by Cara Summers
Lucas said nothing.
“Your grandfather and I never associated publicly after we came home from the war, but we kept in touch over the years. I took a few vacations with him on that island of his. He used to talk about how he was disappointed in his son, your father. He said that the future of Wainright Enterprises would depend on you. I have come to accept that the future of the Falcone fortunes will depend on my grandchild.”
Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “Sonny is…?”
The older man rose from his desk and moved toward the one-way glass. “No, my grandchild hasn’t been conceived yet. I won’t live to see him. Or her. I had hopes that perhaps Sonny and your sister would hit it off. He’s a nice enough looking young man.”
Lucas followed the direction of Falcone’s gaze and saw that Sonny had joined the gathering in the other room.
“He didn’t have any more luck with her than he seems to be having at Lansing Biotech. I thought for a while he was on the right track there. He hired a research scientist as a consultant. It’s what I would have done. That’s him, the tall blond man right there next to my son. According to Sonny, they’re very close to getting exclusive rights to some very important research.”
“What kind of research?” Lucas asked. But it was beginning to take some effort to remain patient and play the dupe.
Falcone waved a hand. “Something on slowing down the aging process. I had it checked into, and the research was indeed legitimate and very promising. It’s also on the up-and-up to have these scientists sign these contracts. Lansing Biotech finances some of the cost of the research in return for exclusive rights to manufacture any results in the future. Sonny was supposed to have all the papers signed so that I could make the announcement today.”
“But he doesn’t.”
“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if he did.”
“What exactly is it that you want me to do?” Lucas asked.
Vincent Falcone met his eyes, and there was no trace of the frailty he’d glimpsed earlier. “I want you to take Sonny under your wing and make sure that my two remaining businesses prosper until one of my grandchildren can take over. Sonny swore he’d prove to me that he was capable of running both businesses, but he’s made a mess of it. I advanced him some money—told him to show me what he could do with it to increase profits here at the vineyard. He bought hot-air balloons.”
“Balloons?” Lucas asked.
“My reaction exactly. He could have used the money for research, he could have imported some old vines from France or Italy. Instead, he bought hot-air balloons so that he could offer the tourists who stop by an aerial tour of the valley.” Falcone sighed. “But that’s not the worst of it. To be perfectly honest, he’s gotten himself into a bit of a scrape.”
Finally, Lucas thought. We’re getting to the hole card.
“The simplest way to put it is that I believe he’s kidnapped that young scientist who was at your house party last weekend, and I need your help.”
Lucas studied the older man for a moment, trying to come to a decision. Vincent Falcone was a consummate actor, but the request seemed to be costing him. In the end he decided to trust the man who had saved his grandfather’s life. “Do you know where she is now?”
Falcone shook his head. “I had some men keeping an eye on her, but they lost her last night. She met my son at a restaurant, the Side Street Grill. One minute she was talking to him, then she went to the ladies’ room and never came back. She hasn’t been back to her hotel either.”
“And you think your son is involved?” Lucas asked.
“He told me he was going to have her signature on a contract by today. He also told me that he would be bringing your sister to this party. Neither event has come to pass yet. In his effort to prove himself to me, he may have panicked. Look at him. Does he look like he has good news to tell me?”
Lucas did just that. Sonny didn’t look happy. Neither did the man standing next to him as he stopped a passing waiter to exchange an empty glass for a full one.
Lucas scanned the room. There was no sign of Tracker or Mac. “Tell me everything else you know.”
AS SHE NEARED the end of the row of vines she’d been following, Mac paused to catch her breath. The clearing with the balloons had been a lot farther away than it had appeared to be from the deck, and Sally’s shoes were not made for running.
During the time it had taken her to get there, all four balloons had become bright balls of color in the air.
Keeping her head down, Mac inched her way to the edge of the row. Her stomach sank. The four balloon baskets floated about fifteen feet in the air. A rope ladder hung from each one, and other ropes anchored each to the ground.
