Chapter 1 – The Chance Encounter

Cancelled? My flight is cancelled? That is what the board was telling me. I guess it was really no big deal. It didn't matter if I was stuck here in the Atlanta Airport since there's no one waiting for me in Alabama.

Once I got to the ticket counter I was informed that the Dothan Airport was socked in with fog. Equipped with my new boarding pass for tomorrow and information for my motel, I turned to walk down the corridor to the front of the Airport.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a petite African American woman dressed to the nines. It had been a long time since I had thought about Sonja Percy but this woman had the same determined strut that I had witnessed when I worked with her in New Orleans.

I stepped up my gait with the intent to pass her up and look back. I was still running two miles a day even after being aged retired from NCIS last year allowing me to quickly overcome her.

I passed her then stopped dead in my tracks. The woman was engrossed in her device and would have ran right into me had I not called out her name.

"Sonja Percy?" She looked up and I could see the disbelief in her eyes.

"LaSalle? Oh my goodness" she said as she ran into my awaiting arms. "Chris it's been almost 20 years. How are you? What are you doing here?"

I'm flying home from a fishing trip in Montana. And you?

I am attending a two day recruiting outreach at the Atlanta University Center tomorrow. I still need to find a hotel and collect my materials.

Look, not to be forward or anything, but the airline gave me a hotel voucher. Why don't we see if we can get a two bedroom suite and then we can stay up and talk as long as we want to and be comfortable?

We walked down to the car rental desk and secured Percy's rental vehicle. We could see sings to the baggage claim from the rental desk and after retrieving her weapon moved over to collect her baggage and the packing crates of her materials.

We were indeed able to get a suite and with Sonja's government rate, didn't have to pay anything extra.

Once in the suite, I unpacked my clothes for the next day and found a fresh shirt to put on.

I was sitting in the parlor reading the newspaper when Sonja reappeared. "I don't know about you Percy, but I'm starved. Why don't we order in? There should be a menu around here somewhere."

Dinner orders completed we picked up the conversation where we left off at in the car.

It was about 11:00 when we decided that Percy needed to catch a few hours sleep to be ready for her activity tomorrow. "Let's have breakfast here and you drop me back over to the airport on your way to your event."

"That sounds like a plan" Sonja responds with a smile.

I barely slept. What was the chance that I would see her again after all these years? I can still remember hugging her in New Orleans the day she left. I wanted to pull her even closer to me. I wanted to kiss her and tell what a fool I had been and beg her to stay at least for a little while longer to see what we might be able to create.

I was up before the alarm went off. I had to take great care not cut myself shaving as I prepared to have breakfast with her. The first thing she mentioned that morning was how she had missed my smile. I could feel myself grinning like an eight year old school boy.

I hardly ate with all the butterflies in my stomach. Sonja drove me back over to the airport and walked me to my gate. Since she was still carrying a badge she was able to walk with me thru the final security check point. We talked the entire time and I ended up being the last passenger to board.

Sonja promised to call me when she got back to D.C. as I hugged her tightly and then breeched the threshold of the aircraft to find my seat.