Page 58 of Love at First Flight

“Ooh, Captain Selah wants Ranger Dex all to herself.” Hailey pumped her eyebrows suggestively.

Hell, yeah, she did. She wanted him all to herself because she was bound to him as well, and needed to show him in all the ways possible.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The puzzle piecewas waiting for him in front of his door when he got home from work. It stood out against the dusty brown wood of his porch. “Thank you, Harper. But I hope you’re not stealing my puzzle pieces and bringing them outside,” he said, reaching to retrieve it.

The thought of finishing a whole puzzle and discovering pieces missing was some kind of crime against him personally. He didn’t need this kind of grief, especially right now.

In response to his thank you, Harper tippity-tapped across the railing, cawing twice, similar to her greeting when Selah would bring the bird a treat. Did the crow have her own signature greeting for people, like individualized handshakes? Usually, with him, she’d bob her head and flap her wings a few times. He didn’t think about it for long, as the bird returned to playing with some broken peanut shell she’d found.

He sighed as he entered his house. Dex hadn’t worked on the coffee table puzzle since the evening Selah had departed his home, and there’d been no word from her. He’d been hoping, after hisWake Up, USAinterview, she’d reach out. But after several days of silence, hope had faded away.

Dex should have accepted the invitation to go out with some of his fellow rangers after work today, but he was worn out and depressed. Going home and being by himself was a more ideal plan.

He went to the coffee table, where his in-progress jigsaw puzzle was located, and started to toss the piece into the box to join the others, but stopped. The piece in his hand didn’t belong. It was larger. The colors didn’t match. It was the odd man out, the weird one, the one that didn’t fit in. He knew how it felt.

Although it was impressive Harper figured out he liked jigsaw puzzles and brought a piece she’d found. Except, he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. He didn’t want to throw it away, so he tossed it, along with his keys, into the small bowl on the entryway table.

The next day, there was another puzzle piece waiting by his door. He became less amused and more annoyed. “Stop bringing me someone else’s puzzle,” he said to Harper, who cocked her head in different directions and wasn’t the least bit bothered by Dex’s irritation. If anything, the crow’s reaction made him think she found it hilarious. The second piece went into the key bowl, along with the first one.

The next day, there were more. A lot more.

“What the hell?” he said to a small pile of puzzle pieces placed at his door. He carefully gathered them while Harper landed on his shoulder and beaked through his hair. “Why are you doing this? Some other puzzler is going to be very unhappy.”

He let himself into his home and dumped the pieces on the entryway table. Fingering through them, the pieces were of similar size and coloring, all bright colors. There weren’t many of them, maybe fifty pieces.

A couple of pieces seemed to match, and he fit them together with a snap. Placing all the pieces right side up, Dex clicked them together, making more matches. The picture emerging motivated him to finish it until he got to the end of the small puzzle with two pieces missing. It was a natural landscape picture, with mountains and lush, green pine trees. The sky was the rose-gold hue of sunrise.

The two empty spots were in the middle of the puzzle, in the sky, one right beside the other. He fished the pieces from the key bowl, fitting them together.

A hot-air balloon.

They fit within the empty spot, and the puzzle was complete. Harper cawed and hop-flapped away, but he remained standing in front of the entryway table, his finger running over the smooth glossy image before him.

Was this some kind of message? It couldn’t be a coincidence... not with a hot-air balloon. Harper was an intelligent bird, but this had to be Selah and—

The hope that had previously faded reignited, growing brighter by the second. Did she change her mind? Was she finally reaching out? He was afraid of reading too much into it. It was a puzzle, that’s all, and Dex was done trying to read between the lines.

He couldn’t let it go, taking a picture of the puzzle and sending it in a text to Selah along with a message of???. She was the only one who could pull him from his misery or plunge him deeper into it. He hoped for the former.

In reply, there were dots and then no dots and then dots again. What kind of sick weirdo created this type of cruel torture? He was sure his body was growing old and turning into dust as he waited, which was why he made the decision to call her. Before he could, a message appeared from Selah.

Flip it over.

Okay, this at least confirmed the puzzle was from her. He put his hand in the center of the puzzle and twisted it until the image was upside down, expecting something obvious to jump out, as if the secrets of his romantic universe would be revealed.

Except it remained an upside down hot-air balloon image. Whatever secrets the puzzle held, they remained unknown. He looked closer, wishing he had a magnifying glass to search it, like an old-timey detective. Was there a heart hidden among the pine trees? Was it one of those Magic Eye things? He crossed his eyes. Nothing. He was going to be here all day, and Harper was no help at all. He was knocking the bird’s status down from “very intelligent” to “meh” which was, coincidentally, the same rating he’d give his own intelligence at the moment. Selah was obviously working at a much higher level than—

Oh, wait. She’d texted, “flip.”

He carefully took the whole thing and flipped it like a pancake so the back side of the pieces were facing up. He didn’t even need to cross his eyes. The message couldn’t be any clearer. While he had noticed that some of the pieces had black lines on the back, he hadn’t paid attention to them, focusing solely on the image side. With all the pieces put together, it revealed a note in large, scripty handwriting.

Ranger—

I also want to go on a date with you.

—Your Captain

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