His Wedding Date (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 2) (12 page)

Shelly wasn't as tall as Rebecca, he thought as he looked her over from head to toe, sitting in her seat beside him. She was so much slighter, her figure almost boyish. She should have felt so different in his arms. That alone should have told him something was wrong last night.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember. Exactly how had the dream woman felt in his arms? How had her body fit with his? How had it felt to be on top of her, moments from slipping inside her?

Brian swore softly as his body started to respond to the memories, even if his brain was still foggy on some of the most important details.

The captain came on over the intercom, announcing they were next in line for takeoff and warning them of some turbulence between here and Miami.

Turbulence?

Perfect.

The engines started whining and straining, until the captain sent the plane shooting forward on the runway.

The plane lifted off the ground, roaring into the skies. Shelly kept a white-knuckled grip on the armrest between them, and Brian felt like a jerk.

Just what she needed, he thought, another plane ride, two days after their crash, turbulence in the air between here and Miami and him in the seat beside her. He figured the nicest thing he could do for her right now was to somehow distract her while the plane climbed into the sky, and he knew two surefire topics of conversation that could do it.

The night before or the day before that? He pondered his choices, then decided she'd probably take a conversation about the plane crash better than one about the two of them.

"The phone call I got when you left," he said, not giving her a chance to cut him off. "It was from the FAA inspector who's been assigned to handle the crash."

She looked straight ahead, didn't move a muscle.

"They got the plane out late yesterday, and a mechanic spent most of the night going over it."

"Okay, what happened?" she asked without looking at him.

"Shelly, there's no easy way to say this. The guy from the FAA said it's too soon to say for sure, but I know how these people work. They're very careful and very cautious about releasing any information on a crash until they're sure what happened, but... "

"What?" she demanded.

"The guy said he felt he had to warn us. He believes someone tampered with the plane, that someone tried to kill us."

She looked at him then, finally. "No way. Nobody would want to kill us."

"I don't think they did," Brian said. "We weren't even supposed to be on the plane. No one but Charlie knew we would be using it, until I called the hangar Thursday and told them we'd be taking the plane for the weekend."

"So, what's going on?"

Brian shook his head. "The only thing I know is that Charlie was supposed to be flying to Orlando on Monday on business. I don't know who else knows that, and I don't know why anyone would want to hurt him. Do you?"

She hesitated for a full three seconds, then said, "No."

"What?" Brian said, jumping into the silence she'd left. "You know something?"

"Nothing," she insisted. "I'm sure it's nothing."

"Let me be the judge of that," he said.

"I just... " She shook her head, obviously having trouble taking it all in. "I got a phone call last week."

"Go on," he urged.

"A man, one who wouldn't tell me his name."

"What did he say?"

"That I had to get away from the engineering firm. That there was danger there."

"What kind of danger?"

"He didn't say. He just wanted me to get out of there. He said it was too dangerous in that office for me to stay there."

Which brought up a ton of questions—about the business, the people they worked with, the kinds of danger the man could have possibly been referring to. But that wasn't what he wanted to know first. The first thing he worried about was her—her safety and her reasons for not sharing it with him.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" Brian asked, too harshly. He realized it the instant the words left his mouth.

"Why would I?" she shot back. "I'm not a little girl anymore. I don't need a keeper."

"I noticed," he said before he could stop himself, managing all too well to turn the conversation to the one she'd been dreading.

Shelly blushed furiously. Brian suspected she spent more than a moment considering the merits of slapping his face—again.

She had slapped him last night, hadn't she?

He was relieved when she didn't do it this time, although he probably deserved it. And he hated this awkwardness between them, especially knowing he was the one who'd put it there.

"I'm sorry," he said, backing off as best he could. "Really, I am. And I know you don't want to talk about this, but I think we have to, Shel. Tell me what happened last night."

"Nothing," she said, closing her eyes so he couldn't see anything they might give away. "Nothing happened."

"Like hell it didn't."

The dream was much too vivid for him to believe that.

He looked her over one more time, trying to see past the bruises on her face and the guarded look in her eyes. He remembered the way she'd flinched earlier when she thought he was going to touch her, as if she couldn't stand him to do that.

For a moment, he wondered if he might have hurt her last night. Sex was such a physical thing, and he was a big man. He'd always taken care never to hurt a woman, but hell–He couldn't remember what happened last night, but he doubted he'd been very careful, and she was such a tiny thing. It wouldn't take much to hurt her.

He really didn't know, and it was all he could do to keep himself from leaning closer to her, from drawing in the scent of her. He wanted to know if it matched the one he'd remembered in the shower this morning, a distinctive, womanly smell. From his dream? Or from her skin?

"There was nothing to it," she insisted. "It was a silly misunderstanding."

"It was more than that," he said, just as insistent. He was sure of that. Her reaction told him convincingly.

