Adam Then and Now Read online

  Damn him. Shock was slowly giving way to anger. How dare he do this to her? What sadistic impulse had possessed him to hire her, of all people, to photograph a construction site? There were aerial photographers in Phoenix. Had his former passion faded to casual curiosity? She didn’t think she could stand that. He’d known all along who he was dealing with, and he’d hidden his identity, probably waiting to enjoy this dramatic little moment. Well, she wouldn’t give him another ounce of satisfaction.

  “I wish you’d told me you were with Scorpio,” she said earnestly as she glanced at Adam. “I would have given you a discount.” That should get him, with his fancy red plane and macho-looking scorpion logo.

  He looked unfazed by her patronizing gesture. “Maybe I was afraid you’d raise the price.”

  Or refuse the job, Loren thought. But no, she’d take anybody’s money these days if it meant keeping Josh in school. Out-of-state tuition wasn’t cheap. “I wouldn’t dream of gouging you on the price. After all, we go way back.” Her jolly tone cracked a little around the edges, but she thought she was pulling the nonchalance off.

  Daphne glanced from Loren to her father. “How far back?”

  “I was a cheerleader when your dad played football for Flagstaff High.” That was all this self-possessed young woman needed to know.

  “Oh.” Daphne didn’t seem completely satisfied, but the tote bag must have been getting tiresome to hold, because she shifted it to the other hand and tipped her head toward the terminal. “I’ll see about the car. I hope you got a convertible.”

  “I didn’t.”

  She made a face and started off. “Maybe I can work out an upgrade,” she said over her shoulder.

  Loren gazed after her; it was safer than looking at Adam. Luggage and a rental car? “I didn’t know you planned to stay in Sedona,” she said.

  “Daphne asked to come along, so when I’ve finished with business, she and I will have a long-overdue father-daughter vacation.”

  “I see.” She gathered her courage and faced him again. “That sounds like a nice idea. We should be through with the photo run sometime this afternoon, and then you can do...whatever you had in mind.”

  What did he have in mind?

  He continued to stare at her. “I don’t know why, but I thought your hair would still be long.”

  Loren touched her brown chin-length bob and could think of no response.

  “It’s good to see you again, Loren.”

  He hadn’t replaced his dark glasses, and she gazed into his eyes for a second too long. Her heart gave a painful jerk and she turned away lest he see through her veneer of nonchalance. “Well. We’d better get started. The clouds are already building up. Can Daphne find us if we head over toward the hangar?”

  “I don’t doubt it. In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s not the shy retiring type.”

  “I noticed.” But shy and retiring exactly described her son Josh, Loren thought as they headed for the hangar. Suddenly, she had a desperate need to make contact with Josh and her father, as if they might safeguard her against the emotions threatening to engulf her. Josh—sweet, quiet Josh, who probably loved working on airplane engines because they didn’t require conversation.

  “I haven’t spent as much time with Daphne as I should,” Adam admitted. “Besides, at eighteen, kids think they know everything.”

  “Mmm.” Loren didn’t want to discuss the behavior of eighteen-year-old girls. His sudden appearance had thrown her back to a time when she’d thought she knew everything about Adam Riordan. And she’d been humiliatingly wrong.

  She walked beside him, aware of the scent of an unfamiliar cologne, no doubt chosen by his wife. Loren wished she could freeze-frame Adam for a moment, back off and study him at her leisure. She was too disconcerted by the rolling film of their interaction to form an objective impression.

  She sneaked a glance at him from the corner of her eye, then another glance. Each stolen picture made her heart beat a little faster. Some other woman loved him now. Some other woman kissed those lips, gazed into those eyes now crinkled at the corners from years of squinting into the Arizona sun.

  Her photographer’s eye picked out telling details—the jut of his chin was a little firmer, the width of his shoulders a little broader, but he was still Adam, still the first man she’d ever loved. All at once, she could hear the rush of water over the rocks of Oak Creek Canyon and taste champagne and desire as if she and Adam had held each other only yesterday.

