Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  “I have to pick Matthew up at the co-op at four-thirty, but I need to get something from the market for dinner before that.”

  He glanced at the clock, then grinned. “Tell you what, while you pick up Matthew, I’ll get the fixings for that steak dinner I owe you. That gives us time.”

  His knee on the mattress shifted her toward him. Using the damp cloth he’d brought from the bathroom, he slowly stroked from her throat down the center of her body, pushing away the quilt, until he reached the juncture of her thighs. Leaving his hand there, he settled onto the mattress beside her, each of them on their side, facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes. He tossed the cloth aside, and ran his palm across her buttocks, then down the back of her thigh, drawing her top leg up, over his hip.

  “Daniel...”

  “I know.” He twisted around to the nightstand behind him, grabbing another condom, and putting it on without changing their positions, the brushing movements of his hands and body against her vulnerable core producing a nearly unbearable tension.

  Finished, he paused an instant. An eternity. And both threatened her – her resolve, her need, her belief, her desire.

  “This doesn’t change things,” she said because she had to.

  He kissed under her chin, arching her head back, as he entered her, and she climaxed with that long, deep stroke.

  “It doesn’t need to.”

  And then he began again.

  * * *

  This time, he’d had no idea he was being tracked, not until he came out of the Far Hills Market with a loaded bag of groceries tucked against his side, and heard: “Hello, Daniel.”

  Daniel knew the voice. But it couldn’t be. Here?

  He turned slowly. Robert Delligatti Junior. In his three-piece suit, white shirt, discreet tie, regulation briefcase, thinning hair and thick glasses. As much as his bland appearance blended in in Washington, it stood out against the jeans, boots and cowboy tans of Far Hills. But Robert Delligatti’s mild expression revealed no indication of feeling out of place or uncomfortable.

  “Hello, Robert. This is a surprise.” He let the full measure of his bemusement come through in that understatement. Robert in Far Hills was more than a surprise, it damned near reversed the laws of nature. Then he frowned. “Mother and Father – ?”

  “Are in excellent health. I’m here – shall we sit?” Robert took a seat on the bench in front of the Far Hills Market as if he’d done it every day of his life. Daniel followed, still holding the grocery bag. “I’m here on your behalf.”

  “On my behalf?”

  Robert put his briefcase across his knees, twirled the combination lock then flipped up the lid.

  “Yes, I thought you would like a copy of these.”

  He held out crisp official papers folded in thirds.

  “What are they?”

  “They are copies of your work record, which indicates your expertise at search and rescue missions, as well as your experience in a training and supervisory role, and of course an official log of your extensive pilot experience. These should make you an ideal candidate for the search and rescue operation, and should satisfy those who were inquiring about your credentials and were turned away without answers. In future, these records will be available to anyone who should inquire about your suitability for such jobs.”

  “But –”

  “It doesn’t list your true experience. But neither would it mislead a prospective employer. Comparable experience, I would call it,” he finished judiciously.

  Daniel looked at the papers in his hand. “Why, Robert?”

  “I felt an obligation. After your fine work in Santa Estella, and the sacrifice involved, especially the last years of Taumaturgio’s existence, it seemed the least I could do.”

  “What did you have to do with Santa Estella and Taumaturgio?”

  “My office reviews certain reports from the various embassies and consulates.”

  “Yeah?” Daniel slid the papers into his shirt pocket. They’d do the trick, all right. Robert did thorough work. “What kind of reports?”

  “The reports my section reviews are those that someone along the line has felt required a particular kind of attention.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as aid to the children of Santa Estella.”

  “The section where you work decided on that?”

  “Ah, well, actually the section I head. I received the promotion because my superiors appreciated my particular brand of creativity. They felt it gives me an ability to find the unorthodox solution to unorthodox situations. As on Santa Estella.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Daniel wasn’t sure which surprised him more – Robert being the one behind the operation, or his being considered unorthodox.

  “So you felt a professional obligation because I was an operative on one of your missions.”

  “I would classify it as a personal obligation.”

  “Why?” he demanded baldly.

  “I became aware that your assignment on Santa Estella had a great impact on you. Your connection with Ms. Jenner, of course, but also your feeling about continuing your association with the –” His eyelid flickered, almost as if he’d winked. “– government.”

  “Why would you... Good Lord, you recommended me to be Taumaturgio? You!”

  “Why wouldn’t I? I know some might see our relationship as a bar, but I have confidence in my ability to separate my filial loyalty from my professional assessment.”

  “Filial loyalty,” Daniel repeated, torn between laughing at the typically Robertian phrasing and an odd sensation in his throat.

  “And from a strictly professional standpoint, you were perfect. Your appearance made it feasible for you to blend in with the natives, you had a foundation in the language as well as a remarkable knack for picking up local variants, you could fly through the eye of a needle, as one of your evaluations said, and you could think on your feet. The name Taumaturgio, of course, wasn’t part of the original conception. But I did think it added an appropriate touch when it came to my attention.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. With that settled –” He put the briefcase on the bench and started to rise. “– I will be on my way.”

