Safe in My Arms

He opened it and drank deeply, still looking into her eyes. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Mina. She removed the paper towel from his forehead. The cut had stopped bleeding.

“I guess I won’t have to go back into the plane, after all,” she said. “You’re not bleeding anymore.”

He smiled at her. “I’m a fast healer.”

* * *

In truth, he didn’t want her to go back inside the plane. If she hadn’t already noticed the bundles strewn all over it and begun to put two and two together—a private plane with mysterious, securely wrapped packages as the main cargo—he would consider himself lucky. His rescuer seemed to be a very intelligent woman. And he didn’t want her getting mixed up in this mess. At this point, he didn’t know what his next move was going to be. He had to contact the agency. She’d said her cell phone didn’t work up here. There was no reason to believe his would either. He didn’t have a satellite phone. No harm in trying his cell, though.

He still felt it in the back pocket of his jeans. He was surprised it hadn’t fallen out of his pocket while he was upside down. Tight jeans, he guessed.

Try as he might, Jake couldn’t get a signal. He sighed inwardly. What would he say to his boss, anyway? John Monahan was dead. And there was no bringing him back. He had failed to protect a witness. John might have worked in Betts’s organization for years, but he was trying to clean up his act for the benefit of his wife and two small children. It irked Jake that he hadn’t been able to anticipate someone tampering with the plane. But John had been a conscientious pilot. Jake had seen him examining the plane before climbing into the cockpit.

If John had missed signs of tampering, how could he have recognized them? Still, he blamed himself for John’s death. And he meant to make sure that justice was served in the end.

He scowled as he tucked the useless phone back in his pocket. Mina noticed and frowned in response. “No luck, huh?”

“Nah, but it can wait.” His stomach growled. He smiled wryly. “You wouldn’t have something to eat in that handy backpack, would you?”

Mina smiled warmly and dug in her backpack a moment.

They were companionably eating energy bars beneath the sugar maple when they heard the rotors of a helicopter in the distance.

* * *

Benjamin Beck hated two modes of transportation: riding on a bus and flying. The UH-60 Black Hawk he was in now was being piloted by a young hotshot from the Army National Guard. Two other Guardsmen made up the team. Ben was sitting up front with the pilot giving directions. The Great Smoky Mountains looked a lot different from the air, but Ben had never gotten lost in his life. Soon, they were hovering over the area where he’d last seen Mina more than five hours ago. He looked at the pilot and said, “Try due south. That was the direction the plane was heading when she was going down.”

Less than five minutes later they spotted it.

“Looks like a Piper Matrix,” said the pilot with admiration. “Nice plane.”

Ben was busy craning his neck, trying to locate Mina. He hoped nothing had happened to that girl. He had not wanted to leave her, but her plan of action had clearly been the only option for them at the time.

His heartbeat accelerated with excitement and happiness when he saw her sitting propped against a tree, a big guy sitting beside her. “There they are!” Ben exclaimed, pointing and grinning.

The pilot grinned too. “So I see,” he said. “I’m going to set her down in that clearing over there.”

* * *

It was dark by the time the Black Hawk rose into the air again. One of the Guardsmen was a medic and had examined Jake and determined his vital signs were good, and except for his head injury, he was fine. Then the Guardsmen removed John Monahan’s body from the wreckage, put it in a body bag and stowed it in the back of the Black Hawk.

Mina and Grandpa Beck stood apart talking while all of this was going on, but she didn’t fail to notice Jake speaking privately with the helicopter’s pilot and the keen look of interest on the pilot’s face during the course of their conversation. She also noticed that one of the Guardsmen came out of the plane carrying one of those wrapped bundles Mina had avoided stepping on when she’d entered the downed plane and presented it to the helicopter pilot, who told him to leave it on the plane.

That made her wonder what was in those bundles that made them not important enough to salvage from the wreckage. There had been about thirty twenty-four-inch cubes. Or maybe, she thought, there was something in them that Jake didn’t want the National Guardsmen to know about, and during his conversation with the pilot he’d convinced him that they weren’t worth bothering with.

Her curiosity was definitely engaged. She was a sucker for a good mystery, and this had the potential for becoming a brain twister.

When the pilot announced it was time to board the Black Hawk, she hesitated. “I think I’ll walk out of here,” she told him.

