Code of Control (14 page)

Chapter
Fifteen

Charlotte had a
death grip on Nolan’s hand.

“Phobia of
flying?” he teased.

“No, afraid of
crashing. The flying part is just fine with me.”

“I highly doubt
we are going to crash, Charlotte.”

“You don’t know
this for certain, do you?” she whispered.

“Can you let go of
my hand?” Nolan glanced down at it. “Please?”

Charlotte’s eyes
traveled to his appendage. “Oh, God! You’re knuckles are blue.”

“No shit,
sweetheart. Comes from loss of circulation to four out of five fingers.”

“I’m so sorry.”
She released him, posthaste, giving him a toothy grin.

“No worries. At
least it was only my hand. Thank God my pants are still on,” he offered
rakishly, rubbing his fingers. “You have one hell of a grip—for a girl.”

She ignored the
dig to her gender, turning and glancing at the other passengers. She then removed
the packet from her carryon, the one Devon handed to her back in the farmhouse.

Nolan grabbed it
from her hands. “Not here,” he said quietly. “Big ears, big eyes.”

“Oh, God! I
wasn’t thinking…”

“Not a
problem…this time. Next time it might be unfixable.”

She shoved the
packet into her carryon. “Is this going to be much longer? Our flight?”

“You really do
have a thing about traveling time, don’t you?”

“No. I’m just
curious. Get in. Get out. Don’t look back. Keeps me on my toes.”

“We’ll get
there. Don’t rush the trip.”

Charlotte turned
and stared at his profile. “How can you be so calm?”

“Years of
practice. Calmness comes from being the boss. It’s why they put my name in
embossed gold on doors.”

“Yes, I suppose
it is.” She did not have this calmness, however. Her stomach was in knots.
There were criminals at the end of this journey—a man missing, with criminals
she and Nolan would have to find and deal with. She was anything but calm; not
certain she was ready for the endeavor.

“If I tell you a
secret will you wipe that scared rabbit look off your face?” he whispered near
her ear.

Charlotte swallowed,
hard. “I’m not scared.”

“Bullshit,” he
said softly, letting forth a small chuckle that no one else heard.

“Okay, maybe I
am. This is new for me.”

“How can it be
new?” he interjected. “You’ve done this before.”

“Mainland stuff,
nothing on foreign soul. You know this. It was in my file. Or didn’t you read
my file?”

“This is just an
adventure, Charlotte, nothing more. Think of it as that.”

“Easy for you to
say,” she quibbled.

“No, it’s not
easy for me to say. Every job has it troubles.”

Her eyes whipped
to his. “Are you saying…”

Nolan set his
finger to his lip, silencing her. “I’m not saying anything until we land.” Their
plane too small, with few too many people, one of them could be a criminal’s
counterpart.

Charlotte
nodded.

“Sit back, close
your eyes, enjoy the ride,” he said.

In an instant
that ride turned turbulent. “Yeah, right!” she said loudly, reaching for his
forearm. He did not react in time to keep her fingernails from sinking deep
into his flesh.

“Charlotte,
honey?”

“What?” She felt
lightheaded, sweating at the back of her knees.

“You’re drawing
blood.”

She glanced at
his arm. “I don’t care. This time I am not letting go until our pilot lands
this tin can on solid ground.”

Nolan’s chuckle
did not make the turbulence go away. Nor did her fears cease when a loud pop
sounded out, and the plane shuddered uncontrollably.

“What was that?”
she yelped.

Their pilot’s
voice came over a crackling loudspeaker saying they just hit a flock of birds
and were going to have to make an emergency landing.

“Shit!” Nolan’s
voice sounded strained near her ear.

“You can say
that again!”

He yanked his
arm from her hand, sitting up straight. “Don’t have time.” His vision whipped
around the airplane, Charlottes’ following this path. Nothing looked out of
sorts to her. The other passengers were in as much of panic as she was. He then
reached in his pocket, grabbing his cell phone. One quick slide of his finger,
an easy tap, he connected to his brother back in Iowa.

“Sorry to ruin
your day, bro, but lock on this target. Our plane hit a bunch of birds and I
think we’re going down.”

Going down?
Didn’t their
pilot just say he was going to make and emergency landing?

Charlotte could
not hear Devon’s reply, but she could well imagine it being glib.

“Ain’t shitting
you, Dev! Just do it!”

He closed the
call, reaching for her hand. “Charlotte, put on your parachute”

“Put on my
what
?”
Adrenaline forced its way into a throat already gagged with fear.

“Now!” he yelled
at her.

With her hands
trembling out of control, she reached for the parachute, yanking it from the
cables. Their plane was old, decrepit, but serviceable…and thankfully, equipped
with safety chutes. “I’m not jumping out of an airplane, Nolan.”

“Yes, you are,”
he ruled, helping her to get the chute on her back, and then working his
massive shoulders into his. The other eight passengers were doing exactly as
they were, probably thinking the huge man with them had the authority, or at
least knew how the hell to save them. Even if they did not speak English, they
could still tell something was wrong.

“We’ll tandem
out.”

Charlotte shook
her head, frantic with terror. “I’ve never stepped out of airplane that was not
on the ground, Nolan.”

“You’ll do just
fine,” he said, as the plane shuddered again, tipping to the right.

“Stop being so
calm about this! We are crashing!”

At that instant,
the pressure in the cabin dropped and the nose of the plane tipped, sending them
out of their seats. Most of the passengers screamed. Charlotte was too
terrified to utter sound, Nolan taking the brunt of impact from another
passenger behind him who’d been tossed forward.

