Almost Twilight (8 page)

Candy
didn’t know which was worse, the airplane ride or the man sitting beside her. But
it didn’t really matter, because together they were a horrifying combination.

Rafe
sank into his first class seat and sighed as the plane took off. This was a
direct flight to The Bahamas. He had just made it too. A last minute call from
his father had derailed his plan of arriving at the airport early. Fritz had
twisted his ankle. Rafe had stopped at the house, checked on his dad, and told
the man to stay off his feet for a day.

There
wasn’t any immediate bruising, and Rafe figured Hannah was more scared than
Fritz. Tanner was out of town, and Rafe figured Hannah needed to be set at ease
more than his dad. In fact, Hannah had seemed quite nervous when Rafe had arrived.
But Rafe assured her that Fritz was fine and should be up and around in a day
or two.

Rafe
smiled and closed his eyes. Right now, a two-week vacation in The Bahamas sounded
pretty good to him. No more midnight calls, no more worrying if a resident got
the order right, no more fatherly talks about getting married. Yes sir, this
was going to be one leisurely vacation with no one disturbing his peace of
mind.

“Excuse
me.” 

The
tap on his shoulder woke him from a deep sleep. A beautiful blond flight
attendant leaned toward him. Her perfume wove about his face like a trance.

He
gave her his best Clearbrook smile. “Well, hello.” 

She
smiled back. Perhaps he wouldn’t be alone in The Bahamas after all.

“I’m
sorry to wake you. But one of my associates heard that you were a doctor. You
were, uh, talking to the pilot when you got on the plane, and well…you are a
doctor, aren’t you?”

Wonderful,
some kid with airplane sickness again. “Yes, I am.”

It seemed
someone had overhead Rafe’s quick conversation with the pilot, who had
recognized him from his stay at Clearbrook Valley Hospital last year.

“A
medical doctor?” the attendant asked.

Rafe
arched a black brow. “Is someone in need of my services?”

The
flight attendant blushed. “Lady in 30A seems a bit uncomfortable, but she
assures me it’s nothing. I’ve already given her three drinks, and the man next
to her, whom I don’t think is her husband, says he’ll take care of her, but
something doesn’t seem right. She’s a bit green, and she’s clutching her chest
as if she might go any minute. I mean, the guy beside her ordered for her. I
assumed she knew him because she went along with the order, but well, I think
it could be a heart attack.”

“A
heart attack?” Rafe replied, sitting up straighter. Probably another drunk, not
able to hold her liquor.

Rafe
unfolded his tall frame from his comfortable seat and turned to the blond. “Okay,
show me the way.” 

Rafe
followed the flight attendant. He glanced at the numbers below the storage
compartments and stopped at 30A.

When
the flight attendant moved aside, Rafe got a glimpse of a pair of broad
shoulders blocking his view.

The
aisle seat was open, and Rafe wondered if the lady in question had been suffocated
by the brute.

“Would
you mind moving over a seat?” Rafe asked in a cool, doctor-like command.

The
Viking turned his head. “Who are you?”

“I’m
a doctor. I heard the lady’s sick.” 

Rafe
still couldn’t get a good look at the woman, but he could see she had a nice
pair of legs that the man kept staring at. Her head was turned toward the
window, and Rafe noticed her white knuckles as her hands gripped the armrest. There
was no ring on her wedding finger either. He was getting a bad feeling here
too.

“Is
she your wife?” he asked the man.

“No.”

“Fiancée?
Girlfriend?”

“No,
just met her.”

A
surge of protectiveness shot through Rafe. Whatever this man was doing, he
certainly wasn’t helping the lady. “Well, then, I suggest you move, so I can see
what’s wrong.”

The man
sent Rafe an annoyed look, but moved aside. Rafe squeezed past him to sit
beside the dark-haired woman whose face was now pressed against the window.

She had
twisted her body away from him and looked rather uncomfortable. A blanket was
thrown over her petite form, and her sweet perfume danced past Rafe’s nostrils.
He dragged his mind, trying to think where he had smelled that fragrance
before.

Suddenly,
the lady’s forehead lifted, then fell with a thud against the window. Chestnut
curls bounced along her neck.  

“Miss,
it’s all right. I’m a doctor. My name’s Dr. Clearbrook.” He touched her hands
and thought he heard a groan of distress. She wouldn’t face him.

He turned
to the flight attendant who was anxiously waiting by his side. “I don’t think
it’s a heart attack,” he said. “But if it’s all right, I’ll take her up to
first class and have a look at her there.”

The
attendant nodded, while the Viking grumbled and eased out of the aisle seat as
Rafe gently pulled the woman toward him.

She
slouched toward the window again, as if she were in some kind of pain. Loose
curls fell around her face, and he still couldn’t get a good look at her. He
figured she was young, perhaps in her twenties. The blanket was covering most
of her, except her legs. Yet there was something oddly familiar about her.

“Miss,
we’re going to move you up to first class and see what I can do for you.”

Her
head shot up, and for a split second, Rafe felt as if someone had kicked him.

“You,
Dr. Clearbrook, can forget about help—” she hiccupped, throwing off her
blanket, “h-helping me anytime.”

“Candy?”
Rafe stared back in shock. “For crying out loud, you’re plastered! And what did
you do to your hair?” It was curled into some frothy concoction, and he hadn’t
recognized her.

Candy
leaned forward and fell against his chest. “I’m not d-drunk. I’m
clausta-cloisto—”

“Claustrophobic,”
the Viking said, letting out an amused snort.

Rafe
shot the man a hostile glare and swept Candy’s limp body into his arms as he
headed up the aisle to first class. When he dropped his gaze, he caught a pair
of big brown eyes inspecting his bottom lip.

