High-Stakes Playboy (24 page)

Autorotations were bitches at best, and controlled crashes—or worse—when they went badly. People often died in them. Particularly when they had nothing but trees to come down in.

A long, drawn-out scream came across the radios.
Mother of God.
That was Marley screaming her head off. He’d never heard anyone sound so terrified.

He keyed his mike frantically. “Talk to me, Marley. What’s going on?”

“Omigod. We’re going down. We’re going to die! Archer!”

“Is there smoke in the cockpit?” he demanded sharply.

“We’re spinning around! We’re falling! I don’t want to die!”

Dammit.
Marley wasn’t screaming now. She was moaning in raw, animal fear over the radio.

“It’ll be okay, baby,” Archer lied in desperate calm while he died a little with each of her moans.

“I’m going to die,” she wailed, “and I never told you.”

“Never told me what?”

Her voice rose to a frantic cry. “I love you, Arch...”

The radio cut off. Only static came across the channel.

Archer yelled, “They’ve gone down!”

Steve snapped sharply, “Keep flying your own bird, Archer. You can’t save her if you crash yourself.”

He fought back the panic enough to scan his flight controls. His bird was okay. Steve dropped into terse, calm, crisis mode beside him, which helped him to do the same. Sort of. “I’ll call the FAA. Request search and rescue. You just fly, Archer.”

Marley had crashed. She might be horribly injured. In need of immediate airlift to a hospital.

C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!
He urged his aircraft to go faster.
Hang on, baby. I’m coming.

Chapter 17

A
rcher’s heart was beating so hard it about exploded out of his chest.

Desperation clawed up his spine and lodged in his throat. He shoved down an urge to puke.
Focus.
Marley needed him. Her screams still rang in his ears. No doubt about it, he would be hearing that sound for a long damned time to come. He topped the ridge and did a hard turn to start a run down the valley that opened up at his feet.

“C’mon, c’mon. Help me out here,” he muttered. “Send up a flare or a signal of some kind, Trap, you bastard.”

Agonizingly, the pass yielded nothing. He turned back again and started a second pass over the thick tree cover that was a sea of black at night.

I love you, Arch...

The words echoed in his brain like a death knell. She couldn’t be dead. She loved him, dammit! Marley could not give him the Holy Grail in one second and then die in the next.

“Keep her alive for me, Trap,” he growled at the universe in general. He banked into a third pass, and cold, hard terror began to overtake him. If she was hurt, bleeding, and he didn’t find her soon...

He couldn’t complete the thought. She loved him, dammit, and he couldn’t lose her!

There.
A small clearing. A broken helicopter lying on its side. Tail snapped off. Rotors bent to hell.
Oh, my God.
Marley had been in that? How was she still alive? Images of blood and broken bodies crashed through his mind, horrifying him into near-catatonia.

“Can you put us down close to it?” Steve bit out.

The clearing was tiny. There was barely room for one helicopter, let alone two. “Hell, yes, I can,” he declared. Concentrating fiercely, he descended, placing his bird in the one spot far enough from the trees and the crash site not to foul his rotors and kill him and Steve, too.

The skids bumped into the ground and he chopped the power. He leaped out of his seat and crashed frantically through the weeds to the downed helicopter.

Don’t you die
,
don’t you die,
he repeated over and over in his head. He raced to the mangled bird and saw a female form lying beside it. Blond curls. Female curves. Blood
. Oh, God.

“Marley,” he groaned. He fell to his knees beside her. Something hot streaked down his face. Her eyes were closed. He felt under her chin for a pulse, praying like he’d never prayed before.
Thud, thud, thud.
Her pulse beat strongly, if terribly fast, against his fingers.

Alive.
Thank God. But unconscious. His hands skimmed over her body in search of broken bones or obvious injuries.

He vaguely heard a voice intoning, “Nononononono,” and realized from afar that it was him. “Wake up. Fight, dammit!”

Marley’s eyes fluttered. Opened slowly. He reeled, light-headed with relief. “How do you feel?”

“Okay, I guess,” she mumbled.

“What hurts, baby?”

