Page 6 of Rescued

These people had no imagination.

He saw a light flashing in a short-long-short, short-long-short pattern, and then a voice said in his ear, “Ulysses S. Grant. Change of plans. Just one.”

So, one had backed out. Or never made it to the rendezvous? How close behind them were the bad guys?

He brought the chopper down, keeping the motor on and the rotor going at slow speed. Illegal landings meant a quick in-and-out. Especially if bad guys could be close.

He recognized the passenger right away—the too-big jacket over the evening gown gave it away. She was arguing with the woman who’d flashed the signal.

Getting cold feet? Sheesh. Being a hero was one thing; coming all this way only to have the rescue back out was just a fucking pain in the ass.

The girl had nothing but an oversized leather shoulder bag that she was hanging onto like it was a baby. That tracked with the emergency call—things had gone south for her fast, and she’d had to get out quick, with no chance to pack, or even change her clothes.

Switch felt a pang of sympathy, which he immediately squelched.

He did this for nothing, but it was still a job. Victims came, and they went. He couldn’t get all involved with humans and their problems.

Finally the other woman managed to get his duckling moving toward the chopper. Hunched under the wind from the rotors, they ran to the passenger door, the duckling making little mincing steps in her too-high heels. Switch’s contact practically shoved her into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

Switch hoped like hell this one wasn’t going to be a problem.

As he spun up the rotors and lifted off, she turned on him, trying to say something. Luckily, Switch couldn’t hear her above the noise, because he had enough on his plate navigating around all the hazards between the buildings.

Then she grabbed his arm, shook it, and yelled at him.

“Shit!” Switch’s hand jerked the controls, and the helicopter slewed to the side, barely missing an electrical cable. He gritted his teeth and righted the helo, getting them above the city infrastructure. Then he tossed the death-wishing little maniac a headset, which she put on.

Before she could open her mouth, he said, “If you grab me again I’ll cold-cock you and deliver you unconscious. If you do it a third time, I’ll toss you the hell out and fly away.”

She turned and stared at him. “You wouldn’t do that,” she said.

Holy fuck. She was beautiful. Like, drop-dead-gorgeous supermodel beautiful. And her eyes—even in the dimness of the cockpit, they were wide and luminous and made him want to dive straight into them.

Switch dragged his attention back to flying, and made a game show buzzer sound into his mic. “Ennnnnh. Wrong answer. Thank you for playing. Do you even know what happened back there? You came like six inches from making us hit a power line. You and me, sizzled like breakfast sausage.”

“Oh!” There was a silence. In a smaller voice she said, “I’m sorry.”

Great. She was sorry now. “Whatever,” he said. “Never, ever, fuck with the pilot. Or you deserve to be thrown out.”

“But you wouldn’t,” she said again. “You rescue people.”

“How do you know your contacts aren’t paying me a shit-ton of money? Which I wouldn’t get if I were frizzled.”

“Are they? Paying you?”

He didn’t answer. The truth would make her think he was a nice guy, and then she’d probably start arguing with him.

“Just strap yourself in and shut up until we get to the rendezvous, okay?” He was flying her to rural Pennsylvania, to a fucking field in the middle of nowhere. And they could not get there fast enough to suit him.

Of course she didn’t shut up. “But we have to go back. I kept trying to tell Marie—Kimberly is in danger too. We can’t just leave her behind.” Her voice broke a little. “She’s my best friend.”

Switch sighed. Chances were her friend had either changed her mind about leaving, or had gotten caught. Neither of which was in any way comforting.

Not that he had any clue how to do comforting. He was the guy who built things and did the flying. Practical things. Not emotion-y things.

And the fact was, she and her friend had made bad choices. Not everyone was lucky enough to come back from that. If you survived and they didn’t, you just had to find a way to live with that.

He said, “Look. Brutal truth here. You got yourself in with the wrong people and now they want to kill you. You’re luckier than you can imagine, getting out alive, and having a place to go. I’m sorry about your friend, but either she couldn’t get out, or she didn’t want to come.”