Winter Affair (4 page)

She acted without conscious thought, almost without volition. She knew only one thing: if Reardon violated his parole by getting into a brawl on the job, he would most likely wind up back in prison.

Leda walked across the floor to the point where Reardon was standing next to the plane. All eyes moved to her as she took center stage, deliberately calling attention to herself as she had earlier tried to avoid it.

Reardon stared at her in disbelief as she approached him, clearly wondering what this madwoman was doing. Leda stopped in front of him, her eyes barely on a level with his collarbone. The onlookers were silent as she placed her hands on his shoulders.

He flinched slightly, glancing down at himself, his dirty clothes, his grimy hands. But she tightened her grip, and he stood still, his unusual eyes darkening with some emotion as they looked into hers.

I hope this works, Leda prayed, and I hope he doesn’t misinterpret what I’m doing. He waited, as did everyone else, for her next move.

“There’s no problem if he doesn’t know where to begin with me,” she announced, feigning a playfulness she didn’t feel. “I know where to begin with him.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

Reardon remained motionless for a timeless instant, and then Leda felt the total response of his body in a single fluid movement. His lips opened, covering hers, taking the initiative masterfully, and his arms enclosed her in a muscular grip, binding her to him. One large hand moved up her spine, caressing her back, and then sank into her hair. He held her steady, his fingers massaging her nape as his mouth took hers with such hunger, such total abandon, that Leda clung to him, reeling. Reardon made a sound, half sigh, half groan, and pulled her even tighter, fusing her hips to his. Leda gasped against his lips as she felt his arousal. She was bathed in sensation: the texture of his skin, the lean strength of his limbs, the surprising softness of his mouth. His scent surrounded her. It was an intoxicating blend: acrid sweat and diesel fuel, astringent shampoo and the underlying notes of cedar soap and the starch of his once clean coveralls. Her fingers slid luxuriously into the wealth of hair at the back of his head as she responded to him eagerly, powerless to resist. She forgot their audience, and everything else.

The group looked on in dumb fascination, hushed, riveted by the human drama taking place before their very eyes. Those most vocal in tormenting Reardon finally looked away, embarrassed because the only thing they had achieved was not his humiliation, but a demonstration of his virility. He had unwittingly turned the tables on them by making this desirable woman want him so quickly, and so much, that she had completely lost track of her surroundings. The other workmen watched also, drawn by the power of the scene and the absorption of the two participants in each other. It didn’t take a genius to see that they weren’t faking it; they were so lost in the experience that they might just as well have been alone.

A bell clanged throughout the hangar, shattering the tableau, signaling the start of the lunch hour for the 4 - 12 shift. Leda tensed in Reardon’s arms, rudely awakened from her dreamlike detachment, and pulled away from him. He brought her back to him, his eyes still closed, his lips parted to take hers again. It required every ounce of her willpower to sever the connection between them and resist his unspoken invitation. She took a step back, and his eyes opened. His gaze seared hers, his gray eyes transformed from cold platinum to molten steel. Oh, my God, Leda thought wildly as they beckoned her back to his embrace, what have I done?

They stared at each other as the Phelps employees moved toward the cafeteria, and the members of the charter group shuffled nervously in the background and struck up a conversation among themselves. Leda heard the high pitched whine of a rotor behind them, and realized that the noise had continued during the whole encounter, but she hadn’t heard it. It was as if she had been suspended in a vacuum with Reardon, heedless of mundane concerns like sound and temperature. She shivered as she noticed once more that she was cold. Had she been unaware of it, or had Reardon kept her warm?

“Are you all right?” Reardon asked her in an undertone the others couldn’t hear. His normally deep voice was hoarse.

Leda nodded, unable to speak. She trembled violently and, annoyed at her body’s betrayal, wrapped her arms around her torso.

“You’re cold,” Reardon said. He moved swiftly to the cabin of the plane he’d been servicing and produced the leather jacket she’d seen him wearing. He returned and extended it to her.

