Golden Dreams

Judy Griffith Gill

Chapter One

For the past ten minutes the woman had captured more of Eric Lind’s attention than he liked. First, her long, loose stride as she came out of the tunnel in the Frankfurt airport had made him look twice. Then his gaze followed her as she sought out a baggage cart and wheeled it to the carousel to load it, bending to snatch up two bags as they came around. He nodded in appreciation of the sweep of a slender thigh, the curve of her indented waist, as she waited for the third bag, which she claimed with the same brisk, athletic ease. Her hair, cut in a bell shape, hung in a sun-streaked light brown curtain past her chin, swinging out each time she bent, dip­ping back in toward her throat when she came erect.

Turning the cart, she came toward him, passing within a foot of where he stood while he studiously did not look at her. But a momentary whiff of her perfume trapped him into turning to watch her go—the neat, quick placement of each long, nar­row foot, the swing of her legs, the subtle, sexy sway of her bottom.

With difficulty he forced his attention back to the task of searching the crowd for his friend’s niece, who should have been on the same flight the woman had arrived on. Maybe she’d gone to the rest room.

The next time he saw the woman, she was standing by a row of chairs, one hand on the baggage cart, the other on her hip. Her eyes, the color of which he couldn’t discern, scanned the crowd. They lit on him, lingered, then swept on . . . and returned. This time, she met his eyes for a moment—speculatively, he thought—before looking away, and he couldn’t help smiling at her. Maybe her name was April, like Rob’s niece, and the sign he held kept pulling her gaze back to him. When it swept over him once more and clung for a moment, he smiled again before he could stop himself. Holy hell, this wasn’t his style, coming on to a strange woman in an airport! He was here to represent Rob McGee, not emulate him. Quickly, he wrenched his gaze free, then glanced back to see her turned half away, gesturing, speaking to—possibly arguing with—someone seated out of his view on the row of chairs.

His heart went still in his chest as she fixed her gaze on his face and nodded, clearly having made up her mind about something, then marched toward him, swaying gracefully as she wove her way across the jammed concourse.

He froze where he stood. It was all right to fantasize about a woman thirty feet away. It was one thing to have her approach, smiling, self-assured, looking for . . . something, and yet another to have her look at him as if no matter what she sought, he was all too sure he’d try to find a way to provide it.

* * * *

The man with the sign wasn’t in uniform, which was probably why April had insisted that he wasn’t her uncle, in spite of the fact that he held placard with her name on it. Sylvia’s young charge hadn’t seen her uncle for nearly two years, so she might not rec­ognize him, just as the man on the far side of the concourse clearly hadn’t recognized April. He’d come equipped with a sign, obviously not expect­ing to recognize her. Of course, there was always the possibility that Robert McGee had sent some­one else, such as the man with whom he shared a house and a reputation. This man did not, in Sylvia’s estimation, look the part of the quintes­sential roué. With his jaw carved from stone and his brows drawn together under a sweep of thick, dark hair, he did, however, look completely mas­culine, undoubtedly sexy, and dangerously virile.

He also, she realized when she was within a couple of feet of him, looked downright forbidding.

Sylvia lifted her chin half an inch higher and came to a halt before him. She was not in the habit of letting anybody forbid her to do anything.

With a smile, she said, “Hello, are you Major McGee?”

His eyes—mariner’s  eyes, she thought—were strikingly blue under those straight dark brows. He lowered the large brown hand holding the sign reading APRIL and said, “No, I’m not. I’m Eric Lind, a friend of his.”

Sylvia stared at him, wondering at the depth of her disappointment. She knew now she’d been insanely hoping that he not be the housemate, one of the womanizing pair that April’s grandmother held in such low esteem. And that was stupid. No matter who he was, she was here to turn April over and then leave.

As if her silence had nudged him into action, he fished his wallet out of an inside pocket in his brown leather jacket and flipped it open to show a military ID card. Heavens, but he was photogenic! Most people looked like criminals on photo IDs but he looked like a model for a recruiting poster. “Rob asked me to meet his niece,” he said, “but I was expecting someone a little younger than you.”

