The Right Stuff

She turned on the radio, flipped through the stations, caught the refrain from a long-ago song and her fingers froze on the button.

“Unchained Melody.”

The song that had been playing at the sixties-themed campus mixer when she and Daniel had first laid eyes on each other.

Their song.

Not terribly original, she supposed. “Unchained Melody” was a lot of people’s song, but not among her peer group. The haunting tune jettisoned her back thirteen years.

In her mind’s eye, she saw Daniel the way he’d looked as a newly minted Air Force second lieutenant. Young, earnest and tender, but at the same time, he’d possessed a powerful, commanding presence. Daniel had been tall, muscular, built like a firefighter. Dark hair, startlingly blue eyes, broad shoulders, washboard abs. She wondered if he was still as fit and trim.

He hadn’t been at all like any of the other young men she’d dated: reckless, randy, cavorting, out for nothing but a good time. He’d been serious, dedicated, focused and principled. Little had she guessed that the qualities in him she admired the most would spell the end of their love affair.

When she was dreaming up ideas for her new resort, she’d asked herself what it was that she personally found sexy, and a full-on visual of Daniel—and the way he’d looked coming out of his military uniform—had gobsmacked her.

Military men were sexy. Doctors were sexy. Astronauts were sexy. Why not combine all three? Feature military doctors and the test pilots and the astronauts they cared for. Once that idea hit, she knew she had to do her research at Patrick Air Force base and the Kennedy Space Station at Cape Canaveral. Hence the call to her godfather, General Charles Miller, known to her as Uncle Chuck.

Taylor pushed a hand through her wind-tousled hair and took the freeway off ramp. She couldn’t stop herself from wondering about Daniel. Had he achieved his dream of becoming a doctor? Was he still in the military? Knowing his family and Daniel’s desire to follow in their traditional footsteps, she imagined that was the case.

The memories came flooding back and for a quick second her throat tightened as she thought of how she’d once loved him so desperately. She tasted the memory of their courtship, sweet and rich and intense. A vision of their second date flashed through her mind. He’d taken her to an upscale restaurant he could ill afford simply because he wanted to impress her.

Even now, the endearing gesture made her throat tighten.

The waiter had stashed them into a corner of the candlelit French restaurant. She’d found a small bouquet of red-and-white spider lilies on the linen-draped table, sweetening the air with an anise-scented prickle. He’d ordered for them both, choosing fennel-scented crab cake appetizers and filet mignon with duchess potatoes for the main meal.

Funny, she could still remember that meal and she couldn’t remember what she’d had for dinner the night before.

Their hands had brushed as they’d both reached for the bread basket filled with yeasty multi-grain rolls. He’d stared into her eyes, filling her with molten heat. That look had cinched the deal. She was hungry and for far more than food.

For dessert, they’d shared an oozy chocolate soufflé with Obuse wine, a wickedly delicious dessert port recommended by the wine steward. It was only then that she learned he rarely drank alcohol and he’d quickly gotten tipsy on chocolate and Obuse. She’d taken his keys, driven him back to his apartment and stayed the night.

Quickly, she batted the thoughts away. Not love, no. Just the ridiculous infatuation of a college girl.

She remembered how he’d kissed her that evening. Hard and passionate, full of yearning and desire. Daniel had kissed the way heroes kissed in the old movies her father loved. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh. Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr.

Movies from a bygone era had been her main connection to her father. At least in the early years, before his commuter airline—Milton Air—had grown to consume all his time. “I work so much because I love you so much,” he’d told her. “It’s all for you.” She supposed it was where she’d gotten her flair for the dramatic, her love of daydreams and fantasies.

“This was the golden age of filmmaking,” her father would tell her, when she was a little girl in pigtails. She’d snuggle up in his lap in the private screening room he’d built in their home back before such things were popular among people who could afford them. Her father’s valet, Mr. McGulicutty would thread the film projector, and Agnes, the cook would make buttered popcorn. “Casablanca was your mother’s favorite movie.”

Her mother had died giving birth to her at age fortytwo. Her father had been just shy of fifty. Bringing Taylor into the world had cost Lily Milton her life. But her father had never once made her feel as if she was to blame. Taylor, however, couldn’t escape the knowledge that by being born she’d caused her mother’s death.

