Chapter 30

Like the gentleman I was, I responded to that comment by manipulating the goon out of his seat and onto the floor. If we were going to fall out of the sky, I wanted to be the one in the cushioned seat with restraints around me.

It was a tough job because I couldn"t simply shove him into my foot well. There wasn"t room down there. I had to haul him between the seats and into the back.

His size made it a challenge. Fortunately, I"m a big guy too.

It felt like justice to roll him on his back in the same place where he"d left me in the hogtie. I propped the scatter of cushions around his face and neck. It was the best I could do.

At least I"m letting you keep your pants, buddy.

Noah went quiet. Although the lightning continued to jolt us every couple of minutes, he focused on the job of holding the chopper in a reasonably steady hover until I was strapped in. You"d better believe I didn"t say a word to distract him while he figured out how to put us back down on the beach.

It wasn"t the softest landing job ever, but we were here and in one piece. That was good enough for me.

For a minute we just sat there. Looked at each other. Looked at the storm.

Should we get out or wait? Mom always said the safest place to be in a thunderstorm was in a car. Was that true of helicopters? I didn"t think so. Rubber tires were what kept you safe from ground strikes, weren"t they?

But I couldn"t see any advantage to getting back out in the storm. Besides, we needed the breather.

So we sat.

Noah reached over to take my hand. Squeezed. I squeezed back.

"My hero," he whispered.

I snorted. "You"re the hero. You"re the one who got this bird back on the ground."

"It took both of us." He twitched his chin toward the spot on the floor where the tranked goon sprawled.

There was probably a lesson in there somewhere. We"re better together. But I didn"t have any easy, corny phrases on the tip of my tongue just then.

"We made it," is all I said.

"I knew we would," is all he said back.

I wanted to kiss him. And so I did. We were too tired for much else. Slumped awkwardly into each other across our seats, we must have fallen asleep. An all-too-brief sleep.

Then a devil in my dream whispered something about, "What if those guys wake up?" and I woke with a jolt. Noah"s head on my chest was jolted too.

"Wha?"

"Shhhh," I whispered. "Shhh."

Let me hold him for just a minute longer.

The devil in my head didn"t go away. He spoke louder. We had no idea how long the tranquilizer knocked you out. Hours, sure, but there"s a big difference between two hours and eight hours.

Weary as I was, there"d be no falling back to sleep just yet.

"I need to check on those guys," I murmured. "I"ll be right back. You stay here. Rest a little more."

"Mmm."

I kissed him lightly on the side of his mouth, a promise to both of us. Then I forced myself onward.

The two men on the gurney looked about the same. They"d shifted position some, but no more than you"d expect from being jerked around in a helicopter during a storm. The third guy was still out cold.

I nudged him with a toe in the side. He grunted in his sleep.

"The rain is letting up." Noah hadn"t fallen back to sleep either. "We should probably take this break in the storm as an opportunity to ditch them overboard and get the hell out of here."

"Yeah," I said.

Not at all well rested, we communicated in grunts as we dumped the three men on the beach. The rain was only a drizzle again, but the storm had washed away the high tide line. My weariness made me think more slowly than usual, but I remembered where it was well enough to drop them where they"d be reasonably safe from drowning.

If we carried them back into the trees, they were guaranteed to be safe from rising water, but screw that. The lightning strikes were fading, but they were hitting from time to time, and I didn"t feel like getting zotted by Zeus in some idealistic effort to save a bad guy.

"How are they doing?" Noah asked.

"Still out. Still breathing." I turned them on their side. Checked to be sure that their airways were clear. "They"re doing better than they deserve."

I stood there a moment. We owed them nothing. I owed Noah everything. But they were still unconscious and destined to remain that way for an unknown period of time.

He touched my bare hip. "The guy expected someone to arrive at noon. You heard him. We"re not abandoning them here. They"ll be okay."

Leaning back, I looked up the hill. The house was up there. The bed.

Why had we ever left?

My bones ached with weariness. Me and Noah. We could be in that bed right this minute.