Still, there was a seat belt, which Chessie had both hands wrapped around to pull it tighter against the turbulence that tossed the little plane as they cruised over miles of farmland.
As far as speed, the crop duster, which looked and felt like it was built before Chessie was born, was a big step up from the Prefect they left at the farm. But it was not on the ground, which was a strike against it. And it was in the hands of a man who, she was starting to believe, really had never flown an actual plane in his life. Maybe in a video game. Maybe in some kind of simulated training.
But she was in his hands now, and all she could do was hope for the best.
Wind sang through the open-air cockpit, which was about the size of the seat of a VW Bug. The backseat. Mal sat behind her maneuvering the stick with his right hand, a rusty throttle in his left. Chessie had stuffed herself into the tiny seat in front of him, her loose beach cover-up a pathetic fashion choice for night flying.
Ramos had given them a lightning-fast lesson on the dials while they’d donned helmets and climbed in. Air speed, altitude, oil pressure, and horizon position, which in this plane were visible to both pilot and passenger, all looked to be functioning fine and giving a good read. Fuel? Every time they hit an air pocket, that dial dropped to empty, then popped back up again.
This was flying by the seat of your pants, on a wing and a prayer, and every other cliché she could think of to keep her mind occupied. When she ran out, she thought about the whole situation of the money and the child, the woman and the secret school that arranged adoptions…and tried like hell to make sense of it all.
Mal hadn’t stolen money to help a woman; he’d covered for her. Somewhere in that fact lay the answer to his life’s problem: clearing his name without ruining hers. Could something be done with the money? The accounts?
Chessie itched to get on a computer and dig around, but first, she had to find Gabe’s child. And they were flying to the woman who’d adopted him, so that meant they were closer to little Gabriel Rafael.
Surely the woman whose life Mal had essentially saved would be on their side.
“Hang on!” Mal hollered, and Chessie did, clutching her seat and squeezing as they soared over some unexpectedly high trees.
She glanced over her shoulder to look at him, but her hair whipped over her face. She couldn’t see far anyway, since she’d taken off her glasses for the ride. When she pushed it away, she caught sight of him concentrating on the dials and sticks, his whole being into the job of flying.
Don’t fall for him, Chessie. You’d never have a normal life.
Gabe’s warning howled in her head, louder than the wind.
Who wanted a normal life when you could have a life of adventure and fun with Malcolm Harris? But couldn’t a girl have other fantasies? Less sweet and innocent and more hot and wild? What if she were willing to give up those girlhood dreams and…follow him? Stay with him? Fall in love with him?
The plane dipped low and sharp, stealing her breath and sending her stomach on the same ride.
“Sorry,” he said. “My bad.”
Not really. He didn’t have a bad bone in his body. Certainly not his heart, which was in the right place, or they wouldn’t be in this plane, but…the spies, the danger, the looking over his shoulder?
“Hang in there, Francesca.”
“I’m trying,” she said dryly.
“I promise we won’t crash and burn.”
Really? Could he promise that? Because her heart was flipping around in her chest like this crappy little plane.
“It’s not far now.”
She lifted her head and peered into the darkness. “How can you tell?”
“Instinct. Just listening to my gut.”
She turned again to throw her next question into the wind. “What’s your gut tell you about me?”
“That you are the best…” He hesitated and the plane dipped. She filled in the blank during the silence. The best partner? The best lover? The best thing that ever happened to him? The best –
“Not good. Fuck, this is not good.”
She squinted at the fuel dial, the needle hovering over empty.
“It does that,” she said. “It’ll jump back.”
“It’s not jumping back, Chessie. Damn it.” He worked the stick and the throttle, backing off the acceleration, probably to save fuel. “I can see the lights of El Sal, maybe five or six miles away. We’re close enough to put her down soon,” he said. “I’ll find an open field. Hopefully before we run out of fuel.”
Hopefully.
This from the man who didn’t believe in hope. But she trusted him. She had to right now.
“Landing, Chessie,” he yelled. “Hang on.”
She turned to face the front and slammed her hands on the leather panel in front of her as the plane dipped and dove, tilting from one side to another. She hated this. It was wild and scary and out of control. She hated it.
And when she entertained stupid, crazy thoughts about life with a guy who was just like that, she had to remember how much she—
The nose of the plane tilted straight down, making her cry out in terror.
She heard him swear again. “I got it.” But it didn’t feel like he had it. He pulled back on the stick, and the plane straightened out, but they were definitely headed down. Fast. Really damn fast.
“Whoa!” she cried out, balling her fists and pressing them to her cheeks. “Mal!”
But he didn’t answer, battling the plane and the low winds that buffeted them up and down and to both sides. The treetops were close—way too close—but he shoved the throttle all the way forward, and the engine sputtered and choked, then the whine of the propeller changed pitch, as if it were slowing down.
She opened her eyes, squinting into the wind to see where they were headed. The tree line. They had to get over that tree line and pray there was a field beyond it.
If not…
The engine sounds deepened and slowed, and the plane dropped a little more. They were not going to make it. They were going to hit the trees and flip this plane and crash and burn.
