Baroness (21 page)

He shook his head, his expression pained, but a smile edged up his face.

Goldie returned with their coffee. “Order?”

“A couple fried eggs for the lady, and a stack for me.”

He added sugar to his coffee, offered her some. She shook her head. The brew went down and settled in her stomach, heating her through. She hadn't realized how cold she was. Her stomach growled with the addition, and she was mortified.

He smiled but said nothing. Then, as his smile fell, he ran his thumb along the handle of his cup. “How long you been dancing for Cesar?”

She had spilled her coffee and now reached for a napkin. “Just a couple of weeks.”

He nodded, seemed to consider that. Then, “Why?”

“Why do I dance? Because…because I want to be a star. And he promised…” She looked away, feeling the fool.

He leaned forward. “And why do you want to be a star, Miss Worth, when you already shine so bright?”

Oh. Her throat filled. She didn't feel bright. Not tonight. Cesar had turned off the shimmer, made her dull inside.

He leaned back. “You get any days off?”

“I have every day off—I work in the evenings.”

“Perfect. I got a game tomorrow afternoon. I'll give you a free ticket if you come.”

“To a baseball game?”

“Don't say it like that, I'm liable to think you're offended by my offer.” But he chased his words with a smile.

“It's just…I've never been to a baseball game. I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do.”

“Just show up. Eat some popcorn. Watch me throw a no-hitter. Maybe even hit a homer.”

“A homer?”

“I'll show you what that is if you'll be my lucky charm.”

His lucky charm. “You don't know anything about me. How could I possibly be your lucky charm?”

“I just got a feelin',” he said.

Goldie served up their breakfasts and Rosie nearly devoured her food, not stopping until she looked up, saw Guthrie considering her over his cup of coffee. “What?”

“I've just never seen a lady eat so fast.”

“Maybe I'm not a lady.”

He sipped his coffee. “You're definitely a lady.”

She frowned at him then finished her eggs. “My mother is a lady. And she wants nothing more than to marry me off to some Duke of Lichtenstein or something.”

“What do you want?”

She took a sip of coffee. “Not to marry a duke, that's for sure.”

He smiled, dug into his pancakes. “You're an interesting bird, Red. Most girls would do anything to marry into money and title.”

“I'm not most girls.”

He forked a mound of pancakes into his mouth. “I think I'm starting to figure that out.”

She finished her coffee as she watched him eat. He propped his arm on the table, the plate in his embrace as he sopped up syrup with each forkful. Away from the theatrics of the Napolis, Guthrie seemed less on edge, easy, like someone she might have known all her life, except her sort didn't mix with farm boys from Kansas.

He had large baseball player hands to go with his strong arms, and she could admit that he had a sort of rough beauty about him, with that blond, tousled hair, the square cut of his jaw, the blush of a burn on his nose and arms.

She might be eating dinner with one of her mother's footmen. Still, he made her feel safe. The chill of the rain on her skin had vanished.

He finally finished his meal, wiping his mouth and settling back in the seat. “Have I talked you into a baseball game?”

She played out the silence for a bit, then, “Yes. I'll go. But only if you meet me afterward so you can explain everything to me.”

“It's a date.”

A date. “Perhaps we should call it something different.”

He signaled Goldie, who slipped him the tab, then reached into his wallet, pulled out cash, and left it on the table. When he stood up, he extended his hand to her. “Nope. It's a date.”

She took his hand and let him lead her out onto the street, not willing to correct him. So, let it be a date. Cesar didn't own her.

“Where do you live?”

“I share a room with my friend at the Algonquin.”

He hailed them another cab. Light began to dent the cap of darkness over the city, and as she sagged into the seat, his arm curled around her. She wanted to lean into the cradle of his arm, to rest, but she wasn't sure, and…

“We're here, Red. Wake up.”

His hand on her arm jolted her. She blinked, sat up. “Oh!”

“I'm sorry to wake you. I made the driver go around twice, but I'm running out of money.” She turned in his arms and he met her eyes, a softness in them.

