Last Chance at Love. Gwynne Forster

would you do if I held your hand?” he asked her and primed himself for a reprimand. It suited him best to get straight to the point. Besides, he liked to let a woman know what he thought of her and where she stood with him.

      She glanced at him, then looked away. “I don’t know.”

      So she had her own moments of truth, did she? What could he lose? He folded her left hand in his right one, and when she failed to protest, his heart took off, racing like a thoroughbred out of control. Spooked. He told himself to cool it, that it was nothing, that she was testing him. But he didn’t believe the lie. Unaccustomed to tripping around an issue, he gave life to his thoughts.

      “You mean something to me, Allison. You could be important to me. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but—”

      She interrupted him, her voice suggesting that she was afraid to hear more. “But in the end, we’ll go our separate ways. More’s the pity, because I have a feeling that you’re an exceptional man.”

      Her fingers tightened around his, and she leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. He stared down at her full, luscious mouth and sucked in his breath as frissons of heat rode roughshod over his nerves. Needing more than he’d probably ever get, he let his thumb graze over the tip of hers, rubbing gently and rhythmically until his action stunned him. He glanced down at her face—peaceful, seemingly unruffled—and wondered if she recognized the symbolism of what he’d just done. If she did, she had to be the world’s best actress.

      * * *

      Allison locked her lips together and squeezed her eyes tight. She didn’t dare utter a word, and nothing could have made her look at him, open and vulnerable to him as she was, for she knew what he’d see. His callused thumb staked a claim on her, its rhythmic friction filling her head with dreams and her body with desire. Yet she didn’t stop him and didn’t want him to cease. She hadn’t cried in five years, but if he kept up that...

      His voice penetrated the haze of her thoughts. “Are you asleep?”

      She shook her head, not trusting the voice that would surely betray her.

      “Then I’d like to be inside your head. You haven’t moved a muscle in the last fifteen minutes.”

      Her eyes flew open as if of their own will, and shivers beset her as she gazed up into his face and read his thoughts and feelings. Open and unsheltered. Eyes stormy and fierce with desire. “You... You’ve been looking at me?”

      He released a long, heavy breath and plowed his left hand through his hair. “How could I not? Nothing and no one else in this plane attracts me.”

      “Jake—”

      He held up his free hand. “I know, I know. We must be circumspect. Heaven forbid we should admit to feeling anything.”

      The wheels dropped and the changed sound of the engine told him that they would soon land. He smiled his pleasure and squeezed her fingers. “I don’t know when I’ll wash this hand again.” His left eye winked at her. “Must have magic powers. It’s been snug in yours for the last forty minutes, and I enjoyed it.”

      She looked straight ahead. “Me, too,” she said and meant it. She figured she’d knocked him off balance, but hadn’t he done that to her? “What time are we meeting Monday morning?”

      The plane taxied to a stop, and he stood and retrieved their briefcases. “Same time. Same spot.” He stared down at her, his gaze boring into her until she looked away. How could he, with just a look, tie up her insides and invade her soul?

      “Stay out of mischief, Allison.” His voice, choppy and hoarse, lacked its usual sonority.

      “Wouldn’t think of it,” she replied, groping for emotional balance.

      After staring at her until someone behind them yelled “Let’s go,” he turned and headed for the exit.

      * * *

      Just before he stepped into the terminal, he glanced over his shoulder, saw that Allison was preoccupied assisting another passenger, and ducked into the men’s room. He didn’t feel right about slipping away from her without saying goodbye, and especially not after the warmth they’d just shared. But he had a job to do, and he meant to make it up to her if she let him.

      They had been back on the tour for two days. His cell phone rang as he headed for the shower that Wednesday morning, and he dreaded answering it. Allison hadn’t treated the slip he gave her in the airport the previous weekend with anything approaching generosity, and if he had to abandon the tour again so soon, she’d ask some questions. And she’d be entitled to answers.

      He pushed the button. “Hello.”

      “We’ve got word that an unknown operator placed an order for a mother lode of dynamite. We don’t want it delivered. I hope you can come up with a plan. I need it, pronto.”

      Jake leaned forward and rested his chin in his palm. This was not what he wanted to hear. “I’m in the midst of a tour.” He wondered why he’d bothered to voice it since the chief knew that. First the department, and now the agency knew his every move, maybe his thoughts, too.

      “We know, but this requires priority.”

      He canceled his Thursday morning interview and telephoned Allison. “I’ve postponed my remaining interviews for this week and tomorrow’s twelve o’clock book signing because I have to get back to Washington tomorrow night. Unless I let you know otherwise, I should be going to Boston Monday morning as planned.”

      “Didn’t the same thing happen last week when you suddenly remembered you had an appointment? I’d give a lot to know why your schedule is uncertain all of a sudden.”

      “And you’d pay too dearly, because there’s no mystery involved. I hope I haven’t spoiled your plans, but I’m learning that a six-week book-signing tour can be filled with glitches, changes, and disappointments. You’d better get used to it.”

      Dissatisfied with the idea of sitting in his old office trying to put together a plan to foil delivery of a load of explosives, Jake phoned the chief. “Give me the particulars, and I’ll find a quiet place somewhere and work it out. This is a tough one.”

      “What sort of place?”

      He could tell from the chief’s tone of voice that the idea didn’t please him. “Someplace where I can swim, fish, and get fresh air. Idlewild, for example.”

      “I’ll check out the place and get back to you in a few minutes.”

      Jake knew his boss would do everything possible to accommodate him. Putting together that kind of foolproof plan would challenge the most shrewd intellect, and although he considered himself sensitive to criminal behavior, guessing a man’s moves could backfire. He needed a clear head.

      “No problem,” the chief said when Jake answered his cell phone. “Get it to me as quickly as you can.”

      Jake didn’t bother to tell Allison he had changed his destination; time enough for that Monday morning.

      Jake phoned Morton’s Hotel in Idlewild and booked a flight to Reed City. Six hours later, he stood in an anteroom off the hotel’s lobby selecting a fishing rod.

      “Haven’t seen you around here before,” the woman said as she approached his spot carrying a rod, a reel, and a tin box in which he assumed she stored bait or lures.

      “I don’t suppose you have,” he answered, hoping to discourage conversation.

      “Staying long?” She threw out her line, and he knew he was watching an expert. Few occasional fishermen could cast with such deftness.

      “A couple of days.”

      “Not very talkative, are you?”

      “I’ve yet to catch a fish when I was talking,” he said, standing in order to cast farther from shore.

      “Hmmm.