Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
About the Author
Also by Linda Howard
Copyright
Acknowledgments
* * *
My deepest thanks go to two men who went out of their way to answer a bunch of questions: Jim Murphy and Major Marc Weintraub, USMC. Thanks, guys, for telling me how to crash a plane. Any mistakes are mine, either because my imagination ran away with me or I didn’t know the right questions to ask.
1
BAILEY WINGATE WOKE UP CRYING. AGAIN.
She hated when she did that, because she couldn’t see any reason for being such a wuss. If she were desperately unhappy, if she were lonely or grieving, crying in her sleep would make sense, but she wasn’t any of those things. At worst, she was pissed.
Even being pissed wasn’t a full-time attitude; that came only when she had to deal with her stepchildren, Seth and Tamzin, which, thank God, usually happened only once a month when she signed off on the allotted funds they received from their inheritance from her late husband. They almost always contacted her then, either before to make their pitches for more money, which she had yet to approve, or afterward to let her know, in their individual ways, what a scummy bitch they thought she was.
Seth was by far the most vicious, and more times than she cared to count he’d left her emotionally bruised, but at least he was forthright with his hostility. As tough as he was to take, Bailey preferred dealing with him to having to wade her way through Tamzin’s passive-aggressive crap.
Today was the day their monthly funds were released to their bank accounts, which meant she could look forward to either their phone calls or actual visits. Oh, joy. One of Tamzin’s favorite punishments was to visit, and bring her two young children. Tamzin alone was tough enough to take, but when her two whiny, spoiled, demanding children were added to the mix, Bailey felt like running for the hills.
“I should have asked for combat pay,” she grumbled aloud as she threw back the covers and got out of bed.
Then she mentally snorted at herself. She had nothing to complain about, much less cry in her sleep over. She’d agreed to marry James Wingate knowing what his children were like, and how they would react to their father’s financial arrangements for them. He had, in fact, banked on those reactions and planned accordingly. She had gone into the situation with her eyes open, so she had no grounds for complaining now. Even from the grave, Jim was paying her well to do her job.
Going into the plush bathroom, she glanced at her reflection—something that was difficult not to do when the first thing she faced was a floor-to-ceiling mirror. Sometimes, when she saw herself, she had a moment of almost complete disconnect between the person reflected and what she felt like inside.
Money had changed her—not inside so much as outside. She was slimmer, more toned, because now she had both the time and the money for a personal trainer who came to the house and put her through hell in the private exercise room. Her hair, before always a sort of dirty blond, was now so artfully streaked with different hues of blond that it looked completely natural. An expensive cut flattered her face, and fell into such graceful lines that even now, fresh out of bed, her hair looked pretty damn good.
She had always been neat, and she had dressed as well as she could on her salary, but there was a world of difference between “neat” and “polished.” She had never been beautiful, and certainly wouldn’t qualify for that level of good looks even now, but she did sometimes reach “pretty,” or even “striking.” Skillful application of the best cosmetics available made the green of her eyes more intense, more vibrant. Her clothes were tailored to fit her and only her, instead of millions of other women who were the same general size.
As Jim’s widow, she had the full and unquestioned use of this house in Seattle, one in Palm Beach, and another in Maine. She never had to fly on a commercial airline unless she wished to; the Wingate corporation leased private jets for its use, and a plane was always available to her. She paid only for her personal possessions, which meant she didn’t have to worry about bills. That was undeniably the biggest bright spot of the deal she’d made with the man who had married her and, in less than a year, made her a widow.
Bailey had been poor, and though amassing wealth had never been her life’s focus or ambition, she had to admit that having money made life much easier. She still had problems, the main ones being Seth and Tamzin, but problems felt different when they didn’t involve paying bills on time: the sense of urgency was gone.
All she had to do was oversee their trust funds—a duty she took very seriously even though they would never believe that—and otherwise fill her days.
God, she was bored.
Jim had thought of everything regarding his children, she thought as she stepped into the round, frosted-glass shower. He had safeguarded their inheritances; insofar as he was able he’d also ensured that they would always be financially secure, and very skillfully read their personalities while doing so. His plans, however, hadn’t included how her life would play out after he was gone.
He likely hadn’t cared, she thought ruefully. She’d been the means to an end, and even though he’d been fond of her and she of him, he’d never made any pretense of feeling anything more than that for her. Theirs had been a business arrangement, one he’d initiated and controlled. Even if he’d known beforehand, he wouldn’t have cared that his friends, who had dutifully invited her to their social events while Jim was still alive, had dropped her from their guest lists like a hot potato as soon as he was in the ground. Jim’s friends had mostly been in his age group, and a lot of them had known and been friends with Jim’s first wife, Lena. Some of them had also known Bailey from before, in her capacity as Jim’s personal assistant. They were uncomfortable with her in the role of his wife. Hell, she had been uncomfortable, so how could she blame them for feeling the same way?