Would it be so terrible to kiss him? She had the sudden, inexplicable urge to lean forward and touch her lips to his. For a moment, she willed him to move his hand behind her neck, to lean in, but he just pushed back a hair that had fallen in front of her eyes and climbed out.

She followed him onto the street, startled when he extended his hand. She slipped hers into his grip and he leaned low, his voice in her ear. “Game starts at one.”

Then he was gone, leaving her in the street, the night turning to silver around her.

She turned to enter the lobby of the Algonquin when her gaze fell on the Rolls parked under a leafy oak.

Her mouth dried.

Oh, let him not have seen Guthrie. She resisted the urge to glance after his taxi and refused to flinch as she heard a car door slam, footsteps down the pavement. “Red! Where'd you go? I was so worried.”

If ever there might be a time to act. “You got a lot of nerve, Cesar Napoli, coming down here after dumping me for that floozy. What did you expect me to do…stick around?”

Her heart thundered inside her as she narrowed her eyes at Cesar.

Cesar just came at her, his hand slipping behind her neck, kissing her fiercely, his touch hard and possessive, the piquant taste of brandy on his lips. He met her eyes, his dark and with a glint of danger. “Whatcha doing with that bozo?”

Her breath squeaked out a little, and she braced her hand against his tuxedoed chest. But she lifted her chin, shrugged as if Guthrie might already be an afterthought.

“I was hungry. He took me out for breakfast. It's nothing.”

Cesar's mouth tightened, and he glanced behind her, at the retreating taxi. “I see.” He moved his hand down to hers, caught it. Held it until it hurt. “Just remember. You're Cesar's girl now. You belong to me.”

Then he let her go and abandoned her to the wet street.

Chapter 9

All Lilly had to do was hang on and ignore the echo of her arrogant words in her head.
“I'm going to save your sorry hide.”

She clung to the cockpit edges of the biplane, the wind whistling in her ears, and rewound twelve hours, to the moment she'd found Truman in the bar.

A hole in the wall with a saggy wooden floor, the reek of whiskey embedded in the walls, and Truman saddled up to the counter, looking wrung out and testy as he considered another shot of whatever amber liquid he had in that glass.

“I think I understand now,” she'd said without greeting.

“You don't understand anything,” Truman said, picking up his glass, studying the shiny liquid under the lights of the bar. A cigarette burned in the ashtray before him, a long char of untapped ash. He put down the glass without drinking and ran his thumb and forefinger through his eyes. “What could you possibly understand?”

“Why you don't want me to wing walk.” She slid onto the bar stool and waved away the barkeep as if it might be completely natural for her to saunter into the seedy digs, as if she hadn't spent nearly thirty minutes outside O'Paddy's, willing herself the courage.

But, what did Marvel say as he drove out of town to Duluth?
The show must go on.

Especially since they needed the money to pay for Moseby's hospital bills. Lilly touched Truman's arm. “She's going to live.”

“She may never walk again.” He looked at her hand on his arm. “I should've checked Eddie's plane before she went up. It's my responsibility to oversee all repairs.”

Repairs. Like the ones she'd done on the wing. “I'm so sorry, Truman.”

He closed his eyes. Drew in a breath. “I checked your work on Eddie's plane after we returned from the hospital. It wasn't your fault. The glue on your repair held. Moseby went through a different tear. The fabric was just weak, should have been replaced long ago. That's on me.”

“Truman—you can't protect everyone. Accidents happen, especially in flying.”

“Spoken by a person who doesn't fly.”

“Then teach me.”

He gave a laugh, edged like a knife. “I don't think so.”

“I'm not afraid.”

“Of course you aren't.”

“You need me. We already had to cancel the Detroit Lakes show. If you want Duluth to be a hit—if you want to pull out of the financial abyss we're in, you need a wing walker. Me.”

A muscle pulled in his jaw. He took a drink then looked at her, his red eyes glassy. “Why do you want to throw away your life so much?”

She met his eyes then eased the glass from his hand. Set it on the counter.

