Kiss the Moon by Carla Neggers Read Free Book Online

all of him with that one appraising look, no problem shifting from her troubled landing and her quarrel with her father to a Sinclair on the premises.
    “I drove up from New York this morning,” Wyatt said.
    “I see. Well, I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time, but I don’t have anything to tell you except that I screwed up. Low blood sugar, bad light, an overactive imagination.” She shrugged, matter of fact. “I didn’t find your uncle’s plane. I found an old dump. That’s all there is to it. Look, I have to see about my plane—”
    “ I’ll be seeing about your plane,” her father broke in. “You might as well have a cup of coffee with Wyatt here. You’re going to have three weeks to kill. And that’s just for starters. If I don’t like what I see in three weeks, you’ll have another three weeks to cool your heels.”
    “I don’t need a break. I need to fly more. ”
    “You don’t fly to get your head together. You fly when your head’s together.”
    She turned to Wyatt. “Never fly for your own father.”
    It was the wrong thing to say. Wyatt saw that immediately, even if Penelope didn’t. Her father swallowed his anger and allowed his natural stoicism to reassert itself. He said calmly, making it impossible to be misunderstood, “I am not acting as your father right now. I am acting as a responsible owner of six charter planes and a flight instructor for the last thirty years who has the right and the duty to ground an unfit pilot. And you, Penelope Chestnut, are unfit to fly.”
    “Fine,” she said without missing a beat, “then I’ll boil sap.”
    Wyatt would have throttled her right then and there.
    “Have coffee with Sinclair here,” Lyman said, teeth gritted, patience spent, and headed to the runway and his daughter’s plane.
    His departure left Penelope alone with a Sinclair, which made Wyatt wonder if his family’s reputation was as bad in Cold Spring as he’d been led to believe. Then again, Lyman Chestnut could simply believe a Sinclair would insist on talking with his daughter and best get it over with.
    With one hand, Penelope stuffed stray hair behind her ears, missing even more than she captured. She had a face that was all angles and straight lines—except her mouth, which was soft and full. Some color had returned to her cheeks, and she wore tiny silver hoops on her ears. Her green eyes narrowed on him. “I’m sorry you had to witness that little spat. Pop worries too much— I don’t know, maybe I should go easy on him. It’s been a crazy couple of days. Do you really want to go for coffee? I don’t have a thing to tell you.”
    No question in his mind she had a lot she could tell him—if she would. “I’d love some coffee.”
    She shrugged. “As you wish.”
    He made a move to go into the office, but she shook her head. “Not here. Aunt Mary’s into flavored coffees. I think today’s is raspberry. Blechh. My mother and cousin own an inn on the lake—they serve coffee and tea in the afternoon. And they make the best scones in New Hampshire, maybe all of New England. I think today’s are currant.”
    “Sounds fine.”
    “You’re not the investigator your father sent up here, are you? I had the impression it was someone he’d hired.”
    “That would be Jack Dunning. He’s supposed to arrive soon—he’s flying up from New York, scoping out the landscape. He has his own way of doing things.”
    “Does he know you’re here?”
    Wyatt shook his head.
    “Your father?”
    “No.”
    “Well, I guess you’re a big boy and can do what you want to do. Let’s go. We can take my truck.”
    So the truck was hers. Here was a woman who flew planes, drove a truck and was off to have tea and scones at a lakeside inn. Definitely not what he’d envisioned—never mind the wild, wavy blond hair, the green, green eyes, the tight, sexy body, the flight suit, the keen wit.
    She stopped abruptly in the middle of the parking lot, tilted her head at the sky and took a