by KB Winters
“Four weeks,” I answered, my voice flat. Gemma had said four to six, but I was going to push my luck and try to sweet talk her into taking it off as soon as humanly possible. The damn thing was driving me insane and it hadn’t even been an entire week.
“I’m sorry. I broke my arm in high school. I was a cheerleader…” she trailed her words, spinning them in a way that left no choice but to flick a glance over her and imagine what her lush curves would look like spilling out of a tight cheerleading uniform.
I nodded politely and swallowed hard. Damn, being a one-woman man was gonna be a lot harder than I’d imagined. Gemma and I hadn’t discussed it, but there was an unspoken current between the two of us that assured me she wasn’t looking elsewhere. Somewhere along the way, I’d decided I wouldn’t either.
When Poppy picked up that I wasn’t going to take her bait, she grabbed the paper from the printer and set it on the counter with cool indifference. “Sign here and I’ll make a copy for you to take with you,” she instructed, jabbing a pen at the black line at the bottom.
I signed and when my copy was printed and in hand, I hurried out the door, before Poppy could try a new angle at seducing me. It was bad enough her sweet perfume had me thinking things I shouldn’t.
I wasn’t sure how much longer my resolve would hold out.
29
Taking Lance’s legal advice, I called Lana and told her to move the staff meeting to Carly’s in order to avoid being at the museum. Then, before pulling away from the curb, I checked my messages for anything from Gary or the other agents scouring the museum. But so far, nothing had come over.
I drove back to Holiday Cove and halfway there, decided to stop at Gemma’s hospital for a quick visit. Even with the momentary distraction over Mr. Toffer’s beautiful assistant, my mind was locked on Gemma, and I didn’t want to wait until that night to see her again. I parked and then sauntered into the ER, hoping she wasn’t elbow deep in body fluids, so I could gather her in my arms and maybe convince her to take a fifteen-minute break in an abandoned exam room.
Inside the gleaming ER, no one appeared concerned with my arrival, and I walked right through the main doors. I stopped and asked for her at the nurse’s station, but before the woman handling the desk could even answer my request, Gemma rounded the corner. She stopped in her tracks and her lips parted in silent surprise.
I smiled over at her. “Hey there, gorgeous. Just the lady I was looking for.”
Her eyes flicked to the desk where the nurse was standing and then brought them back to me. “Um, hello, Mr. Rosen.” I bristled slightly at her formality. “Are you all right?”
A wave of confusion washed over me at the look in her eyes, and I wondered if I’d crossed some unspoken line by showing up at her work.
I pushed off the counter and rounded the desk to meet her. She was wearing teal scrubs and a white coat over the top and even in the not-so-flattering cut of the clothing, she was absolutely irresistible. I wanted to reach for her but stopped short at the look in her eyes.
“This is a surprise,” Gemma said, dropping her voice so the nearby nurse couldn’t hear. She threw a look over her shoulder at the sound of footsteps and voices of a group of passing doctors. She turned back to me and smiled, but it was tight and edgy. “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just got done meeting with the lawyer. I was driving through on my way back to town and wanted to see you.”
God, I sound pathetic.
This was the exact reason why I’d never let myself go beyond a few nights with a woman. When that line was crossed, and the relationship morphed into, well…a relationship. And with that label, a whole host of problems and complications tended to crop up.
I held up my hands. Surrendering. “You know what, I’ll see you later. You’re obviously busy.”
I started to turn away, but Gemma yanked on my jacket sleeve, stopping me. “Hold on. Aaron, wait!”
I stopped but flashed her a dark look.
She sucked in a breath and tucked her hair behind her ears. “Sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you to be here. You caught me off guard, that’s all. I thought maybe something had happened.”
“Like what?” I arched a brow at her. Something was wrong. Gemma nibbled her lower lip and cast another glance behind me as though expecting someone to pop up. “Gemma? What’s going on?”
“Nothing…it’s just…it’s not professional to be seen…you know—” she dropped her voice low, “—dating a patient.”
“Oh,” my lips formed a circle. “Right, of course.” I shrugged it off, dispelling the worry that had threatened to take hold.
Gemma started to say something, but her words got drowned out when a man in a doctor’s coat rounded the corner and beckoned for her. “Sorry, Aaron. I gotta go.”
“Right.” I watched as she crossed to follow after the other doctor and was hit by a blast of ice at the way the doctor looked at Gemma as she rushed to his side. Moments later, without a glance back my way, she disappeared around the corridor with the man.
I stalked out of the hospital, kicking myself for even stopping in the first place. It wasn’t like Gemma was a bored secretary. On the contrary, she had a very important, high risk, high pressure job and couldn’t afford to stand around and chit chat. I blasted my radio all the way back to Holiday Cove and went straight to Carly’s.
The staff meeting wasn’t set to begin for another hour, but I didn’t have anywhere to go. Besides, my lawyer had told me to stay away from places that O’Keefe was likely to come looking for me in search of his contract since he’d failed to set up a proper meeting to hash out the deal.
