by Cindy Gerard
Luke took no offense at the good-natured insults, but what happened between him and Valentina was nobody else’s business. “She’s a client, smart-ass. Nothing more.”
Brown snorted as he flipped switches. “Right. And I’m a virgin. Again.”
Luke laughed. “Just do your flyboy thing. Save the wild speculation for the stock market.”
“It’s your game; we’ll play it any way you want to. Better go make sure your client is buckled in,” he advised after getting the go-ahead for takeoff from the tower. “Then buckle yourself in, too, and hang on for one helluva ride.”
18
Jesus, sweet Jesus, we’re going to die!
Val was past caring that she was one note shy of a full-blown hysteria opera.
She’d weathered plenty of bumpy flights and even a life-flashing-before-your-eyes moment when lightning hit her flight over Switzerland a few years ago. But never, as she’d racked up hundreds of thousands of frequent-flyer miles, had she experienced a takeoff like this one.
While the aircraft was clearly loved and well cared for, the Beechcraft hadn’t rolled off the assembly line yesterday. The twin-engine turboprop had some years on her. And as the high wind coming over the mountains rattled the plane like ice cubes in a martini shaker, she swore to God she heard rivets pop and seams rip.
The turbulence did its damnedest to throw the small aircraft into the mountains they were attempting to rise above.
The engines whined. The fuselage groaned and creaked. And outside the windows, she was certain she saw the wings flap like a spastic stork as the whipping turbulence conspired with gravity to take them down.
The cargo hold vibrated so hard she had to clench her teeth together to keep them from chipping.
“When will we be out of this turbulence?”
“Soon. Once we get over the mountains,” Luke said, looking a little gray as they hit an air pocket and dropped what felt like a mile in a nanosecond.
We’re going to die!
“Not today,” Luke assured her, and she realize she’d spoken aloud.
She closed her eyes and went to her “happy place,” and stayed there long enough that it took several moments to realize the violent shaking had eased into more of a washboard-road sort of ride. And several moments more to realize that Luke was prying her fingers off of his forearm, where she’d locked them like eagle talons.
“Sorry,” she said, flexing her fingers to get the circulation back.
“S’okay,” he said, gingerly rubbing his arm.
“Really, really sorry.” God, she was embarrassed.
“And it’s really, really okay.” He shot her a quick grin. “Want to ask Primetime if we can go back and do that again?”
She laughed—he always managed to make her laugh—and checked her watch.
Fourteen hours? Had only fourteen hours passed since this hair-raising thrill ride had begun back on that train? She felt like she’d lived half a lifetime.
She glanced at Luke. What was she going to do about him? And what, she thought, rubbing at a throbbing ache in her temples, could she possibly conclude about Marcus?
Did he have something to do with what was happening to her? Was that how those men had found her?
She refused to believe it. It had to be something else. Maybe whoever was after her had figured out a way to bypass his security, and was monitoring his calls without his knowledge.
Or maybe Luke was right, she thought with a dispirited sigh. Maybe Marcus had betrayed her yet again.
God, she was tired. Tired of running. Tired of being afraid. Tired of trying to figure out whom she could trust.
Luke. She could trust Luke.
When his voice broke the silence with a soft, concerned “You doin’ okay, Angelface?” she fought tears.
Nothing in her life was right. Yet this man who had been a stranger only hours ago was the only person in the world she felt she could trust. The one constant she could rely on. Including her own judgment, because she’d bungled things badly when she’d called Marcus.
“I’m fine,” she said.
She needed a diversion. “Tell me about our pilot. I gather he’s a friend of yours?”
“Yeah, he’s a friend,” Luke confirmed after giving her a probing look. “Mike was a Navy pilot assigned to Task Force Mercy. Flew us into and out of more scrapes than we should have survived. Best fixed-wing and helo pilot ever attached to our unit. Damn glad to know that hasn’t changed. I lost track of him a few years ago. Didn’t know he’d set up shop down here.”
