With the formalities over, the group climbed the set of small metal stairs and boarded the aircraft. The plane only sat eight, with Harry and Agatha sitting up front, behind the pilot’s seat. Charlie and Ella took the next two seats, with Tyler directly behind Charlie. She felt his presence burn into her back. At the back of the plane sat the sound and camera men.
Was she really going to have to jump out of this plane with Tyler strapped to her back? What if she did something totally humiliating, like start to cry or even throw up? Oh, God, she’d never get over the mortification.
No, no, no. You’ll be fine, she reassured herself. Just close your eyes and imagine you’re somewhere else.
The pilot climbed in—a local man in his forties. He twisted around in his seat and smiled at his passengers. “Everybody ready?”
Charlie gave a nervous smile. “Sure.” The others made positive noises around her and they all clicked themselves into their seatbelts.
Though the plane was tiny and only a single engine, it started up with a roar that was almost deafening, the whole of the aircraft vibrating beneath her. The tang of diesel assaulted her nostrils. The plane began to move, taxiing into position on the runway. She experienced a rush of g-force as they built up speed. Then there was a moment of weightlessness, her stomach left behind, as they soared into the air.
Charlie dared to peer out of one of the small, porthole windows, and her stomach lurched again as she watched the city and surrounding countryside grow smaller and smaller. Cars like ants, the occasional skinny cow, small clusters of houses. They headed out to sea, the ocean stretched beneath them, the crystal blue marked with white horses and the occasional boat.
The roar of the engine lessened to a dull roar as they reached a cruising altitude and the plane leveled off.
Charlie realized her fists had been clenched, her nails pressing half ellipses into her palms. Her hands felt hot and sweaty and she surreptitiously tried to dry them off on her shorts.
“Are you okay, Miss Charleston?” The deep voice came from behind her right ear, close enough for his hot breath to warm her skin. She twisted in her seat to find Tyler staring at her.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you.” She risked a smile. “And it’s Charlie.”
He gave a curt nod. “You’ve gone pale.”
“It just never seems right that a tin can should be this high up in the air.”
“I’m here to take care of you,” he said, his words causing her breath to catch.
Her voice came out as a whisper, drowned out by the noise of the plane. “Thank you.”
She twisted back around in her seat to find Harry staring at her. “Are you ready to answer some questions before we get there?”
The camera and sound men jumped into action at his words, the fluffy sound buff appearing right above her head, the camera held up to catch both her and Ella.
She forced a smile. “Sure.”
Ella gave a winning smile at the camera and then looked back to Charlie. “Charlie Charleston, we’ve seen you on numerous red carpets, we’ve seen you out in the finest restaurants, and of course we’ve seen you partying in the best clubs, so how are you feeling about spending the next five days away from these luxuries?”
Charlie tried to answer as honestly as she could. “Pretty terrified, right now, Ella.”
The presenter gave a perfect laugh. “I’ll bet. And what do you think your biggest challenge will be?”
“Getting any sleep,” she replied, thinking about how badly she’d slept the night before considering she’d been in the most comfortable of beds. “I tend to suffer from insomnia as it is.”
“Oh, I can sympathize with that—”
Suddenly, the plane dropped a hundred feet. Screams and yells of surprise filled the small space, and Charlie let out a shriek of her own. Her stomach lurched, feeling like she’d left it behind, somewhere overhead.
“Nothing to worry about, everyone,” the pilot called back. “Just a little turbulence.”
Ella gave another winning smile, though Charlie noticed the other woman had gone pale beneath her layer of makeup. “So what’s your greatest fear about the next five days?” she continued, ever the professional.
“All the bugs,” Charlie admitted. “I hate pretty much anything that moves if it has either six or eight legs, so I’m probably going to spend the next five days shrieking and making a total fool out of myself.”
“I’m sure you won’t,” Ella said, though Charlie knew that was exactly what they were all hoping she would do. “Have you ever been in any survival situations before?”
Charlie laughed. “Oh, God, no. I’ve never even been camping.”
The plane dropped again, falling out of the sky for a split second before leveling off. The screams weren’t as loud as before, but everyone began to cast nervous glances at one another.
“Sorry, folks,” the pilot called over his shoulder. “I’m not sure what happened there. I think the engine—”
His words were cut off as the plane dropped again.
“Oh, shit!” The swear words escaped Charlie’s lips.
The pilot got on the radio. “Tower, this is Sentosa one-three-seven-seven declaring Pan-Pan-Pan. Requesting immediate return to airfield.” He listened to the response and then leaned back slightly toward his passengers. “This isn’t looking good, everyone,” he yelled. “I suggest you strap yourselves in. We might be in for a bumpy landing.”
Landing? Charlie risked a glance out of the window. The blue of the ocean spread beneath them. Only a couple of spots of green marked out the tiny islands in the distance. Where the hell is he planning to land?
The engine stuttered beneath them, becoming ominously quiet.
The plane started to plummet.
The small aircraft screeched through the air, throwing Charlie back in her seat with the g-force. The metal seats rattled in their casings, and anything not strapped down flew past her. Charlie screamed, her hands gripping the armrests as though they could save her.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” shouted the pilot into the radio.
