the hard way not to trust anyone, most especially a man who put his work before all else. Her gaze went automatically to the back of John Logan’s dark head. A man like him, she knew instinctively. Well, she didn’t have to trust him in that way. And she definitely had no plans to get to know him intimately. This was a business deal. All she had to do was follow his instructions and she’d have her life back. She wanted that more than she wanted to take her next breath.
Whatever happened tomorrow, one thing was irrefutable—right now, this minute, she was free again.
That would have to be enough.
She’d gotten through the last four months one day at a time, she’d get through this the same way.
To her surprise, they didn’t go to Hartfield, Atlanta’s International Airport, as Erin had assumed they would. Instead the driver parked near a hangar at Atlanta’s favored alternate, PDK Airport. The plane, small jet actually, the kind corporate executives used, gleamed in the runway lights. She followed Logan and the driver in that direction. As far as she could see only one man waited nearby.
“We’re fueled and ready for flight,” the new man said to Logan. Almost as tall as Logan, he was older, but looked every bit as physically fit.
The pilot, Erin decided. Despite his rugged profile, he looked friendly enough. In her opinion, none of these guys really looked like secret agents. Well, except for Logan. He did have that aura of danger…a kind of sexy mystique. Then again, all she had to go by was what she’d seen in the movies. Probably not good examples, she decided.
Exhaustion and anxiety clawing at her frazzled nerves, she exhaled a loud, heavy breath. She hadn’t meant to, it just came out, igniting instead of releasing a tide of new anxiety. Logan and the driver from the SUV turned simultaneously and stared at her. Erin swallowed, trying her level best not to let those piercing stares undo her already flimsy bravado.
After a moment that lasted far too long, Logan turned his attention back to the pilot. “We’ll be ready in five.”
The man, pilot, whatever, nodded and headed toward the plane. The SUV driver, who was slighter and somewhat shorter in build than the other two, followed. She decided that he was of Latin descent, though his English was perfect and was spoken with no accent at all.
Erin felt Logan’s intense gaze on her long before she worked up the nerve to make eye contact. Unable to pretend not to notice any longer, she stiffened her spine and met that assessing gaze head-on. Whatever he expected of her she could do it, she told herself again. She had to do it.
“Last chance, Bailey. What’s it going to be? You still in?”
How could he think she’d back out now? She’d come this far. She sure as heck wasn’t returning to that prison. “Of course I’m still in,” she said sharply, though her voice sounded a little shaky and a lot hollow to her own ears.
That dark, dark gaze bored deeply into hers. For just a second Erin was sure she saw concern, or something on that order, then he banished it.
“All right. But don’t say I didn’t offer you an out.”
Before Erin could string together an appropriate retort, he turned and strode to the waiting jet. She blinked, suddenly uncertain of herself all over again. He’d given her one last chance to change her mind. She hadn’t taken it. Was that a mistake? If she boarded that plane would she ever see Atlanta again? Was her passion for freedom going to be a death wish in the end?
There was no one she could turn to. No one who even cared, or who would miss her when she was gone. Her parents had died years ago. She had no siblings. And Jeff, well, he’d been a total jerk. He sure wouldn’t miss her. The fact that she didn’t have any friends to call upon was no one’s fault but her own. She’d always been too busy with work. Work, work, work. That’s all she’d done since graduating college three years ago. Now look at her. Following a complete stranger to God knows where to do only the Devil knew what.
Erin Bailey, this is your life.
And it sucked.
Logan paused a few feet away from the open boarding door. “It’s the point of no return, Bailey. If you’re still a go, don’t look back because nothing about your life will ever be the same again.”
She couldn’t have replied even if she’d thought of something exceedingly witty to say. Her throat had closed with fear and a few other emotions she’d just as soon not analyze at the moment. In spite of it all, or maybe because of it, her feet moved her forward, toward the unknown. Toward this man who offered her everything and yet nothing at all.
He didn’t have to worry, she wouldn’t look back.
LESS THAN thirty minutes after liftoff from Atlanta’s PDK Airport, Erin Bailey was sleeping like a baby. That shouldn’t bother Logan, but it did. He’d seen the fear in her eyes the moment he offered her the deal. She’d hesitated, but the desire to have her freedom back was too great. She’d caved as readily as a sand-castle in the evening tide. Even the fact that he refused to answer her most elementary questions hadn’t dissuaded her for more than a fleeting moment.
He’d given her one last chance to change her mind before they boarded the aircraft and she’d refused. What happened from this point forward was no longer his responsibility.
Yeah, right.
Like he could change how he felt about the players or this mission. It was dangerous, even for a seasoned undercover field operative. For Erin Bailey it was a suicide mission. On some level she recognized that cold hard fact. He’d seen the truth in her eyes back there on that landing strip. But she’d reined in her fear and climbed aboard anyway.
She was made out of stronger stuff than he’d first given her credit. He’d ordered her to get some sleep as soon as they hit cruising altitude. She’d obeyed, probably more from exhaustion than motivation to please him.
The next six days would provide the rest of the story. There wasn’t time to teach her everything she needed to know. All Logan could hope for was to prevent a catastrophe by pushing her beyond all limits to see if she’d break. If she couldn’t tolerate the pressure, she would get them both killed and blow any future prospects of getting close to Esteban. Testing her mental and physical strength was Logan’s primary objective. He had to know just how much she could handle. Once she’d proven her ability to keep it together then he would give her an abbreviated course in illegal drugs and military weapons. It wasn’t necessary that she know as much as Jess had, but it was crucial that she appear knowledgeable.
One wrong word, one wrong move in Esteban’s or any of his people’s presence and she was dead.
Logan closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat. God, he didn’t want to do this, but there was simply no other way. Jess would do the same if she were still alive. It didn’t seem right that she was gone. They’d worked together for three years. She was the best partner he’d ever had. He opened his eyes and turned his head toward his new, temporary partner whose looks and advanced computer skills had gotten her into this predicament.
Erin Bailey was pretty and soft in a more feminine way than Jess had been. But Bailey would never be able to match Jess’s extraordinary skill as an operative—not in a week, not in three years, nor in a thousand. Bailey knew nothing of this life except the nonsense she’d likely seen in movies or read about in books. The life of an international spy was not nearly so glamorous and was far more dangerous than the entertainment industry portrayed it. If Bailey thought she was merely going to play a role in the latest James Bond film, she had a rude awakening coming.
She had no idea just how much danger she was in already and the mission hadn’t even begun.
DAWN WAS STREAKING its way across the horizon as Erin half stumbled off the plane. Her legs felt weak and rubbery. It was hard to believe she’d slept the entire flight. She scrubbed the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes and tried to focus on her new, unfamiliar surroundings. Distant mountains were surrounded by desertlike terrain that sprawled for as far as the eye could see in the