Lovelace, Merline

by Dark Side of Dawn

  The man could kiss. Lord, he could kiss! He knew just how to anchor her head, just where to angle that dimpled chin. And he wasn't polite about it. Didn't make any pretense of playing the gentleman. He started off hungry, and soon swept her into greed.

  Or maybe she swept him. Within moments, Jo couldn't tell where his kiss ended and hers began. Heat blocked her throat, climbed into her cheeks. She splayed a hand against his chest, wanting the feel of him under her fingers, taking the taste of him with her mouth.

  She was shuddering when she drew back. Small, rippling shudders that amazed and embarrassed her. "Jo?"

  "We'd, uh, better skip the boat ride and take the parkway home, Alex."

  "Did I move too fast?"

  "I think we both did."

  "I'm used to going after what I want." His gaze drifted down to her mouth. "I want you, Joanna West."

  She gave a shaky laugh. "Hey, don't pull any punches here."

  "Does that offend you?"

  "No, it doesn't offend me. It doesn't come anywhere close to offending me. But it does rock me back on my skids."

  "Why?"

  "You don't even know me."

  "I know all I need to know." His finger traced a line along her lower lip. "I ran a background check on you, remember? You're smart, dedicated, brave..."

  "And strong. Don't forget strong." Her laugh was steadier now. She only wished her pulse would stop cartwheeling.

  "Strong... and beautiful," he finished.

  "Well, I didn't run a background check on you."

  His finger stilled. For a moment, his smile slipped at the edges, as though the idea that someone might want to check out his credit or credentials had never occurred to him. Jo found his unconscious snobbery amusing.

  "I need time," she told him. "To get to know you."

  "How much time?"

  "You're joking, right?"

  "I never joke about what I want. How much time?"

  "I don't know." She tossed out a hand. "Days. Hours. Weeks. Whatever it takes."

  "All right. We'll start with days and work our way up to weeks. Come home to Chestnut Hill with me this weekend. It's a farm just north of Lexington. We can ride, or walk the hills, or just stretch out in front of the fire."

  It sounded wonderful. Too wonderful. And, unfortunately, undoable.

  "I can't. I'm on duty this weekend."

  Assuming, of course, DeMotto wrapped up his inquiry in the next few days and Jo returned to flying status in time for her scheduled alert rotation.

  "Can't you get out of it?"

  The last thing she wanted to do at this point was rock the boat.

  "'Fraid not. I'm on alert from nine Saturday morning to nine Sunday."

  "Then we'll leave at nine-thirty on Sunday."

  "I'd have to be back by seven Sunday night to go into crew rest for Monday's sorties. Are you sure you want to drive all the way to Lexington for a few hours?"

  "It's less than forty minutes by chopper."

  She had to ask. "What kind of chopper?"

  "A Sikorsky. I'm not sure of the designation. It was just delivered yesterday."

  "An S-Seventy-six," she breathed. "It's probably an S-Seventy-six, the elite of the executive transports."

  She was hooked. Just as he'd known she'd be.

  She spent the rest of the ride home contemplating the twin pleasures of strolling through September-colored hills with Alex and getting a firsthand look at the luxury version of the aircraft that had set twelve world records for speed, altitude, and endurance.

  The kiss Alex laid on her when he escorted her to the front door of her little rented house added considerably to her shivery sense of anticipation.

  The envelope she found stuffed into her mailbox the next evening almost destroyed it completely.

  Chapter Seven

  Tired from her long day, Jo turned over the manila envelope she'd just plucked from her mailbox and searched for a return address. The only writing on the outside was her name in a nearly illegible scrawl.

  Dropping the rest of her mail on the kitchen table, she wandered down the hall toward her bedroom. On a cold, drizzly night like this, comfortable jeans, a warm sweatshirt, and her fuzzy slippers constituted her first priority. Particularly after a day like the one she'd just put in.

