Chapter
One
“Got that new pilot coming in
today, Em. My friend at Hobby Airport says he’s sharp.” As the head
mechanic for Praxis Air and an old family friend, Buddy Hollister
treated Emily Parkington more like a daughter than one of the
senior pilots and part-owners of the charter airline.
Buddy was a pilot turned mechanic who
was gifted when it came to keeping jets in good working order. He
was a key member of the Praxis Air team and Emily thought of him as
part of the family.
“I’m glad to hear it. That last guy
was awful. I hate firing people.” She shivered in memory, making
Buddy laugh, as she’d intended.
Opening the refrigerator in the small
break room off the main repair hangar in Wichita, she grabbed a
cold soda and popped the top, drinking deeply. It was hot in the
huge building today.
The outer door opened and a man walked
in. She could see him through the large window that separated the
break room from the main area of the hangar. The temperature spiked
higher as she got her first good look at the new pilot. The guy was
smoking hot. Muscles filled out his tall frame to perfection and he
had that confident pilot swagger down pat.
A grin revealed pearly whites as he
strode across the room toward the office that was directly next
door to the break room.
“I bet that’s him,” Buddy observed.
“You better go rescue him from Sissy.” The old mechanic cackled as
he left the break room and headed for his kingdom—the repair bays
where he was in charge of maintaining the Praxis Air
fleet.
Sissy was the receptionist. She was
divorcing husband number four at the moment and had been chasing
all the single pilots and a few of the not-so-single ones too. No
doubt she’d have her polished red hooks in the new guy the moment
she laid eyes on him. It was only charitable to go save
him.
Emily shook her head in disgust as she
pushed through the adjoining door into the small office. There it
was. Sissy had her hand on the new guy’s arm as he filled out some
forms. A counter separated them but that didn’t stop Sissy the
Merciless. Eyelashes batted and giggles abounded as she flirted for
all she was worth. It was a little sad, actually.
God help her if Emily ever got so
desperate to catch a man’s attention. Of course, Emily’s love life
was nothing to crow about. A never-married workaholic was almost as
pathetic to Emily’s way of thinking, so who was she to cast
stones?
Shrugging off her depressing thoughts,
she decided to save the new guy before Sissy either scared him off
or led him into the broom closet. Emily moved into the room and
cleared her throat.
“Hi. I’m Emily Parkington. You’re Sam
Archer, right?” She walked up to the counter and held out her
hand.
The new guy turned and that bright
white smile dazed her for a brief moment. Whew. The man was even
more potent at close range. Blond, blue eyed, and rugged, he was
definitely easy on the eyes. He clasped her hand in his and the
warmth of his callused grip made her weak in the
knees.
“Pleased to meet you, Captain
Parkington.”
Oh, she liked the respect in his tone.
She didn’t often get that kind of response from the men she worked
with. At least not until they knew who she was and that she owned a
not-inconsiderable stake in the company. They treated her with more
respect once they realized she could hire and fire
them.
“Please, call me Emily.” She
remembered to smile as she regained possession of her tingling
hand.
Damn. She was going to have to share a
tiny cockpit with this mountain of a man. She’d have to get her
inconvenient attraction to him under control.
“I’m Sam. Good to meet
you.”
“Sissy squared away most of your
paperwork yesterday and Buddy said you did great on your check
ride.” She looked for a way to get him into the cockpit without
making him feel like she was testing him. She was, but she didn’t
want him to know it.
Emily liked to do all the check rides
for new pilots personally but every once in a while last minute
charters interfered. When that happened, Buddy or one of the other
long-time pilot employees filled in, but she still took the new
pilots up on their first day to be certain they had the
chops.
“The jet you passed on the way in was
released from repair this morning. How about we take her up for a
shakedown ride before we tackle the remainder of the
paperwork?”
His charming smile only deepened.
“Love to.” He motioned for her to precede him out the door and into
the hangar. The man had good manners, she’d give him
that.
“You’ve had some military experience,
haven’t you?” A short stint in the Army was listed on his
employment application and he definitely gave off the soldier vibe.
Most of the guys she flew with who’d been in the service were Air
Force or even former naval aviators. She didn’t have much
experience with Army guys.