  “Does the aerial photography company belong to you?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

  She dropped a curtain over the memory. “To me and Dad. We’ve combined his engine-maintenance business with the aerial photography, so the corporation that covers both is Icarus Enterprises.”

  “Then I could get your Dad to tune my plane while I’m here?”

  No! “I doubt it.” What was he trying to do with all this togetherness stuff? Tear her into little pieces? The suspicion that this was all a lark for him chilled her. “He’s scheduled the time today to fly us over to the construction site, but the rest of the week he and Josh are booked up with repair jobs.”

  “Josh?” He glanced at her, but he’d replaced the sunglasses and she couldn’t read his expression.

  “My son.” She delivered the line with a flourish and reveled in the flush that tinged his cheeks. Maybe he wasn’t as blas;aae about this reunion as he seemed. Maybe he could still be pricked with the pain of what-might-have-been. Good. “I always liked the name,” she said oh-so-casually.

  His mouth tightened and he gave no response. She felt the scales tilt just a little; he no longer held the advantage. But she wanted him to go away. He was making her heart ache in a way it hadn’t for a very long time.

  They approached the hangar labeled Icarus Enterprises, where her father and Josh were poised on stepladders on either side of a Mooney MSE, their heads stuck under the open cowling.

  They both had grease on their hands and shirts and protective goggles over their eyes. Her father’s baseball cap, lettered with the name Icarus, covered the generous bald spot he’d developed over the years. Josh’s identical cap sat backward on blond hair so short it was almost a military cut. Loren felt a rush of love and pride.

  “Hey, guys,” she called out. “Our client’s here.” She wondered what her father would say when he learned who his extra passenger would be today. She’d never been sure what her parents had thought of Adam’s going to war. They’d comforted her and agreed he should have said a proper goodbye, but they hadn’t joined her in damning Adam to the farthest reaches of hell.

  She, on the other hand, had been judgmental and uncompromising. And eighteen. But even making an excuse of her age, she winced a little at the memory of those unbending beliefs. She’d called Adam a traitor to humanity, but years later she’d been concealing wounded pride and paralyzing fear. She’d shoved him out of her life because she was afraid his death would destroy her. And she was sure he would die in that war.

  Her father moved out from under the cowling and glanced down at her. “I can be ready in five minutes. I just want to”

  “Don’t worry, Gramps,” Josh said, his voice muffled under the cowling. “I’ve got it under control.”

  “The boy’s right.” Loren’s father pulled off the goggles and left them hanging around his neck as he backed down the stepladder. When he reached the bottom, he straightened with a grimace. “Besides, his back’s younger than mine.” He wiped his hands on a rag and stepped forward to shake Adam’s hand. “I’m Walt Montgomery, Loren’s father and the pilot.”

  Adam had once again removed his sunglasses, and Loren wondered how her father could fail to recognize him, but then, her father hadn’t memorized Adam’s every feature as she once had. “Dad, remember Adam Riordan?”

  “Well, of course I...” He paused and squinted at Adam. “Well, I’ll be damned. It is you.” He shook Adam’s hand again. “It’s been a long time.”

  “A lon
g time,” Adam repeated. “I asked Loren if you might be able to tune up my 414 Cessna while I was here, but she seemed to think you were too booked to squeeze me in.”

  “Well, now...” Walt scratched his chin and glanced at Loren, who tried to relay with a frown that she didn’t want him tuning up Adam’s plane. They weren’t that hard up for money.

  A slight smile crossed Walt’s face and he turned back to Adam. “Might fit it in tomorrow. Josh and I have an overhaul, but with both of us working, we probably could tune that Cessna for you. Going to be around Sedona for a while, are you?”

  “A few days.”

  “Well, we’re glad for the business,” Walt said with another casual glance at Loren. “Have you met my grandson?”

  Loren felt betrayed. Didn’t her father understand what having Adam around was doing to her equilibrium?

  “Josh, why don’t you stop a minute and meet Adam Riordan?” Walt said. “He went to high school with your mother.”

