by JoAnn Ross
“Open the doors?”
He smiled. Rather indulgently, she thought. As if he were dealing with a six-year-old. Who, thinking about it, would probably love the idea of flying with the doors open. She did not.
“Like I said, you don’t have to worry. If we do have to stop once we get started, I can just shut off the engine and the friction of the water will stop us. The Beaver flies like a wheeled plane when you’re in the air. But right now, we’re essentially on a boat.”
Tori would rather be on dry land. She’d seen a ticket booth in the terminal for both trains and buses to Caribou. That’s what she should have done. This taking off business was bad enough. If she was going to have to fly into the wilderness in this bulky, winged boxcar, she’d feel a lot better knowing they were at least going to land on solid ground.
“Your former fiancé paid big bucks for this ride. It’d be a shame if you didn’t enjoy it.”
“Good point.” With Taylor Swift’s “Shake it Off” playing in her head, she drew in a deep breath, blew it out, and literally shook her shoulders. “I’m ready for takeoff, Captain.”
“It’s Lieutenant. And that’s the most encouraging thing I’ve heard all day.”
His baritone dropped deeper. Turned smoother. Not quite into Barry White bass mode, but enough to have every erogenous zone in her body perking up with interest. “I was speaking in regards to the aircraft.”
“Too bad.”
She drew back as the air shifted when he leaned closer, both afraid and hoping that he’d kiss her the way he had in the hotel elevator. Instead, he was merely doing something piloty to one of the doohickies on the control panel that looked like it might have been taken from some early spacecraft. Maybe the one John Glenn had orbited the earth in. She’d seen Friendship 7 in the Smithsonian during the six months she’d lived in D.C. and had marveled that anyone would ever be willing to squeeze himself into a human sardine can and go rocketing off into space.
Which brought up a question she knew enough not to ask him while he was busy preparing for takeoff. Besides, she still had a few Hail Marys to get through.
The engine started with a rumble, which had Tori feeling vibrations in already stimulated body parts. But any sexy thoughts were blown away by the deafening roar as the plane went shooting across the water, sending up spray against the windshield, causing sea gulls to scatter out of the way, and—thank you, God!—became airborne.
“You’re going to miss a lot of cool scenery if you keep your eyes closed.” Finn’s tone was mild, but his deep voice held humor that she found both annoying and too appealing for her own good.
He’d affected her that way from the beginning. A man so confident could be conceited. But he hadn’t proven to be, and while he’d made her moan as they tangled the sheets, he’d also made her laugh. Which had been another first.
“Easy for you to say since you’re the one holding on to the steering wheel,” she shot back, even as she opened her eyes and stared at the mountains soaring into a blindingly blue sky. She’d seen them flying into the airport, but somehow, in this loud, ugly (well, to her) plane, she felt as if she could reach out and touch them.
“Yoke.” He took one hand off the half wheel, reached across the wide console, and unwound her clenched fingers. “A steering wheel on a plane is a yoke. Or stick. And you should have told me you’re a white-knuckle flier.”
“I’m not. Usually. But until this, the smallest plane I’ve ever been in was a twelve-seat puddle jumper from Charlotte to Myrtle Beach.”
“You get around,” he said.
“That’s me,” she said as she reclaimed her hand. Her loss, but she didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. She was only here for solitude and songwriting. Not for any funny business. Now, if only she could get her body, which was all too aware of him, on board with that plan. “A gypsy rover.”
“Do you whistle, too?”
Once again he’d surprised her. “You know the song?” Which, while usually thought of as “Gypsy Rover,” was actually titled “The Whistling Gypsy.”
“Hey, I’m Irish. The first time I heard it was when the Clancy Brothers covered it. And you mentioning it caused a flash of memory of singing it on a family road trip. I was in a minivan with my mom and three of my brothers—Gabe, Luke, and Knox. My other three brothers rode with Dad.”
