by Linda Turner
“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” she cut in, her professional smile sliding from her face. Nodding to the windows behind him and the plane steeply climbing into the sky, she said, “You just missed him. He’s already in the air.”
Ace swore, his jaw rock hard. Of all the miserable luck! Jerking out his wallet, he slapped a credit card on the counter. “When’s the next flight?”
“To Caracas? Tomorrow morning at nine,” she said smoothly, turning her attention to her computer monitor. “Will you need two tickets?”
“Nine!” he growled incredulously. “You’ve got to be kidding! Don’t you have anything for tonight?”
“Just to Mexico City. And it’s boarding now. If you’re going to buy a ticket, you’ll need to do it now, sir. We’re running out of time and still have a lot of passengers to board.”
Ace hesitated for all of two seconds. “Two coach seats to Mexico City,” he said flatly.
At his side, Maddy choked. “Two? Are you out of your mind? I can’t go to Mexico City with you!”
The stewardess, her hands on her computer keys, looked up sharply, her gaze bouncing from Ace to Maddy and back again. Arching an inquiring brow at Ace, she said with growing impatience, “One ticket or two, sir?”
“Two,” he snapped, and shot Maddy a glare that clearly said, Don’t mess with me, lady.
Her heart thundering in her breast, she shut her mouth… but only because the checkin counter was no place to argue with the man, especially when they were already drawing the eye of everyone in the place. But, Lord, it was hard! Heat climbing in her cheeks, resentment sparking in her eyes, it was all she could do not to tell him exactly what she thought of him. The man was crazy, demented. There was no other explanation. Why else would he think he could haul her out of the country without so much as a by-your-leave?
Fuming, she bit her tongue and waited with growing indignation for him to sign the credit card receipt and the stewardess to give them their boarding passes. Still holding her wrist, he didn’t so much as spare her a glance as he started toward the gate with her in tow. After everything else Maddy had been through over the course of the past hour, it was too much. Digging in her heels, she stopped cold.
“What the hell-”
Brought up short, he growled a curse between his teeth and glanced back over his shoulder, his ice blue eyes locking on hers. Her palms damp, she paled, wondering too late if this was a man she wanted to cross. He had a fierce look to him, a hardness that went bone deep and told her more strongly than words that he had fought and won tougher battles than any she could ever hope to give him. But she couldn’t just stand there like a wimpy mouse and let him drag her off to Mexico City.
“I can’t do this,” she said defiantly, throwing up her chin even as her knees started to knock. “I have a job…a sick mother—”
“Sure you do. I bet you’re a regular Cinderella complete with wicked stepsisters,” he drawled in that caustic way she was coming to positively detest. “And I’ve got the Easter bunny waiting at home for me. But we’re still going to Mexico City after your friend.”
“I told you, he’s not my friend! He signs my paychecks—that’s all.”
“And considering what you do for him, I’m sure he pays you pretty damn well.” Cavalierly assuming the matter was settled, he turned back toward the boarding ramp. “C’mon. You’re holding up the plane.”
Later, she couldn’t say where she got the gumption. Timid by nature and the only child of a strong-willed mother, she’d given way to the more forceful personality all of her life. Following orders was as ingrained and instinctive to her as breathing, and she was never less sure of herself or more uncomfortable than when she was forced to stand up for herself. Her stomach twisting in knots, she stood her ground and jerked against his hold on her wrist. Caught off guard, he let her go.
Surprised, her success going to her head, she met his fierce look with one of her own. “I’m not going anywhere but home,” she said curtly, and turned away.
Searching for the nearest exit, she never saw him move. She took two steps, and he was there beside her in the blink of an eye. Grabbing her arm, he clicked something around her wrist.
Stunned, Maddy stared in disbelief at the handcuffs circling her wrist. “What are y-you d-doing?” she stuttered. “Get those things off me!”
For an answer, he snapped the connecting end of the cuffs around his own wrist.
