Jed snorted and tried to pretend that the green-eyed monster wasn’t barking in his ear at her casual dismissal of his presence in her life. His character was supposed to be an ex-con who wanted his wife back—or he wanted to keep blackmailing her. “I’ll never let you go, Tulip darlin’. As I told your father, ‘til death do us part. You’re mine forever.”
Her dark eyes gleamed with excitement. “And he threatened to have you framed for a crime that would send you away forever. That’s why you killed him.”
Jed had looked ahead in his booklet, so he knew that he wasn’t the murderer, but he was determined to keep up the act because he could see how much fun Tru was having. Truthfully it was kind of exciting to solve a fake murder for once. Pride was at stake, but no actual crime had been committed.
He fixed Tru with a hard stare, and she responded by softening and lowering her gaze. “Do you really think I’d kill your father? I know how much he meant to you.”
Tru—Tulip—dabbed at the corner of her eye. “There’s no telling what you’ll do for money. After all, you went to prison for grand theft auto after you stole those expensive sports cars.”
Dare looked at her. “You can’t name an expensive sports car?”
“I can name expensive jewelry, shoes, and handbags.” She batted her false eyelashes, and the right ones got tangled together. She tried to unweave them, but the top one fell off and dangled from the bottom one. Jed and Dare both laughed, and Dare helped disentangle the mess.
“I can’t stand this.” Anita jumped to her feet and hauled her stinky husband up. “This is disgraceful.”
Their hostess and the owner of the inn, Miss Steffi, tried to make peace. “People in love are not disgraceful, and let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Glass houses and all that.”
“My house is normal.” Anita turned a livid shade of red and exited the room. Her husband, who hadn’t said a word the entire time, followed her.
Blake Wu sneezed. “Her perfume was driving my asthma crazy.”
“That was her husband.” Blake’s wife, Nguyen, waved the final fumes away. “I want to know if Tulip is going to get divorced or not. At this point, I kind of don’t care who killed the old coot.”
“That man didn’t deserve to die. He was a father, a husband, a son, and a brother. He was a friend and business partner. Everybody here loved him.” Then Tru tossed her head and flung her hair over one shoulder. “Besides, Tulip sees no reason to choose one man. She’s the greedy kind who wants it all, and she’ll have it all, whether or not her father approves.”
Jed wasn’t sure if Tru was still in character because she’d responded in her regular, Midwestern accent. Her declaration, cheesy as it was, served to remind him why he was really here. Someone had been murdered, and he had to catch the culprit, bring down an international crime syndicate, and explore the dynamics of a casual D/s ménage relationship that may or may not lead to something more.
He winked at Tru. “Tulip, honey, I’ll be your piece on the side. For a price.”
_______________
The next morning, Jed woke to the ringing of a phone. He opened his eyes, blinking away sleep in the semi-dark room. Next to him Dare rolled out of bed and grabbed for his pants. Jed assumed he would put them on, but he merely fumbled in the pocket. The ringing grew louder as he fished out his phone.
“Adair.” Dare’s voice, thick with sleep, croaked in the silence.
Jed had sat up, stretching and yawning, and listened to Dare’s end of the conversation. Though they’d come across the country to complete their assignment, they were both concerned about Brandy’s stalker. Following that trail had turned up nothing conclusive. They had a few grainy images of a suspect, but it would take time for the FBI digital recovery algorithms to refine the image so they could make out some facial features. Results weren’t guaranteed. They could just as easily find themselves back on Square One if the images weren’t fixable.
“Yeah. She’s straight on the story. We’re driving up there today, so we’ll drill her on the details to make sure she knows what’s what.” Dare shoved a leg into his pants and paused.
Jed and Dare had decided not to share details about themselves that conflicted with their cover identities so that Tru wouldn’t get her facts confused. Jed grabbed fresh clothes. “Ask if there’s anything new on the stalker.”
Dare glanced up. “No news.”
Agents Lexee Hardy and Keith Rossetti had been assigned to follow Brandy to see if anyone was following her, and Dare’s lack of news meant they’d found nothing as well. Scowling, Jed disappeared into the bathroom for a quick shower.
