Operation: love.

Former army pilot Mina Gaines isn’t looking for a hero. She’s too busy running her grandfather’s remote mountainside hotel to bother with love. That is, until a private plane crashes and brings danger to her doorstep…and a sexy stranger into her life. There’s no mistaking that a serious threat is near, but when faced with no other way to survive, can she trust that there’s more to Jake?

Bringing a drug kingpin to justice is undercover DEA agent Jake Wolfe’s top mission. Now, with the beautiful Mina caught in the criminal’s crosshairs, he’s ready to take any risk to protect her—and keep her in his arms forever.

“I gave it a try and I liked it,”

Mina said with a note of humor in her voice. “I’ve always been a physical person and this life suits me.”

Jake inhaled and exhaled. The clean mountain air was invigorating. “I can see what you mean. This is the life.”

Mina laughed softly. “I’m glad you like it. You know you could be in a luxurious suite at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort. They have over 1,100 rooms, plus a casino and a world-class entertainment center where top country music artists perform every weekend—”

Jake leaned over and kissed her midsentence. He let her lead him, waiting for permission to deepen the kiss. He would have been satisfied with just the taste of her lips on his tongue. After a moment, Mina sighed softly and gave herself to him. Her hand came up to caress his cheek, and she leaned in to him. Jake marveled at how sweet she tasted and how well the two of them anticipated each other’s needs. It was a gentle kiss. It was a kiss to seal what they each knew was happening between them, a meeting of kindred souls.

JANICE SIMS

is the author of twenty-one novels and has had stories included in nine anthologies. She has been nominated for a Career Achievement Award by RT Book Reviews, and her novel Temptation’s Song was nominated for Best Kimani Romance Series in 2010 by RT Book Reviews. A longtime member of Romance Writers of America, she lives in Central Florida with her family.

Safe in My Arms

Janice Sims

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Dear Reader,

What makes a hero? Are they born with a sense of duty to others? Or do heroes simply react when the time comes to step up and save someone? In Safe in My Arms, both Amina Gaines and Jake Wolfe have suffered severe personal losses and are scarred by them.

We all have scars. None of us go through life without being marked by them. It’s up to us whether or not those scars add to our character or detract from it. That’s what I found so fascinating about Mina and Jake: they were people who rose above misfortune and thrived. An accident brought them together, but what happened after that was no accident—it was Fate.

I’m presently writing the third book in the Gaines Sisters series. You can contact me via Facebook, www.janicesims.com, Jani569432@aol.com or at Post Office Box 811, Mascotte, Florida 34753-0811.

Janice

Acknowledgments

Thanks to both Shannon Criss and Rachel Burkot for their editorial expertise in the production of Safe in My Arms. Your insights were most appreciated.

This book is dedicated to my Yahoo group who has shown a great deal of loyalty over the years. You’re like an extended family. Thanks for being the kind of readers who not only write reviews all over the web, but have been known to make new converts by word-of-mouth.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

“Oh, my God,” cried John Monahan, his face set in grim lines and his eyes on the Piper Matrix G1000’s fuel gauge. The indicator was perilously close to empty. “Somebody’s tampered with the fuel line. We don’t have enough to make it to the next town, let alone Atlanta.”

Jake Wolfe, sitting next to him in the pilot’s seat, stared at him in disbelief. John had gone pale under his tan. Jake felt his stomach plummet as he leaned over to peer out of the side window. Although John had the plane in a controlled glide, it felt as if the forest of the Great Smoky Mountains was rising up to meet them.

“We still have time to jump!” he said while unfastening his seat belt. When he had been loading the plane earlier today he’d spotted a couple of parachutes in the overhead storage compartment.

“It’s worth a try,” said John, sounding far from confident.

Hope blossomed in Jake’s chest when he found the parachutes. But on closer inspection, he discovered the rip cords on both of them had been irreparably damaged.

He hurried back to his seat and buckled up. “They’re totally useless,” he reported to John.

“It’s my fault,” John said gloomily as he did everything in his power to slow their descent. “I called Lynn and told her what I was planning to do. I never suspected Charlie would bug my home phone. I put Lynn at risk.”

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Jake said tightly. He was trying not to panic. It wasn’t working. “Just concentrate on landing this thing.”

A DEA agent, Jake had been undercover for nearly a year to get evidence on Charlie Betts, one of the most notorious drug dealers in the southern United States. The agency had never been able to catch him with the goods. But now, here Jake was, in a plane with its cargo hold stuffed full of illegal drugs recently obtained in Canada and a pilot willing to testify against Betts, and they were going down!

John was still talking nervously as he worked furiously to land the plane in a clearing he’d spotted below.

“I can’t believe Charlie would sabotage a million-dollar plane and risk millions of dollars’ worth of product going up in smoke just to get rid of me.”

Jake figured John was talking to calm himself, so he joined in the conversation, even though he felt that discussing anything right now, other than how to save their lives, was counterproductive. “You sound hurt, John. What did you expect from a murdering bastard like Charlie Betts?”

John turned to look at him for a split second, fear and anguish in his eyes. “The clearing’s a no-go, but I’m going to get this baby down in one piece, one way or another, and if I don’t make it, take care of my family. I shouldn’t have told Lynn. I’m such a fool.”

“The agency’s been watching over your family for weeks now, ever since I suspected you were coming over to our side,” Jake told him. “And we’re both gonna make it.” He nodded at the controls. “Ground’s coming up fast. Work your magic, John.”

“Hold on!” John yelled. The plane careened into a pine forest. The sound of the crash was deafening. Shards of glass flew around them like sparkling rain. The nose of the plane slid down a huge tree trunk to the forest floor, and then the plane fell onto its back, which was lucky for them, because the fuel tank was on the bottom of the plane. That, and the fact that the tank was nearly empty when they crashed, saved them from an explosion. Jake didn’t have time to brace himself. His final thought before losing consciousness was that if he was going to die he hoped it would happen quickly.