“You can’t do this!” she cried, clawing at the cold metal. “Do you hear me? Take it off.”
“I can do any damn thing I want to,” he retorted mockingly. “I’ve got the key, remember? Now get your little butt in gear. We’ve got a plane to catch.”
He didn’t give her time to argue, but simply hauled her after him and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. “You won’t get away with this. This is America! You can’t just drag me onto a plane against my will. I’ll scream—”
“You do that,” he taunted, unperturbed as he pulled her back to the boarding gate without sparing her a glance. “Let her rip, sweetheart. Give it your best shot. My ears can stand it if yours can.”
“Ooh! You…you bully! You chest-beating, arrogant Neanderthal…” Words failing her, she would have given the last twenty dollars she had for the chance to smack him in the back of the head with something, anything. Then she saw the stewardess at the boarding gate arch a brow at the handcuffs stretched tight between her wrist and Ace’s. “Please,” she pleaded frantically, turning to her as Ace handed the woman their boarding passes. “You’ve got to help me! This man is kidnapping me—”
Ace chuckled, giving the other woman a smile that would have charmed the devil himself. “She’s really something, isn’t she?” he marveled, shaking his head as he lazily pulled his badge out of out his pocket and flashed it at the stewardess. “You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she’s a lying little thief—”
“I am not! He’s the liar—”
Ignoring her, Ace leaned close to the stewardess and confided, “She cons little old ladies. And slick—damn, she’s smooth! She makes friends with the old folks faster than you can wink, then manages to get keys to their apartments and robs them blind when they’re not looking. And she’s not particular where she does it, either. Here, Canada, even Central America. She took a bundle out of Mexico City and made the mistake of leaving prints. That’s how we nailed her. I’m taking her back to stand trial.”
“That’s a lie!” Maddy gasped, outraged. “I haven’t robbed anyone—I swear it. I’ve never even been to Mexico City. You’ve got to believe me!” she told the stewardess in growing desperation. “I’m an elementary school librarian. I can prove it—I’ve got my school ID.” She fumbled for her purse, only to remember that it had been left behind at the newsstand when she’d been kidnapped. “I—I don’t s-seem to have it with me right now. But that doesn’t mean I’m lying! If you’ll just call security…”
It was a futile hope—she could see the sympathy she’d been able to stir in the other woman’s eyes abruptly fade to skepticism and knew she’d lost her. Chilled to the bone, she wanted to hug herself, but the handcuffs chaining her to the man at her side made that impossible. “Oh, God,” she whispered to herself, “what am I going to do?”
“Go to Mexico City and stand trial just like you deserve,” Ace lied without an ounce of compassion. The glint in his eye warned her she couldn’t win when it came to a battle of wits with him, but when he turned his attention back to the stewardess, he was wise enough not to let his triumph show. “I hate these kind of cases, but I’ve got a job to do. Can we board now? I’d like to get her settled before she can cause any more of a ruckus than she already has.”
“Your seats are on the left at the rear,” the woman said quietly, handing him their boarding passes. “You can stow whatever carryon luggage you have under the seat or in the overhead compartments.”
If Maddy hadn’t been so filled with despair, she would have laughed. Luggage? Coul
dn’t the silly woman see they didn’t have so much as a toothbrush between them?
But it was too late to protest, too late to scream for help. The stewardess was already turning to the passengers in line behind them, turning her back on them, on her. Glancing around wildly for help, she saw nothing but censoring eyes from those people who had been close enough to hear Ace’s lies. Mortified, heat burning her cheeks as despair settled like a rock in her stomach, Maddy could do nothing but meekly follow Ace onto the plane and down the central aisle to their seats.
