But it still sucked. Taking the high road meant a long, lonely and uncomfortable ride to Mexico, that was for sure.
4
ANA TRIED READING, BUT FELL asleep instead, stretched across two of the not-very-comfortable seats. She was so exhausted that comfort hardly mattered. Sinking in and out of a restless slumber, her dreams kept returning to the moment in the cockpit.
Chance had looked at her mouth as if he was about to kiss her. She could still feel the strength of his shoulder under her hand, his heat as he’d hardened beneath her. In her dreams, she didn’t struggle her way out of the seat and run away.
Instead, Chance was nuzzling her neck, his hand easing the material of her blouse away from her shoulder. Fingers ran lightly along her collarbone, making her shiver. She said his name, needing more. She wanted his mouth to touch every part of her....
Just as things were getting good, something jostled her quite violently and her eyes flew open. Her own hand lay in a very compromising position on her chest, and if anyone had been watching, there would have been no mistake about the dream she’d been having.
Luckily, she was still alone in the back of the plane and thanked the bit of turbulence for shaking her out of what could have been even more embarrassing if the dream had gone any further.
Straightening up, she smoothed her clothes and looked at her watch, resetting it for the time-zone difference, which was only an hour earlier. Hatsutsil was in the central time zone, to many people’s surprise. It was nice not to have to worry about jet lag when she visited.
They were about an hour away from landing, she presumed as she made her way up to the cockpit. The plane had offered a surprisingly smooth ride, except for bits of turbulence that couldn’t be avoided. Now that she was a bit rested and closer to home, she was more excited, as well. Ana didn’t want to miss seeing her homeland as they approached it; they were still over water at the moment.
“Hi, mind if I join you?” she asked Chance from the doorway, offering a smile and trying to be pleasant. She also tried to ignore the flicker of desire that kindled deep inside when he looked up at her, offering a slight smile in return.
“Help yourself,” he said, turning back to tinker with the controls, a book turned over in his lap.
She made her way, more carefully this time, into the copilot’s seat, belting in.
“Sorry about the turbulence. Hit an air pocket,” he said, reaching forward to adjust something.
“It’s fine. I did get some rest. I feel much better and I’m excited to be so close to home,” she said.
“Glad you slept. Makes the time go faster. It’s been a pretty boring ride, which is a good thing, mostly,” he said with a grin. “No one needs adventure when we’re this far up.”
In spite of his smile, Ana suddenly felt a pang of guilt. He looked tired. Still sharp and focused, but he had to have gone without even more sleep than she had in the past forty-eight hours. She could have at least sat up here and kept him company, she chastised herself with a sigh.
Well, she was here now.
“When did you learn to fly?”
“I started when I was fourteen. I pestered my parents for lessons for two years before that.”
“Fourteen!”
“Well, just taking lessons. Studying up. You can’t solo until sixteen or officially be a pilot until seventeen. I had to work to pay for the lessons and the flight time, so I didn’t actually become a pilot in the official sense until I was nineteen.”
“And you have your own plane?”
“I won it,” he said with a naughty grin that made her heart flip.
“That sounds like a good story.”
“Nah. Just a bet that the other guy lost. He was supposed to shave his head if he lost, but he refused and offered me his junker plane instead. I snapped it up.”
“This is hardly a junker.”
“It was when I got it. Took me five years on and off to rebuild and refurbish it. I live in a small apartment that I rarely see and dumped most of my extra cash into the plane. And it was worth every cent,” Chance added, and she could hear the pride in his voice.
Ana couldn’t help but admire his determination and skill. It took both intelligence and dedication to take on such a task.
“Clearly, when you want something, you don’t give up,” she said with a chuckle.
The smile he sent her next was knee-melting.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much true.”
Flashes of her erotic dream popped into her mind, and Ana was suddenly flustered, as if he could see them, too. She straightened up in her seat to look out the window. In the distance, the lush green landscape of the Yucatán Peninsula stretched before them. The sight loosened the tension that had become so commonplace in her daily life that she almost forgot it was there. But now her heart warmed, her entire frame relaxing.
Home.
“I’ve never see it quite like this,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes away from the view.
“Want to take her in?” Chance said, and Ana blinked, looking back in his direction.
“What?”
“Would you like to fly?”
Ana was taken aback for a second, and then the excitement rose. She couldn’t say no.
“I would love to,” she said. “How?”
“Pull your seat up a bit,” he said and switched some things on the panel in front of him before leaning over close to her.
“Here, hold the yoke—it’s just like the wheel on a car, sort of, except you go up and down instead of forward and reverse.”
Ana took hold of the yoke and focused hard, excitement grabbing her. She couldn’t believe she was going to actually fly a plane!
“This is your horizon. You want to keep it level. Since we’ll be landing soon, you need to bring us down a little.”
She nodded and tried to focus on the instrument panel as Chance leaned close, covering her hands with his.
“Let me help you get the feel of it. See, like this... It doesn’t take much,” he instructed and applied a firm pressure forward that started pointing the plane downward, but smoothly and at a gentle slope.
