Everyone wore hearing-protective headphones over their ears, but the roar of the engine and the rotors beating the air were still deafening in Dree’s ears.
Both Alfonso and Isaak casually looked out of the windows and kept glancing at her.
Isaak winked at her.
Dree hadn’t planned on picking a bed partner while they were on this little charity mission. She hoped they realized that.
The helicopter climbed in altitude, which meant that the seats that Dree and Max were sitting in felt like they tipped sideways and toward the helicopter’s tail.
Gravity forced Dree to lean against Maxence’s shoulder just a little bit even though she was hanging onto her straps for dear life.
Maxence closed his eyes and continued whispering. She couldn’t hear what he was saying over the whine of the laboring engine and flapping of the rotors. Warmth from his muscular body seeped through their clothes, and gentle heat radiated over Dree’s thigh. His shoulder was higher than hers by several inches. Her arm was pressed against his triceps, again separated only by a few paltry layers of cloth.
Even though the interior of the helicopter had a particular smell—sweat from many previous passengers and dirty motor oil—Dree was sitting so close to Maxence that his subtle aftershave wafted toward her nose. It wasn’t the same cologne he had been wearing in Paris, which was a bit more like the grass growing on white cliffs over the ocean. Now, with just a turn of her head, she could smell darker musk and the far-away thoughts of a cinnamon and vanilla sweet in a Hindu temple filled with sandalwood and incense.
This was the closest she had been to him since he had left the bed in Paris without waking her up.
Really, the last time she had been this close to him, she’d been sleeping in his arms, naked.
The sun was still quite near the eastern horizon, but light flooded the helicopter whenever they turned. Even though they had met at the rectory at six o’clock, the helicopter hadn’t taken off until after eight. The winter sun had been up for over an hour, and while it was quite cool, Dree had removed her heavy coat before they had boarded the helicopter because she’d been overheated.
Every time the helicopter tilted, either she rolled against Maxence, or despite him bracing his legs against the floor and holding onto the arm of the seat, his muscular body pressed hers.
Alfonso was sitting on her other side. She kept bumping him, grinning sheepishly, and resumed trying not to slide out of the harness and die.
With every shift of the helicopter, every bump of turbulence, her body became more attuned to Maxence sitting right beside her. Every time she thought she had controlled her mind, his scent like cinnamon incense would fill her nostrils. When she tried to settle her body so that she wouldn’t react to him, the helicopter would roll, and then she found herself draped over Maxence, no matter how she tried not to move, or else his shoulder and chest would lean against her.
The pressure of his body on hers brought back memories of their skin sliding together in Paris, the chiseled crevasses of his skin and muscle as he moved, and his effortless grace and satiny skin.
Her body warmed, anticipating his touch.
The fabric of her clothes felt rough against her skin over her chest, back, and between her legs as her flesh grew more sensitive.
Maxence didn’t look at her except for the occasional glance and apologetic smile when they jostled. After about fifteen minutes, he tapped a few times on his phone and settled back to read.
Dree wished she had loaded a book onto her phone, but she didn’t know when she’d be able to charge it again. The outlets in the convent had different prongs than the hotel had in Paris, three thick prongs instead of two round ones. At the convent, she’d borrowed a converter from a sister who had one of every type of converter in a box. As soon as Dree had plugged it in, the electricity went out for two hours, and the phone had only gotten about fifty percent charged before she’d had to leave. She’d just turned it off.
Dree looked out the front windshield. Foothills crumpled the fabric of the land ahead of them, but the flight seemed to be skirting the larger mountains.
Turbulence rattled the helicopter. Dree gripped her straps and squeezed her eyes shut.
Warmth and a hard male body flopped across her, but from the wrong side.
When she opened her eyes, Alfonso was half-turned in his harness, and his arm crossed her body, grabbing onto her seat. His far leg pointed toward the cockpit, and his green eyes expanded with surprise. He mouthed, So sorry, but Dree couldn’t hear anything over the helicopter noise and her protective earmuffs.
His foot must have slipped from where he’d been bracing himself, and he’d fallen over her. She mouthed back, That’s okay, and gave him a thumbs up.
Alfonso smiled a happy smile at her like she had made his day for not taking offense.
He was really good-looking when he smiled like that.
Like, really good-looking. Impressively so. His teeth were white and perfectly even, and he had a shy smile. His cheekbones and jaw on his oval face weren’t as pronounced as Max’s or even Isaak’s, but he looked more refined, more European, maybe.
Dree had noticed earlier that both of Max’s school buddies were uncommonly handsome, but this was, of course, a mission with the charity. Hooking up was not on the agenda. She should not be calibrating the relative hotness of her fellow charity workers.
Alfonso tilted his head a little like he might be about to say something, not that she was going to be able to hear even a lick of what he said, but he glanced above her head.
His smile faded, and he sat back in his seat.
When Dree turned back to facing forward, Maxence was turning to look back at his phone.
Had he just—
No, surely Alfonso had just realized that speaking would be futile and decided to wait until they got down on the ground.