Carly was happy to see me—as always. Her bright smile melted away the darkness from my thoughts and within minutes, she’d set me up in the corner table, with an almond spice latte—my signature drink—in one hand, and her laptop in front of me so I could do a little web surfing while I waited for Lana and the rest of the crew to arrive.
“Anything else, handsome?” Carly asked, draping an arm around my shoulder. I grinned up at her. Even though we used flirty terms with one another, she was like my little sister, and we’d never crossed the line between friends and more. Not that I hadn’t tried when I first arrived in Holiday Cove. Like Holly, my best friend Jack’s girlfriend, always says, Carly can see through my bullshit games.
In the end, I was happy she hadn’t given in to my efforts. It would have caused me to miss out on a solid friendship—not to mention I’d be SOL in the caffeine department as her coffee shop was the only one in Holiday Cove other than a small convenience store on the other side of town where the coffee had the consistency of watered down pudding.
“Did Lana call you earlier?”
She nodded. “Yep. I have twenty whole wheat turkey avocado wraps on ice.”
“You’re the best.”
“I know.” She sauntered away, throwing a wink at me over her shoulder, and moments later, she was assisting a customer who’d just stepped into the cafe.
After a long, lingering sip of my drink, I turned my attention to the laptop in front of me and logged into the office inbox to go through the rest of the emails. It was more of the same. Delete, delete, delete.
When that was done, I flipped open a virtual version of the mechanical guide to the plane that had gone down in the crash. Ever since Gary had shown me the pictures from the crash site, I’d been holding onto a nagging thought in the back of my mind as to whether I should have known something was wrong with the plane before taking off that night.
My guilt over Talia’s death was slowly ebbing away, but there was still a part of me that had a million questions.
Questions that only the user’s manual for the plane itself would help me sort out.
I was still searching through the text, studying the pictures, and graphs, when the sound of rubber soled shoes caught my attention. I glanced up and saw Lana approaching, clipboard tucked under her arm. She smiled at me when
I locked onto her gaze. “Darn! I was going to try to spook you.”
I shut the lid of the laptop and gestured at the seat across from me. “Hey, Lana. Thanks for arranging the meeting. Carly has the lunch all ready for when everyone gets here.”
She nodded and set her clipboard on the table. “Perfect. I’ll go settle the bill and then we can go over any notes.”
“Okay.” I polished off my drink, absently staring out the window at the beach as I ran through my findings from the hour spent looking over the mechanical information. There was no way I’d have been able to tell anything was happening to the fuel line until it was too late. Whoever had fucked with the line was a professional. They’d known exactly what to do and where to keep from triggering a sensor. It wasn’t until we reached a certain height that it blew the system enough to cut the engine and send us plummeting to the ground.
The knowledge helped, but it also tightened the grip in my gut that clenched whenever I thought about the fact that someone had intentionally tried to kill me—and had killed Talia—by crashing my plane.
“How have you been?” Lana asked, plopping back into her seat at the table, her cup of coffee sloshing dangerously.
I stared at her for a moment longer than was socially acceptable. I honestly didn’t know how to answer her question.
How am I?
Carly swooped in, holding two silver trays, and set them on the table beside ours, distracting Lana’s attention. I sucked in a long breath and hopped up from my seat. I started to help push the tables together, but Carly batted me away. “No, no. Sit your ass down,” she demanded, pushing my hand away when I reached a second time. “We got this, right, Lana?”
Lana nodded and sprang into action to help Carly organize and merge enough tables and chairs to form a makeshift conference table right in the middle of the cafe. Luckily, it was past the lunch rush, and the other customers were out on the patio, leaving the inside space distraction free.
When they were done, Carly turned to me and waggled a finger in my face. “Holly told me to watch out for you. Aaron, you have stitches in your side. Try to remember that, please.”
I growled my agreement and she walked off, completely unfazed by my irritation.
Lana started setting a meal at each place and Carly returned minutes later with two huge pitchers of iced tea, then came back a second time with cups for everyone. As everything was set up for the meeting, the rest of my staff arrived. I plastered a smile on my face and forced myself to stuff down the frustration that had been building up since Gemma gave me the brush off at the hospital.
“Thanks for coming everyone,” I started, sinking into my seat. Everyone dug into the food right away, but the chatter died off as I started speaking, and all eyes turned to me. “There have been some developments in the situation at the museum, and I wanted to get everyone together to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
I gave them a brief synopsis of the chain of events, how the FBI was now involved, and that while the protesters had been kicked off the property, we still didn’t have an ETA on when we could reopen.
Everyone nodded along and Lana scribbled furiously on her clipboard.
“I have a question,” Jeremy, one of the part-time tour guides said, raising two fingers above the edge of the table. I nodded for him to continue. “Are we under investigation? I mean, if the fuel line was tampered with, won’t they start with the people who had the most access? Us?” He cast a glance around the table.
“Honestly, I don’t know. They only arrived this morning and haven’t exactly been forthcoming on their procedures. However, I’m confident that none of you were involved, so you have nothing to be afraid of—even if they do call you in for questioning.”
Jeremy looked a little more comfortable, but some of the others exchanged glances. I tried to put myself in their shoes. I wouldn’t want to be tangled up with the FBI and drilled with questions, either.
