“Sounds delicious.” Lauren took a step back as two women approached, and paused, just outside their immediate circle, clearly waiting to speak to Charlene. “I’ll let you go,” Lauren said, nodding beyond her mother’s shoulder.
Charlene glanced back, smiled at the two women. “Oh, hello, Lina, Beatta.” She looked back at Lauren. “The offer stands. And…if you do bring a guest, you don’t have to be quite as casual.” She winked.
Lauren resisted the urge to roll her eyes. A part of her wondered if she’d actually missed this part of their relationship. “I’ll be presentable.”
“Fun, not frumpy,” her mother said. “Those suits you wear—”
“Are not in my luggage.”
She beamed. “That’s my girl. See you soon.” Then she turned around and was immediately ensconced in a conversation about some garden committee or other. It was clear the two older women were quite willing to pull Lauren into the conversation, so she politely said her good-byes and excused herself quickly, ducking around the trio and heading toward her motel. Never was she so thankful that she’d had the foresight to book her own room.
She even had a little time to do a bit more digging—for her own peace of mind, at this point, if nothing else—before dinner. And the best place to start was her tote bag full of newspapers. Which, she remembered now, were not in her immediate possession.
She smiled. Gosh. It looked like there was a trip to the flight school in her immediate future. Well, she
had
said she was going on a bike ride….
She thought about her mother’s obvious desire that Lauren would bring someone with her—a specific someone. It was a shame Lauren wasn’t willing to fan the flames of her mother’s matchmaking fixation, or subject Jake to what was sure to be another stilted evening, because she could dearly use the support, and the diversion.
But there were other flames that would be fanned then, too, and she wasn’t sure that was a wise idea, either. Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t stop by the school to see him.
After all, she did need those papers back….
S
he was waiting for him as he walked away from the Piper, back toward the main hangar. Jake’s pulse kicked up a notch seeing her standing there. But first things first. “Good job, Ben,” he said, patting his young student on the shoulder. “Best landing you’ve done to date.”
“I really want my solo.”
“You’re getting there. Another couple of hours and it’s all you.” Jake could all but taste the impatience in the sixteen-year-old. He’d been much the same, and at a much younger age. “Next Tuesday?”
Ben looked wistfully at the plane. “Only because it can’t be sooner.”
Jake laughed and waved as Ben walked over to the bicycle he’d left leaning up against the fence. Then he turned his attention to the woman who was leaning herself against the side of the hangar, pink bike helmet under one arm, a contemplative smile on her face.
“Want a lesson?” he asked.
“I’ve never thought about it, but I admit, it does look like fun. Scary, and intimidating, but fun.” She glanced at Ben who’d just taken off back toward town. “How old is he?”
“Just turned sixteen.”
“How close is he to getting his license.”
Jake grinned. “Not as close as he’d like to be, but he’ll get there. He loves this more than anything.”
Lauren smiled. “Even girls?”
“Well, just imagine how hot they’ll be for him when they know he can drive at ten thousand feet.”
She pushed away from the hangar and fell into step beside him. “Is that why you started flying?”
He shot her a sideways grin. “No, but when I was old enough to figure that part out, I can’t say I was disappointed.”
She laughed. “How young were you when you learned to fly?”
“I grew up in the cockpit of a plane. I was playing copilot to my dad, and my granddad, before I mastered a two-wheeler. They had to build a special booster seat so I could reach everything.”
“Precocious.”
“No, I imagine it would have been that way in any business if you’re exposed to it young enough.”
She gave him a considering look, then nodded. “I probably resemble that remark.”
Jake laughed.
“Does your sister fly?”
“She’ll tell you otherwise, but she missed her calling. And the military missed out on what might have been their best fighter pilot ever.”
“She was in the service?”
“No. She just has the most uncanny ability to focus regardless of the chaos surrounding her of anyone I’ve seen. And she can handle a plane like it’s an extension of her own body. A true natural. Remember I said my grandfather used to do air shows? Well, Ruby Jean was only twelve when she started actually performing with him.”
“Twelve? Aren’t there regulations?”
“There are. Just as there are ways of getting around them. At least in some of the more rural, remote places where they performed. Not everyone was such a stickler for those things. She looked a lot older. She got all her height and most of her curves pretty young. She’d also learned to fly even younger than I did and there was no disputing her abilities. Anyone who saw her fly never questioned it. Not that anybody would have guessed she was that young. Anyway, they only had a year together on the circuit before he passed away, but they were a big hit. Usually she flew, and he walked. But she was a good walker, too.”
“Walker?”
“On the wings.”
