Paris or Bust!: Romancing Roxanne?\Daddy Come Lately\Love Is in the Air (18 page)

Oh God. “You did…what exactly?”

“I got the call saying I did it. I mean, of course I did it, who wouldn’t think so?”

“Mom…what are you talking about?”

“I’m a nominee for Mother Of The Year! I sent in that essay, and the magazine picked their finalists from across the country, and I’m one of them!”

This was difficult to wrap her mind around. Her mother—whom Kylie took care of—was up for Mother Of The Year.

“Get ready, honey, because I’m going to win us that trip to Paris yet!”

“The phones, Mom. You can’t just—” With a sound of exasperation, she picked up the receiver and pushed line one. “Birmingham Airport.”

“
Orange County Post.
We’d like a quote from a Kylie Birmingham.”

Kylie looked at her mother as a bad feeling came over her. “About?”

“About the front-page article we printed on her mother being a national nominee for Mother Of The Year.”

With a wide smile, Daisy held up the newspaper. “See?” she whispered.

Yep, there it was, right on the front page for the whole world to see.

Our Own Daisy Birmingham!

National Mother Of The Year?

You Bet!

Kylie didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. “Hold on.” She hit line two. “Birmingham Airport.”

“This is Flora’s Florist. We have a delivery for a Daisy Birmingham.”

“What?”

“They’re from the retirement center where she volunteers as bingo manager. We just want to make sure someone is there to receive before we bring the arrangement over.”

Kylie sank to her mother’s chair and set her head down on the desk.

Daisy just smiled.

Kylie groaned.

“Hello?” said the florist. “Hello? Hello?”

CHAPTER THREE

W
HEN
K
YLIE GOT UP
the next morning, she’d convinced herself the publicity had died down. After all, her mother wasn’t a celebrity, Kylie wasn’t a celebrity and where they lived was little more than a one-horse town.

Why would anyone care about a silly little contest? Yes, today would be just fine. And indeed, when she got to work, the place was blessedly quiet.

Perfect.

Relieved, she went to her office and shut the door, determined to do something about the mountain of paperwork threatening to overtake her desk.

She worked through lunch, and was well on her way to having a deliriously good day due to lack of interruptions when Lou ambled in.

“You need money in the checking account,” her grandma announced. “Quite a bit of it.”

“A new lease is supposed to come through today. Some guy wants to park his two Learjets here for six months, and I’m just waiting for his call. Once that’s finalized, we’ll get a hefty deposit. Oh, and we sold a lot of fuel this week, so—”

“None of that is going to help you.”

Kylie frowned. “Why not?”

“Well, because I’m mailing the bills.” Lou lifted a shoulder. “So you’ll need to do something today. Okay, then, luvie…” She clapped her hands together. “Gotta run.”

It boggled the mind how quickly one old lady could destroy Kylie’s brain cells. “Maybe you can wait until next week to go to the post office.”

“Okay, dear. You’re the boss.”

Oh yeah, she had a headache now. A huge one. She watched Lou dance toward the door.

Suddenly Kylie realized the phones were flashing like crazy again. Damn it. With a sigh, she made her way to her mother’s desk. “Mom, I’ve told you, you can’t just tie up the phone like that!”

“Oh, I’m not the one doing it.” Daisy smiled sweetly. She leaned close. “The press is here,” she whispered. “They want to talk about what a great mom I am. Oh! And in an hour, the local television news is coming as well.”

“But the phones—”

“I know, isn’t it awful?” Daisy hit a few of the buttons, then shook her head. “Definitely, there’s something amiss. I tried to take care of it a while ago, but I couldn’t figure out what I did wrong….”

“A while ago…” Kylie let out a breath. She was going to blow up. Just
poof,
blow up. “Are you saying the phones are down, and have been for…
a while?
”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Goodbye new client.

“So are you ready to talk to the press?” Daisy asked. “Maybe get your pic taken?”

“No!” Kylie pressed her fingers to her temples and turned in a slow circle, going still when she saw Wade standing there, smiling at her.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “Need some help?”

“Yeah, I need someone to shoot me and put me out of my misery.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and ignored the flutter in her tummy at just the sight of the man she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since their plane ride. Nothing an antacid wouldn’t cure.

“What are you doing?” her mother asked.

“Calling the phone service, which you might notice I have on auto dial.” She rolled her eyes when her mother just sniffed in irritation.

“
I
am not messing up the phones,” Daisy said. “The repair man told me the problem is on your roof.”

