The Bride Wore Blue (3 page)

“Conceited
jerk,” she grumbled, adding to his list of transgressions as she stalked to the picture window and pretended she wasn’t interested in what he was up to.

The swim to the plane had been a no-sweat proposition. J.D. kept in shape, as much for himself as out of necessity. Coaxing the cantankerous engine to a disgruntled, wheezing start, however, was another story.

He wheedled, he pleaded. He prayed and promised. He even whimpered a little, and finally she gave in and humored him. Babying her along, whispering sweet nothings, hoping that if she decided to cut out on him before he made it back to the dock that the momentum would take her the rest of the way, he taxied slowly back toward an anxious Hershey—and an absent Maggie.

“Run, little rabbit,” he whispered toward the cabin, where he figured she’d burrowed in to wait him out. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

Luck was with him. The engine didn’t die until he bumped into the pilings. Jumping quickly onto the worn pine planks, he made the front of the float fast, then, skirting a tail-thumping Hershey, strode to the back of the plane and tied it securely, as well.

That done, and with a covert glance toward the cabin, he grabbed his jeans and tugged them on. She thought he couldn’t see her up there, but he could. Through the birch and pine that crowded twenty yards of sloping shoreline, he caught a glimpse of her silhouette as she paced by the picture window craning her neck to get a better look.

Good, he thought with a satisfied grin. She didn’t want to be, but she was interested. He planned on letting her get an eyeful while her curiosity built.

He grabbed the roll of duct tape he’d tossed on the dock before his unscheduled dip in the sixty-eight degree water and tore off a strip. Positioning it securely over a crack in a riveted seam on the wingtip, he delivered on the first of his promises to the Cessna.

“See, baby? I promised I’d take care of you,” he murmured as he smoothed the tape into place then snuck another glance toward the cabin.

“Let’s let her stew, huh, Hersh?” he suggested softly as the lab nosed his head under his hand, begging for attention.

Squatting down on his haunches, he gave Hershey the ear-scratching he was angling for. “Never did meet a woman who wasn’t just busting with curiosity and let it get the best of her before all was said and done.”

Whistling softly between his teeth, he rose to his feet and stepped out onto a float. After a little shifting and tugging, he managed to dislodge the tool kit from under the pilot seat. He grinned when he felt the warm burn of her gaze couple with the eighty-degree sun on his bare back as he peeled back the strip of duct tape securing the engine cowling. Folding it back, he settled in to do a little minor repair work and a
lot
of creative tinkering while he waited her out.

“Conceited,
stalling
jerk,” Maggie muttered under her breath as she checked the sun’s descent toward the west where it would soon disappear in the trees behind her cabin.

She’d done her twenty-minute workout—old habits were hard to break. She’d showered. She’d made a pitcher of lemonade, then felt too guilty to have a cool glass while he sweltered down there in the hot sun. Finally, she drank a glass for spite just to prove to herself she didn’t care what happened to him.

She sat by the window with a book but couldn’t remember a thing she’d read because she’d spent most of her time alternately watching Blue and Hershey. The lab’s antics made her smile as he skittered in and out of the woods, sometimes chasing a teasing chipmunk, sometimes wading into the water from the nearby beach to coax a lounging mallard into giving him a run for his money, sometimes lolling in the shade, his only movements the lazy slap of his tail when a fly pestered.

Blue’s antics, however, made her frown as all the while she watched him, he puttered with his precious plane, never sparing a glance toward the cabin. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel. She only knew his being here unsettled her.

He’d been down there for over three hours, messing with his tools, taping things together and spreading importantlooking engine parts on her dock. It didn’t look like he was close to packing up and winging his way out of her life any time soon. In fact, she noted, her scowl deepening as she gave up on the book and tossed it on an end table, he’d just laid another piece of greasy metal on the dock.

She sliced another impatient glance at the clock. It was almost six. While the July sun didn’t completely disappear until nine or after this time of the year, she was getting a little nervous about whether he’d have the Cessna in working order before sunset. If he didn’t, then what would she do with him? While it seemed to be his personal style, she doubted very much that he could fly that plane by night.

