Loving Linsey (15 page)

But which valve?

She reached up for the one on the right, then the one on the left, then the one on the right again in indecision.

At Daniel's exasperated breath, she settled on the right valve. A sudden whoosh of hydrogen shot the craft up and threw Linsey to the bottom of the car. She landed hard on her shoulder, though the pile of furs cushioned her fall. The balloon stuttered in flight. The basket wobbled but remained upright.

Daniel must have managed to shut off the flow, for when Linsey climbed to her knees and pushed her hair out of her eyes, he was gripping one of the overhead supports with one hand, wiping his brow with the other. “Calamity Linsey strikes again.”

“I must have turned the wrong valve.”

“Obviously.”

“At least we know which one it isn't.” She pushed herself to her feet and staggered toward the equipment. “So I'll just try the other one.”

“And what, shoot us to the moon?” His hand covered hers over the second valve. Once more, the feel of his warm palm over her knuckles sent a jolt of lightning down her arm. “You've caused enough damage for one day.”

Linsey tried tugging away from the disturbing sensation his touch created. “Like you said, I got us up here; I'll get us down.”

Daniel's hold tightened. “I'd like to touch ground in one piece, if you don't mind.”

Glaring at him, Linsey kept a firm grip on the valve, refusing to let him win this little battle he'd started. For the love of Gus, he could
be so stubborn! It would serve him right if he was the one to fall out and not she.

Just then, a cord suspended from the deepest recesses of the balloon caught her notice.

Daniel followed the direction of her attention and also spotted the cord. Linsey reached to grab the line. Daniel blocked her move.

With a frustrated “grrr!” she tried sidestepping around him. He responded in kind.

She couldn't say when annoyance gave way to mischief. Maybe it was when she saw his lips twitch. Oh, he didn't dare crack a smile, but miracle of miracles, there was a luster in his brown eyes hinting that he wasn't completely devoid of humor.

Exhilarated by that competitive gleam, Linsey sidestepped, only to have Daniel thwart the way. Back and forth, around and around. Daniel had height and strength on his side, but Linsey had speed and cunning on hers. And the game was slowly advancing from good-natured fun to a fierce battle to win. But sometimes, Linsey recalled hearing her father say, the best strategy was surrender.

Or at least the impression of it.

She relaxed her body and yawned. Daniel dipped his head and watched her with suspicion. One thing was certain, she thought with grudging respect, he was not a fool. Nor would life with him ever be dull.

Addie was luckier than either of them expected.

After several minutes, Linsey's patience paid off, for Daniel's coal black brows lifted in
a cocky expression of victory. Then he made the mistake of letting down his guard.

Linsey sprang.

Daniel lunged.

Both yanked the cord at the same time.

And it broke.

Both stood gaping up at the coils falling out of the mouth of the balloon, around her arm, across his shoulder . . .

When the last slithering echo died away, Linsey rounded on him. “Now look what you did!”

Daniel's jaw dropped. “Me! You're the one who insisted on yanking on the damn thing!”

“There's no reason to curse at me.”

That didn't stop him from letting loose a string of profanities under his breath. He braced himself against the rim, elbows locked, one leg cocked. “This is just peachy.” He pushed his hair back with his fingers. “I'm stuck in a bucket with the Queen of Catastrophe.”

Linsey frowned at him. “I'm no happier with the situation than you are.” After all, this should have been the perfect opportunity for Daniel and Addie to become acquainted with each other, not for Linsey to spend some of her precious last hours trapped aloft with the ogre of Henderson County.

It seemed they'd both become the victims of a plan gone absurdly awry.

“Look,” she said with a sigh, “We aren't going to force this thing to the ground, so there's only one thing left to do.”

“And that is?”

“Enjoy the ride.”

“Enjoy! Have you lost every last ounce of sense you were born with?”

“Think about it. What goes up must come down—eventually. So until this thing runs out of hydrogen, we might as well relax and ride the wind wherever it wants to take us—unless you're afraid of having a little fun.”

“I have fun!”