“Mina, you’re exhausted,” Jake was quick to say. “I’m not going anywhere until you get in this helicopter.”

“He’s right,” her grandfather seconded. “It’s been a long day. Let’s go home, child.”

Knowing she’d been outvoted, Mina relented. But she would have dearly loved to have been left alone with those bundles to see what was in them. Her grandfather’s concern for her well-being, she knew, was genuine. But she suspected Jake was more concerned about leaving her alone with those mysterious packages aboard the downed Matrix.

She sat next to Jake on the flight to Cherokee. He tried to make polite conversation, but she barely heard him because her mind was so consumed with the distinct possibility that the man she’d rescued was a drug dealer. Why hadn’t she seen it before now? A private plane filled with packages wrapped in garbage bags? Two men on board, one a pilot, one a...what? she wondered. What was Jake’s role in all of this? Was he the hired gun?

She observed him as they flew through the now darkened sky toward Cherokee. He was so handsome. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, and when he smiled, dimples appeared in both caramel-brown cheeks. He had perfect teeth, a square-chinned, clean-shaven face that now had a five-o’clock shadow, nice ears, an interesting nose with a small scar on the bridge and curly dark-brown hair that was cut close to his perfect head. And when he looked at her, there was nothing but warmth and sincerity in those warm honey-colored eyes. He could be the all-American boy next door. Big, athletic, superbly muscled and with a personality to match. But he could also be a cold-blooded killer who ran drugs for a living.

He smiled at her now. “I don’t know how I can repay you for what you did for me today,” he said, eyes shining with good intentions.

“I’m just sad that there was nothing we could do for your friend,” Mina said. Too many times, while in the service of her country, she’d had to transport the bodies of fallen soldiers. This situation gave her a cold feeling inside. Her sister, Desiree, who was a psychotherapist, wanted her to go to therapy, saying that even if she didn’t believe she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, there could still be residual aftereffects from her experiences in the military. She shouldn’t be too proud to seek help. But Mina knew she was fine. It was only a few times a year, like today, that she was reminded of the negative aspects of military life.

“Me, too,” Jake said softly. “I dread having to tell his wife. They have two small kids.”

“Did you know him well?”

“We’d only been working together for a few months, but he was a nice guy, devoted to his family.”

Devoted to his family, Mina thought. Would a guy who loved and cherished his family be working as a pilot for a drug dealer? She wasn’t naive. Of course a man could love his family and be a criminal.

They didn’t have time to finish their conversation, because in a matter of minutes the Black Hawk, which could reach a hundred and sixty miles per hour, was landing in a big field adjacent to her grandfather’s lodge. The pilot explained they’d be going on to Asheville where Jake would be checked out by a doctor at Mission Hospital.

Before Mina and her grandfather could go, though, Jake grasped Mina by the hand. “I don’t want to lose touch with you, Mina. Give me your number, please. I’d like to call you when I come back this way.”

Mina met his eyes. Did she want this man who could be a drug dealer to phone her? Was she being too judgmental? She had no proof he was a dealer, just a suspicion that could probably be blamed on reading too many suspense novels.

He handed her his cell phone. “Would you enter your number for me?”

She took it, quickly tapped out her number and handed it back to him. “Stay safe, Jake.”

He gave her that killer smile and then turned and went back to the waiting helicopter.

She and Grandpa Beck watched as they rose into the sky and sped off. Her grandfather put his arm around her shoulders as they walked to the cabin in back of the lodge where they lived. The lodge was set to reopen next week for the fall season. Guests would start arriving on Sunday afternoon. Soon they would be busy catering to the needs of hunters, fishermen, hikers and a host of other nature lovers.

“I don’t know about you,” Grandpa Beck said, “but I’m hungrier than a bear at the end of hibernation.”

Mina laughed and said, “Come on, then, I’ll make you some scrambled eggs and bacon.”

“Breakfast for dinner,” Grandpa Beck said, grinning. “Now you’re talking!”

* * *

As the helicopter rose in the air, Jake watched the figures of Mina Gaines and her grandfather recede into the distance. He didn’t know why, but being near her gave him a warm feeling deep inside. It was a cliché, but he felt as though they had been fated to meet.

He turned and looked straight ahead as the pilot cranked up the speed of the Black Hawk and shot toward Asheville. This case had taken a turn for the worse when he’d been so close to wrapping it up.