Michael got out of the car and shook John’s hand. “¿Qué tal, Juan?”
“You bring a pretty lady to fly?”
Blair didn’t give Michael time to come around to help her out of the car. He held his hand out to her as she walked around to his side. “Blair, this is John Rodriguez. John, Blair Davenport.”
“It is a pleasure, Señorita.”
To Michael’s immense pleasure, Blair didn’t hesitate to shake John’s stained hand. “I hope we’re not interrupting.”
“No, no,” John shook his head. “Michael, he can interrupt all the time. No, for Michael I will walk on hot coals, no Miguel?”
Afraid of where the conversation might stray, Michael decided to get on with it. “You have a plane I can borrow for an hour?”
John’s eyes lit up. “Do I have a plane? Claro, yes.” He turned and began walking toward a hanger. “Come, come.”
Moments later they stood beside a bright yellow bi-plane. Juan looked at Blair. “Es hermosa ¿no?”
“Very beautiful,” Blair’s voice surprised both men. She was looking at the plane with wonder.
Michael felt a rush of affection, of pride, at her obvious delight.
“You will enjoy, I know,” John said. “Michael will take you where eagles fly.” He laughed, looking at them both, as Michael wondered which part of his heart would stay with Blair after he left.
He and John pushed the plane out of the hanger and moments later they lifted off.
Blair Davenport was born to fly. Her thrill at the sights and feel of being aloft was palpable. Michael took them low over the beach, up and over gentle loops.
And Blair laughed for the joy of freedom, trusting completely in his ability.
***
The present
Back at Alice’s, Michael washed his face using water Blair had stored in the bathtub and changed out of his damp, filthy clothes into some Drew had left behind. The shirt was too tight across the shoulders, and the shorts, a little loose, tended to slide down, but Michael didn’t care. They were cleaner than what he’d been wearing after his lake bath. There would be no real baths here, only rinses that saved what water they did have, since without power, the electric well didn’t work.
Both exhausted, Blair and he napped outside on old quilts, beneath scrub oak, close to Alice’s, until sunset. If Drew came back, they’d hear him.
The house itself was too hot to stay inside even after dark, so they brought their meal out to the deck where moonlight spilled across the night. They’d warmed soup on a camp stove Blair had found in the storage room. Somehow, she’d also warmed some cold, hard rolls.
“Water or soda?” she asked, holding paper cups.
“Water’s fine.”
She opened one of several gallon jugs, part of every beach resident’s hurricane kit. Michael told himself he’d have to remember to bury the trash or whoever came into the house next would know someone had been here after the storm.
With the outdoor furniture still stored, they sat cross-legged on the deck and ate.
“How’s your shoulder? Your side?” Blair asked moments later.
“Sore, but much better. I think swimming did me some good.”
“I doubt it.” Her quick reply made him aware, again, of the differences between this Blair and the one he’d known. She’d changed from the woman who’d easily agreed to fly loops across the sky with him. “We can leave tomorrow.”
“Leave tomorrow?” he repeated.
“I hid the truck and trailer, but I’d rather not leave them there too long. Someone could stumble on to them.”
“Where did you hide them?”
She paused, the spoon halfway to her mouth. He couldn’t see her eyes clearly, but he saw her face tilt upward toward him. “Sunrise Cove.”
Michael felt his heart slam into his chest. He wouldn’t remember Sunrise Cove. He couldn’t. “Blair—”
“It seemed like a good place,” she hurried to add. “It’s in the trees.”
He tried to swallow, tried to get beyond the memories that rushed at him from every direction. The joy of their passion, the hurt of her refusal. He nodded, pushing desperately at the picture he’d conjured of Blair with her hair wild around her face, falling over them both.
“No one would think to look there.” Her words barely registered on his inflamed senses.
Sunrise Cove. Michael wondered if her memories of that morning were as vivid as his. Or did she only remember the end of that morning and the last words he’d hurled at her as she’d left him and he’d gone on to the life that led him to this point in time?