“No, Mal, no! We’re not going to make it!”
“Oh yes we are.” She could hear him battle the stick, yanking it from side to side, fighting the tilt of the plane as he tried to work the dying machine over the trees.
They weren’t going to make it. They were going down fast. Chessie closed her eyes and tried to say her mental good-byes, working to conjure up images of her parents, her brothers and sister, Nino and…
Mal.
Behind her, he swore mightily, losing the fight to gravity as the propeller snapped the top of the trees.
It was him she’d miss. The chance with him. The possibility of him. Damn it, she’d just found him, and now they were—
“Got it, you son of a bitch!” He glided over the last of the tree line, powered by wind and momentum and…hope.
The ground rushed toward them, the shadows of the field below flying by, coming up, meeting them…with a thud and bump. Her teeth cracked together, and her bones felt like they’d slammed into each other. They rocked and tipped and bounced over the ground and finally came to a stop.
Chessie didn’t let out the breath she’d been holding until Mal grabbed her shoulders and turned her around.
“Hell, yeah, Francesca. We made it.”
She shuddered out a sigh and reached for his face, closing her hands on his cheeks as relief and affection and joy ricocheted through her body with the same force as the landing.
“We could make it, you know.” The words tumbled out of her mouth, fueled by adrenaline and the brush with death. “We could beat all the odds.” She pulled him close and kissed him without even trying to hide how she felt about him.
She couldn’t let go. Couldn’t stop kissing and touching and giving in to the words that bubbled up like a pent-up volcanic eruption. “We’re so good together, Mal. We’re special. We’re a team. I never met anyone like you. I want you to—”
His hand pressed on her mouth, sweaty and strong and silencing. “Stop,” he said gruffly.
She blinked at him, and he slowly dropped his hand. “I don’t want to stop,” she whispered. “I want to tell you how I feel.”
He gave a sharp shake of his head. “You’re just…it’s just…near death.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Nothing like a brush with mortality to make you realize how you feel about someone.”
He just stared at her, silent. His eyes looked longing, but a frown creased his forehead, and his jaw was set in a way that told her he was working hard not to say a word.
“Mal…” She was still catching her breath from the rough landing, and her voice cracked. “Can you really look me in the eyes and tell me this…this…thing we feel is absolutely and truly hopeless?”
She counted her heartbeats, thumping so hard they echoed from her chest to her brain, waiting for his answer.
“Can you?” she whispered as hope slipped away with each passing second.
“Yes. Let’s go. We have a long walk.”
He climbed out of the cockpit, and she sat perfectly still for a long moment, letting the sadness and pain hit her heart. They did crash and burn, after all.
Chapter Twenty-five
Of course it was hopeless. Irrevocably hopeless. The truth of that slammed at Mal’s heart and head with the same intensity his feet slammed against the muddy field they crossed on the long, mosquito-infested, two-mile walk to the outskirts of El Sal.
Neither one of them spoke, since a bug flew into Chessie’s mouth the minute she’d opened it. So they trudged along in silence, with her confession hanging in the air as thick as the Cuban humidity, making them both sweaty and uncomfortable.
We could make it, you know. We could beat all the odds. We’re so good together, Mal.
Could they? Did he dare even think that he could—
A bug bit his neck, and he slapped at it a little too hard.
Of course not.
“Why are you so opposed to happiness?” she asked, obviously willing to risk swallowing a mosquito to psychoanalyze him. “And if you say ‘define happiness,’ you’ll eat my fist instead of a bug.”
He fought a smile because…because shit. She made him smile. And that was the fucking problem. “I’m not opposed to happiness.”
“Oh, it’s just me you’re opposed to?”
He closed his eyes and slowed down, kicking a little mud in frustration. “I’m not opposed to you, Chessie.”
“But you don’t want to take a chance on anyone who might make you happy.”
He looked skyward, wishing like hell they could talk about the blanket of stars and how they looked pink and how the whole Milky Way was visible out here. But no, they had to talk about his happiness.
“I wasn’t born into it, like you were.”
“And this is, what, Medieval England, and you can’t change your stature in life? People have shitty childhoods and grow up to let go of that and make a better one for their kids.”
“Kids?” The word popped out before he could manage to just think and not say it.
“I don’t mean ours,” she said, and he could hear the disappointment in her voice. Or was that in his own head? “I’m speaking…hypothetically. Ew. Pfffft.” She turned away and spit. “Gross.”
Spitting out a bug or the idea of kids with him?
“Why don’t you try?” she asked. “Why don’t you try to find happiness?”
“How do you know I haven’t?” he fired back.
“But you do know that my brother has a business helping people who are in precisely the situation you’re in, right?”
“I know what Gabe does.”
“Then why not use his services? Why not have him get you a new ID and a new life? Disappear if you have to. Get away from this Roger Drummand guy who has it out for you. Start over and…and…”
He waited, half dreading, half aching to hear what she’d say next.
“Find someone,” she finished.
I found someone. I’m walking next to her. I’m half in love with her.
