Jordan Summers (2 page)

People’s screams ripped through Delaney, then slowly faded like a nightmare facing dawn. The passengers had their heads down, yet their frantic gazes continually sought hers for reassurance.

As if she could help them now.
We’re all going to die.

Delaney tried to smile, but it was difficult with her chin resting against her chest and her hands tucked firmly beneath her quaking thighs. She probably looked like the creature in
Alien
when its lips peeled back from its teeth as it prepared to strike. Goodness knows her breath made the same hissing sound with each exhalation.

“Heads down! Stay down! Heads down! Stay down! Heads down! Stay down!” Delaney choked, her throat burning from the fumes. She supposed now was not the time to remember that she hated to fly, hated most people and despised travel.

The Dallas flight attendant sitting next to her, who might as well have been named Barbie, considering the amount of silicone padding in her body, called out the exact same commands with less force and more twang. Her perfectly applied makeup and her sky-high blond hair seemed impervious to what was happening around them, unlike Delaney’s limp brown hair, which had wilted an hour ago under the pressure. The disparity in hair color was only one more subtle sign that told Delaney she didn’t fit in and shouldn’t be here.

She stared at the attendant with a mixture of envy and horror. The woman was like a car bumper and flotation device all in one. Delaney debated for about a half second whether to use her as a buffer to break their fall.

This could not be happening.

Cold sweat broke out over Delaney’s body and her stomach rolled, matching the rhythm of the plane. As if reading her earlier thoughts, the flight attendant beside her turned and smiled sweetly, almost blissful.

“We’re going to be all right, sugar. Captain Martin has this big, bad tube under control.”

Under control? She’d lost her friggin’ mind.
Delaney tried not to gape.
Was it wrong of her to hate the bitch?

The plane jerked hard and bucked before skidding to a shuddering halt. Delaney pulled her hands out from under her legs and shook them to get the feeling back. A second later, Captain Martin gave the command to evacuate. Barbie was up and out of the jumpseat in seconds.

“Unfasten your seat belts! Unfasten your seat belts! Unfasten your seat belts!” Delaney shouted as she moved to the front entry door to assess the conditions outside the tiny scratched window. Heat filled the cabin. There was fire nearby, but it looked clear enough to open the door.

She slid her trembling fingers over the cool metal rotation handle. This was it. Freedom lay on the other side of the door. Delaney gave a glance over her shoulder. Barbie already had her door open and directed passengers to safety. The woman may look slow and talk slow, but she obviously moved with the speed of a cheetah.

Delaney lifted the handle. The entry door slid in a few inches, and then she pushed it out until it locked against the fuselage. “Come this way! This way out! Leave everything! Come this way! This way out! Leave everything!” she began to shout, a second before realizing the emergency evacuation slide hadn’t inflated.

She cursed, not caring who heard her. Delaney reached down with both hands to pull the red inflation handle. The slide exploded to life just as someone bumped her from behind. Delaney shrieked, falling headfirst, end over end until the last five feet of slide remained. Her face slowed her progress from there.

She realized two things at that moment—the first was that rubber burned the same way a rug did, and the second was that a sufficient spackling of makeup can leave a skid mark five feet long and four inches wide.

Dazed and slightly confused, Delaney came to a halt at the bottom of the slide and had about a breath to roll out of the way before the passengers plowed into her.

They carried their luggage, shoes, seat bottom cushions and fire extinguishers, basically everything that wasn’t nailed down.

Doesn’t anyone listen to orders?

A shrill whistle blew behind her and Delaney stiffened. Like magic, the action came to a halt. She stumbled to her feet as the short, red-haired airline training instructor, Sandra Lopez, approached, holding her whistle in one hand and carrying her trusty stopwatch in the other.

“Not bad for your fifth try, Ms. Carson, but we’re going to have to do it again. You understand,” she said, shaking her head.

“Yeah, I understand.” Delaney cringed inwardly.

Sandra glanced down at her watch. “This time it only took ten minutes. You’re getting quicker,” she said encouragingly. “All you have to do now is move a little faster, and remember to hold on to the handle inside the door, so you don’t get pushed out of the airplane again. It’s hard to evacuate an airplane from the ground.” She grasped Delaney’s chin, turning her face to the side.

