Free Oceans Apart by Karen Kingsbury Page B

matter how long they lived he would never quite catch her, never see her without seeing the chal-lenge she’d been to him back when they first met.
    No, he couldn’t get enough of her, even after nearly fourteen years. Their Tuesday mornings were constant proof. He loved that time each week with his wife. Loved the way she often initiated their lovemaking, and the way their arms and legs tangled together, making it impossible to tell where one of them ended and the other began. If that morning he’d missed some of his usual routine, he’d live with the fact.
    Alone time with Michele was worth every minute.
    The bathroom was filling up with passengers again, and Connor made one last tuck of his uniform. He had ten minutes before he had to be at the gate, and halfway through the door he remembered something.
    The plane crash.
    67

    – Oceans Apart –
    He’d never seen a passenger list, and though this was his first day back since the accident, he’d heard none of the other pilots or staff talking about it. He probably didn’t know anyone on the plane. But he never read about an aircraft going down without wondering who was on board. Too many years in the air to not at least check.
    The nearest counter had a woman working it and no one in line.
    He went to her and gave her a polite nod. “Hey.”
    “Hello, Captain.”
    Connor didn’t know her, but she had a familiar face. “Have you seen the passenger list from the Western plane crash this past weekend?”
    “Yes.” The woman thought for a moment. She was older, fifty-two, fifty-three, a former flight attendant, no doubt. “Over at Gate Eleven.”
    Connor nodded his thanks and worked his way back into the flow of traffic along the concourse. Eleven was two gates past the one where his plane was parked. He grinned at himself. His plane.
    Michele liked to tease him about the way he took ownership of every aircraft he ever flew.
    The thing was, he had to take ownership. It was why he flew so well, not by mere instrumentation and formulated turns, but safer and more instinctively. By the seat of his pants, she liked to say.
    And she was right. But that same flying was why he’d always come home to Michele—especially after the Gulf War.
    He picked up his pace and focused hard on the action at Gate Eleven. The attendants were intently working two lines for a flight due out in twenty-five minutes. He came up alongside the counter and waited until one of them noticed him.
    “Captain, what can we do for you?”
    “I understand you have the passenger list?” He kept his voice low, so the passengers wouldn’t hear him. “The one from this past weekend’s Western crash?”
    68

    – Karen Kingsbury –
    The attendant returned her eyes to the customer at her counter, reached into a drawer, and pulled out a folded newspaper. With only a quick glance, she handed it to him and flashed him a sad smile. “You can keep it. None of us knew the pilots or crew.” He took the paper from her. “I’m checking the same thing.” She returned to her line of passengers, and Connor moved to a spot near the windows, removed from the crowds. There he unrolled the newspaper. It was already opened to the passenger list.
    Jared Browning, pilot; Steve McCauffey, copilot; Angela Wield-ing, flight attendant; Kiahna Siefert—
    Kiahna Siefert?
    His heart thudded hard, then stopped. He stared at her name, taking it in one letter at a time. That was her last name, wasn’t it?
    Siefert? The Kiahna part he was sure about. No matter how hard he’d tried to forget it, every now and then, in the early morning hours before dawn, her name would come.
    Kiahna .
    With a jolt, his heartbeat resumed, twice as fast as before. How many years had it been? Almost eight, right? He’d met her that awful summer, back in 1996 when his entire world was upside down. And even then they’d known each other only a few hours, the time it took for a massive storm to make its way across Hawaii and farther out