“Why?” The question formed from the recesses of his thoughts. He never meant to voice it.
She put her spoon down carefully. “Please don’t,” she whispered.
“Don’t?” He tried to tamp down the tension in his body. “Don’t what, Blair? Don’t remember what it was like? I haven’t thought of anything else for six years. How it ended? I’ve cursed myself for a fool for six years over that.”
“I couldn’t do it, Michael,” she whispered.
He remembered the cruelty of what he’d said, the passion of the man he’d been. At twenty-two, she had been young, too young in experience for him, but he’d wanted her.
He’d been a real bastard. “I never meant to hurt you.”
She shook her head and swiped quickly at her cheek. “You were gentle.” She paused for a second. “And kind. And fun.”
Michael felt her words like a knife against his heart. All those things. But no trust. Not the one thing that could have bound them together.
He heard her take a deep breath, saw her bow her head for a moment. Then she looked up at him, the softness of her lips visible in the pale light. “Let’s not dredge it up. Please.”
She was right. There was no point in remembering. They’d moved beyond the past, to the present.
She stood abruptly, taking the plates and utensils they’d used, and piled them together. “Drew won’t stop until he finds you.”
“I know.”
“Whatever he thinks, he’s wrong.”
“Don’t think too highly of me, Blair. I’ve done things that would make your hair stand on end.”
“You don’t want me to believe in you?”
“I want you to realize what I’ve had to do. The life I’ve lived. It’s not pristine and safe and pretty.”
The silence of night closed around them. “Has it changed you?”
He paused, wishing he could tell her, wishing suddenly, that he had before. If only he’d understood it then. “Everything that happens to us changes us. Haven’t you changed?”
Blair heard the edges of some emotion in Michael’s words, that emotion he had hidden from her before. She stood and walked toward the deck railing, her back to him. “Yes, I’ve changed.”
Behind her she heard Michael stand, heard his bare feet against the deck as he walked toward her. The weight of his hand on her shoulder made her turn.
“We can’t go back, Blair. There’s no fixing the past.” Against the backdrop of moonlight, he looked bigger, darker.
“No, we can’t go back,” she agreed. His words hurt. Nearly made her crumple. But if nothing else, she was a realist.
He had not forgiven her for refusing. There was no future for them. While they might have both changed in some ways, in other, more basic ways they hadn’t. He still didn’t trust her enough to tell her his secrets and she still couldn’t hope to keep up with the wild ride a life with him would entail.
The warm roughness of his hand on her cheek made her tilt her face to increase the pressure.
God, how she’d missed this. Him.
“Damn it, Blair,” the words seemed dragged from him. “We’ve had nothing but lousy timing.”
His face moved down toward her and she knew, just as she had so long ago.
Michael would break her heart.
His mouth found hers quickly, moved on hers softly, and pushed her to wher
e only he had ever taken her.
To passion. To memories of what she’d felt with him. They overwhelmed her. Michael overwhelmed her.
Chapter 6
Six years earlier
He was kissing her, standing one step below her at Grandma Alice’s, his mouth open and giving and hot. Drawing her into madness, into desire.
She ran her fingers through the dark strands of his hair, felt the pull of the kiss, so deep and wild. They’d just come back from the airfield and she felt like she was flying again, turning loops in John’s airplane.
A sound intruded on her thoughts and she jumped, pulling away. Michael, too, jumped, and moved down another step.
“Blair?” Her grandmother’s voice came from the open door above them.
“Yes, Grandma, it’s me.”
“Bring your young man in, dear. I’ve made lunch.”
Blair looked down at Michael. His eyes still blazed with a heat rivaling that of the midday sun.
“Thank you, Mrs. Davenport, but I need to go take care of some things.” He looked at Blair, making her heart turn a little somersault. “I’ll pick you up at three?”
