She let out a long breath and walked past the airport bar. The kind of drink she could use about now would only cost her four bucks, but she’d given up alcohol along with the cigarettes and everything else that she missed.
She thought of Maddie and wondered how much her sister would mind that Leena had accidentally grabbed Maddie’s cell phone instead of her own, since apparently they still thought alike and had bought identical phone covers.
Or that Leena had abused the mini credit card she’d found in the back of Maddie’s leather cell phone cover to buy her airline ticket.
Oh, boy. She distracted herself by thinking of Ben. She’d designed a series of exquisite original pieces for his gallery, and by the time she’d finished his job, she’d left a part of her heart and soul there. Because of her art, certainly, but it went deeper than that.
Ben had been in on the design. Not in corroboration so much, but just watching and experiencing her process. It’d been part of the deal, his deal, because he loved to be involved in the artistry of the pieces he collected and sold.
Leena had flown to his gallery several times with the designs, and once she’d begun work on the pieces, Ben had flown to Stone Cay to watch her work.
She’d expected him to be old, stuffy, maybe fat, and definitely snooty. Rick’s people were always snooty. Men with too much money and too much power were spoiled and used to getting their own way. Knowing it, she’d been braced to hate him.
And then she’d entered his gallery.
It was a wide-open space with splashes of color that had caused the oddest reaction. Leena had immediately felt invigorated, vibrant . . . happy. That first day he’d come out from the back in well-worn jeans faded white in the stress points, a white T-shirt, work boots, all splattered in paint. He’d held out his hand for her to shake but had then caught a glimpse of the paint on his skin and laughed, pulling it back before he could get anything on her. “Sorry,” he’d said in a rugged voice tinged with Irish. “I’m in the middle.”
She’d blinked, a little surprised by the fact that he hadn’t been old, stuffy, or anywhere close to fat. In fact, he was maybe thirty, and tall and lanky lean. He was an artist, too, from his paint-splattered boots to the deep soul shining out of his warm chocolate eyes. . .
He’d liked her. He’d liked her a lot and had wanted to explore that between them, but she’d been there for business only.
Rick’s business.
And yet she’d found a way to wrangle several trips to New Orleans, citing design problems, which had only been an excuse to look at Ben some more.
She was certain he’d seen right through her, but he’d never been anything but sweet and kind, melting her every which way but Sunday with that low, Irish-tinted voice of his . . .
In spite of dragging it out as long as possible, eventually she’d finished the jewelry for his gallery, and the job had come to an end. Rick himself had delivered the jewelry, with the priceless precious gems switched out for fakes, of course.
As for Leena, she’d been paid for a job well-done and hadn’t seen Ben since.
He’d called several times, and she was so ashamed and terrified of the part she’d played in his being ripped off, she’d not returned a single one.
Just one more thing to hate Rick for.
And herself.
But she was on her way to fixing her wrong in the only way she knew how.
Brody stood in the kitchen waiting for the damn water to boil. He’d never understood the appeal of hot tea. It smelled like old ladies and tasted like flowers.
But whatever. It kept his hands busy. And they needed to be busy. He’d bring the tea to Maddie, who was hopefully still covered with her quilt up to her chin. Because chins weren’t sexy. Chins didn’t make him ache.
In the meantime, hopefully, his body would calm down, but he had a feeling he could brew all the tea in China and his body wouldn’t calm down, not after that little episode upstairs.
His fingers were trembling. He was trembling. And still hard.
He found a mug in the cabinet and checked the water for the hundredth time.
Still not boiling.
He looked at the boxes of tea lined up on the counter. Seven. Earl Grey, black cherry, lemon mint, chamomile, green tea, black tea, white tea. . . . Who needed seven different kinds of tea? A dull ache throbbed between his eyes, so he closed them and snatched a box blind.
Lemon mint. Whatever. The water still wasn’t boiling. “Work with me here,” he told the pot, which finally began to bubble, and he decided he should probably bring her something to eat, too, since she’d lost a little weight. So he shoved a few pieces of bread into the toaster.
Look at him, all domestic.
When he finally had the tea and toast ready, he made his way back up the stairs, eyeing the rooms as he went because the silence suddenly got to him. It was a big silence. A you’re-screwed sort of silence, and his spidey sense quivered.
