Night Flight (17 page)

Sam joined her, hands on his hips as they viewed the bed. “Want to sit on it?”

Megan stepped away, finding him irresistible in civilian attire. “Now you’re back to your lines.” Hair still dark from the shower and recently combed, he had a five o’clock beard shadowing his features, making him look slightly dangerous in her mind. Sam was more than a little dangerous if Megan dared acknowledge the pound of her heart, or the fact she felt giddy around him.

Picking up his tan camel-hair sports coat, he laughed. “But they’re honest lines, Red. Come on, I’m hungry, too.”
For you. Only for you.

“I took the privilege of looking at your family pictures in your office,” Megan began, sipping the water with a twist of lime. The small, intimate Italian restaurant was quiet and dark, suiting her needs. Sam sat at her elbow, and they were surrounded by a crescent-shaped black learner booth. It made her feel as if they were in protective arms, and intensified the sense of privacy.

Sam leaned back, idly running his fingers around the sweaty glass of iced tea. Giving her a grin, he said in a conspiratorial tone, “You know, I don’t discuss my past with anyone.”

“Why?” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what he had to hide. Certainly, nothing.

“Well,” Holt hedged, “you being an Air Force brat and all, would understand what I’m going to say. Officers like Stang would take my ethnic background and shove it down my throat for his own good. Most pilots come from the upper middle class of society.”

“And you didn’t?” Megan guessed.

“Roger that one. Not that I’m ashamed of my folks, or my dad’s job.”

“Which is?”

“Was. He’s retired now.”

“But,” Megan teased, watching him balk.

Squirming, Holt muttered, “Dad was a union auto worker in Detroit for thirty years.” He glanced up quickly to see Megan’s reaction.

“So nothing was handed to you on a silver platter?” Megan felt good about that. Sam had worked hard, struggled and made something of himself. It said a lot about his belief in himself, his goals.

“Not a thing. I worked a paper route when I was nine until I graduated from high school. Dad also ran a small engine repair shop on the side, out in his garage, so I always helped him out there when I wasn’t studying or tossing papers into people’s yards.”

“What about your mother?”

“A Polish émigré. She sought political asylum in this country and could speak very little English when she came over here as a teenager. Mom worked as a janitor at General Motors, where Pa was employed. They met and fell in love.”

She smiled gently. “I like your mother’s face. She looks very kind and forgiving.”

Sam allowed the internal tension he was holding to dissolve. Megan honestly didn’t seem to care that he came from a less-than-privileged background. “You’re right,” he said softly, remembering some poignant moments with his mother. “She came from sturdy farm people near Warsaw, but she’d always had this dream of coming to the States.” With a shake of his head, he murmured, “Mom is still a dreamer to this day.”

“I like that,” Megan said. “I think she gave you the ability to dream, too.”

“She did. When I was only three, I used to tell her and anyone else who would listen, that I was a bird and going to fly. As I got older, Mom supported my dream, telling me I was capable of doing anything I wanted to do. Plastic model airplanes became my passion as a kid. I devoured any book on flight I could find. When I was twelve, my mother proudly announced to our entire neighborhood that I was going to be a famous Air Force test pilot, because that’s what I’d told her I wanted to be.”

Megan felt her heart expand with joy. “You’re so lucky to have a mother like that,” she whispered, deeply touched that Sam would share such wonderful and private moments in his life with her.

With a grin, he said, “Well, it wasn’t all a bed of roses. One time I used Mom’s clotheslines, which were made out of thin cotton rope, as an imaginary landing place for my plastic airplanes. I painted the lines with black paint and pretended they were my four runway airstrips. And then, I rigged four of my models on wire so that if I pushed one down the clothesline, it would ‘fly’ and land. It was in hog heaven playing out there for hours with them. Everything came to a roaring halt when she came out with a load of wash to hang. Mom dropped the basket to the ground and screeched when she realized what I’d done.”

Laughter pealed from Megan, and without thinking, she reached out, placing her hand over Sam’s. The gesture spoke volumes. She saw his eyes narrow briefly, hope flaring in their dark blue depths. Discreetly, Megan removed her hand. Trying to recover from her gaffe, she murmured, “I’ll bet all those lines had to be replaced.”

“So did my rear when she got done with me,” Sam answered ruefully. “I was only ten, and with six kids in the family, things were tight financially. Mom didn’t have the money to buy a new clothesline, but I didn’t understand that at the time.”

