If she could put some distance between them, she was sure she could come up with viable reasons to heed those warnings.
Self-preservation had her pulling free of his hold, had her backing away, gaining distance.
“Christine….”
“Don’t.” She held up her palms to ward him off. She had to breathe. Dammit, she couldn’t breathe. “We have jobs to do, a million details to see to. We don’t have time to deal with anything else.”
His eyes narrowed. “That’s not all that’s going on here.”
“Nothing—”
“Up until a few minutes ago, I thought it was just me, but I was wrong. We’ve both got things to deal with that have nothing to do with our jobs.”
She dropped her hands, curled them against her jeaned thighs. “Other than the running of this airport, you and I have nothing to talk about.” Her voice was steady, despite the old cravings his presence had forced through a door she’d slammed and locked years ago. Those cravings were dangerous. Painful.
“I had my hands circling your wrists, Christine,” he said, his voice as soft as a caress. “Your pulse was off the chart. Do business matters often have that effect on you?”
She raised her chin. “I have work to do.”
As she dropped back into her chair, Quinn’s pager beeped. With hands that weren’t quite steady, Christine pushed papers into whatever file folder was closest.
Shoving back one flap of his suit coat, he unclipped the pager from his belt and checked the display. “My chief’s downstairs.”
“I’ll let you know what the FAA says about that location for its tower,” she stated as he turned.
“Fine.” From the corner of her eye she saw him hesitate, then he turned back to the desk. Reaching down, he put one finger beneath her chin, prodded it up until her gaze met his.
“We’re going to have that talk, Slim. I promise you that. Someday soon, we’re going to talk.”
Chapter 3
“Give me your best estimate, Pete,” Christine said several hours later while she and the maintenance manager stood on the grassy area at the edge of runway one-seven-left. The swirling dark clouds and torrential rain of that morning had been replaced by hazy evening sunlight that peeked through thick clouds. “How many lights did we lose in the tornado?”
The burly maintenance manager swept his gaze down the length of the runway while he pulled a thick cigar from the pocket of his blue work shirt. “Best guess is about two hundred edge lights—that’s the total for both runways. Twice that number of taxiway lights.”
Christine nudged back the hair that a gust of humid wind dashed into her eyes. The wind and the strident grind of a bulldozer’s engine as it shoved rubble off the runway’s surface nearly obliterated Pete’s response.
The owner of the construction company she had contracted with earlier in the day had been as good as his word. One hour after she’d phoned and given him notice to proceed with the job of clearing the rubble-strewn airfield, a fleet of dump trucks, front-end loaders, cranes and flatbed trucks with bulldozers piggybacked onto them arrived at Sam Houston. Per Agent Taggart’s request, she had called the command post to let him know the equipment was on-site. Taggart advised her to have the dozers driven to where they could be seen from the hijacked plane, but to hold off all work until she heard back from him.
A half hour later, the self-contained steps built into the hijacked plane’s aft lowered. Per the deal Taggart had struck with Carl Hart to trade human lives for cleared runway, five of the prisoners taken hostage that morning shuffled down the steps, wariness flashing in their eyes. Marshals, clad in bulletproof vests, riot helmets and armed with twelve-gauge pump shotguns, waited behind prison vans parked on the taxiway. After herding the inmates into the vans, the marshals transported them to the nearby transfer center. Taggart then called and gave Christine the go-ahead to start clearing the runway nearest the hijacked plane.
Now, she and Pete stood near the runway’s end farthest from Flight 407. Sitting nearly two miles away, the plane and seven-story prison looked almost toylike. In the distance, she could see the FBI’s portable command post on the outskirts of the security perimeter that law enforcement had established around the 727.
