Meltdown

by Gail Barrett

  She took hold of the pistol, which was heavier than she expected. Cradling it as carefully as lit dynamite, she twisted around, pushed open the window, then gripped the gun with both hands. The sedan swerved across the runway behind them, its front tires flat, rubber flapping as it sped through the dirt on its rims.

  But two gunmen now hung out the passenger windows, their faces covered with hoods, their weapons trained on the plane.

  She angled the pistol out the window and pointed at the car. The plane vibrated, making her arms shake, and she knew it was futile to aim. The best she could hope for was to pin them down—and try not to hit the plane.

  She gritted her teeth and squeezed the trigger, then jumped at the earsplitting bang. Her hands flew up from the recoil. A spent cartridge shot from the gun. She steadied the gun, inhaled the harsh, sulfuric smell of gunfire, and pulled the trigger again. The men dove back inside the car. For now.

  The plane accelerated. The Cessna’s engine roared. “Strap in,” Coop shouted.

  Zoe set the gun between the seats and tugged on her harness, but then a rapid series of tats reached her ears. She glanced out her window, shocked to see holes appear in the wing.

  “They hit us.” Horrified, she swung around to face Coop. “They shot the plane.”

  He grunted, his gaze on the instrument panel.

  “Can we can still fly?”

  “We’ll find out.” He adjusted the knobs, increasing the plane’s speed even more.

  She gnawed her cheek, watched his forehead wrinkle in concentration as he calmly worked the controls. And she realized with a start that he was used to this. He flew under enemy fire, risking his life all the time.

  He pulled back on the yoke, easing the Cessna’s nose up, and the plane lifted away from the ground.

  She held her breath. Every muscle in her body tensed. The plane chugged, strained, slowly gained altitude. She gripped her seat, her fingernails gouging the cushion, her gaze glued on the desert sand.

  Had the bullets hit something vital? Would the plane crash or explode in the air?

  But long seconds passed and the plane stayed airborne. The desert floor slowly retreated. The propeller continued to spin.

  She peeked out the side window. The sedan had stopped at the end of the runway. Three men stood beside it, black hoods covering their heads, their deadly weapons growing smaller as the plane soared into the sky.

  Shuddering, she closed the window, then turned back to face Coop. They’d made it. They were safe—at least for now.

  Assuming the plane stayed in the air.

  “What do you think?” she asked. “Is the plane all right?”

  “I don’t know.” He glanced at the damaged wing, then at the instrument panel again.

  Her mind still reeling, her body shaking from the surge of adrenaline, she watched him work the controls.

  Thank goodness he’d helped her. She never would have escaped those men alone. And she still couldn’t believe he was here. But there he sat like a vision from her painful past, like some bizarre sort of déjà vu.

  Her gaze drifted over the rugged lines of his face, the hollows of his dusky cheeks. His biceps bulged under the sleeves of his T-shirt. His shoulders rippled with strength. She eyed the powerful line of his neck, his flat, sexy stomach, the intriguing worn spots on his faded jeans.

  A wayward thrill ran through her. He was still the most arresting man she’d ever seen. And he slouched in his seat in a posture so familiar it made her throat ache—his jean-clad legs sprawled wide, his booted feet working the pedals, his tough, sinewed hands managing the yoke with expert skill.

  He turned his head, as if sensing her watching, trapping her with his gunmetal eyes. And his sexual appeal slammed through her, jumbling her stomach even more.

  She’d never met another man like him. No one had ever affected her so intensely. No one had even come close.

  “You all right?” His deep voice rumbled through her nerves.

  Hardly. Her life had been turned upside down. Their plane could crash at any time.

  And now she was flying through the desert with Coop, the man who’d demolished her heart.

  But she managed to nod. “I’m alive at least.”

  Coop’s gaze didn’t waver. Instead, he narrowed one flinty eye at her, as if sighting down the barrel of his gun—reminding her that even though he’d helped her, he wasn’t exactly her friend.

  He would demand an explanation—and rightfully so. But how much should she say? Would he believe her if she told him the truth? None of the authorities had.

