Jill Shalvis - Smart And Sexy

She checked the other rooms in the suite, then shook her head. “It’s not here.”

That was all he needed to know. “Okay, let’s get the hell out of here.” He grabbed her arm when she would have gone back the way they’d come. “They know we’re here somewhere. We have to go out a different way…”

“The kitchen,” she said, and took them there. It led into a private courtyard. From behind the privacy fence, Noah surveyed the area. He could see the pool, the entrance to the other building…and no bad guys.

Bailey came up behind him. “Were you the pilot when you crashed?”

He shot her a look of disbelief. “What part of later didn’t you understand?”

“Were you?”

“Yes.”

She put her hands on his back. “I’m sure you did the best you could.”

He had. He goddamn had, but his best hadn’t been enough. And he sure as hell didn’t want to think about this now.

“I don’t see them,” Bailey whispered, looking over his shoulder. “I don’t see anyone.”

Which didn’t mean a damn thing, unfortunately. All he had to do was get them around the pool and back around to the front of the resort to their cart. Then drive it down the hill to the plane.

Without getting shot.

Flattening himself against the corner of the left main building, he peeked out front. Ah, shit. Next to their cart was another.

Empty.

And now the front doors here were broken, too, completely shattered. Someone had gone in there, probably looking for them. “Wait for my signal,” he said, gaze glued on the empty cart. “Then run like hell for our cart.” He wished the cart had a souped-up engine because their getaway was low on horsepower.

“How did it happen?” she whispered. “The crash?”

Craning his neck, he looked into her eyes. “Jesus, you have a one-track mind.”

“Maybe I just care.” She smiled, but it seemed a little uneasy. “More than I wanted to.”

Something to think about. As was the way his heart kicked hard. “Wait here.”

He dodged toward their old putt-putt cart. Reaching beneath it, he disconnected the battery cable, then for good measure, pulled out his penknife and cut through the coil wire.

That should hold them.

He hopped into the goons’ cart, started the engine, and hit the gas, heading toward Bailey. “Get in!”

She leapt over the side, and before her butt even hit the seat, he’d whipped them around and toward the road.

“Get down,” he said, dividing his gaze between the rocky road and their back. Any second now the men would appear-oh, shit, there they were, racing out of the building and toward the old cart. “Get onto the floor, head down!”

“Oh, my God.”

“Do it.” Lifting a hand off the wheel, he fisted it in the back of her sweater and dragged her off her seat and onto the floor. That done, he concentrated on driving them back down the crazy one-lane road toward his plane, which sure as hell better be in the same shape they’d left it because take-off was going to have to happen in a hurry.

From her perch on the floor, Bailey stared up at him, eyes huge. “Are they back there?”

“Yes.” They were attempting to start the cart that Noah had just “adjusted.” “But I disabled our cart so they’ll have to run.” He grinned down at her.

She blinked, then shook her head, then surprised him by grinning back. “You really are Superman.”

No. Hell, no. But if she wanted to think it…

He got them as close to the Piper as he could, coming to a skidding halt and grabbing for Bailey. “Go, go, go.”

Together they ran to the plane. He shoved her inside, then began his precheck at Superman speed, keeping one eye on the road as he did, finally leaping into the pilot’s seat just as he heard voices. The men had given up on their cart and were running down the road toward them, guns out.

Shit.

He’d never flown without a preflight check, never, but he did now, doing his best to rush the take-off without doing anything stupid. He got them in the air and then looked back to find the goons standing in the middle of the runway, clearly furious.

Noah let out a long breath, relaxing marginally. “Safe again.”

Bailey was white-knuckling the armrests, face pale, breathing a bit unevenly, but she nodded. “Yes.” She pressed her face to the window and looked back at the island. “For now,” she said quietly.

He wanted to hug her. Kiss her. Never let her go. He reached for her hand and squeezed. “You okay?”

She looked at him. “Could be better.” She dragged her teeth over her lower lip and gave him an openly coy, sexy look.

He laughed in disbelief. “I can’t-I’m flying, Bailey.”

“No.” She blushed. “Not that! I was thinking it’s a good time for the later thing.”

“Good God, woman, you are seriously tenacious.” But he sighed. “Fine. The crash.” It felt odd to say the word he thought so much about but never said. “I was flying a friend to her condo. There was a storm. I wanted to turn around-” He shook his head. Damn.

