Alaska Wild

by Helena Newbury

  For the entire flight, I’d felt that something was off about Marshal Phillips. Now, that feeling started to join with other things in my mind, a snowball that grew as it rolled. There’d been Hennessey’s insistence that I not get on the plane, Phillips’s lack of respect for his superior, Weiss’s cockiness in the face of imprisonment...and now it felt like something was going to happen. Soon. Within minutes.

  At the FBI, I’d learned to trust my gut. And my gut said something was wrong.

  I moved so that my body was in front of the luggage rack and put one arm overhead, pretending to stretch out my shoulders. With the other hand, I unzipped marshal Phillips’s holdall just enough to see what was inside.

  I frowned. Backpacks. Three of them. I poked one and felt softness inside, as if they were full of fabric. I started to relax. I don’t know what I’d been expecting to find, but it wasn’t this. Maybe it was changes of clothes for the prisoners or something.

  But wait: why three bags? There were only two prisoners.

  The backpacks had openings at the top. I hooked a finger inside and pulled out a corner of the fabric, rubbing it between my fingers. Thin, white, silky material, carefully packed.

  They weren’t backpacks. They were parachutes.

  Phillips and two others were planning to bail out.

  I’d stumbled right into a prison break.

  3

  Kate

  I zipped the bag closed, finished my fake stretch and walked back to my seat on legs that felt waxy and numb. I gave Phillips a quick smile and then stared out of the window again. The whole time, my mind was in overdrive, my heart thumping as I put it all together.

  Weiss. This had to be about Weiss. He had billions of dollars hidden away, probably in offshore accounts. When he was caught, he must have bribed Marshal Phillips and together they’d planned this escape. No wonder he was so cocky: he knew he wasn’t going to jail. And the third parachute must be for Hennessey: he was in on it, too. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was: why all this complexity? Why not just let Weiss go back in Nome, where he could sneak over to Russia? We’d traveled hours in the wrong direction.

  I watched both marshals out of the corner of my eye. They were almost constantly checking their watches, now, and looking out of the windows to gauge their position. I only had minutes left.

  I dug in my purse, found my phone and powered it on. But when the screen lit up, there was no signal. I couldn’t call the FBI. I couldn’t call anyone. I was completely cut off. And the two marshals were armed. I’d left my handgun back in New York. Shit.

  A little voice inside me said: why not just sit tight? In a few minutes, they’d bail out and it would all be over. The pilot would fly us on to Fairbanks, I could tell the police what had happened and they could begin the hunt. But out here, in this vast wilderness, Weiss could easily slip away. Weiss would walk free and the marshals would buy new identities and retire rich.

  No. No way. So what if he was a white collar criminal? He’d stolen from millions of families.

  I grabbed paper and pen from my purse, then eased myself casually out of my seat and wandered up to where the pilot sat. I could feel Phillips’s eyes on me as I passed him, but he didn’t stop me. The pilot looked round in surprise as I gingerly sat down in the empty co-pilot’s seat. From his expression, he still hadn’t forgiven me for running out into his path on the runway.

  “I just felt sorry for you, sitting all alone up here,” I said, trying to sound as air-headed as possible. “But what a view! Do you ever get used to it?”

  The pilot looked at me like I was crazy but muttered something about how it was even better in summer. I wasn’t listening. I was frantically writing on the paper in my lap.

  PRISON BREAK, I wrote. MARSHALS INVOLVED. RADIO FOR HELP. I pulled out my FBI badge, put it next to the note and then shoved the whole thing into his line of sight, using my body to shield what I was doing.

  He read it. Looked at me once in disbelief, then a second time in panic. Then he nodded and keyed the radio. “Tango two-five for Fairbanks International,” he said quietly.

  There was a metallic click. The pilot froze, looking at something behind me.

  I looked up at our reflection in the windshield. Marshal Phillips was standing right behind me and his gun was leveled at the back of my head.

  4

  Boone

  Moments Earlier

  Breathe. Just breathe.

