The Twin Switch (Millionaires Legacy Book 13; Gambling Men)

by Barbara Dunlop

  They gave us jackets in case we got cold, showed us how to work on the oxygen masks in case we went over 10,000 feet and then we had a toast with champagne before we left the ground.

  The champagne was chilled, and it was high-end, and it wasn’t served in plastic cups like you might expect at a picnic site. Oh, no, nothing that tacky. We were handed crystal flutes to ensure nothing marred the opulence of our experience.

  With the colorful balloon above us, we soared past red-rock cliffs.

  Max and I gazed out at the gnarled trees, the towering saguaro cactuses and the flashes of delicate, colored flowers that grew in bunches on the desert floor. A hawk glided above us and a coyote trotted below.

  Rick, the pilot, was behind us, controlling the burner.

  “Tell me about your brother,” Max said.

  The question put me on my guard. “Why?”

  “I’ve been thinking about him since your phone call.”

  I really didn’t want to think about that phone call. I didn’t want to think about my dishonesty. I wanted to think about the beautiful desert rolling out in front of us.

  “It’s easy for me to see Colton’s side in this,” Max said, either not noticing my silence or not caring. “He and Brooklyn seem good together, and—”

  “James and Brooklyn are way better together.”

  “I’m not saying they’re not.”

  I pressed my point. “What they have is solid and real.”

  “It may well be.”

  I was determined to argue, but Max wasn’t really arguing back. That annoyed me, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to counter it. How did you complain about someone not fighting with you?

  We both fell silent. The wind blew against our faces as we glided. The roar of the burner ebbed and flowed.

  “About your brother,” he said.

  “What?” I asked, exasperated that he wouldn’t just let it lie. “Are you scoping out the competition for Colton?”

  “No. I’m trying to understand both sides.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because it’s a reasonable thing to do when there are two perspectives.”

  “You’re hardly a neutral party.”

  He was pulling for his own brother, plain and simple. Not that I blamed him. I was sure pulling for James. But I felt like I had a stronger claim. Which I know sounds ridiculous. Brooklyn’s feelings were her own, not mine or Max’s or Colton’s, or even James’s. Still...

  “I’m considering the wisdom of helping you,” Max said.

  “Helping me do what?”

  “I think you may have a point.”

  I’m not a suspicious person, but this sounded too good to be true. “About what?”

  The balloon basket lurched. I fell against Max, and he wrapped his arm firmly around me, steadying me.

  I didn’t want to like the feeling. I wasn’t a maiden in distress. I didn’t need a strong handsome man to keep me out of harm’s way. It wasn’t like I was about to fall.

  Still, I didn’t pull back.

  I wasn’t sure why.

  Okay, I was sure why.

  The rocky basket was an excuse to hug Max again without admitting what I was doing. Then again, I’d just admitted what I was doing, so it wasn’t like I was fooling myself.

  “Colton and Brooklyn just met,” Max said. “It’s possible what they feel won’t last.”

  “Exactly!” I blurted.

  The basket lurched, more suddenly this time, and the floor seemed to drop from beneath us.

  My stomach dropped along with it.

  Max twisted his head to look back at the pilot.

  I could imagine his question was the same as mine—something along the lines of “what the heck?”

  “Wind shear,” Rick called out. The roar of the burner became constant. “I’m fighting a pretty strong downdraft.”

  I was about to ask if we were going to fall, when the floor stabilized, our descent growing more constant.

  “That was exciting,” I said to Max. I almost, but not quite, kept the tremble from my voice.

  “That’s one word for it,” he said.

  “Were you scared?” I asked.

  “Not so far.”

  The basket was rapidly descending.

  The roar increased, and I saw the pilot was using both of the burners.

  I found myself mesmerized by the rising earth. If I had to guess, I’d say we were a hundred feet above the sloped, tree-dotted hillside.

  I wouldn’t say we were plummeting, but we were falling faster than I wanted to hit the ground, that was for sure.

  “There’s a fifteen-second delay for the balloon to respond to the added heat,” Rick told us.

  “Are you scared?” I asked Rick.

  He looked perfectly calm.

  “We’ll slow down in a moment,” he told me. “We may make a hard landing.”

  “Is that a euphemism for crash?” I asked, not really sure that I wanted the answer.

  “Landing,” he assured me.

  “Don’t be scared,” Max said.

  “I’m not,” I lied. I was getting scared now. The ground was only about fifty feet away.

  “Feel that?” Rick asked.

  Our rate of descent had definitely slowed down.

  I heard him try his radio.

  “Are you sending a Mayday?” I asked.

  “I’m trying to raise a signal.”

  “There’s no signal?” I was embarrassed at the little squeak at the end of my question. But I was starting to picture us stranded in the desert, injured by the fall, nobody knowing how to find us while we died of thirst or were attacked and eaten by coyotes.

  Brooklyn tells me I get ahead of myself. She tells me that I love to play “worst-case scenario.”