* * *

“I know what you’re up to, Grandpa,” Amina Gaines said accusingly as she trailed her grandfather up a steep slope. He had an amazing energy level for someone in his eighties. “Getting me out here on the pretense of scouting new camping sites for the guests is just a ruse to keep me from watching CNN, totally spoiling my Thursday morning routine.”

“All that talk about the troops pulling out of Afghanistan just brings back bad memories for you,” Grandpa Beck said matter-of-factly. He paused, looked back at her and breathed in the clear, fresh mountain air. “This,” he said, his arms spread wide to include all of nature, “is so much better for you. Besides, the place I’m going to show you will be a good hiking destination when we open up again next week.”

Mina laughed shortly. She had to admit that living and working with her grandfather at his lodge had been good for her. She had spent ten years of her life in the military. Four years at a military academy and six years as an army helicopter pilot. Her last hitch had been in Afghanistan where she’d lost the love of her life, Keith Armstrong, who was killed by an improvised explosive device. After Keith’s death, her heart was no longer in making the military her chosen career. So, when her hitch was over, she had not re-upped. Now she felt kind of like a fish out of water. But the past year or so, up here near the Cherokee reservation and the Great Smoky Mountains, her soul had felt more at home than it had in a very long time.

She smiled at her grandfather. He was a trim man of average height with long, wavy snow-white hair that he wore pulled back in a ponytail. His weather-beaten brown skin was the color of well-worn leather. In his youth he’d been a handsome man. He was still striking, although, as he liked to say, he’d earned every wrinkle on his face and he was proud of them.

“Stop grinning, and keep moving,” Grandpa Beck ordered brusquely, turning to continue their trek. “We’ve got a couple more miles to go before we reach that ridge I was telling you about.”

Mina paused to grab a bottle of water from her backpack. Drinking deeply, she peered up at the crystalline-blue September sky and spotted a plane coming toward them. Its trajectory was way off. It was flying far too low to even clear some of the tops of the nearby trees.

As it got closer she could hear its engines. Her pilot’s ears told her the plane was definitely in distress. That intermittent sputter or hitch in the engine was not normal.

Her grandfather was watching it, too, a frown marring his features. “Is it supposed to sound like that?” he asked.

Mina was paying close attention to the plane while putting her water bottle away and securing her backpack. “No, it’s not. I think they’re going down.”

“Are you sure?” Benjamin hesitated. “Maybe it can still get control of itself.”

Then the sound of the engine went completely silent, the plane disappeared from view, and they heard the thunderous boom of a crash. A look passed between granddaughter and grandfather. They knew that they quite possibly could mean the difference between life and death for the occupants of that plane.

Mina took out her cell phone to see if she could get a signal. Just as she had suspected, there was none. There were no cell phone towers in the vicinity.

“Grandpa,” said Mina as she stuck the phone in her jacket pocket. “We can’t call anybody, so you need to get back to the lodge and contact the forest rangers or mountain rescue. I’m going to the crash site to see if there are any survivors.”

“The site could be miles away,” Benjamin protested. “And we’re at least five miles from the lodge. I should stay with you in case we have to carry someone out of here.”

Mina was shaking her head. “There could be more than one survivor. Plus, I’m going to have to hustle, and I can make better time without you,” she told him frankly. “You know these mountains. If anyone can point the rescuers in the right direction, it’s you.”

Benjamin reluctantly nodded in agreement. He went into his backpack and handed over his extra water and energy bars. “You might need these before it’s over with.”

Mina accepted his provisions and shoved them into her backpack. “I’m going now,” she said. “Be careful going back down the mountain, Grandpa.”

“I’ll be okay,” Benjamin said. “You’re the one walking into an unknown situation. Better put on your captain persona, baby girl.”

Mina smiled at him and gave him a thumbs-up before turning and rapidly walking in the direction in which she’d seen the plane go down.

Captain was the rank she’d earned while in the army. No one had called her that in two years.

After half an hour, she realized that even though she could guess in which direction the plane’s wreckage could be found, she needed more accurate information than that to go on. So she decided to climb a tree to see if she could spot the downed plane from above. It had been a while since she’d had to scale a tree, although she and her sisters had done it all the time when they were kids, and she had done it on weekends as part of endurance training while in the army.

Removing her backpack and dropping it onto the ground beneath a fifty-foot pine tree, she put on the supple leather fingerless gloves that she had in her backpack to protect her hands while rock climbing. She kept her jacket on to protect her arms and chest from the rough bark of the tree. She removed her rubber-soled hiking boots and thick socks because bare feet gave her more traction. She took hold of the tree trunk and shinnied up the tree enough to grasp an upper branch. Then she carefully climbed from branch to branch until she was about thirty feet up. Muscles she had forgotten she had burned with the effort. She looked around. There, to the south, was the plane resting on its back. She didn’t see any rising plumes of smoke, which she figured was a good thing.

Getting down out of the tree was much easier than climbing it. She put her socks and boots back on, secured her backpack and began jogging in the direction of the crash site.

She glanced down at her watch as she ran. It was a few minutes after one in the afternoon, several hours before sundown. She and Grandpa Beck had gotten an early start this morning. Hopefully their early start would bode well for any survivors of the crash. Search and rescue would have a more difficult time finding them in the dark. Plus, this being autumn in the mountains, nights could get very cold.

Leaning into her sprint, she ran on, praying all the while that when she reached the site she would find someone alive.

* * *

Jake groaned as he came to. For a moment, his vision was blurry. When his eyes did finally focus, everything still appeared screwy to him. Then he realized he was upside down. He was afraid to move in case something was broken. So he stayed still and took a mental inventory of his body. Where did it hurt? Pretty much everywhere was his answer. “John?”

