And then he was gone, heading inside to wait while she did the postflight check and tie-down.
It didn’t take long. Within thirty minutes she was done and entered the airport reception hangar.
The open greeting area had a few people milling around and there were several more up front, not a single one of them Parker.
Joe was behind the front desk. “You sell our baby?” he called out.
“Did my best,” she said. “I think they’ll be calling you. Have you seen Parker?”
Joe gestured toward the hallway. Zoe headed that way, taking a quick side trip toward the restrooms, when suddenly she was stopped and pushed up against the wall. In the next beat, a mouth covered hers.
Parker. She’d have recognized his kiss blindfolded but her heart still leapt into her throat at the feel of his bigger, harder body pressing hers into the wall, holding her there for his kiss.
Not that she wanted to escape. It felt so good, so heart-stoppingly good that she struggled to free her hands just so that she could get them on him.
Instead, he growled—growled!—and grabbed her hands, pinning them on either side of her head as he kissed her deeper.
And then deeper still, so that escaping was just about the furthest thing from her mind. As for the closest thing on her mind? Finding a place to break her promise to herself and get them both naked as soon as possible.
Parker couldn’t believe it when he’d seen Tripp Carver coming through the front door of the airport. He’d had a single heartbeat to realize that the guy was about to see him and Zoe—who was coming toward him with a smile on her face—and he reacted.
He pushed Zoe up against the wall and kissed her, hiding both of their faces.
He had no idea why Carver was here right now, but he could guess. He was heading out, never to be seen again. And if that was true, the very last thing Parker wanted was to get caught spying on the Butcher with Zoe anywhere near him.
She could kick his ass later, but for right now this was about getting out of here without her being seen.
When he heard Carver pass by them and head down the hallway toward the private lounge, Parker broke off the kiss but left his mouth against hers. “Zoe.”
She blinked slowly, dazed. “Yeah?”
“I need you to go to Joe’s office, lock the door, and stay there until I come for you.”
“What? Why?”
“I’ll explain later, move now.” And when she just stared at him, he added a quiet but hopefully urgent “Please, Zoe.” Having no choice but to believe that she trusted him enough to do as he asked, he took off after Carver.
Twenty-five
Parker’s urgency had Zoe moving instinctually to Joe’s office, which was right off the hallway and only ten feet away. She shut the door and hit the lock and then stood there for a second, trying to gather her wits.
Didn’t happen.
When several minutes passed—okay, maybe thirty seconds—and Parker didn’t come for her, she was driven by a need to make sure he was okay. She cracked open the door and peeked down the hallway. It took a ninety-degree turn so she couldn’t see around the corner. She closed herself back in the office and once again locked the door just as her phone buzzed in her pocket. She whipped it out. “Parker, where the hell are you—”
“It’s Darcy,” her sister said. “You didn’t look at the ID screen?”
“No, I—” Zoe swiped a hand down her face and let out a low laugh. “Sorry. Parker just told me to stay and I got all discombobulated.”
“No man tells me to stay and lives through it,” Darcy said. A beat went by. “He give you a reason?”
“No,” Zoe said. “One minute he was kissing me and the next he got all weird and told me to stay, threw out a ‘please,’ and he took off.”
“You should definitely stay,” Darcy said.
“But you just said that if a man told you to stay, he wouldn’t live through it.”
“Yes,” Darcy said. “But you have sharp instincts. Remember that time we were in Budapest and I was hungry and you wouldn’t let me eat because you had a weird feeling?”
“Because what you wanted to eat was some bad-looking fish.”
“It looked fine to me and everyone else in the market,” Darcy said. “Remember I asked around?”
“God, you were a spoiled brat that day,” Zoe said. “And everyone but us got sick. I saved you.”
“No, your instincts saved us,” Darcy said. “Which is my point. What do your instincts say now?”
“That something’s up.” Zoe’s heart was beating heavily, although there was a solid argument to be made that it was from the kiss. She felt anxious, especially when she once again peeked out and peeked around the corner of the hallway, past the restrooms and pilots’ lounge to the side exit and saw not a single soul. She moved back to Joe’s office.
Still no Parker. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Follow your instincts,” Darcy said firmly.
