Kiss Me Katie! & Hug Me Holly! (12 page)

“You.” He arched up, filled her even more, and she had the terrifying feeling that maybe she'd found what
she
had been missing, too.

 

T
HE DAY AFTER
Christmas at any airport tended to be a wild one. It was no different at Wells Aviation. Planes coming and going, office staff trying to deal with end-of-year stuff, people milling everywhere, mechanics running like crazy, half-dazed in their after-Christmas glow, sluggish from overeating and overdrinking and not enough sleep.

Bryan felt half-dazed, too, but it had little to do with overeating and everything to do with not enough sleeping.

He'd been with Katie instead.

Thinking about it now had a foolish and idiotic grin on his face. Actually, the grin had been there for a full day now, and he couldn't swipe it away.

Nothing could.

Had he actually…fallen in love?

Okay,
that
took away his grin. Easily.

It couldn't be true. Yes, he cared about her, greatly, but…love?

God, no. How wrong that would be.

But what if she thought herself in love with him?

No. That would be impossible, too. She couldn't love him. He was unsuitable for that kind of relationship. He didn't know how to do love, and not for anything would he hurt her.

But what if she didn't realize that?

He'd just tell her so. Only she wasn't in her office. She wasn't in the lobby, or in anyone else's office, or on the tarmac.

Damn. By now, he had a plane full of passengers, ready for his chartered flight to San Diego.

“Check the mechanic's hangar,” Holly suggested, when she came upon him standing forlornly in the lobby.

“How do you know who I'm looking for?”

“Oh, please,” she said with heartfelt disgust. “It's all over your face.”

He left for the maintenance hangar at a fast clip.

Holly followed.

“Don't you have work?” he asked, annoyed.

“Uh-huh.”

After another fifty yards he tried again. “It's pretty chilly out here.”

“I'm fine.”

Exasperated, he turned to her. “Look, I don't know why you interfered in the first place, but I really think I can take over my life from here.”

“Well, being a man, you would think so.” Holly smiled serenely. “And as much as I'd like to take credit for that stupid grin you've been wearing on your face all day, I should tell you, I did it for purely selfish reasons.”

“So why don't you go away for selfish reasons?”

“What? And miss the fun?”

“How do you know I'm heading for fun?”

“I didn't say
you,
big guy, I said
me. I'm
heading for fun. And you're it.”

Bryan sighed.

The hangar was opened to the chilly day on both sides. Wind whipped noisily through. No less than four planes were tied down, being worked on by their team of mechanics. Power tools whizzed and whirled, accompanied by the steady drumming beat of a hammer, a compressor
and the buzz of men shouting to be heard over all the ruckus.

He saw Katie immediately, and moved toward her. She couldn't have heard him approaching with all the din, and since she was turned away from him, she couldn't have seen him enter, either.

And yet, as if she felt him, she looked up. Across noise and clutter their gazes met, and a smile curved her lips.

Bryan went all warm and fuzzy.

Wait a minute!
Warm and fuzzy?
What was wrong with this picture?

Everything!

Dammit, he was here to tell her not to look at him like that. That if she thought she was in love with him she should just think again. That she should have stuck with Mr. Perfect…

No. God, no. He didn't want that, either.

Confusion was totally unwelcome, and he made the mistake of looking at her again.

She held a clipboard. There was a pencil in her teeth and another behind her ear. She wore a modest navy-blue business suit that had her looking mightily professional, and so adorable his fingers itched to grab her.

His heart squeezed and his confusion tripled, and of their own accord, his feet took him to her.

Gently he tugged on a lock of her carefully restrained hair. “So put together.” He had to shout to be heard over the roar around them.

Katie blushed, clearly remembering how only the day before she'd been sporting a radically different look. Hair wild, completely naked, she'd straddled his equally naked body as she'd driven them both to ecstasy.

With not a blush in sight.

“I need to talk to you,” he shouted, frustrated at the noise. “Can we…” He gestured outside, but she shook her head.

“I'm stuck here for a while,” she yelled in his ear. “Invoicing.”

And he had a plane full of people waiting on him. “But I—”

Another compressor joined the first. More hammering. And a new whine of a power tool upped the volume to beyond loud.

“Yes?” She smiled at him, an angelic, sexy smile in complete contrast with their annoying, overwhelming surroundings.