  It started as soon as they put the chains on. The cuffs the sheriff had put on me back in Koyuk hadn’t been so bad. But these heavy, clanking chains...they were impossible to forget about. I couldn’t imagine myself somewhere else, like I’d been trained to do. I was someone’s prisoner again. And the plane was too damn small, the air too stale and warm. I tried to focus on the landscape outside the windows. Freedom was out there. But having it so tantalizingly close only reminded me that I was heading to Fairbanks and then to the deepest, darkest cell the military could find.

  Just. Breathe.

  Because if I lost it, I’d go into what I call lockdown. I’d retreat into myself, just like I had years before, and I’d lose the ability to feel or think. Then I really would be helpless. Then my mind would be imprisoned, too.

  There was only one thing that kept me going: her. She was the one tiny breath of air in the cabin, the one point of light in the darkness. Kate Lydecker.

  Every time the chains got too much, I closed my eyes for a second and I was back in the airport, her warm body wumf-ing against mine in slow motion. And what a body. Just the right combination of soft and firm. She was just a little thing: hell, the top of her head was only up to my shoulder. It was difficult to believe she was an FBI agent...until you saw how determined she was. The way she’d stood in front of our plane had made me shake my head in silent awe. I pitied the person she was chasing.

  I hadn’t been able to stop looking at her, the whole time she sat at the front of the plane. In her crisp blouse and smooth gray suit and with those soft lips pursed in thought, she looked like she came from some other world where everything was modern, sleek, and perfect. What the hell is she doing in Alaska?

  Then that prick in the suit had given her a hard time and something had risen up inside me, caveman-strong. I hadn’t even met her before that morning but the idea of someone hurting her made me mad.

  She’d offered me water. As if she actually gave a shit about me. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in months but, for her, I’d forced myself to string a sentence together. I think I even remembered a please. And she’d leaned over me, putting that bottle to my lips, and as I drank I soaked up the sight of her.

  Her eyes were deep brown, hard and yet always with just a little cautious warmth. She wore her mahogany hair pulled back into a severe little braid, maybe to look more imposing, but all it did was make her sexier. I’ve always liked long, loose hair on women but on her, the bouncing braid just drew my eyes to all that soft, exposed skin around the back of her neck, all the places that are normally hidden. Just as her pant suit, with its white blouse, made me focus on the little triangle of skin below her throat, on that hint of collarbone. Her skin looked so damn smooth. I wanted to just slide my big, calloused paw under that blouse and over her bare shoulder and find out how smooth, then pluck her bra strap off her shoulder and...damn.

  With this woman, everything she did to cover herself up just made me want to undress her more.

  Stupid. My chest tightened. That part of my life was long done with. I was on my way to jail for a very long time.

  I closed my eyes and drew in a long breath, hearing the chains rattle and clank. And then a sound I wasn’t expecting: the click of a gun being cocked. I looked up to see Marshal Phillips with a gun to Kate’s head.

  Aw, hell no.

  Some instinct made me glance across at Weiss. He was grinning. That’s when I realized what was going on.

  I tensed, about to rise...then looked down at my chains. Shit! I couldn’t do a damn thing. Not lik
e this.

  For a second, everyone was frozen. Kate was staring coldly at Marshal Phillips. The pilot was looking between the two of them, white-faced. Hennessey was watching the whole thing with a face like thunder.

  The radio suddenly blared, startling everyone. Phillips’s finger twitched on the trigger and he must have come within a fraction of an inch of blowing Kate’s head off. But he caught himself just in time.

  “Tango two-five, this is Fairbanks International,” squawked the radio. “Go ahead.”

  Phillips was still panting from the shock. Hennessey got up and took charge. “Tell them everything’s fine,” he barked to the pilot.

  The pilot swallowed and asked the control tower how the weather was looking in Fairbanks. They told him to expect cloudless skies and he thanked them and signed off.