Lana cleared her throat. “If you ask me, they should be investigating that O’Keefe guy. He’s probably the jealous type.”
I jerked my head around to look at her. She was staring down at her wrap, her remark had clearly been off the cuff, just her way of thinking out loud. “What?”
She jolted in her seat; her eyes frantic when they found mine. “Sorry…I just mean…well, the woman who died was his girlfriend after all. Maybe he found out you were there with her…you know…after hours.”
No one said a word, but I could hear all their thoughts kick into gear as they watched the exchange. My reputation as a playboy wasn’t a secret. They all knew I had a certain…appetite. But for Lana to throw it out there so blatantly was shocking.
“Lana, can I see you outside?” I stood from my seat, not giving her room to decline.
Her eyes went even wider and she shook her head. “I didn’t mean anything by it—”
“Outside,” I growled, starting for the doors.
“Mr. Rosen, I wasn’t trying—” Lana stammered once we were out the side door and onto the patio.
I stalked to the far corner, away from the other customers, and spun around to face her, silencing the rest of her sentence with the fire in my eyes. “Do you have a problem with the fact that I was at the museum after hours with a woman?”
“No!”
“Then why are you bringing it up and throwing it out there for the entire fucking crew to gossip about? What I do in my museum, on my own damn time, is my fucking business. Not yours.”
Lana stared at me, and then her face crumpled.
Shit.
Tears slid past her lashes. “Please, Mr. Rosen, don’t fire me. I wasn’t trying to make a statement or something…it was just something I was thinking.”
Red hot anger was raging through me, but I held it back as best as I could. “Stay out of my business, Lana. You have more than enough to worry about.”
She nodded and sucked in a gasping breath as she wiped away her tears. “Yes, sir.”
“Go discuss the reopening event. Get some ideas.” I flexed my jaw tight, locking back all the other things I wanted to scream at her.
She trudged away, and I turned to find half a dozen pairs of eyeballs blinking at me like I was some kind of monster that had just stalked out of the ocean and up onto their patio, shattering their peaceful seaside afternoon.
Without a word, I stepped off the wooden patio and started down the beach. I needed a minute to get myself back together or I was going to lose my shit entirely. My heart raced and my muscles were tense and tight.
My phone rang when I was ten paces from the cafe. I jerked it free from the pocket of my jeans and stared at the screen. An unknown number. Perfect.
“What?” I answered. My tether had been broken and I was in no mood for whoever was on the other end of the line. Part of me hoped it was O’Keefe just so I could rip him a new asshole.
It would feel good.
“Mr. Rosen, this is Gary, with the FAA. We need you back at the museum as soon as possible,” his tone was clipped and sent a surge of adrenaline through me.
They’d found something.
30
“How long have your security cameras been inoperable?”
I turned at Gary’s question, my eyes wide as a shiver of dread ran down my spine. “What?”
He pointed with the ballpoint pen in his hands as we walked through the hangar where a smattering of FBI and FAA agents were working to collect evidence and complete the investigation they’d begun earlier that morning. “That one, and that one,” he pointed again, sweeping the space, “are both out of order. Nothing has been recorded for days. We had our tech guys use all the tricks in their bags to retrieve the footage, but there’s nothing. So either your cameras are busted, or someone scrubbed the footage.”
“Shit.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “So we have nothing?”
Gary gave me a long look. His face grim. His jaw set. “Not exactly. Come this way.”
I cast one last glance at the
cameras, recalling the thousands I’d sunk into security equipment when I first started making money back on the business. The museum contained millions of dollars’ worth of planes, memorabilia, and electronics. I’d written the check to the security company without hesitation. It was worth it to make sure my investment was safe and secure. The fact that someone could have so easily wiped that out both rankled and nauseated me.
Whatever was going on was getting darker and more sinister by the minute.
“Spears, bring me the images.”
Gary’s barked tone snapped me back to attention. I took steps to close the distance between us and arrived at his side just as an agent was rushing up, a tan manila envelope in his hands. Gary gave him a curt nod, dismissing him, and then dumped the contents out. “What are these?” I asked, watching over his shoulder as he rifled through the glossy images.
“These are photos from the mechanical inspection. My guys searched these other planes top to bottom.” He handed me the orderly stack of pictures. “Every single plane in the hangar had the same problems—the fuel lines. Whoever did this wanted to ensure that no matter which bird you took up, it wouldn’t be coming back down in one piece.”
“What?” The word left my lips with all the air that had been left in my lungs.
Gary dropped his eyes to the pictures and I followed his line of sight. My head spun and the activity and noise in the room around me faded as I went through the images. Just as he’d said, each plane showed the same signs of tampering. The full reality hit me like an out of control freight train.
“Oh my God. Anyone could have taken these planes up. This one…” I held up a picture of a Beech 36 “…holds six people! Six lives could have been lost? And all for what?” I stuffed the picture back into the envelope. “Some fucking condos…greedy son of a bitch.”
“Wait,” Gary reached for the envelope to stop me from damaging the photos that were now evidence in a mounting pile. “Condos? What are you talking about?”