Island Hearts (Jenny's Turn and Stray Lady) (8 page)

She touched keys, stared at her computer display. “I have no seats on that flight, sir. If you’d like to go on standby?”

“Yes, all right. And book me back, too.”

She paused, her hands poised over the keyboard. “On which flight, sir?”

“The same plane.”

“The same? Sir—”

“It does come back, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it comes back – immediately.” She glared at him, evidently trying to decide just how much of a nut case he was. “That flight only stays on the ground at Ketchikan for—”

“That’s fine. Just do it, would you?” he said abruptly, embarrassed at having to explain his irrational impulse. He pushed a credit card across the counter to her, and that seemed to silence the protests. Apparently it didn’t matter how crazy he was if he was willing to pay.

Then he waited, prowling the terminal on the wrong side of the security checkpoint, watching the clock. The loudspeaker call, when it came, was difficult to hear, but he caught “…standby passengers Mudge and Austin,” and dashed back to get the boarding pass that would let him through the security checkpoint.

“No hand luggage?” asked the security guard, hiding his smile as he recognized Jake.

“No.”

“You’d better hurry, sir. Gate twenty-nine has already boarded.”

So he ran down the empty corridor, flashing his boarding pass at the stewardess, turning to ease his broad shoulders down the narrow corridor, looking for the curtain of long, brown hair that would identify Jennifer.

He didn’t find her until he was on the plane.

She was near the front, in the non-smoking section, wedged between a quietly suited businessman and a youth with a punk haircut that projected from his head in a blond-turning-purple nightmare.

“Excuse me—” he bent over the purple hair, speaking low-voiced, “—would you mind trading seats with me so I can sit with my wife? I’m two rows back, in 8F.”

Despite the hair, the boy smiled and nodded, pulling an over-sized pack from under the seat and stumbling over Jake in his hurry to comply.

Jake had dropped into the aisle seat, his shoulders too wide for the space allotted them, pushing into Jennifer’s space. He was uncomfortably aware that she shifted to move away from him. The stewardess walked back, glanced down at him with a frown, shrugged and walked on past.

“Your wife?” Jennifer’s voice sounded amused. Thankfully, she wasn’t looking at him; he was sure he’d flushed deeply enough that it would show even through his dark skin. He heard the anger clipping her voice. “That’s a new one. You do like to get your own way, don’t you?”

She kept her eyes away from him, looking across the businessman’s open copy of
Time Magazine
to the window. They were starting to move away from the terminal building. “You do whatever it takes,” her low voice lashed him. “Lies, flashing that charm.
Whatever it takes.
”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

She glanced at him. As usual, he couldn’t read anything in her eyes as she said wryly, “You have me as a captive audience, so have your say. You’ve been itching to lecture me all week. You—” She stopped talking abruptly, her hands tensed briefly as the jet accelerated. At the front of the passenger cabin, the stewardess was standing, facing the passengers as she began to demonstrate the safety features of the airplane. On the loudspeaker a male voice narrated an accompaniment to her motions.

Jake covered Jennifer’s clenched hand with his. “Why didn’t you tell me you were afraid of flying?”

She jerked her hand away. “What difference would it make? Shh! I want to hear this.”

The stewardess gave them an annoyed look. He dropped his voice. “When we flew to California last year, you got this same demonstration and—”

“Two years ago,” she corrected. “That was two years ago. I haven’t gone anywhere with you in over a year.”

“You haven’t? Surely—”

“Nowhere. Not since you hired Hans.”

“Are you sure?” He shifted uncomfortably. “You must be. You’re always right about the details – I didn’t realize.”

“Didn’t you?” she said coldly, “Since the day Hans walked into your studio, I haven’t gone on location anywhere.”

She was glaring at him, challenging him. He stared back, picking out the green glints in her hazel eyes. Her eyes had always concealed more than they revealed, yet sometimes he’d imagined they responded to him.

He remembered the California trip. They’d been doing a film on a Canadian expatriate who lived in California and claimed to have visions of the future.