Tell her.
“I…”
Tell her now, that her first instincts were right, he wasn't Mr. Perfect, and never would be. He wasn't a man she could bank on, didn't want to be a man she could bank on.

“Bryan?” she yelled.

Oh, that sweet smile. “I…”

“You…” she shouted encouragingly.

“Katie…I…” Damn.
“I love you,”
he yelled at the top of his lungs, just as by a twist of fate, maybe his own Christmas curse, the compressors and all the banging abruptly stopped.

So did his heart as those three huge terrifying words rang out in the silent, stunned, amused,
filled
hangar.

Applause rang out. So did whistles and catcalls.

“Woo-hoo!”

“You go, boy!”

“Bryan and Katie sitting in a tree,” sang a group of mechanics.
“K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

Bryan stood there, rooted by shock.

He dared a peek at Katie, prepared to face her laughter, as well. But she wasn't laughing, she was staring at him, agog, as if she'd swallowed a toad.

Given the blockage in his own windpipe, he knew the feeling.

“You…what?” she whispered.

Oh, sure,
now
they could whisper. “Nothing,” he said quickly. “I didn't say anything.”

She didn't believe him, of course. And then she walked away, and with each step she took, his poor overwrought heart constricted.

W
HEN KATIE TURNED
on her heel and walked across the hangar toward the only chair she could see, she wasn't exactly thinking. She couldn't. The ringing in her ears and the pounding of her pulse took over.

Driven by a need to sit before she fell, she sank to the seat and closed her eyes.

“Katie.”

He had the most wonderful voice, it should be illegal to have a voice like that. He also had the most wonderful scent, a warm, sexy male sort of scent.

That should be illegal, too.

“Hey! Are there going to be wedding bells?” one of the men called out. “Because I think we could do the wedding right here, right in the hangar.”

“Yeah! We could part the planes to make an aisle,” someone else called out.

“And we could throw O-rings instead of rice!” came yet another brilliant suggestion.

“Touching,” Holly said. “Every girl's dream, right Katie?”

Bryan groaned, and Katie opened her eyes. Yep, his expression matched the misery in his voice.

Because of their audience, she wondered, or because he'd blurted out something he hadn't meant to?

Both, most likely.

The intercom system crackled again, making Katie jump. Mrs. Giddeon's voice echoed through the hangar, calling for Bryan to come charter his flight.

Clearly annoyed enough to forget they had clients and passengers listening, the woman threatened to personally hunt Bryan down if he didn't get his “fine-looking behind” to the front, and pronto.

“Would you look at that timing,” Holly said with a tsk. “Can't leave passengers waiting, and you certainly wouldn't want Mrs. Giddeon hunting you down. No telling what she'd do to that ‘fine-looking behind.”'

“I'm sorry,” Bryan mouthed to Katie.

“No biggie,” she said, shrugging, as if men mistakenly told her they loved her all the time.

Hey, she'd at least have a memory to keep her warm at night.

“No biggie?” he repeated, looking upset. “I—”

“Bryan,”
droned Mrs. Giddeon. Unhappily. “You have a mutiny brewing here.”

“You'd better go,” Katie said.

“But—”

“Oh, please,” Holly moaned. “It's just a flight. You'll be separated for what? Maybe four hours? Cripes, children, hold it together, would you? Some of us would like to keep our breakfast down.”

Then he was gone, and Katie was still sitting.
Had
to be sitting, since her watery legs refused to hold her. Around her the staff fell blessedly silent. Out of respect, she figured, grateful.

That's when she was hit with a shower of O-rings.

Arms slung around each other, her so-called friends and staff came forward humming—off-key—the wedding march song.

 

“I
SUPPOSE
you're going to pretend you don't want to talk about it,” Julie said sometime later.

Katie feigned disinterest. “
It
being…what?”

“Helllooo…this morning's declaration? By the wild and hereto uncommitted Bryan Morgan?”

“Oh,
that
it.”

Julie grinned. “How totally romantic was that! He declared his love in front of everyone.”

“Yeah. Romantic.” She was still pulling O-rings out of her hair. Obviously no one had heard him tell her he'd said nothing.

“Come on,” Julie encouraged. “Tell me how Mr. Risk came to announce his love for Ms. Security.”