Delaney winced.

“That’ll heal in a couple of days. In the meantime, we’ll cover it with makeup. You don’t want to be caught without your face on.” She winked, swirling a hand in front of her face for emphasis.

What was it with the women here and their makeup? The way Delaney saw it, she was one rouge stroke away from qualifying as a rodeo clown.

Delaney glanced at the instructor and fought the urge to shove the whistle down Sandra’s throat. Somehow she had to shave eight or nine minutes off that time by the end of the week or this assignment was a bust. She’d told Group Supervisor McMillan she was the wrong woman for this job, but he hadn’t believed her.

“Okay, let’s do it again.” Sandra’s shout was followed by a quick whistle burst.

Delaney’s shoulders scrunched to repel the sharp sound. Maybe Sandra’s throat wasn’t the right location for the whistle. She glanced down at the instructor’s perky butt. Delaney’s hands curled into fists to keep from ripping the whistle out of Sandra’s fingertips.

This was a nightmare. A great big Texas-sized nightmare, and it was never going to end. It was like having to attend gym class in your underwear over and over again while everyone watched and snickered. She trudged back into the simulator plane, and slammed the forward entry door behind her.

Barbie stood in the galley, checking her makeup, and then reapplied her candy-apple red lipstick. She blew a kiss and waved at Captain Martin, before sitting on the jumpseat.

Delaney rolled her eyes, then strapped herself in. The passengers took their seats after closing the overhead bins in preparation for the next evacuation simulation.

“You can do it, sugar. Some people are just slower at picking things up than others,” Barbie drawled in her saccharine-sweet Texas accent, making Delaney feel like a bourbon-swilling bridge troll by comparison.

In that moment, Delaney was grateful she’d left her gun at home.

One week later…

D
ELANEY TOOK HER
position at the front of the musty Boeing 737 aircraft bound for Los Angeles.
Where in the world was that smell coming from?
She sniffed the galley, covertly checked herself, then opened the lavatory door and nearly gagged as the putrid odor surrounded her. Eyes watering, she swung the door back and forth before shutting it to face the oncoming tide of people.

Mystery solved.

A sea of tidy blue seats winked at her as the passengers filed on board. Delaney stood with a smile glued on her face, saying hi at the same rate as she said bu-bye, while every fifth person stopped to ask her where they were supposed to sit.

For Pete’s sake, sit anywhere,
she thought, wondering when people lost the ability to read seat numbers on airline tickets.

That’s what Delaney wanted to say, but she didn’t. Instead, she said, “Your seat is past the bulkhead on the right side. Rows one through ten are reserved for first-class passengers only.”

Without fail this speech caused their expressions to blank and their eyes to glaze over. Obviously, there was a limit to the amount of information the traveling public could accept at one time. “You’re in seat seventeen A.” Delaney’s voice rose as she enunciated each word, then pointed to the back of the aircraft.

Now that she’d solved the passengers’ problems, Delaney could address her current dilemma—how to make do overnight with no underwear except the thong on her body. How could she have forgotten to pack clean underwear? Her mother would be appalled.

She watched Jeremy Stevens, one of the senior flight attendants assigned to work with her, shuffle past a woman carrying a huge roller bag down the narrow aisle. She struggled to put the bag into the overhead bin, almost dropping it on the head of a passenger who sat in a nearby seat.

“Excuse me, sir. Could you help me lift this?” the woman asked, plopping the bag at Jeremy’s feet without waiting for an answer.

Jeremy beamed, then glanced at the bag in the aisle. “I’m sorry, but if you can’t lift it, then it’s not really a carry-on, now is it?” he said, then proceeded to the back of the aircraft for a baggage claim ticket.

Delaney covered her mouth and giggled, turning away so the customers in the cabin couldn’t see her. Leave it to Jeremy to say something like that. In the few short days she’d worked for the airline, Delaney realized some attendants could get away with saying anything. She, unfortunately, wasn’t one of them. Her file already held ten customer complaints and counting, and she was only on her second trip.