“There are seven of you?” She tried to imagine all that male hotness and testosterone in one place. “Your mom must’ve been Wonder Woman.”
“I don’t remember much about her since she died when I was four. I do remember her singing. And fishing. She taught me to bait my own hook.
“Anyway, she loved to sing along with the car radio. Luke, who’s three years older than I am, once said that she didn’t have that great a voice, but all I know is that it made me happy when she’d sing. It was like sunshine on a cloudy day.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.”
And didn’t she know how that felt? Tori wondered how his mother had died. And what had happened to the family after that. To his dad and all those brothers, but decided that asking might open up questions about her own parents.
That was a personal story she’d never shared with anyone. Which was why it was so ironic that Carter, who’d been the only man to know her life history firsthand, had been the one who’d taken such malicious advantage of it.
“I was sorry, too,” he said. “Not so much at the time, because I don’t think I was old enough to understand the concept of death being forever. Later, I wondered how different things would’ve been if she’d lived.”
She had to ask. “And now?”
“I don’t.” His eyes, hidden behind the aviator shades, gave nothing away, but the curtness in his tone declared that topic closed. Which was fine with her.
“The Clancy Brothers and the Temptations,” she murmured, having picked up on the sunshine and cloudy day line. “You have eclectic tastes.”
“I can’t carry a tune, but I like music,” he said. “Your voice was the first thing that caught my attention.”
“Really?”
She’d blown her hair into a sexy cloud, poured herself into a flag-colored sequined dress, and had gone heavy with a smoky eye, which was not her usual, more country/folk-singer style but fit the venue, and he’d overlooked all that for her voice? Which, she guessed, was a compliment. Of sorts.
“I had to leave the Crown Room to take a call right before the banquet ended,” he said. “I heard you singing as I walked across the lobby to the ballroom.”
“And I sounded like sunshine?”
“No. You sounded like all the things that go through a guy’s head when he imagines getting a woman naked and heating up some sheets.”
“Oh.” She was pretty sure that was a move. Did he really think just because fate had thrown them together again, she’d be willing to start up where they’d left off?
Although Finn Brannigan was hot sex on a stick, that wasn’t what she’d come here for. She was here to figure out what to do with her life. Where to go next. And to write a my-record-company-went-bankrupt, my-fiancé-was-a-lying-cheating-douche, and now-I’m-flat-broke blues ballad that could possibly get her back into the game. If she could find a recording company willing to take her on after the bankruptcy debacle.
When he turned the steering wheel—yoke—and headed away from Anchorage, Tori couldn’t decide which was going to be more dangerous. Getting up over those enormous, craggy, snowcapped mountains, or that ignored topic they’d eventually have to talk about. Especially now that he’d brought up those hot sheets. Which had mostly ended up on the carpet.
“Speaking of the blue whale in the cockpit,” he said, as if he’d developed superpower mind-reading ability, “we’re going to have to talk about it.”
“I believe that saying refers to elephants.” Tori wasn’t going to deny she knew he was talking about that night and, probably more specifically, the morning after, but she could try sidetracking the conversation
.
“You’re in Alaska now,” he said. “Where everything’s bigger. A blue whale can weigh in at two hundred tons. Which just happens to be the combined weight of thirty elephants.”
“Thank you for the Wikipedia Infogram. I’ll store it away in case I ever find myself trapped at a really boring cocktail party. And as interesting as it might admittedly be, there’s really nothing we have to talk about.”
“How about you sneaking out after using me for sex all night?”
Using him? Seriously? “I don’t remember you complaining about being taken advantage of.”
“The sex was totally mutual. It was the next morning when you took unilateral action.”
“Now you’re talking like a military manual.”
“I may not be active anymore, but I’m still IRR. Which technically makes me military.”
“And IRR is?”
“Individual Ready Reserve. Which requires mustering once a year.”
“That makes it sound as if you’re going off to join up with General Washington to cross the Delaware.”
