“You don’t have a plan,” Amalie declared. “What you’ve got is a crazy, dangerous scheme. So many things could go wrong. You and Luther Pell are out of your minds. You’ll both get killed.”
She and Matthias were in the front seat of the Packard. The sleek car was parked in the otherwise empty lot above a secluded beach. The top was down, the evening was balmy, and there was a nearly full moon. It was a setting that would have been perfect for a romantic movie, she thought, maybe one featuring Cary Grant. But Matthias had just described a scene from a film that sounded as if it had been written for Cagney, or maybe Edward G. Robinson, one that involved a ruthless and desperate gangster armed with a lot of guns.
“Just to be clear,” Matthias said, “Luther and me getting killed isn’t part of the plan.”
“Wow. I’m really happy to hear that, of course. Tell me, what makes you think that Smith will fall for this scheme you and Luther have concocted?”
“There is every reason to believe that Smith is a desperate man.”
“You don’t know that.” Amalie spread her hands apart. “You don’t even know who he is.”
“We don’t know his identity, but we know a lot about him,” Matthias said. “It’s a little like understanding how a cipher machine is wired. Once you figure it out, you’ve got a shot at deciphering a message that is encrypted by the device.”
“And if you’re wrong?” Amalie asked quietly.
“If we’re wrong, Smith won’t take the bait,” Matthias said. “He’ll disappear again.”
Amalie contemplated the moonlit ocean. “You think he’ll take the bait, don’t you?”
“If Luther is right about him, he won’t be able to resist,” Matthias said.
“Desperate men are very dangerous. Also unpredictable.”
“I feel like a walk on the beach. How about you?”
She did not want to let him out of her sight, not until she knew he was safe, and maybe not then, either. The more she thought about it the more certain she was that she wanted him close for as long as she could hold on to him.
“A walk sounds good,” she said.
He got out from behind the wheel, went to the back of the car, and opened the trunk. When he came around to her side of the vehicle to open her door, she saw that he had a blanket tucked under one arm.
“I thought we were going to walk,” she said, indicating the blanket.
“This is just in case we find ourselves exhausted by the hike.”
“Must be the engineer in you,” she said, slipping out of the seat.
His fingers closed firmly around her hand. “We are trained to plan ahead for all possible eventualities.”
They walked across the sand to the water’s edge. There they turned and made their way toward the rocky outcropping at the far end of the beach. The soft breeze stirred Amalie’s hair and played with the hem of her trousers. She did not want to talk about the past. The present, with its dangerous scheme to draw Smith out of hiding, had already been discussed. That left the most uncertain topic of all—the future.
“When this situation involving the missing cipher machine is over, will you continue to do consulting work for Luther Pell’s company?” she asked.
“My parents, especially my mother, are pushing me to go home to Seattle and join the family firm.”
“You really don’t want to do that, do you?”
“The thing about my consulting work is that when I’m in the field I am my own boss. I make my own decisions. All Luther cares about is results. If I take the position at my family’s firm, it will be different. I won’t be able to use my talent the way I do now.”
“So you’ll continue taking assignments from Luther?”
“I like the kind of work I do for Luther but I’m tired of being on the road all the time. I’ve spent the past few years living out of suitcases and sleeping in hotel rooms. Some of those hotels were very nice but none of them feels like a home.”
“I spent most of my life on the road, too. I bunked in train cars, not in nice hotels, but it was fine. It was a life that allowed me to fly. I had friends and a family. It wasn’t until I bought the villa and turned it into an inn that I finally discovered what it was like to have a real home. Somewhere along the way I’ve come to realize that even if I could fly again I wouldn’t go back to the circus life. Burning Cove is where I want to be.”
“I love my Dad and I respect him, but it would not be a good idea for me to go to work for him,” Matthias said. “I think he knows that as well as I do. Pretty sure Mom knows it isn’t a good plan, too, but, well, she’s my mom.”
“Does she know that the consulting work you do is sometimes dangerous?”
“She knows and she understands but it makes her nervous. She’s more concerned about my talent, though. She’s afraid that it has made it impossible for me to ever find someone I can really trust, someone I can love. Someone with whom I can have a family. She’s afraid I’ll become a paranoid recluse.”
“Does she have a particular reason for believing that might happen?”
“She thinks that the tendency may be in the bloodline and that it’s directly linked to the lie-detecting talent.”