Satisfied that he was who he said he was, she replied, “She is, I assure. She’s eight years old. I’m Sylvia Mathieson of We Deliver, Personal Courier Service.”  She dug in the large tapestry bag she had slung over her shoulder and came up with a card, which she handed him as she gestured to her right. “April’s waiting over there,” she said.

He blinked, looked at her intently, then read aloud her company motto: ‘We Deliver—Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.’ ” Sylvia’s stomach did a backflip as amusement softened his hard mouth, crinkled the corners of his blue eyes, made them dance. “You deliver children?”

She had to laugh. He had a wonderful smile, and she decided on the spot that he looked like a man she could be friends with. Not that she’d be around long enough to strike up a friendship, but if . . . Oh, lord, all women responded to him like this. She would not be one of a crowd.

“Not in the usual sense of the term,” she said briskly. “I provide escort service for children, pets, and egg rolls, among other things.”

Sylvia, Eric thought, running his thumb over the embossed letters of her name, repeating the syllables in his mind as he replayed the sound of her light laughter, struck by the very rightness of her name. A musical name to go with her musical laugh. She spoke in an intriguing voice, this Sylvia who had a lilting name to go with those laughing, golden-brown eyes. A beautiful name to whisper in the dark and a husky voice to whisper back to him as if she’d just woken from a long and relaxing sleep following more-than-satisfying sex and was ready for—

“Egg rolls?” he echoed, jerking himself back into the conversation before she noticed the very large, long “egg roll” developing in the front of his pants, and she laughed again over her shoulder this time as she walked away. The lively brown eyes beckoned him to follow, her scent drawing him along in her wake like a Star Trek tractor beam.

“Well, only once,” she said. “To a homesick guy on a construction crew in Tuktoyaktuk. His bud­dies arranged the delivery of a complete Chinese dinner for a birthday surprise. It took every microwave oven in camp to warm it up.

She stopped at a chair occupied by a small, pathetic-looking little figure with gangly arms and legs and a grubby blouse untucked from a crumpled skirt. The little girl clutched a nearly bald doll to her chest. “April, honey.” Sylvia said, “this is Mr. Lind. He’s your uncle’s friend.”

Eric stared. The child’s nose was running. Her face was red, and she hiccupped as she breathed, as if she’d been crying for a long time. He hadn’t been expecting someone so pathetic, or so small, not even after Sylvia Mathieson had said April was eight years old. He’d been thinking of other things then and had  let that information slide by unremarked.

Still, seeing this very young child put a whole different light on doing a favor for a good buddy. What did he know of children? Certainly not enough to cope with a runny nose and a crying jag. “What’s wrong with her?” he demanded.

“Nothing much,” Sylvia said easily, sitting down on the chair next to April’s and dragging the leggy little girl onto her lap, hugging her and rocking back and forth. She poked two fingers into a pocket of her oversized pink sweater and pulled out a tissue, which she held to April’s nose with an admonition to blow. “She’s overtired, and we had a rough flight,” she went on. “She was sick a couple of times and then she was a more than a little upset at not finding her uncle waiting for her. When we saw you and your sign, she didn’t want me to approach you, because she’s been well warned about strangers. But she’ll be okay now.” With a neat flick of her wrist, Sylvia lobbed the tissue into a litter container six feet away, and smoothed back April’s hair, making Eric’s skin tingle as he watched, and asked gently, “Won’t you, honey-bun?”

“I . . .want . . .my . . .grandma,” she sobbed. “I . . .want . . .to . . .go . . .home.”

“I know you do, sweetheart, but you know Grandma’s away and in just a little while you’ll be tucked into a nice warm bed and you can sleep for a long time, and then you’ll feel much better. Now come on, sit up. Say hello. This is Mr. Lind. He’s come to take us to your uncle Robbie.”

 Eric fought off a dizzy sensation and sat down beside them. Us? She’d said he was he was going to take “us” to Uncle Robbie? Both of them? No way! It was a loud and clear gut-level protest. He wanted to grab Sylvia and run, tell her that he’d never take her anywhere near Robert McGee, that if he had his way, she wouldn’t be allowed within a hundred-mile radius of the man. He’d keep her for himself, take that tall, lean body of hers into his arms, slowly undo all those little buttons and peel her out of that pink sweater and— 

April sat up and gave Eric an Inspector Clouseau impression. “Why didn’t Uncle Robbie he come like he promised?” The inspector was thinking foul play. Eric was the prime suspect.

