[Harlequin] - K N Casper - A Man Called Jesse (txt), Ksiazki, txt, ebook, pdf

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A man called JessebyK.N.CasperHARLEQUINMakes any time specialISBN 0-373-70806-8"I grew up here, Miss Carr."Now your father and his partner want to destroy Santa Marta, level it,so they can turn it into paradise by the river, one of their exclusivedevelopments.Expensive homes for extravagant people."Nobody worried about people living at the bend of the river when itflooded every time it rained all those years ago. Nobody gave a secondthought to Santa Marta then. But now that the river's been dammed,Santa Marta has suddenly become prime real estate."Well, it just so happens I have my own plans for Santa Marta. Hans tobuild it up, not tear it down.Plans to improve conditions for the people who live here, notdispossess them."Tori rose abruptly."My father, Mr. Amorado, is not insensitive to other people'sproblems. I'm sorry you had a rough childhood. It seems to have lefta chip on your shoulder the size of Coyote Mesa."She turned to the doorway. He might think he'd won the first skirmish,but the battle wasn't over, not by a long shot.Dear Reader, Have you ever gone back to a favorite place---like thestreet where you grew up or the first house you bought after get lingmarried--and found it completely changed? Maybe some of the buildingswere still there, but somehow it all looked different.A few years ago we took our young granddaughter to see the Christmaslights here in our dry. There was one house in a certain part of townthat had become so popular that the city included it on their nightlybus tour of holiday spectacles.Kiki's joy and wide-eyed wonder melted my heart as we wandered througha magical wonderland set up on am oversized corner lot. Some of thefigures were "store boughten," but there was nothing commercial aboutany of it. The spectacle was an elaborate labor of love, one proudfamily's generous gift to the community.It got me thinking about the difference between a neighborhood and adevelopment. What if this neighborhood's very existence werethreatened? Who would be affected? How would they react? Wouldanyone be willing to do something about it?Coyote Springs is fictitious, as is the Santa Marta district I portrayin this story. But I suspect all of us have been to a place like it atone lime or another. It's the place we call home----If only in ourhearts.KN.. CasperA MAN CALLED JESSEK.N. casperHARLEINTORONTO ', NEW YORK LONDONAMSTERDAM * PARIS SYDNEY HAMBURGSTOCKHOLM ATHENS TOKYO MILAN MADRIDPRAGUE " WARSAW BUDAPEST AUCKLANDIf you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware thatthis book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold anddestroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisherhas received any payment for this "stripped book."ISBN 0-373-70806-8A MAN CALLED JESSECopyright 1998 by K. Casper.All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction orutilization of this work In whole or in part in any form by anyelectronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any informationstorage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the writtenpermission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Umited, 225 DuncanMill Road,Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.All characters in this book have no existence outside the imaginationof the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing thesame name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by anyindividual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pureinvention.This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.and TM am trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks Indicated with areregistered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, theCanadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.Printed In U.S.A.To goz, Jan and Connie,who got me started and wouldn't let me stop.And to Mary, who inspired me all along the way.CHAPTER ONETori Car FLEW DUE WEST. The last leg of her journey home.She clicked on her microphone."Coyote tower.Twin Cessna, Romeo-Romeo-three-three-eight, ten miles east forlanding."A momentary pause, then a crackling response. She adjusted heraltimeter and checked her heading indicator.Without warning a violent lurch flipped her hard over to the left. Asshe glimpsed a T-38 military trainer jetting out from under her, Torigrabbed the control yoke with both hands and centered the wheel. Herright leg stiffened on the rudder to overcome the spin while her handsrammed the yoke sharply forward. Then came the hollow-stomachsensation of careening headlong into a nosedive. With calculatedslowness, she pulled back on the yoke. The plane shudderedviolently.Her heart pounded. Her blood raced. Her ears buzzed from the engines'keening roar.The rate of descent slowed.She finally leveled off at a thousand feet, got her air speed undercontrol. