Sooner or later Alexandra would likely be married.

She would be vulnerable, open to the same hurt and betrayal her mother had suffered. And she was afraid.

Not all men were like her father, Alex reassured herself.

Or like Rafe Garrick.

Only a short time ago she had come up from the beach and gone into his room. She had stood beside his bed, her eyes tracing the strong, stubborn lines of his face, the wave of dark chestnut hair that tumbled onto his forehead. A warm sense of possession had stolen over her. Hadn’t she saved him from the sea? It was almost as if part of his life belonged to her.

Then Rafe Garrick had awakened, banishing all her illusions. He was not the kind of man to be possessed by her or by anyone. He was arrogant. He was quarrelsome. For all she knew, he could be out of his mind. And she would be out of her own mind as well, Alex told herself, if she had anything more to do with him.

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew –

And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Thanks to the family of John Gillespie Magee, Junior for permission to publish this poem

Elizabeth Lane has lived and travelled in many parts of the world, including Europe, Latin America and the Far East, but her heart remains in the American West, where she was born and raised. Her idea of heaven is hiking a mountain trail on a clear autumn day. She also enjoys music, animals and dancing. You can learn more about Elizabeth by visiting her website at www.elizabethlaneauthor.com

Previous novels by the same author:

ANGELS IN THE SNOW (part of Stay for Christmas anthology) HER DEAREST ENEMY THE STRANGER

On the Wings of Love

By

Elizabeth Lane

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Epigraph

About the Author

Other Books By

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Preview

Copyright

The characters in this story are fictional, except for one.

This book is dedicated to the memory of a

real-life heroine, Harriet Quimby.

Acknowledgements:

I’m indebted to the authors who provided me with the

research needed to write this book. Most notable among

my sources were The Pioneers of Flight by Phil Scott (Princeton University Press, 1999), A Picture History of Early Aviation, 1903-1913 by Joshua Stoff (Dover Publications, 1996), Long Island, by Bernie Bookbinder (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1998), and Nassau County Long Island in Early Photographs by Bette S. Weidman and Linda B. Martin (Dover Publications, Inc. 1981).

Special thanks go to children’s author Linda Granfield,

who graciously helped with copyright information for

the poem “High Flight.” Her fine book, High Flight, tells the story of the poem and the young pilot who died soon after writing it.

Finally, I’d like to thank my editor, Demetria Lucas,

for her patience and wisdom in helping me transform

an unwieldy epic into a love story.

Prologue

Long Island, New York

June 16, 1911

The wind struck without warning out of a calm summer sky. Sharp gusts buffeted the wings of the fragile biplane, causing the craft to pitch and heel like a stricken dragonfly.

Rafe Garrick cursed as he fought to stabilize his lurching aeroplane. His right hand clutched the lever that raised and lowered the ailerons. His feet shifted frantically on the rudder bar as he wrestled for control of his precious machine.

Blast! He’d checked the weather reports carefully before taking off from the aerodrome at Hempstead Plains. This was to be the last test of his engine prior to next week’s big air meet—he was counting on that event to make all the difference. The sky had been flawless, the day pleasantly warm. There’d been no sign of wind. Not this kind of devil wind, at least.

Two hundred feet below, the waters of Long Island Sound rose and curled. White-winged sailboats rode the cresting waves off Matinecock Point, their wakes trailing foam. Rafe would have to get the aeroplane down at once. But for that he needed solid ground beneath the wheels. The field at Hempstead was too far to fly in this accursed wind. He would have no choice except to head straight for the nearest landfall and pray for a long, smooth stretch of beach.

On his right, the north shore of Long Island extended along the horizon. He should have known better than to fly so far out over water. But the sky had been a deep crystalline blue, the summer breeze a perfumed siren, luring him onward and upward. Drunk on sunlight, he’d surrendered to the call. Now it was time to pay.

Easing down on the rudder bar he banked the craft sharply to the right and swung it in a wide arc toward the land. Wind clawed at the canvas-covered wings, threatening to rip the varnished fabric from its light-weight wooden frame. The engine coughed, sputtered, died for a breathless instant, then roared to life as Rafe jerked the throttle full out.

Blast! What was wrong with the damned thing? Was it the wind or some vital weakness his inspection had missed?

He had no more time to ponder the question as another gust struck from behind, catching the rear elevator and sending the nose of the aeroplane plummeting toward the waves. Rafe wrenched the stick backward, launching the craft into a steep climb. Easy…easy now, he warned himself as he leveled out. The beach was only a couple of miles. If he kept a cool head he’d be fine.

He’d be bloody fine…

He was whistling “Annie Laurie” between his teeth when the engine started to sputter again.

Chapter One

The champagne had gone flat. Alexandra Bromley took a sip, grimaced and sighed. She dreaded these lavish summer parties her parents gave for their wealthy friends. She hated the pretense, the show, the banality of small talk. And she resented that she had to be here when she’d rather be galloping her horse along the beach or sneaking out to test the speed limits of her father’s new Pierce-Arrow on Glen Cove Road.

As she stood on the terrace, her face fixed in a rigid smile, she felt the appraising eyes of people who passed. Alex squirmed inwardly, even though she was long accustomed to stares. She was tall to the point of stateliness. Her face, framed by clouds of gold-brown hair, was the sort that could have graced one of Charles Dana Gibson’s famous magazine covers. But she had one glaring flaw. Hours of walking on the beach and riding in the sun without a hat had burnished her skin to a most unfashionable brown. She was as tawny as the Indians whose lodges had stood here on the north shore of Long Island before Europeans came.

After soaking her in lemons to no avail, Alex’s mother had come up with a gown calculated to hide the defect. It was of ruffled lavender voile, with long sleeves and a collar of Cluny lace that came all the way up to Alex’s chin. An elaborate tulle hat sat atop her upswept hair like a huge dollop of whipped cream.

Never one to pay much mind to fashion, Alex hadn’t argued with her mother’s choice. It was not until minutes before the party, after she’d been bathed, perfumed, combed, laced, pinned and dressed, that she’d stood in front of the big hall mirror and faced the truth. Lavender was definitely not her color. And the style of the dress was much too old for her. She looked like a gangly child playing dress-up in her grandmother’s clothes.

For a moment she held the champagne glass to her mouth. Her tongue slid thoughtfully along the bladethin crystal rim as she surveyed the party from the terrace of her parents’ twenty-eight-room Edwardian house. Long tables, spread with linen, had been set up on the vast emerald lawn. Men in white summer gabardines and women in butterfly hues of organdy and silk georgette flocked around the tables, helping themselves to Smith Island oysters, fresh clams and Lobster Newberg, wild-rice croquettes and dainty Swiss crackers spread with Astrakhan caviar and pâté de foie gras. An elaborate glass dolphin spouted pink champagne; a matching one on another table flowed red with rum-laced Roman punch. In the distance, beyond everything, the waters of Long Island Sound glittered in the afternoon sunlight.

Idly she watched her parents’ guests stuffing themselves like pedigreed cattle milling around the feeding trough. The men were big, bellowing bulls flaunting their money and power. Their wives were placid heifers with ropes of pearls around their necks.

Were these women happy? Did they care about anything beyond money, status and the broods of children they produced? Heaven forbid, there had to be more to life than that! In this day and age, females were doing things that Alex had only dreamed of—climbing mountains, working as journalists, marching in the streets, exploring the world! Why couldn’t she be one of those women? Why did she have to be a prisoner of her family’s expectations?

With ruthless detachment, she appraised her own situation. At twenty, she was of an age when young women were expected to marry. The fact that she was her father’s only child and heir to the fortune he’d made in the firearms business made this an imperative. That’s why she was being trotted out on display this summer, for sale to the most promising bidder.

Maybe it was time to pack a suitcase and run away.

Alex handed the champagne glass to a passing servant. At least Mama would have some things to be pleased about. For a summer party the turnout wasn’t bad, and the guests represented some of New York’s better families. Papa, on the other hand, was growing impatient with these soirees. All Buck Bromley wanted was to see his daughter married to a man he deemed suitable.

Alex picked out her father’s hulking shoulders among the crowd. She knew what he wanted. He wanted the son he never had—another Buck Bromley, with money and connections, who’d take her in hand and sire a pack of bullheaded grandsons to take over the company one day. He wanted to forge her life like one of his custom-made hunting rifles. Well, she had news for him. She wanted a life of her own.

“Alex, for heaven’s sake!” It was her mother, approaching with swift, nervous footsteps. Maude Bromley was a thin, plain woman, as pale as wallpaper. Her hands fluttered like dry leaves as she spoke. “How can you stand there when you should be mingling with our guests? This is your party, too, you know.”

She took her daughter’s hand and led her down off the terrace onto the lawn. There the guests, plates teetering with food, were seating themselves around umbrella-shaded tables.

“My dear, I’m so delighted to see you!” Alex found herself smothered against the ample bosom of a woman whose name eluded her. Most likely she was a Whitney or a Vanderbilt, or a member of some other clan whose founders had come to the Colonies and made their fortunes early. Most of the families who lived on Long Island’s Gold Coast were Old Money, part of the American aristocracy.

Buck Bromley, on the other hand, had married into a modest gunsmithing business and expanded it himself. Burnsides and Bromley was now the largest firearms manufacturer on the East Coast. Buck was wealthier than some of the Old Guard people. Still, in terms of social standing, the Bromleys were nouveau riches, practically bourgeois.

Alex extricated herself from the woman’s arms. Her mother had darted back to the kitchen, leaving her on her own. She sighed, feeling adrift. Most of the party guests were friends and neighbors of her parents’ generation or business associates of her father’s. Her own friends had married and moved away or gone abroad for the summer. Alex had begged to go abroad herself, but her father had insisted on keeping her at home. He didn’t want to risk her eloping with some fortune-hunting French fop, he’d said, only half joking.

Alex had never felt comfortable in crowds. She was walking faster now, down the slope of the lawn. People pressed around her, sweating, talking, eating. She fought the urge to break loose, to run to the sea like a lemming and plunge into the cold white surf.

“Alex!” She stiffened at the sound of her father’s voice. Buck Bromley turned away from the two men he’d been talking to. “Come here, girl,” he boomed. “I want you to meet my friends!”

Alex turned slowly, her face assuming a mask of polite cordiality. All he wanted was to show her off, to whip her out of the chute and run her around the ring like a prize heifer. That’s all she ever was to him anyway—breeding stock!

Buck Bromley grinned. He was a powerful man, bull-necked, barrel-chested and hard as hickory. His unruly brown-gold hair matched his daughter’s, but his features were blunt where hers were fine. His blue eyes gleamed like the flame of a gas jet, where hers were almost purple and as cool as the distant ocean.