“Hold onto me,”
he said firmly.

She
death-gripped his hand as their pilot came over the loudspeaker again, telling
them what was happening—as if they could not figure this out for themselves. He
went through safety procedures, but his words blurred over the static. There
was another loud pop and the airplane tipped to the right again. They must have
lost the right engine.

She stared at Nolan’s
face. He looked so bloody damn calm, but when she wrapped her arms around his
waist, instructed to do so, was when she felt the tremors. He wasn’t calm at
all.

“Everyone…get
away from the door. I’m going to open it,” he said. Gesturing his intentions
helped the language barrier, to a certain degree.

Everyone grabbed
what he or she could to hang onto, which was not much, since most was falling
or flying in their faces, folks getting injuries from carry-ons and
miscellaneous articles they’d brought with them.

Charlotte’s arms
stayed firmly on Nolan. The tears welled in her eyes, her somewhat pathetic life
flashing before her in rapid succession. She blinked continuously, warding off
the nightmares from twenty-four years of living hell.

“Oh, God!” she
screamed, as the airplane started descending at an incredible speed, throwing
them off balance again, Charlotte hitting her head and Nolan crashing into her.

“Charlotte,
honey, whatever you do, don’t let go of me,” he said.

“Oh God, Nolan!”

He opened the
door, the pressure inside the airplane dropped to unbearable, and the world
below came screaming toward them.

“Ready?” he
yelled.

She shook her
head, closing her eyes. “No!”

“Too bad, `cause
you don’t have much of a choice,” he said, pushing her out of a still flying
airplane. She blacked out at that point. Thankfully, he’d had a firm grip on
her or she would have fallen to her death.

She had no idea
the other passengers never made it out. The plane flipped over in air, they were
not able to reach the open door, everyone but two of its passengers crashing
into the Belize jungle.

She awoke,
tangled in his parachute, but thankfully alive. Tears cascaded from her eyes in
great rivulets, Nolan reaching for her. Every part of her body hurt like hell,
but that did not matter. She could have been splattered if not for his quick
thinking.

“It’ll be okay.
We’re alive. Devon knows what happened,” he reasoned.

“What happened
to everyone else? Where is everyone else?”

“They did not
survive,” he said matter-of-factly, staring at her face.

“Did not
survive?” Her tone had risen with each syllable, unable to comprehend such a
tragedy.

“Our plane
flipped. We made it out just in time.”

Charlotte’s
tears fell harder. She crossed herself, praying for all those wayward souls. No
one deserves to die in a fiery plane crash.

“Devon will
think we crashed into the jungle, too. He won’t come looking for us, will he?”
she said hysterically.

“Charlotte,
honey?” He set both hands on her shoulders, wincing.

“What!?”

“We’ll be okay.
Calm down.”

“How can you say
this? I can’t calm down. We jumped out of an airplane. No one is going to find
us.”

“Please calm
down, for both our sakes.”

“This is so…oh, dear
God.” She hiccupped, losing a slight grip with reality. “This is so much worse
than you shoving me down a mineshaft to break my fear of burial. We fucking
fell out of an airplane!”

“We did not fall
out. I pushed you out. Remember?”

She tipped her
head up, the tears coming out of her in droves, but still able to glare at him
for the audacity. “Yah, about that…”

He ignored this
heated stare, asking, “Are you alright?”

“No, I’m not alright!”

“Anything
broken?” He lowered a hand to her arm, checking both out, yet flinching from
movement.

Charlotte eased away
from the gentle touch. She was incredibly sore, but did not think anything was
broken—other than her sanity.

“Thank God you
passed out. You would have been a ton of trouble for me if you hadn’t.”

“So glad I could
help in that department,” she said waspishly.

“Hey! I’m not
the one who flew into a flock of birds.”

“No, you’re just
the guy who tossed me out of a fucking airplane without my approval!”

“I did it to
save your life. What did you want me to do? Leave you in there? If I had, you’d
be dead.”

Charlotte looked
away, drawing in a ragged breath, her chin wobbling. “No. You did save my life.”
She was barely able to hold it together. “I’m such a wreck. I don’t know why
you ever wanted me as your partner.”

His forced laugh
did not make her feel any better.

“Here. Let’s get
untangled from this mess, and we can check out our surroundings a whole lot
better,” he said.

“Can’t I just
lay here for a few minutes and die a slow and painful death?” She did just that,
lay prone for a few seconds, closing her eyes to the nightmare surrounding her.

“No. Get up, if
you’re certain you’re not hurt…” His cocked brow checked for this lie.

Charlotte glared
again. “I’m sure. Nothing is broken, except my psyche and my want to ever step
foot inside an airplane again.”

Nolan’s head
tipped up, listening for sound. He then checked his watch. “It’s five o’clock,
Belize time. It’ll get dark soon. We should try to find a traveled road as soon
as possible.”

“Oh, goody. A traveled
road—as opposed to a useable airplane…that does not crash into a fucking jungle
with all of its passengers!”

“One thing at a
time, sweetheart. First a road,” he determined, his brows pulling in. “Then a
plane.” He drew in a ragged breath, releasing it through flared nostrils, using
his left hand to rub his neck.

“Are you okay?”
She felt a ton of remorse for not asking this right away.

“Nope. Not
really.”

She set her palm
on his forearm. Nolan flinched under her touch, swearing under his breath. “Nolan?”

“It’s fine,
nothing to worry about.”

Charlotte sat up
as best she could while caught up in nylon strings from their parachutes.
“Would you please stop being so damn calm about this and tell me what is
wrong.”