The plane’s stark-white body reflected the last rays of the sun that slowly slipped toward the horizon. Christine gnawed her bottom lip, feeling a now-familiar rush of anxiety for the hostages still aboard that plane. No one knew for sure what Carl Hart had planned for the plane and those he held captive. Since one of his first demands was that the taxiway and nearest runway be cleared, it was obvious he intended to force the pilot to put the plane into the air. Whether Agent Taggart would allow that, Christine couldn’t guess. All she knew was that the lives of some or all of the people aboard Flight 407 might depend on how fast she cleared the runway on which she and Pete now stood.
“We also lost airfield guidance signs,” Pete added. With lighter in hand, he cupped a palm around the end of the thick cigar. “Replacing those’ll take another hefty chunk out of the budget.”
“I’ve already gotten this airport approved to receive federal disaster funds.” Out of the corner of her eye, Christine noted that a red maintenance van displaying the logo of one of the airport’s fixed base operators had parked several yards from where she and Pete stood. The driver, a tall, thick-bodied man wearing jeans, a dark work shirt and a ball cap with the FBO’s logo on its front had alighted from the van and was now conversing with several shovel-wielding crew workers.
“I’ll worry about the budget,” Christine continued, picking up the thread of conversation as she looked back at Pete. “You concentrate on getting this airfield back in service.”
“You got it, boss,” Pete said, his gaze following hers to the far-off hijacked plane. “Speaking of that, before I drove out here to meet you, I got a call from the FAA.” He inclined his head toward a cement block structure that sat in the distance. The antenna toppled against its roof was bent like a crooked finger. “They’ll have a crew here first thing in the morning to start repairs on their navaids,” he said, referring to the various FAA-owned flight navigational instruments that dotted the airfield.
“Good.” Christine glanced at her watch, saw it was nearly seven o’clock. “I need to touch base with the supervisor over this construction crew.” Her gaze sought, then settled on a man wearing a white hard hat from which curly gray hair sprouted around its rim. He was currently overseeing the positioning of several portable trailers that held large generator-powered spotlights. “I want to make sure he understands they’re to leave the taxiway untouched until he hears different from me. After that, I’m going to drive home and get a couple of changes of clothes. Grab some dinner. I’ll sleep on the couch in my office until this airport is back in operation.”
“My wife already brought me some extra clothes,” Pete said, the wind grabbing the stream of gray smoke he exhaled. “If you need me to take care of something during the night, I’ll be bedded down at the field maintenance compound.”
Christine touched a hand to his thick forearm. “Thanks, Pete. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
He dipped his head. “You’ll do the same thing your dad would have done. You’ll manage. You’ll manage just fine, boss.”
The low rumble of thunder that sounded from somewhere over the horizon had Pete scowling. “Dammit to hell, more rain’s the last thing we need. These crews can’t work through the night if we get deluged.”
“Let’s hope the storm stays to our west,” Christine said, even as the fresh smell of rain drifted on the air. She didn’t want rain, she thought, glancing up at the clouds scudding across the slate-blue sky that edged closer to twilight with each passing minute. She wanted the crews working throughout the night, wanted the hijacking crisis resolved, wanted her airport in operation, wanted everything back to normal.
Her emotions, included.
We’re going to have that talk, Slim. I promise you that. So
meday soon, we’re going to talk.
No. Christine flexed her fingers, unflexed them. She and Quinn weren’t going to talk, not about anything other than issues directly relating to the airport.
I had my hands circling your wrists, Christine. Your pulse was off the chart. Do business matters often have that effect on you?
She closed her eyes. It didn’t matter. Didn’t matter if Quinn’s very presence drew her like a divining rod to water with the same force it had when they’d first met. Didn’t matter if he felt that searing attraction just as surely as she. Didn’t matter if he knew what she felt…which he did, thanks to her traitorous pulse. None of that mattered because she had no intention of acting on that attraction. Three years ago, when Quinn turned away, knives had slashed into her soul. It had taken her what seemed like a lifetime to get over the pain. Over him. No matter that the hurt had faded, no matter that she now understood he had handled his grief over Jeff’s death the only way he could, no matter that she’d forgiven Quinn for that hurt. None of that mattered.