Ana could feel the power of the plane at her fingertips, and that of the man next to her, as well. The heat of Chance’s body seeped into hers as his shoulder pressed against her.
“Now, you try it. Take us back up a bit, then down again,” he said, settling back in his seat. “Don’t worry. The sky is open. Just go when you’re ready, take it slow.”
His tone and his words hit her as particularly sensual, but Ana focused on the task, pulling the yoke gently back. That took them up a few hundred feet, and she leveled off, thrilled to have done it so easily. Then, after an encouraging smile from Chance, she took them back down to the previous level.
“This is wonderful!” she exclaimed, looking at him with unabashed excitement. “I’ve never minded flying, as a passenger, but this is an entirely different feeling.”
Chance grinned widely, nodded. “It’s like you’re part of the sky,” he said. “We’re landing in about fifteen minutes. You want to try it?”
Ana bit her lip. “I think I’ll leave that in your hands. But...I wouldn’t mind a lesson or two, if you have time while we’re here.”
“I think that could be arranged,” he said, his eyes warm as they met hers. “I knew you were an adventurous spirit,” he said.
“Really? How could you?”
“You don’t hold back. You have that way about you. Like this—I asked you if you wanted to fly, and you lit up and jumped right in. I like that,” he said.
Ana tried not to show how pleased she was by his words. She didn’t want, or need, any man’s approval, but his words filled her with pleasure nonetheless. She wondered what other adventures, and what other pleasures, Chance Berringer could offer.
“My childhood was, in some ways, very traditional, but the Maya, and my family, never believed in holding children back. We were all allowed to explore the jungles,
warned of the dangers, but allowed to find our own adventures from the time we were small.”
“I read in your file that you have a sister. Are you close?”
“We always were, but sadly, I don’t see her very often now. She studied to be a nurse and then started a local nonprofit that helps small villages build clinics for their people.”
“That’s pretty admirable,” Chance said. “What’s her name?”
“Lucia. She is a few years older than me.” Ana sighed, taking a moment to follow Chance’s instructions to bank the plane slightly left—lurching a bit, making them both laugh—and then leveling out even lower. The expanse of blue water shortened as the jungles appeared before them. They would head inland to the airport, over the treetops.
Ana thought that as soon as they were over land she would hand over the controls to Chance.
“She was always helping someone or bringing home strays. Lucia, I mean. Always so focused. I admire her and wish I was more like her.”
“What do you mean? You’re hardly a slacker.”
Ana smiled. “I work hard, and I try to do what I can, but I often wonder how much meaning my work has in the world. Lucia helps to save lives. I...cook. And yell at people on television,” she said with a rueful laugh.
“Hardly that. Your work has really helped your village and many others in Mexico. It was also in your file, but it’s been in the news, in your interviews. Though I suppose I know what you mean. My brothers are all pretty accomplished, and now they are all getting married, moving on with their lives.”
“And you are not?” Ana asked, curious.
“I don’t want to,” Chance answered with a grin. “I like my life as it is and make no apologies for that.”
Ana understood. She lived the same way.
“I think maybe you should take the controls now,” Ana said as the trees spread out below them. She knew from what she’d heard how complicated flying over the jungles could be, with the heat that rose up, the sudden storms. But she felt safe with Chance flying, watching him adjust the controls and altitude effortlessly, as if he were part of the plane itself. While he was completely absorbed in what he was doing, talking to the airport, she was free to study him.
He had great hands.
She wanted to know what they would feel like on her skin, for real, not in her dreams. Ana thought that was a very real possibility.
Perhaps...once she had cleared up her engagement to Marco, among other things, she and Chance could explore their options.
The possibility distracted her for the rest of the trip.
* * *
CHANCE LANDED IN MEXICO a much more hopeful man than he had been back in the States. Here, the sun was shining, the breeze was warm. There was friendly chatter and other pleasant sounds everywhere around them as they made their way through the airport.
He had barely held back from hauling Ana into his arms and kissing the life out of her when she had accepted his invitation to fly the plane. She’d been so...excited. Her eyes had sparkled with adventure, the air crackling between them. He’d never experienced anything quite like it with any woman.
He’d actually never taken a woman up in his plane before, let alone offered to let them fly it. While taking Ana in the plane had been a necessity of protecting her, offering to let her fly had been spontaneous. A test of sorts, perhaps.
Most of the women he knew were not terribly adventurous out of the bedroom, and that had always been fine with him. But his mind went back to Logan and Jill, how his friends were both extreme athletes and how that connected them.
Chance had met women who were adventurers in their own right, and dated a few, but he’d never felt that click until that moment with Ana—who was a chef, not an extreme athlete, but whom he believed would be up to just about anything he suggested. His former enthusiasm about the trip, about being here with Ana, returned as he signed the paperwork to store his plane while he was in Mexico. With that done he left the airport office to find Ana.
She had been sitting right outside when he’d gone in.
Now she was gone.
Spying the woman’s bathroom across the way, he went over and stood outside, catching a young woman who walked out.
