The Fall of Lucas Kendrick (2 page)

He knew the instant she spotted him, and he saw the glider bank in a tight turn and then hesitate for an instant before it began losing altitude in a long, sweeping descent toward him. He backed up automatically, giving her room,
feeling himself tense even more. She cleared the edge of the cliff by inches, and her feet lightly touched ground.

She had to run only a few steps before she could stop the glider. The pointed nose of the thing tipped forward to rest on the ground, and she shrugged out of the harness, only then turning her head to study the visitor.

Without a noticeable expression, startling turquoise eyes scanned him from his windblown, silvery blond hair to his booted feet, taking in the backpack and rugged clothing he wore. Then casually she said, “Hello, Luc,” and bent to collapse the hang glider and roll it up for carrying.

Well, what had he expected? Lucas wondered. He knew the answer, of course. Despite everything,
because
of everything, he’d expected a stronger reaction from her. Rather than a polite hello, he’d braced himself for something more along the lines of venom or hatred. Anger. Something. And from any other
woman that’s what he would have gotten, even though it had been ten years.

At the very least, he decided with a little bitterness of his own, she might have asked why he’d come miles into the wilderness to find her—as it was patently obvious he had. And why he’d come now, after ten years. But not her.

Not Kyle Griffon.

She could trace her ancestry back hundreds of years, and even now the Celtic bone structure and dark coloring marked her indelibly as Welsh, no matter what other contributions had been made to her family’s genetic pool. Her forefathers had been among the landed gentry back when such things counted, and five separate titles had graced her family name at various points in its history. And though her family hadn’t arrived on American shores with the
Mayflower
, they’d probably been on the next boat.

Behind them they’d left their titles and land, and with them they’d brought generations of
aristocratic breeding, shrewd intelligence, courage, utter composure, and all the family treasures they could hire people to carry. In the ensuing generations canny Griffons built various empires from those bits of silver and gold, glittering gems, and priceless paintings, and they hadn’t looked back.

Lucas watched the slender figure in the drab green jumpsuit working expertly to bind up the glider into a compact bundle. He wondered if defying death was Kyle’s way of dealing with her august lineage. In a family generally described as sober and businesslike, Kyle was a rebel and a rogue. Looking at her, it was easy to see that family traits had survived to bloom in her: She was enormously intelligent, composed no matter what the circumstances, innately proud without being arrogant, and courageous. Courageous, Lucas thought, sometimes to the point of insanity.

Unbidden, he also remembered the woman-child she had been all those years ago. Remembered her laughter and excitement, the
spontaneous bursts of affection. Remembered a slender body locked to his own and blazing like a pure white flame, burning him. Searing away all doubt and uncertainty. At least for a while. At least while she touched him.

Lucas shook away the memories with an effort that was almost physical. But the heat of them lingered, teasing his mind with a ghostly touch and the fey sounds of quicksilver laughter.

He moved forward as she finished with the glider, and lifted the long bundle onto his own shoulder, saying only, “Let me.” And his voice sounded normal, he thought.

Kyle didn’t protest, but there was a faint glint of amusement in her blue-green eyes as she stepped back. “Just leave it by the porch, then,” she directed, gesturing toward the snug log cabin a few yards away. She walked ahead of him, then paused on the steps until he’d set the bundle down. She held open the door of the cabin.

Lucas saw what he’d expected to see inside. It
was modest but comfortable; all the modern conveniences but no luxuries. The overstuffed furniture stopped just short of being shabby, and colorful rugs dotted the shining wood floor. One big open room with a loft above for sleeping occupied most of the cabin, a kitchen divided from the main room by paneled walls, and a bathroom tucked away in back.

She could have built a castle.

He shrugged out of his backpack and left it by the door, still unsure of how far his welcome stretched. With Kyle, he reflected, it was difficult to be sure of anything. And he wondered then if he had imagined her feelings ten years before. Or had that seventeen-year-old girl greeted his departure just as she seemed to view life in general—with a shrug and a reckless smile?

No, he thought, not that. He had meant more to her than that, at least before he had left.