But with every step, her resentment grew. When he stopped at the second to the last row of seats in the tail and mockingly stepped aside to allow her to take the window seat, she said tightly, “You’re not going to get away with this. My mother will call the police when I don’t show up at home at the usual time. The second they check out the newsstand and realize I’ve been kidnapped, my face’ll be all over the news. That stewardess will see it and remember—”
“That stewardess won’t see jacksquat,” he cut in coldly as he settled into the seat beside her and tried to stretch out his long legs in the cramped space. “She’s on her way to Mexico City just like we are, and by the time she works the return flight, your disappearance will be old news and buried at the back of the paper. Face it, lady. You’re good and caught and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
“But I haven’t done anything!”
“Yeah, that’s what Lizzie Borden said, too, after she whacked her old man with that ax,” he said irritably, tired of her protests. “I never met a crook yet who didn’t claim to be as innocent as a newborn baby, so just give it a rest, okay? I’ve got you and I’m not letting you go until I get my hands on Sneakers.”
“Fine,” she retorted just as irritably. “You’re the one who’s going to get sued for false arrest, not me.”
A cold silence fell between them then that was broken only by the flight attendant as she welcomed everyone aboard and began her standard speech on emergency procedures. Shifting several times to find a more comfortable position, Ace cursed as his knees slammed into the back of the seat in front of him. “I swear they make these seats for midgets!” he muttered. “There’s no leg room at all. I can’t even unlock my knees. Damn! This is the last time I fly coach!”
If he expected any sympathy from Maddy, he could have saved his breath. Staring out the window, her seat belt already snug across her lap, her seat in the upright position for takeoff, she stared pointedly out the window, stiffly ignoring him, animosity rolling off her in waves as the plane raced down the runway and lifted steeply into the air.
Perversely bothered by her attitude, he scowled at the back of her head, noting, without meaning to, the slenderness of her neck, the soft tendrils of mouse brown hair that had escaped their confinement to tickle the lily white skin of her nape. She looked so damn fragile….
The thought caught him off guard, irritating him no end. The lady might look as if she’d blow away in a strong breeze, but appearances were deceptive. She hung around with thugs, and that made her a lot tougher than she looked. So what if she turned up that little nose of hers and gave him the silent treatment? They weren’t exactly going on vacation together. And he didn’t like chatty females, anyway.
Satisfied that he’d put her firmly in her place, he jammed his seat back and closed his eyes with a sigh. Three hours, he thought tiredly. If he could just catch three hours of uninterrupted sleep, he could go the next thirty-six if he had to to catch Sneakers.
Then he heard her sob.
It was only a faint whimper, quickly stifled, but he heard it, nonetheless. Stiffening, he told himself not to be a fool. He’d witnessed the lady’s acting abilities firsthand; crying on cue would be a piece of cake for her. Let her try that old trick on somebody else—he wasn’t buying it.
But as much as he tried to ignore her, he just couldn’t. She didn’t make another sound, but she didn’t have to. Opening one eye, Ace squinted at her, scowling. She just sat there, huddled against the window, like some kind of waif cowering from a storm in a deserted building. Occasionally she swiped at the silent tears that trickled down her pale cheeks, but other than that, she didn’t move so much as an eyelash. And what made it worse was that she didn’t even seem to expect a response, let alone sympathy from him or anyone else. Staring blindly out the window at the night, she didn’t make eye contact with anyone.
If this was a guilt trick, it was a dandy. Ace felt something twist in his gut, something he had no business feeling for her, and he didn’t know which he wanted to do morehug her and comfort her or paddle her backside. The latter would have been no more than she deserved, and the former…Hell, he didn’t even want to think about it. Snarling a curse, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief. “Here,” he said gruffly. “If you’re going to start a flood in here, at least mop up after yourself.”
“I’m not crying.” She sniffed. Still stubbornly presenting him the back of her head, she blindly reached for the handkerchief, murmuring a soft, husky, “Thank you,” when he placed it in her hand.
His expression impassive, Ace refused to be taken in by the poor-little-girl act. But she looked so pathetic, he felt like a damn heel. Frowning, he asked dryly, “What exactly are you not crying about, if I may ask?”
