“Die-hard romantics.”
“I have not found my true love but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe he’s not out there somewhere.”
Gibb raised his face to the sky. “Please, spare me the love impaired.”
“What is wrong with love?”
“It muddles the brain. Clouds your judgment. Makes you do dumb things like get married to someone you’ve only known a month.”
“But what if this woman makes your friend truly happy?”
“She doesn’t. He just thinks she does.”
“How do you know that for sure?”
“Look, I don’t have time to stand around here dissecting it to death. My best buddy is about to make the biggest mistake of his life. I have to leave immediately for Key West to save him from himself.”
“You can’t tell him this over the telephone?”
“He hung up on me.” Gibb sounded highly offended. “And when I tried to call him back, he wouldn’t answer and he’s disabled his voicemail.”
“I can see why. Clearly, you are overreacting.”
He held up both palms. “Look, I don’t need your opinion. I just need your flying expertise. How much would you charge to fly me to Key West right now?”
Sophia cast a glance over her shoulder at El Diablo. She’d never flown any farther than Belize. “My plane is not equipped to fly such a long distance. It’s over fifteen hundred kilometers to Key West.”
He waved a hand. “You can do it. I’ve watched you fly passengers in and out for the last two weeks. You’re an excellent pilot.”
He had been watching her? Sophia’s cheeks warmed. His flattery was dangerous. Damn this desire to show off her piloting skills and prove him right. “Thank you very much for the compliment, but the gas tanks on a plane this size only hold so much fuel. We would have to stop to refuel.”
“So we stop. Let’s go.” He opened the pilot’s door of the plane and motioned for her to hop in.
She stepped over to shut the door. “You are a very annoying man.”
“How much?” He took out his wallet, started pulling out several one-hundred-dollar bills. “Two thousand do it?”
Sophia blinked. Two thousand dollars? That would pay off her debt from mechanic school. “You will pay for the fuel, as well?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“You are a desperate man.”
“Yes, yes, I am. I’m also a rich one and I always get what I want.”
“Not this time.” Sophia folded her arms over her chest. “On top of everything else, there is a tropical depression brewing in the Caribbean.”
“It could easily go way north of Florida.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“When is it expected to hit landfall?”
She shrugged. “Weather is unpredictable, two days, maybe.”
“Two days?” he blurted. “We will be in Key West long before that.”
“The storm could hit sooner,” she said, arguing with herself as much as with him.
“Or later.”
“True.”
“It might even dissipate altogether.”
“I am not in the habit of gambling with the lives of my passengers.”
“Look,” he said. “You can check the weather along the way, if the storm moves faster than expected I’ll admit defeat and take it as a sign that Scott and Jackie are meant to be.”
“Can you accept that?”
“You’re the pilot. Once we’re in the air, you’re in control of that plane.”
Hmm, interesting admission for someone who seemed to be something of a control freak. Could she trust him to keep his word? “It’s not as simple as jumping into the plane and taking off. I’ll have to make a flight plan, get permission to fly into the airspace of the other countries along the way.”
He had run out of cash, but he was now tugging out a plethora of credit cards. “Three thousand.”
Sophia moistened her lips. How high was he willing to go?
Lunacy. It was sheer lunacy to even consider flying him to Florida, but the part of her that loved a challenge
wanted
to give it a go. See if she could do it. If nothing else, she would learn what she and El Diablo were really made of.
Priorities, Sophia
.
It was a lesson her mother had repeated to her often. She did have a tendency to put adventure ahead of responsibility. Besides, she was supposed to go over to Emilio’s house for a cookout tonight. In fact, this was the night she’d decided to have “the talk” with him. Then again, what would it hurt to delay breaking bad news?
“Mr. Martin, I will happily fly you to Libera with my current passengers and there you can catch the next plane to Florida,” she offered.
He looked uneasy. “That solution doesn’t work for me.”
“Why not?” Puzzled, she canted her head, studied him intently.
“I do not have to explain myself to you.”
“You don’t have your own jet? A rich man like you?”
“I do have my own jet, but that’s none of your business.”
“Oh,” she said. “I get it. You don’t want anyone tracking your whereabouts.”