Then he stepped into Maddie’s bedroom. Maddie’s empty bedroom, and the doubt became something bigger. One quick look out the window told him the truth. Maddie’s Jeep was gone, and so was the rental car.
She’d ditched him; they both had.
And didn’t that just top off his damn day. Suddenly he hoped that they were triplets, or quadruplets, or better yet, quints. Because being had by only two women seemed just too ridiculous.
Maddie’s purse was gone. It’d been sitting on her dresser, a black and silver number with lots of buckles and pockets. Next to it had been her cell phone, also gone. For shits and giggles, he pulled out his own cell and called hers, not surprised in the least when it went straight to voice mail.
Goddamnit.
With no compunction at all, he opened a dresser drawer, looking for clues to where she might have gone, but he ended up staring down at the pile of silky stuff. Hooking a satiny black number on his finger, he lifted it up. Panties barely the size of his palm.
He tossed the thing back into the drawer, then frowned at something else there, a box, and he nudged aside some more silk to expose . . . bullets.
And this time when his heart kicked, it kicked hard enough to nearly crack a rib.
She’d had a gun in here as well, a gun that was now gone. He was chewing on that when Shayne called him.
“Lost her, huh?”
“How do you know?”
“Because she’s on her way here.”
“What?” Brody took off running for the door. “What’s she doing there?”
“Sneaking away from you apparently.”
“Fuck. Tell me she’s going there to work and not to get on a plane.”
“Sorry, no can do.”
“Let me guess.” He stopped outside his car, slapping his pockets for his keys. “She wants a plane?”
“Give the man a prize. She called ahead. How did you know?”
His keys weren’t in his pockets. He was not a man who lost his damn keys ever. “Just stop her.”
“Yeah, I’m on that. What’s going on, Brody?”
“Hell if I know, except that she has a sister. A twin sister. And she’s in trouble.”
“She’s never mentioned a twin sister.”
Where the hell were his keys? “Trust me, Leena is alive and well. At least at the moment. But she’s involved in something, and they’re both in way over their head. They had a threatening phone call from someone they knew.”
“Maddie went to Dani for help.” Shayne sounded as unhappy as Brody felt that Maddie hadn’t trusted them. “She asked her for a flight under an assumed name. She wanted to keep it secret. Why the hell would she need to keep anything secret from us?”
Brody had a couple of ideas, but none that appealed. “Is Dani planning on stalling her?”
“Yes, and if she finds out I’m a narc, I’m never going to get to have sex again.”
This from the man who only a year ago, would have gotten hives at the thought of having sex with the same woman for the rest of his life
. “Just stall her when she gets there.” Brody shoved his phone back in his pocket and stared at the car he was locked out of.
He had no idea what was going on, but it was more than that. Maddie hadn’t trusted him. It was unbelievable to him that she hadn’t. She’d kissed him like he’d been better than air. She’d let him strip her, let him make her goddamn tea, but she hadn’t trusted him with this, and on top of that, she’d stolen his keys, and that sucked.
Chapter 11
Maddie walked through the lobby at Sky High. She needed a direct flight to New Orleans, pronto, because if Leena got too far ahead of her, if she said her good-bye to Ben and vanished, Maddie might never catch up with her.
There was no better way to get a direct flight than through her world.
It was a risk coming here, definitely, but as she’d personally made sure, the place specialized in making customers happy. As a customer, she needed a flight out like yesterday, and only speed would make her happy.
But she had to get out of here before Brody showed up. She wondered if he’d tried calling her. It was likely.
More than likely.
But as she’d discovered on the drive down the mountain, Leena had grabbed Maddie’s cell phone.
Which meant Maddie had Leena’s. She’d used it to call her own cell, trying to get Leena to no avail. Leena had turned it off.
So Maddie had called ahead to Sky High, specifically to Dani, and now she walked through the lobby, soaking up the place that had been her home away from home, knowing that it very well might be the last time she set her eyes on the place.
The building was new, all steel and glass, with a wall of windows looking out on to the tarmac lined with millions of dollars’ worth of planes. Beyond that lay an incredible view of the LA skyline.