“Uh, well, he’s in the hospital.”

April’s suspicion vanished as she nodded and came close to smiling, making herself a much more attractive child. “Uncle Robbie’s a doctor. He’s a major. That makes him important, Grandma said. Are you a major too?”

Eric shook his head. “No, I’m a captain. That’s not quite as important, but I drive a nicer car than he does.”

April considered that and decided not to be impressed. “Uncle Robbie’s going to take Cabby to the hospital and sew her up.” She indicated the torn leg attachment on her singularly ugly little doll. “He said so on the phone, and we’re going to Europa Park too. That’s a little bit like Disneyland but not as big but lots of fun.”

“That’ll be wonderful, won’t it?” Sylvia patted April’s thigh and spilled the child feet-first off her lap as she arose. To Eric she said, “Will it take us long to get there? I’d like to hand April into her uncle’s care as quickly as possible. I have a flight to catch home in a few hours.”

Flight? He almost repeated the word, almost said, Don’t go, but that was crazy, wasn’t it? Of course she would go. She had come to deliver the child, and that done, there’d be nothing to keep her there. A woman like her would have a life, a home, probably a family waiting for her on the other side of the world, and his fantasies were not her problem. He tried in vain to see if she wore a wedding or engagement ring.

“Excuse me?” She was speaking to him. Judging from the confused expression on her face, she’d been doing so while he wool-gathered again. Damn, what was the matter with him? By training and nature, he was used to making split-second decisions and he’d never found himself lagging like this, dropping the conversational ball while he pondered things that had been said before, or replayed in his mind the musicality of a certain voice and dreamed of stripping a woman out of her clothes and . . .

Sylvia stared at him, seeing his eyes go vacant and dreamy again. Dammit, what was the matter with the man that he couldn’t keep his mind on their mutual problem for more than two seconds? A chorus of feminine laughter drew her around. Ah! Of course. It was a tight knot of ripe-wheat-yellow blond—probably Swedish—air hostesses striding by in short skirts that had captured his lecherous attention. It was, she decided, downright insulting. If this was the way a real rake acted, the air hostesses could have him. She waved a hand in front of his glazed eyes.

“Are you with me, Mr. Lind? Did you say in the hospital?” she asked, her brows drawn together in concern. “Not at the hospital?”

Eric berated himself for his latest lapse of attention. “Sorry.” He shook his head in an attempt to rattle some sense loose. “Well . . .Yes. Rob was hurt yesterday, skiing in the Dolomites.”

“Skiing? In the middle of June?”

“On a glacier.” Eric pulled a wry face. “It was his last run, naturally, before leaving to fly home to be here in plenty of time for April’s plane. Now he’s in traction, and can’t be moved for at least a week—maybe longer—until  they make sure there’s no infection. It’s a compound fracture.”

“The poor man,” Sylvia said, frowning.

April, kneeling on a chair, tugged at Sylvia’s sleeve, looking ready to cry again. “Isn’t my uncle going to come for me?”

“It seems not, sweetheart, but Mr. Lind’s here.”

April sat down again, her lower lip jutting. “I don’t want Mr. Lind. I want Uncle Robbie!”

Eric smiled at the little girl as he crouched before her. “I know you do, April, but he’s hurt his leg in a place a long way from here and can’t travel right now. He called me on the phone last night and asked me to look after you. He wants you to come with me, April, and wait for him at our house.” He reached out one hand to her, the other to a baggage cart near her chair. “Are these your suitcases? Shall we go now? He’ll be phoning again this evening, and you can talk to him yourself then. Okay?”

“Nooo!” wailed April, flinging herself out of her chair and into Sylvia’s arms again.

