Nightway (25 page)

“I have a great deal to learn about business.” Lanna closed her eyes as a tiredness washed through her mind.

“You catch on quickly, though,” Chad remarked.

Lanna realized there had been no gentleness in his comment and wondered why. She opened her eyes to
look at him, but his attention was on the traffic around them.

“After your bout with the flu—you need a month’s peace and quiet, away from all this publicity and endless barrage of legalities.”

“Peace and quiet. That sounds wonderful,” Lanna sighed.

“I’ll only be able to stay a few days, but Mother and Carol are there to keep you company when I leave,” he offered. “I’ll join you on the weekends.”

“It will seem strange not to have you around.” She hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

When
his gaze sought hers, she wasn’t able to look away. “It’s probably a good thing that we’re going to be apart for a while, Lanna.” The silent message in his look added all that he couldn’t say aloud.

Despite the fact he was married, her attraction for him hadn’t lessened, and they had been together so frequently these last weeks. The last thing Lanna wanted was another affair with a married man. She suspected that Chad shared her aversion. Yet, this physical attraction that coursed between them was a constant temptation.

“Yes, definitely.” Lanna agreed with his statement in a deliberately carefree voice. “I have leaned on your shoulder entirely too often.”

Unexpectedly, he reached across the seat to take her hand. “You can use my shoulder any time. I mean that, Lanna.” He threaded his fingers through hers.

They had arrived at Sky Harbor Airport. Chad had to let go of her hand to change lanes, and then he made the turn to the private hangars.

A twin-engine aircraft was parked on a cement apron. Painted on the side of the plane was the head of a falcon. Lanna recognized the insignia immediately. It was similiar to the one that had been on the construction
truck John had usually driven. Except this one was different. Off to the side of the silhouette, there were two black, curving lines to signify wings.

“Is that the plane?” she asked.

“Yes.” Chad had seen it, too, and was looking for a place to park the car.

“The emblem on the side—it’s different from the construction company’s. Why?”

“It belongs to the ranch. The ranch is called the Flying F, so wings have been added to the falcon head,” Chad explained.

A frown gathered on Chad’s features, his attention centered on a flightline office. “What is he doing here?” he muttered under his breath.

Lanna followed his gaze to the man leaning against the side of the building, his coral-red shirt standing out boldly. A brown Stetson was pulled low on his forehead, covering jet-black hair, but she knew without question it was Hawk.

A quiver ran through her at the sight of that supple, masculine frame. The vague memory of being held by those arms lost its dreamlike quality. Lanna could feel the exploring and arousing touch of those hands. Her pulse reacted as it had then, racing to some wild, primitive tempo that had lifted her to a new plane. How could she be so strongly attracted to two men so different—Chad and Hawk?

Hawk straightened from the building when Chad stepped out of the parked car. A smile touched his mouth at Chad’s obvious irritation in finding him here. It was fleeting, lasting only until he saw Lanna being helped from the car.

His attention narrowed on her, his electric-blue eyes searching for changes. He found minor ones. Hawk surmised the label on the green slacks and thin, floral blouse belonged to an expensive brand. The sleek,
mink-brown of her hair was styled no differently from the way it was when he had last seen her, yet it had the finished look of a professional’s hand. He knew these things. His awareness of all that was around him was too keen to miss even minute changes.

When she met his eyes, Hawk noted the faint rise of color in her cheeks. She remembered. He’d wondered if she would. She had been drifting in and out of a dream world that knew only sensation. He was glad her memory of it hadn’t dimmed.

“Where is Jake Sanchez? I understood he was meeting us.”

The cool demand from Chad slid Hawk’s gaze to him. “At the ranch. I came in his place.”

“Why?”

A reckless smile curved Hawk’s mouth. It seemed to drop the temperature by several degrees. “You know I wouldn’t have missed this for anything, Chad.” Although his reply was softly spoken, it was in the way of a taunt—a cactus thorn burying itself in the tender nose of a bull.