Hard to remember that only a year ago, all of Sky High had been housed in a single leased hangar with borrowed planes and boatloads of debt.
But the three guys, her three guys, had built this place from sweat and guts and sheer determination. Now they ran a luxury jet service for the stinking rich, and she was a part of it.
Or she had been.
That was the thing about burning bridges. And she’d burned a big one when she’d left Brody in the mountains with his keys in her pocket.
Even having lifted his keys, she knew she had a limited amount of time before he figured out a way to get here and went all Neanderthal on her. So she left the lobby for the tarmac, waiting for her plane. She was financially stable, thanks to a great paycheck, but even with that paycheck, she wasn’t in a position to afford a charter flight. With Dani’s help, she’d shamelessly used her employee status to deeply discount the flight.
Once the plane was rolled out, she could board, and since she would do so under an assumed name, Brody would never know. She wondered how many times he’d called. Was he worried or just plain pissed off? God, she wished it didn’t have to be this way, that things had turned out differently, but she didn’t have time for regrets.
Too bad her heart didn’t seem to get the message.
When her sister’s phone vibrated, she jumped on it, expecting it to be Leena, but she was about as wrong as she could get.
It was Rick.
Good to know you came to your senses about protecting Maddie. We’ll expect you on the island at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning to do the job.
Oh, God. Did that mean . . . no. Leena hadn’t gone to New Orleans. Somehow, some way, she’d spoken to Rick and was headed to the island.
To protect Maddie.
“No. No, no, no, no . . .” As quickly as she could make her fingers move, she hit send, entered her own number, and typed in, DON’T DO IT!
But Leena wasn’t exactly on a roll of listening to Maddie, was she? Which meant she needed to stop Leena from getting to Stone Cay.
Where was her plane? Just as she thought it, two linemen finally came out of hangar two, towing the Learjet she’d ordered, but before she could board, Shayne exited the lobby.
Crap.
He strode down the tarmac toward her in his easygoing, long-limbed gait, looking for all the world like any one of the wealthy, sophisticated clients they served on a daily basis.
But she knew that was just the veneer he pulled on like those designer duds he favored. His family might be wealthy and sophisticated, but on the inside, Shayne was a guy’s guy, a regular blue-collar type, holding his own with the streetwise Noah and Brody.
Shayne didn’t say a word, just pulled her into his arms. He was tall and lean but strong as hell, and for a moment, she absorbed his strength and affection while fighting a stupid urge to cry.
“You scared the hell out of us,” he murmured, pressing his cheek to her hair, holding her tight. “All of us.”
She knew. And she hated it because they were her family here. They were her life, but she’d done what she had to.
“Why didn’t you return any of my calls? Are you okay?”
Throat tight, she nodded.
“So what’s going on, Mad?”
At that, she went from nodding to shaking her head in the negative.
Still gently holding on to her, he pulled back enough to search her gaze. “Tell me this much. Are you quitting? Because I need to schedule in hanging myself if you are.”
That tugged a laugh out of her, and he smiled. “Okay, so you’re not quitting. Do you need help?”
“Obviously, you know I ordered a flight.”
“Yes.”
“Am I going to get out of here without a problem?”
“This is Sky High. The customer never has problems.”
She laughed, but it was bittersweet.
“Jason’s flying you,” he said, referring to their new pilot. “And he’s good. Better than good. But I’m working on switching my flight so I can fly you—”
“No.” Her heart all but stopped. Just what she did not need, Shayne flying her. “Don’t do that. It’s no big deal. Brody completely exaggerated anything he said.”
“I don’t think I told you what Brody said.”
“He is who he is. He said something.” She smiled and did her best to make it real. “Look, I’m fine, everything’s fine. I just need that flight. Though I need a destination change.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll work it out with Jason. Where is he?”
“He’ll be here any minute, I’m sure. Where are you going then?”
She looked into his eyes and wondered if he was stalling her. “The Bahamas.”
“Interested in telling me why?”
“No.”
He sighed. “Women never tell me anything.”
She laughed. “Dani apparently tells you everything. Is that an engaged thing?”
“It’s a respect thing.”
She sighed.