Page 62 of Shared By the Pilots

And then he pushed open the window and started to climb through.

“Taylor!” I hissed. “I can’t whistle!”

“Then shout or something. I don’t care.”

“Taylor!Taylor!”

He landed inside the building with an unceremonious crash. It wasn’ttooloud, but in the darkness of night I expected a dozen men to come running. I cocked my head, listening, but none ever came.

“Psst! Veronica! Take this!”

I looked up, and Taylor was dangling a bottle out the window. I took it, then helped him climb out into the alley.

Before anyone could come investigate, we jogged out of the alley and onto the main road. When we were a few blocks away, I began to breathe easier.

“What’s the bottle for?” I asked. “Do you think it has something to do with human trafficking?”

“Nah, nothing like that,” Taylor said, adding a little extra Texas twang in his drunken state. “This isn’t for evidence. This bottle’s fordrinkin’.”

35

Taylor

Since I had flown both of us to Cabo in my plane, Veronica paid for our hotel rooms with credit card points. “I have approximately a billion points,” she told me. “We can splurge for rooms with an ocean view.”

We were sitting on the balcony of her room, overlooking the ocean from the fifth floor of a resort. The soft thumping of beachside music drifted up to us, along with the fresh salty air coming up out of the Pacific. We toasted our two glasses together, then downed the tequila.

“Oh my God,” Veronica said, grabbing the bottle and reading the label.

“That might be the smoothest tequila I’ve ever had,” I agreed. “Goodness gracious.”

Veronica gawked at her phone screen. “It better be smooth. It’s eight hundred dollars a bottle!”

“Sounds like I need to smuggle some of that into my liquor cabinet,” I said, examining the fancy cork from the bottle. “I’m in the wrong business.”

Veronica put down the bottle and smiled across the balcony table at me. “I think you’re in exactly the right business.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

She gestured at me. “Your whole vibe. Most pilots dress in a uniform, but you look like something from another time. Jeans, boots, a carefree attitude…”

“I’ll have you know I care very deeply about a great many things,” I argued.

“Okay, but youactcarefree. Like you’re a feather on the wind, floating from one place to another. Never thinking more than a day in advance. Take this trip, for example. When I told you what I thought was going on, you were ready to take a few days and fly down hereimmediately. Most guys, pilots especially, would need a lot more advance notice.”

“You’re not too far off,” I admitted. “But that lifestyle has gotten me in trouble.”

One of her dark eyebrows rose slightly. “How so?”

That look is going to get me in trouble. Veronica was smiling at me like a bad idea I was tempted to make. It reminded me of all the other times I’d allowed a woman to lead me into a bad situation, following them from Iowa, to Alaska, to Florida, and now to Texas.

But Veronica seemed different. Hell, the next womanalwaysseemed different. Yet there was something about her that told me it was the truth this time.

“Not sure I want to get into it,” I said.

“Does it have to do with the reason you won’t ask me out?”

I gave a start. “What do you mean?”

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