Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [860]
“Yes, it is,” she said. “My dad and I wanted to start over—we needed to, after Mom and Richie—” She took a breath as though catching herself from saying something more than she intended. “After they died, my dad and I flew to Miami to book a flight to someplace where we could start our lives over again. There was a globe in one of the bookstores at the terminal. Dad showed me where we were, then asked me to pick out the place where we should go next. I chose Alaska. When we got here, we figured Harmony sounded like it would be a friendly town for us to make a new home.”
“And was it?”
“Yeah,” she said, her voice a bit wistful. “It feels different to me now that he’s gone, though. I’ve been thinking it might be time for me to take another look at the globe, see another part of the country for a while.”
Before Kade could probe any further down that path, the single engine’s rattle and shake was back with a vengeance. Alex sped them up again, but the noise and shudder persisted.
“What’s going on?”
“I’m going to have to take us down now,” she said. “There’s the Tulak cabin below. I’ll try to land as close as I can.”
“All right.” Kade glanced out the window to the ground coming up beneath them more quickly than he liked. “Just try to put it down easy. I don’t see anything close to a runway down there.”
He needn’t have been concerned. Alex brought the shuddering plane down onto its skis in a soft glide, managing to miss a couple of ancient spruces that seemed to materialize out of the darkness as they coasted over the top of the powdery snow. The cabin was right in front of them now, but Alex slowed the Beaver and steered into a gentle curve, navigating pretty damned tightly on precious little preparation for their abrupt landing.
“Jesus, that was close,” he said as they came to a stop in the snow.
“Think so?” Alex’s amused expression spoke volumes as she powered down the engine.
She climbed out and Kade followed her up to the engine. She peered inside. “Dammit. Well, that explains the problem. A couple of screws must have jiggled loose of the engine cowling and fell out.”
Kade knew as much about engine cowlings as he did knitting. And he had no business hoping the plane’s trouble would keep him stranded in the wild with Alex for a few hours. Better yet, a few nights.
“So, what are you telling me, we’re grounded until we get some help?”
“You’re looking at the help,” she told him, shooting him a grin as she walked back to grab her toolbox from the plane’s cargo hold.
Part of Kade’s reason for bringing her out with him to the remote location had been to once and for all get to the bottom of what she knew about the Toms killings. Now, after the half-truth she’d told him about the deaths of her mother and brother, he had another reason to question her. And he told himself that if it did turn out that Alex knew something about the existence of the Breed—and all the more so if that knowledge had anything to do with the loss of her family members in Florida—then relieving her of the burden of that memory would be doing her a kindness.
But this wasn’t just about his mission. He’d tried to convince himself it was, but duty had taken a swift backseat from the moment he arrived at Alex’s place today. The way his pulse hammered around this female sure as hell wasn’t part of the plan. His heart was still banging from the sudden landing, but as Alex came back to where he stood, looking smart and capable and too damned adorable as she went to work on the engine, the banging in his chest settled into a heavy throb.
“You mind holding the flashlight for me?” She clicked it on and handed it to him, then stripped off her glove and fished around in her toolbox for a handful of odd-size screws and bolts. “A couple of these should do the trick until we get back home.”
Kade watched her carefully hand-thread each screw into the mounting, wondering if the other warriors in Boston