Two fan-favorite tales of romance and suspense from New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

A Game of Chance

On the trail of a vicious criminal, agent Chance Mackenzie finds the perfect bait for his trap: the target’s daughter, Sunny Miller. Chance makes himself the only man she can trust, and then arranges for her elusive father to find out about them. But Chance doesn’t know that Sunny has her own reasons for hiding from her father. His deception puts them in danger of losing everything—including their hearts.

Loving Evangeline

There’s no doubt that the woman calling herself Evie Shaw is the key to the high-tech conspiracy that’s threatening Robert Cannon’s computer company—and he means to take her down personally. But trailing her into the heart of a long, hot Southern summer, he finds himself questioning everything he thought he knew. Can she really be innocent? Or are Robert’s feelings clouding his judgment when it comes to the woman who has to be guilty as sin?

Praise for New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

“Linda Howard writes with power, stunning sensuality and a storytelling ability unmatched in romance drama. Every book is a treasure for the reader to savor again and again.”

—New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen

“You can’t read just one Linda Howard!”

—New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter

“Already a legend in her own time, Linda Howard exemplifies the very best of the romance genre. Her strong characterizations and powerful insight into the human heart have made her an author cherished by readers everywhere.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Linda Howard knows what readers want.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“This master storyteller takes our breath away.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Linda Howard is an extraordinary talent whose unforgettable novels are richly flavored with scintillating sensuality and high-voltage suspense.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Ms. Howard can wring so much emotion and tension out of her characters that no matter how satisfied you are when you finish a book, you still want more.”

—Rendezvous

Jeopardy

A Game of Chance

Loving Evangeline

Linda Howard

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

A Game of Chance

Dedication

The Beginning

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

Epilogue

Loving Evangeline

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

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

A Game of Chance

Linda Howard

For the readers

The Beginning

COMING BACK TO WYOMING—coming home—always evoked in Chance Mackenzie such an intense mixture of emotions that he could never decide which was strongest, the pleasure or the acute discomfort. He was, by nature and nurture—not that there had been any nurturing in the first fourteen or so years of his life—a man who was more comfortable alone. If he was alone, then he could operate without having to worry about anyone but himself, and, conversely, there was no one to make him uncomfortable with concern about his own well-being. The type of work he had chosen only reinforced his own inclinations, because covert operations and anti-terrorist activities predicated he be both secretive and wary, trusting no one, letting no one close to him.

And yet... And yet, there was his family. Sprawling, brawling, ferociously overachieving, refusing to let him withdraw, not that he was at all certain he could even if they would allow it. It was always jolting, alarming, to step back into that all-enveloping embrace, to be teased and questioned—teased, him, whom some of the most deadly people on earth justifiably feared—hugged and kissed, fussed over and yelled at and...loved, just as if he were like everyone else. He knew he wasn’t; the knowledge was always there, in the back of his mind, that he was not like them. But he was drawn back, again and again, by something deep inside hungering for the very things that so alarmed him. Love was scary; he had learned early and hard how little he could depend on anyone but himself.

The fact that he had survived at all was a testament to his toughness and intelligence. He didn’t know how old he was, or where he had been born, what he was named as a child, or if he even had a name—nothing. He had no memory of a mother, a father, anyone who had taken care of him. A lot of people simply didn’t remember their childhoods, but Chance couldn’t comfort himself with that possibility, that there had been someone who had loved him and taken care of him, because he remembered too damn many other details.

He remembered stealing food when he was so small he had to stand on tiptoe to reach apples in a bin in a small-town supermarket. He had been around so many kids now that, by comparing what he remembered to the sizes they were at certain ages, he could estimate he had been no more than three years old at the time, perhaps not even that.

He remembered sleeping in ditches when it was warm, hiding in barns, stores, sheds, whatever was handy, when it was cold or raining. He remembered stealing clothes to wear, sometimes by the simple means of catching a boy playing alone in a yard, overpowering him and taking the clothes off his back. Chance had always been much stronger physically than other boys his size, because of the sheer physical difficulty of staying alive—and he had known how to fight, for the same reason.

He remembered a dog taking up with him once, a black-and-white mutt that tagged along and curled up next to him to sleep, and Chance remembered being grateful for the warmth. He also remembered that when he reached for a piece of steak he had stolen from the scraps in back of a restaurant, the dog bit him and stole the steak. Chance still had two scars on his left hand from the dog’s teeth. The dog had gotten the meat, and Chance had gone one more day without food. He didn’t blame the dog; it had been hungry, too. But Chance ran it off after that, because stealing enough food to keep himself alive was difficult enough, without having to steal for the dog, too. Besides, he had learned that when it came to survival, it was every dog for himself.

He might have been five years old when he learned that particular lesson, but he had learned it well.

Of course, learning how to survive in both rural and urban areas, in all conditions, was what made him so good at his job now, so he supposed his early childhood had its benefits. Even considering that, though, he wouldn’t wish his childhood on a dog, not even the damn mutt that had bitten him.

His real life had begun the day Mary Mackenzie found him lying beside a road, deathly ill with a severe case of flu that had turned into pneumonia. He didn’t remember much of the next few days—he had been too ill—but he had known he was in a hospital, and he had been wild with fear, because that meant he had fallen into the hands of the system, and he was now, in effect, a prisoner. He was obviously a minor, without identification, and the circumstances would warrant the child welfare services being notified. He had spent his entire life avoiding just such an event, and he had tried to make plans to escape, but his thoughts were vague, hard to get ordered, and his body was too weak to respond to his demands.

But through it all he could remember being soothed by an angel with soft blue-gray eyes and light, silvery brown hair, cool hands and a loving voice. There had also been a big, dark man, a half-breed, who calmly and repeatedly addressed his deepest fear. “We won’t let them take you,” the big man had said whenever Chance briefly surfaced from his fever-induced stupor.

He didn’t trust them, didn’t believe the big half-breed’s reassurances. Chance had figured out that he himself was part American Indian, but big deal, that didn’t mean he could trust these people any more than he could trust that damn thieving, ungrateful mutt. But he was too sick, too weak, to escape or even struggle, and while he was so helpless Mary Mackenzie had somehow hog-tied him with devotion, and he had never managed to break free.

He hated being touched; if someone was close enough to touch him, then they were close enough to attack him. He couldn’t fight off the nurses and doctors who poked and prodded and moved him around as if he were nothing more than a mindless piece of meat. He had endured it, gritting his teeth, struggling with both his own panic and the almost overpowering urge to fight, because he knew if he fought them he would be restrained. He had to stay free, so he could run when he recovered enough to move under his own power.

But she had been there for what seemed like the entire time, though logically he knew she had to have left the hospital sometimes. When he burned with fever, she washed his face with a cold cloth and fed him slivers of ice. She brushed his hair, stroked his forehead when his head ached so bad he thought his skull would crack; and took over bathing him when she saw how alarmed he became when the nurses did it. Somehow he could bear it better when she bathed him, though even in his illness he had been puzzled by his own reaction.

She touched him constantly, anticipating his needs so that his pillows were fluffed before he was aware of any discomfort, the heat adjusted before he became too hot or too cold, his legs and back massaged when the fever made him ache from head to toe. He was swamped by maternal fussing, enveloped by it. It terrified him, but Mary took advantage of his weakened state and ruthlessly overwhelmed him with her mothering, as if she were determined to pack enough loving care into those few days to make up for a lifetime of nothing.

Sometime during those fever-fogged days, he began to like the feel of her cool hand on his forehead, to listen for that sweet voice even when he couldn’t drag his heavy eyelids open, and the sound of it reassured him on some deep, primitive level. Once he dreamed, he didn’t know what, but he woke in a panic to find her arms around him, his head pillowed on her narrow shoulder as if he were a baby, her hand gently stroking his hair while she murmured reassuringly to him—and he drifted back to sleep feeling comforted and somehow...safe.

He was always startled, even now, by how small she was. Someone so relentlessly iron-willed should have been seven feet tall and weighed three hundred pounds; at least then it would have made sense that she could bulldoze the hospital staff, even the doctors, into doing what she wanted. She had estimated his age at fourteen, but even then he was over a full head taller than the dainty woman who took over his life, but in this case size didn’t matter; he was as helpless against her as was the hospital staff.

There was nothing at all he could do to fight off his growing addiction to Mary Mackenzie’s mothering, even though he knew he was developing a weakness, a vulnerability, that terrified him. He had never before cared for anyone or anything, instinctively knowing that to do so would expose his emotional underbelly. But knowledge and wariness couldn’t protect him now; by the time he was well enough to leave the hospital, he loved the woman who had decided she was going to be his mother, loved her with all the blind helplessness of a small child.

When he left the hospital it had been with Mary and the big man, Wolf. Because he couldn’t bear to leave her just yet, he braced himself to endure her family. Just for a little while, he had promised himself, just until he was stronger.

They had taken him to Mackenzie’s Mountain, into their home, their arms, their hearts. A nameless boy had died that day beside the road, and Chance Mackenzie had been born in his place. When Chance had chosen a birthday—at his new sister Maris’s insistence—he chose the day Mary found him, rather than the perhaps more logical date that his adoption was final.

He had never had anything, but after that day he had been flooded with...everything. He had always been hungry, but now there was food. He had been starved, too, for learning, and now there were books everywhere, because Mary was a teacher down to her fragile bones, and she had force-fed him knowledge as fast as he could gulp it down. He was accustomed to bedding down wherever and whenever he could, but now he had his own room, his own bed, a routine. He had clothes, new ones, bought specifically for him. No one else had ever worn them, and he hadn’t had to steal them.

But most of all, he had always been alone, and abruptly he was surrounded by family. Now he had a mother and a father, four brothers, a little sister, a sister-in-law, an infant nephew, and all of them treated him as if he had been there from the beginning. He could still barely tolerate being touched, but the Mackenzie family touched a lot. Mary—Mom—was constantly hugging him, tousling his hair, kissing him good-night, fussing over him. Maris, his new sister, pestered the living hell out of him just the way she did her other brothers, then would throw her skinny arms around his waist and fiercely hug him, saying, “I’m so glad you’re ours!”

He was always taken aback on those occasions, and would dart a wary glance at Wolf, the big man who was the head of the Mackenzie pack and who was now Chance’s dad, too. What did he think, seeing his innocent little daughter hug someone like Chance? Wolf Mackenzie was no innocent; if he didn’t know exactly what experiences had molded Chance, he still recognized the dangerous vein in the half-wild boy. Chance always wondered if those knowing eyes could see clear through him, see the blood on his hands, find in his mind the memory of the man he had killed when he was about ten.

Yes, the big half-breed had known very well the type of wild animal he had taken into his family and called son, had known and, like Mary, had loved him, anyway.

His early years had taught Chance how risky life was, taught him not to trust anyone, taught him that love would only make him vulnerable and that vulnerability could cost him his life. He had known all that, and still he hadn’t been able to stop himself from loving the Mackenzies. It never stopped scaring him, this weakness in his armor, and yet when he was in the family bosom was the only time he was completely relaxed, because he knew he was safe with them. He couldn’t stay away, couldn’t distance himself now that he was a man who was more than capable of taking care of himself, because their love for him, and his for them, fed his soul.

He had stopped even trying to limit their access to his heart and instead turned his considerable talents to doing everything he could to make their world, their lives, as safe as possible. They kept making it tougher for him; the Mackenzies constantly assaulted him with expansions: his brothers married, giving him sisters-in-law to love, because his brothers loved them and they were part of the family now. Then there were the babies. When he first came into the family there was only John, Joe and Caroline’s first son, newly born. But nephew had followed nephew, and somehow Chance, along with everyone else in the Mackenzie family, found himself rocking infants, changing diapers, holding bottles, letting a dimpled little hand clutch one of his fingers while tottering first steps were made...and each one of those dimpled hands had clutched his heart, too. He had no defense against them. There were twelve nephews now, and one niece against whom he was particularly helpless, much to everyone else’s amusement.

Going home was always nerve-racking, and yet he yearned for his family. He was afraid for them, afraid for himself, because he didn’t know if he could live now without the warmth the Mackenzies folded about him. His mind told him he would be better off if he gradually severed the ties and isolated himself from both the pleasure and the potential for pain, but his heart always led him home again.

Chapter One

CHANCE LOVED MOTORCYCLES. The big beast between his legs throbbed with power as he roared along the narrow winding road, the wind in his hair, leaning his body into the curves with the beast so they were one, animal and machine. No other motorcycle in the world sounded like a Harley, with that deep, coughing rumble that vibrated through his entire body. Riding a motorcycle always gave him a hard-on, and his own visceral reaction to the speed and power never failed to amuse him.

Danger was sexy. Every warrior knew it, though it wasn’t something people were going to read about in their Sunday newspaper magazines. His brother Josh freely admitted that landing a fighter on a carrier deck had always turned him on. “It falls just short of orgasm,” was the way Josh put it. Joe, who could fly any jet built, refrained from commenting but always smiled a slow, knowing smile.

As for both Zane and himself, Chance knew there were times when each had emerged from certain tense situations, usually involving bullets, wanting nothing more than to have a woman beneath him. Chance’s sexual need was ferocious at those times; his body was flooded with adrenaline and testosterone, he was alive, and he desperately needed a woman’s soft body in which he could bury himself and release all the tension. Unfortunately, that need always had to wait: wait until he was in a secure position, maybe even in a different country entirely; wait until there was an available, willing woman at hand; and, most of all, wait until he had settled down enough that he could be relatively civilized in the sack.

But for now, there was only the Harley and himself, the rush of sweet mountain air on his face and the inner mixture of joy and fear of going home. If Mom saw him riding the Harley without a helmet she would tear a strip off his hide, which was why he had the helmet with him, securely fastened behind the seat. He would put it on before sedately riding up the mountain to visit them. Dad wouldn’t be fooled, but neither would he say anything, because Wolf Mackenzie knew what it was to fly high and wild.

He crested a ridge, and Zane’s house came into view in the broad valley below. The house was large, with five bedrooms and four baths, but not ostentatious; Zane had instinctively built the house so it wouldn’t attract undue attention. It didn’t look as large as it was, because some of the rooms were underground. He had also built it to be as secure as possible, positioning it so he had an unrestricted view in all directions, but using natural formations of the land to block land access by all but the one road. The doors were steel, with state-of-the-art locks; the windows were shatterproof, and had cost a small fortune. Strategic walls had interior armor, and an emergency generator was installed in the basement. The basement also concealed another means of escape, if escape became necessary. Motion sensors were installed around the house, and as Chance wheeled the motorcycle into the driveway, he knew his arrival had already been signaled.

Zane didn’t keep his family locked in a prison, but the security provisions were there if needed. Given their jobs, prudence demanded caution, and Zane had always prepared for emergencies, always had a backup plan.

Chance cut off the motor and sat for a minute, letting his senses return to normal while he ran a hand through his windswept hair. Then he kicked the stand down and leaned the Harley onto it, and dismounted much the way he would a horse. Taking a thin file from the storage compartment, he went up on the wide, shady porch.

It was a warm summer day, mid-August, and the sky was a cloudless clear blue. Horses grazed contentedly in the pasture, though a few of the more curious had come to the fence to watch with huge, liquid dark eyes as the noisy machine roared into the driveway. Bees buzzed around Barrie’s flowers, and birds sang continuously in the trees. Wyoming. Home. It wasn’t far away, Mackenzie’s Mountain, with the sprawling house on the mountaintop where he had been given...life and everything else in this world that was important to him.

“The door’s open.” Zane’s low, calm voice issued from the intercom beside the door. “I’m in the office.”

Chance opened the door and went inside, his booted feet silent as he walked down the hall to Zane’s office. With small clicks, the door locks automatically engaged behind him. The house was quiet, meaning Barrie and the kids weren’t at home; if Nick was anywhere in the house she would have run squealing to him, hurling herself into his arms, chattering nonstop in her mangled English while holding his face clasped between both her little hands, making certain his attention didn’t wander from her—as if he would dare look away. Nick was like a tiny package of unstable explosives; it was best to keep a weather eye on her.

The door to Zane’s office was unexpectedly closed. Chance paused a moment, then opened it without knocking.

Zane was behind the desk, computer on, windows open to the warm, fresh air. He gave his brother one of his rare, warm smiles. “Watch where you step,” he advised. “Munchkins on deck.”

Automatically Chance looked down, checking out the floor, but he didn’t see either of the twins. “Where?”

Zane leaned back in his chair a little, looking around for his offspring. Spotting them, he said, “Under the desk. When they heard me let you in, they hid.”

Chance raised his eyebrows. To his knowledge, the ten-month-old twins weren’t in the habit of hiding from anyone or anything. He looked more carefully and saw four plump, dimpled baby hands peeping from under the cover of Zane’s desk. “They aren’t very good at it,” he observed. “I can see their hands.”

“Give them a break, they’re new at this stuff. They’ve only started doing it this week. They’re playing Attack.”

“Attack?” Fighting the urge to laugh, Chance said, “What am I supposed to do?”

“Just stand there. They’ll burst from cover as fast as they can crawl and grab you by the ankles.”

“Any biting involved?”

“Not yet.”

“Okay. What are they going to do with me once they have me captured?”

“They haven’t gotten to that part yet. For now, they just pull themselves up and stand there giggling.” Zane scratched his jaw, considering. “Maybe they’ll sit on your feet to hold you down, but for the most part they like standing too much to settle for sitting.”

The attack erupted. Even with Zane’s warning, Chance was a little surprised. They were remarkably quiet, for babies. He had to admire their precision; they launched themselves from under the desk at a rapid crawl, plump little legs pumping, and with identical triumphant crows attached themselves to his ankles. Dimpled hands clutched his jeans. The one on the left plopped down on his foot for a second, then thought better of the tactic and twisted around to begin hauling himself to an upright position. Baby arms wrapped around his knees, and the two little conquerors squealed with delight, their bubbling chuckles eliciting laughter from both men.

“Cool,” Chance said admiringly. “Predator babies.” He tossed the file onto Zane’s desk and leaned down to scoop the little warriors into his arms, settling each diapered bottom on a muscular forearm. Cameron and Zack grinned at him, six tiny white baby teeth shining in each identical dimpled face, and immediately they began patting his face with their fat little hands, pulling his ears, delving into his shirt pockets. It was like being attacked by two squirming, remarkably heavy marshmallows.

“Good God,” he said in astonishment. “They weigh a ton.” He hadn’t expected them to have grown so much in the two months since he had seen them.

“They’re almost as big as Nick. She still outweighs them, but I swear they feel heavier.” The twins were sturdy and strongly built, the little boys already showing the size of the Mackenzie males, while Nick was as dainty as her grandmother Mary.

“Where are Barrie and Nick?” Chance asked, missing his pretty sister-in-law and exuberant, cheerfully diabolic niece.

“We had a shoe crisis. Don’t ask.”

“How do you have a shoe crisis?” Chance asked, unable to resist. He sat down in a big, comfortable chair across from Zane’s desk, setting the babies more comfortably in his lap. They lost interest in pulling his ears and began babbling to each other, reaching out, entwining their arms and legs as if they sought the closeness they had known while forming in the womb. Chance unconsciously stroked them, enjoying the softness of their skin, the feel of squirming babies in his arms. All the Mackenzie babies grew up accustomed to being constantly, lovingly touched by the entire extended family.

