Angel in Armani
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.
For Hamish.
Best dog ever.
The Chinese curse goes something like “May You Live in Interesting Times.” This book was written during some very interesting times that included my inner ears deciding that vertigo was the cool new thing for a few months. I’m very glad they’ve given that particular obsession up. I’m also very grateful to Jennifer Enderlin for being a patient and fabulous editor! I need to thank Miriam Kriss, who continues to be an agent of awesome, and the St. Martin’s art department who have given me another cover that I want to hang on the wall and justdrool overgaze at. A special shout-out to Richard for answering my dumb baseball questions (any baseball mistakes are mine, all mine). And finally, to all the usual suspects who have provided sounding boards, champagne, chocolate, cheering from the sidelines, hugs, distractions, laughter, inspiration, love, and general Mel support, I couldn’t do it without you. Thank you!
Contents
It was like having a tiger in the back of the helicopter.
The knowledge of something big and dangerous and ruthless riding behind her. Something that could squish you like a bug and not blink a big golden eye.
Of course, the man behind her had blue eyes, not golden ones. Very blue.
So maybe a tiger wasn’t the right metaphor. Maybe—
“Got another chopper coming in about five, Sara. You getting airborne sometime soon?” The crisp tones of Ronnie, running control today, broke her train of thought.
Just as well
. She shook her head.
Because you, Sara Charles, are being an idiot
. There was no room for distraction when she was flying.
“Any second now,” she replied. She twisted in her seat to look at her passenger. “We’re ready to go, sir.” She called all her passengers sir or ma’am, unless instructed otherwise. Most did—or the regulars, at least. Not this one, though. He seemed to accept “sir” as though it were his due. Which was weird because, unless she was way off the mark, he wasn’t ex-military. And he wasn’t English royalty slumming it in New York. No, his accent was firmly American. Not that he’d spoken more than about six sentences to her in the three trips she’d flown for him so far.
Short sentences. Things like “Good morning.” And “Thank you.” His voice was deep. Cool. Controlled. His silence should have been annoying but instead it was somehow compelling. Made her want to hear more.
“I’ll have us in the air in just a minute,” she added, just in case he might break his streak and say something rash like “Great.”
He didn’t look up. He rarely looked up. He just nodded and kept his eyes on the screen of the slim silver laptop open on his lap. Focused. Intense.
His powers of concentration were clearly excellent. Even with the headsets on, it was loud in the helo, but he didn’t let anything distract him. She had to admit that there’d been the odd idle moment when she’d let herself wonder what it might be like to have all his attention focused on her. What it might be like to hold his focus and be the thing he didn’t want to be distracted from.
But that was about as likely to happen as her sprouting wings and being able to fly without a helo, so she tried to ignore the thoughts when they arose.
She did wonder where he’d learned to shut the world out, though. Maybe it came with being a doctor. She knew that much about him. He was a doctor. Dr. Lucas Angelo.
That was the name on the bookings. She didn’t know much more than that. She refused to Google a man she barely knew and wasn’t likely to. That would just be sad.
Sadder than comparing him to jungle cats?
Suppressing a sigh, she turned back to face the controls. Time to forget about tigers and get this bird in the air.
For the first few minutes, the joy of the flight took her mind away from the puzzle of the man she was flying. The city had turned on a perfect winter day. Fine. Sunny. Just enough breeze to make things interesting. Good light. Good visibility. The helo hummed under her hand, seemingly as pleased as she was to be in the air.
Away from all the problems down there on the ground. Nothing to think about but the sky and her destination for a few hours, at least.
She cut a path around the city, feeling the familiar rush as the gleaming buildings and the swath of the park slipped beneath her. Best view of Manhattan for sure. Best view in the world maybe.
Of course, Dr. Mystery back there was ignoring it as usual.
She frowned and straightened the helo now that she had her heading. She didn’t know how he could just sit there and not even look up, let alone out the window. Focus or no focus there was nothing a laptop could possibly hold that could compete with the view from up here.
Hell, most of the time the passengers were paying her for exactly that view—sightseeing flights made up a good chunk of the charter business. She loved listening to the excited voices of the tourists as they took in her city. Of course, a few of them turned green and spent the flight barfing, but those were the exception.
No barfing from her current passenger, of course.
No, he wouldn’t do anything that might risk ruining his perfectly cut suit.
Three times she’d flown him and every time, no matter where she was taking him, it had been a suit.
Deep charcoal for the time she’d taken him to the hospital in New Jersey.
A medium gray for a hop to Staten Island.
Navy with the faintest of pinstripes to JFK.
