Come Fly with Me (10 page)

“But you promised a kiss would do it,” she responded, a hint of desperation in her voice. Two more minutes of this spiraling pleasure that curled through her and she wasn't going to be able to ask him to stop. If anything, she would be begging him to go on, to make love to her.

“One kiss. That's what you said,” she repeated dazedly.

“That was before I knew that it was only the tip of the iceberg.”

A little flicker of fighting spirit rallied. “You take a single layer of my clothing off out here and I will be an iceberg.”

He grinned at her hopefully. “Then you're ready to come inside?”

She beamed back and nodded. “I am going inside,” she said agreeably, then added, “but you're not. I think you need the Boulder equivalent of a cold shower. Go roll around in the snow.”

Mark's expression fell. “Now I know how Morrie must have felt,” he said in a dejected tone. “You're cruel and heartless, just as I suspected. It's all that fighting for position in the business world.”

“Don't think you're going to manipulate me into your bed, Mark Channing,” Lindsay retorted, waving her ski pole at him threateningly. “I'll make love to you when I'm good and ready.”

His eyes lit up and she had a feeling she'd just uttered a very backhanded commitment, one she'd had no intention of making.

“Then you will make love with me?” he said. “Soon?”

“When hell freezes over,” she said defiantly, then looked around her at the icicles clinging to the tree branches and the never-ending snow that covered the ground like a thick winter blanket and wondered if it already had. Certainly the odds of her holding out much longer against Mark's increasingly provocative advances were not something they'd want to bet on in Las Vegas.

However, not once for the rest of the day, did he even brush up against her by accident, much less by design. They ate lunch, then spent the afternoon in front of the fire reading in companionable silence while classical music played softly on the stereo. Every now and then Lindsay would peer over the top of the book and watch Mark as he read, his brow furrowed in concentration. It was the first time she could ever recall being so at ease spending time with a man in an environment that didn't contain a desk or conference table. It was, in fact, the first time she'd had so much unplanned time stretched out in front of her to do with as she pleased. Right now simply being with Mark pleased her very much. She felt no need to entertain, no desire to be
entertained. Just being with him gave her an enormous feeling of contentment.

Later, they fixed dinner together, battling over the proper way to do the lettuce for the salad. She thought it should be torn. He wanted to slice it into shreds. Stubbornly, they each fixed one their own way and traded the finished product.

“Okay, so it tastes the same,” Lindsay grumbled, when they were sitting at the table. “I'm sure Craig Claiborne and Julia Child would be appalled if they saw lettuce all diced up into little shreds this way. Can you imagine this being served at the Four Seasons?”

“This isn't the Four Seasons,” Mark retorted. “As for your experts, if they're that picky, I would never invite them to dinner. I refuse to have culinary snobs at my table.”

“They would love this stew though. Did you make it?”

“Of course.”

“What's in it?”

“Carrots, potatoes, onions, the usual.”

Lindsay picked up a chunk of meat on the tip of her fork and held it in the air. “And this? It doesn't taste like beef.”

“It's not. It's venison.”

She lowered her fork slowly back to the bowl, her green eyes darkening in dismay. “As in Bambi?”

“Oh, dear heavens. You're not one of those.”

“One of those what?”

“People who don't believe in hunting.”

“How can you go out and kill an innocent little deer?”

“I don't kill innocent little deer. I kill grown-up deer and only for food, not just for the fun of it.”

Lindsay shivered. “It's still cruel.”

“You ate that steak last night without muttering a single whimper of protest.”

“That was different.”

“How? The cow didn't even have a fighting chance.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Of course not, because you know you're not being logical.”

“That's right. I'm being emotional and feminine. Not too long ago that's exactly what you wanted me to be.”

“I think there's a difference.”

Lindsay knew perfectly well there was, but
she'd already lost this round and she had no desire to prolong his satisfaction at her defeat.

“Couldn't we talk about something else?” she asked as they moved into the living room and settled down at opposite ends of the sofa.

“Sure,” he agreed with alacrity. “We can talk about you.”

“I was thinking more about you. I really don't know very much about you except that you're a writer, that you live in the wilderness, have this insane attraction for snow and that you kill wild animals.”

“I thought you didn't want to talk about that.”

“Right. Let's stick to safer topics. You said you'd only lived here a few years. Where were you before that?”

“I traveled a lot. A writer can live almost anywhere and I did, mostly in Europe, though I spent one glorious summer in Bali and another one on a tiny island in the Caribbean. Every winter I went to Switzerland to a chalet in a small village in the Alps.”

Lindsay hesitated, then finally asked what she'd really wanted to know all along. “Alone?”

“Sometimes,” he said briefly, his tone clearly slamming the door shut on the subject.

“Mark, can I ask you something?”

He studied her cautiously, then nodded. “Sure.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“I'm thirty-nine. What do you think?” he replied cryptically.

“I think you're avoiding the question.”

He tried one of his dazzling smiles on her. “Who was it who said that the only thing that matters is the present?”

“Probably some man who didn't want to talk about the past.”

“Smart man.”

“Not really. The past is largely responsible for the present.”

“Then let's talk about yours some more,” he said, turning the conversation right back around on her. She considered it one of his less attractive habits.

“What are you so afraid of?” he asked.

“Who said I'm afraid?”

“It's in your eyes every time we start to get too close.”

“That's just your imagination.”

“Is it?” he asked skeptically, then challenged,
“In that case, come over here by me.”

Lindsay hesitated just a second or two too long. By the time she met Mark's gaze again, his eyes were twinkling. “I rest my case.”

“Just because I don't want to have a meaningless little fling with you doesn't mean I'm afraid.”

“It wouldn't be meaningless between us and you know it.”