The engine came back to life again, and the pilot pulled hard on the steering column, forcing the plane back up and ending its freefall. Charlie allowed herself to breathe, though her heart hammered in her chest.
But Tyler didn’t strap himself back in—instead he did just the opposite and unclipped his belt and stood, his huge bulk dwarfing the interior of the small aircraft.
“Tyler!” Harry’s voice came, stern and afraid. “What are you doing?”
“It’s my job to make sure Miss Charleston is safe.”
Charlie turned at his words. “What? What do you mean?”
“If this plane goes into a nose dive, it’ll plunge straight beneath the sea and drag us down with it. Now might be our only chance to get out.”
“What? Is this some kind of setup?” She stared around in horror at the frightened and panicked faces. Surely this wasn’t happening?
He leaned over her, unclipped her belt, and then grabbed her by the top of her arm and pulled her to her feet.
“No, wait!” Ella cried. “What about the rest of us?”
“I’m sorry, but my job is Miss Charleston.”
He pulled her against him, her back pressed into his chest. With several deft movements, he pulled straps over her shoulders, and between her thighs, not even giving her the chance to consider being embarrassed at the proximity of his hands to that particular area.
Tyler struggled forward, forcing Charlie to move with him. He reached the exit, ignoring the shouts of ‘wait’ and ‘what are you doing’ from the others.
The plane wasn’t pressurized, so he could open the door. He wrenched the emergency lock, sliding the door back. She gulped, wanting to cry. Then the engine cut again and she screamed, almost falling. But his strong arms wrapped around her from behind, holding her close, and the engine thrummed back to life again.
“No, no! I can’t do this!” she cried. Her
voice was snatched away by the air ripping past them.
“We have to. If we don’t go now, we’ll be too low and I won’t have time to open the parachute.”
He was right. They were already distinctly lower in the sky than they had been.
She managed to glance back at the terrified faces she was leaving behind. Agatha reached out for her. Ella shook her head in disbelief. The men were all now silent and pale-faced.
And Tyler jumped.
Chapter Three
Charlie squeezed her eyes shut as she fell facedown through the air. The wind rushing past her ears was deafening. She couldn’t open her mouth and scream, barely able to even breathe as the air snatched the breath from her lungs. With Charlie strapped beneath him, Tyler’s large body above hers felt utterly weightless.
They plummeted, freefall, for only a matter of seconds, before she sensed Tyler move behind her. Suddenly, the straps yanked against her body, painfully jerking her back up. The free fall had stopped and she found herself hanging in the air, the ocean rushing up to meet them.
A moment later, a shock of cold water hit her body and she plunged beneath the waves. Bubbles exploded around her face. Charlie struggled, feeling herself being dragged beneath the water, but she was disoriented, unsure which way was up. The straps hugging her chest suddenly released their grip, and then strong hands grabbed her by the tops of her arms, dragging her to the surface.
Her head broke from the water into bright sunshine, and she gasped for breath. The taste of salt coated the back of her throat and the insides of her nostrils. She coughed and spluttered, more salt stinging her eyes. Her arms flailed, trying to find something to hold onto. Her fingers found traction and, in her panic, she tried to clamber for a surface to climb onto.
His voice broke through to her, “Charlie! Charlie, quit it!”
Rough hands took her by the shoulders and would have shaken her, had it not been for the buoyancy of the water. “You need to calm down.”
Tyler, her mental voice said. Tyler has got you.
She stopped flailing and allowed herself to be pulled onto her back. A broad forearm folded across her chest, crushing her breasts. But she no longer felt like she was going to drown at any moment.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” his deep voice said.
Using both their buoyancies, Tyler kept them afloat as they lay on their backs. The waves lifted and dropped them in the ocean. The sky stretched above her, not a single white cloud breaking the expanse of blue. The ocean extended even further, making Charlie aware of them as two tiny people bobbing in the vastness. Gradually, her total panic subsided, though her fear didn’t ebb away. She tried not to think about the unfathomable depth dropping away beneath her and the creatures it contained. At least Tyler’s body beneath hers, as he kicked them through the waves, offered some kind of protection against the ocean.
A wave lifted them high, and then they dropped down into the trough, only for the next wave to break over their heads. The cold water filled her nose and mouth, and adrenaline exploded inside her. Automatically, she started to struggle again, coughing and spluttering.
Tyler’s hold on her tightened. “You need to relax, Charlie. Fighting me isn’t going to help.”
“Where’s the plane?” she managed to say between coughs. “Where are the others? Did they crash?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t hear the plane go down, but it could have crashed a good distance from here. If it landed in the water, it would be harder to hear.”
“Oh, God, poor Agatha.” However much she and her agent wound each other up, she’d never want her to be hurt or frightened, or God forbid, dead. The woman had been the closest thing she’d had to a mother all these years.
“Maybe they landed safely,” she said, having to raise her voice against the waves crashing against their bodies. “They might have made—”
Another wave landed over her face, her mouth filling with salty water. She choked, cutting off her words.
Tyler waited until she’d caught her breath again and said, “Let’s hope so.”