  But what choice did she have? She had to convince him to help her. She only had thirty-six hours to pay that ransom. A delay could cost her grandfather his life.

  She snuck another glance at Coop. The sharp intelligence in his eyes scrambled her pulse.

  She’d managed to escape the assassins.

  But she had the feeling her problems had just begun.

  Chapter 2

  Eight summers ago, Zoe Wilkinson had sauntered into Coop’s life like the answer to his erotic dreams—and blasted his world apart.

  Damned if she hadn’t just done it again.

  Cooper Kennedy tore his gaze from the brilliant blue sky beyond the Cessna’s windshield and scowled at the woman who had loitered in his memory for years. She perched beside him, looking so innocent with her small, freckled nose and generous mouth, that stubborn, fine-boned chin. He raked his gaze down her slender throat, back to the sexy mole winking above her lip, and his hold on his temper slipped.

  Innocent, hell. This woman had crushed his heart, screwed him over without remorse, done her best to destroy his dreams. And now she’d charged back into his life—still beautiful, still provoking those knight-to-the-rescue urges, still demolishing his hard-won plans.

  He jerked his gaze back to the dashboard, appalled by what he’d just done. His orders had been clear. Stay at the airstrip. Watch for Leonard Shaw, the target of his surveillance. Phone his Navy contact the minute the AWOL scientist appeared.

  He wasn’t supposed to battle gunmen. He wasn’t supposed to disobey orders. Again. And he wasn’t supposed to be flying through the desert with Zoe, the woman who’d gutted his heart.

  And who was the granddaughter of his target, to boot.

  He gave her a look of pure disgust. She looked the same, all right. Still guileless, still dressed in those too-prim clothes, although the rush to evade those killers had taken its toll. He eyed her dusty, knee-length shorts, the wrinkled blouse buttoned tight to her chin. Her normally rigid braid had unraveled, and loose strands curled around her face.

  The contrast used to intrigue him—the demure exterior that hid the erotic woman beneath.

  Nothing about her amused him now.

  The airplane’s engine sputtered, drawing his attention back to the controls. He studied the instrument panel, then the holes in the starboard wing. Just what he needed. The right tank was leaking fuel and the fuel gauge didn’t work—along with who-knew-what other parts. He had no business getting this death-trap airborne, especially with a passenger on board. If it weren’t for their pursuers, he’d land this wreck right now.

  He switched to the other wing tank and tossed Zoe a headset, waiting until she’d plugged it in. “Hand me the log book. It’s on the floor.”

  She handed over the book, and he studied the entries, calculating the fuel in the undamaged tank. With luck, they could make it to Deadman’s Junction, the nearest, good-sized town—assuming nothing else went wrong.

  And what were the chances of that?

  He checked their course with a hiss of disgust, then clamped his gaze on Zoe. “So what was that about?”

  She turned her head to face him. This close he could see the fatigue bruising her skin, the anxiety lurking in her wide blue eyes. He didn’t blame her for being afraid; that attack had rattled him, too. But those dark circles under her eyes hinted at something deeper, something that had kept her from sleeping for days.<
br />
  Something that wasn’t his problem.

  “You probably won’t believe me.” Her throaty voice slid through him, kicking off a kaleidoscope of carnal memories, igniting his temper even more. That voice had always hit him like a sucker punch, so at odds with her schoolmarm looks.

  His gaze dropped to the full curves beneath her tightly buttoned top. Curves he knew intimately. Curves he’d touched and stroked and licked…

  His lips thinned. “Try me.”

  Nodding, she pressed her hand to her throat. No ring. No surprise. Few men could measure up to her intellectual standards. Certainly not Coop—the son of an alcoholic and a thrill-seeking hell-raiser from a dead-end desert town.

  “It’s…about my grandfather,” she admitted.

  Leonard Shaw. That figured. Of course he’d be involved in this mess.

  And if anyone knew his target’s whereabouts, it would be Zoe. “So where is America’s premier physicist? Still busy collecting awards?”