He seemed relieved. “Yes. Your discretion in this matter is very important to me. Can I trust you?”
“Of course.” If she couldn’t keep a secret she would have been out of a job a long time ago. Her sister Josie was the only person she could confide in about such things.
The couple from Argentina that she was supposed to fly to Libera arrived at the plane. A bellhop in a golf cart with their bags in the back followed behind the couple.
“Here are my passengers, Mr. Martin. I’m sorry about your dilemma but—”
Gibb pivoted on his heel to face the male passenger, a distinguished-looking gray-haired man in his mid-fifties. “How much for you to take another bush plane to the airport?”
“Pardon,
señor?
” the man asked.
Gibb waved the cash at him. “How much? I need this plane.”
“You are not thinking rationally, Mr. Martin,” Sophia pointed out. It surprised her that the cool blond American could be so filled with passion. To the couple, she said, “He is trying to stop a wedding.”
“Ah,
amor,
” said the woman. “Isn’t that romantic? He wants to claim his woman before she marries someone else.”
Sophia noticed that Gibb did not bother to correct the woman’s erroneous assumption.
The Argentinean wasn’t losing out on the opportunity. He plucked the bills from Gibb’s hand and tucked them into his pocket. “The plane is all yours,
señor.
” He put an arm around his wife’s waist. “How can we stand in the way of true love?”
“You’re willingly giving up your seats? You could miss your connecting flight while waiting on another bush plane to arrive.”
“We are flying standby,” the Argentinean said. “If we miss one flight...” He shrugged. “We’ll catch another.”
The bellhop gave them a ride back to the lodge in the golf cart.
Gibb held out both arms. “Problem solved. Let’s hit the road, Amelia.”
“My name is Sophia. Sophia Cruz.”
“Amelia Earhart reference not doing it? I thought every woman pilot loved to be compared to Amelia.”
“That’s presumptive and sexist. See, I know big words, too.”
“So you don’t like Amelia Earhart?”
“You did not remember my name, did you?”
“So I forgot your name,” he admitted sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“My dog apologizes better than that.” Okay, so she was stretching the truth a bit. Her dog died last year. Her heart twinged at the thought of Trixie. She’d had her for fourteen years and missed her deeply.
“Dogs are all about apology. Which is why I don’t have one.”
“Why? Because you hate creatures who have more love in their little toe than you do in your entire body.”
“No,” he said. “I actually love dogs, but I’m never home and I’d have to apologize to the poor thing for hiring someone to take care of it and then I’d feel guilty. Well, you see where I’m going with this.”
“Not really.”
“Doesn’t matter. Can we do this thing?”
She should say no. The sensible thing would be to say no. Most anyone else would say no. He was pushy and arrogant and exasperating, but at the same time, a thrill ran through her at the thought of flying all the way to Florida. Still, was it prudent? Only one person could tell her if it was worth the risk, if indeed El Diablo could make the long trip. She’d have to ask her father.
Gibb was already climbing into the plane.
“Not so fast,
Norte,
” she said.
One eyebrow shot up on his forehead and the opposite corner of his mouth quirked up at the same time.
“Norte?”
“
Norte
means someone who comes from the north, usually from the U.S.A. Isn’t that what you are?”
“The way you said it, it sounds derogative.”
“No.” She slowly shook her head. “That is all on you. If you think that being from the U.S.A. is derogative, that’s your belief system not mine.”
He stood straighter, stiffened his back. “I do not believe that it’s a bad thing to be from the U.S.”
“Neither do I, so why are you taking offense at the word
Norte?
” she asked.
He pointed at her. A slow smile crept across his face. “You’re a sly one, Ms. Cruz.”
She feigned an affronted expression. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re messing with my head.”
“If you did not have a chip on your shoulder, I could not knock it off.”
“Can we just get this show on the road?”
“Before I agree to this arrangement, I must first make some phone calls.”
He tapped his wrist. “Time’s wasting.”
“That’s a bracelet, not a watch.”
“All the same, you get the sentiment. It’s the universal sign for hurry up.”
“Norte,”
she muttered.
“That time you
were
being derogatory.”
“You’re sort of a jackass, you know that?”
