Elizabeth Goddard - Treacherous Skies

HIGH FLYING, HIGH DANGER

After years of peace and quiet, Maya Carpenter thinks she’s safe—that her drug-lord father’s world will never catch up with her. Then she’s abducted and secretly stashed on a plane. And once she and the test pilot who finds her land in the Keys, the real threat begins....

Daredevil pilot Connor Jacobson is no one’s hero. And this time, he’s in way over his head. Yet he can’t leave Maya to face danger alone. Besides, he has a few tricks up his sleeve that might keep them safe...as long as he’s willing to put everything at risk, including his heart.

“I’m not the bad guy. I don’t know why you’re on this plane.”

Her dark eyes studied his, looking for the truth in his words.

“The name’s Connor Jacobson, by the way.”

“Maya,” she said. She tugged a strand of her beautiful dark hair 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. So why don’t you spill.”

He wished he knew how to completely convince her he wasn’t involved in her kidnapping, 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.

ELIZABETH GODDARD

is a seventh-generation Texan who grew up in a small oil town in East Texas, surrounded by Christian family and friends. Becoming a writer of Christian fiction was a natural outcome of her love of reading, fueled by a strong faith.

Elizabeth attended the University of North Texas where she received her degree in computer science. She spent the next seven years working in high-level sales for a software company located in Dallas, traveling throughout the United States and Canada as part of the job. At twenty-five, she finally met the man of her dreams and married him a few short weeks later. When she had her first child, she moved back to East Texas with her husband and daughter and worked for a pharmaceutical company. But then, more children came along and it was time to focus on family. Elizabeth loves that she gets to do her favorite things every day—read, write novels, stay at home with her four precious children, and work with her adoring husband in ministry.

Treacherous Skies

Elizabeth Goddard

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,

so that in him we might become

the righteousness of God.

—2 Corinthians 5:21

Dedicated to my loving husband, Dan. Always.

Acknowledgments

Let me express my deepest gratitude

to two extraordinary pilots, Steve Ferrell

and Rodney Henderson, for their willingness

to answer my many questions with detailed accounts of how things work, and for reading through my scenes and offering suggestions and corrections. I couldn’t have written this story without the assistance of these two dedicated and experienced pilots. You guys are real heroes!

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Excerpt

ONE

Belize City, Belize

Maya Carpenter glanced around the crowd in the Blue Moon Café, searching for her father, a man she hadn’t seen since she was five years old. A man wanted in ten countries, including this one.

Though uncertain she’d recognize him, he’d said he would know her. A glance at her watch told her he was already twenty minutes late. This wasn’t the type of circumstance that allowed for tardiness.

Something was wrong.

That meant he probably wasn’t going to show. She’d spent a lifetime trying to escape her heritage, but he’d sounded so sincere on the phone two weeks ago—the first contact since she was five—when he shared that he was terminally ill and wanted to see her one last time.

In that moment, he’d been convincing, and how could anyone deny their father a dying wish? She hadn’t even realized it until his call, but she needed closure. Maya had finally agreed, but now?

Doubts suffused her to the core.

She scraped her bag from the chair as she stood and rushed from the table in search of the door. She weaved her way through the dining patrons and dodged the tray-toting waiters until she spotted the exit.

Had she walked into some sort of trap?

But this was her father. He’d supported her mother fleeing to the U.S. from Colombia with Maya after the kidnapping that almost cost her life. He’d never harmed her other than with his poor career choice.

Outside the Blue Moon Café, she found the sidewalk rimming the street and hurried to the parking lot.

A black sedan edged to the curb next to her and she picked up her pace. The door opened and a man in a suit stepped out and into her path. She tried to skirt around him, but he gently grabbed her arm.

“Señorita Carpenter, your father,” he said, his Spanish accent thick, and gestured to the inside of the vehicle.

She leaned forward to peer inside the four-door sedan and there, sitting on the far side in the shadows of the backseat, was Colombian drug lord Eduardo Ramirez. At least, she supposed it was him, though she couldn’t really remember his face, and he would have changed after all these years, as had she.

Maya’s pulse thrummed in her ears and dizziness swept over her.

He stretched his hand toward her, inviting her in. Either she was about to fill a huge hole in a lifetime of hurt and bring closure, or she was the biggest fool that ever lived.

She slid into the seat next to him, and the man on the sidewalk shut the door.

“Papá?” Uncertainty ripped through her as the endearment fell flat.

“Maya, my precious girl. It’s been far too long since I’ve seen you.” The man’s laugh was warm and friendly, yet laced with menace. It was definitely not her father’s but somehow familiar. “But no, I’m your father’s worst nightmare.”

* * *

“It’s now or never.”

Connor Jacobson peeled the catering van from his hiding place in the thick forest a safe distance from the airstrip where he and his brother Jake had remained undetected.

Throughout the morning, he’d watched the Learjet for the telltale signs it was being prepped to leave the country—pretending to deliver a catered lunch in order to gain access to the jet wouldn’t work otherwise.

While he watched, the jet had been refueled and though he hoped to see someone perform a preflight check, getting by those armed guards would be tricky. Adding a couple of pilots into the mix might kill the plan completely. Connor didn’t want anyone to get hurt, and that meant he’d have to move fast.