Last Chance To Run (4 page)

Long seconds passed as they locked stares.

Just give him a nod.
How could she not after all he’d done? Her stomach clenched. Lowering her guard and trusting a man had put her in this position.

Zane continued to hold his hand out with endless patience written in his face. No man was that patient.

She wouldn’t bleed to death. Mason hadn’t raped her, yet, but he’d left her reluctant to allow any man to touch her. The reasons to say no just kept piling up in her head until Zane withdrew his hand and eased back.

Understanding filled his eyes.

How could
he
understand?

She didn’t know, but he did. And the fact that he did was the tipping point that caused her to reconsider his offer. This man was not the enemy and she had no one to turn to. He was offering help. All she had to do was give a tiny bit of trust.

Hadn’t he earned that by risking his life to save her? 

Offering him an apologetic smile, she lifted one leg for him to clean. His long fingers wrapped around her ankle and her pulse jumped.

He tenderly cleaned the cuts with an antiseptic cloth. It stung, but she could handle that better than the embarrassment of a stranger seeing what Mason had done.

No man would ever lay a hand on her again and walk away unscathed.

Zane lingered over a particularly nasty bruise.

She knew the minute he noticed the difference between fresh injuries she’d gained during her escape and those she’d had longer. He drew a slow breath as if trying to get past the fading yellow and blue splotches.

But he said nothing and she silently thanked him.

The airplane skimmed along through inky darkness punctuated by flashes of light from storm clouds a little ways off. She closed her eyes, fantasizing that she could stay up here forever where she was safe.
An unfamiliar feeling.

Warm fingers grazed her legs with more care than she’d known since her mother had died.

After Mason’s brutality, this man’s consideration was a balm to her ragged emotions. She hadn’t felt the sting of tears in years because she’d simply refused to cry, but Zane’s kindness drew on emotions she’d buried to survive.

He’d lulled her into a semi-comatose state until he replaced the cloth with fingers that glided across her skin, applying a salve.

Her eyes flew open to see the top of his head where he bent over her leg. Close enough to smell his fresh aftershave. Her skin tingled and came alive. She clamped her lips shut to keep from sucking in air at the way her body was reacting. Heat sizzled along her legs, racing up to where they met and...

He leaned forward, his hands moving higher along her leg.

She bit hard on her back teeth, determined not to tremble and give him the wrong idea. He was only smoothing antibiotic cream over her skin, not trying to tantalize her.

Tell that to your body
.

Her next breath drew in a scent of male, lots of male. The sexy combination overrode her shaky nerves to ignite a burst of feminine response – the last thing she’d expected.

Sure as heck hadn’t seen that coming. What could be wrong with her to be turned on
now
of all times?

One look at the attractive pilot answered her question.

She liked large men.
And sexy men.

Zane Black fit the bill on both counts. He was gorgeous and had the kind of touch a woman craved.

Her breathing hitched.

He glanced up. His warm eyes darkened with a gleam of interest. 

She gave him a that-wasn’t-what-you-thought-you-heard shrug and waited to see if her bluff worked or if he was going to make a crack about how she could join the mile-high club.

But he didn’t. With a quick look at his instruments, he went back to his ministrations.

Life had been strange to this point, but not this strange. She’d escaped a maniac who would unleash all his extensive resources to find her. Mason would be out of his mind over losing the fortune in rare coins, but he also had a deadline for delivering them. 

Regardless, if she handed those over to him now, he wouldn’t let her walk away.

No one embarrassed Mason and survived.

She had a chance. Slim, but still a chance if tonight was any sign.

Being saved by a dark warrior who could turn a nun’s head topped everything she’d faced before.

At Zane’s gentle pull, her leg moved up and across his lap as he sat straighter.

She didn’t resist, didn’t want to. After six days of pure torture, Angel struggled to muster the cool disinterest she normally offered men. But Zane applied salve over her legs as earnestly as a sculptor working on his masterpiece.

A warm tremor stirred in the pit of her stomach again. Her breathing quickened at the intimate contact.

Dammit
, there couldn’t be a worse time for her to be attracted to a man, but clearly her body lived in the moment with no concern for the future. After all the misery men had put her through, she could come up with only one explanation for this strange attraction. As part of her training for a triathlon she’d hoped to compete in, she’d taken a survival course. The instructor had explained how complete strangers would bond almost immediately when thrown into life and death situations.

Made sense.

Mix fear of dying and adrenaline overload with one mouth-watering, white-knight hunk for instant attraction.

And that would explain her lack of a love life since she hadn’t run into anyone like Zane before.

“Let me see your arms,” he said.

She jerked at his voice.

His chest moved with a sigh she couldn’t hear. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” 

“No.” She lifted her hand in apology. “I’m jumpy.” 

