Reilly's Woman (3 page)

She considered taking out the paperback book she had brought in her bag, then decided against it. She was too intent on reaching her destination to concentrate on reading.

The airplane levelled off. Grady partially turned in his seat. "Want to sit up front with me for a while, Leah?"

"Thank you, yes," she agreed readily. Conversation would make the time pass faster.

As Leah unbuckled her seat belt, Grady smiled crookedly at the man sitting next to her. "You don't have any objections to the switch, do you, Reilly?"

"None at all." There was a faint mockery in the reply as silently laughing green eyes flicked a glance at Leah.

Briefly she wondered if Reilly Smith thought she was making a play for the pilot. Surely he could see that Grady was old enough to be her father.

"Don't bump into any of the controls," Grady cautioned as Leah crouched in a half-erect position to negotiate the tiny aisle way to the empty front seat.

A helping hand gripped her elbow. With faint surprise, she realized it belonged to Reilly Smith. His touch was pleasantly strong and reassuring, but brief.

Dodging the control panel near the floor, Leah slid on to the right front seat, straightening her skirt over her knees. The change of seats had been accomplished without mishap despite the close quarters.

"Thank you," she offered over her shoulder for the steadying hand. "I hope Grady and I talking won't disturb your work, Mr. Smith."

"As a matter of fact, I think I'll quit for a while and get some sleep." The snap of the briefcase lid followed his statement.

When the reading light went off, Leah fleetingly wished she had not moved from her seat. She would have liked to satisfy some of her curiosity about this Reilly Smith.

"It's amazing." Grady shook his head, a wry smile on his face.

"What is?" Leah returned blankly.

"Him." With a backward nod of his head, the pilot indicated the man in the seat behind Leah.

Self-consciously she was aware that Grady's voice carried easily to the man. She glanced over her shoulder to see Reilly Smith's reaction to the comment. He was leaning back in his seat, eyes closed. His chest moved in an even rhythm.

"He's already asleep," Grady sighed. "He just closes his eyes. No tossing, no turning, just sleep."

"Must be nice," Leah agreed, settling back into her seat. She glanced around at the instrument dials illuminated by the infra-red light. "Is the plane on auto-pilot now?"

"Yup." But Leah noticed the automatic way Grady kept checking the panel. "Have you ever been in the front seat of a private plane before?"

"My dad has taken me up several times, but never in anything as sophisticated as this," she admitted.

"Modern avionics courtesy of the computer age." Grady smiled. "It does everything but land the plane, and nearly does that. It's great, but all equipment breaks down eventually. Let's not talk about flying, though—I hear that all day long. Considering your young years and the length of this flight, I think there's time for you to tell me about your childhood."

"It won't take long," Leah laughed softly. "My brother and I were Air Force brats." She added a sketchy outline of her childhood life, moving from air base to air base.

"How in heaven's name did you wind up in Las Vegas?"

"The usual way. Dad was transferred to Nellis Air Force Base when I was in high school. I had graduated and just started a secretarial course when his orders came through for Alaska. I wanted to finish my training, so for that reason, and because it was time to leave the nest, I stayed."

"The lure of the bright lights?" Grady mocked.

"Not a bit. I'm very happy being a secretary," she stated positively. "I have no desire to be an entertainer of any sort. The work is too hard and the hours are too demanding."

"That's true enough," he agreed. "Are you like the rest of the Las Vegas residents, rarely stepping inside a gambling casino unless you work there?"

"Exactly!" Then she qualified her answer. "When new shows open or a favorite celebrity of mine is appearing, I do go then. But on the whole, I leave the casinos for the tourists and the gamblers."

"Say," Grady paused, turning a curious look to her, "did you tell me that you were in the South Pacific for a time?"

"Guam and Hawaii."

"I was there when I was in the service—and I'm not going to tell you how long ago that was!"

A steady flow of questions
began as Grady probed her memory to see if she had been to places he had visited, then compared her descriptions to what he remembered.

Gradually they talked themselves out and drifted into silence. Leah gazed beyond her window reflection at the star-sprinkled sky in the east. She felt sublimely relaxed.

"If you feel like nodding off," Grady spoke quietly, "you can crawl back to your old seat. At least there, you can stretch your legs out without fear of bumping any controls."

With a contented sigh, she agreed. "I think I'll do that."

It was a bit easier negotiating the tiny aisle, although Leah took care not to waken the sleeping Reilly. As she turned to slide into her seat, she noticed the inky blankness of the sky directly ahead.

"It's very dark ahead, isn't it?" she questioned Grady softly.

"It must be frontal system. I think I'll check with the weather bureau and see if I can get an update on it."

He made the call while she buckled her seat belt. The answering transmission didn't carry clearly to her, but Grady passed the message back.

"The front beat us to Austin. You'd better buckle in tight—it might get a little rough." Then he glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping figure. "Reilly!"

"I heard you," came the quiet reply. With calm deliberation, Reilly straightened and tightened his seat belt.

"I thought you were asleep." Leah spoke without thinking.

"I was."

There was not a trace of sleepiness in his voice. She decided that he wakened as quickly as he went to sleep.

 

 

Chapter Two

 

A BLACK VOID yawned ominously around the twin engine plane. Jagged splinters of lightning rained fire in the sky. Turbulent cross-currents of air alternately tugged and pushed at the plane.

At each bone-shaking bounce of the plane, Grady throttled back to avoid putting any more stress on the structure than necessary. The buffeting only increased in intensity.