Lauren’s eyes widened. “No way.”
“Oh, yes, way.”
“On the Mustang’s wings?”
Jake laughed. “No, no, we had another plane back then that they used for that. Haven’t had it now for quite a while. Paddy—my grandfather—left it to Ruby Jean. She sold it to pay, in part, for her college education. She earned the rest of her tuition from the air show circuit. She missed a few seasons after our grandfather died due to her age, but she got back to it, mostly flew in the aerobatics shows for other owners. She was pretty well known.”
“What made her stop?”
“Her heart wasn’t in it the same way, flying for other people.”
“And you said that it wasn’t your thing.”
He shook his head. “No. I’d have done it for her, but she knew it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I just like to fly. The annual race is icing on the cake for me, but the school is where my heart is. She stuck with it as a way to keep his memory alive, and later as a means to earn tuition money, but without him as a partner, she lost her desire for it and no one really stepped up to fill that role. Boys entered her world, and most of them weren’t too impressed with the fact that she could out-fly, out-drive, and out-ski all of them.” He looked out across the short runway toward the mountains. “She doesn’t do any of it anymore. She turned her focus to school, then trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life. She’s been with the mayor for almost two years now.”
“Is she happier?”
“She likes it well enough. Ask me he’s the one getting the better deal, but her options are limiting here. I’m not sure who or what she really wants to be, and I’m not too sure she’s really come to terms with who she really is, or who she thinks she’s supposed to be. But she’s trying to figure it out.” He looked back at Lauren. “That’s all any of us can do.”
“How’d she land the job with the mayor?”
Jake held the door for her and they stepped into the other side of the school hangar that was divided up into two small offices. He motioned her toward the first one. “Is that a making-conversation question, or a personal one?”
“Why would there be—” She broke off as she noticed the stack of newspapers, carefully sorted, on the surface of his desk. “Oh.”
“I wasn’t intending to snoop. None of my business. But I knocked the damn bag on the floor and the papers went sliding everywhere. When I was putting them back together…well, let’s just say I noticed a trend in the specific issues you’d pulled.”
“I told you I was here to get some questions answered. Here in Cedar Springs, I mean. I’m here, in your hangar, to pick up the papers, and to thank you, once again for being thoughtful and reading between the lines so I wouldn’t have to answer any awkward questions with my mother. That was very appreciated. You don’t know this, but I’ve already returned the favor by saving you, too.”
He leaned against the back of his chair and folded his arms. “Well, I appreciate that, whatever you did, but I should confess that perhaps, in my case, I had an ulterior motive.”
An immediate wariness entered her eyes, which made him wish he’d phrased that in a different way. Also made him wonder what in the hell she was really trying to find out. Something told him this was about more than merely fact-finding details on the latest branch on her family tree.
“Which would be…?”
“Well, you did look awfully cute in your bike helmet.”
She rolled her eyes, but he saw the tension leave her shoulders. “Be careful what you wish for.”
Now he lifted one eyebrow. “Which wish would that be?”
“Getting my attention, with or without flattering my lovely helmet hair.”
Her hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail. It was all glossy and silky looking, and he wanted to pull the rubber band out of it and rake his hands all through it. “Your hair is beautiful.”
“Remind me to come to you whenever I feel the need to fish for ego-boosting compliments. Which I wasn’t, by the way.”
“I know. Makes them all the more fun to give. And I’m being perfectly honest when I say that your hair was one of the first things I noticed about you.”
She laughed. “That was because it was a dripping, stringy mess. Nightmares are hard to ignore.”
“No, after you’d combed the stringy and dripping out of it. I thought then that you had pretty hair. And when it was drying, as we drove back, I thought it then, too. Want to know the second thing I noticed?”
Her smile turned dry. “My charming personality and sparkling wit?”
“Your freckles.”
She immediately ducked her chin, more an instinctive move than a deliberate one. Which had him pushing away from his resting spot and standing directly in front of her. “Why do you hide them?”
She looked up at him. “Because I’m not twelve.”
“You are charming, by the way, and they’re adorable.”
“Yes, just the trait you need when trying to be taken seriously on Capitol Hill.”
He rubbed lightly at her cheek with his thumb. “You’re not on Capitol Hill anymore.”
“Force of habit. And maybe…maybe—”
“Maybe a little shield, even if it’s illusory, goes a long way when you’re in otherwise uncharted territory.”
“You’re a very intuitive man.”
“You say that like you’re surprised.”
“It’s not a trait I come across all that often.”
“In men,” he added.
“In anyone, really. Most people are too caught up in their own thoughts, their own business, their own orbit, to pay attention to details.”