  “You’ve followed his work?”

  “Nuclear science is a little over my head, princess. Wasn’t that the point?”

  Her face reddened, and she crossed her arms. Good. She deserved to feel guilty after the way she’d treated him.

  He tightened his jaw, tamped down another flash of anger. Zoe was ancient history. She’d meant nothing to him for years. She was just a woman he’d known, one who’d entertained him the summer before he’d shipped out for boot camp. They’d flown in Pedro’s planes, had some spectacular sex…

  And if he’d acted like a besotted fool and bought her a ring…it hardly mattered now.

  “The truth is,” she began again, that husky voice doing unwanted things to his insides. “He’s missing.”

  Coop tried to look surprised. “Since when?”

  “Three weeks ago.”

  He knew that was true. The Navy had pulled Coop from his carrier squadron and banished him to the airstrip then. And while he hadn’t wanted this assignment, he figured it was poetic justice. He could finally bring down the man who’d tried to ruin him.

  He returned his attention to the instruments, but his thoughts lingered on Shaw. He had no trouble picturing the scientist as a traitor. Shaw was a user, a cold, domineering man determined to get his way—no matter whose life he destroyed.

  But what about Zoe? Was she involved in the espionage, too?

  Everything inside him protested the thought. The Zoe he’d known had been a crusader, intent on fighting injustice and righting the wrongs of the world—including the allegations that her parents had been spies.

  Turned out he hadn’t known her as well as he’d thought.

  “At first I thought he’d gone geocaching,” she continued. “He still does that every few weeks. He says hiking around the ghost town helps him clear his mind.”

  “I remember.” Shaw’s hobby had always struck him as odd—a grown man trekking around the desert, using his GPS to search for hidden caches filled with trinkets. But since that hobby had brought Zoe back to the desert with Shaw…

  They’d fist met when they were ten. She’d come rock hunting with her grandfather. Coop had been doing odd jobs at Pedro’s airstrip, desperate to ride in a plane. But then she’d fallen into a mine shaft at the ghost town, breaking her elbow, and hadn’t returned to the desert for years—until the summer they’d both turned twenty-one.

  “But he usually only goes for a few days,” Zoe continued, drawing Coop’s attention again. “When he didn’t come back, I started to worry. And then Peter Ruegg called me in. He’s head of security at our lab.”

  Captain Ruegg. Coop’s contact on the surveillance case.

  “My grandfather and I work together,” she added. “At the Madera Mountain Naval lab. It’s just outside of Ely.”

  Coop nodded. The Nevada lab had replaced Los Alamos and Sandia as the premier facility for nuclear research.

  “Ruegg started asking questions—about where my grandfather had gone, how long since I’d seen him, whether I’d been in contact with him.”

  Coop checked the Hobbs meter to gauge the fuel. Satisfied, he slid her a glance. “Go on.”

  “The FBI has been on-site at the lab for awhile, investigating a data leak. And they…” She looked down at her hands. “They think my grandfather is involved. I think they suspect me, too.” Her eyes swung back to his. “But he isn’t a traitor, Coop.”

  Right. “Then why do they suspect him?”

  Her eyes turned bleak. The steady drone of the engine filled the silence as he waited for her response. “Because he copied some of his work to a flash drive and removed it from the lab.”

  “That’s a problem?”

  “It’s a felony. We’re not even supposed to save our work to an external drive, let alone take it home.”

  The distress in her voice tugged at something inside him, kicking off a reflexive swell of compassion, but he ruthlessly shoved it aside. Zoe Wilkinson wasn’t his problem. Her life, her worries had nothing to do with him now.

  And no way would he give in to the urge to offer comfort, to press that soft, curving body next to his—no matter how defenseless she seemed.

  Besides, he knew darned well she would lie to protect Shaw. She’d do anything the man asked. Hell, she’d dumped him fast enough.

  Still fighting the sympathy she evoked, he scanned the approaching mountains and adjusted the altitude of the plane. Even if he wanted to believe her, her story had holes—such as, who had attacked them at the airstrip.

