Oh, good Lord, he looked like he was going to puke! For her own sake, she stopped rocking the plane’s wings. “You aren’t going to hyperventilate or hurl your cookies, are you? Because I’m warning you, I don’t have a single barf bag aboard.”
Taylor flung an odious glare her way. “I’m not so uncivilized as to hurl my cookies. I’m civil!” He choked the word past tightly drawn lips. “You Remingtons don’t know the meaning of the word.”
Dianna flinched. He bit off the name “Remington” like he was spitting bullets. The scorn on his dark face wounded. His eyes looked as frosty as the Antarctic landscape.
“Isn’t it enough your brother forced me to take this damn trip with you? Do you have to try to kill me in this tin box, too?”
She bit her lip. He was right. She shouldn’t have dipped the wings. It was irresponsible. Childish. Beneath her.
Bull! She owed him that one.
Still, it was a lousy thing to do to her passenger. Especially knowing the terrible automobile accident he’d been in a year ago with his sister. Dianna told herself she was above petty revenge. She should feel ashamed. She did feel ashamed. “Sorry,” she offered.
“Bitch!”
Huh! So much for civility.
The back of her eyelids stung. She tilted her chin. Stubborn pride kept her from tearing up and bawling. “It’s taken me years to become the perfect bitch. I practice every morning in the mirror to get this good. I’m rather proud of my accomplishment. But hey, don’t talk to me.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Dianna sighed. She was happy Jace had met and married Kaycee. She adored her new sister-in-law, but Kaycee’s brother lacked a lot in the charm department. No wonder Jace wanted Taylor’s happy ass gone from Dancing Star. What a sourpuss!
When Taylor first arrived at Dancing Star Ranch, he’d been a paraplegic. Just because he’d been confined to a wheelchair hadn’t lessened the fact he was drop-dead gorgeous or sexy as hell, with those dreamy blue eyes and that sensual mouth he knew how to use. He was the best kisser she’d ever known.
His body was rock hard. Months of physical therapy kept his muscles toned. His biceps bulged. His thighs looked as powerful as an oak. When he looked at her, something deep inside her recognized the sinister darkness in his soul. Like a moth drawn to a flame, she’d fluttered straight into the fire, attracted to him in spite of knowing she’d get her wings incinerated.
Unfortunately, he felt nothing for her except contempt and hatred, all because he didn’t like Jace.
Taylor made it plain from the beginning he didn’t want to be at the ranch, even though it had been necessary for Kaycee to get out of Reno fast to escape the wrath of the heinous serial killer, Smitt Davis.
But Jace and Taylor rubbed each other the wrong way from the beginning.
Dianna cut her gaze at him. Yep. No wonder he irritated her. Taylor was back to counting clouds. Busy man.
She looked around the small cockpit, desperate for something to occupy her mind. She fiddled with the controls, paid extra attention to the sweet hum of the engines, and silently approved their droning music. Time crawled by in degrees. It was enough to put her to sleep.
Dianna brooded like a sitting hen, until she couldn’t stand the quiet any longer. Silence was the pits! “There’s a thermos of coffee under your seat if you’d like a cup,” she offered sweetly.
There. It hadn’t hurt her to extend an olive branch. From now on, she’d kill him with kindness. She’d sugarcoat every word. She’d behave and not rock the aircraft’s wings. Besides, she could use a shot of caffeine or she was going to fall asleep in all this wonderful silence.
Without a word, Taylor retrieved the travel mug that came with the thermos and filled it with the steaming brew. He blew on it, then took a slow sip. Smacking his lips, he took a second and third swallow and sighed. Dianna waited patiently for him to offer her a cup.
Fourth and fifth chug, smack, sigh.
And she waited—
Okay, waiting was as bad as non-talking silence. She squirmed. Blast it! She wanted a cup of coffee. Did she have to beg?
Six, seven, and eight, smack, sigh.
And he called her a terrorist? She really hated the man! “I could use a cup of that,” she said between her teeth.
Kindness. Kindness. She must remember to be kind. No rocking the plane’s wings, no loop-de-loops, no matter how much he incited her wrath.