“Why do I get the feeling that ‘setting up shop’ may mean something different than starting a legitimate business?”
Those twin dimples dented his cheeks. “Let’s just say he’s one of those guys who always interpreted rules and regulations to mean ‘loose guidelines’.”
She glanced toward the cockpit door. She’d just bet he did. It hadn’t taken more than a glance at the tall, gorgeous pilot for her to recognize a renegade and a rogue. If that flirty white smile weren’t enough, his sparkling blue eyes and alpha male swagger cinched it. He was an outlaw, all right. But despite the haranguing he and Luke gave each other, it was also very clear that their relationship was based on both affection and trust.
Cut from the same cloth, those two—though for her money, she’d be more inclined to give Mike “Prime-time” Brown a fairly wide berth. The man had heartbreaker written all over him.
She glanced sideways at Luke’s all-American-hero profile and thought of his Indiana Jones charm, which he managed to pull off even without the fedora that was tucked away in his backpack. Less than an hour ago, her heart had been tied up in a million knots because she’d been certain she’d never see him again. And because she’d known it was for the best that they were parting ways.
It should bother her more that they were still together, but all she felt was a sense of relief. And despite the danger she was in, she just had to look at him to feel her blood heat and her heart rate sprint.
Right, wrong, or somewhere in between, what she felt for him was more than attraction. More than desire. This man continued to drag emotions out of her that scared the hell out of her.
“So, Primetime,” she said, determined to distance herself from the emotions clogging her chest. “There’s got to be a story behind that nickname.”
Luke’s smile was filled with nostalgic affection. “The man is a walking chick magnet, as you may have noticed,” he added with a grin. “We’ve always kidded him that he missed his calling. That with a face like that he should be in Hollywood. At the very least, on his own primetime TV show.”
“Ah,” she said. “Got it. And you’re right. He could make some studio a small fortune with his looks.”
“He’s too much of a high flyer—pardon the pun—to settle for something as predictable as a real job,” Luke continued with that same fond smile. “Too much of an adrenaline junkie. I am not surprised that he’s down here playing fast and loose with whatever he’s playing fast and loose with.”
“You don’t think his air cargo business is legit?”
Luke scratched his jaw. “What I think is, it’s probably best that I don’t ask. As long as he gets us to B.A., I don’t care what he’s into. And I strongly doubt anyone else in this part of the world cares. There are dozens of small, fly-by-night operations—one pilot, one plane—moving around specialty cargo in South America.”
“Specialty cargo,” she repeated on a yawn. “I guess we definitely fall into that category.”
“And you, Angelface, fall into the category of exhausted. I’m going to sit up front for a while and catch up with Brown. Why don’t you get a little sleep? You could use it.”
She could use a lot of things, she thought as she watched him head for the cockpit. Like that new lease on life she’d come to Peru to find. Like answers to the question of who was after her.
How had she ever had the good fortune to encounter this man at a time when she needed him most, s
he wondered as she watched Luke drop into the copilot seat.
And how was she ever going to let him walk away when this was over?
If this was ever over . . .
The King Air cruised along at 27,000 feet, eating up the miles between Cuzco and B.A. at round 280 knots. Bleed air from the engine kept the cockpit and cabin at a warm seventy degrees. The interior air pressure was on a par with a commercial jet’s, so now that they were clear of the turbulence it promised to be a comfortable, uneventful ride.
Luke checked his watch. According to Brown, B.A. was a five-hour flight. They’d been talking for about an hour, and Luke didn’t know a helluva lot more about Brown’s post-Navy life than he had when he’d sat down in the copilot seat.
They’d rehashed the good ol’ days of Task Force Mercy. Mourned the loss of Bryan Tompkins in an op gone FUBAR in Sierra Leone. They’d touched on Brown’s subsequent deployment in the Persian Gulf.