Zane laced his hands behind his head, his big, powerful body relaxed. “First you have a three-year-old who loves her shiny, black, patent leather Sunday shoes. Then you make the severe tactical error of letting her watch The Wizard of Oz.” His stern mouth twitched, and his pale eyes glittered with amusement.

Chance’s agile mind immediately made the connection, and his acquaintance with the three-year-old in question allowed him to make a logical assumption: Nick had decided she had to have a pair of red shoes. “What did she use to try to dye them?”

Zane sighed. “Lipstick, what else?” Each and every young Mackenzie had had an incident with lipstick. It was a family tradition, one John had started when, at the age of two, he had used his mother’s favorite lipstick to recolor the impressive rows of fruit salad on Joe’s dress uniform. Caroline had been impressively outraged, because the shade had been discontinued and finding a new tube had been much more difficult than replacing the small colored bars that represented medals Joe had earned and services he had performed.

“You couldn’t just wipe it off?” The twins had discovered his belt buckle and zipper, and Chance moved the busy little hands that were trying to undress him. They began squirming to get down, and he leaned over to set them on the floor.

“Close the door,” Zane instructed, “or they’ll escape.”

Leaning back, Chance stretched out a long arm and closed the door, just in time. The two diaper-clad escape artists had almost reached it. Deprived of freedom, they plopped down on their padded bottoms and considered the situation, then launched themselves in crawling patrol of the perimeters of the room.

“I could have wiped it off,” Zane continued, his tone bland, “if I had known about it. Unfortunately, Nick cleaned the shoes herself. She put them in the dishwasher.”

Chance threw back his head with a shout of laughter.

“Barrie bought her a new pair of shoes yesterday. Well, you know how Nick’s always been so definite about what she wants to wear. She took one look at the shoes, said they were ugly, even though they were just like the ones she ruined, and refused to even try them on.”

“To be accurate,” Chance corrected, “what she said was that they were ‘ugwy.’”

Zane conceded the point. “She’s getting better with her Ls, though. She practices, saying the really important words, like lollipop, over and over to herself.”

“Can she say ‘Chance’ yet, instead of ‘Dance’?” Chance asked, because Nick stubbornly refused to even acknowledge she couldn’t say his name. She insisted everyone else was saying it wrong.

Zane’s expression was totally deadpan. “Not a chance.”

Chance groaned at the pun, wishing he hadn’t asked. “I gather Barrie has taken my little darling shopping, so she can pick out her own shoes.”

“Exactly.” Zane glanced over to check on his roaming offspring. As if they had been waiting for his parental notice, first Cam and then Zack plopped down on their butts and gave brief warning cries, all the while watching their father expectantly.

“Feeding time,” Zane said, swiveling his chair around so he could fetch two bottles from a small cooler behind the desk. He handed one to Chance. “Grab a kid.”

“You’re prepared, as always,” Chance commented as he went over to the twins and leaned down to lift one in his arms. Holding the baby up, he peered briefly at the scowling little face to make sure he had the one he thought he had. It was Zack, all right. Chance couldn’t say exactly how he knew which twin was which, how anyone in the family knew, because the babies were so identical their pediatrician had suggested putting ID anklets on them. But they each had such definite personalities, which were reflected in their expressions, that no one in the family ever confused one twin for the other.

“I have to be prepared. Barrie weaned them last month, and they don’t take kindly to having to wait for dinner.”

Zack’s round blue eyes were fiercely focused on the bottle in Chance’s hand. “Why did she wean them so early?” Chance asked as he resumed his seat and settled the baby in the crook of his left arm. “She nursed Nick until she was a year old.”

“You’ll see,” Zane said dryly, settling Cam on his lap.

As soon as Chance brought the bottle within reach of Zack’s fat little hands the baby made a grab for it, guiding it to his rapacious, open mouth. He clamped down ferociously on the nipple. Evidently deciding to let his uncle hold the bottle, he nevertheless made certain the situation was stabilized by clutching Chance’s wrist with both hands, and wrapping both chubby legs around Chance’s forearm. Then he began to growl as he sucked, pausing only to swallow.

An identical growling noise came from Zane’s lap. Chance looked over to see his brother’s arm captured in the same manner as the two little savages held on to their meals.

Milk bubbled around Zack’s rosebud mouth, and Chance blinked as six tiny white teeth gnawed on the plastic nipple.

“Hell, no wonder she weaned you!”

Zack didn’t pause in his gnawing, sucking and growling, but he did flick an absurdly arrogant glance at his uncle before returning his full attention to filling his little belly.

Zane was laughing softly, and he lifted Cam enough that he could nuzzle one of the chubby legs so determinedly wrapped around his arm. Cam paused to scowl at the interruption, then changed his mind and instead favored his father with a dimpled, milky smile. The next second the smile was gone and he attacked the bottle again.

Zack’s fuzzy black hair was as soft as silk against Chance’s arm. Babies were a pure tactile pleasure, he thought, though he hadn’t been of that opinion the first time he’d held one. The baby in question had been John, screaming his head off from the misery of teething.

Chance hadn’t been with the Mackenzies long, only a few months, and he had still been extremely wary of all these people. He had managed—barely—to control his instinct to attack whenever someone touched him, but he still jumped like a startled wild animal. Joe and Caroline came to visit, and from the expressions on their faces when they entered the house, it had been a very long trip. Even Joe, normally so controlled and unflappable, was frustrated by his futile efforts to calm his son, and Caroline had been completely frazzled by a situation she couldn’t handle with her usual impeccable logic. Her blond hair had been mussed, and her green eyes expressed an amazing mixture of concern and outrage.

As she had walked by Chance, she suddenly wheeled and deposited the screaming baby in his arms. Startled, alarmed, he tried to jerk back, but before he knew it he was in sole possession of the wiggling, howling little human. “Here,” she said with relief and utmost confidence. “You get him calmed down.”

Chance had panicked. It was a wonder he hadn’t dropped the baby. He’d never held one before, and he didn’t know what to do with it. Another part of him was astounded that Caroline would entrust her adored child to him, the mongrel stray Mary—Mom—had brought home with her. Why couldn’t these people see what he was? Why couldn’t they figure out he had lived wild in a kill-or-be-killed world, and that they would be safer if they kept their distance from him?

Instead, no one seemed to think it unusual or alarming that he was holding the baby, even though in his panic he held John almost at arm’s length, clutched between his two strong young hands.

But blessed quiet fell in the house. John was startled out of his screaming. He stared interestedly at this new person and kicked his legs. Automatically Chance changed his grip on the baby, settling him in the cradle of one arm as he had seen the others do. The kid was drooling. A tiny bib was fastened around his neck, and Chance used it to wipe away most of the slobber. John saw this opportunity and grabbed Chance by the thumb, immediately carrying the digit to his mouth and chomping down. Chance had jumped at the force of the hard little gums, with two tiny, sharp teeth already breaking the surface. He grimaced at the pain, but hung in there, letting John use his thumb as a teething ring until Mom rescued him by bringing a cold wet washcloth for the baby to chew.

Chance had expected then to be relieved of baby duty, because Mom usually couldn’t wait to get her hands on her grandson. But that day everyone had seemed content to leave John in his hands, even the kid himself, and after a while Chance calmed down enough to start walking around and pointing out things of interest to his little pal, all of which John obediently studied while gnawing on the relief-giving washcloth.

That had been his indoctrination to the ways of babies, and from that day on he had been a sucker for the parade of nephews his virile brothers and fertile sisters-in-law had produced on a regular basis. He seemed to be getting even worse, because with Zane’s three he was total mush.

“By the way, Maris is pregnant.”

Chance’s head jerked up, and a wide grin lit his tanned face. His baby sister had been married nine whole months and had been fretting because she hadn’t immediately gotten pregnant.

“When is it due?” He always ruthlessly arranged things so he could be home when a new Mackenzie arrived. Technically, this one would be a MacNeil, but that was a minor point.

“March. She says she’ll be crazy before then, because Mac won’t let her out of his sight.”

Chance chuckled. Other than her father and brothers, Mac was the only man Maris had ever met whom she couldn’t intimidate, which was one of the reasons she loved him so much. If Mac had decided he was going to ride herd on Maris during her pregnancy, she had little hope of escaping on one of those long, hard rides she so loved.

Zane nodded toward the file on his desk. “You going to tell me about it?”

Chance knew Zane was asking about more than the contents of the file. He was asking why it hadn’t been transmitted by computer, instead of Chance personally bringing a hard copy. Zane knew his brother’s schedule; he was the only person, other than Chance himself, who did, so he knew Chance was currently supposed to be in France. He was also asking why he hadn’t been notified of Chance’s change in itinerary, why his brother hadn’t made a simple phone call to let him know he was coming.

“I didn’t want to risk even a hint of this leaking out.”

Zane’s eyebrows rose. “We have security problems?”

“Nothing that I know of,” Chance said. “It’s what I don’t know about that worries me. But, like I said, no one else can hear even a whisper of this. It’s between us.”

“Now you’ve made me curious.” Zane’s cool blue eyes gleamed with interest.

“Crispin Hauer has a daughter.”

Zane didn’t straighten from his relaxed position, but his expression hardened. Crispin Hauer had been number one on their target list for years, but the terrorist was as elusive as he was vicious. They had yet to find any way to get close to him, any vulnerability they could exploit or bait they could use to lure him into a trap. There was a record of a marriage in London some thirty-five years ago, but Hauer’s wife, formerly Pamela Vickery, had disappeared, and no trace of her had ever been found. Chance, along with everyone else, had assumed the woman died soon after the marriage, either by Hauer’s hand or by his enemies’.

“Who is she?” Zane asked. “Where is she?”

“Her name is Sonia Miller, and she’s here, in America.”

“I know that name,” Zane said, his gaze sharpening.

Chance nodded. “Specifically, she’s the courier who was supposedly robbed of her package last week in Chicago.”

Zane didn’t miss the “supposedly,” but then, he never missed anything. “You think it was a setup?”

“I think it’s a damn good possibility. I found the link when I checked into her background.”

“Hauer would have known she’d be investigated after losing a package, especially one containing aerospace documents. Why take the risk?”

“He might not have thought we would find anything. She was adopted. Hal and Eleanor Miller are listed as her parents, and they’re clean as a whistle. I wouldn’t have known she was adopted if I hadn’t tried to pull up her birth certificate on the computer. Guess what—Hal and Eleanor never had any children. Little Sonia Miller didn’t have a birth certificate. So I did some digging and found the adoption file—”

Zane’s eyebrows rose. Open adoptions had caused so many problems that the trend had veered sharply back to closed files, which, coupled with electronic privacy laws and safeguards, had made it damn difficult to even locate those closed files, much less get into them. “Did you leave any fingerprints?”

“Nothing that will lead back to us. I went through a couple of relays, then hacked into the Internal Revenue and accessed the file from their system.”

Zane grinned. If anyone did notice the electronic snooping, it likely wouldn’t even be mentioned; no one messed with the tax people.

Zack had finished his bottle; his ferocious grip on it slackened, and his head lolled against Chance’s arm as he briefly struggled against sleep. Automatically Chance lifted the baby to his shoulder and began patting his back. “Ms. Miller has been employed as a courier for a little over five years. She has an apartment in Chicago, but her neighbors say she’s seldom there. I have to think this is a long-term setup, that she’s been working with her father from the beginning.”

Zane nodded. They had to assume the worst, because it was their job to do so. Only by anticipating the worst could they be prepared to handle it.

“Do you have anything in mind?” he asked, taking the bottle from Cam’s slackened grip and gently lifting the sleeping baby to his own shoulder.

“Getting next to her. Getting her to trust me.”

“She’s not going to be the trusting sort.”

“I have a plan,” Chance said, and grinned, because that was usually Zane’s line.

Zane grinned in return, then paused as a small security console in the wall dinged a soft alarm. He glanced at the security monitor. “Brace yourself,” he advised. “Barrie and Nick are home.”

Seconds later the front door opened and a shriek filled the house. “Unca Dance! UncaDanceUncaDanceUncaDance!” The chant was punctuated by the sound of tiny feet running and jumping down the hall as Nick’s celebration of his visit came closer. Chance leaned back in his chair and opened the office door a bare second before Nick barreled through it, her entire little body quivering with joy and eagerness.

She hurled herself at him, and he managed to catch her with his free arm, dragging her onto his lap. She paused to bestow a big-sisterly kiss and a pat on the back of Zack’s head—never mind that he was almost as big as she was—then turned all her fierce attention to Chance.

“Are you staying dis time?” she demanded, even as she lifted her face for him to kiss. He did, nuzzling her soft cheek and neck and making her giggle, inhaling the faint sweet scent of baby that still clung to her.

“Just for a few days,” he said, to her disappointment. She was old enough now to notice his long and frequent absences, and whenever she saw him she tried to convince him to stay.

She scowled; then, being Nick, she decided to move on to more important matters. Her face brightened. “Den can I wide your moborcycle?”

Alarm flared through him. “No,” he said firmly. “You can’t ride it, sit on it, lean on it or put any of your toys on it unless I’m with you.” With Nick, it was best to close all the loopholes. She seldom disobeyed a direct order, but she was a genius at finding cracks to slip through. Another possibility occurred to him. “You can’t put Cam or Zack on it, either.” He doubted she could lift either of them, but he wasn’t taking any risks.

“Thank you,” Barrie said dryly, entering the office in time to catch his addendum. She leaned down to kiss him on the cheek, at the same time lifting Zack from his arms so he could protect himself from Nick’s feet. All the Mackenzie males, at one time or another, had fallen victim to a tiny foot in the crotch.

“Mission accomplished?” Zane asked, leaning back in his chair and smiling at his wife with that lazy look in his pale eyes that said he liked what he was seeing.

“Not without some drama and convincing, but, yes, mission accomplished.” She pushed a feather lock of red hair out of her eyes. As always, she looked stylish, though she was wearing nothing dressier than beige slacks and a white sleeveless blouse that set off her slim, lightly tanned arms. You could take the girl out of the finishing school, Chance thought admiringly, but you could never take the finishing school out of the girl, and Barrie had gone to the most exclusive one in the world.

Nick was still focused on negotiating riding rights on the motorcycle. She caught his face between her hands and leaned down so her nose practically touched his, insuring his complete attention. He nearly laughed aloud at the fierce intent in her expression. “I wet you wide my twicycle,” she said, evidently deciding to cajole instead of demand.

“Somehow I missed that,” Zane murmured in amusement, while Barrie laughed softly.

“You offered to let me ride your tricycle,” Chance corrected. “But I’m too big to ride a tricycle, and you’re too little to ride a motorcycle.”

“Den when can I wide it?” She made her blue eyes wide and winsome.

“When you get your driver’s license.”

That stymied her. She had no idea what a driver’s license was, or how to get it. She stuck a finger in her mouth while she pondered this situation, and Chance tried to divert her interest. “Hey! Aren’t those new shoes you’re wearing?”

Like magic, her face brightened again. She wriggled around so he could hold one foot up so close to his face she almost kicked him in the nose. “Dey’re so pwetty,” she crooned in delight.

He caught the little foot in his big hand, admiring the shine of the black patent leather. “Wow, that’s so shiny I can see my face in it.” He pretended to inspect his teeth, which set her to giggling.

Zane rose to his feet. “We’ll put the boys down for their naps while you have her occupied.”

Keeping Nick occupied wasn’t a problem; she was never at a loss for something to say or do. He curled one silky black strand of her hair around his finger while she chattered about her new shoes, Grampa’s new horses and what Daddy had said when he hit his thumb with a hammer. She cheerfully repeated exactly what Daddy had said, making Chance choke.

“But I’m not ’posed to say dat,” she said, giving him a solemn look. “Dat’s a weally, weally bad word.”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice strained. “It is.”

“I’m not ’posed to say ‘damn,’ or ‘hell,’ or ‘ass,’ or—”

“Then you shouldn’t be saying them now.” He managed to inject a note of firmness in his tone, though it was a struggle to keep from laughing.

She looked perplexed. “Den how can I tell you what dey are?”

“Does Daddy know what the bad words are?”

The little head nodded emphatically. “He knows dem all.”

“I’ll ask him to tell me, so I’ll know which words not to say.”

“Otay.” She sighed. “But don’t hit him too hard.”

“Hit him?”

“Dat’s de only time he says dat word, when he hits his dumb wid de hammer. He said so.”

Chance managed to turn his laugh into a cough. Zane was an ex-SEAL; his language was as salty as the sea he was so at home in, and Chance had heard “dat word,” and worse, many times from his brother. But Mom had also instilled strict courtesy in all her children, so their language was circumspect in front of women and children. Zane must not have known Nick was anywhere near him when he hit his thumb, or no amount of pain could have made him say that in her hearing. Chance only hoped she forgot it before she started kindergarten.

“Aunt Mawis is goin’ to have a baby,” Nick said, scrambling up to stand in his lap, her feet braced on his thighs. Chance put both hands around her to steady her, though his aid probably wasn’t needed; Nick had the balance of an acrobat.

“I know. Your daddy told me.”

Nick scowled at not being the first to impart the news. “She’s goin’ to foal in de spwing,” she announced.

He couldn’t hold back the laughter this time. He gathered the little darling close to him and stood, whirling her around and making her shriek with laughter as she clung to his neck. He laughed until his eyes were wet. God, he loved this child, who in the three short years of her life had taught them all to be on their toes at all times, because there was no telling what she was going to do or say. It took the entire Mackenzie family to ride herd on her.

Suddenly she heaved a sigh. “When’s de spwing? Is it a wong, wong time away?”

“Very long,” he said gravely. Seven months was an eternity to a three-year-old.

“Will I be old?”

He put on a sympathetic face and nodded. “You’ll be four.”

She looked both horrified and resigned. “Four,” she said mournfully. “Whodadunkit?”

When he stopped laughing this time, he wiped his eyes and asked, “Who taught you to say whodathunkit?”

“John,” she said promptly.

“Did he teach you anything else?”

She nodded.

“What? Can you remember it?”

She nodded.

“Will you tell me what they are?”

She rolled her eyes up and studied the ceiling for a moment, then gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Will you wet me wide your moborcycle?”

Damn, she was bargaining! He trembled with fear at the thought of what she would be like when she was sixteen. “No,” he said firmly. “If you got hurt, your mommy and daddy would cry, Grampa and Gamma would cry, I would cry, Aunt Maris would cry, Mac would cry, Unca Mike would cry—”

She looked impressed at this litany of crying and interrupted before he could name everyone in the family. “I can wide a horse, Unca Dance, so why can’t I wide your moborcycle?”

God, she was relentless. Where in the hell were Zane and Barrie? They’d had plenty of time to put the twins down for their naps. If he knew Zane, his brother was taking advantage of having a babysitter for Nick to get in some sexy time with his wife; Zane was always prepared to use a fluid situation to his advantage.

It was another ten minutes before Zane strolled back into the office, his eyes slightly heavy-lidded and his hard face subtly relaxed. Chance scowled at his brother. He’d spent the ten minutes trying to talk Nick into telling him what John had taught her, but she wasn’t budging from her initial negotiation. “It’s about time,” he groused.

