Читать книгу Hurricane Hannah - Sue Civil-Brown - Страница 9

BUCK AND CRAIG MANAGED to coax the dead jet back down the runway and into the already crowded hangar without so much as scratching the paint. They greased the job with some colorful language, but, at last, the shiny but dead Learjet 36 was parked next to Buck’s pride and joy: a fully refurbished, heavily pampered and polished DC-3 he used to ferry supplies to the island.

Unfortunately for Buck, the DC-3 didn’t have quite the charm when viewed beside the sleek, self-important jet.

“She’s a beaut, ain’t she?” Craig remarked as he came to stand beside Buck.

“She can’t fly, that’s the kind of beaut she is.”

“Aw, Buck, can the crap, will ya? The woman had no choice about landing. You heard those engines die. She’s a damn good pilot for pulling it off in one piece.”

That was the part Buck wasn’t quite ready to acknowledge. He wanted to stay mad for a while, especially when his mind insisted on resurrecting the image of her bottom as she walked away. He didn’t have room in his life for that kind of stuff. At least not the kind of stuff she was probably handing out with all the usual emotional strings as the price tag.

In fact, he’d moved to this godforsaken island to get away from all the Delilahs of the world. Last thing he needed was to get the hots for one who was not only beautiful, but a pilot, as well. Dangerous territory there.

“Let’s close up,” he said, refusing to respond directly to Craig. The daily afternoon thunderstorm was rolling in, and while he’d built this hangar to withstand almost anything, you never knew. But one thing was for sure, the reinforced steel doors had to be closed and barred for maximum security. He didn’t care about much, but he cared about his planes.

Outside again, with the hangar securely buttoned down, he paused to take in the golden glow of the late evening, and the reflection of it on the arcs of cloud that were approaching. Tropical Storm Hannah was edging toward hurricane force, last he’d heard. There was still a chance she would miss the island, but that chance was shrinking steadily.

From his aerie, Buck saw that the cruise ships had already vanished from their moorings, sailing off to friendlier, safer climes. Anstin’s casino, a series of huge tiki huts that sheltered the machines, tables and bars, was probably already moving everything into storage. The fishing town itself, of late containing more casino employees than fishermen, had started battening the hatches that morning.

But Hannah might pass them by. Even if she hit, the storm shouldn’t be too bad.

Shaking his head, he realized he couldn’t find an excuse to stand out here any longer. He was going to have to go into his office and work out the business details with the Valkyrie.

He still believed that Eve was the biggest joke God had ever played on mankind.

THERE SHE WAS, sitting on one of his plastic chairs, looking like she owned the universe, holding a cup of his finest Jamaican. Had he offered her coffee? He was sure he hadn’t. But then, a redhead who looked like that was probably used to having the world at her feet, used to having her own way. Delilah.

He wiped his hand on his pants, just to make a point of it, then extended it. “Sticks, I’m Buck Shanahan,” he said, adding nothing that might illuminate her.

“Hannah Lamont.” She shook his hand a little too firmly, as if she were used to the world of men and the handshake. Maybe to make a point.

“So what the hell happened, Sticks?” he asked as he rounded the counter and opened his humidor, seeking further dental protection in the form of a cigar to chew on. It was better than grinding his teeth.

“I don’t know. My mechanic signed off on that plane before I left. I was on my way to Aruba to drop her off for her new owner. All of a sudden I was leaking fuel like a hose. Then my radio went out. And while we’re talking, my name is Hannah, not ‘Sticks.’”

“Seems like you might need a new mechanic. And until I decide otherwise, you’re ‘Sticks,’ because that’s what I was holding, ready to even things up with that bastard Anstin, when you tore in here like a bat out of hell and killed the hand.”

“Pocket Sevens?” she asked.

“Damn right. I made Sevens full of Jacks on the turn and was about to get all of his chips. Instead….”

She held a hand up. “I’m sorry I messed up your little game for something as silly as trying to survive.”

“Little game?” He took a slow breath, willing himself not to tell her exactly what he thought of her. “That was no little game. It was a heads-up match to determine the future of this island! Or did you think those people you passed on the way in here were joking?”

“You’re not serious,” she said.

“I’m dead serious, Sticks. That’s how we decide things around here. Only fair way to do it, and a damn sight fairer than U.S. elections lately. And it saves us from being overrun with lawyers.” He let out a huff. “Little game. You know about as much about life as your mechanic knows about jet engines.”

She didn’t even smile. “He’s certainly going to be dead once I get back to Houston.”

