Come Fly with Me (3 page)

“There's one seat left in first class,” she announced, her voice filled with relief.

“I'll take it.” Aside from the pampering, it would give her a chance to test her mother's theory that she could meet the successful, handsome man of her dreams, if she'd only fly first class during the hundreds of flights she took each year on studio business.

“The kind of intelligent, successful man you need is not about to spend three hours with his knees under his chin and someone else's kids drooling over his shoulder,” her mother had told her repeatedly.

Marie Tabor had flatly ignored Lindsay's constant denials that she even wanted a man in her life—in the air or on the ground. Pursing her lips stubbornly and glaring at her equally stubborn daughter, she had continued, “He's going to want to sit back and relax with a nice meal, maybe some champagne. And then he'll want enough room to spread out all those contracts for big, lucrative deals. If you're not interested in him, think about those deals. At least business seems to turn you on.”

“If the man's doing all that business, he'll never even notice me,” Lindsay had retorted.

“Of course he will. You're a beautiful woman. Not that you do anything to make the most of it. You're always wearing those drab, tailored suits that look so alike I can't tell one from the other. And your hair...” She shook her head sorrowfully. “It's so lovely. Couldn't you think about getting it cut in a style that's a little less...” She waved her hands helplessly. “A little less...unusual? It looks like it's been whipped with an eggbeater.”

Lindsay had grinned at the plaintive note in her mother's voice. Her dark auburn hair was short, tousled and casual. It took her exactly ten minutes to wash it and another ten to blow it dry. It suited her fast-paced lifestyle.

“I was thinking of dying it pink next time,” she teased. “What do you think?”

“Don't be absurd!”

“That's no more absurd than your idea that buying a first-class ticket will also buy me love.”

“Just try it. For me.”

Lindsay sighed. Well, tonight she was trying it. Her mother would be thrilled. She had half a mind to make a quick stop at a pay
phone to let her know. She glanced at her watch and groaned.

“Forget it. I'll call her from Denver and tell her about the engagement,” she muttered under her breath, as she picked up her carryon luggage and ran down the concourse, barely making the jetway before the door slammed closed. Breathlessly she entered the plane, stowed her luggage and slid into her seat. She fumbled with the safety belt, but one side steadfastly refused to budge from between the seats. Still short-tempered, she was about to stand up and yank the blasted thing loose, when a hand gently nudged hers out of the way and a familiar voice drawled softly, “Don't kill the thing. It just needs a little gentle persuasion.”

Lindsay's eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened as she twisted in her seat to stare into very familiar black eyes.

“Exactly like a woman,” he added seductively, those bold, laughing eyes never leaving hers as his hands stilled, a mere hairsbreadth from her thigh. Her muscles tightened better than they ever had at the gym.

Trying to hide the sudden trembling of her hands by clenching them tightly together in
her lap, she managed a wobbly grin. “And I suppose you know all about women?”

“Enough,” he said succinctly, as he snapped the seat belt together, his hands innocently grazing her thighs and sending not-nearly-so-innocent heat waves roaring through her. “About as much as I know about seat belts.”

Suddenly Lindsay regarded him suspiciously. As glad as she was to see him again, there was something decidedly odd about these repeated meetings. Unless she believed in Kismet, which she most definitely did not, there had to be a rational explanation.

“Are you following me?” she demanded, eyeing him cautiously. She'd thought she'd read this script just last week....

He chuckled. “Hey, bright eyes, you got on this plane after I did, remember?”

That, at least, was true enough. But a good spy or thief or whatever would have a logical explanation ready, wouldn't he? “What about that meeting in the newsstand?”

“Just luck.”

“And the coffee shop?”

“Coincidence,” he said, echoing her earlier analysis. Somehow it didn't seem as con
vincing coming from him. Not when he was sitting beside her yet again, dimples firmly in place as though they'd been etched in stone by a smitten female sculptor with an eye for very seductive masculine features. Either she'd beaten the astronomical odds or there was more to this than she knew, and she'd never beaten the odds before in her life.