She pinched her mouth tight and bit on the inside of her cheek. Only when she realized what her frustration had driven her to—skulking around in the cabin to avoid him—
did she make a decision. She wasn’t going to hide out any longer. Not here. Not because of him. Not in her own home.

Home.
The word stalled, then settled comfortably when she realized she’d applied it to this little cabin in the north woods more than once since she’d been here. New York had been home for the past fourteen years. Yet after a short two-month span of time, this primitive cabin and the vast isolation of the Northland felt more like home than her upscale Soho co-op ever had.

“At least it
had
been isolated,” she grumbled as her attention focused again on the man standing with his legs spread wide and his hands full of some mechanical mystery that was dripping oil and making him frown.

Wearing a frown of her own, she refilled her glass, then grudgingly filled another one. With a sigh that could have been resignation, determination, disgust or all three, she headed out the door.

J.D. was hot. He was also bored. He’d fixed the engine problem a couple of hours ago and he’d about run out of engine parts to tinker with when he finally heard the soft sound of approaching footsteps falling on the wooden dock.

“Thank you,” he whispered skyward, then turned toward the sound, knowing he looked like a sap as his smile spread warm and welcoming. He couldn’t help it. Didn’t care. She looked so damn good walking toward him. She’d pulled her dark, shoulder-length hair from her face with a solid-gold hair band. Her cheeks and nose were rosy above her soft summer tan and today’s kiss of the sun. But best of all, she was carrying two glasses full of ice-cold lemonade. That had to be a good sign.

“Hey,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag and gladly taking the one she extended, in silence, to him. “This is just what the doctor ordered.”

He hadn’t realized just how hot he was. Or how dry. He felt the sweat trickle down his temple to blend with more on his neck as he tipped his head back and downed the entire contents of the glass in three huge, gulping swallows.

With a blissful sigh, he licked the last drop of liquid off the lip of the glass then dragged it across his bare chest to smooth the remains of the cooling moisture there. “Man. Did that hit the spot.”

She looked from the empty glass to him and blinked.

He laughed. “Big man. Big thirst,” he explained. “Bad manners,” he said apologetically. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made such a pig of myself.”

“I guess I shouldn’t have left you out in the sun so long without something to drink. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

He considered her then. Her genuine regret. Her tooacute bearing of blame. And he wondered when this had become such a serious matter.

“You can make it up to me with another glass. Just like the other one,” he added, giving her a huge grin.

Without a word, she retrieved his glass—greasy fingerprints and all—and headed back up the slope to the cabin.

By the time she returned with the refill, he’d managed to wipe the worst of the grime from his hands, tug on his T-shirt and drag a couple of dock chairs onto the grass and out of the sun.

She didn’t want to get friendly. That was clear. But J.D. figured that shared memories and that combustible kiss they’d experienced earlier had taken them a little past what she wanted to a few unalterable facts. She may not
want
to get friendly, but she didn’t have a prayer of forestalling it. He was going to make damn sure of that.

He stood by the chairs, waiting for her to sit. She hesitated, gave him a wary glance, then eased down into the old metal spring chair. Using her lemonade and Hershey as buffers between them, she ignored him as he sat, too, taking
in the sight of her and wondering, still, at the reason she was here.

“Been a long time since I sat under this tree,” he remarked with a wistful, melancholy look around him. “It was a nice surprise finding you here today. Real nice,” he added with a soft, inviting smile.

“So what brings you back, Stretch?” he asked finally, when her extended silence told him nothing more than that she was reluctant to share even a little bit of herself with him.

Her quiet gaze skimmed the still waters of the bay, from the rocky shoreline directly ahead of them to the grassy shadows tucked like waving wheat in the breakwater protected by the dock and finally to the little beach nestled twenty yards to the west.

“I think the real question is what kept me away so long.”