“Come here, girl!” He repeated the order with a jerk of his head. He was not a handsome man, but his jut-jawed face exuded vitality. Men admired and followed him. Women…Alex preferred not to think about that now.

“Yes, Papa,” she said mechanically.

“These are colleagues of mine.” Buck indicated the men who stood beside him. “I invited them here for two reasons. First, I wanted them to see that I wasn’t just bragging about the beauty I’d fathered. And second, I wanted you to meet them.”

Alex glanced at the two men. They appeared to be in their forties, with thickening waists and thinning hair. The younger man was blond and vain-looking with a waxed moustache that curled upward at the tips. The other man had a florid face framed by bushy sideburns. Both were turned out in a manner that exuded wealth and arrogance.

Their names and accomplishments slid past Alex as each, in turn, took her hand. The blond man had evidently made a fortune in shipping and had just returned from an African safari. The one with the sideburns owned the biggest sporting goods business in the state of New York.

“Joe Templeton,” he introduced himself, squeezing her hand till it hurt. “Buck told me he had a pretty daughter, but I hadn’t figured on meeting a goddess!”

“Thank you. It’s always an honor to meet my father’s friends,” Alex lied in a formal voice. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my other guests. Please enjoy yourselves, gentlemen.”

She turned to leave, but her father caught her arm. “Walk with me a little,” he said. “There’s something I’ve got to say, and I want you to hear it.”

“Can’t it wait?” Alex asked, though she knew better. Buck Bromley never waited for anything.

“Come on,” he said, gripping her elbow and propelling her away from the party, in the direction of the beach. He didn’t speak again until they were out of earshot.

“Well, what did you think of them?” he demanded, stopping beside a blossoming honeysuckle bush.

“I assume they’re single.”

“Single and damned well-off, both of them. You could do worse, girl.”

“Really, Papa, they’re old and stodgy. What makes you think I’d like them?”

Buck Bromley shoved his hands into his pockets and stared toward the dunes that edged the whitecapped water. “Because they know what they want and they’re not afraid to go after it. They know how to take charge. They’re real men!”

Alex felt a flash of anger. For a moment she struggled to hold it in check. She tried to shift her concentration to the sights and sounds of the party, to the kaleidoscopic movement of forms and colors, the tinkle of crystal and silver, the muted cacophony of voices, and something else—a faint, mechanical, droning sound, coming from nowhere, fitting nothing, making no sense at all.

“Papa,” she snapped, “you have your own ideas of what a man ought to be. I have mine, too, and they’re not the same! A real man is somebody who cares about other people, somebody who’s gentle and loving and not afraid to show his feelings!”

“Damn it, girl!” Buck rumbled behind clenched teeth. “Don’t you ever think of anybody except yourself? Look at me! I built Burnsides and Bromley from a two-bit gunsmithing shop to one of the biggest operations in the country. It took blood, guts and sweat. For years I worked sixty, seventy, eighty hours a week. But I wasn’t doing it just for me. I was doing it for the sons and grandsons who’d come after me, who’d take over the company and keep it going!”

He took a deep breath. “Even after you were born, and we found out your mama couldn’t have any more babies, I didn’t give up hope. I knew you’d get married one day—and I counted on it being to a man who’d run the company with me and give me a brood of strapping grandsons to take over when I was gone. Now, damn it, girl, it’s time for you to choose the right kind of husband and give me some peace of mind!”

Alex fought for self-control. The droning sound was louder now, like a throbbing inside her head. “Papa, we’ve been through all this before,” she said icily. “I’m not ready to get married. There are other things I want to do.”

Buck’s face was dark red. Alex could see the subtle twitch of a vein in his left temple, the herald of an explosion. She was dimly aware that the droning sound had stopped. The sudden silence was oddly frightening.

“Please, Papa, not here!” she whispered.

“Listen, girl,” he muttered through his teeth. “Your selfishness is ruining—”

He was interrupted by a shriek from one of the female guests. “That aeroplane! It’s going to crash!”

The party was forgotten as everyone turned and stared upward. There was the aeroplane, less than a hundred feet above the beach, as fragile as a mosquito against the sky.

Alex had seen aeroplanes before, though not many. This was a biplane, with a wide double wing, and it was clearly in trouble. She could see the frantic motions of the pilot as he tried to restart the engine. She heard the motor cough once, then die again into terrifying silence as the plane started a downward spiral.

“He’s got one chance,” a man behind Alex said. “If he can level it out, he might be able to glide in. Otherwise—”

“Good God!” exclaimed Buck. “He’s trying to pull out of it! What a fighter! Come on, man!”

A cry lodged in Alex’s throat. Time slowed to a nightmarish crawl as she watched the spiraling plane and the pilot struggling with the controls. For an instant it appeared that he’d be able to right the plane for a landing. But for that he needed power, and his engine was dead.

He was still pulling on the stick when the fragile craft angled in toward the beach and vanished behind the dunes.

The watchers stood stunned, unable to believe what they’d seen. But Alex couldn’t stand still. She felt herself breaking into a run. Her shoes flew off as she raced down the long stretch of lawn toward the dunes. The wind tore away her tulle hat and plucked at the pins in her hair. Her skirt caught on a low bramble, ripping the ruffles as she heedlessly ran on.

Others were running, too, now, but Alex was ahead of them all. She was the first to reach the sand, the first to scramble up the landward slope of the dune and the first to sight the wrecked aeroplane.

The aeroplane had crashed nose-down near the water’s edge. Its double wings were twisted, its tail askew. The front end was partly buried in the sand. Waves eddied around it as the tide moved onto the beach.

Where was the pilot? Alex spotted him as she tore down the side of the dune. He was hanging out of the plane, his legs caught in the wreckage, his head dangling in the water.

Fearing he would drown if the crash hadn’t killed him, Alex plunged into the surf. The waves were swirling around her waist by the time she reached the aeroplane. A ripple washed over the pilot’s goggled face. Then Alex had her arms around him. She lifted him, feeling the heaviness of his upper body. He was a big man, rock solid. She cradled his head against her breasts while she waited for help.

“Is he alive?” Buck was beside her in the water now, his strong arms supporting the pilot’s shoulders.

“I don’t know.” Alex ran a finger along the man’s neck, searching for a pulse. He was bleeding from a gash on his temple. The blood made wet red streaks down the front of her gown. “I can’t feel anything,” she said, fumbling with the leather chinstrap.

By now, other men had reached the aeroplane and were trying to free the pilot’s legs. Alex held his head steady with one hand while the other hand tugged at the stubborn buckle.

Finally the strap came free. Alex pulled away the helmet. The goggles came with it. Underneath was a square-jawed face—a face that was young, yet somehow not young at all. The hair, plastered damply against the head, was dark reddish-brown. The nose was crooked, as if it had once been broken. The eyes were closed.

She pressed his neck where the strap had covered it and caught the faint throb of a pulse. “He’s alive!” she exclaimed, weak with relief. “Hurry! Get him out!”

At the sound of her voice the pilot’s closed eyelids twitched. The wet lashes fluttered upward. Alex found herself staring into a pair of riveting, green-flecked eyes.

He blinked, trying to focus on her face. “Don’t worry,” she said, feeling the warm pressure of his cheek against her breast. “You’re safe. They’re just trying to get your legs loose.”

As she spoke, the rescuers suddenly pulled the man’s legs free of the wreck. With a sharp moan of pain, he lapsed back into unconsciousness. Alex glanced over her shoulder and saw that one of his high-topped leather boots was grotesquely twisted. His leg, she realized, was badly broken.

“Let’s get him to the house!” she shouted. “Careful—support that leg!”

“We’ll take him,” Buck said. “Alex, you run on ahead. Get somebody to call a doctor.”

“No, I’ve got him.” She cradled the unconscious head, refusing to let go. She had found him. She had reached him first and saved him. It was as if, somehow, the young pilot had become hers.

Most of the party guests had lined up along the top of the dune to watch. Alex felt their eyes on her as she backed out of the water, her skirt dripping and encrusted with sand. Hands reached out to support the weight of the pilot’s torso. He stirred against her breast, his lips forming words she couldn’t hear.

Alex’s mother struggled down the slope toward her, walking sideways to keep from sliding in the loose sand. “What a sight you are, Alexandra!” she gasped. “I almost fainted when I saw you out there in the water.”

“The pilot’s hurt!” Alex said. “Have someone run to the house and telephone Dr. Fleury!” She cradled the man’s head, ignoring her mother’s outstretched arms. “Please, Mama, I’m fine!”

Her mother stared down at her, still hesitant. “But your gown—you’re covered with blood!”

Alex glanced down at the ugly lavender dress. The bodice and skirt were blotched with crimson. A little shiver went through her as she felt the pressure of the pilot’s firm jaw through the thin fabric. Her head went up. “Yes,” she said. “But it’s not my blood. It’s his.”

Chapter Two

Rafe awoke with a body-wrenching jerk. He had felt himself falling, spinning downward in a ripping descent that seemed slow only because it had no bottom. Now he felt the starch-crisped softness of a pillowcase against his cheek and realized he’d been dreaming. The dream had merged with reality until he was no longer sure where one left off and the other began.

Keeping his eyes tightly closed, he tried to piece together the fragmented memory of the crash—the plummeting plane, pulling on the stick until his hands bled, the water rushing upward to meet him. Then blackness, broken only by a flash of lucid pain.

Even then he’d been hallucinating, Rafe reckoned. Those violet eyes looking down at him could not have been real. Only angels had eyes like that. Or devils, maybe. And considering the life he’d led, Rafe would have been less surprised to find himself in hell than in heaven.

Not that it mattered. No body that ached as much as his could be dead. He was still among the living. But where?

Rafe forced his leaden eyelids to open.

The first thing he saw was sunlight streaming through a tall, cane-shuttered window. It was so bright that he had to close his eyes again. The hospital, he thought. That’s where he was. And running up the bloody bill, most likely. When they found out he wasn’t rich, he’d be out on the street.

He turned his head to one side, even that small motion hurting. Lord, what had he done to himself?

Concentrating, he willed his eyes to open again. This time he could see more of the room—a large teakwood armoire with oriental hardware; a richly woven Turkish carpet on the floor; a four-foot brass vase trailing the fronds of a huge, lacy fern. On the wall above the vase—Rafe gasped when he saw it—was the snarling, mounted head of a Bengal tiger.

A hospital? “Not bloody likely,” Rafe muttered out loud.

Burning with curiosity, he raised himself on one elbow and tried to sit up. Pain shot a searing path up his right leg as he twisted it. Broken, Rafe concluded dourly even before he felt the heavy splint. Broken nastily. It would be many weeks mending.