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck. She held extrapressure on the right redder and adjusted the trim tab. Forcing a deepbreath, she looked through the side window to assess the damage.Jagged metal glittered like tinsel in the sunlight. The right wingfairing was clipped. Bad? Certainly. But manageable.The Cessna regained three thousand feet."Situation under control," she told herself.Then black smoke began rib boning from the amputated wing tip. Theimpact of the midair collision must have ruptured a fuel line.Fire!"Mayday, Mayday," she called on the radio."This is twin Cessna three-three-eight. Mayday, Mayday.Right wing tip on fire. Repeat. I am on fire. Mayday, Mayday."Tori clawed the yoke with one hand and reached with the other to turnoff the fuel-boost pump to engine number two. She feathered thepropeller, watched it stop. She'd practiced single-engine emergenciesbefore.Plenty of times. She could do it. She had to.Her fingers were steady as she adjusted the trim tab to maintain levelflight of the crippled aircraft. The fire continued to burn.There was a maneuver... It was a gamble, but one she had to take.Flight boots glued to the rudder pedals, she forced the plane into aslip to the left. Left wing down. Full right rudder. Gloved handsclamped in a death grip on the controls, she rammed the yoke forwardinto another deliberate nosedive. Her shoulders knotted as the Cessnascreamed and fell from the sky, leaving her stomach behind once more.Again the rusty brown earth zoomed toward her as the wind tore at theflames."Go out, damn it. Go out!"The savage land reached out to her like a magnet.Fifteen hundred feet."I didn't resign my air force commission to die in this little Cessna,"she muttered to herself as the altimeter needle twirledcounterclockwise.A thousand feet.Again the plane convulsed in bone-rattling tremors.She wasn't just tempting fate--she was daring it.Five hundred feet.At the last possible moment, the flames guttered out.Only the adrenaline of pure terror and relief gave her the superhumanstrength to ease back on the yoke. G-forces plastered her to the seatas the aircraft swooped over a stand of pecan trees and began itsupward swing above the cheated earth.She surveyed the situation. The fire was out. Perspiration pooledbetween her breasts.Clicking the mike button below her right thumb, she forced herself tospeak calmly."Mayday, Mayday.Coyote tower. This is twin Cessna three-three-eight. I have anin-flight emergency. Request immediate landing instructions. Mayday,Mayday.""Twin Cessna three-three-eight. You are cleared to land at yourdiscretion. Runway one-eight. Emergency crew standing by.""Roger, tower. Going for runway one-eight."She heard the tower advising all other aircraft in the area to clearthe pattern. She wasn't home safe yet. Her life depended on keepingthe plane straight and level in the glide path. The landing, less thana minute later, was a little rough, but with no more ballooning thanshe'd seen other pilots perform under much better conditions.It wasn't until she'd come to a halt in the middle of the runway thather limbs began to tremble, all strength spent. Even lifting her handto fumble with the last power switch demanded extraordinaryconcentration.Emergency vehicles were already surrounding her.She yanked off her headset and moved quickly to the back of thefour-passenger compartment. A wall of hot, dry Texas air assailed herwhen she opened the door.The searing stench of raw aviation fuel invaded her nostrils.Impulsively she ran her fingers through her short blond hair andskittered down the ladder like steps into the brilliant summer sun.She was home.Tori dashed on rubbery legs as far as possible from the plane whilecrash vehicles disgorged their crews.A foam truck stood by ready to douse the wing, or the whole craft, ifnecessary. Only heat waves radiated from the scorched metal.A canvas-topped Jeep pulled up to within a few feet of her. A man,probably in his sixties, with parched, sun-wrinkled brown skin, smiledreassuringly at her."You must be Tori Calx. Name's Sam. Sam Hargis."He tipped his soiled baseball cap, which said Hargis Aviation. She'darranged to moor her plane on his pad."That was some flying you just did, lady. I haven't seen aerobaticslike that since my daddy took me to see some barnstorming at a countyfair." Fumbling in a cooler behind his seat, he extract... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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