He clenched his determined jaw. “It doesn’t matter as long as I get what I want.”
Now she was beginning to understand why Blondie looked annoyed ninety percent of the time, but Sophia certainly understood the push-pull attraction to Gibb Martin. While part of her wanted to throttle him, another part of her wanted to kiss him.
All the more reason for her not to take him to Key West.
So why did she agree?
3
G
IBB
PACED
OUTSIDE
THE
plane and repeatedly checked his watch. C’mon, C’mon. He didn’t have all day. He tried several times to call Scott while Sophia was preoccupied, but his buddy was still not picking up.
Hey, can you blame him? You acted like a jerk.
For Scott’s own good!
They had known each other since they first swapped sandwiches on the kindergarten playground. Gibb had readily pawned off his lobster roll for Scott’s plain old peanut butter and grape jelly sammie. Scott had taken one bite of the lobster roll and started crying and demanded to swap back. They laughed about it now. How dumb they’d both been to prefer PB and J to lobster. How clueless Gibb’s mother had been about the appropriate lunch for a five-year-old.
That was Gibb’s mother all the way. Winnie had exquisite luxury tastes and assumed everyone else did, too, even though when he was growing up, they’d had a beer budget that did not match with her champagne thirst.
On more than one occasion, the cops had come to their front door to tell her she had to make restitution on bounced checks or she would end up in jail. Somehow, she’d always manage to skirt the law until she hit the jackpot by marrying Florida real estate mogul, James Martin, who legally adopted Gibb when he was seven. And Gibb had been trying to prove himself worthy of James’s largesse ever since.
“It is settled.”
The smell of plumeria, sweet and exotic, wafted over him and he looked up to see Sophia. The woman possessed gorgeous brown eyes with impossibly long dark lashes. A hot tug of attraction pulled at him.
“Settled yes or settled no?” he asked.
“For three thousand dollars, plus you pay the price of fuel, I will fly you to Key West.”
He had thought for sure she was going to say no and he would have to risk hiring a jet in Libera and pray the spies weren’t that close. He’d gone through all kinds of machinations to get to Bosque de Los Dioses. First by buying two airline tickets to Europe that had gone unused for him and Stacy. Then hiring a small private plane to Nicaragua, checking into a low-rent motel in San Carlos under an assumed name, and from there hired a car to drive them to Libera. He thought he’d adequately covered his tracks. But, if any of his competitors found out he was in Costa Rica, well, two years’ worth of work and a hundred million dollars would be shot all to hell.
“Hot damn. Let’s go.”
“Will your companion be joining us?” Sophia asked.
“Who?” he asked, and then realized she was talking about Stacy. “No. She’s got spa treatments and whatnot to keep her occupied while I’m gone.”
“Do you have luggage?”
“No time. Don’t need any.”
“Don’t you at least want to change?” She waved at his business suit.
“I’m good. Let’s hit it.”
Sophia held out her palm. “I will require payment up front.”
He handed over a credit card, and couldn’t help noticing what pretty hands she had. Long, slender fingers, nails painted a soft salmon color. It was unusual for a petite woman to have such long fingers.
“I will be right back.” She trotted off again, headed toward the airport’s employee entrance.
His palms were unexpectedly sweaty and his knees felt slightly shaky. Was he that nervous she would turn him down? Or was he simply amped up over Scott’s crazy news? Either way, the shakiness was disconcerting. Why did he care so much about what Scott decided to do with his life?
Sophia returned a few minutes later with his credit card and a sunny smile.
He pocketed his card. “Now can we leave?”
“Almost. I must finish my flight check first.”
Gibb got into the passenger seat and impatiently drummed his fingers against the dashboard as she went through the checklist. He kept thinking of Scott and his project and how if he couldn’t talk his buddy out of marriage it was going to upend all his plans.
Sophia climbed into the cockpit, doffed her pink cowgirl hat, tossed it in the back and donned a headset. She communicated with the airport in Libera and a few minutes later they were rolling down the narrow dirt landing strip. Just when it seemed they were about to run out of road and fall off the mountain plateau, the plane was smoothly airborne and they were flying through a thick white mist.