Zoe disconnected and tried calling Parker. No answer. Dammit. Darcy had suggested she follow her instincts, but her instincts were tied. She needed a tiebreaker. So she called the most logical, reasonable, straight-headed person she knew—her brother.
Wyatt answered sounding harried and rushed. “Yeah?”
“You mean ‘Hello, sister, lovely to hear from you,’” Zoe said.
“Hello, sister, I’m about to go elbows deep in a cow. Literally,” Wyatt said. “State your emergency or hang up.”
“Parker told me to stay,” she said.
“Then stay,” Wyatt said without missing a beat.
“What?” Zoe asked. “You don’t just tell a woman to stay and expect her to do it blindly.”
Wyatt sighed. “You’re calling me again why?”
“Because this is all your fault, he’s your friend!”
“And I think he’s something far more to you,” Wyatt said calmly. “Or you wouldn’t be calling me all bent out of shape because someone bossed you around, when we all know you have to be the boss.”
“I don’t—” Zoe pressed a finger to her twitching eye. “I just . . .” She didn’t know. She’d called an end to things and she’d already been conflicted about that before the kiss. “I’m a little out of my league here,” she confessed.
“Well, join the club,” Wyatt said. “Falling in love isn’t for the weak, that’s for damn sure.”
“I’m not falling in love.”
“You sure?”
Dammit. She’d never been so unsure in her entire life. “I’ve got to go.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “But Zoe? Do him a favor and give him the benefit of the doubt. And then if you care about him like I think you do, hear him out before you shut him out.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked. “I don’t shut people out.”
“Mom. Dad. Me when I went to undergrad in New York. Every man you’ve ever dated. Should I go on?” Wyatt asked.
She disconnected. And then blew out a breath as she looked around. Out the side wall of windows she could see Devon preparing the Lear for flight. He must have caught a flight she hadn’t heard about.
Biting her lower lip, she stared at the door for a beat before deciding she needed one more peek. She unlocked the door and stuck her head out.
The door at the other end of the hallway opened, only the man who came inside wasn’t Parker.
It was Tripp Carver. He was over six feet tall, midthirties, and built like he’d once been a football star and had let himself go a little soft.
But there was nothing soft about his face. His expression was dark and mean. He eyed the row of three metal chairs against the wall between the men’s and women’s restroom, snatched one, and jammed it under the door handle.
Zoe gasped and he turned to her. A gun had materialized in his hand. “Get over here.”
Could he see her knees knocking together? She hoped not. “I don’t think so.”
“Look, I’m not fucking around. I’ve
got a scheduled flight in five minutes, and now Parker James is here, breathing down my neck. So you’re my leverage out of here.”
“Me?” she squeaked, finding her voice. “Why me?”
“I saw him with his tongue halfway down your throat. You mean something to him. So get your sweet ass over here or I start shooting.”
Well, hell. Next time Parker said stay, she would absolutely do just that.
Twenty-six
Parker had followed Carver down both legs of the hallway and out the side door.
Nothing.
He moved around the side of the hangar toward the front and scanned the lot.
More nothing.
Hearing running footsteps back the way he came, he followed, retracing his steps, past the door he’d used, where he came face to face with a fence lining the tarmac. No one could have climbed that fence; it had barbed wire across the top and was electrified.
He moved back to the door leading inside the hangar. The handle readily turned beneath his hand but the door wouldn’t open.
Something was blocking it from the inside.
Shit. Whipping around, he went running back toward the lot and the front door, forcing himself to slow to a casual walk as he entered the front reception area of the hangar. There was a small crowd still milling around, a group that had just come in on a private charter. Devon was inside looking for his next charter client, calling out for a . . .
John Smith.
The confident asshole Carver had chartered a jet and used the most common alias in the world to do so.
Parker stopped at Joe, who was at the front computer looking distracted. “Where’s Zoe?”
“Shit, man, I can’t keep eyes on everyone,” Joe said. “She’s probably in the can; give her a minute.”
Parker’s gut was screaming now and he strode down the hall, making the turn to the end, to the door he hadn’t been able to get back into from the outside. It had a folding chair shoved under the handle, blocking it from being opened.