“With reason.”
  He smiled and her silly
heart felt
special.

Without thinking, she extended her free arm for him to see the scratched skin.
Stupid move.
That was the arm with the plain silver band locked on her wrist.

When he said nothing about it, she relaxed. He probably ignored the bracelet as a piece of junk jewelry.

One she had to remove soon.

Asking for a hacksaw right now might throw a kink into how well things were going. If Zane knew that bracelet was a tracking device, he’d jump to the conclusion that she was a criminal and bring in the police. That would be major FUBAR.

Never again would she blatantly trust anyone, especially the law.

Locked away for ten days with Mason and his death squad had reminded her just how vulnerable a woman could be, no matter what kind of physical condition she
maintained.

Zane’s deep voice boomed in her headphones. “Speaking of being jumpy and given the send off we just got – want to tell me what’s going on? I can radio ahead to have someone in law enforcement meet us at the next stop.”  His concerned voice flowed over her like a hot shower on a winter morning, but the question snapped her back to cold reality.

He’d waited longer to ask those questions than she’d expected, and he deserved an answer. But telling this guy anything significant would be foolhardy.

Still, she despised lying.

Her mother had lied constantly about drinking even when her breath reeked of cheap whiskey. She’d
lied
her way straight into a casket, abandoning Angel.

Her father had lied for years about how he lost a job and where he went at night. Then, to convince the District Attorney he was giving up everyone, her father had told the all-time whopper about her toting drugs. He’d never been much of a parent, but that had shriveled up what was left of her heart.

The wimpy attorney she’d been assigned had lied about trying to win her case, and made the bare minimum of court-required visits while she lingered in jail.

No one took responsibility for the truth.

She’d tell the truth or say nothing.

Lies had cost her a future she’d trained years to earn. Her life had changed irrevocably seven years ago, but then, as always, she’d adapted. Now, however, she might spend the rest of her days in a federal prison for getting involved with Mason
Lorde
.

Men and lies went hand in hand.

Even if this pilot were different, she’d never see him again. The less he
knew
,
the better off they’d both be.

“Angel, maybe—”

“Have you ever had a relationship go bad?” she asked.

“A few that were difficult, but not quite
that
bad.”
  Zane raised an eyebrow loaded with skepticism.

“It’s complicated. I won’t burden you.” 
You wouldn’t believe me anyhow.

“Burden me. I have nowhere to go for a while.” 

Just my luck to be rescued by Dr. Phil. Damn
. “I wanted out of an arrangement. He didn’t see it my way.”  Angel lifted her shoulders to sell her escape as no big deal.

Rain pattered against the outer covering of the fuselage and the cargo chattered during the empty pause.

Zane’s eyes hardened.

He probably assumed she meant a personal relationship. She should be so lucky to have a normal woman’s problems. To clear up his confusion would involve details she could never share.

After several seconds, he held out his hand to her. “Let’s check your other arm.”

She hesitated to uncover her middle and couldn’t take another moment of his hands on her skin. Not if she wanted to keep her ridiculous hormones under control. “I’m okay, really. Thank you.” 

Don’t ask me about what’s bulging under my shirt
.

His eyes flickered with a moment of indecision that raised hairs on her skin in warning, but he didn’t press her further.

In an effort to change the subject, she asked, “Where’re we headed?”

“Jacksonville.” 

Her quota of divine help had just run out.

Mason had a division in Jacksonville.

Chapter 4

“You’re landing at the Jacksonville International Airport?”  A frisson of worry slipped into Angel’s voice in spite of her effort to sound casual. Could Mason’s men have gotten Zane’s flight plan?

Zane eyed her as though he could see right through to the secrets she harbored, but he shook his head. “No. I’m making a delivery to a client at a private airfield.”

“How, uh, soon?”

“Little over an hour if the storm doesn’t force me to circle too far out.”
  He turned toward the control panel, searching for something amid the mass of lights and gauges, then faced her again, apparently satisfied for the moment. “Where you headed?”

“South.”
  That was as good a directional choice as any. To avoid focusing on herself any longer, she pushed the subject off course. “Is this your plane?”

“Yep.
I have a charter company.” 

“What kind of charters?” 
Seemed like a cargo pilot wouldn’t have to work in the middle of the night, flying through storms.
Not that she was complaining since she’d benefited by whatever had forced him to fly in this mess.

“I handle special cargo that normally can’t be transported by most commercial carriers. We’re based in Ft. Lauderdale at Sunshine Airfield. Those ventilated boxes contain lab mice my client needs right away. I’m headed home as soon as I deliver them.”

She gulped coffee to cover a shudder. Ugh, she hated rats. The slight smell and frantic scratching emanating from the boxes suddenly made sense.