“We hit hard. Knocked the wind out of me. Think I fainted.”

He heard a groan nearby and looked up. Steve was crouched over Gordon, and Trap was just coming to.

“You got here fast,” Trapowski rasped.

“You had Marley,” Archer retorted sharply.

“Didn’t think you’d take too kindly to me killing the girl you love.”

Archer turned his attention back to Marley. “Fingers and toes. Can you feel them? Move them?”

She nodded, and he walked her through a quick injury assessment. Apart from a shallow cut on her forehead that had bled all over her face and made her look on the verge of expiring, she seemed unharmed. A miraculous act of God he would be giving thanks for forever. He tore off a strip of his shirt and wrapped it around the cut. He used his sleeve to mop away the worst of the blood from her face.

“Can you sit up?” he asked gently.

“If you help me.”

With a supporting arm around her back, he eased her to a sitting position. She blinked her eyes hard and looked a little dizzy, but then steadied. “I knew you’d come for me.”

“I’ll always come for you.”

Overcome by his emotions, he wrapped his arms around her and drew her into his lap for a desperate hug. He put into the embrace all the panic and fear and relief in his heart that he could not put into words.

* * *

Marley cuddled against Archer in shock. His heart beating hard in her ear was just about the greatest thing she’d ever heard. An undeniable affirmation that she was alive. Really alive. She’d been certain her number was up when the helicopter started spinning wildly out of control.

“Gordon wants to kill everyone in your family,” she eventually said against his chest. “Mina was sleeping with him. She helped him sabotage stuff around the set in return for him helping her sabotage my life.”

“I know.”

“He said your family stole the movie studio from him.”

He stared down at her. “Steve mentioned something about that. But Jackson and Adrian Turnow bought it from Z. K. Tripp.”

“Zacharius Trapowski,” Gordon rasped from the ground.

“Relation of yours?” Steve asked drily.

“My brother.”

“The way I heard it, Tripp had the studio up for sale, and Jackson and Adrian bought it fair and square.”

“I set up a hostile takeover...was supposed to get half the money...” Gordon wheezed. “Z.K. sold it out from under me...got nothing...I’ll kill him...kill you, too. All of you...”

“Easy, there, Trap,” Steve urged. “Looks like you’ve got some busted ribs. Sounds like you’ve punctured a lung and collapsed it, too. Just lie still and breathe slowly while I put this zip tie around your wrists.”

“You went after Mina, didn’t you?” Marley accused Archer without much heat.

He nodded down at her apologetically. “I did. She’s in police custody in Serendipity. She tried to shoot me in front of a bunch of cops. I’m afraid she’s going away for a very long time, baby.” He added in a suddenly fierce tone, “But she won’t be hurting you again. Ever. I’ll see to it personally.”

She caught the first hint of relief on his face since she’d opened her eyes. It was still hard to compute that she was alive. She’d been so sure she was going to die. “You mean that?” she asked in a small voice.

“I’ve never meant anything more.” He took a deep breath and then said cautiously, “About what you said on the radios before...”

“You mean shouting at the top of my lungs that I love you?”

“I realize people say things in the heat of the moment when they think they’re going to die...” His voice trailed off.

She reached up and laid her hand on his cheek. “Oh, Archer. I didn’t say that because I thought I was going to die. I said it because I wanted you to live. I figured if you knew that a woman had genuinely loved you in her lifetime that you might let another one love you someday.”

He frowned down at her, processing her words. He had no frame of reference in which to comprehend what she was saying. She cared about him enough to think more about his welfare than hers? Even in the last moments before she died?

Something tight that had been squeezed into a little corner of his heart for a very long time unraveled, unfurling like a newborn butterfly’s wings.
This
was what real love was. Willingness to throw oneself into the line of fire on behalf of the person one loved. The way he’d gone after Mina without a second thought for his own safety. The way she’d thought of his future happiness over hers even as the helicopter fell out of the sky. She loved him. Really
loved
him.

And moreover, he loved her. He was capable of real love, after all. His past had not broken that part of his heart, after all. It had just taken the right woman to come along and show him how to love. The knowledge sank into his soul like cool rain after a long, hot drought.