He wanted to like her then. He really did. But he decided he didn’t need the headache.

“We’ll take a look at her,” he heard himself volunteering, then wanted to kick his own butt.

“Thanks. My company will pay, of course.”

“Of course.” Then something struck him. “Your company?” She bristled a bit, as if expecting a comment about how it was rare to see a woman who owned an aircraft company. It would never have crossed his mind if she hadn’t bristled. Now he needed to bite back the urge to tick her off.

“I own it.” Her voice was sterner than it needed to be, a sort of tacit offer of a duel at dawn. “Lamont Aircraft. We buy and refurbish private planes.”

“Looks like this one didn’t get refurbished enough.”

“Do tell.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

He unwrapped his cigar and stuck it between his teeth, deciding it was safer to bite tobacco than bite her head off. God should never have invented women. Or if he had to, then maybe he should have made them more like men: uncomplicated.

And now he found himself feeling almost sorry for her mechanic. Damn! “How long you had that mechanic?”

“He’s been with the company fifteen years.”

“You don’t look that old.” He was almost delighted when he saw her grind her teeth.

“I’m old enough. It’s my company. And I want to know what went wrong with that aircraft.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he promised, which he shouldn’t have done, but when Delilah was in the room, men were known to do stupid, stupid things. “Craig and I are pretty good mechanics.”

Instead of saying something snappy, she merely said, “Thank you.”

Well hell. Now she was going to get nice on him? No thank you!

He rolled his cigar to the other side of his mouth and clamped down on it. “It’ll take a while, of course.”

Her eyes widened. “How long?”

“Well, I don’t exactly carry a parts store for Learjets. In fact, this’ll be one of maybe three or four times I’ve worked on one.”

“Oh, great.”

He grinned, enjoying her discomfiture. “So I’ll have to figure out what’s wrong, then fly out to get parts. And I can’t do that until after the storm passes.”

“Storm?” She looked even more unhappy.

“Don’t you pay attention to the weather reports?” That would be a mortal sin for any pilot.

She snapped. “Of course I do!”

“Then you can’t have missed the fact that we have a tropical storm headed our way. It might even be a hurricane by the time it gets here.”

“I was flying around that,” she said.

“Well, Hannah, get ready to meet Hannah, because you sure as hell flew right into her path.”

“THAT WOMAN IS a piece of work,” Buck told Craig as they stood staring up at the Learjet while waiting for the shop computer to download schematics of the plane.

“Yeah. All women are,” Craig agreed. And he was married and had three kids.

“Why do you suppose that is?”

“I dunno. I just know we can’t live without ’em.”

“I’m working on it.”

Craig snorted. “That woman volcanologist—Edna, isn’t it?—she’s got her snare set for you.”

Buck looked at him, and Craig finally shrugged. “Okay. Have it your way, boss.”

“Believe me, I intend to.”

Craig rolled his eyes. Buck chewed a little harder on his unlit cigar and wondered why it was that men who were married wanted every other man on the planet to be married, as well. It was almost like some kind of brainwashing.

“That Mary Jo must’ve really been something.”

For an instant, Buck froze. He couldn’t believe Craig had mentioned that woman. His former wife in his former life. The woman who had screwed around with all the available navy guys while her husband, Buck, was at sea as a carrier pilot.

“I told you not to mention that name.”

“Sorry, boss.”

That would teach him to have one too many beers. A slip like that and he was hearing about it for the rest of his life. He glared at Craig who held up both his hands.

“Sorry,” Craig said again.

“You better be.” He returned his attention to the jet, thinking he wouldn’t mind sitting in the left hand seat and taking her out for a spin. It had been a while since he’d flown anything that fast, and sometimes he still yearned for his fighter-jock days. The speed, the g-forces…they got into a man’s blood.

He sighed and went over to the computer to see how far along they were on printing out the fuel-line schematics. Sheesh, the thing was as slow as molasses at the North Pole.

“It’s the satellite uplink,” Craig said knowingly.

“Yeah? Then fix it.”

“Damn, boss, you don’t want much!”

“Then tell me why the satellite uplink should be so slow.” He rotated his unlit cigar to the other side of his mouth.

“Do I look like a psychic? Probably because of the approaching storm. Traffic is likely heavier than usual. I dunno. Maybe it’s not the satellite uplink at all. Maybe it’s the printer.”

Buck was acting like an ass and he knew it. Admitting it didn’t make him feel any better. But the truth was, it was getting late in the day, and the probability they would have those schematics in time to work on the plane today was highly unlikely.

