Diana Palmer Collected 1-6: Soldier of Fortune / Tender Stranger / Enamored / Mystery Man / Rawhide and Lace / Unlikely Lover

She looked up at him with wide gray eyes that had seen too little living to be closed forever.

“There’s a chance I could manage it alone,” he began slowly.

“I’m not afraid,” she said. “Well, that is, I am afraid, but I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”

So Gabby wasn’t a freak after all, he told himself, gratified to find Dani so much like his best friend’s wife. This little dove had teeth, just as he’d suspected.

He smiled faintly. “Okay, tiger. Here’s what I want you to do….”

She went over it again and again in her mind in the minutes that followed. She chewed her lower lip until it was sore, and then chewed it some more. She had to get it right the first time. The poor stewardess wouldn’t have a second chance. If they failed—and she still didn’t realize how Dutch was going to get to that man in time—the stewardess would die.

She agonized over it until the captain announced that the plane was on its approach to Miami. He cautioned the passengers to stay calm and not panic, and to stay in their seats once the plane was on the ground. He sounded as strained as Dani felt. That hand grenade was the most terrifying part of all, and she wondered how Dutch was going to prevent the second man from throwing it.

The plane circled the airport and went down, landing roughly this time, bumping around as it went toward the terminal. Dani got her first glimpse of Miami and thought ironically that she sure was getting to see a lot of the world!

As soon as the plane came to a halt, Dutch touched her arm and looked down at her. Dani closed her eyes on a brief prayer.

The man with the syringe had just moved back into the cabin. He looked taut and nervous as well. The stewardess looked as though she’d given up all hope of living and had resigned herself to the horror of the acid. Her eyes were blank.

“Uh, senor…?” Dani called, getting halfway out of her seat.

The short man jumped at the sound of her voice and his arm tightened around the stewardess. “What you want?” he growled.

“I…Oh, please…” Dani clutched the back of the seat and her gray eyes widened as she fought to make the words come out. “I have to go…to the restroom, please….”

The short man cursed. He called something in another language to the man in the cockpit, who looked out, angrily.

“I have to!” Dani pleaded, looking and sounding convincing.

The tall man muttered something and the short one laughed curtly. “All right,” he said after a minute, during which Dani aged five years. “Come on, then.”

She slipped over Dutch, and while she was moving, his hand went slowly to his inside jacket pocket.

Dani moved into the aisle and started carefully toward the restroom on the other side of the man with the syringe. Two more steps, she told herself. Her heart pounded, and she kept her eyes cast downward in case the man saw the terror in them and reacted too quickly. One more step. Please don’t fail me, she said silently to Dutch. This is insane, I’m only twenty-six, I don’t want to die, I’ve only just gotten married!

One more step. And she stopped and swayed, putting a hand to her temple. “I’m so sick!” And it was almost the truth. She deliberately let herself fall toward him.

It was enough. It was enough. He instinctively moved to catch her, and at that instant Dutch threw the knife. The syringe went to the floor as the hijacker caught his middle. Dutch was out of his seat in a heartbeat. It was ’Nam all over again. Angola. Rhodesia. He ignored Dani, who was watching with incredulous eyes, tore the stewardess out of the hijacker’s helpless grasp, threw her into a seat and kicked the hypodermic out of the way. He was through the cockpit door seconds after he’d thrown the knife, ignoring the groaning bald man on the floor as he went for the taller man.

“I will throw it, senor!” the man threatened, and grasped the firing pin of the grenade.

“Go ahead,” Dutch said, and kept going. With two movements of his hands, so quick that the pilot didn’t even see them, the hijacker went down with the grenade in his hand.

“He’s pulled the pin!” the young copilot yelled, and there was pandemonium in the airplane.

“For God’s sake,” Dutch growled, retrieving it, “what are you afraid of, flying bits of plastic?” And he tossed the cheap imitation into the pilot’s lap.

The copilot started to dive for it, but the pilot, a man in his late forties, just laughed. He turned toward Dutch and grinned.

“I should have realized why he was so nervous.”

The copilot was still gaping. “It’s a fake!”

“Keep it for a souvenir.” The pilot sighed, tossing it to his colleague. “How’s Lainie?”

“If you mean the stewardess, she’s okay,” Dutch said. “But his buddy isn’t. You’d better get a doctor out here.”

“Right away. Hey. Thanks,” the pilot said with a quiet smile.

Dutch shrugged. “Pure self-interest,” he said. “He was holding up my coffee.”

“I’ll buy you a cup when we get out of here,” the captain offered.

Dutch grinned. “Take you up on that.”

He left the cockpit. “It wasn’t a live grenade,” he called, the authority in his voice pacifying the nervous passengers. “It’s all over, just sit quietly.”

Dani was sitting on the floor, staring horrified at the groaning man with the knife in his stomach while she tried to deal with what was happening. She looked up at the stranger she’d married without even recognizing him. Who was he?

Dutch was sorry she’d had to see it, but there was no other way to do it. He bent and caught her by the arms and pulled her up gently.

“He’ll be okay,” he said. “No sweat. Let’s get off this thing.” He pulled her toward the door. Two other flight attendants came rushing from the back of the plane, embracing the stewardess, apologizing for not being able to help.

“It’s okay,” the little blond said shakily. “I’m fine.”

She turned to Dutch, all blue eyes and gratitude. “Thank you. Thank you both!”

“All in a day’s work,” Dutch said carelessly. “How about getting this door open? That man needs a medic.”

The groaning man got their attention. One of the flight attendants bent over him, and the copilot was just frog-marching the second terrorist, whose hands were belted together behind him, into the service compartment.

“Wait and I’ll show you to the office,” the captain called to Dutch. “We’ll need to speak to the police, I’m sure.”

“Okay,” Dutch told him. He propelled Dani, who was still half-shocked, down the stairs with him, out into the darkness. “Oh,” he said, turning and addressing the male flight attendant, “would you please get the lady’s books and purse out of seat 7B and bring them to the office?”

“Be glad to, sir,” came the reply.

Dani was still shocked, but her mind registered what he’d just said. In the middle of all the furor he’d remembered her blessed books. She looked up at him uncomprehendingly, her eyes wide and frightened and uncertain and still bearing traces of sick terror.

“I had to,” he said quietly as he recognized the look. “I couldn’t have reached him in time.”

“Yes, I—I realize that. I’ve just never seen anybody…like that.”

“You were superb,” he said. “I can think of only one other woman who would have kept her head so well.”

She wondered whom he meant, but there were more immediate questions. “What…what you did,” she faltered as they waited for the captain. “You said you were a soldier.”

He turned her gently and held her in front of him, holding her wary gaze. “I am. But not the kind you’re thinking of. I make my living as a professional soldier. I hire out to the highest bidder,” he told her bluntly, without pulling his punches, and watched the horror that filled her face. He hadn’t realized how devastated she was going to be, or how he might feel when he saw the horror in her innocent face. Her reaction surprised him. It irritated him. What had she expected, for God’s sake, a clerk?