  She'd expected to hear from Colonel Marshall that he'd returned her to flying status. Had waited most of the morning for his call. Finally, she'd tracked him down and asked the status of the inquiry. DeMotto had completed his report, Marshall had informed her, but because of the interest generated by Alex's call, it would go up for review at higher headquarters before the findings were announced. So Jo was stuck with Kastlebaum for at least another few days. She only hoped she could make it through those days without inflicting serious bodily harm on the obnoxious captain.

  Idly, she wandered into her bedroom, sliding a finger under the flap of the manila envelope. When she reached inside and pulled out the single black-and-white photo, shock slammed into her gut.

  She knew at once who'd taken the shot. He'd framed her in the same uncompromising angles as when he'd captured her dragging Alex out of the Ferrari. She wasn't panting with strain and fear in this shot, though. This one showed her in her taffeta skirt and beaded jacket gazing up at an unseen Prince Charming like a moonstruck Cinderella.

  The bastard could have softened the contrast. Could have romanticized the setting a little to include the limousine or even the darkly handsome prince. Instead he'd positioned Jo against the front of her little rented clapboard house. Just her, in all her finery. Like a Wisconsin mud hen all dressed up to play with the peacocks.

  She grasped the intended message even before she flipped the photo over and read the words inked in a handwriting made almost indecipherable by intricate loops and swirls.

  Be careful. Very careful.

  Nice of the creep to warn her, Jo thought contemptuously. As if she didn't already know she had stepped into a scary, uncharted universe with Alex. He existed on a different plane, one that included presidents and Ferraris and high speed chases. Which reminded her...

  Her mouth set, she changed and made for the spare bedroom that doubled as her office and junk room. It took her a few moments to locate the name and number of the Virginia Highway Patrol officer who'd taken her statement the day of Alex's accident, and a few moments more to connect with his unit. After identifying herself to the dispatcher and explaining what she wanted, she was passed to another sergeant, who dug out the official report.

  "Yep, the investigating officer tracked down the source of the photos that appeared in papers. According to this, the photographer's a freelancer who lives in Arlington, Virginia."

  "Can you give me his name and address?"

  Jo had no idea what she'd do with the information. Call the ghoul and tell him to get a life, maybe.

  "Sorry, ma'am. We can't release that information except to the parties involved or their insurance representatives."

  "Did he offer any excuse for what he did?"

  "He claimed he didn't cause the accident. He was just following the Ferrari, which exceeded the speed limit and spun out of control. We found no evidence to prove otherwise."

  "He saw what happened," Jo protested. "He drove right past the accident while the Ferrari's wheels were still spinning. Doesn't Virginia have a Good Samaritan law that requires people to aid a motorist in trouble?"

  "The law requires citizens to take reasonable and prudent measures to aid individuals in distress. Not to risk their own necks by dragging them out of a burning vehicle. That falls into the category of heroic actions, Captain."

  Jo dismissed her own actions with a flick of her wrist. "What about harassment? This creep was following Mr. Taylor. He camped outside my house the morning after the accident, and now he's including me in his gallery of mug shots."

  "That's something you and Mr. Taylor will have to take up with the local authorities. If you can prove harassment, you could get a restra
ining order requiring him to keep a specified distance away."

  His damned telescopic lenses would defeat any specified distance, Jo guessed.

  Frustrated, she thanked the sergeant and hung up. Most of the media frenzy had fizzled out in the face of her flat refusal to give interviews or discuss the accident. The wing public affairs officer was still fielding offers from local talk shows and a few enterprising reporters who wanted to follow up on the "cosmic love" nonsense, but none of them wanted the story badly enough to remain camped outside her house.

  Except this guy.

  Had he followed the limo last night? Or had he been lurking in the shadows when they drove back from the White House? Was he out there now, watching. Waiting?

  For the second time in less than a week, Jo regretted the quiet and isolation that she had so cherished when she first rented the house. Tucked away at the end of its lane, with open fields on either side and the nearest neighbors a quarter mile away, her little retreat from the traffic and bustle of the suburbs now echoed with an eerie quiet.

  Well, that was easily fixed!

