Authors: Jill Shalvis
And he felt like a jerk. He, the hijacked one. “Prepare for landing.”
She lifted her face. “And then what?”
“I’ll let you know.”
I
gnoring Bailey and her palatable desperation, Noah went into landing mode, maneuvering the plane in the fading daylight, talking to ground control as they came into view of the small, private Mammoth airstrip where he always landed.
As the sun sank below the mountain line, he touched down and taxied them in, while Bailey sat still, white-knuckled, white-faced.
Finally he shut down the engine.
She didn’t move.
He stood, then crouched at her side. “We’ve landed.”
She nodded, but didn’t look at him until he slid his hand along her jaw and tilted her head down toward him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her hair falling over his hand, her skin creamy soft beneath his fingers.
Sorry for coming along, he wondered, or for running out on him, which she’d most likely do while he arranged for the plane’s tie-down and complete recheck of the landing gear.
“I didn’t mean to ruin your night,” she said. “I didn’t know it was your plane I was getting on.”
“Whose plane did you mean to get on?”
“It was going to Mammoth. That’s all that mattered.”
Their faces were level. He was close enough to see that her baby blues were outlined in a ring of midnight blue, and that she had a light smattering of freckles high across her perfect nose. Close enough to see the pulse beating faster than a hummingbird’s at her throat. Without conscious thought, he stroked a thumb over that beat.
Her gaze caught his, and held.
Their mouths were nothing but a whisper apart. He knew it was crazy, but he wanted to close the gap, wanted to put his mouth on hers as he’d so pathetically fantasized about on more than one dark, sweaty, sleepless night. The only thing that stopped him now was the knowledge that she didn’t want anything but her freedom.
But her gaze lowered to his mouth, too, and her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip.
He nearly moaned. Instead, his hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, his fingers slipping into her silky hair, which was now teasing his forearm.
She said his name again, just a whisper of a sound this time, and her eyes fluttered closed, which sent a ridiculous surge of lust coursing through him.
She wanted him, too.
This was crazy,
crazy
, and yet he leaned in.
So did she.
He’d never be sure which of them closed that last inch between them, but it didn’t matter because suddenly her mouth was soft and warm on his. He had one last blinding thought before he went under—one kiss would never be enough, not with her, his walking/talking/breathing wet dream.
Then she let out this breathless little sound, and her tongue was so hot and sweet he could have sustained himself on that alone. She slid her fingers up over the back of his head to keep him where he was.
As if he’d move.
Fat chance. He was kissing Bailey Sinclair; he wasn’t going anywhere. He glided his hand up her side, over the curve of her waist, just barely skimming the bottom curve of one soft breast.
She seemed to hold her breath for more. Instead, he slid his hand over her shoulder, closing his fingers in her soft, wildly tousled hair at the back of her neck, gently drawing her head farther back, which rocked her body into his.
In sweet, undeniable, erotic response, she arched into him, pressing her breasts into his chest, then tilted her head in a way that more fully sealed their mouths together and caused him to pretty much lose all ability to think about anything other than heat and hunger and sex and Bailey—
Then his cell phone rang, shattering the silence, and she jerked as if she’d been shot, scooting back from him, all the way back.
Feeling inexplicably like a perv, he pulled out his cell. “Fisher.”
“Something interesting,” Brody said. “My Aspen-bound passenger vanished.”
Noah cut his eyes to Bailey. “Is that right?”
“Yep. She just up and left, though it would have been nice to be notified.”
Noah didn’t take his eyes off Bailey. Jesus, had they really just kissed, or was he losing his mind? “Maybe she had other plans.”
Bailey met his gaze straight on, her cheeks pinkening.
Please
, she mouthed, bringing her fingers up to her lips.
Her still-wet lips.
Yeah, they’d kissed. And he knew what she really meant; it wasn’t
please kiss me again
but
please don’t tell.
“How was your flight?” Brody asked him.
“Besides the landing gear sticking?”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah, it was interesting.”
“Anything else interesting?”
“Plenty.”
Brody, one of the smartest guys Noah had ever met, went silent a moment. “Interesting, as in get-struck-by-lightning-and-crash-into-the-side-of-a-mountain interesting, or…interesting, as in an unexpected-passenger interesting?”