He ignored her request.
Grrr!
“I said I could use a cup of coffee, too.”
He shrugged. “You’re driving.” Turning his face, he stared out the side glass. “Stunning clouds,” he observed, as though their heavenly beauty held him spellbound. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen any lovelier, so crisp and white, nice and fluffy.”
“Uh-huh. Anyone ever tell you you’re an asshole?”
“Not lately. You plan to change it?”
Ninth and tenth, smack, sigh.
“This isn’t a race car, Spencer. It’s a frickin’ plane! I’m not driving. I’m flying. I don’t see a stop sign anywhere, don’t see a danger zone. Pour me a damn cup of coffee, before I crash this thing…and I’ll be picky.” She sent him a look filled with spite. “I swear I’ll crash it all on your side.”
He shot her a look. “Don’t make jokes about something like that.”
“Who’s joking?”
“Honestly, Dianna, you’re becoming a bore.”
She ground her teeth and muttered beneath her breath.
“Oops. Did you just call me asshole again?”
She batted her lashes at him and bared her teeth like a shark. “If the shoe fits…”
He eyed her for so long she started to fidget. Slowly, his gaze drifted from her face and lingered on her chest. “You know, you’d be kinda cute if you weren’t so mean and had a decent pair of boobs.”
She might be kinda cute? Jeez! What an ass!
Dianna’s temper soared up the chart and into the red zone. She tightened her grip on the yoke and battled to keep from reading him the riot act. Okay, so her breasts were small. He’d made it perfectly clear how he felt about them. That was just it; he had no feelings for them at all. “I might not have generous breasts—”
He snorted.
“—but what I have are real and not stuffed with silicone or whatever the hell surgeons are poking inside women’s breasts these days.”
“I like silicone.”
“You would.”
“What?”
“Never mind, Spencer. Forget the coffee, I don’t want it anymore.”
He gave her the same toothy grin she’d given him. “No problem. It’s forgotten, kitten.”
Dianna shot a glance at her breasts. She’d never worried much about their size until Taylor came along with his pointed remarks. She filled a thirty-four B cup nicely with a little left over. What did he want, for God’s sake, a double E cup? “Men!” she blurted. “All you think about is a woman’s tits!”
“It’s not all I think about. You have other parts that snag my curiosity from time to time.”
She gasped and flashed him an annoyed look. “I suppose when you were crippled and all, thinking about anything else was all you could do. I doubt even now certain parts of your anatomy function properly.”
His top lip curled. He raked her with a look she could only describe as feral. Damn if he didn’t remind her of a wolf, a hungry predator that had her pinned under his claws with every intention of relishing a slow meal.
“Anytime you want to put your theory to the test, kitten, I’ll be happy to oblige.” His hot gaze shifted to her bare legs. “Anytime.”
She wished now she’d worn something else, instead of the short red skirt that kept crawling up to her thighs. The tiny thong rubbing her clit felt like soft velvet. She squirmed. Lord, she needed to get laid. Dianna darted a considering glance at Taylor. Uh-uh. No way. Wasn’t happening. He’d gobble her up and spit out the pieces. Her heart would never su
rvive a relationship with Taylor Spencer.
It was all she could do to keep from tugging on the hem and dragging it back to her knees, not that it would reach them, but she felt like trying.
Icy contempt replaced the feral heat in his eyes. “You have no worries,” he snapped. “I’m sure most men are completely turned off by your face and your figure. Your legs aren’t any more enticing than your boobs. Don’t bother trying to pull down the skirt…I’m not remotely tempted.”
Dianna stilled her nervous fingers. “Then stop looking,” she said in a tiny voice. God, did he have to hammer home the fact he couldn’t stand anything about her? Talk about a punch below the belt. Nice shot, Spencer. What’s your encore?
She couldn’t look at him or else she’d burst into tears. He was King of slap-you-down-and-trample-on-you. She should have known better than to try and fight him on his level.
Dianna kept her gaze pinned straight ahead on the fabulous clouds he found so fascinating.
Don’t cry! Don’t give him the satisfaction of breaking you again. Just because he managed to make you cry once before with his cheap shots, don’t let it happen a second time. You know he’s a jerk.
