Winter Affair Read Online Free Page B

on the floor, Leda searched for him, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. He wasn’t difficult to find. Though attired like the others in nondescript overalls, he stood a head taller than most of the men, and his vivid coloring drew her eye. The Piper Cub was gone, and he was now working on a much larger Beechcraft. The prospective passengers stood nearby, apparently a charter group en route to a Caribbean vacation. They had started the holiday early with some liquid cheer. Several of the men were already loudly, thoroughly drunk.
    It wasn’t long before Leda realized that she had walked into the middle of a tense situation. The expression on Reardon’s face was set, his mouth hard, and tendons stood out in his powerful arms as he tightened a bolt on the metal frame of the plane.
    “You musta gotten pretty lonely up there,” one of the travelers called, nudging the man next to him. “I hear some funny stuff goes on in the lockup when a man gets lonely enough.”
    The group cracked up laughing, as if this were the most hilarious bon mot that had ever been uttered. Reardon went on working, pretending to be oblivious, but his posture indicated that he was aware of every syllable.
    “What’s it like to be a jailbird?” the first man’s companion added. “What do you miss, the decor, the company, the food?”
    Reardon looked up, and his eyes were murderous. Leda shrank back against the wall, trying to be invisible, hoping that she could get back behind the partition before she was noticed. These drunken bullies had heard Reardon’s story from somewhere and were having some malicious fun by taunting him about his past. She began to move silently sideways, edging back toward the office.
    But it was too late. The first loudmouth caught sight of her and pointed, caroling, “Boy, you been locked up so long, you wouldn’t know what to do with a woman like that if you got near one.”
    Reardon’s head turned in the direction of the pointing finger, and his silvery eyes met Leda’s alarmed gaze. They widened as he recognized her, and Leda’s heart sank. There would be no avoiding a confrontation now; this giggling bunch of over stimulated sots would find the opportunity too good to miss.
    Reardon continued to look at her, his attention shifting from his antagonists to the object of their commentary. Leda held her breath, dreading what might happen next. He carefully put aside the wrench he’d been holding , never taking his eyes from hers.
    “Out of practice, aren’t ya?” a third member of the audience chimed in, adding his wit to that previously displayed. “Ya wouldn’t know where to begin with her, would ya?”
    A deep flush was creeping up the back of Reardon’s neck. He was being pushed to the edge. Those engaging in the catcalling didn’t know who Leda was, or the history between Reardon and her father. But she did, and she could see that Reardon was approaching the boiling point. A little muscle in his clenched jaw was jumping wildly. He might have been able to endure the jeering, he had done it before, but his embarrassment and humiliation in front of Leda were too much. She watched as his fingers curled and relaxed, saw the checked, coiled spring power of his legs as he struggled to master his feelings. For the first time she got a sense of the temper and the stubborn will that had precipitated his original trouble. Monica was right. Prison hadn’t changed him. He had merely learned some controls on his behavior, controls that were about to snap with the report of a pistol shot.
    Leda swallowed, wondering what to do. She had to take action. If she didn’t step in to defuse this ticking bomb, the revelers would get a lot more than they had bargained for. If they weren’t so far gone in booze they would be able to see that for themselves, Leda thought, her heart going out to Reardon. This personal attack on him was so unfair. She could guess from her own observation how hard he had tried to put the