she looked up and immediately felt her breath catch in her throat. A huge metal object was hovering directly above her, yet the strange-looking aircraft was as silent in its flight as the tiny Deva Skipper that had lured her to the wrong side of the fence.
More curious than she was frightened, Maddie immediately grabbed for her camera. She was still snapping the shutter frantically when the aircraft swooped downward, instantly blinding her with a cloud of sand and dust. Maddie held tightly to her pith helmet, trying to shield her face from the caustic dust storm that was now choking off her airway and stinging her eyes.
She let out a strangled scream when something snaked around her waist and lifted her upward and into the air.
In less time than it took to worry about her twin sister’s safety, Maddie heard the loud clang of a door slamming shut. She soon found herself face-down on a cold metal floor, coughing up the dust as she tried to catch her breath. With her eyes still watering from the dirt and sand, Maddie couldn’t yet make out who or what was holding her captive. All she could hear was the definite whir of the unidentified flying object as it whisked her away to some unknown destination.
“Let me up this minute! I demand it!” Maddie started yelling, and she began struggling with such fervor the elastic strap on her pith helmet broke free, unleashing the long, pale hair stuffed under her helmet.
“Holy hell, Captain,” a shocked voice called out. “It looks like our spy is a she.”
Angrier than she’d ever been in her life, Maddie pulled herself up when the force holding her face down on the floor suddenly set her free. And it only took a split second to confirm that she really had been captured by mysterious green men, after all.
U.S. military camouflage green to be exact.
And World War Maddie was about to do battle with everyone responsible for making her lose what could have possibly been the biggest entomological find of her career.
AIR FORCE CAPTAIN Brad Hawkins jerked his head around in time to see a finger waving ninety miles a minute while their definitely female prisoner delivered a good tongue-lashing to his copilot.
Did she look like your typical spy?
Of course, she didn’t.
She looked, Brad decided, like an angry little girl with her cheeks blazing, her tangled blond hair in a windblown mess, and her chin jutted forward in defiance as if she’d just taken a nasty spill from her bike. Classic facial features. Haunting blue eyes. A curvaceous figure that even her “Dr. Livingstone” outfit, complete with a pith helmet couldn’t quite hide.
She was stunning.
And though he told himself it was only the shock of finding a woman on isolated government property that had left him so addled, it took several seconds before Brad could force himself to look away.
Turning his attention back to maneuvering the multimillion-dollar prototype helicopter he was flying, Brad aimed the large craft back toward the old air base on the outskirts of Roswell that the Air Force was using as a testing facility. She was still kicking up quite a fuss behind him in the belly of the chopper, ranting and raving about what? Butterflies? Had he heard that right? And something about a terrified sister? Was that who had blazed off in a cloud of dust so fast Brad had only caught a mere glimpse of a bright red Jeep?
Groaning inwardly, Brad picked up the microphone to his radio and mumbled, “There’s a suspicious tourist in a red Jeep along the south perimeter. Apprehend the driver. Do it quickly and quietly.” He signed off with, “I’ll meet you back at the base.”
Crap! He’d assumed they’d run across some nosey reporter. Some guy acting on a tip that the Air Force was conducting more than routine maneuvers at the old base. And that’s when Brad had made the decision to apprehend their trespasser. He’d planned to take the guy back to base, destroy the film and then threaten the reporter with serious charges.
But who would have thought that within just three weeks short of completing testing on the most advanced helicopter known to modern man, a woman, wearing of all things a pith helmet, and her runaway sister would stumble upon their operation and threaten to blow the cover on their highly guarded mission straight to hell and back again?
“And another thing. If you think for one minute I’m going to overlook the senseless, barbaric way you’ve treated me, you’re sadly mistaken. My name is Dr. Madeline Morgan. And for your information, I’m an entomologist, not a spy. I was doing nothing more than conducting necessary research on an endangered species of butterfly when you so rudely, crudely and unfairly abducted me!”
Entomologist?
He never would have pegged his lovely passenger for a lady with a bug fetish. Especially not with that sexy, Southern accent of hers. Yet, her unusual career choice made her even more intriguing.
Unfortunately her identity would only add another nail in his coffin. Apprehending a nosey reporter with a camera trained on a top secret aircraft was one thing. But hijacking a reputable entomologist? Doing nothing more than conducting important research on an endangered species of butterfly? Brad gripped the controls, just thinking about the consequences.
Not that being rudely, crudely and unfairly abducted, as she put it, wasn’t her own doing. Trespassing on restricted government property might have been overlooked, but it had been that damn camera of hers that had sealed her fate. Had she treated their accidental encounter like most people would have done and run for cover like her sister, he would have had no reason to bother her in the least.
In fact, the whole point of conducting testing at the old air base in Roswell had been Roswell’s tie to the UFO phenomena. Around Roswell people expected to see strange objects flying through the air. And it didn’t matter if those sightings were real or if they were only imagined. Roswell depended on UFO sightings as the main tourist attraction that supported most of the city’s livelihood.
A civilian actually having pictures of the current most top-secret aircraft in the United States military, however, couldn’t be tolerated. Especially when those pictures had the potential to fall into the wrong hands.
I made the right decision, Brad told himself with confidence, then skillfully landed what had aptly been nicknamed the Black Ghost on the helipad that was protected from view by the fifteen-foot concrete barrier walls that surrounded them.
Unbuckling his seat belt, Brad pulled himself out of the cockpit. He walked to the back of the chopper and stood with his hands at his waist, looking down at his disgruntled prisoner. She was still sitting where she’d landed on the floor, but she had managed to push some of her hair out of those dark blue eyes that were now as big around as saucers. Unfortunately those full, enticing lips he’d noticed earlier were now pressed together in a line so thin they almost disappeared.
“Captain Brad Hawkins. United States Air Force,” Brad said with as much authority as he could muster, and then he extended a willing hand to help his frowning passenger back to her feet.
MADDIE HESITATED FOR A moment, staring up at the imposing figure who was now towering above her. Oh, he was cute, all right. She’d noticed he was cute the second he turned around and looked at her. Yet looking at him now, Maddie realized referring to this man as cute was the equivalent of calling the brilliant Monarch butterfly a rather colorful moth. No, it was more like referring to Mt. Everest as a hill in the Himalayas. His dark hair was cut in that crisp, military fashion that commanded respect. The hint of a five-o’clock shadow crept up the full length of
