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“I don’t know.” Holding her gaze, his aspect changed. He reached across and stroked her cheek, then pressed the pad of his thumb against the corner of her lips. “You also should have given me warning about forgetting a condom the second time.”
She took a small, swift breath. “Yes, I should have, but I wasn’t thinking of—”
“Me, either,”
“—that. For the first time ever.”
“Me, too.”
Neither moved or said anything, only looked at each other with searching eyes, a taut silence stretching between them.
The spell was broken by two quick toots of a car horn. Jake had pulled in behind them. They had no choice except to brave the rain. Rye held the back seat door of Jake’s car for her; he got in front. Shaking rain out of his hair, he thanked Jake for meeting them on such short notice. “How was your flight?”
“Business as usual.”
“I didn’t know if you’d be back this early or not.”
“Barely. Haven’t been home yet.” He was still in uniform, except that he’d loosened his necktie.
“You up for a quick round-trip flight to Knoxville?”
“Now?”
“Soon as we can get wheels up. We’ll pay you, of course.”
“It’s not the money,” Jake said. “Hell, I would do it gladly. But I have to fly again this evening. Rules say I need eight hours in the sack.”
“I know all about rules,” Rye grumbled. “They’re killing me.”
“I could provide taxi service if you still need it.”
Rye shook his head. “No, if you can’t fly us yourself, what I really need is your Bonanza.”
Chapter 33
7:49 a.m.
Jake was taken aback, but he didn’t respond to Rye. He concentrated on getting them out of the congested parking lot. He sped across a heavily trafficked boulevard and pulled up to a restaurant that didn’t open until five o’clock. They had that lot to themselves. Jake put the car in park but left the motor running.
“You need my plane? You got it.”
“Not that simple.” Rye looked at his wristwatch. “This negotiation needs to be quick, but let me emphasize that you should think hard before agreeing.”
Then Rye laid out the basics of the situation. “We need to fly to Knoxville. I’m omitting the details for your own protection. Less you know, the better.”
“I picked up on that last night. Save the explanations. You’ve got the loan of my plane. You only had to ask.”
“Not a loan. I pay you.”
“Cover the gas, that’s all.”
“If you don’t let me pay for it, no deal. It needs to be a charter.”
“You can return me a favor sometime.”
“I’ll do that anyway, but I’m paying you.” He paused. “Shames me to say it, but the FAA and NTSB are on my case.”
“What the hell?”