“You
have a tiny, tiny cold sore D-doctor. T-Too much str-str—”

“Stress,”
he snapped. “Too much stress. And you Miss Richards are not helping matters
any.” 

He
dropped her gently on the seat next to his and told the attendant he would take
care of the lady. There was no one else in first class except a little old
woman about three rows up.

“I’d
like to ask you a few things, Miss Richards, but as I can see, you are not in
any shape to answer me.”

Long
thick lashes flirted with him. He felt his heart throbbing in his ears.

“And
what kind of shape am I in?” she asked with a captivating smile.

Rafe
looked her up and down, from the skimpy sandals wrapping her dainty feet to the
sleeveless pink sweater hugging her womanly curves. Hadn’t he seen that sweater
on his sister-in-law? In fact, wasn’t that the one he had given Hannah for
Christmas?

The
lady giggled.

He
scowled, irritated by the way she affected him. “Why did you have so many
drinks?”

A
fat tear slid down her cheeks. “I was scared.”

She
slipped her hand through his fingers, her eyes locking with his. “But now that
you’re here, I’m not scared anymore.” 

It
felt as if a hand had closed around his throat as he tried to calm the emotions
pounding against his brain.

“And
why are you here?” he asked accusingly, “on my vacation?” Had she followed him?

Her
eyelids blinked up at him. “Did Fritz give you free tickets too?”

“My
father gave you tickets?” he asked, about to pop a blood vessel. “Airfare?”

She
nodded, her lids closing.

The
very idea sent Rafe’s blood boiling. If his father wasn’t the most interfering,
meddlesome matchmaker in the world, he didn’t know who was. The second he got
back from this vacation, he was going to tell his father a thing or two.

“Fritz
said I needed a vacation since Roger was so mean to me.”

Rafe’s
gaze narrowed on her delicate face. “Who the hell is Roger?”

She
opened her doe brown eyes and stared at him. “Hmmm?”

He
leaned closer, trying to ignore the way her dark lashes swept across her pink cheeks.
“I said, who’s Roger?”

A
flash of something close to pain appeared in her eyes, then it was gone. He
made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was watching her every move, and
she angled her gaze toward the seat in front of her.

“Oh...just
a man I know.”

A
man?
Of course, he was a man! But who the hell was he?

“All
right then, let’s get back to my father giving you the tickets.”

She
turned her face away again, but not before Rafe saw the tears streaming down
her cheeks.

“I
didn’t know about you being on this plane,” she said with a hiccup. “I didn’t
know what Fritz was doing. What was he doing?”

Rafe
wasn’t about to tell her that Fritz Clearbrook had planned this meeting, had
planned her vacation, and if Rafe’s thoughts were correct, Fritz had planned
her lodging too!

“Let
me see your itinerary.”

She
sighed, and her bottom lip trembled. “I don’t have it...and I don’t feel very
good.” 

Rafe
frowned. The lady was more tired than drunk. She wouldn’t stay awake another
fifteen minutes. “Where is it, then?”

She waved
her hand in the air. “Oh, in my purse back there...somewhere.”

Rafe
shifted his gaze to coach, realizing Candy’s purse was still by her seat. “I’ll
be right back.”

  He
marched back to seat 30A and felt his anger rising. Mr. Viking seemed to be
rifling through Candy’s purse.

Something
inside Rafe snapped, and he pressed his face up against the man’s shoulder.
“You looking for something, buddy?”

“Thought
she might have an antacid or something,” the Viking stuttered. “My stomach’s
upset.”

Rafe
took the man by the collar, lowering his voice. “I’ll give you something to be
upset about. You take your filthy hands out of that purse and hand it to me
like we were old friends. When we get off at Nassau, I don’t want to see your
face again. Understand?”

The
man’s face turned cherry red, and he nodded grimly as he handed Rafe the purse.
“But you don’t fool me,
Doctor
,” he said just as Rafe turned to leave.

Rafe
spun around, dismissing the few people in the surrounding seats who were listening
intently to the conversation. “What did you say?”

“I
said, you don’t fool me. You’re more than a doctor to that woman. Why, if I
didn’t know better, I’d say you were a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Rafe
glared at the man, suppressing the urge to sock the guy in the face. But the
fact was, the man was right. Rafe was attracted to that little spitfire in
first class more than he ever wanted to be, and at the moment, there wasn’t a single
thing he could do about it. He just hoped his father hadn’t done what he
thought he did and set Candy up at his place.

The
attendant came hurrying up the aisle, asking if anything was wrong. Rafe didn’t
want to get thrown off the plane and sent to jail for taking a punch at the guy.
But he was sorely tempted. He couldn’t prove the man had been going through
Candy’s purse, but he told the attendant to keep an eye on Mr. Viking man.

When
Rafe returned to first class, he heard Candy snoring. He smiled, then
immediately frowned when he took in her slender legs. Nurse Richards was fast
asleep and too darn pretty for his own good.

Regretting
what he had to do, he fished through her purse until he found what he needed,
her itinerary, which included where she was staying.

“For
crying out loud,” he hissed. His father had booked Candy Richards at one of
Rafe’s cottages located on the beach.

Fritz
Clearbrook was a dead man! 

“Shhh,”
came the reprimand from the drunk woman beside him. “You’re going to wake
everyone.”

Rafe
dropped his gaze to Nurse Richards. Two doe brown eyes clung to his, and he
felt his control slipping fast.

“No
one is sleeping but you. Go back to sleep.”

“How
can I go back to sleep when you’re rummaging through my purse like a mouse
looking for cheese?”

Rafe
regarded the smile in her eyes and laughed. “You, Nurse Richards, are going to
be the death of me.”

“Call
me, Candy,” she said with a velvet edge to her voice.

Rafe
stretched his neck, feeling a bit warm.