Just Fooling Around(44)

“This?” he asked, raising a brow. “Honey, I’m Air Force. Any Task. Any Place. Anywhere.”

Ruefully, she shook her head. “I think I’m going to like you.”

“Think? Think? You’re blowing holes through my considerable ego with these doubts. What do I have to do to convince you?”

“I got ideas,” she said, pressing against him quite shamefully.

He began to laugh, found a nearly destroyed cushion from the couch and they fell on it together.

“Yup,” he whispered, covering her mouth. “Yesterday was my lucky day.”

It was some time before Devon could think about those words, but when she did, she knew. Yesterday was her lucky day, too.





REG’S RESCUE


Julie Kenner





1




April Fools’ Day, one year ago

“FOLKS, THIS IS CAPTAIN Edwards. We’ve been dodging several severe weather cells, and control has instructed us that we won’t be landing in New Orleans as scheduled. Instead, we’re being diverted to Houston. We apologize for the delay and we’ll get everyone to your final destination just as soon as we can.”

A collective groan rose up from the passengers of flight 1281. Professor Reginald Franklin didn’t groan, but he did turn and look at his watch, his movements stiff and forced.

Maybe they’d still make it in time….

He hoped to hell they’d still make it in time….

He closed his eyes and gripped the arm rest, thankful he’d decided to cash in his air miles for first class. Because, frankly, he needed another drink, and he took his hand off the armrest long enough to press the call button.

He’d been traveling now for almost twenty-four hours, having left Oxford less than an hour after he’d received Jean Michel’s e-mail. He hadn’t talked to the antiques dealer in years, but now his old friend had said he’d found something—something important. Something Reg had given up searching for.

Something that might lead to ending this curse.

Reg hated traveling on such short notice, but he couldn’t risk taking the time to pack or plan. He needed to be on the ground on April 1. A Franklin at thirty thousand feet on April Fools’ Day was a bad idea—his brother Cam’s formerly reckless life had proven that.

Not that Reg’s planning had done any good. He’d arranged everything so carefully to ensure that he was safely on the ground well before 11:59 p.m. on March 31. He hadn’t, however, accounted for the weather. And now it looked like they’d be arriving into Houston in the wee hours of April 1.

He clutched the armrest tighter and hoped they didn’t crash. For the most part, the curse was personal. Surely his presence wouldn’t bring down—and injure or kill—an entire plane load of people?

A pretty, blond flight attendant with a brilliant white smile leaned over and clicked off his call light. “What can I get for you?”

“Scotch,” he said.

Her smile widened. “Rough flight?”

“The delay’s not helping.”

“We’re so sorry about that.”

“Nothing you can do,” he said, feeling the futile weight of fate pressing down on him.

“I can get you that drink,” she said, and headed off to do that. She returned momentarily with two tiny bottles and a fresh glass with ice. She winked at him. “I thought you could use a double.”

“You thought right.” He opened one of the bottles, poured it over ice and drank it down, feeling the Scotch burn his throat and numb his body. Good. If he was still in the air at midnight, he wanted to be numb.

There was no one seated beside him, and he leaned over to peer out the window at the scattered lights below. The clouds blocked most of the view to the ground, and the night further disguised their location. He assumed they were over Louisiana and moving now toward Texas, but he didn’t know for certain, which gave him room to imagine that they were in fact passing over their original destination—New Orleans.

She was down there.

Anne.

The thought sat like a stone in his gut, the simple knowledge that he would soon be physically closer to her than he had been in years.

Emotionally, though…

Well, they’d broken those ties three years ago.

He pulled away from the window, his motions feeling suddenly jerky. As a professor of archeology, he’d ostensibly taken the position at Oxford in order to be closer to the excavations on which his academic pursuits had focused. But the job had also been a symbol, a statement. There was no denying that much, especially not to himself. And the statement had said simply that he was abandoning his nonacademic research; that he was giving up the hunt for clues about how to turn off his family curse. He was moving on, letting it lie.