Noah slid his sunglasses over his eyes. “You’re quick.”
“Holy shit,”
Brody said again. “Really?”
Noah didn’t say anything.
Bailey just kept looking at him with her heart in her eyes.
Damn, she had a lot of heart.
“What’s up with that?” Brody asked.
“Got me.”
“You okay?”
Noah hadn’t taken his eyes off Bailey. Nor she him. She was taut as a drum and looking more than a little frazzled around the edges. He suspected if he so much as said, “boo,” she’d fall apart. “Always.”
Brody let out a low laugh. “Right. Well, I’ll just put the million-dollar plane away and bill her for the services. For
both
planes. You know, sometimes, the erratic behavior of the rich and famous really works for me.”
“Yeah.” Noah shut his phone.
Bailey didn’t move.
He gave it a long beat, then straightened to his feet. “I have to tie-down.” He paused, brow arched. “You going to try to stop me with your pen?”
She had the good grace to blush as she rose, too. “No.”
He watched as she pulled a small backpack from beneath the seat in the back. “Are you going to be here when I get back?”
Suddenly, she was very busy playing with the zipper on her backpack.
Jaw tight, he pulled her around to face him. Beneath his fingers, she felt thin. Fragile.
What is she going off to face all on her own?
“Let me rephrase.
Be here
when I get back.” He took his hands off her while he still could, gave her one last long look, then exited the plane.
Cold air smacked him in the face. He was in the center of the sharp, craggy Sierras, and at just over six thousand feet altitude, it showed. Piles of fluffy snow lay along the outer edges of the runway, lining the tarmac. The mountains surrounded him in a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of jaw-dropping gorgeousness, every one of them white.
Just what he’d come for. Snow, skiing, snow bunnies, beer, sleep.
Not
a crazy heiress with haunted eyes and a tendency to hold people up with pens.
He handled the tie-down and spoke to a lineman about getting the landing gear fixed, all while keeping an eye on the plane. She was going to bolt, he just knew it.
And sure enough, not sixty seconds later, she came out of the plane as if she owned it. Not as the bag lady she’d been hiding as, but as the gorgeous, swank Bailey Sinclair. The loose sweats were gone. Her head was back, chin high, eyes flashing as though she was queen bee as she carried her bag. She wore designer jeans that fit her like an old friend, fancy boots up to her knees, and a snug, shimmery siren red sweater, all of which screamed class and sophistication. Her hair had been tamed in a sleek ponytail, and she’d put on some gloss that made her mouth look…
He had to tear his gaze off the mouth. It didn’t matter what her lips looked like, or even what they said. He wasn’t buying any story she was selling.
But she wasn’t leaving. Not without some answers.
Maddie had called ahead and ordered fuel and overnight hangar storage for the Piper. She’d also gotten him a Jeep. She had the unique ability to locate anything, obtain it, and have it delivered in a blink, and in the year since they’d started Sky High Air, she’d made herself invaluable to both him and the guys, and also their customers. Now all he needed to do was get into the Jeep and drive off. It was what Bailey wanted him to do.
Too bad he’d never been so good at doing what other people wanted. He strode back toward the Piper and met her just as her expensive boots hit the tarmac.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said, staring at his throat, carefully not meeting his eyes.
How, he wondered, had he ever
not
known that soft, sweet yet somehow outrageously sexy voice? Her long side bangs blew into her face, and she shoved them free with fingers that had gone white with cold. “I’ll never forget it.”
They had a past, a professional one, and in that past he’d never called her anything but Mrs. Sinclair.
But now they had a decidedly unprofessional past as well, and he couldn’t bring himself to call her Mrs. Sinclair ever again. “Bailey, wait.”
“No, I’ve got to—”
He put his hand on her arm, and she looked at him then, from eyes so filled with worry and fear and terror that he put his other hand on her as well.
He couldn’t say why, but he was not letting her go.
“You turned me in, right?” she whispered. “The police—”
He slowly shook his head.
She just stared at him from wide eyes. “Why?”
“Why what?”
