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Searching for breath, unable to form a word yet, Ike could only shake his head in reply. No wonder she’d looked so upset. She thought her best friend’s husband was hitting on her. The very thought of Shayne ever doing anything remotely improper was utterly amusing to Ike. Shayne was as good as they came. The man would die as soon as look at another woman in anything but a professional capacity. His heaven began and ended with Sydney, and Ike envied his friend more than a little. It was something he’d never experienced himself.
“I’m sorry, Marta.” Sydney struggled to catch her breath. The last thing she wanted was for Marta to think she was laughing at her. “This is my fault. I never sent you photographs of Shayne. The ones from the wedding were lost,” she explained with a trace of sorrow, “and I never got around to getting a new camera after the moose stepped on mine. Long story,” she added quickly in response to the questioning look on Marta’s face. She placed a hand on Marta’s shoulder, silently entreating her not to be angry. “I’m really sorry. I guess when you saw him with me—”
Tactfully, Sydney avoided referring to Marta’s comment about Ike’s looks. And when you came right down to it, she thought, Ike and Shayne did look a great deal alike. Both men were tall, both had dark hair—although Ike’s was darker—and both were as handsome as any woman could pray for. She could see why Marta had made the mistake.
“I just assumed he was Shayne,” Marta concluded for Sydney.
That still didn’t excuse the man for kissing a stranger as if she were his long-lost love, Marta thought ruefully. Her body temperature still hadn’t returned to normal. But now it was annoyance, rather than any physical response, that was the cause.
Turning, Marta stood waiting for enlightenment. “Who are you, anyway?”
“A very blessed errand boy, darlin’.” With a flourish, Ike bowed grandly. The engaging grin he flashed shot straight into her like a bulb exploding in a dark room when the light switch was first thrown.
“Shayne couldn’t make it,” Sydney explained quickly. “He had a medical emergency at the last minute, and he absolutely didn’t want me flying alone.”
There’d been no choice, really. Shayne was at the Inuit village, taking care of their housekeeper’s youngest grandson, who had suddenly come down with pneumonia. That was the only reason he’d reluctantly allowed her to fly to Anchorage instead of piloting the plane himself. Sydney was the only other pilot in the area—thanks to his lessons—and there was no way she could come to meet Marta’s plane if she didn’t fly in herself. There was also no way she would have allowed Marta to land without someone being there to meet her. As it was, she and Ike had been late in arriving because of unexpected turbulence.
“Marta, this is Klondyke LeBlanc, Shayne’s best friend and owner of the Salty Saloon,” Sydney added. “He was kind enough to fill in for Shayne and come with me to the airport.”
“Part owner,” Ike amended. The other half belonged to his cousin, Jean Luc, who had been dragged into the business venture almost against his will. But Ike had thought it a sound investment, the first of several eventually, and he had wanted Luc to share in the profits. And the future.
As if they hadn’t just kissed with more passion than propriety only moments earlier, Ike politely held out his hand to Marta. “My friends all call me Ike.”
Her lips forming a reproving frown, Marta placed her hand in his with all the feeling of a woman coming in contact with a reptile. A poisonous one at that. The last thing she wanted right now was a new friend whose kisses tasted like sin served up on a silver platter. There was already far too much on that platter for her to deal with at the moment without adding another complication.
Marta inclined her head, distant but polite. “Hello, Mr. LeBlanc.”
He read her message loud and clear. But living in Hades all his life, Ike had never been one to be intimidated by frost.
“Oh, don’t be that way, darlin’. After all, you were the one who kissed me—at least at first,” he added gallantly. His brown eyes were fairly shining with unsuppressed amusement. “I just enjoyed the ride. Can’t fault a man for that.”
Her eyes briefly locked with his.
“Yes,” Marta replied mildly, showing no emotion whatsoever, “I can.”
Sydney wasn’t fooled. She knew that beneath Marta’s polite exterior, her best friend was seething. This was not an auspicious beginning, but there definitely was hope. Sydney had her work cut out for her. She threaded her arm through Marta’s and looked over her shoulder at Ike.
“Why don’t you see about getting Marta’s luggage for her, Ike?” She nodded toward the luggage carousel, by now completely depleted except for two suitcases she recognized as Marta’s. “Don’t worry,” she assured Ike with a smile that was nothing short of conspiratorial. “Marta could never hold a grudge.”
Marta merely smiled. Oh, yes, she could, Marta thought, if she was humiliated. She hadn’t come out here to deal with some strange man, especially a good-looking, unattached Don Juan.