“I was in for a couple of years,” he
agreed. Like many of the ex-military men she worked with, Sam
Archer appeared to be a man of few words.
“I respect that. Thank you for
serving.” And she meant it too. She’d always admired those who
chose to serve in the military and probably would’ve joined
herself, if not for extenuating family circumstances. The death of
her mother, for one. Her pesky brother and his Air Force
aspirations, for another.
“My pleasure, ma’am.”
She could tell he meant it. There was
something in his voice that said more than his simple
words.
“You miss it? The Army, I mean.” She
looked at him as they walked across the hangar. He was a tall man
with long legs and normally she would’ve had to take two steps for
every one of his but he was measuring his gait to accommodate her,
which was extremely thoughtful.
One of his eyebrows quirked upward as
he returned her gaze. “I loved everything about the service. The
adventure. The travel.”
“The waking up at oh-dark-thirty to
exercise in the rain,” she joked. “My brother is in the Air Force.
He’s told me a lot about that kind of thing. Or should I say, he’s
complained to me about it over and over again.”
She chuckled at the memory and Sam
grinned back at her. Time seemed to stand still as she gazed into
his eyes.
A dropped hammer clattered loudly
somewhere on the concrete floor of the hangar, breaking the spell.
Wow. She really had to get control of herself around this guy if
they were going to be flying together.
“I never mind physical training. PT is
something I’d do anyway—drill sergeant pushing me harder or
not.”
She’d just bet he would. And probably
did. The man had to be the most physically fit specimen she’d ever
encountered in the flesh. Up close she could see the bulges of his
muscles against the cotton of his shirt. When he raised his arms
and those giant biceps flexed, she feared for his
seams.
“So be all
that you can be isn’t just an ad slogan to you,
eh?”
He joined in her laughter as they
approached the jet she was aiming for.
“I’ve always liked a challenge. The
Army gave me that. I think this job will too.” His answer was only
the slightest bit cagey.
She turned to look up at him
suspiciously. She was getting mixed feelings about him. Usually a
good judge of character, she trusted her instincts on new hires and
people she met in her work, but she couldn’t read him well at all.
Something about him set her radar off. It could be the all too
feminine discomfort of being so close to a devastatingly attractive
male. Or it could be something far more sinister. Too many odd
things had been going on at Praxis Air of late.
She didn’t know this man. She hadn’t
hired him. That decision had been made by someone higher up the
food chain. There weren’t many people who had more pull in the
company her mother had co-founded than she did, so her suspect list
was short. All she knew was that something funny was going on at
her beloved airline and she was going to figure out what it was
come hell or high water.
This new guy could be innocent or he
could have been brought in to further the conspiracy—whatever it
was. She feared it had something to do with drug running, which
would destroy the company if they got caught by the authorities.
She couldn’t let that happen. She’d been discreetly trying to find
out what was going on for the past few weeks and was planning to
handle it quietly, once she knew who was involved and exactly what
they were doing. She’d hold her judgment about this handsome new
pilot until she got to know him better.
“Well, the Lear 35 is challenging
enough for me, but I’ve read your file. I noticed that you recently
got the Type Rating for this jet. What were you flying before?” She
knew, of course, but she wanted to hear it from him.
A pilot’s log book recorded everything
about their time spent in the air. It was sacred to each pilot.
Something they kept with them at all times when on the job and
reread to bring back memories of their early days. She reminisced
over her logs from when she was a teen every once in a while. Those
times spent with her mother, learning how to fly, were some of the
happiest moments in her life.
“Cargo planes mostly. Big lumbering
whales. I wanted something a little sleeker in my next job. I’ve
heard the Lear 35 is a fun ride.”
“That she is,” Emily readily agreed.
“Sturdy and dependable but small and fast. We fly a couple
different configurations but they’re all basically the same plane.
This one is outfitted to carry rock stars.” She gestured for him to
board the little jet through the passenger hatch.
“Ladies first, ma’am.” He motioned for
her to precede him, those military manners coming to the
fore.
She didn’t want to argue when he was
trying to be polite, so she went ahead, uncomfortably aware of him
checking out her ass as she entered the passenger compartment. She
stood to one side of the door so he could get the full effect when
he cleared the doorway.
He whistled, clearly impressed. “Rock
stars. You weren’t kidding.”