“What do you mean?”
“My great-grandfather had the gift, they say. Family legend has it that it drove him mad. He took his own life. But he was a chemist. I looked into the old records and I think it’s more likely that he died when he accidentally poisoned himself in the course of a lab experiment. It’s Uncle Jake who really worries Mom. He also has a talent like mine. He always lived alone and he always drank too much, but things got worse when he came home from the Great War. He told me that he can only ignore the lies when he’s drunk. Mom won’t say it out loud but I know she’s afraid that one of these days he’ll take his own life.”
“She blames the lie-detecting talent for your great-grandfather’s and your uncle’s problems?”
“Yes.”
Amalie thought about that for a while.
“For what it’s worth I don’t think you’re in danger of going down your uncle’s or your great-grandfather’s path,” she said.
Matthias tightened his grip on her hand. “Why not?”
“For one thing, if you were headed in that direction I think you would have shown signs of severe depression and paranoia by now. It looks to me like you control your talent. It doesn’t control you.”
Matthias came to an abrupt halt, forcing her to stop, too. He turned her so that she faced him in the moonlight. His eyes were bottomless pools of dark energy.
“That’s how it feels to me,” he said. “But Uncle Jake and the stories about my great-grandfather have scared the hell out of my mother.”
“Understandable.”
“What makes you so sure you’re right about me?”
She smiled. “Flyer’s intuition.”
He caught her chin on the edge of his hand. “I told you, in my family, we take intuition seriously.”
“So, what would you do if you decided to settle down?” she asked.
“Promise you won’t think it’s crazy?”
“Dreams are never crazy. Impractical, sometimes. But not crazy.”
“I’ve been thinking of starting my own research and development company. I’d like to focus on communications devices. I think there’s a future in that line.”
She smiled at the enthusiasm and excitement in his voice.
“Matthias, that’s a wonderful plan,” she said. “Are you going to follow through and open your own engineering firm?”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea?”
“I love the idea. Are you hesitating because you’re afraid of disappointing your parents?”
“No, they’ll understand. The real problem is that my plan might not work. Starting up a new company is always risky. But in these uncertain times, it’s even more of a gamble.”
“You could spend your entire life waiting on certainty. The world is always an uncertain place. You should follow your dream, Matthias. Open that research and development company and see where it takes you.”
“And if it takes me off a financial cliff?”
“You’re an engineer.” Amalie smiled. “You’ll figure out how to build a ladder and climb back up to the top of the cliff.”
Matthias cradled her face between his palms. “That’s what you did, isn’t it? You rebuilt your life after that bastard Harding tried to kill you and the circus went out of business.”
“It’s what people like us do.”
He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close.
“You’re right,” he said against her mouth. “It’s what people like us do.”
The kiss set her senses on fire. She was intensely aware of everything around her. Fiercely alive. Thrilled. She was flying.
He released her for a moment to unfold the blanket and spread it out on the sand. When the makeshift bed was ready, he bent down long enough to unlace his shoes.
Barefoot, he looked at her from the opposite side of the blanket.
She stepped out of her own shoes and walked to the center of the blanket. He met her there. They fell to their knees and reached for each other.
By the time the scorching embrace ended she was on her back and naked except for the frilly panties. Her clothes were in a careless heap at one corner of the blanket. Matthias’s trousers and shirt were in the same pile.
And then his lips were on her throat and his hands were moving slowly—too slowly—over her breasts and down to her thighs. When his fingers slipped under the edge of the wide-legged panties, she almost lost her breath.
“Matthias.”
It was all she could say.
He cupped her and whispered something dark and sensual when he discovered how wet she was. Everything deep inside her was now so tightly wound that she wanted to scream with frustration but she could barely catch her breath.
She seized the hard, rigid length of him.
“Yes,” he pleaded, his voice a harsh rasp. “Yes.”
She tightened her fingers around him and began to move her hand in a pumping action that left him damp with sweat. She thrilled to the knowledge that he was controlling himself because he wanted to please her. She stroked him with still more force.
He sucked in his breath, settled onto his back, and hauled her astride his thighs. She lowered herself carefully onto his thick length.
He thrust upward, filling her completely. The size and urgency of his erection was too much. She came undone in a shivering, shuddering release that seemed endless.
He followed her into the deep. His climax stormed through her, igniting aftershocks.
They fell into each other.
And they caught each other.