His gaze followed hers to the beauty, to the peace and the tranquillity that was the lake and the wonder that was this natural northern paradise, and he understood. “Got in your blood, didn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she said, her eyes drifting shut as the lake breeze played with her hair, lifting it gently from her brow and feathering it against her cheek. “It did.”

They shared the silence then. The silence that was punctuated with the playful lap of water to shore, the distant call of the gulls and the hypnotic, muted chatter of a dozen pairs of summering mallards and their broods fishing and sunning themselves on the rocks near the beach.

He sat back in the old chair, letting his weight bow the springs. Rocking like an ancient to the lulling sounds of summer, he tried to figure out his good fortune and a safe way to get her to open up.

“So,” he began, feeling his way carefully. “I figured a Caribbean beach or the French Riviera would have been more your speed for an exotic getaway.”

There. It was out in the open. At the very least it was implied that he’d followed her career, or that he was aware of it. Who wasn’t? Anyone who didn’t live under a rock had to be aware of Maggie. He’d discovered Maggie, the superstar, super-sought-after supermodel by accident about seven years ago. He’d been sitting in a dentist’s office, thumbing through some glitzy women’s magazine out of sheer boredom when a lingerie ad had caught his eye. Caught his eye? Singed his eyeballs was more like it. The model was a knockout. A bona fide, jerk-your-heartaround, make-your-jeans-tight knockout.

His hands had stilled, then he’d folded the page out flat and stared, and devoured and forgotten all about his impending root canal as he fought to resurrect a memory that wouldn’t quite come into focus.

He was under the drill, drifting on laughing gas and dreaming of summer love when it hit him and damn near knocked him out of the dental chair.

The Maggie in the magazine wasn’t just the single-name phenomenon that little girls wanted to grow up to be like and big girls strived to copy. She was
his
Maggie. His Maggie Adams, who still had the ability to heat his blood to flash point with a single look from her spicy brown eyes. It was
his
Maggie who had been staring her stubborn, sultry, untouchable stare from the page of that magazine, wearing nothing but a white silk teddy and thigh-high lace stockings.

He looked over at her now. Her aristocratic yet sensual features were bare of makeup and pretense, her dark eyes were striking without benefit of shadows and shadings and carefully positioned lights and he thought she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“You’ve had a helluva ride, haven’t you, Stretch?”

Still, she remained silent. And he wondered at the cause of it. Since that first time he’d discovered her in that ad, he’d seen her face and body on everything from magazine
covers to billboards, to TV advertising, to a segment of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” to promotions for her signature perfume. In the world of glamour and glitz, stars didn’t rise any higher.

Yet, still she sat. Silent. Somber. Hanging on to her thoughts and her emotions like the glass she clenched tightly in her hands.

“How’s the plane?” she asked finally, never meeting his eyes. “Are you going to be able to put it back together?”

And fly out of my life and leave me alone?
was the trailing, unvoiced ending to that question that he guessed she was too polite to put into words.

So she didn’t want to get chummy. So she didn’t want him hanging around long enough to get reacquainted. Tough.

Most men would have taken the hint and left the lady alone. He wasn’t most men. But then, Maggie Adams wasn’t just any woman. She was
the
woman of his adolescent dreams. The embodiment of his perfect woman. And even though he hadn’t realized it until he’d had the good luck to find her again today, she was the woman by whom he’d measured all others since and found them lacking.

Was he going to fly out of her life and leave her alone? Hell no. But since it seemed so important to her, he’d oblige her by making her think he was trying. The truth of the matter was, he wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. Not any time soon. He was determined to get her to open up to him.

Whether she liked it or not, he figured he’d stick around until then—or at least until he satisfied himself that she couldn’t possibly be all he remembered and everything he’d ever wanted a woman to be.

“I
think I’ve just about got it,” J.D. said confidently as he tinkered again with what he hoped Maggie regarded as a total mystery of machinery and mazes. If she knew anything—anything at all about engines—he had about as much of a chance of pulling this off as a rock had floating.

Though still fairly silent, she’d really been a sport. When he’d suggested an extra pair of hands would come in handy to hold a wrench while he tightened a few screws and oiled a few gears, she’d drawn a wary but determined breath and followed him to the plane.