Her gaze lingered on the red-and-green one. There was no way to tell if the person she’d spotted from the deck was still in there.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
The deep voice had Mac ducking low and flattening herself against the nearest grapevine.
“They said they had orders from Sonny Falcone to get the balloons in the air. There were two of them and only one of me. What was I supposed to do?”
“You didn’t have to help them.”
“At least I kept them from discovering the girl. And I convinced them to take a break and get some beers in the kitchen.”
There were a few beats of silence. Mac waited, hardly daring to breathe.
“They’ll discover her soon enough once they start offering the party guests rides.”
“I’m getting out of here.”
“You can’t. All we have to do is get her out of there. Stash her someplace else.”
“You want to hang around and have somebody catch you? Fine. But I’ve got a feeling that this whole job is going south. First, he tells us we’ve kidnapped the wrong girl. Then he wants us to keep her here in this damn basket until the right one comes calling. I’m hitting the road.”
Mac held her breath while she counted the receding footsteps of the man who’d just spoken.
“Hell, wait up… Wait up, I said.”
Mac waited, counting to ten as the sound of the footsteps faded. In the distance, she could hear the music of the band. Closer, she could hear the drone of insects. Just to make sure, she counted to ten again. Then she straightened and raced across the clearing to the red-and-green balloon.
It appeared to be even higher off the ground than she’d first thought.
“Sophie,” she called.
There was no answer.
She tried again. “Sophie.”
There was still no answer.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“SHE WASN’T SUPPOSED to leave the room,” Lucas said, more to himself than to Tracker. “All she had to do was mingle. She wasn’t supposed to call attention to herself. She sure as hell wasn’t supposed to dump a glass of wine over one of Falcone’s guests.”
“It was my fault she left the room,” Tracker said as he pulled on the steering wheel and took the jeep Vincent Falcone had lent them into a two-wheeled turn. Once the vehicle had stabilized, he continued, “But I told her to stay put on that deck until I got back.”
“She never does anything you tell her. She can’t even do what you expect her to do. She’s…” It occurred to Lucas that he didn’t have a word that would describe Mac. He might never have one.
“She’ll be fine,” Tracker said.
Lucas wished he could believe that. It was Tracker who’d spotted her through the telescope from the upper deck of the villa. The quick surge of relief had given way to a sharp stab of fear as he’d watched her start up one of the rope ladders attached to a balloon.
“She’s found Sophie,” Tracker had said.
It made sense, Lucas thought. She’d no doubt spotted something through the telescope and taken off. Thank God Tracker was thinking clearly, because he wasn’t. He couldn’t rid his mind of the image of Mac climbing up that rope ladder.
“How much farther?”
Tracker merely
grunted as he dragged the Jeep into another two-wheeled turn that shot them off in another direction. Vincent Falcone had given them directions to the clearing, but the dirt road zigged and zagged, slowing their progress.
They didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Fear ate like acid in the back of Lucas’s throat.
“She was alone,” Tracker said. “There was no one else in the clearing.”
Lucas tightened his grip on the side of the Jeep. “We saw her. Someone else could have seen her too.”
“Falcone’s got Sonny in his study.”
What Tracker didn’t say, what neither of them had spoken aloud, was that Sonny had denied everything hotly. Oh, he’d admitted to wining and dining both women—the doctor because he wanted her name on a contract and Sophie to please his father. That much Tracker had intimidated out of him. He’d even confessed that he’d talked to a redhead at the Side Street Grill. But it hadn’t been MacKenzie Lloyd. On that point he’d been adamant.
“You think Sonny’s behind this?” Lucas asked as Tracker eased up on the gas.
“That boy’s as dumb as a rock,” Tracker said.
Under other circumstances Lucas might have grinned. “We’re on the same page there.”
“Beats me that he had the business savvy to want to sign Mac in the first place.”
“My thought exactly,” Lucas said.