Lindsay sighed. “Okay,” she said at last. “Maybe you're right and maybe that is the problem. I don't want any involvements in my life.”

“Why? I got the feeling last night that something had happened to make you lock yourself away from the world.”

“I'm not exactly locked away from the world. I'm traveling all over it.”

“Alone.”

“Yes.”

“Why? You're a beautiful woman, easy to be with, intelligent. Why would you choose to be alone? And don't try to dance around that, because I know it has to be by choice. For the last two days I've watched you systematically shut me out and I don't think I'm
the first man you've done that to. You're too good at it.”

“I learned very early that you can't count on other people, even the ones you love the most,” she said matter-of-factly, though there was a growing ache in her heart.

He reached out and captured her hand in his, his gaze warm and tender. “Who hurt you? Who hurt you so badly that you don't trust anyone?”

Lindsay could feel the tears welling up in her eyes as she remembered in precise and horrifying detail the day they'd come to tell her mother that her father was dead, that the plane he'd been on had crashed into the side of a mountain and there were no survivors. She'd blamed him for leaving them. God, how she'd hated him for that, even though she'd known she was wrong.

“It wasn't his fault,” she said shakily now. “He didn't mean to leave us alone. I know he didn't mean to do it.”

“Who?”

“My father.”

“He walked out on you?”

“No. It was nothing like that. He was killed in a plane crash. He traveled a lot and
one time the plane just didn't make it back. I was nine years old, and all of a sudden one of the people I loved the most was gone and it didn't make any sense. It hurt so much.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” Mark said, drawing her into his arms and holding her against his chest. Once more, she could feel his strength seeping into her, easing the pain. “That explains everything. You've spent your whole life trying to avoid another loss like that, haven't you?”

Suddenly it was clear to her. That was exactly what she'd been doing. She'd known it subconsciously, but she'd never before allowed the thoughts to surface so that she could deal with them, just as she'd forced herself to board plane after plane, each time terrified that she would die as her father had.

“I suppose so,” she admitted, knowing that it was more than mere supposition. It was fact.

“I know exactly how you feel, but you can't live your life in a glass cage to protect yourself against hurt.”

“I don't see why not. I'm busy. I have friends. I love my job.”

“And you spend your nights all alone.”

“I don't need anyone to share my nights,” she said stubbornly.

“I felt that way once, too, but then I realized I wasn't living. I was only existing. Don't let that happen to you, bright eyes. It would be such a waste.”

The intensity of the warning and the warmth and concern behind it left Lindsay shaken and emotionally drained. Reaching deep inside herself to admit the truth about her fears had taken a devastating toll, more than she could handle in one night.

“I think I'd better get to bed,” she said, wondering if Mark would try to stop her. But, once again, he let her go with only a brief, tantalizing kiss.

“Night, love.”

By the time Lindsay finally climbed into her bed, every one of her senses seemed to be screaming in frustration. She was alone again, and, as adamant as she'd been about not needing anyone, for the first time in her life she didn't want to be alone. She wanted to be back in Mark's arms as she had been earlier. It was a pull more powerful than anything she had ever felt before and she knew that sooner or later she was going to have to
do something about it. Running away seemed like a very good idea.

By the time Monday morning rolled around after another virtually sleepless night, she wanted more than ever to go back to Los Angeles. She had admitted during the night that she was becoming entangled in something with Mark that she was afraid to face: her own sensuality, her own rapidly building physical desires, desires that would lock her into the very kind of relationship she'd always been so careful to avoid.

But leaving Mark Channing to put her life back on an even keel was not just a simple case of packing her bag and going to the airport. There was still the matter of the contract to be settled, and try as she might, Mark seemed to be oblivious to every subtle attempt she made to get him to read it, much less discuss it. Even her more direct suggestions were met with evasive responses and tactical retreats that would have made any army commander proud. They only infuriated her.

“Mark,” she finally began as they sat sipping coffee after lunch on Monday afternoon. They had spent the morning laughing like a
couple of carefree kids as they built a huge lopsided snowman with a crooked button smile, a carrot nose and an old hunting cap sitting jauntily on his head. It had been fun, but the time for fun was over. She was becoming far too ensnared in a way of life that was all wrong for her.

“You promised me you'd read this contract, if I spent the weekend with you. The weekend's up and I have to go back,” she said, rather proud of her decisive, no-nonsense tone. “Trent will be expecting me.”

“Call him,” Mark suggested blandly.

Lindsay glowered at him. So much for her power play. She knew exactly what calling Trent would accomplish: nothing. Her boss would let her stay here until the flowers bloomed in July if it meant that she'd come back with a deal to have Mark write a screenplay based on his latest book. It was Trent's current obsession, and no cost was too high when Trent Langston was personally obsessed with a project. He wouldn't help her. She was going to have to get out of this emotional minefield on her own.

“Mark, please. I really need to go back. I have other things to take care of.”

He regarded her curiously. “Personal things? Is there another man in your life after all?”

The way Mark phrased the question and the darkly dangerous look in his eyes implied that he was in her life now and had every intention of staying there without sharing her with anyone else. That look posed a definite threat to any possible lingering commitments from her past. Fortunately, she supposed, there were none to worry about.

“No,” she admitted at last. “You know perfectly well after last night that there's no man. I just have other work to do. It's been piling up while I chased you around the country.”

“Now that you've found me are you really having such a miserable time?”

Lindsay bit her lip and refused to meet his penetrating gaze. That was precisely the trouble. She wasn't having a miserable time at all. She was enjoying being with Mark all too much. She was beginning to count on their long talks, on his gentle teasing, the increasingly more demanding touches that had suddenly abated, leaving her yearning for their resumption. She was beginning to want him
in her life and that terrified her. Even though she was starting to understand why she'd always kept men at arm's length, it didn't mean she could change it overnight.