Elizabeth Goddard - Treacherous Skies

She stared up at him, her eyes filled with a mixture of confusion, fear and anger.

Connor sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that, but just calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.” He moved in, approaching her slowly as though she might bite if he moved too quickly. “I’m going to remove the duct tape. Is that okay with you?”

Her fierce, but beautiful eyes softened if only a little, and she nodded, appearing resigned to her fate. Careful not to move too fast, he peeled the tape away from her mouth.

She drew in a breath and groaned at what had to hurt, although he’d been gentle with the tape.

Then her eyes sliced through him again and her mouth followed. “You’re not going to hurt me? I was kidnapped, bound, gagged and stuffed in the lavatory of the plane you’re on.”

Ignoring her verbal attack for the moment, he reached behind her, cutting the plastic ties from her wrists with a knife from his ankle strap. Remaining guarded that she might try to harm him in some way, he cut the ankle ties, as well.

She rubbed her wrists and ankles, now free of the ties, clearly relieved to be rid of them. “Where are you taking me?”

While Connor watched her, he found two bottles of water in the refrigerator. “Thirsty?” He held one of them out to her.

Giving him a wary look, she took the bottle and opened it. “It’s not drugged, is it?”

Without waiting for his reply, she drank half the water. Her captors had left her for hours and now she was so thirsty she didn’t care if the water was drugged? A burning sensation started in the pit of his stomach as his mind wrapped around the fact he’d found a kidnapped woman on the Learjet.

Connor sank into the seat across from her, uncertain how to reassure her.

“I told you already,” he said gently. “I’m not the bad guy. I didn’t kidnap you, and I don’t know why you’re on this jet. I’m just doing my job and flying it back to the rightful owner. But I’ll admit, I didn’t retrieve the plane on friendly terms.”

What had he gotten into? He took a swig from his bottle. “So it appears someone stuffed you in the lavatory for safekeeping, intending to take you elsewhere and you’re just my accidental passenger.”

More like hazardous cargo.

THREE

Her honey eyes studied Connor’s, looking for the truth in his words.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

She looked down as though examining her body and seemed to notice her disheveled appearance. She shook her head, but he wasn’t sure he believed her.

His heart ached. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Her well-defined dark brows furrowed slightly. “If you’re not working with—” she stopped midsentence, hesitating, measuring her words “—my kidnapper, then who are you?”

Okay. He could give her that much. But he had the strong feeling she was about to tell him who had kidnapped her, and he had every intention of dragging that information out of her.

“The name’s Connor Jacobson. I used to be a test pilot. And before that a fighter pilot in the Air Force.” Maybe a little background would earn some of her trust. He drank more water while fixing his eyes on hers. “But now I’m...” He didn’t finish. What exactly was he now?

“Maya,” she said, and stared at the plastic bottle. She tugged a strand of her thick mane, the color of dark-roasted coffee, away from her face, revealing the shadows under her eyes.

“Maya?” he asked, hoping for a little more.

That’s all she would give. It was enough for now.

Connor leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I have a feeling, Maya, that you might know more about what’s going on than me. It would help me if you’d tell me what you know, like who kidnapped you for starters. And why.”

“I haven’t eaten since early yesterday.” She avoided his eyes and rubbed her hand over the soft leather of the seat. “Do you have food to go with the water?”

Maybe, just maybe, she was beginning to believe him, though if he were in her skin, he’d be suspicious, too. He wished he knew how to completely convince her he wasn’t involved in her abduction, but that was only one of the many problems her presence on the plane presented.

The woman had been traumatized, and Connor would give her the space she needed for as long as he could before he pressed her for information.

He glanced at his watch. She had half an hour. After that, he’d need time to make a plan before they landed.

* * *

Maya watched the sturdy pilot rise from his seat, never taking his eyes from her, as though he was suspicious of her. Finally he had to turn his back—hopefully, in search of food.

Why would he be suspicious of her? It’s not as if she had a weapon or could hurt him. Though she had inflicted some damage to his jaw, she was the victim here.

How she wanted to trust him, to believe that God had sent someone to rescue her. But his story that he’d taken the plane and was flying it back to the rightful owner sounded so far-fetched it was difficult to believe. She knew the answer. She squeezed her eyes, reminding herself that her own situation was even more implausible. That’s why she wanted to avoid telling him what she knew for as long as possible.

When she’d woken in the dark with a throbbing headache to discover her wrists and ankles bound, and duct tape over her mouth, she’d quickly determined she was in the lavatory of an airplane, though it was larger than most she’d been in on commercial airlines. The distinct sensation of takeoff confirmed it. She tried to stand and unlock the door, but with her hands bound behind her back, it was impossible to reach.

Her mind screamed with memories from the last time she’d been kidnapped and trapped in a small, dark room. The horrors and fear of that time, locked away inside all these years, had suddenly become reality again. And that reality went by the name of Roberto Hernandez. His face was the last thing she remembered seeing before everything went black. Among her vague memories of her abduction, she remembered hearing that Roberto had a Learjet waiting to cart her back to Colombia.

The man was head of the drug cartel that rivaled her father’s, and he was the very same man who’d taken her as a child. Now he was back in her life. But why? Was he connected to her father’s no-show?

Her well-meaning plans and hard work to change her life, to escape her heritage as a drug lord’s daughter, hadn’t made any difference. Even living in a country that seemed like a world away from her birthplace of Colombia hadn’t kept her safe. She was back in the middle of hostilities between rivals, her limbs pulled and stretched by warring parties.

She had no idea how long she’d been out and given that she ached all over, she had to wonder what they’d done to her. Who had drugged her?

The pilot? Was he in on this, though he claimed his innocence?

He returned with a plate filled with an assortment of pink and chocolate cupcakes decorated in multicolored sprinkles, and an apologetic grin at the corner of his mouth.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything more nutritious. The plate of sandwiches didn’t make it on to the plane,” he said.

“A sandwich would have been good,” she said, taking a cupcake. “But thank you for this.”

“At least a cupcake will tide you over until we reach Miami to refuel.”

Miami? At least he wasn’t headed to Colombia. For that she was grateful.

Ravenous hunger shoved aside her manners, and Maya ate one cupcake in two bites, licking the chocolate icing from her fingers.

She gazed up to find him still standing there, holding the platter. With his sun-bleached hair against tanned skin, strong jaw and cover-model looks, he was handsome as they came, but he also had a thoughtful gaze. Make that, concerned and distracted.