Lori Wilde - Crash Landing

“Oh,” she said. “I get it. You don’t want anyone tracking your whereabouts.”

He seemed relieved. “Yes. Your discretion in this matter is very important to me. Can I trust you?”

“Of course.” If she couldn’t keep a secret she would have been out of a job a long time ago. Her sister Josie was the only person she could confide in about such things.

The couple from Argentina that she was supposed to fly to Libera arrived at the plane. A bellhop in a golf cart with their bags in the back followed behind the couple.

“Here are my passengers, Mr. Martin. I’m sorry about your dilemma but—”

Gibb pivoted on his heel to face the male passenger, a distinguished-looking gray-haired man in his mid-fifties. “How much for you to take another bush plane to the airport?”

“Pardon, señor?” the man asked.

Gibb waved the cash at him. “How much? I need this plane.”

“You are not thinking rationally, Mr. Martin,” Sophia pointed out. It surprised her that the cool blond American could be so filled with passion. To the couple, she said, “He is trying to stop a wedding.”

“Ah, amor,” said the woman. “Isn’t that romantic? He wants to claim his woman before she marries someone else.”

Sophia noticed that Gibb did not bother to correct the woman’s erroneous assumption.

The Argentinean wasn’t losing out on the opportunity. He plucked the bills from Gibb’s hand and tucked them into his pocket. “The plane is all yours, señor.” He put an arm around his wife’s waist. “How can we stand in the way of true love?”

“You’re willingly giving up your seats? You could miss your connecting flight while waiting on another bush plane to arrive.”

“We are flying standby,” the Argentinean said. “If we miss one flight…” He shrugged. “We’ll catch another.”

The bellhop gave them a ride back to the lodge in the golf cart.

Gibb held out both arms. “Problem solved. Let’s hit the road, Amelia.”

“My name is Sophia. Sophia Cruz.”

“Amelia Earhart reference not doing it? I thought every woman pilot loved to be compared to Amelia.”

“That’s presumptive and sexist. See, I know big words, too.”

“So you don’t like Amelia Earhart?”

“You did not remember my name, did you?”

“So I forgot your name,” he admitted sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“My dog apologizes better than that.” Okay, so she was stretching the truth a bit. Her dog died last year. Her heart twinged at the thought of Trixie. She’d had her for fourteen years and missed her deeply.

“Dogs are all about apology. Which is why I don’t have one.”

“Why? Because you hate creatures who have more love in their little toe than you do in your entire body.”

“No,” he said. “I actually love dogs, but I’m never home and I’d have to apologize to the poor thing for hiring someone to take care of it and then I’d feel guilty. Well, you see where I’m going with this.”

“Not really.”

“Doesn’t matter. Can we do this thing?”

She should say no. The sensible thing would be to say no. Most anyone else would say no. He was pushy and arrogant and exasperating, but at the same time, a thrill ran through her at the thought of flying all the way to Florida. Still, was it prudent? Only one person could tell her if it was worth the risk, if indeed El Diablo could make the long trip. She’d have to ask her father.

Gibb was already climbing into the plane.

“Not so fast, Norte,” she said.

One eyebrow shot up on his forehead and the opposite corner of his mouth quirked up at the same time. “Norte?”

“Norte means someone who comes from the north, usually from the U.S.A. Isn’t that what you are?”

“The way you said it, it sounds derogative.”

“No.” She slowly shook her head. “That is all on you. If you think that being from the U.S.A. is derogative, that’s your belief system not mine.”

He stood straighter, stiffened his back. “I do not believe that it’s a bad thing to be from the U.S.”

“Neither do I, so why are you taking offense at the word Norte?” she asked.

He pointed at her. A slow smile crept across his face. “You’re a sly one, Ms. Cruz.”

She feigned an affronted expression. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re messing with my head.”

“If you did not have a chip on your shoulder, I could not knock it off.”

“Can we just get this show on the road?”

“Before I agree to this arrangement, I must first make some phone calls.”

He tapped his wrist. “Time’s wasting.”

“That’s a bracelet, not a watch.”

“All the same, you get the sentiment. It’s the universal sign for hurry up.”

“Norte,” she muttered.

“That time you were being derogatory.”

“You’re sort of a jackass, you know that?”

He clenched his determined jaw. “It doesn’t matter as long as I get what I want.”

Now she was beginning to understand why Blondie looked annoyed ninety percent of the time, but Sophia certainly understood the push-pull attraction to Gibb Martin. While part of her wanted to throttle him, another part of her wanted to kiss him.

All the more reason for her not to take him to Key West.

So why did she agree?

GIBB PACED OUTSIDE THE plane and repeatedly checked his watch. C’mon, C’mon. He didn’t have all day. He tried several times to call Scott while Sophia was preoccupied, but his buddy was still not picking up. Hey , can you blame him? You acted like a jerk .

For Scott’s own good!

They had known each other since they first swapped sandwiches on the kindergarten playground. Gibb had readily pawned off his lobster roll for Scott’s plain old peanut butter and grape jelly sammie. Scott had taken one bite of the lobster roll and started crying and demanded to swap back. They laughed about it now. How dumb they’d both been to prefer PB and J to lobster. How clueless Gibb’s mother had been about the appropriate lunch for a five-year-old.

That was Gibb’s mother all the way. Winnie had exquisite luxury tastes and assumed everyone else did, too, even though when he was growing up, they’d had a beer budget that did not match with her champagne thirst.

On more than one occasion, the cops had come to their front door to tell her she had to make restitution on bounced checks or she would end up in jail. Somehow, she’d always manage to skirt the law until she hit the jackpot by marrying Florida real estate mogul, James Martin, who legally adopted Gibb when he was seven. And Gibb had been trying to prove himself worthy of James’s largesse ever since.

“It is settled.”

The smell of plumeria, sweet and exotic, wafted over him and he looked up to see Sophia. The woman possessed gorgeous brown eyes with impossibly long dark lashes. A hot tug of attraction pulled at him.

“Settled yes or settled no?” he asked.

“For three thousand dollars, plus you pay the price of fuel, I will fly you to Key West.”

He had thought for sure she was going to say no and he would have to risk hiring a jet in Libera and pray the spies weren’t that close. He’d gone through all kinds of machinations to get to Bosque de Los Dioses. First by buying two airline tickets to Europe that had gone unused for him and Stacy. Then hiring a small private plane to Nicaragua, checking into a low-rent motel in San Carlos under an assumed name, and from there hired a car to drive them to Libera. He thought he’d adequately covered his tracks. But, if any of his competitors found out he was in Costa Rica, well, two years’ worth of work and a hundred million dollars would be shot all to hell.