Blast! Rafe cursed his luck. Next week’s big air show, with $100,000 in prizes, was to have been the turning point of his life. He was gambling everything on the chance that he would find a backer to invest in the aeroplane he’d designed and built. He’d had a chance. A good chance. Now his aeroplane, his leg and his dreams all lay shattered.

Slowly Rafe sank back onto the pillow. He would rebuild the aeroplane, of course. And he would fly again. But he’d lost the season. He had missed his big chance. Damn! He glanced around the strangely exotic room again. Where in hell’s name was he, anyway? And where was his aeroplane?

The sound of approaching footsteps outside the half-open door broke into his thoughts. Instinctively Rafe froze. Life had taught him to be cautious. Even in a place like this, you could never tell who might be slinking around the halls. Once, in a perfectly respectable New Orleans hotel, he had gone to sleep and almost lost his life to a wallet-snatching bellhop with a stiletto in his boot. This place looked too ritzy for such shenanigans, but all the same…

Hinges creaked softly as the door swung all the way open. Rafe lay still, his eyes closed, as the footsteps padded across the carpet toward him. They were light and swift—a woman’s, Rafe guessed, relaxing a bit. Though a woman could be just as dangerous as a man. What would she look like? he caught himself wondering. Would she be young? Pretty? And what would she be doing in this room? He let her come closer, playing the game as long as he dared.

Now he sensed the light press of her body against the side of the bed. She was looking down at him. Rafe could feel her eyes, like sunlight on his face. His heart drummed against the wall of his chest, so loudly that he wondered if she could hear it.

She leaned closer. Rafe could hear the soft, feminine whisper of her breathing. He smelled no perfume, though. That was a bad sign. A perfumed woman approaching a man in bed usually had just one thing on her mind. That would be easy enough to manage, even with a broken leg—with a little cooperation from the lady, of course. But this female didn’t seem bent on seduction. She was too quiet.

Whatever her game, it was time to end it. Rafe opened his eyes. At the same instant, he moved, striking with the speed of a diamondback. Before the girl could even gasp, he had seized her arms in his two hands. He jerked her down and forward, bringing her face to a level with his own.

Startled eyes stared into his—violet-blue eyes, as cool and translucent as sapphires, and strangely familiar. Maybe he hadn’t been hallucinating after all. Or maybe he still was.

“Let me go!” she gasped.

“Not until you tell me where I am,” Rafe said.

She tried to pull away, twisting hard against the grip of his hands, but he was too strong for her. When she saw that she couldn’t escape, she stopped struggling. Her eyes glared at him through the tumble of her loose, tawny hair.

“Why, you stupid, addle-brained son of a baboon!” she said in a low voice. “If you want to know where you are, all you have to do is ask! There’s no reason for you to behave like an animal! Now let go of me, Mr. Garrick, before I scream bloody murder!”

Half amused, half embarrassed, Rafe let her go. The little spitfire was right about his behavior, he admitted grudgingly. If anyone in this place had meant to harm him, they could easily have done it while he was still unconscious from the crash. He had acted out of instinct. Acted rashly.

“How did you know my name?”

“It’s written on the lining of your jacket.” She had taken a couple of steps backward, giving Rafe his first real chance to study her. She was taller than he’d first realized. Prettier, too, with a windblown mane of hair and a face that could have been stamped on an ancient Greek coin, or used to launch a thousand ships. But she was dressed like a child, in a white middy blouse and a rumpled pongee skirt. Grains of sand clung to her bare feet. Innocence was written all over her. Rafe sighed. He liked his women experienced and eager.

“I’ve been down on the beach watching our groundskeepers dig your aeroplane out,” she said, keeping her distance. “They were almost finished when I left to check on you.” She ran a sun-browned hand through her hair, the motion pulling her blouse tight against one perfect, pear-shaped breast. Rafe felt the familiar surge of heat in his loins. Innocent or not, this female was no child.

“Not that I need have bothered,” she continued in a low, breathy voice. “You seem to have your strength back, Mr. Garrick.” Her straight, dark brows almost touched as she scowled at him. “What in heaven’s name did you think I was trying to do to you?”

Rafe tried to laugh and winced when it hurt. Maybe a rib or two had been cracked along with the leg. “You’ve got me there,” he said. “I’d just awakened, you see, and I didn’t quite have my bearings. I still don’t have them, for that matter, so if you’d care to explain—”

“You’re English, aren’t you?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“The way you speak—you sound English,” she persisted.

“All right. My parents came over on a boat from Liverpool when I was twelve,” Rafe said a bit impatiently. And they both died of typhoid eleven months later in a filthy Brooklyn tenement, he kept himself from adding. He never made a habit of telling people his life story. People had enough troubles of their own.

“I thought so,” she said. “I’m good with accents.”

“Look,” Rafe said, wondering if the female was stalling on purpose or if she was just naturally exasperating, “I need to know some things, like where I am and how long I’ve been here. And I need to know about my aeroplane. How bad is the damage? If you can’t tell me, for Pete’s sake, stop babbling and go get somebody who can!”

He saw at once that he had pushed her too far. Her chin went up and her nostrils flared like a blooded filly’s. “You look, Mr. Garrick,” she said coldly. “When your aeroplane crashed I was the first to reach it. I found you hanging halfway out of the machine with your head in the water. I held you up and kept you from drowning while the men got your legs free—and I ruined a brand-new party gown in the process. Now that you’re awake and I’ve met you, I realize I should have saved the gown!”

With an angry swirl of her pongee skirt, she spun out of the door and was gone.

Rafe groaned. “Hey!” he called after her. “I’m sorry! Come on back!” But the silence, like the wet sand that glittered on the carpet where she’d stood, mocked him. Minutes passed, and she didn’t return.

There was nothing to do but get up and investigate the situation himself, Rafe decided. Gritting his teeth, he rolled over onto his right side. Slow and easy, that was the way. Once he was on his feet, maybe he’d be able to get to the bottom of this mess.

And a fine mess it was! He remembered crashing the aeroplane, but he knew nothing about his rescuers. The girl had said the groundskeepers were on the beach, digging the aeroplane free, but what did that mean? What did these people plan to do with it, and with him? He had to find out fast.

Beads of sweat stood out on Rafe’s forehead as he pushed himself to a sitting position. The pain in his ribs was nauseating. Cautiously he inspected his own body. Someone had dressed him in a pair of gray silk pajamas that were finer than anything he’d ever worn. One of the legs had been ripped open to accommodate the bulk of the splint. Under the jacket, his ribs were bound with strips of muslin. A patch of gauze dressing covered a gash on his forehead.

Well, so much for damage assessment. He could only hope the aeroplane was in better shape than he was. Bracing himself against the pain, he seized the splint with both hands and swung his legs to the floor. That was more like it. Except for his rear still being on the bed, he was almost standing. All he had to do now was get his body over his feet. Then, broken leg or no broken leg, he would walk out of here and find out what was going on.

Gingerly Rafe put his weight on his good leg and stood up. The room shimmered in front of his eyes. He forced himself to focus on the face of the mounted tiger, on the dead-cold yellow glass eyes and leathery black nose. Why would anybody hang up a dead animal anyway? Even the well-mounted ones were ghastly.

Staring into the tiger’s open jaws, he gathered his resolve. The leg was well braced. There was no reason he couldn’t walk on it if he was careful. Nothing was impossible. When he’d started on his aeroplane, nobody had believed he could do it. But he’d shown them all.

The tiger’s face had begun to blur, its stripes curving into a moiré before Rafe’s eyes. He willed the leg to move, willed himself to put weight on it. Pain was a state of mind…to hell with pain…He leaned forward, trusting the strength of the splint. Slowly his weight came down on the broken leg…

Then pain exploded in him, shattering balance and will. The tiger’s face vanished in a swirl of darkness as Rafe pitched helplessly forward. He lay still on the Turkish carpet, at the foot of the brass vase, no longer wondering or caring where he was.

Alex came out through the kitchen onto the back porch, letting the screen door slam behind her. “He’s awake,” she said. “I just saw him.”

Maude Bromley glanced up from her needlepoint. “Oh? Is he hungry? Do you think he’d like some soup? I can send one of the kitchen girls up with a meal.”

“I didn’t ask him.” Alex draped herself sideways across the arms of a wicker chair and fanned herself with a magazine.

“Alex, your manners—”

“He was rude, Mama. More than rude. He was awful! First he grabbed my arms. Then he told me to stop babbling. He didn’t even thank me for saving his life!”

“Well, give him time, dear. He’s had quite a shock. And that sedative Dr. Fleury gave him yesterday afternoon was supposed to make him sleep round the clock. You can hardly blame the young man if he’s not quite himself.”

“Oh, you’re always making excuses for people!” Alex stormed. “For Papa, for everybody, even total strangers!”

“And for you, Alexandra. Something tells me it wasn’t just Mr. Garrick who was rude. If the truth be told, young lady, you’ve a sharp tongue in that pretty head. If you’re ever to find a good husband, you might do well to bridle it.”

Maude had spoken in the gentlest of tones, her thin fingers never missing a stitch of the rose pattern she was outlining in fine, mauve wool. Alex studied her mother, trying to imagine what she had been like as a girl, long before Buck Bromley came into her life. She seemed so controlled now, as if her emotions were encased in glass. Had she ever laughed loud and openly? Had she ever cried into her pillow at night?

Maude had not married young. At twenty-eight she had been an old maid by the terms of the day, a quiet, bookish young woman who’d kept house for her widowed father and worked half days at a nearby public library. Buck had been younger than Maude, uneducated and uncouth. She had taught him how to speak properly and how to eat a six-course dinner without using the wrong fork. Aside from that, what had they ever seen in each other? Alex wondered.

“If I marry, it will be to a man who loves me as I am,” she said, swinging a bare leg over the side of the chair. “Otherwise, I’ll stay single, thank you.”

Maude measured a strand of wool and clipped it with her tiny silver scissors. “Why should love be so important? I was in love with your father, and in the end, what difference did it make?”

The revelation caught Alex off guard. Her lips parted but she did not speak.

Maude smiled her quiet smile and resumed her needlepoint. “Some of the best marriages I know are based on suitability, not love,” she said. “It’s best that way, you know. When a woman is not quite in love with a man, she has…balance, let’s say. She’s able to keep a bit of the power for herself and look at life with her eyes open. When he hurts her—which every man does sooner or later—”

“I would never marry the sort of man who’d hurt me!”