The psychic had put them up in his large beach house. Jake had just finished a rather unsatisfactory affair with a girl named Merle, another in a string of attempts to distract himself from his futile attraction to Jennifer.

It was starting to affect his work. He supposed it was because she was so indifferent to him – some kind of arrogant male desire to be universally desired by women. He liked to think he was free of that kind of nonsense, but he was becoming obsessed by Jennifer, dreaming dreams that would have her slapping his face if she’d ever known.

He’d spent three nights sleeping in the psychic’s guest room, aware of Jennifer in the next room, imagining he could hear her breathing, see her sleeping. During the days, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, watching her move about in the thin clothes that were suitable for the hot sun, but showed every seductive curve of her body.

He hadn’t slept, and he’d made a mess of the film, shooting again and again, missing the best angles, his eyes watching Jennifer when they should have been watching the viewfinder.

Despite the fact that he’d grown to depend on her so much, he’d vowed not to take her with him on the next trip.

If he saw a little less of Jennifer, perhaps he could shake this hopeless infatuation he had for her. If he could get her back in the background of his life, out of his dreams—

So he had hired Hans, ostensibly as a photographer, but actually as a buffer between himself and Jennifer.

It hadn’t helped.

She was glaring at him, challenging him to deny her accusation. He couldn’t tell her the truth, and he wasn’t very good at lies. Weakly, he said, “If being left behind bothered you, why didn’t you say something?”

She shifted in her seat, her hair sweeping back in an angry gesture. He smelled the soft perfume from her shampoo. He wanted to touch the hair, smooth it back, see her eyes close as he covered her lips with his. Those lips moved angrily, saying, “Jake, I
did
! I’ve told you that I wanted something more challenging – most recently, I asked if I could get back into active film-making, and you gave me that bloody hamburger thing!”

“I didn’t know you minded that much.” He’d never really thought about what she must be feeling, her reaction to Hans coming in to take over much of her job. “
Damn it, Jennifer!
Why did you have to wait until now – when you’ve already decided to leave – to speak your mind. You know I get busy, involved, can’t concentrate on anything but the job I’m on. You, of all people, should understand that. If you had a problem, if you weren’t happy about your work, you should have made me listen.”

“Now that’s a good one! What was I to do? Hit you over the head with it? Stand in front of you like a road block and demand to be heard?” She was glaring at him, breathing quickly, her breasts rising and falling rapidly under the sweater.

He moved slightly closer to her, suppressed an urge to touch his lips to her forehead, said, “If that’s what it takes, yes.”

She stared at him, hazel eyes turned black with anger. Then, suddenly, she laughed, shaking her head and saying, “Maybe you’re right, I don’t know. In any case, it doesn’t matter now.”

“Doesn’t it? Jennifer, why are you really going on this crazy excursion? Is it George? Do you love him that much? I don’t think you do. I don’t think you know what you’re doing. You’re throwing your career away. If you’re discontent with the way things are, we can work on that, change a few things.”

She stared at him intently. “What things, Jake?”

There was something in her eyes beyond his comprehension. He shifted uncomfortably and found himself changing the subject.

“This flight wasn’t booked going back when I got on. You could probably get a flight back – come back to Vancouver and spend some time thinking about this.”

“There’s nothing to think about.”

Without planning to, he found himself touching her face, turning it towards him so he could look into her eyes. “Why are you on this plane, Jennifer? It’s not like you to throw everything away so rashly. Surely—”

Her eyes dropped away, covered by long brown lashes. “As you said the other day, you really don’t know anything about me.”

“The other day, when you quit, you were screaming at me.” He couldn’t get over that – Jennifer, flaming hot and screaming.

“Would you rather I screamed now?” she asked on a shaky laugh.

“It might be better.” He found himself smiling back at her, admitting, “I’d like it. I’d know what you were thinking then. It’s a mask, isn’t it? All that cool confidence, not the real Jennifer at all. What are you really thinking now?”

Her eyes met his, sparkling halfway between laughter and anger. “If you want the truth, I’m wishing you’d get the hell off this plane.”

He gestured to the window. “We’re thirty thousand feet high. Getting out could be a problem.”