It had been a cheap trick. But he wasn’t above pulling it. Not when the result placed him in such deliciously close proximity to the spring-fresh scent of her hair and the summer-warm heat of her body. And she looked so damn cute with that smudge of grease on her nose.

He’d even gotten an exasperated grin out of her when he’d told her to put more pressure on the dowadidie so he
could tighten the whatsitduger which in turn would make the thingamajigger work the way it was supposed to.

“Technie talk,” he’d confided in a patronizing tone and a superior air that had finally won that smile.

It had been worth the wait. Though tempered with a worthy suspicion that told him he was going to have to keep on his toes or she’d find him out, he loved the look of her when she smiled. A certain sweetness hovered around the edges of that smile. A childlike vulnerability that he knew she’d never confess to. The wonder of it made his heart clench. The reason for it remained a mystery and the source of a dark and brooding concern.

“Okay,” he said with staged hope as he retightened a screw he’d just loosened. “Let’s see if that did the trick.”

Wiping his hands on a rag, he closed the engine cowling with determined finality. “Kiss for luck?” he suggested with raised brows and a hopeful grin as he ripped off a fresh strip of duct tape and slapped it across the broken cowling latch to hold it closed.

She rolled her eyes, which made him laugh. Which made her scowl as she stepped back. He chose to interpret her scowl as reluctance at his imminent departure and was still grinning when he climbed into the cockpit.

“Come on sweetheart,” he murmured, making a great show of coaxing and cajoling the engine. “Make daddy proud. I’ve got great expectations.”

After a series of misfires and a bevy of sputters and
chuck-a-chucks,
the engine finally sparked, fired and hummed to life.

J.D. flashed Maggie a victorious smile, then throttled back to idling speed. Lord, he loved the look of her. She was trying to look relieved when, in fact, he figured she was fighting disappointment, which implied that she didn’t want him to leave. Which, as far as he was concerned, more than justified the creative license he’d taken with his repairs.

With his grin still firmly in place, he crawled back out of the cockpit.

“We did it, Stretch,” he yelled above the engine noise, then sidestepped Hershey when the lab made a flying leap for the shotgun seat.

They shared a soft smile at the dog’s eagerness.

“Don’t suppose you’d want to sign on as my ace mechanic?” He rose his brows hopefully.

“I think I’ll leave that to you.”

“What?” He moved closer, even though he’d heard every word. “I can’t hear you. The noise,” he yelled, angling a thumb back toward the plane as he lowered his head until his ear was a whisper away from her mouth.

“I said, I think I’ll leave that to you!” she shouted.

“Aw, Stretch.” He cupped her shoulders in his hands and gave her his most soulful look. “I don’t want to leave you either!”

She shook her head vehemently. “No. That’s not what I said!”

“You’d feel bad if I was dead?”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe this.”

“A kiss? Jeez, Stretch. I thought you’d never ask.”

She hadn’t any more than opened her mouth to adamantly correct him when he lowered his head to hers.

There was something to be said for surprise attacks. Something to be said for a shocked, pliant woman and the sneak-up-on-you chill of a slow, creeping sunset that drew heat to heat, heartbeat to heartbeat.

J.D. folded her into his arms without restraint and savored the sweetness of her mouth, the softness of her body, the wonderful fit of her five-foot-ten stature to his mere four-inch advantage.

The lady thought this was goodbye. And once she figured out that this wasn’t where the scene was going, she kissed like it was goodbye.

The wary tension seeped out of her limbs like frost melting on sun-warmed windowpanes. The reluctance to participate relaxed to a lazy acquiescence to the wonder of the moment and the richness of shared passions.

She molded her long length against his, held on like he was her anchor in a swirling sea of sensation and rode with him to the rise and fall of each deep, seductive swell.

It felt good. It felt like heaven. And ending it was one of the hardest things J.D. had ever done.

