by Debbie Mason
He’d assumed the plane ticket was Nell’s way of ensuring he was there for his dad’s wedding. If Chance didn’t know it would break his father’s heart if he was a no-show, Nell’s nonrefundable ticket wouldn’t have been enough to sway him. He’d been home only once since Kate and the baby’s funeral. It had been tough being there. Tougher than he’d admit to anyone. Now with Vivi in town and his great-aunt apparently in matchmaking mode, it would be worse.
He took a moment to prepare himself, then pushed up the brim of his Stetson with a finger and forced a lazy, amused tone to his voice. “Hey, Slick. Long time no see.”
Chapter Two
Long time no see. Seriously? That’s all he could come up with after he’d… Of course it was. For Vivi, her heart had been on the line, while for Chance, their week together had probably been nothing more than an extended one-night stand. And since that was something she didn’t want him to know, she forced her face into what she hoped was a this-is-a-happy-coincidence expression and lifted her gaze.
Her knees went weak as she looked into his oh-so-green eyes for the first time in more than a year. She curled her fingers into the headrest of the leather seat. Any hope of forming a scintillating response fled at the sight of his beard-stubbled face. He was even more devastatingly handsome than she remembered. “Hey,” she croaked, her greeting as lame as his.
The flight attendant played with her shiny, dark hair, flashing Chance a coy smile. With all of his attention focused on Vivi, he didn’t return the woman’s obvious flirtatious attempt. When the flight attendant realized she wasn’t going to get the reaction she hoped for, she huffed, “Please take your seat.”
Right. She had to sit beside him. Sit next to that prime example of male perfection with his hard muscles brushing up against her for the next four freaking hours and pretend he didn’t affect her. That she didn’t…
“Ma’am.” The flight attendant raised her black-penciled eyebrows.
Vivi sat, then made a production of stowing her carry-on under the seat in front of her to buy herself some time. Smile, she ordered herself when she finally sat upright. What was she smiling for? She wasn’t a smiley type of person. It would be a dead giveaway. Though she had smiled a lot with him. The reminder had her pressing her lips together as she hunted for her seat belt.
“You okay?”
Goose bumps raised on her arms in response to his deep, panty-dropping voice. She kept her head bent, digging between the seats as she tried not to touch his jean-clad thigh. “I’m good. But you’re, ah, sitting on my seat belt.”
She sensed him watching her as he raised his hip. He handed her the belt, his fingers brushing hers. A heated charge of memory and sensation rushed through at that simple, accidental touch. She suppressed a shiver. “Thanks,” she said through clenched teeth while trying to fit the metal pieces together.
“You sure you’re okay?” His big hand closed over hers as he clicked her seat belt into place.
“I’m good. Just a little frazzled because I was late for the flight. I hate being late for anything, you know.” She was always late. “I was working on a story and time got away from me.” She rubbed her forehead when what she really wanted to do was bury her face in her hands. She was rambling, and Vivi never rambled.
“Big story?”
She heard what sounded like amusement in his voice and glanced at him. Her overwrought nervous system must be causing her to hear things because there was nothing but a look of languid interest in his eyes. She nodded and lied. “Huge story. Really big. Probably the biggest in my career.”
His perfectly sculpted lips tipped up at the corner, and she was about to ask him what was so funny when the two flight attendants at the front of the plane drew her attention. “Do they look nervous to you? Because they look nervous to me. Must be that cargo door they were having problems with earlier.” All she could think was that God worked in mysterious ways. She silently thanked Him and started to unbuckle her seat belt.
Chance’s hand closed over hers. She really wished he’d stop doing that. “Better keep that on, Slick. We’ll be taking off in a couple of minutes.”
“We can’t take off. Not when there’s a problem with the cargo door. Do you want to get sucked out of the plane?” she asked, her voice rising along with her panic.
“Mommy, I don’t want to get sucked out of the plane,” a little boy whined from behind her.
