“I don’t get it,” she finally burst out. “Why the secrecy, why not come out right up front and say why you were up here, Alex?”
As usual, his response was slow in coming. “I wasn’t deliberately being secretive. I just didn’t want to dump all my personal problems on everyone the moment I met them.”
The trouble was, she didn’t want to be lumped in with everyone. She wanted to be special. She wanted to be the one he’d choose to confide in. It bothered her that she felt that way and he obviously didn’t.
Wouldn’t you know that the one guy in a long while who really turned her on would be someone who wanted to disappear into the damned bush on some wild goose chase?
She started the rotors and went through the preflight routine. They were airborne before she looked at him again.
His face was chalky, and he was sweating and swallowing repeatedly. His eyes were closed and, with the force of a blow, it dawned on her that Alex was terrified. He was afraid of flying. She should have recognized the signs earlier that day, but she’d been preoccupied with pointing out the landscape. She’d just expected him to love the experience as much as she did.
He didn’t have his earphones on, so she couldn’t reassure him. She reached over and touched his knee to get his attention and get him to put on the headset.
But he only pointed at the control panel. Smoke was curling out in slow wispy streams.
Ivy’s eyes flew to her controls. The oil pressure was fine, but the engine temp was running high. A red light began flickering, and the smoke from the panel grew thick.
She needed to get them on the ground. Tipping the copter sharply to the left, she scanned the landscape for a place to safely put down, hopefully a spot where Tom could also land with the floatplane.
She flicked the radio to the company frequency to alert him, but the radio wasn’t responding. Heavy static gave way to a bleeping sound and then nothing. After several tries she gave up, concentrating instead on finding a spot to put down—fast.
She knew there was a small lake not far away. She turned the copter in that direction and, when she spotted a meadow not far from the water, Ivy put all her energy and attention into the landing.
How would the skids fit on the patch of meadow she’d chosen? With only one passenger and minimal cargo, she didn’t have to worry about weight, but bringing the chopper down on new and unexplored territory was always a challenge. What if the ground was marshy, and the copter sank?
She had no choice. Adrenaline rushed through her as the earth came up to meet them. The copter bumped, lunged to the right a little, and then settled comfortably on the skids.
Ivy shut down the controls, and as the rotors slowed and the noise faded, she turned to Alex. Reaching across him, she unhooked his seat belt and then her own.
“Out, fast,” she ordered. Smoke was still wafting from the control panel and, as soon as he’d half tumbled out the door, she bailed out, too.
The ground was marshy, but fortunately there was still enough frost in the earth to make it firm. The copter would be okay here—if it didn’t burst into flames. She watched for several minutes, half expecting it to happen, but the smoke gradually dissipated. She heaved a sigh of relief.
When she was pretty certain the machine wasn’t going to explode or burn itself up, she looked for Alex.
He was a short distance away, bending over with his hands on his knees, his head hanging down.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “There wasn’t time to explain what I was doing. I don’t think it was that serious, there’s no sign of fire and the smoke is pretty much gone, but I had to put our safety first.”
When he didn’t raise his head or respond, she added, “I know it’s a little late to tell you this, but we weren’t ever in any real danger, no matter how it felt to you. As a safety precaution, I just had to get us down as fast as possible.” She touched his arm. “Are you okay, Alex? Are you going to be sick?”
“I don’t think so.” He raised his head and gave her a facsimile of a grin. His face was still ashen. “Close, though.”
“You really don’t like flying, do you?”
“I hate it.” He stood straight, flexing his shoulders, looking up and squinting into the blue afternoon sky. “I have what amounts to a phobia about it. I get airsick even in huge commercial airliners. Why do you think I drove all the way from California?”
She nodded slowly. “So taking you up in the copter today—that wasn’t exactly something you enjoyed, right?”
He looked at her and then he started to laugh, big belly guffaws that made her smile, even though she didn’t understand what was funny.
When he got his breath, he said, “You have no idea how bad that was, Ivy. I’d never have willingly climbed into that beast if I wasn’t trying so hard to impress you. If you weren’t driving that thing, it would have taken a small army to hogtie me and chain me in the seat.”
When that sank in, it was Ivy who felt like laughing, freed from the heavy weight inside her. “You let me take you up because you wanted to impress me? Why would you want to do that?”
He took two long steps toward her and pulled her into his arms. He was stronger than she’d guessed.
Ivy tensed in anticipation. Her pulse picked up as she slid her arms around him, aware of lean, hard muscle beneath his jacket. They were almost exactly the same height.
“Because from the first moment I met you, I’ve wanted to do this.” He tipped her chin up with his knuckles and kissed her.
His mouth was hot and urgent on hers. She was trembling a little, and so was he. She could feel his hands, fingers spread apart, one at her waist, pulling her against him, one cupping the back of her head as if he thought there was a chance she might pull away.
As if.
Her lips softened and opened as the kiss deepened. He smelled like dental antiseptic and tasted of spearmint gum, and both were more arousing to her than any expensive male cologne.
“I thought you weren’t interested,” she whispered when the kiss ended.