“What did she do?”

“Being the practical Pole she’d always been, she went to a farmer friend and wrangled hay bale twine off him for something like a dollar. She came back, and soon, there were four lines of bailing twine in place of the painted clothesline. Mom hung the clothes and acted as if nothing had ever happened.” He smiled fondly. “I like to think I have her common-sense genes.”

“A great gift,” Megan agreed softly. A waitress in a black outfit and white apron approached with their meals. “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to eat,” she said, indicating their meals had arrived.

Sam nodded. The oregano and garlic wafted by him as the waitress placed the heaping platter of spaghetti and meatballs in front of him. Megan had ordered something far less messy: lasagna. He thanked the waitress, hungrily digging into the plate of food.

Megan ate little. All her precautions were wasted, however, because a splotch of sauce dropped on her dress anyway. Groaning, Megan tried to clean it off. She looked up to see Sam grinning.

“It isn’t funny,” she grumbled.

“Sure it is. Nobody should eat at an Italian restaurant if they don’t want to get a little messy in the process.”

“My father taught me to always be neat and clean.” Megan’s hand stopped in midair with the napkin. Now where did that come from? Frowning, she managed to get the worst of the sauce off her orange dress.

Holt wrapped the spaghetti between a large tablespoon and his fork. “So your father wanted a perfect little girl, eh?” He watched her reaction beneath his lashes.

“Father had an image to uphold. Perfect pilot. Perfect wife. Perfect home. And perfect child.”

Sam placed his silverware back on the plate. He leaned over, taking his thumb and brushing a small speck of sauce from the corner of her mouth. She was soft, and he yearned to trace her beautiful lips, and then kiss her again. Heated memory of her mouth, her willingness, haunted him and almost goaded him into leaning over to claim her. The startled look in Megan’s eyes cautioned him to do nothing further. “I kinda like the imperfect woman sitting here with me,” he whispered. “That makes you approachable, not someone who looks so perfect that no one could attain her.”

Holt’s touch sent a frisson of sweet fire twisting down through her. Megan struggled to recover from his spontaneous gesture, but it was impossible. She tried to stop staring at his mouth and recalled his strength, his cajoling, that had made her want to keep kissing him forever. Blotting her mouth with her napkin, she muttered, “I feel like Pig-Pen from the
Peanuts
comic strip tonight.”

Laughing, Sam pointed to his face. “Come on, Red, lighten up. I’m positive I’ve got some sauce splattered somewhere on this mug.” He looked archly down at his shirt and examined himself closely. “Yup, see here? Three splatters. I’ve got you beat two to one.”

“You’re impossible,” Megan giggled, the sudden urge to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him almost tangible. She wanted to feel that strong, smiling mouth beneath hers again. An ache centered in her lower body, and Megan had her answer of how she truly felt toward Sam.

“But likable?” Sam asked, holding her dancing eyes. He saw Megan sober slightly.

“Yes, you’re very likable, Captain.”

“Ouch. I thought what I did for a living was forgotten for now.”

Sadly, Megan picked at her lasagna, her appetite gone. “I wish it could be,” she admitted, her voice barely audible.

Sam put the plate of half-eaten spaghetti aside. He reached out, capturing her small hand. “Let’s go for a walk. There’s a nice children’s playground down a block, with some trees and grass. I’d like to talk to you some more about your family.”

Years of being silent, of not being able to share, rose within her at the husky entreaty in his voice. Megan probed Holt’s reasons for the terribly personal request. The tender blue flame in his eyes told her everything. Without a word, she placed the napkin on the red-and-white checked tablecloth and stood.

Holt wouldn’t allow Megan to reclaim her hand once they left the restaurant. Lancaster was lazy at this time of day, he thought, most people home for dinner right now. The traffic was sparse, and so was the foot traffic. That suited him fine.

Once they got to the playground—a city block of lawn, trees and several picnic tables—Sam led her onto the grass. “Your father had one hell of a reputation over at Ops, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know that. As a child, I remember him as a quiet man, always seeming to be thinking or somewhere else.” Sam’s hand around hers felt comforting. “Father only spoke to me when it was necessary.”

“Never did things like read books to you?”

“No.”

“How about your mother?”

“She had her career. You know the rest—by the time I was nine, she decided to go to bed permanently.”