Was she
that
easy to read? And anyway, it was no longer a matter of risk versus security. Yes, she'd probably always hesitate before taking a risk, but suddenly—or maybe not so suddenly at all—she didn't want to settle for status quo, either.

Bryan had claimed to love her.

Good Lord, the most wonderful, exciting, thrilling, fascinating man on the planet had thought for that one brief shining moment that he
loved
her.

Julie grinned because she'd spoken out loud. “And now back to our regularly scheduled programming, which apparently you're just tuning into. Do you love him back?”

Oh, yeah. “No.”

Julie grinned. “Your dreamy smile answered differently.”

“It's lust, not love,” Katie said, frowning down at her clenched hands. She'd seen the horror on
Bryan's face, she knew he wished the words back.
“Lust.”

“Well, either one of them works as a hell of a bed partner on a cold winter night.”

Maybe. For a while anyway. But lust wasn't ever going to be enough for Katie, there had to be more.

Bryan was what he was. She knew and accepted that. Maybe he wasn't flying stunts at the moment, but he would be soon, and that was scary, but okay. His sense of wonder at life, his love of excitement and adventure, it had all led her to this point. For that alone she loved him.

And he must never know.

She'd learned a lot about herself in these past weeks. She'd learned that being grown-up and mature is fine, but there had to be room for fun, too, that fun was okay. She'd certainly learned that maybe risk is part of what makes life so worthwhile.

Loving Bryan was certainly the mother of all risks. But she'd get over it. Maybe even try again someday.

And yet…she had the need to prove to herself that she wouldn't lose her nerve, that she would indeed risk again.

In light of that, filled with determination, she
marched into the mechanic's hangar. After all, it didn't have to be her
heart
she put on the line, right?

At the sight of her, everything and everyone went momentarily silent. “No show this time, guys,” she announced.

“Bryan loves Katie, Bryan loves Katie,” came a singsong voice from the back of the hangar, and trying to maintain her calm, she headed toward it, knowing it was Steve, their head mechanic and also part-time flight instructor.

“Unfortunately,” she said in the face of his wide grin. “It's
you
I want to talk to. I want flying lessons.” Behind her, everyone gasped.

Katie ignored them. This was
her
risk and she was sticking to it.

Because, really, Bryan had nailed it. All her life she'd been both fascinated and terrified by planes. Getting a job in an airport, however small, had been a step in the right direction. Learning to let a man like Bryan into her life had been another. “I want to start right now,” she said quickly, before she lost her nerve. “You have a problem with that?”

“No, ma'am.” He grinned. “Does Bryan know you're doing this? Because he might want to be the one to teach you…”

“Can you go right now or not?” She was in a huge hurry to do this now, to prove to herself she could. Without Bryan.

“Well…” Steve took off his hat and scratched his head.

“I'll pay double the going rate,” she said rashly, and Steve lifted his brow, nodded and off they went. Just like that, with everyone left gaping in her dust.

Beat that,
Katie thought with giddy wonder. It felt great. Better than great. It was almost as good as—

No, nothing was as good as making love, not now that she had Bryan to use as a scale.

But this was indeed a close second.

B
RYAN HADN'T EVEN
set his feet onto the ground when Julie came flying out onto the tarmac, her shirt flying up to alarming heights in the sharp wind.

“You're not going to believe this,” she said, huffing and puffing. “But—”

A plane buzzed them, and Bryan scowled. “
Idiot.
That was too damn close.”

“Yeah, about that—”

“Hey.” His frown deepened as he gazed upward, shielding his eyes from the sun with his
hand. “That's Steve's plane. Is he teaching some idiot to fly like that?”

“Maybe you should come with me,” Julie suggested with a tight smile. “To the control room.”

“Why?”

“Because that idiot? It's Katie.”

 

B
RYAN PACED
the small control room like a caged tiger. He alternatively swore at the controls, swore at the sky, swore at the plane as it occasionally came into his view.

All the while Holly, who apparently had nothing to do except torture him, laughed, unperturbed when he turned on her with fire in his eyes.

“Oh, relax,
ace.
She's only taking a flying lesson.”

“Yeah.”

“And anyway, you probably have work to do.” She smiled. “Why don't you vacate?”

He wasn't going anywhere until Katie was down.

