Once I got past the moment of stunned silence, I quickly tried to think of another way to get to the island. “I’m a pretty good swimmer,” I suggested lamely.
Dax reached behind the counter and pulled out a black fedora which he planted low on his head. The shade of the brim brought out the green in his eyes. He walked back toward me and dropped his gaze as he neared. “With those long legs, I’ll bet you are a good swimmer. But even if you made it past the hungry sharks, riptide and hypothermia that would no doubt slow your pace, you’d still end up mashed potatoes on the rocks.” He reached down and picked up my bags. “We should get a move on. I want to be back here before the beach gets swallowed by fog.” Without waiting for my response, he headed to the door with my two bags and everything I owned in the world.
I tried to pay Lottie for the wine, but she waved me off. “It’s on the house. Maybe it’ll make the trip a little easier.”
I nodded unenthusiastically and followed Dax and my bags out the door. His long legs and fast stride pushed me into a near jog just to keep up.
“Don’t I need a ticket?”
“Mrs. Underwood already took care of it.”
“Mrs. Underwood?” I asked slightly out of breath in my effort to stay even with him.
He slowed down. His smooth, dark brow rose, lifting the brim of his hat. “Your new employer.”
“Oh right, Mrs. Underwood. Do you know her?”
“Yep, I know her.” It seemed no elaboration would follow.
Dax stopped at an old, dented jeep parked next to the curb. With only a front windshield and a bruised pair of doors for protection, it seemed I could stop worrying about the flight and focus on my imminent death in the shabby jeep.
He tossed my bags into the back. Since his jeep now held all my possessions, I had no choice except to climb into the passenger seat. A long strip of silver duct tape was trying its best to hold together the shredded seat. I settled my bottom over the tape mosaic and looked around for a seatbelt.
“Sorry, the seatbelts stopped working a few years ago.”
After three tries, a smack on the dashboard and a few choice swear words, the jeep motor turned over. Dax leaned his head back to check the mirror and pulled out onto the road. He reached up and adjusted the radio dial. “So, what are you running from?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, making sure to sound plenty offended.
He shrugged. “Right. None of my business. But I’m going to guess it’s some man who either treated you badly or—” He looked over at me and raked his gaze from head to toe. “Or looking at that face and that body, maybe you had to leave because some guy just didn’t want to let you go.”
I wriggled uncomfortably on the seat and felt the seat shred further. “You’re right. None of your business.”
Dax reached forward to turn up the volume on the radio, and I tried not to focus on the size of his biceps or the menacing skull winking back at me from his forearm. He made no attempt to slow for any of the lake sized potholes on the road, and I found myself gripping the edge of the seat to keep from being tossed out.
“So, Rabbit, just how much do you know about your new job?” he asked underneath the clatter of the heavy metal music blasting through the fuzzy speakers.
For good reason, I was feeling more indignant about being called Rabbit than for the sarcastic way he pronounced the word job.
“I’m sorry, but did you just call me Rabbit?’
“Yep, just popped into my head.” He turned his eyes completely away from the road and lifted his finger. The bumpy ride made it a tough task, but he managed to touch the tip of my nose. “Could be the way you’re constantly wiggling that cute button nose of yours, or if I’m honest, it might be because I’ve been imagining what you might look like in one of those Playboy bunny uniforms.” I was knocked speechless long enough for him to self-reflect. “Actually, now that I think about it, it’s a combination of both.”
Again, I fidgeted my bottom on the seat, finding no other way to show that I was feeling more than a little miffed about his comment. “I don’t wiggle my nose like a rabbit. It’s, it’s allergies. And as for the stuff you’re imagining—never mind. Anyhow, my name is Kinley.”
“Really? Seems kind of formal. I like Rabbit.”
“I’d prefer Kinley.” We headed for a deep pothole. I clutched the seat edge and braced myself. I popped up just long enough to feel that the duct tape had now attached itself to my jeans.
Once we’d made it safely out of the hole, Dax shook his head in thought. “Nope. How about Ki Ki? It’s easier to say and less snooty.”
“I guess your mind is still in the Playboy mansion. Kinley is fine. You can call me that,” I said emphatically, hoping to put an end to the conversation.
We turned down a road that led to an open field that was divided by a long stretch of asphalt. The only structure was an ivory colored metal building with an oversized garage door. I could only assume it was an airplane hangar. Sitting in front of it was a sketchy looking plane that looked even less stable than the drawing on the front of Dax’s shirt.
Dax stopped the jeep so suddenly, I slipped forward. His big arm shot out and stopped me from planting my face into the glove box. Then, without another word, he hopped over the side of the jeep without opening the door. It seemed he recovered quickly from fights. Other than the deep cut on his chin and the swollen lip, it would have been hard to guess he had just been crowned Fist Fight Friday’s champion.
In a surprising show of chivalry, he walked to my side and opened the passenger door for me.
“Thank you,” I said as I climbed out.
“You can only open the door from the outside, but you’re welcome anyway, Rabbit.” He headed to the back of the jeep.
“And we’re back to Rabbit,” I muttered to myself.
