out of the Navy. In the four years since, he’d tried very hard not to look back.
Drew had spent the majority of those years building Water Flight Tours into the small, but lucrative business it was today. He’d turned an idea into a reality and made it work. Pouring his life savings into a charter plane service had been a huge risk. He’d worked weekends and holidays, forfeiting sleep and peace of mind for a stab at success and the American Dream. But it was a risk he’d been willing to take. A risk that, in the end, had paid off.
He liked to think he worked so hard because of his love of flying, his inherent independence, because he was ambitious. But sometimes his mind strayed a little too close to the past, and he wondered if maybe he worked so hard because he didn’t like the taste failure had left at the back of his throat. Maybe his foray into the American Dream was his escape. Maybe he’d spent the last four years running away from a mistake he would never live down. From ghosts he would never forget no matter how hard he tried.
Shoving thoughts of the past aside, Drew started toward the Mallard. Beyond, Emerald Cove inlet shimmered prettily. On the dock, brightly dressed tourists flocked like colorful wading birds fishing for baby shrimp. They came from all over; he’d seen the license plates in the gravel lot behind his office: Georgia, Ohio and a dozen counties right here in South Florida. He would give them what they came for. An aerial tour of one of the most breathtaking sights in the world: the Florida Keys.
He would start right here at Emerald Cove, which was situated just north of Key Largo and boasted some of the best fishing in the world. Then he would fly low over an aircraft salvage yard, known by the locals simply as “the graveyard” and the sunken sailboat just south of the reef where barracuda and shark converged to feed. From there, he would take them south, over John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, south to Key West, then to the Dry Tortugas to the west, and finally back home to base. If all went as planned, he would be home in time to watch the storms roll in.
Holding that thought, Drew headed toward the group for his preflight check, a quick overview of the rules and then he would begin the boarding process. Just another day in paradise.
He could feel the tourists’ eyes upon him as he approached and smiled at the floppy hats, sunburned noses and silly T-shirts. Families. Couples. The occasional retiree out to break the routine. Most of them, he knew, had never met a pilot or flown in anything other than a Boeing 727. The Mallard seaplane was different, particularly the water takeoffs and landings. Drew didn’t offer peanuts or martinis during the flight. He didn’t have to. The scenery beyond the windows held his passengers rapt. Thanks to Mother Nature and some hardworking coral, his customers always got their money’s worth.
Drew loved flying more than anything else in the world. Being a pilot defined who he was, and he couldn’t imagine doing anything else. Flying was the ultimate freedom and the supreme challenge rolled into a single feat that never ceased to take his breath away. Flying was the one thing in the world Drew felt passionately about. Four years ago, it had saved him from despair when nothing else could.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, stepping onto the concrete floating dock. “My name is Drew Evans and I’ll be your pilot and tour guide this morning. Does anyone have any questions before boarding?”
“Hey, mister, we gonna see any sharks today?” asked a bright-eyed boy about eight years old.
Taking the clipboard from inside the plane, Drew smiled down at him, then at his parents. “There’s been a school of hammerheads hanging around just east of Duck Key. How about if I swing out that way and we’ll have a look?”
“Wow! Cool! Mom, did you hear that?”
Grinning, enjoying the moment a hell of a lot more than he had a right to, Drew reached up under the wing and expressed a small amount of fuel from the preflight check reservoir into a clear plastic cup. He knew Jet A by color and smell and could now rest assured the correct fuel had been pumped into the tanks when he’d refueled yesterday afternoon.
He’d just stepped off the pontoon after checking the aileron flaps, when a woman standing at the end of the dock caught his eye. He couldn’t see her features from where he stood, but her silhouette was starkly familiar. It was a silhouette he would never forget no matter how many years or miles he put between them. No matter how hard he tried.
The sharp pang of recognition shook him, sent his heart hard against his ribs. Denial that it could be her rose inside him. There was no way she could have found him. Not that he’d been hiding, he assured himself. He’d simply moved on with his life. He’d hoped she had, too.
A small boy, maybe four years old, stood at her side. Drew took in the blue cap, baggy shorts and skinny legs and tried not to remember, tried even harder not to feel. He’s the right age, a cruel little voice pointed out. And Drew was suddenly, utterly certain it was her.
What in the holy hell was she doing in Emerald Cove?
Thankful he was wearing sunglasses, he stared at the woman, trying hard not to let his shock and disbelief show. His eyes did a quick, dangerous sweep of her, taking in her tiny waist, the curve of her hips and athletic shape of her legs. She was casually dressed in khaki shorts, a sleeveless yellow blouse and sandals with flat heels. But Alison Myers didn’t look like a tourist. She didn’t blend into the crowd. She stood out, like a brilliant diamond surrounded by rough-cut stones. She sure as hell shouldn’t have looked sexy, but she did. Alison always looked sexy. And Drew had always felt like a son of a bitch for noticing.
The old attraction tugged hard at him, a big fish snagged on a barbed hook and fighting for its life. It shouldn’t have surprised him that even after four years and the hell of losing his best friend nothing had changed. The reality of that disturbed him. He knew it was unreasonable, but he suddenly felt incredulous and a little angry that his hormones would betray him now.
He’d tried desperately to forget her. To forget what he’d done, not only to her, but to her son. How could she do this to him now?
She smiled and waved upon realizing he’d spotted her. Drew knew he should smile back at her but, God help him, he couldn’t. He couldn’t do a damn thing except stare at her and feel the memories tangle with dread and augment like a big sour ball in his gut. Her hair was shorter, but the color was the same sun-streaked blond. She’d cut it into a sleek style that swung like a curtain of silk against her jaw when she turned her head. She’d lost some weight—a little too much if he wanted to be truthful about it. Drew preferred more substantial women. The kind who wore tight jeans, a quick smile and had a weakness for pilots. Alison Myers had never been that kind of woman to him. But that had never mattered.
Drew approached her, praying he was wrong, that the woman walking toward him with a smile on her face and a little boy at her side wasn’t the woman he’d spent the last four years trying to forget. But he knew it was her. He would know her anywhere. He would know her by scent alone, by the sight of her legs, by the rise of tension inside him whenever she was near, though he’d never had a right to think of her in any of those terms. He may have put six hundred miles between them, but he’d dreamed about her too many times in the last four years not to recognize her now.
For an instant, Drew felt like turning around and walking straight back into his office and locking the door behind him. Not the kind of conduct one would expect from an ex-Navy officer. But Alison Myers was the last person on earth he wanted to see. He did not want to talk to her. God forbid, he did not want to look into her son’s innocent eyes, knowing what had happened to his father. Alison represented a past he wanted to put behind him forever.
He didn’t want her here, dredging up all the memories he’d been working so damn diligently to forget.