  “Wait.” When his brother obeyed the order, Daniel wasn’t sure how to follow it up. “Uh, do you have to leave right away?”

  “No. The next flight to Denver doesn’t leave until 9 p.m.”

  “In that case, why don’t you come to dinner. I’m grilling steaks at Kendra’s. You can meet her and Matthew –” Daniel stood and met his brother’s gaze. “– your nephew.”

  A smile spread across Robert’s unremarkable features, slowly and completely. “I’d like that.”

  As they walked toward the cars, for the first time he could remember, Daniel clapped a hand to his brother’s shoulder.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was unlike any evening Daniel had known.

  Kendra reacted to his bringing Robert as if he’d bagged the biggest trophy ever created. In an odd way he felt the same way.

  Robert had insisted on stopping for a bottle of wine, and Daniel had felt like a bumpkin for not having thought of that himself. He might have felt more that way as Robert and Kendra debated with relish the fine points of a political race that took place while he was in Santa Estella, except at one point Kendra met his eyes, and totally lost her train of thought. After that, Daniel was satisfied to sit back and listen.

  Matthew had clung to his mother. He’d called Robert first Luke, then Daniel. By the end of the evening, he had mastered a version of Robert that a close listener could understand. And Robert turned out to be a very close listener.

  He sat on the floor building an unrecognizable structure with Matthew from blocks. Matthew would jabber for a while, then Robert would reply with an elaboration on the structural benefits of various designs, and each punctuated his listening with serious nods as though he’d understood the other’s p
oint completely.

  Somehow Robert maneuvered it so Daniel put Matthew to bed right before it was time to leave to get Robert to his flight. As he returned to the kitchen, Daniel heard the tail end of Robert’s words to Kendra.

  “... all extremely grateful for your influence in settling Daniel. You have been extraordinarily efficacious in bringing out the best in him. I have never seen him so happy. And with this new employment, he has an opportunity to settle permanently.”

  “New employ – ?”

  Daniel hurried around the corner. “Robert brought along papers that should satisfy any questions on my credentials for the search and rescue job.” He met Kendra’s gaze, and saw the realization sink in. “Thanks again for doing that, Robert. I’ll get them to the sheriff first thing in the morning.”

  “I do believe that will settle all these unresolved matters in your favor, Daniel.”

  “I hope so.” But from Kendra’s expression, it was a thin hope.

  That didn’t diminish her farewell to Robert, but she would have backed away when Daniel reached for her – if he’d let her. He held her face between his palms for an intended brief kiss. Her immediate response lengthened it.

  “I’ll call you after I get Robert on the plane,” he promised when he released her.

  Even as she waved them off, she didn’t meet his eyes, and a half dozen tries that night reached only her answering machine.

  * * *

  “Daniel, I think someone’s here to see you,” Rufus said from the other side of the single-engine four-seater they were checking out the next morning.

  He came around the nose of the plane, and saw Kendra getting out of her car. He’d tried her phone again between getting the papers to the sheriff, and later receiving word that all was in order, and the job was his. Still only Kendra’s machine answered.

  They met inside the main gate.

  “Kendra.” He reached for her, she stepped away.

  “No, Daniel. Let me say this. I’ve been up since you and Robert left, and I’ve thought this through. You would walk into the teeth of a hurricane to help someone. You fly into hell to help people.

  “Those are choices you make, Daniel. Choices between staying home safe with your family or flying off to the rescue of strangers. No – don’t say anything. I respect you for what you do. Respect you more than I can say. But I’m not as noble as you are.” A tear slipped free and her lips trembled, but her chin firmed and she kept speaking. “I want you safe and by my side. And when you’re not... I can’t let myself love you. I can’t take that pain.”

  “Anything you wanted to know about me, I’ve told you. I’ve followed all your rules with Matthew. I quit my job. And now you’re asking me to give up flying?”

  “No. I’m not asking that. I couldn’t do that to you. I know you can’t give it up. I do know that now, Daniel.”

  “Then what are you – ? Matthew?”

  “No, I’m not saying to give up Matthew, either. I don’t have that right to take that away – not from either of you. But the only way I can... if something happens to you, I have to know that I won’t be so lost in grieving that I can’t help him.”

  “And you think not loving me will do that?” The misery in her eyes was the only answer. “Dammit.” He rubbed his hand across his eyes, trying to erase an ache behind them. He stared away a moment before facing her. “I won’t give up on what’s between us.”

  “I... I’m sorry, Daniel.” Her fingertips brushed his arm, then were quickly withdrawn. “Please try to understand.”

  She backed away a few steps then turned and walked toward the parking lot. At her car, she looked back and saw him watching her. He thought he detected a moment of weakness in her resolve. Then she slid into the car and drove away.

  Understand?

  Hell no, he didn’t understand. Nobody could who wasn’t convinced he was going to crash every time he took a plane up.

  But she’d come to her senses.

  She had to.

  * * *

  Marti had browbeaten Kendra into coming up to the home ranch to watch old home movies of her youthful summers at Far Hills.