As the hot spray washed over his skin, he woke up fully, and he realized that Tru hadn’t been in the room. That put a quick end to his shower. He rinsed away the Inn’s body wash, threw a towel around his waist, and poked his head into the bedroom. “Dare?”
Dare tossed his phone on the table and finished donning pants. “Yeah?”
“Where’s Tru?”
Glancing around, Dare frowned. “Geez. I’m so used to sleeping in a bed with you that I didn’t notice our woman was gone. That’s pathetic.” He picked up a pad of paper near his phone, and his gaze flew over the writing. “She left a note. It says she’s in the dining room working on her review.”
Knowing she was working mollified Jed, and he went back into the bathroom to shave.
“I’m going downstairs.” Dare yelled through the door, and a second later, the door to their room closed, leaving Jed alone. He knew that Dare was going to find Tru. The two of them would have breakfast together, bonding over talk of Bigfoot and government conspiracies. Jed swallowed the stab of jealousy and concentrated on getting a close shave.
Three hours later, he found himself in the middle of nowhere. No, that wasn’t exactly true. Though the road had been steadily climbing, mountains rose on both sides. He followed the highway that Tru had insisted would take them to their destination, a frown furrowing his brow and chin. “This isn’t near the ocean. We’re heading east. The ocean is west.”
Tru giggled and rubbed her palms together as she looked out the windshield. “We might be taking a small detour.”
They didn’t have time for a detour. Jed shot her a hostile glance. “Tru, what’s going on?”
“There.” She pointed to a small, dirt road that disappeared behind boulders and trees. “Turn left.”
Jed had the feeling he shouldn’t, but he did anyway. If nothing else, it was a place to stop off and check his GPS for a route to get them back on track. “Where are you taking us?”
“I made this appointment before you extended my trip. It took years to set this up, and I’m not missing it for anything. Don’t worry—it won’t take long. We’ll be at Zangari’s by dinnertime.” She pointed out the next turn.
The sandy road opened to a parking lot. Jed read the sign on the small building at the end of the parking lot: Hang Gliding, Balloon Rides, and Zip Lines. The building was large enough to house an office with a small gift shop occupying space along one wall. Behind it, a metal roof loomed just higher than the treetops. That must be where the equipment was kept.
Dare cleared his throat. “Tru, are you going hang gliding?”
Jed remembered from her blog that she’d jumped out of balloons. “You’re not jumping out of a balloon today.”
She grinned. “No, I’m not. I’m going base jumping.”
Before either of them could tie her to the seat, she leapt from the car and bounded toward the welcome building.
The full weight of what she’d declared sunk into Jed’s head. “That’s not legal.” Base jumping was illegal in most places due to the inherent dangers associated with the extreme sport.
Dare nodded. “She’s lucky you work in human resources and I work in I.T. Otherwise we’d be forced to stop her and shut down this place.”
The deeper point—that they couldn’t blow their cover in order to stop Tru from following through—sucked. Jed cut the eng
ine and pulled the latch to open the car door. “I’m going to blister her ass tonight.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Dare alighted from the back seat.
They caught up with her in the lobby. Jed slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Princess, this can’t be above board.”
She leaned into his embrace and turned her face so that he felt her breath on his neck. “Colt is one of the best. He has an international reputation, and he’s the one who insisted I have two hundred skydives and at least ten dead-air jumps before he’d agree to let me do this.”
The back door opened, and a medium-height man with short blond dreadlocks and a skater-boy vibe entered. He grinned at the trio, but he held his hand out to Tru. “Tru, it’s great to finally meet you in person. Elvis has told me so much about you.”
She stepped forward to shake his hand. “Likewise. I’m so excited for this. I want to introduce you to Jed and Liam. They’re going to watch.”
Colt shook hands with Dare. “Hey, man. It’s good you came along. She’ll be calmer with friends waiting for her.”
When Jed’s turn came, he made sure his grip was extra firm. “I trust that you’ll take special care of my woman?”
