“My name is Alexandra Bromley. This house belongs to my parents,” she answered, posting herself like a sentry at the foot of his bed.
“I’d hardly have taken you for one of the servants.” His eyes glinted sardonically as he looked her up and down, openly taking stock of her face and figure. Rafe Garrick was clearly no gentleman. “Is the rest of the house as exotic as this room?” he asked.
“This is one of the guest rooms. Since most of the guests are friends of my father’s—” Alex cleared her throat. Her gaze swept the room, coming to rest on the mounted tiger head, which had given her the horrors for years. She shrugged. “My father has his own tastes, as you see.”
“I see.” He flashed a sudden, boyish grin that was like the sun coming out. Alex steeled herself against a sudden onrush of warmth. She could not allow herself to like this man. Even the thought of liking him disturbed her.
Rafe looked at the tiger, shaking his head. “Did your father actually shoot that thing?”
“Oh, yes! From the back of an elephant, six years ago!”
“He’s a big-game hunter?”
“No. Just a rich man who uses his money to buy excitement.” In more ways than one, Alex thought, imagining for a moment how the heads of Buck’s female conquests would look in a mounted collection above the fireplace. “He makes firearms. Guns and such,” she said.
“Of course!” Rafe’s eyebrows shot upward as the realization struck him. “Bromley and Burnsides!”
“Burnsides and Bromley—though father is all of it now. Joshua Burnsides, my grandfather, died fifteen years ago, when the company was still a small one.”
Rafe didn’t reply. He was gazing straight at her, his eyes as intense as two burning coals. “Help me get up, Alexandra Bromley,” he said. “I want to see my aeroplane. I have to see it!”
The passion in his voice was so commanding that Alex stiffened where she stood, fighting the strange impulse to do as he demanded.
“No,” she protested. “The doctor ordered you to keep still, and he told me to watch you.”
“Where is it?” he persisted, stirring restlessly beneath the bedclothes. “Isn’t there a window, or maybe a balcony where I could at least get a look? If I can see how bad the damage is, and decide whether it can be fixed—”
“You heard me. Make one move to get out of that bed, and I’ll scream for the doctor!” The ridiculousness of the situation was beginning to dawn on Alex, but she could not back down now.
“Rubbish! I’m not a prisoner. Which way is the beach?”
“Don’t be a fool. It’s only a machine. It will be there tomorrow.”
They glowered at each other, separated by the length of the bed. “Only a machine!” he exclaimed in a low, rasping voice. “For your information, Alexandra Bromley, that tangled wreck out there is my life!”
When she only stared at him in silence, he sank back onto the pillow. “You don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said. “You can’t know, if you’ve never flown. The freedom of it…the wonder…”
“And the danger?” Alex curled one hand around the bedpost. Almost against her will, her gaze traveled down the length of his body under the sheet—the broad shoulders and powerful chest, the narrow hips and lean, hard belly. Her eyes lingered on the intriguing bulge at the top of his thighs, then shifted guiltily away.
“The danger’s part of it, yes. But it’s more than that.” His face was flushed, his eyes alive. “When you’re in the sky, it’s as if you’ve left the whole dirty world behind. There’s nothing up there but you, the birds and the fine, clean air. You look down and you see the earth for what it is—little houses, little fields and factories, little people with little problems. It’s like…like—”
“Like being God?” Alex’s blasphemous whisper rang loud in the room.
Rafe laughed, deep in his throat. “Maybe. In a very precarious way—though I like to think that God doesn’t have engine trouble or get caught in downdrafts.”
“Tell me,” said Alex. “When you’re in the sky, don’t you ever have the urge to just point the nose up and keep going, higher and higher? But no, that would be very dangerous, wouldn’t it?” She laughed uneasily, conscious of his eyes on her and wondering what he was seeing. His gaze seemed to burn through her clothes. No man had ever looked at her like that. Not openly, at least.
“I did that once,” he said quietly. “I climbed, and kept on climbing. It was wild, like being drunk on sunlight. I didn’t want to stop, but the air began to get cold and very thin. I started to lose control—that was when I knew I had to get down.” He fell silent for a moment, as if focusing on something inside himself. “I want to see my aeroplane,” he said. “Just a look. Then I’ll know how soon I can be flying again.”
Something broke loose in Alex—a reckless, impulsive urge that had been building since she entered the room. “There’s a balcony at the end of the hall,” she said. “You can see it from there.”
“Will you help me?” His green-flecked eyes engulfed her.
“On one condition.” Alex took a deep breath. “I noticed your aeroplane has a second seat. When you’re able to fly again, you must promise to take me up with you.”
He scowled. “It’s too risky.”
“Not for you.”
“Your father would have my hide.”
“My father wouldn’t have to know.”
“And what if something were to go wrong?”
“Then neither of us would be in a position to care, would we?” Alex shrugged with feigned disinterest. “Promise me or lie there and rot. It’s up to you.” She turned her back on him and took a step toward the door.
“Wait!”
Alex spun around to find him laughing.
“Why, you stubborn little chit!” he exclaimed. “You’d really leave me, wouldn’t you? All right. One very short flight. As soon as my aeroplane and I are mended. Now, come here and help me get up.”
Alex hesitated.
“Please,” he said.
She came to him, bending over the bed so he could slip his arm around her shoulders. His skin was warm beneath the thin gray silk of Buck’s pajamas, his muscles solid and sinewy. His clean, leathery aroma reminded Alex of the dark brown jacket he’d been wearing when she lifted him from the water.
“Easy now,” he said. “Watch the ribs.” His arm lay lightly about her as he used his own strength to sit up and slide his legs off the bed. Alex was acutely aware of his closeness, the warm weight of his arm across her back, the slow, even rise and fall of his breathing.
“Here goes!” he muttered, pulling himself to his feet. Alex braced herself to steady him. Standing, he was even taller than she’d realized. Her own head did not reach the bottom of his ear. He took one step, then another, leaning on her to ease the weight on his broken leg. “You make a fine crutch, Alexandra Bromley!” His laughter stirred her hair. “Would you care to stick around till my leg mends?”
Alex groped for a clever retort and came up empty. Most of the time she felt at ease with men. She could be flippant and bitingly funny, especially when she didn’t care what they thought of her. Why was it that now, when she so wanted the upper hand, she felt like a tongue-tied dolt?
Together they made their way through the door and down the thickly carpeted hall. Rafe was silent, concentrating on each step, wincing when a movement hurt him. Once he stumbled, and Alex’s arm went around his waist to steady him. He was, she realized,