Lost in Her (2 page)

Charlie? Puddin’? A rare smile crossed his face. The woman wasn’t predictable, that was for sure. The bartender slid their drinks in front of them, and Ryan leaned an elbow on the bar after picking up his beer.

“So I’m to call the woman I’m about to make love to
Charlie
? Kinky, but I’m game.”

She lifted one pretty brow. “Awfully confident, aren’t you? Who says we’re going to make love?”

Although he used to be confident, he was no longer. But that was his secret, and not one he was willing to share. He would just have to fake it. He trailed a finger down her cheek, over skin that felt soft and silky.

“Your eyes say so,
Charlie.
” What was her real name? She wasn’t going to tell him, and he wouldn’t ask again, but he wished he knew.

“Maybe,” she conceded. “What should I call you in the throes of passion when I need to yell a name? You are
up
to getting me there, I hope.”

A burst of unfamiliar laughter caught him by surprise. “Oh, I’m
up
to it, don’t you worry.” He liked this woman. “I’m Ry . . .” She’d said no names, yet he wanted her to know his, wanted her to call his out when she came, but she’d set the rules and he would follow them. “Doc. I’m Doc.”

He gave her a frank appraisal, his gaze sliding over the swell of breasts peeking out of the top of her little dress, down to those killer legs he’d already noticed. When he raised his eyes back to her face, it was to find her blatantly giving his body a slow perusal. Arousal hit him low and hard when her pink tongue flicked across her bottom lip. He’d almost forgotten how it felt to want a woman.

“Well?” he asked.

She blinked as if coming out of a trance. “Well what?”

“Do I pass inspection?”

Pink tinged her cheeks, and he barely refrained from giving a victory yell. He’d made her blush, and in less than ten minutes of adding it to his list of things he wanted to do to her. Mentally putting a check mark next to the item, he moved on to the next one. Get her out of this bar and someplace private.

“You’ll do,” she said.

Damn if she hadn’t made him want to laugh again. He leaned close and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Did you just challenge me, cherub?” Her scent, something earthy and intoxicating, floated up, and he inhaled her deep into his lungs. Ingrained in his memory was Kathleen’s fresh, spring-flowers scent, one he’d once loved. Grateful that Charlie didn’t smell anything like his wife, he nuzzled her neck.

A soft, barely discernable sigh drifted past her lips. “Feels good,” she murmured, her breath warming his skin.

Another minute and he’d be divesting her of her dress in a crowded bar. “Let’s go,” he said, lifting her from the seat.

“Wait.”

Disappointment stabbed through him that she’d changed her mind. “Sorry, I thought . . . it doesn’t matter. Have a nice life, cherub.” He turned to go, and she grabbed his hand.

“Don’t be an idiot.” She caught the bartender’s attention and held up two fingers.

There was a first, being called an idiot by a woman. He tipped an imaginary hat. “Sorry ma’am.” She gave him an exaggerated eye roll, making him grin. Already, he was realizing she was unlike other women he’d known, which made her all the more fascinating. He’d bet his next paycheck she didn’t take shit from anyone. In an argument, she’d probably spit fire. It made him hard just thinking about riling her up and going at it with her.

The new beers were delivered, and she handed him one. “Now, let’s go.”

Ryan took her free hand—so soft and small in his—and steered her toward the back deck. Halfway to the stairs leading down to the beach, the woman he’d set his sights on earlier stepped in front of them.

After giving Charlie a dismissive glance, she turned a sultry smile his way. “Hey, you. I’ve been looking for you.”

“I’ve been right here.” She really was gorgeous, with her dark brown bedroom eyes and long hair a man would fantasize about wrapping his fist around while he explored her lush body. Up close, she was a little older than he’d thought, maybe even had a few years on him, but she vibrated with sexuality and the confidence that no man could resist her.

Like a cougar separating its prey from the herd, she pushed between him and Charlie and leaned against him, her soft breast pressing into his upper arm. “I saw you watching me. Come dance with me.”

CHAPTER TWO

C
harlie refused to lower herself to even try to compete with every man’s fantasy. To hell with him. Coming to a pickup bar had been her stupidest idea ever. As she passed an empty table, she plopped down her beer and kept going. Once outside, she took a deep breath of the damp, salty air.

More depressed than when she’d left her house, she headed for her car. The moment when he’d forgotten all about her wouldn’t have stung if she hadn’t liked him so much. “I saw you watching me,” she mimicked the she-witch. Of course, he would watch someone like whatever her name was. Probably something adorable like Heather or exotic like Francesca.

