“Hold on,” Axel interrupted before Tuck could give her an earful. “Darcy?” He narrowed his eyes, then raised one condemning brow. “You related to that kook who blew himself up building a moonship?”
She fisted her hands. “If by kook you mean visionary, then yes.”
Tuck blinked. A few days ago Axel, an irritatingly superstitious man as well as a fierce fan of that scandal sheet the
London Informer
, had shared the curious article with the gang over an evening meal. Which had led to a heated discussion regarding Lord Ashford’s infamous cousin, time travel, and the Peace Rebels.
Axel swiped off his slouch hat and slapped it to his thigh. “If that don’t cap the climax,” he said to Tuck. “Told you she was a loon. Runs in the family.”
Sore as a frog on a hot skillet, she launched herself at the burly Irishman, clipping him in the jaw just as Tuck grabbed her by the waist and hauled her back.
The falcon screeched.
“Damn!” Cringing at the earsplitting noise, Axel covered his assaulted ear with one hand and rubbed his jaw with the other.
“You asked for it,” Tuck said, sensitive to the woman’s distress. Christ’s sake, she’d just lost her pa. And now her grandpap was fading?
Flygirl smacked at his arms. “Unhand me!”
Tuck ignored her and held tight. “Settle down.”
“Not to mention she’s related to Briscoe Darcy,” Axel barreled on. “Thanks to him—”
“That’s enough.” According to diversified sources, the infamous Time Voyager was either a savior or an annihilator of mankind. Either way, Tuck grew more intrigued with Flygirl Darcy by the moment.
Still squirming, she flailed a fist at Axel. “Don’t tell me you’re an Old Worlder. Or worse, a Flatliner.”
“Don’t reckon my political or social views are your business, Miss Crazy Pants.” He, too, shook a fist.
The falcon swooped, grazing Axel’s knuckles with his talons, causing the man to yelp and draw his Blaster.
Miss Darcy cried out.
“Holster your weapon, Ax.” Tuck squeezed Flygirl’s waist. “Call off the bird.”
“Leo!” She gestured and the falcon settled on a leafless tree branch.
Axel sucked his scraped knuckles and glared.
Miss Darcy turned in Tuck’s arms, gut-twisting misery clouding those pretty eyes. “My family has suffered a great loss,” she railed. “And now…if you do not take me…if I do not get to Italy in time…I shall never forgive you.”
He wasn’t sure what swayed him: her beauty, her circumstance, or her fighting spirit. It sure as blazes wasn’t her charm. “To Paris, but no farther.”
“Damnation,” Axel complained.
She blew out a sigh of relief as he set her on her feet. “Right then,” she said, bolstering her shoulders as she turned to the ship’s engineer. “I am sorry Leo hurt you, but he is most protective.”
“Obviously.”
“You would do well to mind your manners, Mr….Axel.”
Tuck cut off the man’s retort with a sharp look. “I’ll take Miss Darcy. You get the luggage.”
“And do what you must to hoist Bess aboard,” she added.
“What the hell for?” Axel barked.
“To what purpose?” Tuck asked while buckling on his Pogo Pack.
“So that I may resurrect her, of course.”
He eyed the destruction as Flygirl and her falcon prepared to board his airship. If she could repair that mess, Miss Darcy was a damned miracle worker. Then again, she
was
related to the Time Voyager.
“Put your arms around me and hold tight.” Tuck’s blood burned as she pressed against him and clung. She smelled of wind, leather, grease, and lilac soap. Not nearly as pretty
as Chantel’s French perfume, but somehow twice as enticing. Damn. “Ready?”
She smiled up at him, then at the sky. “Oh, yes.”
Oh, hell.
Were he charging for the ride, he would have asked for hazard pay. As far as cargo went, Miss Darcy was more dangerous than a crate of nitroglycerin.
Astonishing how one miscalculation had obliterated her logical, if not perfect plan to reach Italy, losing her transportation and translator to boot. Amelia could hardly be blamed for concocting a ruse and manipulating the situation. She was, after all, desperate. Not to mention that this quirk of fate had landed her in the company of her aeronautical hero. Even his rumored crimes couldn’t dampen her excitement. In her eyes, his past heroics and present exploits overshadowed the transgression that had pulverized his reputation and rendered him a wanted man. In her heart, she believed his claim that he had been falsely accused of stealing invaluable art from a powerful American judge and then murdering the man’s daughter in order to cover the theft.