This wasn’t the life she’d wanted for herself. Yes, the money was nice—very nice—but she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life doing nothing but growing money for two people who despised her. Jim had been certain that Seth’s humiliation at having his inheritance controlled by a stepmother who was three years his junior would shock him into stepping up to the plate and behaving like a responsible adult, instead of an older male version of Paris Hilton, but so far that hadn’t happened and Bailey no longer had any faith it ever would. Seth had had plenty of chances to apply himself, to take an interest in the corporations that funded his lavish and lazy lifestyle, but he hadn’t seized any of them. Seth had been Jim’s hope, because Tamzin was completely disinterested in and unsuited for the type of financial decisions huge amounts of money demanded. All Tamzin was interested in was the end result, which was cash at her disposal—and she wanted all of her inheritance now, so sh
e could spend it as she wished.
Bailey winced at the thought; if Tamzin had control of her inheritance, she would blow through the money within five years, tops. If Bailey herself didn’t control the funds, someone else would have to.
The phone rang just as she turned off the shower and reached for a champagne-colored towel to wrap around herself. Wrapping another around her wet hair, she stepped out and picked up the cordless phone in the dressing room, looked at the Caller ID, and set the unit back down without answering. The number had been blocked; she had registered all her numbers on the national do-not-call list, so the blocked number wasn’t likely to be a telemarketer. That meant Seth was probably up bright and early thinking of insults he could use, and she refused to deal with him before she had her coffee. Her sense of duty extended only so far, and this was beyond those boundaries.
On the other hand, what if something was wrong? Seth partied hard, seldom getting to bed before dawn—at least not his own bed. It wasn’t like him to be calling this early. Feeling her boundaries stretch a little, she grabbed the phone again, punching the “talk” button even though the answering machine would have already picked up and started its spiel.
“Hello,” she said over the recorded message made with the canned male voice that was the system’s default. She had kept it instead of recording a message of her own because the canned one was more impersonal.
The answering system halted in midsentence when she picked up, then beeped, and clicked off.
“Hi, Mom.”
Sarcasm was heavy in Seth’s voice. Mentally she sighed. Nothing was wrong; Seth was just trying out a new way of annoying her. Being called “mom” by a man who was older than she didn’t bother her, but dealing with him at all certainly did.
The best way to handle Seth was to show no reaction at all; eventually he’d get tired of his needling and hang up. “Seth. How are you?” she responded in the cool, even tone she’d perfected while working as Jim’s PA. Neither her tone nor her expression had ever given anything away.
“Things couldn’t be better,” he responded with false cheer, “considering my money-hungry whore of a stepmother is living large on my money, while I can’t touch it at all. But what’s a little theft between relatives, right?”
Usually she let the insults roll off her back. “Whore” was one he’d pulled out the second he’d heard the provisions of his father’s will. Seth had gone on to accuse her of having married his father for his money, and taken advantage of Jim’s illness to persuade him to leave even his children’s money in her control. He had also promised, threatened, to contest the will in court, at which time Jim’s lawyer had sighed heavily and advised against such action as a waste of time and money; Jim had capably handled the reins of his empire up until the last few weeks before his death, and the will had been signed almost a year before that—the day after his marriage to Bailey, in fact.
Learning that, Seth had turned dark red, said something so filthy to her that everyone else in the room had sucked in a breath, and then he’d stormed out. Bailey had schooled herself by then not to show any reaction, so a simple “whore” now wasn’t likely to get a rise out of her.
On the other hand, being called a thief was beginning to get under her skin.
“Speaking of your inheritance, there’s an investment opportunity I want to investigate,” she said smoothly. “In order to maximize the gain, I’ll need to put as much as possible into the venture. You won’t mind if your monthly allowance is cut in half, will you? Temporarily, of course. About a year should do it.”
A split second of silence greeted that proposal, then Seth growled in a voice thick with rage, “You bitch, I’ll kill you.”
This was the first time she had countered his insults with a threat of her own, shocking him out of his own set pattern. The threat didn’t alarm her. Seth was big at making threats he didn’t carry out.
“If you have other investment proposals you’d like me to consider I’ll be happy to look at them,” she said as politely as if he’d asked the particulars instead of threatening to kill her. “Just research them fully, and put your proposals in writing. I’ll get to them as soon as possible, but that will probably be a few weeks. I’m going on vacation day after tomorrow and expect to be gone for a couple of weeks.”
Her answer was a phone slammed down in her ear.
Not a great way to start the day, she thought, but at least her monthly encounter with Seth was now behind her.
Now, if she could just avoid Tamzin…
2
CAMERON JUSTICE GAVE THE SMALL AIRFIELD AND PARKING lot a swift, encompassing glance as he pulled his blue Suburban into his allotted slot. Though it wasn’t yet six-thirty in the morning, he wasn’t the first to arrive. The silver Corvette meant his friend and partner, Bret Larsen—the L of J&L Executive Air Limo—was already there, and the red Ford Focus signaled the presence of their secretary, Karen Kaminski. Bret was early, but Karen made a practice of getting into the office before anyone else; she said it was the only time she could get any work done without being constantly interrupted.