“Hey, I hurried,” Zane protested mildly.

“Yeah, right.”

“As much as possible,” he added, smiling. He smoothed his big hand over his daughter’s shining black hair. “Have you kept Uncle Chance entertained?”

She nodded. “I told him de weally, weally bad word you said when you hit your dumb.”

Zane looked pained, then stern. “How did you tell him when you aren’t supposed to say the word?”

She stuck her finger in her mouth and began studying the ceiling again.

“Nick.” Zane plucked her from Chance’s arms. “Did you say the word?”

Her lower lip stuck out a little, but she nodded, owning up to her transgression.

“Then you can’t have a bedtime story tonight. You promised you wouldn’t say it.”

“I’m sowwy,” she said, winding her arms around his neck and laying her head on his shoulder.

Gently he rubbed his hand up and down her back. “I know you are, sweetheart, but you have to keep your promises.” He set her on her feet. “Go find Mommy.”

When she was gone, out of curiosity Chance asked, “Why didn’t you tell her that she couldn’t watch television, instead of taking away the bedtime story?”

“We don’t want to make television attractive by using it as a treat or a privilege. Why? Are you taking notes on being a parent?”

Appalled, Chance said, “Not in this lifetime.”

“Yeah? Fate has a way of jumping up and biting you on the ass when you least expect it.”

“Well, my ass is currently bite-free, and I intend to keep it that way.” He nodded at the file on Zane’s desk. “We have some planning to do.”

Chapter Two

THIS WHOLE ASSIGNMENT was a tribute to Murphy’s Law, Sunny Miller thought in disgust as she sat in the Salt Lake City airport, waiting for her flight to be called—if it were called at all, which she was beginning to doubt. This was her fifth airport of the day, and she was still almost a thousand miles from her destination, which was Seattle. She was supposed to have been on a direct flight from Atlanta to Seattle, but that flight had been canceled due to mechanical problems and the passengers routed on to other flights, none of which were direct.

From Atlanta she had gone to Cincinnati, from Cincinnati to Chicago, from Chicago to Denver and from Denver to Salt Lake City. At least she was moving west instead of backtracking, and the flight from Salt Lake City, assuming it ever started boarding, was supposed to actually land in Seattle.

The way her day had gone, she expected it to crash instead.

She was tired, she had been fed nothing but peanuts all day, and she was afraid to go get anything to eat in case her flight was called and the plane got loaded and in the air in record time, leaving her behind. When Murphy was in control, anything was possible. She made a mental note to find this Murphy guy and punch him in the nose.

Her normal good humor restored by the whimsy, she resettled herself in the plastic seat and took out the paperback book she had been reading. She was tired, she was hungry, but she wasn’t going to let the stress get to her. If there was one thing she was good at, it was making the best of a situation. Some trips were smooth as silk, and some were a pain in the rear; so long as the good and the bad were balanced, she could cope.

Out of ingrained habit, she kept the strap of her soft leather briefcase looped around her neck, held across her body so it couldn’t easily be jerked out of her grasp. Some couriers might handcuff the briefcase or satchel to their wrists, but her company was of the opinion that handcuffs drew unwanted attention; it was better to blend in with the horde of business travelers than to stand out. Handcuffs practically shouted “Important stuff inside!”

After what had happened in Chicago the month before, Sunny was doubly wary and also kept one hand on the briefcase. She had no idea what was in it, but that didn’t matter; her job was to get the contents from point A to point B. When the briefcase had been jerked off her shoulder by a green-haired punk in Chicago last month, she had been both humiliated and furious. She was always careful, but evidently not careful enough, and now she had a big blotch on her record.

On a very basic level, she was alarmed that she had been caught off guard. She had been taught from the cradle to be both prepared and cautious, to be alert to what was going on around her; if a green-haired punk could get the best of her, then she was neither as prepared nor alert as she had thought. When one slip could mean the difference between life and death, there was no room for error.

Just remembering the incident made her uneasy. She returned the book to her carry-on bag, preferring to keep her attention on the people around her.

Her stomach growled. She had food in her carry-on, but that was for emergencies, and this didn’t qualify. She watched the gate, where the two airline reps were patiently answering questions from impatient passengers. From the dissatisfied expressions on the passengers’ faces as they returned to their seats, the news wasn’t good; logically, she should have enough time to find something to eat.

She glanced at her watch: 1:45 p.m., local time. She had to have the contents of the briefcase in Seattle by 9:00 p.m. Pacific time tonight, which should have been a breeze, but the way things were going, she was losing faith the assignment could be completed on time. She hated the idea of calling the office to report another failure, even one that wasn’t her fault. If the airline didn’t get on the ball soon, though, she would have to do something. The customer needed to know if the packet wasn’t going to arrive as scheduled.

If the news on the flight delay hadn’t improved by the time she returned from eating, she would see about transferring to another airline, though she had already considered that option and none of the possibilities looked encouraging; she was in flight-connection hell. If she couldn’t work out something, she would have to make that phone call.

Taking a firm grip on the briefcase with one hand and her carry-on bag with the other, she set off down the concourse in search of food that didn’t come from a vending machine. Arriving passengers were pouring out of a gate to her left, and she moved farther to the right to avoid the crush. The maneuver didn’t work; someone jostled her left shoulder, and she instinctively looked around to see who it was.

No one was there. A split-second reaction, honed by years of looking over her shoulder, saved her. She automatically tightened her grip on the briefcase just as she felt a tug on the strap, and the leather fell limply from her shoulder.

Damn it, not again!

She ducked and spun, swinging her heavy carry-on bag at her assailant. She caught a glimpse of feral dark eyes and a mean, unshaven face; then her attention locked on his hands. The knife he had used to slice the briefcase strap was in one hand, and he already had his other hand on the briefcase, trying to jerk it away from her. The carry-on bag hit him on the shoulder, staggering him, but he didn’t release his grip.

Sunny didn’t even think of screaming, or of being scared; she was too angry for either reaction, and both would have splintered her concentration. Instead, she wound up for another swing, aiming the bag for the hand holding the knife.

Around her she heard raised voices, full of confused alarm as people tried to dodge around the disturbance, and jostled others instead. Few, if any, of them would have any idea what the ruckus was about. Vision was hampered; things were happening too fast. She couldn’t rely on anyone coming to help, so she ignored the noise, all her attention centered on the cretin whose dirty hand clutched her briefcase.

Whap! She hit him again, but still he held on to the knife.

“Bitch,” he snarled, his knife-hand darting toward her.

She jumped back, and her fingers slipped on the leather. Triumphantly he jerked it away from her. Sunny grabbed for the dangling strap and caught it, but the knife made a silver flash as he sliced downward, separating the strap from the briefcase. The abrupt release of tension sent her staggering back.

The cretin whirled and ran. Catching her balance, Sunny shouted, “Stop him!” and ran in pursuit. Her long skirt had a slit up the left side that let her reach full stride, but the cretin not only had a head start, he had longer legs. Her carry-on bag banged against her legs, further hampering her, but she didn’t dare leave it behind. Doggedly she kept running, even though she knew it was useless. Despair knotted her stomach. Her only prayer was that someone in the crowd would play hero and stop him.

Her prayer was abruptly answered.

Up ahead, a tall man standing with his back to the concourse turned and glanced almost negligently in the direction of the ruckus. The cretin was almost abreast of him. Sunny drew breath to yell out another “Stop him,” even though she knew the cretin would be past before the man could react. She never got the words out of her mouth.

The tall man took in with one glance what was happening, and in a movement as smooth and graceful as a ballet pirouette, he shifted, pivoted and lashed out with one booted foot. The kick landed squarely on the cretin’s right knee, taking his leg out from under him. He cartwheeled once and landed flat on his back, his arms flung over his head. The briefcase skidded across the concourse before bouncing against the wall, then back into the path of a stream of passengers. One man hopped over the briefcase, while others stepped around it.

Sunny immediately swerved in that direction, snatching up the briefcase before any other quick-fingered thief could grab it, but she kept one eye on the action.

In another of those quick, graceful movements, the tall man bent and flipped the cretin onto his stomach, then wrenched both arms up high behind his back and held them with one big hand.

“Owww!” the cretin howled. “You bastard, you’re breaking my arms!”

The name-calling got his arms roughly levered even higher. He howled again, this time wordlessly and at a much higher pitch.

“Watch your language,” said his captor.

Sunny skidded to a halt beside him. “Be careful,” she said breathlessly. “He had a knife.”

“I saw it. It landed over there when he fell.” The man didn’t look up but jerked his chin to the left. As he spoke he efficiently stripped the cretin’s belt from its loop and wound the leather in a simple but effective snare around his captive’s wrists. “Pick it up before someone grabs it and disappears. Use two fingers, and touch only the blade.”

He seemed to know what he was doing, so Sunny obeyed without question. She took a tissue out of her skirt pocket and gingerly picked up the knife as he had directed, being careful not to smear any fingerprints on the handle.

“What do I do with it?”

“Hold it until Security gets here.” He angled his dark head toward the nearest airline employee, a transportation escort who was hovering nervously as if unsure what to do. “Security has been called, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” said the escort, his eyes round with excitement.

Sunny squatted beside her rescuer. “Thank you,” she said. She indicated the briefcase, with the two dangling pieces of its strap. “He cut the strap and grabbed it away from me.”

“Any time,” he said, turning his head to smile at her and giving her her first good look at him.

Her first look was almost her last. Her stomach fluttered. Her heart leaped. Her lungs seized. Wow, she thought, and tried to take a deep breath without being obvious about it.

He was probably the best-looking man she had ever seen, without being pretty in any sense of the word. Drop-dead handsome was the phrase that came to mind. Slightly dazed, she took in the details: black hair, a little too long and a little too shaggy, brushing the collar at the back of his battered brown leather jacket; smooth, honey-tanned skin; eyes of such a clear, light brown that they looked golden, framed by thick black lashes. As if that wasn’t enough, he had also been blessed with a thin, straight nose, high cheekbones and such clearly delineated, well-shaped lips that she had the wild impulse to simply lean forward and kiss him.

She already knew he was tall, and now she had the time to notice the broad shoulders, flat belly and lean hips. Mother Nature had been in a really good mood when he was made. He should have been too perfect and pretty to be real, but there was a toughness in his expression that was purely masculine, and a thin, crescent-shaped scar on his left cheekbone only added to the impression. Looking down, she saw another scar slashing across the back of his right hand, a raised line that was white against his tanned skin.

The scars in no way detracted from his attractiveness; the evidence of rough living only accentuated it, stating unequivocally that this was a man.

She was so bemused that it took her several seconds to realize he was watching her with mingled amusement and interest. She felt her cheeks heat in embarrassment at being caught giving him a blatant once-over. Okay, twice-over.

But she didn’t have time to waste in admiration, so she forced her attention back to more pressing concerns. The cretin was grunting and making noises designed to show he was in agony, but she doubted he was in any great pain, despite his bound hands and the way her hero had a knee pressed into the small of his back. She had the briefcase back, but the cretin still presented her with a dilemma: It was her civic duty to stay and press charges against him, but if her flight left any time soon, she might very well miss it while she was answering questions and filling out forms.

“Jerk,” she muttered at him. “If I miss my flight...”

“When is it?” asked her hero.

“I don’t know. It’s been delayed, but they could begin boarding at any time. I’ll check at the gate and be right back.”

He nodded with approval. “I’ll hold your friend here and deal with Security until you get back.”

“I’ll only be a minute,” she said, and walked swiftly back to her gate. The counter was now jammed with angry or upset travelers, their mood far more agitated than when she had left just a few moments before. Swiftly she glanced at the board, where CANCELED had been posted in place of the DELAYED sign.

“Damn,” she said, under her breath. “Damn, damn, damn.” There went her last hope for getting to Seattle in time to complete her assignment, unless there was another miracle waiting for her. Two miracles in one day was probably too much to ask for, though.

She needed to call in, she thought wearily, but first she could deal with the cretin and airport security. She retraced her steps and found that the little drama was now mobile; the cretin was on his feet, being frog-marched under the control of two airport policemen into an office where they would be out of the view of curious passersby.

Her hero was waiting for her, and when he spotted her, he said something to the security guys, then began walking to meet her.

Her heart gave a little flutter of purely feminine appreciation. My, he was good to look at. His clothes were nothing special: a black T-shirt under the old leather jacket, faded jeans and scuffed boots, but he wore them with a confidence and grace that said he was utterly comfortable. Sunny allowed herself a moment of regret that she would never see him again after this little contretemps was handled, but then she pushed it away. She couldn’t take the chance of letting anything develop into a relationship—assuming there was anything there to develop—with him or anyone else. She never even let anything start, because it wouldn’t be fair to the guy, and she didn’t need the emotional wear and tear, either. Maybe one day she would be able to settle down, date, eventually find someone to love and marry and maybe have kids, but not now. It was too dangerous.

When he reached her, he took her arm with old-fashioned courtesy. “Everything okay with your flight?”

“In a way. It’s been canceled,” she said ruefully. “I have to be in Seattle tonight, but I don’t think I’m going to make it. Every flight I’ve had today has either been delayed or rerouted, and now there’s no other flight that would get me there in time.”

“Charter a plane,” he said as they walked toward the office where the cretin had been taken.

She chuckled. “I don’t know if my boss will spring for that kind of money, but it’s an idea. I have to call in, anyway, when we’re finished here.”

“If it makes any difference to him, I’m available right now. I was supposed to meet a customer on that last flight in from Dallas, but he wasn’t on the plane, and he hasn’t contacted me, so I’m free.”

“You’re a charter pilot?” She couldn’t believe it. It—he—was too good to be true. Maybe she did qualify for two miracles in one day after all.

He looked down at her and smiled, making a tiny dimple dance in his cheek. God, he had a dimple, too! Talk about overkill! He held out his hand. “Chance McCall—pilot, thief-catcher, jack-of-all-trades—at your service, ma’am.”

She laughed and shook his hand, noticing that he was careful not to grip her fingers too hard. Considering the strength she could feel in that tough hand, she was grateful for his restraint. Some men weren’t as considerate. “Sunny Miller, tardy courier and target of thieves. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. McCall.”

“Chance,” he said easily. “Let’s get this little problem taken care of, then you can call your boss and see if he thinks a charter flight is just what the doctor ordered.”

He opened the door of the unmarked office for her, and she stepped inside to find the two security officers, a woman dressed in a severe gray suit and the cretin, who had been handcuffed to his chair. The cretin glared at her when she came in, as if all this were her fault instead of his.

“You lyin’ bitch—” the cretin began.

Chance McCall reached out and gripped the cretin’s shoulder. “Maybe you didn’t get the message before,” he said in that easy way of his that in no way disguised the iron behind it, “but I don’t care for your language. Clean it up.” He didn’t issue a threat, just an order—and his grip on the cretin’s shoulder didn’t look gentle.

The cretin flinched and gave him an uneasy look, perhaps remembering how effortlessly this man had manhandled him before. Then he looked at the two airport policemen, as if expecting them to step in. The two men crossed their arms and grinned. Deprived of allies, the cretin opted for silence.

The gray-suited woman looked as if she wanted to protest the rough treatment of her prisoner, but she evidently decided to get on with the business at hand. “I’m Margaret Fayne, director of airport security. I assume you’re going to file charges?”

“Yes,” Sunny said.

“Good,” Ms. Fayne said in approval. “I’ll need statements from both of you.”

“Any idea how long this will take?” Chance asked. “Ms. Miller and I are pressed for time.”

“We’ll try to hurry things along,” Ms. Fayne assured him.

Whether Ms. Fayne was super-efficient or yet another small miracle took place, the paperwork was completed in what Sunny considered to be record time. Not much more than half an hour passed before the cretin was taken away in handcuffs, all the paperwork was prepared and signed, and Sunny and Chance McCall were free to go, having done their civic duty.

He waited beside her while she called the office and explained the situation. The supervisor, Wayne Beesham, wasn’t happy, but bowed to reality.

“What’s this pilot’s name again?” he asked.

“Chance McCall.”

“Hold on, let me check him out.”

Sunny waited. Their computers held a vast database of information on both commercial airlines and private charters. There were some unsavory characters in the charter business, dealing more in drugs than in passengers, and a courier company couldn’t afford to be careless.

“Where’s his home base?”

Sunny repeated the question to Chance.

“Phoenix,” he said, and once again she relayed the information.

“Okay, got it. He looks okay. How much is his fee?”

Sunny asked.

Mr. Beesham grunted at the reply. “That’s a bit high.”

“He’s here, and he’s ready to go.”

“What kind of plane is it? I don’t want to pay this price for a crop-duster that still won’t get you there in time.”

Sunny sighed. “Why don’t I just put him on the line? It’ll save time.” She handed the receiver to Chance. “He wants to know about your plane.”

Chance took the receiver. “McCall.” He listened a moment. “It’s a Cessna Skylane. The range is about eight hundred miles at seventy-five percent power, six hours flying time. I’ll have to refuel, so I’d rather it be around the midway point, say at Roberts Field in Redmond, Oregon. I can radio ahead and have everything rolling so we won’t spend much time on the ground.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “With the hour we gain when we cross into the Pacific time zone, she can make it—barely.”

He listened for another moment, then handed the receiver back to Sunny. “What’s the verdict?” she asked.

“I’m authorizing it. For God’s sake, get going.”

She hung up and grinned at Chance, her blood pumping at the challenge. “It’s a go! How long will it take to get airborne?”

“If you let me carry that bag, and we run...fifteen minutes.”

Sunny never let the bag out of her possession. She hated to repay his courtesy with a refusal, but caution was so ingrained in her that she couldn’t bring herself to take the risk. “It isn’t heavy,” she lied, tightening her grip on it. “You lead, I’ll follow.”

One dark eyebrow went up at her reply, but he didn’t argue, just led the way through the busy concourse. The private planes were in a different area of the airport, away from the commercial traffic. After several turns and a flight of stairs, they left the terminal and walked across the concrete, the hot afternoon sun beating down on their heads and making her squint. Chance slipped on a pair of sunglasses, then shrugged out of the jacket and carried it in his left hand.

Sunny allowed herself a moment of appreciation at the way his broad shoulders and muscled back filled out the black T-shirt he wore. She might not indulge, but she could certainly admire. If only things were different—but they weren’t, she thought, reining in her thoughts. She had to deal with reality, not wishful thinking.

He stopped beside a single-engine airplane, white with gray-and-red striping. After storing her bag and briefcase and securing them with a net, he helped her into the co-pilot’s seat. Sunny buckled herself in and looked around with interest. She’d never been in a private plane before, or flown in anything this small. It was surprisingly comfortable. The seats were gray leather, and behind her was a bench seat with individual backs. Carpet covered the metal floor.

There were two sun visors, just like in a car. Amused, she flipped down the one in front of her and laughed aloud when she saw the small mirror attached to it.

Chance walked around the plane, checking details one last time before climbing into the seat to her left and buckling himself in. He put on a set of headphones and began flipping switches while he talked to the air traffic control tower. The engine coughed, then caught, and the propeller on the nose began to spin, slowly at first, then gaining speed until it was an almost invisible blur.