The woman continued to struggle. Delaney tried to ignore her, but her conscience wouldn’t allow it. Without looking at the oncoming passengers, she held up her hand and stopped the flow of traffic, then proceeded down the aisle.

“Here, let me help you with that,” she said, hoisting the unusually heavy roller bag over her head. What was the woman carrying? Bricks? The suitcase wobbled, threatening to fall. Delaney’s fingers slipped, tipping the bag dangerously toward the seated passengers. She clawed at the material in an attempt to regain control, but it was too late.

Heat enveloped her as a warm, hard body pressed into her back, cradling her hips and butt intimately. A firm hand shot out, gripping the side of the bag in time to prevent it from falling.

“Looks like you could use a little help.” A rich, seductive French-roast voice poured over her from behind.

Delaney closed her eyes and trembled under the impact, before turning to face her savior. “Thanks for the—” was all she managed to get out, before she gasped as if she’d been kicked in the chest by an angry mule. Her eyes locked on to the man in front of her. He hefted the bag into the bin as if it weighed no more than goose down.

Jack Gordon stood in the aisle, smiling wide enough to display those dazzling dimples. His midnight blue gaze casually caressed her body, before traveling back to her face. How many women had fallen for that innocent expression? The airplane seemed to close in around them, or maybe it was just her.

Delaney quivered under his silent regard. She wished she could say it was out of fear, but it wasn’t. Fear didn’t make your nipples hard or your body ache.

Heat infused her face and her mind blanked like some kind of bobble-head doll. So this was the man she was supposed to get close to? Hell, the picture might as well have been his driver’s license photo for all the justice it did him. McMillan was right. Jack Gordon was dangerous, but for different reasons than he’d implied.

He wore a black suit jacket over a pair of faded blue jeans, pulling off the casual chic look effortlessly. His dark hair curled seductively over the collar, caressing the silk fabric. A white T-shirt molded his broad chest, nipping in at his tight stomach.

He wouldn’t win any bodybuilding contests, but the man was toned, which meant he stayed active. Delaney didn’t want to think about what he did to keep that body. She glanced at his feet. His Ferragamos looked to be about a size twelve. She groaned inwardly as her thoughts dropped into the gutter.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to my boarding position. Thanks for the help.” She stepped forward. Their bodies brushed as she squeezed past him, sending a ripple of awareness through her. Delaney prayed that he didn’t notice.

Jack’s lips quirked and he looked as if he were going to say more as she passed, but instead he retrieved his luggage. Shaken, she returned to the front of the plane.

Gordon strode down the aisle to his first-class seat. Loose limbs and fluid movements gave Delaney the impression he was relaxed, but her years of training told her that he projected what he wanted people to see. It was disarmingly effective.

For a few seconds, he’d managed to sway her with his casual charm. Dangerous, dangerous man. Suddenly playing Mr. Helpful, she watched Jeremy brighten, then offer to take Gordon’s jacket and hang it in a nearby closet reserved for flight attendants only.

Was it her imagination or had Jack Gordon’s shoulders expanded?

Carnal thoughts rushed through her mind as she envisioned his bare chest flexing under her fingertips, the smooth glide of skin brushing skin. Jeremy rushed forward, his face bright with excitement, effectively disbursing her salacious fantasy.

“Goodness, girl, did you see the heavenly creature seated in eight A? I think I’m in love.” He raised his hand to his heart and pretended to swoon.

“Yeah, I noticed him,” she said, clearing her throat. “Kind of hard not to.”

She glanced into the cabin as Jack looked up. Their eyes met and held. Delaney felt the spark all the way to her toes. It crackled like static electricity through her nerve endings. She shouldn’t be attracted to this man. He represented everything she despised. He had to be dirty. All she had to do was find the proof. Delaney relaxed a little as the last thought crossed her mind. She could do this.

Jeremy preened. “That man is so hot. You’d have to be dead to miss him.”

“I know.” Delaney couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away. Until she uncovered proof, getting close to Jack Gordon wouldn’t exactly be a hardship. All she had to do was keep things strictly business. Why did that suddenly seem so difficult?