His voice was barely a whisper. “John!” No reply.

“John, if you can hear me, please say something!”

No sounds issued from John Monahan. Jake sighed in despair.

His vision clearer now, he looked around. Shattered glass, pine needles, broken branches and wrapped bundles of drugs littered the floor. No, not the floor, he remembered. It was the ceiling of the plane, because they were upside down.

He took a couple of deep breaths. He couldn’t stay here like this. What if no one had seen them go down? Some parts of these mountains were very isolated. There was a possibility that the only way he was getting out of this predicament was by his own efforts.

First he had to figure out which, if any, parts of him were injured. So he started by wiggling his fingers and toes. All moved normally. Then he tried moving his arms and legs. Once again, they seemed in good shape. Next he turned his head. That was when he saw poor John slumped to the side with a tree branch stuck in his chest. Jake viciously cursed the fates. It wasn’t fair. The guy was trying to turn his life around. Now he was dead for doing the right thing.

Jake vowed that Charlie Betts would pay for this.

With new resolve, he reached over to unfasten his seat belt, realizing that as soon as he did so, he would fall to the roof of the plane. He anticipated a lot of pain when he did so, but he had no alternative.

Just as he was about to click the release button, he heard a noise. It sounded like someone was trying to force the door open. Then he could have sworn he heard a muffled voice on the other side of the door.

* * *

Mina pulled hard on the door. It seemed to be jammed. She braced one foot on the side of the plane and put her back into it. The door popped open suddenly, throwing her off balance and onto her backside. She got up and pulled the door all the way open and peered inside. “Hello, can anyone hear me?”

“Yeah, thank God, I can hear you!”

Mina gingerly stepped inside. The ceiling of the plane was covered in padded leather the same neutral tone as the interior’s six seats. She stepped around bundles of something that appeared to have been put in opaque garbage bags and then wrapped with duct tape for added security. Glass and pine needles and various-sized tree branches crunched underfoot.

“Are you alone?” she asked the man who had answered her.

“No, the pilot’s here beside me,” he said. “Please check him. He hasn’t said anything since I regained consciousness.”

“Okay, I’m getting closer,” Mina told him. Momentarily she was right beside him. As he’d asked, she checked the pilot first. She was horrified by the sight of the tree branch sticking out of his chest, but that didn’t stop her from feeling for a pulse. She’d seen worse-looking injuries in Afghanistan, and some of those soldiers had actually survived them. So she was thorough about checking for signs of life.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a couple of minutes, her tone solemn. “Your friend is gone.”

She heard a sharp intake of breath from the survivor and then a long exhale. “I was hoping I was wrong and he’d made it,” he said.

Mina moved close beside him as he hung upside down in his seat, and that was when he got a good look at her. She was twentysomething, about five-five, and slender. To him she had the face of an angel, a black angel with golden-brown skin and abundant black hair that she wore in braids down her back.

“Are you the advance person of a team of rescuers?” he joked.

Mina smiled as she began running her hand across his body, trying to ascertain the nature of his injuries. “My grandfather and I were hiking in the mountains when we saw your plane go down. We couldn’t get a cell-phone signal, so he’s on the way back down the mountain to notify the authorities. Until they get here, I’m all you’ve got.”

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help,” Jake said, “but I weigh two hundred pounds. I don’t think you could carry me if I’m unable to walk.”

Mina was still running her hands over his body. “Does anything on you hurt when I touch you?”

* * *

For a moment Jake forgot about the pain. He thought that must be a good sign. That a pretty woman could make him forget he’d just been in a plane crash. “I don’t think I have any broken bones,” he told her. “If you can help me out of this seat, I believe I can walk out of here under my own steam.”

“All right,” she agreed immediately. “I’m going to get close to you and spot you. You unfasten the seat belt on a count of three.”

Their eyes met. Mina’s dark brown eyes were encouraging. His probably looked doubtful. “Whenever you’re ready,” Mina said confidently.

Jake took a deep breath, counted out loud to three and hit the release button. Gravity did the rest. But what he had anticipated would be a painful experience was not, because the woman whom he had thought was not strong enough to carry him was supporting him securely in her arms. His legs felt weak initially, and when he felt the blood trickling down the bridge of his nose, he realized that he had a head injury. Being upside down, he had not noticed the blood. His hand went to his head.

The woman smiled at him. “It doesn’t look bad,” she told him. “I’ll take a look at it when we get outside.”

Jake’s legs felt stronger. Believing he could walk now, he gestured toward the door with a nod of his head. “Maybe we should get out of here. We’ve been lucky so far because the plane was nearly out of fuel when we crashed, but who knows?”

“I’m ready when you are,” Mina said.

They walked slowly to the exit, and Mina helped him step out of the plane onto the forest floor. He squinted up at the sky. It had taken Mina nearly three hours to reach the crash site after she’d spied it from her perch in the pine tree.

“Somehow I thought the sun would be lower in the sky,” he said. “It feels as though I’ve been in there for hours.”

“Only three hours,” Mina assured him as they continued walking away from the plane. “It was a bit after one when I heard the crash, and I got here about three hours later.”

He looked down at her in amazement. “I can’t believe you did that. You had no idea what you could be walking into. What made you do it?”

“Let’s find you a safe place to sit down before I tell you my life story, okay?” Mina said lightly.

Chapter 2

“Easy,” Mina cautioned as she helped the stranger sit down with his back against a sugar maple tree. They were out of the copse of pines in which the plane had crashed. Mina thought it wise to put some distance between them and the plane. He’d mentioned that the fuel had been depleted before the crash, but better safe than sorry.