“I don’t deserve you...” he started.

She pressed her fingers over his mouth. “There will be no more talk like that, Archer Prescott.”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You found out my last name, huh?”

“Remind me to get mad at you later for not telling me.”

“You got it.” A pause. “I love you, too, Marley.”

Something shifted in the air between them and in the ground beneath him. It was as if the entire world tilted a little on its axis. She let out a long, slow breath. “But my sister tried to kill you.”

He shrugged. “My family’s enemy tried to kill you. I’d say we’re about even on that score. Wouldn’t you?”

His mouth curved up in the most beautiful smile she’d ever seen. He leaned down and kissed her so sweetly her heart could hardly hold all the joy that erupted inside it. “I’ll never get enough of you, Archer.”

“You can have me as long as you want me.”

She pushed back in his arms enough to stare up at him. “You mean that?”

“I do. I’m yours, Marley. Body and soul. Marry me, baby.”

She swallowed hard. Did he really mean it? “Um, okay. I mean, yes. Yes! Oh,
yes
.”

He’d given her the stars and sky, the sun and moon, and in turn she gave him her heart right then and there. All of it. Forever. With the silent, majestic mountains standing witness to it around them.

“Oh, wait. I picked up something for you when I was in town today.” He fished around in his jacket pocket and fished out a little velvet box. “Let me do this right.”

He set her on her feet and knelt down in front of her. “Marley, would you make me the happiest man in the world and do me the great honor of marrying me?”

Tears filled her eyes. “The answer is still yes. Ring or no ring, you wonderful man.”

He surged to his feet and wrapped her in a hug so tight she could hardly breathe. And she totally didn’t care.

Eventually, Archer called out without loosening his hold on her one bit, “Hey, Steve.”

“Yes?”

“Am I correct in thinking, now that Gordon’s going to be spending a lot of quality time in a federal penitentiary, you’re going to be down a permanent stunt pilot on your crew?”

“That is correct. You know of any hot stick jockeys who might be looking for a job stateside?” Steve asked drily.

Marley stared up at Archer, stunned. He would give up his military career for her? “I don’t mind being a military wife and doing the separation thing.”

He nodded firmly and answered without hesitation. “Yeah, well, I mind the separation thing.”

“Are you sure?” she breathed.

“Absolutely. I’m not leaving you again, baby. Ever.”

His face lit with a smile, and her heart lit with an even bigger one. He wanted to stay with her?

Archer grinned. “Stunt flying is fun. Keeps me on my toes. And it’s steady work. Good for guys raising a family.”

“A family?” she echoed. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tight. She was never, ever letting go of him.

“Hey, Steve,” Archer said again.

“Yeah?”

“Once the medics clear Marley to fly, any chance Adrian would let me borrow one of the studio’s helicopters for a few hours, seeing as how I’m going to be his newest full-time employee?”

“What have you got in mind, little brother?”

“Marley and I need to fly to Reno.” She stared up at him, sensing where he was going with this but not quite believing it.

Steve answered warmly, “I’m sure Adrian won’t have a problem with that.”

Archer grinned down at her. “So, baby. How fast can you be ready for a wedding?”

“For my wedding to you? Ten seconds to brush the grass off my clothes.”

He gathered her close and murmured for her ears only, “No shenanigans while I’m flying us to Reno, though. You and I are both living to a ripe old age so we can have lots and lots more sex. Got it, Mrs. Prescott?”

“Got it, Mr. Prescott. You did promise me a wild ride, though.”

He kissed her hard and fast. “Hell, yeah. Strap in tight, baby. This is going to be the wildest ride of your life.”

Lord, she hoped so.

* * * * *

Be sure to pick up Cindy’s next page-turning story, FEVER ZONE, available March 2015 from HQN!

If you loved this novel, don’t miss these other
action-packed, sexy stories from Cindy Dees:

HIGH-STAKES BACHELOR
HOT INTENT
TAKE THE BAIT
CLOSE PURSUIT
A BILLIONAIRE’S REDEMPTION

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