Danielle Steel - Lone eagle

“He's a cute guy. The business is doing great, by the way.” She smiled at the understatement. It was one of the most important corporations in the country, and Andy had told her several times that Joe had made millions. The last thing she'd read about him was that he was starting an airline called AllWorld.

“I read about you a lot, Joe. Are you still flying as much?”

“As much as I can. I don't have enough time. I still test my own designs, but that's a different kind of flying. We're developing commercial airlines now, capable of transoceanic passages. Charles and I flew to Paris together a few weeks ago. But most of the time I'm stuck in the boardroom or my office. I have a place in town now,” he said. They were like old friends catching up on old times, standing on the corner shooting the breeze, except they weren't. The breeze they were shooting was a strong one, and there were dangerous currents in the waters they were wading into. Kate tried to tell herself that wasn't true, but instinctively she knew it was. “We have an office building here now, one in Chicago, one in L.A. I go to the West Coast a lot, but I'm actually in New York more than anywhere else,” he volunteered. He had been leaving his office when he ran into her on Fifty-seventh.

“You're an important man, Joe.” She remembered when he hadn't had anything, and she'd loved him then. In some ways he was different now. He had the aura of a man in power, and yet when he looked at her, he was still the same, awkward, shy, hesitating to look at her one minute, and then gazing directly into her eyes the next, as though he were looking straight into her soul and knew what she was thinking. There was no way she could avoid the power of his eyes.

“Do you need a lift somewhere, Kate? It's too hot for you to be out with the baby.”

“We were just getting some air. I live a few blocks up. I don't mind walking.”

“Come on,” he said, taking her arm, without waiting for her reaction. There was a car waiting across the street for him, and as though swept downstream on a rushing river, he pushed the pram across the street with the baby, as she followed, and before she knew it, she was sitting in the back of his car, holding the baby, the driver had put the pram in the trunk, and Joe had climbed in beside her. “Where do you live?” She gave him the address, and he told the driver, as she sat back against the seat next to him with her baby “I only live a few blocks from you. In the penthouse because it gives me the feeling I'm flying. So what about you, what are you doing this summer?”

“I don't know… we… I…” She was beginning to feel overwhelmed by him, he was so strong and so powerful that he just swept one along, like a riptide. She felt as though she were about to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He had always had that effect on her. She had never been able to resist him, or the electricity she felt when she was near him. There was an intensity to it, and to him, that left her breathless. And much to her dismay, even after three years, it seemed no different. It was just the way she reacted to him, and the way he handled people, particularly now that he was so successful. He was used to getting everything he wanted. “I don't know what our plans are,” she said vaguely, trying to keep her wits about her, and not feel the effect of him. Being with him was like a drug, and sitting with him in the car she felt the tug of her old addiction. She knew she had to resist. She was married now.

“I was going to Europe next week,” he chatted as they drove uptown, “but I just canceled. I've got too much work here with the airline. We're having the same old union problems we had in the beginning in New Jersey.” He drew her instantly into his circle of familiarity, talking about things she knew about and had been part of. It was a clever way of reminding her she had been his before she was Andy's. And as he sat next to her, Joe looked over at her with the smile that had cut right through her from the first moment they met. He didn't know what he was doing, it was instinctive, just like the pull he felt toward Kate as he sat beside her. They were like two animals sniffing the air and circling each other. “You and Andy should come flying with me sometime. Would he like that?” Probably. With anyone but Joe. He was a little sensitive on the subject, with good reason. He more than anyone knew how much Joe had meant to her. And she had been honest with him about how hard it had been to leave him. He also knew that if she hadn't, she would never have married him. He had never been able to compete with the glamour of Joe Allbright, or the magic Kate felt for him.

She didn't know what to say, so she told the truth. In a matter of minutes, he had already thrown her. And as soon as she said the words, she was sorry. It wasn't smart to give Joe too much information. He was liable to use it.

“He's away, in Germany. He's one of the counsel in the war crimes trials.”

“That's impressive. He must be a good lawyer,” he acknowledged, but his eyes never left Kate's, and were asking other questions, to which she had no answers, and if she did, she wouldn't give them to Joe.

“He is,” she said proudly. And with that, the car stopped at her building, and she got out as quickly as she could. The driver took the pram out of the trunk an instant later, and she put Reed in it, as Joe watched her. He was always watching. He saw everything, he always had, even what she didn't want him to see. And she knew him just as well. They were each like the inside of the other, two halves forming a whole, and held together by a magnetic force so powerful that they could barely resist it. And never had before. But she intended to this time. He was out of her life and he was going to stay that way. For her sake, as well as Andy's. She stuck out a hand formally to him and thanked him for the ride. She was suddenly a little more distant and chilly. It wasn't fair really, she was angry at him for what she felt, and had felt for him. It wasn't his fault that she was so irrevocably drawn to him. It just was. But she assured herself that now it meant nothing to her.

“You know where to find me,” he said somewhat arrogantly. Half the world did. “Call me sometime. We'll go flying.”

“Thanks, Joe,” she said, feeling like a young girl again. She was wearing a skirt and blouse and sandals, and he could see that even after the baby, her figure was still perfect. He remembered it distinctly. Three years hadn't dimmed the memories, or the feelings. “Thanks again for the ride,” she said, as he stood watching her roll the pram into the building. She didn't turn back to look at him, or wave. And she hoped that their paths wouldn't cross again. She felt breathless when she and Reed got back to the apartment. The whole experience of seeing him had made her feel uneasy. She wanted to say something to someone, to hang on to something solid, to explain that she hadn't felt anything for him, that she was over him, and glad she had married Andy, and had Reed. It was as though she had to excuse herself, or defend what had happened. She wanted to convince someone that he meant nothing to her. But she knew that if she had, she would have been lying. It was just the same as it had always been, for ten years.

16

KATE WOKE UP the morning after she ran into Joe, feeling heavy She had had bad dreams all night, and woke when the baby cried, with an uncomfortable feeling, as though she had betrayed Andy And then over a cup of coffee, after she put Reed down for a nap, she told herself that she had done nothing wrong. She hadn't been inappropriate, hadn't shown any interest in him, hadn't encouraged him in any way, hadn't said she'd call him. But without knowing why, she felt guilty about seeing him at all, as though she had been responsible for running into him, or had planned it, which of course, she hadn't. It was an unpleasant sensation and stayed with her all day. And that night, after she'd written Andy a letter and enclosed photographs of Reed, the phone rang. It was probably her mother, she decided, as she answered. But the voice at the other end nearly ripped her heart out. It was that same velvet roll of thunder that had always had the same effect on her, and she had longed for, for years.