Luke had answered a ton of questions about the old TFM team who now made up Black Ops, Inc. But Brown had managed to dodge Luke’s questions about his current life with the skill of a world-class sprinter clearing hurdles.
Okay. The man had secrets. Don’t we all, Luke thought, catching himself rubbing his side and flashing on the ambush in San Salvador that had almost killed him.
Hell, he’d been on the move for too long now without sleep. And fatigue was the biggest single facilitator of his trips down bad-memory lane.
“And you ended up down here how?” he asked Brown abruptly—both because he wanted to know and to keep himself in the here and now.
Brown worked his jaw and not for the first time, Luke sensed that they had more in common than combat ops.
“Dumb luck,” Brown said with a somberness that asked Luke to leave it alone.
Okay. He got it. Respected it. You go through the wars, you got wounds. Physical. Emotional. Whatever. All of his Black Ops team members carried some baggage from their years of covert operations. It went with the territory.
Just like it went with the territory to shake it off and carry on.
He turned his head around and checked on Valentina, relieved to see that she was sound asleep. An uninvited tenderness swamped him as he watched her. Tenderness and an ill-advised sense of possession.
He never should have taken her to bed. Now all he had to do was look at her and his brain scrambled and his heart rate revved and he didn’t know what the hell he wanted anymore. Not that it made an ant hill’s worth of difference. She knew what she wanted—and that was away from him.
“So what’s the story with the babe?” Brown’s voice broke into his thoughts. “And is she who I think she is? Prince of a guy that you are, you didn’t give me a chance to say more than hello.”
“Prince of a guy that you are,” Luke said, eyes front again, “I figured the farther away from you that I keep her, the better. And yes, she’s who you think she is. She’s also off-limits.”
Brown slanted him a knowing smile. “Figured that was the way it was.”
Fuck. Was he that transparent?
“Well, you figured wrong,” Luke shot back. “She ran into trouble, then she ran into me. I couldn’t just leave her on her own, so I’m helping her out of a jam.”
“Because she needed you,” Brown added, his tone thick with innuendo.
“What she doesn’t need is a hefty dose of Primetime charm to muddle things even more.”
“Just how muddled are things?” Brown said, sobering.
Luke ran through the CliffsNotes version of the attack on the train, their escape through the mountains to Cuzco, and finally the ambush at the airport.
“Jesus,” Brown said. “Something’s way off-kilter here.”
Luke shifted in his seat. “Tell me about it.”
“Got any ideas who’s after her?”
“Only one: her ex. Only I can’t figure out the motive.”
“What’s her take on it?”
“Denial with a capital D.” Luke glanced back at Val again. “Then again, bullets and bad guys aren’t part of her everyday routine. As soon as I get her to BOI HQ, where she can take a breath that’s not clogged with fear and relax a little, I’m hoping her head will clear and she can give me something to go on.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he added, his face grim as he stared into the darkening night, pissed all over again about the terror she’d been through. “When I find the bastard, I’m going to nail his balls to the wall with a railroad spike and a sledgehammer.”
19
Val woke to the grinding of the Beechcraft’s landing gears. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked out the window. The glittering lights of Buenos Aires at sunset stretched on for miles as the aircraft smoothly descended toward a ribbon of runway lights.
“Almost home free,” Luke said beside her. “This next part’s not going to be a picnic for you,” he warned her as they touched down.
No, it would not be. The plan involved climbing into a large shipping crate. And total darkness.
“I’ll be okay,” she said with determination she could do to keep from hyperventilating as the plane rolled to a stop. Luke led her back to the cargo bay, where a refrigerator-sized wooden crate yawned open, waiting for them to step inside.
“Thanks, man.” Luke pumped Brown’s hand when he came back to join them. “’Til you’re better paid, okay?”
“All I want is a rematch. My deck of cards this time.”
Luke laughed. “You got it.”
