Kiss the Moon (29 page)

In hindsight, not the best plan. Jack had, in fact, hung himself, but he’d also bonked Penelope on the head. Wyatt decided not to announce his presence. He didn’t want to risk doing anything to further endanger Penelope. Next thing he knew, they were taking off. Seeing how he wasn’t a pilot, Wyatt was biding his time. The bad guy pilot was at the controls. The good guy pilot was unconscious. He needed to be patient.

He was still under the tarp, cramped and growing more irritable by the moment. But if he acted prematurely, Jack could end up shooting Penelope, or him, or the wrong part of the plane. It seemed wise to stay put for now.

“Well, well, well,” Jack said. “Look who’s awake.”

He must have slipped Penelope’s gag off, because she said, “Bastard.”

“Ooh, your head hurts, doesn’t it? I could have killed you yesterday when I popped you with the shed door. That’s when I figured out Harriet had the diamonds. I searched that crazy hermit’s place high and low. He’d have dumped them if he’d picked them up. So it was either Harriet or they were gone.”

“What did you do with her?”

“I told you. Nothing. She’s not going to say anything. She’s in this thing neck-deep herself.”

“You think you know her. But you don’t.”

Penelope sounded groggy and racked with pain, her words slurring. Wyatt kept still, every muscle in his body twitching, ready to spring.

“You can’t possibly think this scheme of yours is going to succeed,” Penelope said.

“Sure I do. I caught you messing around with my plane and realized you were going to pin everything on me to protect your weird cousin Harriet. We struggle. You prevail momentarily and take off, not realizing my plane’s low on fuel. Penelope Chestnut and her impulses, you know?”

“Far-fetched.”

“So’s the idea of sweet, plain Harriet Chestnut being a Sinclair, but look at that one. Besides, I have to work with what I’ve got. And what I’ve got, sweet cheeks, is you.”

“I’ll run out of fuel, crash and die.”

“That’s the plan. Nothing but trees and hills ahead. You could sit out here in the boonies for fifty years yourself.”

“And you?”

“I will go back to New York and continue my work with the Sinclairs. One by one, I fence the diamonds and amass a nice fortune for myself. Then I buy my ranch in Texas. If things get too hot here, I skip to Argentina, maybe Australia. Unfortunately, you were killed in the crash, and the diamonds weren’t recovered.”

“Harriet’ll talk,” Penelope said.

“If she believes her actions—or her lack of action—got everyone’s favorite Chestnut killed? I don’t think so. She’ll just wither into a bitter, pathetic prune. Or hang herself on her front porch.”

“You’re evil.”

“I’m just a guy trying to make a buck.”

Wyatt could hear a rustling sound and something like a lock snapping. Then Penelope’s voice. “You’re going to jump? I hope you break your neck.”

“Lucky for you I don’t break yours. But I need the autopsy to say you died in the crash.”

Next came the sickening sound of him whacking Penelope one more time. Wyatt yanked off the tarp and surged forward, but he felt a whoosh of cold air and knew what was happening. He moved over the trunk, banging his knee, catching his foot.

Jack was gone. The left pilot’s seat was empty, the door flapping in the cold, clear air. With a vicious curse, Wyatt pushed himself forward and got into the vacant seat, the door next to him still open. He could feel the cold air. Having no desire to fall out of the plane, he pulled on his seat belt, then grabbed the door and yanked it shut. The plane felt steady, the airspeed felt okay. But he wasn’t a pilot. He couldn’t land the thing.

Penelope was slumped in her seat, unconscious. There was no time for niceties. He reached behind him for a water bottle, tore off the top and dumped the contents on her head. “Come on, sweetheart. Wake up and land the plane.” He patted her cheek. “Penelope, we’re in a bit of a pickle here.”

She groaned, brought a hand to her head, which had to be aching. “Wyatt? Where—why am I all wet—”

“I dumped water on you. Jack’s parachuted. We’re about out of gas, and I’m not much on flying planes.”

“Jack?”

“Jumped. He’s gone. It’s just us up here.”

She held her head up. Progress. “That was cold water.”

“Penelope, you have to land the plane.”

“You don’t fly?” She managed a ghostly grin. “I thought Sinclairs did everything. God, I have a headache. I think I’m going to throw up.”

“You’re not going to throw up. Okay, forget it. Tell me what to do. We’re low on fuel.” As if to prove his point, the engine sputtered. “I need to check the airspeed first, right?”

