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He had called her beautiful. What woman could object to that? She was beautiful. Stunningly so. She was also clever, responsible and determined. But beyond that, Rudi thought he had seen a vulnerability in her. A softness beneath the polished surface waiting for someone—the right man—to find it. He wanted to be that man.
The helicopter landed at the airport outside the city where he kept his private plane. Ellen balked as he led her across the tarmac to where the plane waited, engines thrumming.
“Just exactly how far is this place we’re going?” she demanded.
“Not far. Wink of an eye and we will be there.” He urged her onward, and reluctantly she came.
“Then why do we need to take a plane?”
“So we can get there in the wink of an eye. Without the plane it would be four winks and a snore, at least.” Rudi tried teasing to pull her out of that icebox.
She humphed and climbed on board. The plane’s opulent appointments irritated Rudi less than usual, because he hoped they might soothe Ellen’s mood. Technically the plane belonged to the family, for ferrying various members here and there, but practically it belonged to Rudi. He was, for the most part, the only one who used it. Everyone else preferred to use the larger, even more luxurious model. Rudi liked this one, the smallest jet the company made, because he could fly it himself if he wanted.
The lunch basket was in place on the table, he noted as he paused to pull off his robes. He draped them over one of the seats and headed forward, wearing only the dark slacks and white dress shirt that were his usual attire beneath the djellaba.
“Samuel.” Rudi clapped his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “Is everything ready?”
“All set. You’re flying yourself?”
“I am.” Rudi took the clipboard from the other man. “Take the day off. Take the week off, if you prefer.”
Samuel laughed. “Maybe I’d better. You’re skipping out again, aren’t you?”
Rudi kept his expression bland. “I have a bodyguard with me.”
Disbelieving, the pilot bent and looked into the passenger cabin. He straightened with a low whistle. “Some bodyguard. I wouldn’t mind guarding that body any day.”
“That body is guarding me, and from what I hear, she is very, very good at it.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it when you get back.”
Rudi gave the other man a look calculated to intimidate. It did not work as intended—nothing much intimidated Samuel—but at least he fell silent. “Did you get the flight plan filed for me?”
“Barely. You didn’t give much notice.” Samuel paused. “Santa Fe again?”
“That is what the flight plan says.” Rudi bent over the instruments, beginning his preflight checklist.
“So how come every time you file a flight plan to Santa Fe, you never get there?”
Though his heart pounded with nerves, just as it had when Ellen called her office, Rudi refused to let it show. He trusted Sam with his life, but not with his privacy. No one knew where he was going, and it would stay that way. He had somehow made it past Ellen’s phone call without catastrophe striking. He would survive this, too. “I get there. Sometimes.”
“Not often.”
“Often enough.” Rudi straightened and turned to face Samuel. “It is no business of yours, is it?”
“It is if I get fired for not doing my job. You know I’m supposed to stay with the plane, even if you’re flying. I belong in the right-hand seat.”
“We have done this for years. No one has ever caught on, and no one will now. If they do, if they fire you, I will hire you.”
“You can’t afford me.” Samuel met Rudi’s gaze for a long challenging moment before he looked away. “But it’s your business. Just don’t get me caught up in it.”
“I am doing nothing illegal, nor is it immoral. I simply need room to breathe every now and again.”
“Okay, okay. With these terrorists running around back in Qarif, you can’t blame a guy for worrying.”
Rudi winked. “That is why I am taking a bodyguard with me this time.”
Samuel winked back. “Sure it is. Right.” He drew the word out long with skepticism. He left the cockpit then, and Rudi followed.
“I will see you in a few days,” Rudi said quietly, as Samuel stepped off the plane.
“There’s a thunderstorm brewing beyond Harrisburg,” Samuel said. “Better keep an eye on it.”
“Thank you. I will.” Rudi hauled up the door and dogged it shut, then turned to see Ellen watching him.
“Isn’t he the pilot?”
“I am.” Rudi plucked an apple from the basket and bit into it. “Fully qualified with all the required certificates. I learned to fly during my military training several years ago. I flew this plane here from Qarif.”
Ellen eyed him as if she were having second thoughts about agreeing to the trip.
“Do you want me to call you a cab?” he asked. “I am going, whether you come or not. So do I go with a bodyguard or without one?”
She sighed and tugged at that wonderfully short skirt. “Go fly your plane. I’m not getting off.”
Rudi nodded briskly, careful not to allow any of his triumph to show. He was getting much too good at dissembling. Sometimes it disturbed him, how good he was at it. But not today.
He finished his flight check, radioed the tower and received takeoff clearance. Moments later he was in the air flying west. When he was out of the airport traffic pattern, he engaged the autopilot and stepped back into the small cabin.
“Who’s flying the plane?” Ellen looked startled to see him.
“Autopilot. Just long enough for me to get a sandwich and some coffee.” Rudi poured from the insulated carafe into his lidded cup. “There is a storm ahead I want to keep an eye on.”