She saw that the scratch on his forehead was still bleeding and shrugged off her backpack to look inside for something with which to stanch the bleeding. “I wonder if there’s a first-aid kit on the plane,” she mused as she searched. She didn’t relish having to go back on board where this man’s friend was still hanging upside down with a tree branch stuck in his chest, but she would do it if she couldn’t get the blood to stop flowing.

She found a clean paper towel and pressed it firmly against the two-inch-long cut. The stranger was looking at her with a hint of humor in his gaze.

“We haven’t introduced ourselves,” he said softly. “Hello, I’m Jake, and you are?”

“You can call me Mina,” she said.

“Whenever someone introduces themselves like that, there’s usually another name that they’re trying to conceal,” he observed with a smile.

“It’s short for Amina,” she said.

“One letter short,” he joked. “Wow.”

Mina laughed. She liked his accent. He wasn’t Southern, that was for sure. He sounded like a New Yorker. “I suppose Jake’s short for Jacob?”

“No, Jason. I know it should be short for Jacob, but Jake’s what my parents started calling me and it stuck.”

“Like mine, only one letter shorter,” Mina noted.

“You’re sharp,” he said.

“You’ve been hit on the head,” she countered. “It doesn’t take much to be sharper than you are right now.”

“And beautiful,” he added.

“The head thing again,” she said.

He ignored her. “Where are we, Mina?”

“You’re near a little town called Cherokee, close to the Tennessee/North Carolina border. Where were you headed?”

“Atlanta.”

“You’re quite a few miles away,” Mina told him as she continued to press the paper towel to his forehead. “What are you, a businessman? That Piper Matrix is some sweet plane.”

“You know planes?”

“I was a helicopter pilot when I was in the army.”

“How long since you were discharged?”

“Going on two years,” she answered.

“What was your rank when you left?”

“I was a captain,” she stated simply.

“I’m impressed,” he said. “I was in the army for a couple of years but did it mainly for the educational benefits.” He looked into her eyes. “Sit, Mina. Please.”

But she wouldn’t sit. “Are you thirsty?” she asked. “There’s water in my backpack.”

“I could use a drink,” he said. But before she could retrieve the water he reached up and grasped her hand. While he had hold of it, he brought it down to eye level and said, “Your hands are so small, but extremely competent. Is that you in a nutshell, Mina, small but extremely competent?”

Mina found both his words and his touch disconcerting. She pried her hand from his and got the water bottle her grandfather had given her earlier.

He opened it and drank deeply, still looking into her eyes. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Mina. She removed the paper towel from his forehead. The cut had stopped bleeding.

“I guess I won’t have to go back into the plane, after all,” she said. “You’re not bleeding anymore.”

He smiled at her. “I’m a fast healer.”

* * *

In truth, he didn’t want her to go back inside the plane. If she hadn’t already noticed the bundles strewn all over it and begun to put two and two together—a private plane with mysterious, securely wrapped packages as the main cargo—he would consider himself lucky. His rescuer seemed to be a very intelligent woman. And he didn’t want her getting mixed up in this mess. At this point, he didn’t know what his next move was going to be. He had to contact the agency. She’d said her cell phone didn’t work up here. There was no reason to believe his would either. He didn’t have a satellite phone. No harm in trying his cell, though.

He still felt it in the back pocket of his jeans. He was surprised it hadn’t fallen out of his pocket while he was upside down. Tight jeans, he guessed.

Try as he might, Jake couldn’t get a signal. He sighed inwardly. What would he say to his boss, anyway? John Monahan was dead. And there was no bringing him back. He had failed to protect a witness. John might have worked in Betts’s organization for years, but he was trying to clean up his act for the benefit of his wife and two small children. It irked Jake that he hadn’t been able to anticipate someone tampering with the plane. But John had been a conscientious pilot. Jake had seen him examining the plane before climbing into the cockpit.

If John had missed signs of tampering, how could he have recognized them? Still, he blamed himself for John’s death. And he meant to make sure that justice was served in the end.

He scowled as he tucked the useless phone back in his pocket. Mina noticed and frowned in response. “No luck, huh?”

“Nah, but it can wait.” His stomach growled. He smiled wryly. “You wouldn’t have something to eat in that handy backpack, would you?”

Mina smiled warmly and dug in her backpack a moment.

They were companionably eating energy bars beneath the sugar maple when they heard the rotors of a helicopter in the distance.

* * *

Benjamin Beck hated two modes of transportation: riding on a bus and flying. The UH-60 Black Hawk he was in now was being piloted by a young hotshot from the Army National Guard. Two other Guardsmen made up the team. Ben was sitting up front with the pilot giving directions. The Great Smoky Mountains looked a lot different from the air, but Ben had never gotten lost in his life. Soon, they were hovering over the area where he’d last seen Mina more than five hours ago. He looked at the pilot and said, “Try due south. That was the direction the plane was heading when she was going down.”

Less than five minutes later they spotted it.

“Looks like a Piper Matrix,” said the pilot with admiration. “Nice plane.”

Ben was busy craning his neck, trying to locate Mina. He hoped nothing had happened to that girl. He had not wanted to leave her, but her plan of action had clearly been the only option for them at the time.

His heartbeat accelerated with excitement and happiness when he saw her sitting propped against a tree, a big guy sitting beside her. “There they are!” Ben exclaimed, pointing and grinning.

The pilot grinned too. “So I see,” he said. “I’m going to set her down in that clearing over there.”

* * *

It was dark by the time the Black Hawk rose into the air again. One of the Guardsmen was a medic and had examined Jake and determined his vital signs were good, and except for his head injury, he was fine. Then the Guardsmen removed John Monahan’s body from the wreckage, put it in a body bag and stowed it in the back of the Black Hawk.

