FRESH START

Fresh Start

When the right engine of his Cessna 310 sputtered and quit, Nick Melon wasn't thinking about the $10 million he had stacked in the back of his plane. He wasn't thinking about the shark-friendly waters of the Gulf of Mexico below, nor was he thinking about the fact that absolutely no one knew where the hell he was, because he was flying below radar to avoid the Feds.

He was thinking about Sharon Wright. The way she'd looked curled up in his bed earlier that morning, the sky still dark just before dawn, the moonlight behind the fast moving clouds rolling across her body in pale waves. Her hair splashed around the pillow. The soft sound of her breathing.

He'd stood in the doorway and watched her sleeping for some time, couldn't pull himself away, his mind rolling back over the last four months they'd been together. The long walks, the dinners, the way she laughed, her sense of adventure, the way she embraced life. He wanted to remember it all.

When he slipped out of the bedroom, silently closing the door behind him, he was absolutely certain he was making the biggest mistake of his life.

Once in the kitchen, he struggled to write her a goodbye note, crumpling up a half-dozen attempts before settling on the incredibly lame "I'm sorry."

He could have written more, taken the time to explain himself, or he could have just stopped and cooked her some breakfast, while trying to figure a way out of his mess, but he didn't. He just stepped out the back door, closing the latch, and the book on the best chapter of his life.

"Stick to the plan," he repeated to himself, as he walked through the field to the far side of his property. The crickets in the tall grass were protesting and the wind seemed to be holding him back, but he'd made his decision. He was back in the game. The cartel had been trying to re-enlist him for some time, but he'd kept refusing — that is until they asked him to transport six duffel bags of cash down to Mexico. He'd agreed. Just one last flight. Only he neglected to mention it to his compadres that it wouldn't be to Mexico. He'd refitted his Cessna with extra fuel tanks, enough to get him to Honduras, and once there he would disappear.

Sharon would no doubt move on, he told himself, she'd have no shortage of suitors, there'd be another guy, a better guy, after all he was just a drug smuggler.

When he reached the edge of his property he went into the barn. After prying up the floorboards and loading the bags of cash into his pickup, he drove the back roads out to the abandoned airport. He thought only about Sharon the whole way.

Sharon awoke after sunrise, reached over for Nick, and realized he was gone. At that point she knew she'd be demoted. Or suspended. Or fired.  She knocked over an empty wine glass while reaching for her phone on the nightstand. The dinner with Nick had been all laughs, they'd closed the place, spoon feeding each other dessert like a couple of first-crush teenagers. When Nick went to get the car, she'd dialed her surveillance team and pulled them off his house. "Okay," her audio engineer chuckled. "No need for the cameras and microphones recording everything — you'll be on top of Nick all night. Check."

Heading into the kitchen she began to mentally rehearse for the meeting she'd be having with her new station chief. She didn't dread it as much as loathe it. She'd been butting heads with him ever since he'd gotten the promotion. Over her. It wasn't jealousy, he was simply inept, everybody knew it. Everybody also knew the regional director had pulled strings to get his cousin the job — a twice removed cousin, she reminded herself, which only made the blatant nepotism worse.

When she walked into Nick's kitchen she immediately saw the goodbye note. While slowly tearing it into minuscule bits she noticed his truck keys were gone. Then she saw the clothes they had peeled off one another the night before, her panties, his boxers, her bra and blouse all neatly Boy-Scout folded over the back of the kitchen chair. She caught herself smiling. When she saw the empty bottles of wine on the counter she heard herself say "Did that little shi. . . ?" No longer wondering why she had slept so soundly. Nick had been topping off her glass all night. She smiled at that as well. He was one of the brightest criminals she'd ever tried to entrap. And fun too, she somewhat reluctantly admitted, pulling her clothes off the chair.