“Put this on,” he said gruffly.

Leda shook her head.

“Take it,” he commanded. “You’re shivering.”

Leda didn’t object as he draped it around her shoulders. The lining inside was thick, wooly alpaca, and she snuggled into it gratefully.

“My coat is back in the office,” she finally said, finding her voice. “I’ll leave this there when I go.”

He didn’t answer, merely gazed down at her, his breathing visible in the rise and fall of his deep chest. He wanted to say more, so much in fact, but words failed him.

“I have to meet Mr. Phelps,” Leda said lamely. It sounded inane to her own ears.

Reardon’s eyes left her and he scanned the little band of vacationers, unsure of what to do with themselves now that the crisis they had provoked was over. His lip curled derisively.

“They wanted a show,” he said grimly. “They got one.”

“I’m sorry about what they said,” Leda replied softly. “People can be very cruel sometimes, and drink often brings out the worst in them.”

He brought his hand up and touched her cheek. “I know why you did that,” he said quietly. “Thanks.”

Before she could answer he turned away and strode off toward the labs at the back of the hangar, passing the charter group on his way. He didn’t even look at them.

Leda turned her back on the travelers and returned to the office, avoiding the curious glances of people in the hangar who’d witnessed what had happened with her and Reardon. When she got back to the office she sat down and tried to recover her equilibrium. She was still wearing Reardon’s jacket.

She felt different, changed. It was as if she had suddenly realized, in the space of a few minutes, a basic truth about herself that had always lain dormant, just below the surface of her consciousness. She had lived so long in the world of rational behavior that the burst of passion she’d just experienced was like the harsh beam of a searchlight trained on her psyche, forcing her to face her innermost desires. She had saved her ardor for the stage, keeping her relationships with men friendly and uninvolved. If a man pressed for more, she politely but firmly sent him packing. It took long years and hard work to get established in the theatrical world, and she had no time for demanding suitors who might distract her from the goals she sought. But one brief interlude in Kyle Reardon’s arms had changed all that. Leda stared at a calendar on the wall, not seeing it, shell shocked and shaking with the force of emotions that threatened to alter the balance of her world forever.

That’s it, she thought. That’s why women give up everything and follow a man, that’s why they’ll do anything to be with him and not care about the rest. She had read about the power of such attraction, seen it portrayed in films, and even acted it out herself in the theater. But she had never experienced it personally until this night. And with the last man on earth she would have chosen, the betrayer of her father’s trust.

The door opened behind her and Matthew Phelps walked through it. You’re too late, Leda thought dryly, too late to save me. This lady is already lost.

“I’m so sorry,” Phelps began. “I know you’ve been waiting awhile. I hope you didn’t get too bored.” He sat down across from her.

Leda restrained herself from laughing at that, but her smile was broad.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Jim Kendall explained that you were going to be late.”

“These meetings,” he signed, rolling his eyes. “They always go on longer than anybody thinks they will.” He paused and examined Leda closely, his eyes narrowing.

“Are you okay, Miss Bradshaw?” he asked, his tone concerned. “You’re very pale, and you look like you’re cold.”

“I’m fine,” Leda stated with far more conviction than she felt. “I just went into the hangar without my coat and got chilled.”

“I see one of the men gave you his jacket,” Phelps said. His blue eyes were grave. He knew whose jacket it was.

“Yes,” Leda replied evenly. “Kyle Reardon.”

Phelps took a packet of cigarettes from his breast pocket, removing one and tapping it on the cover of the box. “Did you know he was working here?”

“Not until this evening.”

He nodded his head. “Perhaps I should have told you before you came out tonight.” He struck a match, watching her.

Leda shrugged. “There was no reason for you to do that. Kendall explained that Reardon is a good mechanic and deserves a second chance.”

