by JoAnn Ross
Her brown eyes narrowed as both expressive gray brows dove toward her nose. “You’ll be on your best behavior, right?”
For not the first time, Finn recognized that Osprey was closer to Mary’s heart than it was his. Which was why, to his mind, it would always be a Muldoon airline. He lifted his right hand. “I’ll be a perfect officer and gentleman.”
After all, being on their honeymoon, the groom and his bride surely had better things to do than talk to a bush pilot. Who, Finn figured, Covington would consider nothing more than a glorified bus driver. No, a mere driver. Like the chauffeur who always drove him to and from that ritzy prep school his parents had sent him to. They’d probably wanted to keep him away as much as possible. If there was ever a kid even his mother couldn’t like, it had to be IV.
“What’s the bride’s name?” he asked.
“Her ticket’s in the name of Tori Cassidy. Covington booked the flight last month, so he went with her maiden name.”
“Cassidy?”
“Another old acquaintance?” Damn. That was a downside to working with Mary. No nuance, however small, got past her radar. She’d obviously picked up on his surprise.
“The name sounds familiar.” Finn faked a shrug. “Covington might have brought her along to the party once. Or maybe she’s rich herself and showed up with her family. God knows, since Dad invited seemingly every one of the one-percenters he’d ever done business with to the open house, the place was packed to the rafters.”
Which was hard to do, given that the Brannigan family Calabasas Canyon ranch house was huge even for SoCal standards. Colin Brannigan had never been one to shy away from ostentation.
The truth, which he had no intention of sharing, was that Tori Cassidy was a blast from Finn’s not-so-distant past. And while, granted, they hadn’t spent much time talking that night they’d spent together, she hadn’t seemed to be a gold digger. Which was the only reason he could think of why any sane woman would marry a douche like Carter George Covington IV.
3
Tori Cassidy’s heart kicked into overdrive when she saw Finn Brannigan, of all people, in the baggage area of Anchorage’s Ted Stevens International Airport. Standing with other locals she guessed were drivers and pilots, he was holding up a sign reading Covington. Surely—please God—he couldn’t be the pilot Carter had hired to fly them to their honeymoon cabin.
Her life had bottomed out the past twenty-four hours, but fate couldn’t be that cruel. Could it? When he put the phone he was talking on back into his pocket, then lifted a brow and looked straight at her, she decided that if fate wasn’t cruel, it had a damn sardonic sense of humor.
The scruff of beard—which he hadn’t had that hot Coronado night they’d spent together—was new. As were the tight black T-shirt, brown leather jacket, and snug jeans faded in all the right places that looked even hotter than the Navy dress whites she’d been in such a hurry to strip off him.
Not that he needed to wear a uniform to stand out in the crowd. There was no way anyone could miss his six feet two inches of ultimate alpha male. Nor his piercing agate eyes and jaw wide enough to land his fighter jet on. Both his short haircut and squared away, broad-shouldered stance shouted military.
It took every ounce of fortitude Tori possessed not to take a step backwards as he headed toward her. Just as he had that night, as she’d watched him make his way across the crowded dance floor of the Hotel del Coronado ballroom. He certainly hadn’t been the top-ranked male in the room of uniforms covered in various medals and battle ribbons, but as she’d watched from the stage, people had parted, giving him an open path as he zeroed straight in on his target. Which had been her.
It was currently high tourist season in Alaska, and the baggage claim area was packed with travelers. All who unconsciously reacted the way those dancers had. While the SEALs might be the rock stars of the Navy, aviators were the royalty. The way Finn strode toward her with the air of confidence Carter had never been able to pull off, even in his forty-thousand-dollar Brioni suits, demonstrated that he’d never expect any mere mortal to dare stand in his way.
With his gaze locked on hers, they could have been the only two people in the terminal. Her heart kicked up even higher, not quite to a full-blown attack, but definitely into fight-or-flight mode. Since, unfortunately, she had no place to go, nor the money to get there, Tori placed her hand on her hip and slipped into the sassy, got-it-all-together girl mode she’d acquired to hide her insecurities. And, in some cases, fear.
