Lost and Found Groom by McLinn, Patricia (most difficult books to read .TXT) 📗

She did have work to do, but it had been the resemblance to a family outing that had kept her from saying yes when Daniel showed up at her door in his newly repaired car with sandwich makings and ready-made salad for lunch. When Daniel had said in that case he’d take Matthew, she hadn’t been able to think of an excuse to say no, since Saturday night seemed to have gone well from what she could see and from Ellyn’s breezily incomplete comments.

“You live at the airport?”

“Yeah. I told you I rented a place. I rented it from Rufus. The operation’s run out of an old house–offices, a lounge and the radio room. There’s living space upstairs. I’ve got a room, my own bathroom and run of the kitchen. Works out for both of us–he likes having someone around because of the equipment, so the rent’s real reasonable.”

“And it happens to be at an airport.”

He grinned. “Yeah, that’s a bonus. So, with all the work you had to do, what are you doing out here with the binoculars?”

She ignored the gibe. “There are reports of forest fires in the Big Horns. I’m seeing if I could spot anything.”

“Could you?”

“Smoke from the far side.” She brushed that topic aside, coming back to the real issue. “I don’t want Matthew around airplanes. Or airports.”

“Flying is what I do, Kendra.” He said it with deliberate emphasis. “I’m his father, and whether he knows that or not now, someday it’ll be important to him to know about me, about my flying.”

“You don’t know what it would be like for him . . . if you don’t come back.”

He took her hand, she tried to pull away. He held on, clasping it between both of his. “Or if you don’t come back.”

“Me? I don’t take risks.”

“You live. That’s the risk. You could–”

“You’re going to say I could be hit by a truck, or struck by lightning. True. But I don’t court risks, Daniel. I don’t go meet them more than halfway. You fly into danger for a job.”

“So did you.”

“I did? How do you figure that?”

“You walked into a hurricane for your job. I remember you talking about taking calculated risks to get the story of Taumaturgio. You seemed to think that was reasonable.” Before she could formulate an answer, he went on, “Kendra, you can’t tell me you don’t know how it feels. You wanted that Taumaturgio story so much–I could see it. Why do you think I followed you to La Baja?”

She gave him a look meant to be quelling, and tugged at her hand. He ignored the tug and grinned, obviously interpreting her expression to his own advantage. “Well, yes, that too. I can’t say that your appeal didn’t figure into my following you.”

“I didn’t mean that.” But her protest didn’t stop the heat of certain memories from traveling through her body. “You followed me because you were playing savior to the world and you thought I’d be a danger to your plans.”

His grin evaporated. “You were in danger.”

“All right, all right. I know. It was the stupidest thing I’d done in my life.” She gave him a cutting look. “To that point.”

He ignored the implication. “I hope you didn’t do anything riskier. A storm like that–it’s like a wolf on the hunt. It’s going to tear into someone, you never know who or where. And yes, I worried about you. You were a stranger to hurricanes and a stranger to Santa Estella. I could also see the determination in you to find out all the secrets of Taumaturgio–that worried me, too.”

“So, you could have let the hurricane deal with me. That would have ended all your worries.”

“Right.” He used his self-mocking tone. “Wouldn’t look good for Taumaturgio, defender of the weak, champion of the downtrodden to let a gringa reporter drown because it was convenient.”

“You talk as if Taumaturgio were a separate person.”

He released her hand. “Still doing the story, Kendra?”

Body language, tone and words all screamed that she’d stepped into hidden territory. For a moment, she felt as if she had her foot raised, poised to step over some invisible threshold, about to venture into a realm that stretched unseen ahead of her. The realm of Daniel Delligatti. Not solely the facts he’d chosen to tell her to this point or the glimpses his lowered defenses had allowed her to see, but into other emotions he’d skirted away from.

“No. I’m not doing any story.” Her words came out almost breathless, as if she’d truly stepped back from a precipice. “We’re off the subject, anyhow. The subject is your job. And flying.”

“My job. I don’t know . . .”

Her heart jolted uncomfortably against her ribs. Something in his voice . . . almost as if returning to his job were in doubt. But he lived and breathed his job, the flying and the danger.

She treated his words with the levity they deserved.

“What? You’re trying to tell me this was such a great government job that you could afford to retire at thirty-two–” His left eyebrow quirked. “Yes, I got your age from my sources. Don’t change the subject again. You’re going to be a full-time retiree?”

“No.”

She exhaled. Just as she’d thought. He’d go back to the job he’d had before Taumaturgio. He’d be off somewhere far away, where she wouldn’t be even tempted to cross into that other realm.

*

Kendra avoided any more direct contact with Daniel until Friday afternoon and the co-op’s party to celebrate all the birthdays that fell in the month of October.

On that day, as many parents as possible were pressed into service to help with the cake, ice cream and games. As Fran said, kids, sugar and excitement were a highly combustible combination.

Kendra kept most of the room and the ever-flowing mass of kids between her and Daniel during the festivities.

She’d returned to the main room from attempting to clean up a four-year-old girl who’d tried to shower in juice, and spotted Matthew sitting on the floor