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  Turning away at that, he scooped up the kitten she’d dumped. “We’d better go.”

  Right. She started to pass him but he was holding the silly little kitten against his big body, stroking it until the thing had closed its eyes in ecstasy, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You’re thinking something.”

  Yeah, she was thinking. She was thinking a lot of things, starting with the fact that he did something to her insides.

  In fact, he turned her inside out.

  Deciding that was a bad thing, she plopped into her seat, slammed on her headphones and sent him a cool glance. “I was thinking this is where I come on and say ‘have a nice flight.’”

  “It is going to be nice, isn’t it?”

  At the slight unease in his voice, she smiled grimly. “Nervous?”

  “When you smile like that, hell yeah. Who taught you to fly?”

  “My grandfather. Air Force lifer. He taught me everything I know.”

  “Is that why you’re such a softie?”

  Her smile widened. “You know it. I’m a living example of what happens when a girl gets raised by a tough officer.”

  He didn’t smile back. “What happened to the rest of your family, Lyndie?”

  She shrugged. “My parents died when I was four. My grandfather took me on. And flying was how we bonded. Do check your seat belt. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

  “Lyndie—”

  “Just going over procedure.”

  “You’re trying to avoid talking serious.”

  “Yep.”

  “All right.” He looked at her for a long moment. “How about we forget procedure and I come over there and kiss you stupid?”

  She laughed. “What?”

  “Yeah, you’re always really nice to me after I kiss you stupid.”

  “You have never kissed me stupid.”

  He lifted a brow.

  “You haven’t.”

  “Is that a dare?”

  “No.” God, no. “Look, Ace, no one…kisses me like that.”

  “No one?”

  “No one.”

  She ignored his knowing expression and began her takeoff. Always she’d been able to clear her mind, but now she found herself thinking about what he’d just said. About how good his mouth was, how he could indeed render her idiotic with just a kiss.

  Damn him.

  “Lyndie—”

  “No. I don’t want to talk about it.” Shifting in her seat a little, the silent sexual current between them making her itchy, she told herself it was all in her imagination.

  She told herself that every time she glimpsed at him during the flight; every time he sent her one of those Griffin Moore looks, making her itch all over again.

  15

  They landed in San Diego. A lineman helped Lyndie tie the plane down, and he did so with a sweet, eager, pathetic smile that made Griffin want to tell the poor guy not to waste his time.

  Lyndie Anderson was immune to such things. Hell, she was barely human.

  Only he knew that wasn’t true. He’d seen firsthand how much she did for others, he’d felt her melt in his arms. She was human, extremely human…and extremely tough.

  Had it been losing her family so young? Being raised by her apparently equally tough grandfather? For all that Griffin had lost last year, he had a solid foundation of love. He knew about friendships and family and trusting people.

  Lyndie, apparently, did not.

  He could try to give her some of that, could be her friend, let her trust him. It wouldn’t be a hardship, he liked her, very much. Affection would be easy, so would a physical relationship…maybe it could even grown to more, far more.

  But he didn’t trust his own emotions at the moment. He didn’t know if his feelings for her were real, or if he was just waking up after a year of emotional shutdown. He knew he wanted her physically. God, he wanted her physically.

  But that was lust. Lust wasn’t close to love…And no matter how he spun it, did he really want to coax her out of her shell, coax her into opening her heart to him, into starting something serious until he knew what was in his own heart?

  He couldn’t, it was too unfair.

  He followed her through customs, the airport too noisy and chaotic to talk, not that Lyndie looked in a mood to talk by the fact that she didn’t look at him and walked so fast he could hardly keep up with her.

  When he got outside, Brody was there waiting for him, hands in his pockets, hair blowing in the middle of the night breeze. Griffin sighed as Brody asked, “How was the flight?”

  He still had butterflies in his stomach from the landing, which he suspected Lyndie had taken so roughly just to see him turn green. She seemed to like him green.

  It was the only time she was nice to him, though nice as it pertained to Lyndie was a relative term. He turned to glance back for a glimpse of her at the exact same moment she came outside with a cat carrier she’d gotten in customs. She brushed past him. “See ya, Ace.”

  See ya? He’d waited for her, and she was just going to…walk away?

  Since she kept moving, he assumed so.

  Curious at the odd light in his brother’s eyes as he stood there on the sidewalk outside the terminal, Brody moved closer. “Hey. You okay?”

  Griffin growled some sort of unintelligible answer as he watched a woman—a hot, curvy little thing in a leather bomber jacket and short fiery auburn hair—stalk away.

  “Who’s that?” Brody asked with interest.

  “My pilot.” Griffin’s voice suggested sheer frustration and bafflement—common emotions when it came to women in Brody’s opinion.

  She might have kept walking if Griffin hadn’t surged forward, snagging her arm to hold her still, leaning in to say something Brody couldn’t quite catch.

  The woman pulled free, and then stalked off as if Griffin had made her so mad she could hardly contain herself.

  Brody understood the sentiment, he’d been there, done that with him himself many times, but still…very interesting.

  Silent and brooding, Griffin came back to Brody’s side.

  Oh, yes, very interesting, Brody decided. Before coming here, he’d snooped around in the small house his brother had rented all year, and had discovered not a single personal tie. Not a phone number of a friend, or any evidence that Griffin had contact with anyone.

  And yet something had jolted him back to the land of the living the past few days. Despite the deafening silence, there was a spark of life in his brother’s eyes. Granted, it was temper, but a spark was a spark, and Brody would take what he could get. “Your pilot?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s hot.”

  “No. Yes. Damn it, no.”

  “Do I need to reteach you everything?”

  Griffin growled, and Brody laughed. Then he reached out for his brother. “God, it’s good to see you.” Knowing full well he risked being strangled, he hugged him.

  Griffin endured it for a moment, then pushed away and started walking—in the opposite direction as the hot pilot had gone.

  With a grin, Brody followed. “So, you had a good time?”

  “Where did you park?”

  “I bet she was able to take your mind off getting back on the job, right?”

  “Brody, tell me which way to go or I’m going to call a cab.”

  “Hey, I’m just making small talk here.”

  “Screw small talk. Get me the hell out of here.”

  Yep, definitely back amongst the living, which could hurt like hell, he had to admit. “Does she kiss as hot as she looks?”

  Fists clenched, Griffin whirled around, and Brody laughed, joy filling him. “You’re really back. Christ, I missed you.”

  “I was only gone for two days.”

  “I missed you for a year. A whole damn year. Tell me you’re not going to vanish on me again. On us again.”