“You’ve been away for a year,” Marta reminded Sydney, her smile enigmatic.
Time made no difference. Sydney knew Marta’s heart.
“Some things,” Sydney allowed with confidence, “never change.”
And other things, Marta thought, unconsciously glancing back at Ike and his wide grin, did.
Chapter Two
“You look a little pale, darlin’,” Ike said, frowning. Flying was second nature to him, but obviously not to the woman all but nestled beside him in the tight space that comprised the Cessna’s back seat, her face whiter than the pristine snow that lay several thousand feet below them—and growing steadily whiter. Her breathing was beginning to sound shallow.
He wondered if she was claustrophobic. Ike remembered seeing the same pallid color on his uncle, who had been claustrophobic. After being trapped in a cave-in at the mine, the man had never been quite right in his head until the day he died.
Following his instincts, Ike reached for Marta’s hand and took it in his. Jerking, she turned away from the window she’d just glanced out of and looked at him. Her eyes were wide and a little wild, but mostly they were accusing. He covered the hand he held with his other one.
Marta pulled her hand away from him. Fighting for composure, she took a shaky breath. It didn’t help. The plane’s rattling noise sounded like a death knell. Knees locked, Marta moved forward on her seat, her eyes fastened to Sydney’s profile. How could she look so calm? Couldn’t she hear the noise? Or could that horrible sound possibly be normal?
She fervently prayed that it was.
“No offense, Sydney, but are you sure that this thing is going to be able to hold together long enough to get us back to your place?”
She’d been horrified when she first saw the plane and was reminded that there was no other way to reach Hades this time of year. But she had tried her best to appear unfazed by the ordeal she faced.
Being engulfed by the ordeal was another matter.
Momentarily turning from the view of the perfect sky before her, Sydney flashed Marta an encouraging smile. Poor Marta. She could remember her own first reaction to Shayne’s plane. She’d been sure they were going to die before she ever got to Hades. But the plane, for all its unique noises, was as sound as the little foreign car Marta loved so well.
Sounder, Sydney was willing to bet. Shayne had just gone over it with a fine-tooth comb last weekend in one of those rare islands of time that usually eluded them. He’d pronounced the craft safe enough for her to use.
Which was good, because Sydney loved flying. To her it was like becoming one with the air—the closest thing to gliding through the clouds on her own power, unencumbered. It was a rather nice feeling these days, considering the weight she was carrying around when she walked.
“Don’t let the noise fool you,” she told Marta gently. For emphasis, Sydney patted the dashboard. “This is a very sturdy plane.”
“It sounds as if it’s about to rattle apart at any second.”
“All small planes have their own melody.” Sydney shifted back around in her seat. “Distract her, Ike.”
Now there was an instruction Ike would have loved to follow. But he seldom went where he wasn’t welcome, and Sydney’s friend did not look welcoming. Yet. “Much as I’d dearly love to comply, darlin’, I don’t think your friend wants to be distracted by me at the moment.”
If it hadn’t been for Alex messing up Marta’s life so badly, Sydney thought, mentally calling down curses on the other man’s unworthy head, Marta would have been more than receptive to Ike and his easygoing charm. It would do Marta a world of good to be around someone like Ike. Whether by a word, a look or something far more intimate, Ike had the gift of making women of all ages feel special.
But Alex Kelley had done a number on her friend, taking her heart and using it as a basketball to be played with anytime he was on home court. His faithfulness lasted as long as his attention span, which, as Sydney recalled, had never been very great. The breakup had happened shortly after she’d left Omaha. Sydney wished she could have been there for Marta. Despite everything, she knew how hard it must have been for her to end the two-year relationship, especially after investing so much of her heart in it.
Because of him, Marta had sworn off any and all men, which was a crying shame. Marta had a huge heart and a great deal of love to give. To the right man.
“Don’t worry about me, Sydney. I’m all right.”
Marta would sound far more convincing if her voice wasn’t shaking, Sydney thought. “We’ll be there before you know it,” she promised.
Too late for that, Marta thought nervously. She was trying very hard not to look down, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. The snow looked so soft, but it wouldn’t be if they fell out of the sky.
With the window on one side and Ike on the other, there was nowhere for her to look but straight ahead. At oblivion. That didn’t help, either.
Marta moistened her lips with the last bit of saliva she had. Her throat felt as if it were closing up. “Are you positive there isn’t any other way to get to Hades?”
“Positive.” It was Ike, the native, not Sydney, who answered. “At least, not in the winter.” It was one of the things that had driven so many people, including his own sister, Juneau, out of Hades. The isolation. “The snow blocks the roads for weeks at a time. We become our own little world out here.”