The Jeep careened around another curve. Dust spewed up, tires spun, then gripped the dirt again.
“You’re thinking little Sonny might have a silent partner that he doesn’t want to talk about in front of Daddy.”
“Bingo. Pull over here. We’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”
CLOSING HER EYES Mac wiped one damp hand on her skirt, then gripped the next rung of the rope ladder. Her heart was beating so loudly that she could hear it above the sound of the band in the distance. She had no idea how high she’d climbed, and she wasn’t sure she could go any farther.
Running back to the villa for help just hadn’t been an option. There was no time. Sophie might be hurt.
Reaching up, Mac wrapped her hands around the rope. Every instinct she had told her that Sophie was here, and she had to get her out. One step at a time. Just one. This was the easy part. She wasn’t even going to think about climbing down. Drawing in a deep breath, she moved her hands and her feet to the next rung. The moment the swaying stopped and the rope steadied, she made herself repeat the process.
“You can stop right where you are.”
Mac recognized Gil Stafford’s voice immediately. And this time she felt what she hadn’t allowed herself to feel before—anger.
“Turn around.”
She clamped down on her anger just as she had on her fear. Then she made herself face Gil. The gun in his hand was pointed at her. When the nausea hit, she pushed it away and concentrated on his face. If her disguise worked, she might have a chance.
“MacKenzie, I’ve been waiting for you.”
His voice was soft, the tone falsely welcoming. It was the look of hatred in Gil Stafford’s eyes more than the gun in his hand that sent an icy shiver sliding up her spine.
“Gil. What are you doing here?”
“I think you know. I saw you climb down from the upper level of the deck.” His lips curved in a smile that never made it to his eyes. “Oh, the disguise is quite good. It might have fooled even me, but I saw the way you hesitated on the stairs, the way you gripped the railing. I remembered your telling me about how frightened you were of heights. You should have worked that through with a therapist long ago. It’s a dead giveaway.”
Mac’s chin lifted, but she clamped her lips tight on the words that wanted to tumble out. It wouldn’t do her any good to provoke a man with a gun in his hand.
“As it is, you’re going to have a very scary ride ahead of you.”
Mac’s heart leaped to her throat as she watched him move to one of the ropes that anchored the balloon to the ground and pull it free. “What are you—”
The basket above her lurched, and she clung tightly to the ladder as it swayed crazily, swinging her back and forth.
“We’re going away—you, me and your friend Sophie Wainright.”
“No,” Mac managed to say. Then she forced herself to open her eyes. “Gil, you have to let Sophie go. She has nothing to do with this.”
Gil grabbed the bottom rung of the rope ladder and gave it a shake. “She was pretending to be you. And she ruined everything.”
Sweat, cold and clammy, broke out on her skin. Mac couldn’t move. For a moment, she couldn’t even think. Clinging to the rope, she lifted her gaze from the ground, tried to focus on something else. Her vision grayed, the edges blurring with fear, but a movement at the edge of the vineyard registered. She made herself blink hard and saw Lucas at the edge of one of the rows of vines. If she could just stall Gil… Slowly, she lowered her eyes to his. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because your research is going to make you rich one day, and part of that money belongs to me. The school promised me time and money for my research. Then they hired you and decided to pour their money into your project. They even installed you in the lab they’d promised me.”
Mac let out the breath she was holding and drew another in. She couldn’t let herself look to see where Lucas was. She had to keep Gil’s attention focused on her. “If you’d let me know, I would have done something.”
“What?” Gil’s laugh was bitter. “What would you have done? Would you have told me you were sorry? Or given up your work, moved somewhere else?”
She stared at him. The hatred she saw in his eyes was hot and lethal. Then he moved to the second anchor rope and began to twist it free. Mac fought against a fresh wave of dizziness as the ladder swung out and in.
“Lansing Biotech was going to pay me a half-million dollars for getting your signature on a contract. But you couldn’t even do that.”
