Nora Roberts - Private scandals

She felt the trickle of excitement run down her spine, the warmth of awareness bloom in her stomach. Tilting her head to meet his eyes, she saw the desire, the need and the patience, a combination that sent her pulse skipping.

She had only to say yes, she knew, and they would forget all about dinner, and all about relaxing. And for one moment, one very long, very quiet moment, she wished it could be that simple.

"I won't be long," she murmured.

"I'll wait."

He would, she thought when he moved aside to let her by. And she would have to make up her mind, soon, whether she wanted to continue along the comfortable, companionable road of this relationship, or shift gears.

"Having your head shrunk, Dee?"

She spotted the cameraman by the door, biting into a Milky Way. "That's so lame, Joe."

"I know." He grinned around the chocolate. There was a button that said AVAILABLE pinned to his tattered denim vest. He had holes in the knees of his jeans. Techs didn't have to worry about appearance. That was just the way Joe liked it. "But somebody's got to say it. Did you set up those two interviews for the morning? The tulip wars?"

"Yeah. Sure you don't mind giving up your Saturday morning?"

"Not for overtime pay."

"Good. Delaney's still at the desk, isn't he?"

"I'm waiting for him." Joe bit off more candy. "We've got a poker game tonight. I'm going to hose him for the double shift he stuck me with last week."

"Do me a favor, then, and tell him we're set, both women, ten o'clock."

"Will do."

"Thanks." Deanna hurried away to do quick repairs on her hair and makeup. She was applying fresh lipstick when Joe burst into the ladies' room. The door slammed back against the wall, echoing as he lunged at her.

"Jesus, Joe, are you nuts?"

"Get your butt in gear, Dee. We've got an assignment, and we've got to move fast." He grabbed her purse from the sink with one hand and her arm with the other.

"What, for God's sake?" She tripped over the threshold as he hauled her out the door. "Did somebody start a war?"

"Almost as hot. We've got to get out to O'Hare."

"O'Hare? Damn it, Marshall's waiting." Fighting impatience, Joe let Deanna tug her arm free. If he had any complaints about her, it was that her vision wasn't quite narrow enough. She always saw the peripheral when the camera needed a tight shot.

"Go tell the boyfriend you've got to go be a reporter. Delaney just got word there's a plane coming in, and it's in trouble. Big time."

"Oh, God." She made the dash back into the newsroom with Joe on her heels. Bursting through the pandemonium, she snatched a fresh notebook from her desk. "Marshall, I'm sorry. I have to go."

"I've already gathered that. Do you want me to wait?"

"No." She dragged a hand through her hair, grabbed her jacket. "I don't know how long I'll be. I'll call you. Delaney!" she called out.

The stout assignment editor waved the stub of his unlit cigar in her direction. "Take off, Reynolds. Keep in touch on the two-way. We'll be patching you in live. Get me a goddamn scoop."

"Sorry," she called to Marshall. "Where's the plane coming in from?" she shouted to Joe as they raced up the stairs. His motorcycle boots clattered on the metal like gunfire.

"London. They'll be feeding us the rest of the information as we go." He shoved open the outside door and then plunged out into a torrent of rain. His Chicago Bulls sweatshirt was immediately plastered to his chest. He shouted over the storm while he unlocked the van. "It's a 747.

More than two hundred passengers. Left engine failure, some problem with the radar. Might have taken a hit of lightning." To punctuate his words, a spear of lightning cracked the black sky, shattering the dark.

Already drenched, Deanna climbed into the van. "What's the ETA?" Out of habit, she switched on the police scanner under the dash.

"Don't know. Let's just hope we get there before they do." He'd hate to miss getting a shot of the crash. He gunned the engine, glanced at her. The gleam in his eyes promised a wild ride. "Here's the kicker, Dee. Finn

Riley's on board. The crazy son of a bitch called in the story himself."

Sitting in the forward cabin of the beleaguered 747 was like riding in the belly of a dyspeptic bronco. The plane bucked, kicked, shuddered and shook as if it were struggling mightily to disgorge its complement of passengers. Some of the people on board were praying, some were weeping, still others had their faces buried in air-sickness bags, too weak to do anything but moan.

Finn Riley didn't give much thought to prayer. In his own way he was religious. He could, if the need arose in him, recite the Act of Contrition just as he had through all those shadowy sessions in the confessional as a child. At the moment, atonement wasn't on the top of his list.

Time was running out — on his battery pack on his laptop computer. He'd have to switch to his tape recorder soon. Finn much preferred writing copy as the words flowed from his mind to his fingers.

He glanced out the window. The black sky exploded again and again with spears of lightning. Like lances of the gods — nope, he decided, deleting the phrase. Too corny. A battleground, nature against man's technology. The sounds were definitely warlike, he mused. The prayers, the weeping, the groans, the occasionally hysterical laugh. He'd heard them in trenches before. And the echoing boom of thunder that shook the plane like a toy.

He used the last moments of his dying battery playing that angle.

Once he'd shut down, he secured the disk and the computer in his heavy metal case. He'd have to hope for the best there, Finn mused, as he slipped his mini-recorder from his briefcase. He'd seen the aftermath of plane crashes often enough to know what survived was pure luck.

"It's May fifth, seven-oh-two Central time," Finn recited into the recorder. "We're aboard flight 1129 approaching O'Hare, though it's impossible to see any lights through the storm. Lightning struck the port engine about twenty minutes ago. And from what I could squeeze out of the first-class flight attendant, there's some problem with the radar, possibly storm-related. There are two hundred and fifty-two passengers on board, and twelve crew."

"You're crazy." The man sitting next to Finn finally lifted his head from between his knees. His face, under its sheen of sweat, was pale green. His upper-class British voice was slurred more than a little with a combination of scotch and terror. "We could be dead in a few minutes and you're talking into some bloody machine."

"We could be alive in a few minutes, too. Either way, it's news." Sympathetic, Finn dragged a handkerchief out of the back pocket of his jeans. "Here."

"Thanks." Mumbling, the man dabbed at his face. As the plane shuddered again, he laid his head weakly against the seat and closed his eyes. "You must have ice water for blood."

Finn only smiled. His blood wasn't icy, it was hot, pumping hot, but there was no use in trying to explain that to a layman. It wasn't that he wasn't afraid, or that he was particularly fatalistic. But he did have the reporter's unique sense of tunnel vision. He had his recorder, his notebook, his laptop. These were shields that gave the illusion of indestructibility. Why else did a cameraman continue to roll tape when bullets were flying? Why did a reporter jab a mike into the face of a psychopath, or run in instead of out of a building during a bomb threat? Because he was blinded by the shields of the Fourth Estate.

Or maybe, Finn mused with a grin, they were just crazy.

"Hey." He shifted in his seat and aimed the recorder. "Want to be my last interview?"

His companion opened red-rimmed eyes. What he saw was a man only a few years younger than himself, with clear, pale skin shadowed by a hint of a beard shades darker than the tousled mane of wavy bronze hair that swept the collar of a leather bomber's jacket. Sharp, angular features were softened by a mouth spread in an engaging grin that featured a crooked eyetooth. The grin brought out dimples that should have softened the face, yet only made it tougher. Like dents in rock.