Back in the cockpit, Robert was easing his forearms under the pilot’s armpits so he could pull him vertically from his seat. It was the kind of power move only someone with his degree of sheer muscle could pull off without hurting his back. When he got the man to a point where his legs were dangling, Mathilda stepped forward—only to find herself elbowed aside by Lincoln.
“I got this. He’s my pilot,” he said as he grabbed the unconscious man’s lower legs. “Least I could do.”
Mathilda busied herself with positioning the backboard for them to load the pilot onto it. From there, they fastened the straps and secured his head with the neck brace. Robert jumped down to the ground to receive the board, now loaded with a human. The board had retractable legs, making it much more like a gurney. He kicked those out so it sat slightly tilted on the floor of the jungle.
Lincoln readied himself to jump from the mangled wreck of the plane.
“Is there anything else you need from inside?” she called to him. “Like your briefcase? The one you were holding onto with that death grip?”
He looked blank for a moment. “Right. Yes, I should probably grab that.” He disappeared back inside the plane.
“Dude’s a little off,” whispered Robert. “Something ain’t right. We should watch our backs.”
“Agreed. Are you sure you want that champagne bucket? It might have drugs, or AI, or spyware. You never know with these types of people.”
Robert carefully examined the champagne bucket. “Too late. I already bonded with it. It’s perfect to keep my drinks cold while I’m fishing.”
Mathilda smiled at him. She was fully in support of his fishing obsession. They all benefited from it. Sometimes Robert would disappear overnight and come back with a cooler bag full of snapper and mahimahi. “Have it your way.”
Lincoln reappeared at the cabin door and tossed down an overnight bag, a leather briefcase, and, for some reason, that odd-looking lunchbox, then jumped down himself. Surprisingly agile, for a business tycoon, she thought. Then again, he probably paid top dollar to a team of trainers to keep him that way.
Even though the back half of the plane was a smoking pile of wreckage, Lincoln took some time to jam the cabin door back into place. Mathilda and Robert exchanged an amused glance. The biggest threat out here wasn’t humans trying to break in. It was rust and vegetation and rain and all the other forces that conspired to break things down in the jungle.
Robert and Lincoln carried the backboard, while she went ahead of them with the machete. She and Robert had only cleared a rough path toward the column of smoke they’d spotted. Now she wanted to make sure they didn’t get hit in the face with dangling vines or overhanging fronds.
After three years in this jungle—off and on—Mathilda was strong and quite deft with the machete. The crew at the Nahele Research Camp varied from a handful to ten people at most, so she’d learned to do almost everything for herself. There were only a couple things for which she still called for help—opening the occasional impossible jar, lifting a lava rock that was just a little too heavy for her.
She wasn’t great with machinery, either. Generators always seemed to fail around her. Their truck, which they kept in Waipi’o, broke down on a regular basis, and everyone else was able to diagnose its issues except her.
Too bad the pilot was the unconscious one. He could probably fix some of their broken equipment. But Lincoln—an investment-savvy billionaire—probably wouldn’t be much help.
Not that it mattered, because she couldn’t imagine that he’d have any interest in the camp or the researchers’ various projects. He’d be on a fast track to civilization the second he was recovered enough to hike to Waipi’o. She’d be shocked if he even waited until his pilot regained consciousness.
Too bad, because she might have found him attractive, with his dark good looks, full lips, and fit body, if he weren’t the notorious Lincoln Kerr. Men like him came from the world she’d fled. She’d turned her back on it for a reason. Now, after all this time, one of them had crash-landed in her jungle. What were the chances?
4
Rory spent the trek through the jungle imagining how he was going to explain this to Lincoln—assuming his boss did regain consciousness at some point.
I was trying to protect us. I figured if they thought I was a powerful billionaire, they wouldn’t mess with us. Besides, I wasn’t sure if you were going to stay alive, and if you died, I had a promise to keep. How would I do that if some strangers were carrying your dead body?
You’re saying that doesn’t make any sense? Well, I hit my head too, you know. I might not have been at my best. And those people surprised me. Would you have expected a big Hawaiian guy and a gorgeous blonde to show up at your jungle crash site? And I mean, Mathilda is flat-out beautiful, especially with those boots. So hot. Yes, I know it’s Hawaii and there’s lots of Hawaiian dudes and blondes. So maybe it wasn’t a stretch. Just shut up and go back to your coma, please.
His thoughts shifted to his surroundings, savoring the living green of leaves the size of elephant ears and ferns taller than him. Every tree trunk seemed to have a vine climbing up it, some with fringed leaves, some heart-shaped, some with flowers. Occasionally, unearthly squeals and grunts from somewhere in the jungle made him jump.
“Wild pigs,” Robert explained. “We got wild horses too, but not in this valley.”
He recalled what he knew about the seven valleys of the Big Island. Ancient Hawaiians had lived in these valleys. Hadn’t King Kamehameha been born in one of them—the Valley of the Kings? Was that nearby? His recollection was that today they were mostly uninhabited. So why were Mathilda and Robert here?
A cloud of mosquitoes buzzed around his face. He tried to shoo them away by blowing air at them, since he couldn’t let go of the portable backboard.
“Annoying, yeah?” said Robert, who was holding up the rear end of the backboard. “Your people brought those here.”
“Excuse me?”
“Mosquitoes. The missionaries didn’t like how us Hawaiians didn’t wear much clothes. Made them uncomfortable because of our beauty. They brought mosquitoes into Hawaii to make us cover up. Before that, we had no bloodsucking insects here. Now we all got to itch, white folks too. There’s a lesson in there, no?”
“Oh come on. That can’t be true.” Rory shook his head violently, disturbing a horde of mosquitoes that had settled on his hair. “Is it?”