“Sounds like an expensive way to ship rodents.”  

“These are
special
rodents.” 

“They do tricks?”  She couldn’t resist teasing him if for no other reason than to get another dose of that hot smile of his.

She got her wish.

He answered her with a grin that made her want to preen under his attention. She barely stopped herself from sighing before a slap of common sense tamped down her burgeoning attraction.

Hadn’t Mason turned her head just as easily?

All charm and teasing when she’d worked in his warehouse. Too late, she’d found out what kind of animal hid behind the million-dollar smile
and impeccable manners. This pilot might behave like a perfect gentleman, but only a fool flirted with a man who’d helped her escape without even knowing who she was or why she’d been running. 

Would she ever learn?

Confusion crossed Zane’s face. “What’s wrong?”

She flushed the irritation from her face and gave him a polite smile.
“Nothing.
I just wondered how long the airplane would fly by itself.” 
Yeah, right
. Well, she
had
thought about that a few minutes ago. To support her claim, she glanced at the controls.

“We’re good until I take it off of autopilot in just a minute.”  He put away the first-aid kit and shifted to face forward in the left seat. “We’ll be hitting a rough patch of weather soon. You should come up here and buckle in.”

Having never flown, and definitely not in a small plane, she hesitated at the idea of being buckled in so close to the windshield.

Limitless black heavens changed from a constant patter of rain to a loud drumming over the entire craft.

Zane issued a quick order. “Jump in the co-pilot’s seat now before it gets worse.”

Wrong time to have a distracted pilot.

She bent her legs to stand, gritting her teeth at the ache in her stiff muscles. She managed to get into the seat and not hang herself on the headphone cord.

He reached over without waiting for her okay this time and secured her harness, then took control of the airplane. She didn’t move a muscle while the plane dipped and bucked against the turbulent atmosphere.

Zane calmly discussed weather and exchanged flight information with an air traffic controller. Vicious wind and rain pummeled the outer shell. When the fuselage shuddered hard several times, she questioned her choice of nights to run.

But without the storm there would have been no escape.

Temperature outside the plane had cooled. Her damp clothes chilled her to the bone, but she refused to complain while Zane had his hands full flying in this mess.

Warm air began to migrate through her space. When another dry towel fell in her lap, she wrapped it around her shoulders and cut her eyes left. He maneuvered the buffeted aircraft with amazing dexterity.

In the middle of fighting a storm, he’d actually noticed the goose bumps on her arm? And he’d cared enough to pause what he was doing
and try to make it better. Could this man be just as decent as he seemed? Where had Zane Black been when she’d been in the market for a nice guy?

The airplane dropped hard in a downdraft.

Her stomach lurched. Just when she thought her heart might climb into her throat from sheer terror, Zane glanced over long enough to wink and smile.

That little reassurance was all she needed.

Air Traffic Control finally cleared them to enter the Jacksonville air space. The aircraft began to drop steadily. Nothing in the darkness below resembled an airport.

He pressed his mike, but didn’t talk. Down below, out of nowhere, two straight lines of white lights beamed up from a tiny spot on the ground. Would the landing be as wild as the take off?

The aircraft lights danced across the wet runway ahead of them. She wrapped her arms around the harness and held her breath, but the
touch down
was surprisingly smooth.

A light mist drizzled against the windshield as he slowed the plane.

Halogen lights glowed over the flat terrain surrounding the airport.

This facility appeared larger than the one they’d departed near Raleigh. Three imposing hangars and a single-story brick terminal stood along one side of the airport.

As he finished his radio confirmation, Zane taxied to a parking spot near the center hangar. With the engines silent, chattering noise from the aerated crates echoed through the cabin. He flipped off his headset.

“Why don’t you stay put until I locate my client then we’ll get something to eat?” he suggested.

“Sure thing.”
  Not a chance. What if this pilot called in the police? He might even think he was doing her a favor. She hadn’t seen any vehicles pulling into the airport as they taxied to the hangars, which might mean the men chasing her hadn’t gotten Zane’s flight plan.

Settling back into the seat to convince him she was content to wait, she hoped he’d be gone long enough for her to disable or remove the armband. There had to be tools on board. Surely Mason’s men couldn’t track
her this
far away, but no point in taking that chance.

Zane opened the cargo hatch and left the steps in place when he exited the airplane.

Angel waited until he’d walked around to the opposite side and headed toward the terminal where soft lights glowed inside. She’d been eyeing a
pair of yellow work gloves on the floor behind his seat and reached over to snag them. They swallowed her hands, but she could make them work. Unbuckling her harness, she hurried to the rear of the cargo hold to search through the darkness for a bag or storage bin. 

