of their situation was hard to ignore. She stuffed the other bar back into her bag and slowly chewed her half of the protein bar.
He startled her when he reached across, brushing her belly as he leaned to grab something at her feet. “Excuse me?” she exclaimed at having her personal space invaded. “What are you doing?”
“Gotta take advantage of the water falling from the sky,” he answered, lifting a canister and causing her to blush at her reaction. He fashioned a hook from some wire he had in a small toolbox and before long had the canister hanging out the pocket door, catching the rain. He grinned, saying, “No need to filter the rainwater. That way we can save our purifying tablets.”
“Another good point,” she murmured, shifting in the seat, wondering why she reacted so viscerally when J.T. was close. Of all the inappropriate times to notice that rugged physique and those tight, trim hips. A bit of protein bar snagged in her throat and she began to sputter. Horrified, she tried to swallow, but it seemed stuck.
“Here, drink,” he instructed, pulling the canister inside to give it to her. “Talk about fortuitous. Or, as some might say, lucky.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed what water was in the canister, relieved that her throat had stopped spasming. “Thank you,” she said, her voice ragged. Hope sagged against the worn leather of the seat and returned the canister so he could hang it out the door. When he returned to his seat, she added, “Still don’t believe in luck.”
J.T. shrugged, then settled in the seat, stretching his legs out as far as he could, which wasn’t too far in the cramped cabin. “We have time to kill. Tell me why people are shooting at you.”
“I already told you that it was better if you didn’t know too many details.”
“I don’t usually tempt fate by asking what else could happen, but, really, we’re staring down the business end of some really craptastic circumstances already, so what’s the harm in telling me what you’re running from?”
“I’m not running from anything,” she said, frowning. “I told you, I work for a pharmaceutical company.”
“Last time I checked, pharmaceutical companies didn’t offer hazard pay because their researchers were going to have to dodge bullets. What’s the real story?”
The real story? She was carrying, quite possibly, the most dangerous virus known to man in a special case in her pack and if she didn’t reach the South American facility...well, a pandemic of the most devastating proportions could be the result.
Or if the virus fell into the wrong hands...
Hope shuddered to think.
And yes, the people who shouldn’t have a biological weapon of this magnitude were the ones shooting at her.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, her eyes welling with tears she hadn’t allowed herself to shed until this moment. Tessara Pharm had their hands in so many pies, but this project had eclipsed everything else.
Her boss, Tanya Fields, was dead, and even though the police had deemed it a robbery gone wrong, the fact that Hope’s house had been trashed the same night had sent her running.
Well, that and the fact that Tanya had suspected that someone within Tessara had sold proprietary secrets about the virus, which was why Tanya had entrusted Hope to destroy it.
“Hey, where’d you go?” J.T. asked.
Hope shook her head, not about to share. “I said I don’t want to talk about it. I’d appreciate if you respected my privacy.”
She didn’t blame him for his questions, but she couldn’t stomach the idea of another person dying because of this virus. Especially when, if things had been different... No, she wasn’t going to go there. Dating had never been easy for her. She sucked at small talk because she saw little point and first dates were almost entirely comprised of the useless chitchat that she abhorred.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, attempting to be less prickly. “I don’t mean to be rude. I’d just prefer—”
“That I keep my nose out of your business,” he concluded, and she nodded. “Well, ordinarily, that’s a rule I live by, but then, this is not your ordinary circumstance. If I’m being chased and shot at...I’d like to know what I might be eating a bullet for.”
The thing was, Hope had this insane desire to actually tell J.T. everything, to just lay it all on the line and let him know exactly what they were up against, but that wasn’t fair to him. The fact was, this was her burden. She’d helped create the virus; it was up to her to destroy it.
She sighed and said as she turned away to watch the rain through the murky window, “Just get me to South America and you never have to see me again.”
THE RAIN FELL most of the afternoon, which afforded them the opportunity to catch some z’s without fear of snakes or big cats dropping by for a snack, but J.T. knew they couldn’t hole up in the plane forever.
He was already twitchy about being spotted by the guerrillas who hid out in these dense jungles, and it was better to be on the move than hanging around like a sitting duck.
While Hope slept, he climbed up into the cockpit and tried the radio, but it was deader than dead. All of the electronics were fried, which wasn’t a huge surprise, but he wasn’t above praying for a miracle.
Hope stirred, but didn’t awaken, her glasses slipping down her nose a bit. Her red hair had escaped the elastic she’d managed to tie the massive red cloud with and she looked like a hot mess with her torn and tattered blouse and skirt.
And why did he find that incredibly arousing?
Of all the damn wrong times to get some wood going, this was it.
But his cock didn’t care about circumstance—it just wanted what it wanted.
His stomach growled, protesting at the half protein bar that’d long since left his gut, and he wondered what the hell he was going to do to get them out of there alive.
His Air Force training kicked in and he grabbed his map and compass. Granted, he’d never been this far south before—his Mexico trips had been liquor-soaked and of the party-resort type—but he knew enough about the terrain to know that if they were close enough to Guatemala, they could possibly find a small plane and hump it to Brazil within five hours.
The challenge would be making it out of the jungle first.
The second challenge would be finding a trustworthy local to procure a plane.
And the third challenge would be getting back in the air before the mystery shooters who had brought them down in the first place tried to finish the job.
What the hell was she packing that people were willing to kill to have?
He eyed the pack at her feet and gauged how deeply she was sleeping.
Maybe he’d just take a peek. Seemed fair to know what he was risking his life for,
