and Teague, in the manner of someone giving a report. Teague was listening carefully, but it was clear the report was directed at Quinn. To Hayley, everything sounded a bit muffled; her ears must be humming a little after the hours of noise, and she could make out only an occasional word; she heard the newcomer say “perimeter” and “secure,” but not much else.
“I am very sorry.”
Her head snapped around as her fellow passenger spoke into the fresh silence. He did have a slight accent, Hispanic, she thought, and he was looking at her with that same expression she had seen earlier, tinged with more than a little regret.
That she had gotten sucked into this? she wondered.
Or that she wasn’t going to get out of it?
At the moment, the latter seemed more likely. And by the time Quinn turned back and gestured her out, she was oddly reluctant; the stealthy black helicopter seemed suddenly safer than whatever she was going to be stepping into out there.
Chapter Five
“We’re up and running,” Liam Burnett said briskly as he joined sniper Rafer Crawford in reporting in.
Quinn nodded as he stretched gratefully; he’d expected nothing less. His crew was well trained and could think for themselves. They’d have everything ready to roll.
Then Liam spotted their extra half-passenger roaming about, and Quinn could see his detail-oriented mind kick in. And then he noticed the woman still aboard, and that mind revved up even further. Quinn followed the progression of his thoughts as they went from the logistics of an extra person and an animal, to the realization that person was a woman, to the recognition that she was a rather attractive one. Liam always had had the worst poker face of them all. Came with youth, Quinn supposed.
“So,” Rafer said, with a sideways glance of his own at the woman still in the chopper, “how’d she happen?”
“Unavoidable,” Quinn said with a grimace, and gestured with a thumb toward the dog, who was ranging out toward the barn, investigating the grounds with a thoroughness he had to admire. The animal would probably know who and what had been through here for the past six months before he was through.
“The dog’s fault?” Rafer sounded even more puzzled.
“It’s a long story,” Quinn said as he watched Teague open the far door of the helicopter and help Vicente out. The older man moved stiffly, almost gingerly. Rafer quickly went to help; he had some experience with moving through pain.
“We have any painkillers in stock?” Quinn asked Liam. “Seems the old man’s got arthritis pretty bad.”
“Standard first-aid kit issue, plus Rafer’s stash of ibuprofen.”
“May have to raid that,” Quinn said. “Hope he’s not having a bad week.”
“Seems okay,” Liam said.
Since Liam and Rafer worked together a lot, he should know, Quinn thought. As much as anyone did, anyway; Rafer did a good job of hiding any pain the old injury gave him. If it wasn’t for the slight limp, no one who hadn’t seen the impressive scar would know there was anything wrong. And he refused to let it slow him down; it had been a long, painful process, but he’d pushed so hard and learned to compensate so well he was as efficient as any of them at anything short of long-distance running.
“Sometime today?”
The words came from inside the helicopter. She was sounding a bit snappish, Quinn thought, smothering a wry quirk of his mouth.
“If you’re lucky,” he retorted, not even looking at her.
“What’s her name?” Liam asked, lowering his voice.
“No idea.”
Liam stared at him for a moment, then shook his head ruefully. “Only you could spend all this time with a woman who looks like that and not even find out her name.”
“If you’re so interested, you watch her,” Quinn said drily. “You might find her more trouble than she’s worth.”
“I don’t know,” Liam said, giving her a sideways look, “she looks like she’d be worth a lot.”
“I’ll get her inside while you secure and refuel the chopper, then she’s all yours,” Quinn said. He reached over and yanked open the door. “Keep her under control.”
From the corner of his eye he saw the woman stiffen, drawing up straight. She’d reacted to his last words much as he’d expected, and he felt a tug of relief as he handed responsibility for her over to the young and earnest Liam. If she was the girl-next-door type her loyalty to the dog suggested, they’d be perfect for each other.
“What about the dog?” Liam asked, keeping his eyes on the woman as she emerged from the helicopter.
“Our other uninvited guest? I’ll round him up,” Quinn said. “He seems to like me.”
“No accounting for taste,” the woman muttered, and he saw Liam smother a grin.
“No, there surely isn’t,” Liam said, no trace of the grin on his face sounding in his faint Texas drawl.
Quinn watched as she stepped down to the ground. It was past dawn now, and he could see what he’d missed before. She was a little taller than he’d first thought, maybe five-five. The curves were definite but not exaggerated. And the hair he’d thought was simply brown in fact was a combination of brown and gold and red that made the chill morning air seem warmer.
I think you’ve been cooped up too long, he told himself, smothering another grimace.
“She says she needs a bathroom,” he said, quickly reducing things back to the basics. He thought he saw her cheeks flush slightly as he announced her needs to all present, but as he’d guessed, it truly was a necessity this time, because she didn’t protest.
But then she turned and got her first look at where they were. And her thoughts were clear on her face; he had the feeling that, maybe for the first time in her life she really, truly knew what the phrase “the middle of nowhere” meant.
They were on a slight rise, but as far as the eye could see around them was nothing but empty, nearly flat land, unrelieved by anything but dried-up grasses, scrubby plants and an occasional tree. It wasn’t desert, at least not the kind the word summoned up in his mind—sand and wind and dunes—but it was very, very far from the green paradise they had left last night.
He could almost see her hopes of escape plummet; not that he would have let her get away anyway, but she wouldn’t be the woman he was beginning to think she was if she hadn’t at least been thinking about it. But he saw the realization of the odds that she would make it to any kind of help or even civilization dawn in her eyes as she looked out over the remote emptiness.
“Be careful what you wish for,” she said softly, in an almost despairing whisper.
It didn’t take a genius to guess what she meant; all those hours when she’d probably been wishing the interminable helicopter flight would end, and now that it had she wanted nothing more than to