“Coffee’s hot. Want some?”

“Please.” He followed her to lean against the breakfast bar and watch her economical movements.
And that hadn’t changed, he thought; her grace hadn’t changed, except to have matured somehow, become more fluid. The jumpsuit she wore showed him that the slender lines of a seventeen-year-old had become the fuller curves of a woman, and he tried to fight the knowledge that he wanted her now more than ever.

It was impossible, and he knew it was. There was too much between them, far too much, to allow them to return to being the people they once had been—even if both of them wanted to.

He watched her and ached inside.

She wore no makeup, and her thick sable hair was tousled, but she had spent too many years being carefully groomed in various expensive schools for her launching into moneyed society to be able to shed the peculiarly “finished” look instilled by the process. No matter what she wore or what she did, Kyle Griffon always would look aristocratic.

Pushing the thoughts away, Lucas accepted the cup she held out and realized with a jolt
that she remembered how he liked it. Sugar, no cream. She drank hers black. Disturbed by the realization that he wasn’t alone in remembering, he followed her into the living area, watching her while she sank gracefully into an overstuffed chair, kicked off her light shoes, and curled up like a lazy cat.

“So. To what do I owe the honor of your presence on this sunny afternoon?” she asked.

Lucas sat down on the couch and looked at her, trying to see past those serene turquoise eyes. What was she thinking? Feeling? When he finally spoke, it wasn’t in answer to her question. “When did you take up hang gliding?”

“When I got tired of skydiving.”

He felt his teeth gritting again and fought to relax taut muscles. But his voice was nonetheless sharp. “And before that it was mountain climbing. And before that what? You were a stunt pilot, you raced cars in Europe, you went on some bloody dangerous safari in Africa and were nearly killed—”

One delicate brow rose, but there was no inflection
of surprise in her casual voice. “You’ve been reading the supermarket rags.”

He ignored that, mostly because it was true. “What is it with you, Kyle? A death wish?”

“A life wish, more like.” She smiled a little.

Lucas felt another jolt. Her answer was just what he had replied years before when a friend asked why he risked his life as an undercover cop. But that was a long time ago. Now he was the chief investigator for a string of companies and corporations that spanned the globe. And there was a certain amount of danger in that from time to time. But he never risked his life recklessly. Kyle did.

She was still smiling. “You know, Luc, I’ve been wrong all these years. I thought when you walked out on me, you’d forget me in a week. But it seems you didn’t. You’ve been feeling guilty, haven’t you? Why? Did you think I’d developed some kind of complex, that I’ve been trying all these years to kill myself because of you?”

Lucas started to deny that but found he
couldn’t. It had crossed his mind more than once, because she’d gotten even wilder after … But by leaving her he had stopped at least one of her insanely reckless games. All he could manage to say, though, was, “You were very young.”

She looked squarely at him, her serenely beautiful face unchanged by the passing of a decade. “Oh, I see. You were worried that you’d seduced an innocent kid.” Something flickered briefly in her eyes and then was gone. “Want me to ease your conscience?”

“Dammit, Kyle!”

Her mouth twisted wryly. “Sorry. Low blow. I think I was entitled to that, though, don’t you?”

After a taut pause he relaxed suddenly and smiled. It was over.
Past
. So play it her way, he thought. Play it light. Pretend it hadn’t mattered. “You’re entitled to more than that. What took you so long?”

“Ah. So you came up here expecting to be drawn and quartered? Not my style, I’m afraid.
If I remember, I had a violent tantrum, cried for all of an hour, then called home and asked my father to have you killed.” Her voice was light, dryly mocking, as if she hadn’t cared.

“You’ve never had a tantrum in your life,” he murmured.

“No,” she agreed. “Mother wouldn’t allow them. So undignified.”

“I’m still alive,” he offered, wondering if an irate father had asked Josh Long, “Is that why I should send her to Europe?”

“Hit men are expensive, especially to gratify wounded vanity.”

Somewhat to his surprise Lucas found that old frustration could return as easily as all the other old feelings; beneath her flip response he could find nothing. What
had
she felt? “Kyle—”

“You don’t want the truth, Luc,” she said abruptly.

