by Jill Shalvis
“So . . . old friends?” Joe asked.
Zip from Parker. A silent alpha. One more thing to add to the list of reasons why Zoe was not going to like him, despite what he looked like naked.
“Not old friends,” she said.
“New friends?” Joe asked. He was speaking directly to Parker now, but Parker didn’t appear interested in defining their relationship.
Or lack of one.
Zoe sighed. “He’s living with me,” she said, and Joe, who’d just taken an unfortunate sip of coffee, choked, and snorted coffee out his nose.
“Goddammit,” he muttered when he could talk.
“Parker’s a friend of Wyatt’s,” Zoe said. “It’s a favor. Apparently I’m just full of favors today,” she added.
Joe was mopping up the coffee he’d spilled with some papers on the counter. “Dottie’s going to kill me.”
Dottie was his office manager, and even though she was married to Devon, their other pilot-for-hire, she terrified Joe.
Not Zoe’s problem. She turned to Parker. “Where are we heading?”
“Rocky Falls,” he said.
“There’s no airport up there.”
“I need to see the layout, no landing required.”
Rocky Falls was the northernmost county in the state. It was mostly open, rugged, isolated, nearly uninhabitable forestland, bordered by a few far-reaching ranches. Just past those, the growth was so thick, seeing anything from the air but a blanket of green sliced with the occasional blue ribbon of rivers and tributaries was all but impossible. “I thought you were here on vacay,” she said.
“Yep. I’m sightseeing.”
Uh-huh. “There’s nothing to sightsee out there except trees.”
“I like trees.”
She laughed. “That’s ridiculous. There are far cheaper ways to see trees.”
“Jeez, don’t tell him that,” Joe said, and looked at Parker. “She’s not much of a saleswoman. Don’t listen to her. I gave you a really good rate for your two hours.”
Zoe kept her gaze on Parker. She had a good bullshit detector and it was going off now. Blaring, in fact. But if he wanted to pay a small fortune to “sightsee,” what did she care? “I’ve got to get the weather, file a flight plan, and perform a flight check.” She eyed her watch. “Wheels up in forty-five.”
With that, she about-faced and exited the glass door opposite the front desk, heading across the tarmac to the Cardinal tied down there. She was already busy running through her preflight in her head: tire pressure, oil and fuel levels, flight controls, cowlings . . .
“Zoe.”
She stilled in the early-morning sun and slowly turned to face Parker, who’d followed her out. He wore his clothes with the same ease he’d worn nothing at all. And dammit, she really needed to stop thinking about that.
“Do we have a problem?” he asked.
Other than she knew that the promise his body made in clothes was kept when he was out of them? “No.”
“Is it about this morning?”
“What about this morning?” she asked, going for an innocent tone but ruining it by flushing.
Because she knew exactly what about this morning.
His eyes revealed his amusement. “If it would make things less awkward, I’ll be happy to walk in on your next shower.”
“I didn’t mean to!”
“Is that why you stood there staring for a full three minutes?” he asked. “Drooling?”
“I . . . it wasn’t three minutes!” She put her hands to her hot cheeks. “And you’re the dishonest one. You said you weren’t hurt that badly, but your ribs—”
“Are healing,” he said. “And that’s not what you were staring at.”
True story.
He smiled. “And you liked what you saw.”
Oh God. She had, she really, really had. She closed her eyes and wished for a big hole to swallow her up. “I hardly even noticed you were naked.”
“So much for honesty.”
“You don’t get honesty privileges,” she said. “Not until it goes both ways.”
“You don’t think I’m being honest with you?”
“Sightseeing?” she repeated dubiously. “Sorry, but you don’t seem like the type to spend thousands of dollars on a sightseeing trip just for the hell of it.”
“Maybe it’s not just for the hell of it.”
She shook her head. “Why do I feel like we’re playing some kind of game here, except I don’t have a copy of the rules?”
His smile went a whole lot more real. “I irritate you.”
“Yes,” she said, and smiled grimly. “How’s that for honesty?”