An understanding passed between him and Colt, and the other man nodded. “Sure thing. She’ll be fine.”
After he released Colt’s hand, he caught Tru’s frown, but he ignored it. If he had his way, she wouldn’t be jumping at all. It was far too dangerous, and he saw no reason for her to risk her life for this. However he needed her cooperation in order for this operation to have a chance for success, and pissing her off now wouldn’t lead to her continued goodwill.
Colt gestured for them to follow him out the back door. Tru walked next to him, listening to Colt rattle off instructions and safety procedures, while Jed and Dare brought up the rear. Colt led them into the large structure with the metal roof. The inside was like a garage. Baskets and deflated balloons occupied the central area, while hang gliding equipment lined two walls. Jed saw no sign of zip lines.
“I packed your chute myself.” Colt picked up a pile of fabric and handed it to Tru. “Changing rooms are behind you. Put this on over your clothes. You know the drill.”
Tru took the pile of what must have been a nylon suit, and she disappeared in the direction of the changing rooms.
Colt faced Jed and Dare. “You want to watch from the jump point or the landing area?”
Dare gestured to the changing room. “You’re just going to let her jump? A woman you’ve never before met and about whom you know nothing?”
The skater-man’s tanned skin turned ruddy. “We’ve been emailing and video chatting for a couple of years. She’s been training for this for over a decade. She’s more than ready.”
There was so much he didn’t know about Tru. Somehow he’d thought her posts about skydiving or dead-air jumping had been fictitious. It looked like they weren’t. Had she brought them along to prove to them that she was comfortable in dangerous situations? Because it didn’t help her case. Jed had every intention of shielding her from anything that could get dicey, and shit like this just riled his protective instincts.
He wanted to haul Tru out of the dressing room and back to the car, but he settled for clapping Dare on the back. “We’ll wait at the landing point.”
Tru came out then, wearing a black nylon bodysuit with hooks and straps all over the place. She spread her arms. The suit made her look like a flying squirrel, which Jed thought apropos because Tru was a little nuts. Her brown eyes sparkled with excitement, and she nearly skipped back to the men waiting for her return. “This is going to be amazing.”
“Yeah, it is. Let’s go over the procedure and safety protocols, and then I’ll take you to the jump point.” Colt crooked a finger at a man who was tinkering with an air compressor. “Cody, take these dudes to the valley.”
Tru kissed Jed on the cheek. “I’ll see you at the bottom.” Then she kissed Dare the same way. “If I give you my phone, will you take pictures? Just swipe up from this corner to open the camera app.”
Dare accepted her phone and slipped it into his back pocket, watching Tru with a firm gaze and lips pressed together. “This is crazy.”
She grinned. “I know, but we all need some crazy in our lives.”
A few minutes later, Dare and Jed squeezed into the extended cab of a heavy duty truck, both glancing back doubtfully at the huge garage they’d just left.
Cody, still in his dirty overalls, chuckled. “Is she your girl?”
Dare and Jed exchanged a look. “Yes.” They answered in unison.
Cody frowned, and Jed could almost see the gears turning behind his eyes. “Both of ya?”
“Yes.”
Now Cody nodded knowingly. “Adrenaline junkies. They definitely make their own rules.”
Dare scowled. “I should have forbidden her from doing this.”
It was Jed’s turn to chuckle, the pathetic kind that screamed about futility and shit like that. “You honestly think that would have worked?”
“No, but it couldn’t hurt to try. At least it would be something.”
Jed didn’t agree. “It would absolutely hurt to try. If you overstep your authority, it could backfire in the worst way.” He meant that it would cause Tru to run in the other direction, but he wasn’t sure if Dare took it that way.
His buddy nodded. “Yeah. It could ruin our plans for the weekend.”
The sheer side of the cliff fell away, and the valley below was dotted with trees. Scrub and a few determined evergreens clung to life through the cracks in the rocky mountainside, reminding Tru a little of herself. The view was breathtaking, and she took some time to memorize the sights, the tittering of birds and the rush of faraway traffic, and the sharp scent of evergreens. Later when she wrote about today’s adventure, she’d recreate it for her readers.
