by Leanne Banks
“How are you going to persuade her to come back if she doesn't want to?” she asked, her gaze turning suspicious. “You're not planning on doing something stupid like abducting her, are you?”
“Abduction is a strong term,” he said, pulling T-shirts and socks from his drawer, but still watching her from the corner of his eye.
Katie rolled her eyes. “Abduction should give you big points with Ivan.”
“Okay,” he said, turning around to face her. “As far as I'm concerned, you're dead weight and you'll only slow me down. Why should I let you come along?”
“Because I understand the way Wilhemina thinks.”
“You already said that. Give me one good reason and I'll let you go.”
She gave a heavy indignant sigh. “Because I know Texas better than you do,” she said, in a drawl that dripped with southern hospitality and a sex appeal so strong he was speechless for at least three seconds.
He stared at her. “I knew you weren't from Philadelphia. Bits of your accent leak into your voice every now and then.”
“So give yourself a gold star: When do you want to leave?”
Grudgingly admitting that she might be useful, he shrugged. “Five minutes ago. Pack light and fast.”
She barely blinked. “No problem,” she said as if she had experience packing light and fast. He would wonder when she'd gotten that experience another time. Now he had to focus on finding Wilhemina. And the damn cat.
Katie was going to hell.
She had always felt that returning to Texas would be her own personal trip to hell. If the airplane crashed and she didn't make it to Texas, then she would probably go to hell for not taking out a life insurance policy on herself to protect Jeremy's future and for telling Wilhemina the fairy tale that had inspired her to run away.
She sat in the-center seat of the 737 trying to appear as if she were a seasoned air traveler. She surreptitiously looked: through the seat pocket in front of her, poring over the emergency instructions and locating the air sickness bag. Upset to learn there was no parachute, she twisted in her seat between Michael and a pregnant woman with a young toddler on her lap as the plane taxied down the runway.
“White knuckle flyer?” Michael asked, glancing pointedly at her fingers clutching his sleeve.
Embarrassed, Katie immediately jerked her hand to her lap. “Sorry, I thought it was the armrest.” She couldn't stop thinking about Jeremy. Although she had a small life insurance policy as part of her employee's benefits, she knew Jeremy's care would be expensive. When she thought about what might happen to him if she should die, she could hardly breathe.
“It's okay. Lots of people are uneasy about flying,” he said, surprising her with his charity. “Do you want me to get you a drink?”
She shook her head, fearing that if she tried to swallow anything, she would need to use the airsickness bag. The engines roared and the plane picked up speed, barreling down the runway. Her heart pounding, Katie closed her eyes and prayed. “I know I haven't been perfect, but if you could please just keep me alive until I get a life insurance policy,” she whispered.
“What did you say?” Michael asked.
The plane miraculously lifted off the runway and went airborne. She held her breath.
“Did you say something about insurance?” Michael asked.
Still holding her breath, she gave a tiny shake of her head. “It was nothing,” she managed, keeping her eyes closed. The plane hit a bump and she grew light-headed.
She felt Michael tug at her arm. “Damn, you look pale. Katie, Katie…”
The plane hit another bump and everything inside her turned to gray.
Alarm shot through Michael as he watched Katie's head slump to one side. Reaching for her hand, he touched her wrist and felt for her pulse. Thank God, she had one. She must have fainted, he thought, shocked shitless. If there was one person he would have never expected to faint, it was Katie Collins. She gave the impression she could eat glass if the occasion called for it.
The pregnant woman eyed Katie with concern as she jiggled her toddler on her lap. “Is she okay?”
“I don't know,” he said grimly. “I wonder if there's a doctor—”
An elderly woman across the aisle craned to look at them. “Anxiety attack?” she asked, then made a clucking noise. “Poor thing. I have some extra Valium if she needs it.”
Michael nodded. “Thank you. I'll take it, but I need to get her awake first,” he said. The woman passed the medication across the aisle while Michael flicked his fingers firmly against Katie's palms, then lifted his hand to her cheek. He pulled off her glasses and gently tapped her cheek. “Katie,” he said, pressing his mouth against her ear. “Katie.” Despite the urgency of the situation, he couldn't help noticing how soft her skin was, and the fresh scent of her hair.
She drew in a deep breath and her eyelids flickered. She met his gaze and blinked as if she were trying to reorient herself. She glanced over at the pregnant woman and offered a weak smile, then looked back at Michael. “What happened? Why is everyone staring at me?”
“You fainted. Why the hell didn't you tell me flying gave you anxiety attacks?’
“Because I haven't had much experience flying,” she said, shifting self-consciously in her seat.
Michael got an uneasy feeling in his gut. “Exactly how much flying have you done?”
She hesitated. “Not very much,” she said, looking away. “But it's really none of your business.”
“It is my business if you're going to faint on me.”
“I didn't faint on you,” she retorted, her cheeks regaining color. “It looks like I did it very quietly right here in my seat.”
“How much have you flown?”
She frowned at him. “None.”
“This is your first flight.”