“I was trying hard not to be.” He drew her mouth back to his, and she gave herself over to sensation, the warmth of his lips, the taste of his tongue, the pulsing desire that made her want to get closer and still closer.
“Why would you try not to be?”
“It’s complicated.” He released her and stepped back. “So what do we do now, Ivy? Will someone come along and rescue us?”
She felt let down all over again. This guy was a regular roller-coaster ride.
“Eventually, yes, someone will come. It won’t be for a while, because the radio failed just before we landed. And cell phones don’t work up here in the mountains. But Dad will realize something’s wrong and come and find us. Now, about this complication you mentioned?”
“You don’t give up, do you, Pierce?” He said it gently, with a smile.
“Never.”
He looked straight into her eyes. “I was divorced a couple of years ago, I think I told you that.”
“Yeah, you did. So, what’s up with that? There’s a new lady in San Diego? You’re still in love with your ex?” She could get him over either of those, given half a chance. Maybe.
“No. There’s no one back there. As for Rebecca, we’re friends, but I’m not in love with her.”
“Then what?”
“We had a little girl. Annie. Anne Marie.” When he said the name, his voice deepened, became tender. “She’d just turned three when she got an ear infection. The doctor gave her medication, but she died a day later. Some rare form of meningitis.”
“Oh, Alex. I’m so sorry.” She hadn’t imagined anything like that.
His smile was both rueful and sad. “Yeah. Me, too.”
She thought maybe she shouldn’t ask, but she did anyway. “Is that why your marriage ended?”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah, pretty much. Looking back, I can see that we probably weren’t ever that solid, and losing Annie was more than we could han
dle. Instead of turning to one another, we went in different directions.” He looked out at the lake. “Whatever the reason, it’s not something I’d get into again, Ivy. Not ever.”
She swallowed hard. “Marriage, you mean? Or kids?”
“Either. Both.”
“My mom and dad lost a child a long time ago. My brother, Jacob. He was five when he died. I was two and a half, so I don’t have any real memories of him.”
She could see that caught his attention. “Do they still talk about him?”
“Dad does. Mom never mentions Jacob, at least not to me. She doesn’t talk about the past much at all.”
“Some people can’t bear the reminder. But for me, it helps to talk about Annie. She’s part of me, she always will be.”
The tenderness in his tone brought tears to her eyes. She waited, wanting him to describe his daughter for her.
But instead he said, “I haven’t met your mother. I know she and your dad are still together because I’ve heard the Galloways refer to her, but you never talk about her.”
“Don’t I?” It wasn’t really a surprise. “Well, I don’t see her all that often, we’re very different. And we’ve never gotten along all that well. We sort of go our separate ways. It’s pretty much my dad who holds our family together.”
“Doesn’t she like to fly?”
“Who, my mother?” She wondered why he would ask that…if he was somehow sympathizing with Frances. “She’s okay with it.” Ivy shrugged. “She can take it or leave it. She’s not passionate like Dad and I are. See, Frances was a supermodel before her and Dad got married. She’s more interested in clothes and makeup than she is in anything else. She teaches a night-school course, a makeover thing. It’s pretty popular with the girls and women in Valdez.”
“But not with you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I never cared much about how I looked. All that makeup stuff and fancy clothes just reminds me of gift-wrapping.” And besides, there really wasn’t any point. Ivy knew from early childhood she’d never measure up to her mother, so she’d never tried.
“You don’t have to care.” He stroked her hair, letting his hand linger in the short curls.
His touch sent shivers down her spine. Damn, he really turned her on. But he was devious, he kept secrets. She hated secrets.
“You sure don’t need gift-wrapping,” he breathed. His eyes searched her face feature by feature.
She felt heat spread across her cheeks. Her mother called blushing the redhead’s curse.
“Thank you.” Talking about her looks always made Ivy nervous. Maybe he guessed, because he changed the subject.
“A supermodel, wow. How did she end up in Alaska?”
She figured he also meant why had Frances married Tom. It was a question Ivy’s teenage friends hadn’t been as reticent about asking. After all, the life of a New York supermodel and that of an Alaskanborn Vietnam vet didn’t hold many similarities.
“Like I said, my mother isn’t exactly Chatty Cathy. From the little she’s told me, she came up with a crew sent by a fashion magazine, I think it was Vogue, to do a photo shoot. They hired my dad to fly them around, show them the countryside, find interesting backdrops for the photos. I guess he and my mom fell madly in love. Frances stayed when the crew went back to New York, and they got married.” She’d never really understood it herself, because she couldn’t remember Tom and Frances ever acting as if they were madly in love. She’d always wondered about that. Maybe it was just sex, because when you figured out Jacob’s birthdate and their wedding anniversary, it was obvious Frances had been pregnant.
Alex was looking around for a place to sit. “I had problems with my stepfather, so I understand a bit about you and your mom. You’re pretty close to your father, though.”
She relaxed and smiled. Here she was confident. “Yes, we’re really close. We always have been. He’s been my best buddy since I was a little kid.”
He bent over and touched the ground, rubbing his hand on his pant leg when it came up wet. “So any guy in your life would have to make the grade with Tom.”
