He Rescued a Dog Over My Gran, So I Took His Helicopters novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Jude's Rule

Jude's POV

I drove her up to the gatehouse in my truck, with the headlights off for the last quarter mile.

I did not tell myself why.

She had not asked me to come.

She had only said, in the ranch yard, with Beck's headlights in her face, "Don't leave yet," and I had not.

The porch light was on when she got out.

She stood holding my flight jacket closed at the throat with one scarred hand.

"Come in," she said.

The woodstove was already warm.

She put the kettle on without looking at me and set the blue folder square in the middle of the table.

I stayed standing by the door.

"There's something I have to say before I sit down," I said.

"Then say it."

"I saw the cars, Victoria."

She turned around.

"I was a mile out, and I saw the lights on Dutch Ravine, six or seven sets, stopped in a line. I saw the fire on the high side of the road." I kept my eyes on her. "I told him. He said ground had it. I said, 'Copy,' and I banked away."

"I know. I heard the recording."

"I didn't ask whose cars they were. I've asked myself why for two weeks."

"And?"

"Because he was my boss, and because I'd been taking his orders for six years, and because it was easier than being the pilot who argues."

She watched me say it.

"My Gran was in one of those cars," she said.

"I know."

"You were four minutes away from me, and you turned around because a man you work for told you to."

"Yes."

Her voice did not shake, and that was worse.

"I'm not going to say it's all right."

"I'm not asking you to."

"Don't ask me to forgive you, either."

"I haven't," I said. "I won't."

The kettle began to hiss.

She walked across the room and took it off the stove.

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