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“Roaring.”
He started laughing.
She managed a glare and resisted the urge to throttle him. “What’s so funny?”
“Well, Sticks, alligators roar for only one reason.”
“What? They want to eat what they see?”
“Nope.” He grinned around the ever-present cigar. “It’s a mating call.”
Hannah’s jaw dropped. It was entirely possible that it dropped all the way to the floor, but she didn’t bother checking. “What?” she asked finally, hoarsely.
“I guess he thinks you’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen.”
“Oh. My. God.” Hannah put her head in her hands.
“Hey, it’s a compliment.”
“What? That he thinks I look like an alligator?”
Buck chuckled. “Relax. I’ll get you some coffee and breakfast. He’ll hang around for a while, then wander off to a cool pond before he overheats.”
“He was on my plane!”
“So you said.”
She really, really wanted to draw and quarter this guy. No sympathy. No human feeling. Laughing at her fright. Wasn’t she entitled to be frightened when a huge alligator appeared beside her bed? Only a fool would be sanguine about that!
“You’re crazy!” she declared finally, a wimp-out when compared to strangling him.
“Probably.” He didn’t appear at all disturbed. “Blame it on the tropical air.”
“You must have blacked out one too many times.”
That got his attention and he glared at her. “I was a Top Gun, Sticks. I never blacked out.”
“Maybe you just didn’t know it.”
“Flying what I was flying, I’d have known it.” He scowled at her. “What’s with you, anyway? I told you Buster’s a fixture around here.”
“Not on my plane, he isn’t.”
All of a sudden, Buck’s frown slipped into a cockeyed grin. “You must smell real good to him.”
That was the point at which, if some weapon had been handy, she would have landed herself in prison for life. The only alternative was to storm out, but before she lifted her rump from her seat, Buster’s roar sounded outside.
Buck shook his head. “He’s really determined.”
“Tell him I’m not interested in his species.”
Buck, still grinning, asked, “What species are you interested in?”
“Nothing from Mars,” she shot back.
“Ho! You read that stuff?”
“Shut your mouth, Shanahan, before I shut it for you.”
“You know something, Sticks? My mouth is usually shut. It would help if you would stop provoking me.”
“What? Now it’s my fault you’re an idiot?”
He put his hands on his hips, and now she could no longer read his face. The tip of his cigar bobbed up and down as if he were chomping rapidly on it.
“You,” he said finally, “are walking proof of why I avoid Venusians.”
“If I’m lucky, the mother ship will rescue me soon.”
“It won’t be soon enough for me.” With that he walked out of the office, leaving her alone to stew in her own juices.
The last of the adrenaline washed out of her system, and she crumpled like a deflated balloon.
She didn’t need this.
AS BUCK STRODE toward the hangar, hoping that the schematics would reveal some kind of quick fix for Hannah Lamont’s plane so he could get her out of here as swiftly as possible, Buster was shambling away into the shade of the tropical foliage in the direction of the nearest pond. He’d spend the rest of the day there, keeping cool and dining on the occasional fish or too-slow bird.
Damn woman, he thought. She even had Buster confused. Whatever had made the gator board her plane? Or go into the hangar to begin with? Buster was far too canny a beast to box himself in like that.
Shaking his head, Buck entered the hangar and marched over to the computer. Sometime during the night, the download had finished, leaving him with a heap of schematics to run over.
He sighed as he looked at the printout. Personally, he preferred the older planes. Simpler. Easier to repair. He could even machine parts himself for his DC-3. That stack of printout was nothing but an indictment of modern complexity.
Then he felt like a hypocrite. After all, he’d flown some of the most complex machines in the world, and had loved it. He just didn’t think he could repair one with the facilities at hand.
Bending, he lifted the stack from the basket on the floor and carried it over to the metal desk, where he dropped it. Switching on the desk lamp, he sat and began to pore over the schematics, checking for the likeliest point of failure before he started tracing the system.
Craig arrived on the dot of eight as he always did. He was probably the only person on this island, apart from Buck, who believed in being prompt. Everyone else seemed to suffer from a “whenever” mentality.
Which was fine for everyone else. It would have driven Buck up the wall in an employee, however. Sometimes he thought he just ought to give up and live on mañana time like the rest of the world. It would probably be better for his general health, not to mention his teeth.
“You’re looking uptight, boss,” Craig said, the first words out of his mouth.
“You’d be uptight if you had to deal with that vixen.”
“Yeah?” Craig grinned. “Got you on your toes, huh?”
“She’s got me p.o.’d is what she’s got me. And while I’m on the subject, can you tell me what the hell Buster was doing in the hangar?”
“In here?”
“Yeah. What’s more, he was on the Lear this morning. In fact, he was Hannah’s alarm clock.”
Craig’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not kidding. Big as life, there he was, and what’s more, he was making his mating call.”
Craig’s eyes widened, then he started to laugh. Much as he wanted to stay annoyed, Buck started to laugh, too.
“The gator has the hots for her?” Craig choked out as he laughed. “Nobody’s going to believe this!”
“Well, I saw it.”
Craig chuckled. “Hey, did you hear on the radio? Tom Regan dropped thirteen hundred to Bill Anstin last night.”