Fuck.
He whipped around. No way had Carver jammed that chair beneath the door and then just vanished into thin air.
And where the hell was Zoe? Certainly not where he’d left her . . .
He didn’t want to put a name to the emotion trying to choke out his common sense. An emotion shockingly close to panic.
He never panicked.
He strode back down the hallway and right into the women’s restroom. He pulled the gun from the small of his back as he entered, hoping like hell he wasn’t about to scare some woman to an early grave.
Zoe was in the corner between the sink and a bathroom stall, hands up, facing . . .
Carver, who had a gun on her.
“About time,” Carver said. “What did you do, take a nap?”
“Let her go,” Parker said. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“Too late for that,” Carver said. “Get in here, shut the door quietly behind you, and lock it. Now.”
Parker looked into Zoe’s eyes and felt his heart seize when he saw something besides terror.
Regret.
He stepped into the bathroom and, with his gun still trained on Carver, shut and locked the door. “What do you want, Carver?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Carver asked. “I want what was promised. A life free of looking over my shoulder for you, asshole. Thanks to you nosing around, people got jittery. My people. They found out about my deal.”
“You mean they discovered you ratted them out,” Parker said, gun still on Carver.
“I had no choice,” Carver said, voice hard. “But you do. You’re going to choose to let me walk out of here without a fuss. I’m going to get on that plane I chartered in good faith, or your cutie pie here is going to pay the price. Not today, maybe not tomorrow. She won’t see it coming, but you can count on me to make it happen.”
“Parker, don’t do it,” Zoe said. “Don’t let him go.”
Carver smiled grimly. “A tough cutie pie. I should’ve hired you instead of Devon for today. Three seconds to decide,” he said to Parker. “And take your gun out of my face.”
Deep down, Parker knew that Carver wouldn’t risk taking a shot in here. He didn’t have a silencer on his gun and the report would make a huge noise that people wouldn’t mistake. It would bring a lot of unwanted attention to Carver. And this might be a small airport, but it was an airport with rules and regulations. If a gunshot was heard, no planes would be landing or taking off for a good long time. Carver would be grounded and quickly arrested. This was logic, and it went through Parker’s head in a nanosecond.
But so did something else: the knowledge that Carver was a desperate man, and desperate men did stupid things.
Parker should know. He was a desperate man about to do a very desperate thing. “If you come back here,” he said to Carver, “if you so much as lay an eye on her, ever, all bets are off. I’ll find you. So you’d better make sure you’re going somewhere far and you stay off the map.”
Carver slid one last look at Zoe and then met Parker’s gaze again. “Deal.”
“Get the fuck out of here, then,” Parker said.
Carver’s eyes lit with malice and greed and triumph as he backed to the door. But one last time he aimed his gun at Zoe. “If you change your mind,” he said to Parker, “if the authorities stop me now or when I land, all bets are off. She will pay for your mistake.”
A month ago Parker wouldn’t have been able to fathom this, letting Carver walk. His need for vengeance wouldn’t have allowed it, but he had something to live for now. And it wasn’t the job. Fuck the job. He stepped in front of Zoe so that Carver’s gun was aimed at him instead. He looked at the son of a bitch with cold steadiness. “Go.”
Carver nodded once, and then he was gone.
Parker turned and pulled Zoe in, wrapping her in his arms as close as he could get her. Then he pulled back, taking her in with one quick sweeping gaze, not seeing any injuries.
“I’m okay,” she said.
He lifted her chin and looked straight into her eyes.
“Really,” she said.
“You’re shaking.”
“Like a leaf,” she agreed. “But I’m not hurt.”
He nodded and yanked her back in, holding her too tight and he knew it, but he couldn’t make himself loosen his grip.
“Parker? You heard me, right? I’m fine.”
“I’m not,” he said, and buried his face in her hair.
She let out a watery laugh and squeezed him back just as tight. Christ. If anyone had asked him an hour ago how he reacted to stress, he’d have shrugged and said stress wasn’t one of his problems.
That had changed in a blink. He had little experience with the level of terror he’d just experienced, and he didn’t want to ever feel it again. Far more importantly, he didn’t want Zoe to ever