of his head afforded him a glimpse of a recriminating frown he grinned inwardly. ‘Don’t look a gift horse and all that. You have a bonafide destination expert literally at your fingertips—feel free to take advantage of me.’
He threw in another wink for good measure.
‘Oh, you just don’t quit, do you?’
‘Being helpful? Can’t say women list that as my most memorable quality, no.’
‘Flirting.’
‘Ah.’ It took considerable effort to hold the full- blown smile he could feel in his chest from making its way up onto his face. ‘Well, you do know they say it’s all about the individual’s interpretation.’
Kerry laughed a low, husky laugh. ‘You’re incorrigible.’
‘I’ve been told. Tell me about your trip, then.’
She did, over ‘dinner’, through coffee that didn’t get spilt thanks to the code they had in place, and she even produced a colour-coded itinerary Ronan found highly amusing as she explained it to him while they ignored the movie. It was as they began their descent into JFK that he explained to her the treasures that could be found if she didn’t limit herself to the usual sights that would swallow up great chunks of her time when she was stuck in huge lines of tourists all wanting to see the same things—Kerry scribbling notes into the margins of her neatly typed sheets of paper.
Her enthusiasm was palpable, watching the thoughts crossing her expressive eyes was addictive— and Ronan found himself regretting again the fact he hadn’t met her in Dublin on the first leg of the flight.
‘It must be amazing to spend your life seeing all the places you see.’
An innocuous statement, but the words twisted like a knife in his chest. ‘Yeah, it’s been great.’
Placing her itinerary with its brand new scribbled notes into a Ziploc bag, she leaned back against her seat and sighed, a small, contented smile on her mouth and a faraway look in her eyes as she turned her face towards his watchful gaze, her voice low.
‘I can’t imagine half the things you’ve seen— you’re incredibly lucky.’
Lucky was far from the mark, as it happened. But Ronan’s imagination was too busy deciding that, with both their heads against the headrests and their faces turned towards each other, it was too much as if they were lying side by side in a bed for him to descend into bitterness—his voice husky as a result of where his brain then took that mental image.
‘Have you got everything on your fantasy list covered or is there anything else I can help you with?’
She chuckled, letting the innuendo slide. ‘This trip is just the beginning. I’ve got almost three months to pack in as much as I can, so it’s a taster, if you like. Then if there’s anywhere I really enjoy I’ll try and spend more time there next time round.’
She had dozens more adventures to look forward to. And enthusiasm danced in her eyes, highlighting the hinted shades of russet and gold in amongst the brown—though his imagination was probably filling that in…
She really couldn’t be any more different from him if she tried, could she? But he managed to keep the envy out of his voice, just. ‘I can recommend some great guidebooks to help you catch up with me, if you like.’
Kerry laughed the soft laugh he found so enthralling. ‘I’ll just bet you can. Do you have one for the first-time traveller? You know—with all those tips about never confessing you’re travelling alone, or why not to give your name to strangers on planes and that one about the passport? They’re all very useful.’
‘And you ignored every single one of them—’ he couldn’t help smiling when she did ‘—though I’m glad you did ’cos, between you and me, this has been the shortest Atlantic crossing I’ve ever had.’
After only a moment’s hesitation she leaned a little closer to whisper, ‘You’re welcome.’
He couldn’t stop looking into her eyes. Searching each of them closely, with the sense of intimacy rising as he felt the soft wisp of her warm breath against his face. And the urge to kiss her was so strong when the cabin lights dimmed and his vision blurred that it was as physical a need to him as the one for oxygen.
He’d only have to lean just a little bit closer…
There was a jolt as the large plane touched down, a ripple of applause working its way through the cabin and making Kerry laugh again as she moved back and arched up to look over the seat in front of her.
‘Okay—is it unusual for a pilot to actually land the plane safely here?’
When the cabin lights flickered back on Ronan eventually dragged his gaze upwards from where he’d been attempting to fill his eyes with the sight of her lithe body arched against her seat belt.
‘It was a smooth landing.’ He shrugged. ‘Sometimes folks just think that merits a thank- you.’
‘I’ll remember that for next time.’
She had dozens of next times ahead of her, didn’t she? With an unaccustomed wave of angry bitterness, Ronan thought he should make sure and clap whenever he touched down in Dublin again—a kind of ‘thanks for the memories’ to all the pilots who’d got him from one place to the other in the last decade.
Kerry settled back in her seat, took a deep breath and asked, ‘How long are you in New York for?’
‘Why?’
The words came out in a rush. ‘I don’t suppose I can persuade you to play tour guide for a day?’
It wasn’t going to take much persuasion.
CHAPTER TWO
KAREN had to be losing her tiny mind.
Since when did she run around asking men she’d only just met to spend a day with her? Since never—that was when. It wasn’t that she was stuck in some old-fashioned notion that a woman didn’t have as much a right to ask a man out as the other way round, but it wasn’t something she made a habit of. And what did she really know about this guy beyond the fact he was disgustingly good-looking, great company and more than a little fascinating to her?
She swiped her clammy palms along the sides of her crisp white shorts and pushed her sunglasses up onto her head, squinting as she looked around the crowded street. If he stood her up that would be one way of getting out of it, she supposed. But the truth was she didn’t want him to stand her up—the idea of another day in his company having been sending a flutter of anticipation through her stomach since before she’d gone to sleep the night before. And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt that before seeing a man. Not that it was a date, because it wasn’t—she’d even offered to pay him for acting as her tour guide.
He’d laughed, mind you.
But it still wasn’t a date. It was a stolen day, a one-off, a way of marking her newfound freedom by doing something completely out of character…
Lord,