He pointed to another set of headphones, and Sunny put them on. “It’s easier to talk using the headphones,” came his voice in her ear, “but be quiet until we get airborne.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, amused, and he flashed a quick grin at her.

They were airborne within minutes, faster than she had ever experienced on a commercial carrier. Being in the small plane gave her a sense of speed that she had never before felt, and when the wheels left the ground the lift was incredible, as if she had sprouted wings and jumped into the air. The ground quickly fell away below, and the vast, glistening blue lake spread out before her, with the jagged mountains straight ahead.

“Wow,” she breathed, and brought one hand up to shield her eyes from the sun.

“There’s an extra pair of sunglasses in the glove box,” he said, indicating the compartment in front of her. She opened it and dug out a pair of inexpensive but stylish Foster Grants with dark red frames. They were obviously some woman’s sunglasses, and abruptly she wondered if he was married. He would have a girlfriend, of course; not only was he very nice to look at, he seemed to be a nice person. It was a combination that was hard to find and impossible to beat.

“Your wife’s?” she asked as she put on the glasses and breathed a sigh of relief as the uncomfortable glare disappeared.

“No, a passenger left them in the plane.”

Well, that hadn’t told her anything. She decided to be blunt, even while she wondered why she was bothering, since she would never see him again after they arrived in Seattle. “Are you married?”

Again she got that quick grin. “Nope.” He glanced at her, and though she couldn’t see his eyes through the dark glasses, she got the impression his gaze was intense. “Are you?”

“No.”

“Good,” he said.

Chapter Three

CHANCE WATCHED HER from behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses, gauging her reaction to his verbal opening. The plan was working better than he’d hoped; she was attracted to him and hadn’t been trying very hard to hide it. All he had to do was take advantage of that attraction and win her trust, which normally might take some doing, but what he had planned would throw her into a situation that wasn’t normal in any sense of the word. Her life and safety would depend on him.

To his faint surprise, she faced forward and pretended she hadn’t heard him. Wryly, he wondered if he’d misread her and she wasn’t attracted to him after all. No, she had been watching him pretty blatantly, and in his experience, a woman didn’t stare at a man unless she found him attractive.

What was really surprising was how attractive he found her. He hadn’t expected that, but sexual chemistry was an unruly demon that operated outside logic. He had known she was pretty, with brilliant gray eyes and golden-blond hair that swung smoothly to her shoulders, from the photographs in the file he had assembled on her. He just hadn’t realized how damn fetching she was.

He slanted another glance at her, this time one of pure male assessment. She was of average height, maybe, though a little more slender than he liked, almost delicate. Almost. The muscles of her bare arms, revealed by a white sleeveless blouse, were well-toned and lightly tanned, as if she worked out. A good agent always stayed in good physical condition, so he had to expect her to be stronger than she looked. Her delicate appearance probably took a lot of people off guard.

She sure as hell had taken Wilkins off guard. Chance had to smother a smile. While Sunny had gone back to her gate to check on the status of her flight, which Chance had arranged to be canceled, Wilkins had told him how she had swung her carry-on bag at him, one-armed, and that the damn thing had to weigh a ton, because it had almost knocked him off his feet.

By now, Wilkins and the other three, “Ms. Fayne” and the two security “policemen,” would have vanished from the airport. The real airport security had been briefed to stay out of the way, and everything had worked like a charm, though Wilkins had groused at being taken down so roughly. “First that little witch damn near breaks my arm with that bag, then you try to break my back,” he’d growled, while they all laughed at him.

Just what was in that bag, anyway? She had held on to it as if it contained the crown jewels, not letting him carry it even when she was right there with him, and only reluctantly letting him take it to stow in the luggage compartment behind them. He’d been surprised at how heavy it was, too heavy to contain the single change of clothes required by an overnight trip, even with a vast array of makeup and a hairdryer thrown in for good measure. The bag had to weigh a good fifty pounds, maybe more. Well, he would find out soon enough what was in it.

“What were you going to do with that guy if you’d caught him?” he asked in a lazy tone, partly to keep her talking, establishing a link between them, and partly because he was curious. She had been chasing after Wilkins with a fiercely determined expression on her face, so determined that, if Wilkins were still running, she would probably still be chasing him.

“I don’t know,” she said darkly. “I just knew I couldn’t let it happen again.”

“Again?” Damn, was she going to tell him about Chicago?

“Last month, a green-haired cretin snatched my briefcase in the airport in Chicago.” She slapped the arm of the seat. “That’s the first time anything like that has ever happened on one of my jobs, then to have it happen again just a month later—I’d have been fired. Heck, I would fire me, if I were the boss.”

“You didn’t catch the guy in Chicago?”

“No. I was in Baggage Claims, and he just grabbed the briefcase, zipped out the door and was gone.”

“What about security? They didn’t try to catch him?”

She peered at him over the top of the oversize sunglasses. “You’re kidding, right?”

He laughed. “I guess I am.”

“Losing another briefcase would have been a catastrophe, at least to me, and it wouldn’t have done the company any good, either.”

“Do you ever know what’s in the briefcases?”

“No, and I don’t want to. It doesn’t matter. Someone could be sending a pound of salami to their dying uncle Fred, or it could be a billion dollars’ worth of diamonds—not that I think anyone would ever ship diamonds by a courier service, but you get the idea.”

“What happened when you lost the briefcase in Chicago?”

“My company was out a lot of money—rather, the insurance company was. The customer will probably never use us again, or recommend us.”

“What happened to you? Any disciplinary action?” He knew there hadn’t been.

“No. In a way, I would have felt better if they had at least fined me.”

Damn, she was good, he thought in admiration—either that, or she was telling the truth and hadn’t had anything to do with the incident in Chicago last month. It was possible, he supposed, but irrelevant. Whether or not she’d had anything to do with losing that briefcase, he was grateful it had happened, because otherwise she would never have come to his notice, and he wouldn’t have this lead on Crispin Hauer.

But he didn’t think she was innocent; he thought she was in this up to her pretty neck. She was better than he had expected, an actress worthy of an Oscar—so good he might have believed she didn’t know anything about her father, if it wasn’t for the mystery bag and her deceptive strength. He was trained to put together seemingly insignificant details and come up with a coherent picture, and experience had made him doubly cynical. Few people were as honest as they wanted you to believe, and the people who put on the best show were often the ones with the most to hide. He should know—he was an expert at hiding the black secrets of his soul.

He wondered briefly what it said about him that he was willing to sleep with her as part of his plan to gain her trust, but maybe it was better not to think about it. Someone had to be willing to work in the muck, to do things from which ordinary people would shrink, just to protect those ordinary people. Sex was...just sex. Part of the job. He could even divorce his emotions to the point that he actually looked forward to the task.

Task? Who was he kidding? He couldn’t wait to slide into her. She intrigued him, with her toned, tight body and the twinkle that so often lit her clear gray eyes, as if she was often amused at both herself and the world around her. He was fascinated by her eyes, by the white striations that made her eyes look almost faceted, like the palest of blue diamonds. Most people thought of gray eyes as a pale blue, but when he was close to her, he could see that they were, very definitely, brilliantly gray. But most of all he was intrigued by her expression, which was so open and good-humored she could almost trademark the term “Miss Congeniality.” How could she look like that, as sweet as apple pie, when she was working hand in glove with the most-wanted terrorist in his files?

Part of him, the biggest part, despised her for what she was. The animal core of him, however, was excited by the dangerous edge of the game he was playing, by the challenge of getting her into bed with him and convincing her to trust him. When he was inside her, he wouldn’t be thinking about the hundreds of innocent people her father had killed, only about the linking of their bodies. He wouldn’t let himself think of anything else, lest he give himself away with some nuance of expression that women were so good at reading. No, he would make love to her as if he had found his soul mate, because that was the only way he could be certain of fooling her.

But he was good at that, at making a woman feel as if he desired her more than anything else in the world. He knew just how to make her aware of him, how to push hard without panicking her—which brought him back to the fact that she had totally ignored his first opening. He smiled slightly to himself. Did she really think that would work?

“Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

She actually jumped, as if she had been lost in her thoughts. “What?”

“Dinner. Tonight. After you deliver your package.”

“Oh. But—I’m supposed to deliver it at nine. It’ll be late, and—”

“And you’ll be alone, and I’ll be alone, and you have to eat. I promise not to bite. I may lick, but I won’t bite.”

She surprised him by bursting into laughter.

Of all the reactions he had anticipated, laughter wasn’t one of them. Still, her laugh was so free and genuine, her head tilted back against the seat, that he found himself smiling in response.

“‘I may lick, but I won’t bite.’ That was good. I’ll have to remember it,” she said, chuckling.

After a moment, when she said nothing else, he realized that she was ignoring him again. He shook his head. “Does that work with most men?”

“Does what work?”

“Ignoring them when they ask you out. Do they slink away with their tails tucked between their legs?”

“Not that I’ve ever noticed.” She grinned. “You make me sound like a femme fatale, breaking hearts left and right.”

“You probably are. We guys are tough, though. We can be bleeding to death on the inside and we’ll put up such a good front that no one ever knows.” He smiled at her. “Have dinner with me.”

“You’re persistent, aren’t you?”

“You still haven’t answered me.”

“All right—no. There, I’ve answered you.”

“Wrong answer. Try again.” More gently, he said, “I know you’re tired, and with the time difference, nine o’clock is really midnight to you. It’s just a meal, Sunny, not an evening of dancing. That can wait until our second date.”

She laughed again. “Persistent and confident.” She paused, made a wry little face. “The answer is still no. I don’t date.”

This time he was more than surprised, he was stunned. Of all the things he had expected to come out of her mouth, that particular statement had never crossed his mind. Damn, had he so badly miscalculated? “At all? Or just men?”

“At all.” She gestured helplessly. “See, this is why I tried to ignore you, because I didn’t want to go into an explanation that you wouldn’t accept, anyway. No, I’m not gay, I like men very much, but I don’t date. End of explanation.”

His relief was so intense, he felt a little dizzy. “If you like men, why don’t you date?”

“See?” she demanded on a frustrated rush of air. “You didn’t accept it. You immediately started asking questions.”

“Damn it, did you think I’d just let it drop? There’s something between us, Sunny. I know it, and you know it. Or are you going to ignore that, too?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

He wondered if she realized what she had just admitted. “Were you raped?”

“No!” she half shouted, goaded out of control. “I just...don’t...date.”

She was well on her way to losing her temper, he thought, amused. He grinned. “You’re pretty when you’re mad.”

She sputtered, then began laughing. “How am I supposed to stay mad when you say things like that?”

“You aren’t. That’s the whole idea.”

“Well, it worked. What it didn’t do was change my mind. I’m sorry,” she said gently, sobering. “It’s just... I have my reasons. Let it drop. Please.”

“Okay.” He paused. “For now.”

She gave an exaggerated groan that had him smiling again. “Why don’t you try to take a nap?” he suggested. “You have to be tired, and we still have a long flight ahead of us.”

“That’s a good idea. You can’t badger me if I’m asleep.”

With that wry shot, she leaned her head back against the seat. Chance reached behind her seat and produced a folded blanket. “Here. Use this as a pillow, or you’ll get a stiff neck.”

“Thanks.” She took off the headset and tucked the blanket between her head and shoulder, then shifted around in her seat to get more comfortable.

Chance let silence fall, occasionally glancing at her to see if she really fell asleep. About fifteen minutes later, her breathing deepened and evened out into a slow rhythm. He waited a few minutes longer, then eased the plane into a more westerly direction, straight into the setting sun.

Chapter Four

“SUNNY.” THE VOICE was insistent, a little difficult to hear and accompanied by a hand on her shoulder, shaking her. “Sunny, wake up.”

She stirred and opened her eyes, stretching a little to relieve the kinks in her back and shoulders. “Are we there?”

Chance indicated the headset in her lap, and she slipped it on. “We have a problem,” he said quietly.

The bottom dropped out of her stomach, and her heartbeat skittered. No other words, she thought, could be quite as terrifying when one was in an airplane. She took a deep breath, trying to control the surge of panic. “What’s wrong?” Her voice was surprisingly steady. She looked around, trying to spot the problem in the cluster of dials in the cockpit, though she had no idea what any of them meant. Then she looked out of the window at the rugged landscape below them, painted in stark reds and blacks as the setting sun threw shadows over jagged rock. “Where are we?”

“Southeastern Oregon.”

The engine coughed and sputtered. Her heart felt as if it did, too. As soon as she heard the break in the rhythm, she became aware that the steady background whine of the motor had been interrupted several times while she slept. Her subconscious had registered the change in sound but not put it in any context. Now the context was all too clear.

“I think it’s the fuel pump,” he added, in answer to her first question.

Calm. She had to stay calm. She pulled in a deep breath, though her lungs felt as if they had shrunk in size. “What do we do?”

He smiled grimly. “Find a place to set it down before it falls down.”

“I’ll take setting over falling any day.” She looked out the side window, studying the ground below. Jagged mountain ridges, enormous boulders and sharp-cut arroyos slicing through the earth were all she could see. “Uh-oh.”

“Yea. I’ve been looking for a place to land for the past half hour.”

This was not good, not good at all. In the balance of good and bad, this weighed heavily on the bad side.

The engine sputtered again. The whole frame of the aircraft shook. So did her voice, when she said, “Have you radioed a Mayday?”

Again that grim smile. “We’re in the middle of a great big empty area, between navigational beacons. I’ve tried a couple of times to raise someone, but there haven’t been any answers.”

The scale tipped even more out of balance. “I knew it,” she muttered. “The way today has gone, I knew I’d crash if I got on another plane.”

The grouchiness in her voice made him chuckle, despite the urgency of their situation. He reached over and gently squeezed the back of her neck, startling her with his touch, his big hand warm and hard on her sensitive nape. “We haven’t crashed yet, and I’m going to try damn hard to make sure we don’t. The landing may be rough, though.”

She wasn’t used to being touched. She had accustomed herself to doing without the physical contact that it was human nature to crave, to keep people at a certain distance. Chance McCall had touched her more in one afternoon than she had been touched in the past five years. The shock of pleasure almost distracted her from their situation—almost. She looked down at the unforgiving landscape again. “How rough does a landing have to get before it qualifies as a crash?”

“If we walk away from it, then it was a landing.” He put his hand back on the controls, and she silently mourned that lost connection.

The vast mountain range spread out around them as far as she could see in any direction. Their chances of walking away from this weren’t good. How long would it be before their bodies were found, if ever? Sunny clenched her hands, thinking of Margreta. Her sister, not knowing what had happened, would assume the worst—and dying in an airplane crash was not the worst. In her grief, she might well abandon her refuge and do something stupid that would get her killed, too.

She watched Chance’s strong hands, so deft and sure on the controls. His clear, classic profile was limned against the pearl and vermillion sky, the sort of sunset one saw only in the western states, and likely the last sunset she would ever see. He would be the last person she ever saw, or touched, and she was suddenly, bitterly angry that she had never been able to live the life most women took for granted, that she hadn’t been free to accept his offer of dinner and spend the trip in a glow of anticipation, free to flirt with him and maybe see the glow of desire in his golden-brown eyes.

She had been denied a lot, but most of all she had been denied opportunity, and she would never, never forgive her father for that.

The engine sputtered, caught, sputtered again. This time the reassuring rhythm didn’t return. The bottom dropped out of her stomach. God, oh God, they were going to crash. Her nails dug into her palms as she fought to contain her panic. She had never before felt so small and helpless, so fragile, with soft flesh and slender bones that couldn’t withstand such battering force. She was going to die, and she had yet to live.

The plane jerked and shuddered, bucking under the stress of spasmodic power. It pitched to the right, throwing Sunny against the door so hard her right arm went numb.

“That’s it,” Chance said between gritted teeth, his knuckles white as he fought to control the pitching aircraft. He brought the wings level again. “I have to take it down now, while I have a little control. Look for the best place.”

Best place? There was no best place. They needed somewhere that was relatively flat and relatively clear; the last location she had seen that fit that description had been in Utah.

He raised the right wingtip, tilting the plane so he had a better side view.

“See anything?” Sunny asked, her voice shaking just a little.

“Nothing. Damn.”

“Damn is the wrong word. Pilots are supposed to say something else just before they crash.” Humor wasn’t much of a weapon with which to face death, but it was how she had always gotten herself through the hard times.

Unbelievably, he grinned. “But I haven’t crashed yet, sweetheart. Have a little faith. I promise I’ll say the right word if I don’t find a good-looking spot pretty soon.”

“If you don’t find a good-looking spot, I’ll say it for you,” she promised fervently.

They crossed a jagged, boulder-strewn ridge, and a long, narrow black pit yawned beneath them like a doorway to hell. “There!” Chance said, nosing the plane down.

“What? Where?” She sat erect, desperate hope flaring inside her, but all she could see was that black pit.

“The canyon. That’s our best bet.”

The black pit was a canyon? Weren’t canyons supposed to be big? That looked like an arroyo. How on earth would the plane ever fit inside it? And what difference did it make, when this was their only chance? Her heart lodged itself in her throat, and she gripped the edge of the seat as Chance eased the pitching aircraft lower and lower.

The engine stopped.

For a moment all she heard was the awful silence, more deafening than any roar.

Then she became aware of the air rushing past the metal skin of the plane, air that no longer supported them. She heard her own heart beating, fast and heavy, heard the whisper of her breath. She heard everything except what she most wanted to hear, the sweet sound of an airplane engine.

Chance didn’t say anything. He concentrated fiercely on keeping the plane level, riding the air currents down, down, aiming for that long, narrow slit in the earth. The plane spiraled like a leaf, coming so close to the jagged mountainside on the left that she could see the pits in the dark red rock.

Sunny bit her lip until blood welled in her mouth, fighting back the terror and panic that threatened to erupt in screams. She couldn’t distract him now, no matter what. She wanted to close her eyes, but resolutely kept them open. If she died now, she didn’t want to do it in craven fear. She couldn’t help the fear, but she didn’t have to be craven. She would watch death come at her, watch Chance as he fought to bring them down safely and cheat the grim horseman.

They slipped below the sunshine, into the black shadows, deeper and deeper. It was colder in the shadows, a chill that immediately seeped through the windows into her bones. She couldn’t see a thing. Quickly she snatched off the sunglasses and saw that Chance had done the same. His eyes were narrowed, his expression hard and intent as he studied the terrain below.

The ground was rushing at them now, a ground that was pocked and scored with rivulets, and dotted with boulders. It was flat enough, but not a nice, clear landing spot at all. She braced her feet against the floor, her body rigid as if she could force the airplane to stay aloft.

“Hold on.” His voice was cool. “I’m going to try to make it to the stream bed. The sand will help slow us down before we hit one of those rocks.”

A stream bed? He was evidently much better at reading the ground than she was. She tried to see a ribbon of water, but finally realized the stream was dry; the bed was that thin, twisting line that looked about as wide as the average car.

She started to say “Good luck,” but it didn’t seem appropriate. Neither did “It was nice knowing you.” In the end, all she could manage was “Okay.”