“Time will tell, dear.” Maude’s needle slowed. “But a woman who’s not quite in love can bear the hurt. She can tend to her own affairs and wait for the pain to pass. She can be sensible. On the other hand, a woman who lets herself fall in love with a man gives up everything. He gains total power over her—power to dominate, power to hurt…And he’ll use it. No man can resist using it.” She paused to unravel a tangle in the yarn. Her fingers trembled slightly.

“Mama—” Alex reached out, hesitated, then put her hand back in her lap.

“Never give a man all your love, Alexandra. Always hold back a little for yourself, for your own survival. I know that sounds like cynical advice, but as you grow older, you’ll find it to be quite sound.”

She lowered her bespectacled eyes as if she’d just realized she had said too much. Feeling awkward, Alex gazed at the clouds. Her eyes followed the flight of a storm petrel. Briefly she thought of the aeroplane. How fragile it had looked against the vastness of the sky. How free.

“You’re wrong, Mama,” she said softly. “If I ever get married it will be for love, and nothing else.”

“That’s your choice, dear.” Maude spoke without looking up, as if she had just closed a window in her mind. “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

Alex shaded her eyes and gazed toward the dunes. On the beach, half a dozen men who worked for her father had spent the morning trying to free the wrecked aeroplane from the wet sand before the tide came in. Now she could see them coming up over the rise. They were bringing the flying machine with them, half dragging, half carrying the twisted wreckage onto the lawn. Seeing it now, Alex could not help marveling that Rafe Garrick had survived the crash at all. The craft’s double wings were intact, but the front struts were crushed. The rear was askew, and the engine hung precariously from the sagging frame.

“Poor Mr. Garrick!” said Maude.

“Pooh! He got out alive, didn’t he?” Alex’s feigned disinterest masked a sense of wonder. This shattered wreck of wood, wire and stiffened cloth had flown in the sky. Its pilot had seen the earth as she herself had never seen it—the sweep of the land, with clustered towns and pencil-line roads; the alabaster curve of beach where land met sea; the harbor, with boats scuttling like water striders on a pond. Rafe Garrick had soared over hills and valleys. He had looked down on birds and on the sun-gilded tops of clouds.

Then, like Icarus, he had fallen out of the sky.

“If he’s awake, he’ll want to know about his aeroplane,” Maude said. “Maybe you ought to go and tell him they got it off the beach. And while you’re at it, maybe you should ask if he’d like the servants to bring him some lunch.”

Alex turned her head to let the breeze cool her sweat-dampened hair. “I don’t want to go back in there, Mama. He’s rude. I…don’t think he likes me. I don’t think I like him, either.”

“That’s no excuse, Alexandra. Anyone can learn to keep a civil tongue.”

“Someone should tell Mr. Garrick that.” Alex tossed her head. “I’ve had my turn with him, thank you.”

Maude’s breath eased outward in a sigh of defeat. “You’re as strong-willed as your father! All right, I’ll go and talk to Mr. Garrick, and you get ready for the tea at Mrs. Townsend’s this afternoon. You really ought to bathe if there’s time.”

“Mama, you talk to me as if I were still five years old. I’m a grown woman. I think I’m old enough to decide whether or not I ought to bathe,” Alex said.

Maude tugged at a stubborn strand of wool. “Now what did I tell you about that sharp tongue, Alex? Talk to other people the way you talk to me, and you may find yourself very sorry one day.” The yarn had tangled again. Maude fell silent for a moment while she worked it free. “And while we’re at it,” she continued, “what’s this I hear about you driving?”

“Driving?” Alex parroted the word, trying to sound innocent, though she knew it wouldn’t work.

“Elvira Hodge told me she saw you flying down the road in your father’s Pierce-Arrow last night. She said you must have been going at least thirty-five miles an hour.”

“I like driving autos. And I like going fast.”

“It isn’t safe. What’s more, it isn’t ladylike.”

“Alice Roosevelt drives.”

“Alice Roosevelt also smokes. Does that mean every young girl in America should take up the disgusting habit?” Maude removed her glasses, folded the needlepoint and put it back into her wicker sewing box. “Alexandra, I’m not going to sit here and waste time arguing with you. No matter what I say, you’ll do as you please. I’m going inside now to see if Mr. Garrick needs anything from the servants.”

She rose to her feet, tall and pale in a dress of gray batiste, her light brown hair coiled into a double chignon and covered with a net. She closed the screen carefully as she went back into the house.

Alex watched her mother go, sorry now that she had been so difficult. Maude’s life was hard enough without a contrary and willful daughter adding to the burdens of it. Alex knew. She knew it all too well.

She remembered her first year at boarding school. She’d been only fourteen at the time, and racked with homesickness. On a dreary November Saturday she had impulsively caught a train home, arriving at the station just after dusk.

Alex would never forget the look of the house that evening as she walked up the drive—strangely dark and brooding, with just one light, dimly flickering in the window of her parents’ bedroom. Buck’s dark green Cadillac was parked at the foot of the front steps.

The door was unlocked. Alex stepped into the cavernous foyer. “Mama? Papa?”

No one had answered, not even the servants. Alex had been close to tears before she remembered that this was the night of her mother’s big charity ball. Not only would she be busy running the affair at the country club, but Mamie, the cook, and Cummings, the butler, would be helping as well.

That was when she’d heard it—the creak of a floorboard in an upstairs room, and faintly, the rumble of her father’s laughter.

“Papa!” she’d whispered eagerly. She was not alone after all. Grabbing her satchel, she’d raced up the stairs.

At the landing she’d hesitated. The upstairs hallway had been dark, the door to her parents’ bedroom closed. Only a sliver of yellow light had shone through the crack at the bottom.

Trembling, Alex had listened and waited. At last her hand had crept to the doorknob, then hesitated as she heard another sound, a rhythmic creaking that sounded like a bedspring.

Then, from beyond the door, a high-pitched laugh—a woman’s laugh, certainly not her mother’s—had shattered the darkness.

Alex had never told anyone about the experience. It remained imbedded in her soul like a splinter, as sharp and painful as the day it had happened.

Now, gingerly, she explored the tender area. She had to understand it. Sooner or later she would likely be married. She would be vulnerable, open to the same hurt and betrayal her mother had suffered. And she was afraid.

But surely she’d have the sense to fall in love with someone kind and decent, someone who would cherish and respect her. Not all men were like her father, Alex reassured herself. Or like Rafe Garrick.

She caught her breath, stunned by the force with which the young pilot’s image had entered her mind. Impressions rushed over her—standing in the surf with her arms around him, his head heavy against her breast, his dark, wet lashes lifting to give her the first glimpse of his eyes. She remembered afterward, undressing in her room, standing naked before the mirror, then picking up the sodden purple gown to touch the spots that were stained with his blood.

And only a short time ago she had come up from the beach and gone into his room. He had been sleeping—or so she’d thought. She had stood beside his bed, her eyes tracing the strong, stubborn lines of his face, the oddly attractive twist of his broken nose, the wave of dark chestnut hair that tumbled onto his forehead. A warm sense of possession had stolen over her. After all, hadn’t she been the first to reach him? Hadn’t she saved him from the sea? It was almost as if part of his life belonged to her.

Then Rafe Garrick had awakened, banishing all her illusions. He was not the kind of man to be possessed by her or by anyone. He was arrogant. He was quarrelsome. For all she knew, he could be out of his mind. And she would be out of her own mind as well, Alex told herself, if she had anything more to do with him.

“Alex!” Maude’s stricken cry from the upstairs window shattered her thoughts. “Telephone Dr. Fleury quickly! Mr. Garrick has fallen! I fear he may be dead!”

Chapter Three

“He’s coming around.” Dr. Henry Fleury, a portly man in his sixties with small, neat hands and a mustache like William Howard Taft’s, waved a vial of ammonia under Rafe’s nose. “You needn’t have worried, Maude. It looks like he just fainted. Probably tried to get up too soon. He’s lucky he didn’t crack his skull on that armoire or do more damage to those broken ribs.”

“Thank heaven!” Maude sighed. “He was so white and so still. I really feared for a moment—”

Rafe moaned sharply and jerked his head as the ammonia vapor nipped into his senses. Alex hovered over them both, bobbing back and forth in an effort to get a closer look.

“Is he going to be all right?” she asked, truly anxious.

“Don’t worry, he’s a strong lad. He’ll mend as good as new. But I’d recommend you keep him in bed for a few more days.” Fleury glanced at Alex. He’d been the family doctor for as long as she could remember, and there was little about any of them that escaped his notice. What was he seeing now as he looked at her?

Rafe moaned again, his eyelids twitching as he inhaled the pungent spirits. Maude had found him facedown on the floor. Cummings had managed to hoist him back onto the bed, where he lay sprawled, his rangy frame filling the length and breadth of the mattress.

“That’s it,” said Fleury. “Wake up, lad. Let’s hope that fall knocked a little sense into you. You’re in no condition to be strolling about.”

“Oh!” Alex gave a little gasp as Rafe’s eyes opened, staring not at her but at the doctor.

“Who…who the bloody hell are you?” he muttered groggily.

“Mind your tongue. There are ladies here.” Fleury scowled in mock severity. “I set your leg yesterday, and I’ll thank you to stop trying to undo my good work.”

“Yesterday!” Rafe struggled to sit up. “What’s happened? Where’s my aeroplane?”

Fleury braced an arm against Rafe’s chest and used his considerable weight to keep the younger man down. “Not a word,” he said firmly. “Not until you lie back and promise not to move.”

Rafe’s breath eased out as he lay back on the pillow. “All right,” he said, grimacing with the pain in his ribs. “You’ve got me. I’m not going anywhere. Now somebody tell me what’s going on.”

“Simple enough.” The bedsprings creaked as Fleury sat down on a corner of the bed. “Your aeroplane crashed offshore yesterday afternoon. You were pulled out of the wreck, barely conscious. I set the leg and gave you a sedative to make you sleep. If I’d known you’d be rash enough to get up, I’d have strapped you to the bed.”

“My aeroplane—” He lifted his head, straining to sit up again.

“My good man, I’m a doctor, not a mechanic. I only know that you have some cracked ribs and a nasty fracture that won’t heal unless you’ve the patience to rest.”

“Damn the leg! Damn the ribs! How badly damaged is my aeroplane?”

There was a short silence. Maude glanced warningly at her daughter, but Alex spoke anyway.

“They just brought it off the beach. It looks like a kite that’s been stomped on by the town bully,” she said, her eyes watching his face.

Rafe’s breath hissed out as he sank back onto the pillow, looking weary and vulnerable. “Naturally,” he said in a bitter voice. “One doesn’t ram an aircraft down nose first and expect it to bounce back like India rubber. Damn! If only I could have leveled it out in time!”

