High-Stakes Playboy Read Free Page A

helicopter controls. Was that normal? She knew pilots tended to be fit, muscular guys. Was this why? His jaw was clenched and his knuckles were white on the controls. As well they should be. Minerva was tearing along only feet above the ground.
    “Archer?”
    No response.
    She glanced outside, and the end of the valley was coming up. Fast.
Damned
fast. A sheer granite cliff rose in front of them.
    “Archer!”
    Nada.
    “Hey! What’s going on?” She slapped him on the upper arm to get his attention. But it was as if he was on another planet. He ignored her completely. She let go of her camera controls and tried to turn in her seat, but the tight harness stopped her. She ripped at the belt buckle frantically, but to no avail. She was strapped in tight. The mountain loomed directly ahead, and it was getting bigger by the second. She could make out individual trees racing toward them. They were going to slam into the cliff in a few seconds!
    “Help me pull,” he grunted.
    Shocked, she grabbed the stick between her knees and pulled back on it. It moved a bit as Archer pulled on it, too.
    “
Harder, Marley.
We’re going to
die
.”
    Panic slammed into her as full realization of how much trouble they were in finally registered. Something was wrong with the helicopter, and if they couldn’t turn it in the next few seconds, they were going to crash head-on into that cliff.
    She stood on the rudder pedals and pulled for all she was worth on the stick, straining every bit as hard as Archer. It wasn’t working. Frantic, she started shaking the stick side to side in a desperate effort to break it loose.
    The stick gave way all of a sudden, slamming her back into her seat so hard she hit her head on the cockpit wall. Archer flung Minerva into a violent turn that slammed Marley against her door next.
    The bird banked up onto its side, and all she saw in her windscreen was granite and more granite. They were so close to the cliff that she saw individual clumps of grass clinging to its face. Frankly, she was amazed the skids didn’t scrape the rocks as it turned. The helicopter shuddered as Archer hauled it around, creaking under the strain. He gave a tug back on the throttle, and it moved easily, slowing the bird’s breakneck speed.
    As quickly as the crisis had come, it passed. The helicopter flew forward sedately as if nothing had ever happened.
    She became aware of somebody shouting in her ears. Steve Prescott. “What the hell was that, Archer? Report to me when you land.” She winced. Archer’s boss sounded
pissed
.
    “Copy,” Archer replied tersely.
    Silence, broken only by the steady thwacking of the rotor blades, filled the cockpit. Archer was as pale as snow in the seat beside her in stark contrast to his black leather jacket.
    “Are we okay?” she asked in a small voice.
    “You tell me,” came the grim reply. He flew low and slow back up the valley toward the airport.
    She took stock of the current situation. They were alive. The bird seemed to be responding to normal control inputs. Archer’s knuckles were no longer white. That was all good, right? “What happened back there?”
    “Did you get your film?”
    “I got a few of the planned shots. Then you went off course.”
    His jaw rippled as if he was clenching it, and damned if it wasn’t one of the sexiest things she’d ever seen.
    Stay on point, Marley. You want to know what just happened and why you nearly died just now. You’re not drooling over the pretty pilot.
    “Can you review your footage right now?” he asked. “Those digital cameras have instant playback, right?”
    Confused, she jammed her face to the viewfinder and watched the raw footage she’d captured in their wild ride down the valley at weed height. The images looked about like she’d expected for the first part. The boys in postproduction would need to push the light a little in editing, but that was no biggie. And then the footage got interesting. The tracer ripped past. The