“My family favored Greyhound,” she said in a voice laced with a sexy self-deprecating humor that put him off balance.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
She lifted her lips in a brittle smile. “Because you wouldn't have let me come.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it, unable to argue with her. She was right. He wouldn't have let her come. The plane hit an air pocket and Michael watched the color drain from her face again. Shit, he hoped-she wasn't going to faint again. Swearing under his breath, he lifted his hand to press the button for an airline attendant. “You're having an anxiety attack. Are you allergic to any medication?”
She shook her head.
He glanced down and saw her fingernails digging into her hands. Wondering when she would draw blood, he felt an odd instinct to protect her. Weird as hell. He would have to think about that later. “That nice lady across the aisle has shared her Valium with us,” he said, waving at the woman. The airline attendant appeared.
“Could you bring us some water? She needs to take some medication.”
The attendant frowned with concern. “She looks so pale. I'll bring an extra blanket too.”
Katie closed her eyes. “I can't be having an anxiety attack: I don't have time for anxiety attacks,” she muttered. “If I were prone to anxiety attacks, I would have been locked away a long, long time ago.”
Michael was itching to hear the story behind that statement. He had the sense that Katie Collins had quite a few untold stories locked inside that uptight, compact body of hers. The plane hit another air pocket and she winced. “Are you going to argue or take the Valium?” he asked as the attendant returned.
“Shut up and give it to me,” she said with some reassuring starch in her voice.
“You might just want to give her half. It's a strong dose,” the elderly woman who donated the medicine said just as Katie swallowed the whole pill.
Katie glared at Michael.
Michael just grinned and shrugged. “Sit back and enjoy the flight” His respect for her strangely jumped a notch. Okay, so she was terrified of flying. She hadn't let that stop her from doing what she needed to do.
&n
bsp; Within thirty minutes, she'd fallen asleep on his shoulder with her hand draped over his chest. Loath to disturb her, he inhaled her clean scent Her hair was soft against his jaw, and two of her fingers curled inside his shirt.
She would croak if she could see herself right now, he thought, taking in the sight of her abandoned shoes on the floor, one foot tucked beneath her and her ugly navy blue dress revealing one of her thighs. Her breasts pressed against his arm. Snuggling against him, she sighed and her breath tickled his neck.
Michael felt an odd tug inside him, somewhere between his chest and gut The thought struck him that he hadn't held a woman in a while. There'd been a few passionate meetings of bodies bent on physical release, but no tenderness since…since Katrina, and that had seemed eons ago. Katrina had been his fiancée before his business partner had betrayed him. He'd been a different man then. Michael had been cynical since his father had committed suicide and his mother had gone into the mental health facility, but a part of him, a stupid-ass part of him, had believed a little in that same fairy-tale crap Katie had imparted to Wilhemina.
It was dangerous stuff. He'd learned the hard way and there was no way he would go down that road again.
Katie sighed and shifted again. His arm was falling asleep. He should shove her back into her seat. But something stopped him, and he tilted his head back against the seat and willed the rest of him to go to sleep too.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she whispered in his ear, waking him forty-five minutes later.
Michael's brain woke up faster than his arm, which felt as if it had fallen off. “Just a sec,” he murmured, rising to his feet and stepping into the aisle.
Katie pushed her feet into her shoes and stood. Her blue eyes lowered to half-mast, her hair sleep-mussed, she reminded him of hot, steamy, take-all-night-long sex. Michael stared at her, blinking.
Katie wobbled past him, lurching from side to side as she walked to the lavatory. He watched her falter and reached out to steady her. She looked over her shoulder. “Oops. Sorry.”
“No problem,” he said, walking behind her.
She struggled with the door and he pulled it open, resolving to never give her Valium again. She was much easier to handle when she was uptight and starchy. He waited outside the door, hearing her bump and swear inside the close confines of the small lavatory. He heard the splash of water, then he heard her fumble with the door before she burst out of the room and into his arms.
She murmured a breathless apology. “That pill made me feel funny.”
He nodded, hit by a swarm of sensations. She was soft and warm and her defenses were down. He wondered if she had any idea how seductive she was. “Let me help you back to your seat.”
“I keep thinking the strangest things,” she said, then lowered her voice. “Like how on earth do people get in the mile-high club on a public jet?”
He stared at her, certain he had misheard her. Katie Collins was the last person he would expect to even think such a thing, let alone say it. “Excuse me?”
“The mile-high club,” she whispered: “How? Where—”
“The lavatory,” he told her.
Her eyes rounded and she glanced back at the small rest room. “You're joking. It's not possible. There's no room.”
He chuckled and urged her down the aisle. “Where there's a will…”
“I guess,” she said doubtfully, meandering forward. She wove her way to her seat and plopped down, immediately kicking off her shoes. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
He sat next to her in his seat and she turned to look at him. He met her gaze warily. What now? he thought.
“You know, you're a very good-looking man,” she told him.
He swallowed a smile. “Is that so?”
She nodded. “You are. You've got a great body,’’ she said, lifting her hand to his shoulder. “You are hot.”