What mattered was that he had hurt her. Desperately.
She had trusted him with her heart and he’d broken it. The thought of handing him her heart a second time had fingers of panic clawing inside her belly. She would never again put herself on such thin ice where Quinn was concerned. She knew with certainty she couldn’t survive it shattering under her again.
A second rumble of thunder, closer now, jerked Christine’s thoughts back to the present. Taking a deep breath, she turned to face Pete. “Instead of hoping we don’t get rain, maybe we should hope there’s not another tornado mixed with that rain.”
“You have a point.”
Keeping one concerned eye on the darkening sky, she headed across the runway toward the crew chief.
With police traffic quietly crackling on the in-dash radio, Quinn parked his unmarked cruiser on a grassy patch beside Christine’s Bronco. As he watched her walk away from Pete Jacobs, Quinn’s throat tightened. He had always admired the way she moved with an athletic and economical grace that wasted neither time nor energy. That grace was now enhanced by the snug denim that encased her endlessly long legs and curvy bottom.
Sensing he wasn’t the only male admiring the view, Quinn slid his gaze sideways. Two men holding shovels had their gazes glued to Christine’s butt. A third guy, wearing a ball cap with an FBO’s logo, stood with his head cocked and mouth pursed, apparently appreciating the entire nifty package.
“Damn,” Quinn muttered, as a muscle in his jaw began to work. He’d been so sure he’d finally gotten over her. During the past year, there had been entire days when he didn’t think about her. Nights when memories of her no longer drifted in to haunt his dreams. Weeks when he gave no thought to the engagement ring he’d bought the day before Jeff died or the proposal he never made.
When he’d first laid eyes on Christine this morning, it was as if he’d suddenly jolted out of some sort of limbo. A limbo, he now realized, he’d been caught in for the past three years. He had gotten an even bigger jolt a few hours ago in her office when he’d felt the pulse in her wrists hammering like mad beneath his palms. Hammering for him. The mix of wariness and confusion and desire swimming in her dark eyes had knotted his gut. Until that instant, he hadn’t known he was ready to resurrect the part of himself he’d buried with Jeff.
Hadn’t known he was still in love with Christine Logan. Had never stopped loving her.
Now he knew.
“Holy hell.”
When she left Texas three years ago, she’d taken a job at L.A. International, started a new life fifteen hundred miles away. He would bet—just bet—that somewhere in those unopened boxes stacked in her office was a frame that held the photo of the current man in her life.
Scrubbing a hand across his face, Quinn shifted his gaze back to Christine. She stood talking to the construction foreman, her eyes serious, her stance all-business as she pointed toward the distant hijacked plane. Watching her, Quinn acknowledged how comfortably she carried authority on her shoulders. Smooth, shapely shoulders. The little licks of fire that ignited inside him had him stifling a groan. It would be a hell of a lot better for his blood pressure—and easier to think—if he didn’t know just how soft those particular shoulders felt against his lips.
And tasted.
Quinn knew the knots in his gut were the least of his problems. Somehow, some way, he had to convince Christine to let him back into her life. He would crawl if he had to. Beg, if that was what it took.
“Might as well start now,” he muttered. Grabbing the small blanket and brown paper bag off the seat beside him, he shouldered open the cruiser’s door.
Christine’s steps slowed when she spotted Quinn sitting on a blanket spread across the hood of an unmarked police car. The strengthening breeze ruffled his dark hair. Since she’d last seen him, he had stripped off his navy suit coat and tie; his white dress shirt was open at the neck, its sleeves rolled up to expose tanned, corded forearms. A holstered weapon was clipped onto his waistband beside his gold badge. A brown bag that sported the name of the hotel on the airport premises sat beside him on the blanket.
“I remember how you get so focused on a job that you forget certain things,” he said, his gaze following hers to the brown bag. “One being to eat.”
