Hide-And-Sheikh. Gail Dayton

picked up a sandwich wrapped in plastic and headed back up front, hoping Ellen would take him up on his invitation. He wanted to talk to her. He would rather have let Samuel stay and do the flying, but he had never allowed anyone to go with him to Buckingham. Until now.

      Ellen sat in the soft velour-covered seat staring out the window at fat, fluffy clouds floating past and wondered what in heaven’s holy name she was doing in this airplane. She’d been in private corporate jets before, but none so sybaritically luxurious as this one, with the ornate rugs laid over the utilitarian gray carpet and the intricate inlay on the wood-paneled half walls. Nor had she ever been in one alone.

      Not that she was exactly alone now. Rudi, her client, the body she was supposed to be guarding rather than lusting after, was on the plane with her. He was just in a separate part of the plane, in the cockpit, flying it. A rich man’s self-indulgence, she told herself.

      She picked through the lunch basket, mostly to see what was there. She’d been hungry earlier, but no more. Rudi upset her stomach. It couldn’t be the combination of guilt, resentment and desire he stirred up in her. But if it was, it was still his fault.

      Ellen unwrapped a sandwich and sniffed it. Chicken salad. Very fresh chicken salad. Maybe she could eat a bite or two. She poured a cup of coffee. The first sip set her back on her heels—it was strong enough to stand up and walk out of the cup on its own. But it was good. She added cream and sugar to tone it down a bit, and made up her mind.

      Carrying coffee and sandwich, she walked to the cockpit, staggering only once in slight turbulence. Rudi glanced up and smiled when she entered.

      “So you decided to come see the cockpit.” He gestured at the chair to his right. “Have a seat. Take a look around.”

      Ellen slid carefully into the seat. She didn’t want to touch anything she shouldn’t. Her seat had a steering mechanism in front of it that appeared to be locked down. Good. She looked out the window and was mesmerized.

      Trees blanketed the rippling ground below them, interspersed with squares and rectangles of bright green or mellow gold, depending, Ellen supposed, on the crops growing there. Blue river ribbons curled through the patchwork, while black roads slashed arrow straight, dotted with fast-moving traffic. And around her—above, below, left, right, before, behind—the sky opened its vast vistas.

      She could see clear to tomorrow and back to yesterday. Clouds kept them company like fat, contented sheep. But ahead, a dark line on the horizon shadowed her pleasure in the scene, told her the clouds weren’t always contented.

      “Is that the storm?” She tipped her head toward it. “Yes. We will turn south in a few minutes and fly around it.” He looked at her. “I do not fly through thunderstorms just to prove how manly I am.”

      Ellen laughed. “No. You just ride through Central Park on a borrowed horse and snatch women off their feet.”

      “For fun.” A tiny smile tickled the corners of Rudi’s lips. “Admit it. It was fun, was it not?”

      She shook her head. She might admit it to herself, but never, ever to him. “You’re absolutely outrageous.”

      “I know.” He winked. “And you love it.”

      Rather than dignify his nonsense with a response, Ellen ate her sandwich.

      Before long, they were flying with the dark line of clouds off their right wing, but the storm grew faster than the little jet could fly. The clouds seemed to boil, racing and churning as the pewter-gray froth climbed higher and higher, blotting out the sun. These were angry clouds, throwing lightning back and forth like insults, reaching out to drag Ellen and Rudi into their quarrel.

      “Buckle up.” Rudi pointed at the shoulder harness attached to Ellen’s seat. He already had his fastened, she noticed as she pulled the straps around her and clicked them into place.

      “We will get caught in the edges of this storm,” he said. “The front is bigger and badder than it looked in the forecast, but we should miss the worst of it.”

      “Can’t we fly above it, or something?” Her hands shook, and she locked them together in her lap. Ellen couldn’t believe her nerves were so shot. She’d never had a problem with flying in her life. But then, she’d never been in a plane this small in the middle of a storm that big with her safety in someone else’s hands. Her cousin the shrink said she had control issues.

      “It is too high. A commercial jetliner would have trouble getting above this one.” Rudi shot her a quick smile. “Relax. I have never crashed one yet.”

      “That’s the word that bothers me,” she muttered.

      “What word?”

      “Yet.”

      Rudi laughed, a big, full-throated sound of pure enjoyment. Then the plane plunged, caught by a sudden downdraft.

      Ellen yelped, and Rudi stopped laughing as he wrestled for altitude. The aircraft bucked and jolted like something alive trying to escape a predator’s jaws. Ellen squeezed her eyes shut and hung on to the chair’s armrests for dear life. She wasn’t afraid. But if the plane was going to crash, she didn’t want to see it.