Holy, holy hell. He was in trouble. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “Gabe helps people hide from bad guys. I’m hiding from the good guys.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “Yeah, well, they don’t sound so good to me.”
“They aren’t all good.”
“Could you ever have a normal life? You know, not look over your shoulder? Not be on the CIA shit list? Could you ever…”
He stopped walking for a second and turned to her. The need to set her straight welled up in him. “Logistically? Technically? Physically? Yeah, there is probably a way for me to live a little less on the edge of doom, and maybe Drummand will outgrow his hate-on for me, and maybe I could find a place where I’m someone else, doing something else, even though I’d really rather just be me doing what I was trained to do.”
It was her turn to stare at him, mouth closed, but eyes wide as she waited for what he had to say.
“But I can’t just…love someone.”
Her mouth opened, dropped into an O of disbelief. He closed it for her, touching her chin and making sure she didn’t eat any more bugs.
“You want to know why?”
She nodded, her eyes just a little bit damp, which scared him and touched him and kind of amazed him. Did she really care that much?
“I can’t really tell you why. I just know that I’m not meant for that. Every time I’ve given a person a chance, they screwed me over. Starting with my mother, who spent my childhood screwing me over, and a couple other women here and there, and even Alana…”
“So you were romantically attached to her,” she said.
“No.” He shook his head. “I swear, we were friends, but even that friendship, she used me, and then…” He turned, looking toward the distant lights of the town of El Salvador. “She had to have kept the money. She was the only person who knew where it was in the first place. And that’s made my life even shittier.”
“While we’re there, why don’t you ask her about it?”
He shrugged. “She’ll just deny it. And what am I going to do? Implicate her? I served my time, and I saved her kids.”
She reached for his arm. “And that amazes me,” she said. “So why don’t you save yourself?”
And ruin her life? “I wouldn’t even know how to settle down, Chessie. I know what your plan is, and I’m not the man for you. I’ll always have a record. I’ll always be an embezzler. That’s not what you want, is it? A guy who’s done time at Allenwood?”
Her eyes flashed hot in the moonlight. “Can’t I be the one to decide that? Can’t I know whether or not that bothers me?”
“It has to bother you,” he insisted. “In your perfect family of law-abiding, crime-fighting, good-doing heroes, you want to drag an ex-con who did time for stealing half a million from the US government to Christmas dinner?”
When she didn’t answer, he nodded, hard, and gave her a nudge to keep walking. “I didn’t think so.”
“But I know the truth! You didn’t do it. You took the blame to help her.” She marched next to him, her white high-top sneakers caked in mud and splashing more with each angry step. “It’s so damn unfair!”
“I’ve accepted the unfairness of it.”
“Not that! I could fix that. I could prove you’re innocent, and you know what? It wouldn’t matter.”
“It would matter. It would mean I spent four years of my life in vain. She still has kids. They’d still be taken from her.”
“Oh please.” Disgust darkened her voice. “You could be cleared of everything and free to have lunch with the freaking president of the United States, and you’d come up with some bogus reason why you’re all wrong for me, because, you know what, Mal?”
He had a feeling she was about to tell him.
“You’re afraid of love. You’re terrified of the real thing. You don’t think you’re worthy of it, so you build some
kind of wall and move every four months and do undercover work that keeps you from being real, because you’re just so damn scared of someone leaving you or hurting you.”
He just closed his eyes and huffed out a breath. “I’m not having this fight here. We have to—”
“Find that kid and get home,” she finished. “I can’t get away from you fast enough.”
The announcement smacked him, so far from what he was feeling and how she looked. “That’s the adrenaline dump talking,” he said.
“It’s my heart talking,” she shot back, walking so fast now he had to work to keep up with her. “My bruised and lonely and really stupid heart that picks the wrong guy over and over again. Like I can fix him or something and make him…not quit.”
“Not quit?” The indictment stabbed like a steely knife.
“Yeah. You know my plan? My silly, 1950s innocent life plan? It requires a man who doesn’t give up when the going gets tough.”
“Is that what you think I am?” he asked, his gut burning. “A quitter?”
“You’re giving up on your life and happiness before you even have it, so yeah. And I don’t like that. I don’t like you.”
Somehow, they’d gone from we can make this work to…I don’t like you.
“Which is exactly the rule we set, remember?” he reminded her.
“I remember. Like it was yesterday. Come to think of it, it practically was. Come on, let’s move it. I want to find my nephew and get home.”
Her shoulders hunched, her head down, her hair falling in her face, Chessie walked on like a prisoner who had…no hope.
Taking that from her was his worst crime. He was innocent of embezzlement. But he was one hundred percent guilty of stealing all the light, hope, and heart from Francesca Rossi.
And he hated himself even more for that.
* * *
The tension between them stretched like a steel wire that could snap at any second.
Chessie stayed perfectly silent, focused on the plan of the moment: find that child. She could be on a plane tomorrow morning.
Her little hopeless interlude end in failure, but the mission would not.
She peered into the blackness, following the beam of Mal’s flashlight.
Barefoot With A Stranger Page 23