“Ah, sweetheart, don’t cry,” Sylvia crooned as she sat down with her burden and Eric’s throat tightened. There was no briskness now in the soft, throaty voice; it was all warm honey and aching compassion as she cradled April, soothing her gently. Tenderly, she stroked the ragged, messy hair back from the little girl’s face. With one foot up on the edge of the chair opposite, her position showed off a long, sweet curve of thigh encased in tight jeans. Eric tried not to stare, not to drool, not to want.

He paced away and left her to her task for several minutes, then spun on his heel, still hearing her soft, measured tones as she pleaded with April to understand, explaining again and again, repeating herself, clearly making no headway with the child. “Please,” he said to her, leaning over to try to lift the little girl from her lap, “let me take her.” His hand accidentally brushed the side of her breast, and he went rigid at the softness and warmth of her flesh through her clothing, and the almost irresistible urge to touch her again—with no barriers between his hand and her skin.

As if she hadn’t noticed, Sylvia turned half away, shielding April, looking fierce and maternal. “No,” she said. “Give her a little time to get used to the idea. Don’t try to push her into something she’s not ready for. She’s upset.”

For several more minutes he sat in the chair beside them, breathing in Sylvia’s scent, listening intently to her low, seductive voice. Wild fantasies passed through his mind until he heard—with stunning clarity—that voice in the darkness next to him in bed, saying things only a lover would say, and his body hardened accordingly. He shifted restlessly and cleared his throat, then leaped to his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets before he could disgrace himself again.

“Come on now,” he said brusquely. “This has gone far enough.”

Gently, he undid the death-grip April had around her escort’s neck, taking care not to touch Sylvia. But her smooth hair brushed his wrists, and he knew its perfume would linger on his skin for days. He lifted the resisting child and sat her upright in the chair he’d vacated, his hands on her skinny little shoulders, trying to ignore the glare Sylvia fixed on him, forcing himself to concentrate on April, on ways to reach her.

Discipline, reason—those were what he was used to dealing in, and since April hadn’t re­sponded favorably to Sylvia’s attempts at cajolery, they were certainly worth a try. “Now listen, April,” he said in what he knew was his best firm-but-kind tone. “You’ve made your point. You’re not happy with the situation, and I understand that. You’ve had a long and difficult flight. You miss your grandmother and feel upset that your uncle isn’t here. But you’re here, and I’m here, and we do have to leave this airport together. Now, we can do it agreeably, or we can do it otherwise, but we are going to do it. Understand?”

“Now, just a—” Sylvia began, but he raised a hand, silencing her. April stared at him as if he’d been speaking a language she didn’t understand, but at least she’d stopped sniveling.

“All right,” he said, standing erect. “Ready?” When she hesitated, her lower lip quivering, he said with a smile and only a hint of the impatience he was feeling, “April, believe me, you have no choice in this matter.”

Dammit, neither did he. If he had his way, he’d hang around at the airport until Sylvia had to leave, maybe take her somewhere intimate for lunch, get to know her a little better, then give her his phone number so that if she were ever back this way, she could call him and . . . No! Dam­mit, no. He not only wouldn’t do that, he couldn’t do it. This was not a lady for a casual fling.

And the alternative was out of the question. For the first time since making that decision several years before, he felt the full impact of it, felt his bachelorhood as a burden, one he wasn’t sure he wanted to carry any longer. Holy hell! He had to get out of here. Now!

Drawing in a deep, steadying breath, he said, “April, you need to come with me. It’s what your uncle expects of you. Now, come along. Are these your things?”

With wide, frightened eyes fixed on his face, April got to her feet, her mouth trembling, and nodded.

Eric shot Sylvia a briefly triumphant look and extended his hand toward her. “Thank you on Rob’s behalf for the care and kindness you showed his niece,” he said with undue formality while he struggled with the impulse to pull her hand up to his mouth and kiss her palm—for starters. He drew in a breath of her delicate scent for memory’s sake and, still holding her hand, said, “Have a safe flight back.” Then, in spite of all his good intentions, he heard himself ask, °I, uh, would you like some lunch before you leave?” With a kid in tow, it wouldn’t be intimate, but he would still be with her.

Sylvia was vastly tempted by those blue, blue eyes now looking deeply into hers as if he couldn’t drag his gaze away. His hand was warm and callused and large as it engulfed hers, and sud­denly she knew she’d better keep this meeting as short as possible. For some reason he wasn’t looking at blond stewardesses now, but at her.