“Exactly why are you here?” she inquired suspiciously.

A mischievous grin tugged at his lips. “I'm flying to Denver,” he said very seriously.

She moaned at her stupidity. It would be difficult to argue with that. She rephrased the question. “Why are you going to Denver?”

“I told you earlier. I'm going home...to Boulder,” he said with perfect aplomb. Then, giving her a wicked smile, he taunted, “What are you doing on this flight? Are you following me?”

“Of course not,” she sputtered indignantly. If that wasn't the most ridiculous, egotistical suggestion...even though the thought had crossed her mind once or twice.

“Hey, simmer down,” he soothed, chuckling again. The low, throaty sound rippled
over her. “You asked first. Don't I get a turn?”

Lindsay grunted. After her cross-examination, she supposed he should have his own shot at it, but the question had sounded so absurd when he said it. She tried to put her faith in her legal training, in her instinctive ability to size people up instantly. She studied the firm set of his jaw, the crinkling laugh lines that gave his face life and character, the dark hair that edged over the collar of his blue plaid shirt and the dimples that came with a taunting smile. She found absolutely nothing that seemed the least bit threatening...unless you counted the fact that the whole of all those parts had sent her pulse rate tripping along in the danger zone.

She tried to forget all of her questions and doubts, to sit back and relax, but it was impossible. There wasn't a woman alive who could relax when a stranger who'd begun dominating her every thought suddenly appeared right next to her for the third time in one very long night. If she weren't careful, she
was
going to start believing in Kismet. As for her mother, she probably owed her one
for this. It remained to be seen whether she'd take her out to dinner or break her arm.

“You seem a little tense.”

At the sound of his voice and his all-too-accurate assessment, Lindsay jumped as nervously as she had the first time an Italian had pinched her in Rome as she walked unsuspectingly down the Via Veneto. Her gaze flew to the man seated next to her. He was chuckling at her reaction but politely trying to hide it.

“I'm not the least bit tense,” she announced stoutly, though the throb of the starting engines had just registered in her mind, setting off another of those waves of anxiety she'd never been able to conquer.

“Then do you suppose you could relax your grip before your fingers fall off?”

Lindsay followed the direction of his gaze and realized that her hands were still clenched tightly in her lap. He was right. Her knuckles were white, though her fingers hadn't quite turned blue yet. They usually did before the plane was airborne. As far as she was concerned, for takeoff she was relaxed.

“You aren't one of those nervous flyers, are you?” he asked anxiously.

“As much as I fly?” she retorted dryly, refusing to concede the truth and expose her vulnerability. She tried to force her hands to separate and lie perfectly still in some semblance of a relaxed pose. It might fool her seat-mate, though it would never fool a psychiatrist. Flying sent her nerves into an absolute frenzy, but she knew if she ever admitted it aloud, she might very well never leave the ground again.

She tried for a confident grin and added brightly, “If I got scared every time I took off, they'd have locked me up in a padded cell by now.” What she didn't say was that the cell never seemed very far away, especially now when the plane started taxiing down the runway.

The quizzical expression in his eyes hinted that he wasn't quite sure whether to believe her. “Then what's the problem? Surely you aren't afraid of me.”

Actually all of these coincidental encounters were adding to her normal preflight jitters, but she wasn't afraid of him. Not exactly. It was just the way he made her feel...like a teenager falling in love for the first time right after hearing about the birds
and the bees. It made her palms itch. However, she was a sophisticated woman. She handled multi-million-dollar negotiations without blinking her eyes. She was not about to discuss her itching palms, her wobbly knees or the flames in her abdomen. Instead, she retorted, “Hardly. It's just been a very long, very frustrating day.”

“Ahhh,” he said softly and she shot him a puzzled glance. “That explains the candy overdose.”

She grinned. It explained some of it at least, the only part that needed explaining. She had no intention of getting into a discussion about how a pair of dark-as-onyx eyes had convinced her she needed to buy up half the candy counter.

