Adam Then and Now

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  He gave a bark of laughter. “Like it matters! In two or three days she’ll be history. A girl like her would never be interested in somebody like me, anyway, so cool your jets, Mom.”

  “That’s exactly my point. She’s the kind who could lead you on and drop you. I think you should stay away from her.”

  “And what about your divorced friend?” His gaze skewered her. “What type is he?”

  Loren stared at him.

  “I take it the steel man didn’t tell you he’s wifeless.”

  “No. There...wasn’t much time.” It was a stupid excuse and she was sure Josh saw right through it. She averted her gaze and focused on an Arizona Cardinals poster hanging over Josh’s bed. The predominant color in the poster was red. Adam’s favorite color.

  “Five months ago,” Josh announced. “Split city. Daphne thinks he’s up here for more than one reason. So maybe you’d better take some of your own advice, Mom.”

  * * *

  AT FIVE FORTY-FIVE the next morning, the red twin-engine with the scorpion logo, its cowling up, crouched inside the Icarus hangar. Walt and Josh worked without conversation, but that wasn’t unusual, Loren told herself as she prowled the tarmac in front of the hangar. Besides, in her present coiled state, she was no judge of tension. She’d spent the night tossing around, sleeping little. So Adam was divorced!

  A muted roar coaxed her gaze upward, where a commercial jet opened a white seam in the denim sky. There were no clouds this morning, at least not over Sedona. But the weather report for Laughlin wasn’t as promising. Loren longed to get the project under way and over. She’d questioned Adam’s motives before; the questions loomed larger now. And she intended to get some answers.

  At five minutes before six, the black Geo glided up to the front of the Icarus hangar. Loren noted with relief that Adam was alone. Had Daphne brought him, she’d be free to stay at the airport or come back later. With the car here and Daphne at Los Arboles, Loren felt much better about leaving.

  At least she felt better until Adam climbed out of the car, a jaunty smile on his face. Watching him walk toward her was like experiencing a sudden drop in altitude. Her ears rang and her stomach flip-flopped.

  “I didn’t pack a lunch today,” she said, searching for some mundane detail to dilute the effect of him. “We should be back before noon.”

  “That’s what I told Daphne. Which was fine with her. She plans to sleep till then.”

  Good, Loren thought.

  Adam walked toward the hangar where Walt and Josh were working. “How’s the plane look?”

  “Not bad,” Walt said, easing his head out from under the cowling and wiping his hands on a rag stuffed in the pocket of his coveralls. “Want an estimate before you go?”

  “No. Just do whatever you think needs doing. If you’re trusting me with your plane, I can certainly trust you with mine.”

  “Just don’t let the top sergeant there bother you,” Walt said. “See you in a few hours, Loren.” With that he ducked back under the cowling.

  “Bye, Dad,” Loren called. “Bye, Josh.”

  Josh didn’t respond.

  Stung, Loren turned to Adam. “Let’s go,” she said more abruptly than was polite.

  “You’d better sit up front with me at first and make sure I don’t screw anything up,” he said as they walked over to the Icarus plane.

  “Fine. You can tell me about your divorce on the way to Laughlin.”

  He shot her a quick look, then muttered something under his breath.

  She could feel her blood pressure rise. “Hey, if you wanted to keep it a secret, you should have informed your daughter.”

  “I didn’t want to keep it a secret,” he retorted. “I just wanted to tell you in my own way.”

  “Oh? And what way was that?”

  He paused and lowered his voice. “I wanted some privacy to”

  “Privacy?” She turned to face him, hands on her hips. “Okay, Adam, let’s get a few things straight, shall we?” She was tired of beating around the bush. “What exactly did you have in mind when you hired me for this job?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ADAM HADN’T EXPECTED to explain himself so early in the game, and he felt ill prepared for this inquisition. “Because I needed the work done and because I wanted to see you again.”

  “Why?” Her dark glasses concealed any emotion that might have lurked in her eyes.

