“No!”

He held her stare while seconds ticked off, then he squared up the box with the edge of the dresser and dialed in the four numbers he knew. She placed her hand on his wrist. “Wait. Don’t. Please. The contents could be compromised. I swear that’s the truth.”

“Okay. I’ll believe that much. But we’re not talking about blood samples, are we?”

“They did come from possible donors.”

“I’ll even buy that. Keep going.”

She looked at him with appeal. “Can’t you be satisfied with knowing that it’s vital I get this to Atlanta with all due haste?”

“Tell me why it’s vital.”

“I can’t.”

“Because you’re involved in something illegal.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Silence means yes.”

She came back with asperity. “Silence means it’s impossible to give you a simple yes or no. But I swear that it’s not illegal in the sense you mean.”

“Then tell me in what sense it’s illegal.”

“I can’t!”

“Why?”

“Because it’s delicate and complicated, and I don’t trust you.”

She could have answered him in any number of ways that wouldn’t have surprised him, but this did, probably because it sounded truthful and unmitigated. “How come?”

“I don’t even know you.”

That sparked a reaction from him as automatic as an alarm from a cockpit instrument. “Well, we can fix that.”

He cupped the back of her head in his palm and drew her up to meet his mouth.

Chapter 11

8:44 a.m.

The instant Rye slid his tongue between her lips, he acknowledged that he’d been waiting for any excuse to kiss her.

He heard a little catch in her breath, felt a small puff of it against his lips. Both were sexy as hell and encouraging. He angled his head. The deeper he explored, the better she tasted, the more carnally his intent was channeled. Somehow he’d known her mouth was made for this.

Reaching inside her coat, he curved his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. He felt the giving fullness of her breasts when matched to his chest. A slight shift of his left thigh, and the alignment of their bodies below their waists improved. God, did it ever.

Every sexual impulse he had kicked into overdrive, making him so damn hard, and, for a few mind-blowing seconds, he felt a corresponding softening, an invitational tilt, a momentary fitting of hardness into hollow.

Then she tensed up and broke the kiss, lowering her head, catching a few strands of her hair in his scruff.

He released her gradually. When his arms fell away, she stepped around him, careful not to touch him, careful not even to brush against his clothing. As she moved past, he pivoted in order to keep his eyes on her.

She stopped a short distance away and raised her hand to her mouth. Her back was to him, so he had no way of knowing if she was covering her mouth in mortification, testing her lips for moisture, dabbing at a whisker burn, or wiping away the taste of him.

“You can’t seduce the combination out of me.”

That remark pissed him off. But when she turned around to face him, he had a smirk already in place. “Wasn’t trying to. It’s just that you know me now. Better, at least. Pretty damn good, in fact.”

She gave him a murderous look, which only caused him to grin.

“Surely you can trust me enough to tell me about the two guys trailing you.”

“I don’t know anything about them.” She began to roam the room, seemingly without any purpose except to evade his questions.

“No idea who sent them?”

“You’re assuming they were sent, that they weren’t just two men having breakfast.”

“I would guess that they’re undercover FBI.”

She stopped her aimless roaming and looked at him.

“Narcs maybe?”

She turned away and resumed the agitated prowling.

“The big guy might pass for an agent, except that feds don’t drive Mercedes. The little guy, no way. He’s a punk.”

She was fiddling with the card on the nightstand that listed TV channels. “How do you know what he is?”

“I recognize the type. They’re all over the world. Different languages, different colors, religions, causes. But they’re always looking for a fight, and they thrive on bloodshed.” He gave her a meaningful look. “Which is why I think you’re in over your head, Brynn, and you don’t even realize it.”

She laid the card back on the nightstand. “Why do you care?”

He placed his hand over his heart. “Because I’m such a nice guy.”

For that he got another dirty look. “Why are you sticking around?” she asked. “Why aren’t you long gone?”

“I wish I was.”

“So?”

“Think of the shoe prints, Brynn. One set large, one small. I’m damn near certain those two men in the café were Brady’s assailants.” He walked toward her, wanting to gauge her reaction to what was coming. “I also think it was them who zapped me with a laser just as I was about to land.”

She recoiled. Her lips parted. He didn’t believe she could have faked how astounded she appeared. “A laser?”

“Not the kind you buy to bamboozle your neighbor or drive your cat crazy. High grade. Industrial strength. Powerful enough to penetrate that fog and damn near my skull.”

“I’ve heard of that happening to pilots. A lot, lately.”

“Well, it happened to me last night. I would have made that landing if I hadn’t been blinded seconds before touching down.”

“You could have been killed.”

“That’s crossed my mind a few dozen times.”

“Did you tell Rawlins this?”

“No, and I have my reasons.”

“Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

“Because I didn’t know you, either.” He let that reverberate for a few seconds before continuing. “For all I knew, you were the culprit. The way you crept up on the plane made me suspicious. But once I saw how protective you were of that box, it didn’t make sense. Why would you want to sabotage the airplane carrying the treasure chest?”

“I see. You don’t think I’m an attempted murderer, but only because it doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh, did that hurt your feelings?” He scoffed. “Don’t cop that self-righteous attitude with me, Brynn. I’m not the one keeping secrets.” He gave her a hard look. “I don’t really think you’re a terrorist bent on killing a lot of people, but I do think you’re in possession of something that belongs to somebody else. Or at least to somebody who claims rights to it.

“Diamonds, the key to a safe deposit box, a human finger bone excavated on Mars. The booty doesn’t matter to me. It’s yours to keep. Split it with your daddy. I don’t care, except for the role I unknowingly played in transporting it. If it’s illegal, I could do jail time and lose my pilot’s license.”

“If you’re so worried about it, then take me back to town, to the Ford dealer, and let me leave.”

“No. That’s not the only reason I’m staying. I want payback for the damage done to Dash’s plane, and the attack on an innocent man.”

“That’s the obligation you feel.”

“Yeah, that’s the obligation I feel.”

“Your worst nightmare.”

His focus sharpened on her.

Softly, she said, “Involvement.”

He didn’t realize she’d heard him say that or that she would have tucked it away in her memory bank to take out and air now. All the emotions that invoked coalesced into anger.

“I’m tired of this dance.” He went over to the dresser. The first four dials on the padlock were as he’d left them minutes earlier. Only the last one remained. It was on the four. That didn’t unlock it. He rolled it to the numeral one. That was no good, either. “I’ve got a maximum of eight more tries.”

He went through them, taunting her as he counted them down, but her expression remained impassive. After the nine failed, she said, “You’ve only got one more chance, and it’s futile to try it.”

“We’ll see.”

He dialed the zero. The lock stayed locked. Cursing, he turned to her.

“Told you.”

He fumed in silence, then said, “Fine. Play your game, but you’ll do it without your toy.”

He picked up the box and clamped it against him with his arm. “Until I know what’s in it, and have my reckoning with the people who tried to crash me, it stays with me.”

“Put it down.”

“Nope.” With his free hand, he grabbed his flight bag and headed for the bathroom.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to shower and then get some sleep.”

“Sleep?” Brynn placed herself in his path. “We don’t have time for that. If you don’t believe anything else, believe me when I say that it’s imperative I get that box to its destination.”

“Which is?”

He gave her a ten count, and when she didn’t reply, he bumped her aside with his hip, continued on into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind him.

9:01 a.m.

“We lost her.”