That got her with the program. She squinted at the controls. “I hate flying with a headache.” The engine sputtered again. “Hell. We don’t have much time. Ten to one the reserve tank’s empty.” She fiddled with something under her seat. “Yep. That bastard.”

“Bad?”

“Lots worse than Monday when Pop grounded me. Airspeed’s good—I need to get this thing on the ground before the engine stops. Look for a nice big feather bed on the ground. A field, a road.”

Below them was an endless expanse of trees and hills.

Penelope was grim-faced. She focused on her task as she brought the plane lower. “What’d he do, bail in broad daylight?”

“He’s arrogant enough to think he can get away with anything.” Wyatt spotted the tiniest of clearings ahead and pointed. “There.”

“It’s not enough. We’ll end up in the trees.” She looked at him, her eyes wide and alert, shining with determination. She was pale, and a swollen, ugly bruise had formed on the side of her head under her left ear where Jack had clipped her. “It’s going to be close.”

“We’ll make it.”

“I have no regrets about the last week.” They were low, just above the trees, and the clearing seemed even smaller. She was focused on the controls, the terrain ahead, but she said, “None.”

“No goodbyes. I’m planning a long future with you.”

The engine died, and they dropped, Penelope working to keep the nose up. Wyatt checked her seatbelt, saw that it was buckled tight. Jack’s doing. He wanted this to look like an accident.

“Hold on,” she said.

The plane hit the ground hard, plowing through ruts and snow and fast running out of clearing. A big pine snagged a wing, spun them around.

Another tree was there in front of them. Too damned close, too damned big. Penelope swore.

Wyatt grabbed her, and they ducked.

Twenty-One

T
wo diehard snowshoers in the backwoods northeast of Lake Winnipesaukee reported seeing a small plane go down. The state authorities launched a major search effort. Lyman Chestnut got in his plane and joined the search. No one tried to stop him, and Robby sat next to him in the cockpit for the first time in at least twenty years.

That was all Harriet could digest at one time. Andy sat with her in front of the parlor fire. She was beyond trembling, beyond crying. If Penelope and Wyatt died, it would be her fault. Andy, who’d been so kind, had tried to tell her otherwise, but not very hard. He knew.

He pressed a mug of hot cocoa into her hands. “Drink up, Harriet. It’ll help.”

She nodded, but didn’t touch the cocoa.

“Penelope’s a good pilot.”

Another nod. It was Andy who’d found her upstairs. She had just dialed his number at the police station. When she saw him, she told him everything. She’d found the diamonds, she’d kept them, she’d said nothing about them or the plane wreck. To deter Penelope, she’d sent her the lame instant message and the fax. She wasn’t responsible for ransacking Penelope’s house—that was Jack looking for the valuables he’d known were in Colt and Frannie’s plane or any clues that would point to its location—and she hadn’t followed her or attacked Bubba Johns or shoved the shed door into her face. All Jack.

But without her unwitting complicity, he never would have made off with the diamonds and done whatever he’d done to Wyatt and Penelope. That they were in the small plane reported to have gone down was a reasonable deduction based on the evidence at the airport—Wyatt’s car, Penelope’s truck, Jack’s rented car and no plane.

The Sinclair brothers had borrowed Robby’s car and were hunting for Brandon’s errant investigator. It was the strangest thing Harriet had ever seen. Wild-haired, wild-bearded Colt Sinclair in his frayed, stained work pants, flannel shirt and suspenders, and Brandon Sinclair, suave and handsome in his pressed trousers, Scottish knit sweater and polished, expensive shoes, going off together. They were her half brothers. Willard Sinclair was her father.

“Harriet, Jesus, don’t cry.” Andy sounded unbearably pained, as if he couldn’t take one more thing in his life. “Everyone knows you’d never hurt a soul.”

“It’s not that.” She brushed her tears with her fingertips, her chest so tight it felt as if it were being crushed. “My parents—my real parents—what are they going to think of me?”

“I can’t speak for them, Harriet. But I have two daughters of my own, and if one of them were sitting here in your place, having done what you’ve done, it wouldn’t change anything. She’d still be my daughter, and I’d still love her.”

“You’re a good man, Andy.”

He nodded sadly. “Yeah. That’s what they say.”

Pete, Andy’s detective, charged into the parlor so abruptly Harriet jumped and spilled hot cocoa down her front. Pete hardly noticed. “Andy, the Sinclairs just called in from up north. They’ve got Jack Dunning. The slimy son of a bitch was joining in the search for his plane!” He turned to Harriet. “Sorry about the language. That was unprofessional.”

