by Dianna Love
Now he felt lower than a snake’s belly. What had he thought she’d say? That she’d loved kissing him and feeling his hands all over her, and wanted him to touch her again?
Yes.
So much for his moment of fantasy. At least there was one thing he could get right. He knew what she’d probably like about now. “Why don’t you grab a shower?”
From her exaggerated sigh he concluded she was obviously not happy with him or his plan for her day. Then her face brightened. “Tell you what. I’ll go with you if you’ll agree to spend some time cleaning up your storage room.”
“Why? There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“That place is a wreck. How do you even find stuff and know for sure if anyone has picked up their cargo?”
“I have a system,” he muttered.
“Not an efficient one by the looks of that place.” She shifted her pose and lifted her chin with a stubborn look he was starting to recognize. “If you want me to stay here and accept your generosity, then I want to help you get organized.”
I am organized, dammit. But for once she was talking about accepting his help. Not wanting to discourage that, he conceded, “We’ll look at the room when we get back.”
“Great.” She carried her bag of clothes to his master bathroom and snapped the door shut.
While she cleaned up, Zane jumped through his own shower in the hall bathroom and threw on a collared golf shirt and khaki pants. He slid his loaded Keltec .32 down the inside of his boot. The Sig, just like the ones the DEA issued, he stashed in the false center of a hardback novel, which he tucked into his flight bag. It was similar to the weapon he’d trained with in the Air Force and carried in his survival vest when he’d flown combat missions, so it hadn’t taken any adjustment.
He walked into the kitchen to find Angel wearing her jeans and white shirt.
At this rate, after a week of washing that outfit would disintegrate. She leaned forward on the counter with a slice of cold pizza in one hand. Her downcast eyes drifted back and forth across the front page of yesterday’s paper. An almost empty glass of milk rested near the edge of the paper.
“You can have anything you want,” Zane pointed out to her. “You don’t have to eat day-old pizza.”
“This is great. You have no idea how badly you miss pizza until you can’t get it for a year.” She’d mumbled her answer without looking up from the newspaper.
Where had she lived that she couldn’t get pizza? He’d file that away for now.
Zane checked his watch. They had to get moving. “You ready to go?”
She didn’t even hesitate as she cleaned up after herself, wiped down the counter and washed the glass. She hefted the linen bag to her shoulder. “Lead the way.”
After scooting her out to the truck, Zane made three switchbacks on his way to the airfield. He detected no one following them, but someone had spotted Angel while she was running down the beach. If her pursuers had figured out that she was with him, logically they should have come after her by now.
Nice if he could relax and take that as a good sign, but unfortunately, logic and criminals didn’t always go hand in hand, which meant he’d have to be on guard for anything at this point.
Where would her pursuers show up next?
Chapter 20
Zane was sorry about the kiss.
Sorry about that kiss?
Angel stewed in the co-pilot seat as Zane reached cruising altitude. Granted, they hadn’t picked the best time to do a sexy cha-cha, standing in that abandoned station, but he clearly regretted it. What had happened?
She’d been sure he was enjoying himself as much as she had. Well, maybe not as much as she had – not when he’d slipped his fingers inside her bra top. And started to do the same with her shorts.
Her nipples perked up at the reminder. The pair of traitors hardened just thinking about his touch. If he’d kept his hands on her another couple of minutes in that old gas station, the heat coming off her skin would have torched her clothes.
But something had changed by the time they’d returned to his apartment. For him anyway. Maybe he’d come to his senses and realized he could do so much better.
With his looks, he probably had a string of beautiful, sophisticated women vying for his attention. Bet he never tossed out a penalty flag after kissing one of them.
She certainly wasn’t beautiful or sophisticated.
But that didn’t stop her from thinking of how much she’d like to have a man like Zane.
Impossible dream.
Okay so who cared? If he wanted to act like nothing had happened between them, so would she.
Zane’s voice buzzed in her headphones. “While we have a little time, how about telling me something about yourself?”
“Like what?”
“What type of work do you do?”
She’d been pedaling a bike as a courier when she’d been arrested for unknowingly delivering drugs for her father. After jail she’d taken a job as a maid in a filthy motel where rooms were rented by the hour, she’d shoveled refuse at the dump, and waited tables in a strip club because a respectable restaurant didn’t want an ex-con.
Getting hired by one of the largest import-export companies in the country should have been a red flag for her, but no. She’d been too eager to make good.
Two months into her employment, she’d earned a raise and moved up to the position of inventory clerk. And that job had come with opportunities for advancement – from small time jailbird to fulltime felon.
Give him the short version. “You could say I’m between jobs right now.”
“What have you done?”
She couldn’t see behind those aviator glasses he wore, but she’d bet he rolled his eyes at her evasive answer. “I was a bike courier once. How’d you find me this morning?”
“I normally jog in the mornings. When I heard you leave, I slipped on my shoes to run with you, but you were way ahead of me by the time you reached the beach. Next thing I knew, I saw a bullet strike the sand and you took off like a rocket.”