Mina and Grandpa Beck stood apart talking while all of this was going on, but she didn’t fail to notice Jake speaking privately with the helicopter’s pilot and the keen look of interest on the pilot’s face during the course of their conversation. She also noticed that one of the Guardsmen came out of the plane carrying one of those wrapped bundles Mina had avoided stepping on when she’d entered the downed plane and presented it to the helicopter pilot, who told him to leave it on the plane.

That made her wonder what was in those bundles that made them not important enough to salvage from the wreckage. There had been about thirty twenty-four-inch cubes. Or maybe, she thought, there was something in them that Jake didn’t want the National Guardsmen to know about, and during his conversation with the pilot he’d convinced him that they weren’t worth bothering with.

Her curiosity was definitely engaged. She was a sucker for a good mystery, and this had the potential for becoming a brain twister.

When the pilot announced it was time to board the Black Hawk, she hesitated. “I think I’ll walk out of here,” she told him.

“Mina, you’re exhausted,” Jake was quick to say. “I’m not going anywhere until you get in this helicopter.”

“He’s right,” her grandfather seconded. “It’s been a long day. Let’s go home, child.”

Knowing she’d been outvoted, Mina relented. But she would have dearly loved to have been left alone with those bundles to see what was in them. Her grandfather’s concern for her well-being, she knew, was genuine. But she suspected Jake was more concerned about leaving her alone with those mysterious packages aboard the downed Matrix.

She sat next to Jake on the flight to Cherokee. He tried to make polite conversation, but she barely heard him because her mind was so consumed with the distinct possibility that the man she’d rescued was a drug dealer. Why hadn’t she seen it before now? A private plane filled with packages wrapped in garbage bags? Two men on board, one a pilot, one a...what? she wondered. What was Jake’s role in all of this? Was he the hired gun?

She observed him as they flew through the now darkened sky toward Cherokee. He was so handsome. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and when he smiled, dimples appeared in both caramel-brown cheeks. He had perfect teeth, a square-chinned, clean-shaven face that now had a five-o’clock shadow, nice ears, an interesting nose with a small scar on the bridge and curly dark-brown hair that was cut close to his perfect head. And when he looked at her, there was nothing but warmth and sincerity in those warm honey-colored eyes. He could be the all-American boy next door. Big, athletic, superbly muscled and with a personality to match. But he could also be a cold-blooded killer who ran drugs for a living.

He smiled at her now. “I don’t know how I can repay you for what you did for me today,” he said, eyes shining with good intentions.

“I’m just sad that there was nothing we could do for your friend,” Mina said. Too many times, while in the service of her country, she’d had to transport the bodies of fallen soldiers. This situation gave her a cold feeling inside. Her sister, Desiree, who was a psychotherapist, wanted her to go to therapy, saying that even if she didn’t believe she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, there could still be residual aftereffects from her experiences in the military. She shouldn’t be too proud to seek help. But Mina knew she was fine. It was only a few times a year, like today, that she was reminded of the negative aspects of military life.

“Me, too,” Jake said softly. “I dread having to tell his wife. They have two small kids.”

“Did you know him well?”

“We’d only been working together for a few months, but he was a nice guy, devoted to his family.”

Devoted to his family, Mina thought. Would a guy who loved and cherished his family be working as a pilot for a drug dealer? She wasn’t naive. Of course a man could love his family and be a criminal.

They didn’t have time to finish their conversation, because in a matter of minutes the Black Hawk, which could reach a hundred and sixty miles per hour, was landing in a big field adjacent to her grandfather’s lodge. The pilot explained they’d be going on to Asheville where Jake would be checked out by a doctor at Mission Hospital.

Before Mina and her grandfather could go, though, Jake grasped Mina by the hand. “I don’t want to lose touch with you, Mina. Give me your number, please. I’d like to call you when I come back this way.”

Mina met his eyes. Did she want this man who could be a drug dealer to phone her? Was she being too judgmental? She had no proof he was a dealer, just a suspicion that could probably be blamed on reading too many suspense novels.

He handed her his cell phone. “Would you enter your number for me?”

She took it, quickly tapped out her number and handed it back to him. “Stay safe, Jake.”

He gave her that killer smile and then turned and went back to the waiting helicopter.

She and Grandpa Beck watched as they rose into the sky and sped off. Her grandfather put his arm around her shoulders as they walked to the cabin in back of the lodge where they lived. The lodge was set to reopen next week for the fall season. Guests would start arriving on Sunday afternoon. Soon they would be busy catering to the needs of hunters, fishermen, hikers and a host of other nature lovers.

“I don’t know about you,” Grandpa Beck said, “but I’m hungrier than a bear at the end of hibernation.”

Mina laughed and said, “Come on, then, I’ll make you some scrambled eggs and bacon.”

“Breakfast for dinner,” Grandpa Beck said, grinning. “Now you’re talking!”

* * *

As the helicopter rose in the air, Jake watched the figures of Mina Gaines and her grandfather recede into the distance. He didn’t know why, but being near her gave him a warm feeling deep inside. It was a cliché, but he felt as though they had been fated to meet.

He turned and looked straight ahead as the pilot cranked up the speed of the Black Hawk and shot toward Asheville. This case had taken a turn for the worse when he’d been so close to wrapping it up.

He worked out of the Atlanta Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which served the states of Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. He’d infiltrated the Charlie Betts drug ring by first ingratiating himself with the big guy. He’d had Betts under surveillance for weeks and had followed him to his favorite nightclub one evening, when a drunken reveler had had the audacity to attempt to slug the drug dealer. Before Betts’s own bodyguard had the chance to act, Jake had stepped between the drunk and Betts. Impressed with his physical prowess, Betts had given Jake his card and told him if he ever needed anything to call him. The next day, Jake called and said he was down on his luck and could use a job. Betts hired him as low-level muscle.