“I guess it does. But it isn’t an actual physical muster. I just need to send in a screening certificate. And remain ready and able to mobilize if required…. And you’re dodging the subject.”
“Okay.” She huffed out a breath. “I knew you had a busy day following the banquet and ball, when you were supposed to lead that base tour for all the families who’d shown up for your commander’s party. I figured you needed your sleep.”
“That’d be considerate if it were true. And, for the record, I was awake when you sneaked out.”
She’d been looking out over the ice fields and hundreds of small, blindingly blue sparkling lakes. Not only was the scenery stunning, it also kept her from having to meet his gaze. But that statement got her attention. She turned back toward him.
“You were not awake.”
“I damn well was. And by the way, that scarlet-as-sin thong you were crawling around the floor looking for was on top of the lampshade.”
He laughed as she blushed. Which she never did. Except, dammit, with this man. She’d done a lot of things with Finn Brannigan she’d never done before. But that was then and this is now, and since the Caribou website claimed the town had a total population of six hundred and twenty-four, making it next to impossible to keep from running into him, she was just going to have to be strong. Confident. And never let him see her sweat. She’d be every bit as cool and in control as Katniss Everdeen in the arena.
At least, she hoped, as he tipped those shades down his nose and gave her a hot, I-know-you-want-my-manly-body look, cool enough to keep from melting into a little puddle of lust before they landed.
4
Of all the charter airlines flying in Alaska, Tori Cassidy just had to end up in his. Finn had come to Alaska not just to claim that surprising legacy his father had left him but because he’d wanted to be alone and avoid any personal entanglements. Being up in the sky had always released both his mind and his body from being tethered to the ground. Alone in the cockpit, he had no one to answer to other than the forces of Mother Nature.
From the time he’d gotten his pilot’s license at thirteen, the sky had become like Finn’s cathedral. A hushed place he could be alone to ponder the vagaries of the universe, which, in earlier years, admittedly revolved more around girls and getting past third base, which it took him another three years to achieve.
Here he could drink in the beauty of this wild land, which was so different from the dry California mountains he’d grown up in or the flat expanse of ocean he’d spent the past years flying over. He could also, if he chose, turn up his iPhone and belt out the Boss’s “Born to Run” at the top of his lungs. Which was why, although he never would have expected to enjoy flying freight, he actually preferred it to passengers.
Crates of milk, canned vegetables, and toilet paper didn’t need to have glaciers and native animals straight out of Wild Kingdom pointed out to them. They didn’t need to be chatted up so they’d give him a good evaluation at the end of the flight. Not that he was in danger of getting fired, considering he owned Osprey, but in his former business, failure to shoot for perfection could get you killed. So far, he’d managed to get nearly all tens. Except for one damn nine, which he still didn’t think he deserved since the family’s airsick ten-year-old had hurled all over the dad’s pants instead of the airsick bag Finn had handed out to everyone preflight.
If he’d believed in fate, Finn might have thought Tori showing up out of the blue had been predestined. Although he’d seen guys killed and had almost died himself, twice, Finn had never thought all that much about the afterlife. When you put your life on the line every time you climbed into a fighter jet’s cockpit, pondering the ramifications of death could only be a distraction.
Still, he couldn’t deny that the legacy each of his brothers had received from their father had changed their lives. Luke, who’d taught him to rock climb, was now not only engaged but was about to become a stepfather to his college girlfriend’s teenage niece. Real estate tycoon Gabe had surprised everyone with an out-of-the-blue wedding on the family ranch last October, and Hunter’s treasure map had taken him on an adventure that had culminated in love. Knox, who’d been as much into hit-and-run relationships as Finn himself was, had inherited a classic old Indian motorcycle, which had led him to a yoga girl who must have taught him some amazing new moves, because damned if he hadn’t put a ring on it, too.