“Yes.” She sounded as breathless as she’d felt when they turned the first loop.
Grandma Alice closed the door and went back inside.
Standing so close, Blair noticed a scar on Michael’s upper lip, a tiny upside down “V” that formed a ridge. Without thinking, she reached out a hand and touched it. “How did you get that?”
His gaze flew to hers and she saw a darkness there that she hadn’t seen before. “My brother kicked a soccer ball into my face.”
She tried to move her hand away, but the darkness passed and he pressed a kiss to the palm. Tingles ran all the way to her toes.
Michael grabbed her hand and pulled her down the steps to his car. “I have a friend who can lend me a catamaran,” he said with a smile that made his eyes light up again. “Want to try it?”
“I’ve never done it. I don’t know how.” But he could have asked her to shoot for the moon and she would have gone with him.
“I know exactly what to do.”
Suddenly she understood a deeper, more heart-stopping meaning in his words.
Come with me, he was saying. Come with me for what I can show you.
***
The present
She’d wanted him just as she did now, with no thought of yesterdays, tomorrows or consequences. Just Michael, here and now.
She let her hands drop from his arms to his hips, felt the inevitability of the kiss turn into hungry insistence. The texture, the taste of him, permeated her very soul. She’d missed too much, wanted him for too long to feel the least hesitation.
He broke the kiss, running his hands up her back, tunneling his fingers through her hair, holding her to him as his mouth trailed down her neck, pulling aside her blouse to kiss her shoulder. Tiny shocks of pleasure made her tremble, made her hungrier. She grappled with his T-shirt, tugging until he stepped back to allow her to pull the thing up and over his head. It fell to the deck and she stood on tiptoes to bury her face in his neck, to press heated kisses to resilient flesh.
She felt his fingers fumbling over her blouse buttons, trembled as he brushed against her breasts. Then he pushed the blouse open and stepped back. Instinctively, she moved to cover herself, aware that the flimsy lace of her bra hid nothing.
“No, don’t,” he said in a sandpaper voice. “You’re so beautiful. I’ve dreamed about you for so long.”
She let her hands drop to her sides. She let her blouse slip off her arms, terribly conscious of every breath. He ran his hands along the back of the bra.
“It fastens in the front,” she whispered.
No turning back now. No wanting to turn back.
With the moonlight behind him, darkness and shadows all around, she couldn’t read his face as he released the front catch of the bra.
Then he was there with gentle touches, softer kisses. A fevered mouth tugging at her, binding her to him as he had so long ago. But it was different now. Now there was urgency and knowledge.
He came back to her mouth, crushing her to him. The passion in his body felt so strong, so right. She leaned back against the railing and he followed, the weight of him joyous.
She felt his hands cup her behind, felt him raise her toward him, felt herself melt.
Then, suddenly, he turned away, running a shadowy hand roughly through his hair. The sea breeze sent a chill through her.
“Michael?” She heard a catch in her voice.
He stood a few feet away from her, his hands gripping the railing next to him, his breathing rough and unsteady. Even in the dim light she could see the control he was trying to summon. Moments later, he straightened, the muscles in his back taut. His harsh laugh filled the night. “This can’t happen.”
Trying to convince herself that Michael’s laugh had humor behind it, Blair replied, “I think it can.”
“Damn it, Blair. We can’t do this.” He spoke the words into the stiff breeze.
Blair took a quick breath. “It felt doable to me,” she said trying desperately to ward off the tears she knew would soon run unchecked down her cheeks.
He spun around, and in the play of shadows, she saw what she’d heard in his voice. Passion, pure and simple.
“Don’t. It’s taking everything I have not to drag you into the bedroom and satisfy every fantasy I’ve agonized over for six god awful years. Don’t push me.”
“I’m not denying you.”
He moved back toward her quickly and gripped her shoulders. “I have no way to protect you, Blair.”
