“Cat? Cat, are you there?”

“Yeah, Dad. Just?.thank god?. You?re sure she?s alright?”

“Perfectly sure, honey. Especially after the shot the doctor just gave her. Whatever she might be feeling, it sure isn?t pain.”

“Thank god. Alright.” Cat sat up, her mind whirling. “I?m at the airport now. I think I can get the next flight?.”

“No, it?s alright. You just go on to California with your team.”

“But Dad?”

“Cat, your mother made me promise that I wouldn?t let you come home.”

“Wouldn?t let me? Dad, I?m an adult here, in case you and mom forgot.”

“Oh, honey, I know that but, well?.” He paused as he cleared his throat. “Your mother, despite what she tells you, is very proud of you. She?s invited her friends over to watch you tomorrow so she can brag to them all about what a success her beloved daughter is.”

Cat felt her jaw unhinge as she listened to her father?s completely unexpected confession-by-proxy.

“She?what??”

“It?s true, sweetheart. Your mother would kill me if she knew I told you, but it?s true.”

“Kill you? Isn?t she there now?”

Her father chuckled. “Yup, all but passed out on the stretcher with a goofy grin on her face.”

Cat all but choked, holding the phone away from her ear as her mother?s fuzzy voice erupted over the tinny speaker, singing, of all things, “Cheeseburger in Paradise.”

“Dad?” Cat croaked, but her father was laughing too hard to answer. “Dad??”

When her father?s voice came back on the line, it was wheezy with spent laughter. “S?sorry sweetheart. I just?never expected that from your mother.”

“I didn?t even know she could sing!” Cat winced as a particularly sour note rang through the phone. “If you can call that singing.”

“Just thank God you can hang up whenever you want. I have a feeling I?ll be enduring this little concert for a while yet.”

“Are you sure there?s nothing she needs?”

“Nothing but a little rest and a lot of TLC, both of which I can give her. Now you just go on ahead and catch the next flight to sunny California, alright? Call us when you get there and I?ll fill you in on the latest.”

Cat sighed, then nodded. “Okay, Dad. Tell mom I love her.”

“As soon as she stops singing, I will, sweetheart. Fly safe. I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad. Bye.”

“Bye, honey.”

Folding the phone and slipping it into her carryall, Cat smiled at the warm hand on her wrist.

“Everything okay?” Dylan asked.

“Aside from my mother arranging an impromptu jam session in the middle of the ER, yeah, everything?s fine. She just got a little banged up.”

“That?s good to hear.”

A bit embarrassed, Cat rubbed at the back of her neck. “I?um?guess we missed the flight out, huh?”

Dylan grinned. “Never fear. I?ve made some alternate arrangements. Anytime you?re ready, we can head out.”

“I guess I?m ready now.”

Standing with a fluid grace so much a part of her, Dylan reached down and helped Cat up from the comfortable couch. She hugged the smaller woman quickly, bending to whisper in her ear. “I?m glad your mom?s alright.”

“So am I,” Cat replied. “And thanks. For caring.”

Dylan gave her a rakish grin. “Not a problem at all.”

Dylan escorted Cat through the main terminal and into a smaller, less crowded part of the sprawling complex. After speaking quietly to a tall, uniformed man standing beside a stout door, they were ushered outside and onto the tarmac where a small jet, painted a garish purple and black and sporting Horace Johnson?s company name, waited, its engines growling softly.

Cat turned wide eyes to Dylan, who smirked down at her as she ascended the short flight of steps that led her up to the open hatchway. That smirk turned into a carefully neutral mask as Dylan stepped into the dimly lighted plane, giving a short nod to Johnson and his “secretary”?she of the platinum blonde hair and surgically enhanced assets. “Horace.”

“Took you long enough,” the team owner grumbled, only briefly tearing his rheumy eyes away from his assistant?s cleavage to shoot his head coach an irritated scowl.

“It couldn?t be helped,” Dylan replied, stepping forward in order to give Cat enough room to enter behind her.

“Mr. Johnson,” Cat said, panting slightly as she entered the plane, “thank you. I appreciate you offering this. My mother—”

Johnson grunted dismissively, not even bothering to look at Cat as he turned his attention back to the woman at his side.

Dylan shot him a look that would have gotten her summarily fired had he seen it and, grasping Cat?s hand in hers, led the way down the narrow aisle until they came to two empty seats across from the team physician who was sprawled out comfortably across her own row, grinning up at them. “Flying with the big dogs, I see.”