He pulled away slowly. His heart hammering. His emotions beating out a tune he was neither familiar with nor certain of. She felt it too. He could see it in her eyes. Sense it with each thready breath she drew. And as they stood there, the dusk fast descending and the urgency for his departure eminent, he saw a shadow of regret cloud her dark eyes.

A scene from an old war movie flicked across his mind’s eye. He wasn’t sure which movie. It didn’t really matter. There was always a dramatic parting scene between the brave RAF pilot and his poignantly crying lover, a heroine of the French Resistance. The reluctant but resigned destiny of his call to duty darkened the hero’s eyes; the silent but futile plea to stay glistened in hers.

“I gotta go, Stretch,” he whispered as sappy sentiments blended sweetly with their own parting and he hoped for an invitation to stay.

No such luck. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts in that way he was beginning to recognize as an attempt to both create distance and provide self-protection.

He let out a deflated breath when she gave him a stiff nod, distancing herself even further. Guess he could rule out romance—but not a change of plans.

A lesser man would have counted on luck to stay his departure. He wasn’t a lesser man.

When he’d pulled the fuel line earlier—with a fervent prayer she hadn’t noticed or wouldn’t realize what he’d
done if she had—there had only been enough gas in the engine to run for a few minutes.

Though he was still stunned from the impact of their kiss and a little slow on the uptake, when the engine died on cue, he finally remembered to look shocked. He might have even managed to look a little disappointed.

What he felt was guilt. Okay, so only a little guilt, especially in light of the rewards he might reap because of his duplicity.

His slight hesitation cost him points, though. He caught a glimmer of suspicion in her eyes at the moment before he turned to the plane, gave the obligatory disgusted sigh and hung his hands dejectedly on his hips.

“Damn,” he muttered, hoping he sounded convincing.

“Yeah,” she echoed without an ounce of inflection in her voice. She narrowed her dark eyes and glared at him. “Damn.”

Maggie smelled a rat the size of a whale—or in this case, the size of a very large, very blond Minnesotan.

She stared from his broad back to the plane.

“Problem?” she asked dryly.

“Could be,” he said with a thoughtful frown. “Let me try her again.”

But of course, when he climbed back into the pilot’s seat, made all the appropriate adjustments and schooled his face into the picture of determination, the engine lay as quiet as the descent of the sun.

Something about the too, too dejected look on his face had her gritting her teeth.

Damn the man. Damn the man and his reckless grin and his sneak attacks and his potent kisses. And his stupid, worthless plane!

“Now what?” She didn’t even try to hide her disgust.

“Well,” he began, checking the dwindling daylight, “it’s a cinch I can’t get her running before dark. And even if I could, while I don’t mind flying at night, I don’t much like
the idea of landing in the dark without ground or water lights. And I like the look of that cloud bank moving in even less.”

For the first time, Maggie noticed the darkening sky wasn’t due only to the approaching sunset. A big thunderhead had moved in, black and threatening with the promise of rain and the potential of wind.

“So where’s base?” she asked on a resigned sigh.

“Crane Cove.”

One of the things Maggie had done when she’d moved into the cabin was acquaint herself fully with the lay of the lake. Crane Cove was less than an hour away by air. By land, however, they were looking at a four-hour trip. She didn’t much care for the possibility of being cloistered in her Jeep with this man—no matter how charming—for that long. It would give him more than enough time to chip away at her resolve and make her want to confide in him.

“Can you radio someone to come pick you up?” she suggested, searching for an alternative.

“Radio?”

She gave him a baleful look. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a radio in the plane.”

“Yeah, well, sure. I’ve got a radio. But—”

“No,” she cut in with a quelling scowl. “Let me guess. It doesn’t work.”

Again came that exasperating and irritatingly infectious grin. “Got it in one, Stretch. Looks like you’re stuck with Hershey and me for the night.”

She glared at him.

He had the nerve to laugh.

“I’ll drive you back,” she said with a single-minded determination to get rid of him.

“Oh, no you won’t. I won’t put you out that way. Besides, there’s a stretch of road about ten miles long that’s torn up. You’d need a Sherman tank to get through that
mess. Especially if it rains,” he added with a meaningful nod toward the sky.