Her hair was soaking wet and plastered to her face. Her legs began to ache in her effort to keep afloat—even with Tyler’s help. The cold worked its way beneath her skin, making her shiver violently.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “Hang in there. We’ll make it to the shore soon.”
She coughed. “What shore? We’re in the middle of the ocean.”
“No, I saw some small islands in the east from the plane before we jumped.”
“East? How do you even know which way is east.”
She felt his chin move against the top of her head as he nodded toward the bright ball of light in the endless blue sky overhead. “The position of the sun. I can track its progress across the sky and work out which direction we’re heading.”
The sun burned down on Charlie’s cheeks and forehead, magnified by the reflection of the water surrounding her. How strange to have one part of my body so cold and another burning, she thought in a distant way. Her limbs grew weak, so she could barely paddle anymore. If it weren’t for Tyler’s relentless strength, she would drop beneath the waves and sink to the bottom. She simply didn’t have any energy left.
She zoned out and lost track of time. The only sensation she was aware of was the hot sun upon her face, the rise and fall of the ocean, and Tyler’s body locked around hers, the back of her head resting on his chest.
They bumped against something, jolting her from her daze. A fresh spurt of adrenaline shot through her body and she went into fight or flight mode, struggling against Tyler’s firm hold on her. But then the backs of her ankles hit a sandy floor.
“It’s okay, Charlie,” came Tyler’s gravelly voice. “We’ve hit dry land.”
All the fight went out of her, relief sweeping over her like a drug. “Oh! Thank God!”
Around her, the water was as clear as glass, and she caught sight of a shoal of tiny fish darting away from them. She realized she’d lost her shoes at some point. They must have grown heavy with water and fallen off. So much for the usefulness of sneakers.
She tried to stand, but her legs gave way beneath her. Tyler reached out and grabbed her before she fell, face down in the shallows. Even though he must have been exhausted himself, he scooped her from the sea and carried her—his arms beneath her back and legs, her arm slung around his neck—out of the water. He made it a couple of steps up the shore and then dropped with her onto the white sand beach.
They lay together, both collapsed on their backs, on the warm, soft sand. Near her head, a couple of tiny hermit crabs hurried along, their shells carried on their backs, their legs causing tiny avalanches. She could still feel the movement of the ocean beneath her, as though the sand were only a thin veil separating her from the sea.
A line of sturdy pine trees and palms, the fronds motionless in the still air, marked the edge of the beach. The sun burned down, beating hot, not a cloud in the sky. Farther up the beach was a line of driftwood, numerous items of beach litter—debris thrown from sides of ships—washed up with it.
At least they’d found land. And where there was land, there must be people. People meant help. But she didn’t have the energy to search for help right now. As the warmth of the sand and the sun above began to dissolve the shakes from her body, her vision began to grey at the edges.
The only thing she was aware of was Tyler’s hand reaching for hers and their fingers entwining.
Charlie allowed the black to claim her.
Chapter Four
Charlie woke up coughing, her throat burning raw.
Where am I? What’s happened?
Her brain worked to piece together events. She’d been at the hotel, and then the plane ... Oh, God! The plane!
She bolted upright and groaned as pain shot through every muscle in her body. She was stiff enough to have believed she’d run a marathon. Sand clung to one side of her face, in her hair, encrusted down the back of her legs and arms. He
r lips felt sore and cracked, her tongue plastered to the roof of her mouth.
Tyler!
Squinting in the bright sunlight, she glanced around. The white, sandy beach she found herself upon was deserted. Where was he? Surely he hadn’t left her!
Panicked, she climbed to her feet. Her legs gave way and she staggered before finding her balance. Bent in half, supporting her palms on her thighs, she gave herself a moment to compose herself. The world swam around her, but then came back to one place again and grew solid.
She straightened. “Tyler!” she called. Her voice came out as a croak, hurting her raw throat. She set off at an awkward, lurching run up the soft sand, toward a line of palm trees. “Tyler?”
He must have gone to get help. How far had he gone?
Movement came beyond the line of palm trees, the crunching of dry foliage and snapping of twigs. She froze. It might be a wild animal. But Tyler’s solid body muscled through the tall reeds and she sagged with relief.
“Where have you been?”
His face remained serious. “I needed to check out some of the island. I didn’t think most of the islands in the location where we jumped were inhabited.”
“And you were wrong?” she said, clutching at the faint strands of her hope.
He shook his head. “I was right. It’s small, only a few miles across. I was only able to search a part due to a ridge of cliff that’s dividing the island in two, but from what I could see, there’s no sign of anyone living here.”
Her eyes widened. “So you think we’re alone?”
“I’m sure we are.”
She stared at him, and then something dawned on her. “So, you’re saying I was due to be posted on a desert island for the show for the next five days and then, ta-da, the plane goes down, though I don’t actually see it happening, and I just happen to end up here, with you, on a desert island?”
His brow furrowed in a frown. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.”
She gave a bark of hysterical laughter. “Don’t give me that crap! You must be in on it.”
Dangerous Encounters: A Romantic Suspense Boxed Set Page 25