White Hot

by Sandra Brown

  “Ms. Lynch?”

  “Hello.”

  “I’ll be your captain on this flight.” He introduced himself, and they shook hands. Once they were aboard, he introduced his copilot, who waved at her from the cockpit. Then the captain pointed out the emergency exits and showed her where drinks and snacks were stored. “Make yourself at home.”

  She thanked him, and he went forward to take his seat in the cockpit. Relieved to be under way and grateful to relinquish control to someone else, Sayre rested her head against the cool leather upholstery of her seat and closed her eyes. Within minutes, the plane began its taxi to the end of the runway.

  She was dozing by the time it turned and positioned itself for takeoff.

  But rather than the engines revving as she expected, they gradually whined to a stop. She opened her eyes to see the captain squeezing himself out of the cockpit. “Sit tight, Ms. Lynch. We’ve got a situation here, but I’ll take care of it and then we’ll be on our way.” He spoke politely and calmly, but she could tell that he was hopping mad about whatever had held them up.

  He released the lock on the door, pushed it open, and rushed down the steps. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “I need to see your passenger.”

  Sayre unfastened her seat belt and moved toward the door. The pilot’s back was to her. He was reading the riot act to Beck Merchant, who seemed unfazed.

  “I tried to get the lady in the terminal to radio you not to take off, but she refused,” he explained. “She said I had no authority. I didn’t know how else to stop you.”

  Sayre climbed down the steps. When Beck saw her, he motioned toward his pickup truck, which was idling in the center of the runway directly in front of the jet. “Get in.”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Huff’s had a heart attack.”

  • • •

  Beck glanced at his passenger. “Aren’t you the least bit curious to know what happened?”

  Sayre hadn’t spoken a word since he boosted her into the cab of his truck. She turned her head toward him now. Her expression was impassive, but at least she was looking at him.

  “Huff was in his office,” he said. “Sally, his assistant, heard him cry out. She rushed in, found him slumped over his desk, clutching his chest. Her quick thinking may have saved his life. She pushed an aspirin tablet into his mouth and then called nine-one-one.

  “Chris and I got to the hospital right behind the ambulance. We were there maybe half an hour—although it seemed longer—before they allowed Chris to see him. They only let him stay in the ICU about five minutes. He said they were trying to get Huff stabilized but he was fighting them. He was extremely agitated and asking for you. I was dispatched to locate you and bring you back.”

  “Did they give Chris a prognosis?”

  “Not yet. They’re still trying to assess the severity of the attack. All I can tell you is that when I left the hospital, Huff was still alive. I told Chris to call me on my cell if there was some drastic change. He hasn’t.”

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  “The car rental company. I called the branch office in New Orleans to see if you’d turned in your car yet. I was told you were leaving it at the airfield here to be picked up later. I raced out there.” After a pause, he said, “I offered you the company jet.”

  “And I declined the offer. I wouldn’t avail myself of the company jet when the company doesn’t provide adequate work gloves to its employees because they’re more expensive. How expensive can work gloves be?”

  “That’s not my department.”

  She looked at him with contempt. “Right. You’re their errand boy. They send you to do their dirty work. You could have caused a catastrophe by driving onto an active runway.”

  “The captain mentioned that.”

  “But his words bounced right off you. You pulled an arrogant stunt like that because you knew you could get away with it. No wonder you fit in so well with my family.”

  Beck’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “You don’t approve of my methods? Fine. It’s not your approval I’m after. I was asked by my employer to find you and bring you to the hospital, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  “And you always do what they tell you to do. It doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong, or how it may affect someone else.” Tilting her head slightly, she appraised him. “How far would you go for them, I wonder. Where would you draw the line? Or would you ever?”

  “You’ve already made clear your low opinion of me.”

  “Last night at the diner, why didn’t you tell me that you were at the fishing cabin because Sheriff Harper had asked you to be there?”

  “And spoil your fun? You wanted to think the worst of me, and I handed you an opportunity to do so.”

  She turned her head away and stared out the passenger window. Anger was radiating off her like the heat rising out of the hot asphalt. Her hair shimmered like flame in the glaring sunlight. Her skin looked feverish; it would be hot to the touch.

  Better not to think about touching her. Although it did no good to tell himself that. He had thought about little else since seeing her for the first time.

  Yesterday at the cemetery, when he’d come face-to-face with Huff’s daughter, he’d had a hard time concealing his shock. Naturally, he’d seen pictures of her, but they were pale representations of the real thing. In the flesh, she made a stunning physical impact that could never be captured two-dimensionally.

  He’d thought, This is Chris’s younger sister about whom I’ve heard so many wild tales? This is the femme fatale of Destiny, the Lolita, the little sister of vicious tongue and vile temper fame?

  He had expected her to be loud and vulgar. He’d expected a flashy dresser who flaunted a voluptuous figure, not a sophisticated fashion plate with impeccable taste. She’d made understated elegance sexy and tantalizing.

  She’d been described to him as a firebrand, a spoiled brat, a pain in the ass, a harridan. All of which he was certain she could be. But Chris had failed to mention that his sister was a woman of alluring mystery. Because incongruent with the appropriate clothing and air of cool condescension was a restlessness that hinted at a latent passion, an unmined lode of sensuality that flowed far beneath the surface of her hauteur.