She ran her hands across a rectangular box mounted against the wall. The latch popped open. With a shaft of ambient light drifting in from the open hatch, she could identify a screwdriver, pliers, and a file kind of thing, but smiled when her gloved fingers caught on two sharp points – tin snips.

Maybe her luck hadn’t run out after all.

She caught the sound of someone calling out a greeting and started forward in the cabin. Through the rain-streaked window next to the pilot’s seat, she spied Zane speaking with a man wearing khaki pants and a windbreaker.
His client.
That meant Zane would be back soon. She dropped down and quickly cut through the bracelet, then crimped the metal pieces several times, hoping to destroy the tracking components.

Another peek outside the cockpit and her moment of relief came to a screeching halt.

A black Land Rover bearing the signature gold triangle of
Lorde
Industries crept into the airport and parked next to the far hangar. Dread fingered across her skin. Mason’s men
had
tracked her after all, which meant they must have gotten access to Zane’s flight plan. She checked Zane to see if he’d noticed the Land Rover, but he stood talking with his back to the vehicle.

Life never got any easier.

Her pulse throbbed in her throat. If Mason’s men caught her with the coins she had no bargaining power and no way out of this mess. And Zane Black would be a mere inconvenience in their way.

She searched through the bag he’d pulled the thermos from earlier. She’d never been one to pilfer through someone else’s personal belongings, but this wasn’t a normal circumstance. Her hand closed around a flashlight.
Bingo.

Most of the containers in the cargo hold were consigned to High Vision Laboratories. Shielding the light from the windows, she ran the beam close over the labels on miscellaneous packages and boxes in the rear.

She had to find one not slated for Jacksonville.

Giving up the coins could mean her death, but the last thing she wanted to do was get caught by Mason’s men with the coins on her. She’d have zero bargaining power.

She’d hide them in a package in here,
then
once she had them back, she’d stick to her plan and find someone to corroborate her alibi for the day they were stolen.

None of this would’ve happened if she hadn’t recognized a stolen painting hidden in Mason’s warehouse. The priceless work of art had been plastered all over the news for the better part a week. Shocked by the discovery, her first thought had been that she had a chance to prove she was an employee worthy of trust. She’d innocently brought the painting to the attention of her sainted employer and put her life in jeopardy.

Now all she wanted from the FBI was freedom and a slot in the WITSEC program where Mason couldn’t get to her.

Why not? She had no family and no life at this point.

A soft package three-foot square, a foot thick and covered in brown paper lay in the very back of the cabin. The company label on the upper left corner stated, “Best custom boat enclosures east of the Mississippi.”  She made a mental note that it was addressed to the Security Office for the Gulf Winds Marina in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Attention: Slip 18.

Not as close geographically as she’d like, but a safe distance from Mason’s home turf – and a long way from here. She just hoped she could reach Gulf Winds Marina by the time the coins arrived and that the boat owner was in no rush to install the boat curtains.

First she had to live long enough to reach the marina.

Removing the gloves, she carefully pried the wrapping tape away from the paper covering the package and ran her hand deep into the heavy canvas material, feeling seams and pockets. Groping blindly along the edge of the material, she snagged a hemmed pocket wide enough to slip three fingers inside.

With a quick jerk of the plastic sleeve of coins under her T-shirt, the clear tape holding the ends together broke.

Feeding the narrow sleeve of coins into the canvas pocket was tedious as pushing a rope. Once she’d pressed the tape on the large package back in place, Angel scurried forward and wiped down everything she’d touched without the gloves, including the tin snips she put back into the tool box.

She’d been convicted of a crime she didn’t commit based on a single fingerprint.
Never again.

Her cellmate had laughed at her over the fastidious habit that bordered on OCD, but Angel ignored the jibes. After a year in jail, wiping anything she touched was now as ingrained as taking her next breath.

Rushing to the window, she made one more quick check of Zane’s position.

He was headed back to the airplane.

She searched the area beyond him. The man in khakis he’d spoken to was nowhere in sight.

Neither was the black sport utility with the triangle logo.

Good sign or bad sign?

She had to make a run for it.
Now.

Angel tiptoed down the steps, cringing when one creaked. Her legs were pumping before her feet touched pavement. She scurried through the shadows, down to the front of several private airplanes secured with ropes to the tarmac.

The rain had ceased and every sound seemed amplified.

Her heart raced at the tiny noise her sneakers made even though she moved softly between the planes. She stooped next to a yellow aircraft with a double black stripe along its fuselage that glowed like a midnight sun.

Through the stillness, she caught the sound of Zane’s shoes scrunching against the steps to his airplane, no more than seventy-five feet away.

Something scraped the pavement near Angel.

Her hair stood on end. She froze and listened for another sound to tell which way someone was moving. Two seconds passed and fear overran all caution.