LITMIR.BIZ

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Epilogue

       Chapter One

       T albot McCarthy was not a happy camper.

      Seated in his single-engine Cessna, ready for takeoff, he glanced quickly at the woman in the seat next to him. Her tawny hair shone with rich highlights as the last of the day’s sun danced in through the windows.

      It had been almost a year since he’d seen her, but time hadn’t dulled the intense blue of her eyes or softened the determined thrust of her chin.

      Elizabeth McCarthy.

      His brother’s ex-wife.

      Before they’d left her apartment, she’d changed from her feminine, tailored dress into a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a windbreaker to ward off the coolness of the early-autumn evening.

      The jeans clung to her long slender legs, and the pale tangerine-colored T-shirt reflected the color of peaches onto her cheeks. He tried not to notice the thrust of her breasts against the cotton fabric.

      She looked totally relaxed and self-possessed as they awaited takeoff. Then he spied her hands. They were clasped together in her lap, connected so tightly that her knuckles and fingers had turned white.

      “You don’t like to fly?” he asked, guessing at the cause of her obvious distress.

      “Not particularly,” she replied, her voice breathy with tension. “If I must fly, I prefer big commercial planes, not planes no bigger than my bathroom.”

      “Don’t worry, I’m an excellent pilot,” he said.

      “Yeah, and the Titanic was unsinkable.”

      At that moment the tower gave him the okay for takeoff. He turned onto the runway and taxied to a high enough speed to begin his ascent.

      He didn’t speak to her again until they had reached their cruising altitude. “You can relax now. It should be smooth sailing from here to Branson.”

      Her hands unclasped and she drew a deep breath, audible above the drone of the engine. “Do you fly often?”

      “Fairly regularly,” he replied. “As CEO of McCarthy Industries, there’s always a meeting to attend or some troubleshooting to be done at one of our branch offices. I got tired of depending on airline schedules, and I like the independence of flying my own plane.”

      He could tell she was only half listening to him and knew her thoughts would be for her nine-year-old son, Andrew, and her ex-husband. “I wish I could tell you what Richard was thinking when he pulled this latest stunt.”

      A small smile curved one corner of her generous mouth, and Talbot tightened his grip on the controls, trying to ignore how the gesture softened her features and made her more beautiful than he’d have thought possible.

      “You and I have never had much luck at second-guessing Richard and his stunts.”

      “That’s an understatement,” he agreed. He focused his attention away from her and frowned. He had no idea what his younger brother was up to this time. All he knew was that Richard had picked up his son from school that afternoon, without checking with Elizabeth, on a weekend that wasn’t his usual visitation time.

      When she’d gotten home from work, Elizabeth had found a note on her kitchen table that indicated Richard wanted her to go to Twin Oaks, Missouri, a small town just outside Branson, where Richard and Talbot had spent their childhood.

      Elizabeth had called Talbot to see if he knew what was going on. Talbot insisted he fly from his home in Morning View, Kansas, to Kansas City. He’d picked up Elizabeth at her apartment and they were now on their way to Twin Oaks.

      Talbot suspected that, as usual, they were victims of his impetuous brother and one of his spontaneous thoughtless stunts.

      Next to him, Elizabeth

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