“I can’t believe your father let it happen.”

“He accepted it.” Bitterness leaked into Megan’s voice. “As long as things ran smoothly at home, Father didn’t care what went on, I guess. He used to tell me I had to get A’s in school, and be as good as him, or it would look bad for his career.”

“Christ,” Holt muttered. Placing his hands on her small shoulders, he saw the hurt in Megan’s eyes, and wanted somehow to replace it with laughter and joy instead. She didn’t have much of that growing up, he realized. “Plus, you assumed the duties of wife and mother to him, too.”

“What do you mean?” Holding his stormy gaze, Megan tilted her head. A slight breeze ruffled his hair, a few strands dipping onto his brow.

“I gave our last conversation a lot of thought. Your mother abandoned you at nine. Also, she gave up on being a wife to your father. So, you had to carry demands on you no youngster should have had to haul around in an emotional sense.”

“Well…yes.” And then Megan shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad, Sam. I was able to do it.”

“That’s not the point, sweetheart. Did you have time to play with other kids? To do crazy things like paint clotheslines with black paint?”

Megan looked away, avoiding his intense gaze. “When you put it like that, no, I didn’t.” And then, more defensively she said, “But I didn’t miss it, either, Sam. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“You didn’t miss it because you never knew that possibility existed. You can’t miss what you don’t have or experience.”

“You make it sound like they stole something from me.” She wanted to escape from his hands. His fingers grew firm on her arms, as if he’d anticipated her flight reaction.

“They did,” Sam said softly. Catching her moody gaze, he added, “You never smile, Megan. You don’t joke around. When I do either of these things, I watch life come to your eyes, and I see a longing in yours to do the same thing. There’s a little girl in there that’s never been allowed to come out and express herself. Your father molded you into an overresponsible, guilt-ridden child who grew up trying to be perfect in order to stay out of trouble with him. And of course, you never were perfect, no matter how hard you tried, and that hurt your confidence, your self-esteem.”

Megan stood very quietly, digesting his fervent, emotion-laden words. She felt Sam’s hands move in a caressing motion across her shoulders, as if he felt her pain, her discovery that what he was saying was true. She stared down at his feet for a long time, not knowing what to say. “Well, I came back here to find out about myself,” Megan said. “Nobody said it was going to be pain-free, did they?”

The urge to take Megan into his arms and tell her that she was an achingly desirable woman tremored through Holt. He saw her lower lip tremble, and he leaned down, pressing a chaste kiss to her hair.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “maybe I said too much too soon. I haven’t been able to get our talks out of my head since we had them. Mom always accused me of spilling the beans. I never was able to keep my mouth shut.”

With a shy, one-cornered smile, Megan forced herself to look up at him. What she found in Sam’s eyes was a gift she had never received from anyone in her life. There was such care and warmth emanating from him that it broke the last barrier she’d hidden behind for so many years.

“Sometimes, when I was going through college,” she admitted in a low voice, “I’d wonder why I was so driven, why I was afraid to slow down and take it easy.”

“Your father never did—you emulated him perfectly,” Sam said with a grimace. “He drove himself. He drove others. Trust me when I tell you, he was one royal son of a bitch over at testing. He had one hell of a reputation for pushing others as hard as he pushed himself.”

“I—I never realized that.”

Lifting his hand, Sam removed several copper strands from her cheek. “It doesn’t matter. What does, is you.”

“No, I want to know more about him, Sam.”

With a sigh, Holt added, “Your father never had any friends. He was a true loner. According to some of the older men in Design, the civilians who worked with him, he never smiled or joked, either.”

“Just like me…”

With a laugh, he gave her a gentle shake. “I know there’s hope for you. You’ve got flaming red hair. I’ve seen that devilish look come to your eyes and been on the receiving end of some of your spirited displays.”

Megan smiled, feeling as if Holt were the sun and she was bathed in the rays of his love. Love? Startled, Megan quickly dodged the word and filed it away for a time when she could examine it more closely. “I’ve always lived up to my red hair.”

“Stick around me, and I’m liable to bring out that side of you even more,” Sam promised thickly, wanting so badly to kiss her, to tell her how much he liked her, believed in her.

Gently, Megan pulled out of his hands and stood a few feet away from him. Holt was a powerful, lulling aphrodisiac to her awakening senses, and she was on terribly dangerous ground with him.