  Loren wanted to hide somewhere, but she was a grown-up now, supposedly equipped to handle situations like this. She prayed her father wouldn’t embarrass them all with some story about a time she and Adam had broken curfew or been caught parking by the Flagstaff police. Thank God her parents had never found out about the aborted elopement plan.

  Josh came down the ladder, dutiful kid that he was, although Loren knew he hated to leave the engine tune-up. He wiped off the oil and shook hands with Adam. Loren watched the two of them sizing each other up. Josh was about the same height, but Josh would never have Adam’s solid muscularity. Josh’s father was wiry, or at least he was the last time Loren had seen him fourteen years ago. Josh took after him in looks, fortunately not in temperament.

  She wondered if Adam was looking at Josh and searching for evidence of the man she’d married, just as she’d tried to find clues about Anita from meeting Daphne.

  “Are you in college?” Adam asked.

  “I’ll be a sophomore at MIT this fall.”

  Loren loved the sound of that statement. Eat your heart out, Riordan.

  “That’s great,” Adam said. “It’s a tough program.”

  “Yeah.” Josh’s sigh was heartfelt. “To tell the truth, paying out all that money seems crazy when I’d just as soon join the military and get training there in aircraft mechanics, but”

  “But his mean old mother won’t let him,” Loren said. “People can get killed in the military, although Josh refuses to admit that.” Her chest tightened. That last had slipped out, escaped from a dusty storehouse of memories and resentments. It wouldn’t happen again. “The clouds are building in the west, Dad. I think we’d better saddle up.”

  “Right.” Walt glanced at his grandson. “Caldwell wants that Mooney by five-thirty. See any problem with finishing by then?”

  “No problem, Gramps.”

  Pride shone in Walt’s eyes and he clamped a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “Good. Then I guess we’ll”

  A horn beeped from the tarmac outside the hangar and a bell-like voice called out, “Hey, Dad, what do you think of this baby?”

  All four of them turned. Daphne waved from the driver’s seat of a black Geo Storm convertible. The top was down and luggage was piled high in the back seat.

  Josh blinked. “Who’s that?”

  “My daughter,” Adam said, resignation in his voice. “Looks like she wrangled a convertible, after all.”

  Daphne flung open the car door and stepped out. Loren wanted to cover Josh’s eyes before he glimpsed that long stretch of tanned leg, but Josh was way past the stage when she could order him not to look. And look he did. Daphne had a model’s languorous walk and she twirled the car keys in one slender hand as she approached the hangar.

  Loren knew the exact moment Daphne sighted Josh. Her chin went up, like a predator scenting game. She paused imperceptibly before continuing toward them. Loren could see the girl’s focus narrow from the general to the specific. Loren tried to be amused, but something about Daphne scared the hell out of her.

  When Daphne reached them, she pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and Loren saw for the first time she had Adam’s eyes, but with a subtle difference. In the time Loren had known him, his gaze had never been calculating.

  Adam introduced Daphne to Walt and Josh.

  Daphne glanced from Josh to the Mooney. “You been working on that?”

  “Yes.”

  “How d’you like the Lycoming engine?”

  Josh stared.

  She gave him back an exaggerated stare. “Girls can know about airplane engines, too, you know.”

  “Maybe,” Josh said, “but I’ve never met one who did.”

  “You have now.”

  Loren felt as if a trapdoor had opened beneath her. Or more precisely Josh. Her son would be a sitting duck for someone who looked like Daphne and understood airplanes, besides. She didn’t want Josh to know Daphne was a licensed pilot, too, and a good one, judging from her landing this morning.

  “I flew my dad up here today,” Daphne said. “In Scorpio’s twin-engine.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. I got my single-engine rating when I was sixteen, my twin-engine last year.”

  “Me, too,” Josh said, his gaze never leaving Daphne’s face.

  Loren glared at her father, hoping he was satisfied with the mess his welcoming attitude toward Adam had helped create. Walt shrugged as if to say there was nothing much they could do; the forces of nature had taken over.

  But Loren wasn’t ready to surrender the field. “That Mooney has to be done by five-thirty, Josh,” she reminded him gently.