Marta shivered and looked at Sydney. “That kind of makes Shayne and you like Tarzan and Jane, except with snow.” Her cosmopolitan heart would get cabin fever within a week. “How can you stand that?”
Again it was Ike who answered her. “Oh, it has its advantages.” For instance, he knew he surely wouldn’t have minded being snowed in somewhere with the petite woman sharing the back seat with him.
What did it take to melt her down? he wondered. To turn that iciness she was displaying toward him into fire? If he knew his women—and he liked to think without any undue vanity that he did—there was a warm, quite possibly even passionate, woman somewhere beneath that No Trespassing sign she wore so boldly.
It was, he mused, definitely a challenge. One he wouldn’t mind taking on.
Ever since he could remember, Ike had always loved women. All women. In his opinion there was something of beauty to be found within every woman, no matter who. It just took the right man to find a way to bring that beauty out. He had no idea why he’d been blessed the way he had, but he found himself endowed with that ability—to make the most somber of women smile, to find their charms, hidden or otherwise, and make them aware of it. Grateful for it. Women always seemed to bloom around him, and he never bothered denying that he had a grand weakness for flowers.
But this flower was going to need a little cultivating, he thought as he silently studied her. She was going to require a little careful feeding to make her open up. She made him think of a blossom that had not been properly nurtured. Certainly not properly appreciated.
Ike made a mental note to ask Sydney a few pertinent questions about her friend at the first opportunity.
“Advantages?” Marta echoed in disbelief. What kind of advantages could there possibly be to being snowed in and cut off from everything? She ran her hands up along her arms, as if that would ward off the chill that went far deeper than any outside cold could create. “I don’t see how.” Knowing it had to sound critical, she still couldn’t help the question that rose to her lips. “How do you keep from going stir-crazy?”
Ike smiled broadly. His eyes took slow, languid measure of her, moving down her body like a warm breath. “Oh, there are ways to occupy yourself in Hades.”
It seemed impossible, given the temperature, but she felt herself growing warm. It was almost as if he were looking right through her heavy parka and the bulky sweater and jeans she wore beneath. Looking right at the red silk undergarments she had on.
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Trying her best to shut this man and his X-ray eyes out, Marta leaned forward in her seat again. “Are you sure you should be flying in your condition, Sydney?”
The question made Sydney smile broadly. Those had been Shayne’s exact words to her this morning. It had been the husband, not the doctor, who had asked them. She was right at the cut-off point, even though she’d declared that she was more than capable of making the run. Though she was accustomed to being independent, the concern that motivated Shayne had warmed her, reminding her just how much she loved the man fate had thrown into her life.
She glanced down at the steering wheel that was all but resting on her protruding belly.
“Right now, I’d say I can fly a lot better than I can walk,” Sydney said, sighing. “No one told me how badly I’d be listing when I reached my last couple of months.”
“You don’t list, darlin’, you just glide a little less swiftly, that’s all,” Ike assured Sydney with a soft laugh that seemed, at least to Marta, to seductively fill the small cabin. “But a hundred babies wouldn’t rob you of your grace, and you know it.”
Though she was trying vainly to ignore him, Marta couldn’t help looking at Ike, a bemused expression on her face. Her eyes shifted toward the back of Sydney’s head. “Does he talk like this all the time?”
“Most of it.” Sydney laughed. The man had a very special place in her heart. He had been the one not only to encourage her to stay, but to point out that Shayne was struggling very hard not to fall in love with her. If it hadn’t been for Ike, she might have moved back to Omaha and missed out on the very best portion of her life. “Isn’t he lovely?” She spared a glance in his direction. “Don’t know what I’d do without Ike sometimes.”
“Don’t tease me like that, darlin’,” he warned playfully, “or you’ll tempt me to do away with the best friend I ever had.” Hands on the back of the seat in front of him, Ike smiled warmly at Sydney. “If he ever stops paying you the attention you so richly deserve, you know where to come.”
Sydney’s laugh was short, amused. As if the man would ever betray a friend. She knew him far too well to ever believe that. If she ever did have a falling out with Shayne, Ike would be the first one there trying to talk them back together—and not giving up until they reconciled. “Big talk coming from a confirmed bachelor.”
“Oh, no, not confirmed.” He looked at Marta and winked. “Just waiting for the right woman to come along, that’s all.”
There was a great deal more to the story than that, Sydney thought. And even if there hadn’t been, she seriously doubted that Ike would give up the place of honor he held in all women’s hearts for a place of honor in the heart of just one.