“Ma’am.” Brown turned to Val with a sympathetic smile that told her Luke had probably filled him in on her situation, including her claustrophobia. “I hope this all works out for you. I hate to rush you, but I need to seal up that crate just in case the nice men from customs decide to come aboard.”
She swallowed hard, then turned and faced the music. She felt like she was crawling into a coffin.
“You’re doing fine,” Luke murmured, lying down beside her. He wrapped his arms around her as Brown tossed in Luke’s backpack, then grabbed a huge bag of shipping popcorn and poured it over them until they were covered.
“Half hour max, and we’ll get you out of here, okay?” Luke whispered as Brown nailed the container shut, throwing them into total darkness.
It was the longest half hour of her life as she lay there fighting panic, thanking God she had Luke to hold on to, and listening to the sounds of activity around them.
She jumped when the aircraft lurched.
“That’s the cargo bay doors opening,” Luke told her.
The sound of a vehicle grew closer, followed by the squeal of brakes. Must be the van Luke had said would be waiting for them, backing up to the aircraft.
Brown shouted instructions. “For God’s sake be careful with that crate. And if you so much as put a scratch on my bird, you do know that I’ll have to kill you.”
She clurg tight to Luke as the crate was lifted, jostled, then transferred to the waiting van. A pair of doors slammed shut near their feet.
Outside, she could hear the murmur of voices, the jumble of aircraft engines prowling on and off the apron, and the scream of commercial jets taking off and landing on distant runways.
“Why aren’t we moving?” she whispered against Luke’s jaw after several minutes had passed.
“It all takes time,” he whispered again. “If they rush this, someone will get suspicious.” When she couldn’t stop a violent tremor from wracking her body, he said, “These aren’t any run-of-the-mill delivery guys. They’re my guys, Val. You trust me, right?”
She nodded jerkily.
“Then trust them.”
This was all about trust. Trust that they wouldn’t be trapped in this box. Trust that they wouldn’t suffocate. Trust that she really wasn’t back in that dirt cellar with the rats and the—
“Hey, hey,” Luke drew her tighter against him. “Breathe deep. Come on. Give me a deep breath. That’s it. Good girl. Now give me another one.”
She con
centrated on breathing air in. Letting air out. Focusing on his soothing whisper and the warmth of his body against hers. The scrape of his stubbled jaw against her forehead, the scent of him.
“Think about . . . something that makes you happy,” he suggested. “Are you a chocolate kind of girl? Ice cream? How about music—got a favorite song? Tell me. I don’t even know what you like.”
You, she thought. I like you, Luke Colter. I like you very, very much.
“If you were a true fan, you’d know,” she whispered back, and felt his smile against her temple.
“Back then it was all about bra size, okay?”
She snuggled closer. “I appreciate the attempt at distraction but I’m okay.” Because of him, she was going to get through this.
Finally, the van started moving. A few minutes later, it stopped again.
“Must be at the security gate,” Luke said, preempting her question. “Hang on. This is the last hurdle. It won’t be long now.”
After several long, tense moments, the engine revved and they were rolling again. Not long after, the sensation of speed told her they were zipping down a highway.
They’d made it past security!
Luke started pushing on the lid of the crate, and she joined in with a vengeance until they managed to dislodge a corner of the lid. She gulped in great gasps of fresh air, along with a welcome sense of relief when someone peeled the lid the rest of the way back.
“Whoa. Have a little patience, people.” A slow Texas drawl greeted her and a calloused hand reached down to help her to her feet.
“Welcome to Buenos Aires.” Strong arms lifted her clear of the container and set her on her feet as foam popcorn scattered everywhere. “Johnny Reed at your service, ma’am.”
Mike Brown had nothing on this lean, buff man who smiled at her like she’d just popped out of a birthday cake. His blond hair was a little on the long side; his blue eyes were as sexy and flirty as sin. And as he stood there in tight, faded jeans, a western-cut shirt, and snakeskin boots, Val couldn’t help but think, Good Lord. Doesn’t Luke have any ugly friends?