He pulled the bags from the back and motioned for me to follow him. The closer we got to the plane, the more my nose itched and the more my pulse raced. The little four seat plane with its dents and scratches, looked as if it had spent the first ten years of its life as a rambunctious giant’s toy airplane.
A rather skilled artist had drawn a picture of a pterodactyl on the side of the plane with the long menacing beak starting at the nose of the plane and its small clawed feet ending at the tail of the plane. It looked more like a carnival ride than an actual passenger transport.
I stopped just short of the plane. It took Dax a few extra steps to notice that he’d left me behind. “What’s wrong?” he asked, and I wondered if he seriously didn’t understand my apprehension or if it was just part of his smug game.
“There must be another plane that provides interisland transport. A bigger plane that has more wingspan.” I held out my arms to illustrate my point. “Maybe one that looks a little more airtight.”
He put down the bags and headed back toward me. “Oh, you mean like the twenty-seat Cessna 120 that takes people to and from King’s beach.”
I nodded in relief. “Yes.”
“You mean the one where they hand out little neck cushions for comfort and give you a warm cookie for the trip.”
“Yes, that’s the one. I’ll just wait here until the next plane comes in.”
“No problem,” Dax said calmly as he walked back to my bags. I hadn’t expected him to be such a good sport, but he could hardly blame me for not wanting to hop on his four man death trap.
He returned to where I was standing and lowered the bags to the ground. “Have a nice trip then.” He started walking back to his jeep.
A cool breeze had kicked up from the coast causing me to wrap my arms around myself. The temperature was dropping quickly. There wasn’t another person in sight, and it seemed soon I’d be standing alone in the middle of a deserted air strip, freezing my butt off while waiting for a plane to arrive.
br /> “Excuse me,” I called to him, feeling slightly panicked. “Do you know what time the Cessna 100 thing will arrive?”
He stopped and turned back. He sure was a dramatically good looking man. I wondered briefly what he was doing in a shady little beach town where there didn’t seem to be much to do. He headed back toward me. “You mean the Cessna 120 with the warm cookies?”
“Yes. Do you know when the next flight will land?”
“It won’t be landing. I made it up, warm cookies, neck rests and all.”
I blinked up at him. My emotions flashed back and forth between being very mad and very embarrassed. In the end, the conflicting emotions merged into one short rant. “You’re an ass, and it seems I’m an even bigger ass for believing anything an ass like you would say. And I want to add that that’s the most times I’ve ever used the word ass in a sentence.”
Dax stopped directly in front of me. The swelling on his lip did nothing to dim the light of his smile. He reached down and again picked up my bags. “Well, Rabbit, let’s get hopping. It’s getting late and our chances of making it safely to Wildthorne Island are directly proportional to the amount of daylight.” He lumbered back toward the plane, and I hurried to catch up to him. “At this point, I’d say we’ve got a fifty-fifty chance,” he added.
We reached the plane. A wave of nausea rolled through me as I imagined spending my final minutes in the rusty death trap. “What? Fifty-fifty?” I asked weakly.
Dax stopped and pushed a strand of hair off my face. “Just kidding, Rabbit. We’ll be fine. If not, you mentioned you were a good swimmer.”
Chapter 2
Dax
I had no fucking clue why I’d been teasing her so mercilessly. It might have been that incredibly sweet, prim smile she’d tossed my way after I’d nearly sprayed her bags with my blood. Or it might have been the way her little nose kept twitching. Or, to keep in line with my usual shallowness, it might have been the way she looked in her jeans. Or maybe I was just pissed off knowing that she was heading to Wildthorne Island. She wouldn’t be the first woman I’d dropped off there for a job, but something told me this time the venerable Mrs. Underwood had managed to pick the right girl. And that thought made my jaw clench like a steel trap. Still, none of it was Kinley’s fault. From the looks of her, she was completely innocent and just as completely clueless about Underwood’s real motive for hiring her.
Kinley had checked her seatbelt at least a dozen times while I waited for the main tower at the local airport to give me clearance for takeoff. I pulled my attention from the dials for a second to make sure my passenger wasn’t about to jump from the plane.
Her long, curly lashes fluttered as she stared out the front windshield. The wiggly nose had moved down to become a quivering bottom lip, an extremely sexy bottom lip. Her creamy skin was a few shades paler than it had been on the runway.
She was right. I was an ass.
Tero’s engine made it hard to communicate without talking loudly. I didn’t want to startle her by yelling. I reached over and touched her arm. She startled anyhow. I really wanted to kick myself for teasing her so badly.
I leaned closer. “If you need a barf bag, they’re under the seat.”
Just the mention of the barf bag made her skin whiten more. She nodded weakly.
“Kinley, I received my pilot training in the air force, and after that I spent two years flying a much older plane than this in the worst terrain in Alaska. I fly back and forth to Wildthorne Island five times a week.” I patted the control wheel. “Tero can basically find the island by instinct. I hardly need to steer.”
