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“With no luck?”
She shook her head.
“So, that’s why this is so important to you? You want to reclaim your great-great-grandfather’s assets. Your family obviously believes it’s rightly yours.” The fortune had been acquired by questionable means, but Winter had served his time for the crime, and after all these years, the Armos family could potentially lay claim to it.
If it existed.
She nodded. “Exactly.”
Dwayne studied her, not entirely convinced it was the full story, but it was enough to get him to redirect the chopper. For now, anyway...
TWOHOURSLATER, they were circling the location where the caves were supposed to be, according to her map. Anna peered out the window, scanning the tall, jagged mountains and lush green valley below.
This couldn’t be it.
She consulted the map. “Where’s the river that used to run through here?” she asked, pointing to the spot on the map. Maybe they still were too far north... The coordinates might be off.
“The landscape here has changed, just like it has everywhere,” Dwayne said, rotating the chopper and getting closer to the mountaintops for a better view.
Anna bit her lower lip as she tried to locate other points of reference between real Alaska and the drawing.
“Remember, your great-great-grandfather was also drawing this map from memory without the same aerial view,” Dwayne said as static sounded over the radio and then his mother’s voice came over his headset.
“Tower to aircraft A-Star, what the hell are you doing?”
Anna’s eyes widened and she grinned seeing Dwayne’s face flush. “Just a slight detour...at the request of the client,” he said, tightly, sounding like a twelve-year-old busted for breaking curfew.
“You are in a no-fly zone and need to evacuate immediately. Understood?” His mother’s voice was calm and professional, but Anna suspected it was for her sake. If she wasn’t in the chopper, his mother would be delivering an earful.
“Yes, ma’am,” Dwayne said. He shot her a look. “You got me in trouble with my mom.”
She laughed and it nearly caught in her chest. When was the last time she’d laughed out loud? Lately, she was so preoccupied with family drama and needing to find this site that there hadn’t been much time to laugh. “Sorry?”
“No, you’re not,” Dwayne said with a wink in her direction that had her heart racing.
Her pilot was seriously sexy, and now that she was taking the time to notice, he was definitely her type. Strong, muscular, daring and confident. And he was going along on this search without too much protest.
“Well, you heard her. We can’t stay in the air. I’m going to need to set down and we’ll have to hike the rest of the way in.”
At least he wasn’t suggesting that they’d run their course and needed to head back. She nodded as he navigated the helicopter back toward the valley, out of the no-fly zone, and masterfully set the helicopter down in the open space, which she suspected they also weren’t allowed to be in. He turned off the chopper and they grabbed their gear for a hike up the mountainside.
Moments later, they were on foot, their backpacks carrying only the necessary supplies, making for the steep incline toward the location of the caves as indicated on her map. Her calves burned and the heat of the midday sun beating down through the trees had her sweating, but the excitement of being this close to the treasure gave her hope and energy. Next to her, Dwayne seemed to be taking the trail with ease. He was in great shape—obviously a necessity for his career in the coast guard. She knew the training required to fulfill the position he held, which only increased her attraction to him. The man saved lives for a living—who wouldn’t be attracted to that? Was he single? Damn, maybe she should have paid for that knowledge too.
She sent a look his way and dared to ask. “So...these suspensions—what happened?”
He shrugged. “Made a few bad judgment calls, that’s all.”
He was owning up to it, but she had a hard time believing that he’d made a call so bad it would warrant a suspension. From the information she’d gathered, no one had died or been injured in recent rescues. “Like what?”
He shot her a look. “Thought you knew all about me?”
“Not everything... And besides, I’d like to hear your version of events.”
He seemed a little surprised that she cared to hear his side of things, and it struck her that maybe no one else had asked, which bonded them in an unexpected twist to this journey.
MAN,SHEWASPERSISTENT.Oddly enough, her curiosity seemed genuine and made Dwayne want to talk to her about it. “Well, in one rescue, I didn’t refuel before takeoff. The people had been in the ocean for long enough and I knew time was of the essence. Unfortunately, it resulted in my coworker being stranded in the tides longer than necessary when we ran out of fuel.” Protocol. It had come down to not following the rules.
“Was he hurt?” Anna asked, sounding slightly out of breath as they continued their trek up the side of the mountain.