  She’s not wrong. I admit, I do do that. But in this case I figured I was playing “most likely case scenario.” That was a completely different thing.

  “We’re being monitored on GPS,” Max said, obviously guessing my worry. “They know where we are.”

  “I want to let them know we landed safely,” Rick said.

  I looked over the edge of the basket. There were trees directly beneath us, and we were closing in.

  “We haven’t landed safely,” I pointed out.

  “Once—”

  A strong cross breeze gusted against us.

  “Whoa,” Rick said, shutting off the burners. “Hang on!”

  Max plastered me to his stomach with one arm, gripping the edge of the basket with the other.

  The basket caught on the branches of one of the trees. The branches snapped off and the balloon kept going.

  Then we hit the next tree. This one had more strength and it held us in place. The wind buffeted the giant balloon, fighting with the tree for control of the basket.

  “What is—” I began, but I didn’t get to finish.

  The basket tipped sideways. I cried out, but I was proud that I didn’t actually scream.

  My heart was pumping furiously as I grasped at the air, searching for something to hang on to.

  Max’s grip on me tightened as I almost slid out of the basket.

  “Keep still. I’ve got you,” he said.

  Max kept us in place by holding on to the basket with one arm and me with the other.

  I couldn’t help but wonder how long he could do that.

  Rick had been thrown, and he now hung from the lip of the basket, his feet kicking as he searched for a tree branch for support.

  He seemed to find something. He breathed a sigh of relief and hoisted himself with his elbows, then his shoulders, farther into the basket.

  “You okay?” Max asked him.

  “Yes, you?” Rick asked.

  “We�
�re good,” Max said.

  “Sorry about the hard landing,” he said.

  I almost laughed. I assumed he was joking. “That felt like a crash.”

  “It’s not a crash if you walk away,” Rick said, keeping his tone light on purpose—no doubt.

  “This is going to be interesting,” Max said.

  “Interesting?” I echoed with incredulity.

  We were stuck in a tree with a ten-foot drop to the ground.

  “We can do this,” Max assured me.

  I wanted to be brave. I wished with all my heart I could be brave. I didn’t want to look like a coward in front of Max. But I didn’t want to break my limbs, either.

  The basket flexed beneath us, and my heart took a jump.

  “Can you get your girlfriend down?” Rick asked.

  I started to protest the title, but then I stopped. Under the circumstances, correcting Rick would be silly.

  Max stretched out on his stomach, then he motioned to me. “Give me your hands.”

  I couldn’t help glancing at the drop-off from the mouth of the basket. “What are you going to do?”

  “If I hold you over the edge at arm’s length, your feet will almost touch the ground.”

  “Almost?” I didn’t really like the sound of that, never mind the idea of dangling in midair while Max lowered me.

  What if he lost his grip? What if the basket tipped further and we both tumbled out? I’d break my legs and Max would break his neck.

  Just then the wind gusted, catching the half-inflated balloon, lurching us against the tree.

  “Do it now,” Rick said.

  “Take my hands,” Max said.

  I didn’t hesitate anymore. Whatever courage I’d been looking for showed up in an instant. I skootched over and gave Max my hands.

  He took me by the wrists.

  “Hang on to me,” he said.

  I gripped his wrists the way he gripped mine.

  “Slide backward,” he told me. “Don’t look down.”

  I decided that was very good advice. I settled my gaze on his.

  He gave me a smile. “This is going to be easy.”

  “I don’t believe you.” But I was already inching back. Some primal part of my brain told me I had to act, I had to do exactly as he said to make sure we all got out of this without getting hurt.

  “That’s good,” Max said as my feet dangled free.

  I folded at the waist, then I wiggled back even more. As I reached the balance point, I took a breath and kept going.

  Max’s gaze remained locked with mine until I was dangling at his arm’s length.

  “It’s about two feet to the ground,” he told me. “Like jumping off a chair. Bend your knees when you land.”

  I was ready.

  I nodded.

  He let me drop.

  Seven

  We made it onto solid ground with nothing more than minor scrapes and bruises. Rick headed up the side of the hill with the radio to try to raise a signal. Meanwhile, Max sized up the trapped basket.

  “It’s not coming down,” he said, coming over to where I was sitting on a smooth rock. “Not without help, anyway.”

  I was watching a moving shape on the horizon. “Is that a coyote?”

  Max followed my gaze. “It is.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “Only if you’re a jackrabbit. It won’t bother us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  It was possible Max was lying to make me feel better. The animal had stopped now. It was staring right at us, and it looked hungry. There wasn’t a lot of game out here in the desert. We probably looked delicious.

  “What does your brother do for a living?” Max asked, sitting down next to me.

  “He could have friends lurking out there.”

  “James?”

  “The coyote.”

  I watched the nature channel. I knew coyotes traveled in packs. They might not be big, but a well-coordinated pack could take down a deer. I’d seen it happen, and it wasn’t pretty.

