The Fall of Shane MacKade Read Free Page A

picture, and I know she’d like to spend some time out there. But that’s totally up to you,” Regan said quickly. “You need to get to know her a little. She’s really a fascinating woman. Anyway, I wrote down her flight number and so forth.” Regan offered him a sheet of paper.
    â€œYou still haven’t told me what she looks like. I doubt she’s going to be the only woman off that flight from New York.”
    â€œRight. Brown hair, brown eyes. She used to wear it just sort of pulled back, or…hanging down. She’s about my height, thin—”
    â€œSkinny or slim? There’s a difference.”
    â€œI guess more on the skinny side. She may be wearing glasses. She uses them to read, but she used to forget to take them off and she’d end up running into things.”
    â€œA skinny, clumsy brunette with glasses. Got it.”
    â€œShe’s very attractive,” Regan added loyally. “In a unique way. And, Shane? She’s shy, so be nice.”
    â€œI’m always nice. To women.”
    â€œAll right, be good then. If you don’t spot her, you can have her paged. Dr. Rebecca Knight.”
    Â 
    Airports always entertained Shane. People were in just as much of a hurry, it seemed to him, to get where they were going as they were to get back from wherever they’dbeen. Everyone hit the ground running, loaded down with carry-ons. He wondered what it was about the places people chose to leave that didn’t appeal enough to keep them there.
    Not that he was against travel. He just figured he could get anywhere he really wanted to go by sitting behind the wheel of his pickup. That way, he was in charge of time and distance and speed.
    But it took all kinds.
    He also figured he could spot Regan’s college pal—since she was a woman, and he knew women. She’d be in her mid-twenties, about five foot five, skinny, brown hair, brown eyes, probably behind thick glasses. From Regan’s brief rundown, he didn’t imagine Rebecca Knight had a great deal of style, so he would look for a plain, intellectual type, with a briefcase and practical shoes.
    He loitered at the gate, eyeing a pair of flight attendants who were waiting for a change of crew. Now that, he mused, was a profession that drew pretty women. It almost made a man feel there’d be some advantage in being stuck in a flying tin can for a few hours.
    As passengers began to pour out of the gateway, he judiciously shifted his attention. Businessmen, looking harried, he noted. The suit-and-tie brigade. No amount of money could convince him that it would be worth wearing a suit for eight to ten hours a day. Nice-looking blonde in sleek red slacks. She gave him a quick, flirtatious smile as she passed, and Shane pleased himself by drawing in the cloud of scent she left behind.
    Pretty brunette with a long, ground-eating stride and big, wide gold eyes. They reminded him of the amber beads his mother had kept in her good jewelry box.
    Here came Grandma, with an enormous shopping bag and a huge, misty-eyed grin for the trio of children who raced up to hug her knees.
    Ah, there she is, Shane decided, spotting a slump-shouldered woman with brown hair scraped back in a frowsy knot. She carried an official-looking black briefcase and wore thick, laced shoes and square glasses. She blinked owlishly behind them, looking lost.
    â€œHey.” He gave her a quick, flashing smile, and a friendly wink that had her backing up three steps into a frazzled man lugging a bulging garment bag. “How’s it going?” He reached down to take her briefcase and had her myopic eyes going round with alarm. “I’m Shane. Regan sent me to fetch you. She had complications. So how was the flight?”
    â€œI—I—” The woman pulled her briefcase protectively against her thin chest. “I’ll call security.”
    â€œTake it easy, Becky. I’m just going to give you a