Okay bringing up this morning was a bad idea.
Zane turned his dark sunglasses on her. “You’re pretty fast, even to be running on adrenaline. Did you run track in school?”
“Yes.” She pushed that out through clenched teeth. She could deal with the subtle interrogation, but reminding her of what she’d lost punctured an emotional artery.
No one she’d graduated with had spoken to her again after her conviction. Thankfully, the people she’d been training around since she walked out of prison knew nothing of her record, only that her marathon race times were exceptional.
Oh, crap. All the medals she’d earned before being arrested were still on the wall of her two-room house in Raleigh. No going back there.
Just like always, she’d busted her butt to earn something only to lose it.
Zane’s simple question opened a wound she’d thought had healed years ago. Six years spent struggling to survive after getting released had given her little time to think about lost dreams.
Over the past year, though, she’d committed the sin of dreaming again. Running the Tamarind triathlon in Colorado in two months was to be her big chance at returning to the athletic community and regaining a margin of respect.
Thanks, Mason, for destroying that dream.
She felt Zane’s eyes on her again. Knew he wanted more than a one-word answer. “I ran in high school.” She made a show of checking her watch. “How long’s our flight?”
“Bentley Field is a little over two hours away. Where’d you go to high school?”
Her throat tightened. “A podunk place. How long have you flown?”
“Fourteen years. I mentioned being in the Air Force. That was until a few years ago.”
“How long were you in?” Angel asked.
He shook his head and smiled. “Not fair. It’s my turn to ask. If we’re going to play question volleyball how about answering mine since I’m answeri
ng yours?”
“Fair enough.” She’d share what she could.
“Have you run competitively?” Zane started again.
Two national titles plus a room full of regional trophies by the time she’d reached sixteen. Yeah, that qualified as competitive running.
Her father had hocked her brass trophies for pocket cash.
Tears stung her eyes. Fidgeting, she glanced around and saw a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses in a side pocket. She yanked them out and slid the dark sunglasses over her eyes, careful to touch only the wire frames, which were too narrow to hold a fingerprint. “I ran track in school and a few local races. Why’d you leave the Air Force?”
His smile faltered. What? Mr. Got-to-know-everything didn’t like question volleyball all of a sudden?
She smiled, feeling a little smug.
“After our parents were killed, Trish started having problems. I was no help to her flying jets on the other side of the ocean. By the time I got back to Texas she was in the hospital.”
Fingers on his right hand flexed out and back in, gripping the yoke. Angel didn’t think he was going to continue until she heard his low voice in her headset.
“Her best friend, Heidi, found her after Trish had gone to a hotel with some guy and he’d beaten her half to death. Trish told Heidi she’d screamed until she’d passed out, but no one helped. The place was full of crack-heads. The one thing I can’t tolerate is drugs.”
Angel’s shoulders sagged. Okay, they were even. Neither had intentionally forced painful memories on the other. Guilt layered his deep sadness.
She understood how it felt to carry guilt. But his was misplaced. “You’re there for Trish now. You can’t change the past, but you can influence the future. And you’re doing that.”
He didn’t acknowledge her comment, but the harsh lines in his face relaxed.
“It’s your serve,” she teased, hoping to lighten the mood, rewarded when his mouth quirked up with a half-smile.
“What’s your best time in a race?”
Angel hesitated, fiddled with her seatbelt then lifted her chin with pride she couldn’t hide. She’d been good at one thing in her life and all she had left to show for it were memories. “I’ve run close to five-minute pace.”
“No kidding? Did you get a track scholarship?”
She nodded, throat thick with emotion then realized he hadn’t seen her head move. “Yes.”
“Where’d you go?”
“I didn’t.”
Zane cut his head around to face her. “Why not? With professional training, you might have made the Olympics.”
What should she tell him? That one of the most prestigious universities in the country rescinded their offer when they found out she’d be delayed a year while serving her time in prison? No way.
“It wasn’t my choice. They withdrew the offer,” she said.
“You should have submitted to another college. For someone with your speed, there had to be plenty of universities who would have taken you ... as long as your grades were up to par.”
“I had a three-point-eight.” She’d have carried a better grade average than that if training and working a job hadn’t drained her time. “They just decided they didn’t want me.”
“Did you try to get into another college?”
The steady drone of the engines filled several seconds before she rubbed her neck then answered. “No. Can we call it a tie game and quit here?”
~*~
Zane wanted to push for more, but knew when to quit. Better to chisel away than try to get it all in one chunk. “Sure.”
She gave him a polite smile then turned to look out the window.
“They didn’t want me,” she’d said. It wasn’t the words so much as the cold pain behind them that struck him. How could a university not want a talented athlete who had the grades? She’d said it hadn’t been her choice.
Only one reason came to mind. She’d done something to warrant revocation of the scholarship.
Five minute pace.
After watching her this morning, he believed it. She’d been some school’s star runner. Her name had to show up in a database with cross-referencing race results and high school track stars.
Ben could narrow the possibilities down by searching the top ten percent of women finalists across the country in the last ten years.
