Come Fly with Me Read online

  Don’t miss this irresistible reader favorite about what happens when you combine work with play from New York Times bestseller Sherryl Woods

  He was everywhere she turned: the candy counter, the cafeteria…even next to her on the airplane! At first, entertainment lawyer Lindsay Tabor thought the handsome stranger was trailing her. But it turned out he was none other than Mark Channing—the elusive screenwriter Lindsay had been sent to track down and sign up.

  Mark wouldn’t even consider Lindsay’s offer unless she accompanied him to his mountaintop ski retreat. Ever the professional, Lindsay didn’t know what to make of Mark’s persistent attention. And although she hated anything to do with the cold, Lindsay soon found her resistance melting—and her temperature rapidly rising!

  COME FLY WITH ME

  SHERRYL WOODS

  Sherryl Woods Booklist

  The Sweet Magnolias

  Stealing Home

  A Slice of Heaven

  Feels Like Family

  Welcome to Serenity

  Home in Carolina

  Sweet Tea at Sunrise

  Honeysuckle Summer

  Midnight Promises

  Catching Fireflies

  Where Azaleas Bloom

  Swan Point

  Chesapeake Shores

  The Inn at Eagle Point

  Flowers on Main

  Harbor Lights

  A Chesapeake Shores Christmas

  Driftwood Cottage

  Moonlight Cove

  Beach Lane

  An O’Brien Family Christmas

  The Summer Garden

  A Seaside Christmas

  The Christmas Bouquet

  Dogwood Hill

  Willow Brook Road

  The Devaney Brothers

  The Devaney Brothers: Ryan & Sean

  The Devaney Brothers: Michael & Patrick

  The Devaney Brothers: Daniel

  The Calamity Janes

  The Calamity Janes: Cassie & Karen

  The Calamity Janes: Gina & Emma

  The Calamity Janes: Lauren

  The Adams Dynasty

  A Christmas Blessing

  Natural Born Daddy

  The Cowboy and His Baby

  The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter

  The Littlest Angel

  Natural Born Trouble

  Unexpected Mommy

  The Cowgirl and the Unexpected Wedding

  Natural Born Lawman

  The Unclaimed Baby

  The Cowboy and His Wayward Bride

  Suddenly, Annie’s Father

  The Cowboy and the New Year’s Baby

  Dylan and the Baby Doctor

  The Pint-Sized Secret

  Marrying a Delacourt

  The Delacourt Scandal

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lindsay’s hand hesitated in midair, right between the candy bars and the more expensive, but sinfully tempting, gold foil bag of chocolate-covered almonds. Guilty emerald-green eyes glanced at the healthy selection of trail mix, raisins and dried sunflower seeds hanging on a nearby rack, then looked longingly back at the candy. For a woman used to making quick decisions, this simple one seemed to be beyond her tonight.

  She’d had a perfectly rotten week of nonstop, pointless traveling, a full day of endless, mind-numbing meetings, and to top it off she’d been given this lousy out-of-town, weekend assignment that held all the appeal of being asked to tiptoe over quicksand. She deserved a salary increase for this one, and she’d told Trent Langston just that. She deserved a huge, mind-boggling raise, maybe even a promotion. She certainly deserved the candy.

  “Go on,” a husky voice, filled with apparent amusement at her indecision, urged in a seductive murmur just over her left shoulder. “Take the candy. In fact, take both of them.”

  To strengthen the taunt, a very masculine hand, sprinkled with crisply curling dark hairs, picked up the candy bar and the bag of chocolates and dangled them in front of her.

  “It’s easy for you,” she retorted, not taking her eyes off the candy and the blunt, well-manicured fingers holding it. “You’re not the one who’ll have to diet the rest of the weekend.”

  A low, disbelieving, sexy-as-hell chuckle greeted the comment.

  “It would take more than a little chocolate to ruin a figure like yours,” the seductive voice replied boldly.