“You ought to be grateful you got out alive,” said Fleury. “Aeroplanes can be replaced. People can’t.”

Rafe scowled. “People heal. Aeroplanes don’t. This was the only one I had. I designed and built it myself, and there’s not another like it in the world.”

“The wings look all right.” Alex’s tone had gentled. “It’s the front end that’s smashed the worst. The engine’s hanging loose, and the rear parts are out of kilter—”

“I want to see it!” Rafe began to struggle again. “Blast it, somebody help me up!”

“No, you don’t,” said Fleury, using his weight again to press him back onto the pillow. “You’re to stay right here.”

“How long?” Green fire flashed in Rafe’s eyes. He was clearly not a man who liked being given orders.

“Until I say it’s all right for you to get up.” Fleury knew how to be as implacable as his patients. “A couple of days at least, maybe longer.”

Rafe sighed with resignation, but his eyes glared like a tethered hawk’s. Alex pressed close behind the doctor. She was leaning over his shoulder when Fleury suddenly turned toward her mother.

“Maude,” he said, “you’re as pale as a ghost. Come on out of here. We can sit in the parlor, you and I, while Mamie brews some good strong tea. Alexandra here can keep an eye on the young man for a while.” He turned to Alex and hardened his rubbery face into a scowl. “Watch him,” he ordered. “See that he doesn’t move.”

With that, he offered Maude his arm and escorted her out of the room, leaving Alex and Rafe alone.

“What’s your name?”

Rafe Garrick’s bold-eyed gaze made Alex want to squirm like a bashful child, but she forced herself to remain composed. The wretch probably wanted to make her feel uncomfortable. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d succeeded.

“My name is Alexandra Bromley. This house belongs to my parents,” she answered, posting herself like a sentry at the foot of his bed.

“I’d hardly have taken you for one of the servants.” His eyes glinted sardonically as he looked her up and down, openly taking stock of her face and figure. Rafe Garrick was clearly no gentleman. “Is the rest of the house as exotic as this room?” he asked.

“This is one of the guest rooms. Since most of the guests are friends of my father’s—” Alex cleared her throat. Her gaze swept the room, coming to rest on the mounted tiger head, which had given her the horrors for years. She shrugged. “My father has his own tastes, as you see.”

“I see.” He flashed a sudden, boyish grin that was like the sun coming out. Alex steeled herself against a sudden onrush of warmth. She could not allow herself to like this man. Even the thought of liking him disturbed her.

Rafe looked at the tiger, shaking his head. “Did your father actually shoot that thing?”

“Oh, yes! From the back of an elephant, six years ago!”

“He’s a big-game hunter?”

“No. Just a rich man who uses his money to buy excitement.” In more ways than one, Alex thought, imagining for a moment how the heads of Buck’s female conquests would look in a mounted collection above the fireplace. “He makes firearms. Guns and such,” she said.

“Of course!” Rafe’s eyebrows shot upward as the realization struck him. “Bromley and Burnsides!”

“Burnsides and Bromley—though father is all of it now. Joshua Burnsides, my grandfather, died fifteen years ago, when the company was still a small one.”

Rafe didn’t reply. He was gazing straight at her, his eyes as intense as two burning coals. “Help me get up, Alexandra Bromley,” he said. “I want to see my aeroplane. I have to see it!”

The passion in his voice was so commanding that Alex stiffened where she stood, fighting the strange impulse to do as he demanded.

“No,” she protested. “The doctor ordered you to keep still, and he told me to watch you.”

“Where is it?” he persisted, stirring restlessly beneath the bedclothes. “Isn’t there a window, or maybe a balcony where I could at least get a look? If I can see how bad the damage is, and decide whether it can be fixed—”

“You heard me. Make one move to get out of that bed, and I’ll scream for the doctor!” The ridiculousness of the situation was beginning to dawn on Alex, but she could not back down now.

“Rubbish! I’m not a prisoner. Which way is the beach?”

“Don’t be a fool. It’s only a machine. It will be there tomorrow.”

They glowered at each other, separated by the length of the bed. “Only a machine!” he exclaimed in a low, rasping voice. “For your information, Alexandra Bromley, that tangled wreck out there is my life!”

When she only stared at him in silence, he sank back onto the pillow. “You don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said. “You can’t know, if you’ve never flown. The freedom of it…the wonder…”

“And the danger?” Alex curled one hand around the bedpost. Almost against her will, her gaze traveled down the length of his body under the sheet—the broad shoulders and powerful chest, the narrow hips and lean, hard belly. Her eyes lingered on the intriguing bulge at the top of his thighs, then shifted guiltily away.

“The danger’s part of it, yes. But it’s more than that.” His face was flushed, his eyes alive. “When you’re in the sky, it’s as if you’ve left the whole dirty world behind. There’s nothing up there but you, the birds and the fine, clean air. You look down and you see the earth for what it is—little houses, little fields and factories, little people with little problems. It’s like…like—”

“Like being God?” Alex’s blasphemous whisper rang loud in the room.

Rafe laughed, deep in his throat. “Maybe. In a very precarious way—though I like to think that God doesn’t have engine trouble or get caught in downdrafts.”

“Tell me,” said Alex. “When you’re in the sky, don’t you ever have the urge to just point the nose up and keep going, higher and higher? But no, that would be very dangerous, wouldn’t it?” She laughed uneasily, conscious of his eyes on her and wondering what he was seeing. His gaze seemed to burn through her clothes. No man had ever looked at her like that. Not openly, at least.

“I did that once,” he said quietly. “I climbed, and kept on climbing. It was wild, like being drunk on sunlight. I didn’t want to stop, but the air began to get cold and very thin. I started to lose control—that was when I knew I had to get down.” He fell silent for a moment, as if focusing on something inside himself. “I want to see my aeroplane,” he said. “Just a look. Then I’ll know how soon I can be flying again.”

Something broke loose in Alex—a reckless, impulsive urge that had been building since she entered the room. “There’s a balcony at the end of the hall,” she said. “You can see it from there.”

“Will you help me?” His green-flecked eyes engulfed her.

“On one condition.” Alex took a deep breath. “I noticed your aeroplane has a second seat. When you’re able to fly again, you must promise to take me up with you.”

He scowled. “It’s too risky.”

“Not for you.”

“Your father would have my hide.”

“My father wouldn’t have to know.”

“And what if something were to go wrong?”

“Then neither of us would be in a position to care, would we?” Alex shrugged with feigned disinterest. “Promise me or lie there and rot. It’s up to you.” She turned her back on him and took a step toward the door.

“Wait!”

Alex spun around to find him laughing.

“Why, you stubborn little chit!” he exclaimed. “You’d really leave me, wouldn’t you? All right. One very short flight. As soon as my aeroplane and I are mended. Now, come here and help me get up.”

Alex hesitated.

“Please,” he said.

She came to him, bending over the bed so he could slip his arm around her shoulders. His skin was warm beneath the thin gray silk of Buck’s pajamas, his muscles solid and sinewy. His clean, leathery aroma reminded Alex of the dark brown jacket he’d been wearing when she lifted him from the water.

“Easy now,” he said. “Watch the ribs.” His arm lay lightly about her as he used his own strength to sit up and slide his legs off the bed. Alex was acutely aware of his closeness, the warm weight of his arm across her back, the slow, even rise and fall of his breathing.

“Here goes!” he muttered, pulling himself to his feet. Alex braced herself to steady him. Standing, he was even taller than she’d realized. Her own head did not reach the bottom of his ear. He took one step, then another, leaning on her to ease the weight on his broken leg. “You make a fine crutch, Alexandra Bromley!” His laughter stirred her hair. “Would you care to stick around till my leg mends?”

Alex groped for a clever retort and came up empty. Most of the time she felt at ease with men. She could be flippant and bitingly funny, especially when she didn’t care what they thought of her. Why was it that now, when she so wanted the upper hand, she felt like a tongue-tied dolt?

Together they made their way through the door and down the thickly carpeted hall. Rafe was silent, concentrating on each step, wincing when a movement hurt him. Once he stumbled, and Alex’s arm went around his waist to steady him. He was, she realized, wearing nothing at all under the thin silk pajamas.

A glass door at the end of the hallway opened onto a small balcony that overlooked the back lawn. Maude had decorated it with potted palms, hanging asparagus ferns and a pair of white wicker chairs.

“There!” Alex pointed as they reached the railing. “See, there’s your aeroplane at the far end of the lawn!”

Rafe let go of her, braced himself with one arm on the railing and used his free hand to shade his eyes. “If I were only closer!” he muttered.

“Can’t you tell anything from here?”

“Not enough. You were right about the wings. They don’t look badly damaged. And the rear elevators can be fixed. But the engine and the propeller…” He shook his head. “I’d have to see them up close.”

“Why be so concerned? You built it once. You can build it again.”

“Yes. But how much time will it take? How much money?” He turned bitter eyes on Alex. “You’ve no understanding of what’s involved—people like you, with everything at their fingertips. You don’t know what it’s like to go without heat in the winter, to go without cigars and haircuts and decent meals just so you can buy an engine piece by piece and put it together, so you can afford the right kind of wood for the braces, the right kind of wire, the right kind of linen canvas.” His knuckles whitened on the railing of the balcony. “Damn it, how can anyone who’s always had whatever they wanted understand that kind of love?”

Alex had listened quietly to his outburst, but her own indignation was building. “That’s the most arrogant crock of nonsense I ever heard!” she stormed. “You think you’re better than I am because you’ve had to struggle! You think that building an aeroplane qualifies you for some kind of sainthood! Well, maybe it does! Maybe you are an expert on that kind of love! But let me tell you something, Rafe Garrick! You have no tact at all, no gratitude, no consideration for people at all! There are other kinds of love, and you don’t seem to know anything about them!”

She whirled away from him and started for the door that led back into the hallway. Let him stay there. He could crawl back to bed by himself or shout for help. She wasn’t putting up with his self-righteous arrogance another second!

She had almost reached the door when he caught her. His hand seized her shoulder with the strength of an iron vise and he whipped her back toward him. “Don’t tell me what I don’t know!” he muttered, jerking her hard against his chest.

His kiss arched her backward over his arm. Alex struggled against his strong hands and brutally seeking lips. Then suddenly, incredibly, she felt herself responding. A ripple of fevered excitement coursed through her as she softened against him and felt the hard contours of his aroused body through the thin silk. Her lips went molten beneath his. Her fingers dug into his flesh, clinging, demanding. Madness. It was running away with her and she couldn’t stop it—didn’t want to stop it.

No! Something in her was still fighting him, still struggling for control. This was insanity. He had no right!

