I keep this?”
“No,” Alex said shakily. “I’ve memorized it.”
“Be sure to keep your door locked.”
“You’re not taking his threat seriously, are you?”
He wanted to shake her, hard. She was either stupid or naïve, and either one could get her hurt. “Damn right, I am,” he said. “And so should you. If he makes any attempt to contact you, call me. Understand?”
She looked ready to argue, but eventually nodded her head. Her exhaustion was evident. She seemed on the verge of collapsing in the parking lot. Reede knew he could take partial credit for that, but instead of making him feel smug, it made him feel terrible.
Closing his mind to it, he returned to his truck. He didn’t drive away from the motel, however, until Alex was locked safely inside her room.
Chapter 29
Reede turned his head when the corrugated tin door of the hangar crashed open. The sinking sun was behind her, so Alex’s face was in shadow, but he didn’t need to see her expression to know that she was furious. She looked as tense as a pulled hamstring. The vivid light shining through her hair made it appear to crackle like flame.
He calmly finished washing his hands at the industrial metal sink, rinsed them, and reached for a paper towel from the wall dispenser.
“To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” he asked pleasantly.
“You’re a liar, probably a cheat, possibly a murderer.”
“That’s been your opinion of me from the beginning. Tell me something I don’t already know.”
He dropped down onto a stool and hooked the heels of his boots on the lowest rung. Mindlessly, his hands slid up and down the tops of his thighs. He’d never wanted to touch a woman so badly in his life.
She advanced on him militantly, a package of quivering energy. She looked soft, but so goddamn alive and vibrant that he could almost feel her skin against his palms. He wanted to clutch her hair while crushing her smart mouth with nonstop kisses.
She was wearing the fur coat that never failed to elicit an erotic curl deep in his groin. Her tight jeans gloved thighs that he could think of better uses for than supporting a woman obviously on the brink of exploding with rage.
When they were but inches apart, she shook a paper in his face. He recognized the letter she’d received from the concerned citizens soon after her arrival in Purcell. The shit was about to hit the fan, all right. He’d been waiting for it. This showdown had been due to happen the minute she figured it out.
“I knew something didn’t jive with this,” she said through clenched teeth, “but today as I was poring over the material I have, looking for clues, I finally realized what was out of sync.”
Pretending that he didn’t smell her tantalizing fragrance, which made him crazy, he folded his arms over his middle. “Well?”
“There is one more business cited in the letter than there are signatures at the bottom. Moe Blakely Airfield,” she said, stabbing her finger repeatedly at the typed paragraph. “But Moe Blakely didn’t sign it.”
“That would have been tough to do, since he died about seven years ago.”
“Moe Blakely was the old man you told me about, wasn’t he? The one who taught you to fly and treated you to strawberry soda pops.”
“You’re batting a thousand, so far.”
“You own this airfield, Mr. Lambert.”
“Right down to the tumbleweeds and tarantulas. Moe willed it to me. Surprised?”
“Flabbergasted.”
“Most folks around here were. Pissed off some of them, too—the ones who would have liked to get their hands on the property. That was when they were poking holes in the ground, drilling for oil under every rock.”
“We discussed this letter at length,” she grated. “You said you’d already seen it, but you failed to mention that your business was listed.”
“The people who drafted the letter didn’t consult me first. If they had, I would have told them to leave me out of it.”
“Why? Your sentiments match theirs perfectly.”