“No.” That irritated the hell out of her, and she scowled at him. “Absolutely not. Any guy in my life would have to make the grade with me. My father doesn’t choose who I date.”
“Maybe he doesn’t choose.” He looked her straight in the eye. “But he’d have to live up to the standard Tom has set. That’s a pretty tall order.”
She couldn’t deny that. She did use her father as a measuring stick of sorts. What was wrong with that? “Why are you concerned or even interested, Professor? You’ve made it clear any involvement with me is off your radar.”
He took his time answering. “I didn’t say that. I said that marriage and babies aren’t part of my plans.”
“So what are you proposing then, Ladrovik? Hot, steamy sex for a couple of weeks and then a civilized goodbye?” God, the arrogance of him. “Because just like you have this thing about long-term commitment, I have my own rules about casual affairs. I don’t do short-term.” Not usually. Well, not anymore. It left her far too empty and lonely afterwards.
“Guess that rules out anything between us, then.” His voice was wistful. He reached out and rubbed his thumb across her lips. “But damn it all, I want you, Ivy,” he whispered, his eyes trapping hers, holding them against her will. “I can’t help it. I want to taste you, touch you everywhere.”
She couldn’t stop a powerful shiver of awareness, the rush of warmth and desperate need.
He groaned and pulled her back into his arms. This time the kiss bordered on brutal, but it was an embrace between equals. Ivy knew she was every bit as rough as he was, as demanding and consumed by desire. She gave him back kiss for kiss, pressing the length of her body against him, holding him as tight as he held her.
Maybe it was the aftermath of danger, but she wanted him to take her there and then, rip off her jeans and tumble with her to the damp grass. Her desire was mindless and all-consuming, and she was frantic with it. When his hands dipped under her leather jacket and cupped her breasts, she trapped them, pressing them against her aching nipples.
“Yes,” she murmured, leaning hard against him and trembling so that she could barely stand. She could feel his erection, and she dropped her hand to his zipper, desperate to release him. It was hard to get the zipper down, but she managed. And gasped as loud as he did when her hand held the length of him. Which is why she didn’t hear the floatplane until it was almost directly overhead.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s funny, what you miss when your old lady’s not around. Sex, for sure. But just talking, I miss that. Nobody ever listened to me the way you do, Lindy.
From letters written by Roy Nolan,
April, 1972
“WIRE ON THE PANEL SHORTED out,” Tom announced three quarters of an hour later. “Can’t see anything else wrong.” He and Bert had gone over the copter inch by inch.
Ivy had stayed near them, while Alex wandered down to the lake where the floatplane was gently bobbing. She wondered if he felt as off balance as she did. The arrival of her father and Bert had prevented them from having crazy monkey sex right on the ground, but she couldn’t just turn off the wild emotions.
“Ivy?”
She realized that her father had called her more than once. He repeated with more than a trace of impatience, “Listen up. I said, you two can take the Beaver back to the lodge. Bert and I will fly the copter to Anchorage—it’s overdue for servicing anyways. Ben’s in visiting Theo, so we’ll hitch a ride back into town with him.”
“Sure, that’s fine with me.” The sooner she got away from Tom, the better. He’d given her a narrow-eyed look when he and Bert landed, and she was aware that Tom had studiously avoided either looking at or speaking to Alex. She knew her father and Bert had seen them from the air, groping one another.
She could understand Tom being mildly embarrassed at the sight of his daughter making out, but that didn’t account for the wa
y he was acting. He was being downright rude to Alex, and it annoyed her. It also puzzled her. Tom could be—was often—acerbic, but he wasn’t a rude man by nature.
“This is your lucky day, Professor,” she called to Alex as she saw him approach—trying hard for a light note. “Now you get to ride in the floatplane.” She explained what was happening. “We have to transfer the supplies. Mavis is going to be hopping mad at us for not getting the shortening there on time for supper.”
There was only one load each, but they had to wade in the icy water to stow it in the floatplane.
By the time Ivy was settled in the cockpit, her pants were wet past her knees and her boots were sopping. Alex was as wet as she was. He was sitting next to her in the copilot’s seat, and this time he was making no effort to pretend this flight was going to be something he enjoyed. He was already holding on to the roof strap, and he turned and gave her a comically doleful look.
“I don’t suppose I could walk back, huh?”
She shook her head and smiled at him before she started the motor. It was tough for her to sympathize, because flying was as comfortable to her as breathing.
“This won’t take long,” she assured him. “Just think of it as a root canal.”
He shot her a look. “If there was any other way to get back, I’d take it.”
She laughed outright. “If you’re going to be sick, there’s a bucket in the back,” she consoled him, and then she concentrated on getting them airborne.
The days were getting longer, Alex mused later that evening. Even though there were clouds gathering out over the water, at past ten at night it was still twilight. From his perch on the dock, he could still clearly see the outline of trees across the bay and the sleek shape of an eagle sitting on a stump. Birds twittered, and he could hear several guests at the lodge talking and laughing, having a smoke and a nightcap out on the wide deck. But down here by the water he was alone, and glad of it.
Past Lies Page 9