“The one past Harrisburg.”
“Correct.” Rudi winked at her, wondering how much else she’d heard. “I cannot keep anything from you, can I?”
She didn’t answer.
He stirred sugar into his coffee and snapped the lid on the cup. “Come up to the cockpit if you like. The view is much better up there.”
He picked up a sandwich wrapped in plastic and headed back up front, hoping Ellen would take him up on his invitation. He wanted to talk to her. He would rather have let Samuel stay and do the flying, but he had never allowed anyone to go with him to Buckingham. Until now.
Ellen sat in the soft velour-covered seat staring out the window at fat, fluffy clouds floating past and wondered what in heaven’s holy name she was doing in this airplane. She’d been in private corporate jets before, but none so sybaritically luxurious as this one, with the ornate rugs laid over the utilitarian gray carpet and the intricate inlay on the wood-paneled half walls. Nor had she ever been in one alone.
Not that she was exactly alone now. Rudi, her client, the body she was supposed to be guarding rather than lusting after, was on the plane with her. He was just in a separate part of the plane, in the cockpit, flying it. A rich man’s self-indulgence, she told herself.
She picked through the lunch basket, mostly to see what was there. She’d been hungry earlier, but no more. Rudi upset her stomach. It couldn’t be the combination of guilt, resentment and desire he stirred up in her. But if it was, it was still his fault.
Ellen unwrapped a sandwich and sniffed it. Chicken salad. Very fresh chicken salad. Maybe she could eat a bite or two. She poured a cup of coffee. The first sip set her back on her heels—it was strong enough to stand up and walk out of the cup on its own. But it was good. She added cream and sugar to tone it down a bit, and made up her mind.
Carrying coffee and sandwich, she walked to the cockpit, staggering only once in slight turbulence. Rudi glanced up and smiled when she entered.
“So you decided to come see the cockpit.” He gestured at the chair to his right. “Have a seat. Take a look around.”
Ellen slid carefully into the seat. She didn’t want to touch anything she shouldn’t. Her seat had a steering mechanism in front of it that appeared to be locked down. Good. She looked out the window and was mesmerized.
Trees blanketed the rippling ground below them, interspersed with squares and rectangles of bright green or mellow gold, depending, Ellen supposed, on the crops growing there. Blue river ribbons curled through the patchwork, while black roads slashed arrow straight, dotted with fast-moving traffic. And around her—above, below, left, right, before, behind—the sky opened its vast vistas.
She could see clear to tomorrow and back to yesterday. Clouds kept them company like fat, contented sheep. But ahead, a dark line on the horizon shadowed her pleasure in the scene, told her the clouds weren’t always contented.
“Is that the storm?” She tipped her head toward it. “Yes. We will turn south in a few minutes and fly around it.” He looked at her. “I do not fly through thunderstorms just to prove how manly I am.”
Ellen laughed. “No. You just ride through Central Park on a borrowed horse and snatch women off their feet.”
“For fun.” A tiny smile tickled the corners of Rudi’s lips. “Admit it. It was fun, was it not?”
She shook her head. She might admit it to herself, but never, ever to him. “You’re absolutely outrageous.”
“I know.” He winked. “And you love it.”
Rather than dignify his nonsense with a response, Ellen ate her sandwich.
Before long, they were flying with the dark line of clouds off their right wing, but the storm grew faster than the little jet could fly. The clouds seemed to boil, racing and churning as the pewter-gray froth climbed higher and higher, blotting out the sun. These were angry clouds, throwing lightning back and forth like insults, reaching out to drag Ellen and Rudi into their quarrel.
“Buckle up.” Rudi pointed at the shoulder harness attached to Ellen’s seat. He already had his fastened, she noticed as she pulled the straps around her and clicked them into place.
“We will get caught in the edges of this storm,” he said. “The front is bigger and badder than it looked in the forecast, but we should miss the worst of it.”
“Can’t we fly above it, or something?” Her hands shook, and she locked them together in her lap. Ellen couldn’t believe her nerves were so shot. She’d never had a problem with flying in her life. But then, she’d never been in a plane this small in the middle of a storm that big with her safety in someone else’s hands. Her cousin the shrink said she had control issues.
“It is too high. A commercial jetliner would have trouble getting above this one.” Rudi shot her a quick smile. “Relax. I have never crashed one yet.”
“That’s the word that bothers me,” she muttered.
“What word?”
“Yet.”
Rudi laughed, a big, full-throated sound of pure enjoyment. Then the plane plunged, caught by a sudden downdraft.
Ellen yelped, and Rudi stopped laughing as he wrestled for altitude. The aircraft bucked and jolted like something alive trying to escape a predator’s jaws. Ellen squeezed her eyes shut and hung on to the chair’s armrests for dear life. She wasn’t afraid. But if the plane was going to crash, she didn’t want to see it.
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