Despite the fact that he knew Katie was under the influence of powerful medication, he felt himself grow warm.
She wrinkled her brow. “I just don't understand why you're so rude.” She shook her head. “You would be irresistible if you were just a little bit nicer.”
Michael took a moment to digest her statements. How odd. The Valium had obviously lowered her inhibitions and it seemed to have the effect of a truth serum. If there was anything he wanted to know about Miss Katie Collins, then now was the time to ask.
“I would be irresistible to whom?” he ventured.
She shrugged. “To everyone.”
“I'll take that under advisement,” he said. “Are you from Texas originally?”
“I left when I turned eighteen and only looked back once.”
“You didn't like it?”
She turned back in her seat. “I had to get away.”
“Rough childhood?”
“Weird. All I wanted when I left Texas was to be normal and not to call attention to myself.” She glanced at him. “A lot of people think being normal is boring, but believe me, normality is highly underrated. My mother was just too—” She broke off and shook her head.
“Too what?” he prodded, his mind drifting to his own mother and her mental fragility. “Did she have a mental problem?”
“That was always debatable,” she said dryly. “She was outrageous when she was alive and she's still outrageous. There wasn't much that would stifle her when she was alive and there's not much that will stifle her now.”
He frowned, giving her a double take. He wondered if Katie was having delusions. “Is she dead?”
Katie nodded. “Yep, but that doesn't stop her from giving advice. She means well, but she's a pain in the butt.”
Michael tensed, questioning Katie's sanity, wishing he hadn't started this line of questioning. “She talks to you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but I usually tell her to be quiet. She pipes in with the strangest things at the worst moments.” She slid a sideways glance at Michael. “She even has an opinion about you.”
He shouldn't ask. He really shouldn't ask. He really couldn't resist. “What's that?”
She crooked her finger for him to come closer. “She thinks all you need to improve your disposition is a really good blow job.”
She was crazy. The woman looked like a sensible, uptight lady on the outside, when in reality, she was secretly a nut. But when he looked at her mouth, a hot, wicked visual filled his mind. He shouldn't be turned on by the ramblings of a crazy woman under the influence of mind-altering medication.
He shouldn't, but he was.
“When traveling, it is important to wear a short skirt in case you need help with your luggage.”
—SUNNY COLLLNS'S WISDOM
Chapter 7
Katie felt as if she were coming off the effects of three margaritas minus the headache. After a layover in Atlanta and a connecting flight, she began to fight the fog that had settled over her brain. Michael grabbed her carry-on bag and after they exited the flight, he led the way down a long concourse to a long line for rental cars. Katie-eyed a shorter line. “Why don't we get one from that company?”
“Because this is where Wilhemina rented her car. If the, same sales agent is working, we might be able to find out which direction she was, headed.” He shot her a curious glance. “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged. “Weird.”
He moved forward a few steps. “Hmm.”
Uneasy, she tried to remember exactly what she'd said to him during the last several hours, but she had slept so much she didn't know what she'd said and what she'd dreamed. Some of her dreams, however, had felt strangely real. She remembered one where her mother had said something to her about the mile-high club. “What does hmm mean?”
“You've been acting kind of weird.”
Her uneasiness transformed to a knot in her stomach.
“Did I talk about my—” She broke off, hot with embarrassment.
He squeezed her shoulder. “Don't worry. I don't think you revealed too many st
ate secrets.”
Katie didn't feel at all comforted. “But did I say anything about—?”
He leaned closer to her. “Do you really want to know what you said to me when you were under the influence of mind-altering medication?”
Yes. No. Yes. No. Katie took a deep breath. If she hadn't discussed Jeremy with him, then she didn't want to know. “As long as you and I both understand that I was under the influence and anything I said may not be reliable.”
“Whatever,” he said with a shrug, but she saw a gleam of amusement in his eyes.
Her stomach sank. She wondered if she had discussed the mile-high club with him, or worse yet…Katie took a quick, short breath. She would think about that some other time. There was nothing she could do about it now except try to regain her dignity, which was a little tough, considering what she really wanted more than anything was to take another nap.
She glanced around the terminal at the people in the airport. Even here, she could tell she was in Texas. Every now and then, when she inhaled, she caught the “combined scents of leather boots, heat, and hair spray. Texas was the land of tall men with tall hats and women with big hair, high heels, and short skirts. She thought of her mother, the master of big hair, high heels, and short skirts, and the men who had moved in and out of her life like revolving doors. Katie felt an itchy sensation.
She and Michael rounded a corner and he turned to her. “Let me ask the questions,” he said.
“Okay,” she agreed, wondering what the sales agents might have thought of Chantal.
It was their turn and Michael stepped forward.
“How are you? What can I do for you?” a pleasant-looking male sales agent asked with a smile.
“Fine, thanks. I need a car and some information.”
The man pulled out a book in front of Michael. “Well, you're in luck. We have a lot of cars. The Camry's on special this week. If you want something bigger, I've got a couple of Cadillacs—”
“I'll take a full-size,” Michael said, pointing to a photograph of late-model vehicles.