And worse, his win against Anstin, his prime opportunity to save the island, had fluttered away in a blast of jet winds.

“Why don’t you just go home?” he suggested. “Unless the storm hits, we’ll start in the morning. And take the woman with you.”

“To that motel? No way. I wouldn’t put my worst enemy in that cockroach pit.”

“Then what am I supposed to do with her?”

Craig shrugged. “She can sleep on her plane.” He jerked his thumb toward it. “It looks posh enough for a sultan.”

“Except a real sultan would be buying a new one.”

“Quibble, quibble, quibble. You need to get laid, man. Then maybe you wouldn’t have all that energy to waste on stupidity.”

With that, Craig stalked out the side door, a man-sized door, that hadn’t been locked up yet. Buck stood alone in his hangar with two large planes and a couple of small ones that belonged to island residents, and wondered why he put up with Craig.

Of course, Craig was a natural-born mechanic. That helped. In front of him, the computer still hummed, a bar showing that the download had progressed eleven percent. Beside it, the big printer was busy drawing schematics. How complicated could it be?

Complicated enough. A plane, any plane, was a complex beast, and the newer they were, the more that complexity had been magnified.

So he had two choices. One of them involved going back to his office and facing the redheaded Valkyrie. The other meant sleeping out here on a battered recliner in the small parts office.

He decided the Valkyrie presented the lesser of two evils. He’d shoo her off to sleep on her plane, then peace would prevail, at least until morning.

He opened the door to the outside, rather than the one farther to the rear that joined with his living quarters behind the front office. Whenever he could, he preferred to walk outdoors.

But this time he froze on the threshold. Red sunsets weren’t unusual in the tropics, but this one blazed like fire, and it raged in the east, rather than the west, high in the sky because of the clouds of the approaching storm.

Magnificent. He soaked it up, filling his heart, mind and soul with the beauty. That was why he’d moved to this godforsaken island with its loony inhabitants and crazy casino. Because here he could live halfway up the side of a volcanic cone and be left pretty much alone while still running an adequate business.

Stepping out, he worked the mechanism that safely reinforced the door from the inside, then walked around to the front of the hangar to look west.

The sun was riding the rim of the Caribbean like an angry red eye. The water, usually a soothing Caribbean blue-green, was dappled in red and purple, and beginning to look choppy.

There was nothing in the world, he thought, like the sunset before a tropical storm.

Then, without warning, a different red filled his vision. It was silky, redder than red in the evening light, a fluffy cloud around a perfect face with challenging green eyes.

“Did you find out what was wrong?”

He might have sighed, except he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. Instead he clamped down on his cigar. “Nope.”

“Why not? I thought you said you’d find out what was wrong?”

Now he bit down hard. “Actually,” he said between his teeth, “I’m printing out the fuel line schematics right now. At the rate it’s going, it’ll probably take all night. You can thank the manufacturer for that.”

Her eyes flashed. In that instant, they looked like lightning reflected off the stormy gray-green shallows of the Caribbean Sea. But then, as if something flicked a switch in her, the flare quieted.

She nodded acknowledgement to him. “Thanks.”

To his surprise, it didn’t look as if she had to force the word out. Temperamental but in control. Despite himself, he was piqued.

At that moment, Craig roared by on his way down to his home in town. His Jeep kicked up a little loose gravel as he went by, waving at them.

Hannah Lamont waved back, then returned her attention to Buck. “I’ll sleep on the plane then.”

“Sure. No problem.” He pointed to the door. “Bar it when you get inside. No telling when that storm is going to hit.”

She nodded, but this time a flicker of uncertainty crossed her face. “See you in the morning, then.”

She started to brush past him, but then he had to deal with the fact that not only was he being a jerk, he was being a rude jerk. There were some courtesies he couldn’t ignore even in an attempt to avoid Delilah. “You got anything to eat on that plane?”

“I was supposed to be in Aruba shortly.”

Mentally kicking his own butt, he said, “Come on back to the office. If I have to make dinner for myself, I might as well cook for two.”

“You cook?”

He wasn’t sure if that was an intentional insult or just genuine surprise. So he opted for surprise. “Yes.” He rolled the cigar a little before adding, “Not all men are helpless without women.”

Her eyebrows arched. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t cook.”

No! He didn’t want to like her. No way. Instead of responding, he stalked past her toward the office and soothed himself with the reminder that she would vanish from his island the very instant he repaired her plane.

There was security and safety in that. A promise of the uncomplicated future he really wanted.