And who’d have believed that his tough-guy Navy SEAL brother Max, of all people, would’ve settled down in Kentucky horse country with a woman who didn’t even raise Thoroughbreds for racing, but something called an American saddlebred? Which, when Finn had Googled it, admittedly looked pretty cool, but he’d give his left nut to see Max in camos high-step prancing around an arena on the back of one.
Finn suspected their dad had his own reasons for giving the only one of them who didn’t drink wine a small Italian winery. Had he known Mr. Perfect former altar boy, it’s-all-about-the-bottom-line James would fall under the spell of a dolce vita and tumble into love and get engaged?
Although he wasn’t involved in the family business the way James had always been, Finn had never known Colin Brannigan not to make long-range plans. Unless it came to his kids, in which cases, his attention tended to be hit-and-miss.
Finn didn’t care about the ranch or the winery. Or any of the legacies any of his other brothers had been given. Though he wouldn’t mind if, when Gabe and his bride started populating the ranch with a new generation that would require the acquisition of a minivan, he might consider passing on that limited edition Aston Martin of his.
Because while he’d never envied his brother’s fancy Italian suits and shoes or bank account, he couldn’t deny lusting after a ride that that would go zero to sixty in three-point-five seconds. Maybe once winter set in and flying slowed down, he’d take a trip to California. Check out the new bride and test out Gabe’s Aston Martin. Just the thought of racing around the hairpin turns of the Santa Monica Mountains, where the Brannigans’ Calabasas ranch was located, had him smiling.
“Something funny?”
“Just thinking about stuff,” he said.
When she didn’t ask what, exactly, had been on his mind, and turned her gaze back out the passenger window, he figured she was afraid he’d bring up that night again.
“Do you believe in an afterlife?”
“Why?” Color fled her cheeks. Cheekbones that could cut glass drew his eyes up to gypsy dark eyes that had a sexy, catlike slant to them. At the moment, they were widened with a fear he’d never understand but had come to recognize since he’d begun flying civilians. “Are you planning to crash anytime soon?”
“No. I was just wondering about whether or not people actually end up somewhere after they die.”
“Brannigan,” she murmured, not directly speaking to the question. “That’s Irish, right?”
“Yeah, it is.”
; “So, you grew up Catholic?”
“We were. My older brother, a.k.a. James the Perfect, was even an altar boy. By the time I was old enough to serve, we’d pretty much lapsed except for Christmas. Mom was the one who’d drag us to mass.”
Tori’s fruity, floral scent surrounding them in the close confines of the cockpit smelled like Italy in a bottle, reminding him of a memorable shore leave in Naples when the O’Halloran had been taking part in Green Fleet exercises off the coast of Italy. Since somehow, they’d gotten off talking about masses, her perfume or lotion or whatever it was had his mind drifting to thoughts of what the nun who’d taught his first communion class had probably meant when she kept talking about avoiding a near occasion of sin.
At the time, Finn had figured Sister Bartholomew had been talking about cussing or like when they’d been at that resort back when his mom was still alive and he’d hid Hunter’s baseball glove beneath some straw in a stable stall after his older brother, who just happened to be Gabe’s twin, told him that he was too young to play baseball with the “big boys.” Unfortunately, he was busted when one of the trail horses found it and chewed through the laces.
Finn couldn’t remember much about that day, but by the time Sister Bartholomew entered his life—and for some weird reason had stayed on to become the voice of his conscience—he’d been ragged about it enough times by Hunter for him to decide he’d better list it with his more frequent sins he had to share at his first confession. A short list topped by sassing his latest demon of a nanny his father had hired to wrangle his seven sons. A job Finn had later come to realize was probably on the level of corralling a herd of wild mustangs.
What he’d done with Tori Cassidy that night at the Del had been no sin. Just the opposite. If it wasn’t a freaking miracle, it had come damn close. She’d touched him, deep down, in some inexplicable way that nearly had him hearing an entire choir of angels singing “Hallelujah.” It had been both the most amazing and frightening experience of Finn’s life.