Crikey
. Anyone who’d read about Gentry’s long history of valiant and noble deeds knew that atrocity went against the lawman’s very nature.
A former United States air marshal, Tucker Gentry had policed wild territories and protected and saved countless lives. His courage and daring on the ground and in the air were as legendary as his flying skills. Amelia had been following his adventures as featured in the penny dreadfuls for years, and most recently through the
Informer
. True, that newspaper was not quality press, but the stories pertaining to Gentry had been in line with anything she’d ever read and offered a grittier peek into his life. Though accounts were assuredly embellished, she trusted they were rooted in truth and that he was indeed a good man.
Now here he was in the flesh.
Her mind spun with dazed reverence and wonder, causing her heart to flutter in a most bizarre fashion.
Perhaps she had sustained a severe head injury and this was indeed wishful, addled thinking. A grand hallucination. Yet she could feel the brisk wind upon her cheeks and a painful throbbing in her thigh. Could taste blood where she’d bitten the inside of her cheek upon impact. She could smell fuel, tobacco, and bay rum cologne. Surely this was real. As such, she intended to embrace the opportunity and to benefit from the knowledge, skill, and advanced technology of Tucker Gentry.
Amelia’s stomach flipped and her heart pounded as he readied his Pogo Pack for launch. She chalked up the dizzy sensation to anticipation—her first rocket-pack ride—and not infatuation. Although she couldn’t deny he was an absurdly attractive man.
At first she’d been too dazed to notice, struck dotty by the bone-jarring crash. Then too angry as his brawny, quick-tempered, thickheaded sidekick had threatened Leo with his enormous gun. Then, after seeing the wreckage that was once Bess, too distressed. The enormity of the debacle had made her physically ill. Papa had spent countless hours building that kitecycle, and though Bess wasn’t perfect, she was proof of his extraordinary imagination and tireless efforts. Amelia had tried to save her, hoping to regain control and altitude, but she’d failed.
Miserably.
She knew Mr. Gentry doubted her ability to repair Bess, but she’d show him. And Papa.
“Put your arms around me and hold tight.”
Amelia did as he asked, and her heart nearly burst through her cinched wool corset. She’d never embraced a man before, except for Papa and her brothers, but this was vastly different. Perhaps it was hero worship, but quite simply, the Sky Cowboy scrambled her senses. Beyond tall, fit,
and devilishly handsome, he possessed confidence and charisma and, by jiminy, a rocket pack!
He buckled a strap around her waist, cinching them close as pages in a book. “Ready?”
She smiled up into his bourbon-colored gaze, stomach fluttering like a flock of wrens. His mouth was most distracting. How bizarre that she was thinking of kissing him just now instead of flying. Embarrassed, Amelia glanced skyward. “Oh, yes.”
He thumbed a control and, with a rumble and roar, they shot straight up.
The inertia…the exhilaration…Amelia whooped with joy!
“Damn,” the cowboy complained, and she realized she’d screamed in his ear.
She forced her head back to apologize but saw he was smiling. She smiled back. She couldn’t help it. Few thrills compared.
It was over much too soon. In a heartbeat they were up and over the side of the massive airship and Amelia was privy to a new sensation. As she lived and breathed, she was aboard the
Maverick
! The wonder of it all—the collapsed masts and sails that had given way to a steam-powered balloon, the gleaming outboard blasterbeefs—almost made her forget about her throbbing thigh. Almost. She winced when her boots hit the deck.
“You all right?” Tucker asked while unbuckling the strap.
She’d just seen stars, but she shook off the pain, intent on showing no weakness in front of this man or his crew. “Splendid.”
He didn’t look convinced. He pushed his goggles to his forehead, raised one tawny brow. “You can let go now.”
She realized with a start that she had a stranglehold on his neck. Mortified, she hobbled back, trying like the devil to ignore the searing pain in her leg. She noted several men of various ethnicities, most looking close in age to her
brothers, all dressed in a combination of American West and Victorian England attire and displaying various degrees of Mod-influenced body art: pierced ears and eyebrows, intricate tattoos. She’d seen no such marks or piercings on the Sky Cowboy, which made her ponder the body beneath his clothes.
Cheeks burning, she averted her mind from those tawdry thoughts, self-conscious now as the unique collage of men moved in and took stock of her. Probably she should be nervous, given their scandalous reputation, given their intimidating presence, but she was quite simply intrigued.