She let out a deep, defeated breath.

“Hey,” he said, cutting through thoughts that included murder and mayhem. “It’s no sweat, okay? This is northern Minnesota. And you’re looking at an outdoorsman. I’m
always
prepared for impromptu camp-outs. My tent is stowed in the Cessna. Hershey and I can pitch it in your front yard. We’ll sleep under the clouds, stay warm by the camp fire and howl at the moon for entertainment. It’ll be fine. It’ll be great. You’ll see. You’ll forget we’re even here.”

Forget he was here? There was about as much chance of that as there was forgetting the way she’d reacted when he’d given her what she’d thought was a goodbye kiss. Something had happened to her in that moment. Something powerful and frightening and totally beyond her control.

She’d been swamped with an undeniable regret that he was actually going to leave her. As impossible as it seemed, she hadn’t wanted him to go. And as he’d bent his head to hers, his intent as clear as the blue of his eyes, she’d told him as much, not with words, but with her body.

She’d molded herself against him, clung to him like scented lotion to sun-parched skin, melted like candle wax set to flame. And he’d answered her unspoken request to stay with a sweet seduction that had taken and indulged and promised a pleasure even greater if she’d just say the word.

She swallowed hard. Forget he was here? Not in this lifetime. That didn’t mean he had to know it.

“Fine,” she said crisply. “Camp on the lawn.” Then, turning on legs bent on wobbling, she walked up to the cabin, determined to at least make him think she was capable of forgetting about him.

* * *

“Well, Hersh,” J.D. groused as he settled into his sleeping bag and the lab curled up beside him, “looks like the lady took me literally. I think she did forget about us.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have been so enthusiastic when he’d assured her he’d be fine out in the elements. He hadn’t thought at the time that he’d been all that convincing.

“Goes to show how much I know, huh, boy? Because I also figured she’d invite us in.”

He cast a scowling glance toward the dark cabin. She’d walked away a little over three hours ago and he hadn’t seen her since.

At the very least, he’d expected an offer to sleep on her couch. Hell, he’d have settled for the floor. Anything would have been softer than this rock his tent was pitched on.

He hit the button illuminating the dial on his watch Only half an hour until midnight. It was going to be a long wait until morning. He’d built his fire for warmth but foregone cooking for the slices of summer sausage, cheese and crackers he’d packed in the little cooler he always carried in the plane. Hershey had been content with his dog chow and a couple of crackers. After a little recreational game of hide-and-seek with another chipmunk, the lab had settled in beside him.

“She’s going to be a tougher nut to crack than I’d originally thought,” J.D. reflected aloud as he turned on his back, made a final check of the black clouds rolling across the night sky and hoped for a tender heart in the event of rain. In absence of an invitation, he prayed that the hastily applied patches of duct tape he’d slapped across the new tears in his old tent would hold. He hated getting wet. Truth to tell, he hated camping out—though he’d never admit it aloud. Not to his friends, at any rate. They’d laugh him out of the state—especially if they found out that his idea of roughing it included a microwave and a CD player.

While he loved the north country, he loved it between sunrise and dusk, when the air was sweet and crisp and the sun was warm and mellow. By night, even in the summer, the lake land could be cold and sometimes dangerous. Shadows bled into shapes—many of them wild black bears, scavengers of the night, propelled to roam by boundless appetites that made them easy prey to the poachers currently plaguing the area.

Tomorrow would be soon enough to worry about them again. Tonight he had to worry about staying warm. And dry. When the sun had disappeared for the day, the warm breeze had shifted to a stout northwesterly, carrying a hint of an arctic chill. For a while the moon and the mosquitoes had been the only friendly company in the dark.

“I could do without the mosquitoes, but I wouldn’t have minded a little more moonlight,” he grumbled. The cloud bank had completely darkened the sky. “Wouldn’t have minded a soft bed, either,” he added grumpily as he tugged the sleeping bag higher over his shoulder and grudgingly accepted that it was going to be a long, cold night.