“Well, hello, Sailor,” she said, throwing in a toss of her dark hair for good measure to keep him from noticing that her knees were shaking. “Fancy seeing you here.”
The only hint that he wasn’t exactly thrilled by being referred to as a sailor was a slight tightening at the corner of his right eye. His expression stayed as neutral as it had been when he’d invited her to his suite for a drink after she’d finished her last set. Having been living in Southern California at the time, Tori had dated enough military guys to have heard the claim that carrier aviators had ice water in their veins. Which she supposed had to be true, considering the risks they took. But by the time dawn was filtering into the suite’s bedroom window, that ice had not just melted, it had flamed into molten lava.
“Your groom hired me to fly you to Caribou.” He glanced around. “Where is he?”
“I suppose back home in Los Angeles,” she said.
If he was surprised she’d come to Alaska alone, he didn’t show it. Oh, yes, the ice shield was back. Which, Tori told herself, was a good thing. She’d come up here to get away, write her songs, and figure out the next stage of her life. Not to have a fling with a hotshot flyboy, even one who’d given her the best sex she’d ever experienced.
“That’s my bag.” Before she could grab the suitcase as it came rumbling by, he’d scooped it off the carousel.
“You’re traveling light. Is this all you’ve got?”
“That and my Taylor.” She’d carried the guitar on both planes with her. After having lived on ramen and taco truck takeout for six months to pay for it, no way was she going to risk the airline losing it. “I hadn’t intended to stay that long.”
“You might find yourself changing your mind. This place has a way of taking hold of you in a way that’s almost mystical.”
“I’m not one to settle down,” she said.
“A rolling stone,” he reminded her what she’d told him that night. “Which seems an oxymoron with marriage.”
“Not every marriage includes a picket fence,” she said, hating that she sounded so defensive.
“We’re in perfect agreement there. I flew another runaway bride just last week,” he said conversationally as they headed toward the door leading out of the terminal. “Home to Juneau. She’d gotten cold feet.”
“My feet are just fine, thank you.”
He glanced down at them as they walked toward several channels with floatplanes tied to docks. “I remember them being a lot better than fine.”
Tori so didn’t need this trip down memory lane. While he hadn’t gone as far as to suck her toes, while tasting every bit of her body—which she’d buffed and polished for one of the better-paying gigs of her roller-coaster career—he had pressed a long, hot, wet kiss on the arch of each foot, which she’d discovered were directly connected to her girly parts, which had broken into a happy dance.
“Nice boots, by the way,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Having been forced to move around as much as she had, and later by choice, Tori had learned a lot about how to blend into her surroundings. To fit in without entirely giving up her individuality. Except for those four years she wasn’t going to think about. Ever. Again.
Still, if she was going to spend her honeymoon in the wilds of Alaska instead of lying on some sundrenched beach having cabana boys bring her fruity tropical drinks served in coconuts with pretty little umbrellas, she’d been determined not to look as if she’d joined the infantry.
After an extensive online search, she’d settled on these, which weren’t pretty, but at least they were bright red. Unfortunately, during the flights from Los Angeles to Seattle, then Seattle to Anchorage, they’d already begun rubbing against her little toe.
“I can show you how to stretch out that right boot. Or I know a guy who’ll do it for you.”
Another thing that hadn’t changed. Aviators were reputed to have the eyes of eagles. He certainly hadn’t missed any part of her body, or any reaction, no matter how nuanced, to his lovemaking.
Not lovemaking, she reminded herself. It had been just sex. Hot, chandelier-swinging, dirty sex. It had also been so mind-blowing that sometime during the night, she’d realized that Lieutenant Finn Brannigan, USN, had ruined her for any other man. Which had only been one of the reasons she’d gotten dressed and crept out of his suite that morning before he could wake up.