She blinked away the tears stinging her eyes and inhaled deeply. Well, score one for the no longer silent man. When he decided to crawl out of his shell, he knew how to punch a wallop. But then, he’d been slugging her with insults for weeks. He’d made her life a living hell in Montana. She should be used to his cutting words by now.
Defeated, Dianna allowed her shoulders to slump. She knew she was no raving beauty, but she wasn’t an ugly witch, either. She squared her shoulders. All right. Let him have it his way. No more small talk. She wasn’t a masochist.
The quiet bubbled and brewed until it grew into a monster. It ate away at the cramped space of the cockpit. Tension danced around them like streaks of jagged lightning.
Dianna drew a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Jesus, even the walls of the plane seemed to breathe with her, expand and shrink, expand and shrink. It was like waiting for a ticking bomb to go off. Any minute now, the cockpit would explode, and she’d be seated beneath a boiling mushroom cloud, trapped in the fallout of the nuclear heat. Claustrophobia in the cockpit was a new sensation, one that left her miserable.
She turned her attention to the instrument panel and double-checked everything. The only thing she wanted now was to land the plane and get as far away from Taylor as she could, before she shamed herself and burst into tears. She didn’t think her ego could take much more bruising.
Boom!
Abruptly the tense quiet exploded with the bone-chilling blast. Dianna jerked. “Oh, shit,” she screamed.
Taylor jumped, spilling hot coffee on his jeans. “What the hell was that?” Brushing at the wetness spreading across his crotch, he sucked in a sharp breath. “Fuck, you think my dick is so useless you try to scald it off?”
“Jesus,” Dianna muttered. That was a real blast, not one from her imagination. Flames burst from the left front wing. Black smoke boiled into the clouds. The left engine coughed and died.
Taylor’s eyes flashed blue fire. “Stop pranking with the plane, Dianna. It’s not funny. I didn’t know planes backfired, but stop messing around. I mean it.”
“Birds.”
“What?”
“They flew into the propellers.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I would not kid about something like that, Spencer. Oh, God!” She whipped her head to her left and gasped. “Part of the left propeller just flew off. And there goes the other half!” She dared a glance at Taylor. He was staring at her as if she’d suddenly grown a third eye.
Her nerves twisted into a sick knot. Her bowels loosened. She thought for sure she was going to discharge the explosive diarrhea she’d threatened Taylor with earlier. Her bladder screamed with sudden fullness. Her breath rose to the back of her throat and sealed off her airway like a wedge of cement.
This was so not good!
The 1985, twin-propeller Cessna plane she was flying was big enough to carry five passengers, plus her, and a passenger up front. They were at least six thousand feet. The inevitable crash was going to take several minutes—an eternity—but this was a small plane. What were their odds of survival? Not much.
Boom!
Taylor slated a suspicious glance at her. “Are you going to tell me that was birds, too?”
“That,” she said faintly, clenching the yoke as wave after wave of terror washed over her, “is the voice of trouble!”
Chapter Two
Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.
~Carl Gustav Jung
North Western Australia
The Kimberly
February 7, Saturday
“Define trouble,” Taylor said, panic rising in his voice inside the cockpit. “Trouble is my appendix rupturing or my asshole exploding. You know, diarrhea, something you’re apparently fond of, but the front of the plane is on fire. That’s more than a little trouble.” He ripped her apart with his hateful gaze. “Damn it, I knew you were a winged terrorist! All you need is scales and you’d be a mean-ass dragon.”
Dianna bit her lip. “Technically, the front of the plane isn’t on fire, just my left engine.”
“Technically, I don’t give a shit! What’s happening?”
“You’re so smart, Spencer,” Dianna cracked, clutching the yoke tighter, “you figure it out.”
The aircraft bounced around, shaking violently as it hit pockets of air.
Taylor swore savagely. “Okay, the little thing you did with the wings wasn’t funny, but this really is not funny. See? I’m not laughing. This is me being serious. So stop trying to scare me. Please God, let this be another one of her mean pranks. Let the vicious witch be joking.”