He released her, and she spun away from him. They stood a pace apart, both of them breathing heavily. As Alex stared at him, she felt panic welling up in her body. She’d wanted a life in which there was no question of her being in control. Now, suddenly, she felt threatened. Rafe Garrick was all the things she despised in a man, all the things she had spent her life protecting herself from. And he had just violated her safe, well-ordered world.

Rage and fear exploded in her. Her hand came up and she struck him with all her strength across the face. The force of her own blow sent her staggering backward.

He did not move. He did not laugh, scowl or even wince. Only his eyes mocked her anger as he spoke. “If it’s an apology you’re wanting—”

“No!” Alex spat out the word. “I’d never accept anything of the kind! Not from you!”

He laughed then—bitter, knowing laughter—as she whirled toward the door. It was as if he saw through her anger, as if he knew how deeply he had stirred her, and how frightened she was of her own emotions. Damn him. Oh, damn him!

Slamming the door behind her, she hurtled down the hall. Her face burned. Her eyes stung. She wanted to hide. Damn Rafe Garrick! She never wanted to see him again!

At the landing she almost collided with her father.

“Alex, are you all right?” Buck gazed at her in surprise. He had spent the morning in the city and was dressed in a dark business suit, white shirt and bowler. He smelled of the expensive Havana cigars he smoked.

“I’m quite all right, Papa.” Alex smoothed her skirt in an effort to compose herself. “Your fallen angel, Mr. Garrick, is all right, too. You’ll find him on the balcony. Dr. Fleury said he should stay in bed, but I think he’s well enough to leave!”

She brushed past him to go to her room, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “You’re sure you’re all right? You look flushed.”

“I’m fine, Papa. A little too much sun on the beach, that’s all. I was just going to my room to freshen up.”

“Well, you might want to hurry it a bit. Your mother mentioned something about tea at the Townsend place this afternoon.”

“Oh!” Alex gasped. “Oh, drat!” She’d completely forgotten about that ridiculous tea, but she had no desire to further upset her mother. “Tell her I’ll hurry!” She flew down the long corridor to her room.

Through the glass panel in the door, Rafe saw the husky, well-dressed man staring after Alexandra for a long, thoughtful moment. Then the stranger turned, strode down the hall toward the balcony and opened the door. “So you’re on your feet already!” he boomed.

Rafe was still leaning on the rail of the balcony. “You might say that,” he replied. “Though I’m still not up to walking without a crutch. I was just trying to figure out how to get back to bed by myself. You’d be Mr. Bromley, right? Your daughter’s got your eyes.” The last was a lie. Alexandra’s eyes were unlike any he had ever seen.

“Yes, I’m Bromley. You can call me Buck.”

They shook hands. Buck Bromley’s grip was bonecrushing in its power, as if he’d exercised his hand to strengthen it. “So you’ve met Alex,” he said. “She was the first one to reach you in the water. I was the second.”

Rafe rubbed his chin, which was shadowed with whisker stubble. “I’m much obliged to you for taking me in after the crash,” he said.

“We could hardly have left you lying on the beach,” Buck laughed. “Besides, I’m a curious man, and I’m intrigued by you and that machine of yours. I wouldn’t mind keeping you around until you and the aeroplane are both mended. It would be worth it, just to see what makes the thing fly.”

Was this an invitation? Rafe wrestled with his pride. He’d been keeping his plane in a small hangar at the Hempstead aerodrome. He could make minor repairs there, but its cramped space wouldn’t do for rebuilding the craft. And there was his tiny flat in the Bronx with its shared bathroom, as well as the motorcycle he wouldn’t be able to ride to the airfield until his leg healed. Staying here would solve any number of problems. But he’d be damned if he’d ask for charity.

“I owe you a debt,” Rafe said. “I repay my debts. I don’t like being obligated to anyone.”

Bromley’s eyes narrowed appraisingly. “If you’re talking about money, forget it,” he said. “As you see, we’re not exactly paupers here.”

Rafe shook his head. “Most of what I have is tied up in that aeroplane out there. But I’m not useless. I can work.”

“With a broken leg?”

“I had two years at M.I.T. Mechanical engineering. I’m good with engines. Got fine marks in draftsmanship—”

“You’ve no family?” Buck interrupted him.

“None. I was fourteen when my parents died. I’ve been on my own since then.”

“M.I.T., you say.” Buck’s tone was cynical. “I never went to college myself. Never needed it. But why only two years?”

“Time. Money. I wanted to build my own aeroplane and fly it. I couldn’t do that, work to support myself and still go to school. I had to make a choice.”

Buck followed Rafe’s gaze out across the sunsplotched expanse of lawn to the rise of the dunes where the aeroplane had been dragged and abandoned. “Was it the right choice? Was the end worth it?”

Rafe’s jaw tightened. He didn’t answer.

“Come on,” said Buck. “I’ll help you back to your room. Tomorrow we’ll go out and look at your machine, eh? We’ll see how much of it can be salvaged.”

He took Rafe’s weight on the right side and they moved off the balcony and through the door, into the hallway. In spite of the pain and difficulty, Rafe strove to move mostly under his own power. He had never been one to lean on others.

They had almost reached Rafe’s door when Alex came out of her room at the far end of the hall. She was dressed in pale yellow organdy trimmed with ribbons that fluttered when she moved. Her hair, freshly brushed, shimmered loose over her shoulders. Rafe caught his breath as, ignoring them both, she swung around the newel post and skimmed down the stairs in her low-heeled slippers.

Bromley, he realized, was studying him again, with that slit-eyed gaze of his. “So you like her, do you, lad?” he murmured. “Of course you do. What man wouldn’t? She’s beautiful…intelligent…spirited, and heiress to everything I own. Isn’t that right?”

Rafe swallowed, taken aback by the man’s bluntness. “She’s all that, and well beyond my reach, sir,” he said carefully. “As a pilot and a man, I know where my limits lie.”

“Do you, now?” Bromley’s left eyebrow slid upward. “Judging from the way you look at her, I’m not so sure you do. My daughter isn’t to be trifled with, Garrick. I’m saving Alex for a man who can keep her in style and keep her in line—a man who’ll breed grandsons to run my company someday. And since he won’t get a penny of her fortune, he damned well better have money of his own—preferably old money and plenty of it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.” Rafe had no problem with anything the man had said. He’d had his share of experience with rich, spoiled, beautiful girls. They liked playing around with the bad boy from across the tracks, but in the end it came down to one thing—money. Alexandra Bromley was prettier than most, but she was no different from the others and this was no time for games.

From here on out, Rafe resolved, he would put that blistering kiss out of his mind and give the girl a very wide berth. For him, Buck Bromley’s daughter could be nothing but trouble.

Chapter Four

Maude’s white-gloved hands clung helplessly to the side of the open-topped Pierce-Arrow. “For heaven’s sake, slow down, Alexandra! You’re going to get us both killed!”

Alex eased back on the gas pedal of the elegant black automobile. “I was only going thirty miles an hour, Mama. It’s a perfectly safe speed.”

“Not on this road. You can’t see around the curves. You could hit a cow or a horse or even a child. And you’re throwing up dust all around us. Use some sense!”

Alex sighed. Since Felix, the chauffeur, had gone home sick, it had fallen to her to drive herself and her mother to tea at the Townsend mansion. Ordinarily she would have been pleased. But after her encounter with Rafe Garrick, she was in no condition to sit behind the wheel of a dangerous machine.

“What’s bothering you, dear?” her mother asked. “I’ve never seen you in such a state.”

Alex’s only answer was a tightening of her jaw. The yellow ribbons on the shoulders of her dress streamed out behind her like battle flags. Her heart was pounding like the pistons on a runaway locomotive. She could still feel the burn of Rafe Garrick’s kiss on her lips and the raw, masculine pressure of his body against hers. Heaven help her, she didn’t want to feel this way. She didn’t want him, or any man, to have this kind of power over her. Anything would be better than ending up like her mother—a faded ghost of a woman, cowed and emotionally frozen.

She swerved to avoid a white leghorn rooster that ran squawking out of her path. The auto lurched as its left front wheel hit a pothole. Alex cursed. Her mother gasped.

“Alexandra! Wherever did you learn to talk like that?”

“Where do you think?” Alex sighed and eased back on the gas again. The engine slowed to a chugging purr. “Maybe you should learn to drive, Mama. It isn’t hard at all. In fact, it’s fun. I could teach you today, on the way home from the tea.”

“Goodness gracious!” Maude shook her head. “I could never do that! What would people think?”

“They wouldn’t have to know. Papa wouldn’t even have to know. It could be our secret.”

“The very idea! What will you think of next, Alexandra?” Maude sank lower in the seat, adjusting her protective veil as if she didn’t want to be recognized. “It strikes me that you have too much time on your hands and too much energy for your own good. A husband and babies would take care of that. Elvira Townsend’s nephew will be at the party today. He has excellent prospects, and he’s keen on meeting you. Promise me you’ll be nice to him.”

“All right, Mama. I promise not to scratch or bite or spit.”

“You’re impossible!”

“Yes, I know.” Alex swung the auto through the wrought-iron gate and up the long drive toward the palatial neo-Roman-style house. Her organdy gown felt damp and itchy, and her lips burned where Rafe Garrick’s stubble had roughened her skin. She could feel the beginning of a headache moving upward from the clenched muscles at the back of her neck.

It was going to be a very long afternoon.

Rafe was sitting up in bed, wolfing down a late lunch of cold ham, deviled eggs and fresh, buttered rolls when Buck Bromley strode into his room.

“Feeling better?” Buck placed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and two crystal glasses on the nightstand. Then he sat on a leather-covered side chair next to the bed.

“Much better, thanks,” Rafe said, trying not to talk with his mouth full. “Maybe I was just hungry.” He put his fork down and gazed levelly at his host. “I meant it when I said I didn’t like being obligated to anyone. I plan to pay you for every bite of this meal, and all the rest as well.”

“All in good time, lad.” Buck leaned backward, clasping his broad, hairy hands around one knee. His tan trousers were cashmere, Rafe noticed, and the white shirt he wore with the sleeves rolled up was exquisitely tailored linen, the monogram on the pocket sewn in ecru silk.

“Cigar?” Buck opened a drawer in the nightstand and produced a gold case, monogrammed with the same ornate B that graced his pocket. “After you’ve finished your meal, of course.”

“I’ve just finished, thanks.” Rafe put his tray to one side. It had been, literally, years since he’d had a really good cigar between his teeth. That was just one of the sacrifices he’d made to get his aeroplane built.

