Tamara was about to ask Penelope to explain her cryptic comment when a car turned off the state road and headed for the front of the older hangars.
“Anyone expecting someone in a dark blue Buick Regal?” Jordan asked from his perch on the top of the hangar. Being the only professional builder on the site, he’d staked out the highest and most dangerous position for himself.
When no one answered him, Morgan said, “Crap, tourists. I’ll get rid of them.”
“Tourists?” Tamara asked.
“Yeah, we get some every once in a while. They see it’s an airfield, and they wonder if they can rent a plane, or take lessons, stuff like that.”
“Which they will be able to do, soon,” she said.
“Well, true enough. But that’s soon, not now, damn it.”
“Don’t scare off potential customers,” Henry called after him.
Morgan, who’d just gotten down off a ladder and was heading toward her, waved his hand in the air in response to his brother’s taunt. He stopped beside Tamara and swooped in for a kiss.
She couldn’t help but respond to the heat of his mouth or the seduction of his tongue. She opened wide, sucked him in, and let her own tongue dance with his. His flavor drenched her and fired her blood, making her instantly crave him. She wished the three of them were back at the cottage, naked and stretched out on that gloriously decadent bed.
As quickly as he’d bent to her, he straightened again and headed for the door to the helicopter hangar.
“Once the family finds out about this, they are going to be seriously freaked,” Penelope said. “Any single men and women not wishing to be matched at this time will likely go on sudden, impromptu, and extended vacations.”
Tamara shook her head and looked at the woman she’d thought to be as intelligent and logical as she was beautiful.
“Um, because Morgan Kendall kissed me? It was, to quote the title of a really good book I read not that long ago, Just A Kiss.”
“When Morgan said he and Henry would find their own woman when the time was right, Kate said, and I quote, ‘You say that as if the right woman is going to just fall right out of the sky,’ end quote.” Penelope’s grin widened.
Tamara opened her mouth and then snapped it shut again. Then she shook her head. “I may have ‘fallen’ out of the sky, but trust me, I am not the right woman, and this is not a forever kind of thing happening here between us. Forever may be good for some people, and more power to them. But some of us just don’t have the stick-to-itiveness gene in our makeup.”
Penelope didn’t argue the matter, which won her points in Tamara’s opinion. So much so that she decided to forgive the small look of pity the other woman sent her. Penelope Primrose was a woman in love, and everyone knew women in love wanted to spread what they considered the happy condition to all and sundry.
Tamara had seen what love looked like, Jones-style. She’d seen it in the desperation on her mother’s face when her latest boyfriend took a walk, and in the way her father kept trying to make himself younger and more hip for each successive, younger girlfriend.
Love had made her parents into selfish, hard individuals who easily forgot they had a daughter between them.
No, Tamara Jones had seen love up close and personal, and she wanted no part of it. She nodded her head once for emphasis, even while her right hand moved up to massage the tiny ache that bloomed deep in her chest.
* * * *
Morgan strolled through the helicopter hangar, hands in pockets, his focus on appearing relaxed and at ease. Henry was right, it wouldn’t do to scare off any potential customers, which the person or persons in the Buick could very well be.
Morgan wasn’t known for being overly loquacious, or friendly. That was Henry’s talent and he had no doubt that, given complete freedom, his brother would build their business clientele in record time.
The dark blue Buick sat, motor turned off, just to the left of the Lear hangar. Morgan frowned. The large bay door to that hangar stood wide open, likely, he knew, because they’d all hit the drink machines and the lounge around lunchtime. This hangar had the best bathroom facilities, too, which would have accounted for the door being left up.
Just inside a man stood, his back ramrod straight. Going with his gut impression, Morgan thought he carried himself like a man whose senses had been turned on high alert. The man’s beige chinos, brown loafers and blue sport coat told Morgan this wasn’t one of the area’s rough-and-tumble ranchers. Yet he didn’t think the label “tourist” fit him, either.
“May I help you?”
The stranger pivoted neatly, his eyes landing on Morgan then skittering off to either side, and Morgan felt his own body go on alert. When the stranger smiled, the light of that smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Grandma Kate had once told him to be wary of people whose smile didn’t reach their eyes.
“Oh, hi there. I didn’t know this was here, you know? I just happened to look over as I was driving and said to myself, hey, that’s an airport.”
“This airfield has been here for several years.” Morgan couldn’t put his finger on what it was about the man that set him off. He decided to play the role of taciturn local.
“Well, yeah, I guess it has been, when you think about it. Finding it here was a surprise.”
Morgan simply raised one eyebrow and waited.
“The name’s Rogers. Preston Rogers. I’d like to hire you to fly me to New York City. I have a business meeting at the beginning of December, and I thought, you know, this would be a lot better than flying commercial. And hey, I’d be willing to pay top rate.”
“I’m sorry, this is a private airfield. The planes here aren’t for hire.”
“Oh.” Rogers
