In Too Deep (20 page)

It was exactly what she'd wanted to hear. He had recognized her independence, her resourcefulness. But now that she'd heard the words, even though they'd been spoken with a certain amount of admiration, somehow they sounded hollow. Maybe he wasn't looking for a woman who could traipse to the ends of the earth with him after all. Hell, maybe she should have swooned. Her head hurt from trying to make sense of the situation.
Forget figuring out what Rod wants,
she told herself. She didn't even know what she wanted anymore. Aside from the obvious calamities, this trip was proving to be an emotional mine field.

They finished the hike in silence. When they reached the camp at midday, they made quick work of dismantling the remaining equipment. The two Lacandones helped them pack everything and carry it to the airstrip.

Whey they arrived, a small Cessna was waiting, just as Rod had predicted. There was no sign of the pilot, but the plane was unlocked. They loaded everything onto it.

“What do we do now?” Cara asked.

“We wait. I can't imagine the pilot's gone too far.” He spoke to the Lacandones and, after a solemn farewell, they faded into the jungle.

“Why did you send them back?”

“There's no point in them hanging around here.”

Just then Cara noticed a movement in the brush on the other side of the runway. “Did you see that?” She pointed. “Over there.”

“Where?”

“In a straight line just past the nose of the plane. I saw something move.”

“Wait here and I'll check it out.”

He started forward, careful to keep the plane between him and the spot where she'd seen the movement. Cara was right on his heels. He shot a scowl over his shoulder, but didn't comment. Slowly a man emerged from the forest and Rod released a sigh of relief.

“No problem, princess. It's the pilot.”

He had just opened his mouth to call out to the man, when Cara got a good look at him and gasped. “Luis?”

“No,” Rod corrected, unaware of her sudden panic. “His name is Pedro Garcia.”

“I'm telling you, it's Luis,” she whispered.

Rod turned to stare at her. “Who the hell's Luis?”

“The other guy who was holding me.”

He reached for his gun, but his instant of hesitation had cost him the advantage. Before he could get his fingers around his own weapon, a shotgun blast ripped past them. Rod grabbed the door of the plane and wrenched it open.

“Get in.”

“I am not leaving you out here.”

He grabbed her around the middle and tossed her through the door. She landed... hard. As he climbed in after her, Rod fired two shots that dug up dirt in front of the rapidly approaching Mexican. He slammed the door closed and jumped into the pilot's seat. He handed Cara the gun.

“If he tries to get in the door, shoot him.”

The hand, which unexpectedly found itself in possession of a gun, trembled. “Shoot him?”

“If you have any problems with your conscience, just remember he's one of the men who kidnapped you.”

That steeled her nerves instantly and she kept a steady aim at the door as Rod started the plane's twin engines. She heard Luis pounding uselessly on the door just before they took off down the short runway.

Then trees were rushing toward them. Panicked at the speed with which they seemed to be approaching certain death, Cara glanced over at Rod for reassurance. That was a mistake. He was holding the throttle with white-knuckled intensity. He also appeared to be murmuring a prayer.

“Oh, my God!” she whispered. She dropped the gun and held onto the edge of her seat. “Rod Craig, I did not survive that kidnapping and this awful jungle only to die in a plane crash with you! Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, princess, I'm doing my best.”

At the last possible instant, without so much as an inch of airstrip left, the plane lifted off, dipping slightly. The right wing clipped the top of a tree and the whole plane shuddered. It dipped left, then steadied.

Cara closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “I suppose this is not the very best time to be asking this question, but do you know how to fly this thing?”

“I got us up here, didn't I?”

“Barely.”

He turned to look at her then. His brow was damp, his eyes tired, but there was the beginning of a grin tilting the corners of his mouth. “Don't look like that, princess. It wasn't bad for a man who's only had a couple of lessons.”

Cara buried her face in her hands. Her heart thumped unsteadily. “Tell me, please, that one of those lessons included landing.”