A shudder wracked her frame, and he didn’t blame her. It was butt-ass cold. “Why didn’t you turn me in?” she asked.
Hell if he knew. Maybe he was just thrown by the circumstances, the coincidences…maybe it was that in spite of himself, he really was just curious.
What threw a poor little rich girl over the edge?
Okay, no. That wasn’t it. He was curious, yes, but he was also…
Concerned.
Sincerely, extremely concerned about her. For some inexplicable reason, he wanted to get to the bottom of this freaked-out, sexy as hell, hurting woman and her problems.
“You could have overpowered me on that plane,” she said as a particularly icy wind blew between them. “I know you could have. If not when you were flying, then when I was.” She hugged herself. “Or on the radio. Or on the cell phone. Or a million other times. You could have easily given me away, but you didn’t.”
He had to shove his hands in his pockets rather than stroke her bangs out of her face—
what the hell was that?
She wrapped her arms around her waist. “So why didn’t you?”
“I have no idea.” But he did.
She was freezing, and so was he, which was stupid. He grabbed his duffle bag, then hers, and led them both off the tarmac, toward the rented and waiting Jeep, where she dug her heels into the crunchy snow and balked.
“I don’t need a ride,” she said.
“No? So your plan was to get here, to the airport, then freeze to death?
That’s
why you hijacked me?”
She looked away.
“Truth, Bailey. You owe me that.”
“Okay, truth. The truth is you have to get far, far away from me. I mean it. I’m like a bad luck charm. Trust me. Being with me, here, is going to get you hurt.” She swallowed. “Or worse.”
He stared at her as that soaked in. She was trying to protect him? “I’m a big boy,” he assured her. “Just tell me. What are you doing here?”
“I already said. I’m here to pick something up.”
“Fine.” Any second her teeth were going to rattle out of her pretty head. “Get in the Jeep, I’ll drive you to get this ‘something.’”
She pulled out her cell and read a text message.
“What is it?”
She didn’t answer, but thumbed some sort of quick response.
“Bailey—” Knowing she wouldn’t tell him a damn thing, he snatched the phone.
She’d typed: YES, I’M IN ASPEN. HAVE 2 TRY 2 FIND IT.
“Hey!” She grabbed the phone back, hit send, then glared at him.
“Who are you texting with?”
“Kenny.”
Her brother. Okay, but if the guy cared so much, where the hell was he?
Bailey glanced back at the terminal.
“What, you going to go hijack a taxi now?” he asked.
“This isn’t funny.”
“You’re right there. Nothing about this is even remotely funny. You could have gotten into anyone’s plane. Hell, I always assumed you were richer than God himself, so—”
She interrupted him with a harsh laugh as he unlocked the Jeep. He held open the door, the interior light casting her face in bold relief. “You could have gone to any airport,” he said again. “Into any plane, but you got into mine. So now get into my Jeep.”
She stared at him for a long beat, then surprised him by slipping inside. She started to look up at him, but her gaze snagged on a neighboring parked car, a nondescript SUV, and she frowned.
“What?”
“There’s someone in that car watching us,” she whispered.
The SUV started up, but the lights didn’t go on.
Very interesting, he thought. “Why would anyone be watching us?”
“Just get in,” she said urgently, sinking low, reaching back for the hood of her soft angora hoodie sweater, putting it on over her hair, and slipping on a pair of wide sunglasses despite the fact that the dusk made them unnecessary. “Please, Noah! Just get in and get us out of here as fast as you can.”
Something had changed in her body language, and since he’d had his gaze pretty much glued to her body nonstop, he couldn’t miss it. Everything had gone rigid, her shoulders, her face, and her hands were white-knuckled on the dash. Most telling, the utter, sheer terror was back. So much so that he took a good long second look at the SUV.
With the sun sinking below the horizon, long shadows cast across the parking lot. He couldn’t see through the windshield to the driver, or if there was a passenger.
But his gut told him there was at least one passenger, and his gut was rarely wrong.
And she was still trying to protect him. Hell if that didn’t sting. He walked around to the driver’s seat, casually but quickly, then started the engine. “Where to?” he asked when he got them on the move.
“Uh…” She was looking in the rearview mirror as he pulled out of the parking lot.