IANA HAD TO CHANGE PLANES IN AUSTIN AND AGAIN IN San Larosa. She wasn't naïve enough to expect the flight from San Larosa to Ridgewood Field near Kingdom City to be aboard a 747, but neither had she anticipated that she would have to hike a half mile in high heels across the tarmac to board a miniature plane that she might have thought was "cute" if it had a solid coat of paint in one color and jet engines instead of old-fashioned propellers.

The closer she got, the smaller the Texan Airline plane looked. She picked up her pace to a near run, trying to keep up with the baggage handler, who had also taken her ticket and checked her in at the gate.

Evidently, the young man noticed the rapid clicking of her high heels, because he stopped and turned. "Right this way, Miss Foster—or is it Mrs. Harrison?" he said with a grin. "I saw you and your husband on the news."

Diana's attention was riveted on the small dilapidated aircraft she was expected to board. "Is that fit to fly?"

"I trust it," he said with a smile.

"Yes, but would you fly in it?"

"I do it all the time."

The interior of the plane was shabby and dirty. Her seat tipped from side to side when she sat in it, so she felt around on the floor, located both ends of the seat belt and buckled it snugly in place, using it to anchor herself and the wobbly seat to the floor of the plane. The ticket agent-baggage attendant winked at her as he bent in half and squeezed into the cockpit; then he slid a pair of aviator sunglasses onto his nose, and assumed a new role. Pilot.

The plane lumbered down the runway, bumping and clanking, engines straining, swaying from left to right with enough force to jar Diana's seat partially loose from its seat belt mooring; then at the last moment the plane heaved itself into the air with an audible groan and began straining toward the sun.

Satisfied that having made it up, the old plane could make it down, she opened the envelope to look over the instructions to Cal's ranch. Unfortunately she made the mistake of glancing into the cockpit just as the pilot raised his hand to shade his eyes and he began scanning the horizon. Right to left. Left to right. No radar.

Diana could not believe it! Gripping the sides of her little seat, she watched the pilot's head make its slow, constant swivel, and without realizing it, she began to help him. Leaning forward, she peered out through the tiny windshield, compulsively scanning the horizon with her heart in her mouth… left to right… right to left… left to right.

An hour later the aircraft slammed onto the landing strip at Ridgewood Field and galloped to the terminal. The pilot smiled at her as he unbuckled his seat belt, opened the plane's door, and put down the steps. Then he turned to offer her a hand. "Did you enjoy your flight?" he asked.

Diana stepped onto hot solid pavement and drew her first easy breath of the past hour. "If you're taking up a collection for radar, I'd like to contribute," she said wryly. He laughed and nodded over his shoulder. At the end of the airstrip, surrounded by an assortment of small planes, Cole's jet gleamed in the sun, a sultan among peasants.

"After you've flown in that, everything else is a letdown. Is your husband going to pick you up?" he added.

"I have to call him first."

Inside, the little metal terminal building was hot and stuffy. Across from a desk with a Car Rental sign on it was a vending machine. A woman in a waitress uniform whose name tag said "Roberta" was chatting with two elderly men who were drinking coffee from paper cups at a small lunch counter. On the opposite wall between two restrooms was a pay phone.

After twenty minutes of busy signals, Diana had the operator check the line and was informed there was no one on the line. Diana assumed Cole's uncle's phone was out of order and decided to rent a car.

"I'm sorry, miss," Roberta said, looking as if she truly was, "but we only have two rental cars. The one with the bad muffler was rented this morning by a drilling company man who came in on that red plane. The car with the bad tires got wrecked last week and it's being fixed."

"In that case, where can I find a taxi?"

That brought a guffaw from one of the elderly men at the lunch counter. "Girlie, this ain't St. Louis, Missouri, nor even San Angelo. We ain't got no taxicabs standin' around here."

Diana was frustrated but undeterred. "When's the next bus into Kingdom City?"

"Tomorrow morning."

She decided to appeal to the gallantry of the male native Texan. "I'm here to meet my husband. We were married last weekend, and this is our honeymoon."

A honeymoon touched a responsive chord in Roberta's heart. "Ernest," she pleaded, "you could take the lady to Kingdom City, couldn't you? It's only a few minutes out of your way. Do it and I'll give you free coffee every time you come by for the next two weeks!"