It happened fast. Suddenly they were no longer skimming above the earth. The ground was there, and they hit it hard, so hard she pitched forward against the seat belt, then snapped back. They went briefly airborne again as the wheels bounced, then hit again even harder. She heard metal screeching in protest; then her head banged against the side window, and for a chaotic moment she didn’t see or hear anything, just felt the tossing and bouncing of the plane. She was boneless, unable to hold on, flopping like a shirt in a clothes dryer.

Then there came the hardest bounce of all, jarring her teeth. The plane spun sideways in a sickening motion, then lurched to a stop. Time and reality splintered, broke apart, and for a long moment nothing made any sense; she had no grasp on where she was or what had happened.

She heard a voice, and the world jolted back into place.

“Sunny? Sunny, are you all right?” Chance was asking urgently.

She tried to gather her senses, tried to answer him. Dazed, battered, she realized that the force of the landing had turned her inside the confines of the seat belt, and she was facing the side window, her back to Chance. She felt his hands on her, heard his low swearing as he unclipped the seat belt and eased her back against his chest, supporting her with his body.

She swallowed, and managed to find her voice. “I’m okay.” The words weren’t much more than a croak, but if she could talk at all that meant she was alive. They were both alive. Joyful disbelief swelled in her chest. He had actually managed to land the plane!

“We have to get out. There may be a fuel leak.” Even as he spoke, he shoved open the door and jumped out, dragging her with him as if she was a sack of flour. She felt rather sacklike, her limbs limp and trembling.

A fuel leak. The engine had been dead when they landed, but there was still the battery, and wiring that could short out and spark. If a spark got to any fuel, the plane and everything in it would go up in a fireball.

Everything in it. The words rattled in her brain, like marbles in a can, and with dawning horror she realized what that meant. Her bag was still in the plane.

“Wait!” she shrieked, panic sending a renewed surge of adrenaline through her system, restoring the bones to her legs, the strength to her muscles. She twisted in his grasp, grabbing the door handle and hanging on. “My bag!”

“Damn it, Sunny!” he roared, trying to break her grip on the handle. “Forget the damn bag!”

“No!”

She jerked away from him and began to climb back into the plane. With a smothered curse he grabbed her around the waist and bodily lifted her away from the plane. “I’ll get the damn bag! Go on—get out of here! Run!”

She was appalled that he would risk his life retrieving her bag, while sending her to safety. “I’ll get it,” she said fiercely, grabbing him by the belt and tugging. “You run!”

For a split second he literally froze, staring at her in shock. Then he gave his head a little shake, reached in for the bag and effortlessly hefted it out. Wordlessly Sunny tried to take it, but he only gave her an incendiary look and she didn’t have time to argue. Carrying the bag in his left hand and gripping her upper arm with his right, he towed her at a run away from the plane. Her shoes sank into the soft grit, and sand and scrub brush bit at her ankles, but she scrambled to stay upright and keep pace with him.

They were a good fifty yards away before he judged it safe. He dropped the bag and turned on her like a panther pouncing on fresh meat, gripping her upper arms with both hands as if he wanted to shake her. “What the hell are you thinking?” he began in a tone of barely leashed violence, then cut himself off, staring at her face. His expression altered, his golden-brown eyes darkening.

“You’re bleeding,” he said harshly. He grabbed his handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it to her chin. Despite the roughness of his tone, his touch was incredibly gentle. “You said you weren’t hurt.”

“I’m not.” She raised her trembling hand and took the handkerchief, dabbing it at her chin and mouth. There wasn’t much blood, and the bleeding seemed to have stopped. “I bit my lip,” she confessed. “Before you landed, I mean. To keep from screaming.”

He stared down at her with an expression like flint. “Why didn’t you just scream?”

“I didn’t want to distract you.” The trembling was growing worse by the second; she tried to hold herself steady, but every limb shook as if her bones had turned to gelatin.

He tilted up her face, staring down at her for a moment in the deepening twilight. He breathed a low, savage curse, then slowly leaned down and pressed his lips to her mouth. Despite the violence she sensed in him, the kiss was light, gentle, more of a salute than a kiss. She caught her breath, beguiled by the softness of his lips, the warm smell of his skin, the hint of his taste. She fisted her hands in his T-shirt, clinging to his strength, trying to sink into his warmth.

He lifted his head. “That’s for being so brave,” he murmured. “I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in a plane crash.”

“Landing,” she corrected shakily. “It was a landing.”

That earned her another soft kiss, this time on the temple. She made a strangled sound and leaned into him, a different sort of trembling beginning to take hold of her. He framed her face with his hands, his thumbs gently stroking the corners of her mouth as he studied her. She felt her lips tremble a little, but then, all of her was shaking. He touched the small sore spot her teeth had made in her lower lip; then he was kissing her again, and this time there was nothing gentle about it.

This kiss rocked her to her foundation. It was hungry, rough, deep. There were reasons why she shouldn’t respond to him, but she couldn’t think what they were. Instead, she gripped his wrists and went on tiptoe to slant her parted lips against his, opening her mouth for the thrust of his tongue. He tasted like man, and sex, a potent mixture that went to her head faster than hundred-proof whiskey. Heat bloomed in her loins and breasts, a desperate, needy heat that brought a low moan from her throat.

He wrapped one arm around her and pulled her against him, molding her to him from knee to breast while his kisses became even deeper, even harder. She locked her arms around his neck and arched into him, wanting the feel of his hard-muscled body against her with an urgency that swept away reason. Instinctively she pushed her hips against his, and the hard length of his erection bulged into the notch of her thighs. This time she cried out in want, in need, in a desire that burned through every cell of her body. His hand closed roughly around her breast, kneading, rubbing her nipple through the layers of blouse and bra, both easing and intensifying the ache that made them swell toward his touch.

Suddenly he jerked his head back. “I don’t believe this,” he muttered. Reaching up, he prised her arms from around his neck and set her away from him. He looked even more savage than he had a moment before, the veins standing out in his neck. “Stay here,” he barked. “Don’t move an inch. I have to check the plane.”

He left her standing there in the sand, in the growing twilight, suddenly cold all the way down to the bone. Deprived of his warmth, his strength, her legs slowly collapsed, and she sank to the ground.

* * *

CHANCE SWORE TO HIMSELF, steadily and with blistering heat, as he checked the plane for fuel leaks and other damage. He had deliberately made the landing rougher than necessary, and the plane had a reinforced landing gear as well as extra protection for the fuel lines and tank, but a smart pilot didn’t take anything for granted. He had to check the plane, had to stay in character.

He didn’t want to stay in character. He wanted to back her against one of those big boulders and lift her skirt. Damn! What was wrong with him? In the past fifteen years he’d held a lot of beautiful, deadly women in his arms, and even though he let his body respond, his mind had always remained cool. Sunny Miller wasn’t the most beautiful, not by a long shot; she was more gamine than goddess, with bright eyes that invited laughter rather than seduction. So why was he so hot to get into her pants?

“Why” didn’t matter, he angrily reminded himself. Okay, so his attraction to her was unexpected; it was an advantage, something to be used. He wouldn’t have to fake anything, which meant there was even less chance of her sensing anything off-kilter.

Danger heightened the emotions, destroying inhibitions. They had lived through a life-threatening situation together, they were alone and there was a definite physical attraction between them. He had arranged the first two circumstances; the third was a bonus. It was a textbook situation; studies in human nature had shown that, if a man and a woman were thrown together in a dangerous situation and they had only each other to rely on, they quickly formed both sexual and emotional bonds. Chance had the advantage, in that he knew the plane hadn’t been in any danger of crashing, and that they weren’t in a life-and-death situation. Sunny would think they were stranded, while he knew better. Whenever he signaled Zane, they would promptly be “rescued,” but he wouldn’t send that signal until Sunny took him into her confidence about her father.

Everything was under control. They weren’t even in Oregon, as he’d told her. They were in Nevada, in a narrow box canyon he and Zane had scouted out and selected because it was possible to land a plane in it, and, unless one had the equipment to scale vertical rock walls, impossible to escape. They weren’t close to any commercial flight pattern, he had disabled the transponder so no search plane would pick up a signal and they were far off their route. They wouldn’t be found.

Sunny was totally under his control; she just didn’t know it.

The growing dusk made it impossible to see very much, and it was obvious that if the plane was going to explode in flames, it would already have done so. Chance strode back to where Sunny was sitting on the ground, her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around her legs, and that damn bag close by her side. She scrambled to her feet as he approached. “All clear?”

“All clear. No fuel leaks.”

“That’s good.” She managed a smile. “It wouldn’t do us any good for you to fix the fuel pump if there wasn’t any fuel left.”

“Sunny...if it’s a clogged line, I can fix it. If the fuel pump has gone out, I can’t.”

He decided to let her know right away that they might not be flying out of here in the morning.

She absorbed that in silence, rubbing her bare arms to ward off the chill of the desert air. The temperature dropped like a rock when the sun went down, which was one of the reasons he had chosen this site. They would have to share their body heat at night to survive.

He leaned down and hefted the bag, marveling anew at its weight, then took her arm to walk with her back to the plane. “I hope you have a coat in this damn bag, since you thought it was important enough to risk your life getting it,” he growled.

“A sweater,” she said absently, looking up at the crystal clear sky with its dusting of stars. The black walls of the canyon loomed on either side of them, making it obvious they were in a hole in the earth. A big hole, but still a hole. She shook herself, as if dragging her thoughts back to the problem at hand. “We’ll be all right,” she said. “I have some food, and—”

“Food? You’re carrying food in here?” He indicated the bag.

“Just some emergency stuff.”

Of all the things he’d expected, food was at the bottom of the list. Hell, food wasn’t even on the list. Why would a woman on an overnight trip put food in her suitcase?

They reached the plane, and he set the bag down in the dirt. “Let me get some things, and we’ll find a place to camp for the night. Can you get anything else in there, or is it full?”

“It’s full,” she said positively, but then, he hadn’t expected her to open it so easily.

He shrugged and dragged out his own small duffel, packed with the things a man could be expected to take on a charter flight: toiletries, a change of clothes. The duffel was unimportant, but it wouldn’t look right if he left it behind.

“Why can’t we camp here?” she asked.

“This is a stream bed. It’s dry now, but if it rains anywhere in the mountains, we could be caught in the runoff.”

As he spoke, he got a flashlight out of the dash, the blanket from the back and a pistol from the pocket in the pilot’s side door. He stuck the pistol in his belt, and draped the blanket around her shoulders. “I have some water,” he said, taking out a plastic gallon milk jug that he’d refilled with water. “We’ll be all right tonight.” Water had been the toughest thing to locate. He and Zane had found several box canyons in which he could have landed the plane, but this was the only one with water. The source wasn’t much, just a thin trickle running out of the rock at the far end of the canyon, but it was enough. He would “find” the water tomorrow.

He handed her the flashlight and picked up both bags. “Lead the way,” he instructed, and indicated the direction he wanted. The floor of the canyon sloped upward on one side; the stream bed was the only smooth ground. The going was rough, and Sunny carefully picked her way over rocks and gullies. She was conscientious about shining the light so he could see where he was going, since he was hampered by both bags.

Damn, he wished she had complained at least a little, or gotten upset. He wished she wasn’t so easy to like. Most people would have been half-hysterical, or asking endless questions about their chances of being rescued if he couldn’t get the plane repaired. Not Sunny. She coped, just as she had coped at the airport, with a minimum of fuss. Without any fuss, actually; she had bitten the blood out of her lip to keep from distracting him while he was bringing the plane down.

The canyon was so narrow it didn’t take them long to reach the vertical wall. Chance chose a fairly flat section of sandy gray dirt, with a pile of huge boulders that formed a rough semi-circle. “This will give us some protection from the wind tonight.”

“What about snakes?” she asked, eyeing the boulders.

“Possible,” he said, as he set down the bags. Had he found a weakness he could use to bring her closer to him? “Are you afraid of them?”

“Only the human kind.” She looked around as if taking stock of their situation, then kind of braced her shoulders. It was a minute movement, one he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been studying her so keenly. With an almost cheerful note she said, “Let’s get this camp set up so we can eat. I’m hungry.”

She squatted beside her bag and spun the combination dial of the rather substantial lock on her bag. With a quiet snick the lock opened, and she unzipped the bag. Chance was a bit taken aback at finding out what was in the bag this easily, but he squatted beside her. “What do you have? Candy bars?”

She chuckled. “Nothing so tasty.”

He took the flashlight from her and shone it into the bag as she began taking out items. The bag was as neatly packed as a salesman’s sample case, and she hadn’t been lying about not having any room in there for anything else. She placed a sealed plastic bag on the ground between them. “Here we go. Nutrition bars.” She slanted a look at him. “They taste like you’d expect a nutrition bar to taste, but they’re concentrated. One bar a day will give us all we need to stay alive. I have a dozen of them.”

The next item was a tiny cell phone. She stared at it, frozen, for a moment, then looked up at him with fragile hope in her eyes as she turned it on. Chance knew there wasn’t a signal here, but he let her go through the motions, something inside him aching at the disappointment he knew she would feel.

Her shoulders slumped. “Nothing,” she said, and turned the phone off. Without another word she returned to her unpacking.

A white plastic box with a familiar red cross on the top came out next. “First aid kit,” she murmured, reaching back into the bag. “Water purification tablets. A couple of bottles of water, ditto orange juice. Light sticks. Matches.” She listed each item as she set it on the ground. “Hairspray, deodorant, toothpaste, pre-moistened towelettes, hairbrush, curling iron, blow dryer, two space blankets—” she paused as she reached the bottom of the bag and began hauling on something bigger than any of the other items. “—and a tent.”

Chapter Five

A TENT. CHANCE STARED down at it, recognizing the type. This was survivalist stuff, what people stored in underground shelters in case of war or natural disaster—or what someone who expected to spend a lot of time in the wilderness would pack.

“It’s small,” she said apologetically. “Really just a one-man tent, but I had to get something light enough for me to carry. There will be enough room for both of us to sleep in it, though, if you don’t mind being a little crowded.”

Why would she carry a tent on board a plane, when she expected to spend one night in Seattle—in a hotel—then fly back to Atlanta? Why would anyone carry that heavy a bag around when she could have checked it? The answer was that she hadn’t wanted it out of her possession, but he still wanted an explanation of why she was carrying it at all.

Something didn’t add up here.

* * *

HIS SILENCE WAS UNNERVING. Sunny looked down at her incongruous pile of possessions and automatically emptied out the bag, removing her sweater and slipping it on, sitting down to pull on a pair of socks, then stuffing her change of clothes and her grooming items back into the bag. Her mind was racing. There was something about his expression that made a chill go down her spine, a hardness that she hadn’t glimpsed before. Belatedly, she remembered how easily he had caught the cretin in the airport, the deadly grace and speed with which he moved. This was no ordinary charter pilot, and she was marooned with him.

She had been attracted to him from the first moment she saw him, but she couldn’t afford to let that blind her to the danger of letting down her guard. She was accustomed to living with danger, but this was a different sort of danger, and she had no idea what form it could, or would, take. Chance could simply be one of those men who packed more punch than others, a man very capable of taking care of himself.

Or he could be in her father’s pay.

The thought chilled her even more, the cold going down to her bones before common sense reasserted itself. No, there was no way her father could have arranged for everything that had happened today, no way he could have known she would be in the Salt Lake City airport. Being there had been pure bad luck, the result of a fouled-up flight schedule. She hadn’t known she would be in Salt Lake City. If her father had been involved, he would have tried to grab her in either Atlanta or Seattle. All the zig-zagging across the country she had done today had made it impossible for her father to be involved.

As her mind cleared of that silent panic, she remembered how Chance had dragged her bodily from the plane, the way he had draped the blanket around her, even the courtesy with which he had treated her in the airport. He was a strong man, accustomed to being in the lead and taking the risks. Military training, she thought with a sudden flash of clarity, and wondered how she had missed it before. Her life, and Margreta’s, depended on how well she could read people, how prepared she was, how alert. With Chance, she had been so taken off guard by the strength of her attraction to him, and the shock of finding that interest returned, that she hadn’t been thinking.

“What’s this about?” he asked quietly, squatting down beside her and indicating the tent. “And don’t tell me you were going to camp out in the hotel lobby.”

She couldn’t help it. The thought of setting up the tent in a hotel lobby was so ludicrous that she chuckled. Seeing the funny side of things was what had kept her sane all these years.

One big hand closed gently on the nape of her neck. “Sunny,” he said warningly. “Tell me.”

She shook her head, still smiling. “We’re stranded here tonight, but essentially we’re strangers. After we get out of here we’ll never see each other again, so there’s no point in spilling our guts to each other. You keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine.”

The flashlight beam sharpened the angles of his face. He exhaled a long, exasperated breath. “Okay—for now. I don’t know why it matters, anyway. Unless I can get the plane fixed, we’re going to be here a long time, and the reason why you have the tent will be irrelevant.”

She searched his face, trying to read his impassive expression. “That isn’t reassuring.”

“It’s the truth.”

“When we don’t show up in Seattle, someone will search for us. The Civil Air Patrol, someone. Doesn’t your plane have one of those beacon things?”

“We’re in a canyon.”

He didn’t have to say more than that. Any signal would be blocked by the canyon walls, except for directly overhead. They were in a deep, narrow slit in the earth, the narrowness of the canyon limiting even more their chances of anyone picking up the signal.

“Well, darn,” she said forcefully.

This time he was the one who laughed, and he shook his head as he released her neck and stood up. “Is that the worst you can say?”

“We’re alive. That outcome is so good considering what could have happened that, in comparison, being stranded here only rates a ‘darn.’ You may be able to fix the plane.” She shrugged. “No point in wasting the really nasty words until we know more.”

He leaned down and helped her to her feet. “If I can’t get us going again, I’ll help you with those words. For now, let’s get this tent set up before the temperature drops even more.”

“What about a fire?”

“I’ll look for firewood tomorrow—if we need it. We can get by tonight without a fire, and I don’t want to waste the flashlight batteries. If we’re here for any length of time, we’ll need the flashlight.”

“I have the lightsticks.”

“We’ll save those, too. Just in case.”

Working together, they set up the tent. She could have done it herself; it was made for one person to handle, and she had practiced until she knew she could do it with a minimum of fuss, but with two people the job took only moments. Brushing away the rocks so they would have a smooth surface beneath the tent floor took longer, but even so, they weren’t going to have a comfortable bed for the night.

When they were finished, she eyed the tent with misgivings. It was long enough for Chance, but... She visually measured the width of his shoulders, then the width of the tent. She was either going to have to sleep on her side all night long—or on top of him.

The heat that shot through her told her which option her body preferred. Her heart beat a little faster in anticipation of their enforced intimacy during the coming night, of lying against his strong, warm body, maybe even sleeping in his arms.

To his credit, he didn’t make any insinuating remarks, even though when he looked at the tent he must have drawn the same conclusion as she had. Instead, he bent down to pick up the bag of nutrition bars and said smugly, “I knew you’d have dinner with me tonight.”

She began laughing again, charmed by both his tact and his sense of humor, and fell a little in love with him right then.