“Hey, was there a woman in there, Mexican, yellow blouse and grey skirt, blue bags?”
The young lady looked wary at first and then smiled with a little flirty nod of her head. “No, señor. There was no one in there but me, but if you are looking for someone...”
Chance grimaced and shook his head. “No, thanks, though,” he said, hurriedly entering the lavatory to make sure that she was telling the truth. Checking each stall and a changing room in the back, he cursed again as he found them all empty.
Turning to leave, two older women stood in the doorway and watched him, horrified.
Chance muttered a partial apology in Spanish and pushed past them, intent on finding Ana. He’d never lost a client before, in the literal or figurative sense, and panic threatened to choke out clear thought. Where could she have gone?
Or had she been taken?
Chance returned back to the spot where she’d been sitting, and looked at the area from her perspective. Directly across the room was a pay-phone station; anyone could have hidden there, watching them.
There was a travel agency and a car-rental desk next to the phone station. Someone had to have seen her. Chance approached the clerks, trying to maintain his cool. With armed police on patrol, the last thing he wanted to do was look agitated.
“Excuse me,” he said to an older woman who sat at the travel-agency desk. “But I seem to have misplaced my girlfriend,” he offered in Spanish with what he hoped was a charming, and not desperate, grin.
“¿Su novia?”
“Yes, she was sitting right there, waiting for me, but now I can’t seem to find her. Did you happen to notice where she might have gone?” Chance asked, describing Ana the best he could.
The woman frowned, and then her face lightened with realization.
“Sí, sí,” she agreed as she told Chance that she’d seen a woman sitting there, who had been approached by a man and had left with him.
“Did he force her? Was she taken?” Chance asked, lowering his voice and trying to remain calm.
“No.” The woman shook her head, adding that the man was very handsome and Ana had seemed happy to see him and had gone willingly.
Chance’s despair must have been evident on his face as the woman patted his arm and rattled something off in Spanish about how it happened to the best of men.
Chance thanked her briefly and walked back to the middle of the aisle. Airline passengers, police, workers milled around him, going about their business as he tried to decide what to do.
Why would Ana leave without telling him? What if she had been under duress?
It was the only explanation. She may not like having a bodyguard, and she had tried to give him the slip that morning, but he couldn’t imagine she would do it again.
Ana had been kidnapped. He’d known it was a possibility, but he hadn’t expected it here, right under his nose.
Chance opened his phone, calling his brother.
“Garrett?”
“Yeah? You on the ground?”
“I am, yeah. Easy flight, but I lost Ana.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was doing the paperwork to store the plane while I’m here. She was sitting right there, not six feet away from me, but when I turned around, she was gone. A travel clerk said that she saw Ana leave with a handsome man, likely Mexican, maybe local, in casual clothes. The clerk said she looked happy to see the man, but he must have had a gun on her or was telling her to cooperate.”
“Shit, Chance, really? You lost our client?” Garrett said, cursing again, and Chance winced. He was good at his job, but somehow, when he did mess up, even a little, he felt about five years old. Always the irresponsible baby brother.
But he couldn’t focus on that; time was of the essence if t
hey were going to find Ana. He’d broken a cardinal rule and let her out of his sight. He’d dropped his guard, and this was the price. Stupid.
“Any ideas how to proceed?” he asked, his self-
disgust clear in his tone.
“I have a friend in the American embassy down there. He might be able to tell me what he’s hearing regarding any kidnappings and if any news or ransom demands are being made. You should go to her town, to her family, and see if they can help. They might have local contacts who might know something.”
Chance breathed for the first time in the past twenty minutes, nodding. “On it. Thanks, Gar.”
“Don’t beat yourself, up, bud. It happens to the best of us. Let’s just find her,” Garrett said, and Chance appreciated the support, though nothing would make him feel better until he found Ana and knew that she was safe.
“Thanks. I’ll call when I know something. You, too.”
“Definitely.”
Chance went to the rental desk and was in a Jeep fifteen minutes later, finding his way to Hatsutsil, about fifty miles from the airport. Luckily most of the distance was highway, though the past fifteen miles or so was back roads into some coastal jungle that would have been awesomely gorgeous if he had noticed it at all.
A wooden sign announced that he had entered the small village, and Chance pulled to the side, scattering a bunch of chickens that had congregated by the side of the road. Hearing laughter, Chance looked up to see a group of young girls, teenagers, standing together on the porch of a small business, a grocery by the looks of it, watching him. When he made eye contact with one of them, more giggles.
Chance was hard-pressed not to smile back at the charming group, though their dark hair and pretty eyes made him think of how pretty Ana must have been at their age, and how they all would be beauties like her one day. Thinking about Ana at the hands of some kidnapper made something twist in his chest, and he waved the girls over, hoping they could help.
They shook their heads no, however, apparently versed in the ways of strangers, and knowing better. Chance understood, and turned the gas off, getting out of the Jeep and walking up to them, instead, keeping a distance that would make them feel safe.
His Kind of Trouble Page 5