“It’ll take me longer to walk to the podium than it’ll take me to deliver this thing. If I win—and I won’t. I’m sweating this for nothing.”

“Why do you do that? A panel of professionals decided you deserve this honor. Tell me about your invention.”

He shrugged. “I call it SpringChute. It’s just a little gizmo that makes opening the chute safer. Reduces the risk of failure.”

“So basically your invention could save lives.”

He opened his mouth and shut it again. When she put it like that . . . “I guess so. That’s the hope anyway.”

“In that case the award would just be a bonus.”

That had been his motive for inventing it. But if he won, someone might want to buy his patent. It wasn’t uncommon for a winner to be approached after the ceremony itself. Plus there was the ten-thousand-dollar prize, meant to help the winner take the product to market if he or she wanted.

Sophie smiled down at her needlework. “And why do you want to thank your dad?”

He did a double take. “Because he taught me everything I know. Because he showed me what hard work and discipline can accomplish. Because he sacrificed everything to give me a good life.”

She held his gaze, her smile widening. “And Ross?”

“I see what you’re doing here. All right, Ross. He gave me the opportunity of a lifetime. Ross believed in me.”

She nodded. “Good stuff, Aiden.”

“And God,” he added, having the hang of it now. “Well, I wouldn’t even be breathing without Him, now would I?”

“There you go then. Sounds as if you’ve got this.”

“I need to get all that down.” He opened his notes and started writing, his fingers clumsy on the tiny keypad. When he finished the acknowledgments he silently read through the speech from the beginning, correcting a thing or two as he went.

“The opening is still boring.” He looked up at Sophie. “Any suggestions? And don’t say ‘open with a joke.’ I tried that already.”

“Sounds as if this whole award thing is a little scary for you.”

“You know, writing’s not my thing.”

She gave him a pointed look. “And yet, you jump out of planes for a living . . .”

“I see the irony.” As he frowned down at his phone the perfect opening line came to him. He glanced back at Sophie, a smile spreading across his face.

chapter fifteen

From beneath her lashes Sophie watched Aiden’s brows draw together as he tapped away on his phone. Helping him like this took her back to when she’d tutored him. He never needed much help with writing, really—just someone to jump-start his creativity. She completed the knit stitch and began another.