Still, there might be a chance, she mused, catching a whiff of the light scent that Marta liked to put on before she donned a stitch of clothing.
The plane groaned like a keening woman in deep mourning. Marta felt that if she were any more rigid, she would snap like a frozen twig. “Is it much farther?”
“We’ll be there soon,” Sydney promised.
It couldn’t be soon enough for Marta.
Marta wasn’t aware of grasping his hand. To her, Ike’s hand was part of the armrest—until she felt his fingers close over hers. But her breath had completely escaped her lungs at that point, and there were no words with which to upbraid him or even to say a single scathing thing about his obstinately being too familiar with her.
Marta was sure this was going to be her last moment on earth, and she didn’t want to enter the next world with a curse on her lips.
God didn’t like it when you cursed.
For a little thing, she sure had a hell of a grip, Ike thought, feeling his fingers go numb. It was a bumpy landing as far as landings went, with a spate of unexpected tailwind turning on them at the very last minute. As the plane was being buffeted by the wind, coming in for the final leg of its journey, Ike was certain that Marta was going to pass out right where she sat.
But then, taking another look into her bright green eyes, he’d amended that. The woman looked like the type to spit in the devil’s eye rather than let him know she was afraid. He liked that. It showed character, and he was a great admirer of character.
When it looked as if she was going to snap off the armrest, he’d slipped his hand into hers again, knowing that she’d probably take his head off for it when she could talk again. But his desire to offer her a measure of comfort transcended any apprehension over words she might use to cut him down. He never liked to see someone in pain, physical or mental.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “Sydney’s never crashed a plane yet.”
“All it takes is once.” Marta didn’t know if she thought the words or said them out loud until she heard him laughing softly to himself.
Damn him anyway. She was descending into hell, and Don Juan was already with her.
“You can open your eyes now, we’ve landed,” he whispered to her.
She was aware of his warm breath along her face before she attempted to make any sense out of the words that were buzzing close to her ear. Her eyes flew open. Embarrassed, she stiffened, then quickly pulled her hand away from his.
He had to think she was an idiot. That made two of them.
Avoiding Ike’s eyes, Marta cleared her throat. “Sorry.”
His shrug was careless, easy. “Nothing to be sorry for. Not everyone likes to fly.”
He knew damn well what she was referring to. He was undoubtedly enjoying stringing this out. “I meant about squeezing your hand.”
Ike pretended to examine his hand for signs of wear. His grin was fast and lethal and took no prisoners. “Hardly felt it. Feel free to squeeze anything you like anytime you have the need.”
Color, quick and bright, flashed across her cheeks and face, working its way simultaneously to the roots of her dark red hair and down her throat. Marta could feel it, and by the look in his eyes knew that he could see it. She damned this one legacy from a mother she barely knew: translucent skin. It allowed her every emotion to be telegraphed so clearly. If she had skin his color—bronzed, she thought as if he had an intimate relationship with the elusive sun—no one would ever guess at what she was feeling.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “I won’t be doing any squeezing.” And that, she figured, got her message across loud and clear. She was here to visit Sydney and her family. There was no room in her schedule for penciled-in recreational activities that involved egotistical men.
He glossed over her words. “Then I’ll be the poorer for it, darlin’.”
Seeing Sydney reaching for the door, Ike opened his own and jumped down into the snow. Rounding the nose of the plane quickly, he presented himself at her side by the time she’d opened the door, ready to assist her from the plane.
Amusement played across Sydney’s lips. “Looking to do a good deed?” she asked, as he carefully helped her from the plane. “Why don’t you help—” She didn’t have time to finish.
Disembarking from the plane, Marta found that her legs had suddenly transformed themselves from solid flesh and bone to rubbery oatmeal. She gasped as she found herself keeling over. Ike swung around and caught her before she fell face-first into the snow.
The feel of his arms, strong and sure, closing instantly around her, ignited Marta’s indignation. It also created a spark of something else within her that ultimately went to fuel her indignation even more. She didn’t like that hot, fast, upward spike she felt, didn’t like it at all.
With a toss of her head, she sent the hood of her parka slipping off to rest on her shoulders. Hair the color of flame at twilight began a hopeless duel with the wind that was picking up. It was the wind, not proximity, that snatched her breath away, she told herself. Like a reigning gypsy queen, she raised her head regally. “I’m perfectly capable of standing up on my own.”
Ike withdrew his hands, holding them aloft in the air like a man staring down the bore of a red-hot .44. “Anything you say, darlin’.”
