Page 57 of Red Boar's Baby

“You’re okay,” she gasped, holding on to him. “You’re okay. Are you okay?” Half detaching herself, she began patting his face frantically. Costa winced as she found a bruise he hadn’t even noticed.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” Now it was his turn to start patting her down, running his hands across her bare shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” she gasped.

Her pupils were dilated. She looked half frantic, hair wildly tangled in a mess hanging in her face. She was gorgeous and vividly, wonderfully alive.

The kiss happened with no warning and perfect coordination. They both moved at the same time, she flung her arms around his neck and he once more had a warm, wriggling armful of naked Diana, now kissing him frantically.

They kissed for a few moments with the abandon that only a shared “We’re alive!” experience could bring.

This was interrupted by a throat-clearing noise from further back in the plane.

Costa reluctantly broke free of the kiss and turned, rotating his body so that he placed himself in front of Diana.

Farley was sitting awkwardly on the floor in the cabin, face bruised, cradling what looked like a broken arm.

“We’re alive,” he said dazedly.

“No thanks to you!” Diana snapped. Then she looked down at herself and rolled hastily off Costa, to his regret. “Where are my clothes?”

“I think they probably flew out of the plane while we were in midair,” Costa said.

He took off his shirt and draped it around her shoulders. Diana gave a nod of thanks.

“We’re alive,” Farley said again.

“You’re under arrest,” Costa told him.

“He had a gun,” Diana said.

“I’ll look for it and keep an eye on him if you want to go back and see if you can find any of your clothes.”

Diana nodded, started to step forward and then jerked her foot back. “Where’s the other one—Jim? Did he fall?”

“Yeah. Fell out the side,” Costa said succinctly.

Jim had been trying to kill them, so it was hard to feel too sorry for him. But the man’s whipped-away scream as he vanished out of the open cargo door would still stick with Costa for a while.

As would the sight of naked Diana flying the plane, her concentration riveted and her hands locked on the controls. She had been glorious.

While Costa groped around for Farley’s gun, Diana made her way past the men and then abruptly stopped. Costa turned to look and saw that late afternoon desert sunlight was spilling into the interior of the cabin. The side was torn completely open. The floor was tilted slightly and half buried in sand on the open side.

“I can’t believe we’re alive,” Diana murmured, picking her way back along the row of seats.

“That’s what I keep saying,” Farley mumbled.

“Why don’t you stop saying it and shut up.” Costa finally found the gun wedged under the copilot seat. He turned around to cover Farley with it.

Farley looked back at him with a dazed expression. He’d gotten banged up badly in the crash, more than either of them, from what Costa could tell. He had been tumbling around loose in the back, probably just trying not to fall out the open door. He was lucky to be alive.

Given that he had tried to kill them, Costa wasn’t entirely suretheywere lucky he was alive.

Diana came scrambling back in a hurry, a pair of jeans slung over her arm and very distractingly naked apart from Costa’s shirt. “Found my pants,” she said, “and we need to get out of herenow. There’s dripping aviation fuel back there, and I can hear something electrical fizzling. This machine might be a fireball at any time.”

Costa cursed and grabbed Farley by his unhurt arm. “Get out!” he snapped at Diana, but she got hold of Farley on the other side, and together they manhandled him through the open side of the plane, trying to avoid ragged ends of metal.

Together, in an awkward and unwanted three-legged race, they stumbled away from the machine. They had barely put some distance between them and it when there was a terrificWhoomph!and a fireball rolled skyward, along with a wave of heat that sent all three of them sprawling.

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