Christine ran her hands down her jeaned thighs. “I haven’t had time to think about food.”
She wanted their relationship to be strictly professional, but how could it when their pasts were so intertwined? She checked her watch, then inclined her head toward her Bronco. “I’m going to drive home and get some clothes. Fix a bite to eat there.”
Quinn gave her an easy smile. “Why take the extra time when your dinner’s already delivered?” As he spoke, he pulled two thick, plastic-wrapped sandwiches out of the bag, followed by lidded foam cups.
The rumble of thunder had her glancing up at the gray, swirling clouds. “It could start raining any minute.”
“Then we’d better eat fast.” He dipped his head toward the spot beside him. “Take a load off, Slim. It’s been one hell of a long day.”
“True,” she agreed, silently acknowledging the dragging fatigue that had settled in her legs and back. Quinn couldn’t possibly know that her long day had started nearly twenty-four hours ago when raw-edged anticipation over seeing him had kept her tossing and turning all night.
She also hadn’t eaten a thing, not since lunch yesterday. Which, no doubt, was the reason that the sight of the sandwiches had her empty stomach growling.
Shifting her weight, Christine looked across her shoulder. An engine droned as a bulldozer’s blade scraped debris off the runway’s surface onto the grass. Crew members walked at a safe distance behind the dozer, shoveling aside smaller pieces of debris left in the bulldozer’s wake. Out on the grass, a front-end loader spilled a clattering heap of rubble into the back of a dump truck.
She looked back at Quinn. With his presence sending ripples of unease down her spine, having an audience was probably best while they shared their first meal together in three years.
She gave her shoulders a restless move. “I never was one to turn down food.”
“That’s another thing I remember about you,” he said quietly.
Hating the fact that his reference to the past made her pulse jump, she slid onto the cruiser’s hood. “You’ve got a lot of unimportant facts cluttering your brain, Buchanan.”
“Let’s see how unimportant you think these are.” His gaze locked with hers, he handed her a napkin and one sandwich. “Mustard, not mayo. Dill pickles instead of sweet. Cheddar cheese, not Swiss. Hold the tomatoes.” Reaching behind him, he snagged one of the foam cups. “Unsweetened iced tea with two lemon wedges.”
“Thanks.” She lowered her gaze, concentrating on unwrapping the sandwich. The fact that he recalled her exact food preferences was convenient, nothing more.
“You’re welcome.”
She tasted her sandwich, her brows sliding t
ogether while she chewed. “You’re supposed to track down Carl Hart’s on-ground accomplice. Shouldn’t you be rerunning background checks on everyone with airfield access?”
“I am rerunning background checks,” Quinn answered before taking the first bite of his sandwich. “Which, by the way, also include you and all of your department’s employees,” he added after a moment. “The National Crime Information Center’s computer went down about an hour ago. My dispatcher has instructions to let me know when NCIC comes back online.” He shrugged. “I hadn’t eaten, so I figured this was as good a time as any.”
After the first two bites of her sandwich, Christine discovered she was ravenous. While she ate, her gaze drifted to the hijacked plane. “Do they have food on board?”
“Box lunches,” Quinn said, his gaze following hers. “The prison kitchen loads one for each person listed on the itinerary onto the plane before each flight. Each box has a couple of sandwiches, something to drink. According to the men he released, Hart passed the food out to the other prisoners around lunchtime.” Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “He also fed the pilot and copilot, but not the marshals or other staff members.”
“If this situation lasts much longer, Hart’s going to want more food.”
“He made that demand about three hours ago.”
Christine looked back at Quinn. “Will Taggart give him more?”
“Like everything else, he’ll use food as a negotiating tool. If Hart gives up more hostages, he’ll get food. Each time Hart demands something, Taggart will insist he release a few hostages. Doing that won’t get everyone on board freed, but some are better than none.”
Christine chewed in thoughtful silence. “What about the plane?” she asked finally.
Special Report Page 4