She did not like the evasive look in his eyes one little bit. He suddenly became extraordinarily interested in the control panel. That could be the sign of a pilot running through a standard checklist, or it could be the mark of a man who wasn't crazy about the question.

“Rod?”

“Would you rather hear the answer to that now or after we're on the ground?”

For the second time in five minutes, Cara saw her entire life flash before her eyes.

W
hen Cara could finally breathe again, she glanced at Rod. Despite the narrowness of the escape from Luis or Pedro or whoever the hell he was, despite coming within a hairbreadth of crashing, he actually seemed to be enjoying himself. Once a daredevil, she thought disgustedly. How had she ever forgotten, even for an instant, that the man was exactly like her father? Scottie would have been slapping his knee and chortling with glee right now, figuratively thumbing his nose at Luis, Tomas and their dreaded
jefe
. True, Rod's delight was more sedate. He merely looked smug.

“You don't plan to try to fly this thing all the way to Mexico City, do you?” Visions of colliding with a jumbo jetliner danced in her head with sickening clarity.

“No,” he said and she actually thought she heard a note of regret in his voice. “The authorities there probably take a dim view of private planes being piloted by men without licenses. They might actually get it into their heads we were drug smugglers or something.”

“What an absolutely delightful thought,” Cara commented with deliberately exaggerated cheer. “So, where are you planning to land? Palenque or Comitan?”

“I'd rather go to Tuxtla Gutierrez. It's a little farther, but we'd be able to get a flight there straight to Mexico City.”

Cara had no real objections to staying in the air now that they were safely up here, especially if it meant delaying even by a few minutes the moment when they discovered the extent of Rod's skill at landing. Tuxtla Gutierrez probably also had slightly more experienced flight controllers who could talk them down. She tried very hard not to recall the exact size of the plane she'd been on when she'd landed there on the trip down. However, by comparison with this tin can, it had definitely been in the jumbo range.

All she said to Rod was, “I suppose you know where it is.”

He immediately assumed an injured expression. “Of course I know where it is. It's west,” he said confidently.

She was somewhat reassured.

“More or less,” he amended.

Cara groaned. “Terrific.”

“Okay. So, I'm not so sure how to get there. Dig around up here and see if there are any aviation maps. Then you might get on the radio and see if you can rouse the control tower.”

“Me?”

“Hey, why not?”

“I'm just along for the ride.”

“I don't want you to get bored.”

“Believe me, I am never bored when I'm trying to survive.” She shook her head in bemusement. “You're really enjoying this, aren't you?”

As the critical tone of her question registered, she watched his hand tighten on the throttle, saw him clench his teeth. The light in his eyes died. Somehow it all made her feel guilty.

“Do you want me to say no?” he asked in a flat voice.

She sighed deeply. “I don't want you to lie to me.”

“Then, yes, I am enjoying it.”

She struggled to understand what made him tick, as she'd never understood Scottie. “Is it the living on the edge? Do you like flirting with death?”

“No more than with a dangerous woman.” He flashed a wicked grin at her.

She responded to the grin instinctively. Not many men had ever classified her as dangerous. Not the way Rod meant it. Cute, perky and feisty were about the best she'd ever done outside the corporate boardroom. Inside, she knew what they thought of her, and dangerous was kindly by comparison. However, Rod's innuendo, though appreciated on some feminine level, was quite beside the point. She masked her momentary thrill of pleasure and snapped impatiently, “Rod!”

He sobered at once. He even managed to look contrite, which made her extraordinarily suspicious.

“Sorry,” he said. “Of course not. I mean I don't enjoy being shot at any more than the next man. And it might have been nice to take you for a spin in this plane after I had a little more experience under my belt, but the truth is I like knowing I can survive. I like the unexpected, the unpredictable.”

When he looked across at her this time, there was a faint challenge in his expression. “Just the way you do, princess.”