“If you let Sophie go, I’ll sign anything you want.”
Gil twisted the freed anchor rope around his wrist, then grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder. Closing her eyes, Mac held on for dear life.
“No, I have a much better plan. I think that Lucas Wainright might pay handsomely for the safety of his sister, don’t you?”
“No, I won’t. Drop the gun.”
Gil whirled around, one hand on the rope ladder, a gun in the other. He aimed it at Lucas. “Drop yours or I’ll free the balloon, and your sister and Dr. Lloyd will go for a little ride all by themselves.”
Lucas stopped dead in his tracks. “All right. I’m putting it down.” Bending over, he placed his weapon on the ground. “We should talk about this. You’re not going to accomplish anything by letting that balloon go.”
Mac felt the balloon already struggling to rise, saw the anchor rope slipping free of Gil’s wrist. Frozen with fear, she watched Gil place one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. He was going to climb up. The moment his other foot left the ground, they would be airborne.
“No,” Lucas said as he moved forward.
A shot rang out.
The sound had the fear streaming through her, but Lucas didn’t fall. Instead, he took another step forward.
“This time, I won’t miss,” Gil said as he steadied his aim.
Mac let go of the rope and jumped. She felt her body slam into Gil’s, heard another shot ring out as they both tumbled to the ground. Then the blackness enveloped her.
SOPHIE SAT on a crowded counter in Mac’s kitchen, swinging her feet back and forth. “It’s nice to see that everything’s back to normal.”
Mac looked up from the carrot she was shredding for Wilbur, then glanced around the room. It was perfectly back in order. When she’d thanked her landlord, he’d told her that someone from Wainright Enterprises had arranged to have it cleaned. Lucas.
Quickly, she pushed the name and all the images that came with it away and focused her gaze on Sophie. “Yes, everything’s fine.”
It was such a lie Mac wondered th
at her nose didn’t grow three inches. Or that Sophie didn’t hoot right out loud.
But all Sophie did was nod as she grabbed one of the carrots Mac was shredding. “Absolutely. Wilbur’s happy you’re back, you have that extra space in your lab you’ve always wanted, your hair’s back in that unattractive bun, and you’re wearing your old drab clothes. And, as a bonus, you’re going to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for shredding five pounds of carrots in ten minutes flat.”
Mac’s gaze sharpened. She had a good idea where the conversation was leading, and she was going to head it off. “We agreed that we’re not going to discuss your brother.”
Sophie raised both hands, palms out. “I never mentioned him. Did I say his name or refer to him in any way?”
“You said I was back in my drab clothes. The before—” She caught herself before she said his name. It hurt too much to say it out loud. The before Lucas clothes.
It was bad enough to think his name. She hadn’t seen him since she’d taken that flying leap onto Gil Stafford. When she’d woken up in one of the guest rooms at the Falcone villa, she’d been sure that Lucas had been shot. Sophie had assured her that he was fine and dandy. And later, when Sophie had left, Tracker had stopped by to fill her in on everything that had happened. Gil Stafford had been arrested along with the two men who’d kidnapped Sophie. Even Sonny Falcone and his father had dropped in to apologize and to tell her that Lansing Biotech wouldn’t pressure her anymore.
But Lucas hadn’t stopped by even once. He had some loose ends to tie up, Tracker had said. That had been a week ago—seven whole days. Sophie had spent the first five badgering her to call Lucas.
But she hadn’t. She couldn’t. They’d agreed that when her research was over, they’d go back to their own lives. No strings.
Her whole body ached from missing him. She couldn’t fall asleep without dreaming about him, without reliving every moment that they’d spent together.
“So now I can’t even mention your clothes.” Whipping a notebook from her purse, Sophie plucked a pen out of a nearby cup and began to scribble. “Don’t mention her dreary, drab clothes even if they make you wretch. There.” She glanced up at Mac. “Anything else that’s off-limits?”