Or under it, Kylie thought crossly. Why was it so hard to be her? All she wanted was the airport running smoothly and good help to ensure that. She wanted to take care of Daisy and Lou. Simple. She’d be completely happy, just as her father had been. But somehow, it’d seemed easier when he’d done it.

“He said to check for a bird’s nest on the roof.”

That had been last week’s problem.

“Or a squirrel chewing the line.”

Which had happened the week before, but the line to the repair department was busy, which meant Kylie was on her own. “I’ll be on the roof,” she said, her mood not improving when Wade followed her outside. He looked good today, though she’d bite her tongue before admitting it. Having just come back from flying a charter, he had his aviator sunglasses shoved up on his head, a leather jacket tucked beneath his arm and a soda in his hand. He wore his pilot’s uniform—dark blue trousers and a stark white shirt with his logo over the breast that inexplicably made him look tall, dark and official.

Everything about him made her heart beat fast, and all she could think about was doing what he’d so brazenly suggested the other day—getting some. With him. In the air.

She had the feeling he would know exactly how to make her feel good, too. She’d probably, if her breathing problems from just looking at him were any indication, even have an actual orgasm. “Why are you following me?”

“I worked for the phone company one summer. Maybe I can help.”

She came to the back wall of hangar number one, where high above her was the phone box. There was already a ladder there, due to the problems she’d been having over the past few weeks, problems she now knew were directly related to her mother’s “help.” With a testing shake of the ladder, she started to climb.

“Why don’t you let me—”

“I’ve got it,” she said over her shoulder, and promptly forgot about Wade as she got to the top of the ladder and surveyed the phone equipment. Nothing obvious, no bird’s nest, no chewed wires from the squirrels. Climbing onto the roof, she sat and contemplated the situation. Basically, she had a phone system that didn’t work, she had a grandma who didn’t care about work and a secretary/mom who’d rather be in the paper and go to Paris than secure her future.

Oh, and she had an airport about to go under from lack of funds. Yep, it was official. Her life was in the toilet.

“Kylie?”

With a sigh, she lay back on the roof, studying the clouds overhead. It was a gorgeous day. “I’m still here.”

“I’m coming up.”

“Don’t.” If he did, he’d look at her with those eyes, the ones that made her melt. Then she might get a little desperate and ask if there was some sort of club involving sex on a roof. “I’ve got it under control. I’ve nearly got it handled.”

“Do you? Because from here it looks like you’re taking a nap.”

With a roll of her eyes, she pushed to her feet, moving more completely out of view.

And promptly sank through the old, half-rotten roof up to her hips, which, thanks to her daily morning habit of two old-fashioned chocolate-glaze donuts, stopped her from falling all the way through.

“Kylie? What was that crash?”

The sound of my ego hitting the earth at the speed of light.
“Nothing,” she managed in a perfectly calm voice, wriggling her feet to make sure she hadn’t paralyzed herself. Actually she was wedged in nicely between the rotten roof and the supports. She couldn’t fall any farther, but neither could she pull herself out. She imagined the attic, which they used as storage space, and the view she presented to anyone in there looking up. Luckily, as all her employees were incredibly lazy, no one would be in there.

“I’m coming up,” Wade said again.

“No,” she replied, sounding slightly less calm now. But damn it, she didn’t want him to see how stupid she’d been to walk on the one weak spot on the entire roof. “Why don’t you go fly your last charter for the day.”

“How do you know I have one more?”

“Uh…” Because if anyone was stalking anyone, she was stalking
him.
Every morning she looked his schedule over, checking the weather, memorizing where he’d be flying, picturing him out there… “Daisy mentioned it.”

“Are you sure you don’t need help?”

Oh yeah, she needed help, but she wasn’t ready to admit it to him. “I’m quite sure. But…thank you. Thank you very much.”

W
ADE WENT
. He did so because he knew damn well what Kylie had done, and knew she’d never admit to needing anyone, much less him. But at least she was still ornery as hell, so he figured she couldn’t have hurt herself too badly.

Damn her. He went up into the attic to verify for himself that Kylie was really good and stuck, and yep, there were her two long legs dangling through the rafters.

Too bad she wasn’t wearing a dress.

Then he cancelled his charter. A first. That he cancelled it for a woman really bit. He went back outside, but waited a good half an hour first, until the building cleared out and everyone had gone home. He waited an extra half an hour just because.

Then he climbed the ladder until his head was level with the roof. “Still here?” he asked of the woman half-in and half-out of the building.