She didn’t expect him to laugh out loud but that was exactly what he did, tossing back his head to do so. Finally, still grinning, he shook his head, his eyes lit with . . . affection? “I like you, too, and your smart mouth,” he said.
“Are you saying I’m a smart-ass?”
He smiled. “If the shoe fits.”
She thought of the woman he’d been talking to on his phone, who’d had a sure and confident voice as she called Parker out on his shit. Zoe didn’t know what shit exactly, but there’d definitely been a tension there, one she assumed was sexual.
But he seemed to be flirting with her now, and Zoe didn’t know how to take that. “And you . . . like smart-asses?”
“Yes.”
“So you like women who are bitchy to you?” she asked.
He smiled. “Don’t have much experience with that problem.”
She could believe it. “Is that your way of saying women usually fall all over you?”
“Well, not all of them,” he said with a false modesty that made her want to laugh. She tried to hold it back but couldn’t quite manage it.
“See?” he said. “I’m irresistible.”
“You’re something,” she agreed. “But I don’t think irresistible is it.”
“Admit it. I’m growing on you.”
“That’s one thing you’re not going to do,” she said firmly, and she meant it, too. At least her brain meant it, but her body didn’t seem to be on board with the plan. After all, she’d been burned by a mysterious man before, badly, one who’d turned out to be a big, fat liar.
She wasn’t going there again. Ever. Nope, she needed transparency from a man. And Parker, for all his bad-boy, cowboy ’tude and cocky swagger, wasn’t anything close to transparent.
At all.
And that made him downright dangerous to her. He was the kind of man that messed with a woman’s heart, so it was a good thing hers wasn’t available to him.
But if she’d worried about living with him and his knowing eyes and way-too-hot bod—now she also had to work with him.
Except the oddest thing happened when they got into the air.
He wasn’t a know-it-all. He didn’t try to flirt or drive her up a wall.
None of that. He asked her questions about Idaho as they flew, as though he’d done research on the area. He mentioned some of the other places he’d been—seemingly everywhere—and knew a lot about . . . well, a lot. He asked her about the wind patterns and the different techniques required for flying out of the high-altitude Sunshine airport, and she was fascinated in spite of herself.
He was driven, focused, sharp, and . . .
“Damn,” he murmured softly beneath his breath, and pulled out a set of binoculars when they were at altitude, locking on something out the side window for a long moment.
He looked badass to the core. Who the hell was he? Because right now, focused and still, he sure as hell didn’t look like a guy on a break from work. He looked like a guy who kept secrets, dark ones.
Another wolf in sheep’s clothing . . .
At that thought, she panicked—inwardly. Because outwardly she was cool. Cool as ice.
Or so she hoped. “Rocky Falls is coming up on your right,” she said.
“What else is out here?”
“White Mountain,” she said.
“And Angel Lake.”
He didn’t react, and she knew she hadn’t given him anything of interest.
“And then there’s Cat’s Paw,” she said.
He turned his head and looked at her. “That’s not on the map.”
“No,” she said. “It’s mostly just national forestland, but years and years ago the locals called that specific area Cat’s Paw and it stuck.”
“Why the nickname?”
“Because mountain cats used to be so prevalent there—before poachers and too many people nearly wiped them out,” she said.
“Can you circle around and fly over the same spot again?”
“Yes.” She slid him a look. “Is there a reason?”
“Does a paying customer have to give you one?” He asked this with a casual, teasing tone, but his body language was anything but casual or teasing.
Nope, she thought, watching him pull a camera from his duffel—an expensive one with a long-range lens—there was nothing flirty about the man at the moment, no matter what his words said.
She circled around and once again they flew over the area, nothing but forestland with the exception of an area that looked as if it had been clear-cut recently. Inside the clearing was a circle of vehicles. Hunters, she thought at first, but there were way too many cars for a usual group of hunters. “That’s new,” she said. “I was out here two weeks ago with another client and the landscape hadn’t been touched. And I’ve never seen so many hunters in one spot before.”