“Did they tell him I’d talked?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Apparently he made a run for it and Brandon and Bubba—I mean, Colt—jumped him, tied him up, gagged him, and waited for the police.” Pete grinned. “That I’d love on tape.”

“What about the plane?” Andy asked.

Pete’s grin faded. “Nothing yet.”

After the detective left, Andy asked Harriet if she wanted to go up and change her shirt. She shook her head. At his insistence, she took a few sips of what was left of her cocoa. An air search could go on for days. Weeks.

But an hour later, they heard hoots among the reporters gathered in the Octagon Room, consuming gallons of coffee and waiting for news from the search. Many had already headed north. Andy got a call on his cell phone. He thanked the caller and hung up.

He grinned and winked at Harriet. “They’ve found the plane. They’re alive.”

By the time the rescue team reached them, Penelope had washed off most of the blood with snow. She had superficial cuts on her face and arms. She knew her parents would be right in the thick of the rescue team. She didn’t want to upset her mother. Wyatt, also bloodied, declined her offer of a handful of snow. He could see the team crossing the small field and would wait for proper treatment.

She grinned at him. She wasn’t feeling any pain. She knew she would. The shock would fade, and she’d hurt like hell. But right now, there was only the overwhelming sense that she was going to spend the rest of her life with this man. “Aren’t you glad I saved our lives?”

Wyatt gave a short laugh. He was feeling no pain, either. He’d stayed close to her from the second they cleared Jack Dunning’s mangled plane. “You’d have crashed without regaining consciousness if I hadn’t dumped water on you.”

“Well, there’s that,” she admitted. “You know what it was, don’t you? What cleared my head?”

He smiled. “The thought of me making love to you?”

She shook her head. “Babies.”

“Penelope?”

She grinned at him, giddy, her head swimming. “I could see these little Sinclair-Chestnut babies learning to swim in Lake Winnipesaukee, and I just knew we had to live. Of course, we’ll have to put little homing devices on them. If they’re like us, we’re in for it.”

He took her hand, which wasn’t injured, and kissed her forehead, which was injured, and he whispered, “I love you.”

“If I didn’t have a concussion,” she said, “I’d make love to you right now. How on earth did I fall in love with a Sinclair?”

But she had, she realized.

When the search team arrived, her mother went pale but stayed calm. The paramedics pounced on Penelope, asking her questions and checking her over. “Why are you doing me first? You should do Wyatt. He’s not a pilot.”

Wyatt leaned over the paramedics. “I didn’t get smacked on the head twice with the butt of a gun.”

Somehow she’d forgotten that part. “Oh. Right.”

“A gun?” Her mother’s voice croaked. “There was a gun?”

But her father, at the rear of the rescue team, took his wife by the hand and pulled her toward the wrecked plane. “Come on, Robby. Let me show you why flying’s so safe and why Penelope’s a damned good pilot when she keeps her mind on the job.”

Penelope smiled, and when the paramedics laid her in the stretcher sled, she glanced at Wyatt, who was still on his feet and looking so good. He winked at her and said, “I’m walking out,” rubbing it in, but it didn’t even occur to her to be mad.

Epilogue

I
t was the kind of hot summer day that brought the cars from Boston and filled the Sunrise Inn with guests content to have tea in the gardens, swim in the lake or sit on the porch with the cool breeze and a good book. Harriet, finished with her day’s work, sat at the bar with her glass of wine. Unlike in the off-season, the inn’s small, wood-paneled tavern was filled with guests. Their laughter reminded her that the work she did was good.

Andy McNally came in and got himself a beer. He sat beside her as if it had been last night he’d been here, not three months ago. “You’re looking well, Harriet,” he said.

“Thank you.”

She’d dyed her hair copper—one of those semipermanent dyes—but had given up makeup. She didn’t like the feel of it on her skin. But she liked her hair. Andy looked the same, although not as tired and stricken as he had that day they’d waited in her parlor for news of Penelope and Wyatt. Jack Dunning was awaiting trial. Penelope and Wyatt were hopelessly in love.

It was only her life, Harriet thought, that still seemed up in the air. She’d never been charged with a crime. Penelope insisted they’d said much worse things to each other over wallpapering the inn’s rooms than Harriet had said in her little anonymous messages. They had returned the diamonds to the Sinclairs, who immediately donated them to the Sinclair Collection in Frannie Beaudine’s honor. Harriet had come to a place of peace about the woman who’d given birth to her, whose last breaths were drawn in an attempt to give her baby a good life. And she
had.
That was what Harriet had finally come to realize. Whatever her faults, Frannie had done right by her daughter.

