Sliding a glance at his rigid profile, she failed the cool test when her heart leapt up her throat like a prodded frog.Really, Mae?After just one glance?
In her defense, she had just been shown up. He was behaving professionally. She was not. That’s the only way she could describe his behavior. She refused to contemplate the notion that he didn’t find her attractive, no matter how well he hid it. She could tell.
This sudden retreat to adolescent insecurity—the kind she’d never actually experienced in adolescence but had observed aplenty in her friends—had to be about the fact that she was being hunted by mobsters with guns. They’d invaded her house and now her warehouse, a place that had been her sanctuary—her real home, the place where everyone was real, the seamstresses, her grunt men, even the actors who came in for fittings were real in this place. The place where she reigned as queen, adored by all for her undisputed expertise.
Now she’d had to flee the place, leave it to invaders from mobster-land and get out of town to parts unknown. She, Mary Ann Monday, was on the run from mobsters. She shook her head as she looked out the window. They were entering LAX at a perimeter gate for private and corporate jets. She’d only been through this gate once before, early on in her career. But that sorry episode in her life didn’t warrant further thought. Right now she needed to wrap her mind around the danger she was in and how the hell she could get herself out of it.
She eyed Joe again, deciding to girl-up and stop cowering behind her sorry bout of hero worship. So he’d saved her life? People did that all the time, didn’t they? It was all in a day’s work for him. All business.
He’d made that abundantly clear.
“You fly?” she asked.
“Sure. But not this time.” He surprised her with his ready response as they came to a stop in front of an unmarked hangar the size of Chicago. She figured there was either a jumbo jet inside or several corporate jets.
She clicked off her seat belt and reached for the door handle, but he stopped her.
“Wait here.”
She didn’t bother to ask why, then berated herself for kowtowing to his unreasonable silence, his lack of communication. It was getting to her. She was the client and had a right to know what was going on, didn’t she? But merely asking, or eveninsisting, wasn’t going to make Joe Temple any more forthcoming than he wanted to be. That was something she’d learned about him very quickly.
She watched as he ran inside a nearly invisible door in the front left corner of the hangar and disappeared. It wasn’t long before one of the smaller bay doors opened up. No way was a plane coming out of that opening. He trotted back to the Rover and got in.
“See that jet?” He pointed with a nod of his chin to the right and about fifty yards away there was some kind of corporate jet. They all looked the same to her. All two of them she’d ever seen close up, including this one. She glanced at it and turned back to him without speaking. Two could play.
“We’re going to drive over and you’re going to get out and get on board. I’ll drop the Rover in the hangar, pick up some gear and equipment, and when I get back we’re taking off.”
She noted he didn’t say where they were taking off to, but since he was sharing a truckload more information than usual, she didn’t ask. She nodded as he put the Rover into gear and drove them up close and personal to the corporate jet.
When she got out of the car, the jet’s engines were running. Almost before she closed the door, Joe took off in the Rover. She stood and watched as he pulled it into the dark interior of the mysterious hangar. Then she walked up the steps into the plane. No one waited inside the door to greet her. To the left was the pilot’s cabin, open to view. The pilot wore headphones and looked busy with the instruments. There was a copilot seat and then a third jump seat currently folded up against the wall in the small space.
Mae opted to sit in the spacious cabin. There were a pair of seats with tables and a couch set up with a television. Past that she saw a kitchen area. She sat in the first seat on the left facing the door. It was less than two minutes before Joe appeared in the hatch. He spared her a perfunctory glance before pulling the stairs and hatch closed behind him. Then he disappeared into the cockpit. Shit.Hewas the copilot.
Though the plane moved forward, no way was she sitting alone in the cabin. She should be happy to have the opportunity to collapse and rest in the luxury cabin after her harrowing experience. But she wasn’t ready for relaxation. Her nerves spun in endless sparking loops through her, making her jumpy. She got up and made her way into the cockpit.
Headphones on, Joe didn’t even notice her as she pulled down the jump seat and buckled herself in. So she hit him on the shoulder. She should have tapped him politely, but she was still agitated.
Unperturbed, he glanced at her and went back to work. She sat back and watched until they were in the air and finally at cruising altitude. Or so she assumed, since the plane leveled off. Unabashed, she kept her eyes on him the entire time. It didn’t matter. He never noticed, never bothered to turn around.
Until he unbuckled, stood and turned to her in one smooth motion, putting his headphone aside.
“Let’s sit in the cabin where it’s more comfortable. We have five hours to strategize a solution to yourproblem.”
Popping up from her seat, she preceded him, intending to go to the couch. He reached out and took her by the arm before she got past the businesslike seats at the small tables. She should have known better. She wanted to relax—or at leasttryto relax—a seemingly impossible thing to do in his company. But she didn’t complain. She sat down and he sat across from her.
It could be worse. They’d have the unnerving pleasure of staring at each other this way. That thought made her smile. It was her Cheshire cat smile and he deserved it.
“Tell me what happened. Start from the beginning,Ms. Monday.” he said.
She was wound up and exhausted at the same time, and running through the story from the beginning would drain her for sure. But it was about time she unburdened herself.
“This a full-service jet? How about a shot of something first?”
He didn’t speak, but got up from his seat after a beat of consideration and went behind them to open what looked like a closet door. He returned to his seat across from her with a bottle and two short glasses. Sitting again with the table between them, he put the glasses down and poured.
“Knob Creek. Swanky.” She’d hoped for wine. This stuff might well knock her out. But once again, she wasn’t about to complain.
He lifted his glass and waited for her to do the same in a silent salute. He was silent a lot. She wasn’t sure if she liked that. It was a big part of what unnerved her about him. But at this point, as of this moment, she was damn sure she liked him no matter how unnervingly quiet he was. He’d saved her life. She felt like the heroine in a cheap thriller. Absently, she noted her outfit was all wrong for the role.
“Call me Mae.”