She’d liked that one. The navy and the deep-blue tie he’d worn with it had made his eyes even bluer. She’d decided he should always wear blue.
Until he’d walked into the terminal this afternoon wearing a tuxedo. Most guys looked better in a tuxedo, of course, but very few of them actually looked like they were born to wear one. It was unfair. Stark black and white shouldn’t turn a man into a god. But damn, the man’s tailor was genius.
She’d taken one look at him, forced herself to tear her eyes away, and beaten a path for her A-Star, leaving the checking-in of tuxedo-clad perfection and his immaculate luggage to the terminal staff. It was one thing to admit that the man was intriguing, in an annoying sort of way, and too handsome for his own good; it was quite another to hyperventilate at the sight of him. Particularly while she was standing there in her pilot’s uniform of sensible black pants, sensible black shoes, and sensible blue shirt. With headset hair.
She’d talked sternly to herself as she’d done the preflight checks. One did not get crushes on clients. Because the sort of client who could afford regular chartered helo services had money and power with a capital Money and Power. They did not notice pilots with headset hair. They noticed supermodels. Therefore there would be no inconvenient hormonal responses allowed. Besides, she needed money, not man-candy.
And Dr. Lucas Angelo had hired her three times. Almost a regular. Which she desperately needed. Eyes on the prize, not the scenery.
It had been a good speech. She’d almost convinced herself. Then he’d climbed into the back of the helo and she’d started thinking about tigers.
Though now, as they sped through the air, heading for the Hamptons and whatever no doubt ridiculously expensive event he was attending, she was thinking that tiger wasn’t the right metaphor for the sensation. No, the way his silent presence seemed to fill the cabin, impossible to ignore, was more like riding the edge of a storm, feeling the weight of the air and the tingle of electricity. Knowing that if you were foolish and let the storm tumble over you it would sweep you up and control whatever happened from there.
Not going to happen.
She was a damned good pilot. She knew how to avoid a storm.
Even when she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
* * *
Lucas studied the patient films on the laptop screen in front of him and tried to ignore the steady
thwap thwap thwap
racket of the helicopter around him. Even with headphones he was far too aware of the engine noise. Of the fact he was God only knew how high in the air in a high-tech tin can.
Focus on the problem
.
In front of him the X-ray showed the fractured clavicle clearly. It would heal fine once he got to work on it. It was a simple surgery and one he didn’t perform that often these days, but this particular clavicle belonged to a promising male figure skater and his parents were willing to pay for the best to ensure that promise could still be fulfilled.
He couldn’t blame them.
The surgery wasn’t complicated enough to distract him, though, and he keyed up the next file. The helicopter dipped a little, and his fingers clutched the edge of the laptop a little too hard.
Freaking helicopters. Supposedly Leonardo da Vinci had come up with the design for the first one. Crazy bastard. Lucas didn’t care how much of a genius the guy was supposed to have been. No one sane would think that a helicopter was a good idea.
He made himself loosen his grip. He wasn’t fond of planes in general, though he ruthlessly suppressed the illogical nerves they brought to life in his stomach because not flying wasn’t an option in his life. It was harder in a helicopter, though. Too small. Nowhere to hide from the empty air surrounding him.
He understood flight theory and aerodynamics. He knew how helicopters—and planes—stayed airborne. He’d made it his business to know, but that still didn’t ease the fear.
His first time in a helicopter had been an emergency airlift to a hospital, a race to repair his shoulder. He’d been in pain and shock and reeling from the aftermath of the explosion that had put him there, spitting ash and bile as the nurse and doctor in the chopper had tried to sedate him.
All the while feeling like the ground was dropping away from beneath him and he was never going to find his footing again.
Turned out that instinct had been right.
The surgeon had done a brilliant job on his shoulder. It was fully functional. But there’d been no chance that it would stand up to the demands of a career pitching pro ball.
And just like that his dream had been over. All because a bunch of deluded young idiots had decided that they’d had a grudge against the government and that blowing up a college baseball game was a good way to protest. And because he and Alex and Mal hadn’t been able to follow their coach’s instructions to get the hell off the field and to safety. No, instead they’d stayed and tried to help some of the people trapped in the crumpled wreckage of the stands. He still didn’t remember what he’d done that had torn up his shoulder, but he had.
Leaving him with a shattered dream and a new path to find. He’d found it in medicine, but it had taken some time. And it had left him with an unshakable fear of flying.
His brain knew that the explosion and helicopters weren’t the same thing, but his body didn’t. Every time he stepped into an aircraft, his mouth turned to a desert and his stomach to water.