“Why couldn’t Rick and Elsa be together, Daddy?” she always asked at the end of Casablanca. “They loved each other so much.”

“That’s exactly why they couldn’t be together,” he’d say. Then he would kiss the top of her head and get a faraway look in his eyes. “When you love that deeply, you’ll sacrifice for the other person’s happiness. Even if it means that you have to be unhappy. That’s real love, when you can let go of your loved ones so they can be what they need to be.”

It was only years later, after her father had died, that Taylor found her mother’s journal in his safedeposit box and learned that her father had never wanted her mother to get pregnant. Lillian Milton been a brittle diabetic and doctors had warned she might not survive a pregnancy. But her mother had wanted a baby so badly and her father had loved her mother so much, he’d agreed to let her try. And in the process of letting her be what she needed to be, he’d lost her forever.

“You always lose the one you love, Taylor,” her father used to say. “Never forget that. You lose them. One way or another. Always.”

Silly. Fanciful. Thinking about the past. Taylor blinked back the tears that had formed along her eyelashes.

Thankfully, she heard her cell phone ring, distracting her from the sad memories. She flipped it open. “Speak to me,” she said to her executive assistant Heather Rheiss.

“The Italian resort had another incident.”

“What now?” Her third destination fantasy resort in Venice, featuring “Make Love Like a Courtesan” and its masculine counterpart, “Make Love Like Casanova” had been the target of several disturbing occurrences.

First off, malfunctioning smoke alarms had allowed a fire in the laundry room to go undetected until it had done several thousand dollars’ worth of damage. It was suspicious, because the smoke alarms had just passed inspection the week before.

Then, after one of the scheduled banquet feasts, several resort guests contracted food poisoning and had to be sent to the hospital for treatment.

And finally, the thing that had drawn her to Venice to check things out for herself; a Renoir was stolen from the resort because the security system had been turned off. The police suspected an inside job. She’d fired the manager, hired someone new and stayed a week to show them the ropes. The police had no leads in the theft and she’d filed an insurance claim.

Taken one by one, all the incidents seemed unconnected, but together, Taylor was starting to see a pattern. Was someone trying to undermine her resorts? She was no stranger to controversy. Outspoken religious fundamentalists denigrated her resorts and condemned them as hedonistic and wicked. Kinky customers threatened to sue because they thought Eros Air should fulfill their illegal fantasies. Competitors were jealous of the way she’d taken stodgy Milton Airlines and given it a stunning new makeover in the form of Eros Air. It was all part of doing business in the tourism industry.

“The new manager you hired caught an undercover exposé reporter posing as a guest.”

Taylor groaned. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Don’t worry, it’s been handled. The manager confiscated the photos he’d taken and threw the reporter out on his ear. I just thought you should know.”

“Thanks, Heather. I appreciate the heads up.”

“No problem. Where are you now?”

“I’m almost at the air base. I’ll check in with you later.”

“I’ll be holding down the fort.”

Taylor closed her phone and followed the signs to the main entrance of the air base and stopped at the front gate.

“Name?” asked the security officer.

Pushing her designer sunglasses up higher on her nose with a freshly manicured fingernail, she gave him her most winsome smile. “Taylor Milton,” she said. “Colonel Grayson is expecting me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. “General Miller ordered an escort to be waiting for you.”

“How kind of him,” she said.

“Just follow that jeep.” The security officer nodded at the vehicle that waited on the other side of the gate with the engine chugging. “He’ll take you where you need to be.”

“Thank you so much.” She wriggled her fingers goodbye as the airman raised the gate arm to let her pass.

The jeep led her through the Air Force base, past rows of tidy, spick-and-span, no-frills structures. The military had been a perfect fit for Daniel. His personality matched service life—straightforward, precise, no tolerance for anything or anyone who did not toe the organizational line. No wonder their relationship had crashed and burned. She was complicated, freewheeling, a true maverick. It was those traits that had made her such a success in the cutthroat airline industry. She did not play follow the leader very well.

In fact, when she saw the lettering on the building where she knew she was expected, she blew around the jeep with a wave of her hand and a brilliant smile for the startled young staff sergeant behind the wheel.

“Ciao,” she called out to the solider on her way past, still in Venice mode. “I can find my way from here, thanks.”