  The sincere and decidedly masculine appreciation in that voice at last drew Lindsay’s gaze away from the candy. She looked up into dark eyes that danced with the light of a million twinkling stars, eyes that seemed to caress her, even as they teased. Her breath promptly caught in her throat, and the quick retort she’d planned died on her lips, as her gaze traveled over broad shoulders covered in a soft wool shirt of bright-blue plaid and on to narrow hips emphasized by snug-fitting, well-worn jeans. A soft, unspoken “wow” sizzled through her senses and sent them reeling.

  He looked exactly like a blatantly sensual advertisement for the rugged outdoors—craggy features that spoke of strength and character and fascinating hard living, straight black hair that gleamed like silk and caressed the collar of his shirt, and a tanned complexion that at this time of year hinted at long hours on the beaches of Hawaii or the ski slopes of the Rockies.

  She surveyed his attire again, trying not to notice that the muscular body it covered was sending little laser beams of excitement straight into her. Those clothes—with this man in them—definitely belonged on the ski slopes. With a mountain range behind him and a huge stallion under him, he could lure the most timid female alive into heading directly for the wilderness with a whole knapsack of candy bars on her back. Lindsay, who’d absolutely hated the outdoors until about ten seconds ago, could practically smell the alluring fresh scent of pine and the aroma of coffee brewing over an open fire. If the Colorado scenery were landscaped with more men like this, the weekend might not be quite so bad after all.

  Stunned by the impact of his obvious virility on her unusually responsive senses, she drew in a sharp breath, blinked and looked nervously away. Simultaneously she was struck by the oddest sensation that if this incredibly gorgeous man, with his whipcord lean body and intense, discerning eyes, approved of her petite, rounded figure, she certainly had no right to complain or worry about it...even if she had always wanted to be a more intimidating, more alluring five feet-nine with long, sleek legs and a model’s slenderness.

  Silently she held out her hand for the candy. The almost instinctive gesture was greeted by a lazy, satisfied smile that created dimples deeper than any crater Lindsay had ever seen. She had a feeling women would do extraordinary, otherwise inexplicable things for a glimpse of those dimples.

  The man nodded approvingly. He put the candy into her waiting hand with a slow, lingering, electric touch, then winked—incredibly long, dark-as-soot lashes sweeping against tanned skin like the soft fluttering of a bird’s wing.

  And then he simply walked away. Just like that, in a blink of her eyes, he was gone. Vanished, almost as if she’d conjured him up.

  But a lingering scent of cologne proved he’d been no figment of her imagination, and suddenly Lindsay experienced the keenest sense of loss she’d felt in years, a reaction that both confused and puzzled her. They had exchanged only a few intimate glances and even fewer words, and yet she was struck by the onset of a totally unfamiliar loneliness. She was torn between standing in line to buy the chocolate, which she now craved
more than ever, and impulsively following the handsome stranger through the airport terminal, as though he were some sort of magical Pied Piper who held the seductive promise of romance in his eyes.

  “Ridiculous,” she muttered under her breath, decisively forcing her gaze back to the newsstand clerk who was waiting impatiently for her to pay for her purchases: The Wall Street Journal, three weekly news and business magazines, one candy bar and one bag of chocolate-covered almonds.

  As Lindsay walked slowly through the terminal to the departure lounge for her flight from Los Angeles to Denver, she thought about the startling and certainly unexpected impact of that brief encounter. The image of those dancing black eyes taunted her in a way no other man’s had. Those laughing eyes had been filled with such intelligence, such intuition and such a teasing promise of simple, old-fashioned fun, the sort she rarely had and repeatedly told herself she didn’t miss.