“They fit fine,” she lied. The four-inch stilettos she’d been wearing the night they’d met had been more comfortable. These felt as if she’d laced concrete blocks onto her feet. Then there was that hot spot she could feel turning into a blister. Hence the limp he’d obviously noticed. “I don’t intend to do a lot of hiking while I’m here.”
“Too bad.” He put his free hand lightly on her lower back, not, she determined, to make a move but simply to shepherd her to where he’d wanted her to go. The way he had as they’d left the ballroom to the elevator. Where, once the doors had closed behind them, he’d kissed her breathless. “There’s a lot of wilderness to explore up here. So, what are your plans, now that it sounds as if the wedding’s off the table?”
Good question. “My plans are rather up in the air at the moment. I figured I’d wing it.” A stiff breeze off the water was churning her hair into a wild tangle. “Take things one day at a time,” she said as she tried to hold it back from her face with her free hand.
“Good for you.” He flashed his movie star straight, white teeth in a sexy smile that should come with a warning label. “See, you’re already getting into the spirit of this place. I got up this morning expecting to help some senior couple check another item off their bucket list by flying them to a glacier. And here I am with you.” After putting on the Ray-Bans he’d hooked into the neck of that T-shirt, he dug into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a strip of leather which he handed to her.
“Thanks.” Thinking that he seemed to always prepared for anything, like those condoms he’d just happened to handily have with him, she put down the guitar case long enough to tie the flying curls into a semblance of a messy tail. “Life can definitely be unpredictable.”
“That’s for damn sure.”
There was a sudden, unexpected edge to his tone that didn’t fit their outwardly casual conversation. There was something there, Tori considered. Something that might explain what he was doing here in the Last Frontier instead of flying off an aircraft carrier somewhere dangerous. Or even in Nevada, teaching a new class of Topgun pilots, as he’d told her he’d been doing when temporarily assigned to San Diego to coordinate his old commander’s retirement party.
After walking along the floating dock, which she had to admit was better suited to these clunky boots than all the pretty high heels she’d left back in L.A., he stopped in front of a red-and-white plane that had been pulled up onto a wooden ramp, its tail pointed toward the water.
Yikes. While she didn’t want to disparage the plane, it looked, well, chunky. No, that was putting it politely. She had trouble believing this huge, hulking aircraft could actually get airborne.
“This must be quite a change for you,” she said.
“You mean a downgrade,” he corrected easily as he opened a compartment and stowed her suitcase.
“Well, it’s not exactly a fighter jet.”
Despite a lust level that should have set off earthquake shake alerts all over Southern California, they had actually taken breaks to talk during that night. She’d told him about some of her more colorful gigs, sticking to the good stuff, while he’d waxed so romantically about his Hornet he might as well have been talking about another woman.
“The de Havilland Beaver just happens to be the iconic Alaskan bush plane,” he informed her with obvious pride. And, she realized, affection. “There are also a lot of pilots who dream of a chance to fly it, and others have been known to take their hats off when one flies over. Just seeing it in the air can be a religious experience.”
“I’m all in favor of freedom of religion.” But revering a plane, especially one that looked as if it belonged in an animated cartoon movie, seemed to be carrying things a bit far.
“Harrison Ford owns one.”
“I seem to remember him crashing,” Tori said.
“Not in this baby.” He ran his hand over the side of the gigantic plane, in much the way he’d stroked his way down her back while unzipping the red, white, and blue sequined dress she’d gotten from Rent the Runway for the occasion. “That was a 1942 Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR.”
The man obviously knew his planes. Still…
“It might look like a tank, but she flies like a Harley with wings,” he reassured her.
“And that’s a good thing?”
After the way Carter had tricked and betrayed her, Tori had convinced herself that she deserved to take advantage of this already-paid-for honeymoon. Now she was beginning to second-guess the idea. In her mind, she and Carter would have been flying on a smaller version of his luxurious private jet with its uniformed pilot and flight attendant.