She’d been studying the sunset, but turned her head to look at him through narrowed eyes.

“Ready to admit you need help?”

“Oh, has hell frozen over?” she asked sweetly.

He grinned and, reaching out, brushed a stray tendril of hair off her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. He loved the feel of her skin, so soft, and he loved the scent of her. No fancy perfumes for Kylie, heaven forbid, just the irresistible scent of shampoo and woman. Because he could, he leaned in, pressed his face to her hair, inhaling deeply.

Interestingly enough, she shivered. “What are you doing?”

“Smelling you. You smell good. Are you cold, Kylie?”

“No.”

“Ah.” He climbed up the rest of the way and carefully sat right next to her. On the unrotten spot, of course.

She was frowning, his Kylie. “What does that mean, ‘ah’?”

“It means if you’re not cold, you shivered because of me touching you.” He tucked another wayward strand of hair behind her other ear and goose bumps appeared on her arm. Stroking a finger down that arm, he watched her eyes go dark. She bit her lower lip.

“Admit you need my help,” he said softly.

“No.”

He danced his finger down her neck, over her throat, to her racing pulse. She trembled, and unbelievably, so did he.

“Look at us,” he whispered. “Both shaking from just a simple touch…we should give this a go.”

“I’m…not into you.”

“Really? What was that kiss about then?”

“It was about the spiked punch. And anyway, it was a long time ago. It wouldn’t happen now.”

“Hmm.” He ran that finger over her collarbone and her nipples beaded.

He went hard as a rock. “So you’re saying I could kiss you now and you’d feel nothing.”

“R-right.”

Bracing his feet of the roof molding, he wrapped an arm around her and tugged, until she popped free…and ended up in his lap. The now filthy, curvy, hot Kylie squirmed like crazy, trying to scramble out of his arms, but he put his mouth to her ear and said silkily, “I dare you to sit still for another kiss.”

“Don’t be stupid—”

“I dare you to sit still,” he repeated. “And not respond.”

She stared at him.

“Double dog dare you,” he whispered, tracing a finger over the dust on her jaw. “Come on, Kylie. Prove to me there’s nothing here to wonder about.”

She swallowed hard.

“What’s the matter, you chicken?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, then.” He leaned close enough to drown in her annoyed yet curious-in-spite-of-herself gaze. “Remember now, hold still. No jumping my bones. No showing how badly you want me, or I get to claim a prize.” And when her eyes flashed, he bit back his grin and put his mouth over hers.

CHAPTER FOUR

A
T THE TOUCH
of his mouth to hers, Kylie thought, Oh. My. God. The man had the most amazingly perfect kiss on the face of the earth. Tender, warm, firm…just right.

Completely beyond herself, she let out a helpless little sound because she wanted more, more, more, and what did he do?

He pulled back! Pulled back and shook his head at her. “No sound,” he whispered gruffly. “Don’t want me to get any ideas, right? And no touching,” he added, unwinding her arms free of his neck—how had they gotten there?—and holding them at her sides. “No talking, no nothing.” His voice sounded thick and raspy, as if he was having trouble breathing. “Because if you’re not careful, I’ll think you want this, really want this.” And before she could slug him in the belly for laughing at her, he’d put his mouth back on hers.

The gentleness was gone now as he dove in, hot and hard, claiming, possessing, using his lips, his tongue, his teeth…. She struggled to free her arms and wind them around his neck, her hips arched to his, but his hands held her immobile.

He pulled back again, staring down at her with fathomless eyes, his mouth grimmer than she’d ever seen.

She opened her mouth, to say what she had no idea, but he put his fingers over her lips, shaking his head. Then he pushed her off his lap and went down the ladder, disappearing into the night.

Guess I passed his little dare,
she thought dimly, hot as hell in the cool night. When had night come anyway?

Damn it.

Damn
him.

T
HE NEXT DAY
Kylie hadn’t even opened the glass doors to the airport lobby when two reporters stepped out in front of her and shoved a microphone in her face.

Beyond them, inside, she could see her mother behind the reception desk, laughing. And one Wade McKinnon in front of that desk standing there with casual ease, also smiling.

What were they laughing at?

Even from here she could see the speculative gleam in Daisy’s eyes…no doubt she was going to try to set Kylie up with him.

She should have stayed in bed.

But in bed she couldn’t be at the airport. Surrounded by everything that was such a comfort.