“Terry, there’s something wrong with the cargo door,” the older woman across the aisle from Vivi said to the bespectacled octogenarian beside her.
“What’s that, Ethel?”
“The cargo door, Terry. She says we’re going to get sucked out of the plane,” Ethel yelled, waving her hand at Vivi.
Penciled Eyebrows strode down the aisle. “What’s going on here?”
Everyone pointed at Vivi, repeating her comments, while Chance sat back with a grin on his ridiculously handsome face, his arms crossed over his chest. It took a moment for the flight attendant to calm the passengers and to read Vivi the riot act. Vivi opened her mouth to refute the flight attendant’s statement that flying was the safest mode of travel, then closed it. She didn’t want to scare Ethel, Terry, and the little boy behind her any more than she already had.
“It’s not funny. Everything I said was true,” she muttered to the silently laughing man beside her. She tightened her grip on the armrests as they taxied down the runway. Closing her eyes, she chewed an imaginary piece of gum as the plane lifted off.
“Huh. And here I thought there was nothing the fearless Vivi Westfield was afraid of.” He laced his fingers through hers, stroking his thumb over her knuckles.
At the confidence in his deep voice and his comforting touch, her heart beat double time in her chest, and her mouth went dry. Her reaction to Chance McBride was more terrifying than the thought of the 757 falling from the sky. “I’m not afraid. It’s—” She jumped at the loud clunking noise coming from beneath the plane. “What’s that?”
He gave her hand a light squeeze. “Relax, it’s just the wheels retracting.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’ve put in about twenty thousand miles in the last two months alone, and I have my pilot’s license.”
“Oh, right. I should have remembered that, seeing as it’s how you kidnapped my best friend. My pregnant best friend who was wearing her pajamas at the time.” Honestly, she didn’t know why Skye liked the man after what he’d done, but she did.
“Worked out, didn’t it? Sugar Plum is living happily ever after with her Prince Charming. And if you want to blame someone, blame Nell. She’s the one who set…” His eyes narrowed, and he let go of her hand. “You buy your own ticket?”
“My plane ticket?”
He nodded.
“No, if I did, I wouldn’t be sitting in first class.” She didn’t add “beside you.” Her eyes widened as she realized why he’d ask. “Did you buy yours?”
“No,” he clipped out.
She pressed her fingers to her temple. So this was what Skye had been talking about. Nell’s plan had nothing to do with getting Vivi to move to Christmas. She was up to her matchmaking tricks again. Vivi drowned out the little voice in her head that cheered Nell on with a forced laugh. “Your aunt is deluded if she thinks she can get us together.”
“I know that and you know that, but it won’t matter what we say.”
His answer wasn’t a surprise. She knew how he felt about her, but to hear him so casually dismiss any chance… Good God, she really wasn’t over him, was she?
Obviously the twinge of pain in the vicinity of her heart was reflected in her face, because he patted her thigh. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure something out.”
“Good luck with that. She’s three for three. The woman thinks she’s…” She trailed off as the flight attendant began the safety briefing.
“Three for three? Who—”
She held up a hand and retrieved the illustrated card from
the pouch in front of her. She caught the amused expression on Chance’s face as he watched her. She ignored him, focusing instead on the flight attendant. When the woman turned to the person in the emergency exit seat, Vivi raised herself up as much as the seat belt allowed. “There is no way that guy will be able to throw the door.” She cast a sidelong and slightly covetous glance at Chance’s corded forearms and bulging biceps. “You should change seats with him.”
“Slick, we’re not going to crash. If you want to worry about something, worry about Nell and what she has planned for us.”
Vivi dragged her gaze from his amazing biceps to… dammit, his equally amazing face. His eyebrows raised at what she belatedly realized had been her very thorough perusal of all his amazingness. Her face, along with a certain body part—one that had been piteously ignored for the last eighteen months—got warm and tingly. She fanned herself with the informational card, then realized what she was doing. She stuffed it back in the pouch. “Leave Nell to me. I’ll talk to her and set her straight,” she said with perhaps more feeling than was warranted.