Untouched by Chad’s anger, Hawk let his gaze glide back to Lanna, who silently faced him. His senses vividly remembered everything about her. Nothing had dimmed, not the tantalizing fragrance of her perfume or the disturbed shallowness of her breathing. Both observations affected him now, stirring desire in his loins. Hawk had forgotten none of the discoveries he’d made about her. Catching the sandalwood scent of her cologne, he wondered if she had again applied it to the back of her knees, as well as behind her ears. There was a wild longing to carry her off somewhere and find out, but the civilized side of him subdued it.

“How does it feel to be an heiress, Miss Marshall?” Hawk watched the interplay of emotions on her face. There was strength and pride in her features, two
qualities that aroused his admiration. She was outgoing and quick to laugh or smile, unafraid to venture away from her home territory. He sensed a depth to her that had never been tapped.

“It’s all been too hectic. I haven’t had time to think about it yet,” she admitted.

Then she turned her head to look at Chad. Hawk observed the exchange of looks and the tightening of Chad’s hand on her waist. Hot-tongued jealousy flamed through him. It shocked Hawk with its force. He had possessed women before and had never been upset if another man held them. Yet his system was charged with this violently possessive emotion, irritating his nerves to a raw state.

“Didn’t I tell you J. B. would repay you in his own way?” Hawk’s voice was sharp, deliberately antagonistic. He watched Lanna stiffen at the question, realizing that he had been right in assuming her friendship with J. B. would be rewarded monetarily. Hawk noted, with grudging admiration, how quickly pride surfaced in her expression to hide the hurt at the discovery.

“What’s he talking about?” Chad demanded with a puzzled frown.

“It’s just something we discussed.” With a shrug of her shoulders, Lanna belied its importance.

Hesitating, Chad seemed inclined to pursue the subject and obtain a more satisfactory answer, then appeared to decide to leave it to another time—when he wasn’t there, Hawk guessed.

“The luggage is in the trunk,” Chad stated as he pivoted toward the rear of the car and separated the trunk key from the others on the ring. “Let’s get it out to the plane so we can be on our way.” Hawk had no argument with that. Neither, it seemed, did Lanna.

Hawk led the way to the plane, toting Lanna’s two new suitcases adorned with the monogram of their
exclusive designer. Walking beside Chad, Lanna carried the smaller case of the set. She could feel both Chad’s tension and her own. And Hawk was the cause.

She knew why she was upset, but she didn’t understand why Chad was. She had assumed the two men were close, considering the events that had taken place the night John died. The barely disguised antagonism between them had come as a surprise.

Although she doubted Hawk had told Chad he’d slept with her, would he? She hadn’t been herself that night. Surely Hawk knew that. The memory of his lovemaking had returned with such vividness that Lanna wondered why it had ever been vague. The rawly passionate sensations of it licked through her veins each time Hawk’s gaze wandered to her. It was unsettling, mostly because she didn’t know what Hawk intended to do with his knowledge—a knowledge that was so intimate.

Standing to one side, Lanna watched Hawk stow the suitcases in the luggage compartment of the sleek, twin-engine aircraft. When he turned to take the small case from her hand, his keen gaze read the uncertainty in her expression. An amused kind of satisfaction glimmered in his smile.

“Have you ever flown before, Miss Marshall?” Hawk appeared to mock her with the formal mode of address.

“Only on commercial jets,” she admitted. “Never in a private plane.”

“We’ll be flying over some wild and beautiful country. You’re welcome to sit in the seat to my right. You’ll have a broader view of the landscape from the cockpit than from a passenger’s window.” On the surface, his invitation appeared merely polite, but Lanna knew it was in answer to her unspoken need to see him alone.

Still she hesitated, glancing at Chad, not wanting to arouse his suspicion if it turned out there was no cause.
“Do you mind?” she queried, requesting Chad’s permission. “I’ve never been in the cockpit of a plane before. It would be quite an experience to see what goes on and have a bird’s-eye view of the country, instead of being five miles up.” Lanna schooled her expression, as if her only thought concerned the novelty of having a new experience.

Chad took a second to search her face and appeared satisfied with what he saw. “I don’t mind.” He smiled with the benevolence of a man granting her a treat. “As a matter of fact, I have some reports I need to study. I’ll do them on the flight. That way I can be free to show you around when we reach the ranch.”

“Wonderful.” Lanna returned his smile and felt like a hypocrite.

