determined that Landon will graduate from his current high school.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Oh, man, I missed all the signals!” he said suddenly. Then he laughed. “You’ve been smiling lately—you’ve been less mean. You’re in a relationship!”

She didn’t flinch. “Last count, you’re in twenty relationships. Derek, I am so done with you. If you’re ready to take over, I’ll leave for the day. My brother is waiting for me.”

But he wasn’t done laughing. “Holy crap, I didn’t think it would ever happen—I know that look! Someone’s got you all softened up. Sarah’s getting laid!”

She got right in his face, put her palm against his chest and said, “I just thought of a way to keep you out of Kodiak. Sexual harassment charges and court martial. That sound better than the Bering Sea?”

“Come on, Sarah. What’s a little teasing between friends?” he asked.

She walked away from him, leaving everything on her desk. She went to the locker room to change out of her flight suit. Using her cell phone from there, she called the rescue diver on her team. “Paul, do me a favor. Keep me out of prison. Occupy Stiles. He’s giving me shit and I want to make a clean getaway before I kill him.”

“You bet, boss.”

She could count on Paul. She’d have to get his family some kind of nice Christmas basket.

She changed into her jeans, blouse, sweater, boots. She put on some makeup, something she never did before leaving the station. Suddenly she wondered, could Cooper be as insensitive and cruel as Derek? Because she felt about Cooper right now just as she had once felt about Derek and it scared her to death. She had laughed with Derek as much, as often. She had relied on him in almost the same way she relied on Cooper—as someone not just for her, but for Landon. And sex with Derek had been good.

But if she was honest, she had never really trusted Derek. She knew firsthand that he didn’t always keep his word, that he could lie easily, but she had dismissed these as minor flaws because they were never about issues that really mattered. He would tell a friend he’d completely forgotten he was going to help him move when, really, he had decided he’d rather watch the ball game. He would promise to be home right after work and be two hours late, but he had excuses that at least sounded believable. Sorry, babe, we got arguing about a few completely miscalled plays, the game was in overtime, we added a beer to the discussion—in which I was totally right, by the way—and before I knew it...

But it had been tough to ignore what happened the day they got married.

Are you at Susan’s house?

Susan’s? Why would I be at Susan’s?

I hear that dog—the one next door to her. The one that never shuts up.

What dog?

I heard it in the background.

I don’t hear anything. Sure it’s not somewhere you are?

I’m at the spa! And Susan isn’t!

Well, call her, Sarah. I’m about to walk out the door. I’ll see you at four. Stop going crazy. You’re just having nerves.

Aren’t you? Having nerves?

No, Sarah. I’m ready.

The one question Derek had never been able to answer—why in the world did he marry Sarah if he still acted like a single guy? Screwing around? “It’s not like I planned it. It just happened. And I don’t love her—I love you.”

So maybe she should thank Derek for showing her the light? Because without some of his most disastrous lies, betrayals and infidelities, she would have fallen in love with Cooper in just a few weeks. But she had learned. Boy, had she learned.

She slid into the blazer she was wearing to Thanksgiving dinner at the McCains’. And then the bell went off, followed by the intercom calling for a rescue team.

She had been leaving early, thanks to Derek, but at the sound, she was out of her clothes and back into her flight suit faster than lightning. She ran to the chopper.

“Suspected heart attack, fifty-seven-year-old male, on The Misty Morning. Sixty-foot sailing vessel, luxury Oyster, about twenty miles northwest. Here are your coordinates,” the crew chief said. “Ready?”

“Ready,” she said. “We did the preflight checklist and gassed her up earlier. Paul finished the inventory. Is our guy conscious?”

“So far. Want to wait for a doctor?”

“We stand a better chance of bringing him in than waiting for the doc. Tell them to lower the sails. Paul? You have everything?” she yelled.