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“Now you sound like your— Galen. Why?”
“Maybe I’m more like him than you know,” he said. “More like him than anyone knows.”
She laughed. It wasn’t a sarcastic giggle, but a genuinely tickled sound. He had to bite his teeth together to combat just how thoroughly it affected him.
“As I said, Forrest, you can run, but you can’t hide. Not from me.”
Afraid she might see through his facade, Forrest rose to his feet. If anyone could see through him, it would be Twyla. “What are you doing here?”
She’d moved to the wall where he’d hung several pictures. “You know Babe Ruth?” she asked, a bit in awe.
“I gave him a ride in my airplane a couple of years ago.”
“So you know him,” she persisted.
“Sort of, I guess.” He kept his distance. His lips had started twitching and his heart thudded as he remembered how it had felt kissing her back at the hangar. “Why? Actually, how do you know that’s Babe Ruth?”
“Everyone knows who Babe Ruth is.” She took a couple steps before pausing to gaze out the window.
Across the street from the parking lot was the city park. About the same time the council had put the noise ordinance and curfew law into effect, they’d turned the lot where an old hotel had once stood into a park, including ball fields.
“Look out there,” she said, “at those kids playing ball. I bet every one of them knows who Babe Ruth is, and they probably dream of meeting him.”
“Could be,” he said, not overly interested in the kids or Babe Ruth. Her silhouette was caught in the sunlight and even when he closed his eyes, he could see the breathtaking and shimmering outline of her curves. Disgusted by how easily he could be distracted, Forrest marched to his desk. “I have work to do, Twyla.”
She spun around. “Tell me about your airmail contract.”
“Who told you about that, and about Galen’s release? Your father?” Forrest had been home little more than an hour, and assumed he’d been the topic of conversation back at the resort. Still, things must have changed out there. He’d have expected Roger to be a bit more tight-lipped.
“My father mentioned your contract while telling me I couldn’t go flying with you again for the next five days,” she said. “But Norma Rose told me about Galen’s release.”
His mind snagged on one thing. “For the next five days?”
She nodded. “He’s going to Chicago in the morning, to get Ginger, and said I couldn’t go flying with you again until he returns home. He also said he’d like to go up in your plane someday. I told him how magnificent it was.”
“You did? He did?” Forrest shook his head, trying to find a lick of sense, or perhaps shake aside how adorable she looked when her eyes lit up as she spoke about flying.
“Yes, I did, and yes, he did.” Twyla continued her little jaunt around his office and ended up near the couch, where she gracefully lowered herself onto the cushions.
He’d found the sofa in one of the boarded-off rooms upstairs, and because it looked relatively new, he’d wondered why no one had taken it—other than the fact it was cumbersome and a rather eye-stinging shade of lime-green. However, right now, next to Twyla’s white-and-yellow dress and faded red hair, the couch didn’t look nearly as bad.
“So,” she said, looking up at him earnestly, “what are we going to do about Galen?”
Forrest crossed the room to his desk and leaned against the edge. Seeing her look up at him with such trust and expectancy stirred a powerful protectiveness inside him. “We are not going to do anything,” he said. “You are going to go back home where you belong.”
She grinned coyly.
“Immediately,” he added.
She glanced around the room, and Forrest wished he knew what was happening inside that adorable head of hers. Her thoughts included him, of that he had no doubt, and it only increased the reasons why he should send her back home.
“I like the changes you’ve made here.” She rose to her feet. “Will you show me the bowling alley? I’ve never seen one.”
Just as she was able to see through him, he could see through her. The bowling lanes were not her interest right now. However, if it got her out of here, he’d indulge her.
He gestured for her to precede him across the room, but neither of them had taken more than a step when the door opened.
Nasty Nick Ludwig strolled in the room, flipping a wooden bowling pin with one hand. “I see you built yourself a nice little playground for you and your friends,” Nick said, “but that’s what’s to be expected from a little rich boy.”