"Brian," she almost pleaded with him. "You were drunk. You'd just watched the woman you love marry someone else and—"

"What? What else?"

"Nothing else."

"Then why are you so upset? Why were you trying to run away from me this morning?"

She shifted in her seat, bringing herself another inch or two farther away from him, and knitted her fingers together with her hands in her lap while she considered her words very carefully.

"I just want to go home," she said, her knuckles turning white. "That's all. Look at everything that's happened this weekend. Surely you can understand that. I want to be home."

He wasn't buying it for a second. Not one single, solitary second. But he thought he'd seen the glisten of tears in her eyes, too, and he'd feel like even more of a heel if he pushed her so hard he made her cry. He'd have time to get to the bottom of this, time to try to make amends, if that was possible, once they got back to Naples.

"Shelly," he said, at a loss as to what he could do now, but unable to ignore his need to somehow ease her pain.

"Please, just leave it alone," she pleaded softly.

Then, the bottom seemed to fall out from under the plane.

It seemed to drop a good three inches, then whip back up, drawing gasps from the first-class section to the tail.

Shelly put one her hand over her mouth and the other around her waist.

"You going to be okay?" Brian asked, touching her lightly, easily, without even thinking about it.

She tensed again, pulling away from him, then forced herself to relax.

"I'm fine," she lied.

He took a deep breath, then let it out as he tried to assess the situation. He didn't think she'd let him touch her again, and he couldn't say that he blamed her, considering what he feared he'd done.

Fighting himself every inch of the way, Brian made himself move to the aisle seat, leaving an empty one in between them, because he knew she wanted the space. He wasn't willing to go any farther, not just yet, not until he'd decided what to do.

If any other man had hurt her this way, he'd have beaten the guy up. But he'd done this himself. And he didn't see how he could ever make it up to her.

Brian sat rigid in the seat, staring straight ahead, smelling again that heady woman smell, hearing again the music of that slow, sexy saxophone they'd danced to the night before, fighting to push away the other memories he had of that night.

* * *

It was a rough flight. They'd run into some serious thunderstorms, and after about fifteen minutes of watching Shelly fight her own fears, Brian had had all he could stand. He moved back over into the seat he'd vacated, pushed the armrest up between his and Shelly's seats and hauled her trembling body into his arms.

"Just until we land. Okay?" he said.

Shelly felt something inside her turning to mush at the sound of his voice and the feel of his arms closing around her. She couldn't fight him right now. Her self-protective instincts were as strong as anyone's, but she was frightened and furious, all at the same time. And she just couldn't fight him anymore right now. She was exhausted.

But this was the last time he was ever going to do this to her, she vowed, even as the plane lurched again.

He pressed her head against his chest, so close she could hear his heartbeat, impossibly steady beneath her ear. Hers was racing, she was so scared.

Still, last night was the last time she was ever going to make a fool of herself over Brian Sandelle, she promised, even as she clung to him.

"Ahh," she cried out as the thunder crackled overhead and the plane swayed sickeningly in the wind.

"It's going to be okay," Brian said, leaning down toward her. He turned her face up to his, leaving his hand flush against her cheek. His eyes locked on hers, and she found her lips just inches from his, found her breath mingling with his.

"I promise," he said, "I'll make it right again."

He wasn't talking about this sickening plane ride, she knew. Not that it mattered. She didn't plan to be near enough for him to try to make anything right. She was going to get as far away from him as possible. It was her only hope.

"Do you know how much I hate the idea of hurting you?" Brian asked huskily, and it cut to the quick, as if he'd laid open her chest in one stroke and bared her heart to him.

"Yes."

She knew he felt something for her. It just wasn't nearly enough. She couldn't make him feel what she wanted him to feel for her.

She couldn't make him love her.

Chapter 7

Monday morning, not yet daylight, and Shelly knew it was going to be a rotten day, because she was about to come face-to-face with Brian again, mere hours after she'd gotten rid of him.

He was driving her to work. He'd insisted, and by the time she'd finally gotten home Sunday, she'd been so tired and so eager to get rid of him that she hadn't taken the time to talk him out of it. She'd just agreed, short-term relief for longer-term pain. Tonight she'd send out more resumes for jobs that would take her far, far away from Brian.

But for now, here she was, bone tired, still stiff and sore from the plane crash, still humiliated by being mistaken for Rebecca, still baffled at the idea of someone tampering with their plane, still overwhelmed by the dozen irritating little things she had to take care of.

Her car keys were gone, and so far, she hadn't been able to find her spare set. So she couldn't drive her car until she went to the dealer and got new keys. She shouldn't drive, anyway, until she replaced her driver's license. She'd had to get the rental manager to let her into her own apartment and arrange to have new keys made for that lock.

One little thing piled on top of another, until she was ready to scream.

That's when
he
showed up, the man she'd been dreading seeing, here at her apartment at six-fifteen in the morning. There was no justice in the world, she decided.