  She hadn’t been in the mood for company, not even after a week of being a virtual hermit, but Matthew had a fine time forming a chorus of “Who dat’s” with Emily before they both drifted off to sleep. Meg and Ben, on the other hand, said little, but avidly watched the movies of their parents as youngsters – especially their father.

  Ellyn had been totally silent until another reel started. “I don’t remember seeing these before.”

  “You might not have. You remember them, don’t you, Kendra?”

  Yes, she remembered them. She remembered her mother watching them hour after hour, night after night. “Mother had copies.”

  “Not copies. These are your mother’s.”

  “No. I threw those out when we cleaned out after mother died.”

  “You put them in the trash, I took them out.”

  A solidly built young man in an immaculate uniform, with a crewcut the same color as her hair strode into the frame. He put an arm around her mother’s waist and said something that made her grin. Then the two of them waved to someone still off camera. A girl in a frilly green dress ran into view, and was scooped up in one motion by Ken Jenner. Her. Her father holding her with the same casual strength that Daniel showed in holding Matthew. And with the same almost fierce expression of adoration. He tightened his hold on his wife, and the three of them smiled into the camera.

  Kendra’s focus shifted from the dashing young man to that youthful, happy version of the mother she remembered.

  I understand why you loved him.

  She’d blamed her mother for falling in love with a man who didn’t take the safe route. She’d blamed her mother for giving her a father who didn’t come back. Now she understood. And forgave.

  Something Ellyn had said the day Daniel arrived drifted into her mind. About why she’d chased the Taumaturgio story.

  To find a man who showed up against all odds – in an airplane, by the way – to help children in need of rescuing. Haven’t you ever wondered about that?

  She never had. Now she saw it. She’d been a child who’d needed rescuing from an unhappy reality, a rescue that could only be accomplished by a father who had gone off in an airplane and never returned. By chasing the story – some might say searching for her lost father – she’d found Daniel. Had she blamed him for being like her father? Or for not being her father?

  She made hurried excuses to leave.

  Marti followed her to the door, with Matthew vociferously objecting to the prospect of going to sleep, even as his eyelids drooped.

  “Have you ever noticed that the tireder they are the harder they fight?” Marti asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Some of us –” Marti’s significant look left no doubt who she meant. “– never outgrow that. The closer they come to giving in, the harder they fight.”

  But Kendra didn’t have time to consider Marti’s pronouncement. Back home, she tucked Matthew into bed, and went to the drawer where she kept important papers. She found the sheaf Daniel had given her weeks ago, and filled out the certificate to amend their son’s birth certificate.

  * * *

  Daniel smoothed the paper and stared at it.

  He hadn’t believed first Ellyn, then Marti when they’d said Kendra had spent this week he’d left her alone to stew instead convincing herself that defining her relationship to him strictly as Matthew’s father was the only practical decision. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  What kept ringing in his head was Marti’s question: “What are you going to do about it?”

  * * *

  One minute she was answering a knock to find Daniel on her back doorstep with the sun barely up. The next, she was in a small airplane, belted in.

  “I’ll be right back,” Daniel announced, then disappeared.

  It was her first real opportunity to think. Her first chance
to consider her options, not just his orders.

  He’d barged into her house, declaring, “The least you owe me is a chance to prove you’re wrong.”

  “But –”

  “No buts. Every but’s covered. Ellyn’s here to take care of Matthew. Your boss knows you won’t be in. And here – put this on.”

  “What is this about, Daniel?”

  “Not time to talk about that yet. We have all day.”

  And he hadn’t budged from that stance as he’d bullied her into putting on the jacket, then whisked her off to the airfield and into an airplane. But now that the power of his will was absent...

  She had her hand on the seatbelt buckle when the door opened.

  “Just checking if you’re belted in safely,” announced Rufus.

  He pushed aside her hand from the buckle and tugged it snugly.

  “That’s good. Daniel’s in checking the weather – updates, since he’d called the Flight Service Station before he picked you up. Wouldn’t have gone up if there’d been anything. He’s real careful.”

  “Rufus, I –”

  “Here.” He shoved a paper into her hand. “Thought you could follow along on the pre-flight checklist. Daniel’s a stickler. It’s a pleasure to watch him.”

  She stared at the list, some items recognizable, others more like a foreign language. Before she could react, Rufus closed the door and gave it a thunk, the way people patted a horse’s flank.

  Through the cockpit window she saw Daniel striding toward the plane, his movements controlled yet easy. A breeze riffled the dark waves of his hair. Determination showed in his jaw, anticipation in the up-slanting corners of his mouth. A man in his element.

  He didn’t enter the plane, though. Instead, his voice drifted through the open door on his side, the phrases unfamiliar, the tone businesslike.

  Then, the voice seemed to shift timbre somehow, no longer Daniel’s, but another’s. A voice she hadn’t known she remembered. Yet, this voice resided in her heart the same way Daniel’s did.

  Now, Daddy? Are we going to fly now?

  Not yet, angel. Have to make sure everything’s ready to go on this bird.

  So we can fly?