What would cause a school to reject a talented athlete? That was the meat of the question. Ben had a practically limitless network of information at his fingertips. There probably weren’t a lot of prominent female athletes named Angel, if that was her real name.
Definitely world-class level. He’d love to watch her fly through the end of a race and cheer her on as she led the pack. Those gazelle-like legs gracefully tearing across the ground. He’d be there to hug her when she won.
Whoa. Where had that ridiculous thought come from?
The devil’s advocate in Zane forced him to put this all back into perspective, starting with the facts he now had. She’d lost a scholarship due to some infraction, getting information out of her was harder than pulling a Kardashian away from a television camera, and Angel was a suspiciously compulsive cleaner. Plus he’d met her under damned crazy circumstances.
So what’s the conclusion?
Ben would say she’s a person of interest to law enforcement.
But for what?
But if nothing panned out in Ben’s search, Zane would be forced to involve the police or turn her loose to fend for herself.
Neither option would give him peace.
Besides, bringing in the police would mean explaining how he’d met Angel. Nobody would be happy about that, starting with the DEA. No-win situation, no matter which way he went.
If he were older, he’d have a healthy inheritance waiting for him that he could use to help Trish. But he couldn’t touch it until he reached the age of forty. That left him to make the best of the skills he had for both him and Trish in the meantime.
And there was the small matter of needing to believe in what he did for a living. Running cargo wouldn’t provide that. But this DEA gig gave him a way to still make a difference to the country he loved.
Nothing would wholly compensate for the loss of his military career, but he was making it.
And Trish had lost much more.
A lot of jet jockeys couldn’t make the switch to slower aircraft, but everyone made sacrifices in life. He’d given up the adrenaline rush of Mach 2, and gained one beautiful, alive sister. He could live happily with that trade.
And damn whatever he had to do to make all of this work out.
He confirmed clearance to land.
Angel sat up straight in her seat, watching him as he went through a check of his systems. She seemed ... impressed?
Ego stroke moment.
Then she slipped her headset off and switched it out for her hat as someone radioed him from Bentley Field. “You must be getting big bucks working on the Friday before Labor Day, flyboy.”
“How goes it, Jason?” Zane had met the young mechanic on a recent stopover when the Titan needed a minor adjustment.
“The same. Underpaid and overworked. You expecting company?”
“You mean the High Vision people?” Zane asked.
“Naw, they’re here, too, but you got a welcoming committee out here and you’re the only bird we’re expecting right now.”
Ah hell.
Keying up the mike, Zane asked Jason, “Would you know if this has anything to do with the High Vision shipment? Dispatcher didn’t have much information.”
“Oh, yeah, it does. You’d think it was the crown prince of Europe with all the security that showed up.”
That didn’t sound right. “Supposed to be cargo, not a passenger.”
“Depends on how you look at it. You’re the limo ride for a little white mutt headed to Miami for a weekend of R&R with his four-legged lady.”
Zane flipped through his memory bank on the corporate management of
High Vision. Their CFO and his wife raised champion Bichon Frise dogs, including a stud worth more than a lot of people earned in a year. He understood the lack of information when Sammy had called Zane about this load. The CFO was worried about the animal being stolen during transport.
Now he put it all together. “Don’t tell me TAF’s waiting for me.”
“Okay, I won’t. I hate being the bearer of bad news.”
Damn, it was TAF, the moniker for Treat Animals Fairly. A bunch of PETA wannabes that caused more trouble than good. “Just my luck. See you in a few.”
“Not me, flyboy. I just bought a new bass rig with a hot Mercury outboard. I’ll be on the water by sunset. Catch you next time.”
No wonder the High Vision CFO had kept the identity of the cargo secret. In addition to assuring his wife’s prize show dog was safe, the CFO wanted to avoid any media when it came to TAF, which was always negative.
Obviously, TAF had better intel than anyone realized.
This bunch did not want to cross him, not with Zane so close to signing a contract with High Vision.
He always went for a smooth landing, but he outdid himself on this one. Angel didn’t say a word, but her eyebrow lifted just enough to tell him she’d noticed. At the terminal side of the runway, Zane swung off and parked on the ramp then took in the waiting congregation.
Two elderly women, linked arm-in-arm, were dressed in matching flowered, short-sleeve dresses that fell midway of their chunky calves. Black ankle-high boots complemented their military-style buzz cuts.
A wiry little man held down his dirt-brown hat against the wind swiftly kicking up dust. Standing next to him was a middle-aged, flame-haired woman and a short man almost as wide as he was tall. Sunshine glinted off of the thin brown hair covering his basketball-shaped head.
Zane unbuckled his seatbelt and slipped out of the cockpit. When he opened the cargo door to step down, loose sand blasted his face in a rush of burning air. A hand pushed against his back and he turned to find Angel climbing out.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
“I’m your translator, remember?” She didn’t even try to hide the smile that came along with the sarcasm. “If you handle this group anything like you did Mr. Suarez, you’ll be lucky to stay in business through next week.”