Charlie was used to being ignored. On the air show circuit, some of the other aerobatic pilots resented a female who was as good as or better than they were. She’d never understood why it mattered that she was a woman. If you were good, you were good. Plain and simple. And she was damned good at what she did—something no one could deny.

In her personal life, she’d only had one real boyfriend: another show pilot who, in the beginning, she had believed supported her wholeheartedly. Aaron had been new on the circuit when he’d approached her, gushing compliments left and right. She’d fallen for him, and the stars in her eyes had blinded her to his real motivation. Taking him under her wing, she’d spent months teaching him complicated maneuvers.

Lesson learned. Never trust hot guys. As soon as he believed himself as good as she was, he’d ended the relationship. Well, she had news for him. He wasn’t near her level, and his arrogance was going to get him killed someday. She just hoped that when it happened, he didn’t crash into a crowd of spectators.

On that depressing thought, she hit the remote to unlock the Corvette.

“Nice car, cherub.”

Charlie froze when a hard, warm body wrapped around hers from behind, pushing her stomach against the door. He hadn’t stayed with the sex goddess?

He put his hands on the vinyl roof, caging her between his arms, and nipped her earlobe. “Leaving without me?”

Unable to find any words, she settled for breathing in his masculine scent, a combination of soap, starch, and a hint of spice. She couldn’t think of a more intoxicating, manly smell and had a sudden longing to rub her nose all over him. What would he say if she asked to sniff him from head to toe? Imagining his reaction, a giggle slipped out before she could stop it.

“Wanna share the joke?”

Not even. With his mouth still near her ear, his voice was a low rumble that sent a shiver through her. The man was entirely too potent, and probably more than she could ever handle. But she’d sure like to give it a go for just one night.

“I thought you’d be dancing with the beautiful one.” Her voice was no longer hers. It had turned all husky and tremulous.

“I plan on it, beautiful one.”

She almost gave him a snarky retort, but when he turned her and took her hands, putting them on the sides of his waist, the words died on her lips. The heat in his eyes as he peered down at her sparked a low-burning fire inside her. No man had ever looked at her like that. A killer smile curved his lips as he spread his fingers over her hips, then began to move them to the music coming from the bar.

Wow! Zip bang bam! Chubby little Charlene Morgan was dancing in the parking lot of Buck’s on the Beach with the hottest man to ever touch her. But she wasn’t that girl anymore, she reminded herself. She had worked hard to shed the forty extra pounds her body had once carried, and she had worked even harder to make it in the world of aviation, mostly a man’s domain. She was Charlie, and Charlie was going to damn well enjoy this moment.

The song was a slow one, “Picture,” by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. She only caught snatches of the words through the open door whenever someone entered or left, and she wished she’d listened to it more closely whenever they’d played it on the radio. When she got home, she was going to download the song so she’d be reminded of this night every time she listened to it.

“What’s your first name?” she asked as he swayed them to the beat of the music. Earlier, she hadn’t wanted to know, but now it seemed important.

“Ryan.”

“Irish?” Although, inside the bar, she’d been more interested in the muscles stretching his T-shirt, she’d noticed how green his eyes were. There had been something unique about them, but danged if she could remember, considering the strong hands he was stroking over her back.

“All the way down to my Boston-born toes.” He pulled her against him. “Come ova heah, sugah.”

Hearing him speak with that accent did funny things to her. If she begged, would he talk like that while making love to her? With their bodies pressed against each other, she could feel the hard bulge of his arousal. She wanted
to tell him how good it felt, that part of him rubbing against her. She wanted him to know that she was a hair’s breadth away from leaping up and wrapping her legs around his waist to get even closer. She wanted him to tear off her clothes and show her all she’d been missing. Because she was positive he could.

All that was too much information, so she settled for pulling his face down, reaching for his lips. He let her play with his mouth for a moment, then he took over. Charlie had never, ever been kissed like that before, and felt as if she were in the middle of a hammerhead stall where she’d cut the engine and was plummeting nose down as her heart raced with the pure thrill of it.

“Jesus, cherub,” he gasped when he tore his mouth away. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Did he mean that in a good way or a bad one? The bar door opened as a couple came out, and the words to the song floated to them, something about putting her picture away. Ryan stilled, but before she could ask what was wrong, he began moving again. Something had changed, though. She could feel it in the tightening of the abs under her thumbs and in the very air separating them.

The song ended, and he stepped away. “Thank you for the dance, cherub,” he said, then brushed his mouth over hers, a fleeting touch before he disappeared into the night.