Colt pointed to a series of bright red flags in a narrow clearing. “There’s your landing strip. Once you pull your chute, steer yourself in that direction. The wind is on our side. You should get a nice glide after the free fall.”
She took a deep breath to steady the exhilaration rushing through her veins. “I should get a seven count out of this, right?” Seven seconds didn’t seem like much, but when you were falling through the air down the side of a mountain, it was enough time to relive an entire lifetime and several seasons of a favorite TV show.
Colt nodded. “You can probably get nine or ten, but for your first jump, aim for seven.” He pointed to her wrist where she wore her altimeter. “I’ve set it for 250 feet. It will give you a warning vibration at 350. Let the pilot chute go when you feel that first buzzing, that’ll ensure that the chute’s open when you reach 250. If you haven’t deployed by 250, that thing,” again he motioned to her wrist, “is going to shake the hell out of your arm. Listen to it. If you decide to pull early, that’s okay too.”
Many people reacted to their first jump with terror and deployed their chutes sooner than necessary. Tru had seen it happen with skydivers many times, but she’d never been tempted to pull it too early. If anything, she held out for as long as she could. For that reason, she’d long ago stopped telling Gram about her jumps. Poppy knew about them, but she’d never seen one because she didn’t have the heart of a daredevil and was deathly afraid of heights. Poppy freaked out when she had to climb a ladder to reach the top shelf in her parents’ antique store. As long as her understanding of Tru’s extreme sport was entirely secondhand, Poppy was willing to remain positive and be supportive.
She took a running leap off the edge of the cliff and stretched her wings, and the moment she did, a vision appeared. She saw Liam and Jed on the porch of Northport Bed and Breakfast, the place where Gram had raised her. Both men smiled as they greeted Gram. Jed tried to shake her hand, but Gram pulled him closer for a maternal hug. She did the same with Liam. Tru felt someone tugging on her arm. The vision faded, and because it wasn’t like one of those Hollywood moments when
time stops or the vision happens in an instant, Tru shook away the cottony feeling. The ground rose quickly, zooming at her with incredible speed. She had no idea how many seconds had passed since she’d jumped, and so she fumbled for the pilot chute on her pack. Her parachute deployed without a problem, jerking her to a slower speed.
Still, the ground approached faster than she was accustomed to, and she knew she’d pulled her chute late. As happened whenever she faced death, a heavy peace settled in her core. She watched the ground longingly, but her better sense must have been on autopilot because she steered her glide to follow the wind. She’d miss the mark in the second field, but she’d land better if she changed her trajectory. She pulled hard on the handles, and lifted her legs to delay impact. At the last possible second, she straightened out, and the hard, uneven valley floor met her feet. She’d intended to run out the momentum, but the hit was too hard for her to do more than stumble a few steps. This landing wasn’t going to be the smooth, easy one she’d pictured when she’d thought about how impressive this would be for Jed and Liam to see.
Thinking quickly, she tucked her knees into her chest and rolled with the forward force. The lines of the parachute tangled around her body, an inexpert natural bondage. There was no way she was going to come out of this without a few bruises. Thankfully she stopped after a few yards.
Heart beating erratically, she sat up. Never before had a vision interrupted her thrill-seeking, and the experience left her trembling. She heard voices, and she looked up to see Liam and Jed running toward her. They came at her much faster than Cody, Colt’s partner who was supposed to meet her at the bottom and give her a ride back to base. She blinked, and she wondered if their haste was fueled by concern or if the FBI required agents to meet certain running speed guidelines, and these two were used to moving quickly.
Liam reached her first. He looked at her face, and then he ran his hands down her arms and over her ribs. “Are you hurt? Lay down. Let me check your legs.”
The lines had twisted around her legs and arms in such a way that she wasn’t going to straighten out without untangling first. She grinned at Liam and Jed, who’d made it over a shade after Liam had spoken. “I’m fine.” She tried to shake off some of the lines so that she could stand, but the muscles in her legs and arms were too tremulous, and they didn’t quite cooperate.
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