The morning was bright and clear, though the weather report called for increasing cloudiness during the day. Right this minute, though, the sun shone brightly on the four gleaming J&L planes, and Cam paused for a moment to enjoy the sight.
The custom paint job had been expensive, but worth the cost in the image presented by the shining black slashed by a thin line of white curving upward from the nose to the tail. The two Cessnas—a Skylane and a Skyhawk—were paid for, free and clear; he and Bret had busted their asses the first couple of years, working side jobs as well as flying, to get them paid off as fast as possible and to improve their debt ratio. The Piper Mirage was almost theirs, and after it was paid for they planned to double up on payments on the eight-seater Lear 45 XR, which was Cam’s baby.
Though in reality the Lear was fairly close in length and wingspan to the F-15E Strike Eagle that Cam’s partner had flown while in the air force, Bret had since become accustomed to the much smaller Cessnas and the midsize Mirage, preferring their agility. Cam, who had flown the huge KC-10A Extender during his time in the service, preferred having more aircraft around him. Their favorites illustrated the basic differences between them as pilots. Bret was the fighter-pilot, cocky and with lightning-fast reflexes; Cam was the steady Eddie, the guy whose hands you wanted on the yoke when a plane needed refueling thousands of feet in the air, at hundreds of miles an hour. The Lear needed every available inch of runway the small airfield provided in order to take off, so Bret was more than glad for Cam to be in the pilot’s seat on those flights.
They’d done well for themselves, Cam thought, while doing something they both loved. Flying was in their blood. They had met in the Air Force Academy, and though Bret had been a year ahead of Cam they’d become friends, and remained friends through different deployments, different career tracks, different postings. They had seen each other through three divorces—two for Bret and one for Cam—and a number of girlfriends. Almost without really planning it they had somehow, through phone calls and e-mails, decided to go into business together when they left the military; what type of business was never in question. A small air charter service had seemed tailor-made for them.
The gig had turned into a good one. They now employed three mechanics, one part-time pilot, a cleanup crew consisting of one full-time and one part-time, and Karen the Indispensable, who ruled them all with an iron fist and a total lack of tolerance for bullshit. The company was solvent, and both of them made a good living from it. The day-to-day flying didn’t provide the thrills and chills of military flight, but Cam didn’t need an adrenaline rush to enjoy life. Bret, of course, was a different type; fighter pilots lived for the burn, but he’d adjusted, and got his occasional doses of drama by joining the Civil Air Patrol.
They had lucked out on the location, too. The airfield was perfect for their needs. It was convenient, most of all, to the corporate headq
uarters of the Wingate Group, J&L’s main client. Sixty percent of their flights were with Wingate, for the most part ferrying high-ranking executives to and fro, though sometimes the family used J&L for private excursions. Other than convenience, though, the airfield offered good security and an above-average terminal building in which J&L had a three-room office. It was Bret’s connections that had got them the Wingate business, and he usually flew the family members, while Cam took care of ferrying the corporate suits around. The arrangement suited both of them fine, because Bret got along with the family better than Cam did. Mr. Wingate had been a nice guy, but his kids were assholes, and the trophy wife he’d left behind was as warm and friendly as a glacier.
Cam climbed out of the Suburban. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, and the big vehicle suited him, giving him the leg- and headroom he needed. Crossing the parking lot in his loose-limbed, unhurried stride, he let himself in the private door on the side of the terminal building, swiping his ID card to unlock it. A narrow hall led to their office, where Karen sat industriously tapping away on her computer keyboard. Fresh flowers sat in a vase on her desk, the fragrance mingling with that of coffee. She always had flowers, though he suspected she bought them herself. Her boyfriend—a black-leather wearing, motorcycle-riding, bearded pro wrestler—didn’t seem like the flower-buying kind. Cam knew she was in her late twenties, he knew she liked to dye black streaks into her short red hair, and that she made the office run like oiled silk, but beyond that he was afraid to ask. Bret, on the other hand, had made it his life’s mission to flap the unflappable, and teased her relentlessly.
“Morning, Sunshine,” Cam greeted her, because, what the hell, he wasn’t above teasing her either.
She gave him a squinty-eyed look over the top of her monitor, then returned to her typing. Karen was as far from being sunshiny in the mornings as Seattle was from Miami. Bret had once voiced the theory that she moonlighted as a guard dog in a junkyard, because she was as mean as one and didn’t turn reasonably human until around nine a.m. Karen hadn’t said anything, but Bret’s personal mail had disappeared for over a month, until he got a clue and apologized, whereupon his mail began being delivered again, but he was a month behind in all his bills.