Besides, in bed, she’d lie there thinking about the night before, being in Wade’s arms, his mouth on hers, driving her right out of her living mind.

And maybe she’d forget why she couldn’t add one more person to her load.

“Kylie Birmingham?” Reporter number one stepped even closer. “Tell us how you feel about your mother’s essay, about the heartbreaking way she wrote about you.”

Kylie blinked in surprise. “I…”
Should have read that essay, apparently.

Daisy happened to glance up and catch her eyes. Was it Kylie’s imagination that her mother flushed guiltily? No, it was not. And it wasn’t the reporters that made her mother do so, her mother loved reporters.

Which left Wade McKinnon.

They were plotting something. The thought was confirmed when Daisy broke eye contact first.

The tall, sexy man who kissed like heaven didn’t so much as glance in Kylie’s direction, but he was still smiling. Conspiratorially.

Oh, yes, they were most definitely up to something.

“Ms. Birmingham? About your mother? Can you tell us about your relationship? Does she require your help to run this airport?”

Ha! “No comment,” she said. “And no pictures,” she told them when one lifted a camera. Looking at her mother, she stalked into the lobby. She strutted right up to them in midlaugh and pointed at the both of them. “Stop it.”

Wade, looking vexingly scrumptious in his pilot’s uniform, just cocked a brow.

“Stop what, dear?” Daisy asked. “Did you sleep well? Because you have black circles beneath your—”

“I’m a big girl, just so you both know. I’ll make my own plans when and where it suits me.”

“Well, of course you will,” Daisy clucked. “How about breakfast? I have an extra bagel—”

Kylie crossed her arms. “I’d like to know what you two were talking about.”

Wade, apparently amused, didn’t comment.

Daisy rolled her eyes and pushed a mug of something hot towards her. “Herbal tea. It’ll help you relax. You could use a gallon.”

“I don’t need to relax—”

“We weren’t talking about you,” Daisy said, lifting the mug to Kylie’s lips.

She drank, but would eat her own tongue before admitting the stuff actually tasted good. Then her mother’s words sank in.

“That’s right,” Wade said when her cheeks went hot. “We weren’t talking about you. Contrary to popular belief, there are other things to talk about.”

“You…weren’t trying to make him go out with me?” Kylie asked her mother.

Daisy laughed. “Oh, right. As if anyone could make this man do something he doesn’t want to do.”

Wade smiled sweetly—
sweetly!
—when both women looked at him.

Right.
No one made Wade do anything. She needed to remember that. He might want to kiss her stupid. He might want to buy her airport. But he didn’t want to go out with her, because really, how ridiculous would
that
be?

“We were discussing quarterly taxes,” Wade said, still sounding amused. “They’re due tomorrow.”

Ah, hell.

Her stomach sank. “I need to get Lou on the forms,” she said to herself, her mind racing. Did her grandmother even have the forms? Had she gotten all the financial stuff together to fill them out? Had she—

“Relax,”
Wade said in her ear. He’d pushed away from the wall and now stood so close she could see the yellow specks dancing in his eyes. She could smell the soap he’d used that morning. She could feel his warm breath on her cheek.

And was vividly, vibrantly, unhappily aware that her body wanted to curl into his, that he looked good enough to gobble up in one bite.

“Lou can handle it,” he said. “Don’t get all worked up so early in the day, it’s not healthy.”

What wasn’t healthy was her body’s response to him.

“Your grandma can handle it,” Daisy confirmed, and pushed the tea on her daughter again. “She always talked about going back to college to finish up her accounting degree.”

Grandma loose on a college campus? Terrifying.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” Daisy said. “I have a massage appointment this morning.”

“Mom—”

“Just kidding.” Daisy laughed. So did Wade. “But I do have work, so if you kids’ll stop standing around my desk and making me look bad for the boss…”

“No problem.” Wade took Kylie’s arm before she could escape, before she could finish obsessing over the quarterlies.
Dad, how did you do it all?

Wade led her outside and toward the maintenance hangar. Halfway there they passed by a beauty of a Learjet. Standing in front of it was one of their more wealthy customers, Jimbo Stanton. Standing in front of Jimbo Stanton was Lou, flirting with the sixty-something-year-old customer.

“Lou!” Kylie refrained from wrapping her fingers around her grandma’s neck, and instead gestured her over. “Can I see you for a moment?”

“Sure.” Lou walked saucily toward them, making sure Jimbo watched her walk away.

He did, with his tongue practically on the ground.

“What are you doing?” Kylie growled when she got closer.