It was, apparently, the wrong question to ask. She tried to answer, only to swallow thickly. Swiping at her drenched eyes, she folded in on herself like a deck of cards. “Everything!” she choked in what was very nearly a soft wail. “I h-have no clothes, no passport. I don’t even have my purse—”
“You don’t need it. I’ll take care of whatever you need.”
“But what about my mother? She doesn’t have a clue where I am and she’ll be so worried. Who’s going to take care of her? She’s recovering from a broken hip and can hardly get around. She needs help. And there’s nobody but me to look after her.”
Ace scowled at her, determined to believe that this was just another part of the act. But if the lady was acting, she had what it took to make it on Broadway. Did she really have a sick mother at home? Doubts plagued him, annoying the hell out of him. She was probably playing him like a damn violin, but it was the possibility that she wasn’t that had him muttering a curse and signalling the stewardess for a phone.
“What’s your address?” he asked Maddy curtly when he was brought a cellular. When she gave it to him, he quickly punched out a number, waited all of five seconds, then, without bothering to identify himself, repeated the address to someone on the other end of the line. “Check out the mother and make sure she’s okay,” he said, then hung up and returned the phone to the stewardess.
He told himself he didn’t want an innocent woman’s poor health on his conscience and he was just covering his bases. But when he returned his attention to the woman at his side and found her looking at him as if she’d like to throw herself into his arms in gratitude, it wasn’t the lady’s mother he was thinking of. Alarm bells clanging in his head, he said curtly, “There. Your mother’s taken care of, so quit your bawling and go to sleep. Once we reach Caracas, we won’t stop until we catch up with that slimeball of a boss of yours, so you’d better get some rest while the gettin’s good. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.” The warning given, he laid his head back and closed his eyes. Within seconds, he was softly snoring.
Unable to believe he could fall asleep so quickly, Maddy turned to stare at him suspiciously, but there was no doubt that the man was out like a light. His breathing was slow and even, his lips slightly parted, his face softened by sleep in a way she had yet to see when he was awake. Fascinated, she knew she should have turned away, but her eyes seemed to have a will of their own when it came to this man.
Who was he? What was he? There was no question that he was a man of authority—but that didn’t necessarily mean he was on the right side of the law. For all she knew, he could be as bad as that horrible man who had kidnapped her from the newsstand. But she did
n’t think so.
A dream, she thought shakily. This had to be some kind of weird, twisted dream. He had to be a dream. But as much as she wanted to cling to that explanation like a pillow and float back to wakefulness in her own bed, she knew he was real. And that only made the situation that much more bizarre. Because men like Ace were totally outside the realm of her experience.
Without an ounce of self-pity, she silently acknowledged that the few tall, good-looking, assertive types who strayed by accident into her world never stayed long. They looked through her or past her, never at her, simply because she was as different from them as night was from day. Her face was quite ordinary, her figure much less than voluptuous. To put it frankly, she hardly had the kind of beauty that was going to stop traffic, let alone a good-looking man.
Once that had bothered her. But as her mother had wisely pointed out, she could never be anything but a plain daisy in a world full of much fancier hothouse roses, and trying to change what she was would only make her miserable.
Practical all the way down to her white cotton underwear, Maddy had recognized the truth when she heard it and accepted the inevitable. Other women had hot dates and passionate relationships, not her. A plain, thirty-four-year-old spinster, she was an anachronism, the last of her kind born into the wrong era, the only virgin left in a freewheeling, moral-free world.
And there was nothing wrong with that. She had her own little niche, and if her life was steady and uneventful, she reasoned that that was better than rocky and turbulent. And while she might long for adventure, that was for the bold at heart, which was something she could never, ever be. But there were times, like now as her gaze lingered on the tempting contours of Ace’s mouth, when she wondered just what she was missing.
Chapter 3
“Time to rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” a husky male voice murmured teasingly in her ear, tickling her. “Naptime’s over.”