He’d worked his way up to accompanying John on the weekly flights to Canada, where Betts’s marijuana supplier lived. He and Monahan had become friends, and Monahan had confided in him that he wanted out of the organization—but there was only one way out: death. That was when Jake had offered him another alternative: testify against Charlie Betts, and Jake would stand up for him and try to get him immunity.

That’s what they were attempting to do when the Matrix had gone down. They had a plane full of marijuana as evidence against Charlie Betts.

Jake was angry at himself for not anticipating that Charlie Betts had tapped John’s home phone. He should have cautioned John against telling anyone about their plans, even his wife, Lynn. Jake blamed himself for John’s death. He would do everything in his power to make John’s sacrifice mean something. That meant Betts and his organization had to go down.

Once they’d landed in Asheville and he’d seen John’s body being taken to the morgue, Jake got on the phone with the Special Agent in Charge in Atlanta.

Hoyt Granger was in his fifties and had a gravelly voice due to too many cigarettes, a habit he was constantly trying to kick. “Jake, what the hell happened to you? You were supposed to report in hours ago!”

Jake told him everything, and then patiently waited for his response.

“Thank God you’re safe,” Granger said. “My guess is Betts expected you and Monahan to go up in flames. That didn’t happen, so now we have ourselves a predicament. When word reaches Betts, and I’ll make sure it does, will he send his men to retrieve the drugs or write millions of dollars off just like that? I’m betting he’ll want to recover what he believes to be rightfully his. So you need to stick around. Stay out of sight. It might be to your advantage if Betts thinks you didn’t survive so I’m going to spread the news that both you and Monahan died in the crash.”

“You’re leaving the drugs at the site as bait?” Jake asked, to be certain they were on the same page.

“That’s right,” Granger confirmed. “Get back to Cherokee, hole up in a motel and I’ll send you the needed equipment, a sat phone and some heavy artillery. I’ll have agents and a helicopter waiting for your call after you catch Betts’s men in the act. As soon as we have them in custody, Betts will be arrested, too.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it all planned out,” said Jake with a note of skepticism.

“Can’t go as belly-up and ass-backward as the last plan did,” Granger commented dryly.

“Cherokee’s a small town,” Jake said. “I’ve met some of the people.” He was thinking about Mina and her grandfather. “They’re nice people. I don’t want them to get caught in the middle of a drug fight.”

“Then make sure there aren’t any confrontations in town, Jake. Follow Betts’s guys into the woods. Take them down there.”

“Got it,” Jake said. He knew there was no use arguing with Granger when he had his mind made up. “I’ll let you know where to send the needed equipment.”

They said their goodbyes, and Jake put his cell phone away with a grimace. Granger sat in his office all day, issuing orders. He hadn’t been in the field in so long, he’d forgotten that real people were out here. People they’d taken an oath to protect.

Two hours later, after being released from the hospital with a prescription for pain pills and the suggestion to take it easy for a couple days, Jake checked into a hotel in Asheville, took a hot shower and then crashed for the night.

Tomorrow he would rent a car and head back to Cherokee.

Chapter 3

On Sunday morning, Mina was on a ladder polishing the twin wooden totem poles that flanked the entrance to the lodge. She made it a habit of doing this last task just before new arrivals were expected. The two-story entrance never failed to impress the guests who thought the intricately carved door, with its images of deer, bears, foxes and elk, lent an authentic air to the lodge.

Her grandfather’s intention when designing Beck’s Wilderness Lodge was to marry two cultures: his—African-American—and his wife’s—Native American. Everywhere in the lodge were reminders of the cultures: throw rugs, wooden sculptures, woven baskets and wall hangings. Three stories in height, the pinewood lodge had guest rooms on every level, plus there were cabins on the property’s periphery for those who wanted more privacy.

Mina hummed as she worked. She was looking forward to taking guests on camping trips in the mountains, showing them where the fish were biting or where the rock climbing was good.

“Hello, Mina,” said a deep masculine voice from behind her.

Mina instantly recognized that voice. She smiled and turned slowly so as not to lose her balance on the ladder.

Jake grinned up at her. “I have to say, you look good from this angle,” he joked. “But then, you look good from every angle.”

Mina laughed and climbed down. “Jake, what are you doing here?”

* * *

Jake’s brain took a minivacation as his eyes feasted on her feminine curves in jeans and a T-shirt, and the way her skin seemed to glow.

He could have stood there all day, watching her, but his brain finally kicked in again, and he considered her question. When he’d gotten to Cherokee, he’d taken a room at a small motel in town. The next day the special equipment Granger had promised to send had arrived. While he was waiting for Betts’s men to put in an appearance, it had occurred to him that during their information-gathering regarding the plane crash, they would inevitably find out that Benjamin Beck, who had a reputation as a mountain man in these parts, was instrumental in leading rescuers to the crash site. Therefore Jake thought he should be nearby should Betts’s men decide to interrogate Benjamin Beck and his granddaughter. That’s why he was here on this fine Sunday morning.

But he couldn’t tell that to Mina, of course.

“The company I work for has plans to salvage the plane’s cargo. I’m just waiting for the team to arrive so we can get started. In the meantime, I need a place to stay. Do you have any rooms available?”

* * *

Mina continued to smile at him. Her eyes roamed over his face. The cut on his forehead was healing nicely. He was freshly shaven. In jeans, a light jacket and a polo shirt underneath, he looked fit and healthy, vibrantly alive. The way he was looking at her made her blush, and she hadn’t done that in a long time. Before she knew it she’d be giggling like an airhead, and she couldn’t have that. It was undignified.

Besides, she shouldn’t let herself get carried away. Even if she was wrong about his being a drug dealer, he could be a very handsome nutcase. Someone who’d fixated on her because she’d come to his rescue.