She looked around the luxury
compartment with a feeling of pride. She owned a part of this
gorgeous aircraft. This one and all the others that were currently
either parked outside or off on assignments somewhere. A fleet of
fifty-odd jets built up from one lonely Cessna her mother had
piloted back in the early days of the company.
“Rock stars, Arab sheiks, European
royalty, the odd politician with lavish tastes. We’ve transported a
lot of strange characters in this jet. I started calling it the
rock star ride and the name stuck. You should see the back
compartment.”
They walked past the luxurious couch
and table arrangement on their way to the rear of the aircraft. The
table was essentially a bar, with slots for high-end liquor bottles
and crystal stemware. It was all secured as it would be on a boat,
against the natural motion of the aircraft while in flight.
Everything was sparkling and shiny, cleaned within an inch of its
life. Even she was impressed, and she’d seen it many times. She
opened the door to the back compartment and entered.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Sam’s
voice came to her as she watched his reaction to the
room.
It was essentially a bedroom. A huge
bed took up most of the space, made up with the finest silk sheets
in a deep burgundy color.
“We have different color sheets
depending on the tastes—or sometimes the coat of arms—of the
charter. Color choice is one of the riders in the contract. Goofy,
huh?” She moved into the room and fixed a wrinkle on one corner of
the soft bedspread. “You’d be amazed how picky some rich folks are.
They want everything to their exact specifications.”
She half expected some off color
comment about being in a bedroom so soon after meeting. Most pilots
who looked as good as this one—and many of those who were a whole
lot less good looking—fancied themselves ladies men, looking only
for their next conquest. Which was why she’d made it a policy to
never get involved with a pilot.
“Being rich has its
perks.”
When he made no further comment, Emily
smiled and led the way out of the cabin. He’d passed a test, though
he didn’t know it. For that matter, she hadn’t realized she’d been
testing him. Well. Wonders never ceased. It seemed like maybe she
was flirting with the idea of breaking her own rule.
That wouldn’t do. They had to work
together. Spend hours and hours in a small cockpit. And there were
bad things going on at her beloved airline.
So why now? Why did the hottest man
she’d set eyes on in years have to show up on her doorstep at this
particular moment?
Something was fishy here. Had to be.
Emily had never been lucky in love. Hell, she’d never been lucky in
like. She had a dismal
track record with men. For Mr. Perfect to show up as a new employee
at the same time she started to suspect something was very wrong in
the company couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Let’s do the pre-flight inspection
together,” she suggested as she headed for the hatch.
“One walk around, coming
up.”
She frowned when he used the slang
term. Normally the first officer would be doing the preflight
inspection, commonly referred to as a walk around, to check for any
obvious signs of trouble with the aircraft. This first time they
flew together, Emily would do it with him.
The official testing had
begun.
Sam liked the way his new lady boss
handled herself as she subtly watched him during the usual
preflight rituals. She’d let him take the lead on the walk around,
asking questions and pointing out a few things peculiar to this
particular jet. She definitely knew her aircraft. Sam was impressed
with her knowledge and obvious intelligence, even as he chafed at
the bit to get down to the business of his assignment. There were
bad guys to catch and a possible conspiracy to uncover, not to
mention a potential zombie horde to stop in its
tracks.
Emily Parkington was not only a means
to that end, but until he could clear her for certain, she was also
a suspect. A very charming suspect, but a suspect nonetheless. She
wasn’t hard on the eyes either. Pretty in a girl next door way, her
bouncy brunette hair and soft hazel green eyes were gorgeous. She
was short, compared to him, but he guessed she was about average
for women. Somewhere around five foot five or thereabouts. She had
a trim figure with curves in all the right places. Sam had noticed
how pretty she was right off the bat but he couldn’t let that
influence his investigation. She was still under suspicion. Just
like everybody else at Praxis Air.
She’d let him take the stick on
takeoff and he’d enjoyed the roar of the little jet under his
command. She’d also watched him like a hawk as he went through each
of the checklists necessary to complete before they could begin
taxiing down the runway.
Sam was used to scrutiny. He hadn’t
become a Special Forces officer without lots and lots of training
and testing throughout his career. But being evaluated by a female
superior officer was somewhat rare in his experience and this
particular woman had the unnerving ability to get under his
skin.