The helicopter ride lasted a little over two hours. By the end of it, Dree was desperate for the cooler air of the mountains in the Jumla district. The heat from Maxence’s body continually washed over her, and her skin was so used to seeking his that she had to keep her hands clenched around her harness’s straps to keep herself from accidentally reaching for him every time a bump in the atmosphere made her panic.
Finally, as the helicopter crested a low mountain range and turbulence jostled the seat under her tush, a long runway cut through a ragged grid of crop fields in a lush valley. As they neared, houses dotted the fields and sprung up around the small airport like a ring of mushrooms, many capped with vibrant blue roofs.
The helicopter settled onto a helicopter pad at what appeared to be a tiny but functional airport, and the whine of the engine descended as the blades slowed.
Dree jabbed the buckle of her seatbelt to release it and lunged toward the door, dancing over Batsa, who hadn’t moved fast enough.
When she glanced back, Maxence had also gotten out of his harness and was braced against the back of the helicopter. Fire filled his eyes, and his set jaw looked like he might be grinding his teeth.
He must hate flying, too.
Dree fled from the helicopter and pretended the reason she’d run was to oversee their backpacks and supplies being unloaded from the rear compartment.
The guys stumbled off the helicopter after her, blinking in the late morning sunlight and establishing their bearings.
Isaak leaned over and braced his hands on his knees, panting. Father Booker absently patted him on his back while he examined rows of mountains in all directions sawing the sky beyond the buildings of the town.
The town and small airport lay in a broad valley within the foothills of the Himalayas, which seemed far taller than the tail end of the Rocky Mountains that surrounded the Salt River Valley of the greater Phoenix Metro area.
Chilly air seeped through Dree’s clothes, and she grabbed her jacket to pull on over her shoulders. It wasn’t cold enough to zip it up, just brisk.
Maybe she was already acclimating to th
e cooler temperatures.
Batsa and Maxence talked for a few minutes, pointing at the mountain ranges surrounding the town.
The two ridiculously tall blond guys sized up their surroundings with casual glances but didn’t say anything. Isaak seemed to have recovered, though he was still inhaling deeply through his nose.
The small Jumla airport had a short runway and helicopter landing pads next to a low concrete building. A few people wearing light blue coveralls scurried between the helicopters and a small plane that stood beside the terminal. A diagonal staircase led from the plane’s exit to the ground, and a dozen people disembarked from the plane and walked into the airport. The women’s saris and scarves waived like vibrant flags in the wind funneled through the mountains and scraping across the valley.
Batsa grabbed one backpack and whipped it around, settling it on his shoulders, and he trotted toward the terminal.
Maxence gestured to the other guys. They began to hoist the backpacks on, sling the duffel bags onto their shoulders, and balance the boxes on top of each other to carry them in.
Dree started to grab the backpack she knew was hers, but Isaak already had one hand on it. “That’s okay, Andrea Catherine. I’ve got it.”
Maxence whipped her backpack out of Isaak’s hand. “I’ll take it.”
Okay, that was weird. Dree started to lift a box of the medical supplies the sisters had packed for her to take.
Alfonso lifted the cardboard box out of her hands. “I’ll take that for you.”
Okay, she got what was going on. “Guys, I can carry things.”
Just as Dree was seriously going to fight for her equal rights to carry heavy luggage into the airport, Batsa zoomed back over the rough asphalt, pushing a luggage cart, and they piled all the supplies and most of the backpacks onto it.
Okay, she would let the guys push the cart.
Batsa said something to Maxence, who raised his arms from his sides and yelled over the taxiing airplane’s engine and the whine of another helicopter landing at the far helipad, “We have to get off the tarmac. More helicopters are coming in.”
They all double-timed it toward the terminal.
Dree caught Maxence watching her as if he might have to carry her if she couldn’t keep up.
Dree kept up.
As a matter of fact, Dree beat them all to the terminal and held the doors open for the boys to push the cart inside.
Once in the doors, Maxence turned to Batsa and said, “Seriously? There’s a problem?”
Batsa told him, “I don’t know if the driver is correct, but he said there are no more jeeps this week. He said other people asked for the jeeps. They were all rented to other people since Friday.”
“Then what was the point of a reservation?”
Batsa shrugged. “Sometimes, things like this happen.”
“What do they have? Do they have pickup trucks or a small van with good suspension? Or a mini-bus?”
“We have to go talk to the men at the rental lot, but he said that they are all out of vehicles. He said that many people have come home to Jumla this year for Divali and stayed very long because Divali was late this year. Many of the people who work in Kathmandu are still here after the Divali holiday.”
Maxence glanced at Dree, and his expression was worried. He said to Batsa, “We’ve got everybody here. This mission has to happen.”
“The driver is here with a truck to take us and our supplies to the rental lot so we can look over what they have left.”
Maxence waved the rest of them over and told the two blond guys and Father Booker what Dree had overheard. He shrugged and said, “Sometimes, unfortunate things happen on charity missions. We have to figure out how to do it anyway.”
The guys fell over each other to get in the bed of the pick-up and insisted Dree ride in the cab. Maxence climbed in right after her, and she thought she saw him scowl at the four other guys.
The ride over to the rental lot was twenty bumpy minutes.