  “Just keep us heading for Fairbanks,” Phillips told the pilot. Then he looked at Hennessey. “Get the chains off Weiss.”

  Hennessey glared at him, as if he didn’t like being ordered around. He was the senior marshal but, apparently, Phillips was in charge...and the young guy was loving the power trip. Hennessey walked over to Weiss, took out a key and started to undo the padlocks. Weiss grinned as his chains fell away.

  “You’re a marshal,” grated Kate. “How can you do this? How much is he paying you?”

  “Shut up!” spat Hennessey. “It’s not like that.”

  “Take a seat,” Phillips told Kate, and shoved her forward. She stumbled and I tensed again, the protective rage boiling up inside again. I didn’t want to see anything happen to her.

  Kate sat down beside me. Even with everything that was going on, just having her that close sent a surge of hormones through me: dammit, but this woman did a number on me. I tried to rationalize it, told myself that it was months since I’d even seen a woman; years since I’d been really close to one. Maybe it was just that, like a parched man in a desert reacting to his first sip of water.

  But that was bullshit. There was something about her, something that made me crave more and more of her. Her skin, her eyes, the way her breasts lifted just so as she breathed, pushing out against that demure white blouse. The way she pressed her lips together—there, like that. Dammit. Like she was a mouse determined to stand up to a cat, no matter how big and fearsome. Even that gleaming mahogany hair looked hard: by drawing it back tightly, she’d formed it into protective armor. But if I could just release it, I knew it’d be so soft….

  It was a long time since I’d touched anything soft. My hands were calloused from swinging axes and working wood.

  The last of Weiss’s chains rattled to the floor and he stood. He and the two marshals moved to the back and started strapping on parachutes. So that was the plan. But why go to all this trouble? If the marshals were on the take, why not just quietly disappear back in Nome? It didn’t make sense.

  For a few minutes, I listened to the men behind me. Weiss didn’t know how to put on his parachute and was getting testy with the marshals. “I’m paying you enough,” he snapped at one point. “You’re meant to take care of all this stuff!” He reminded me of a wealthy, entitled tourist on a safari.

  Then I froze. Beside me, Kate had placed her hands on the armrests and was taking quick little breaths. Her heels came up off the floor so that she was poised on the balls of her feet. She was preparing to push off and—

  Jesus, she was going to run at them. She was going to try to take them on, unarmed. Was she insane?

  I stared at her, trying to communicate with my eyes. Don’t do it! Just let them go! In another few minutes, they’d jump. We could fly on to Fairbanks and it would all be over. But she wasn’t looking at me. Her gaze was fixed on the seat back in front of her, that sweet little jaw determinedly set. God, she had some crazy sense of justice! She was trying to do her duty as a damn FBI agent.

  She lifted herself infinitesimally out of her seat and then sank back. I realized she was psyching herself up. One, two, three and she’d run at them. That was one.

  She doesn’t stand a chance. One of them would shoot her before she ever got close.

  Unless I helped her.

  She lifted herself again, thighs tensing under her suit pants. That was two.

  Let her, a vicious little voice inside me said. She’s part of the system. You don’t owe the system a damn thing. Not after what it did to you.

  But I owed her. She’d been decent to me. I wasn’t going to let her die.

  Three. She lifted herself, already turning to run—

  My hand slapped down on hers, clamping it to the armrest.

  5

  Kate

  My head snapped around. I found myself staring up into Boone’s eyes and I caught my breath, pinned there. That icy, Alaskan blue was burning up with anger and concern.

  And then he spoke in a low rumble, the words vibrating up as if from a thousand feet beneath the surface. “Release me.” That accent again, as outdoors as I was indoors.

  I couldn’t breathe. My eyes went from his face to his chains and back.

  His hand squeezed mine and that...did something to me. I can’t explain it. His hand was so big, it just swallowed mine up completely, warm and dry and strong. “I can help you,” he said. “But not with these on.”