  “Uh, right.” He returned to the ladder, and for the first time in Loren’s memory, he seemed reluctant to return to an airplane engine. “Nice meeting you, Daphne.”

  “Same, here.” Daphne showed no signs of leaving as her gaze followed Josh up the ladder.

  Adam cleared his throat. “I’d like you to drive down to the Los Arboles resort as soon as possible, Daphne. I’m not convinced Greta got the reservations right.”

  Daphne looked up at her father with a sunny smile. “Sure, Dad. What time do you want me back here to pick you up?”

  Adam glanced questioningly at Loren.

  “About four, I’d say,” Loren told him.

  “I’ll be here.” Daphne walked to the convertible, and Loren forced herself not to check out whether Josh was watching. A confirmation of her suspicions would be far too unsettling.

  * * *

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, the single engine of Icarus Enterprises’ Cessna 206 roared as Walt took the plane down the runway. Loren usually felt a sense of elation and release from worldly concerns as the plane took off on an assignment. But there would be no contentment for her this trip, she knew.

  Adam sat in the passenger seat next to Walt, Loren behind them on the floor. The other four seats had been taken out to make room for the Wild RC-10 camera mounted over a manhole-size opening cut in the fuselage.

  Adam relaxed against the seat, his broad shoulders settling into the cushion as if he’d ridden there hundreds of times. Loren studied the back of his head and his nape, which she’d never really seen because hairstyles had been longer when they’d dated. The slight wave she remembered combing her fingers through was still there in abbreviated form, and it made the back of his hair swirl gently, defying the barber’s attempt to make a neat vee cut at his nape.

  A small white scar just beneath the hairline caught her attention. Had it been there before? Or did it mark the path of a Vietcong bullet? Her stomach clenched with the nostalgic pain of an old fury. After all this time, why did she even give a damn? And why, in the deep recesses of her heart, was she shouting with joy because he was whole?

  She turned her gaze to the window as Walt took off like the seasoned professional he was, banking the plane to allow Loren a view of the red-rocked buttes. Streams the color of melted pistachio ice cream laced the rusty ground. Loren couldn’t imagin
e a more beautiful, or more treacherous, place to fly. Updrafts could flip a landing plane in a second, which made Daphne’s feat this morning all the more amazing.

  Daphne. Loren glanced back at Adam and wondered if he suspected the same thing she did—that Daphne would check in at Los Arboles and return to the airport and Josh.

  As if in response to her thoughts, Adam turned in his seat and spoke over the drone of the engine. “Josh seems like a nice kid.”

  “He is.” And keep your daughter away from him. Loren was supposed to return the compliment, she knew, but Daphne didn’t fit the description of a nice kid. “Daphne’s very beautiful.”

  “Unfortunately she knows it.”

  “Josh isn’t very...” She searched for the right word that wouldn’t make Josh seem immature. He wasn’t, but he was reticent and had recently been dumped by the only girlfriend he’d ever had. “I think he feels more comfortable with airplane engines than with girls,” she said at last.

  “And he’s damned good with airplane engines,” Walt chipped in. “Mark my words, that boy will be a master mechanic one day.”

  Loren smiled as Walt launched into his favorite subject. Maybe she’d deliberately given him his cue because she wanted Adam to hear Walt rave on. From the day Josh was born, he’s been his grandfather’s sun and moon, earth and stars. Which was another reason Loren couldn’t let him enlist in the military. If Josh ended up injured—or worse—it would tear her apart, but it might kill Walt.

  Loren glanced at Adam’s profile as he listened to Walt cataloguing Josh’s virtues. The contours of his face were essentially the same as she remembered, except the skin seemed stretched tighter over the bone, and there was a tense set to his mouth that hadn’t been there before. She wondered if he was happy.

  “Josh has a bright future in avionics,” Walt said. “Plus he’s a decent kid. Although I’m sure he had a few beers his first year away at college. All kids have fake ID cards by that age, don’t they?”

  Loren held her breath. Did Adam remember that she’d suggested using his to get a marriage license?