Free To Have and to Hold by Diana Palmer

what I call a steak," he praised the slab of perfectly cooked meat. His eyes went distastefully to her chicken and mushrooms. "I hope you have nightmares," he said unkindly.
    She ignored him, daintily placed her napkin in her lap. "You don't know what you're missing," she replied saucily, and began to eat.
    "God help me, I do."
    ❧
    They stopped by the airport on the way home to sit and watch the planes take off and land, their lights bright against the night sky.
    Cal had a pocket receiver so they could listen to the transmissions. It didn't take a mind reader to know that airplanes occupied a large chunk of his life.
    "You're crazy about them, aren't you?" she asked, gazing across the front seat at him.
    "Planes?" He laughed. 'I soloed when I was sixteen in a 1946 Aeronca Champion. I've been flying on and off ever since. There's something about piloting an aircraft that gets into your blood. It's been in mine as long as I can remember."
    "I used to like them, too."
    "Honey, just as many people die in automobile accidents," he reminded her, "but we still drive cars. You can't crawl into a tomb with the dead, little girl."
    She studied her lap. "I know. It's just...I think I felt guilty, you see. I'd planned to go on that flight with him, but at the last minute I decided to join him a day later. If I'd gone...."
    "But you didn't. You lived." He turned toward her, one big arm thrown over the seat, leaning back against his door to study her. "I believe everything happens for a reason. We may not know what that reason is, but there's one thing sure as hell, and that's that we can't change fate. So why feel guilty about being alive? Would he have wanted that?"
    She shook her head. "He was a very gentle man, a kind man. He wouldn't ever have wanted me to feel...but it hurt so," she whispered.
    "Tell me about him."
    She smiled, remembering. "Tall, slender, green-eyed, full of fun and life. Phillip was always laughing. He was in the public relations department of a company near ours, and I met him on my lunch hour in a restaurant. We only went together three months before we decided to get married. We'd barely had time to announce our engagement when it happened. I watched him buried on what would have been our wedding day."
    He reached out a big hand and smoothed the hair at her temples. "Did you burn when he touched you?" he said in a tight, odd voice.
    She blushed. "We...it wasn't like that...."
    "It's going to be like that with us," he said quietly. "Here, hold this. It's time I took you home."
    She took the receiver as he cranked the car and headed it out toward the highway, stunned by the cryptic remarks.
    ❧
    Instead of taking her home, he pulled into his own driveway.
    "Come on in," he said, opening the door for her. "I'll give you a non-alcoholic nightcap, and you can talk over old times with Suleiman."
    She laughed. "I don't really feel like a swim tonight."
    "If he pushes you into anything wet, I'll skin him and you can watch. Deal?"
    "Deal."
    The dog met them at the door with a ferocious bark that turned almost immediately to a low murmur of pleasure.
    "Hello, Puppy," Madeline cooed, stroking his sleek black fur, "hello, boy."
    He lapped up the affection like a sponge sitting with his eyes closed and his tongue out while she petted him.
    Cal poured himself a glass of what looked like whiskey and soda and fixed Madeline a tall glass of ginger ale. He handed it to her and paused to shed his jacket, tie and shoes. He stretched out on the sofa with a long, heartfelt sigh, eyeing her where she knelt on the thick beige carpet with the big dog.
    "Your drink's getting warm," he remarked, sipping at his.
    "Only you could call ginger ale a drink," she teased. She rose and retrieved the glass from the coffee table by his side, just as he caught her wrist an d eased her gently down to sit beside him on the sofa. She could feel the heat from his big, warm body against her hip and thigh where they touched. Looking down into that