Dianna cut her eyes toward him. “Are you praying out loud? About me?”
“Yes. Something wrong with that?”
“It gives me the creeps, especially the part about the vicious witch. You gotta make up your mind. Am I a witch or a winged terrorist?”
“Both! You’re a terrifying witch, part devil, part dragon!”
The plane’s right engine coughed.
Taylor looked horrified, his eyes wild. Sweat poured down his face. “I can’t face death again. The last time I was injured was a nightmare. So cut it out, Dianna! Your childish pranks are getting old, fast.”
“I’m not doing this on purpose, Taylor.”
“Please, God, You and I know she’s rabid. She’s just trying to scare me.”
“Puh...lease. Do you really think I equipped the plane with fly-away parts and a free fireworks display?”
Taylor eyed her. “For God’s sake, woman, you’re panting like you’re about to give birth.”
“So are you!”
“I mean it,” he snapped. “You’ve had your fun.” He made a sharp motion with his hand toward the front of the plane. “Start the engine back. You don’t have to crash us just to force me to talk to you. I’ll talk to you. Hell, I’ll burn your ears with twenty-four-hour-a-day conversation. I’ll give you every cup of coffee you ask for. Start the friggin’ motor!”
Dianna rolled her eyes, took a slow, deep breath, and adjusted her mouthpiece. “Mayday! Mayday! This is C-flight eight-seven-five-three-one. Repeat. C-flight eight-seven-five-three-one. Mayday! Mayday! Anyone in the area, my location is,” she hesitated, darted a glance at the nice, sturdy instrument panel and groaned. None of the dials were working.
Taylor traced her hopeful gaze to the instrument panel. “Shit! What does that mean? All those hands frozen, what does it mean?” He pointed at the instrument panel.
“It means we’re really screwed without benefit of pleasure.”
He jumped as the plane’s nose shot down, leveled off, and then the aircraft simply dropped into sailing mode. “That felt peculiar.”
“Change in gravity, leaves you with that zero feeling in your gut, like speeding over a hill on a highway and
suddenly dropping into a dip. As a rule, lightweight planes don’t nosedive into a crash at hundreds of miles an hour, thank God, but the landing isn’t going to be pretty. Fasten your seatbelt, Spencer.”
Taylor snorted. “You really think it’s going to make a difference?”
“It might.”
“Not likely.”
“Fasten your damn seatbelt!”
He ignored her.
“Fine! Get your ass killed! Mayday! Mayday! This is Dianna Remington. I have two souls aboard. We’re going down somewhere in the Kimberly.”
Taylor gave a short laugh. “Somewhere in the Kimberly?”
Dianna ignored him and whispered a prayer as the aircraft lost altitude. It glided toward the wild terrain below. Closer. Closer. Even without power, the gradual descent was much faster than she wanted. Nothing was going to be easy about the crash when it came. Okay. Okay. She had to think. Think! Wheels up. Hold it steady. Keep it level. Level! Avoid trees.
There were trees, way too many trees. She frowned. Why were there trees? This wasn’t right. Shit! She might have managed a half-assed decent landing in the desert, but not in this infestation of–of—jungle?
As her brothers were fond of saying, It isn’t the flying that kills you, but the takeoff or landing.
If Taylor and she survived the impact, chances of rescue were going to be slim. She couldn’t say with any degree of certainty where they were, but she knew damn well they shouldn’t be crashing into a rainforest.
Fear surged through her and gripped her in its terrifying claws. Her heart skipped a beat, maybe several, she didn’t know. Dizziness swept over her like the icy fingers of death.
Realizing she was holding her breath, Dianna exhaled slowly. Her voice cracked, “Last known location, Western Australia, five hun–hundred mi–miles southeast of Broome and ah—eight hundred miles so–south of Darwin.”
Taylor shot her a look filled with incredulity. “That certainly narrowed it down.”
“Don’t be sarcastic. It’s the best I can do, Spencer. Western Australia’s big. I don’t know where we are, but I don’t think we’re in the heart of it.”
Too Close To The Fire/Too Hot To Handle (Montana Men 3) Page 2