  “So Shaw ran off with the flash drive,” he prodded.

  “Not exactly. He was kidnapped.”

  “Kidnapped?” Whatever he’d expected her to say, it wasn’t that. “What makes you think that?”

  “I got a note last night, a text message on my cell phone, demanding the missing data as ransom.”

  Coop snorted at that absurd tale. “And you think it’s at the ghost town?”

  “It has to be. I searched his apartment, his lab…it’s the only place left. He goes there all the time. He even keeps supplies out there. That’s where I think he hid it—with his supplies.”

  He studied her pallid face, his mind reeling with doubts. Either she was a great actress, or she was telling the truth. But Leonard Shaw kidnapped? The Navy would have briefed him if that was the case.

  And yet he had seen her assailants….

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No. It’s…complicated.” She let out another long sigh. “He’s been acting strange lately, paranoid. He told me people were following him and trying to steal his research.”

  Coop lifted his eyebrows, but she shrugged. “He’s always been secretive. A lot of scientists are. Competition in the field is fierce. And his project is classified, so he has to safeguard his work. But this was different. He acted scared, really frightened. And he kept warning me not to trust anyone—not the police, not our colleagues at the Navy lab, not even the FBI.

  “And then, right after he went missing, Captain Ruegg called me in. The FBI questioned me, too. And men started following me, watching me… I don’t know who they were. I assumed they were FBI.” Her voice faltered. “They broke into my house. And I think they bugged my phone.”

  Coop’s mind flashed to those black-hooded gunmen, and his belly turned to ice. “And you didn’t report it?”

  “Of course I did. I went straight to the police. They took the report, but they didn’t seem to believe me. They acted suspicious, as if I’d done something wrong.”

  Coop shifted his gaze to the mountains rolling beneath them, their barren slopes pocked with ravines. On the surface, Zoe’s story made sense. The authorities would definitely suspect her, given the rumors that her parents were spies. And those dark circles under her eyes hinted at long-term stress.

  But he had a weakness where Zoe was concerned. She had a way of burrowing past his guard, making him want to protect her, even while she played him for a fool.

  “So who were those men at the ai
rstrip?”

  “The kidnappers, I guess. I thought at first it was the FBI or someone from the lab. I know they had me followed. But when I saw those hoods…”

  “But why would the kidnappers want to hurt you? Don’t they need you to find the ransom?”

  “I don’t know.” She flopped back in her seat. “None of this makes sense.”

  Coop felt just as confused. The whole story sounded bizarre, but he couldn’t deny one thing. Those gunmen had tried to kill Zoe.

  And if they weren’t the kidnappers, who were they?

  He frowned at the instrument panel, the misgivings he’d had about this surveillance case rushing back full blast. Everything about this assignment had been odd from the start. He’d only received the sketchiest of briefings. No one had bothered to send him updates. They’d just dumped him off at the airstrip, leaving him to spend three sweltering weeks watching the sun bake cracks into the ground.

  And even stranger, why send a fighter pilot to do surveillance instead of someone from the FBI’s anti-terrorist unit or Navy Special Ops?

  He shrugged off the doubts. None of that mattered. He wasn’t supposed to ask questions, wasn’t supposed to think. Ignoring orders had landed him in this mess to begin with.

  Or so he’d believed.

  He’d been assigned this case as punishment after he’d disobeyed orders during a routine reconnaissance run. Of course, he’d had no choice. He’d had to enter that forbidden Syrian airspace to bail out a rookie aviator who’d gotten in over his head.

  But the politically sensitive incident had coincided with a State Department visit to the Mideast region, embarrassing the Navy’s top brass. They’d wanted the incident buried, the Syrians placated—and Coop promptly banished from sight. So when Naval Intelligence had needed a pilot to conduct surveillance at the isolated Nevada airstrip, Coop had been the unwilling choice.

  He hadn’t dared protest. He knew the penalty could have been worse. The Navy could have launched a Board of Inquiry, court-martialed him and booted him out. But someone up the chain of command had interceded and finagled the surveillance stint instead.