Be careful what you wish for. . . .

Had she really felt piqued because he hadn’t seemed to notice that she was a woman? Now that he had, she wanted to run. Eric Lind, lover-for-a-­little-while was not the man for her. She pulled her hand free. “No, thanks. We ate shortly before the plane landed. I think it would be better for you to get April home and settled as soon as you can.”

Their gazes unlocked, and both swung down to the woebegone little girl. Eric slipped a hand around April’s bony shoulder. “You’re probably right,” he said.

Lord, was she right! he thought. The sooner he walked away from this golden-eyed woman, the better it would be for his libido. So, why wasn’t he walking? Why was he gazing into those captivat­ing eyes again, standing there like a dummy in­stead of walking away?

“What time does your return flight go?”

Sylvia glanced at a huge clock suspended in midair. “In about three hours. I should go check in soon.” Her reluctance was clear in her tone.

“And when you get home? Will you be soaring off to some other foreign place?”

“I hope not,” she said. “My sister’s third baby is due any day now, and I’m her labor coach, so I want to be on hand.” Oh, rats, why was she babbling about that? Eric Lind couldn’t possibly be interested in her family’s affairs. She was gibbering, dammit, because she didn’t want to leave, didn’t want him to leave, wanted more time with him, time to get to know him, time to learn everything about him . . . Insane! She knew all she needed to know. The man was a rake. That diffident, half-shy charm in his eyes was surely practiced, calculated, designed to entrap women. Dammit, she would not be trapped!

Bending quickly, she brushed a kiss over April’s cheek, hugged her, and said, “Bye-bye, honey-bun. It was fun traveling with you. Maybe we can do it again someday. You have a good time, now, and think of me when you’re busy at Europa Park on all those neat rides.”

April’s breath continued to catch in her throat, but she nodded, and after a reproachful look at Sylvia, grudgingly walked away at Eric’s side. Heading toward the terminal exit, she struck Sylvia as doing a wonderful Joan-of-Arc-on-her-way-to-the-stake.  Sylvia didn’t know who April felt held the match, herself or Eric Lind.

A moment later she realized she was no longer watching the child but the broad back of the man in the brown leather jacket. She sighed. Lord, but he was gorgeous.

She frowned, watching as April began to lag and as Eric Lind turned and spoke to her, bending low, then brushing her hair back from her face and patting her cheek gently. In a moment they walked on again, more slowly, Eric holding April’s hand. Sylvia relaxed. April would be fine with him. He was a very nice man. The great lovers of the world always were. At least on the surface, and while she hadn’t had time to delve deeper into his personality, she was pretty sure she knew that much about him.

With a sigh and a silly, futile wish that things had been different, she turned, and had nearly reached the moving ramp that would take her to the departure side of the airport when she heard a choked wail that sounded like her name. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw April pelting toward her, her face contorted. Trundling the baggage cart before him came Eric in hot pursuit weaving in and around passersby. Sylvia reached out an arm and captured April before she could sweep by, her hand over her mouth, eyes wild.

“I’m gonna be—”

“This way,” Sylvia said quickly, rushing the child toward the door of the nearest ladies’ room. But it was much too late. Eric Lind jumped back with a muttered curse and a pained expression on his face as April cut loose, spewing out her airline lunch. He tripped over a wheeled suitcase being towed by a portly gentleman cross­ing behind him, ending up flat on his back on the floor. April’s baggage cart, whose handle he still held in one hand, spilled its contents onto his chest, while the child herself turned to Sylvia, accepting the handkerchief Sylvia extended with her right hand as her left hand instinctively ad­ministered a series of comforting pats.

“Are you all right?” Sylvia stared at the recum­bent man, saw him struggle with anger, resent­ment, and other emotions, then saw amusement conquer all as he laughed and waved away the assistance offered by the man whose suitcase had tripped him. Shoving April’s luggage off him, he regained his feet with lithe grace.  A cleaner, as if summoned by magic, appeared with a bucket and a mop.