  Of course Chris, being her brother, wouldn’t have noticed all that, especially the sexual aspects of the inner Sayre. Beck reasoned that she counted on that shortsightedness. She didn’t want anyone to see past that off-putting manner she had affected to safeguard the real her.

  But Beck had seen beyond it. He’d caught only a few glimpses of what she would be like if that referenced wild streak asserted itself, and they had excited him. The thought had made his belly jump with expectation and his skin tighten with the strain of concealing it. He’d seen her lips part in astonishment over his bold statement about her hair as he was tucking it under the hard hat. He’d imagined gently biting her full lower lip, for starters. And then he’d fantasized beyond that first taste of her. He’d imagined tapping into that underlying vein of sensuality. His life would be much easier right now if he hadn’t.

  As he sped toward the hospital, she continued to ignore him, which was damned annoying. He would rather she do anything other than pretend he wasn’t there. “Are you comfortable?”

  She looked across the seat at him. “What?”

  “The air conditioner. Too much? Not enough?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You may pick up some of Frito’s shed hair on that seat. I apologize for that. He likes to ride—”

  “If the heart attack was so severe that Huff is asking to see his children before he dies, shouldn’t he be helicoptered to a hospital in New Orleans, where there’s a cardiac center?”

  He didn’t mind being interrupted. At least she was talking now. “I suppose that could be an option once they determine the seriousness of his condition.”

  “Befor
e today, has he shown any symptoms of a heart ailment?”

  “High blood pressure. He’s supposed to take medication for it, but he doesn’t like the side effects. He smokes constantly, sometimes I think out of sheer defiance of the warnings against it. His only form of exercise is rocking in his rocking chair. He makes his café au lait with half-and-half. He threatened to fire Selma if she ever again substituted turkey bacon for the real thing. He was probably a heart attack or stroke waiting to happen.”

  “Do you think Danny’s death contributed?”

  “No doubt. Losing his son, especially under those circumstances, coupled with the repercussions, has been stressful.”

  “What repercussions?” she asked.

  “Here we are.”

  He parked in the hospital parking lot and alighted from the truck before she could ask him again about the repercussions of Danny’s death. Did she really need to know that Huff had suffered his heart attack less than an hour after he and Chris had recapped for him their unsettling meeting with Red Harper and Deputy Scott?

  With typical cocksureness, Chris had told Huff that it was nothing to worry about, that Wayne Scott had rattled sabers just to impress everybody with how big and bad he was, that the so-called evidence they had was so flimsy it was funny.

  “He’s justifying his employment at my expense,” Chris had said. “That’s all there is to it. Beck will make mincemeat of him and his investigation. Mark my words, in a couple of days, we’ll be having a good laugh over this.”

  Beck had said something similarly dismissive, but apparently it had stressed Huff past endurance to think that one of his sons would even be considered capable of fratricide.

  Beck saw no advantage to discussing that with Sayre and instead went around to open the passenger door for her. By the time he reached it, she was stepping from the cab and declined the hand he offered. When she turned back to get her overnight bag, he said, “Leave it. I’ll lock the truck.”

  She hesitated, then gave a curt nod, and together they walked toward the hospital entrance. He allowed her to go ahead of him through the revolving door. When it emptied him into the lobby, he bumped into Sayre, who had barely cleared the door before coming to a dead stop.

  Almost knocking her down and losing his own balance, he took her lightly by the shoulders and caught her up against him, their bodies making accidental intimate contact in a way that at any other time would have stopped his breath. It would have now, except for his puzzlement over why she’d stopped so suddenly.

  Dr. Tom Caroe was coming toward them from across the lobby. He was a short man, who carried his narrow shoulders in a perpetual stoop. The poor posture made him appear even more diminutive. His clothes always looked several sizes too large, as though he had shrunk after putting them on. His sparse hair was dyed unnaturally black in an attempt to conceal his advanced years, which the lines on his face gave away.

  As he reached them, he said hello to Sayre and extended his right hand. But when she made no move to take it, he quickly let it drop to his side. To cover his embarrassment, he said, “Thank you for bringing her so soon, Beck.”

  “No problem. How is he?”

  Sayre, overcoming her shock—or whatever it was that had caused her to become transfixed—shrugged his hands off her shoulders and moved to stand at his side.

  “He’s stable,” Dr. Caroe told them. “I need him that way before conducting any more tests.”

  Speaking for the first time, Sayre issued a direct challenge to the family physician’s competence. “Are you qualified to make a diagnosis? Shouldn’t a cardiac specialist be consulted?”

  “Yes, I think one should be,” he replied evenly. “But Huff doesn’t. He was quite insistent about it.”

  “Maybe I can convince him otherwise.” Beck nudged Sayre toward the elevator. “What floor?”

  “Second. He’s in ICU,” the doctor said. “Your visits will be limited to a few minutes per hour. He needs absolute rest.” Focusing on Sayre, he added, “He particularly wanted to see you, which, frankly, I think is inadvisable. But if you do speak with him, keep in mind his condition and don’t say anything that’s likely to upset him. Another arrest could kill him.”