What was it he’d asked? Oh, yeah, were there any rooms available? Her heart thudded agitatedly. “We’re booked up,” she told him apologetically. If there was one guest in the whole world she didn’t want to turn away, it was this man. Then she remembered something. “But there’s a cabin left. I’m afraid it costs a bit more than a room.”

“I’ll take it,” Jake said without hesitation.

Mina beamed at him. “All right, follow me.” She looked down. “No luggage?”

“Still in the car,” Jake said. “I’ll get it later.”

Mina stepped off the porch and Jake followed. The morning air was cool on her skin. The sky was a pale blue with a few cumulus clouds. The pungent scent of the surrounding pine forest was in the air, which, to Mina, made this day a sensual treat.

“I never did get your last name,” she said to Jake as they walked toward the cabin, which sat about fifty yards from the lodge.

“It’s Wolfe,” said Jake. “And yours?”

“Gaines,” Mina answered.

Their eyes met briefly, and Mina looked away. “Where are you from, Jake Wolfe?”

“Originally Crystal River, Florida,” Jake said. “But my family moved to the Bronx, New York, when I was seven, so I consider that home, now.”

“New York,” said Mina, delighted she’d been right about his accent. “When we met, I thought you sounded like you were from there. I met quite a few people from New York when I was serving.”

Jake nodded. “I imagine you’ve met people from all over the world.”

“That’s true,” said Mina pleasantly. But she didn’t want to talk about the military, so she quickly asked him another question. “You must travel a lot, too?”

Jake smiled. “A little too much for my taste,” he said. “My dream is to someday own a small farm with pigs and chickens and maybe a cow or two. To sit on the porch with my wife and bounce the grandkids on my knee.”

Mina laughed. “You’re much too young to be entertaining thoughts like that. And what does a man from the Bronx know about farm animals?”

“My grandparents owned a farm in Crystal River. I would go there every summer. Those were the happiest times of my childhood.”

“Well, we don’t have any cows, but we do have horses. I can take you on a trail ride, if you like.”

“I like,” he said with keen interest.

Mina shook her head. “You are an enigma, Jake Wolfe. I would never have taken you for a farm boy.”

“Tell me more about you,” Jake urged. “I’ve been wondering why you left the army. You’re so young to have made captain. You must have been on the fast track.”

“I’ll tell you someday, if you stick around long enough,” Mina promised, “but not today.”

They arrived at the cabin, and Mina bent to retrieve a key that was hidden beneath a potted plant on the porch. She saw Jake watching her with a surprised expression. “Crime is practically nonexistent around here. But we do suggest you keep the key with you at all times.”

She unlocked the door, and they stepped inside. Jake expected something rustic. Instead the cabin’s pine floors gleamed. The furnishings were modern and the decor tastefully done. “You have a full kitchen,” Mina said as she showed him around. “And a full bath.”

The inside air was fresh and clean. There was a flat-screen TV in the living room and a phone on the desk by the window.

“There’s Wi-Fi,” she told him. “And we also have laundry service. Just phone the front desk, and someone will come get your laundry and deliver it when it’s done. No room service. But we do have a dining room, and we serve breakfast, lunch and dinner.” She pointed to the desk and said, “A list of our amenities is on the desk, along with a TV guide and how to access our Wi-Fi. Oh, we also have a lounge, nothing special, just a place where you can kick back, have a drink and listen to the jukebox.”

Jake stood still and watched her as she walked around the cabin pointing things out. He wondered if he made her nervous, or if all that pent-up energy he sensed coming off her was normal for her. “Mina,” he said softly, “I want you to know I’m not a stalker or anything.”

She looked startled for a second, but quickly replaced that expression with a slow smile. Her dark-brown eyes met his. “I’m not going to lie and say the possibility hadn’t crossed my mind,” she stated honestly. “You’re still a mystery to me. But, rest assured, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.” She cocked her head, continuing to smile at him. “Okay, you’re not a stalker. What are you?”

“I’m a man who’s very interested in getting to know you better,” Jake said. “I like you, Mina Gaines.”

“That might be because I pulled you out of a downed plane,” she said with a grin.

“It might be,” he admitted. “Then again, it might not.” He crossed the room to her. As he got closer to her, Mina’s body responded to his nearness. She felt a magnetic pull toward him. Even though she still hadn’t fully tossed out the idea that he was a criminal.

He reached up and gently touched her cheek. “I’m here because when we were in the mountains, I looked into your eyes and I recognized a kindred spirit. We’re both lonely, aren’t we, Mina?”

Mina grasped the hand that touched her cheek and squeezed it. Her emotions were so intense at that moment, her heart so full, that she didn’t dare speak for fear something ridiculously sentimental would come out. How could he know how alone she felt without Keith? How desperately she wished she could go back three years in the past and change the outcome of that momentous day that had ended with him gone forever.

No, she couldn’t say any of that to a man she’d known barely seventy-two hours. A man she was physically attracted to—but she wasn’t yet sure what kind of man he was.

So she smiled at him and said, “I’d better get back to work.”

She let his hand drop and made for the door. “You can come to the front desk and sign in at your leisure,” she said in parting.

“All right, I’ll do that,” he said, smiling.

Mina felt his eyes on her as she left, but she didn’t turn back around. That would have encouraged him further.

* * *

Mina was kept busy around the lodge the rest of the day. She did a little bit of everything, filling in when an employee failed to show up for work, doing minor repair jobs, even helping out in the kitchen.

She glimpsed Jake a couple of times during the course of the day. Once she spotted May Crowe, the young Cherokee woman who worked at the front desk, flirting outrageously with him. Jake had looked up and seen Mina, and given her a friendly wave as she passed through the lobby with a cart full of clean linen.