“Why don't you tell me about it?” he suggested. “I'd like to know what it takes to drive a beautiful lady to try to overdose on chocolate.”

Lindsay shook her head firmly, but the look in those dark, intense eyes was magical. It transported her out of her ordinary, career-oriented existence, away from her fear of flying, into some other world, a world where romance was not only possible, but very
likely indeed. Her skin glowed as though it had been brushed by fire, rosy cheeks against white satin. Her bright emerald-green eyes sparkled like precious jewels against a velvet backdrop. And suddenly, for the first time in a very long time, Lindsay felt beautiful, desirable—all from the look in some stranger's eyes. It was a heady, almost frightening sensation. For the third time in just a few hours, she had the feeling she would follow this man anywhere.

“Hey,” he said softly. “I thought you were going to tell me about your rotten day.”

She smiled back at him and admitted honestly, “It doesn't seem so rotten now.” Even more astounding, she had actually missed the precise moment when the plane left the ground. The man was a miracle worker.

He nodded with satisfaction. “Good. Then we can talk about other things. Like who you are and why it's taken me all my life to meet you.”

“You've probably been looking in all the wrong places,” she told him dryly.

“Obviously. I avoid airports like the plague.”

“I don't spend all my time in airports.”

“Then where should I have been looking?”

“Oh, here, there and everywhere.”

He shook his head. “Not precise enough,” he said with feigned sorrow. “By the time I look all those places, we may both be old and have gray hair and wrinkles down to our knees.”

“I don't suppose you could love me anyway, under those conditions,” Lindsay teased right back, absolutely amazed at the crazy, daring words that seemed to be coming out of her mouth tonight.

He studied her closely. “Well...maybe. With those eyes, I think I could overlook almost anything. Now tell me all about yourself. Then we can tell our grandchildren we fell in love high in a midnight sky, surrounded by stars.”

Lindsay blinked, sighed softly and fell a little bit in love right then. The men she knew did not whisper romantic, poetic phrases in her ears, not at 30,000 feet in the air. They talked contracts and megabucks and videocassette rights. The way her pulse was dancing along right now, she had a feeling contract
discussions were a whole lot safer. More boring maybe, but safer.

“Maybe we should start by talking about you,” she suggested with a little catch in her voice.

He shook his head stubbornly. “You first. Then maybe I'll know what it'll take to keep the sparkle in your eyes and the laughter on your lips.”

She sighed again and wondered if the man had a bit of Irish blarney in him. What did it matter? If the man wanted to do that for her, she had absolutely no choice but to comply. You did not turn down offers that came along once in a lifetime, even if you knew they were only good for the length of one flight to Denver.

“Deal,” Lindsay agreed soberly, though her head felt anything but sober. She felt as though she were floating away on a cloud of champagne, although the flight attendant had only just now put a glass of the golden, bubbly, intoxicating liquid in front of her.

“Deal,” he confirmed, holding out his hand. Lindsay put her hand in his and suddenly, inexplicably felt safer than she had since those long-ago nights when her father
had picked her up, swung her high in the air and then held her tightly the minute he'd come home from work.

Until she was nine.

Until he'd died.

Since then she'd felt she had to keep running, to fill her life with lots of places, lots of people, none of whom ever got too close. Even as a child, she'd been afraid, though her fears had been vague, unformed. As she'd grown older, the fears had been more easily recognizable. She'd been afraid to be alone with her thoughts. Afraid of her growing desires for companionship. Afraid of commitment. Afraid of losing someone she loved. She'd even kept an emotional distance between herself and her mother, always preparing herself for the inevitable day when her mother would leave her too.

Lindsay looked again into the stranger's eyes, felt the warmth of his firm hand holding hers, the security hinted at by the touch and knew instinctively that the running might very well be over. She also knew she wouldn't stop without a fight. She'd been at it far too long and grown far too good at it.

Even now, however, she couldn't talk
about herself, despite the deal they'd just made.