  Mentally she shook herself, irritated by her totally irrational, wayward thoughts. This was par for the course in her emotional life. In her work as an attorney for a major entertainment studio, she was surrounded by men with sharp minds and even sharper wits. Many of them were even more handsome than the stranger, in a more sophisticated, polished way. But many of them were also egocentric jerks, children in need of constant attention and a steady stream of unquestioning adulation. Not a one of them had ever sparked the sort of sharp sense of sexual awareness that this rugged stranger had. For just a moment there had been this aching tug, this acute yearning deep inside her, as though her body were encouraging her to make a fated match after twenty-nine years of carefully planned, very successful and well-ordered independence.

  Of course, when it finally struck, such lightning bolt attraction had to be toward a man she’d never see again, she thought with a sigh. Definitely par for the course.

  “Tabor, you’ve obviously taken one too many late-night flights,” she admonished dryly. “You’re suffering from a severe shortage of sleep. Why else would you suddenly want to follow a total stranger to the ends of the earth and back again?”

  Perhaps all those coast-to-coast flights had simply robbed her brain of sufficient oxygen to think rationally any longer. Perhaps she would spend the rest of her days responding only to such sensory stimuli as dark-as-midnight eyes and sexy dimples. Not altogether such a bad fate, she thought with a momentary pang of longing. It was certainly better than going off to Denver and chasing around in the snow and cold after some nut, who obviously didn’t want to be found. Unfortunately, though, she was being paid to stalk one incredibly elusive, terribly talented David Morrow, not some apparent vagabond in a blue plaid shirt and jeans, whose lean, muscular build and attractively rugged appearance suggested he probably worked on a construction crew or rounded up cattle whenever he was short of cash.

  “Too bad,” she murmured aloud, before forcing her hands to spread open The Wall Street Journal.

  She had finished the almonds and was halfway through her candy bar and the front page of the paper, when they announced that her flight had been delayed due to a heavy blanket of fog over Denver.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are anticipating that Stapleton Airport will open again shortly, and as soon as we have word on the opening, the new departure time will be announced. Please remain in the gate area or check back with the agent in approximately one hour. Thank you and we apologize for the inconvenience.”

  Lindsay groaned. Not again. Flight delays were a way of life when you flew as much as she did, but she’d never been able to take them in stride. They only added to her anxiety level and they were especially infuriating on nights like tonight when she didn’t want to make the trip in the first place. She was dead tired. She hated cold weather. She abhorred snow. And she absolutely despised being sent after some eccentric man, who liked to hide away in the mountains and who’d already made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t interested in any offer her company had to make. He’d canceled every meeting they’d scheduled, and his own agent hadn’t been able to talk any sense into him. Why on earth did Trent Langston think she’d have any better luck simply by tackling him on his home turf? If anything, he’d have an even greater advantage there.

  “We’re wasting our time,” she’d protested vehemently to her implacable boss.

  “You can change his mind,” Trent had assured her. “I have complete confidence in you.”

  “How am I supposed to change his mind? The man doesn’t want more money. You’ve already offered him every conceivable perk from a chauffeured limousine to twenty-four-hour-a-day champagne and caviar the entire time he’s on location, to say nothing of a luxury suite and round-the-clock women—”

  “A secretarial service,” he corrected dryly.

  She’d scowled at him. “Whatever. This contract is ninety-nine percent in his favor. The only thing it doesn’t have is probably the one thing he wants: creative control over the movie. If you won’t bend on that, I don’t seem to have a lot of leverage.”

  “Smile a lot.”

  “Right,” she’d snapped sarcastically. “I tried that on his agent. The sleaze offered to show me his personal collection of signed Picasso prints...in his suite in Monte Carlo.”

  “It would have been a nice trip.”

  “Oh, go to hell.”

  “I’ll go there, if you’ll go to Denver.” His crystal blue eyes had bored into her. “I want David Morrow to write this screenplay, Lindsay.”

  Lindsay had bowed to the inevitable. Now she was spending a perfectly good Friday night, when she could have been soaking her exhausted body in a bubble bath up to her chin, sitting at L.A. International, chewing on a candy bar instead of her nails and waiting for the fog to lift in Denver. On nights like this she wished she’d taken a job in a library, instead of going into entertainment law.