“What does it look like?” Lou patted her hairdo. “I’m trying to get a date. You remember what a date is, don’t you, Kylie?”

Wade laughed and Kylie groaned. “Don’t you have work to do?” she asked. “Accounting work?”

“All caught up.”

“How about the quarterlies?”

“Well, darling, I would, but I just did them last night.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m quite sure.”

“And then there’s the checking account situation—”

“Balanced,” Lou said proudly.

“Are you positive?”

“Of course, I’m positive. I’ve done this before, you know. Now shoo, scat, vamoose, you’re cramping my style.” Without looking back, she sashayed toward Jimbo.

Kylie was overcome with impending doom. She was failing, miserably.

“Hey,” Wade said. “It can’t be that bad.”

“As long as I’m wearing rose-colored glasses.”

He took her hand and pulled her away. They walked alongside the tarmac for about a hundred feet before they walked down the alley between hangars two and three toward maintenance.

She was just numb enough to actually let him lead her.

“Pretty day,” he said.

It was, but it’d be prettier if their hopefully new client called. She glanced at the cell phone. She’d given him this number in case there was a problem with the phones again.

No missed call.

Wade moved closer, and before she realized it, she had the cool hangar wall at her back and the big, bad, sexy pilot at her front. “Your mother is right,” he said, running his hands up her sides. “Tension is spilling right out of you.”

“That’s because you’re standing in my space,” she retorted, both the words and her breath backing up in her lungs when he spun her around and put her hands on the wall. “What—”

The word turned into a moan when he pressed close, pressed his fingers into her shoulders, massaging right where she felt most of the tension, at the base of her neck. “Wade—”

“Do us both a favor and be quiet a moment.”

Oh, man, did he know what he was doing. Those fingers were magic, pure, unadulterated magic, as they dug into the knots in her shoulders, her biceps, her neck. She wore a sleeveless faux-silk blouse, and he wasn’t shy about slipping his hands beneath the material to work more of that magic.

Within two minutes her legs were Jell-O. Her hands slipped from the wall, and he tsked, putting them back up. “Hold still.”

Hold still. If she so much as arched her back, her bottom found a snug home at the vee of his trousers. She knew this because she did it. Then his hands danced all over her and she couldn’t breathe. Hold still? She couldn’t!

“If you’d only admit you liked this,” he whispered into her ear, causing a set of delicious shudders to race down her spine. “I could do it for you whenever you tense up. Which is all the time.”

She spun around, not realizing until that moment just how close they were. Her chest brushed his, so did her hips. His eyes darkened, and his hands slid from her shoulders to cup her face. “Kylie?” His thumb slid over her lower lip, making it tremble open. “Do you like it?”

Definitely, a woman more in charge of her sexuality would do just that, admit it and then take more, take all of what was offered, whatever that might be. But Kylie wasn’t that woman. She knew what she wanted, and what she wanted was her life simplified. Wade wouldn’t do that, he’d complicate it.

Yes, in the deep dark of the night, she could admit the airport needed more help than she alone could give it. She needed a partner.

But in the light of day, she wasn’t willing to let go yet. And then there was Wade himself. She told herself she wasn’t interested. She needed more than a single smoldering look.

A single smoldering look, which at the moment, was consuming her, making her a little sweaty, a little tingly, a little dizzy even, so she put her hands on his arms for balance.

He stared down at them, then looked at her.

Oh my, he had hard muscle beneath his shirt. Her fingers squeezed, testing, her knees quivering again when nothing gave.

“Kylie…”

Fascinated, utterly unable to help herself, she squeezed him again. “Yeah?”

“You’re…touching me.”

She was. She couldn’t stop. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I like it,” he said in a voice that sounded a little ragged. He gripped her when she might have pulled away. “I like it a lot.”

Suddenly her entire body forgot its own pledge. It was humming, craving, yearning, and when she looked up into Wade’s face, his mouth slowly curved into a wry smile.

“Say the word,” he said huskily, with one more trace of the pad of his thumb over her mouth. “Just say the word and I’ll touch you back. I’ll be quite happy to touch you back, Kylie.”

She almost went for it. She certainly, suddenly, desperately, wanted to. But she just realized something else…Wade stood there, looking at her patiently.
He understood her enough to know she required patience.
Buckets of it.

And that, she decided, was the worst part of the morning. Not the reporters, or the pictures they’d almost gotten. Not her grandmother looking for a date amongst the clients.

But Wade knowing her so well.