  To find out if there’s any hope for us was the most honest reply, but something in her stance made him hesitate. There were things a guy just didn’t say to a woman whose eyes he couldn’t see, a woman who challenged him with chin lifted and feet braced apart. Before he could come up with a more appropriate answer, she jumped into the fray.

  “Pick up any self-help book and you’ll find out it’s a mistake to go running back to an old girlfriend when a relationship ends.”

  He groaned and glanced away. He’d be wasting his breath to try to convince her of anything now. They still had the whole morning ahead of them, provided they got off the ground. He looked at his watch. “You’re probably right, and it’s getting late. Ready to go?”

  The muscles tightened in her jaw, but she nodded.

  She didn’t, however, sit in the copilot’s seat. Damn. Josh had probably told her about the divorce last night, so she’d had several hours to form her opinions. Unless she’d changed a lot in the years they’d been apart, it would take hours to alter those opinions. Or days. He completed the preflight check of the plane, put on his headset and contacted the tower. As the plane’s wheels left the runway, he realized he was finally alone with Loren. And she didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

  * * *

  THAT LITTLE GLANCE at his watch and remark about the time had really frosted her. So he was interested in efficiency, was he? Was that what this little stunt of his was all about? Ditch the wife, pick up the old girlfriend without missing a beat? Can’t be without someone to warm our bed, now, can we?

  Loren cleaned the camera lens with such vigor her arm ached. If he had the least notion she’d been pining away, patiently waiting for him to show up in her life again, he could kiss that idea goodbye. She had a fine life, thank you, and she didn’t need Adam to mess it up for her. And he would. Adam took risks that broke hearts; she’d learned that twenty-three years ago.

  Somehow she’d get through this morning’s assignment, present him with his damn pictures and eliminate any more reason to be in his company. She glanced out the window at the horizon, sawtoothed with mountains. Gray clouds nestled against the peaks, and as she watched, they slowly advanced toward the plane like a distant tidal wave. She prayed Adam would beat the clouds to the river.

  He didn’t.

  “I can’t see a blasted thing,” Loren muttered into her microphone as Adam maneuvered through the grid pattern above the construction site. “Take it down another hundred feet.”

  “After I get clearance, of course,” Adam snapped.

  “Of course.” Her response dripped with false sweetness. “But I wouldn’t worry about running into anybody. Who else would be dumb enough to cruise around in this soup?” Frustration had frayed her patience, and Adam’s, too, apparently. Seconds after they’d reached the target area, the cloud ceiling had dropped drastically. They’d wasted valuable time and fuel searching for the bottom edge of it. Loren was beginning to believe the dense cloud had settled about ten feet off the ground. And it didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

  Adam contacted the Bullhead City airport, located just across the river from Laughlin. “Bullhead City tower, this is 206 Whiskey Foxtrot requesting permission to drop to five hundred feet.”

  Whiskey Foxtrot, Loren thought, hearing the Cessna’s call letters differently now that Adam spoke them, instead of her father or Josh. Her father had chosen the two letters of identification because they were his and Fran’s initials. Loren tried to remember what letters had been stenciled on Adam’s Cessna 414. A picture of the plane’s fuselage appe
ared in her mind, along with the letters AR, Alpha Romeo in radio code. Or Adam Riordan. Or even Anita Riordan.

  “Anything?” Adam’s voice came through the earphones.

  She jerked from her preoccupied daze and peered through the lens. “No.”

  “That’s it, Loren. I can’t take it down any more unless we get pontoons on this baby. What now?”

  An unladylike epithet escaped her lips.

  “Ditto.”

  She whipped off her headset and stared out the window in defeat. Why did everything have to go wrong on this particular assignment? Just one hour of clear, even moderately clear, weather was all she needed. Was that asking too much?

