her eyes, she scrubbed her face. What was she going to do if the ads didn’t bring in more business? Cutting fares again wasn’t an option; the margins were already nonexistent, and there was more meat in a poor man’s stew than left in her operating budget. And fuel costs were expected to continue to rise to the record levels of early 1970s.
What was going to happen when she couldn’t keep it together any longer? What then?
She studied the plane sitting thirty feet from her and wondered where in the hell she had gotten the dumb idea she could build an airline from the ground up?
Her father had taught her how to dream, how to reach for what seemed impossible when her feet were flat on the ground. He’d taught her to set goals, to work hard to achieve them. But, unfortunately, he hadn’t taught her how to fail, which accounted for the sick feeling curled up inside her most nights when she closed her eyes.
A noise broke the silence in the hangar.
Kelly glanced toward the large opening at the front of the hangar, all thoughts of business vanishing. She couldn’t quite identify the origin of the sound. An animal foraging in the underbrush along the edge of the tarmac? Or had the sound been of human making? Considering the time, she knew it wouldn’t be her mechanic. If he was following his recent pattern, Ben was facedown on the pub’s bar by now.
She continued to watch the doorway where the shadows of swaying palm fronds broke the halogen glare of the outside light. A gust of wind stole through the doorway, bringing the scent of the nearby Atlantic, and with it, the certainty that someone was out there.
Watching.
Waiting.
She reached in the drawer for the small automatic weapon that she usually kept locked on the plane, was still digging through the clutter when a pebble shot toward her across the grease-stained concrete.
Kelly looked up, her fingers closing around the butt of the gun. The silhouette of a man filled the opening, the lamp light from the desk barely reaching him.
She stiffened, her gut carrying an odd mixture of fear and hate.
Nick Cavanaugh.
What was he doing in Marsh Harbor? And why now? Why come strolling back into her life after all these years?
She watched as he calmly dropped his duffel bag and slowly raised his hands, his cocky grin never fading.
“It’s good to see you, too, Kelly.”
“What the hell do you want?” Her voice came out clipped and cold.
Nick nodded at the gun. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you those things are dangerous?”
“Depends which end of it you’re facing. It feels fine from this side.”
He took a step forward. “A sound argument, I suppose. But I’ve never felt comfortable with a pistol in a woman’s hand. Especially when it’s pointed at me.”
“Well, there’s an easy solution for that one. You could pick up that satchel of yours and leave. Save me the trouble of putting a bullet in you.”
Nick seemed amused. “Are you any good with it?”
“Good enough.” She nudged the revolver’s barrel upward. “How did you find me?”
“Your mechanic.”
“Now there’s a lie if I ever heard one,” she said, her tone scathing. “Ben has no more use for you than I do. He’d tell you to take a hike off the nearest pier before he’d tell you a damned thing.”
“Perhaps he didn’t realize who he was talking to. He’d had a lot to drink.” His eyes narrowed. “Come to think of it, I may have told him I was an old friend.”
“Same Nick. Whatever it takes. Lies. Fabrications. It doesn’t really matter, does it? As long as you get what you want.”
He took another step, his hands dropping slightly. “I just came to talk.”
Kelly thumbed the hammer back.
The definitive click as it locked into position brought him to a sudden halt. Nick pushed his hands several inches higher.
It was her turn to be amused, she decided. Not that he looked truly worried. It would take more than a gun leveled at his chest to shake Nick. Still, all in all, it wasn’t a bad moment.
Feeling in control for the first time since he’d stepped through the door, she allowed herself to really study him.
The neatly clipped, chestnut hair of seven years ago had been allowed to grow longer, until it brushed the collar of his T-shirt. His shoulders had always been broad, his body well-muscled, hard, but now there was a power about him. Dangerous, her mind prompted.
It was still too dark to see the color of his eyes, but she remembered them. Too well. They’d be the same deep, steel-gray color of the Atlantic when churned by a hurricane. Unreadable. Unrelenting. Treacherous.
“You don’t really want to shoot me.”
The calm assurance of his words grated against her nerves like raw metal skidding across tarmac.
“Just how sure are you of that, Cavanaugh?” She stepped out from behind the desk. “Do you think I hate you any less today than I did seven years ago? Do you think I’ve forgotten about what happened? Forgiven you?” She moved closer still. “Forgiven myself for letting you use me to destroy my father?”
For the first time, she saw uncertainty in his eyes, an emotion she’d never seen there before. Nick had always been so blasted certain about everything.
“I know you don’t want to believe it, but I regret what happened to your father. If I had known he was going to—”
She cut him off. “You’re right. I don’t believe you. My father’s dead because of you and your investigation.” Kelly’s finger tightened on the trigger. “You were always so sure you were right. About everything and everyone. Did you ever, for even one moment, consider what the price of being wrong might be? And who would pick up the tab for your mistake?”
She found his silence patronizing. “Maybe you should have,” she suggested as she tossed the small automatic on the desk behind her.
Slowly, Nick lowered his hands.
“No ammo,” she offered as she leaned back against the desk with what she hoped passed for an amused and satisfied smile. “There’s a full box of shells around here somewhere.”
She gave a casual glance to where the checkbook and bank statements covered the desk, then at the nearby filing cabinets with their jumble of parts catalogs, invoices and air-time logs. “You didn’t give me enough time to locate them. Of course, if I’d known it was you, I would have looked a hell of a lot harder.”
He chuckled unexpectedly, the deep sound seeming to resonate in her middle.
Tightening her arms across her, she watched the play of muscles beneath his shirt as he moved into the hangar’s shadows. Though she hated him now, she couldn’t seem to quite forget how his chest had once felt beneath her hands.
Fragments of a thousand memories she’d kept locked away, came rushing to the surface. The way he had tasted. The strength of his body. The need he had created in her. She hadn’t known who he was then, though, hadn’t known what loving him would cost her.
He walked around the brightly painted King Air, with the airline’s trademark spray of bird-of-paradise blooms and thick jungle foliage, seeming to view it from all angles. “I see flying’s still in your blood and your smart mouth is the same.”
“You used to like my smart mouth.”
“Maybe I still do.”
The remark caught her off guard. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Okay, Nick. You’ve had your fun. What do you want?”
Without