But what still haunted her and kept her awake nights was the misguided, frightening way she’d fallen for Jack Dunning.

Andy sipped his beer. “So, you’re an heiress, eh?”

“I don’t know about that. I’d never ask the Sinclairs for anything.”

“I won ten grand in the lottery once.”

She smiled. “Did you?”

“Yep. Invested it. I’ve done okay, but I’m no Sinclair, that’s for damned sure. And I come with two daughters I’d go to the ends of the earth for, and I’ve got this hell of a scar.” He shrugged. “I’m no catch, I guess. But if you want me, Harriet, you’ve got me. I think you know that.”

But she didn’t. She was totally taken aback. She started to shake, and she knocked her glass over. Wine spilled into her lap, and she mumbled, “I think we did this last time.”

“Harriet—it’s okay, I didn’t mean to scare the bejesus out of you. Forget I said anything.”

“No! No, Andy, that’s not it.” She grabbed his arm, felt her fingers digging into his flesh. “I’m just taken aback. I didn’t think you’d want anything to do with me. I made such a fool of myself.”

He shook his head, his eyes filled with tenderness. “We all have to find out who we are sometime, Harriet, figure out what’s important. It’s not always easy. I’ve loved you for a long time. I should have come forward and said so before now. If it’s too late, so be it.”

“It’s not too late.”

His entire body seemed to relax. He nodded. “It’s a nice night. Would you like to take a walk along the lake?”

She nodded and ran upstairs to change her wine-soaked shirt. When she caught her reflection in her dresser mirror, she stopped abruptly. She touched the spray of freckles on her cheek, the fine lines at the corner of one eye, and she smiled.

Having decided it was weird to fall in love with a man and not know where he lived, Penelope had ventured to New York City three times since she and Wyatt survived their plane crash. All three times she came away thinking she liked New York—she even loved New York—but she really didn’t want to live there.

It was Wyatt who pointed this out to her. “What you want to do,” he said as they sat on her dock, their feet in the clear, cool water of Lake Winnipesaukee, “is to fly planes and get qualified as a flight instructor and build our house on the lake.”

She liked the way he said “our.” It made her feel as if they could sort out all the complications of their lives. His uncle was a hermit. His grandfather was her cousin’s father. “I can compromise,” she said.

He grinned at her. “I’m going to tape record that and play it for your father.”

“You have a life in New York. Your parents are there, your sisters, your work. Your cat.”

“Pill’d be happy anywhere.”

“Pill’s a city cat.”

He gave her one of those appraising looks that suggested this was the mind of a man who spoke five languages. But Penelope thought he was so damned handsome and sexy with his pant legs rolled up and those black, black eyes. His little sisters had them, too. Harriet didn’t. Everyone had decided she had Frannie’s eyes. “So, you want to move to New York with me?” he asked.

“No!”

He laughed. “Called that bluff, didn’t I?”

“I mean, I’d compromise. Really. I can drum up some kind of business that’d give me a regular route to New York so I can fly in and out. Maybe you could work out something so you could be up here for long weekends. That sort of thing.”

“Can’t.”

“You’re your own boss. You—”

“I don’t have an office or a secretary. I gave them both up to a friend of mine who’s putting together some kind of big money deal. I didn’t ask. I’ve already cleaned out my desk.”

She stared at him. “Wyatt?”

“I got rid of everything. The office, the secretary, the apartment. A couple of bank accounts is about all I have.”

His idea of a “couple of bank accounts” and hers, she knew, would be two different things. “The cat?”

“Madge is keeping him until I can pick him up.”

“What will you do?”

“Your little business with your father and Aunt Mary could use a Sinclair mind. I’ve talked to them about it already. They said if it’s okay with you, it’s okay with them. Plus there are a few things I could do from a computer. New York was a healing time for me,” he added. “A between time.”

“But your family—”

“My family has roots here, too. Colt isn’t going anywhere. He and my father have a long, long way to go. My father’s coming up next weekend. He and Colt are going to play cards and swat mosquitoes, like they did when they were boys. I doubt we’ll ever get Colt to New York, but it’s something. Then there’s our land. I figure with it and your acreage here, and this lot on the lake, we can have a good life.”

Penelope swallowed. “You’re giving up everything for me. What can I give you?”

“I’m giving up nothing, and all you have to give me is your love.”

“You have it.”

“I know.” He smiled. “And it’s enough.”