  • • •

  Chris looked up when the elevator doors opened and she and Beck stepped out. “Well, well, Sayre. Thank you for troubling yourself to come back.”

  She ignored him, which was one’s best defense against Chris.

  “We ran into Tom Caroe downstairs,” Beck told him.

  “Then you know as much as I do.” Chris looked at her. “Huff’s been asking for you.”

  “Do you know why?” she asked.

  “Haven’t the faintest. I thought you might be able to shed some light.”

  “No.”

  “Maybe it has something to do with your sudden interest in our operation.”

  “As I said, Chris, I don’t know.”

  That ended the conversation. They took seats in the waiting room and tried to avoid making eye contact. Eventually, Beck stood up and announced that he was going in search of a vending machine. Sayre declined his offer to bring her back a soft drink.

  “I’ll go with you,” Chris said, and followed Beck from the waiting room, leaving her alone to dread the visit with Huff.

  It was impossible to envision a repentant Huff, but he had never faced his mortality before. As he stood looking into the abyss, was he fearing the hell he had repudiated? Faced with the probability of spending eternity there, was he wanting to beg her forgiveness and make atonement?

  If so, he would be wasting his dying breath. She would never forgive him.

  She was still alone in the waiting room when a nurse informed her that she could go in. Sayre followed her to where Huff lay connected to machines that blipped and bleeped with reassuring regularity. A cannula was feeding oxygen into his nostrils. His eyes were closed. The nurse silently withdrew.

  Staring into his face, Sayre marveled at how completely the man to whom she owed her life had destroyed her love for him. She remembered being a young girl and looking forward to his coming home from work each evening. He announced his arrival in a voice that boomed through the hallways of the house, filling it with a vitality it lacked when he wasn’t there. He was the heart that pumped life—be it good or bad—into the family.

  She remembered when his slightest notice of her was better than the gifts she received on Christmas morning. She had treasured his miserly approval. Even though he frightened her at times, she remembered loving him with wholehearted and unqualified devotion.

  But then, she had been seeing him through the eyes of a child, which were blind to his depravity. When her eyes were opened and she was made to see it, it was the most painful, disillusioning experience of her life.

  She stood at his bedside for several moments before he became aware of her. When he opened his eyes and saw her, he smiled and spoke her name.

  “Are you comfortable?” she asked.

  “Now that they’ve got me doped up.”

  “You’re stabilized. Blood pressure. Heart rate. All that.”

  He nodded absently, barely listening. His eyes were roving over her face. “I fought your mother on naming you Sayre. I thought it was a silly name. Why not Jane or Mary or Susan? But she insisted, and now I’m glad she did. It suits you.”

  She refused to walk hand in hand with him down memory lane. It would be shamefully hypocritical. She brought the subject back to his condition. “It must have been a mild attack or you wouldn’t be feeling this well. The damage to your heart couldn’t be too severe.”

  “So you’re a cardiac specialist now?” he asked caustically.

  “No, but I’ve had a lot of experience with damaged hearts.”

  He tipped his head as though to say, Nice shot. “You’re a hard, unfeeling creature, Sayre.”

  “I learned by example.”

  “Referring to me, I suppose. Your mother—”

  “Please don’t invoke M
other, especially in order to make me feel guilty for standing up to you. No, I’m not the sweet, compliant lady she was, but I don’t think she would like the way any of us turned out.”

  “You’re probably right. Danny, maybe. I think she would’ve liked him. I’m glad she wasn’t here to see him dead and buried.”

  “I’m glad of that, too. No mother should have to bury her child.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You probably don’t believe this, Sayre, but I grieve for Danny. I do.”

  “Who are you trying to convince, Huff? Me or yourself?”

  “Okay, don’t believe me. But I’ve had plenty to be upset about. First Danny. Now Chris coming under suspicion.”

  “Chris . . . What? What do you mean?”

  “Ms. Hoyle?”

  It was the nurse, coming to remind her to keep the visit short. She nodded, not bothering to correct the name.

  “Don’t mind her,” Huff said after the nurse withdrew. “She wouldn’t dare throw you out.”

  The sad fact was, Sayre couldn’t wait to leave him. “You’ll recover, Huff. I don’t think even the devil is ready for you.”

  One side of his mouth tilted up in a grin. “He wouldn’t appreciate the competition.”

  “The devil is no competition for you.”

  “I think you mean that.”

  “Oh, I do.”

  “Mighty harsh words to lay on a man who could have died a few hours ago. You’ve harbored this grudge for years. Isn’t it time you stopped being so goddamn angry with me?”

  “I’m not angry at you, Huff. Anger is an emotion. I don’t feel anything for you. Nothing.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, that’s so.”

  “Then why did you rush back here to see your poor ol’ daddy one last time before he cashed in?”

  “Why did you send for me?”

  He grinned craftily, then laughed out loud. “To prove that you’d come running. And lookee here, Sayre. Here you are.”

  chapter 13

  “What do you think they’re talking about?”