Free One Thousand Years to Forever by Mary Moriarty Page B

at Katherine. “Can you hear me
OK?”
    Katherine shook her head. She
watched as Colum got ahold of the cord attached to her headset and
plugged it in. He smiled at her.
    “ Can you hear me now?”
    She nodded her head. “Yes. I take
it that it will be noisy?”
    “ Just a little bit. But we aren’t
going to be up long enough for it to matter.”
    He set the controls and cleared
for take off from the Jet Port.
    “ How long will it take,
Colum?”
    Colum quickly glanced over to
Katherine. “Twenty-five, maybe thirty minutes. We have a wind
picking up and with the snow starting it will slow us a bit. If we
don’t get going now we will be grounded soon.”
    Katherine watched as they hovered.
She waved to the girls who were hanging out the Rover’s windows,
smiling like nothing had just happened and this was just any other
day. She had the good sense to wait till they were flying steady
and then she turned to Colum.
    “ So tell me what just happened?
Not only what Travis did to the girls to make them forget or act
like they had never seen what just happened but who are those men
and why were your men there?”
    Colum reached over and took one of
her hands. He gently rubbed her knuckles, making circles with his
thumb.
    Katherine glanced down at her hand,
Colum’s fingers and his massaging her hand, sending sparks all
through her body. It felt like a pinball was ricocheting throughout
her body. She felt a heat starting to spread and move into areas
that hadn’t heated up in years. She shifted in her seat and started
to squirm. Then she thought of what happened and she could feel
herself getting angry again. She was a mess. First, she was
aroused, then she was angry.
    “ Those men are the result of your
funeral tirade. They are not the first though... and I am sure they
won’t be the last. It appears that whomever you pissed off, now
wants to eliminate you. Once you get on a list of theirs, only
death takes you off. I am going to make sure that they get no where
near you.”
    “ Death! But who are they? Are they
really terrorists? And how... Oh, what about the girls? Also, why
did they act so odd after Travis talked to them?”
    Colum tried not to smile too much.
“Travis used an age old practice that you can see in Star Wars. In
the movie the Jedi use it to change someone’s thoughts. It’s a form
of hypnosis and is harmless and really it was the best thing to do
in this situation with your daughter and her friend. Your car, yes,
while we were having breakfast, I had one of my men make sure it
wouldn’t start. My Rover is like a tank, just like all my vehicles.
I saw another man the other evening and he was
dispatched.”
    Katherine couldn’t believe what
she was hearing. She felt like she was in the middle of a spy
movie. “Dispatched? How?”
    Colum brought her hand to his lips
and smelled her frustration. “Let’s just say he won’t be a threat
any more... ” He kissed her hand one more time, letting his lips
brush the top of her knuckles. He smelled the rise of her
attraction and arousal but anger still simmered.
    Katherine couldn’t believe this.
She was mad and aroused all that the same time. “I wanted this to
be my fight... even though I thought it would never come... ” She
shook her head as Colum let go of her hand to get on the radio. She
now noticed the changing weather outside; it was getting worse. The
helicopter was starting to act like a small toy.
    Colum started talking to the tower
at Owls Head.
    Turning slightly to Katherine. “We
are going to have to put down in Wiscasset. The wind has picked up
too much. We can put down behind the public safety
building.”
    Katherine felt the wind buffet the
helicopter. She tried not to be scared but she was not the best
passenger on normal airline flight but this was beyond hairy. “Are
we going to be OK?”
    Colum took her hand. Kissing it, he
then put it on the other side of the control. “Hold on and know
that if you’re with me, everything