Cold Fire

When Holly saw him coming along the starboard aisle, she was so startled that she almost popped out of her seat. At first she thought he was looking straight at her. She had the urge to start blurting out a confession —“Yes, all right, I've been following you, checking up on you, invading your privacy with a vengeance”—even before he reached her. She knew precious few other reporters who would have felt guilty about probing into his life, but she couldn't seem to eliminate that streak of decency that had interfered with her career advancement ever since she'd gotten her journalism degree. It almost wrecked everything for her again — until she realized he was looking not at her but at the brunette immediately in front of her. Holly swallowed hard, and slid down a few inches in her seat instead of leaping up in a frenzy of confession. She picked up the airline's magazine, which she'd previously discarded; slowly, deliberately she opened it to cover her face, afraid that too quick a move would draw his attention before she had concealed herself behind those glossy pages.

The magazine blocked her view of him, but she could hear every word he was saying and most of the woman's responses. She listened to him identify himself as Steve Harkman, a company ad executive, and wondered what his charade was all about.

She dared to tilt her head far enough to peek around the magazine with one eye. Ironheart was hunkered down in the aisle beside the woman's seat, so close that Holly could have spit on him, although she was no more practiced at target-spitting than she was at clandestine surveillance.

She realized her hands were trembling, making the magazine rattle softly. She untilted her head, stared at the pages in front of her, and concentrated on being calm.

* * *

“How on earth did you recognize me?” Christine Dubrovek asked.

“Well, Ed doesn't quite paper his office with pictures of you two,” Jim said.

“Oh, that's right,” she said.

“Listen, Mrs. Dubrovek—”

“Call me Christine.”

“Thank you. Christine… I've got an ulterior motive for coming over here and pestering you like this. According to Ed, you've got a knack for matchmaking.”

That must have been the right thing to say. Already aglow, her sweet face brightened further. “Well, I do like getting people together if I think they're right for each other, and I've got to admit I've had more than a little success at it.”

“You make matches, Mommy?” Casey Dubrovek asked.

Uncannily in synch with the workings of her six-year-old's mind, Christine said, “Not the cigarette kind, honey.”

“Oh. Good,” Casey said, then returned to her pop-up storybook.

“The thing is,” Jim said, “I'm new in Los Angeles, been there only eight weeks, and I'm your classic, original lonely guy. I don't like singles' bars, don't want to buy a gym membership just to meet women, and figure anybody I'd connect with through a computer service has to be as desperate and messed up as I am.”

She laughed. “You don't look desperate or messed up to me.”

“Excuse me, sir,” a stewardess said with friendly firmness, touching Jim's shoulder, “but I can't allow you to block the aisle.”

“Oh, sure, yeah,” he said, standing up. “Just give me a minute.” Then to Christine: “Listen, this is embarrassing, but I'd really like to talk to you, tell you about myself, what I'm looking for in a woman, and see if maybe you know someone …?”

“Sure, I'd love that,” Christine said with such enthusiasm that she was surely the reincarnation of either some hillbilly woman who had been a much sought-after troth-finder or a successful schatchen from Brooklyn.

“Hey, you know, the two seats next to mine are empty,” he said. “Maybe you could sit with me the rest of the way….”

He expected her to be reluctant to give up window seats, and an inexplicable twist of anxiety knotted his stomach while he waited for her response.

But she hesitated for only a second or two. “Yes, why not.”

The stewardess, still hovering near them, nodded her approval.

To Jim, Christine said, “I thought Casey would like the scenery from way up here, but she doesn't seem to care much. Besides, we're almost at the back of the wing, and it blocks a lot of our view.”

Jim did not understand the reason for the wave of relief that swept through him when he secured her agreement to move, but a lot of things mystified him these days. “Good, great. Thank you, Christine.”

As he stepped back to let Christine Dubrovek get up, he noticed the passenger in the seat behind her. The poor woman was evidently terrified of flying. She was holding a copy of Vis a Vis in front of her face, trying to take her mind off her fears with a little reading, but her hands were shaking so badly that the magazine rattled continuously.

“Where are you sitting?” Christine asked.

“The other aisle, row sixteen. Come on, I'll show you.”

He lifted her single piece of carry-on luggage while she and Casey gathered up a few other small items, then he led them to the front of the plane and around to the port aisle. Casey entered row sixteen, and her mother followed.

Before Jim settled down himself, something impelled him to look back across the wide-bodied plane to the aero-phobic woman whom they had left behind in row twenty-three. She had lowered the magazine. She was watching him. He knew her.

Holly Thorne.

He was stunned.

Christine Dubrovek said, “Steve?”

Across the plane, the reporter realized that Jim had seen her. She was wide-eyed, frozen. Like a deer caught in car headlights.

“Steve?”

He looked down at Christine and said, “Uh, excuse me a minute, Christine. Just a minute. I'll be right back. Wait here. Okay? Wait right here.”

He went forward and across to the starboard aisle again.

His heart was hammering. His throat was tight with fear. But he didn't know why. He was not afraid of Holly Thorne. He knew at once that her presence was no coincidence, that she had tumbled to his secret and had been following him. But right now he didn't care. Discovery, being unmasked — that was not what frightened him. He had no idea what was cranking up his anxiety, but it was escalating to a level at which adrenaline would soon start to squirt out his ears.

As he made his way back the aisle toward the reporter, she started to get up. Then a look of resignation slid across her face, and she sat down again. She was as easy to look at as he remembered, though the skin around her eyes was slightly dark, as if from lack of sleep.

When he arrived at row twenty-three, he said, “Come on.” He reached for her hand.

She did not give it to him.

“We've got to talk,” he said.

“We can talk here.”

“No, we can't.”

The stewardess who had warned him about blocking the aisle was approaching again.

When Holly would not take his hand, he gripped her by the arm and urged her to get up, hoping she would not force him to yank her out of the seat. The stewardess', probably already thought he was some pervert Svengali who was herding up the best-looking women on the flight to surround himself with a harem over there on the port side. Happily, the reporter rose without further protest.

He led her back through the plane to a restroom. It was not occupied, so he pushed her inside. He glanced back, expecting to see the stewardess watching him, but she was attending to another passenger. He followed Holly into the tiny cubicle and pulled the door shut.

She squeezed into the corner, trying to stay as far away from him as possible, but they were still virtually nose to nose.