“Trust me, I know my aunt better than you do, and trying to reason with her will do as much good as waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
Trust him? Vivi didn’t trust anyone. She hadn’t since she was seventeen and found out that people you loved died and mothers who were supposed to love you didn’t. Chance had made her forget those hard-learned life lessons. Only he hadn’t been Chance then, he’d been James Harris. But he had more experience with Nell than she did. “So what do you suggest we do?”
“Simple. We’ll tell her we’re together, and she’ll leave us alone.”
Her and Chance… together. It was like her fantasy come true. Only it wasn’t. She cleared what she imagined was a look of longing and hope from her face. “Are you crazy?”
“No. Think about it. If we don’t cut her off at the pass, she’ll drive us nuts. She won’t let up, and she’ll get her buddies in on the action. What’s the big deal? It’s only for a week. And it’s not as if anyone will expect us to spend much time together. I’ll be busy with my dad’s wedding.”
Vivi didn’t think Nell and Christmas’s matchmakers were that big a problem. Sure, they’d be annoying and no doubt drive them slightly insane. But pretending to be Chance’s girlfriend? That would be a problem. All those soft, romantic feelings would come back to bite her in the butt. She opened her mouth to… What? If she didn’t agree to his plan, he’d wonder why. He obviously had no qualms about pretending to be in love with her. She felt like bonking her head on the seat in front of her, but instead said, “Okay, fine. We’ll pretend we’re dating. But I’m telling Maddie and Skye the truth.”
“Might as well forget about it, then. They’ll blow it.”
“No they won’t. They—”
“Yeah, they will. Your girls have been under Nell’s influence for what, over a year now? They’ll cave. Guaranteed.”
Okay, so he did have a point. She thought of a way she could use their pretend relationship to her advantage. One that would take away the pitying looks from her best friends whenever they inadvertently mentioned his name. Sympathetic looks that made her feel as weak and as stupid as the women who wrote to her. Women who let their heartbreak define who they were for years to come. “All right, I won’t tell them. But we end our fake relationship before we head out of town. Publicly. And this time, I’m the one who does the ending.” Good God, did she just say that? It was exactly what she wanted to do, but she didn’t mean to tell him! And she’d been doing so well playing it cool up until now.
He rubbed his jaw, then looked at her. And that’s when she saw it—pity. He felt sorry for her. “Vivi, I never meant to hurt you. I—”
“Hurt me? Whatever gave you that idea? Come on, it’s not like we had a relationship or anything. We had some laughs together, good times in bed, and—”
His brow lifted. “Good times in bed?”
Typical. Of course he’d hone in on that. Did he actually expect her to stroke his ego after he’d lied to her and left her without an explanation? As if she were going to tell him he was a sex god and had ruined her for mere mortal men. “Yeah, good times. It was fun while it lasted. But I knew what I was getting myself into. I might not have known your real name, but it was obvious you were a player.”
“I am not a player.”
“Right. And your name’s James Harris.”
“Look, I couldn’t risk blowing my cover. My assignment was dangerous. I didn’t want you to get—”
“It doesn’t matter. No harm, no foul. I’ll go along with your plan.”
His eyes roamed her face, then he nodded. “If it’ll make you feel better, you can break up with me in front of the whole damn town for all I care.”
“Consider it a public service for the trail of broken hearts you’ve left in your wake.”
“You saying I broke your heart, Slick?” His voice was low and gruff, an unreadable emotion in his eyes.
“Get over yourself, McBride. I already told you…” Vivi eyes widened as the 757 started to shake. She dug her fingernails into the armrest. Oh, God, oh, God. When the plane took a stomach-turning drop, she screamed, throwing herself into the arms of the man she wanted to smack only a few seconds ago. “Do something! You—”
He sighed, lowering his head to smother her panicked cries with a deep, soul-searing kiss.
