Star-Crossed Lovers. Zena Valentine

       Three

      Kale flung open the door of the plane, pushed himself out onto the wing and leaped to the ground. Although it wasn’t as hot and humid in Kenross as it had been a hundred and fifty miles south in Minneapolis, the blast of hot July air turned his skin sticky.

      He slammed the door, and then he looked up at the small high-wing plane on base leg, perpendicular to the runway. Suddenly the engine stopped and the prop spun to a slow undulating roll. He almost felt the pilot’s shock as one wing dipped sharply and then straightened. It looked for an instant as though it would take a nosedive.

      All his senses moved to alert. He thought he was seeing an accident about to happen, but somehow the plane continued, turning to line up with the runway, gliding onto the tarmac with uncertain hops and jolts as it landed and then braked in jerking assaults.

      Phil came to stand alongside him. “Don’t worry,” he said as though reading his boss’s mind. “It’s a student pilot flying dual. The instructor shut off the gas on final approach as part of the training.”

      “Taking his life into his hands,” Kale mused, still shaken but relieved.

      “Her life, you mean,” Phil said.

      As the plane drew closer he saw what Phil had already noted, that Jessi sat in the instructor’s seat. He wasn’t prepared for the rush of anger that slammed like a torrent through him at the thought of Jessi being in a plane that was in trouble, of Jessi deliberately shutting off the engine while an unskilled novice was at the wheel, of Jessi putting her life in danger while he watched helplessly from the ground.

      And then he caught himself, took a deep breath to clear such thoughts from his mind, and wiped sweat from his brow. He swung around to head for the office and the keys to the rental car. Was he crazy? What in the hell did he care if she wanted to take risks? If she was a flight instructor, she knew what she was doing. How was it that she goaded his anger so easily? It must be that she fed into his entrenched resentment, he thought. It was inconvenient as hell.

      No one was behind the counter when he reached the office, so he reached into the drawer and helped himself to the keys. He had been here often enough, and he had reserved the car as usual, so he didn’t feel as though he were trespassing. Looking around quickly, he saw two men smoking in the lounge, and he could hear Chaz’s voice, presumably on the telephone in the next room.

      As he closed the drawer with the car key in his hand, he looked up and the memory of nine days ago socked him in the gut. He was standing only inches from where he had lost control then, threaded his hand through her hair and pushed her against the cabinets with his body, angry that she might have been guilty of yet another betrayal a dozen years ago. But as he had held her imprisoned, his rage had colored into a desire so potent he had been obsessed with penetrating her through all the wrappings. He almost kissed her. He’d been only a scant inch from her lips. He’d had an overwhelming urge to take her mouth in a kiss savage enough to bruise.

      In horror, he had backed away, cursed her and left, relying on instinct and habit alone to make his legs move, to carry him to the plane and to buckle himself in while Phil went over his checklist.

      Strapping himself into the plane, he had been painfully aware that being close to her, touching her, had been a damning mistake, and had left him so shaken he forgot for a while what had inspired his rage in the first place. Every part of his body had been tight and hard with nerves bunched for attack, but it was the hardness in his groin and recognizing his oddly barbarian intentions while he had her in his power that had horrified him.

      It had been a first, having his carnal desires violently awakened by rage. He was not, had never been, a violent man, had never forced a woman, or treated a woman roughly. Never in his life. He was appalled by violence, and had never associated it with either sex or desire.

      It had frightened him. He had turned his head to face out the window so that Phil would not see his shame and turmoil, and he had held the briefcase temporarily on his lap to cover the evidence of his fierce arousal. Damn that woman for turning him into an animal!

      No, that was unfair. She had done nothing to inspire his sudden insanity. It was something within himself, something dark and painful and frighteningly powerful, that had blossomed without warning and overshadowed his civility.

      The thought that she had once wooed him with sweet shyness, and then given her body to someone else, had once again infuriated him. He had to know if that was what she had done, borne some other man’s child when he as a teenager in love was lying awake nights missing her and wanting her, wondering when he might see her again. When he thought of his own young innocence and the aching need to be close to her, to take care of her and hold her and dream of a future together, he felt the ominous force of his pain-fired anger, because he had been deluded and used. He had been a fool, naive and trusting. Believing in her.

      Until he heard about the “other” man and confronted her.

      That Amanda might be her child had caught in his chest, until he had realized she probably wasn’t Jessi’s. During the return flight he had thought about that stretch of time twelve and thirteen years ago, from the accident in September to the last time he saw Jessi the following August, and he figured that if Jessi had got herself pregnant during that time, the child could not yet be twelve years old.

      And then, riding in the plane alongside his pilot, he had let the other feelings overwhelm him, the ones he could neither understand nor explain that caught him in their grip when he touched her and felt the length of her soft body against him, and it sickened him. What had possessed him to handle her so harshly and to find himself wanting to force her to his will? What ill-conceived demon had driven him to such lengths?

      Was it because he had harbored and nurtured his resentment toward her for so many years that when he finally found himself in her presence he could no longer contain his anger?

      He was a man of infinite control. Ask anyone who knew him, the women he had known intimately, the people he worked with, his family, his clients, anyone.

      To lose control now was to face a terror, for it was something within himself that he did not recognize. And could not tolerate.

      That he must harness these wild errant feelings was without question. And he must do so immediately. Furthermore, he must avoid future contact with Jessi Caldwell Morris, who seemed to bring on this unconscionable behavior.

      Now, standing at the cabinet where he had manhandled her nine days ago, he yanked himself back to the present. It had happened again, losing himself in the experience of touching her and suffering the consequences.

      He turned quickly from the cabinet, gripping the rental car keys in his hand and strode outside. He was heading for the rental car when she called to him, and without thought he instantly responded.

      She was running from the small plane, jogging toward him in a short sleeveless tank top that revealed too many inches of delectable flat midsection, and khaki shorts, a clipboard held against her side. Her hair was frizzed by the heat and humidity, pulled into an inadequate clasp at the back of her neck so that wildly curled tendrils framed her face. As she drew near, he saw that some of the tendrils were wet and stuck to her face.

      He saw the sheen of perspiration from her forehead down her clear tanned skin to the top of her breasts. That was how he had thought she would look under him when he finally made love to her, her skin glowing