Come Fly with Me

by Sherryl Woods

  “Gee, I’d never thought of that.”

  “Are you sure you don’t just come out here to see if you can find some handsome stranger who’ll whisk you away to an exotic location for the weekend?”

  “Now that’s an intriguing idea,” she said thoughtfully. She gave him a dazzling smile. “Going anywhere interesting?”

  He returned the smile. “Home.”

  “Care to take me along?”

  He surveyed her slowly, dark eyes burning into her very soul. “Now that really is an intriguing idea,” he said softly, leaving the words to whisper along her spine like a gentle, intimate caress.

  Lindsay’s heart slammed against her ribs. Suddenly the innocent game had turned serious and she couldn’t figure out when the rules had changed. One minute they’d been teasing and the next they were...what? Still teasing, she told herself sternly. What else could it be? Strangers did not pick each other up in airports and fly home together. Her gaze lifted to meet the dark-eyed stare that hadn’t wavered one tiny bit. On second thought...

  “You’re not drinking your coffee,” he said quietly.

  Lindsay picked up the cup absentmindedly, her hand shaking so badly she nearly spilled it. If he laughs, I’ll throw it in his face, she thought furiously. He had no right to get to her like this. She gave herself a mental shake. It was hardly his fault that her brain had turned into mush back at the candy counter. Maybe there’d been something weird in the chocolate. Nope. It had happened long before she’d taken the first bite. It had happened when he’d first looked into her eyes, when she’d first seen those devastating dimples.

  “Don’t you have a flight to catch?” she asked hopefully. This encounter had probably gone on long enough. She was getting more of those funny little feelings in the pit of her stomach, and now they had nothing to do with his excessive use of sugar.

  “Not right away. We have plenty of time to catch up on old times.”

  “Old times?” she echoed weakly. She’d obviously spent too much time with staid corporate types, who talked about rational things like production figures, bottom lines and industry trends. She was having trouble following this man’s train of thought.

  “It’s been nearly an hour. What have you been doing with yourself?”

  Lindsay blinked and looked at him to see if there was the slightest sign that his mental breakdown was as complete as hers seemed to be. Was that something you should be able to see by looking into a person’s eyes? She stared into his. They looked perfectly normal...dark and intriguingly dangerous, clear as a bell and interested. Very interested. She gulped.

  “Have you missed me?” he asked with an impish grin.

  “Hardly.” Well, now, she admitted to herself, that was not exactly true. He hadn’t been far from her thoughts for the past hour or more. It was hardly something to confess, however.

  He looked hurt and she felt the strangest need to apologize.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard herself saying, then added, “Have you missed me?” Even after the perfectly ridiculous question was out of her mouth, she couldn’t believe she was actually waiting breathlessly for his answer.

  “Terribly,” he said solemnly.

  Lindsay started to chuckle at the man’s outrageousness, but then her gaze met his...and held. Her heart skittered crazily again. The man was lethal. Definitely lethal. Or she’d been bored beyond reason waiting for this dumb flight.

  Or maybe she’d just been bored lately by her life.

  That nagging possibility crept in so unexpectedly, it took her breath away. She gazed back into speculative eyes, then looked away. At the untouched coffee. At the steady line of customers surveying the coffee shop’s array of salads and sandwiches. At her watch. Suddenly her eyes widened in dismay.

  “Oh, my. I’ve got to run. My flight...I have to check on it. Thanks for the coffee,” she added, holding out her hand. It was only polite, she told herself. It had nothing to do with the fact that she wanted to touch him, to see if those strong fingers of his were as warm as she remembered. They were. Warm as a sunbeam and a thousand times as stimulating. Electric tingles went racing along her spine.

  “You’re welcome, bright eyes,” he said softly, releasing her hand only after several impossibly long seconds.

  Freed from his touch, Lindsay ran, forcing herself to concentrate on her need to catch this damnable flight to Denver, rather than the confusing feelings about the all-too-fleeting touch that had turned her blood to warm honey.