* * *
Hours later, Chance listened to Vivi’s strangled cheeps as the 757 bounced along the runway. He smiled under his Stetson. She sounded like a chicken about to get its head cut off. Less panicked than she’d been a few hours ago though. He’d been worried once she started screaming that she wouldn’t stop. It’s why he kissed her. Might have been better if he found another way to calm her down. One that didn’t involve his mouth on hers or that incredible body plastered over his, enveloping him in her familiar vanilla scent. She smelled amazing and kissed even better.
He’d forgotten how easy it was to lose himself in her sweet mouth. Within seconds, she took him from ten to two hundred on the heat meter. At least he didn’t have to worry she’d get the wrong idea. She wasn’t looking for a relationship, either. Seems he’d misread the emotion he’d seen in her eyes all those months ago. And why the thought triggered a tightening in his chest, he didn’t know or want to think about. As long as she was on board with his plan to shut down Nell, he was good.
He straightened in his seat and pushed up his Stetson, fighting a grin when Vivi scowled at him. Honest to God, she was the prickliest woman he’d ever met. A regular hard-ass. He liked that about her. But she’d shown him another side, too—soft, sweet, and vulnerable. It was a side he could have done without seeing.
“You slept through the whole flight,” she accused.
“Not the entire flight,” he reminded her as he unsnapped his seat belt and stretched.
“What are you doing?” She reached for his seat belt, then snatched her hand back, flicking her fingers at him. “Put that back on. Can’t you read the sign? We haven’t come to a complete stop.”
“You gotta do something about your fear of flying, Slick. Either have a couple of shots or get my dad to prescribe you some Ativan for the return flight.”
“I don’t need drugs. I’m not afraid of flying. I just have a healthy sense of self-preservation.”
Thinking about her run-in with Jimmy “the Knife” Moriarty and several members of the East Coast mob last November, he snorted. “Sure you do.”
She looked up as the passengers shuffled past, then unsnapped her seat belt and grabbed her carry-on. Taking her cell phone from her bag, she thumbed through her messages and heaved a sigh. “Skye says I’m hitching a ride to Christmas with you and your dad.”
“Good. I was going to suggest that you do,” he said as she moved into the aisle and he retrieved his duffle bag from the overhead compartment. He motioned for her to go ahead of him.
She walked down the aisle, stopping in front of
the crew. “I have a question for you. Did the problem you had earlier with the cargo door have anything to do with the turbulence we experienced?”
“No, ma’am. It—” the pilot started to explain.
“Really? Because that was one of the roughest flights I’ve ever been on. A lot of the passengers were complaining, you know. How long have you been flying for—”
Chance placed his hand at the small of her back. “Thanks, folks.” He gave the crew an apologetic smile and Vivi a gentle shove out the door.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? I wasn’t finished—”
“I was saving you from yourself. You’ll end up on a watch list if you’re not careful. Come on, we don’t want to keep my dad waiting. Did you check any luggage?”
“They can’t put you on a watch list for questioning the crew,” she muttered, head bent as she worked her phone.
“Luggage, Slick, you got any?”
Still busy on her phone, she nodded and nearly walked into a man with a cane. Chance took her arm, guiding her to the airport shuttle. “You’re a dangerous woman,” he said as he retrieved his phone and texted his dad to meet them at baggage claim.
“No, that would be your aunt. I have five messages from her.”
He sighed; so did he. “What did she say?”
She glanced at him as they stepped into the packed shuttle. “She’s setting me up with every eligible man in Christmas. And just so you know, you’re not one of them.”
He frowned and opened his messages from Nell. “What’s she up to now? She did the same to me.”
She leaned into him, reading his e-mail. “Brandi. She’s the waitress at the Penalty Box, isn’t she?”
“I’m not dating Brandi. We have a plan, remember?” He snagged her phone. “Who’s Dr. McSexy?”
