"I need a sky hook."
"Come again."
Pitt could almost imagine the mouth as it clamped another notch on the cigar. "A sky hook. I've got to have a delivery by tomorrow noon."
"What in hell for?"
Pitt took a breath and told him.
Villon eased the executive jet to the left of an afternoon cumulus cloud, the control yoke barely moving beneath his hands. Through the copilot's window, Danielle watched a carpet of Canadian pines glide past below.
"It's all so beautiful," she said.
"You miss the scenery in an airliner," Villon replied. "They fly too high for you to enjoy any detail."
She was in a deep shade of blue, a snug sweater and cotton knit skirt that circled around her knees.
&n
bsp; There was a sort of savvy look about her that could never quite overcome the feminine warmth that flowed under the surface.
"Your new plane is beautiful too."
"A gift from my well-heeled supporters. The title isn't in my name, of course, but no one touches it but me.
They sat in silence for a few minutes as Villon held the jet on a steady course over the heart of Laurentides Park. Blue lakes began to appear all around them like tiny diamonds in an emerald setting.
They could easily make out small boats with fishermen casting for speckled trout.
Finally Danielle said, "I'm happy you invited me. It's been a long time."
"Only a couple of weeks," he said without looking at her. "I've been busy campaigning."
"I thought perhaps . . . perhaps you didn't want to see me anymore.
"Whatever gave you that idea?"
"The last time at the cottage."
"What about it?" he asked innocently. "You weren't exactly cordial."
He tilted his head lightly, trying to recall. Nothing materialized and he shrugged, writing it off to womanly touchiness. "Sorry, I must have had a lot on my mind."
He set the plane on a wide sweeping bank and dropped in the autopilot. Then he smiled. "Come on, I'll make it up to you."
He took her hand and led her from the cockpit.
The passenger cabin stretched twenty feet to the lavatory. There were four seats and a sofa, a thick carpeted floor, a fully stocked wet bar and dining table. He opened a door into a private sleeping compartment and bowed toward a queen-sized bed.
"The perfect love nest," he said. "Intimate, secluded and far from prying eyes."
The sunshine poured through the windows and spread over the bedsheets. Danielle sat up as Villon padded from the passenger cabin and passed her a drink. "Isn't there a law against this sort of thing?" she asked. "Sex at five thousand feet?"
"No," she said between sips of a Bloody Mary. "Letting an airplane fly around in circles for two hours without anybody in the cockpit."
"You going to turn me in?"
She stretched back seductively on the bed. "I can see the headlines now:NEW PRESIDENT OF