She’d seen him once more, in the dining room when she was helping to serve the meals. He was eating alone with his laptop open on the table. Many of the guests were either texting, talking on their cell phones or, like Jake, working on their computers while enjoying a meal.

Mina sighed as she headed back to the kitchen after serving a couple from Charleston, South Carolina, who were celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary. Everyone was in their own world.

* * *

Jake surreptitiously watched Mina out of the corner of his eye. He wondered what he’d said to make her run away from him this morning. Admitted that he was lonely and he’d recognized the same thing in her? Had he been too presumptuous?

He’d enjoyed the sirloin steak, baked potato and garden vegetables, and now he was checking his emails. He would much rather be somewhere with Ms. Gaines. In his profession it was sometimes hard to maintain personal relationships. He could be on assignment for months, during which he would not be in contact with a significant other. Not many women would put up with that kind of life.

He had been lucky once. Her name was Jamesa, but everybody called her Jami. They were married fresh out of college. She was a brilliant attorney, and it was his intention to work his way up to Special Agent in Charge in the DEA. They wanted children but agreed to wait five years before starting a family. He regretted that decision today, because they never made it to their fifth anniversary. Jami was killed in a car accident in their fourth year. It was Christmastime, and she was driving up to New York to be with her family. He was going to join her later. The police report said she was driving across the Brooklyn Bridge when she had to brake suddenly, hit an ice patch and spun out of control.

After Jami’s death, Jake’s only salvation had been work. He’d asked for the toughest assignments. He’d gotten his first undercover operation and helped bring down a Colombian drug lord. The Betts case was his second time undercover. But now, after more than five years without Jami, he was seriously craving a real life again. He wanted to be in love and go home to the same woman every night. He wanted the happiness that adoring someone more than life itself brought. Was he lonely? Damn right, he was lonely as hell.

That night he sat on the porch of the cabin where he was staying and looked up at the night sky. Out here, where there were no streetlights, it seemed the sky was somehow bigger than in the city. Tonight the velvety black canopy was graced by a huge yellow moon. Next to its illumination the stars faded into the background. The temperature had dropped a good ten degrees since sundown, and he felt the bite but was too transfixed by the sky to worry about a jacket.

“Had a nice day?” Mina asked as she strolled up. Earlier he’d seen her going into a cabin that sat several yards behind his and figured she must live there.

“One of the best days I’ve had in a long time,” he told her truthfully. He rose and offered her his hand as she climbed the steps to the porch.

His nostrils flared at the feminine scent of her skin. She smelled freshly showered, and a faint, clean flowery aroma wafted from her. This was also the first time he’d ever seen her in a dress. She had killer legs.

After she was seated in the chair beside his, she took a deep breath and said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said about both of us being lonely, and I think I ought to tell you, just so you’ll know—yes, I’m lonely. But it’s because I’m mourning someone. I was engaged to him when he was killed in action three years ago. Since then I haven’t dated anyone and, frankly, I think I’ve forgotten how the process works.”

For a moment or two, Jake was too stunned that she would open up to him like this to say anything. His heart went out to her. He felt her pain because he’d been exactly where she was. In some ways, he was still there. He didn’t think he would ever stop mourning the loss of Jami. But after five years he had learned to compartmentalize. Jami resided in a corner of his heart reserved only for her. And getting on with day-to-day living took precedence, because it was how he survived. He knew Jami wouldn’t want him to fall apart because she was gone. She would want him to get as much out of life as he possibly could.

He reached out and grasped Mina’s hand in his. “I know we’ve just met, Mina, but the dramatic way we met makes me feel as if we’re already friends. Do you know what I mean?”

Mina smiled at him. “As if we’ve gotten the preliminaries out of the way,” she said softly.

Jake was nodding his agreement. “Yes, so maybe you would feel comfortable enough to tell me about the man you loved.”

* * *

Mina took a deep breath and exhaled, then for the next twenty minutes she told him all about Keith and how they had complemented each other. She could be a hothead. He was a thinker, so cool, calm and collected that his attitude had rubbed off on her, making her a better soldier and a better person.

“You said I must have been on the fast track to have made captain so young,” she said softly. “You were right. My dad’s an ex-army general, and my goal was to become a general someday.

“But after Keith died I lost my ambition. And when your ambition’s gone, what’s the point? I felt as though I was just going through the motions. So I didn’t reenlist when my time was up.”

“How’d you end up here?” Jake asked.

She told him how she’d spent some time back home in Raleigh with her parents and her sisters. She had four sisters. One of them was presently working in Africa. All of them were accomplished women with great careers. She was the odd one out, with no real direction. Her grandfather had suggested she come up here and give running the lodge a try. He had no one to leave the place to when he died, and she had no immediate plans for the future.

“I gave it a try and I liked it,” Mina said now with a note of humor in her voice. “I’ve always been an active person, and this life suits me.”

Jake inhaled and exhaled. The clean mountain air was invigorating. “I can see what you mean. This is the life.”

Mina laughed softly. “I’m glad you like it. You know you could be in a luxurious suite at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort. They have over eleven hundred rooms, plus a casino and a world-class entertainment center where top country music artists perform every weekend...”

Jake leaned over and kissed her in midsentence. He let her lead him, waiting for permission to deepen the kiss. He would have been satisfied with just the taste of her lips on his tongue. After a moment, Mina sighed softly and gave herself to him. Her hand came up to caress his cheek and she leaned into him. Jake marveled at how sweet she tasted and how well the two of them anticipated each other’s needs. It was a gentle kiss. It was a kiss to seal what they each knew was happening between them, a meeting of kindred souls.

When they came up for air, she heard Jake say, “Thank you for trusting me enough to confide in me. Now, let me tell you about my wife.”

Mina went from mellow to ballistic in an instant. His wife?

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.