“You're sweating, Bryan.”

“Holly?”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up.”

She only grinned. “Don't you see the irony of this? All these years you've been flying with reck
less abandon, never worrying about what it did to the people who care about you.”

Bryan stared at her. God. How could she be so right? “Well, waiting really stinks.”

“Bingo.” And she softened. “You know, whoever said
all
men are stupid wasn't quite accurate. You're not stupid, just slow.”

Bryan shook his head and grabbed the radio headset. “Katie,” he barked. “Come down. Now.”

“That's not proper radio protocol,” Holly pointed out.

As if he cared. “Please,” he added into the headset while Holly just laughed at him.

 

K
ATIE WAS HAVING
the time of her life when Bryan's command came over the radio. She leaned back from where she'd had her nose pressed to the window, practically giddy with the thrill, and looked at Steve.

“Was that…a command?” she asked, shocked. “Was he
commanding
me to come back down?”

“I don't think a command includes the word
please.
”

“He
demanded,
Steve.”

“But he said please. I heard him.”

She'd heard something else, too—an inexplica
ble quaver in that deep, familiar voice, one that instincts told her was fear.

For her.

“Steve, would you say I did well for my first lesson?”

“Well…”

“Okay, forget about that little tower problem on the takeoff.”

“We nearly hit it. Twice,” Steve reminded her. “I wouldn't call that a
little
problem.”

“Other than that, how did I do?”

Steve's lips quirked. “I suppose I should forget about that little dipping problem, as well.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with a little roll.”

“On your first lesson?”

Katie couldn't help it, she laughed. She felt so incredible, so excited, and she was flying.
Flying.
Up in the air, with the wind beneath her wings, and loving every second.

“Katie.” It was Bryan again.
“Now.”

She borrowed the headset from Steve. “No,” she said succinctly.

“We need to talk,” Bryan said in his sternest voice.

She wasn't sure she liked his tone. “I don't think so.”

“Yes, we do. Now, as a matter of fact.”

Katie sighed. “Look, you said something you didn't mean. You said sorry. I accepted. If
I
can get over it, so can you.”

Total radio silence.

Then he spoke again, his voice not nearly as calm, “Come down, now.”

“You know, Katie, I really like you,” Steve said. “But I really,
really
like living, so…”

“Bryan wouldn't hurt you! Well, probably not,” she amended.

“Steve.” Bryan again. Voice carefully controlled. Very tense. “Get her down here or—”

Steve flicked off the radio, but shot Katie a reluctant grin. “It's time, sweetcakes, let's take it home.”

Yeah, it was time, she'd done what she'd wanted. She'd proved to herself that there was more to life than fear. That she could indeed put it all on the line and take a risk.

But now there was a man down below, waiting for her, and he was the biggest risk of all. One she wanted with all her heart and could never have.

“Let's go,” she said, determined not to let anything ruin her happiness.

She waited until Steve landed. “Oh, I can park it!” she cried.

“No, I think—”

“Please? Let me have my crowning glory.” With careful concentration she followed Steve's terse directions and pulled straight in, toward the hangar and its opened doors. The small figures standing there gradually came into focus. One by one she made out each of the mechanics. Then Matt. Even Holly. She saw Bryan, standing in the open hangar door, his pilot's uniform gracing his tall, leanly muscled body. He looked right at her, and though not one of his muscles seemed to relax, she would have sworn his eyes filled with relief.

Cocky now, she waved to him.

“Katie!” Steve yelled. “Keep both hands on the—”

Too late.

On the slight incline, the plane veered to the right. Three mechanics dove out of her way. Matt stood there a moment longer, his mouth hanging open in disbelief, terror in his eyes, before Holly tackled him and pulled him down to safety.

“Katie!”

“Steve, stop hollering, you're distracting me.”

“But—”

“Hush!”

He only groaned and ducked.

She whizzed by without killing anyone.

That was her last thought as the plane's wing
clipped the steel hangar side wall, buckling it like a cheap toy as the plane skidded to an abrupt halt ten feet short of her tie-down spot.

When the plane shuddered still, Katie opened her eyes and risked a peek at Steve.

He straightened, looked out the window and grimaced. “Hey, remember last week when you almost killed our vice president and you didn't get fired?”

“Yeah?”

“Hope your luck is still holding.”