  “Is he a teacher like you?” Max asked. “Lawyer? Banker?”

  “James is an economist.”

  The coyote put his nose to the ground and started toward us.

  “Should we climb the tree?” I asked.

  “Does he work for a government? A chamber of commerce? A Fortune 500?”

  “A consulting firm.”

  Max seemed very calm. I decided to assume our lives weren’t in imminent danger.

  “I assume he’s a good-looking man.”

  I took my gaze off the approaching coyote long enough to check Max’s expression. That was an odd assumption.

  “He’s your brother,” Max said. “The genetic odds seem to be in his favor.”

  The oblique compliment took me by surprise. I couldn’t decide if I should thank him and seem conceited or let it slide and seem ungrateful.

  Suddenly Max jumped to his feet and shouted, “Ha!”

  The coyote startled about thirty feet away.

  My insides froze with fear.

  Max waved his arms. “Go on!”

  The coyote twisted his body, turning away, but watched us over his shoulder as he trotted.

  “Ha!” Max shouted again.

  The coyote began to run.

  “You said he wasn’t dangerous.” My voice had a definite shake to it.

  “He’s not.”

  “He was coming for us.”

  “He didn’t know what we were. We’re pretty far out in the desert right now. I doubt he sees a lot of people.”

  “He wanted to eat us.” I was sure of that.

  Coyotes were predators, and we were prey.

  “He ran away,” Max pointed out.

  “You had to scare him away.”

  “I just let him know we were bigger than he is.” Max sat back down and took my hand. “Relax. You’re perfectly safe.”

  I gazed at the hill where the pilot had climbed. “What about Rick?”

  “He’ll be back soon.”

  “I hope he’s okay.” I wouldn’t have wanted to be climbing around up that hill all by myself.

  “What’s the name of your brother’s firm?”

  “O’Neil Nybecker.”

  “That’s a solid firm.”

  “He’s a solid guy.” I’d been bragging about my brother most of my life—except when I was really young, and except for those teenage years when he embarrassed me nearly to death. The rest of the time I accepted that he was an exceptional brother.

  “Top of his class at UW,” I said.

  “Impressive,” Max responded in an easy tone.

  “His varsity four-man crew took silver in the nationals.”

  “Colton lettered in cross-country.”

  That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear. “Is this a contest?”

  “It’s beginning to feel like one.”

  “You asked.”

  “I did,” he agreed.

  “What about you?” I found myself curious, thinking about what Max might have been like in college. “Did you run cross-country?”

  “I played second base.”

  My interest was piqued. “I coach softball. Freshman and sophomore.”

  “Good for you.”

  “We all contribute to the extracurricular activities.” I didn’t want him to think I was bragging about some kind of extraordinary contribution to North Hill High. All the teachers were dedicated.

  “Do you play?” he asked.

  “I do. In a rec league. You?”

  “Same.”

  There was something about his answer that projected a quiet confidence.

  “You’re really good, aren’t you?”

  “Lots o
f guys are better than me.”

  “No, they’re not.”

  He smiled at that statement, but didn’t answer.

  “I knew it,” I said.

  “How long have James and Brooklyn been together?”

  “Since high school. Even before that, really. Brooklyn’s been my best friend forever.”

  “They have a lot in common?”

  I thought about how to answer that. “Not everything. They’re good foils for each other. James is solid and steady. Brooklyn is more impulsive, full of energy, great ideas and tons of fun. Together, they work.”

  “Do they fight?”

  “Almost never.”

  “Do you find that odd?”

  “I find it great. They’ve been around each other forever, and they’ve always gotten along.”

  “Do you think that could be the problem?”

  I wasn’t about to admit there was a problem.

  I mean, I knew there was a problem. It was less than two weeks to the wedding.

  Brooklyn was in Vegas hanging out with Colton instead of back in Seattle doing the final fitting of her wedding gown. But I wasn’t ready to admit that to anyone but myself.

  “There’s no problem.”

  “Maybe they were too close. More like siblings than lovers.”

  “They’re not siblings. They’ve been dating for years. Believe me, they know the difference.” As I spoke, I couldn’t help remembering Brooklyn saying she loved James, but she wasn’t in love with James. At the time, it had struck me as a trivial distinction. I didn’t even know what she meant.

  “Okay,” Max said with an air of finality.

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”

  “Do what? What are we doing?” I couldn’t help but look around at the open desert and wonder if I’d missed something.

  “We’ll try to break them up. I’ll help you.”

  I wasn’t about to walk into that kind of a too-good-to-be-true offer. “Sure you will.”

  “I mean it. You could very well be right. The blush of their hormone high will wear off, and they could find that’s all they ever really had.”

  “And Brooklyn’s life would be ruined,” I said, daring to consider Max might be serious. It would sure help for me to have him on my side. I’d rather it be an even battle than three on one. Plus, Max had the advantage of knowing Colton. That insider knowledge would definitely help me out.