  Within moments, lights blazed in every room and her CD player pumped out the ballads of the great female torch singers like Edith Piaf, Dinah Washington, and Etta James. Her body swaying to the bluesy throb of "What A Difference A Day Makes," Jo poured a tall glass of milk and surveyed the contents of her fridge. A sandwich, she decided. A real jaw-breaker stuffed with sliced turkey, Swiss cheese, tomato, lettuce, and red onions. Lots of red onions.

  Awash in the singers' potent emotions and the onion's even more potent aroma, she was sniffling her way to the living room to munch through Headline News when the phone rang.

  Jo froze. For a startled moment, her thoughts cut back to the photograph she'd left in the spare bedroom and to the man who'd taken it. Was his white van parked just down the road, out of sight? Had he seen her pull into the driveway, turn on all the lights?

  Frowning, she detoured to the CD player to dim the volume. Her brush with celebrity status was making her paranoid. Which was why her greeting held a distinctly cool note.

  "Hello?"

  After an infinitesimal pause, a now familiar voice came over the line.

  "It's Alex, Jo. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

  Relief and pleasure bubbled through her as she set her plate aside and curled her legs under her on the sofa.

  "No."

  "You sounded a little reserved there for a moment. You're not still being harassed by the media, are you?"

  As amazed that he'd learned to read her so well in such a short time as by his intuitive grasp of the situation, she gave a little puff that was half laughter, half disgust.

  "Only by one. Your friend in the white van."

  "Stroder."

  He said the name with such venomous lack of inflection that Jo blinked.

  "You know him?"

  "Not personally. Did he contact you?"

  "He left a souvenir in my mailbox. A picture he took when you brought me home last night. The bastard must have followed us."

  Or been waiting. Frowning, Jo threw a look at the closed miniblinds. "The picture came with a warning."

  There was another pause, this one longer, quieter. "What kind of a warning?"

  "In his unsubtle way, he's suggesting that I'm out of my league with you."

  "Mr. Stroder's becoming more than just a dangerous annoyance," Alex observed softly before asking, "Do you agree with him?"

  "Yes."

  "I... see. Does that mean you've changed your mind about Sunday?"

  A wiser woman might have said yes. Common sense told Jo to nip her growing attraction for Alex in the bud right now, before it took root. But as any one of her brothers could attest, she reacted to unsolicited and unwanted interference in her life much like a kitten going nose-to-nose with a toad. Her fur went straight up.

  "No, I haven't changed my mind about Sunday."

  His slow release of breath flattered her enormously. "I'm glad."

  So was Jo. Glad and more than a little turned on by the hidden currents flowing through those two simple words. He had a sexy voice, she decided. Sexy and smooth, underlaid with the charm of his native Virginia.

  A shivery impatience to see him again rippled through her. For a moment she was tempted to tell him that the damned inquiry was still working its way through the system and she didn't have to pull alert on Saturday. They could spend the whole weekend together, as he'd suggested. But she'd learned her lesson. She wouldn't breathe a word to Alex or anyone else about the status of the inquiry.

  "You were right, by the way," he added, breaking into her thoughts.

  "About what?"

  "The new aircraft is a Sikorsky S-Seventy-six. My pilot says he'll check you out on the controls on the way down to Chestnut Hill."

  At least she'd get some flying in this weekend. Delighted, Jo agreed. "Tell him he's on."

  "I'll see you Sunday, then."

  "Is that why you called?" she asked on an afterthought. "Just to tell me about the Sikorsky?"

  "No, Joanna." The answer was a caress, slow and soft. "I called to hear your voice."

  Across the river, Alex replaced the receiver with a deliberation that revealed nothing of the blood pulsing through his veins. It had been so long since he'd felt this swift, hard punch of lust. So long since he'd wanted to feel it.

  He savored the tight ache in his groin, relished even the frustration of knowing he wouldn't satisfy it tonight. But soon, he thought with fierce satisfaction. Soon.