She forced a weak smile, and a touch of color came back to her cheeks. Her big gray-blue eyes were the kind that could look right into a man’s soul. Damn if the old lady didn’t nail it this time. And it wasn’t just the perfect beauty and the utterly feminine way Kinley carried herself, there was a touch of spunk mixed with brains and humor that made me think this could be the one.
Even with swollen knuckles from five rounds of fighting at Lottie’s, the thought of dropping this girl at the doorstep of the Underwood Manor made me want to throw my fist at something.
Kinley didn’t relax but she managed to take some deep breaths, bringing even more color to her face. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” The noise of the engine didn’t drown out the slight waver in her voice. “I guess this job just happened so unexpectedly, and before that my life had sort of gone off the rails. I needed this job badly. I can’t believe I got so lucky. I’m not exactly the type of person luck follows around.” Earlier, she had been tight lipped but nerves had loosened those same lips.
I listened and worked hard not to add any of my own opinion. This was out of my control, I reminded myself for the hundredth time. Whatever happened on that fucking island had nothing to do with me.
A nervous laugh punctuated her words. “I’ve never had to submit so much paperwork and so many pictures for a job. I even had to have a full physical. Of course, knowing now that the only way on and off the island is by plane, proof of health makes perfect sense. I’m sure Mrs. Underwood doesn’t want to worry about her daughter’s tutor getting sick when there are no doctors around. It’s a rather strange existence, isn’t it? Just a woman and her daughter living alone on an island, a plane ride away from civilization.”
The woman was getting extra crafty these days. “I guess Mrs. Underwood didn’t mention her son, Marcus?”
Kinley’s face snapped toward me. I was glad to see she’d regained most of the pink in her cheeks. “Her son? No. She only talked about her daughter, Rebecca.” She looked slightly stunned as she sat back against the seat. “I wonder why she didn’t mention him. Is there a Mr. Underwood? Other than the son, I mean.”
I shook my head, my usual response when the topic of Jack Underwood came up. It was always easier not to talk about him. It kept all the good memories solid.
The control tower gave me clearance to take off and that seemed to wipe away any worries Kinley had about her new employer. She had bigger concerns, for the time being. Of course, the short flight was going to look like a walk in the park once Kinley untangled her real reason for being hired. But what the fuck did I know, she might very well go along with the whole thing. Especially if she had taken this extreme job to get away from something or someone from her past.
Kinley gripped the edge of the seat, just like she’d done in the jeep. I reached over, squeezed her wrist and winked. “It helps to take some deep breaths while we take off. Once we’re in the air, the noise in the cockpit will soften, and it’ll be semi-smooth sailing.”
Her pink lips pulled tight, and her round breasts lifted and fell as she took my advice about the deep breaths.
Tero rattled and shook as we raced down the runway. I glanced over at Kinley. She looked the color of snow again.
“Don’t forget those deep breaths.”
Once we were at the right altitude and I’d leveled out the plane, Kinley released her death grip on the seat and began to relax. A few minutes into the ride, we were out over the water. She’d relaxed enough to look out the passenger window at the blue rippling ocean below. The first few islands came into view.
“Is one of those Wildthorne?” she asked.
“No. Wildthorne is the farthest island in the chain. It tends to be colder and gloomier than the rest, so I hope you brought some warm clothes.”
“Mrs. Underwood warned me about the foggy weather.”
“Prepare to be transported back to the eighteenth century, or at least half way back. They have a generator and propane during the day, but Katherine”—I glanced her direction—“that’s Mrs. Underwood, likes to switch to candles at night to save energy.”
“I love it. Candles and the eighteenth century sound so romantic. Besides, I’ve lived in some places where we had to collect an
imal dung for fuel.”
“Animal dung? Damn, you’re going to have to tell me that story sometime.”
She looked over at me. “Trust me, burning poop isn’t all that interesting. Do you spend a lot of time on the island?”
“Not unless I absolutely have to. But you’ll be expected to run errands back at the mainland. It’s part of the job. So seeing me goes with it too.”
Kinley stared back out the front window. “Guess I’ll get pretty used to this plane then.”
“Yep. I also bring Ryan, the handyman, to the island once a week. And then there’s Janice, the housekeeper. There used to be an old couple, the Harlans, who lived on the island as full-time help. But they retired and moved someplace warmer. No one else wanted the full-time position. Mrs. Underwood flies back to King’s Beach two days a week to work in her office and collect her mail. I’m sure you know there’s no internet access out there.”
Kinley seemed to be absorbing everything I said with a bitter swallow. It was obvious she’d jumped into this without knowing all the details. I’d taken half a dozen women to Wildthorne Island for the same job, and I’d never once considered stepping in to put a kink in Katherine’s nefarious plan. But this time was different. The thought of dropping Kinley off at the island was gnawing at me like a long toothed rat.
Kinley’s plump bottom lip seemed to be shifting back and forth with a moment of self-reflection and trepidation. I saw an opportunity and went for it. “As I’m sure you can imagine, cell phone use is spotty out there too. It’s sort of one of those situations where the stars have to line up just right and you have to hold your phone in just the right position to be in tune with the earth’s rotation. Then you have to stand as still as a statue because one wrong move—”