  Maybe she should have married some nice, down-to-earth wanderer like the alluring stranger with the lazy, heart-tumbling smile, had several rowdy, dark-haired little boys, learned how to bake chocolate chip cookies and joined the PTA. This beguiling image danced briefly in her mind before she shuddered. Not a good idea. In the long run, she’d be better off in Denver, snow or no snow.

  With at least an hour to kill, she decided to head for the coffee shop. She might as well sit back, try to relax and kick off the sensible, medium-heeled gray pumps. They were killing her feet after nearly sixteen hours of running around the twenty-story tower of Trent Enterprises and the twenty-five acres of Trent Studios, where Trent Langston, grandson of the founder, reigned like some feudal tyrant. She found an empty booth, sat down and slid her slim, stockinged feet out of her shoes. She’d get the coffee in a minute, just as soon as she surreptitiously massaged her aching feet. With her green eyes closed, she sighed with sheer pleasure. Heaven! Absolute heaven!

  “Stand up,” an intriguingly familiar voice suddenly ordered softly, as Lindsay’s heart instinctively started skittering along in triple time. It couldn’t be! Her eyes snapped open. It was.

  “Stand up,” he said again, giving her another of those lazy, enticing smiles.

  “You don’t really want me to do that,” she replied warningly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because my feet may fall off and you’ll have to carry me all the way to my flight.”

  He surveyed her from her short, stylishly tousled auburn hair to her coral-tinted toenails, a distance of barely five feet, and grinned. “No problem.”

  Lindsay shook her head. “Somehow I knew you’d say that,” she groaned, still not budging. He probably carried logs heavier than she was just for fun. “Why do you want me to stand up in the first place?”

  “To see how much damage the candy did, of course.”

  She nodded sagely. “Of course.”

  “You did eat it, didn’t you?”

  “Almost every bite,” she admitted ruefully.

  “Almost?”

  She held up half the chocolate bar. He grinned. “And?”

  “It was worth every calo
rie.”

  Dark eyes skimmed over the empty tabletop. “And now you’re starving yourself to death?”

  She chuckled at the obvious disapproval in his voice. “No. I merely collapsed into the first vacant chair I came to and haven’t had the energy to move again. Not even for a cup of coffee.”

  He nodded and the smile returned. “Stay put. I’ll be right back. You take it black?”

  Lindsay nodded. She thought briefly about arguing and digging in her purse to at least pay for the coffee, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. Liberation was not only a waste of time, but sheer lunacy at a moment like this. Besides, he didn’t strike her as the type to pay one whit of attention to her protests, anyway, now that he’d apparently made up his mind to take her under his wing.

  She massaged her feet one last time, then slipped them back into her pumps, afraid that five more minutes of such gloriously comfortable escape would make them swell. If that happened, she’d never get them back into the shoes again. The idea of padding barefoot all the way to her gate brought a tiny, half smile to her full, sensual lips. The thought of being carried to the gate in the stranger’s strong, muscular arms set off fireworks in her abdomen. The smile grew broader.

  “Something funny?” the man asked, suddenly reappearing and putting a cup of black coffee down in front of her.

  Lindsay blushed and shook her head.

  “Nothing you want to tell me about,” he guessed with a knowing grin as he sat down opposite her with his own cup of coffee, into which he promptly emptied half a dozen sugar packets as her eyes widened and her stomach churned in a sort of horrified disbelief. For a chocoholic she had an amazing aversion to straight sugar.

  “Something like that,” she said, responding at last to his comment.

  “Tell me, do you always spend your Friday nights hanging around airports?”

  “Whenever I can,” Lindsay retorted dryly. “I like to watch the planes take off.”

  He glanced around and nodded. “Sounds like fun.” He paused. “Could I make just one tiny suggestion, though?”

  “Certainly.”

  “You might have a better view if you sat near a window.”