Her insistence on using exact terms
for everything made him want to joke around with her, just to see
if he could bust through her slightly officious exterior. The
little crease between her eyebrows and slight pucker of her lips
made him want to kiss her annoyance away.
Damn. That was a disturbingly strong
thought. Sure, she was pretty, but Sam had a job to do here. He
couldn’t afford to have his head turned by a pretty face, no matter
how appealing. Focus. That’s what he had to do. Focus on the
mission. The team was depending on him to follow this lead. It was
the best one they had at the moment and it needed to be
investigated as deeply and as quickly as possible.
Before another outbreak happened. Each
time the creatures appeared, loss of innocent life followed. Each
instance had been worse than the last and the biggest danger of all
was if the creators of the deadly contagion managed to sell it.
Hostile governments or terrorists, those unethical scientists and
profiteers didn’t care who they sold the technology to. It would go
to the highest bidder if Sam and the rest of the team didn’t stop
them in time. The longer they remained free, the more dangerous it
was. Given enough time, the transaction would be completed and the
genie forever let out of its bottle. Sam had to work fast to
prevent that and his first step was already underway.
Emily Parkington was a means to an
end. She was either part of the conspiracy that was most likely
brewing in the company or innocent of it. He needed to uncover
which side she was on, but until he figured that out, she remained
suspect. As did everyone in this place. He couldn’t afford to get
too close to any of them.
“Takeoff checklist is complete. Moving
on to the cruise checklist.” Sam clipped his words efficiently as
he mentally refocused on his mission.
“Roger,” she replied crisply, flipping
to the next checklist in the book.
She read through the items as he
complied with each instruction. Some were as simple as checking a
gauge, others required action such as setting a dial or flipping a
switch. Old hat for someone who’d been flying as long as he
had.
Emily Parkington put him through his
paces in the air over the next hour and a half. She went through
various scenarios to test his reflexes and skill with the jet. He
enjoyed the challenges she set him and aced the test. He could tell
how well he’d done by her silence as he worked through the various
checklists prior to landing.
A few minutes later they were on the
ground, taxiing back toward the hangar. Emily didn’t say much until
they rolled to a stop outside the massive door to the hangar in the
space she indicated. He powered down and completed the paperwork
before turning to her.
“How’d I do?” He couldn’t help the
grin he knew had to be on his face. He loved flying.
“You passed,” she said after a moment.
A hint of a smile lifted one corner of her mouth. Damn, she was
pretty. Sam suppressed the thought as the silly grin faded from his
face. He had a job to do. He had to get to it.
“So when do I fly for real?” The
sooner he got on the schedule, the sooner he could begin checking
out the cargo, clients, and routes. He was serving two masters in
this endeavor and by far, the more important one was his commanding
officer back on base.
“That wasn’t real enough for you?” She
climbed from her seat and headed out of the cockpit.
“It was plenty real,” he clarified as
he followed her out. “I meant, when do I get on the roster to fly
charters?”
She opened the cabin door and headed
down the stairs, turning to wait for him at the bottom. He
clambered down the stairs and met her on the tarmac while another
jet powered up nearby, making conversation difficult over the
engine noise.
Emily pointed toward the hangar and he
followed her inside and right into the office area. She reached
behind the main reception desk and grabbed a clipboard, flipping
through pages while he watched. She didn’t babble. He liked that
about her. Too many women seemed to think they had to fill every
moment of silence with ceaseless chatter. Not Emily Parkington. She
talked, but not incessantly.
She put pen to paper and flipped the
clipboard to him. He caught it with one hand.
“You’re on the schedule for a flight
to Boise tomorrow at 9 A.M. That work for you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Sam felt that smile
curve his lips again as he looked at his name marked in next to
hers. They’d be flying together tomorrow. He liked the sound of
that.
“You’re first officer until you get a
little more seniority with the company. Any problem with
that?”
The slight lift of one eyebrow told
him she was waiting to see how he’d react. The test wasn’t quite
over yet. She was feeling him out to see how he’d fit with her
team.
“Fine with me, captain. As long as I
get some stick time, I’m happy.”
And as long as he was working for the
company, he’d have a chance to poke around and try to learn exactly
how they were involved in the forbidden zombie technology. He
hoped, for Emily’s sake, that she wasn’t mixed up in
it.