  He'd heard her breath catch just as he'd hung up. Sensed without arrogance that he fascinated her as much as she did him. She was so different from the women he'd grown up around. Less sophisticated, perhaps. More intriguing, certainly. Her refusal of the diamond pin had surprised him. And, he admitted with brutal honesty, challenged him.

  He'd deliberated for some days before deciding to take her up on that challenge. She couldn't know the significance of his invitation to Chestnut Hill. She was the first woman he'd allowed into his home since...

  Since Katherine.

  His gaze drifted to a photo in a baroque silver frame. A young, vibrant Katherine, her eyes alight with the teasing laughter that had attracted him from the first moment they'd met that bright, breezy July afternoon.

  She'd been his lodestone, his North Star. The only woman he'd ever allowed himself to love. He'd grown up under his grandfather's tutelage, ignored by his jet-setting mother. He hadn't grieved when she and the drunk she'd married died in that train derailment.

  But Katherine...

  He kept the picture here, beside the phone in his study, to remind him of the shock and pain of her loss. Kept others scattered throughout this house and the farm for the same reason. He never wanted to experience that pain again. Never wanted to taste the bitterness of knowing all his millions, all his grandfather's millions, couldn't save Katherine from the abyss.

  Shuddering, he thrust away the memory and left the study. Dr. Russ was in the library, waiting with a historian's patience to record Alex's memories of his youth in the White House.

  "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."

  The curt apology carried little more than form. Martin Russ was well aware that Alex suffered this invasion into his privacy only because of his grandfather.

  John Tyree Taylor was failing fast. He knew it. His grandson knew it. Yet J.T. insisted on editing his only authorized biography even as he approached its final chapter. As a consequence, he encouraged Russ to poke into every nook and cranny of the Taylor family history. So far Alex had resisted the more personal intrusions. Even for J.T., he refused to lay his hurts bare.

  Settling into the wingback chair opposite the doctor's, Alex crossed his legs and tweaked his slacks to adjust the knife-edged pleats.

  "Before I forget, I won't be available to meet with you Sunday afternoon. I'm going down to Chestnut Hill."

  "So Mrs. Seager gave me to understand when I called to confirm our appointment
."

  Russ's papery thin fingers unscrewed the top of his fountain pen. Immaculate in every other way, the historian could never quite eradicate the ink stains left by the pen on his fingertips.

  "Somehow I formed the impression Captain West is going with you."

  Those clouded blue eyes didn't miss much, Alex thought with a twinge of annoyance. He'd have to speak to his secretary. She knew better than to discuss his schedule, even with this old family friend.

  "I was quite taken with the captain when I met her last week," Russ mused. "She's a beautiful woman. Quite similar to your wife, I think."

  Busy tapping the dib of his pen to get the ink flowing, Russ didn't see the sudden tensing of Alex's shoulders.

  "On the contrary, I don't think they look anything alike."

  "Not in coloring, perhaps. More in..." He gave the dib a final tap. "Style. Yes, style. She has a joy to her. And a daring. Much as Katherine had."

  Alex drew in a little hiss of breath.

  The historian's glasses magnified his blurred blue eyes. "Is that why you're pursuing her with such determination?"

  The soft question lifted the hairs on the back of Alex's neck. "I'm not pursuing her."

  "Dinner at the White House? A million dollar donation to the research foundation that employs her brother? An invitation to Chestnut Hill?"

  Tomorrow, Alex vowed, his annoyance jolting into anger. No, tonight. As soon as he finished with Russ, he'd fire Phyllis Seager. She'd served as his personal secretary for the past five years, but he wouldn't tolerate this kind of lapse.

  "Come, come, m'boy," Russ admonished with avuncular familiarity. "I've known you almost as long as I've known your grandfather. Like J.T., you're a man of great deliberation. And, like him, a man of great passion. As Katherine discovered, did she not?"

  Alex allowed no trace of his simmering anger to show. He refused to discuss his wife, refused to open that dark, private door. They all wanted to feed on his pain. The reporters. The talk show hosts. Even this intrusive historian.