She regarded him incredulously. “Me? This is not my idea of a dream vacation, much less a life-style. I told you I want white picket fences and rosebushes in the yard. I'd be perfectly content if my biggest challenge for the rest of my days was crabgrass.”

He chuckled. “I don't think so. You got too much satisfaction out of reminding me that you could have managed that escape entirely on your own. You'd be bored to tears in suburbia fighting your way to the bed-linen department at a January white sale.”

Suddenly Cara was tired. She could see where the conversation was headed, and she knew it didn't bode well for their future. “Maybe so. Maybe I have idealized suburbia. But there's a vast difference between knowing I can handle anything and wanting to test my limits constantly the way you do, the way Scottie used to do. I don't want a life with Crocodile Dundee. I just want something that's...” She threw up her hands in frustration. “I don't know. Normal, maybe. What would be so bad about living a quiet, normal life with 2.3 kids or whatever it is and a husband who comes home on time without somebody hot on his trail with a shotgun?”

“Nothing. That life is fine for a lot of people, princess.” There was a sad note in his voice that chilled her.

“Well, then?”

“Not for me.”

Tears stung her eyes and she refused to look at him. He'd only said what she'd known from the first instant she'd seen him, when he'd been standing by the Usumacinta River half naked, looking sexy as hell, with a gun in his hand. She had recognized a bold, unrepentant maverick. How the hell had she ever allowed herself to hope that she could tame him? Why, for that matter, would she even want to?

* * *

His declaration made, Rod tried very hard to concentrate on flying. He knew they were in a very sticky situation, and he admired the way Cara had held on through it all. The lady had more guts than even she realized. She was a woman who was more than equal to living the sort of life-style he'd chosen for himself.

But the point, of course, was that she had every intention of going back to New York and living in a glass-and-steel jungle until the day came when some man in a three-piece suit swept her off to Long Island. Rod hated cities, despised suits and especially detested the wide sweeps of lawn that required cutting at frequent intervals. Hell, on Long Island the damn lawns required manicuring. He ought to know. He'd cut one often enough during his marriage.

He glanced over at Cara. She was reading the flight manual and trying to work the radio. Her brow was knit in concentration, her lips pursed. As his gaze lingered on those lips, an entirely too familiar ache settled in his loins. He ignored it, but it was more difficult to ignore the constriction in the region of his heart. How in God's name was he ever going to let her go, so she could have the life she claimed to want?

“Any luck?” he inquired in an even tone that belied his churning emotions.

“I'm still hunting for the formula.”

He grinned, his mood unexpectedly brightened by the mixture of irritation and determination he heard in her voice. He didn't have to let her go yet. There was today. Maybe tomorrow. The future? Well, he was a man who only believed in todays.

“The formula?” he teased.

She glared at him. “You know what I mean. The code. Signal. Whatever.”

“Right. Have you considered just screaming for help?”

“It wouldn't be professional.”

“Princess, we have a slight emergency here. I think they'll excuse us if we skip some of the protocol.”

With a reluctant scowl, she lifted the microphone and began calling for the tower. She ran through the frequencies until they finally heard some static at least.

“Yes, come in,” an accented voice eventually responded.

“We need some help in reaching the field at Tuxtla Gutierrez,” she explained. She shot an apologetic look at Rod, then added, “We have an inexperienced pilot and we may need some help in landing.”

“I do not understand. What has happened to your pilot? He is ill? You are flying the plane yourself?”

“No, no, the pilot is flying it. More or less,” she added under her breath. Rod glowered at her disrespectful description. She grinned at him.

“It's just that he's...” Thankfully for his ego, she gave up trying to find a logical explanation. “It's a long story. Can you help us?”

“Of course, miss. First, you must stay very calm.” He sounded as though he were speaking to a slightly demented child. Rod figured Cara would tolerate that tone for about five minutes. Maybe less.

“I am calm.” She was practically shouting. Rod grinned at her. She rolled her eyes and lowered her voice. “I am very calm.”