Whilst the crew stared at Amelia, a man whom she guessed to be American Indian, given the color of his skin and his ink black braids, stepped forward to relieve Mr. Gentry of his pack. “Eli filled us in before he pushed off with that other woman,” he said in a low voice. “You sure about this, Tuck?”
The devastatingly handsome man nodded and traded his aviator cap for a black Stetson. Now he truly looked like the Sky Cowboy of penny-dreadful fame, from his wide-brimmed, round crown hat to his billowing black duster to his pointy-toed boots. Amelia mentally cursed another attack of stomach wrens and focused on the soft-spoken Indian.
“A woman on board?” He glanced at the cowboy’s vexing sidekick. “Surprised Axel didn’t pitch a fit.”
“Didn’t give him the chance.”
Axel grunted. “First thing goes wrong—”
“Never mind that.” Tuck looked to the rest of the crew, then nodded toward Amelia. “This is Miss Darcy.”
“Amelia Darcy,” she said with what she hoped was a friendly smile. After all, she’d be traveling with these men for days. No need to tempt their bad favor. She’d already knocked heads with Mr. Brawn-Brain. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr….”
“StarMan. No mister.”
“Chief navigator and copilot,” Tuck said.
His name and position explained the inked design slashing across one high cheekbone. “The Big Dipper,” Amelia noted with wonder.
StarMan nodded, a hint of a smile tugging at his no-nonsense mouth.
“Blooming fantastic,” she whispered.
Tuck diverted her attention, pointing out the other men and assigning names to faces. “Birdman Chang, Doc Blue. You’ve met Axel O’Donnell, Maverick’s engineer, and Eli Boone, a tinker of many talents.”
“What’s that?” Chang asked, pointing over her shoulder.
“A menace,” Axel said as he abandoned Amelia’s satchel and shrugged off his pack.
“Leo,” Amelia corrected, counting the small gold hoops piercing Chang’s right ear from lobe to upper cartilage.
Six.
“Mind your manners around Miss Darcy, boys,” Axel warned with an eye roll. “Otherwise that iron-beaked pecker will rip you a new one.”
“Don’t reckon you should talk like that around a lady,” Doc said to Axel.
Amelia smiled at the man. Maybe she had at least one ally on board. “So you’re the ship’s physician?”
“And cook.”
“Fixes up food better than people,” StarMan said, then looked to Doc. “Meant that as a compliment.”
Doc Blue, who looked to be near her own age, just smiled. Of all of the men, he was the slightest in frame. Muscular, yet wiry. Pale enough to be Scandinavian, though not as tall as she imagined a typical Norseman to be, and his accent was most definitely American. His fair hair was cut in a choppy fashion, as if he’d sliced it willy-nilly with a scalpel. She wondered if his eyes, hidden behind tinted blue goggles, were blue as well. Hence his name? Each hand was inked with a different symbol, something Celtic perhaps.
She wondered at their meaning. Boyishly handsome, Doc struck her as a man of good humor and tolerance.
Birdman Chang was shorter in stature, though his clothes hinted at an impressive muscular physique. Of Chinese descent, he had dark eyes that danced with curiosity whilst he vibrated with a caged energy that made her skin itch. Although his hair was black as a starless night, it was not long and braided, as one might assume, but short and wild, like Doc’s. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and she was mesmerized by the intricate designs that covered his forearms—wrists to elbow and perhaps beyond.
The other men were much taller. All intimidating, although some more than others. All handsome in a rugged, rebellious way. Again she marveled at the varied races. Indian, Oriental, Scandinavian. Eli Boone, though absent just now, had impressed her as a fine-looking black man with large, kind eyes. Axel had fierce features and an odd accent, although his surname and flaming red hair suggested Irish descent. She realized suddenly that every man was scrutinizing her as intensely as she was studying them.
Amelia detected a combination of interest and aversion. Unsettling on both counts. She decided then and there that a brazen demeanor would be her best defense.
“When you’re done gawking at Miss Darcy,” Tucker told his men, “help Axel upload her dig.”
“You mean that mangled heap of rubble?” Chang asked.
Axel smirked. “She’s gonna fix it.”
I’ll fix you
, Amelia wanted to say, but she was suddenly too weary to fight. Her thigh hurt to distraction now, and when she shifted she yelped.