Charlie stood alone and stared into the dark, wondering if she’d hallucinated him. She touched her tingling lips and knew he’d been real. Or maybe he’d just been a lost ghost who’d somehow managed to materialize for a brief return to earth. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes at the feeling that she’d just lost something important.

“Utter nonsense,” she admonished herself, swiping at the stupid tears with a balled-up fist. Lesson learned. Stay away from bars that men with sexy Boston accents might frequent.

On a whim, she put down the top to her Corvette, then got in and started up her baby. For the next hour, she slow-cruised along US 98 to Navarre before making a U-turn and heading home.

There was now one more thing to add to all the regrets she refused to think about. She would not think about a stepsister who blamed her for so many things. Some rightfully so, some not. She would not think about her mother who’d died brokenhearted.

She would not think of a stepfather habitually writing her from prison the first of every month, swearing his innocence and begging her to recant her testimony. Oh, and postscript, if he
was
guilty, which he wasn’t, but if he was, he’d found Jesus and didn’t belong there for that reason alone.

She would not think of the hate-filled glares her stepsister had sent her way during the parole board hearing five months earlier when Charlie had spoken against giving Roger Whitmore his freedom.

Most of all, she would not think about a man who’d made her feel beautiful, even if only for one dance.

As she rode home with the wind caressing her hair and the moonlight casting yellow ribbons of light dancing over the gulf, Charlie imagined herself seated in her plane as she pointed its nose up, up, up.

Never was she as happy as when piloting her red-and-white Citabria aerobatic plane, and she didn’t need a ghost man who disappeared like a wisp of smoke, making her wonder if he even existed.

Up. Up. Up. She needed no one to soar.

Ryan opened his T-shirt drawer and removed his wife’s picture. “I wanted her, Kathleen. More than I’ll ever admit to you.” He set the photo back on his dresser where it belonged, brushing away a piece of cotton lint. “Are you ever going to let go of me?”

She didn’t answer.

Why did that particular song have to be playing? Why had he frozen up like a slab of ice on hearing those words? And after one of the hottest kisses he’d ever experienced, he should be covering a cherub’s sweet body about now. Dammit to hell, when would he be able to put the past behind him?

Toeing off his shoes, he kicked them across the room. The heel of one caught the wall just right, leaving a gouge a quarter inch long. “Just great.” He’d never had a temper before reading Kathleen’s autopsy report, but if anything would unleash it, that fucking did.

His clothes landed in a trail that would have allowed anyone to follow him to the shower. Rage simmered under his skin, feeling like a bed of red ants lived there and were angry with him. So much to be sorry for. So many unanswered questions.

It would have been better if he hadn’t read the words on that Goddamned report. Even better, if Kathleen had lived to tell him the truth. The answers had died with her though, leaving him to always wonder. Had she ever loved him?

The lingering smell of Buck’s cleansed from his body, he slipped on a pair of sweatpants and, shirtless, walked into his spare bedroom and sat at the corner table. After searching through a box of gemstones, he chose one large gray-blue stone and two small ones. Two hours later, he held up a single polished opal pendant on a thin silver chain and a pair of matching earrings. The set would look great on Charlie, but he would never see her again. Wouldn’t ever learn her real name.

He methodically took the jewelry apart.

Ryan breathed through his nose as he ran along the street in the gray light of dawn. Another mile and he could turn and retrace his steps home. Two weeks had passed, and still, he couldn’t forget a curly-haired cherub.

Although he’d thought he was ready to venture out of his self-imposed exile from everything but work, he’d learned he wasn’t, if the mere words of a song could turn his brain to jelly. Because that was the only excuse he could think of for walking away from the first woman to interest him since the third grade. He smiled, remembering his first sight of Kathleen Donavan.

“Kathleen Donavan!”

Eight-year-old Ryan O’Connor held his breath as Sister Mary Rose,
hands on her hips and lips thinned in anger, stared real hard at someone
behind him. It was the first day of the new school year, and already she was mad. They had all heard stories about the dragon, and he’d begged
his mother to let him go to public school because, really, Sister Mary Rose was worse than having a monster living under your bed.

“Bring your book and that paper you’re trying to hide to the front, Kathleen Donavan.”

Although he wanted to turn his head and see who had caught Sister Mary Rose’s attention, he forced his eyes to remain on a picture just past the nun’s shoulder. The scrape of shoes sounded on the room’s floor, and he almost smiled at how slow the dragon’s victim was moving, but caught himself just in time.