“Here.” The golden lid swung open at a touch. The molasses-sweet aroma of expensive tobacco filled Rafe’s nostrils. He selected a cigar and balanced it between two fingers for a moment, enjoying its weight, its perfect symmetry. Then, with exquisite deliberation, he placed one hand between his lips.

The match flared in Buck’s hand. Rafe inhaled, feeling the mellow, bittersweet sensation trickle through his body. He closed his eyes, savoring the moment.

“We hauled your aeroplane into the old carriage shed out back,” Buck said. “From the looks of it, I’d say you’re damned lucky to be alive.”

Rafe’s eyes opened. Buck was watching him intently, the way a cat watches a bird. Rafe sucked pensively on the cigar, meeting the older man’s gaze head-on. Life had taught him to be wary, and right now his instincts were on full alert.

“I looked at the engine,” Buck said. “Can’t say as I know horseshit about aeroplanes, but I do know engines. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s a rotary engine,” Rafe said. “You can buy them in France these days, but I built this one myself, with my own improvements. It’s the best of its kind. I only hope it’s not ruined.”

“It’s hanging loose from its mountings, but aside from that it doesn’t look too bad.” Buck lit his own cigar. The smoke obscured his face as he puffed on it. “If you can fix the framework, your aeroplane ought to fly again.”

“No matter.” Rafe tried to sound disinterested, though inwardly he sensed that his whole future could be teetering in the balance. “I could build another one from the same design. I could build a hundred if I had the resources.”

“The design is your own?”

“All mine.” Rafe directed a puff of smoke toward the ceiling. “I’ve got others on the drawing board, mind you, including a monoplane, but this is the only one I’ve perfected.”

“Perfected?” Buck snorted with laughter. “Then why the hell did it fall out of the sky with you?”

“I don’t know. But as soon as I’m able, I mean to find out.” Rafe tapped the end of the cigar into a black onyx ashtray. “For whatever it’s worth, that flying machine out there has taken me as close to heaven as it’s possible for a man to get!”

“Not as close as a few of the women I’ve known could take you, I’ll wager.”

“Have you ever flown?” Rafe asked earnestly.

“Not in an aeroplane!” Buck’s strong white teeth flashed in a devilish grin.

Rafe put the cigar down on the edge of the ashtray. “My aeroplane’s built to carry a passenger. Why not let me take you up after it’s repaired? I promise you, it’s an experience like you’ve never—”

“Oh, no. Not me, lad. Flying is for young fools with nothing to lose. Me, I’ve got responsibilities. I’ve got plans. Listen.” He leaned toward Rafe. His eyes gleamed like the eyes of the mounted tiger head on the wall behind him. “Last fall I made a trip to Germany. Shook hands with Kaiser Bill himself, the cheeky bastard! But that was the least of it. The real high point of the trip was a visit to Essen and a tour of the Krupp Works!”

Buck puffed furiously on his cigar, sending up volcanic clouds of smoke. “Lord, you’d have to see it to believe it! Miles of factories! More than fifty thousand workers! It was a city in itself—a damned kingdom! The Arms of Krupp!”

Rafe knew something of the world. He knew that the Krupp family had built their empire on the finest Bessemer steel ever made. Though they produced everything from railway wheels to razors, the fame and glory of the Krupps was vested in one thing: the manufacture of weapons.

Buck’s eyes glazed for a moment, as if the mind behind them were making a brief journey to some secret place. Then, chomping down on his cigar, he impaled Rafe with a gaze that was frightening in its intensity.

“That’s my dream, lad,” he rasped. “An empire. A family dynasty like the Krupps. That’s why I can’t go risking my neck in some damned flying machine. I want to live to see that dream come true!”

He paused long enough to twist the stopper off the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and pour two fingers of whiskey in each of the glasses. He handed one to Rafe, who was staring at him in disbelief. The man sounded slightly mad. But madmen with money weren’t to be taken lightly.

Buck took a swallow of the amber liquid. “Sounds damned far-fetched, doesn’t it? But I know a few things you don’t.” Buck paused long enough to wet his lips. “Between you and me, I’m just wrapping up a deal with Uncle Sam. Burnsides and Bromley will be making rifles for the United States Army! What do you think of that?”

“Impressive,” said Rafe.

“But that’s just the beginning,” Buck continued. “My engineers are already drawing up plans for light and heavy artillery pieces, mortars, shells and rockets.”

“Pity for you there’s no war going on,” Rafe remarked cynically, at once regretting his words. War had never made much sense to him, but the last thing he wanted to do was antagonize this man.

“True.” Buck had taken Rafe’s comment at face value. “But mark my words, the way things are going in Europe, there will be. Get a real man like Teddy Roosevelt back in power, instead of a fat pantywaist like Taft. That’s when you’ll see America show her fighting spirit!”

“And that’s when you’ll build your empire.”

“That’s right. I’m already expanding my factory. If war comes—when it comes—we’ll be ready to produce more than rifles! We’ll be cranking out motormounted artillery, howitzers, shells, bombs—”

“Have you thought about the role of aeroplanes? They could be useful for reconnaissance in a war.” Rafe spoke casually, letting the words drop as if they weren’t of vital importance. There, he’d opened the door. The next move would be Buck Bromley’s.

Buck leaned backward in his chair and studied Rafe through narrowed, calculating eyes. Maybe his mind was formulating questions, Rafe thought. Maybe he was pondering the use of the aeroplane in modern warfare. Maybe—

Buck spoke, and his words caught Rafe completely by surprise.

“What do you think of my daughter?” he asked.

“What?”

“Alexandra. You look like a man of the world. What do you think of her?”

Rafe took a deep gulp of whiskey. Its mellow fire burned its way down his throat as he thought of Alex in his arms. He remembered the supple curve of her back as she struggled against him, the warm pressure of her hips against his groin, the rush of passion that had brought him to a throbbing arousal in an instant.

He remembered her soft, full mouth, resisting at first, then clinging to his in wild surrender. He remembered the fury in her violet eyes as she struck him, the sting of her palm on his cheek. He had deserved that slap, Rafe knew. He should never have crossed the forbidden barrier between them. He should never have touched her. But, by heaven, he wasn’t sorry.

What did he think of Buck Bromley’s daughter?

“Well?” demanded Buck.

Rafe drained the glass. “We were talking about aeroplanes.”

“I know. And I asked you what you thought of my daughter.”

“Oh, she seems to be a bright girl,” Rafe said cautiously. “A bit headstrong, but I suspect she gets that from you.”

Buck laughed, a hard, humorless sound. “Forgive me, but I’m just airing my fatherly frustrations. You do find her attractive, right?”

Rafe stared down into his empty glass. “Yes, in a coltish sort of way. Frankly, I prefer my women a bit more…shall we say, ripe?”

“Aha! I understand,” said Buck. “I’ll even admit to liking them that way myself. But Alex is hardly what you’d call a child. She’s twenty—old enough to be married and cranking out the next generation.”

Rafe willed away the urge to mention the aeroplane again. Clearly, this was a time to listen.

Buck opened the whiskey again and refilled both glasses. “The girl’s driving me crazy. You’d think she’d have suitors swarming all over her. But she doesn’t show any interest in the men she meets. I’ve begged her, threatened her. She claims she doesn’t want to get married. She wants to live her own life. Live her own life! Can you imagine? What would you do with a girl like that, Garrick?”

“Maybe you should stop pushing her so hard,” Rafe suggested cautiously. “Give her a little more time to come around.”

“More time? What the hell for?” Buck’s fist came crashing down on the nightstand. “Damn the girl! She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about my sweat, my blood or the future of the company! She wants her own life on her own terms. The selfish little—”

His words fell off into muttering as he rose to his feet and began pacing the carpet. Abruptly, he stopped.

“Never mind. My daughter’s my own problem.” He sat again and picked up the whiskey glass. “Garrick, I’m not a man who believes in mincing words. I have a business proposition for you!”

“Business?” Once more Rafe was caught off balance. They’d been discussing Buck’s daughter, not his business dealings.

“I’m a fair judge of men,” Buck continued. “There’s something you want from me, and I’m pretty sure I know what it is. Maybe I can help you out.”

Rafe waited, trying to look disinterested. Inside he was churning. If Buck was talking about the aeroplane, then the dream he’d worked for, starved for, for so long, could be within reach. He felt light-headed, afraid that if he reached out everything he wanted so badly would be snatched away from him.

“I’ll get to the point,” said Buck. “The empty carriage shed where we stashed your aeroplane has a furnished room on the second floor. It’s yours while you work on your machine. You can take your meals with the family, or in the kitchen if you’d rather not stand on formality.”

Rafe weighed the offer. It wasn’t what he’d hoped for, but it was bloody tempting. If he accepted, he wouldn’t need to rent new work space and move the aeroplane or dig into his hard-earned savings to live while his leg healed. But at what cost? Nothing in this world came free, especially from a man like Buck Bromley.

He picked up the cigar, studied it a moment, then put it down again. “Thanks for your generosity, but the answer is no. I won’t be a charity case.”

“Charity has nothing to do with it,” Buck said. “I’d like to buy your aeroplane with exclusive rights to its design and any others you might create. You’d be working for me.”

Something dropped in the pit of Rafe’s stomach. This wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted backing for his own company. He wanted the freedom to manufacture and sell his aeroplane under his own name and to improve the design as he went along, like Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers were doing. But maybe that was never going to happen. Maybe this was the best he could hope for. Right now everything he owned was tied up in a pile of twisted wreckage. His back was against the wall, and Buck Bromley knew it.

Rafe toyed with his whiskey glass, trying to look nonchalant. Behind that facade, all was turmoil and chaos. He wanted the success of his aeroplane more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He ached for it, hungered for it, and now it was within reach. All he had to do was grasp it.

But he was a proud man with a sense of his own worth. He knew the value of the aeroplane he’d built, knew its power, knew its beauty. He knew the sweat and sacrifice that had gone into its making.

Buck Bromley knew none of those things. To him, the aeroplane was just a pawn to provide him with the means of getting what he wanted—the services of someone who might otherwise emerge as a competitor. For a pile of garbage, Buck’s offer would have been the same. And what he had in mind would be like making a deal with the devil. Rafe would never be his own man again.

“Well, what’s your answer?” Buck’s manner was cocky. He seemed sure of what Rafe’s reply would be.

Rafe took a deep breath. “Wouldn’t it be smarter to wait and see how the aeroplane performs?”

Buck’s eyes narrowed.

“You hardly know anything about my aeroplane,” Rafe said. “You don’t even know if it’s any good. The risk you’d be taking—”

“What the hell has risk got to do with it?” Buck snapped. “I’ll make you a fair offer, and if the damned machine won’t fly you’ll make one that does. What’s wrong with that?”