She’d jerked her head abruptly, staring out the window. “My God, we are! I was so busy being furious with you, I didn’t notice the takeoff— Jake, will you stop this crazy attempt to get me back to work. I’m not coming.”

All the arguments he had intended to use evaporated as he watched her turn away to look back out the window.

“All right,” he said softly, wanting to bring her gaze back to him. He reached over and loosened her hand from its grip on the arm of the seat, turning it and smothering it in his own large brown hand. Hers seemed small and fragile, which struck him as odd because she had always appeared so sturdy and self-contained.

He remembered the day she had walked into his life, standing in the entrance to his studio, calmly watching while he tried to send her away. He didn’t have a job for her. He was overworked and too busy to waste time on brand new graduates who had stars in their eyes.

He’d never known exactly how it happened, but she was seated at his messy desk, straightening out his attempts to schedule what was quickly turning into a nightmare of overwork instead of a successful artistic enterprise.

Now he couldn’t imagine how Austin Media could survive without her, how he could maintain his sanity and still work.

“Are you really so afraid of flying? Why didn’t you tell me? We could have gone to California by train last year.”

“Two years ago,” she corrected once more, her voice businesslike, “and that would have been silly. Yes, I’m always nervous. No, don’t start telling me all the statistics about air travel being safest. I know it all, but when I’m up here I can’t help feeling that I have to keep this beast in the air by effort of will… If I relax for a minute, it’ll tumble to the ground.”

“Try it – just for a minute.” He could feel her hand starting to relax as he massaged the tense muscles of her fingers. He found himself wondering what else she was afraid of, wanting to slay her dragons for her.

“That’s pretty risky,” she said, laughing but still tense.

“Life is full of risks,” he said softly, taking her other hand so that they both rested in his, holding her eyes with his.

She said defensively, “I do know how silly it is, I really do. That’s why I get on these things anyway. And I won’t do anything silly, like screaming or demanding to be let off. I’ll just be quietly frightened.”

“Are you?” he asked.

She smiled then, shaking her head. “Not so much now,” she admitted. “Usually I try to get involved in a really good book the night before I fly. Then I spend the whole trip reading, pretending I’m at home in bed.”

“I’m sorry I’m not a good book,” he said then, speaking before he thought, wishing the words back when he saw her flush as she pulled her hands away from his.

He couldn’t even apologize or explain, because he had meant exactly what she thought he had. He had this clear image of her, lying in his arms, the bedding tumbled around them and her eyes looking up at him with green and golden fires burning deep in their depths.

The stewardess delivered their drinks at that moment. The businessman on Jennifer’s other side was apparently asleep – or pretending to be, while he listened to Jennifer and Jake.

Without looking, he was aware that she steadily sipped her drink until it was done, then she put the glass down with a click that seemed to indicate some sort of decision.

“Jake, I want to tell you something about George. You’ve got the wrong idea, actually. George—”

“Don’t, Jennifer.” He couldn’t bear the thought of listening to her declare her love for another man. “I don’t really want to hear it. I just don’t like to see you— no, don’t get your feathers up! I’m not going to lecture.”

She smiled. “It sounded like the beginning of a lecture.”

“Maybe it was,” he admitted ruefully. “Just a small lecture.” She relaxed, her shoulders touching his. He kept very still, saying, “I
am
worried about you. George is your business. I’ve no right to interfere, but the sailing worries me.“

“Jake—” she turned towards him, her face only inches from his, her eyes dark and serious. “—George has sailed all over – in the Caribbean, Tahiti. Even— ”

“All right.” She wasn’t his woman. She never would be, yet he had an almost irresistible desire to kiss her until she was trembling in his arms. Damn it! If she’d only let him have a chance! He couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice as he said, “Don’t bother singing the man’s praises.”

“George isn’t a—”

He rode over her words hurriedly before she could say any more. “Promise me one thing. No matter how experience he is, these aren’t waters to play with. Just look down there – no, forget about the damned airplane, but look at that water. We’re just over the north end of the Charlottes. See, that’s Graham Island below us.”