“You’re kidding,” Buck said. “Tom’s not great, but he ought to be able to clean Anstin’s clock. What happened?”
“Anstin was feeling cocky after playing here yesterday, so he and Tom Regan were playing five-ten-limit at the casino until the tourists left. Regan challenged Anstin to a heads-up match. Five-ten, no-limit. Thousand dollar buy-in. Regan was down three hundred and decided to rebuy, then two hands later he’s holding King-Queen on a flop of King-King-Nine. He pushes it all in—”
“And the other guy had pocket Nines,” Hannah said.
Buck hadn’t heard her approach, and turned. “What’re you doing here?”
“I heard him come in,” she said, angling her head toward Craig, “and heard the two of you laughing. I thought I’d check and see if y’all have made any progress on my jet.”
“Ah,” Buck said, pointing to the stack of schematics. “Not yet.”
“But I’m right, aren’t I?” she said, turning to Craig.
He nodded. “Yeah, Anstin had nines full.”
Buck couldn’t resist a smile. As much as he hated to see Bill Anstin win, it was even better to hear that Tom Regan’s three kings had cost him a thousand dollars against Anstin’s full house of three nines and two kings. Regan was the island’s mayor, and Anstin owned the casino. The two of them were, in Buck’s view, trying to ruin Treasure Island by turning it into a major tourist resort. And that was what yesterday’s card game had been about.
Just as bad, Regan and Anstin kept hounding Buck to waive the landing fees for the tourist charter planes that Anstin booked. And Buck simply couldn’t afford to do that. It was a long-running bone of contention, and anything that made either of them miserable was just fine with Buck.
“So this was on the radio?” Hannah asked.
“Yeah,” Buck said. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “Is that Bill Anstin? The World Series bracelet winner?”
Damn, Buck thought. Beautiful, a pilot, and she knew poker. A trifecta of danger. “Yeah, that’s him. Took his winnings and built the casino here. Lords over it like he’s God’s gift to gambling.”
Hannah laughed. “As if! He’d never have made the final table if he hadn’t rivered that straight flush against Chris Ferguson. Ferguson flopped the nut flush, and Anstin hit runner-runner.”
Buck couldn’t resist a smile. Everyone on the island knew the story of the final table, where Anstin was dealt one monster hand after another, taking down two previous world series winners en route to the championship.
But few people remembered that hand against Ferguson, a hand that Anstin should never have played to begin with, and certainly not the way he had. Holding the Queen of Spades and the Four of Hearts, he pushed in all of his chips, trying to bluff on a flop of Jack-Six-Three, all Hearts. Former World Series winner Chris Ferguson called him holding the Ace and Queen of Hearts, an Ace-high flush. Anstin caught the Deuce of Hearts on the Turn, and the Five of Hearts on the river, giving him a straight flush, Deuce-Three-Four-Five-Six of Hearts.
Anstin’s odds of hitting the cards he needed to win were one-in-five-hundred. It was one of the legendary bad beats in World Series history, but it had happened on an outer table, away from the television cameras, and it was largely forgotten outside of poker circles.
If Hannah Lamont remembered it, she must be a serious player. And since she was also a business owner, she might be good pickings.
“So you like poker?” he asked.
“I’m from Texas,” she replied, as if that said all that needed to be said.
He nodded. “We have a game here, a couple of nights a week. If you’re interested.”
“Buck….” Craig said cautiously, as if sensing what Buck had in mind.
“Just a few friends,” Buck added, ignoring him. “We play three-six, no-limit.”
“Sure,” she said with a casual shrug. “I’ll give it a try. It’s not like I have much else to do.”
“Tomorrow night at seven,” Buck said. “Back of the hangar.”
“I’ll be there.”
As if she could be anywhere else.
CHAPTER FIVE
BUCK COULDN’T help it. As the vixen walked away toward the door, all he could see was the gentle sway of her hips. And of course she couldn’t leave without another word.
All of a sudden, she stopped and turned. “Is there anywhere I can get a shower?”
The idea of her in a shower filled his mind with all sorts of images that belonged in a men’s magazine. For a few seconds his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.
“Sure,” said Craig, drawling. He pointed to the emergency gravity shower over in the corner of the hangar, a defense against caustic spills and burns.
Hannah put her hands on those luscious hips. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“You can use mine,” Buck heard himself say, another one of those Delilah-induced moments. It was like being under an evil spell.
“You don’t mind?”
He shook his head. Mind? He’d have to be out of his mind to mind. “Go through the back door of the office. The bathroom is off to the right.”
“Thanks.”
She shifted directions and headed back to her plane, prolonging his agony. When she re-emerged from the Lear, she was carrying a duffel.
“I thought,” she said as she passed him, “that I’d be vacationing in Aruba. I guess it’ll be here instead.”
Vacationing here? Running up the side of the volcano and jumping into the crater was beginning to sound like a pleasant alternative. Certainly a safer one. But then he remembered Edna. Nope. No running up the side of a volcano for him.
Then, thanks to all powers that be, Hannah disappeared through the door. All of a sudden the air lost its thickness and he could breathe again. He ignored the strange look Craig was giving him.