“He?s too much of a pig to be a dog,” Dylan grumbled, stepping aside and gesturing for Cat to grab the window seat, then settling down beside her. “Who?s the new trophy?”

“Eh,” Norton replied, shrugging, “somebody he met at some good ol? boy beer swill somewhere, I?m sure.” The doctor laughed. “You sure can hear the wind whistling between those ears.”

“Isn?t Mr. Johnson married?” Cat asked, adjusting herself in her seat and buckling the belt securely around her waist.

Dylan and Norton laughed.

“Horace wouldn?t know the word ?fidelity? if it came and bit him in the ass,” the doctor snorted, clasping her own belt. “I think he?s a majority stockholder in the Bimbo-of-the-Month Club.”

“And he has a problem with me being gay?” Cat asked, offended.

Norton laughed again, but her chuckle was rueful. “Par for the course for idiots like him, Cat. Par for the course.”

Cat sighed, shaking her head. “That bites.”

“That it does, my friend.”

Plane seats were never intended for someone as tall as Dylan, and with her knees scrunched practically up to her chin and nowhere for her broad shoulders to comfortably rest, she closed her seatbelt and willed the flight a quick one as possible.

Feeling Cat stiffen, Dylan turned her head to the side, smiling wryly. “Try not to let him get to you too much, Cat. He?s not worth it.”

Cat returned the smile. “It?s not that. Not really.”

Dylan frowned, noticing her companion?s sudden pallor. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Cat replied, shifting a little. “I?m fine. It?s just?.”

“The flight?”

“I don?t mind flying. I kinda like it, actually. But this plane. It?s just so?so?.”

“Cramped?”

Cat blushed as she turned her head fully to look at Dylan, noticing for the first time how her coach?s body was crammed into the tiny seat. “Um?yeah.”

The feel of Dylan?s hand, large enough to palm a basketball with ease, completely engulfing her own served to chase the fears and tumult of the day back into the dark recesses of her mind. A wave of lethargy swept over her, and as the plane?s engines powered up for its taxi down the runway, she felt sleep claim her, her lolling head resting against Dylan?s shoulder.

A soft chuckle brought Dylan?s sharp gaze over to the snickering Kelly Norton, who gave her a cheesy grin and a waggling eyebrow before she turned away, blatantly ignoring the look of death shot her way.

Sighing, Dylan rested her head back against the seatback and stared straight ahead as the small jet gathered speed and took off into the vast evening sky.

A dream, already fading, woke Cat from her sleep, gasping. Still tired eyes darted toward the window, where she was treated to a violent display of lightening sparking through the roiling clouds enveloping their tiny plane.

She gave a louder gasp when the plane seemed to plummet a heart-stopping length before finally finding stable air beneath it again and leveling out. Her knuckles white from the grip on the arms of her seat, Cat looked to her left. Both Dylan and the doctor were gone, leaving Cat alone in this part of the plane.

She uttered a breathless cry as a brilliant bolt of lightning slashed almost against the window and the plane, once again, plummeted.

Hearing the cry, Dylan quickly ducked back into the passenger area and strode over to Cat, holding the seatbacks in order to keep herself from stumbling about as the plane rocked wildly back and forth. “What is it, Cat? What?s wrong?”

“What?s?.” Cat swallowed back the churning in her stomach. “?going on?”

Dylan shook her head. “We?ve got a problem. We?re almost over Denver and we?re gonna have to make an emergency landing.”

“Because of the storm?”

“No. Norton thinks Horace is having a heart attack.”

“Oh god. Is there anything I can do?” Cat sat up and struggled with the belt at her lap.

Dylan held up a hand. “No, keep it on. We?re going to land soon.” The plane dipped again, then tilted almost on its side, causing Dylan to nearly rip the seatback from its moorings as she kept herself from being thrown down the aisle. “I hope.”

“Dylan?”

Dylan looked down into a pair of brilliant green eyes; eyes which held a strong determination, and the faintest spark of fear. The coach could relate. She wasn?t ready to belt out “Ode to Joy” herself.

They both jumped, startled, as a lightning strike hit the plane, causing it to duck and shutter in a series of gut-wrenching dips and rises, as if it had suddenly landed in an amusement park and was substituting for the roller coaster. The lights dimmed, then shut down altogether, before coming back on in an eerie, flickering glow.

After a moment of relative calm, the plane wheeled crazily, uprooting Dylan and throwing her across Cat?s lap. She smacked her head hard against the bulkhead and pulled against the G forces pinning her down, seeing stars. Her guts sank, and stayed there.