He took a few more shots and then slid the camera away and turned to her. “You’re sure?”
“Very.”
“You had a client who wanted to see Cat’s Paw, too?”
“No,” she said. “Well, I don’t know, he didn’t say what he was doing specifically. He was a land developer and I got the feeling he was looking to buy something out here. You, too?”
He spent a long moment zipping up his bag. “No.”
She waited for more. Nothing came. “You always a little mysterious?” she asked.
He leaned back, looking casual and at ease, but again, there was nothing casual about his sharp gaze as he took in the landscape around them with a care that was anything but sightseeing. “What is it you want to know?” he asked.
“I’m not sure exactly.” She looked at him again. “I just feel like I’m missing something about you.”
“We’re strangers,” he said. “There’s a lot you’re missing about me. No one’s an open book.”
She tried to read into that but couldn’t. He was a stone when he wanted to be. Which brought some unhappy memories to the surface. “Maybe you’re an ax murderer looking for a place to bury the bodies.”
His sharp and definitely not-happy gaze met hers. Mr. Mysterious was insulted. “Do you really think your brother would put me in your house if I were an ax murderer?” he asked.
“No.” One thing for certain—Wyatt trusted this guy implicitly or he wouldn’t be in her house. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was a little rude.”
“You could just trust I’m a good guy.”
Nope. Been there, done that, still had the scorch marks on her heart, thank you very much. But she could at least be nice. “I’m not all that good at trust,” she admitted.
“I’ve noticed.”
She needed to not care what he thought of her. She had no idea why she did. She wanted to let it go and not speak again, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “You’re looking for something.”
“Aren’t we all?”
Okay, that was it. She would ask him another question never.
“Let’s make one more pass,” he said.
She eyed the time. “I can’t. I’ve got other prior commitments today.”
He didn’t react to that, not outwardly, anyway. He was consistent on that but inconsistent everywhere else; focused and intense one minute, grinning and flirty the next. Zoe didn’t trust inconsistent. It equated to dishonesty for her.
When they arrived back in Sunshine and landed, she went about her postflight checklist. After finishing the tie-down, she turned and nearly plowed right into Parker. “Oh,” she said in surprise. “Sorry.” Normally clients exited the plane right away and never looked back, either not paying attention or not caring that her job wasn’t over.
But Parker hadn’t gone anywhere; he stood there in his sexy mirrored sunglasses looking cool, calm, and utterly badass.
“What can I do to help you?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’ve got this.”
He raised a brow.
“Really. I’m good.”
Parker looked at her for a long moment. Then he nodded and walked away, heading inside.
By the time she finished up and poked her head into the second hangar to check on the Cessna Caravan and then made her way back to the terminal, it was empty.
“How was the flight?” Joe asked, coming from the hallway that led to the lounge and bathroom.
“Fine,” she said, distracted, turning to look in the back, where there were a few tables and a small deli run by Thea, Joe’s sister.
That area was empty as well.
“Who you looking for?” Joe asked.
“Nobody.”
“You’re a shitty liar,” Joe said. “And he left.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“No, but you wanted to. Who is this guy to you, anyway?”
“Renovation money.”
“Okay.” Joe paused, searching her expression for she had no idea what. “He went back up with Devon. Paid a pretty penny for it, too.”
This didn’t surprise her, and she started to head back to the mechanical hangar.
“So about Friday night,” Joe said. “You never said yes.”
“Joe—”
“Just one night,” he said, sounding unaccustomedly desperate.
She blew out a sigh.
“Unless of course I can talk you into more.” He waggled a brow.
“Don’t push your luck,” she said. “Fine. Dinner on Friday. And nothing more.”
“Sure, we’ll start with that,” he agreed readily.
Start and end because she wasn’t looking for a one-night stand with Joe. She wasn’t looking for anything with anybody.
Liar, a small voice in her head said. You’d be more excited if it were Parker . . .
Shaking that off, she gave herself a lecture. She had a long day ahead of her and she didn’t have time to daydream about Parker.
So of course she spent the rest of her day doing exactly that.