  “Hey,” he shouted after her, halting her in midstep as she raced along the concourse. When she looked back, he grinned and gave her another one of those lazy, enticing winks that tumbled her heart straight down to her toes. “We’ll have dessert another time.”

  She reached the gate just in time to hear the announcement that the flight to Denver had been canceled. She wanted to pound her fist into something and, quite possibly, to scream. Very loudly. Instead, frazzled nerves and all, she waited dutifully in line to find a booking on another flight.

  While she was waiting, she realized that she still had no idea who her intriguing, mysterious stranger might be. Bumping into him once was sheer, heart-thumping good luck. Crossing paths with him again had been incredible, blood-sizzling coincidence. But the odds against her ever seeing him again must be astronomical. No, she decided sadly, there would be no dessert.

  But, she thought as a soft smile tilted her lips, the main course had been the stuff of fantasies.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “What do you mean you can’t get me another flight tonight?” Lindsay snapped irritably at the harried clerk behind the ticket counter, then winced at her unreasonable tone.

  Just because she was exhausted and frustrated beyond belief was no excuse for taking it out on this poor woman, whose eyes seemed to be glazing over at the prospect of dealing with the long line of equally frustrated, nasty-tempered people behind Lindsay. She did not envy the ticket agent the hours she’d spend trying to satisfy all of these people who’d planned to spend a nice, relaxing weekend skiing, not standing around in an airport battling for seat space. At least she’d been near the front of the line. If anyone got a seat, she would, but the outlook appeared dim and much as she hated the whole idea of this trip, she was doomed to make it. She wanted to get it over with tonight, not tomorrow.

  She took a deep, calming breath. “I have to be in Denver before morning on business,” she explained in a more civilized tone. “Please. You have to get me on the next flight.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Tabor,” the flustered agent said, punching frantically at the computer keys as though that might make a seat materialize. “There’s only one more scheduled flight for later tonight and there’s not a single coach seat left on it.”

  “What about first class?” Lindsay asked with a sigh.

  She’d always resisted the temptation to buy first-class tickets, especially on these shorter trips. It seemed an absolute waste of the company’s money, even though Langston Studios could probably afford to buy its own airlines. But tonight was an emergency created specifically by Trent Langston! That alone was motivation enough to buy a first-class ticket.

  On top of that, she deserved a little pampering for a change. This was her fifth flight this week, and considering how she felt about flying in the first place, it felt more like her fiftieth. It was nearly midnight already. She hadn’t slept soundly in her own bed for days, and the last decent meal she’d had—or almost had—was in a perfectly delightful Italian restaurant in New York five days ago with David Morrow’s awful, knee-squeezing agent, Morrie Samuels. She’d been so busy planning defensive maneuvers against his roving hands, she hadn’t eaten more than a few bites of the delicious angel’s hair pasta primavera. Since then, she’d been living on stale sandwiches and coffee. And—she smiled ruefully—on candy bars.

  The thought of the candy reminded her of her mystery man and a little spark of pleasure soared through her. When the clerk looked up from the computer at last, L
indsay’s tired grumpiness had virtually vanished. She gave the girl a beaming smile. “Well?”

  “There’s one seat left in first class,” she announced, her voice filled with relief.

  “I’ll take it.” Aside from the pampering, it would give her a chance to test her mother’s theory that she could meet the successful, handsome man of her dreams, if she’d only fly first class during the hundreds of flights she took each year on studio business.

  “The kind of intelligent, successful man you need is not about to spend three hours with his knees under his chin and someone else’s kids drooling over his shoulder,” her mother had told her repeatedly.

  Marie Tabor had flatly ignored Lindsay’s constant denials that she even wanted a man in her life—in the air or on the ground. Pursing her lips stubbornly and glaring at her equally stubborn daughter, she had continued, “He’s going to want to sit back and relax with a nice meal, maybe some champagne. And then he’ll want enough room to spread out all those contracts for big, lucrative deals. If you’re not interested in him, think about those deals. At least business seems to turn you on.”