The resort was at five thousand feet. Gibb knew small planes like this one maxed out at ten thousand feet, but Sophia didn’t even take them that high. She leveled off their ascent so they were just skimming over the cloud-shrouded mountain range.
It was a mystical sight—the smoky clouds, wafting lazily around them, parting here and there to reveal shades of deep tropical green or craggy blue-gray rock formations. The view took his breath away.
Sophia sat relaxed in the seat, her dark hair curling sexy tendrils around her face, an otherworldly smile on her full pink lips, her hands loose on the yoke. The pink-and-white V-neck quarter-length T-shirt that she wore clung snuggly to her smallish but firm breasts. Tanned, shapely legs worked pedals on the floor that controlled the rudders.
He moved his left arm at the same time she moved her right, and their elbows bumped. A staggering streak of lust shot from his elbow to his shoulder and arrowed straight down to his groin. Instantly, he jerked his arm away.
So did she.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, his heart punching hard against his chest.
The seats in a plane this small were disturbingly close. He should have sat in the back. Why hadn’t he sat in the back?
Sophia stared intently out the windshield. She had a delicate profile—a diminutive nose, gently sloped forehead, small but well-formed chin—that complimented her petite stature. Not a complex face that an artist might find a challenge to sketch, but a fun face, an open face, a happy face.
Looking at her made him smile. He did not want to smile.
There was no swelling of peppy music, no Ferris Bueller, “Oh Yeah” deep-based chorus, but the feeling that his life was about to change and change big, dug into Gibb and clung tight.
She guided the plane with what seemed to be an innate ease. Gibb had never thought of flying as anything more than a skill that anyone who put their mind to it could learn, but right now, watching her, his old belief disappeared, replaced by a deep certainty that there was such a think as a natural born pilot. She had an effortless, light touch on the controls and her sense of timing was impeccable. It was as if she’d strapped the airplane onto her, the way an old west gunslinger strapped on a holster, and the plane started to
breathe
with her.
Something told him he would relive this moment again in his dreams—the point where the cocky cowgirl became the consummate aviatrix and she was transformed. He felt transformed just by sitting next to her. He would be able to lie in bed at night, close his eyes and be with her again on wings of air, floating into a sweet, deep peace. If he could eat this moment, it would taste like one perfect bite of amazing amuse-bouclé—bitter, sweet, salty, sour, savory, piquant.
“I never tire of the beauty.” Sophia breathed.
“Impressive.” Gibb didn’t take his eyes off her.
She turned her head, caught him staring. Her smile deepened. “What would Blondie say?”
He blinked. “Who?”
“Your girlfriend.”
It took him a moment. “Oh, Stacy. She’d probably be texting or tweeting or something and never notice the scenery.”
“I wasn’t talking about the scenery.”
“No?”
“What would she say about the way you are staring at me?”
“I’m not staring at you. I was studying the instrument panel,” he lied smoothly, his stomach roiling and unsettled.
“Uh-huh.”
Well, damn, if she didn’t want men to look at her, she shouldn’t wear shorts like that. “You do have nice legs.”
“So does Blondie.”
He blew out his breath. “I think you must have gotten the wrong idea about Stacy and I.”
“I think I understand it pretty well.”
“We’re just...” What were they?
Sophia turned toward him, arched an eyebrow. “Friends with benefits?”
The benefit part was right, the friend part, not so much. “Could we talk about something else?”
“It is your three thousand dollars. We can talk about whatever you want.”
Silence stretched out wide as the sky. He had to fix that. He should ask Sophia something else. “How long have you been a pilot?”
“I got my pilot’s license when I was sixteen,” she said proudly.
“Wow, that’s young.”
“My father’s a pilot. This was his plane. He gave it to me when he retired.”
“Why did he retire?”
“He’s losing his sight.”
“That’s a shame.”
Sophia nodded. “Yes. Poppy is like a bird with a broken wing. It’s very sad.”
“You speak English like a native,” he said. “Much better than my Spanish.”
“I was bilingual even as a kid. I have dual citizenship. My mother was an American,” she said. “We visited her family in California every Christmas.”
“Where abouts in California?”
“Ventura.”
“Really? I have a beach house in Santa Barbara.”
“Of course you do,” she said.
