Chapter 15
“What do I call you?” Edwards asked.
Gabe gritted his teeth at the question and flicked his gaze to the ear-budded kid sitting in the aisle seat next to her. A heavy rap beat throbbed from the boy’s head. Holy shit, every single micro-sized chair on the airplane was filled. If the seating got any tighter, the passengers would have to be shrink-wrapped and hung from the ceiling. But he refused to allow himself to spill over what might laughingly be called an armrest into Edwards’ territory. He liked to think he possessed his share of self-control. But she was sex on steroids, at least as far as he was concerned, and the 747’s latrine wasn’t big enough for round two of the Battle of the Head.
“Kenny Chesney’s great isn’t he?” Gabe asked and watched the kid’s expression. The boy’s eyes didn’t even flicker. His head never stopped jerking to the irritating beat.
“What?” Edwards asked.
Gabe pulled his gaze from the boy’s enraptured face, confident his conversation with Edwards would be private. Ten minutes into the flight, he wasn’t sure about much of anything else. Keeping the contents of his stomach where they belonged was generally all he could think about while in the air. “What did you call your last serious boyfriend?”
Edwards’ brows jerked toward her hairline.
“We’re going to have to make up a cover story,” he said and faced forward again. Years of pretending he wasn’t prone to motion sickness had taught him it was best to focus on an immobile object straight ahead. “People get nervous when they find out I’m Army, and any yahoo with a cell phone can pry into other people’s business.” Himself excluded, of course. He was born to be a caveman. “Don’t make it too complicated. We’re on vacation. My name is Luke Lansky. I’m from Tennessee.”
She scowled, thinking. “So that people will underestimate you?”
He chanced a sidelong glance at her.
“I mean, it’s assumed that southerners aren’t the brightest birds in the branches.”
He raised a brow at her. “Sarge’s family settled in Cumberland more than a hundred years ago. It’s a good place to disappear.”
“Oh. I…” Color flushed her cheeks. “You don’t have an accent.”
“I thought I’d get more respect without it,” he said and managed not to laugh at her discomfort, mostly because his gut was trying to toss its contents into his esophagus. “Don’t get too fancy with your cover story. The chances of a SNAFU will be considerably reduced if we keep our stories as close to the truth as possible.”
She nodded, and for a moment, he thought she might be ready to move past her faux pas but he was wrong. “Listen, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to disparage… I mean…there’s nothing wrong with the south. I just—” Her embarrassment looked physically painful. He watched her expression with interest. “You matriculated from the University of Michigan! The blue and gold with the…the badgers and the—”
“The wolverines,” he corrected.
“Yes. Sorry. The wolverines. Aggressive animals I guess with…” Her shook her head, words dwindling.
He watched her, fascinated. If she were any damned cuter, you could use her as a cake-topper. But that non-threatening demeanor might come in handy. It was unlikely anyone would take her too seriously. On the other hand, it made all his as-of-yet-un-quashed macho instincts sing like canaries. He quieted the irritating songbirds and make sure his expression was bland.
“Do you have a name preference?”
“What?” she asked and looked as if she might burst into another apology.
He leaned a little closer, in case the teenager seated next to her wasn’t as brain-damaged as he appeared. “What should I call you?”
“Oh. I don’t…” She shook her head. “Are we married?”
He had no idea why her question made his intestines crank up another half loop. But it probably wasn’t a good sign. “Do you want to be?”
He hadn’t thought her cheeks could get any redder. But he’d been wrong.
“I’m just thinking maybe it would be easier to share a room and…things if they thought we were.”
He said nothing.
“Colombia is a very…” She paused as if trying hard not to make any more pc blunders. “Moralistic country.”
“Except for the drugs and kidnapping and murders.”
“Except for that, yes,” she said. “They’re ninety-two percent Catholic.”
“All right.” He nodded solemnly. Her eyes were as wide and guileless as an infant’s, making him long to roll her in bubble wrap and send her back to the U.S. with FRAGILE stamped on her forehead. “So we’re Mr. and Mrs. Lansky. What’s your first name?”
“I want to be a doctor.”
He stared at her, deadpan. “You probably should have chosen different electives then.”
She smirked at him. “You said to keep our stories as close to the truth as possible.”
He quirked an eyebrow. It was about all the motion he could manage without tossing his cookies.
“Mom was always sure I could cure cancer if I set my mind to it.”
He couldn’t help but stare. The world might be headed to hell in a handbasket, but damn she was charming.
“Grand died of liver cancer when I was twelve. So when I graduated from high school, I took all the pre-med courses I could.” A shadow of sadness settled over her sunny features. “I think Mom was really disappointed when I didn’t continue.”
He didn’t fail to notice that she didn’t say anything about being unqualified for medical school. Shit, what kind of woman would give up being an M.D. to chase down drug lords in the bowels of a foreign country?
“Anyway, I’ll be Sarah. Dr. Sarah, an oncologist, in Colombia on my honeymoon.”
Honeymoon? Holy God! Did she think he was a monk, he wondered and resisted squirming in his undersized seat. “Never work,” he said. “If we were just married, they’ll expect us to spend all day in our room.” Where he would go fucking nuts if she were near. “We’ll say we’re on one of those wildlife tours.”
“An eco-adventure?” she asked then, “Good idea. We’re roughing it. We’ve been married a year and a half.”
As if a measly eighteen months would make a difference in his libido. “Okay.”
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’m an automotive engineer,” he said, and she laughed.
He cocked his head at her, careful not to move so fast as to upset the barfing gods. “Do you find all engineers amusing, or just the automotive kind?”
“Do you even know what a pocket protector is?”
He scowled at her. It’d be great if she didn’t turn out to be crazy, he thought.
She cleared her throat and explained. “You’re never going to pass for an engineer. A fireman maybe or a…” Her gaze swept downward. The blush that had just started fading from her cheeks increased again. “Never mind. You’re right, an engineer’s fine.”
A fireman or a what? he wondered, but before he was stupid enough to ask, she tilted away from him. “I’m going to try to get some sleep,” she said and closed her pasture-green eyes.
In profile, she looked like an angel. Not the biblical kind with the sword and the kickass attitude. But the cutesy kind perpetrated by popular culture.
Holy hell, he should be horse-whipped just for thinking about her.