  With a resigned sigh, she replaced her headset. “We have two choices,” she said. “Actually, three. First, we can abort and head back to Sedona, maybe try again tomorrow morning. Second, we can abort permanently and you can try this with some other photographer out of Phoenix next week.”

  “That’s out. I don’t think I have that long to catch this guy in the act. What’s the third choice?”

  “We could land in Bullhead City and wait it out. It means getting back later than we’d planned, but this front’s supposed to be gone by this afternoon, according to the Prescott Flight Service.”

  “Let’s get it done today. I’d rather go back late than be on time and have to tell Daphne I’m flying again tomorrow.”

  “Then I guess you’d better contact the tower and request permission to land.” Loren took off the headset again and glanced at her watch. By now they were supposed to be on their way back to Sedona. She didn’t want to spend extra time with Adam. Didn’t want to find herself looking into those blue eyes any more than necessary. Every minute spent with him chipped away at her common sense. Fortunately, she had a lot of common sense. With luck, she’d have enough to last until the weather cleared.

  She hoped Adam had his instrument rating—it was a little late to ask—because that was the only way he’d be able to land the plane. The leap of faith an instrument landing required had always bothered her, which was why she wasn’t much of a pilot. But Adam accepted the task with equanimity. The runway didn’t appear in front of them until the wheels were almost touching it. The sensation of the ground suddenly materializing right below them when she’d had the illusion of being high in the air made Loren’s stomach jump, as usual. Adam settled the plane on the runway as if it were made of Waterford crystal.

  “Not bad,” she murmured, knowing he couldn’t hear her with his headset on.

  He taxied to their assigned tie-down spot, turned off the engine and removed his headset. “It’s raining.”

  “I noticed.” Across the river from the airstrip, the lights of the Laughlin casinos glowed eerily in the fog and rain. Years ago, the only way to get across from the airport to the casinos had been by boat, but now a concrete bridge arced over the river. The population explosion in the neighboring cities was the reason Adam’s bridge was under construction farther south.

  “Feel like gambling?” Adam asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  He turned in his seat. “Anita and I went to Vegas once. Have you ever been up there?”

  “Once.” Jack had thought it would be great fun. She’d spent the whole time thinking of how she and Adam had planned to get married there.

  “Anita liked it, but I...” He looked into her eyes. “I didn’t.”

  “Stop it, Adam.”

  He lifted his eyebrows.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said. “Bringing up Las Vegas, giving me that look. Whatever you’re trying to do isn’t going to work. I’m not the same person I was, and neither are you. Don’t sort through the embers looking for a spark. There isn’t one.”

  He rested his chin on his fist and studied her without speaking.

  Her face grew warm under his scrutiny. “I mean it, Adam. This was not a good idea. And why you roped your daughter into this trip is beyond me.”

  “She asked to come. My relationship with her is pretty fragile right now, so I didn’t want to turn her down.”

  “Then I suggest you concentrate on that fragile relationship and leave me out of the picture.”

  “Permanently?”

  She felt a catch in the vicinity of her heart. But she mustn’t leave the door open, not even a crack. Once he’d smashed her heart like a papier-m;afach;aae pi;atnata, and she didn’t want to find out if he could do it again. “Permanently.”

  His eyes grew hooded, his expression remote. “I’d never force myself on a woman.”

  “Good.” The catch in her heart had become a persistent ache, but it would go away once Adam went away. Until then, she’d just have to deal with the pain. A man embroiled in a midlife crisis was never a safe bet. Everyone knew that.

  He pushed himself erect. “Now that we have that settled, how about going across the river for something to eat?”

  She considered the suggestion. Walking around a casino full of people was probably a better idea than staying cocooned in this plane with Adam. She’d made her stand, but that didn’t cloak her in immunity. Just glancing at his capable hands or the firm line of his chin weakened her resolve. “Sure. We can pick up a courtesy car at the terminal and drive across the bridge.”

  “By the time we tie this baby down and run to the terminal, we’ll be so wet we might as well swim across the river.”