  I stared at him, feeling my shoulders slowly rise and fall as I panted. I was jacked up on adrenaline, heady with it. I’d been a split-second away from running at the marshals when he’d stopped me. Release him?! He was a prisoner, a wanted man. My eyes flicked to the prisoner files at the front of the plane. I don’t even know what he did!

  He was much bigger than me. He was a fugitive in custody. Taking off his chains would be insane...and absolutely against procedure. I always follow procedure. That’s why the FBI suits me so well. I like being part of something structured and organized and controlled.

  Except—

  Except I was alone, cut off from all contact, thousands of feet in the air, facing two men with guns. There was no procedure for this.

  And when I stared into Boone’s eyes...I felt like I could trust him.

  That’s insane. You don’t know anything about him.

  But that didn’t stop it being true.

  I felt myself nod. His hand squeezed mine again and a rush of heat went through me. Oh, Kate...what the hell are you doing?

  Movement behind us. Marshal Hennessey walked past me, close enough to touch, heading towards the pilot with a small bag of tools. And jangling on his belt were the keys for Boone’s chains.

  Now or never.

  I sprang out of my seat and grabbed his shoulders. He started to twist around, looking at me disbelievingly, one hand reaching for his gun. There was no fear in his eyes. Once he saw it was me who’d grabbed him, his eyes actually narrowed in frustration. He probably thought he could just shake me off and keep walking.

  I’m used to that. People have been underestimating me my entire life.

  I hooked my foot around his ankle, preventing him from stepping back and catching his balance. And then I used my body weight to haul him up and back at just the right angle—

  What do you do when you’re smaller than all the other kids and everyone’s kicking sand in your face?

  You learn judo.

  Hennessey came crashing down, falling across Boone’s lap. Boone got the idea immediately, snatching up the keys and going to work while using his elbows to keep the marshal pinned.

  Behind me, I heard Phillips curse and start towards us. Unless I could delay him long enough for Boone to get his chains off, we were finished. As Phillips marched down the aisle towards us, I ducked low and grappled him, my shoulder against his hip...but I didn’t have the element of surprise, this time, and he planted his weight and grabbed me, one strong arm encircling my waist and holding me bent over. I pushed hard, forcing him back, but this time I was the one off-balance. Then his other arm encircled my neck in a choke hold and squeezed, cutting off my air.

  “You should have listened to Hennessey and
stayed off our plane,” he said mildly.

  I thrashed and struggled but the narrow aisle left me no room to maneuver. My vision started to narrow, the world growing dark.

  And then there was a sound I’ll never forget, a metal waterfall as pounds of heavy chains all slithered to the floor. Phillips’s hold on me loosened as he looked up in shock. Three footsteps, quick but so heavy they shook the whole plane. The sound of a punch and Phillips was suddenly flying backwards through the air.

  I staggered away from him, straightened up...and saw Boone standing next to me, still lowering his fist. He was glaring down at Phillips, now slumped on the floor, his eyes burning with a cold rage. Free of his chains, he looked even bigger and wilder, his massive chest rising and falling as he panted like a beast. He had Hennessey’s gun in his other hand—he must have been too worried about hitting me to use it up close. He glanced at me and the deep undercurrent of concern I saw there made me go warm inside. I’d been right to trust him.

  For a split second, I relaxed. That was a mistake.

  Weiss darted forward and drew the gun from Phillips’s holster, pointing it at us. Boone immediately raised his gun and the cabin went utterly silent as the two faced off against each other. Shit! I hadn’t even been thinking of him as a threat. He was a white collar criminal. He wasn’t meant to be violent!

  “Let’s make a deal,” said Weiss.

  Boone silently shook his head.

  “Just think for a second,” Weiss said, his voice syrupy and patronizing. “You’re a wanted man, on his way to jail. Come with us and you can walk away.”

  My breath went tight in my chest.

  “There aren’t enough parachutes,” said Boone, his voice level. “There are only three, right? One for each of you.” Oh God..he was thinking about it!