Her eyes remained solemn. “You realize this is not a normal bad date story. This is a life-affirming story.”

“Life affirming? She died, Bailey. How is that life affirming?”

“You didn’t,” she said simply.

And wasn’t that just the crux of everything that had been torturing him for six months.

Sheila had died.

And he hadn’t. He, the son-of-a-bitch who’d spent his life cheating death one way or another, hadn’t died.

And a small part of him had thought he deserved to.

Now she reached for him, touching his shoulder, his jaw. “You’re here. Alive. Do you have any idea how glad I am?”

Because that reached out and grabbed him by the throat, he didn’t speak.

Couldn’t.

He slid his sunglasses over his eyes and told himself it was because the ocean sprawled beneath them, a brilliant blue far too bright, and not because he needed to hide a moment. “Where to next?”

“Baja.”

His stomach sank. “What?” She was kidding; she had to be kidding.

“The last resort. It’s in Cabo.”

Shit. Of course. Why would it be anywhere else than the place of his nightmares? He carefully schooled his reaction, which was a hell of a lot harder than he thought. “They’re going to be waiting.”

She looked at him a long moment, and he knew he must have given something of his nightmare away. “I know.”

He fought the useless battle against those soft, drown-in-me baby blues. “It’s just money, right?”

“A lot of money.”

“Whatever. Let it go, let them find it.”

“I don’t think they can find it without me.”

A muscle in his jaw ticked as he realized he still, goddamnit, still didn’t know the whole story. If that didn’t just make his day complete. “Fine. Then it’s off to Cabo.”

“Noah, I can’t ask you to-”

“Then don’t ask.” Turning his attention forward, he concentrated on flying and not, absolutely not, begging her to once and for all trust him.

They landed at Sky High Air at dusk. Noah tied down the plane himself and looked up at the steel-and-glass building that was his real home.

He wasn’t at all surprised to find Shayne waiting for him. “Don’t start,” he said when Bailey had vanished inside the terminal, heading toward the ladies room.

Shayne shoved all ten fingers through his hair, holding it off his face while he stared at Noah. “Don’t start? You’re supposed to be throwing yourself off cliffs with skis on your feet. You’re supposed to be fucking a ski bunny. Two, if you’re lucky. Not flying all over the damn planet.”

“Things changed.” Noah turned to Tommy, their lineman, and gestured to the Piper. “Pull her in for the night, fuel her, have maintenance do a run through. I had the landing gear replaced last night. Check that, too. She’s going back out at the crack of dawn to Cabo.”

“Cabo?” Shayne asked in shock.

“Yeah.” No way was he taking Bailey there tonight. He wanted the night, damn it, wanted it with her in his bed.

He had no idea what she would think about that, but he figured he had a fifty-fifty shot. With Shayne on his tail, he went inside the hangar. Bailey was still in the bathroom. He would have stood there and waited for her but Shayne manhandled him into his office, then glared at him. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting for Bailey.”

“Why? You flew her where she needed to go, right? Flight done. We’ll bill it out.”

“She needs another flight.”

“To Cabo, apparently, at the crack of dawn.”

“That’s right,” Noah said.

“I’ll take her.”

“I’m doing it.”

Shayne looked at him for a long moment. “What exactly happened in Mammoth? Why didn’t you ski?”

“She needed some help, Shayne.”

“And you gave it.”

“Yes.”

“You sleep with her?”

“What does that matter?”

“Because you haven’t slept with anyone since Sheila.”

“You told me to stop feeling sorry for myself, remember?”

Shayne sighed. “Okay, I know what this is. Yeah, I told you to stop feeling sorry for yourself. But I did not mean fall for the first woman who hijacked you, Noah.”

“I’m not falling…” He had to clamp his jaw shut because suddenly he couldn’t finish the sentence. Christ. He was falling.

Hard.

Shayne was staring at him, horrified. “Have you lost it completely?”

Yeah, completely.

The door opened. Brody came in, brow creased, a frown marring his mouth. “You’ve lost your mind,” he said to Noah as he shut the door.

Which immediately opened again, hitting Brody in the ass, sending him forward a good foot. “Hey,” he complained as Maddie let herself in, stalking right past Brody and up to Noah.

With Maddie, one could never be sure. She could be planning on walloping him or kissing him, so he braced himself, but she pulled him close in a fierce hug and squeezed tight.