“What’s that tone all about?”
“What tone?”
“The tone that says there’s something wrong with having a lot of money.”
She gave a half laugh that sounded more like a snort. “You are imagining things, Mr. Martin. I do not have a tone.”
Was he? “You don’t have anything against wealthy people?”
“Why would I have such an attitude? If it were not for the rich and powerful and famous who come to Bosque de Los Dioses, I would not have a job.”
“Because I know how some rich people can be. They can be very demanding. I’m sure you have to put up with a lot.”
A sly smile flitted across her face. “Ah.”
“Ah, what?”
She shook her head.
“What is it?”
“You are the one with the prejudice against the wealthy.”
“What! That’s crazy. I’m worth over a billion dollars.” Well, until this last investment, but he would be back up there again soon. “Why would I be prejudice against rich people? That’s like saying I’m prejudiced against myself.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Prejudiced against yourself?”
What kind of question was that? He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “No.”
“You weren’t born into money,” she said.
How had she guessed? He raised his chin. “What makes you assume that?”
“That chip sitting on your shoulder.”
“I don’t have a chip—” Shut up. Don’t argue with her. It doesn’t matter.
“Were you?” she asked. “Born rich?”
“No,” he admitted.
“So you are a self-made man.”
“There’s that tone again. You’re mocking me.”
“You are mistaking my jovial nature for mocking.”
“Am I?” Gibb shook his head. The woman was turning him inside out and he couldn’t say why. Sure she was cute and sexy, but so were a million other women. What was it about this one that stoked him and frustrated him and challenged him and made him want to grab her up and kiss her until neither one of them could breathe?
“This is going to be a very long flight, isn’t it?”
“It sure is shaping up that way.”
More silence. This time he wasn’t going to say anything. He could sit here forever and be quiet if need be. Not a word. Not another word was going to pass his lips.
She looked out over the nose of the plane, and with the slightest moments, shifted the plane northward. Underneath her breath she was softly humming, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
“Okay,” he blurted. “You’re right. Maybe I do have a chip on my shoulder.”
“I know.”
Did she have to sound so damn cheerful about it? Gibb clamped his teeth together. Not another word.
“About that chip on your shoulder?” she ventured.
“Yes?”
“It’s due to a sense of inadequacy.”
“Inadequacy? Where are you getting this stuff?”
“Why else would you resent what you are?”
“I don’t resent who I am.”
“Don’t you?”
“Thank you, oh, doctor of psychology.” He wiped his brow. “Okay, I’ll bite.”
“Bite what?”
“The bait.”
“What bait?”
While she might speak English like a native, the idioms seemed to throw her. “You throw out a challenging line like it’s the bait. So here I am, biting it like a fish.”
“Um, all right.”
“What do you mean by the chip on my shoulder is due to a sense of inadequacy?”
Sophia shrugged. She was totally nonchalant. How did one get to be so blasé about everything? “You feel like you don’t deserve your riches.”
Gibb coughed, tugged at his collar. He felt like she’d taken an endoscope and shoved it down his throat and could see everything that was happening inside his gut. Exposed. He felt totally exposed and he didn’t like it, not in the least.
She glanced at him. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said tightly and coughed again.
“Sometimes the high altitude—”
“It’s not the altitude.”
“Maybe if you took off your tie.”
“I’m fine.”
Momentarily, she held up both palms, before her beautiful hands settled back down on the yoke. That smile of hers could seriously blind a guy. It was unnatural to be that happy.
Gibb took off his tie, undid the top button of his dress shirt. Instantly, he could breathe better.
She laid an index finger over her lips. “Shh, I promise that I won’t tell anyone if you take off the jacket, too.”
“I’m good.”
“As you wish.”
A long silence began as they passed over blue water and a lot of land. He hadn’t been this knocked off balance since the last time a corporate spy ripped him off.
She was back to humming, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” It ought to be illegal for anyone to be this cheerful.
He stared out the side window, studied lush green ground sliding by. How many times had he flown over a place like this, oblivious to the lives of the people below? “How did you know?”
She startled as if she had forgotten that he was in the plane with her. “Know what?”
“That I wasn’t born wealthy.”