  “If the man’s doing all that business, he’ll never even notice me,” Lindsay had retorted.

  “Of course he will. You’re a beautiful woman. Not that you do anything to make the most of it. You’re always wearing those drab, tailored suits that look so alike I can’t tell one from the other. And your hair...” She shook her head sorrowfully. “It’s so lovely. Couldn’t you think about getting it cut in a style that’s a little less...” She waved her hands helplessly. “A little less...unusual? It looks like it’s been whipped with an eggbeater.”

  Lindsay had grinned at the plaintive note in her mother’s voice. Her dark auburn hair was short, tousled and casual. It took her exactly ten minutes to wash it and another ten to blow it dry. It suited her fast-paced lifestyle.

  “I was thinking of dying it pink next time,” she teased. “What do you think?”

  “Don’t be absurd!”

  “That’s no more absurd than your idea that buying a first-class ticket will also buy me love.”

  “Just try it. For me.”

  Lindsay sighed. Well, tonight she was trying it. Her mother would be thrilled. She had half a mind to make a quick stop at a pay phone to let her know. She glanced at her watch and groaned.

  “Forget it. I’ll call her from Denver and tell her about the engagement,” she muttered under her breath, as she picked up her carryon luggage and ran down the concourse, barely making the jetway before the door slammed closed. Breathlessly she entered the plane, stowed her luggage and slid into her seat. She fumbled with the safety belt, but one side steadfastly refused to budge from between the seats. Still short-tempered, she was about to stand up and yank the blasted thing loose, when a hand gently nudged hers out of the way and a familiar voice drawled softly, “Don’t kill the thing. It just needs a little gentle persuasion.”

  Lindsay’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened as she twisted in her seat to stare into very familiar black eyes.

  “Exactly like a woman,” he added seductively, those bold, laughing eyes never leaving hers as his hands stilled, a mere hairsbreadth from her thigh. Her muscles tightened better than they ever had at the gym.

  Trying to hide the sudden trembling of her hands by clenching them tightly together in her lap, she managed a wobbly grin. “And I suppose you know all about women?”

  “Enough,” he said succinctly, as he snapped the seat belt together, his hands innocently grazing her thighs and sending not-nearly-so-innocent heat waves roaring through her. “About as much as I know about seat belts.”

  Suddenly Lindsay regarded him suspiciously. As glad as she was to see him again, there was something decidedly odd about these repeated meetings. Unless she believed in Kismet, which she most definitely did not, there had to be a rational explanation.

  “Are you following me?” she demanded, eyeing him cautiously. She’d thought she’d read this script just last week....

  He chuckled. “Hey, bright eyes, you got on this plane after I did, remember?”

  That, at least, was true enough. But a good spy or thief or whatever would have a logical explanation ready, wouldn’t he? “What about that meeting in the newsstand?”

  “Just luck.”

  “And the coffee shop?”

  “Coincidence,” he said, echoing her earlier analysis. Somehow it didn’t seem as convincing coming from him. Not when he was sitting beside her yet again, dimples firmly in place as though they’d been etched in stone by a smitten female sculptor with an eye for very seductive masculine features. Either she’d beaten the astronomical odds or there was more to this than she knew, and she’d never beaten the odds before in her life.

  “Exactly why are you here?” she inquired suspiciously.

  A mischievous grin tugged at his lips. “I’m flying to Denver,” he said very seriously.

  She moaned at her stupidity. It would be difficult to argue with that. She rephrased the question. “Why are you going to Denver?”

  “I told you earlier. I’m going home...to Boulder,” he said with perfect aplomb. Then, giving her a wicked smile, he taunted, “What are you doing on this flight? Are you following me?”

  “Of course not,” she sputtered indignantly. If that wasn’t the most ridiculous, egotistical suggestion...even though the thought had crossed her mind once or twice.

  “Hey, simmer down,” he soothed, chuckling again. The low, throaty sound rippled over her. “You asked first. Don’t I get a turn?”