"Reilly!" Grady called for him to lean forward, not taking his eyes off the gauges and dials bouncing with the plane in front of him. The dark-haired passenger loosened his seat belt
slightly and bent toward the pilot. "It's only going to get worse. I'm going to try to fly around it. Okay?" he shouted.

"Okay." The voice that agreed didn't sound at all troubled by the weather.

Leah, despite all her trust in the competency of their pilot and the airworthiness of the craft, found tremors of fear shuddering through her. She tried to forestall the guilt feeling of cowardice with knowledge that only a fool wouldn't be afraid.

Still, she held her breath as Grady slowly banked the plane toward the east, trying to outrace the storm and sneak in around it. Sliding a rounded look to the man next to her, she decided that behind that expressionless face, he must have nerves of steel.

A severe downdraught sucked at the plane, nearly taking Leah's stomach when the plane groaned free. The pitch blackness that surrounded them was only broken by fiery tongues of lightning licking the air around them. The plane continued bucking through the turbulence.

"I can't get above this stuff!" Grady shouted. "I'm going to take her down a couple of thousand feet and see if it's any calmer."

No reply was necessary. Leah doubted if her dry mouth and throat could have made any. It felt as if they were diving, but she knew it was a controlled sideslip downward.

Through the mirrorlike reflection of the window, Leah watched the pilot gently levelling the wings out. Lightning flashed ahead of them, its brilliant yellow-white light lasting for several seconds.

"Sweet Jesus!" Grady's mutter of angry prayer reached Leah's ears at the same instant that she saw the mound of solid black rising in front of the nose.

It was a mountain. She registered the terrifying fact a second before she was thrown violently to one side as Grady executed a sharp right turn.

Another flash of lightening clearly outlined more mountains in their path.

"There aren't supposed to be any damned mountains at this altitude," came Grady's savage mutter as again he banked sharply. "This damned altimeter must—"

He didn't finish the rest. A jagged fork of lightning had briefly shown an escape route—a low saddleback ridge connecting two peaks. Grady aimed the nose of the plane at where he thought it had been. Leah waited in frozen stillness for the next streak of lightning that would reveal if his aim was true.

It was late. They were nearly there when flashing light revealed that he had misjudged the spot. The plane was going to crash into the side of the mountain.

Quickly Grady tried to correct for his error. Leah gasped silently in horror—oh, Lonnie! Fingers closed vicelike on the back of her neck, pushing her head to her knees and holding it there.

"Stay down." Reilly's softly spoken order pierced her terror.

There was a sickening jolt on the right side of the plane. The right wing tip had clipped the mountainside wrenching and tearing as
half of it split away.

The plane pitched downward. "Come on, baby!" Grady urged below his breath.

The belly of the plane bounced and thudded on solid ground. It sliced along for a few rattling feet, then the right wing again met an immovable object. Their speed sent the plane spinning like a top across the ground.

The screaming rip of metal seemed to surround Leah on all sides without end. Why was it all happening so slowly, her mind cried! Glass shattered above her head. There were more tearing, crunching sounds of metal from her side—the left side.

There was a faint sensation of pain as blackness swirled in front of her eyes. Yet Leah remained semiconscious, dissociated from what was happening. The roaring in her ears deafened her to all outside sounds.

Then the black mist began to recede. An iron hook of some kind was pulling her upward. A second later she realized it wasn't an iron hook, but a muscled arm.

"Come on. We've got to get out of here." The firm voice seemed to come from some great distance.

But Leah knew she had to obey the command. She shook her head to chase away the lingering daze. The trembling awkwardness of her legs made the arm around her ribs provide most of her support.

Taking a shaky breath, she suddenly realized she was alive. It was Reilly Smith's arm that was helping her through the open door of the downed plane. As she squeezed through the narrow opening, stumbling over the seats, she wondered why he hadn't opened the door wider.

When her foot touched the loose gravel outside the door, she knew. The plane had stopped lengthwise against the side of the mountain. It was the mountain wall that wouldn't allow the door to open more than it was.

Wind whipped at her hair as she emerged. There was the sting of rain against her cheeks while thunder rumbled ominously overhead. She wanted to lean against the body of the plane and quietly sob her relief and gratitude at being alive, but the arm around her waist wouldn't let her.

"We can't stop here," Reilly denied.

Accepting that there was wisdom in what he said, Leah didn't protest his guidance. The numbness was leaving her legs. Walking was still difficult over the uneven ground because of the high heels of her shoes.

Some distance from the plane, he halted in an open patch of mountain desert. The supporting arm was removed to press a hand on her shoulder, pushing her to the ground.

"You wait here," he ordered. "I'm going back to the plane. And stay down, or you'll make a good target for the lightning."

Leah nodded, then found her voice. "I will." As he pivoted to leave her, she remembered. "Where's Grady?"

There was no answer as her rescuer glided away into the dark. Perhaps he hadn't heard the question, she decided, or else he was going back to get the pilot.

Lightning crackled. In the illuminating light, she could see his shadowy outline. Beyond was the mutilated metal body of the plane. She shuddered at the miracle that they had survived in that wreckage.

The tiny pellets of wind-whipped rain could hardly be called a downpour, but as Leah waited in the darkness, she could feel the rain slowly soaking her clothes. She pulled the camel-colored waistcoat closer together.

A shooting pain stabbed her left arm. Experimentally her right hand explored the area of pain. The sleeve of her blouse was wetly sticky and warm. Then her fingers felt the tear in the material and the gash in the soft flesh of her upper arm. She didn't remember being hurt. Instinctively her hand clutched the wound, checking the flow of blood. In this darkness she couldn't see how serious it might be. Only now that she had discovered it was beginning to throb. Suddenly Leah felt very cold and very alone.