“I’m sorry, Sylvia. I’m sorry,” April said, her head hanging as she shivered with reaction. “I tried not to get sick, but I felt really bad in my tummy, and when I told Mr. Lind, he said I’d be fine if I just breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth, nice and steady, and kept on walking.”

“It works for me when I feel airsick,” Eric ex­plained, haphazardly replacing the suitcases in the cart.

Sylvia stared at him, incredulous. “You’re in the air force, for heaven’s sake! You can’t get airsick.”

“Unless I’m at the controls, I do. You think putting on a uniform is some kind of magic cure?”

“You think breathing out through your mouth is?”

“As I said, it works for me.” Then, with a half-­shrug and another charmingly self-conscious grin, he added, “Most of the time.”

“It didn’t work for me.” April sniffled, impervious to his charm. From the shelter of Sylvia’s encir­cling arm, she looked miserably at Eric’s splattered shoes. “Please don’t be mad at me, Mr. Lind. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Honey, I’m not mad at you.”

“You said bad words.”

He looked apologetic. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. I was . . . startled. I know you couldn’t help it. I would have preferred you to run to a rest room rather than to Sylvia, but . . . any port in a storm, I guess.”

Yup. He looked into Sylvia’s calm, light brown eyes, and he knew that if he were caught in a storm, he might seek a port like her. As if sensing the direction his thoughts were taking, she looked down quickly, and he was surprised to see a gentle flush rise up on her cheeks. Now what, he wondered, brought that on? Surely the woman couldn’t really read minds.

Sylvia’s breath caught in response to something in Eric Lind’s gaze. Honestly, there had to be something wrong with her head, the way she responded so swiftly to a man like him. Grinding her teeth, she cursed the vivid imagination that wanted her to believe he had never looked at another woman in exactly the same way he was looking at her. She was crazy!

“Of course you couldn’t help it,” she said to the child, giving her a quick hug before propelling her toward the rest room. “Be right back,” she said to Eric, and over her shoulder saw him take out his wallet for a tip to give the cleaner. It looked like a big one, a fistful of cash. Good, she thought. Serves him right for rushing April out before she was ready to go.

She sighed as she tidied the little girl. She had to be fair and admit that what had happened was as much her fault as it was Eric Lind’s. She’d known April was too upset to make the transition easily. She should have accepted the man’s offer of lunch to give April more time to get to know him, but she’d wanted to flee as fast as possible, before she went into any more tailspins looking into Eric Lind’s incredible eyes.

Why does he have to be so damned nice? She wondered. Why is the man so totally attractive when it’s all sham? No, that wasn’t fair either. His charm was genuine, his attractiveness real, and if he chose to spread it around the world, offering it to all comers, it didn’t mean the charm was less real—only that it was less . . . valuable.

Her main concern was April McGee. not herself and her own suddenly jagged and confused feel­ings about Eric Lind, so there was no need for her to run away in a panic just because she was attracted to him. All she needed to do was remem­ber that he wore his winning ways as he did his uniform—as a way of life—and that both of those factors put him off limits to her.

She’d signed a contract with April’s grand­mother to turn the child over to a loving uncle, and if she turned her over to someone else, especially when the child didn’t want to go, she’d be in dereliction of duty.

With her decision made, she marched April out of the ladies’ room, but at the sight of Eric Lind’s carved-in-stone chin, and her foolish response to what his blue eyes did to her insides, not to mention a couple of her very sensitive outsides, she nearly changed her mind again, hoping her nipples in full flare didn’t show through her sweater. She concentrated on April’s small, trusting hand gripping hers tightly and tilted her head up high to meet his gaze. He was tall, but so was she, and with the heels of her shoes affording her an extra few inches, their eyes were almost on a level. So, she noted, were their mouths, but squelched the thought even as it formed.

She might find that hard-looking, chiseled male mouth fascinating, she might wonder what it would feel like on hers, but she would never know, so it was better not to let herself get caught up in any erotic daydreaming. Instead, she had to focus on the matter at hand, and battle it out with him if need be.

“I’m going with you,” she said without preamble, and watched him take a quick step back, paling as if she’d jammed rigid fingers into his solar plexus.