“Why do I get the feeling you don’t think my floatplane’s sexy?”
The question was an all-too-obvious play on the Kenny Chesney song she’d satirized that night changing the original “tractor” to “She thinks my flattop’s sexy,” a reference to the carrier fleet for which the retiring commander had spent so many years training pilots. Including Lieutenant Finn Brannigan.
“Trust me.” And wasn’t that exactly what he’d said that night when she’d told him she wasn’t in the habit of going to hotel rooms with strangers? “This is the best plane in the business for float work. Weather gets dicey up here and can change dramatically on a dime. One minute you can be soaring over mountaintops with nothing but blue skies ahead. The next you can be facing a thick gray wall that obscures everything on your flight path. That’s when you want a big, tough aircraft that can eat Cessnas and Super Cubs like they’re bar peanuts.”
“An interesting simile,” she murmured. “But it still doesn’t look very fast. For a guy who’s into speed.”
“True enough. But the feeling of speed doesn’t exist when you’re in the air, which is why being a passenger in an airliner can be so boring.”
“I can feel airliners going fast on takeoff.”
“That’s thrust. Totally different thing.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that… So.” She looked a long way up to the door. Fortunately, a metal ladder was attached to the float. “It’s very high.”
His mouth curved. “It’s a bit of a climb. But Osprey Air provides full service. I can climb up behind you and give you a boost.”
That’s all she needed. This man’s large, wickedly clever hands on her butt. “Thanks. But I’m sure I can manage it.”
“Okay. Just be careful not to step on any of that green algae with those pretty new boots or you’ll land on your ass and slide into the water.”
“And wouldn’t that round off a perfect week?” she muttered.
“Let me at least help you to the ladder.”
Since she was going to have to walk along that big, missile-shaped pontoon, Tori reminded herself that her pride would be a great deal more injured if she slid into the water, so she allowed him to hold her arm as together they made their way to the ladder. After climbing up with a serious lack of grace, she squeezed through the door that seemed awfully narrow for such a big plane and, exhaling a deep breath, settled into the passenger seat. Where she sat, safely buckled in, hands squeezed tightly
together, watching as Finn did his outside preflight check.
He seemed methodical, which she’d expect for a pilot of his expertise. Which again had her wondering what he was doing all the way up here in Alaska, flying her from an already remote airport out into an even more distant location. There was a story there. But then again, didn’t she have a few of her own, which she wasn’t prepared to share?
Surprisingly, he pushed the plane into the water, which had it floating away about ten feet from the ramp. Terrific. Fearing that she was destined to be stuck inside alone as it floated out to sea, she watched him yank a long line, spinning the Beaver around so the tail was now pointed toward the ramp.
He pulled it back in until it just slid onto the planking, then, in what appeared to be a tricky maneuver requiring a great deal of finesse, he walked along the left float, as she’d done on the right, then climbed in.
“Doing okay?” he asked. The testosterone coming off him in waves filled the cockpit and probably raised the heat level a good ten degrees.
“Just dandy,” she assured him as her head swam. “Of course, that could be because we’re still on the ground. Or, more precisely, water.” They were drifting away from the dock. “Please tell me this thing has good brakes.”
“Actually, it doesn’t have any.”
“None?” she asked on what, dammit, sounded more like a squeak than her normal voice.
“Nope. Which I’d been told, but the first time I flew one, I nearly jammed the rudder pedals through the floor trying to slow down when a Cessna zipped across my path.”
“How do you stop if you don’t have brakes?”
There were so many planes docked, many with passengers and pilots loading onto them. A songwriter had to have a good imagination, and Tori’s was now picturing herself caught in the middle of a floatplane demolition derby. In water that, although it was technically summer, was probably glacier cold.
“If you’ve already started the engine, you can reduce taxiing speed by throttling back. In the case of the Cessna, I just turned circles until it passed. If you’re going into the wind, which we’re not today, you can lower the flaps or open the doors to make more surface for the wind to blow against, which reduces speed.”