“Oh, cow patties. You wouldn't know fun if you sat on it. You're too busy tending to the county's bumps and bruises.”

“I'm a doctor. It's my job.”

“I'm perfectly aware of that, but haven't you ever heard that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?”

Daniel stared at her, his mouth agape.

“There are no patients to tend up here, Doc. Just you, the wind, and the wide blue yonder—so why don't you try closing your mouth, opening your eyes, and enjoying the view.” She paused, turned, then whispered, “You might never get this chance again.”

He didn't mean to obey her. He sure as hell didn't mean to enjoy the view at her command. Neither one of them knew the first thing about landing a hydrogen balloon much less how to navigate one, and yet he seemed to be the only one who recognized the severity of their situation.

But as his sullen gaze swung away from Linsey and landed on the view below, Daniel couldn't stop the tide of wonder washing through him.

They were coasting above the treetops, some so close that if he wanted, he could reach out and grab a fistful of pine needles off the uppermost branches. A northwestern wind lifted them into the gentle palms of clouds scuttling by, and carried them farther into the open countryside.

The land looked like a patchwork quilt sewn in perfect squares. The rich brown of turned fields, the dun yellows of mowed hay, the gemlike green of grassland, with seams of bluish black water adding to the design. Cattle grazed near ponds, and now and then a lone horseman would look up at them, his eyes shielded with his hand.

They spotted several familiar homesteads. The Chisms'. The Hannickers'. Did old man Arbuckle know he had a hole the size of wagon wheel in his barn roof? Daniel made a mental note to mention it to the cotton farmer when he next came into the apothecary for his monthly supply of camphor.

The scenery continued to roll by as the balloon kept a steady course, carrying them high above a world mired down in duty and survival—and for some, like him, an insatiable need for success. Linsey was right: if she hadn't lured him into this lofty trap, he'd never have experienced the freedom of it.

Though it didn't sit well to admit it, she was right about another thing, too—fun hadn't been a part of his life in a very long time, if ever. He couldn't recall exactly when studying and doctoring had become his sole existence. Once he'd passed all his classes at Tulane, he'd
worked at Charity Hospital for a year and half, and it had been fulfilling. Then his mother had gotten sick.

It had been hard losing her, harder than Daniel ever expected it would be. She hadn't been an overly affectionate woman, prone more to bouts of melancholy than cheerfulness, but she'd always been there, as much a part of his days as the sunrise.

Maybe it had been her smile. Small, sad, urging him not to take himself too seriously, to enjoy his youth while he had it. Or maybe it had been the way she'd often taken up for him against his dad. “
Leave the boy be, Daniel. He's got a mind of his own; let him use it.
” Almost as if she could sense her son's need to carve his own mark in the world.

When she'd died, so had Daniel's ally. He guessed that was when work had become his solace, his ambition, his weapon and his enemy. Never again his pleasure, never again his calling.

Where had the pleasure of healing gone? Of giving someone a chance at life, and at living?

“Oh, look—there's Jenny's place.” Linsey pointed as they passed over the orphanage. Children raced out from under the shade of live oak trees, leaping, laughing, some screaming as they ran toward the pitch-roofed house. Dogs nipped at their heels, bounding, catching the excitement.

Linsey waved energetically, jiggling the basket. Her laughter, husky and abandoned, seemed to reach deep inside him and grab his heart.

When he glanced at her, the expression on her face made his chest tighten and his breath dam up in his throat. She looked so breezy, so fresh, and so damn radiant it almost hurt to look at her. She made him all too aware of the things he'd shunned in his life so that he wouldn't lose focus on what mattered most.

And he could have lost
her.

When he'd seen her hanging from that flimsy ladder, his heart had plunged to his stomach, then shot into his windpipe. If he hadn't heard the shouting from below, if he hadn't been able to pull her into the basket . . .

The realization buckled his knees.

Daniel sank to basket floor and closed his eyes, willing his pulse to slow and the knot to loosen in his stomach. Damn her for reminding him what it was like to want the forbidden. “Stop dancing before you dump us out of here,” he snapped.

