Jane Toombs - Trouble In Tourmaline

After they’d glided back to earth, tied the plane down and were once again in the pickup headed for Tourmaline, Amy said, “Thanks for the experience—it was fun. Awesome, even. I might even go up again if you ask me.”

David glanced over at her and grinned. “Anytime.” She’d been a good sport. His ex-wife had refused to go up with him before they were married, and didn’t change her mind after she was his wife. Maybe that should have told him something. He understood now that Iris’s idea of flying involved riding in privately owned jets. Like Murdock’s.

“You ever been married?” he asked.

She blinked, obviously somewhat surprised at the abrupt change in subject. “No. If you want a reason, it’s because I like being in charge of my life myself.”

“As good a reason as any.”

She opened her mouth as though to speak, glanced at him and closed it.

He shrugged. “I brought it up, so go ahead and ask me why I’m divorced.”

“Gert sort of suggested you may have married the wrong woman.”

He half smiled. “She was blunter than that when she met Iris before the wedding. ‘Run and don’t look back’ was her advice to me.”

“You know, that’s almost exactly what I told my brother before he married his first wife. It was a disaster.”

“Which may be why you and Gert are both shrinks.”

“Your aunt never did marry, did she?”

“My mother told my sister and me Gert was engaged to an Air Force pilot in World War II who got shot down over Germany.”

Amy sighed. “And she never got over him. How romantic.”

He shot her a skeptical look. “I’m not saying my aunt never looked at another man. She just never married one.”

“Makes her human, but it’s still romantic. So you have a sister?”

“Diane. She’s a teacher in Hawaii. Unmarried.”

“Smart gal,” Amy quipped.

“Where does your brother live?”

“Russ? He has a horse ranch near here, in Carson Valley. That’s one of the reasons I answered your aunt’s ad for an associate. I wanted to be closer to him and my nephew and baby niece.”

David frowned. “He didn’t learn the first time, I take it.”

“Not all marriages are bad. Mari’s a great gal. They suit each other like you wouldn’t believe.”

“So you do believe in marriage as an institution.”

She nodded. “For some people. Not for me. I’m happier single.”

“I agree with that philosophy. Totally.”

“Ground rules for friends,” Amy said.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Maybe we ought to set a few others while we’re at it.”

He grinned at her. “Ones we can keep like the first rule or ones we can’t?”

She shook her head at him. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah—fatal attraction.”

“It’s chemistry,” she sputtered. “Hormones. Pheromones.”

“All of the above. But how does that stop me from wanting to pull over and haul you into my arms right now?”

He watched her start to bristle, then deliberately take a deep breath before speaking. “If we’re able to ignore it, the temptation will eventually fade.” Her tone was cool.

That raised his eyebrows. “If you believe that, I don’t know how you ever got to be a psychologist.”

“I can do anything I make my mind up to do,” she said coolly. “Including ignoring.”

She’d just laid down a challenge. David smiled. He hadn’t felt like taking up any challenges for more than a year, but he sure as hell meant to run with this one.

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