Trouble In Tourmaline. Jane Toombs

scared. She might be, but she had no intention of telling him. Or backing down.

      Raising her chin, she said, “Sounds like fun.”

      Later, as they ate the pizza, he told her more about sailplanes than she cared to know. Apparently lots of people flew them here in Nevada where thermals were frequent.

      “It’s so quiet up there, so beautiful,” he said. “You feel like a hawk yourself, endlessly soaring.”

      “You’ve sold me,” she said, realizing sailplaning was something he really loved to do. To join him might make her a trusted buddy, and she did need his trust if she was going to help him. Taking a deep breath, she added, “I’ll give it a try.”

      Immediately after saying it, she rose from her chair at the kitchen table. “Time to leave.” Yes, before she got talked into something else precarious. “I did enjoy the pizza, sausage and all.”

      He got up, too. “Thanks for the help with the kittens.”

      Which reminded her of how he’d assumed the runt was female. Why? Could be it really wasn’t important, but she’d find out sooner or later. “Glad to be of service.”

      “I’ll pick you up at Gert’s Saturday morning around noon. Thermals usually form in the afternoon.”

      “You said you had a pilot’s license. Do you have to be a pilot to fly sailplanes?”

      “Yep. Have to learn about gliders, too.”

      “So I’m safe with you, I guess.”

      He was standing close to her. Too close. She ordered her feet to move away from him, but the order got garbled by what she saw in those deep blue eyes, and she remained motionless. He was looking at her like—like…

      Without touching her otherwise, he bent his head and brushed his lips over hers. Every cell in her body yearned for him.

      Safe with him? The words echoed in her head as she leaned into the kiss wanting more, needing more, even though she tried not to. Impossible not to relish the zing that ran bone-deep. Good grief, all this without even being in his arms. With a tremendous effort of will, she broke contact and literally fled from the apartment.

      So much for being safe, she told herself as she climbed into her SUV. Clenching her teeth, she vowed to make sure that didn’t happen again. Friends was the operative word—not lovers.

      David found himself staring bemusedly at the door she’d closed behind her and forced himself into action. Clean up the kitchen. Take out the trash. Stop thinking about how soft and warm her lips were and how they’d yielded to his. Don’t remember her taste or how she smells of flowers.

      He shouldn’t have kissed her. Been too long without a woman, Severin, he told himself. And this one definitely isn’t a good choice for a quick affair. Very bad choice—your aunt’s associate. Which was true, no doubt about it, but he didn’t think it’d stop him from kissing her again, if the chance came.

      On the other hand, she could be at loose ends, wanting no more than he wanted. Nothing even vaguely permanent. Just a test of how potent the chemistry was.

      As he went into the living room to check on the kittens, he nodded. Start as friends, keep cool and see where it goes. Kneeling by the box, he stared down at Hobo and her brood of four, all fuzzy now as they nursed. The tiny one was completely black, the other three black and white. As he reached down and stroked the black one’s head with a gentle finger, Hobo mewed.

      “Don’t worry, I’d never hurt her,” he murmured. How could he, when the sight of that tiny body reminded him so much of Sarah, one and a half months premature and so small she’d looked like a doll, not a baby.

      That had been five—no, six—years ago. He shared custody with Iris, his ex, but hadn’t asked to have Sarah visit him since he’d left New Mexico last year. David sighed and got to his feet. Right now she was better off with her mother than him.

      The next day, David pulled into Tourmaline’s small airfield with Amy, parking near where his sailplane was tied down. She got out of his pickup and walked around the aircraft. “It’s bigger than I thought it’d be,” she told him.

      “That good or bad news?”

      She frowned. “Good, I guess.”

      He’d sensed her increasing nervousness as they’d driven to the field. “Aunt Gert’s been up with me several times,” he said in an effort to make her relax. “Grandfather, too.”

      “Your grandfather?”

      “No, not mine.”

      “Well, he can’t be your aunt’s. She told me herself she’s seventy.”

      “He’s a friend of ours who goes by that name.”

      She stared at him. “You mean everyone calls him Grandfather?”

      “He’s a Paiute medicine man. Grandfather is a name of respect.” David turned to greet a middle-aged man walking toward them. “Amy, this is Grant,” he said. “Our tow pilot. Grant, my friend Amy.”

      Grant nodded to her. “Going up with this yahoo, are you?”

      “I said I would.”

      “Can’t renege on a promise, that it?” Grant chuckled. “Don’t worry, I ain’t crashed yet and neither’s he.”

      “I’m not sure I like the sound of that ‘yet,’” Amy told him.

      “Safe as in your mother’s arms. Notice I didn’t say his arms.” Grant nodded toward David, who was busy untying the sailplane. “I can recommend his flying, but the other’s up in the air.” He chuckled again before turning and walking toward a small red-and-white plane parked a ways in front of the sailplane.

      “He’s going to attach the towline.” David lifted the top canopy of his plane and gestured toward the rear seat. “After you.”

      Amy climbed in and closed the seat belt around her. When he was satisfied the towline was secure, David climbed into the front cockpit and fastened down the canopy.

      “It’s an adventure,” Amy muttered under her breath, resisting the impulse to close her eyes as both planes began moving. When’s the last time you had anything approaching an adventure? she asked herself. She’d been living, as Grant put it, safe as in her mother’s arms, for so long she couldn’t even remember feeling adventurous.

      Which reminded her David’s arms would hardly be safe. Another adventure she wasn’t ready for?

      Before she realized what was happening, they were airborne. Though she could hear the drone of the tow plane’s motor drifting back to her, the noise level in the sailplane was nil. Nothing like taking off in one of the big commercial jets.

      “I’ll drop the tow at about three thousand feet.” She could hear David clearly.

      “How high will we go then?” she managed to ask after swallowing twice.

      “As high as the thermal we find will take us. No higher than ten thousand feet, though, or we’d need oxygen.”

      “How do you know where the thermals are?”

      “Search and find. Watch the birds. Get lucky.”

      As soon as David unhooked the towline, Grant’s plane turned away from them and disappeared from her view. Now there was no sound at all as they drifted. She decided not to ask how they were going to get back down with no motor. Glide, she supposed, feeling her fingers begin to hurt from clenching her hands together so tightly.

      “Okay back there?” David asked.

      “Fine.” She hoped she sounded more convinced than she felt. It wasn’t so much that she questioned his expertise. For some reason she trusted him, knowing he wouldn’t have asked her to join him unless he was sure it was safe. But the sailplane itself was new to