Maxence laid his arm on the back of the bench seat of the pickup truck during the ride, so Dree was essentially snuggled under Max’s arm. She held onto the seat beside her thighs as they bumped over the rutted road. Maxence had a firm grip on the door handle with his other hand, probably so he wouldn’t flop on top of her as the truck bounced over the road.
That cinnamon and smoke new aftershave of his was the sexiest thing she’d ever smelled, like it was both something she wanted to eat and to take to bed. Dree refrained from grabbing his face and biting his neck only because her fingernails were digging into the fabric of the truck seat.
The truck lumbered down the rutted road for what seemed like hours but was probably closer to twenty minutes, and then it pulled into a dusty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with a coil of barbed wire. The shack standing in one corner had an open window in front like the clapboard booth out in the desert where Dree and her cousins used to rent ATVs by the hour for boonie bouncing.
Maxence stepped out of the truck, and he turned and held out his hand as she prepared to climb out.
Dree hesitated.
She’d almost instinctively reached out and grabbed his fingers to steady herself as she climbed out of the rickety pickup truck, but she had not touched him, like their skin actually touching each other, since the last time they had screwed in Paris. When he’d held out his hand when she’d arrived at the rectory, she’d barely slid her palm over his and shaken him off.
He was turned away from her, surveying the empty parking lot and their driver talking to somebody over at the shack. He twitched his fingers impatiently and then looked back at her. One brow lowered as if he were confused about why she hadn’t grabbed his hand and climbed out of the truck.
Because if she grabbed his hand, she might leap into his arms.
Neither of them wanted that.
Right?
Maxence frowned a bit more and didn’t drop his hand. “Come on.”
Dree reached. Her fingers trembled as they neared his palm, and then their hands clasped.
The skin-to-skin contact was like silk sliding against itself and sparking an electrostatic current that almost made her let go. Her arm twitched, and her nervous system lit up with wanting more of him.
Maxence didn’t seem to feel it. He raised their joined hands to steady her as she stretched her toes toward the gravel and dust of the parking lot, her foot dangling in the air as she reached. He glanced back over at the shack, still holding her hand and steadying her. She jumped the last foot and landed on the dirt, wobbling a little, but she was fine.
Okay, she was down.
He hadn’t let go of her hand yet.
If anything, his fingers firmed around hers.
Batsa climbed carefully over the tailgate of the pickup truck, steadying himself by standing on the bumper while holding onto the back.
Isaak and Alfonso vaulted over the sides and landed on the ground.
Father Booker unlatched the tailgate and let it crash down, then gingerly extended his legs over the side and lowered himself to the dirt.
Batsa walked over to where the two Nepali guys were talking, and then the three of them pointed to the mountains. Their argument became louder. Amid the hand-waving, Batsa saw them standing by the truck and waved them over.
Maxence was still holding Dree’s hand.
The contact of his flesh on hers drew all her attention to her palm, her fingers, and the way that his thumb rubbed across the top of her knuckles just once.
Batsa yelled, “Hey! You guys! Come over here and talk. We have a real problem.”
Maxence grumbled, “Yeah, there’s a problem. There aren’t any jeeps here. There were supposed to be three jeeps.”
He loosened his grip on her fingers.
Dree tried to do the same, peeling her fingers back to open her hand.
Maxence’s fingers slipped away.
She balled her hand into a fist to hold onto the warmth of his skin for just a minute longer
, but the chilly breeze stole it away.
The five of them walked over to where Batsa was arguing with the two rental shop guys. The wind picked up, blowing their hair around.
As they approached, Batsa called, “They don’t have any trucks or any vehicles at all.”
Father Booker muttered, “Obviously.”
Batsa said, “The only vehicles they have are motorcycles. They have six Royal Enfield bikes, which have enough horsepower to get us up the mountains where we want to go. They have helmets for a small additional fee.”
Maybe it was just because when the tourists were running around New Mexico in the winter and prices for everything ostensibly doubled just for them, but she was skeptical about the “small additional fee” for the necessary item.
Maxence gathered Batsa back into the group and lowered his voice. “How many of you can ride motorcycles, and by that, I mean that you’ve ridden them often and know how to.”
Five men looked at Dree.
Oh, no. She was not going to be the lame one, here. “I grew up on a sheep farm in New Mexico. Horses went out in the early eighties. Everyone, including me, herded stock to new pastures by riding an ATV or a dirt bike. We also drove dirt bikes out on the sand dunes for fun. I can ride a dang motorcycle.”
With this, the men lifted their heads and regarded each other.
Father Booker intoned, “I have performed missions in South America, Asia, and Africa where motorcycles are the most logical conveyance. I have been proficient for decades.”
Batsa shrugged. “My family went to India every summer when I was growing up. I can ride a scooter in Delhi or Kolkata traffic with the best of them. Surely, I can handle a larger bike.”
Isaak said, “My family makes vodka. I can drive anything from a race car to a motorcycle and everything in between.”
Dree did not see how that correlated, but no one else challenged it, so okay.
Alfonso said, “I own five.”
His statement seemed a little more logical than Isaak’s, so Dree did not quibble.
Maxence shrugged and said, “I can ride a motorcycle, of course.”
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