“I’m glad you see it that way,” Phelps said, lighting his cigarette and inhaling deeply. “Shall we go inside and get your father’s things?”

Leda nodded, standing with him and following in his path. He led her toward the back of the office, to the corridor that served the inner storage rooms.

She couldn’t help thinking that Phelps would interpret this conversation in a different light when he heard, as he surely would, what had happened to Leda while he was gone.

* * * *

In the days that followed Leda’s visit to the Phelps hangar, she tried to tell herself that she had exaggerated the impact of the incident with Reardon. She was a championship rationalizer, and had talked herself out of any number of potential relationships in the past. She was working very hard at doing it again.

But this time it wasn’t working. Reardon invaded her life, hovering in the background, always on her mind or just at the edge of it, defeating her best efforts to cast him into oblivion. But Leda didn’t give up. She had resisted the lure of other men in the past, and she could do it once more. Maybe Reardon was a stronger presence than the others, but that didn’t mean she had to revert to schoolgirl daydreams and speculation about where he was and what he was doing. With a little more effort, she would be able to dismiss him too.

She had no way of knowing then how wrong she was.

Chapter 3

Reardon let himself into his empty apartment and tossed his keys onto a shelf. He’d just bought the car they operated, and it was a clunker. He couldn’t afford anything better at the moment, however, and he had great faith in his ability to fix all types of machinery. He smiled to himself bitterly. The car should prove to be the ultimate challenge to his talent.

He glanced around at the two bare rooms, sparsely furnished with the essentials that he had managed to assemble from secondhand shops and rummage sales. He thought briefly of the luxurious condominium he had owned before his trial, and which had been sold, along with the Porsche and the blue chip stocks, to pay for his legal representation. All to no avail. He had wound up in prison anyway. He sighed, his eyes drawn to the one feature of the cheerless dwelling that served to brighten his spirits. A marvelous stone fireplace, with the original oak mantel, took up almost all the space along one exterior wall. It had been used for drying purposes when the area above the garage was a storeroom, and he had gotten Mrs. Master’s permission to refurbish it and use it. He had stripped the wood of the mantel down to the grain, and then stained it, following that with a clear lacquer. He found that manual labor occupied his free time and made him tired enough to sleep at night. Once the fireplace was in shape, he kept logs burning in it almost constantly when he was home. If a person could actually call such a place home.

Reardon shrugged out of his jacket, and his fingers lingered on the collar as he moved to put it down. She wore this, he thought, and then tossed it furiously aside.

That Bradshaw girl. She kept turning up, making it impossible for him to forget her, distracting him from his singular purpose in returning to Yardley. No matter how attractive he found her, she was Carter Bradshaw’s daughter, and sure to hate him. He mustn’t lose sight of that fact.

Other things remained in his mind instead. The way she had looked when she touched his arm at her father’s grave, tentative, searching, alive with curiosity. The way she had come to his aid at the Phelps hangar, the impulse of kindness that had turned into the kiss he could still taste, still feel. The color of her eyes, the softness of her hair...Reardon pressed his lips together, refusing to continue the train of thought. He had to stop thinking about her. It was driving him crazy.

He didn’t need this. He didn’t need to wonder about her or dream about her, which he did almost every night. The dreams were the worst. They weren’t bad dreams. He was used to those; he’d had nightmares constantly ever since he went to jail. The dreams concerning Leda were different. They were tantalizing excursions into erotica from which he awoke tormented, his muscles in knots, his body bathed in sweat that soaked the sheets twisted around his limbs like coiled snakes. Sleep was impossible after such episodes. He would often lie awake until it was time to get up, reliving the fantasy in his mind.

He wanted to believe that such a reaction was normal for a man in his situation. Leda Bradshaw was the only woman he had touched in four years, the only female who had held him, kissed him, in a very long time. It was perfectly natural for him to respond to that, wasn’t it? Surely his obsession with her was nothing more than the reaction of a starved man to his first sight, and taste, of food.