“Yes, I do.” He was firm.

“Punishing me or yourself?”

He was surprised, rattled. Did she know what he had done for her? No. No, he had
made certain she wouldn’t know. There was only one thing she could know, and there was no hint of that knowledge in her face. “Why would I want to punish you?”

She didn’t answer. “Look, it was ten years ago. We were different people then. Now, I know you didn’t hike up the mountain just to rake up old memories after all this time. So why are you here?”

Given little choice in the matter, he reluctantly let it drop. For now. He pushed his own pain, his old feelings of confusion and uncertainty out of his mind and into the locked room where they had lived in darkness for ten years.

“I need your help, Kyle.”

She looked mildly surprised. “Oh? With what?”

“There’s a house—an estate, really—I need access to it socially. I need to be inside at least overnight, preferably for a weekend. It’s Martin Rome’s estate.”

After a moment and in a completely expressionless voice she said, “Ten years ago I got involved
with a young man who was supposedly a student at my college. Storybook stuff. I was swept right off my feet. And then he was gone. Really gone. According to the records, he never attended that college, and I could never find out anything at all about him. Now, ten years later, he appears in my life again and asks that I get him into the home of one of the wealthiest people in the country.”

Lucas said nothing.

Kyle nodded, as though she’d expected silence. “So I have to wonder, Luc. I have to wonder why you want access to that home. And I have to wonder why in hell you think I’d help you to get it.”

Lucas studied her, weighing the thought, wondering himself. Remembering a seventeen-year-old college freshman with a reckless smile; remembering a twenty-seven-year-old woman with a ten-year history of wildness hanging from a glider.

He wasn’t reckless very often, but he decided then to take a chance. On her.

Lucas reached for his wallet and extracted a business card, handing it to her.

Kyle studied it for a moment, then looked at him. “Chief Investigator, Long Enterprises. Assuming I believe this, Luc, Joshua Long could get you into Rome’s house just as easily as I could. So why won’t he?”

He held her gaze steadily with his own. “He would. But it wouldn’t do me any good. Because Josh is known to have … interests in stopping criminal activities. Luckily, being an investigator keeps me out of the limelight; we’ve taken care that my name’s never been linked publicly with the company or Josh. If he or any friend or employee of his were to approach Rome, there wouldn’t be a scrap of evidence to be found.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Illegally acquired artwork. Artwork bought from criminals for the price of a shipment of guns, also illegally acquired. We believe he has the art hidden—probably in a vault—somewhere in his house.”

“We?”

Lucas hesitated.

Dryly she said, “I never knew who you were, Luc, and I certainly don’t know you ten years later. So if you want my help, you’ll have to tell me the whole story, or you might as well hike back down the mountain.”

After a moment he nodded. “All right. I’m working temporarily for a government agency.”

“Which one? FBI?” There was neither belief nor disbelief in her voice, only mild interest.

Lucas shook his head slightly. “No. This agency isn’t listed in the Yellow or the White Pages. For all I know, it doesn’t even have a name, official or otherwise. It’s headed by a man who calls himself Hagen; that’s probably not his real name. He spins webs like some damned poisonous spider—well, never mind. The point is, I’m working for him temporarily. I have to find that stolen art, or at least get enough evidence to indict Rome. And I have to go into his house socially; his estate employees are thoroughly screened.”

“Wouldn’t your background stand up to that?” she asked in an idle tone.

His blue gaze hardened, but he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. After all, he could hardly blame her. “Normally Hagen would have a pristine background and impeccable references manufactured for a case like this, but there hasn’t been time for it.”

“Who came up with my name?”

“Hagen. He managed somehow to get hold of a guest list for a weekend bash Rome’s throwing in two weeks. Your name was on it.”

“Did he know you and I had … had met before?”

Lucas hesitated, then nodded. “He knew. I don’t pretend to know how; Hagen doesn’t give up his secrets or his methods. In any case, he picked you because of our past association and because you are the only single woman on the list. He figures you could bring a date without raising eyebrows.”