And that brought reality crashing down. Brought the past right into the present. Made her remember the feel of the words he’d used when she refused to go with him. She tried to twist away.
He held her upper arms. “Don’t, Blair. Listen. Listen and believe me when I tell you I’m sorry for everything. For what I said.” He tried to gentle her with those words, with sweet pressure from magical hands gliding up to ease the tension in her shoulders, her neck. “I wanted to call you, to take the words back.”
“Let go of me,” she said, her heart thudding against her ribs. She couldn’t replay their parting.
He released her. “I shouldn’t have let you go then. I should have—”
“What?” She fought the wobble in her voice by speaking louder. “Waited a few weeks to find out if I was pregnant?”
He released her then, his head bowed. “I don’t know why you weren’t. We never used—”
“I wouldn’t have considered a pregnancy,” she paused to take a shallow breath so she could continue and be sure he heard her choked repetition of the words he’d used, “the consequences of sleeping with the hired help.”
A long silence preceded his next words. “It was a shameful thing to say, Blair. I was angry. Hurt. Stupid.”
Just as she’d been. Just as she was now. Only now she was mature enough to give voice to what had bubbled inside her for six years. “We didn’t know each other at all, did we? You really thought I was so shallow that I only wanted a good time.”
“No, Blair. I didn’t think at all.” Regret laced his words. “Would you have told me if you were?”
This was where they were different. He was sorry for what he said. He would have done things differently. She could only be as honest. For an entire week after he left, she’d wondered the same thing. “I don’t know.”
He tensed and moved away from her. “You’re right. We didn’t know each other. It went too fast.” With a single breath, he added, “We can’t afford to gamble again.”
***
Hours later Michael lay awake on the wide guest room bed. He’d opened the windows, hoping a breath of the cooler air that had finally come in behind Nell would stir the damp heat of the house, but it didn’t help.
The heat came from inside him. From suppressed passion, from gut wrenching need. He’d stripped to his shorts, aware that short of ta
king Blair, his only recourse was a cool dip in the Gulf or the lake.
Rolling over, he punched the pillow, wincing at the painful pull of his injuries, trying to bury the hurt of Blair’s honesty, to erase from his mind what should have been.
If he hadn’t used those words when she’d said no. She wouldn’t have said no if he’d been someone else. If he’d given her more. If she’d trusted him.
He wouldn’t think about it now. He’d spent too long thinking about it. The man he’d been had ended their future years ago. Going back to replay the desperate emotions wouldn’t change a damn thing.
They were still strangers drawn to each other despite good sense. But this time, their meeting involved more than passion. It involved Drew and a test to which he would not subject Blair.
A test he couldn’t hope to win.
Because if she had balked before, what would she say now? Would she believe him or Drew? To believe him, she’d have to be willing to believe there was at least the possibility that her own brother was involved in embezzlement and had set him up to take the fall. That Drew Davenport, with his pristine reputation and more money than Michael could even understand, would be involved in something so vulgar. Or would she believe the more likely scenario: Michael Alvarez, of modest means and modest family, had wanted money to the point that he would go against everything he held dear?
Michael knew which version sounded more realistic. Drew, the wholesome all-American heir to a banking fortune, wouldn’t become involved with bank employees Hector Ramos and Victoria Hart in the illegal transfer of funds. Michael had clear-cut evidence tying Ramos to crime. Victoria Hart was a little doubtful, but only because she’d saved his life by calling an ambulance. Either she or Ramos could have shot him, gotten the flash drive that contained the evidence he’d collected that far, and walked away leaving him to bleed to death. But Hart had called the ambulance when she’d found him wounded.
And if Drew wasn’t involved, then who, within the Bureau, was? Bill Pride, his contact officer, knew where the flash drive was hidden. Michael’s apartment had been ransacked. Bill wouldn’t have had to do that.
Drew would. It always came back to Drew. Because Drew had more knowledge of the case than anyone other than Bill.
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