  “That’s the thing about private planes. No jetways.” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice. “But considering you’re the client, I should probably go get the car and drive over to pick you up here.”

  He grinned, apparently ready to ignore her prickly mood. “Would you do that?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.” He reached for the door handle. “Let’s go.”

  Rain lashed them as they shared the job of securing the wings and tail with cables to the hooks imbedded in the tarmac. True to Adam’s prediction, they were soaked by the time they reached the terminal. Loren asked the gas attendant to top off both the plane’s tanks and Adam picked up the keys for the courtesy car. Then she and Adam plunged out into the downpour again.

  He unlocked her side of the car first, and out of habit she leaned across and unlocked the driver’s door.

  “Thanks,” he said as he climbed in. He started the engine and switched on the wipers before gazing at her with a faint smile. “You remind me of how you used to look after we went down Slide Rock.”

  Loren pushed back her damp hair and glanced away from that seductively soft gaze. Slide Rock. Hot, sunny days when they had put on their oldest cutoffs and T-shirts, taken coolers of sandwiches and soft drinks, and sailed down the wide, smooth sandstone where water sluiced in a constant current. They’d slide until they were drenched, then find some secluded spot higher up the canyon, where their passionate embraces heated their wet clothes until they were nearly steaming from the erotic friction of their bodies.

  Adam moved the car into light traffic. “We had some good times,” he said.

  “Yes, I suppose we did.” She waited to see if he’d suggest they could have good times again, but he didn’t. Apparently, he’d accepted her decree. Setting him straight had been fairly easy. Maybe too easy, warned an inner voice.

  When they’d crossed the bridge, Adam parked the car in front of the nearest casino and they ran through the rain into a buzzing, jangling, flashing world of slot machines, roulette wheels and blackjack tables. People crowded around the machines and gaming tables, eyes totally focused on the play. Weather didn’t matter inside the casino. The air-conditioning made Loren, in her wet clothes, shiver.

  “You’re cold.”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll dry out in a little while.”

  “Listen, these places all sell T-shirts and stuff. Let me buy you something dry to put on before we eat.”

  “N-no, that’s not necessary.”

  “Dammit, Loren,” he said in a low voice. �
�You’ve made it obvious you don’t appreciate my hiring you for this job, so I’m already carrying a load of guilt about that. We’re not adding a case of pneumonia to it because of some idiotic pride on your part.”

  She glanced up and evaluated his determination. From the set of his jaw, he looked ready to continue the argument until she gave in or they created a scene. She was cold, and a dry shirt would be heaven. And why should she pay for a shirt she’d never wear again in her entire life? “You’re right,” she said. “I could use a dry shirt. Let’s find the gift shop.”

  Fifteen minutes later, armed with T-shirts and running shorts emblazoned with the casino’s logo, they separated to go into their respective rest rooms and change.

  Inside a stall, Loren discovered that her denim shorts had kept her panties pretty dry, but her bra was as soaked as her tank top. She had the choice of leaving it on, in which case her T-shirt would have two wet circles in the front in short order, or going braless. After deciding the T-shirt material was thick enough to protect her modesty, Loren left the rest room.

  Adam was already standing there, his shirt and slacks in a bundle under one arm. Immediately, her gaze went to the firm length of his thighs and his muscled calves. How she’d once loved the movement of those powerful legs under tight football pants as Adam had sprinted down the field for yet another touchdown. She didn’t think he’d gained an ounce of fat since those days.

  “And I won’t even charge you extra for the show,” he said with a smile.

  She felt her face grow hot. “I”

  “Hey, forget it.” He took her elbow and guided her toward the restaurant. “My battered ego appreciates the fact you looked.”

  “You misunderstand me. I just...” But she couldn’t come up with a plausible excuse.

  He grinned at her. “Yeah. Me, too.” He glanced at the hostess. “Two for nonsmoking. Put us over in that corner booth if you can.”