  Lindsay grunted. After her cross-examination, she supposed he should have his own shot at it, but the question had sounded so absurd when he said it. She tried to put her faith in her legal training, in her instinctive ability to size people up instantly. She studied the firm set of his jaw, the crinkling laugh lines that gave his face life and character, the dark hair that edged over the collar of his blue plaid shirt and the dimples that came with a taunting smile. She found absolutely nothing that seemed the least bit threatening...unless you counted the fact that the whole of all those parts had sent her pulse rate tripping along in the danger zone.

  She tried to forget all of her questions and doubts, to sit back and relax, but it was impossible. There wasn’t a woman alive who could relax when a stranger who’d begun dominating her every thought suddenly appeared right next to her for the third time in one very long night. If she weren’t careful, she was going to start believing in Kismet. As for her mother, she probably owed her one for this. It remained to be seen whether she’d take her out to dinner or break her arm.

  “You seem a little tense.”

  At the sound of his voice and his all-too-accurate assessment, Lindsay jumped as nervously as she had the first time an Italian had pinched her in Rome as she walked unsuspectingly down the Via Veneto. Her gaze flew to the man seated next to her. He was chuckling at her reaction but politely trying to hide it.

  “I’m not the least bit tense,” she announced stoutly, though the throb of the starting engines had just registered in her mind, setting off another of those waves of anxiety she’d never been able to conquer.

  “Then do you suppose you could relax your grip before your fingers fall off?”

  Lindsay followed the direction of his gaze and realized that her hands were still clenched tightly in her lap. He was right. Her knuckles were white, though her fingers hadn’t quite turned blue yet. They usually did before the plane was airborne. As far as she was concerned, for takeoff she was relaxed.

  “You aren’t one of those nervous flyers, are you?” he asked anxiously.

  “As much as I fly?” she retorted dryly, refusing to concede the truth and expose her vulnerability. She tried to force her hands to separate and lie perfectly still in some semblance of a relaxed pose. It might fool her seat-mate, though it would never fool a psychiatrist. Flying sent her nerves into an absolute frenzy, but she knew if she ever admitted it aloud, she might very well neve
r leave the ground again.

  She tried for a confident grin and added brightly, “If I got scared every time I took off, they’d have locked me up in a padded cell by now.” What she didn’t say was that the cell never seemed very far away, especially now when the plane started taxiing down the runway.

  The quizzical expression in his eyes hinted that he wasn’t quite sure whether to believe her. “Then what’s the problem? Surely you aren’t afraid of me.”

  Actually all of these coincidental encounters were adding to her normal preflight jitters, but she wasn’t afraid of him. Not exactly. It was just the way he made her feel...like a teenager falling in love for the first time right after hearing about the birds and the bees. It made her palms itch. However, she was a sophisticated woman. She handled multi-million-dollar negotiations without blinking her eyes. She was not about to discuss her itching palms, her wobbly knees or the flames in her abdomen. Instead, she retorted, “Hardly. It’s just been a very long, very frustrating day.”

  “Ahhh,” he said softly and she shot him a puzzled glance. “That explains the candy overdose.”

  She grinned. It explained some of it at least, the only part that needed explaining. She had no intention of getting into a discussion about how a pair of dark-as-onyx eyes had convinced her she needed to buy up half the candy counter.

  “Why don’t you tell me about it?” he suggested. “I’d like to know what it takes to drive a beautiful lady to try to overdose on chocolate.”

  Lindsay shook her head firmly, but the look in those dark, intense eyes was magical. It transported her out of her ordinary, career-oriented existence, away from her fear of flying, into some other world, a world where romance was not only possible, but very likely indeed. Her skin glowed as though it had been brushed by fire, rosy cheeks against white satin. Her bright emerald-green eyes sparkled like precious jewels against a velvet backdrop. And suddenly, for the first time in a very long time, Lindsay felt beautiful, desirable—all from the look in some stranger’s eyes. It was a heady, almost frightening sensation. For the third time in just a few hours, she had the feeling she would follow this man anywhere.