Entering the plane, she walked all the way to the front and maneuvered herself into the co-pilot’s seat. As she buckled her seat belt, her gaze wandered over the confusing array of dials and gauges. Then Hawk was joining her, folding his long frame into the pilot’s seat. The brown Stetson was tossed onto a rear passenger’s seat, while a hand combed the flatness out of his thick, black hair.

“Are you all buckled in?” His sidelong glance barely touched her, staying just long enough to see her affirmative nod. “Sit back and enjoy the ride. Just remember to keep your hands off the controls. I wouldn’t want to bruise that lovely jaw to make you let go of them.”

The set of his features warned her it wasn’t an idle threat as he reached for a pair of dark glasses atop the control panel. Lanna clasped her hands tightly in her lap while Hawk began a pre-flight check of the instruments.

The blazing sun beat down on the plane, turning its interior into an oven. Lanna was engulfed by the heat.
The only fresh air came from an opened window on Hawk’s side, and it was hot. The left engine turned over and caught in a deafening roar, but it generated a breeze that at least moved the stifling air around. The engine on the right took hold and added its loud vibrations to the first. Then Hawk was on the radio, requesting taxi and runway instructions from ground control. None of the answers made sense to Lanna, and Hawk didn’t explain.

The co-pilot’s seat might have been empty for all the attention he paid to her while he taxied to the designated runway and prepared for takeoff. The side window was closed, shutting the intense heat inside the plane. When clearance for takeoff came from the tower, Hawk half-turned his head to direct his voice at Chad, seated a row behind them. “We’re rolling.”

Lanna felt the surge of power as the full thrust of the engines sent the plane racing down the runway, gathering speed. When they lifted off and began a steady climp to the east, a cooling blast of air whooshed through the vents. Lanna turned her hot face to the freshness of its cool spray and breathed in deeply.

On the horizon, the ragged peaks of a mountain loomed. “The Superstititons,” Hawk identified, drawing Lanna’s glance to him.

The mirrored finish of his sunglasses reflected only her image, and she turned to look out the window. Their flight path took them directly over the forbidding range of mountains. It was a labyrinth of barren mesas and jagged summits interspersed with a maze of arroyos and canyons that held its secret of lost gold. The twisted, tortured land of volcanic debris was studded with cactus and carpeted with dry brush.

As the plane banked to the north, the sunlight glimmered on a body of water. A lake sat in the middle of the raw mountain desert, laughing at the parched
terrain that surrounded it. A concrete dam acted the role of Tantalus, holding the water out of reach of the arid wasteland while taunting it with the promise of life. The plane seemed to be barely moving, but Lanna watched its shadow race across the jumble of rocky crags and the tangled desolation of the flatlands.

“How’s your knowledge of the Old West?” Hawk asked.

Lanna turned away from the window to answer. “Sketchy.” She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark glasses, but she knew he was looking at her.

“That’s Tonto Basin just ahead. We’re coming up on the Mogollon Rim, roughly a two-hundred-mile-long cliff. The area has been immortalized by nearly every writer of Westerns, including Zane Grey,” he told her.

Lanna looked where he pointed and saw the escarpment that dramatically marked the edge of a high plateau. Erosion had laid bare layers of rock, allowing it to rise abruptly from the desert floor. The walls’ color was shaded from white to gray to cream, depending on the rock exposed. Crowning the rim was a forest of pine and fir, dotted with aspen, a few maple, and oak. The rim was an impressive sight, its line stretching as far as Lanna could see, broken only rarely by a yawning canyon. Civilization had snaked roads in and around it, but nothing had tamed the wildness of the land.

“It’s spectacular, isn’t it?” Lanna mused as the plane’s shadow climbed the walls to skim over the treetops of its mesa. When there was no response from Hawk, she turned to look at him. He faced her, yet she couldn’t tell if he was watching her or looking beyond her out the window at the disappearing line of the rim.

“Yes,” he agreed with her comment in a tone of disinterest. “You discovered for yourself that Chad is good at comforting grieving women, didn’t you?” The dry remark made Lanna dart a glance behind her to
Chad. He was bent over some papers, his briefcase cradled on his lap. “Don’t worry,” Hawk said, reading her mind. “He can’t hear us unless you shout.”