just hoped he intended to keep doing it.
“I need to use the radio,” he said after a few moments, and without waiting for her to okay that, he checked in with someone via his headset and got the weather update. She stood there on pins and needles, the pen in his shoulder, terrified he’d give her away this time.
He could have, and there was nothing she could do. She knew how close he was to the two men he ran Sky High Air with—Brody and Shayne. Hell, he could probably give her away to either of them without her even knowing it, or maybe he already had.
If so, she was as good as dead.
Chapter 3
K eeping herself standing still in that plane while Noah spoke into his headset was the hardest thing Bailey had ever done.
Any second now, he’d give her away.
But he didn’t. He simply finished his radio conversation and then went back to flying.
“Thanks,” she said, letting out a long breath.
He didn’t speak.
“I really appreciate it.” He could have no idea how much; no one did. Because no one could keep her safe. “I promise you, Noah. I don’t want to hurt you.”
More of his loaded nothing. It was like an art form with him, not talking unless absolutely necessary, remaining cool, calm, and collected under any circumstance, a talent she could learn from. “I just need to get to Mammoth,” she said softly.
“Yes, the skiing is great this time of year.”
Heavy sarcasm. Well, she couldn’t blame him. Noah Fisher wasn’t the kind of man who took well to being made helpless. In fact, he was the least helpless man she knew, not that she really knew him at all….
On the occasions he’d piloted for her and Alan, or her younger brother Kenny, who’d worked for Alan, Noah had always been perfectly professional. Perfectly professional, and perfectly magnificent in his pilot duds, with his crisp white shirt and dark blue uniform trousers—which nicely covered his mile-long legs and firm butt.
Yes, she’d looked.
She hadn’t been able to help herself; he was almost ridiculously gorgeous. And she wasn’t the only one who thought so. The numerous times she’d been at Sky High Air, any and all other females around were usually doing their best to get his attention.
Interesting enough, he never seemed to notice.
He was noticing her now, and wasn’t that just the irony of the whole thing. He had no idea who she was, but when—if—he found out, he was going to be all the more furious.
He’d call 9–1-1.
She couldn’t let that happen. If she went to jail for this, they’d find her there. They’d promised. She let out another long, pent-up breath, purposely thinking about something else.
Noah.
He wore one of his long-sleeved, white button-downs with the Sky High Air patch on his pec. A very nice pec. A pec worthy of the rest of him. But it was his face that always captured her and held tight. His dark, wavy hair was thick, curling past his collar, nearly to his broad shoulders. And as usual, a tumble of it fell over his strong forehead and into his mesmerizing eyes, which were a clear, deep jade and always full of secrets.
Unlike her, he didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. She never had any idea what he was thinking. But she knew what she was thinking. She was thinking she had no business noticing that he induced drool tendencies in every woman he passed, or that his eyes, that dreamy shade of green, inspired thoughts a married woman had no right thinking….
Except that she was no longer married. Nope, her husband had died.
Correction—gotten himself killed by his own greed, because Alan Sinclair had never met a gamble he could walk away from, including Bailey. This had been a well-hidden fact that she’d learned about upon Alan’s death, when her own father had come clean.
Alan had dated her on a bet.
That shouldn’t have hurt. Of course he’d dated her on a bet, because why in the world would a man as wealthy, as cool and sophisticated and elegant, as he’d been, be