“Just this,” Rafe said. “You’re welcome to back my aeroplane as a partner, but it’s not for sale. Lord knows I could use the money. But I want to be my own boss, not an employee. I won’t bargain away my future, and I won’t be bought. Not for any price.”

Now he’d done it. Rafe braced himself, waiting for the explosion. But Buck only laughed.

“Proud young whippersnapper, aren’t you? I wasn’t so different at your age. But I had the sense to recognize an opportunity when it came along. That, and hard work, got me where I am today.” He poured another two fingers of Jack Daniel’s into each of the glasses. “Take your time, then. The shed’s yours in any case, and I can give you some kind of work if it’ll ease your fool pride. My offer stands open in case you change your mind.”

“That’s very generous of you, sir.” Rafe picked up his glass and swirled the golden liquid cautiously.

“It’s Buck, not sir. Hell, I’m as common as you are!”

“All right, Buck,” Rafe said, knowing he might be making a fatal mistake. “You’ve been very good to me. But since I won’t be working for you, I think it best that I move myself and my aeroplane somewhere else. As soon as I can get out of this bed on my own, I’ll do just that.”

Buck’s florid color darkened. “You’re afraid that if I can’t buy the design I might steal it from you? Is that what you think?”

“Frankly, that hadn’t even occurred to me.” Rafe set his glass on the nightstand. “I just feel that since we can’t come to an agreement, I shouldn’t impose on your hospitality any longer than I need to.”

A vein twitched in Buck’s temple. “Of all the mule-headed—”

The words froze on his lips as Maude Bromley stumbled into the room. Her face was chalky. One hand hovered at her throat.

“Buck.” Her voice quivered. “The police are downstairs. They just brought Alexandra and me home.”

“What the devil—?” Buck gasped.

“The auto. She wrecked it—ran it off the road five miles out of Glen Cove. It’s mired to the running boards. You’ll need to go and see about getting it out.”

Buck was on his feet. “Is Alex all right?”

As if in answer to his question, a tattoo of light, rapid footfalls echoed along the upstairs hallway, followed by the impassioned slam of a door. Buck glanced in the direction of the noise, then rushed headlong out of the room. His wife bustled after him, closing the door behind her and leaving Rafe alone.

Rafe picked up his whiskey and drained the glass. His head ached, his leg throbbed and he felt as if he’d crashed into the middle of a lunatic asylum.

If he didn’t get out of here soon, he’d could end up as hell-ridden as the Bromleys.

Chapter Five

The aeroplane lay in the cavernous space of the warehouse like a crumpled bird in a child’s pasteboard box. The sight of it jerked a knot in Rafe’s stomach. Compared to this utter calamity, his fractured leg was nothing.

A week after the accident, Rafe had dragged himself out of the Bromley mansion and paid his friend Jack Waverly, who ran a construction firm in Queens, to haul the shattered aeroplane by wagon to Minneola. They’d been lucky to find this empty warehouse with an office and bathroom facilities inside. The rent wasn’t cheap but since Rafe could move out of his tiny flat and live here for the duration it would be affordable enough. Best of all, he wouldn’t need to worry about traveling back and forth.

His leg and ribs still pained him. It wouldn’t be easy getting around the place on his crutches, but at least he’d disentangled himself from the Bromleys. Now he could concentrate on his work.

“How long will it take you to fix it?” Jack, who was blond, husky and affable, gave Rafe work when he wasn’t flying. Now he stood beside Rafe with his hands in the pockets of his coveralls.

“That’ll depend partly on how the engine’s fared. I won’t know until I’ve tried to start it up. But the framework’s wrecked. I can salvage a lot of pieces, but it’s going to need a complete rebuilding and new canvas to boot. I’ll start on that as soon as you bring my tools and spare parts.”

“I’ll bring your clothes and bedding and a few groceries along with the rest,” Jack said. “I’ll bring your motorcycle, too, but you won’t be able to ride it anywhere with that cast on your leg.”

“Thanks. I’ll get better over time. It’s the aeroplane I’m concerned about.”

“Well, the damned aeroplane won’t get fixed if you starve to death. I’ll wager you got spoiled staying with those rich folks, all that champagne and that caviar on those fancy little crumpets. Now you’ll be living on beer and cheese sandwiches, if you even remember to eat.”

“I’m just glad to be out of there and well enough to work.”

“Well enough is debatable, friend. But I know you’ve got a one-track mind, so I’ll be off now to get your things. It’ll take me a couple of hours. Sure you don’t want to come with me?”

Rafe shook his head. He needed some time alone before he pulled himself together and went to work. It would take a calm, clear mind to transform a twisted mass of wreckage into a creature of the sky once more.

As Jack’s wagon rolled out of sight, Rafe sank onto a wooden crate. The past week had been draining. The crash and his injuries, the long hours of inactivity and the constant tension in the Bromley household had left him with frazzled nerves. The work of rebuilding his machine loomed as all but insurmountable. But he was grateful to be back in action again. If he could move, he could work. If he could work, he could accomplish whatever was needed. He was going to be all right, damn it, and so was the aeroplane.

“Hello.”

The throaty voice startled Rafe, but only for an instant. He knew without turning around who had spoken. “Hello yourself, Miss Alexandra Bromley,” he replied. “After what you did to your father’s fancy new motor car, I’m surprised your parents would let you out of your room.”

“I’m not a child,” she said, leaning her bicycle against the door frame. “And the auto wasn’t that badly damaged, just stuck in the mud. All it needed was a good scrub and polish. What a pity your own machine won’t be so easy to fix.”

Rafe turned the crate around to look at her. She was wearing a divided skirt with a plain white blouse that clung damply to her skin, showing glimpses of the lace camisole beneath. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair tousled by the morning breeze. He had the distinct impression that if he were to bury his face against the warm hollow of her neck, her scent would be the pungent, earthy aroma of a woman’s sweat. He let his gaze roam up and down her body, not caring whether she noticed.

“You’ve come a long way just to argue,” he said. “It’s a pity you’re not a man. I could put you to work.”

She answered him with a toss of her head. “Don’t let my being a woman stop you. There’s nothing here that I’m not smart enough to learn.”

Rafe squinted up at her, dazzled by the light that fell through a high window to play on her caramelcolored hair. “Cocky little chit, aren’t you? I could be tempted. But your parents would skin me alive if you came in with grease stains on those dainty hands of yours.”

“Dainty? Ha!” She extended her hands for Rafe to see. They were large for a woman’s, the fingers long and tapered, the nails cut short, the skin tanned to a golden apricot color. “These hands can saddle and bridle a horse, drive an automobile and do a lot of other things that I have yet to try—maybe even fix an aeroplane. Or maybe…” Her violet eyes impaled him. “Maybe even fly one. So don’t sell me short, Mr. Garrick, or you might be very sorry.”

Rafe chuckled, warmed by her outrageous cheekiness. He’d sworn not to go near her, he reminded himself. But on this anxiety-ridden afternoon, with his spirit shrouded in gloom, Alex Bromley was a ray of pure sunshine.

“Come here and make yourself useful,” he said, struggling to stand. “I need a close look around the aeroplane and these crutches are murder on cracked ribs.”

She eyed him suspiciously, the color rising in her cheeks. “Haven’t we been down this road before? As I recall, the last time I did crutch duty, you ended up getting your face slapped.”

“I earned that slap fair and square,” Rafe said. “But this time I promise to behave. On my honor.”

“Your honor!” She cast him a scathing look. “I’d count more on a he-goat’s honor than on yours!”

“Then resolve to live dangerously, Miss Bromley.” Rafe proffered his arm.

She hesitated, head high, nostrils flaring. “Will you let me help work on your aeroplane?”

“Your father would have me skewered.”

“My father doesn’t have to know.”

Rafe sighed. “Maybe a little. No promises.”

“No promises?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Well, then, goodbye, Mr. Garrick. Have a lovely day.” She turned on her heel and strutted toward the door, her hips twitching in a way that almost made Rafe groan out loud. He cursed under his breath. Let the brat go, he admonished himself. But even as he willed himself to heed the warning he heard his voice calling out to her.

“Blast it, Alex, come back here!”

She turned slowly, her violet eyes sparkling with mischief. “Will you show me how your aeroplane works—without snarling at me even once?”

Rafe exhaled sharply. “Come on, then. Help me over there.”

The task that had loomed as tedious with Buck became something entirely different with the man’s daughter. Alex’s frame fit perfectly beneath Rafe’s arm as she took his weight. The warmth of her softly curved body, resting against his side, was pleasantly arousing. But it was her intelligence that intrigued him most. Her questions were insightful, her grasp of scientific principles swift and sure. Pity she was a mere woman. Otherwise Buck Bromley’s only child might have made one hell of an engineer, or even an aviator.

They made a slow half circle of the wreckage, Rafe thinking aloud as he assessed the damage to his precious machine. The rudder and rear elevators were fully intact. But everything forward of the wings was hopelessly shattered. The wings themselves would need new ailerons and a complete rebracing. Maybe while he was at it, he could improve the warping mechanism, making the craft easier to maneuver in the air.

The engine appeared worse off than he’d hoped. He wouldn’t know how much damage it had sustained until he could take the thing apart. To say the least, he had his work cut out for him.

“You don’t look very happy.” Alex was gazing up at him, her eyes deep violet in the shadows. “Can you rebuild it?”

“I’ll have to. The only question is how much time and money it will take. Right now the picture’s not a pretty one.”

“Papa would help you with the money if you asked him to. He has his faults, but stinginess isn’t one of them.”

Rafe’s sharp intake of breath triggered a jab of pain along his battered rib cage. He clenched his teeth, waiting for the agony to pass. “I’ve been down that road with your father, thank you. He offered to buy the aeroplane…and me. I turned him down.”

“You turned him down!” She stared up at him, amazement written across her face. “Why, for heaven’s sake?”

“I won’t be owned. Neither will my aeroplane. I want to start my own company, under my own name, like Glenn Curtiss here in New York, or Louis Blériot in France. My dream. My designs. My decisions. That’s what I’d be giving up if I were to accept your father’s offer. Does that make sense to you, or do you think I’m crazy?”

She pursed her very kissable lips. “Knowing Papa, I’d say you were very brave. Get on his bad side, and he’ll eat you alive.”

They moved on around the aeroplane, her body warm, damp and fragrant against his side. Rafe struggled to ignore the ripples of awareness that shimmered through his body. Despite his good intentions he was becoming aroused. “Your father’s been very generous,” he said. “I’d like to find a way to repay him. But as for the rest, I’m on my own now.”

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