Being low man on the totem pole suited
his purpose. He was there to gather intel on the company and its
shipments and charters. If they were shipping top secret technology
or ferrying rogue scientists and potential buyers, he would uncover
it—with or without Emily’s help. The clock was
ticking.
“I’m setting something up and we’ll
need your jets.”
The voice on the other end of the
phone annoyed the snot out of Scott, the new head honcho at Praxis
Air. His father’s untimely death had paved the way for Scott to
take over and he wasn’t asking too many questions about how that
had all come about. He was in charge now and he was going to enjoy
it. RHIP, the old man had always said: Rank Has Its
Privileges.
The old man had been an Air Force
officer and had run the small airline like it was his own personal
air wing. Scott had never served, but he knew how to run a
business. Cash was his goal—fast and lots of it.
The deal he’d worked with the
professor guaranteed both and he was going to take the geek for all
he was worth and then some. Too bad a few pilots had to die along
the way, but it couldn’t be avoided. Now, losing the jets—that had
hurt. As had the National Transportation Safety Board
investigations. Both problems adversely affected the bottom line
but things were leveling out now. He didn’t want any more
accidents.
“What kind and how far?” Scott asked,
wanting the facts before he committed to anything.
“Cargo at first. I need some equipment
transported to the Pacific Northwest. If all goes as planned, I’ll
also need some luxury service for potential buyers from major hubs
to a small airport along the Oregon-Idaho border. I’ll tell you
exactly where when the time comes. Think you can handle
that?”
Scott thought about the logistics and
personnel. Emily Parkington had asked one too many questions at the
last shareholder meeting. He’d scared her off but she was as
annoying as her mother had been—always watching him with
disapproval in her judgmental eyes. He’d have to keep tabs on her.
She had been flying most of the Pacific Northwest routes but that
could be changed. He’d have to be subtle about it, but he thought
he could do it.
“No problem. When do you want to
start?”
“I’ve already started. The first of
the new cargo shipments should be arriving in Wichita in a couple
of hours. More will follow. Be sure they encounter no difficulties
getting to their destination.”
“Will do.” Scott didn’t like the man’s
superior tone of voice but for a cut of the deal he was willing to
put up with it.
“Good.” There was a slight hesitation.
“And Scott, my boy . . .” The smug bastard made Scott feel about
two inches tall. “See that your pilots keep their noses out of my
cargo boxes this time. Do it personally. I’d hate to have to
arrange another explosive decompression.”
A bomb. That’s what he meant. He’d
already blown up two of Scott’s toys. Those Lear jets didn’t come
cheap.
“Sure thing, Dr. Jennings.” Scott used
the man’s surname purely to annoy him.
“Idiot! I’ve told you never to use my
name over a phone line even if it is supposed to be secure. They
have eyes and ears everywhere!”
Bingo. Scott had hit the bastard’s
paranoia button right on the nose.
“My apologies, sir.” That little,
subservient sir had always
helped defuse his father’s anger and it apparently worked on this
science geek too. After a moment of silence, he seemed to calm
down.
“Don’t let it happen again.” He
cleared his throat and his voice calmed further. “I’ll be in touch
in a day or two, after the first shipment is completed, to schedule
more.”
The phone disconnected with an abrupt
click. No goodbye. Just a click.
Jennings was a nutcase, that was for
sure, but he was a rich one with what seemed like unlimited
resources. And if the deal he was working on came through, Scott
could finally buy that island in the South Pacific he’d had his eye
on for a while. Owning his own island was something Scott had
always wanted. The old man had left him rich, but not rich enough
to do that. It was his goal and he’d do anything—anything—to get
it. Including selling his soul to the devil.
In this case, the devil was a nutty
professor who wanted to remake the world in his own image.
Whatever. All Scott wanted was enough money to buy his island and
transplant all the people and supplies he’d need to live out his
life with a harem of beauties at his beck and call.
Was that too much to ask? A different
girl for every day of the week. Hell, why not every day of the
month? With enough money he was sure to find thirty or forty women
willing to live on his oasis in the sea with him.
It was his fondest daydream. And if
the rest of the world went to hell because of Jennings’ little
plague, so be it. Scott didn’t really care.