“I don't want to throw away my life, Truman. But you seem to want to.” Then she moved over to him, tucked her arm around his waist. “I'm taking you back to your plane. And in the morning, you're going to take me flying so I can save our little show.”

“You're going to wreck everything,” he said.

“I'm going to save your sorry hide.”

Her voice churned inside her now as she heard Truman's voice, shouting over the roar of the engine, accompanied by a violent tap on her shoulder. “It's time. Do it just like I told you. And be careful, or I'll kill you.”

They'd practiced on the ground—or rather, what he called practicing and she called berating—as she'd climbed out of the cockpit and touched her foot to the wing.

“Stay on the ribs. If you step foot on the fabric…”

“I know,” she said, the wires digging into her fingers.

“Figure out where you'll put your foot. It might be easy now, but not at a thousand feet, and look out for the propellers. There will be a wash from them, and I won't be able to hear you. I'll have to teach you the hand signals.”

He'd bathed after his run-in with the dark side of whiskey, his ebony hair shiny in the sun, and he smelled of soap. He wore a clean white T-shirt that stretched over the muscles in his arms as he showed her the signals. In his jeans and bare feet, his skin golden in the sun, he looked like a farmhand, and only the raccoon suntan from his goggles betrayed him. “Don't forget to look at me.”

Please, there were days when she couldn't take her eyes off him. But now, with the worry on his face, he seemed suddenly human.

“Climb back into the cockpit and let me measure you for rope.”

He fixed a knot around her waist, then the other end to the cockpit.

“This is supposed to save me?”

“This is supposed to keep you from hitting the ground. If you fall, you'll have to climb back into the plane yourself.”

He raised an eyebrow, as if waiting for her to back down.

She had borrowed a pair of Moseby's canvas gym shoes and tucked her shirt tight into her pants before donning the leather helmet and goggles. “All set.”

Not quite, because with the wind whipping through her shirt, the earth dropping away, the propeller blades cutting the air, her stomach doing flops, she realized that no, indeed, she had no idea what kind of courage it took to climb out onto the wing.

She had only her pride to propel her.

She glanced back at Truman. He didn't smile, and if she shook her head, she had no doubt he'd circle around and land, no questions asked.

She gripped the cockpit walls and stood up. She hadn't appreciated the well that protected her—the wind nearly blasted her over, filling her mouth, blinding her eyes. The propeller wash burned her face with wind shear. She went deaf, and she had to lean into the wind to keep from splatting onto Truman's windshield.

She could do this. Throwing her leg over the side, she held onto the wire and stepped onto the wing spar. The wind growled around her and tore at her goggles, ripping them sideways. She freed a hand to adjust them, but the wind whipped her backwards and she nearly peeled off her perch.

Shouting, or perhaps just the roar of the props, filled her ears now. She could only see out one goggle eye. She grabbed the next wire, pulled herself onto the wing, and set her legs.

Just stand. She could just stand. Not look back at Truman for hand signals, not creep out to the leading edge of the plane and sit down like Moseby. Just stand there and call herself a fool.

She was going to die.

They circled the field, and he seemed to pull back on the speed, because her balance returned to her. Perhaps she could edge out onto the wing. She moved her foot to the next rib, sliding her hand down the wire toward the strut.

The rope around her waist snaked into the wind, slapping her, nearly dislodging her as she worked her way to the edge. Her eyes teared, her breath stolen.

She reached the strut and held on with both hands, frozen.

How did Moseby manage to climb to the upper wing and hang on while Truman did his stunts? Oh, she was a fool. Arrogant and headstrong and—

She couldn't do this. She couldn't ride the wings, waving at spectators, or perch on the upper wing like a bird while Truman twisted in the air.

So much for the feeling of freedom, the ethereal sense of breaking free. So much for learning how to fly.

Lilly turned back toward the cockpit, hand reaching for the wire. But when she tried to move, the rope tugged at her waist. She yanked at it, but it wouldn't give. With her clear eye, she followed it back to where it had snagged in the wires, wrapping like a snake. She pulled again, but it wouldn't budge, and she didn't dare reach for it without tumbling off the wing.