She should have been alarmed, but she wasn’t. Yes, letting herself care for him made her emotionally vulnerable, but they had lived through a terrifying experience together, and she needed an emotional anchor right now. So far she hadn’t found a single thing about the man that she didn’t like, not even that hint of danger she kept sensing. In this situation, a man with an edge to him was an asset, not a hindrance.

She allowed herself to luxuriate in this unaccustomed feeling as they each ate a nutrition bar—which was edible, but definitely not tasty—and drank some water. Then they packed everything except the two space blankets back in the bag, to protect their supplies from snakes and insects and other scavengers. They didn’t have to worry about bears, not in this desertlike part of the country, but coyotes were possible. Her bag was supposedly indestructible; if any coyotes showed up, she supposed she would find out if the claim about the bag was true, because there wasn’t room in the tent for both them and the bag.

Chance checked the luminous dial of his watch. “It’s still early, but we should get in the tent to save our body heat, and not burn up calories trying to stay warm out here. I’ll spread this blanket down, and we’ll use your two blankets for cover.”

For the first time, she realized he was in his T-shirt. “Shouldn’t you get your jacket from the plane?”

“It’s too bulky to wear in the tent. Besides, I don’t feel the cold as much as you do. I’ll be fine without it.” He sat down and pulled off his boots, tossed them inside the tent, then crawled in with the blanket. Sunny slipped off her own shoes, glad she had the socks to keep her feet warm.

“Okay, come on in,” Chance said. “Feet first.”

She gave him her shoes, then sat down and worked herself feetfirst into the tent. He was lying on his side, which gave her room to maneuver, but it was still a chore keeping her skirt down and trying not to bunch up the blanket as she wiggled into place. Chance zipped the tent flaps shut, then pulled his pistol out of his waistband and placed it beside his head. Sunny eyed the big black automatic; she wasn’t an expert on pistols, but she knew it was one of the heavier calibers, either a .45 or a 9mm. She had tried them, but the bigger pistols were too heavy for her to handle with ease, so she had opted for a smaller caliber.

He had already unfolded the space blankets and had them ready to pull in place. She could already feel his body heat in the small space, so she didn’t need a blanket yet, but as the night grew colder, they would need all the covering they could get.

They both moved around, trying to get comfortable. Because he was so big, Sunny tried to give him as much room as possible. She turned on her side and curled her arm under her head, but they still bumped and brushed against each other.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Ready.”

He turned off the flashlight. The darkness was complete, like being deep in a cave. “Thank God I’m not claustrophobic,” she said, taking a deep breath. His scent filled her lungs, warm and...different, not musky, exactly, but earthy, and very much the way a man should smell.

“Just think of it as being safe,” he murmured. “Darkness can feel secure.”

She did feel safe, she realized. For the first time in her memory, she was certain no one except the man beside her knew where she was. She didn’t have to check locks, scout out an alternate exit or sleep so lightly she sometimes felt as if she hadn’t slept at all. She didn’t have to worry about being followed, or her phone being tapped, or any of the other things that could happen. She did worry about Margreta, but she had to think positively. Tomorrow Chance would find the problem was a clogged fuel line, he would get it cleared, and they would finish their trip. She would be too late to deliver the package in Seattle, but considering they had landed safely instead of crashing, she didn’t really care about the package. The day’s outcome could have been so much worse that she was profoundly grateful they were all in one piece and relatively comfortable—”relatively” being the key word, she thought, as she tried to find a better position. The ground was as hard as a rock. For all she knew the ground was a rock, covered by a thin layer of dirt.

She was suddenly exhausted. The events of the day—the long flight and fouled-up connections, the lack of food, the stress of being mugged, then the almost unbearable tension of those last minutes in the plane—finally took their toll on her. She yawned and unconsciously tried yet again to find a comfortable position, turning over to pillow her head on her other arm. Her elbow collided with something very solid, and he grunted.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She squirmed a little more, inadvertently bumping him with her knee. “This is so crowded I may have to sleep on top.”

She heard the words and in shock realized that she had actually said them aloud. She opened her mouth to apologize again.

“Or I could be the one on top.”

His words stopped her apology cold. Her breath tangled in her lungs and didn’t escape. His deep voice seemed to echo in the darkness, that single sentence reverberating through her consciousness. She was suddenly, acutely, aware of every inch of him, of the sensual promise in his tone. The kiss—the kiss she could write off as reaction; danger was supposed to be an aphrodisiac, and evidently that was true. But this wasn’t reaction; this was desire, warm and curious, seeking.

“Is that a ‘no’ I’m hearing?”

Her lungs started working again, and she sucked in a breath. “I haven’t said anything.”

“That’s my point.” He sounded faintly amused. “I guess I’m not going to get lucky tonight.”

Feeling more certain of herself with his teasing, she said dryly, “I guess not. You’ve already used up your quota of luck for the day.”

“I’ll try again tomorrow.”

She stifled a laugh.

“Does that snicker mean I haven’t scared you?”

She should be scared, she thought, or at least wary. She had no idea why she wasn’t. The fact was, she felt tempted. Very tempted. “No, I’m not scared.”

“Good.” He yawned. “Then why don’t you pull off that sweater and let me use it as a pillow, and you can use my shoulder. We’ll both be more comfortable.”

Common sense said he was right. Common sense also said she was asking for trouble if she slept in his arms. She trusted him to behave, but she wasn’t that certain of herself. He was sexy, with a capital SEX. He made her laugh. He was strong and capable, with a faintly wicked edge to him. He was even a little dangerous. What more could a woman want?

That was perhaps the most dangerous thing about him, that he made her want him. She had easily resisted other men, walking away without a backward look or a second thought. Chance made her long for all the things she had denied herself, made her aware of how lonely and alone she was.

“Are you sure you can trust me to behave?” she asked, only half joking. “I didn’t mean to say that about being on top. I was half-asleep, and it just slipped out.”

“I think I can handle you if you get fresh. For one thing, you’ll be sound asleep as soon as you stop talking.”

She yawned. “I know. I’m crashing hard, if you’ll pardon the terminology.”

“We didn’t crash, we landed. Come on, let’s get that sweater off, then you can sleep.”

There wasn’t room to fully sit up, so he helped her struggle out of the garment. He rolled it up and tucked it under his head, then gently, as if worried he might frighten her, drew her against his right side. His right arm curled around her, and she nestled close, settling her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

The position was surprisingly comfortable, and comforting. She draped her right arm across his chest, because there didn’t seem to be any other place to put it. Well, there were other places, but none that seemed as safe. Besides, she liked feeling his heartbeat under her hand. The strong, even thumping satisfied some primitive instinct in her, the desire not to be alone in the night.

“Comfortable?” he asked in a low, soothing tone.

“Um-hmm.”

With his left arm he snagged one of the space blankets and pulled it up to cover her to the shoulders, keeping the chill from her bare arms. Cocooned in warmth and darkness, she gave in to the sheer pleasure of lying so close to him. Sleepy desire hummed just below the surface, warming her, softening her. Her breasts, crushed against his side, tightened in delight, and her nipples felt achy, telling her they had hardened. Could he feel them? she wondered. She wanted to rub herself against him like a cat, intensifying the sensation, but she lay very still and concentrated on the rhythm of his heartbeat.

He had touched her breasts when he kissed her. She wanted to feel that again, feel his hard hand on her bare flesh. She wanted him, wanted his touch and his taste and the feel of him inside her. The force of her physical yearning was so strong that she actually ached from the emptiness.

If we don’t get out of here tomorrow, she thought in faint despair just before she went to sleep, I’ll be under him before the sun goes down again.

* * *

SUNNY WAS ACCUSTOMED to waking immediately when anything disturbed her; once, a car had backfired out in the street and she had grabbed the pistol from under the pillow and rolled off the bed before the noise had completely faded. She had learned how to nap on demand, because she never knew when she might have to run for her life. She could count on one hand the number of nights since she had stopped being a child that she had slept through undisturbed.

But she woke in Chance’s arms aware that she had slept all night long, that not only had lying next to him not disturbed her, in a very basic way his presence had been reassuring. She was safe here, safe and warm and unutterably relaxed. His hand was stroking slowly down her back, and that was what had awakened her.

Her skirt had ridden up during the night, of course, and was twisted at midthigh. Their legs were tangled together, her right leg thrown over his; his jeans were old and soft, but the denim was still slightly rough against the inside of her thigh. She wasn’t lying completely on top of him, but it was a near thing. Her head lay pillowed on his chest instead of his shoulder, with the steady thumping of his heart under her ear.

The slow motion of his hand continued. “Good morning,” he said, his deep voice raspy from sleep.

“Good morning.” She didn’t want to get up, she realized, though she knew she should. It was after dawn; the morning light seeped through the brown fabric of the tent, washing them with a dull gold color. Chance should get started on the fuel pump, so they could get airborne and in radio contact with someone as soon as possible, to let the FAA know they hadn’t crashed. She knew what she should do, but instead she continued to lie there, content with the moment.

He touched her hair, lifting one strand and watching it drift back down. “I could get used to this,” he murmured.

“You’ve slept with women before.”

“I haven’t slept with you before.”

She wanted to ask how she was different, but she was better off not knowing. Nothing could come of this fast-deepening attraction, because she couldn’t let it. She had to believe that he could repair the plane, that in a matter of hours they would be separating and she would never see him again. That was the only thing that gave her the strength, finally, to pull away from him and straighten her clothes, push her hair out of her face and unzip the tent.

The chill morning air rushed into their small cocoon. “Wow,” she said, ignoring his comment. “Some hot coffee would be good, wouldn’t it? I don’t suppose you have a jar of instant in the plane?”

“You mean you don’t have coffee packed in that survival bag of yours?” Taking his cue from her, he didn’t push her to continue their provocative conversation.

“Nope, just water.” She crawled out of the tent, and he handed her shoes and sweater out through the opening. Quickly she slipped them on, glad she had brought a heavy cardigan instead of a summer-weight one.

Chance’s boots came out next, then him. He sat on the ground and pulled on his boots. “Damn, it’s cold. I’m going to get my jacket from the plane. I’ll take care of business there, and you go on the other side of these boulders. There shouldn’t be any snakes stirring around this early, but keep an eye out.”

Sunny dug some tissues out of her skirt pocket and set off around the boulders. Ten minutes later, nature’s call having been answered, she washed her face and hands with one of the pre-moistened towelettes, then brushed her teeth and hair. Feeling much more human and able to handle the world, she took a moment to look around at their life-saving little canyon.

It was truly a slit in the earth, no more than fifty yards wide where he had landed the plane. About a quarter of a mile farther down it widened some, but the going was much rougher. The stream bed was literally the only place they could have safely landed. Just beyond the widest point, the canyon made a dog leg to the left, so she had no idea how long it was. The canyon floor was littered with rocks big and small, and a variety of scrub brush. Deep grooves were cut into the ground where rain had sluiced down the steep canyon walls and arrowed toward the stream.

All the different shades of red were represented in the dirt and rock, from rust to vermillion to a sandy pink. The scrub brush wasn’t a lush green; the color was dry, as if it had been bleached by the sun. Some of it was silvery, a bright contrast against the monochromatic tones of the earth.

They seemed to be the only two living things there. She didn’t hear any birds chirping, or insects rustling. There had to be small wildlife such as lizards and snakes, she knew, which meant there had to be something for them to eat, but at the moment the immense solitude was almost overwhelming.

Looking at the plane, she saw that Chance was already poking around in its innards. Shoving her cold hands into the sweater pockets, she walked down to him.

“Don’t you want to eat something?”

“I’d rather save the food until I see what the problem is.” He gave her a crooked grin. “No offense, but I don’t want to eat another one of those nutrition bars unless I absolutely have to.”

“And if you can fly us out of here, you figure you can hold out until we get to an airport.”

“Bingo.”

She grinned as she changed positions so she could see what he was doing. “I didn’t eat one, either,” she confessed.

He was checking the fuel lines, his face set in that intent expression men got when they were doing anything mechanical. Sunny felt useless; she could have helped if he was working on a car, but she didn’t know anything about airplanes. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she finally asked.

“No, it’s just a matter of taking off the fuel lines and checking them for clogs.”

She waited a few more minutes, but the process looked tedious rather than interesting, and she began getting restless. “I think I’ll walk around, explore a bit.”

“Stay within yelling distance,” he said absently.

The morning, though still cool, was getting warmer by the minute as the sun heated the dry desert air. She walked carefully, watching where she placed each step, because a sprained ankle could mean the difference between life and death if she had to run for it. Someday, she thought, a sprain would be an inconvenience, nothing more. One day she would be free.

She looked up at the clear blue sky and inhaled the clean, crisp air. She had worked hard to retain her enjoyment of life, the way she had learned to rely on a sense of humor to keep her sane. Margreta didn’t handle things nearly as well, but she already had to deal with a heart condition that, while it could be controlled with medication, nevertheless meant that she had to take certain precautions. If she were ever found, Margreta lacked Sunny’s ability to just drop out of sight. She had to have her medication refilled, which meant she had to occasionally see her doctor so he could write a new prescription. If she had to find a new doctor, that would mean being retested, which would mean a lot more money.

Which meant that Sunny never saw her sister. It was safer if they weren’t together, in case anyone was looking for sisters. She didn’t even have Margreta’s phone number. Margreta called Sunny’s cell phone once a week at a set time, always from a different pay phone. That way, if Sunny was captured, she had no information her captors could get by any means, not even drugs.

She had four days until Margreta called, Sunny thought. If she didn’t answer the phone, or if Margreta didn’t call, then each had to assume the other had been caught. If Sunny didn’t answer the phone, Margreta would bolt from her safe hiding place, because with the phone records her location could be narrowed down to the correct city. Sunny couldn’t bear to think what would happen then; Margreta, in her grief and rage, might well throw caution to the wind in favor of revenge.

Four days. The problem had to be a clogged fuel line. It just had to be.

Chapter Six

MINDFUL OF CHANCE’S WARNING, Sunny didn’t wander far. In truth, there wasn’t much to look at, just grit and rocks and scraggly bushes, and those vertical rock walls. The desert had a wild, lonely beauty, but she was more appreciative when she wasn’t stranded in it. When rain filled the stream this sheltered place probably bloomed with color, but how often did it rain here? Once a year?

As the day warmed, the reptiles began to stir. She saw a brown lizard dart into a crevice as she approached. A bird she didn’t recognize swooped down for a tasty insect, then flew back off to freedom. The steep canyon walls didn’t mean anything to a bird, while the hundred feet or so were unscalable to her.

She began to get hungry, and a glance at her watch told her she had been meandering through the canyon for over an hour. What was taking Chance so long? If there was a clog in the lines he should have found it by now.

She began retracing her steps to the plane. She could see Chance still poking around the engine, which meant he probably hadn’t found anything. A chilly finger of fear prodded her, and she pushed it away. She refused to anticipate trouble. She would deal with things as they happened, and if Chance couldn’t repair the plane, then they would have to find some other way out of the canyon. She hadn’t explored far; perhaps the other end was open, and they could simply walk out. She didn’t know how far they were from a town, but she was willing to make the effort. Anything was better than sitting and doing nothing.

As she approached, Chance lifted his hand to show he saw her, then turned back to the engine. Sunny let her gaze linger, admiring the way his T-shirt clung to the muscles of his back and shoulders. The fit of his jeans wasn’t bad, either, she thought, eyeing his butt and long legs.

Something moved in the sand near his feet.

She thought she would faint. Her vision dimmed and narrowed until all she saw was the snake, perilously close to his left boot. Her heart leaped, pounding against her rib cage so hard she felt the thuds.

She had no sensation or knowledge of moving; time took on the viscosity of syrup. All she knew was that the snake was getting bigger and bigger, closer and closer. Chance looked around at her and stepped back from the plane, almost on the coiling length. The snake’s head drew back and her hand closed on a coil, surprisingly warm and smooth, and she threw the awful thing as far as she could. It was briefly outlined against the stark rock, then sailed beyond a bush and dropped from sight.

“Are you all right? Did it bite you? Are you hurt?” She couldn’t stop babbling as she went down on her knees and began patting his legs, looking for droplets of blood, a small tear in his jeans, anything that would show if he had been bitten.

“I’m all right. I’m all right. Sunny! It didn’t bite me.” His voice overrode hers, and he hauled her to her feet, shaking her a little to get her attention. “Look at me!” The force of his tone snagged her gaze with his and he said more quietly, “I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” She couldn’t seem to stop touching him, patting his chest, stroking his face, though logically she knew there was no way the snake could have bitten him up there. Neither could she stop trembling. “I hate snakes,” she said in a shaking voice. “They terrify me. I saw it—it was right under your feet. You almost stepped on it.”

“Shh,” he murmured, pulling her against him and rocking her slowly back and forth. “It’s all right. Nothing happened.”

She clutched his shirt and buried her head against his chest. His smell, already so familiar and now with the faint odor of grease added, was comforting. His heartbeat was steady, as if he hadn’t almost been snakebitten. He was steady, rock solid, his body supporting hers.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered. “That was awful.” She raised her head and stared at him, an appalled expression on her face. “Yuk! I touched it!” She snatched her hand away from him and held it at arm’s length. “Let me go, I have to wash my hand. Now!”

He released her, and she bolted up the slope to the tent, where the towelettes were. Grabbing one, she scrubbed furiously at her palm and fingers.

Chance was laughing softly as he came up behind her. “What’s the matter? Snakes don’t have cooties. Besides, yesterday you said you weren’t afraid of them.”

“I lied. And I don’t care what they have, I don’t want one anywhere near me.” Satisfied that no snake germs lingered on her hand, she blew out a long, calming breath.

“Instead of swooping down like a hawk,” he said mildly, “why didn’t you just yell out a warning?”

She gave him a blank look. “I couldn’t.” Yelling had never entered her mind. She had been taught her entire life not to yell in moments of tension or danger, because to do so would give away her position. Normal people could scream and yell, but she had never been allowed to be normal.

He put one finger under her chin, lifting her face to the sun. He studied her for a long moment, something dark moving in his eyes; then he tugged her to him and bent his head.

His mouth was fierce and hungry, his tongue probing. She sank weakly against him, clinging to his shoulders and kissing him in return just as fiercely, with just as much hunger. More. She felt as if she had always hungered, and never been fed. She drank life itself from his mouth, and sought more.

His hands were all over her, on her breasts, her bottom, lifting her into the hard bulge of his loins. The knowledge that he wanted her filled her with a deep need to know more, to feel everything she had always denied herself. She didn’t know if she could have brought herself to pull away, but he was the one who broke the kiss, lifting his head and standing there with his eyes closed and a grim expression on his face.

“Chance?” she asked hesitantly.

He growled a lurid word under his breath. Then he opened his eyes and glared down at her. “I can’t believe I’m stopping this a second time,” he said with a raw, furious frustration. “Just for the record, I’m not that noble. Damn it all to hell and back—” He broke off, breathing hard. “It isn’t a clogged fuel line. It must be the pump. We have other things we need to do. We can’t afford to waste any daylight.”

Margreta. Sunny bit her lip to hold back a moan of dismay. She stared up at him, the knowledge of the danger of their situation lying like a stark shadow between them.

She wasn’t licked yet. She had four days. “Can we walk out?”

