avoiding Toby was going to be as impossible as controlling the chemical reaction that he set off in her every time he was around.
Heather’s stomach answered for her, rumbling deep and loud in a manner that belied her dainty stature.
“That would be lovely,” she said in a tone that gave away nothing of the conflicting emotions that left her feeling raw inside.
Three
“Fake it until you make it,” Heather repeated to herself again and again as she stared out the tiny window of the airplane that was waiting for permission from radio control to take her straight into the heart of the South and Toby’s family.
That same mantra helped her through innumerable recitals and contests over the years. Clutching a small purse in her lap with both hands, she did her best to pretend she wasn’t frightened out of her mind. Considering what an admirable job she had been doing of hiding that very fact from her employer for the past few days, it should have been a piece of cake. That the plane in which she sat barely qualified as a puddle-jumper didn’t do much to calm her nerves. When Toby told her that his uncle was sending his private jet to transport them to the family reunion, Heather had envisioned something far grander than the single-engine Cessna idling beneath her more like a motorcycle than an actual means of transportation designed to leave the ground behind.
“Are you all right?” Toby asked.
He reached across what only questionably passed as an aisle to peel one of her hands off her purse and take it into his own. He found her skin cold and clammy to the touch.
“Is there anything I can get you to calm your nerves?”
“I’m fine,” Heather said grimly through gritted teeth.
Her stomach lurched as the propellers began spinning. She covered her mouth with her free hand. Used to dealing with preperformance jitters, Heather dreaded the thought of vomiting into a paper bag next to a man who was showing her such touching concern. At least before a concert, one always had the option of discreetly slipping away to the privacy of an isolated bathroom.
Toby’s voice was as smooth as aged whiskey.
“Why in the world didn’t you tell me you were afraid of flying?”
Why not indeed! For the same reason that she couldn’t tell him she was afraid of the feelings that living with him had stirred in her. Standing on the edge of his close-knit family, she felt like a starving child with her nose pressed up against a candy store window without so much as a dime in her pocket. Unwilling to admit that, however, Heather forced an excuse through lips drawn in a thin line.
“I’ll be fine. It’s part of the job. I understood that when I accepted it.”
Glancing over Toby’s broad shoulder, she shot Dylan a brave smile. It was lost upon the child whose head was bent over the traveling musical keyboard his father brought along to entertain him. Even a three-year-old was more at ease with flying than Heather was. She felt like an idiot for letting Toby guess just how nervous she really was. Not that he had to do any more than look into her eyes to peer directly into her soul.
“I’ll be right back,” he told her.
Heather forced herself to let go of his hand as he rose to his feet. She was grateful that he hadn’t tried placating her with some platitude about there being nothing to be afraid of. That was how her father tried dismissing her fear of the dark when she was little. As had Josef whenever she waited in the wings for her turn to perform before a house filled with critics.
And right before he took her virginity from her.
Lies.
She was doubly grateful when Toby returned a moment later as promised, not with some condescending statement about air travel being safer then driving her car, but rather with a stiff drink in one hand.
“I hope you like whiskey,” he told her, passing her a tall tumbler. “You strike me more as the type who’d prefer an umbrella and a cherry bobbing in a fancy drink. But since I’m not much of a bartender, this is the best I could manage before the pilot announces it’s time to fasten our seat belts.”
Such instructions were unnecessary on her behalf. Heather had securely buckled her safety device across her lap the instant she sat down—and read every word of the informational materials provided in the back of the seat in front of her. Just in case an ocean happened to materialize between Wyoming and Georgia, she was prepared to use her seat cushion as a floatation device.
The ice cubes floating in her drink offered more immediate comfort. Heather took a tentative sip. As its dark amber color suggested, Toby made it plenty stiff.
“I hope your relatives don’t mind if I’m not able to stand up once we get there,” she murmured with a diminutive little cough.
His responding grin was enough to melt those ice cubes clinking against her glass. Heather wasn’t sure whether the warmth spreading through her body was due to her hormones or the alcohol hitting her bloodstream.
“Don’t worry,” Toby told her. “As far as I know, my uncle isn’t basing his campaign on any protemperance stance. Which is a good thing, considering his own past.”
Heather raised a slender eyebrow.
“My family isn’t exactly without blemish,” he warned.
“Whose is?”
She took another dainty sip of her drink to steady her nerves as they began the long roll down the runway. Not one to pry, Heather was nonetheless curious. Local gossip connected Toby to a glossy layout of some fabulous mansion touted in a magazine last summer. Much of what had been said regarding the article was mean-spirited and envious in nature. She supposed such a well-known family would have to expect to have every flaw magnified in the press. She wondered if that was part of the reason Toby deliberately put such distance between them.
Since her own family relished any media attention and rushed to put their daughter in the limelight every chance they could, it was a stance she could uniquely appreciate.
“What’s your family like?” Toby asked.
Not sure whether he asked the question out of courtesy or as a way to distract her from their impending takeoff, she responded tersely.
“Quiet.”
Squeezing her eyes shut as the engines growled and the airplane strained to lift off, she hoped Toby wasn’t angry at her brusqueness. Her stomach leaped as they became airborne and hovered somewhere between her head and her heart. Tiny beads of sweat popped out above her lip.
“Take another swallow,” Toby commanded, squeezing her hand. His voice was far more reassuring than the remedy he offered.
Unfortunately, his touch counteracted that effect. Warm and strong, it suggested an intimacy that was not at all appropriate between an employee and employer. Heather fought to remember that she was hired to look after Dylan, not to engage in foolish romantic fantasies that left one feeling used and forlorn in their aftermath.
No matter how much Heather wanted to let go of Toby’s hand, she could no more have done so than she could slow her racing pulse. In so small an airplane, one felt every air pocket and bump right in the seat of the pants. Looking