“I wonder if they know it's us?”

“I doubt it. We've got to be a thousand feet up, maybe more. Too far to see.”

“You're probably right, but I bet they've never seen anything like this.” She spread her hands, indicating the balloon. “They'll be talking about it for years to come.”

Of that, Daniel had no doubt.

She crossed her arms over the rim. The back of her head tucked into her shoulders in a pose of relaxed bliss. “Isn't this wonderful?” Linsey sighed. “Oh, I just knew this would turn out to be a grand day.”

“Let me guess—you found a rabbit's foot under a full moon.”

“No, a cat walked toward me.”

Don't ask, he warned himself. He was dying of curiosity but he didn't dare admit it. Besides, didn't curiosity kill the cat? Oh, Lord, now he was starting to think like Linsey!

“That's good luck, you know, when a cat walks toward you.” She nodded once. “If he walks away, he takes luck with him.”

Daniel rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“It's the truth!”

“Who tells you these preposterous tales?”

“Oh, they're common knowledge. But Aunt Louisa is especially wise when it comes to divining the signs. Most of what I know I learned from her.”

And Daniel had always thought Louisa such a sensible woman.

“You're scowling again, Daniel. If you don't stop it right this minute, I'm tossing you over the side.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you're a brassy bit of fluff?”

She gave him a swift and startled glance. “Bit of fluff?” A smile broke out on her face. The brilliance of it sent warmth spreading through his midsection like a dose of fine Irish whiskey, melting the lingering dregs of tension.

“I've been called lots of things before, but never a ‘bit of' anything.” A wry grin formed as she gestured to herself.

Daniel inspected her figure. High, full breasts, curvy hips, rounded face—maybe she wasn't the most dainty person, but next to him, she seemed almost fragile. Childlike,
even. Except there was nothing childlike about those lush curves.

Gruffly, he said, “There's nothing wrong with you.”

“Why, Daniel, was that a compliment?” she asked in disbelief.

“Just an observation. Don't let it go to your head.”

“Goodness, more pretty words! I declare, Dr. Sharpe, if you sweet-talk all the girls this way, it's no wonder they're all besotted with you.”

Daniel didn't know how to respond to that. He knew women were interested in him, but he had learned to ignore the coy glances and flirtatious overtures rather than encourage them. The only time he let himself get close to the opposite sex anymore was when it related to his profession, as he had done last night at the Rusty Bucket.

The appalled look on Linsey's face when she'd caught him leaving the saloon told him exactly what she thought he'd been doing there. Why it should bother him that she'd jumped to the wrong conclusion, he didn't explore, but with a trace of belligerence, found himself telling her, “I wasn't doing what you think I was doing earlier.”

“What, having fun?” Her eyes danced.

“No, when you met me leaving the Rusty Bucket.”

The pleasure in her eyes dimmed. She turned away and said, “Daniel, please, I really don't want to hear the details.”

“A customer got a little rough with one of Rusty's girls. She was in pretty bad shape.”

Linsey shot him a startled look. He was squinting at the sun, his features stoic. A crescent-shaped shock of glossy black hair had fallen over his winged eyebrow, drawing her notice to his sleepy eyes, as dark and inviting as hot cocoa, and framed by thick, spiky lashes. Black whiskers cast a shadow around his mouth and along his jaw. He did look weary. The news that he'd spent the night tending to the woman's needs and not his own gave her heart wings—only because she didn't want her sister hitched up with a rounder, she told herself. “I shouldn't have assumed otherwise.”

“No, you shouldn't.”

“Will she be all right?” Linsey asked, feeling sorry for the woman.

With a nod, Daniel brought one knee up to his chest and slung an arm over his knees, obviously ending the discussion.

A girl would have to be dead not to notice how the casual pose he struck enhanced the muscles of his thighs and the curve of his rear. The butternut fabric of his trousers pulled so tight along his trunk that it was a wonder he didn't split a seam. She knew all too well that the rest of him was just as firm, and she wondered if the same dark hair that covered his forearm covered other parts of his body.