“In the desert? In August?” He looked up at the rim of the canyon. “Assuming we can even get out of here, we’d have to walk at night and try to find shelter during the day. By afternoon, the temperature will be over a hundred.”

The temperature was probably already well into the seventies, she thought; she was dying of heat inside her heavy sweater, or maybe that was just frustrated lust, since she hadn’t noticed how hot it was until now. She peeled off the sweater and dropped it on top of her bag. “What do we need to do?”

His eyes gleamed golden with admiration, and he squeezed her waist. “I’ll reconnoiter. We can’t get out on this end of the canyon, but maybe there’s a way farther down.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Look for sticks, leaves, anything that will burn. Gather as much as you can in a pile.”

He set off in the direction she had gone earlier, and she went in the opposite direction. The scrub brush grew heavier at that end of the canyon, and she would find more wood there. She didn’t like to think about how limited the supply would be, or that they might be here for a long, long time. If they couldn’t get out of the canyon, they would eventually use up their meager resources and die.

* * *

HE HATED LYING to her. Chance’s expression was grim as he stalked along the canyon floor. He had lied to terrorists, hoodlums and heads of state alike without a twinge of conscience, but it was getting harder and harder to lie to Sunny. He fiercely protected a hard core of honesty deep inside, the part of him that he shared only with his family, but Sunny was getting to him. She wasn’t what he had expected. More and more he was beginning to suspect she wasn’t working with her father. She was too...gallant was the word that sprang to mind. Terrorists weren’t gallant. In his opinion, they were either mad or amoral. Sunny was neither.

He was more shaken by the episode with the snake than he had let her realize. Not by the snake itself—he had on boots, and since he hadn’t heard rattles he suspected the snake hadn’t been poisonous—but by her reaction. He would never forget the way she had looked, rushing in like an avenging angel, her face paper-white and utterly focused. By her own admission she was terrified of snakes, yet she hadn’t hesitated. What kind of courage had it taken for her to pick up the snake with her bare hand?

Then there was the way she had patted him, looking for a bite. Except with certain people, or during sex, he had to struggle to tolerate being touched. He had learned how to accept affection in his family, because Mom and Maris would not leave him alone. He unabashedly loved playing with all his nephews—and niece—but his family had been the only exception. Until now. Until Sunny. He not only hadn’t minded, he had, for a moment, allowed himself the pure luxury of enjoying the feel of her hands on his legs, his chest. And that didn’t even begin to compare to how much he had enjoyed sleeping with her, feeling those sweet curves all along his side. His hand clenched as he remembered the feel of her breast in his palm, the wonderful resilience that was both soft and firm. He ached to feel her bare skin, to taste her. He wanted to strip her naked and pull her beneath him for a long hard ride, and he wanted to do it in broad daylight so he could watch her brilliant eyes glaze with pleasure.

If she wasn’t who she was he would take her to the south of France, maybe, or a Caribbean island, any place where they could lie naked on the beach and make love in the sunshine, or in a shaded room with fingers of sunlight slipping through closed blinds. Instead, he had to keep lying to her, because whether or not she was working with her father didn’t change the fact that she was the key to locating him.

He couldn’t change the plan now. He couldn’t suddenly “repair” the plane. He thanked God she didn’t know anything about planes, because otherwise she would never have fallen for the fuel pump excuse; a Skylane had a backup fuel pump, for just such an emergency. No, he had to play out the game as he had planned it, because the goal was too damned important to abandon, and he couldn’t take the risk that she was involved up to her pretty ears, after all.

He and Zane had walked a fine line in planning this out. The situation had to be survivable but grim, so nothing would arouse her suspicion. There was food to be had, but not easily. There was water, but not a lot. He hadn’t brought any provisions that might make her wonder why he had them, meaning he had limited himself to the blanket, the water and the pistol, plus the expected items in the plane, such as flares. Hell, she was a lot more prepared than he was, and that made him wary. She wasn’t exactly forthcoming about her reason for toting a damn tent around, either. The lady had secrets of her own.

He reached the far end of the canyon and checked to make certain nothing had changed since he and Zane had been here. No unexpected landslide had caved in a wall, allowing a way out. The thin trickle of water still ran down the rock. He saw rabbit tracks, birds, things they could eat. Shooting them would be the easy way, though; he would have to build some traps, to save his ammunition for emergencies.

Everything was just as he had left it. The plan was working. The physical attraction between them was strong; she wouldn’t resist him much longer, maybe not at all. She certainly hadn’t done anything to call a halt earlier. And after he was her lover—well, women were easily beguiled by sexual pleasure, the bonds of the flesh. He knew the power of sex, knew how to use it to make her trust him. He wished he could trust her—this would be a lot easier if he could—but he knew too much about the human soul’s capability of evil, and that a pretty face didn’t necessarily mean a pretty person was behind it.

When he judged enough time had passed for him to completely reconnoiter the canyon, he walked back. She was still gathering sticks, he saw, going back and forth between the bushes and the growing pile next to the tent. She looked up when he got closer, hope blazing in her expression.

He shook his head. “It’s a box canyon. There’s no way out,” he said flatly. “The good news is, there’s water at the far end.”

She swallowed. Her eyes were huge with distress, almost eclipsing her face. “We can’t climb out, either?”

“It’s sheer rock.” He put his hands on his hips, looking around. “We need to move closer to the water, for convenience. There’s an overhang that will give us shade from the sun, and the ground underneath is sandier, so it’ll be more comfortable.”

Or as comfortable as they could get, sleeping in that small tent.

Wordlessly she nodded and began folding the tent. She did it briskly, without wasted movement, but he saw she was fighting for control. He stroked her upper arm, feeling her smooth, pliant skin, warm and slightly moist from her exertion. “We’ll be okay,” he reassured her. “We just have to hold out until someone sees our smoke and comes to investigate.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” she said shakily. “You said so yourself. And I only have four days until—”

“Until what?” he asked, when she stopped.

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” She stared blindly at the sky, at the clear blue expanse that was turning whiter as the hot sun climbed upward.

Four days until what? he wondered. What was going to happen? Was she supposed to do something? Was a terrorist attack planned? Would it go forward without her?

* * *

THE DOGLEG OF the canyon was about half a mile long, and the angle gave it more shade than where they had landed. They worked steadily, moving their camp, with Chance hauling the heaviest stuff. Sunny tried to keep her mind blank, to not think about Margreta, to focus totally on the task at hand.

It was noon, the white sun directly overhead. The heat was searing, the shade beneath the overhang so welcome she sighed with relief when they gained its shelter. The overhang was larger than she had expected, about twelve feet wide and deep enough, maybe eight feet, that the sunshine would never penetrate its depths. The rock sloped to a height of about four feet at the back, but the opening was high enough that Chance could stand up without bumping his head.

“I’ll wait until it’s cooler to get the rest,” he said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Let’s have half of one of your nutrition bars now, and I’ll try to get a rabbit for dinner.”

She rallied enough to give him a look of mock dismay. “You’d eat Peter Cottontail?”

“I’d eat the Easter Bunny right now, if I could catch him.”

He was trying to make her laugh. She appreciated his effort, but she couldn’t quite shake off the depression that had seized her when her last hope of getting out of here quickly had evaporated.

She had lost her appetite, but she dug out one of the nutrition bars and halved it, though she hid the fact that Chance’s “half” was bigger than hers. He was bigger; he needed more. They ate their spartan little meal standing up, staring out at the bleached tones of the canyon. “Drink all the water you want,” he urged. “The heat dehydrates you even in the shade.”

Obediently she drank a bottle of water; she needed it to get the nutrition bar down. Each bite felt as if it was getting bigger and bigger in her mouth, making it difficult to swallow. She resorted to taking only nibbles, and got it down that way.

After they ate, Chance made a small circle of rocks, piled in some sticks and leaves, both fresh and dead, and built a fire. Soon a thin column of smoke was floating out of the canyon. It took him no more than five minutes to accomplish, but when he came back under the overhang his shirt was damp with sweat.

She handed him a bottle of water, and he drank deeply, at the same time reaching out a strong arm and hooking it around her waist. He drew her close and pressed a light kiss to her forehead, nothing more, just held her comfortingly. She put her arms around him and clung, desperately needing his strength right now. She hadn’t had anyone to lean on in a long time; she had always had to be the strong one. She had tried so hard to stay on top of things, to plan for every conceivable glitch, but she hadn’t thought to plan for this, and now she had no idea what to do.

“I have to think of something,” she said aloud.

“Shh. All we have to do is stay alive. That’s the most important thing.”

He was right, of course. She couldn’t do anything about Margreta now. This damn canyon had saved their lives yesterday, but it had become a prison from which she couldn’t escape. She had to play the hand with the cards that had been dealt to her and not let depression sap her strength. She had to hope Margreta wouldn’t do anything foolish, just go to ground somewhere. How she would ever find her again she didn’t know, but she could deal with that if she just knew her sister was alive and safe somewhere.

“Do you have family who will worry?” he asked.

God, that went to the bone! She shook her head. She had family, but Margreta wouldn’t worry; she would simply assume the worst.

“What about you?” she asked, realizing she had fallen halfway in love with the man and didn’t know a thing about him.

He shook his head. “C’mon, let’s sit down.” With nothing to use for a seat, they simply sat on the ground. “I’ll take two of the seats out of the plane this afternoon, so we’ll be more comfortable,” he said. “In answer to your question, no, I don’t have anyone. My folks are dead, and I don’t have any brothers or sisters. There’s an uncle somewhere, on my dad’s side, and my mom had some cousins, but we never kept in touch.”

“That’s sad. Family should stay together.” If they could, she added silently. “Where did you grow up?”

“All over. Dad wasn’t exactly known for his ability to keep a job. What about your folks?”

She was silent for a moment, then sighed. “I was adopted. They were good people. I still miss them.” She drew a design in the dirt with her finger. “When we didn’t show up in Seattle last night, would someone have notified the FAA?”

“They’re probably already searching. The problem is, first they’ll search the area I should have been over when I filed my flight plan.”

“We were off course?” she asked faintly. It just kept getting worse and worse.

“We went off course looking for a place to land. But if anyone is searching this area, eventually he’ll see our smoke. We just have to keep the fire going during the day.”

“How long will they look? Before they call off the search?”

He was silent, his golden eyes narrowed as he searched the sky. “They’ll look as long as they think we might be alive.”

“But if they think we’ve crashed—”

“Eventually they’ll stop looking,” he said softly. “It might be a week, a little longer, but they’ll stop.”

“So if no one finds us within, say, ten days—” She couldn’t go on.

“We don’t give up. There’s always the possibility a private plane will fly over.”

He didn’t say that the possibility was slight, but he didn’t have to. She had seen for herself the kind of terrain they’d flown over, and she knew how narrow and easily missed this canyon was.

She drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs, staring wistfully at the languid curls of gray smoke. “I used to wish I could go someplace where no one could find me. I didn’t realize there wouldn’t be room service.”

He chuckled as he leaned back on one elbow and stretched out his long legs. “Nothing gets you down for long, does it?”

“I try not to let it. Our situation isn’t great, but we’re alive. We have food, water and shelter. Things could be worse.”

“We also have entertainment. I have a deck of cards in the plane. We can play poker.”

“Do you cheat?”

“Don’t need to,” he drawled.

“Well, I do, so I’m giving you fair warning.”

“Warning taken. You know what happens to cheaters, don’t you?”

“They win?”

“Not if they get caught.”

“If they’re any good, they don’t get caught.”

He twirled a finger in her hair and lightly tugged. “Yeah, but if they get caught they’re in big trouble. You can take that as my warning.”

“I’ll be careful,” she promised. A yawn took her by surprise. “How can I be sleepy? I got plenty of sleep last night.”

“It’s the heat. Why don’t you take a nap? I’ll watch the fire.”

“Why aren’t you sleepy?”

He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

She really was sleepy, and there was nothing else to do. She didn’t feel like setting up the tent, so she dragged her bag into position behind her and leaned back on it. Silently Chance tossed her sweater into her lap. Following his example, she rolled up the sweater and stuffed it under her head. She dozed within minutes. It wasn’t a restful sleep, being one of those light naps in which she was aware of the heat, of Chance moving around, of her worry about Margreta. Her muscles felt heavy and limp, though, and completely waking up was just too much trouble.

The problem with afternoon naps was that one woke feeling both groggy and grungy. Her clothes were sticking to her, which wasn’t surprising considering the heat. When she finally yawned and sat up, she saw that the sun was beginning to take on a red glow as it sank, and though the temperature was still high, the heat had lost its searing edge.

Chance was sitting cross-legged, his long, tanned fingers deftly weaving sticks and string into a cage. There was something about the way he looked there in the shadow of the overhang, his attention totally focused on the trap he was building while the light reflected off the sand outside danced along his high cheekbones, that made recognition click in her brain. “You’re part Native American, aren’t you?”

“American Indian,” he corrected absently. “Everyone born here is a native American, or so Dad always told me.” He looked up and gave her a quick grin. “Of course, ‘Indian’ isn’t very accurate, either. Most labels aren’t. But, yeah, I’m a mixed breed.”

“And ex-military.” She didn’t know why she said that. Maybe it was his deftness in building the trap. She wasn’t foolish enough to attribute that to any so-called Native American skills, not in this day and age, but there was something in the way he worked that bespoke survival training.

He gave her a surprised glance. “How did you know?”

She shook her head. “Just a guess. The way you handled the pistol, as if you were very comfortable with it. What you’re doing now. And you used the word ‘reconnoiter.’”

“A lot of people are familiar with weapons, especially outdoorsmen, who would also know how to build traps.”

“Done in by your vocabulary,” she said, and smirked. “You said ‘weapons’ instead of just ‘guns,’ the way most people—even outdoorsmen—would have.”

Again she was rewarded with that flashing grin. “Okay, so I’ve spent some time in a uniform.”

“What branch?”

“Army. Rangers.”

Well, that certainly explained the survival skills. She didn’t know a lot about the Rangers, or any military group, but she did know they were an elite corps.

He set the finished trap aside and began work on another one. Sunny watched him for a moment, feeling useless. She would be more hindrance than help in building traps. She sighed as she brushed the dirt from her skirt. Darn, stranded only one day and here she was, smack in the middle of the old sexual stereotypes.

She surrendered with good grace. “Is there enough water for me to wash out our clothes? I’ve lived in these for two days, and that’s long enough.”

“There’s enough water, just nothing to collect it in.” He unfolded his legs and stood with easy grace. “I’ll show you.”

He led the way out of the overhang. She clambered over rocks in his wake, feeling the heat burn through the sides of her shoes and trying not to touch the rocks with her hands. When they reached more shade, the relief was almost tangible.

“Here.” He indicated a thin trickle of water running down the face of the wall. The bushes were heavier here, because of the water, and the temperature felt a good twenty degrees cooler. Part of it was illusion, because of the contrast, but the extra greenery did have a cooling effect.

Sunny sighed as she looked at the trickle. Filling their water bottles would be a snap. Washing off would be easy. But washing clothes—well, that was a different proposition. There wasn’t a pool in which she could soak them, not even a puddle. The water was soaked immediately into the dry, thirsty earth. The ground was damp, but not saturated.

The only thing she could do was fill a water bottle over and over, and rinse the dust out. “This will take forever,” she groused.

An irritating masculine smirk was on his face as he peeled his T-shirt off over his head and handed it to her. “We aren’t exactly pressed for time, are we?”

She almost thrust the shirt back at him and demanded he put it on, but not because of his comment. She wasn’t a silly prude, she had seen naked chests more times than she could count, but she had never before seen his naked chest. He was smoothly, powerfully muscled, with pectorals that looked like flesh-covered steel and a hard, six-pack abdomen. A light patch of black hair stretched from one small brown nipple to the other. She wanted to touch him. Her hand actually ached for the feel of his skin, and she clenched her fingers hard on his shirt.

The smirk faded, his eyes darkening. He touched her face, curving his fingers under her chin and lifting it. His expression was hard with pure male desire. “You know what’s going to happen between us, don’t you?” His voice was low and rough.

“Yes.” She could barely manage a whisper. Her throat had tightened, her body responding to his touch, his intent.

“Do you want it?”

So much she ached with it, she thought. She looked up into those golden-brown eyes and trembled from the enormity of the step she was taking.

“Yes,” she said.

Chapter Seven

SHE HAD LIVED her entire life without ever having lived at all, Sunny thought as she mechanically rinsed out his clothes and draped them over the hot rocks to dry. She and Chance might never get out of this canyon alive, and even if they did, it could take a long time. Weeks, perhaps months, or longer. Whatever Margreta did, she would long since have done it, and there wasn’t a damn thing Sunny could do about the situation. For the first time in her life, she had to think only about herself and what she wanted. That was simple; what she wanted was Chance.

She had to face facts. She was good at it; she had been doing it her entire life. The fact that had been glaring her in the face was that they could very well die here in this little canyon. If they didn’t survive, she didn’t want to die still clinging to the reasons for not getting involved that, while good and valid in civilization, didn’t mean spit here. She already was involved with him, in a battle for their very lives. She certainly didn’t want to die without having known what it was like to be loved by him, to feel him inside her and hold him close, and to tell him that she loved him. She had a whole world of love dammed up inside her, drying up because she hadn’t had anyone to whom she could give it, but now she had this opportunity, and she wasn’t going to waste it.

A psych analyst would say this was just propinquity: the “any port in a storm” type of attraction, or the Adam and Eve syndrome. That might be part of it, for him. If she had to guess, Sunny would say that Chance was used to having sex whenever he wanted it. He had that look about him, a bone-deep sexual confidence that would draw women like flies. She was currently the only fly available.

But it wasn’t just that. He had been attracted to her before, just as she had been to him. If they had made it to Seattle without trouble, she would have been strong enough to refuse his invitation and walk away from him. She would never have allowed herself to get to know him. Maybe they had met only twenty-four hours before, but those hours had been more intense than anything else she had ever known. She imagined it was as if they had gone into battle together; the danger they had faced, and were still facing, had forged a bond between them like soldiers in a war. She had learned things about him that it would have taken her weeks to learn in a normal situation, weeks that she would never have given herself.

Of all the things she had learned about him in those twenty-four hours, there wasn’t one she didn’t like. He was a man willing to step forward and take a risk, get involved, otherwise he wouldn’t have stopped the cretin in the airport. He was calm in a crisis, self-sufficient and capable, and he was more considerate of her than anyone else she had ever known. On top of all that, he was so sexy he made her mouth water.

Most men, after hearing something like what she had told him, would have immediately gone for the sex. Chance hadn’t. Instead, he had kissed her very sweetly and said, “I’ll get the rest of the things from the plane, so I can change clothes and give you my dirty ones to wash.”

“Gee, thanks,” she had managed to say.

He had winked at her. “Any time.”

He was a man who could put off his personal pleasure in order to take care of business. So here she was, scrubbing his underwear. Not the most romantic thing in the world to be doing, yet it was an intimate chore that strengthened the link forming between them. He was working to feed her; she was working to keep their clothes clean.

So far, Chance was everything that was steadfast and reliable. So why did she keep sensing that edge of danger in him? Was it something his army training had given him that was just there no matter what he was doing? She had never met anyone else who had been a ranger, so she had no means of comparison. She was just glad of that training, if it helped keep them alive.

