Carla Neggers - Kiss the Moon

Obviously he’d been way off the mark.

Lyman Chestnut started in on her, pointing a callused finger, and Penelope about-faced and walked off as if they’d done this all before. Her father hollered so half the state of New Hampshire could hear. “I don’t give a good goddamn if you were in control of the situation, you’re still grounded!”

She stuck her tongue out at him. Without turning around. That bit of prudence was the only point Wyatt had seen so far in Lyman’s parenting favor.

“I saw that, Penelope Chestnut,” Mary said from the office door. “You’re lucky you have a father who cares about you. You’ve scared the bejesus out of him more times than any daughter has a right to and still live.”

Penelope took a breath. Up close, Wyatt saw that the last few minutes had taken their toll on her, after all. She was a bit paler and shakier, he expected, than she wanted anyone to see. He also saw that she had green eyes, greener even than her father’s. She said, “I’ve scared the bejesus out of myself a time or two.”

“Ha. The day you’re scared, I want to be in the front row. Do I need to call the FAA?”

“No, Aunt Mary. Good heavens. I didn’t crash. I just didn’t get an accurate fuel reading before I left Plattsburgh. I never should have told you.”

Mary sighed loudly. “Your father’s right. What you need is a break, and a break’s what you’re going to get. I still have the paperwork from the last mishap, before Lyman softened. He won’t this time. I won’t let him.”

“Damn it, Aunt Mary, this is collusion. I have rights—”

“Not here you don’t, missy.”

Mary withdrew into the office, and the door banged shut behind her. Wyatt thought he saw a glimmer of humor—and affection—in Penelope Chestnut’s eyes. Then they focused on Wyatt, and he could see the wariness come into them—but no hint of embarrassment over the scene he’d just witnessed.

Before Wyatt could introduce himself, Lyman caught up with his daughter and, containing his obviously still-boiling anger, jumped in ahead of him. “Penelope, this gentleman wants to see you about the junk you found in the woods. Talk to him. Then come talk to me. Wyatt, this is my daughter, Penelope Chestnut. Penelope, Wyatt Sinclair. Brandon’s son.”

He stood back as if expecting fireworks. Penelope tilted her head, slightly, studying Wyatt with a frankness that somehow didn’t surprise him. Boots, jeans, black shirt, black leather jacket, no hat, no gloves. She seemed to take in all of him with that one appraising look, no problem shifting from her troubled landing and her quarrel with her father to a Sinclair on the premises.

“I drove up from New York this morning,” Wyatt said.

“I see. Well, I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time, but I don’t have anything to tell you except that I screwed up. Low blood sugar, bad light, an overactive imagination.” She shrugged, matter of fact. “I didn’t find your uncle’s plane. I found an old dump. That’s all there is to it. Look, I have to see about my plane—”

“I’ll be seeing about your plane,” her father broke in. “You might as well have a cup of coffee with Wyatt here. You’re going to have three weeks to kill. And that’s just for starters. If I don’t like what I see in three weeks, you’ll have another three weeks to cool your heels.”

“I don’t need a break. I need to fly more.”

“You don’t fly to get your head together. You fly when your head’s together.”

She turned to Wyatt. “Never fly for your own father.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Wyatt saw that immediately, even if Penelope didn’t. Her father swallowed his anger and allowed his natural stoicism to reassert itself. He said calmly, making it impossible to be misunderstood, “I am not acting as your father right now. I am acting as a responsible owner of six charter planes and a flight instructor for the last thirty years who has the right and the duty to ground an unfit pilot. And you, Penelope Chestnut, are unfit to fly.”

“Fine,” she said without missing a beat, “then I’ll boil sap.”

Wyatt would have throttled her right then and there.

“Have coffee with Sinclair here,” Lyman said, teeth gritted, patience spent, and headed to the runway and his daughter’s plane.

His departure left Penelope alone with a Sinclair, which made Wyatt wonder if his family’s reputation was as bad in Cold Spring as he’d been led to believe. Then again, Lyman Chestnut could simply believe a Sinclair would insist on talking with his daughter and best get it over with.

With one hand, Penelope stuffed stray hair behind her ears, missing even more than she captured. She had a face that was all angles and straight lines—except her mouth, which was soft and full. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and she wore tiny silver hoops on her ears. Her green eyes narrowed on him. “I’m sorry you had to witness that little spat. Pop worries too much— I don’t know, maybe I should go easy on him. It’s been a crazy couple of days. Do you really want to go for coffee? I don’t have a thing to tell you.”

No question in his mind she had a lot she could tell him—if she would. “I’d love some coffee.”

She shrugged. “As you wish.”

He made a move to go into the office, but she shook her head. “Not here. Aunt Mary’s into flavored coffees. I think today’s is raspberry. Blechh. My mother and cousin own an inn on the lake—they serve coffee and tea in the afternoon. And they make the best scones in New Hampshire, maybe all of New England. I think today’s are currant.”

“Sounds fine.”

“You’re not the investigator your father sent up here, are you? I had the impression it was someone he’d hired.”

“That would be Jack Dunning. He’s supposed to arrive soon—he’s flying up from New York, scoping out the landscape. He has his own way of doing things.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

Wyatt shook his head.

“Your father?”

“No.”

“Well, I guess you’re a big boy and can do what you want to do. Let’s go. We can take my truck.”

So the truck was hers. Here was a woman who flew planes, drove a truck and was off to have tea and scones at a lakeside inn. Definitely not what he’d envisioned—never mind the wild, wavy blond hair, the green, green eyes, the tight, sexy body, the flight suit, the keen wit.

She stopped abruptly in the middle of the parking lot, tilted her head at the sky and took a deep breath. She held it a moment, then exhaled. “It’s a fine spring day. I’m glad I didn’t crash.”

Yep, a pilot. She liked life a little on the edge. Maybe a lot on the edge.

And suddenly Wyatt could see how she might have made the leap from old dump to Frannie Beaudine and Colt Sinclair’s plane. A missing plane was more exciting to find in the woods when you were lost and tired—and this woman would hate to be either—than an old dump.

Which meant his trek to New Hampshire could be for nothing.

“I’m glad you didn’t crash, too,” he said dryly, “but this isn’t spring.”

She grinned at him. “Technically, no. But the ice is melting and the sap is running—it feels like spring to me.”

A black-haired, black-eyed, suspicious-minded Sinclair in a leather jacket. Just what she needed. Still jumpy from her mishap in the air, Penelope waited for Wyatt Sinclair to climb into her truck. “Whoops—hang on a sec.” She whisked a little blue calico bag off his seat onto the floor. “Rose petal potpourri. I let Pop drive my truck and it came back smelling like an ashtray. He’s taken up smoking cigars. Disgusting.”

“You have strong opinions.”

“About cigars. Anyway,” she said, starting her truck, “opinions are by definition strong. Otherwise they’re not opinions.”