“But you do.”
“Are you asking?”
“No. I’m saying. If it’s something you’re even aware of, it’s presence or lack in others, then you aren’t one of the oblivious ones.”
“I can be.”
“We all can be.” He brought his other hand up to her face, pleased when she didn’t pull away, or duck her chin from his touch. “Why are you here, Lauren Matthews?”
“Here, in your airplane hangar?”
“You’re in my airplane hangar because I have something you want.”
“Newspapers.”
His lips curved. “That, too.”
“I’m guessing you don’t feel the need to fish for compliments too often.”
“Are you telling me you’re strictly here for that stack of newsprint?”
“I could have asked you to courier them, but I don’t think that’s a common service here in Cedar Springs.”
“I suppose I could train Hank to wear dog-size saddlebags.”
“Hank?”
Jake motioned to the inert pile of bones presently stretched out full length under the worktable visible through the door that opened back into the hangar. “Part hound, part floor cover.”
“He does seem very…relaxed.”
“Not exactly the watchdog I’d hoped for, but as a companion…well, he makes a great rug.”
Lauren barely muffled a snort, but nudged at Jake’s shoulder. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”
“He relies on me for food. And yet, he’s still not exactly hell bent on changing my opinion. I don’t think my insulting him is affecting him too greatly.”
“How long have you two been a team?”
“Seven years.”
“So, he’s pretty secure he’s not going anywhere.”
Jake chuckled. “This is true.”
“And, just a guess, but probably not exactly courier material.”
“No, you’re probably right about that. Which brings us to your only other option.”
“Which is?”
“Admitting that you came in person because you wanted your newspapers, and you wanted to get another little buzz.”
Her brow furrowed. “Buzz?”
“Of the natural variety.” He shifted a bit closer. “What, am I the only one who feels it when we get within two feet of each other?”
He felt the light trembling beneath his fingertips.
“Possibly not,” she said.
His smile spread. “Possibly?”
“In my former job, you learn to waffle, evade, and remain as vague as possible. But, given, as you mentioned, I’m not on Capitol Hill…maybe I could upgrade that to a probably.”
“I never turn down a free upgrade.”
Her cheeks warmed under his touch. “That’s a good policy.”
“You haven’t answered my other question.”
“I seem to have been sidetracked.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled. “What was the question?”
“I’m not sure I remember, either. I have a new one that seems to be taking up most of my allotted brain space at the moment.”
“So…ask me.”
“Lauren Matthews, recently of Capitol Hill, and lately a guest of Cedar Springs. A woman of mystery, purpose, and burgeoning mountain biking skills…”
“You do realize that using big words like illusory and burgeoning is totally turning me on.”
“What, a plane jockey can’t be well read?”
“He can be a lot of things, it seems. So…what was the question?”
“Can I find out if you taste as good as I think you do?”
She couldn’t quite stifle the quick grin, or the light blush that sprang to her cheeks. “How can I turn down such a sincere request?”
“Oh, it’s quite sincere.”
She moved in closer and let her hands come to rest on his shoulders. His entire body went instantly rock hard.
“You had me at ‘illusory.’”
“Well, damn. And here I’ve been wasting time talking when we could have been doing this…” He tipped her mouth up to his and slowly lowered his own, until their lips just barely rubbed against one another. If a body could sigh, his did. He kissed her softly, exploring a little, letting them both get used to the taste and feel of one another. It was both the most simple and most erotic thing he’d experienced in a long while.
Simple, because with Lauren, it was elemental. He wanted her, was attracted, stimulated in every sense, physical and intellectual. It was the easiest thing he’d ever done, wanting her. Erotic because she was unknown to him, as he was to her. So much to learn, so much to explore, the anticipation alone was almost enough to send him over the edge.
And the restraint needed to keep from pushing only enflamed him further. Kissing her so gently, respectfully, when what he wanted to do was back her against the wall and devour every last inch of her. Then take her right on top of his desk.
But this was where it started, that first taste, the first true hello between them. It only happened once, and he was damned if he’d rush through even a second of it.
And then she made this little noise in the back of her throat, and her fingertips bit into his shoulders. And any restraint he had, any sense of the bigger moment they might be engaged in, was lost.
He took the kiss deeper, his hunger for her creeping in, no longer willing to be tamped down to something civilized and gentlemanly. And she took that kiss, the way he opened her mouth, just as hungrily. He’d always suspected—known, somehow, some way—that when he found that person, that click, that fit, that it would be exactly like this, this perfect mating of want and need. The only surprise was that it was even better than he’d ever dreamed it could be.