The man named Ernest chewed thoughtfully on his toothpick and then nodded. "Make it three weeks and you got yourself a deal, Bobbie."

"Okay, three weeks."

"Let's go then," said Ernest, shifting off a stool at the counter and sauntering toward the front door.

"Thank you very much," Diana said, relieved. She held out her hand to the man. "My name is Diana Foster." He gave her outstretched hand a quick shake and introduced himself as Ernest Taylor. His gallantry clearly didn't extend to suitcases, because he glanced over his shoulder at her luggage and said, "I'll meet you at the curb so you don't have to lug them things out to the parking lot."

"That's very kind of you," Diana said with concealed sarcasm as she turned to get the first of the three cases. She'd nearly completed her third and final trip when she shoved the hair out of her eyes and saw the vehicle that was going to take her into town, and if she hadn't been so tired and frustrated, she'd have sat down on the nearest piece of Louis Vuitton luggage and laughed till she cried. Gliding up to the curb was a dusty dark blue pickup truck with a Ronald Reagan bumper sticker and a mountain of oil drums, fishing gear, toolboxes, and cable piled in the bed. "The latch on the tailgate is broke. Just hoist them suitcases over the top of it into the back," Ernest suggested from the corner of his mouth that wasn't clamped on the toothpick.

Diana knew there was no way she could lift the heavy luggage over the tailgate, into the back of the truck. "I wonder if you could possibly give me a hand?" she asked.

Ernest opened his door, but stopped with one booted foot on the ground. "You thinking of giving me something for my trouble?" he asked. "Like five bucks, maybe?"

She'd intended to give him twenty dollars for the ride, but she was no longer feeling quite so charitable. "Fine."

Ernest swung down from the truck and proceeded to toss five thousand dollars' worth of Louis Vuitton luggage on top of dirty toolboxes and filthy rags, but when he aimed the third piece for the oil drums, Diana's voice burst out in a desperate cry. "Could you handle that a little more carefully? Those suitcases are very expensive."

"What, this thing?" he said with a disdainful expression as he held the suitcase at arm's length as if it were weightless. "Can't see why. Looks to me like it ain't nothing but canvas with a plastic coating on it—"

Knowing it would be futile to try to debate this point with a man who willingly drove such a filthy vehicle, Diana chose not to comment. Unfortunately, Ernest misconstrued her speechlessness as sudden recognition of the truth, which drove him to press his point. "Nasty-lookin' color combination—brown with kinda greenish tan letters all over it saying 'LV.' " That said, he tossed the last case onto the oil cans, then slid behind the steering wheel and waited, watching Diana clear a stack of road maps, fishing tackle, and a can of WD-40 off her seat. "'LV,'" he pointed out, "ain't even a word."

Since he seemed unwilling to put the truck into gear until she said something, Diana reluctantly replied, "They are initials."

"Secondhand stuff, huh?" he concluded sagely as the truck's gears cranked and they headed down the short gravel driveway toward the highway. "You know how I figured that out?"

Diana's mood went from mild irritation to mirth. "No, how did you guess?"

"'Cause your initials ain't LV. Right?"

"Right."

"Who'd that ugly stuff belong to before it got foisted off on you?"

"Louis Vuitton," Diana said straight-faced.

"No kidding?"

"No kidding."

He slammed the brake pedal to the floor along with the pedal beside it and shifted gears at the stop sign. "He a boyfriend of yours?"

Perhaps it was the exhilarating effect of the mountains and Cole's nearness, but Diana suddenly felt in complete charity with everything. "No, he's not."

"Sure glad to hear it."

She turned her head and gazed in fascination at Ernest's profile. He had skin the color and texture of dried leather, brown eyes, hollow cheeks, and a toothpick hanging out of the side of his mouth. "Really, why are you glad?"

" 'Cause there ain't no red-blooded American male alive who'd be caught dead carrying suitcases with his initials pasted all over them, and that's a fact."

Diana tried to remember details about the men she'd seen in the Louis Vuitton store making purchases for themselves. After a moment she stifled a smile and nodded. "You're right."