After his clothes were as clean as she could get them, she hesitated barely a second before stripping out of her own, down to her skin. She couldn’t tolerate her grimy clothes another minute. The hot desert air washed over her bare skin, a warm, fresh caress on the backs of her knees, the small of her back, that made her nipples pinch into erect little nubs. She had never before been outside in the nude, and she felt positively decadent.

What if Chance saw her? If he was overcome with lust by the sight of her naked body, nothing would happen that hadn’t been going to happen, anyway. Not that it was likely he would be overcome, she thought wryly, smiling to herself, her curves were a long way from voluptuous. Still, if a man was faced with a naked, available woman—it could happen.

She poured a bottle of water over herself, then scooped up a handful of sand and began scrubbing. Rinsing off the sand was a matter of refilling the bottle several times. When she was finished she felt considerably refreshed and her skin was baby smooth. Maybe the skin-care industry should stop grinding up shells and rock for body scrubs, she thought, and just go for the sand.

Naked and wet, she could feel a slight breeze stirring the hot air, cooling her until she was actually comfortable. She didn’t have a towel, so she let herself dry naturally while she washed her own clothes, then quickly dressed in the beige jeans and green T-shirt that she always carried. They were earth colors, colors that blended in well with vegetation and would make her more difficult to see if she had to disappear into the countryside. She would have opted for actual camouflage-patterned clothing, if that wouldn’t have made her more noticeable in public. Her bra was wet from its scrubbing, so she hadn’t put it back on, and the soft cotton of the T-shirt clung to her breasts, clearly revealing their shape and their soft jiggle when she walked, and the small peaks of her nipples. She wondered if Chance would notice.

“Hey,” he said from behind her, his voice low and soft.

Startled, she whirled to face him. It was as if she had conjured him from her thoughts. He stood motionless about ten yards away, his eyes narrowed, his expression focused. His whiskey-coloured gaze went straight to her breasts. Oh, he noticed all right.

Her nipples got even harder, as if he had touched them.

She swallowed, trying to control a ridiculous twinge of her nerves. After all, he had already touched her breasts, and she had given him permission to do more. “How long have you been there?”

“Awhile.” His eyelids were heavy, his voice a little rough. “I kept waiting for you to turn around, but you never did. I enjoyed the view, anyway.”

Her breath hitched. “Thank you.”

“You have the sweetest little ass I’ve ever seen.”

Liquid heat moved through her. “You sweet talker, you,” she said, not even half kidding. “When do I get a peep show?”

“Any time, honey.” His tone was dark with sensual promise. “Any time.” Then he smiled ruefully. “Any time except now. We need to move these clothes so I can set the trap up here. Since this is where the water is, this is where the game will come. I’ll set the traps now and try to catch something for supper, then wash up after I clean whatever we catch—if we catch anything at all.”

He wasn’t exactly swept away with lust, but there was that reassuring steadfastness again, the ability to keep his priorities straight. In this situation, she didn’t want Gonad the Barbarian; she wanted a man on whom she could depend to do the smart thing.

He began gathering the wet clothes off the rocks, and Sunny moved to help him. “Let me guess,” she said. “The clothes still smell like humans.”

“There’s that, plus they’re something different. Wild animals are skittish whenever something new invades their territory.”

As they walked back to the overhang she asked, “How long does it normally take to catch something in a trap?”

He shrugged. “There’s no ‘normal’ to it. I’ve caught game before within ten minutes of putting out the trap. Sometimes it takes days.”

She wasn’t exactly looking forward to eating Peter Cottontail, but neither did she want another nutrition bar. It would be nice if some big fat chicken had gotten lost in the desert and just happened to wander into their trap. She wouldn’t mind eating a chicken. After a moment of wishful thinking she resigned herself to rabbit—if they were lucky, that is. They would have to eat whatever Chance could catch.

When they reached “home,” which the overhang had become, they spread their clothes out on another assortment of hot rocks. The first items she had washed were already almost dry; the dry heat of the desert was almost as efficient as an electric clothes dryer.

When they had finished, Chance collected his two handmade traps and examined them one last time. Sunny watched him, seeing the same intensity in his eyes and body that she had noticed before. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she asked, only mildly surprised. This was, after all, the ultimate in primitive guy stuff.

He didn’t look at her, but a tiny smile twitched the corners of his mouth. “I guess I’m not all that upset. We’re alive. We have food, water and shelter. I’m alone with a woman I’ve wanted from the first minute I saw her.” He produced a badly crushed Baby Ruth candy bar from his hip pocket and opened the wrapper, then pinched off small pieces of it and put them in the traps.

Sunny was instantly diverted. “You’re using a candy bar as bait?” she demanded in outraged tones. “Give me that! You can use my nutrition bar in the traps.”

He grinned and evaded her as she tried to swipe the remainder of the candy bar. “The nutrition bar wouldn’t be a good bait. No self-respecting rabbit would touch it.”

“How long have you been hiding that Baby Ruth?”

“I haven’t been hiding it. I found it in the plane when I got the rest of the stuff. Besides, it’s melted from being in the plane all day.”

“Melted, schmelted,” she scoffed. “That doesn’t affect chocolate.”

“Ah.” He nodded, still grinning. “You’re one of those.”

“One of those what?”

“Chocoholics.”

“I am not,” she protested, lifting her chin at him. “I’m a sweetaholic.”

“Then why didn’t you pack something sweet in that damn survival bag of yours, instead of something that tastes like dried grass?”

She scowled at him. “Because the idea is to stay alive. If I had a stash of candy, I’d eat it all the first day, then I’d be in trouble.”

The golden-brown gaze flicked at her, lashing like the tip of a whip. “When are you going to tell me why you packed survival gear for an overnight plane trip to Seattle?” He kept his tone light, but she felt the change of mood. He was dead serious about this, and she wondered why. What did it matter to him why she lugged that stuff everywhere she went? She could understand why he would be curious, but not insistent.

“I’m paranoid,” she said, matching his tone in lightness. “I’m always certain there will be some sort of emergency, and I’m terrified of being unprepared.”

His eyes went dark and flat. “Bull. Don’t try to blow me off with lies.”

Sunny might be good-natured almost to a fault, but she didn’t back down. “I was actually trying to be polite and avoid telling you it’s none of your business.”

To her surprise, he relaxed. “That’s more like it.”

“What? Being rude?”

“Honest,” he corrected. “If there are things you don’t want to tell me, fine. I don’t like it, but at least it was the truth. Considering our situation, we need to be able to totally rely on each other, and that demands trust. We have to be up front with each other, even when the truth isn’t all sweetness and light.”

She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, giving him an “I’m not buying this” look. “Even when you’re just being nosy? I don’t think so.” She sniffed. “You’re trying to psych me into spilling my guts.”

“Is it working?”

“I felt a momentary twinge of guilt, but then logic kicked in.”

She sensed he tried to fight it, but a smile crinkled his eyes, then moved down to curl the corners of that beautifully cut mouth. He shook his head. “You’re going to cause me a lot of trouble,” he said companionably as he picked up the traps and started back to their little water hole, if a trickle could be called a hole.

“Why’s that?” she called to his back.

“Because I’m afraid I’m going to fall in love with you,” he said over his shoulder as he walked around a jutting curve of the canyon wall and disappeared from sight.

Sunny’s legs felt suddenly weak; her knees actually wobbled, and she reached out to brace her hand on the wall. Had he really said that? Did he mean it? Would a man admit to something like that if he wasn’t already emotionally involved?

Her heart was pounding as if she had been running. She could handle a lot of things most people never even thought of having to do, such as running for her life, but when it came to a romantic relationship she was a babe in the woods—or in the desert, to be accurate. She had never let a man get close enough to her to matter, because she had to be free to disappear without a moment’s notice or regret. But this time she couldn’t disappear; she couldn’t go anywhere. This time she was in a lot more trouble than Chance was, because she was already in love—fully, falling-down-a-mine-shaft, terrifyingly in love.

The feeling was a stomach-tightening mixture of ecstasy and horror. The last thing she wanted to do was love him, but it was way too late to worry about that now. What had already begun had blossomed into full flower when he didn’t make love to her after she had said he could. Something very basic and primal had recognized him then as her mate. He was everything she had ever wanted in a man, everything she had ever dreamed about in those half-formed thoughts she had never let fully surface into her consciousness, because she had always known that life wasn’t for her.

But those circumstances held sway up in the world, not down here in this sunlit hole where they were the only two people alive. She felt raw inside, as if all her nerve endings and emotions had been stripped of their protective coverings, leaving her vulnerable to feelings she had always before been able to keep at bay. Those emotions kept sweeping over her in exhilarating waves, washing her into unknown territory. She wanted very much to protect herself, yet all the shields she had used over the years were suddenly useless.

Tonight they would become lovers, and one last protective wall would be irrevocably breached. Sex wasn’t just sex to her; it was a commitment, a dedication of self, that would be part of her for the rest of her life.

She wasn’t naive about what else making love with him could mean. She wasn’t on any form of birth control, and while he might have a few condoms with him, they would quickly be used. The bell couldn’t be un-rung, and once they had made love they couldn’t go back to a chaste relationship. What would she do if she got pregnant and they weren’t rescued? She had to hold out hope that they wouldn’t be down here forever, yet a small kernel of logic told her that it was possible they wouldn’t be found. What would she do if she got pregnant even if they were rescued? A baby would be a major complication. How would she protect it? Somehow she couldn’t see herself and Chance and a baby making a normal little all-American family; she would still be running, because that was the only way to be safe.

Keeping him at a distance, remaining platonic, was the only safe, sane thing to do. Unfortunately, she didn’t seem to have a good grip on her sanity any longer. She felt as if those waves had carried her too far from shore for her to make it back now. For better or worse, all she could do was ride the current where it would take her.

Nevertheless, she tried. She tried to tell herself how stupidly irresponsible it was to risk getting pregnant under any circumstances, but particularly in this circumstance. Yes, women all over the world conceived and gave birth in primitive conditions, but for whatever reasons, cultural, economic or lack of brain power, they didn’t have a choice. She did. All she had to do was say “no” and ignore all her feminine instincts shrieking “yes, yes.”

When Chance returned she was still standing in the same spot she had been when he left, her expression stricken. He was instantly alert, reaching for the pistol tucked into his waistband at the small of his back. “What’s wrong?”

“What if I get pregnant?” she asked baldly, indicating their surroundings with a sweep of her hand. “That would be stupid.”

He looked surprised. “Aren’t you on birth control?”

“No, and even if I was, I wouldn’t have an unlimited supply of pills.”

Chance rubbed his jaw, trying to think of a way around this one without tipping his hand. He knew they wouldn’t be here for long, only until she gave him the information he needed on her father, but he couldn’t tell her that. And why in the hell wasn’t she on some form of birth control? All of the female agents he knew were on long-term birth control, and Sunny’s circumstances weren’t that different. “I have some condoms,” he finally said.

She gave him a wry smile. “How many? And what will we do when they’re gone?”

The last thing he wanted to do now was make her hostile. Deciding to gamble a little, to risk not being able to make love to her in exchange for keeping her trust, he put his arms around her and cradled her against his chest. She felt good in his arms, he thought, firm with muscle and yet soft in all the right places. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the way she looked naked: her slender, graceful back and small waist, and the tight, heart-shaped—and heart-stopping—curve of her butt. Her legs were as slim and sleekly muscled as he had expected, and the thought of them wrapping around his waist brought him to full, instant arousal. He held her so close there was no way she could miss his condition, but he didn’t thrust himself at her; let her think he was a gentleman. He knew better, but it was essential she didn’t.

He kissed the top of her head and took that gamble. “We’ll do whatever you want,” he said gently. “I want you—you know that. I have about three dozen condoms—”

She jerked back, glaring at him. “Three dozen?” she asked, horrified. “You carry around three dozen condoms?”

There it was again, that urge to laugh. She could get to him faster than any other woman he knew. “I had just stocked up,” he explained, keeping his tone mild.

“They have an expiration date, you know!”

He bit the inside of his jaw—hard. “Yeah, but they don’t go bad as fast as milk. They’re good for a couple of years.”

She gave him a suspicious look. “How long will thirty-six condoms keep you supplied?”

He sighed. “Longer than you evidently think.”

“Six months?”

He did some quick math. Six months, thirty-six condoms...he would have to have sex more than once a week. If he were in a monogamous relationship, that would be nothing, but for an unattached bachelor...

“Look,” he said, letting frustration creep into both his voice and his expression, “with you, three dozen might last a week.”

She looked startled, and he could see her doing some quick math now. As she arrived at the answer and her eyes widened, he thrust his hand into her hair, cupping the back of her head and holding her still while he kissed her, ruthlessly using all his skill to arouse her. Her hands fluttered against his chest as if she wanted to push him away, but her hands wouldn’t obey. He stroked his tongue into her mouth, slow and deep, feeling the answering touch of her tongue and the pressure of her lips. She tasted sweet, and the fresh smell of her was pure woman. He felt her nipples peak under the thin fabric of her T-shirt, and abruptly he had to touch them, feel them stabbing into his palm. He had his hand under her shirt almost before the thought formed. Her breasts were firm and round, her skin cool silk that warmed under his touch. Her nipples were hard little nubs that puckered even tighter when he touched them. She arched in his arms, her eyes closed, a low moan humming in her throat.

He had intended only to kiss her out of her sudden attack of responsibility. Instead, the pleasure of touching her went to his head like old whiskey, and suddenly he had to see her, taste her. With one swift motion he pulled her shirt up, baring her breasts, and tilted her back over his arm so the firm mounds were offered up to him in a sensual feast. He bent his dark head and closed his mouth over one tight, reddening nipple, rasping his tongue over it before pressing it against the roof of his mouth and sucking. He heard the sound she made this time, the cry of a sharply aroused woman, a wild, keening sound that went straight to his loins. He was dimly aware of her nails biting into his shoulders, but the pain was small, and nothing in comparison with the urgency that had seized him. Blood thundered in his ears, roared through his veins. He wanted her with a savage intensity that rode him with sharp spurs, urging him to take instead of seduce.

Grimly he reached for his strangely elusive self-control. Only the experience and training of his entire adulthood, spent in the trenches of a dirty, covert, on-going war, gave him the strength to rein himself in. Reluctantly he eased his clamp on her nipple, giving the turgid little bud an apologetic lick. She quivered in his arms, whimpering, her golden hair spilling back as she hung helplessly in his grasp, and he almost lost it again.

Damn it all, he couldn’t wait.

Swiftly he dipped down and snagged the blanket from the ground, then hooked his right arm under her knees and lifted her off her feet, carrying her out into the sunlight. The golden glow of the lowering sun kissed her skin with a subtle sheen, deepened the glitter of her hair. Her breasts were creamy, with the delicate blue tracery of her veins showing through the pale skin, and her small nipples were a sweet rosy color, shining wetly, standing out in hard peaks. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said in a low, rough voice.

He set her on her feet; she swayed, her lovely eyes dazed with need. He spread out the blanket and reached for her before that need began to cool. He wanted her scorching hot, so ready for him that she would fight him for completion.

He stripped the T-shirt off over her head, dropped it on the blanket and hooked his fingers in the waistband of her jeans. A quick pop of the snap, a jerk on the tab of the zipper, and the jeans slid down her thighs.

Her hands gripped his forearms. “Chance?” She sounded strangely uncertain, a little hesitant. If she changed her mind now—

He kissed her, slow and deep, and thumbed her nipples. She made that little humming sound again, rising on her toes to press against him. He pushed her jeans down to her ankles, wrapped both arms around her and carried her down to the blanket.

She gasped, her head arching back. “Here? Now?”

“I can’t wait.” That was nothing more than the hard truth. He couldn’t wait until dark, until they had politely crawled into the tent together as if they were following some script. He wanted her now, in the sunlight, naked and warm and totally spontaneous. He stripped her panties down and freed her ankles from the tangle of jeans and underwear.

It seemed she didn’t want to wait, either. She tugged at his shirt, pushing it up. Impatiently he gripped the hem and wrenched the garment off over his head, then spread her legs and eased his weight down on her, settling into the notch of her open thighs.

She went very still, her eyes widening as she stared up at him. He fished in his pocket for the condom he’d put there earlier, then lifted himself enough to unfasten his jeans and shove them down. He donned the condom with an abrupt, practiced motion. When he came back down to her, she braced her hands against his shoulders as if she wanted to preserve some small distance between them. But any distance was too much; he grasped her hands in one of his and pulled them over her head, pinning them to the blanket and arching her breasts against him. With his free hand he reached between them and guided his hard length to the soft, wet entrance of her body.

Sunny quivered, helpless in his grasp. She had never before felt so vulnerable, or so alive. His passion wasn’t controlled and gentle, the way she had expected; it was fierce and tumultuous, buffeting her with its force. He held her down, dwarfed her with his big muscular body, and she trembled as she waited for the hard thrust of penetration. She was ready for him, oh, so ready. She ached with need; she burned with it. She wanted to beg him to hurry, but she couldn’t make her lungs work. He reached down, and she felt the brush of his knuckles between her legs, then the stiff, hot length of him pushing against her opening.

Everything in her seemed to tighten, coiling, focusing on that intimate intrusion. The soft flesh between her legs began to burn and sting as the blunt pressure stretched her. He pushed harder, and the pressure became pain. Wild frustration filled her. She wanted him now, inside her, easing the ache and tension, stroking her back into feverish pleasure.

He started to draw back, but she couldn’t let him, couldn’t bear losing what his touch had promised. She had denied herself so many things, but not this, not now. She locked her legs around his and lifted her hips, fiercely impaling herself, thrusting past the resistance of her body.

She couldn’t hold back the thin cry that tore from her throat. Shock robbed her muscles of strength, and she went limp on the blanket.

Chance moved over her, his broad shoulders blotting out the sun. He was a dark, massive silhouette, his shape blurred by her tears. He murmured a soft reassurance even as he probed deeper, and deeper still, until his full length was inside her.

He released her hands to cradle her in both arms. Sunny clung to his shoulders, holding as tight as she could, because without his strength she thought she might fly apart. She hadn’t realized this would hurt so much, that he would feel so thick and hot inside her, or go so deep. He was invading all of her, taking over her body and commanding its responses, even her breathing, her heartbeat, the flow of blood through her veins.

He moved gently at first, slowly, angling his body so he applied pressure where she needed it most. He did things to her with his hands, stroking her into a return of pleasure. He kissed her, leisurely exploring her with his tongue. He touched her nipples, sucked them, nibbled on the side of her neck. His tender attention gradually coaxed her into response, into an instinctive motion as her hips rose and fell in time with his thrusts. She still clung to his shoulders, but in need rather than desperation. An overwhelming heat swept over her, and she heard herself panting.

He pushed her legs farther apart and thrust deeper, harder, faster. Sensation exploded in her, abruptly convulsing her flesh. She writhed beneath him, unable to hold back the short, sharp cries that surged upward, past her constricted throat. The pounding rhythm wouldn’t let the spasms abate; they kept shuddering through her until she was sobbing, fighting him, wanting release, wanting more, and finally—when his hard body stiffened and began shuddering—wanting nothing.

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